Hector is the main warrior of Troy, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, husband of Andromache, and father of the boy Astyanax. He is the one who defends the city, and the boy's own name says so: the other Trojans call him Astyanax, because only Hector defended Ilion. Zeus gives him the glory of the day.
He appears in very different scenes. In Book III, he rebukes his brother Paris, who drew back on seeing Menelaus: "you have a handsome appearance, but there is no strength in your spirit and no courage at all." In Book VI, he bids farewell to Andromache by the Scaean Gates. In Book VIII, he promises to burn the Greek ships. In Book XII, he breaks through the gate of the Greek wall with a stone that two men of today could not lift, and in Book XVI he kills Patroclus, in Achilles' armor.
What moves him is shame before his own people: "I am very ashamed before the Trojans and the Trojan women with trailing robes," and "I have learned to be brave always and to fight among the foremost." He knows the city will fall: "the day will come when sacred Ilion will be destroyed." In Book XVIII, Polydamas advises withdrawing to the city, and Hector refuses, saying that no Trojan will obey him and that he will not allow it; it is this decision that leaves him alone before Achilles in Book XXII.
Readers often see in him the counterpart of Achilles: the first begins his wrath over a lost prize, the second fights for a city and a family, though he too speaks of his own glory. It is also debated whether he is a defender who knows he will lose or a leader who does not accept the advice to withdraw in time. The poem gives reasons for both readings, and it ends with the gods caring for his body.