I disagree with what Sean said on Wednesday. I think that the gods who are the most supreme rulers of the people, who believe in them can control the mortals lives if they wanted to. We have already seen many examples of this. One of the main times when a mortals life is influenced is when Athena convinces Telemachus to go out and look for his father. She said, "you mustn't cling to your boyhood any longer it's time you were a man" (book 1 341-342). This is how Athena convinced Telemachus to leave home for the first time in his life and go look for his father. Another way that Athena helped Telemachus leave was to help him get a crew for his voyage. She said, "gather beside our ship at nightfall- be there" ( book 2 420-422). Later on she also got a ship for Telemachus to use for his journey. Both of these examples show that the gods can and will alter fate to help mortals. If Athena had never helped Telemachus, he would probably never of found the courage to stand up to the suitors and leave on a journey to find out information about his father.