Odysseus must have known that his bad arguments wouldn’t convince Achilles. The real reason the three men came was to appeal to Patroclus to intervene. When Peleus first told this story, Patroclus never heard the ending because he was too besotted with Achilles to pay attention. Patroclus is still paralyzed by his love for Achilles, but now the parallels are obvious, and Phoinix is suggesting that Achilles’s legacy will be tainted if he refuses to fight. He's not telling Patroclus to save the Greeks’ lives, but rather to save Achilles’s legacy. That Patroclus doesn’t take the bait, blaming his own inaction on fate, once again shows a moment when Patroclus chooses passivity over agency. Meanwhile, Odysseus’s casual attitude seems to imply that he’s already accepted Achilles’s choice, which is worrisome. Odysseus must believe he can benefit from Achilles’s mistakes in some way, or else he'd be fighting harder to change his mind.