Circe's Conflict

One discussion point that my small group was able to focus on in class became the subject of my fascination. Circe and Odysseus are easily two of the most powerful characters throughout the entirety of the Odyssey -- Odysseus is a famed war hero and notably impressive soldier. Circe is a witch who is notorious for her power. However, when these two interact with one another, there is no battle of wits, nor a physical battle. Instead, these characters are minimized to their roles as male and female with one another, and those roles are minimized to the only interaction that is allowed for the two of them to engage in -- sex. Odysseus is told by Hermes to overpower Circe, and when he goes to attack her, she pleads for him to go to bed with her. Their entire battle, and their conflict as a whole, is boiled down to their sexual relationship. 

Why is it that these characters are only allowed to interact in this way? There is no competition allowed between these two. Circe’s ideological loss to Odysseus is entirely because of her position as a woman as established by the narrative, not her position as a powerful person. I wanted to create an interactive game that could be played to walk through a fantasy and reality of what it meant to be Circe in that situation. How would the path of an attempt to break free from the cycle result? What is the chain of events that funnels Circe (and all powerful women’s) power down to nothing but a sexual figure? I can imagine the feeling of frustration and hopelessness that has been thrust onto this character as she is forced to cycle through a loop of what is expected of her by a narrative that has no acknowledgement of her potential.

(warnings for mentions of sexual content, objectification, violence -- basically the same stuff from the Odyssey)