'Odysseus is too selfish to be a hero.' How far do you agree?

In order to interrogate the all-encompassing term ‘hero’, it is useful to close in on what exactly makes up a hero, therefore making it easier to pinpoint exactly which parts of this heroic identity Odysseus’ selfish aspects may undermine. One heroic aspect showing direct tension with the selfish side of Odysseus is his ability as a leader of men. On the one hand, it seems clear that Odysseus cares greatly about his men, as he manages to save them from many difficult and dangerous obstacles such as Scylla and Charybdis, the Laestrygonians and the Cyclops, in the latter case ensuring that everyone else has left the Cyclops’ cave before him in a clearly heroic effort to ensure that no man was left behind. He also behaves in a heroic way when, on Circe’s island, he restrains his impulse to kill Eurymachus when he disagrees with Odysseus. Unmitigated, unprovoked murder is extremely non-heroic and Odysseus clearly recognises this; his tendency to reflect inwards and rationalise the situation as shown here again suggests a thoughtfulness that supports the idea of Odysseus being a good leader and therefore hero.On the whole, however, the relationship between Odysseus’ leadership and his selfishness tends to follow a more negative pattern, suggesting that he is indeed too selfish to be hero based on his leadership. For example, while he does not kill Eurymachus, this comes back to haunt Odysseus when it is Eurymachus that starts the near-mutiny to force Odysseus to land on the island of the cows of Hyperion. Odysseus knows that docking here will lead to the death of all of his men, yet still didn’t kill Eurymachus when he had the time or inclination, suggesting his heroism is undermined even when not behaving directly in a selfish, or perhaps more self-absorbed, way; it seems highly selfish regardless to allow one life to jeopardise the lives of all his other men. Not only does Odysseus undermine his leadership ability with selfishness, however, such as when his desire to claim responsibility for blinding the Cyclops leads to the invocation of the curse that will cause the deaths of all of his men, he even uses his position as a leader to manipulate his men for his own gain. For example, he gets his men to tie him to the mast so he is the only one able to hear the Sirens’ songs, yet impresses on them the danger of these women so that the men do not want to do the same: he gets to enjoy the song while they are tasked with restraining their leader as they fear for his life if he escapes. Similarly, he sends all of his men ahead onto Circe’s island, assuming it is safe; this suggests Odysseus’ irresponsible decision has led to the transformation of all his men into pigs, yet in being their saviour he still paints himself as the hero rather than the cause of the situation, which is extremely non-heroic. As a result, the outweighing of Odysseus’ genuinely heroic moments of leadership by his manipulation of his position of power and his ultimate failure to save any of his men from untimely death suggests, in terms of leadership, he is too selfish to be a hero.(This answer would go on to interrogate evidence for and against Odysseus’ selfishness in relation to other heroic aspects such as physical strength and respect for the gods, before forming an overall conclusion based on all three sub-divisions of heroism.)