If I don’t get this posted, it will keep me up all night…
I keep reading that Sinon, that non-Homeric character played by Eliot Page, is crucial to understanding Odysseus’s guilt. Sinon, after he’s dead (above), complains that Odysseus deceived him and set him up to be killed. Odysseus argues that he was necessary collateral damage, which by any standard of warfare, especially ancient warfare, is exactly right, but never mind that: I can’t imagine how the deception of Sinon was achieved. His fellow colleagues were building a huge wooden horse on the beach. It took a long time. Odysseus and the other Greek soldiers had to climb into the horse. Where was Sinon when this was happening?
How was all of the noisy and complex operation kept from Sinon? When did Odysseus communicate the “This horse is a gift from the gods so be sure to tell the Trojans that” lie to him? Then what, he told Sinon to close his eyes and count to ten, and when Sinon opened his eyes, he didn’t suspect that his general had climbed into the wooden horse? Or did wily Odysseus leave a note for Sinon on the beach that said, “Hey, sorry, I’ve left with the rest of the ships, but I saw a big wooden horse on the beach. My guess is that it’s a gift from Poseidon. Hang around and tell the Trojans. Good luck!”?
The classic myth about Sinon is that he was a willing martyr to the cause, and stayed behind to assist in the deadly deception of the Trojans. That makes sense, but Nolan’s rewrite seems impossible.
It’s like the mystery of the Mary Celeste! No matter how I try, I can’t construct a plausible sequence where the Greeks fake leaving, everyone climbs into a wooden horse that was assembled on the beach, and Odysseus lies successfully to the sole remaining Greek soldier about the provenance of the horse.
Ethics Alarms 
This reminds me of the question I occasionally see on Quora — basically it goes “Could Robert E Lee have just taken Philadelphia instead of fighting at Gettysburg?”
Well, sure. Of course, first you have to do a lot of hand waving to get his army over the Susquehanna River, then you have to do a lot more hand waving to get it up to Philadelphia. From there taking the city is the proverbial piece of cake.
But have you ever heard of what happened after the battles of Lexington and Concord? The Union might only have militia north of the Susquehanna, but as Joseph Stalin once observed, “Quantity has a quality of its own.”
Then there would be that pesky Army of the Potomac. Not to mention a couple fellows with matches hanging out on the bridges over the Susquehanna.
But if you can believe all that before breakfast, sure Bobby Lee could have snatched up Philadelphia. What could go wrong?