In The Song of Achilles, the Greek gods, along with the Fates, predict and control events on Earth; humans can ask for guidance but can never overpower their will. The gods are particularly interested in the Greek warrior Achilles, half-god himself: the Fates predict some great destiny for him, which will eventually lead to his death in the Trojan War. Achilles, his lover Patroclus, and his mother Thetis all know Achilles’s fate, but they all believe that they can shape it according to their own desires: Thetis (a sea nymph) wants to make Achilles immortal, and Patroclus wants to keep him alive for as long as possible. In the end, however, their belief that Achilles’s fate can be controlled is exactly what creates the conditions for his death. By presenting a character’s uncontrollable destiny, and by demonstrating that others still hope to control it, the novel suggests that people are incapable of truly submitting to fate—and this inability to accept their destiny is, ironically, what makes that destiny come to pass. Fate is, in this way, a punishment for disbelief.
At first, it seems like Patroclus and Thetis understand and accept Achilles’s fate—but they nevertheless begin to interfere in minor ways. There are three initial prophecies regarding Achilles, which come from the Fates: first, he will be the Greek army’s best warrior. Second, he will gain fame if he fights in the Trojan War. Third, he will die in Troy. Achilles doesn’t have to go to Troy, but if he stays home, his legacy will be forgotten. Patroclus and Achilles both believe that Achilles has two choices: either he’ll be heroic in death, or he’ll live in obscurity. But Thetis is skeptical—as a minor goddess herself, she knows how wily the Fates can be and worries that no one ever specified how famous Achilles will become, or when he’ll die. However, all three think that Achilles is making a choice between glory and obscurity. By interpreting the prophecies, they assume that they understand them. Though Patroclus isn’t part of the prophecy, he accompanies Achilles to Troy. This is a small intervention in fate—Patroclus admits that if he’s able to stop Achilles’s death, he will. Achilles made a choice, and Patroclus accepted it, but this acceptance is fragile; inserting himself in Achilles’s destiny may have ripple effects. Thetis, too, begins to subtly mold Achilles’s fate as soon as Achilles enters Troy. While Patroclus wants to keep Achilles alive, Thetis wants him to be exceptionally famous—if he is, the gods may make him immortal. This wouldn’t invalidate the prophecies, so Thetis’s interferences are minor: she makes Achilles appear godlike and watches him on the battlefield. But even these minor interferences suggest that, while Thetis might have accepted fate, she’ll still work to shape it.
After the war begins, Thetis, Achilles, and Patroclus’s belief that they understand Achilles’s fate leads them to think that they have more control than they do. Thetis tells Patroclus that Achilles’s prophesied death contains a caveat: he’ll die after Hector (a Trojan prince who’s Troy’s best fighter). Patroclus assumes that, because Hector is so powerful, Achilles will be the one to kill him. He therefore thinks that if Achilles avoids killing Hector, Achilles will stay alive—so, in a more direct act of interference, Patroclus warns him not to kill Hector. Both men know that Achilles is fated to die, but they believe that they can control when that death happens. Later, Thetis tells Achilles about another prophecy: the Fates say that the “best of the Myrmidons” (Achilles’s kinsmen) will die soon, but that Achilles will be alive when it happens. Achilles and Patroclus don’t think much of the prophecy, believing that they already know Achilles’s fate. This belief emerges from overconfidence: this prophecy is likely significant, but they don’t think they need to understand it. Achilles, meanwhile, thinks that the Fates promised him heroism, so with destiny on his side, he stops worrying about how others perceive him. After the Greek commander, Agamemnon, insults Achilles, Achilles refuses to fight until Agamemnon apologizes, which leads to the deaths of thousands of Greek warriors. The prophecy promised that Achilles would be famous, but Patroclus realizes that everyone could remember Achilles for being prideful. Achilles’s belief that he’s guaranteed to be a hero—that is, his subjective interpretation of his fate—causes him to make reckless choices that may make him famous for the wrong reasons.
Ultimately, Patroclus’s belief that Achilles’s fate can be somehow circumvented or altered is what causes that very fate. Hoping to save Achilles’s reputation, Patroclus decides to dress up in Achilles’s armor and enter battle, believing that this deception will secure Achilles’s heroism but dodge his death. Patroclus notes that his idea seemed to come “straight from a god’s mouth” but ignores his intuition, choosing to intervene in fate by pretending that Achilles is more heroic than he is. He believes he’s found a loophole that will thwart the gods’ predetermination of how Achilles will be remembered. But when Patroclus’s helmet falls off, everyone realizes that Achilles never came to fight, and Hector kills Patroclus. Patroclus came face-to-face with a god’s power and ignored it, believing that he could control Achilles’s destiny—but his death proves that such control was never possible. In fact, Patroclus himself was fated to die: it’s implied that he was the “best of the Myrmidons.” In other words, even his idea to circumvent fate was, ironically, a working of fate. Because Hector killed Patroclus, Achilles kills Hector, sealing his fate—and sure enough, Hector’s brother Paris soon kills Achilles in retaliation. Achilles and Patroclus believed that Achilles would live if he could avoid killing Hector—but in reality, Achilles should have killed Hector immediately, as this would have spared Patroclus. The two men knew Achilles’s fate but never accepted it, thinking that they could outsmart it, and their punishment was a more painful end than either anticipated. This tragic ending suggests that, within the world of the novel, no human can change the will of the Fates or the gods—and trying to do so only ensures a crueler destiny.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Fate, Belief, and Control ThemeTracker
Fate, Belief, and Control Quotes in The Song of Achilles
Its king, Peleus, was one of those men whom the gods love: not divine himself, but clever, brave, handsome, and excelling all his peers in piety. As a reward, our divinities offered him a sea-nymph for a wife. It was considered their highest honor. […] Divine blood purified our muddy race, bred heroes from dust and clay. And this goddess brought a greater promise still: the Fates had foretold that her son would far surpass his father. Peleus' line would be assured. But, like all the gods' gifts, there was an edge to it; the goddess herself was unwilling.
