People make a big deal out of Odysseus 'not really apologizing,' but I think that completely misses the point about how Poseidon just sang a whole dang song about ruthlessly murdering your enemies and then in the next verse low-key mocks Odysseus for even thinking he would accept an apology.
Odysseus says that letting Polyphemus live was because he wants to be merciful
And to an extent, sure, he's sick of killing after the war
But he also just wanted to feel good about himself
He had absolutely no reason to give Polyphemus his name and address, and outright demand that Polyphemus carry the knowledge of who crippled him unto his dying days, except to hurt him
Which rather flies in the face of his whole "I don't wanna perpetuate the cycle of violence and bloodshed anymore"
He wants to make Polyphemus suffer for killing his friend, yet also get to claim the moral high ground
And even when he's on his knees before a god he still tries to frame it as him being an innocent man who not only had no choice but to blind Polyphemus, but who "meant no harm" and "took no pleasure" in doing so
Which is an outright lie
Odysseus meant tons of deliberate harm, he wanted Polyphemus to suffer, and he did so out of vengeance for fallen friends (No different than Polyphemus taking out his grief over his slaughtered sheep on Odysseus and his men)
But Odysseus is hanging a fig leaf over it all that says "But at least I didn't kill him, so that makes me better than him"
Ignoring the infant he threw off a wall
Sure, Poseidon was never going to just let him go no matter what he said
But Odysseus wasn't trying to call a bluff here, he was desperately grabbing at the only hope he had in the face of divine wrath
And he still couldn't admit his sins
Hence the false righteousness that Poseidon is calling him out for
In the Odyssey, when Odysseus reveals his name to Polyphemus, he does it as part of a boast about how he's so strong and smart and warlord-y and was thus able to beat him.
Also, Poseidon could have meant for Odysseus and his crew to just beg for forgiveness rather than want any "fairness". In which case he'd kill a small/half chunk, tell him again he sucks, then leave. It's more likely Poseidon was indeed planning to ignore any apology, but I like Odysseus digging himself in deeper
Back on Polyphemus, in that incident Odysseus was acting disrespectful from the start. His crew walks into a likely to be inhabited place, kills his pet, then when P asks for them to pay in the sense of justice, Odysseus frames it as a transaction and treats the loss of his beloved pet flippantly. So his whole speech about being merciful and Polyphemus being an evil monster really is self-righteous
I had always taken the "line between naivete and hopefulness" line as being a bit of chastisment from poisidon to himself about letting himself believe that ody might actually admit fault and take responsibility.
1. As a classicist, I appreciate your use of the correct plural. People jump to cyclopi and cyclopses, but cyclopes is correct and a good word and it made me happy to see.
2. Polyphemus is a shepherd in the Odyssey, this isn't him taking on the cattle of the sun from Helios. I don't recall him having a favorite sheep, but the attempted sheep thievery is the reason he gives for killing and eating them all, in so far as he provides justification at all. Unless you just meant in him giving a shit at all about the sheep beyond as his property, in which case, yeah, I don't recall him being genuinely sad. Though it has been a while.
3. In the Odyssey, Odysseus has already pissed Poseidon off before the book starts. Not for killing Astyanax, but for claiming full credit for the Trojan Horse. Poseidon contributed the idea (IIRC this is why it's a horse in the first place) and received no credit, so Odysseus maiming his son was just making him more mad. Don't think it's canon to Epic, but I wanted to share all the same.
2. Polyphemus is a shepherd in the Odyssey, this isn't him taking on the cattle of the sun from Helios. I don't recall him having a favorite sheep, but the attempted sheep thievery is the reason he gives for killing and eating them all, in so far as he provides justification at all. Unless you just meant in him giving a shit at all about the sheep beyond as his property, in which case, yeah, I don't recall him being genuinely sad. Though it has been a while.
"Unmoved, he said, "Well, foreigner, you are
a fool, or from some very distant country.
You order me to fear the gods! My people
think nothing of Zeus with his big scepter,
nor any god; our strength is more than theirs.
If I spare you or your friends, it will not
be out of fear of Zeus. I do their bidding
of my own heart. But are you going far
in that fine ship of yours, or somewhere near?"
The next four songs tell of Odysseus and his men's visit to the island of Aeae, and their encounter there with the witch-demigod Circe. Coming right on the heels of Poseidon throwing them clear across the Mediterranean and killing eleven twelfths of them, and with "Epic" so far leaning very hard into the darker and more psychological aspects of the Odyssey, this could have easily been too much bleakness.
However, "Epic" throws a curveball here and reimagines the Circe encounter considerably. In fact, it turns it into a surprise hope spot while still managing to stay *mostly* true to the sequence of events. It makes it serve the story well, and deviates from the source material without (at least, to my decidedly non-Greek understanding) disrespecting it.
