#I respect Jorge's alternations and I'm trying to make sense of Penelope's absence for the most part. Is it like.

[heliomanteia]

Another thought: Epic so far (surprisingly) gave no song to Penelope (while even Telemachus already had musical presence), which makes me perceive the whole narrative as an almost entirely Odysseus-centric one with his feelings and reading of the situation dominating the narration. The fact that by the end of the Vengeance Saga he is the only narrator that either escaped or got rid of all of his narrative mirrors also means a lot to me.

With that being said, I think Epic (accidentally?) raises a question of the making of the casus belli.

What I mean by that is, Penelope (and I'll focus on her mostly since she has most presence in Odysseus' thoughts) is consistently brought up as that bargain chip that Odysseus uses to reconcile with his own morals.

I'm just a man who wants to get back to his wife.

I need to see her.

...with my wife.

Looking past the surface "he just loves his wife", I want to specify that in none of these episodes do we see Penelope's perspective and her feelings. Specifically in Epic, Penelope is present through Odysseus' (and once through Telemachus' and Antinous') lens. She is not there as herself, yet. The choices Odysseus makes justified by Penelope — I wonder how she would feel about them? Obviously, they both want to reunite, I presume, in this media too; but will we ever get to hear her point of view on how much Odysseus changed? This is not the man she watched leave for war, this is a ruthless beast that justified many crimes with her name. How does it... feel, to be loved so much you're the reason someone betrays himself and turns into a person he once avoided and feared to become?

Epic omitting Penelope's narration for most of the musical makes it less clear, to me, how she feels. How hard it is for her. This musical is a primarily Odysseus-focused story and it's sure interesting.