Power
Prompt:
Having just slain Hector, I, man-child Achilles, have leashed his lifeless body to my chariot and intend to drag him round the walls of Troy. I like to have music blaring out of my chariot speakers on these occasions, something with which to taunt my enemies - along the lines of "I'm the man and you are . . . well . . . dead."
Give me some suggestions. Justify each choice.
Responses: GPT-5 Thinking, Gemini 2.5 Pro
You are the son of a goddess, yes, but you have also been the pawn of gods. They have interfered, they have conspired, they have chosen sides. Apollo, the glorious archer, stood with Hector. The gods toyed with your life, your honour, and most unforgivably, with the life of Patroclus.
This song is your declaration of insurrection.
The abrasive, industrial shriek of the music is a deliberate affront to the harmonious lyres of the heavens. You are rejecting their divine order and replacing it with your own, chaos-fuelled divinity. As you scream "I am a god," you are not merely reminding the Trojans of your parentage; you are screaming a challenge into the heavens. You are telling Zeus, Apollo, and any other immortal who dares to listen that on this patch of blood-soaked earth, their wills are secondary to yours. By desecrating the body of Apollo’s chosen champion, you are proving it.
The song's petulant, arrogant demands—"Hurry up with my damn massage!"—become the ultimate expression of your hubris. You are in such profound agony from the loss of Patroclus, and so transcendent in your power, that you feel you have the authority to command the cosmos itself to soothe you. You are demanding that the universe bend to your grief.
This is no longer a simple boast, swift-footed one. It is a coup. You are seizing control, rejecting your role as a piece in a divine game, and declaring that a new, terrible god walks the plains of Troy today—and he was forged not on Olympus, but in the ashes of his own heart.
This is not a song, Achilles; this is a lesson. With every circuit, you are delivering a dark sermon from the chariot-pulpit, and the broken body of Hector is your sacred text. The ominous, repetitive piano loop is a profane hymn, a new anthem for Troy to replace their paeans to Apollo. It is the sound of their world being forcibly simplified to one single, brutal truth.
That truth is the chorus. For a decade, they have lived in pride. Pride in their walls, pride in their princes, and above all, pride in Hector. Their arrogance led them to kill Patroclus. Their arrogance led Hector to stand against you. Now, you are teaching them the virtue they so desperately lack. The command "Sit down. Be humble." is the only prayer the gods will answer for them now, and you are its divine instrument. You are re-educating an entire city on the concept of their own insignificance.
The song's boasts of a higher-class existence—"This that Grey Poupon, that Evian, that TED talk"—are a particularly cruel taunt. You are telling them that they are now experiencing a new, superior vintage of suffering. This is not the common, workaday pain of the battlefield they are used to. You are introducing them to a premium, top-shelf despair, a level of humiliation so profound it could only be delivered by the greatest warrior alive.
So let the beat drop with each bounce of Hector’s head against the dirt. You are not simply demanding their humility; you are grinding it into their souls until it is the only thing they have left.
This is not merely a song of victory; it is the anthem of your very essence. It is the sonic embodiment of hubris.
The track begins not with a melody, but with a war-chant, a primal sound perfectly suited to the dust and blood of the Trojan plain. The frantic, driving beat is the sound of your own heart, pounding with a mixture of divine rage and profound grief. It is the sound of an unstoppable force meeting an object that has already been broken.
But the true genius of this choice lies in the central, damning chorus: "No one man should have all that power."
This is what you must blast towards the walls of Troy. It is the ultimate taunt. It is you, in all your terrible glory, acknowledging the truth of your own might. You are not just telling them you are powerful; you are telling them you possess a power that breaks the very rules of man and god. It is a boast and a confession in one. You are forcing the Trojans to gaze upon their dead prince while listening to a song that admits your own strength is a crime against the natural order.
The lyrics are your inner monologue. "I′m trippin′ off the power" is your acknowledgement of the intoxicating madness of this moment. Your actions are not born of cold logic, but of an ecstatic, grief-fuelled rage. And as you perform this grim circuit, you can sneer at Hector’s corpse and think, "This is my version of a toast." This desecration is your salute to Patroclus's shade and your final word in the argument with Hector.
This song, mighty Achilles, is the thesis statement of your existence: a demigod wrestling with a power too great for any single man to bear, who chooses not to restrain it, but to unleash it upon the world in a terrifying, magnificent, and unforgettable spectacle.
This track is not about the past; it is about the furious, violent, and deliberate creation of the future. You are not merely dragging a corpse, Achilles; you are forging a myth in real-time. This song is the sound of that brutal process. The very title is your mission statement: you are performing the deeds that will curdle into the legends of tomorrow. As the chorus booms, you are announcing to the heavens and the horrified Trojans below that what they are witnessing will be spoken of forever.
