The story of Achilles doesn’t begin with an arrow. It begins with a mother who thought she could engineer invulnerability.
Thetis dipped her infant son in the River Styx to make him immortal, holding him by the heel — the one place the water never touched. Achilles grew up to be the greatest warrior of his age, his armor impenetrable, his enemies routed. Nobody worried about the heel. Why would they? Everything else worked so well.
