Neoptolemus

When Odysseus meets Achilles among the dead, the great warrior asks about his father and his son. Of his father, Odysseus knows nothing. Of his son, he has only praise. He led from the front. In council he spoke to the purpose. In battle he never paused. He killed more men than I could name and took no wound. Inside the wooden horse, when the rest cowered, his head was high. Achilles smiles at the telling and presses for details. So much pride in him. The retelling uses Neoptolemus as the one good thing Odysseus has to give the dead Achilles, the small mercy of a father hearing his son lived up to the name. He is glory glimpsed through the telling, not a character we meet on the page.