The Tain

I found the Tain somewhat annoying to read, however, i understand that it was written long time ago. I found the plot to be very straightforward, no surprise factor in it. The text contains innumerable names of places and people that are almost impossible to be remembered, some i think are even unnecessary because they do not play a major part in the story. The Tain also is repetitive in nature, warrior goes to challenge Cu'Chulain and dies by being decapitated. More than 50% of the texts are about this. There are also parts of the story in which they list a whole page of paragraph naming people and places. Comparing to the other two,Mahabharata and The Illiad, this is the least I like.

However, I did enjoy the creative part in which the story transitions between narrative to poetic. I think its rather crafty.

The characters of the story is interesting to some extent:

Medb, treacherous powerful woman that will do everything to get her way.

Aillil seems to be a sweet man but is controlled mostly by Medb

Fergus in my opinion could have ended the war much sooner by choosing one side over the other. 

Cu'Chulain is loyal and devoted to his job as a warrior but rather egotistic. 

The Iliad

I actually love this unit as it is the reason why I took this class, I did however enjoyed the Mahabarata as well. Reading the Iliad was long and grueling, in my opinion. I don't read poems very well. My favorite character is Hector, is just, wise, a model, a leader and everything good! I hated Paris the most at it seems like he never had any regret towards his "kidnapping" of Helen. He was very selfish in his views and he has no honor (coward). I also dislike Achilles at first at it seems like he has no heart and all he cared about is glory and fame! but at the end he became softer and showed more evidence that he is human that feels pain, mercy, suffering and such. I did have one question, Did the people of Troy know what started the war? and if they did, how come they never did anything about it? it seems like people around those days have no say on things... which is very sad!