The Cyclops encounter is a mythological boss fight in miniature — a creature from Homer fought by a descendant of Spartan legend with Isu weaponry in fifth-century Greece. Odyssey earns this kind of set piece because it has done the work of making its world thick enough to contain it. Mercenary is the word the Greek world uses for someone without a city's authorization. Legend is what happens when the unauthorized person keeps doing the things that the authorized ones cannot.