The vines represent a sweet, rich, nurturing society, with olive trees of peace. The marble cities are stable and wealthy, with the ships adding a twist of adventure while describing the Greek ideal of conquering obstacles. In her eyes, society, and to a larger extent Achilles, is full of peace and prosperity, is civilized and fair. This reflects Thetis' arguably delusional perception of life in the mortal world; she does not understand how war changes life, and more specifically, how it will change her son's life. Even if it was that glorious on a daily basis, it cannot stay the same for war.
Hephaestos, the voice of truth in this poem, presents an entirely different setting. He forges on his shield "an artificial wilderness and a sky like lead."" In effect, he is expressing to Thetis that her son is not in some dignified place, but on a battlefield, with nothing lofty about it. The wilderness is presented as very crude, not glorified; there is no allure to this depiction, and it contrasts sharply with Thetis' expectation of a magnificent city. The leaden sky is not bright and cheerful, like in the legends; instead, it makes the scene gloomy and heavy, even poisonous. It looms on the fate of Achilles. Hephaestos goes on to describe the battlefield, "a plain without a feature, bare and brown-; it is not green and lush and virile, but bleak, dead. Thetis' idealistic image of a glorious war would have soldiers marching to battle amid a throng of supporters, on a bright sunny day that promises swift victory. Hephaestos knows this to be the false impression of war, and forges a shield of truth. Achilles is marching to his doomed fate, and Hephaestos is trying to convince Thetis of this. Hephaestos goes on to show the senselessness of war, carried out for some purpose unknown to the soldiers. He wants Thetis to see that this is not a war applicable to Achilles, or most soldiers, and he is participating for logic prescribed by others, not because his heart tells him to do so.
