Patroclus occupies a position of singular structural and psychological density within the depth-psychology corpus. The figure is treated not merely as a secondary warrior of the Trojan cycle but as a hermeneutic key to the nature of heroic identity, substitution, and mortality. Gregory Nagy’s work establishes the most theoretically consequential reading: drawing on comparative Anatolian linguistics, Nagy argues that the Iliadic designation of Patroclus as therapōn—ritual substitute—encodes an archaic semantic layer in which he functions as Achilles’ alter ego, a surrogate upon whom the hero’s fate is displaced and through whom it is proleptically enacted. The death of Patroclus thus foreshadows, within the poem’s architecture, the death of Achilles outside it. Homer’s own text sustains this interpretation through the doubling of armor, shared domestic intimacy, and the apostrophe at Book 16 that collapses narrative distance at the moment of Patroclus’ death. The Iliadic commentary tradition, represented here by Wilson’s annotations, further illuminates the parent-child and spousal dimensions of the bond. Douglas Cairns attends to the ethical psychology of aidos and nemesis operative in the contest over Patroclus’ corpse, while Shirley Sullivan examines the psychē of the dead Patroclus as phenomenological evidence for early Greek soul-beliefs. Collectively the corpus positions Patroclus at the intersection of ritual substitution, kleos, grief, and the boundaries of selfhood.