Good questions being raised, especially about the gods.  They are very difficult to get a grip on in the Iliad, because sometimes they seem to be acting just like irresponsible humans, but sometimes they have an awesome divinity about them, as Apollo has in Iliad 1 when he brings plague to the Achaians, and Zeus has when he brings out the scales of fate.  Even in classical Greece, people questioned whether the gods as portrayed in the Iliad deserved to be worshiped.  Some critics have thought of them as plot devices or as ways of conveying the psychological state of the humans in the poem.

Keep track as you read (it helps to keep a reading notebook) of when gods appear, whether they are interacting with humans or with one another, and whether they seem to have autonomous power or have to accede to fate/destiny.  Why do you think Homer structures the poem so that the divine action forms a counterpoint to the human action?  Are the gods essential to the poem?