Gigi delivers another top-tier animatic to rival their work for "Keep Your Friends Close" as Odysseus' remaining crew makes a pit stop on Aeae and encounter a powerful new foe. The sunset color scheme fits both the implied time and place of the events, and evokes a dreamy, sensual atmosphere while still suggesting the danger of a coming night.
Gigi also tops their old animation-flex by intercutting TWO spinning-around-a-character shots together in high tempo during the fastest part of the music. Impressive, and also hilarious when you know about the real life circumstances that led to it. They also give a ton of personality to Circe, having the witch kinetically bounce and flip her way around the scene as she revels in her power and control.
Anyway, the story!
Odysseus sends Eurylochus to lead a few men inland to find more supplies, while he sits on the beach and beats himself up over the recent disaster with Poseidon. Eurylochus comes back early and alone, and - in a pace-changing rap monologue that subsequently gives way to something almost discolike - he tells of how all the men but him were unable to resist the beautiful woman who invited them into her palace full of attractive nymph maidservants and delicious food. Eurylochus' prickly, pessimistic nature turns out to have guided him well in this instance, as he watched through the window as the others ate the food and were promptly transformed into pigs.
Gigi's imagery adds one small detail that makes the entire thing far more gruesome by implication. It's specifically roasted pig that Circe serves them. And her lyrics make it clear that they're not the first group of sailors she's transformed.
This begins (well, I guess technically it started with Polyphemus) what will turn out to be an ongoing theme of cannibalism and cannibal-like imagery throughout the rest of "Epic." In later songs it's the music itself that starts leaning into this, not just the third party animatics.
Eurylochus, great guy that he is, declares that they've dealt with too much magic bullshit already and should just cut and run now. Odysseus refuses to abandon his men to be fattened and roasted for the next group of visitors though, and defies Eurylochus' misgivings to go attempt some kind of rescue. Through it all, Circe sings her own little villain song about the harsh necessities of survival, and the importance of ensuring one has complete power and control over everyone and everything around themselves.
...
And yeah, she has her song within the song. "Puppeteer" is like three or four songs in one track, and it flows like water.
...
Her lyrics do hint at Circe having more complex motives here than the arbitrarily malevolent and predatory Odyssey version of her. There's one place where the animatic goes an extra step and turns one of her lines to the lured soldiers, "I've got you, don't worry Circe's got you now," into a kind of double-entendre. The song on its own makes it seem like she's still talking to her soon-to-be-pigified victims, but the animatic shows her turning to one of her nymphs and laying a comforting hand on her shoulder while assuring her that she's got this under control.
Nice extra bit of foreshadowing. Clearly, this animatic was made after the next few songs had already been released.
On a casting note, Circe's voice immediately stands out for being the only non-American sounding VA. The singer's heavy London accent makes Circe seem distinctly foreign to the rest of the cast, like she's something different and out-of-context for the heroes. I've since learn that this accent is an affectation rather than the singer's natural dialect, so yeah, this aspect is probably deliberate.
I've also since learned that she was voiced by creator Rivera-Herran's girlfriend, and that he also performs the voice of Odysseus himself. So, that's kinda cute.
Not quite as powerful musically as some of the earlier tracks, but Circe's balance of seduction and menace and Eurylochus' transition from rap solo to more typical rock opera dialogue were minor standouts within it, and the musical diversity of the track is impressive. As far as visuals go, it's probably one of the best animatics so far, great work from Gigi.
After leaving Eurylochus and proceeding alone toward Circe's lair, Odysseus is surprised by lute chords, a color shift from monochrome to blue, and the god Hermes. True to mythology, Hermes is played as a flighty trickster figure here, even moreso than the musical's take on Aeolus. However, unlike Aeolus, his role in the Odyssey isn't made darker or more double-edged. In fact, he's the first purely helpful figure that the travellers encounter on this painful adventure.
Also, he too has a British accent. Not sure if this one is affected or not. Maybe Aeae is just the Little England of the ancient Mediterranean or something, idk.
A Flamenco-ish dance number, delivered with whimsical camp gay mannerisms, has Hermes inform Odysseus that Circe isn't a level-appropriate encounter for him, but that he's got a way of changing that. The moly root (or "holy moly" as he dad-jokingly calls it at one point) will...well, in the Odyssey it just gave Odysseus temporary spell immunity, but here it turns him into a temporary stand-user. He can create a monster, and maintain and control its existence for several minutes, with any harm done to him being absorbed by his creation. Heh, well, sure, okay.
