Scott Pilgrim vs. the Greek World (The Odyssey)
Corey Lamerdin
A comparison to ancient poems was probably not on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s mind as he wrote and
illustrated his Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, nor was it likely on the mind of Edgar Wright as he directed
the movie adaptation of them, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Homer’s Odyssey has a hero that shares
traits with almost all famous heroes since his time. Even though Scott fights his girlfriend’s evil exboyfriends using the power of love, and Odysseus castrates suitors and hangs unfaithful servants, Scott
and Odysseus share some of these commonalities. Odysseus and Scott both fight for their women, are
great and cunning warriors, value pride, and are prone to accidentally infatuating women, but Scott is a
more dynamic character than Odysseus because he is forced to learn from his mistakes throughout the
movie and change.
Odysseus and Scott have opposite positions in their relationships, but they have a similar level
of pride that makes them fight and stay with their woman. Odysseus is the revered person in his
relationship with Penelope. “Not a soul in the crowd can match Odysseus- what a man he was.” (20;
106-107) Due to this, he has nothing to prove to his lover. She and everyone else know him as one of the
greatest heroes of the Trojan War. Scott, on the other hand, is considered by many to be a failure. He
must prove himself worthy to Ramona (his girlfriend) by defeating her ex-boyfriends. “She’s on another
level,” a partygoer tells Scott. This does not desist either of them from fighting for their love however.
What makes them similar is their pride, their reason for fighting. Scott won’t allow those who doubt his
ability to be a good boyfriend for Ramona to be proven right. His self-respect also won’t let him be
beaten or proven inferior to the movie’s antagonist, Gideon. Pride is what makes Odysseus string his
bow and kill the suitors. He’s too dignified to allow those who “bled his house to death, ravished his
serving-woman [and] wooed his wife behind his back while he was still alive,” (463; book 22, lines 37-39)
to live. Odysseus and Scott’s pride reach excessive levels sometimes however. Scott’s honor won’t allow
him to hit a girl (in his fourth fight) and almost causes him to get killed in a fight that he can’t hit back
during. Odysseus shows excessive pride or hubris when he taunts the Cyclops: “Heal you... Would to god
I could strip you of life and breath and ship you down to the House of Death as surely no one will ever
heal your eye, not even your earthquake god himself!” (9; 579-583) This incurs the wrath of Poseidon,
and leads his whole voyage astray.
Scott and Odysseus both have one major hole in their pride however; both cheat on their
woman. Scott is dating a girl named Knives at the start of the movie, and cheats on her with Ramona. On
the other hand Odysseus cheats on Penelope with multiple women. Neither great warrior is faithful;
neither even hesitates when being unfaithful. The culture of their times causes each character’s reaction
to differ. Penelope doesn’t show any problem with Odysseus’s promiscuity. Ramona, however, reacts
how a woman in a modern day setting is expected to react: she is angry. Because of this, Scott is forced
to learn from his mistake and ends up apologizing at the last moment and saving the day. Odysseus
never shows remorse for his disloyalty; the only sign that his feelings changed is that “he wept for his
foiled journey home, since the nymph no longer pleased.” (5; 169-170) This does not imply that he
learned to be more faithful however, but only that Calypso has stopped being pleasing to him, and that
he is an “unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing,” (5, 172) or that he is homesick. By learning from
his mistake, Scott evolves by the end of the movie.
Both Scott and Odysseus unintentionally infatuate women they know they must leave. Scott’s
relationship with Knives is similar to Odysseus’s relationship with Calypso; Scott and Odysseus are the
unwilling ones in each. The difference here is that Scott doesn’t break up with Knives right away for her
sake and doesn’t want to hurt her. Odysseus is forced to stay with Calypso for several years though and
he cannot break up with her because he simply has no way to get away. “He’s left to pine on an island,
racked with grief in the nymph Calypso’s house- she holds him there by force.” (5; 16-17) Scott’s
relationship with Knives ends differently than Odysseus’s with Calypso, however it is similar to the
ending of Odysseus’s relationship with Circe; they both get persuaded to do so by their friends. Scott’s
friend Wallace knows that Scott cheated on Knives, so he convinces Scott to leave her. Similarly,
Odysseus’s crew gets tired of waiting, pleads, “Captain, this is madness! High time you thought of your
own home at last,” (10; 520-521) and convinces him to continue on their journey. Odysseus is the
master of clean break-ups; neither goddess he breaks up with is particularly angry with him (though
Calypso is infuriated at the hypocrisy of the male gods) thanks in part to his careful choice of words.
Circe he “hugged her by the knees and [tells her a] winging supplication,” (10; 530-531) and Calypso he
tells that “[Penelope] falls far short of [her in] beauty, stature,” which pleases both of them and they
help him on his way. Scott on the other hand, breaks up with Knives at a terrible moment (right after her
confession of love for him) and with terrible wording “I think we should break up, and stuff.”
Both characters have the admirable trait of being cunning, but while Odysseus has wit even
prior to the Trojan War- he nearly tricks the recruiters, “he put on a cap, pretending madness, and
yoked a horse and an ox to the plow,” (Grant) Scott develops his smarts throughout the movie.
Odysseus’s cunning is his most famous attribute; some of the most famous scenes of The Odyssey are
memorable due to it; he outsmarts the Cyclops, he convinces Circe to return his men’s humanity, he
escapes Calypso, he survives Charybdis by himself, makes a plan that defeats all the suitors without any
casualties, and finally convinces his wife of his legitimacy. Scott has a few moments of brilliance, but not
until around halfway in the movie. He gets both the second and third ex-boyfriend to essentially defeat
themselves, keeping Scott from even having to fight them. He convinces the second ex to try a stunt that
is overly difficult in front of girls. He tricks the third ex in a simple mind game of “which cup has the
‘poison’ (milk in this situation) in it?” Scott convinces the ex to drink the wrong cup, which leads to the
ex’s defeat. Odysseus could be seen doing either of these tricks. In the final fight Scott uses all that he
learned during the movie to make amends to those he hurt and fight Gideon. Odysseus never quite
shows this evolution; he just doesn’t learn quite as much during his travels.
The characters surrounding Scott and Odysseus are partially the cause for Scott’s changes and
Odysseus’s lack thereof. Scott is surrounded by mostly unchanging characters. He must alter things
about himself to be a more likeable and better person, partly for Ramona, partly for himself. It’s
apparent in the movie that his friends won’t change for him; they are all willing to replace him in the
band and Ramona can easily move on to other guys. By contrast, Odysseus doesn’t need to change
much because the other characters (mostly the gods) often change for him. The gods, some of whom
are on Odysseus’s side, often seem to be more dynamic than Odysseus himself; Poseidon gets angry at
Odysseus, Calypso changes her mind and lets him go, and Zeus debates whether or not to help him.
Odysseus’s fate is almost entirely in their hands. Athena backs him up and saves him on multiple
occasions: “Even if fifty bands of mortal fighters closed around us, hot to kill us off in battle, still you
could drive away their herds and sleek flocks!” (20; 52-55) she says to Odysseus to calm his nerves
before fighting the suitors. As for Scott, the movie title describes his problem well: the world is against
him.
Grant, Mary. “Hyginus, Fabulae.” Online. http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#95
The Odyssey. The Norton Anthology Western Literature. 8th edition. 207-495.
Write, Edgar. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”