It does not seem that fear of gods would move people in town to do anything there. I read it more as expression of Telemachus anger and helplessness. He can do nothing except threaten gods, people in town know it and don't care. The gods don't come to help either. Only Athena helps them, but it is because Odysseus is her favorite and she is helping him whether he is right or wrong. Poseidon would not help Odysseus, because he blinded his son. Poseidon would not care one bit about what happen in the household and prefers Odysseus dead. Athena don't care about Poseidon son in particular.
It did not seem to me that gods would be source of justice. They are source of power and have own politics that is independent of right and wrong. They just are and are strong and characters invoking them don't necessary mean anything for gods actions. (It was also my impression that characters like to blame gods for their own bad decisions when they are about to talk about their own mistakes.)
You are welcome. I love thinking and discussing mythology and religion.
> It did not seem to me that gods would be source of justice. They are source of power and have own politics that is independent of right and wrong.
In general, I agree with this statement. I think one needs to stretch to find justice in the Odyssey, and even more so in the Iliad. That being said, I do believe there are some early inklings of justice and morality which evolved and grew with Greek civilization, and by the later classical period, Zeus was increasingly associated with Justice.
Also, Hesiod, who wrote at about the same time as Homer, certainly associated justice with Zeus. Here is a quote from Works and Days:
> You too, my lords, attend to this justice-doing of hours. For close at hand among men there are immortals taking note of all those who afflict each other with crooked judgements, heedless of the gods' punishment. Thrice countless are they on the rich-pastured earth, Zeus' immortal watchers of mortal men, who watch over judgements and wickedness, clothed in darkness, traveling about the land on every road. And there is the maiden Right, daughter of Zeus, esteemed and respected by the gods in Olympus; and whenever someone does her down with crooked abuse, at once she sits by Zeus her father, Kronos' son, and reports the men's unrighteous mind, so that the people may pay for the crimes of their lords who balefully divert justice from its course by pronouncing it crooked.
Homer mentions a somewhat similar (although different) idea in book 19 of the Iliad:
"Zeus be my witness first, the highest, best of gods!
Then Earth, the Sun, and Furies stalking the world below
to wreak revenge on the dead who broke their oaths---
I swear I never laid a hand on the girl Briseis
Hesiod wasn't as influential as Homer, but he was still quite influential on Greek culture. There is a story that Hesiod and Homer had a poetry competition, and Hesiod won. Anyway, this idea of justice appears to have been present in both authors to a very limited degree.
The 1951 article, "The Gods of Homer," by G. M. A Grub, has an interesting discussion of morality in Homer and how it evolved. You can read the article for free, if you have a JSTOR account, here:
Grube's main premise is that the gods of Homer came from an earlier conception of the gods as "forces of nature." After Homer, or the poets before Homer, personified the gods, it was inevitable that they would become moralized over time. Grube believes that Homer is near the start of this process. This would explain why some of the stories in the Iliad and Odyssey represent the gods as being essentially unethical; these stores were from before the gods were expected to be moral.
It does not seem that fear of gods would move people in town to do anything there. I read it more as expression of Telemachus anger and helplessness. He can do nothing except threaten gods, people in town know it and don't care. The gods don't come to help either. Only Athena helps them, but it is because Odysseus is her favorite and she is helping him whether he is right or wrong. Poseidon would not help Odysseus, because he blinded his son. Poseidon would not care one bit about what happen in the household and prefers Odysseus dead. Athena don't care about Poseidon son in particular.
It did not seem to me that gods would be source of justice. They are source of power and have own politics that is independent of right and wrong. They just are and are strong and characters invoking them don't necessary mean anything for gods actions. (It was also my impression that characters like to blame gods for their own bad decisions when they are about to talk about their own mistakes.)