In the source material, Hermes is sort of vaguely implied to have shown up to help here because of some ties between him and the Ithacan royal family. That isn't hinted at in the musical, though. Instead, Hermes says that he's here because he wants to, as per his divine purview, "send a message."
Two songs from now, the message will become apparent.
Smushing these two together because they're really one song, and because - though the animatics are by different artists - the work on "Done For" really didn't impress me much. With the exception of how AnniFlamma portrayed the stand-battle between Circe and Odysseus. That part was done really well.
I don't know if Circe has any mythic connections to the chimaera, but the decision to have Odysseus conjure a cyclops to fight it is an inspired one. It shows that Polyphemus, with all that he represents and all the consequences that the encounter with him have had, are very much at the top of Odysseus' mind. And also, on a purely practical level, Polyphemus was almost certainly the most physically powerful creature that Odysseus has ever seen, so it makes sense he'd draw on those memories to create a fighting machine.
These songs are a proper duet, with Circe and Odysseus singing opposing verses before harmonizing as their conflicting agendas reveal shared motivations. Circe explains that because of how humans have treated her nymphs in the past, she's adopted a "shoot first, ask questions never" policy when it comes to visiting sailors. Given that her method of shooting involved playing the sex card among other types of bait, and that she specifies men in particular as the ones who pushed her to this, well, the implications about what used to happen are pretty clear.
When her magic is unable to get through the moly root's powers, she resorts to her...well, to what's normally her first resort, heh.
Odysseus hasn't seen a woman since he set sail from Troy, and he hasn't touched a woman since he departed from Ithaca twelve years ago. He's tempted. But his motivation for going through all of this is his overwhelming love for his wife and son, and being unfaithful to her is one line he simply will not cross. He recoils from Circe's seduction attempt and falls to his knees, explaining what he needs to do and why. The animatic has him actually abandon the advantage he'd gained in the stand battle and drop his weapon, leaving himself defenceless as he begs for her to have mercy on him and his men.
Circe (who, in the animatic, had been getting ready to stick a poisoned dagger in his back the moment he let his guard down. Apparently, this is a visual storytelling beat that Rivera-Harrens actually suggested to the animatic-artists himself, so it's very much the musical's intent and not just artistic license) stops what she's doing. She puts her clothes back on. She sits down, and...soon they're like this:
A look of pain and remorse crosses the witch's face, before her voice takes on an innocently, chastely cheerful tone, and she relents. Not only does she turn his men human again, but she offers - purely as a favor - to help Odysseus find a way home. As best she can, at least. She can't make sea travel safe for someone on Poseidon's shitlist, but she knows of someone who might know how to do it. The prophet Tiresias is dead, but Circe's magic allows the living to visit the realm of Hades and commune with its residents. The ghost of Tiresias has historically been pretty happy to keep advising those among the living who can reach him, so Odysseus should consult him.
The rising crescendo of the ending, when Circe turns the pigs back into men and the animatic shows them joyfully running back to the ship and embracing their comrades, is one of the most powerful moments of "Epic" so far. Especially with Circe's last words hanging over the scene.
"There are many ways of persuasion, there are many modes of control. Perhaps one act of kindness might lead to kinder souls down the road. I remember actions of passion, for I have been in love once before. Maybe one day the world will need a puppeteer no more."
There have been plenty of emotional moments throughout the album, but this is the only one - apart from Odysseus' shameful act at the end of "Just a Man" - that brought me to tears. And for the opposite reasons.
...
Earlier, in "Wouldn't You Like," Hermes said that he was trying to send someone a message. When Odysseus uses his temporary stando powers in "Done For," Circe immediately concludes that Hermes must be responsible for this (there's actually a pretty funny gag here, but I digress). Implying that Hermes has been on her case for some time. Wouldn't it make perfect sense for the Messenger of the Gods to be able to sniff out the perfect proxy - the one person most likely for the recipient to listen to - when he happens into the area?
In fact, who's to say that the ship coming to Aeae was a coincidence in the first place? Hermes is often portrayed as a guide as well as a messenger. After they escaped Poseidon and started looking for a resupply island, Hermes might well have guided them here so that this - despite his many faults - remarkably faithful man could help him get through to Circe.
Circe is obviously a foil to Penelope. Penelope is waiting on Odysseus' home island, and he's worried about still being worthy of her love when he gets to her. Circe is waiting on a dangerous island in hostile waters, and she turns men into subhumans. To Odysseus himself, though, she isn't a foil but a mirror. Not a dark mirror, or a twisted mirror. Just a plain mirror. Which means that, just like her, perhaps he can start making steps toward redemption, and toward creating a world where killers like themselves will no longer be created.