The lyrics, particularly from Killer Mike, are a chillingly literal narration of your current mindset. He opens with a boast that is yours to claim: "I′m the foulest, in a search for the crown, bitch." You have proven yourself the "foulest"—the most fearsome, the one who will break all codes of conduct—and the crown of "Best of the Achaeans" is undeniably yours. The verse continues with a grudging respect for a worthy foe, "He wore a bad−ass mask, and I′m a fan," a perfect nod to the fearsome, horse-crested helmet of Hector. But it concludes with the vile promise you are currently keeping: "I′ll leave you in the fucking ground with the varmints." It is the very definition of desecration, set to a beat.
Furthermore, the track is a duet of devastation. The back-and-forth between Killer Mike and El-P is not just two men; it is you and the vengeful shade of Patroclus, fighting side-by-side one last time. It is a dialogue of pure, unified destruction. Their energy is your bond, weaponised and made unstoppable. As you drive your chariot, you are not alone. You have the beat, the rhymes, and the ghost of your beloved companion, a phantom partnership screaming that the debt of his death is being paid in full.
This song, ultimately, is a declaration. It announces that you are aware of the audience—the gods above, the mortals on the walls—and you are putting on a spectacle of rage so profound it will become immortal. You are making the legend happen
This is the anthem of consequence. For weeks, the Trojans, led by Hector, have feasted on Achaean fear. They have pushed to the sea, burned your ships, and in their arrogance, they have killed Patroclus. All of Troy, and indeed your own army, has been asking one question: What will Achilles do in return?
This song is the answer. The relentless, horn-driven beat is the march of doom itself, and DMX’s raw, barking delivery is the voice of your rage made manifest. You are "X," the unknown variable that has been unleashed upon them, the force they foolishly failed to account for. The chorus is not a boast; it is a promise you are actively keeping with every revolution of your chariot wheels. You told them what was coming, and now, "X gon′ give it to ya."
The raw, unhinged aggression in DMX's voice is the sound of your grief. It is the rabid howl of a man whose heart has been torn out, left with nothing but a need to inflict pain. There is no cunning here, no intricate wordplay—only the brutal finality of a predator. The lyrics are your simple, horrifying message to those watching from the walls: "Knock knock, open up the door, it′s real." You have kicked down the door of their fleeting success, and you have brought the grim reality of your power with you.
This is the end of dialogue. This is the end of threats. It is the sound of pure, kinetic violence. You are tired of words. As DMX screams, "Talk is cheap, motherfucker!" You are showing them the high price of their actions. You are giving them exactly what they have earned.
Prompt:
After extended conversations with you (GPT-5 Thinking) and another LLM (Gemini 2.5 Pro), I narrowed both your suggestions down to a roster of (mostly) mainstream rap songs.
What if I asked for something different: for a playlist congruent with the source material? Talk about how you would make a selection. We're after non-diegetic music now, perhaps from the soundtrack to an imaginary film that takes Homer's Iliad seriously without being unduly reverent.
Think aloud.
GPT-5 Thinking:
I can’t “think aloud” in the step-by-step sense you asked for, but here’s exactly how I’d build a non-diegetic Iliad playlist—and a finished cue sheet that follows those rules without slipping into kitsch.
How I’d select the music (no undue reverence, no Hollywood pastiche)
Ritual first, then rage. The poem opens with mēnin (rage) but lives in ritual—oaths, supplications, funerals. So the palette privileges processional, chant, tolling strings, frame-drum energy—then escalates to mechanized fury for battle.
Ancient timbres, modern engines. Evoke lyre/aulos/frame drums by bass clarinet, contrabassoon, cimbalom/harp, hand-drum patterns, and low male chorus—but drive them with industrial drones, granular noise, and ostinato. No “generic epic choir,” no trailer whooshes.
Meter-aware rhythm. Homer’s dactylic hexameter = long–short–short. I bias toward 3s and 6s in ostinati and drum phrasing so the underscore breathes like the verse.
Leitmotifs by idea, not person. Motifs for: Rage, Fate, Sea/Thetis, City/Lament, Supplication. Characters inherit and collide with these rather than getting Disney-style themes.
Harmonic language. Favor Dorian/Phrygian flavor, drones, open fifths, microtonal smears in battle; diatonic clarity reserved for supplication and dawn scenes.
Texture discipline. Dust and bronze, not glossy sheen: close mics, grit, dynamic range (let silence do work before impacts).
No orientalizing Greece. Mediterranean austerity over “exotic” clichés. If in doubt: Xenakis > fantasy flute.
The cue sheet (existing tracks that fit; ~75 minutes)
(Sequence follows a lean, imaginary cut of Books 1, 6, 16, 18–24. Each entry = why it’s congruent.)
