Berk Gunes

Game Designer working for Massive, Ubisoft. Mainly tweeting about #gamedev.

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@MDSVeritas Sick

[Thanos Angelopoulos @Th_Angelopoulos]

Roman Helmet Guy is a moron. Here's why:

The word is a compound adjective formed by the prefix poly- (from polys, meaning “many”, “multiple”, or “great in number”) + the noun tropos + the adjectival ending -os.

Tropos itself derives from the verb trepō (τρέπω), “to turn, to twist, to change direction”. Its IE root trep- carries the core sense of “turning” or “bending”. In Greek, tropos literally means “a turn”, “a twist”, “a way”, “a direction”, or “a path”, and only secondarily “manner”,
“character”, “method” or “habit”. Thus the literal etymological force of polytropos is “having many turns” or “of many twistings/ways” aka a single word that fuses multiplicity (poly-) with the idea of deviation, adaptation, and change (tropos). It is not a simple descriptor; it encodes the notion of something that constantly “turns” or “shifts”, whether geographically or mentally.

Per the standard reference Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon, the word carries two intertwined layers of meaning:Literal / physical: “much-turned”, “much-wandering”, “much-traveled”, “roaming widely”. This is precisely how Odysseus is understood in Odyssey 1.1 (“ἄνδρα … πολύτροπον”) and again at 10.330 (Circe addressing him).

Metaphorical / characterological: “versatile”, “of many devices”, “resourceful”, “wily”, “shifty”, “adaptable”.
Examples: Hermes (Homeric Hymn to Hermes), Plato (Hippias Minor 364e–365a, where he contrasts the “polytropos” Odysseus with the “simple” Achilles), Thucydides (versatility of mind), Plutarch (on Alcibiades).

Later texts can shade into “fickle” or “changeable”.

The adverb polytropōs simply means “in many ways” or “variously”. In Modern Greek the word survives as a learned term meaning “resourceful,” “inventive,” “intricate,” or “complicated”, with the same double edge.

Homer places polytropos in the very first line of the Odyssey (“Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον…”) precisely because the word is deliberately ambiguous. It invites a double reading that no single English adjective can fully replicate:

Literal: the hero who has literally “turned” through countless places; Trojan War, stormy seas, islands, underworld, back to Ithaca.

Metaphorical: the hero whose mind and character are full of twists; cunning, shape-shifting, never straightforward, endlessly adaptive.

This is not accidental. Homer is announcing a new kind of hero: not the straight-line, uncomplicated warrior (Achilles, “the simplest and most truthful”, in Plato’s words), but the multifaceted, many-layered, non-linear survivor. Polytropos is the ancient Greek way of saying “complicated man”. Emily Wilson’s choice of “complicated” is therefore not a simplification or a betrayal of the Greek; it is a defensible modern English rendering that captures the core etymological and conceptual force of the word.

“Complicated” preserves the sense of “many turns”, “not straightforward”, “full of twists”; both in Odysseus’s journey and in his character, while remaining immediately intelligible to contemporary readers. English simply has no single native word that packs the same literal + metaphorical punch as the Greek compound. “Man of many ways,” “versatile,” “wily,” or “of many devices” all require footnotes or sound archaic; “complicated” does the job cleanly.

They attack Wilson for choosing “complicated”. Who? Peoople who do not read ancient Greek (and certainly not fluently). They are reacting to a surface-level English word without grasping the layered ambiguity Homer himself built into polytropos.

Someone who cannot read the original line, who has never parsed the etymology of tropos, and who has never seen how later Greek authors exploited the same double meaning is simply not in a position to lecture a professional classicist on what the Greek “really” means.

Wilson did a good translation. She's is genuinely a good scholar.

They, on the other hand, are ποικιλοτρόπως, πολυτρόπως, παντοτρόπως, διαρκώς, και εντελώς αμετατρόπως ηλίθιοι.

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@MattWalshBlog they’re called cowboys not horseboys

[Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora @AvatarFrontiers]

@solekpilled

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

Ah, the infamous do-exactly-with-robots-what-science-fiction-specifically-warned-against-doing strategy. Bold.

[Aaron Tan @aaronistan]

Introducing Lume, the robotic lamp.

The first robot designed to fit naturally into your home and help with chores, starting with laundry folding.

If you’re looking for help and want to avoid the privacy and safety concerns of humanoids in your home, pre-order now.

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

All death stranding 2 songs sound like Viggo Mortensen is singing them

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@charliekirk11 Aren’t you christian?

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@metaplexmovies We were kids. The only taste that changed was ours. And the argument for shifting film style doesn’t hold, considering the movies that came before. The Prestige, Batman Begins, Memento are all better movies.

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

if alive would james gandolfini be in the mcu?

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@ChrisRulfWidell @summergamefest 😙😙

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@tostspender As a developer this is me

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

On the left is @assassinscreed Shadow’s interpretation of the stairs of Nigatsu-dō where I proposed to my girlfriend; and on the right is the photo I took just before.

[Assassin's Creed @assassinscreed]

It's not even 4PM here in Canada and Assassin's Creed Shadows has already passed 1 million players!

Thank YOU from the bottom of our hearts for joining this adventure in Feudal Japan. We are beyond excited to start this journey with you! 💝

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

Everyday I get more and more confident that the entire post-release of this thing is one long performance art. The firing of the staff, the photo mode thing, this.

[Eurogamer @eurogamer]

Disco Elysium is being "reimagined" for mobile devices to "captivate the TikTok user"

https://t.co/AS6AK6aUam

[Assassin's Creed @assassinscreed]

@Grummz Thank you for considering us a top publisher! While our media ads typically don't allow comments, our regular posts do.😌😌

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@HilariousCow Hit me up if you need help!

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@PeterSweden7 Literally nobody in Sweden knows who you are

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

Maybe I’m slow but the edge of that sword is frequency bar, isn’t it?

[Naughty Dog @Naughty_Dog]

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet stars our newest protagonist Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago.

Learn more here: https://t.co/vSsP2CQ2ak

[Berk Gunes @berkfisk]

@thedmatts Congratulations my friend! It looks amazing.