The Gods in the Iliad constantly manipulate and determine what the lives of mortals will look like, and they do this based on their respective personal agendas. Gods in the Iliad take sides in battle, favor particular warriors, and even repeatedly insure that peace between the Achaeans and the Trojans is not achieved. Actions such as these cause the deaths of thousands of soldiers on both sides and give the reader a feeling that the gods are not acting according to what is good for the people, but according to their own urges. The Gods look like a loosely knit family that is constantly quarrelling, and many of their actions are geared toward the power play that exists between them. The reader also gets a sense that the Gods are bored, and that they manipulate events on Earth in order to occupy themselves. They treat the lives of humans much like a game, and mortals are conduits through which the Gods can confront each other in a manner that is intense, but at the same time in a manner that does not directly threaten the breakdown of order in Olympus.
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1) I appreciated your point about humans being conduits for gods in the last line of the paragraph. I thought it was really relevant to the other points you mention and is a really good way to put that relationship into words
2) I was a little confused by the part in the second to last sentence where you talk about the fact that the readers get a certain sense about the gods, because I wasn’t sure how that sense was conveyed in the Illiad. I think it would be a little clearer if you explained what gives the reader that sense.
3) I was also a little confused by the opening line. I wasn’t sure if this was a sort of condensed thesis statement or not, because it seems to briefly summarize your points at the end of the introduction.