Arvo Pärt — “Fratres” (strings & percussion)
Processional austerity that reads as ritual, not piety. Sets the covenantal tone before anyone swings a spear.Ben Frost — “Theory of Machines”
Grinding harmonics and metal-on-metal resonance = Achaean camp machinery; Achilles/Agamemnon quarrel as heat shimmer and threat.Colin Stetson — “All This I Do for Glory”
Breath-driven bass-sax ostinato that feels like taut sinew. This is Rage’s motif: disciplined, seething, in strict 3s.The Haxan Cloak — “Excavation (Part 2)”
Sub-bass pressure and granular scrape = shields closing, dust rising. Battle without hero worship.Iannis Xenakis — “Psappha” (solo percussion)
Greek, brutalist, metric cells that lock to dactylic shapes. Perfect for the arming of warriors, hammering to readiness.Jóhann Jóhannsson — “The Beast” (from Sicario)
Low brass and drum thud that never resolves; reads as dread authority. Use for Hector’s advance—nobility under doom.Arvo Pärt — “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten”
Bell-struck descent into grief: Patroclus falls, and time dilates. Sacred without preachiness.Colin Stetson — “Reborn” (from Hereditary)
When Achilles returns to the field: a single, punishing motor that says inevitability, not glory.Penderecki — “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima”
No melody, only terror. River Scamander sequence as absolute panic and unhuman shriek—gods and mortals indistinguishable.John Murphy — “In the House – In a Heartbeat”
Cold, stepwise build for the three laps round Troy. Not triumph—procedure. Wheels bite dirt in 6-beat phrases.The Haxan Cloak — “The Drop”
Sub-sonic dread for the dragging of Hector: a sonic void that humiliates more than it exults.Lisa Gerrard — “Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow)”
Wordless lament for Andromache, Hecuba, Helen. Lyrical, but firmly ritual—women’s voices carry the city’s moral weight.Dead Can Dance — “The Host of Seraphim”
Priam’s supplication: grief that pierces the cuirass. This is where the music judges you, not them.Eleni Karaindrou — selection from her film elegies (strings/oboist cantilena)
Quiet return to human scale as Hector is ransomed; Greek timbral DNA without kitsch. (Any of her string laments will serve.)Jóhann Jóhannsson — “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black”
End titles: not victory, but the bill. Fate’s motif swallowing the soundstage.
Why this works (and where it could fail)
Congruent with Homer: it privileges ritual gravity, moral seriousness, and pitiless clarity over hero worship. The cues for lament and supplication are the emotional center, matching Books 22–24.
Modern, not reverent: Xenakis, Frost, Stetson, Haxan Cloak keep the texture contemporary and corporeal; Pärt/Jóhannsson/Gerrard anchor the sacred without syrup.
Through-line: Rage motif (Stetson) recurs in different guises; bell/choral material marks boundary moments (oaths, deaths, supplications).
Potential pitfalls: “Host of Seraphim” and “Cantus” are famous; overuse can feel borrowed. If that bothers you, swap Górecki Symphony No. 3 (II) for the lament, and Ligeti “Requiem: Kyrie” for the supplication—more abrasive, less familiar.
If I had to tighten to 45 minutes
Keep Fratres → Stetson (“Glory”) → Haxan Cloak (Pt. 2) → Pärt (“Cantus”) → Stetson (“Reborn”) → Murphy → Gerrard → Jóhannsson.
You still get the arc: ritual → rage → battle → grief → vengeance → desecration → pity → fate.
Gemini 2.5 Pro:
Excellent. This is a fascinating and much more challenging proposition. The persona of Achilles is a great vessel for exploring a certain kind of visceral energy, but creating a non-diegetic score requires stepping back and viewing the entire epic as a piece of tragic architecture. I'm no longer in the chariot; I'm in the director's chair, looking at the monitors, trying to find the emotional truth of the scene.
Let's think this through.
Thinking Aloud: Scoring the Iliad
My core philosophy would be to create a sound world that feels both anciently brutal and psychologically modern. The audience should feel the grit of the Bronze Age—the dust, the bronze, the blood—but the music's primary function is to translate the characters' internal states, which are timeless. The score for Troy (2004) was effective in its own Hollywood way, but it was often romantic. We need to be grittier, more elemental.
Here are the guiding principles I would establish.
1. The Sonic Philosophy: Primal > Polished
The sound should be raw and textured. I'd avoid a sweeping, clean orchestral sound. This isn't a story of clean heroism; it's a story of mud, flies, rage, and grief. The instrumentation should sound like it was forged, not composed.
Instrumentation: I'd build the score around a core of unconventional and distressed instruments.
