The ancient Greek writer Plutarch wrote a series called parallel lives, where he compared some of the most famous Greeks to the most famous Romans.

For example, Alexander the Great versus his Julius Caesar.

We love the idea, but with characters from the history of Westeros, as well as from the real world, with maybe a few surprises mixed in.

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Plutarch himself was Greek, so as a nod to him, we'll start off extra Greek themed for this first one.

Achilles versus Prince Damon Targaryen.

You've probably already heard of Achilles from Greek mythology, but you probably didn't know that it's contested whether or not the name Achilles itself is of Greek origin.

And you also probably didn't know that Damon is definitely of Greek origin.

Plutarch never did a parallel lives on Achilles, perhaps because so much of his audience was Roman, and the Romans traced their lineage to Troy.

So they really didn't like Achilles at all. In fact, they looked on him as a villain, but also because Achilles is mostly or entirely mythical.

It's possible some of the details about him are accurate or inspired by truth since lost a time, but that's the essence of what separates myth from history in the first place.

The best source for Achilles is the Iliad, but even the Iliad wasn't the original source in its own time and was written down maybe four to five hundred years after the events of the Trojan War.

Fire and blood, the best source on Prince Damon Targaryen as well has this quality, which is that some of the details recorded about him are uncertain and or contested.

Since Achilles is one of the most enduring warrior figures of all time, it's only natural that he's compared to so many other warriors who have existed in fiction or the real world.

Repetition of this concept across so many centuries has made some of his traits part of the template for the proverbial peerless warrior.

Most are fast and strong or at least one of the two. It's hard to be heroic without bravery too, though there are exceptions skill and lock are obviously potent as well, but ultimately these are all pretty generic things, right?

For a character to truly channel the man whom the Trojans feared so much you'd have to get a bit more specific, such as what Prince Damon and House of the Dragon season went episode three looked like, and that's where we'll start.

What they looked like. Both have long hair. In the Iliad, Achilles is only one of four mortals described as Zanthoy, which is light-colored and maybe blonde. Other sources have him chestnut-haired.

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