In the Homeric original, Odysseus only got his men free and his tip about Tiresias by agreeing to be Circe's lover for a year before resuming his journey. "Epic" flips it around, making it Odysseus' refusal to be seduced that convinces Circe to help them instead of killing them. The really ironic thing is that, from where I'm sitting, someone like Circe is probably easier for Odysseus as he is now to relate to than Penelope is. If it weren't for their lack of genuine interest in each other being the foundation of their new friendship, I'd ship them so hard right now.
Well, their singers at least got the same vibes apparently.
...
Anyway. Surprisingly positive and uplifting spin on what was one of the most unpleasant bits of the Odyssey. The darkness is coming back quickly, though.
In a shameless nod to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, this animatic has decided that traveling to the underworld means having your ship flip itself over and vanish under the surface of the water.
I lol'd. Things get heavy right after this, though.
Before casting the spell, Circe warned them about what they were likely to see and hear in Hades. However, Odysseus is still not prepared. The 500+ men who drowned a few days ago are only the first ghosts that are waiting to haunt him. Their asking him why he couldn't just kill the damned cyclops so they could live, only the first haunting moans that assail his ears. Next, of course, is the infant prince of Troy, forever falling from a tower with a shadowy figure at its top. Then Polites, still singing defiantly that life can be amazing if you just greet it with open arms, as he drifts forever through a sea of the dead.
Odysseus sings - in a tight-chested howl - that these are why he can't sleep. It's even worse seeing them up close like this. And then he hears a new (for the audience) voice, and sees a face he didn't expect.
His mother, still singing about how she's sure her son will come back from the war any day now. She'll wait. She'll see him if it's the last thing she ever sees. She'll make sure she lives long enough to see him come back. She'll make sure.
The fantasy of going back home like nothing's happened is gone. Home has changed since he was there. Changed for the worse. Just like he himself has. And knowing that she died waiting for him to come back from a pointless war that he never intended to sink that much damned time into is just a twist of the knife.
On a casting note...on one hand, Rivera-Harrens casting his own mother as the mother of the character he voices gives it a nice meta touch. On the other hand, it does seem kinda weird that Odysseus' mother has a Puerto Rican accent and none of the other Greeks do. She's a good singer, they're clearly a very musical family, but.
The ship makes it to the little underworld-island-place that Tiresias hangs out on, and a freshly re-traumatized Odysseus hops off to talk to him.
It's a pity that this is Tiresias' only song in the entire album, because the voice they got for him is a standout even against Epic's top-tier lineup.
Still, if he had to only have one song, this was definitely the one to give him. Much like "Keep Your Friends Close," "No Longer You" is very stylistically different from most of the album. The sweeping, operatic belting, the caravel-like spin (too bad the animatic wasn't Gigi again ) of the music and voice...you know what it reminds me of, actually? "Le Miserable." Yeah, it's like a Le Mis song surrounded by mostly Hamilton songs. There might be a bit of a meta joke here, harkening to an older style of musical for the song delivered by a man out of time.
Anyway, Ghost Tiresias might have the single best singer in this whole damned project. I'd have to hear more of him to say it with confidence, but he's definitely in at least the top three. On to the content now!
Tiresias answers Odysseus' question - does he see any possible world in which he makes it home? - in spirit rather than in letter. What Odysseus is really asking, just as his dream sequence in "Keep Your Friends Close" spelled out - is whether he can have his old life back. To which the answer is, of course, no. Tiresias sees a man who is "no longer you" entering the Ithacan palace, trying to (bloodily) assert control over an island that has been kingless for far too many years, and being alone with Penelope.
Odysseus wilfully misinterprets this as "someone else is going to steal my wife and kingdom," and promptly runs off to feel sorry for himself and curse the gods for never giving him a chance.
In the Homeric original, Odysseus only got his men free and his tip about Tiresias by agreeing to be Circe's lover for a year before resuming his journey. "Epic" flips it around, making it Odysseus' refusal to be seduced that convinces Circe to help them instead of killing them. The really ironic thing is that, from where I'm sitting, someone like Circe is probably easier for Odysseus as he is now to relate to than Penelope is. If it weren't for their lack of genuine interest in each other being the foundation of their new friendship, I'd ship them so hard right now.
Yeah, and I don't blame him. While a sad number of other ancient sources act like he just forgot about leaving for a year, in at least one other myth Circe turns a married king into a bird for refusing to sleep with her when he explicitly declares he wants to be loyal to his wife. We know what she gets up to, and there's no indication moly lasts forever.
While IMO it's an important part of the story, removing some (all? (I've not yet seen how Calypso is handled)) of Odysseus' being raped is absolutely the right move for a musical that isn't going to focus on that alone. Like, absolutely the best and easiest thing to cut that I can think of.
