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hismercytomyjustice · 2 months ago

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I will never financially recover from 600 Strike…

I just…

God it’s so fucking good… T^T

Of course the “NEXT TO MY WIFE” part, but Odysseus showing Poseidon what happens when you finally get exactly what you want…

Look what you’ve turned me into

Look what we’ve become

*incoherent screeching*

The lyrics are just SO GOOD. Like, I am awe of how Jay manages to one up himself over and over again. This song is maybe the most pivotal one as far as Odysseus’s character arc is concerned and he fucking CRUSHED IT.

I AM ADDING A CUT BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS, OKAY?! ( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ)

UGH. I will never get enough of this musical, I s2g. Jay does such an amazing job of portraying Odysseus’s emotions and mental state throughout. By the time we get to 600 Strike, it’s fucking heartbreaking. Odysseus has tried SO HARD for SO LONG to be a good person. He never wanted any of this! He never wanted to be ruthless! But over and over and over again he is just doomed by the gods narrative.

UUUGH. It makes No Longer You (probs my fave song of the musical) EVEN BETTER because yeah, “I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it’s no longer you.”

The gods have forced Odysseus time and time again to be ruthless. He has fought for twenty years to retain some semblance of his innate desire for mercy only to watch it ripped away from him, piece by devastating piece.

I utterly adore the way we see him broken down until the ONLY thing he has left for any chance at happiness or normalcy is making it home to his wife and son.

He starts out this whole journey with the goal of getting himself AND his crew home only to watch them die in increasingly horrific ways because of the impossible situations they keep getting forced into.

I feel like Oddyseus’s first major breakdown happens in The Underworld. That’s where it finally all starts to be too fucking much. Where he hits his limit. Just the “All I hear are screams, every time I dare to close my eyes. I no longer dream, only nightmares of those who've died.”

And then the utterly gut wrenching scene with his mom. ( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ)

I feel like up to this point, yeah he’s concerned about what’s going on back at home, but this is the first time he’s straight up confronted with the fact things are changing there and there’s NOTHING he can do about it. His absolute worst fear has come true. He lost someone he loved forever because he couldn’t make it home.

How did she die? Odysseus doesn’t know. She could have died peacefully of old age or been slaughtered. Either way he wasn’t there to comfort her or protect her. She died not knowing if he would ever made it home. Even in death, she’s stuck forever wondering what happened to him and wishing she could see him again.

HE IS RIGHT THERE and she will never know because he was too late.

Like logically he knows time is passing in Ithaca too, but up to this point I feel like Ithaca is more of a concept to him than a reality. His last memories of his home are of his wife and infant son from over a decade ago. Obviously they’ve aged too, but he hasn’t seen the effects of the passage of time on them. He doesn’t know what’s become of them or his country without its king.

It makes so much sense that this is when he finally starts to consider ruthlessness over mercy. Especially after Tiresias implies he will never make it home. Like obvs we know he will and that Tiresias just means he won’t be the same person when he does, but Odysseus doesn’t know that.

Regardless, Tiresias is right. The only way Odysseus will ever make it home is to cut away at everything that makes him who he is. His morality, his desire for mercy, his loyalty to his crew, his friends...

His friends who trust him, only for him to keep leading them to horrific deaths time and time again by clinging to his desire for mercy.

God, and then there’s Mutiny. This whole time Eurylochus has been begging Odysseus to focus on the needs of the few instead of the many, to “cut their losses.” And now Odysseus finally does by sacrificing six men and Eurylochus cannot fucking believe it, even after trying to convince him to do this EXACT same thing back in Puppeteer.

I think Eurylochus ultimately wants Odysseus to keep leading them, even when he doesn’t agree with his decisions, because he doesn’t trust himself to make to put the lives of everyone else first. He relies so much on Odysseus as his moral compass and now that compass has been shattered into a million pieces.

This is not his captain. This IS NOT his friend. This is also the moment Eurylochus realizes Odysseus intends to get home by any means necessary and that fucking terrifies him.

He could always count on Odysseus to keep the safety of the crew first and foremost, to be their pillar of strength in the face of adversity, but now? Now he can’t.

