Artful VS Artless
Both famous heroes from antiquity, Jason and Odysseus have much in common and just as much not. It has been said that The Voyage of the Argo, written centuries past The Odyssey, is an imitation or some form of plagiarism of the primary epic poem of ancient Greece. I like the other train of thought; it is more an acknowledgement or tip of the hat, so to speak, specifically to The Odyssey. Both tales center on a hero and a fantastic voyage. Jason was less the virtuous demi-God we see in Odysseus. At first glance, he appeared an unlikely hero. Not so Odysseus, who embarked on what, should have been a short journey home following the fall of Troy, but became an epic journey with many obstacles and delays along the way.
Both face Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and other monsters that preyed on unsuspecting travelers. There are many similarities between Jason and Odysseus. Both journey for long periods before reaching their goals. They both rely more on their minds than on their muscles to overcome obstacles. Perfect examples of this are Jason's plan to get rid of the soldiers on the field and Odysseus' trickery of Polyphemus. A more physical hero, such as Achilles would have rolled up his sleeves and tried to make solutions with his fists. Heroes like Odysseus and Jason, however, take the time to step back and devise a plan.
In the present, I think it is more interesting to read stories of heroes who triumph through flexing their brains and not their biceps. Don't misunderstand me, stories of physical superiority can be great, but they get repetitious really fast, such as many readers find in the Iliad, where the fights can get really repetitive. Stories of intellectual superiority, however, contain infinitive possibilities for new creativity. The ways the mind can triumph outnumber the ways the body can do so by a considerable margin and are a lot more interesting.
Homer gives us a wonderful story of a man who is not a marvelous physical specimen, but instead uses his mind to overcome the hurdles in his way. In the same manner, Apollonius creates a similar hero in Jason, who is another hero who relies more on the strength of his mind