Apparently, this is a visual storytelling beat that Rivera-Harrens actually suggested to the animatic-artists himself, so it's very much the musical's intent and not just artistic license
Don't recall if he suggested it to the community directly, but he and Talya Sindel did act it out and this video was around over a year before the Circe Saga album came out in full so the animatic makers (some of whom made animatics even of just partial clips like these) had plenty of time to make art/mini animatics of that scene.
Yeah, and I don't blame him. While a sad number of other ancient sources act like he just forgot about leaving for a year, in at least one other myth Circe turns a married king into a bird for refusing to sleep with her when he explicitly declares he wants to be loyal to his wife. We know what she gets up to, and there's no indication moly lasts forever.
While IMO it's an important part of the story, removing some (all? (I've not yet seen how Calypso is handled)) of Odysseus' being raped is absolutely the right move for a musical that isn't going to focus on that alone. Like, absolutely the best and easiest thing to cut that I can think of.
Calypso might be easier to swing because there isn't the weird ambiguity you see with Circe in the text--Odysseus flat out states that nothing between them is consensual and begs her to let him go in what we're told is a repeated effort on his part. As opposed to Circe, Calypso is essentially nothing but an obstacle.
Calypso might be easier to swing because there isn't the weird ambiguity you see with Circe in the text--Odysseus flat out states that nothing between them is consensual and begs her to let him go in what we're told is a repeated effort on his part. As opposed to Circe, Calypso is essentially nothing but an obstacle.
I've seen ahead beyond the commissioned parts (sorry to anyone who was hoping to purchase a blind reaction to the rest of Epic), and it plays Calypso as a pretty blatant metaphor for drug addiction.
Gigi's imagery adds one small detail that makes the entire thing far more gruesome by implication. It's specifically roasted pig that Circe serves them. And her lyrics make it clear that they're not the first group of sailors she's transformed.
I've seen ahead beyond the commissioned parts (sorry to anyone who was hoping to purchase a blind reaction to the rest of Epic), and it plays Calypso as a pretty blatant metaphor for drug addiction.
yeah she's straight-up a slide into opioid addiction and shallow fantasies it is not at all subtle. Which is not a criticism! It's really good, just, not subtle XD
yeah she's straight-up a slide into opioid addiction and shallow fantasies it is not at all subtle. Which is not a criticism! It's really good, just, not subtle XD
Yeah, Calypso is the fantasy of someone who can uncritically accept him despite all the horror, while he tries to numb the pain, but she's a shallow fantasy.
A few years ago, I ended up in a conversation with a regretful ex-Trumper. He was an Iraq War veteran, and claimed that he'd been foolishly pushed right by demonizing anti-military rhetoric he'd heard from the left. We were getting on fairly well, for a while. Then the subject of Guantanamo Bay came up, and...he suddenly took a very sharp, very sudden turn. If someone is in Gitmo, he told me, then they deserve to be there. Full stop. No exceptions. I pointed out the very well-substantiated accounts of rape, torture, and indefinite detention with no legal process and very minimal probable cause. He said, and I quote, "Then let me be evil."
So. This next track.
Odysseus has an introspective moment, as the rocks of Hades show his reflection from a number of angles (any excuse to do that, Gigi. Any excuse). For a moment, he wonders if the problem has been himself all along. What if, were he to come back to Ithaca right now, it would be he who put those close to him in peril, on account of the monster he's allowed himself to become?
Then he shifts gears, reverses course, and declares that yes, he has been a monster...to his own crew, out of a misguided desire to try to be good. If he wants to get home, he needs to become the other kind of monster. A PROPER monster. One who doesn't make dumb mistakes.
The most tragic part of this is when - while convincing himself of the cruelty of the world and the necessity to be at least as cruel as it is - he goes through a list of opponents he's faced, all perfectly happy being ruthless monsters, and mentions Circe.
"When the witch turns men into pigs to protect her nymphs, is she going insane? Or did she grow cold as she got older so now she can save them the pain?"
Yes, Odysseus. Yes, she is experiencing guilt and regret for doing this. That's why your men aren't pigs anymore. That's why you're visiting the underworld. You literally just learned this.
A deepening final verse, with an ominous backup-choir of his crew, has Odysseus declaring that he will be a true monster now, as the world requires of him. And this way, he WILL get back to his wife and son, no matter what anyone says. The animatic represents this as him shaking hands with a black shadowy version of himself wearing full armor and helmet, like he wore during the final battle of Troy.
I'm sure this will work out for him just perfectly.
...
Also, apparently there were a lot of people who expected the god Hades to make an appearance while Odysseus is in his realm, even though he didn't do so in the Odyssey. He didn't, but some wise soul has taken it upon themselves to correct this.
