For the seniors who requested it...c

This is a breakdown of the important figures in The Iliad and The Odyssey

Helen

• Leda, Queen of Sparta, was seduced by Zeus on the same night she and her husband, King Tyndareus enjoy being married. Four children were conceived (myths differ on who were Zeus' and who were Tyndareus')
• Helen was forced to marry Menelaus—he got Sparta (which was supposed to be ruled by the sisters) and she got continually used by the gods.
• Clytamestra was forced to marry Agamemnon, move to Mycenaea, and watch her eldest be sacrificed for wind. After successfully avenging Iphigenia, she was in turned killed by her two remaining children.

Paris 

• While Queen Hecuba (of Troy) was pregnant with twins, everyone with a little bit of psychic powers freaked out that her son would run through the streets with a firebrand and burn the city to the ground.
• Priam sent the infant Paris to Mount Ida, so he wouldn't live it Troy and thus destroy it.
• Paris became the plaything of the gods and, as a reward, he was given Helen of Sparta who he stole while on a goodwill mission with his older brother, Hector, after discovering he was a Prince of Troy. 
• Paris resented being left out of the family, had a huge complex about being good enough (he wasn't), and resented his twin sister.

Cassandra

• While Queen Hecuba (of Troy) was pregnant with twins, everyone with a little bit of psychic powers freaked out that her son would run through the streets with a firebrand and burn the city to the ground.
• Priam sent the infant Paris to Mount Ida, so he wouldn't live it Troy and thus destroy it. However, he kept Cassandra.
• Cassandra became a virgin priestess of Apollo which meant that she had a share in her family's wealth, and a great education at the temple. 
• She took her virgin-priestess status seriously and threatened a local priest who tried to rape her. Then Apollo tried to seduce her, she resisted him too. As punishment, she would always see the exact repercussions of every choice—if she ever tried to share that information, she would be mocked and disbelieved 
• There are two stories about her end: a) as a sex-slave to Agamemnon she got pregnant and was killed by Clytamestra; b) she escaped the slaughter of Agamemnon by claiming to be the only parent of the child and was freed, with gifts, by Clytamestra.

Agamemnon

• The King of Mycenaea was a hard, cruel man. He wanted Helen for himself, but gave her to his brother, Menelaus, as a way of tying all the major Greek kings and heroes to him. He knew if he waited long enough he'd have the chance to destroy Troy.
• After Paris snagged Helen, Agamemnon called in all his favors and put together a huge army intent on crushing Troy. Unfortunately, the winds did not seem to favor the army. Agamemnon called his oldest daughter, a priestess, to his ship to perform a ritual. Instead of having her perform the ritual, he had her seized and killed as a sacrifice for the wind. It worked...
• The entire Greek army spent ten years battling back and forth with Troy. It is only after they capture two priestesses (Chryseis and Briseis) that things began to move forward.... 
• Achilles
• The greatest hero of the Greeks was a total momma's boy with too much natural power and not enough purpose or personality. After Chryseis was ransomed by her father, Briseis was taken from Achilles by Agamemnon.
• In retaliation, Agamemnon refused to go into battle. Rather than watch things fall further apart, Patroclus (Achilles' bestie) put on the heroic armor and led the men into battle.
• Patroclus died and the Trojans felt so bad that they stopped the war to throw him a huge funeral...
• Eventually, a pissed of priest/priestess/Apollo fired a diseased arrow into his heel, causing his death.

Hector 

• The future King of Troy was a warrior, a scholar, and good brother, a good husband, and a good friend. He was beloved and trusted by those inside and outside the city of Troy
• In battle, Hector went after Achilles and fought him hard. Only after killing Achilles, did Hector discover Patroclus in the armor. It was due to him that the war stopped long enough for a days long feast and series of games in Patroclus' honor.was over, Achilles went after Hector. Upon killing Hector, Achilles desecrated the body, then tied it to the back of his chariot so he could drag it around the city every day.
• Eventually King Priam, Queen Hecuba, and their children (including in-laws) arrived in sackcloth and ashes begging for Hector's body back. Only at Agamemnon's insistence did Achilles agree to exchange the body for its weight in gold. Once he got a good look at Cassandra, he offered to take her live body for Hector's dead one. 
• Cassandra refused, gave up her own jewelry as part of the ransom, and caught everyone's eye.

Odysseus

• Tried to avoid leaving his wife and infant son on Ithaca by playing crazy.
• Spent a lot of that first decade trying to find a solution by sneaking into Troy to talk to Priam and the family.
• Finally, he suggested building a wooden horse, hiding the best Greek warriors in it, moving the ships out to sea. Problem #1: Horses are sacred to Poseidon (the god of the sea)
• While it worked, Troy was destroyed, the Greeks got to go home, Odysseus got spanked by Poseidon repeatedly. 
• Landed his fleet of ships on a series of islands to rape and pillage.
• The Lotus Eaters
• The Cyclopses: blinding Polyphemus
• Aiolos and the bag of winds
• The fleet destroyed: Laistrygones
• Circe—Teiresias and the Underworld—Circe
• Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis
• The Island of Helios
• Calypso—Athena interferes, Hermes does his job, and Odysseus pouts

Telemachus

• Spends ten years being raised by a mother who is running a household, running a productive farm, running a country, and keeping everything successful.
• Spends ten years watching his mother try to avoid a bunch of gold-digging suitors while still keeping everything running at a profit.
• Athena interferes—
• On Pylos he learns nothing helpful
• In Sparta he meets Helen and learns nothing helpful

Penelope

• In a time when women were just bargaining chips in the games men played, she kept her husbands businesses and country going while raising a son.
• In a time when she should have been able to have her husband home, she kept a bunch of up-jumped, gold-digging suitors at by through a series of clever excuses. 
• Her final attempt is to weave a shroud (death cloth) for her father-in-law. Her maids betray her by sleeping with the suitors, then by telling the suitors Penelope's secrets.
• When a new stranger arrives, supposedly with news of Odysseus, Penelope recognizes something. She sets up a final test for the suitors knowing they'll fail and wondering if the new stranger is her good-for-nothing-pissing-off-the-gods-so-others-have-to-pay-serial-cheater-who-has-the-stones-to-question-her-integrity husband...

In the end—

• Odysseus and Telemachus meet thanks to Athena and a swineherd. They hatch a plan and return to the palace.
• They don't tell Penelope anything.
• They kill all the suitors (thanks to a situation Penelope set up).
• They kill all the servants who betrayed Penelope (but still don't tell her what's up).
• Then, Odysseus tries to test Penelope's loyalty. She sees right through it and tests him in return. But it's ancient Greece so she gets know love for keeping everything profitable or raising a decent son...after all, she's the damsel in distress, right?