Besides, he’s finally convinced himself that they’ll never make it home, so why should they keep fighting? Why not just try and live out the rest of their lives in peace? Why invite more suffering and pain into their lives?

Then comes Thunder Bringer, where Eurylochus’s biggest fear is realized. Odysseus openly admits he will do whatever it takes to make it home to his wife and son.

At this point, Odysseus is desperately trying to justify all of the horrors and loss they’ve been through. Hundreds of men who trusted him have died because of him. He believes he’s led them astray over and over again.

But if he doesn’t make it home, what was the point of all of this? Does he give up now for the sake of his remaining crew, or does he honor the sacrifice of those they’ve lost by finally making it home? Every single one of them has died in their attempts to get home. How can he sleep at night if he gives up on getting there now? It would mean they all died for absolutely nothing.

And like, it’s a fucked up decision but I think it’s fair to say Odysseus is running on pure PTSD and vibes at this point. He is literally staring ZEUS in the face. Zeus who pretty much made him kill a defenseless child “for the greater good.” Zeus who is asking him to make another impossible choice.

His remaining crew has already admitted they’ve given up on getting home, but Odysseus hasn’t. If no one makes it back, how will the family and friends they’ve left behind ever find closure? They’ll spend the rest of their days living and dead waiting for them to come home like his mother has. They’ll descend into the underworld never knowing what happened to them and hoping against hope that they’ll still see them again.

Hope is such a powerful thing, but it can also be devastating. Isn’t it kinder to let them know what happened than to let them die, trapped warring with grief and hope forever? Because not knowing, while it can give them hope, it’s a false hope at this point. It’s not real.

Isn’t it crueler to leave them scanning the horizon for the rest of their lives, looking for ships that will never come? Isn’t it crueler to force thousands upon thousands of voices to join his mother’s in the underworld?

Isn’t it kinder to give them closure? To let them finally be able to fully grieve?

The least he can do is tell their loved ones what happened to them, isn’t it?

And now, twenty years later, he’s finally within sight of Ithaca. Now he can justify all of his decisions, all of the pain, all of the heartache. He’s can do the one good thing left to him after all these years.

So of course that’s when Poseidon strikes in a final act of devastating cruelty. All because Odysseus blinded rather than outright killed his son. His son who planned to kill and eat him and every single one of his 600 crew members.

It’s simultaneously so cathartic and heartbreaking when Odysseus first brings the trident down on Poseidon. Especially after pleading with him one last time to stop this never ending cycle of violence and pain.

But Poseidon refuses to stop. He’s more concerned about his pride and his reputation than in admitting he’s taken things too far. This so-called god has the nerve to have killed almost every man in his crew and then tell Odysseus he hasn’t suffered enough. He’s already paid for his actions with the blood of hundreds of men. What debt could he possibly have left to pay?

Tbh I would not have blamed Odysseus for torturing Poseidon for the rest of his days. And, if he chose ruthlessness over mercy, that’s what he would have done. Poseidon would’ve gotten exactly what he wanted. Lol, just not like this.

But no. Even in the midst of all of this, of getting to hear this murderer, this god cry out and beg for the mercy he denied him so many times, Odysseus stops. Poseidon finally knows what it’s like to feel helpless and to feel unending pain.

Surprised Pikachu face! He’s not a fan!

Odysseus has pled with the gods to be merciful for over twenty years now. Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Calypso, Circe… He’s begged them time and time again to see there are other ways than ruthlessness. He managed to get through to Circe, since she alone viscerally understood the pain and loss he’d been through. And now all the rest of them finally understand too.

Athena goes to Zeus on his behalf to convince him and a whole host of other gods to give Odysseus another chance. Calypso lets him leave her island. Zeus realizes the folly of his own pride when he nearly kills his own daughter. Poseidon agrees to call off the storm.

It’s such a fascinating story and I utterly adore Jay’s interpretation of it. Mercy is what ultimately gets Odysseus home, even if he had to be ruthless to get it.

AND AND AND all the callbacks in the songs, the bastardization of moments of joy. The reclamation of moments of horror!!! T^T

JAY WHEN I CATCH YOU.

#epic the musical #the vengeance saga #i am unwell #*screaming crying throwing up*#hismercy’s musings

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