This song is a very strange kind of genius. It's not one of the bests of the album, but it has one of the cleverest constructions. Part of the strangeness is down to at least parts of "Suffering" being bad on purpose.
We open in media res sometime after the return from Hades, in the middle of Odysseus' encounter with the sirens. Since we're coming in mid-action, there's no scene-setting or explanation. Instead, someone who looks and sounds like Penelope (we've heard her voice in dream and memory sequences prior to this) is trying to convince Odysseus to jump overboard and take a swim with her, and Odysseus seems to be considering it.
In contrast to Circe, this is a part of the Odyssey that "Epic" is making much darker than it was in the original.
The voice of "Penelope" is autotuned to the point where it almost sounds robotic, hitting each note with mechanical stiffness as it tries to lure Odysseus in with badly garbled details about his wife and home (she seems to think that they have a daughter instead of a son, among other discrepancies). Meanwhile, the techno trance-music background (heh, appropriate choice of genres there) has these breathy vocal sounds mixed into it that seem much more alive and organic than the singing voice does. Like I said, it's bad on purpose in a way that's just genius for the auditory storytelling.
We eventually learn what's really going on here. Odysseus and his men knew there were sirens prowling this area, and preemptively plugged their ears, causing the sirens' illusions to go haywire against them and have no hypnotic effect. Odysseus is pretending to be under their spell while he - using the lip-reading skill he's honed in his years of cooperative boar hunting and infiltration ops - plies them for information about the ways of the undersea gods and monsters to see if there's a way of avoiding Poseidon.
I really have to hand it to Rivera-Herrans here. This demonstrates the cunning of Odysseus in a way that his original solution to the sirens didn't, and it feels like something an actual Greek hero would have done to deal with a monster, even if it wasn't part of the story of this Greek hero and this monster. The details of how he actually pulled it off aren't revealed until the next song, which puts the audience almost more in the sirens' shoes than the humans' for now as Odysseus works them over.
We transition to that next song when Odysseus, after learning all that he thinks he can, makes to jump into the water like he promised...before suddenly putting an arrow in "Penelope."
Also, I love Gigi's opening shot of the back of the siren's head as she's just starting to take on Penelope's appearance while the opening trance notes are coming together.
And here's where we get the payoff to "Monster." This one is less of a musical standout, and leans heavily on repeated motifs from previous songs. Particularly "Monster" and "Full Speed Ahead," the latter of which have recurred multiple times between their debut and now.
Anyway. While Odysseus was plying the lead siren for info, his men were stealthily casting nets to scoop up her backup singers with. Odysseus and his sailors explain that they are Done with taking shit from supernatural beings. And, frankly, they're doing a favor for the next group of sailors who might try to pass this way. The captured sirens autotune a plea for mercy, but it isn't granted. The visuals of this animatic foreshadow at this point that while Odysseus showed admirable cunning and resourcefulness just now, the other shoe is about to drop.
Ominously, part of the chorus is "We are a different beast now; we are the ones who feast now." Ominously, because Odysseus commands his men to chop off the sirens' tails and throw their upper human halves back overboard so they can slowly bleed and drown to death instead of just killing them quickly and pragmatically. He does not specify what is to be done with the fish halves.
Wish you could be part of that world, mermaids? Hehehe, well, half of you will!
Amid the autotuned screams of the sirens, the final chorus has the soldiers shift from referring to themselves as "men made monsters," to Odysseus specifically as one. Implying that even they are kind of uncomfortable about this. He's kinda pissing in their caviar at this point, y'know? Giving them a little too much salt to swallow.
In other news, after today I will no longer be writing reviews. Just jokes about eating mermaids.
The sirens told Odysseus that there was one place in the ocean where even Poseidon fears to go, and that passing through it has a good chance of losing him. That place being the grotto of the monster Scylla. So, that's where they're headed now.
The last few tracks have been getting more synth and less classical, but this one is where the advertised videogame music influences start to REALLY be clear. The background sounds like it could be the theme of an underwater level in a game, and the high energy final section is equal parts "heavy metal," "dark operatic," and "boss music."
And, if there is anybody in this story besides Poseidon who merits boss music, it's Scylla. Especially the way Gigi portrays her. Holy fucking shit.
You think "360 degree spin" is something? Try "360 degree spin around a ship lit by torchlight while giant moray eel heads are snatching sailors off the deck."
Ngl I mostly like it because it has moray eels in it, but there's other stuff to talk about too I guess.
As they enter the grotto, Eurylochus finally makes a confession that he's been trying to pluck up the courage to make for a while now. Specifically, that he's the one who opened the bag.
I'm not sure what kind of response he was expecting, but Odysseus just gives him a moment of silence before saying "Light up six torches."
