Helen: I consciously chose to start Helen’s story from her beginning rather than the beginning of the Trojan War. I had never heard that Theseus kidnapped Helen when she was a child, intending to marry her when she got older. (Although in some versions of the story, she gave birth to Theseus’ daughter before her brothers rescued her.) For many people, her story begins when she ends up in Troy with Paris. I feel like for a lot people, the mythology of the Trojan War that they know comes from the movie Troy (2004). In that movie, Helen willingly goes with Paris, and that is what starts the Trojan War. However, she was given to Paris by Aphrodite as a bribe. She had no choice in the matter. I included the eidolon part of Helen’s story because I had never heard of it before. I thought it would be interesting for Helen to live through the Trojan War in a completely different place, even though she was not in Troy at all, and the Greeks were laying siege to the wrong kingdom. Helen is often blamed for the Trojan War. She is called ‘the face that launched a thousand ships,' and I wanted to be sure to tell her story rather than the story of Paris or the story of the Trojan War.
Cassandra: Throughout Cassandra’s story, I tried to show that even though she knew what she could See was true, the doubts of everyone surrounding her did take a toll on her. Cassandra is often deemed less important than her brother Hector or her brother Paris, and although for the story of the Trojan War that is true, Cassandra’s story still matters. I wanted to focus on her story, and how the Trojan War affected her, rather than focusing on the Trojan War and her story only being a small part of that. In some versions of the myth, Cassandra agrees to sleep with Apollo if he will give her the gift of prophecy. After he has given her the Sight, she changes her mind, and that is why he cursed her. I did not like that version, so I changed it. I also tried to avoid words like see, saw, sight, etc., if they were not in reference to something that Cassandra had prophesied about. I included the part where Cassandra curses the first Greek to open the chest because I wanted to show her fighting back, even if it was only for a small moment. The Elysian fields are the part of the Underworld that is a paradise, and I wanted to end Cassandra’s story on something of a hopeful note, even though she knows she is going to die.
Andromache: So, more of Andromache's story comes from me than the other stories in this Storybook. Her life, especially her early life, is not very well documented. I could not find anything about how she and Hector actually met, so I turned his coming into her life into a sign from the gods. I also tried to make her seem devoted to her family, both Hector and Astyanax. She does not even have a name for a large part of The Iliad. She is only referred to as Hector’s wife, but I wanted to make her her own person, with her own thoughts, her own wants, her own fears, and her own struggles. I tried to show her battling with losing her family, because that is not something that you just get over. I also did not go into too much detail about her time as Neoptolemus’ concubine because I did not want to. I wanted the focus to be on her, not what was done to her. Also, there was no mention of how Neoptolemus actually died, so I let Andromache kill him. I felt like she deserved a chance to fight back against the people who had harmed her.