Coming home after trauma: what «The Odyssey» and «The Lord of the Rings» show us

What «The Odyssey» and «The Lord of the Rings» tell us about coming home from the darkest places

We like to imagine homecoming as an ending.

The danger is over. The door opens. Someone is waiting. You put down your burden, sit at the familiar table and pick up where you left off.

But anyone who has truly been in the dark knows: it isn't that simple.

You return to a place that has stayed the same. Only you have not.

Odysseus: the hero who cannot stay

(Spoiler alert)

Christopher Nolan's «The Odyssey» tells the familiar story: ten years of war over Troy, ten years of wandering, then the return to Ithaca. Odysseus defeats the suitors who have occupied his house. Penelope recognises him, and he sees his son Telemachus again.

In Homer, this would be a triumph.

In Nolan's film, it is not.

Odysseus breaks down. He confesses to Penelope what haunts him: the Trojan Horse, celebrated as the most brilliant ruse in history, was in his eyes a betrayal. Death disguised as a gift. A break with everything that was sacred.

And then he does something Homer does not tell in this way. He hands the crown to his son and sails out to sea with Penelope, into exile.

He has arrived home. But he cannot stay.

Interestingly, even in Homer this homecoming is not final. The seer Tiresias foretells that Odysseus will have to set out once more. Nolan simply put into words what was already present in the ancient story.

Frodo: saved, but not for himself

At the end of «The Lord of the Rings», something similar happens.

Frodo has destroyed the Ring. Middle-earth is saved. The hobbits return to the Shire, the most peaceful place imaginable.

But Frodo can no longer find peace. The wounds he suffered along the way do not heal. On anniversaries, the pain returns. He saved the Shire, he says in essence – but not for himself.

And so he, too, leaves his home. With the Elves, he sails from the Grey Havens into the West.

Tolkien knew what he was writing about. As a young officer he had fought at the Somme and lost most of his closest friends in the First World War.

The price for the soul

Both stories say something uncomfortable:

Those who face the darkest powers do not come back unscathed.

This is true of war. But not only of war.

It is true of people who have experienced violence. Of people who have lived or worked for years in systems where power was abused. In families, organisations or institutions where fear ruled and truth was dangerous. Of people who exposed something and paid the price for it.

They survive. Some even function remarkably well.

But at some point they notice: the old life no longer fits. Conversations at the family table seem strangely light. Other people's worries seem small. And what they went through can hardly be told, because no one really wants to hear it.

The Greek word for homecoming is nostos. It gives us the word nostalgia: the pain of homecoming. Perhaps that is the most honest description of what many people experience after something terrible.

When it is not only fear that wounds, but conscience

Nolan's Odysseus suffers not only from what was done to him. He suffers from what he himself has done.

The American psychiatrist Jonathan Shay worked with Vietnam veterans and compared their experiences with Homer. He coined the term moral injury for it: the wound that arises when people have to do, witness or allow something that goes against their deepest convictions. Or when they are betrayed by those who held responsibility.

This wound often runs deeper than fear.

And it does not only affect soldiers. People in organisations can suffer it too, when they had to go along with what they believed was wrong.

Who comes home whole?

This is the question that always arises when people survive the inhuman.

And perhaps it is worth taking a closer look, because both stories also know other homecomers.

Telemachus stays and takes on responsibility. Samwise Gamgee, who accompanied Frodo to the very end, also returns. He marries, builds a life and finds his place.

Why him and not Frodo?

Perhaps because Sam did not carry the same burden. Perhaps because he had something to return to. And perhaps because he had relationships that held him.

Coming home whole does not depend only on the strength of the individual. It depends on what you went through, for how long, how alone. And on what awaits you at home.

What helps when coming home

Shay describes what helped veterans most: people who listen without looking away. A community that carries the experience together, instead of leaving it to the individual alone.

Earlier cultures had rituals for this. Those who returned were welcomed, purified and taken back in. The community knew: whoever comes back needs a transition.

We have largely lost such transitions. We expect people to simply become «normal again» after a terrible experience. After a deployment, a crisis, a breakdown, leaving a toxic system.

Perhaps what is needed instead is:

• Time, without the immediate expectation to function again.
• Listeners who can bear what cannot be told.
• Recognition that something happened that leaves traces.
• Professional support when the wounds do not heal on their own.
• Permission to have changed – and for home, perhaps, to change too.

Sometimes writing can be a first transition. I wrote about this in my post A letter to myself – why writing helps in hard times.

Homecoming as a new home

Perhaps this is the quiet hope in both stories.

Odysseus does not return to his old life, but he does not go alone. Frodo leaves the Shire, but he goes in search of a place of healing.

Sometimes coming home does not mean going back.

It means finding a new home where what we have lived through also has a place.

And sometimes it is the others who must make sure that a person can arrive at all.

Literature and films

• Christopher Nolan: The Odyssey, 2026
• Homer: The Odyssey
• J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings
• Jonathan Shay: Odysseus in America. Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming, 2002

If memories of a difficult experience are dominating your everyday life, talk to a professional. In Switzerland, Die Dargebotene Hand is available around the clock on 143.