Scylla has six heads, and each of them takes a little while to swallow something after grabbing it. Light draws her attention. Odysseus didn't want to choose who would be sacrificed to get the rest of them through, but now he's sure that at least one of the six will have to be Eurylochus. And Eurylochus can have the job of picking the other five too while he's at it.
Once again, the project leader gave a tip to the animatic artists in advance of this song's release. In fact, by this point Rivera-Herrans seems to actually be depending on these artists to do part of the storytelling for him, because there's an important plot point that he seems to have outsourced to them instead of suggesting in the music itself. I guess that makes the animatics the primary medium, in a weird way. But anyway. Eurylochus realizes what's going on during Scylla's attack, and tosses his torch away. Causing another random sailor to get eaten instead of him. I checked around, and other animatic artists actually have him *handing off* the torch to another sailor at the last second. Great guy, that Eurylochus. Truly the hero we all need and deserve.
Lastly, I want to talk about Scylla's voice. She sings her own, quite substantial, portion of this song (she even gets an echoey harmony effect when more than one of her heads are above water, no less). I wouldn't call her VA one of the best singers of "Epic," necessarily, but she specifically was chosen for this role due to her impressive range. Unlike with Polyphemus, "Epic" doesn't rely on distortion effects to make Scylla sound monstrous (except for the one word "hello" that she just speaks instead of singing); it's all natural. When she's stalking the ship at the beginning with only her "sea nymph" parts showing, she has a cool, haunting alto. During the attack, she suddenly does six lines of this deep, roaring, throaty...like I said, it's almost heavy metal.
She then ends on the haunting alto again, as she tells a departing Odysseus that she can relate to him; there's nothing too low for either of them. He harmonizes.
In a sick way, Scylla might be another (even darker) foil to Penelope. She's easier for "monster" Odysseus to relate to now, and he better belongs in a cave with her than on an island with Penelope.
...
There's another detail in here that requires going outside of the Odyssey itself, but might still be relevant. I'm sort of 50/50 on it.
According to some later sources, Scylla was once a nymph who was cursed into a monster by Circe. Which puts the lie to Circe's claim to do everything she does for her people. She'll throw them under the bus and inflict horrible fates on them for her own interests just as she'll kill outsiders for the nymphs' collective ones. And here, Odysseus puts the lie to his "let's be monsters to everyone but us" claim by sacrificing five of his precious soldiers and Eurylochus. A man willing to kill outsiders for his ingroup is also, when it comes down to the wire, likely willing to kill members of the ingroup for himself. While still clinging to them as justification for his ethos. Scylla was hidden beneath Circe's philosophy all along.
On the other hand: in the aforementioned later stories, Scylla wasn't some ultimate abomination that even Poseidon fears. "Epic's" version of Scylla seems like she's considerably above Circe's pay grade.
Hence, I'm 50/50.
...
It's not the best song of the lot, and it might not be the best animatic overall, but as a whole it's the best audiovisual synthesis and the strongest holistic piece of this "Epic" video playlist.
When they're back out in the sunlight and Scylla is wondering where these humans got such a fishy flavor to them safely behind them, the crew turn on Odysseus. He's not the only one with a wife and family to go home to, but he decided that his were more important than six of theirs. Riley G's animatic captures the feelings of mutual betrayal well, especially Odysseus' final despair once he takes a dagger to the back and realizes that it's actually over, he's no longer king or captain, he's nobody.
The irony? The mutiny leader is Eurylochus. The guy who also (ambiguously depending on the animatic, to be fair, but still) sacrificed another soldier to save himself, but did so in the darkness when no one could see it. And he has the gall to be self-righteous about this now.
This fucking guy.
...
It occurs to me now that Aeolus' "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" might not have been general game advice. They might have been specifically trying to warn Odysseus about Eurylochus. His closest remaining friend aboard ship was the one to beware of.
I will get back to this in the conclusion.
...
There's a reprise of the amazing piano cycles from "Luck Runs Out" as Eurylochus leads the crew in announcing their loss of faith in Odysseus. And then, in a part two of this track, they reprise it again when they hit their next pit stop and encounter another recurring motif of this story: specifically, do not eat the suspiciously abundant farm animals.
I'm not sure why the crew bound Odysseus' stab wound and kept him alive and tied up this long. But, this part of the story works much more exclusively on allegory-logic than most of it. Odysseus sees the cows that the men are about to butcher, and sees the statue of Helios standing over the herd like a mark of claim.