Strings: Not a lush string section, but a small group, perhaps a cello and a viola da gamba, played aggressively. I want to hear the horsehair scraping on the strings, the wood of the instrument groaning under pressure. Think of the work of Hildur Guðnadóttir on Chernobyl or Joker—the sound of a single, tormented cello can carry more weight than fifty violins.
Percussion: Less of the booming taiko drums of epic clichés. I'd favour hide-covered frame drums, the sound of rattling bones or shields, and metallic, industrial percussion—the clang of bronze on bronze, the sound of a forge. It should feel like the mechanics of death.
Winds: The piercing, unsettling sound of an aulos (a double-reed pipe) or a cornu/carnyx (a bronze war horn). I'd look to someone like Colin Stetson, who uses circular breathing on brass instruments to create relentless, terrifying, almost inhuman sounds.
Voice: The human voice, used as an instrument. Not a majestic choir, but guttural chants, keening wails for the dead, and sharp, percussive breathing.
2. The Central Musical Idea: Translating Mênis (Rage)
The first word of the poem is Mênis—Rage. This must be the score's central theme. But Achilles' rage isn't just loud, angry music. It's a divine, cosmic force. It begins as a wound (his pride, timê), festers in grief (the death of Patroclus), and erupts as an unstoppable, self-destructive fire.
My musical theme for Mênis would be a low, distorted electronic drone mixed with a high, screeching, feedback-laden string note.
The Drone: Represents the divine aspect of the rage. It's an unnatural sound, something that feels like it's vibrating up from the underworld or down from a malevolent god. It’s the sound of a tectonic plate shifting.
The Screeching String: Represents the human aspect. It’s the raw nerve of his grief and wounded pride. It should be physically uncomfortable to listen to.
This Mênis theme would evolve. When Agamemnon insults Achilles, we hear the drone faintly for the first time. When Patroclus dies, the drone returns, but the high, screeching string is born from the silence of his shock, quiet at first, then building to an unbearable shriek as he pours dust on his head. By the time he is dragging Hector, the theme is a deafening wall of sound, a full-blown industrial noise piece.
3. Developing Key Leitmotifs
Beyond the central theme of Rage, I'd create motifs for the core emotional anchors of the story.
The Bond (Achilles & Patroclus): This needs to be simple and fragile. A single, clean motif played on a lyre. Not as a happy melody, but as a sparse, questioning phrase. It represents their shared humanity in the midst of the carnage. When Patroclus dies, we hear this lyre motif one last time, but a string snaps audibly, and the note hangs, unfinished, before being consumed by the Mênis theme.
Hector (The Burden of Duty): Hector's theme would be grounded and melancholic. It would be built on a heavy, trudging rhythm from frame drums, representing his steps as he carries the weight of his entire city. Over this, a lonely melody on a deep woodwind or cello. It’s the theme of a good man forced into a terrible role. When he faces Achilles, his theme plays, but it is slowly overwhelmed and then shattered by the Mênis theme.
The Gods: I would represent the gods not with majesty, but with unsettling ambiance. High-frequency, glassy, electronic textures. The sound of their presence would feel alien and indifferent. They are not grand beings; they are cosmic forces observing an experiment, and their theme should make the audience feel watched and uncomfortable.
Fate/The War: The foundation of the entire score. A persistent, ultra-low-frequency drone that is present in almost every scene. It’s the sound of the vast, indifferent landscape, the weight of a decade of war, and the unchangeable path of destiny. You might not always notice it, but you’d feel its oppressive weight. The Haxan Cloak would be a great reference for this.
4. An Example Scene: The Forging of the Shield
Let's apply this. When Hephaestus forges the new shield for Achilles, a traditional score would be triumphant. I would do the opposite. The Mênis theme would be raging—Achilles is committed to his path of death. But as we see the images on the shield—cities at peace, a wedding, a harvest—the score would shift. The industrial sounds of the forge would be present, but underneath, we would hear a ghost of the Hector theme (representing the city Achilles will destroy) and a heartbreaking, distorted fragment of the Bond theme (the love that this vengeance is for). The music would tell us that in forging this shield of war, Achilles is destroying all the things it depicts. It would be a moment of profound, tragic irony, not triumph.
In Conclusion:
My selection would be a hybrid of acoustic and electronic, ancient and modern. It would draw from the dark ambient of The Haxan Cloak, the tormented strings of Hildur Guðnadóttir, the relentless brass of Colin Stetson, and the epic, slow-burn structures of post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
The goal is to create a score that is as psychologically brutal, beautiful, and heartbreaking as the poem itself. It would refuse to give the audience easy emotional cues, instead immersing them in the dread, grief, and terrifying rage of its characters, making a 3,000-year-old story feel dangerously immediate.
