Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyssa
My biggest question is, why is Achilles "just" a semi-god if his father is Jove and his mother is the daughter of a god?
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Achilles isn't a god - his father was king Pelius, and his mother was a nymph called Thetis. Nymphs are supernatural beings, but certainly not gods. Achilles is very human, and (in the Iliad, at least) is very capable of being killed like anyone else. His mum's "supernatural" status allows her to appeal to the gods for help for her son, as we'll see later in the story, but Achilles is very much a man, not a god. He's a hero, of course, but still a man.
EDIT: Perhaps you're thinking of the famous "Achilles heel", in which Achilles was made invulnerable by Thetis dipping him in the river Styx, apart from his heel, which she held him by? This story dates from from another epic poem called the "Achilleid", written in the 1st century AD (ie, about 900 years after the Iliad). There's no suggestion of him being invulnerable in the Iliad and, indeed, as we'll see, Thetis tells Achilles that if he decides to go off to war he will die in that war (which he does, although that story isn't told in the Iliad).