He sees the same ruinous pattern of behavior about to repeat (the elements of this part having been copied and backported into the Polyphemus scene ended up serving a purpose. I was half-expecting Epic to skip this entirely due to having worked elements of it into Polyphemus, but nope!). He sings out, "please don't do this," to the same tune as his "please don't MAKE ME do this" from before the baby-killing. Actually, there's an entire section of the song that reprises the tune of "The Horse and the Infant." Then, the crew's final reprise of "how much longer..." emphasizes that they're beaten down, they've given up, they don't think they can do anything other than this. They are, each of them, Just A Man. And Odysseus has his hands tied when it comes to stopping them.
The rumbling electro-metal that cuts in once they've slaughtered the first cow (which proves to have golden blood; Helios' golden cattle and his protectiveness of them are elements of several older stories than the Odyssey, and this makes it clear that Odysseus was correct about what they've stumbled into) announce that it isn't Helios who will be coming down on them for this. He's decided to make this a PROPER divine judgement, dotted i's and crossed t's, and turned it over to his father. The one authority even higher than Poseidon's is now coming for them too.
I was told to look at two different animatics for this one. AnniFlamma's is still incomplete, but viewable in part. I can see why @Kaiya asked for this, since the two have very different relative strengths. NealIllustrator's take has more interesting scenery (they're still on the cow island with the statue nearby) and a much more imposing and accurate-to-ancient-Greek-artwork Zeus. AnniFlamma has less going on with the setting and a really weird look for Zeus, but she does much more with the human characters, particularly Odysseus himself. If I could just put Neal's Zeus in the same vid as Anni's humans, it would be perfect.
Zeus' voice is great too. We heard him a little bit as the prophetic/cynical voice in "The Horse and the Infant," but that song didn't let him go all out like this one does. If he'd sounded like THIS at the time, there'd have been no doubt in my mind that yes, this is Zeus talking.
Also? Singing about the folly of pride and hubris entirely in rape metaphors is just so on-brand for Zeus. Perfectly awful, but kind of hilarious despite that.
There's an interesting double-edgedness to the choice Zeus gives Odysseus here. On one hand, it's a reprise of the horrible choice he made at the end of the Trojan War (he once again repeats the "please don't make me do this" line, sounding more desperate and in pain than ever before). On the other hand, giving a commander the opportunity to fall on his sword for crimes committed by men under his command is...sort of SOP for the ancient world, I think?
There's also an important aspect to the choice Odysseus ultimately makes, withdrawing his responsibility and letting the mutinous men fill the graves they dug for themselves. Something that connects to the subtext of what went on with Eurylochus in the "Scylla" number. I'll get back to this.
The bleak takeaway from this song's ending, of course, hinges on Zeus' line "I'll show her what she can't conceal, as true natures shall be revealed." A man willing to kill a baby to prevent a potential longterm threat will probably also kill a few of his friends to hopefully save others. A man willing to kill a few of his men to save others will probably kill all of his friends to save himself. The crucible of Zeus burns away the outer layers and leaves only the core essence, the real operating principles, bare to the world. Not a merciful man earnestly trying to do right. Not a monster "to everyone but ourselves" in a loyal, tribalistic way. Not even an impressive, scary monster like Scylla. Just a simple brute with no self control, no ability to avoid repeating known mistakes, and either no interest or no ability to improve.
The mutineers are incinerated like a siren tail left on the grill. Odysseus is left, alone. His force reduced from 600, to 593, to 43, to 37, to 1. No closer to home. No ship. No hope. Empty.
Since someone else has chipped in for it, I'll be able to write a separate final analysis post about my interpretation of "Epic" as a whole, at least up to the point I've seen. The details I've told you all to put a pin in until later will be coming home to roost.
The sheer anguish in Odysseus's Please don't make me do this really gets at the heart of what makes Thunder Bringer so powerful and haunting.
Because Zeus offers him a choice, but there's only one way it will go. Yet it is a choice. Zeus doesn't show up and kill everyone. He first makes Odysseus choose it. They both know it, Odysseus knows it, he knows he'll make the only choice he can make to have even the tiniest shred of a chance to get home, to see his wife again, but he has to say it. He has to make the choice, even though it's ordained, even though it breaks his promise to his men.
It's not that he doesn't want them to do die (though, obviously, he also doesn't). That would be "Please don't do this." It's that he doesn't want to make the choice himself. He doesn't want to accept who he is. To face his true nature. He wants to keep the last shred of his pretense that he isn't who he is.
"For true nature will be revealed."
The characterization of Zeus is fantastic. Everything he says is awful, but he says it with such a smooth and suave tone, with such obviously self-satisfaction. Ruthlessness had Poisedon angry. But Zeus would never appear angry to a mortal; anger would imply someone has the better of him, that someone can actually make him feel an unpleasant emotion. That could never happen. He is absolute, and in perfect control. Apollo may have called upon his father to punish these mortals, but the way he went about it?
