Is there a suitable antonym for 'Achilles heel'?
I'm trying to juxtapose antonyms in a effort to describe something.
The first draft of an excerpt reads something like this:
I will tell of their triumphs and downfalls...
I would like to communicate a slightly more antiquated feel, however.
So I began to revise it:
I will tell of their Achilles heel, and ___ .
And that's where I became stuck.
I definitely want to use 'Achilles heel', and I like the antiquated and archaic tone that it implies. The issue is that I'm having trouble finding a suitable opposing idiom.
I would like something that mirrors the triumphs/downfalls relationship, but matches the tone I'm trying to achieve with 'Achilles heel'.
Is there such a phrase that I can use?
Edit: I seem to have done a poor job of explaining the comparison I was trying to achieve.
A better way to describe it is that because I perceive 'Achilles heel' as connoting the subject's fatal flaw, I would like to find an antonym that describes or expresses my subject's contrasting unique advantage, ability or power.
Solution 1:
There isn't a well known antonym for 'Achilles heel'. While there may be something in Greek mythology, it would not have the same widespread cultural understanding as Achilles heel. You could still have something like:
I will tell of their conquests and Achilles heel.
In lieu of conquests you could also use things like triumphs, victories, successes, or maybe focus on a specific aspect of their character? Here you could use something like Herculean strength or cunning wit. It is hard to give too specific of an example without understanding what we are describing/foreshadowing.
Just make sure that when using the phrase 'Achilles heel' they have one very specific weakness. If someone/thing is toppled by a series of unfortunate events it would be fine to describe that as a downfall but wrong to describe that as an Achilles heel.
Solution 2:
Like most people, Achilles had two heels. But his were of different interest to posterity. The one that gets all the attention is the one his mother Thetis held him by while dipping him (as a baby) into the River Styx; the other was the one that (along with the rest of his exterior) touched the waters during his immersion and thereby became invulnerable. In one sense, then, it is hard to come up with a more suitable and exact antonym for "Achilles' [vulnerable] heel" than "Achilles' other heel."
Regrettably, there appears to be no consensus about whether the vulnerable heel was the right one or the left one. This explains why, in the illustrations accompanying the Wikipedia article on Achilles' heel, the painting by Rubens shows him being held by the left heel, while the statue of Achilles dying shows him grasping the shaft of a spear projecting from his right heel. If Homer had been more specific, we might now be able to use the clear antonyms "Achilles' left heel" and "Achilles' right heel."
Instead we have to find the figurative opposite of "Achilles' heel" elsewhere—perhaps in the form of the invulnerable part of something otherwise all too vulnerable, such as "France's Maginot Line." But that doesn't make a good pairing in the OP's original wording:
I will tell of their Achilles' heel, and their Maginot Line.
Nor for that matter does the example of complete physical invulnerability that the Good Witch of the North's kiss gives Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz fit the bill, despite the fact that being completely invulnerable certainly constitutes a fundamental contrary to being vulnerable in only one place. It just doesn't work as part of a pairing of metaphors:
I will tell of their Achilles' heel, and their Good Witch of the North–kissed forehead.
The problem, as my two attempts to complete the pairing that the OP seeks demonstrate, is that bringing together a metaphor from a Greek myth and a metaphor from any other specific but unrelated source is like hitching a mule and an ox to a plow: They don't work well together. I recommend minimizing the contrast between "Achilles' heel" and whatever you pair it with by making the other element as nonspecific and nonallusive as possible. For example:
I will tell of their greatest strength and their Achilles' heel.
Solution 3:
I would consider strong suit as a figurative phrase like Achilles' heel to convey the opposite meaning. There doesn't seem like an antiquated-sounding or mythological phrase for a strong point. Another similar phrase is long suit but it is less common.
fig., as (one's) strong suit: something at which one excels. Also strong card, a particular advantage or forte. colloq. [OED]
There are many examples that you can find that the opposite phrases are used together:
Remember when foreign policy was Obama’s strong suit? Not anymore.
Even before the deteriorating situation in Iraq, foreign policy was starting to become an Achilles heel for President Obama.
[washingtonpost]
The survey and the experiment are best viewed as complements. One method's strong suit is the other's Achilles heel. At bottom, survey research typically is strong at external validity, whereas experimental research is strong at internal validity.
Nothing to Read: Newspapers and Elections in a Social Experiment By Jeffery J. Mondak
Solution 4:
How about" I will tell of their Hercules' hand and their Achilles' heel" or if you will " I will tell of their Hercules' hands and their Achilles' heels."
Solution 5:
Maybe their forté? I don't know if that gets the feeling you wanted though.