Everyone, even I, had heard the story of Thetis' ravishment. The gods had led Peleus to the secret place where she liked to sit upon the beach. They had warned him not to waste time with overtures—she would never consent to marriage with a mortal.
Her desire was ambitious. It was a difficult thing, to make even a half-god immortal. True, it had happened before, to Heracles and Orpheus and Orion. They sat in the sky now, presiding as constellations, feasting with the gods on ambrosia. But these men had been the sons of Zeus, their sinews strong with the purest ichor that flowed. Thetis was a lesser of the lesser gods, a sea-nymph only. In our stories these divinities had to work by wheedling and flattery, by favors won from stronger gods. They could not do much themselves. Except live, forever.
"Men will hear of your skill, and they will wish for you to fight their wars." He paused. "What will you answer?"
"I do not know," Achilles said.
"That is an answer for now. It will not be good enough later," Chiron said.
[…]
"What about me?" I asked.
Chiron's dark eyes moved to rest on mine. "You will never gain fame from your fighting. Is this surprising to you?"
His tone was matter-of-fact, and somehow that eased the sting of it.
"No," I said truthfully.
"Yet it is not beyond you to be a competent soldier. Do you wish to learn this?"
I thought of the boy's dulled eyes, how quickly his blood had soaked the ground. I thought of Achilles, the greatest warrior of his generation. I thought of Thetis who would take him from me, if she could.
"No," I said.
His eyes opened. "Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous and happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw."
“That if you do not come to Troy, your godhead will wither in you, unused. Your strength will diminish. At best, you will be like Lycomedes here, moldering on a forgotten island with only daughters to succeed him. Scyros will be conquered soon by a nearby state; you know this as well as I. They will not kill him; why should they? He can live out his years in some corner eating the bread they soften for him, senile and alone. When he dies, people will say, who?”
The words filled the room, thinning the air until we could not breathe. Such a life was a horror.
But Odysseus' voice was relentless. “He is known now only because of how his story touches yours. If you go to Troy, your fame will be so great that a man will be written into eternal legend just for having passed a cup to you. You will be—”
"I do not think I could bear it," he said, at last. His eyes were closed, as if against horrors. I knew he spoke not of his death, but of the nightmare Odysseus had spun, the loss of his brilliance, the withering of his grace. I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface. Who was he if not miraculous and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame?
"I would not care," I said. The words scrabbled from my mouth. "Whatever you became. It would not matter to me. We would be together."
"I know," he said quietly, but did not look at me.
He knew, but it was not enough.
My hand closed over his. "You must not kill Hector," I said. He looked up, his beautiful face framed by the gold of his hair.
"My mother told you the rest of the prophecy."
"She did."
"And you think that no one but me can kill Hector."
"Yes," I said.
"And you think to steal time from the Fates?"
"Yes."
"Ah." A sly smile spread across his face; he had always loved defiance. "Well, why should I kill him? He's done nothing to me."
For the first time then, I felt a kind of hope.
Finally, last of all: a long spear, ash sapling peeled of bark and polished until it glowed like gray flame. From Chiron, Peleus said, handing it to his son. We bent over it, our fingers trailing its surface as if to catch the centaur's lingering presence. Such a fine gift would have taken weeks of Chiron's deft shaping; he must have begun it almost the day that we left. Did he know, or only guess at Achilles' destiny? As he lay alone in his rose-colored cave, had some glimmer of prophecy come to him? Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.
Yet this beautiful spear had been fashioned not in bitterness, but love. Its shape would fit no one's hand but Achilles', and its heft could suit no one's strength but his. And though the point was keen and deadly, the wood itself slipped under our fingers like the slender oiled strut of a lyre.
He leaned forward in his chair. “May I give you some advice? If you are truly his friend, you will help him leave this soft heart behind. He's going to Troy to kill men, not rescue them.” His dark eyes held me like swift-running current. “He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
The words drove breath from me, left me stuttering. “He is not—”
“But he is. The best the gods have ever made. And it is time he knew it, and you did too. If you hear nothing else I say, hear that. I do not say it in malice.”
I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men […] I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.
The thought of Troy's fall pierces me with vicious pleasure. They deserve to lose their city. It is their fault, all of it. We have lost ten years, and so many men, and Achilles will die, because of them. No more.
[…]
I will crack their uncrackable city, and capture Helen, the precious gold yolk within. I imagine dragging her out under my arm, dumping her before Menelaus. Done. No more men will have to die for her vanity.
[… ]
I am delirious, fevered with my dream of Helen captive in my arms. The stones are like dark waters that flow ceaselessly over something I have dropped, that I want back. I forget about the god, why I have fallen, why my feet stick in the same crevices I have already climbed. Perhaps this is all I do, I think, demented—climb walls and fall from them.
Her skin is whiter than I have ever seen it. “Do not be a fool. It is only my power that—”
“What does it matter?” He cuts her off, snarling. "He is dead. Can your power bring him back?”
“No," she says. "Nothing can.”
He stands. “Do you think I cannot see your rejoicing? I know how you hated him. You have always hated him! If you had not gone to Zeus, he would be alive!”
“He is a mortal,” she says. “And mortals die.”
“I am a mortal!” he screams. “What good is godhead, if it cannot do this? What good are you?”
“I know you are mortal,” she says. She places each cold word as a tile in a mosaic. “I know it better than anyone. I left you too long on Pelion. It has ruined you.”
