#epic the musical scylla

[im-an-apollogist]

I spent five hundred years doing this 😭😭😭

(Made by @destinywalender )

[madbard]

“We are the same, you and I.”

I can’t get over how Scylla was the first threat that Odysseus did not defeat in any way. He started the journey by blinding Polyphemus. He used a storm to escape Poseidon before his punishment was over, and he was able to reason with Circe. He killed the sirens. Even if Odysseus lost some men, he always found a way through on his own terms. His enemies were either swayed to his side or left dissatisfied, damaged, or dead.

Then he encountered Scylla. Scylla, that which terrifies the very god of the seas so deeply that he dares not enter her realm. Scylla, who acknowledged Odysseus as her own kind. And he didn’t try to come up with a plot to get around her safely, to reason with her, to injure or kill her. Like Eurylochus said, he “didn’t take a stand.” He weighed his options and chose to sacrifice six of his men for passage. She was left satisfied, and it doesn’t matter that most of his men survived.

For the first time in his journey, Odysseus truly lost.

[elleniemae]

“We both know what it takes to survive…”

[dearqueerheart]

sorry just let me infodump for one second, ok? ok.

epic the musical has me in a chokehold (spoilers ahead, PLEASE GO LISTEN if it seems like something you’d be into). and i was rethinking on the song Monster. specifically, the part where he begins to justify being cruel by comparing himself to the foes he’s faced. polyphemus, circe, poseidon (i 1000% think the order matters, ill get there in a second). and all of that just shows how his, like so many dangerously intelligent men in greek myths, big flaw is hubris. overwhelming hubris. he thinks that he’s allowed to be cruel because a cyclops, a witch, and a god are allowed to be cruel. he is just one of so many greeks who think they���re as good as — or even better than — the gods.

and there are hints of this throughout the entire show up until that point. he attempts (and succeeds in, after facing tragic losses) to deceive polyphemus by drugging him with the lotus fruit, believing that he is more powerful and intelligent than the cyclops. he tries to reason with poseidon after being asked by the sea god for an apology for blinding his son, but he does this in SUCH a manipulative way. poseidon tells him, “i won’t kill your men if you apologize to me,” and ody goes, “alright bet,” and gives him such an incredible non-apology (“poseidon, we meant no harm”). he is too fucking proud to apologize, and will attempt to MANIPULATE AN OLYMPIAN GOD in order to protect that pride. it’s wild.

he actually does successfully “defeat” circe, but only by literally begging her (“i beg you circe, grant us mercy”) to save his men and help him get home. he wins this fight because he puts his pride aside for once in his goddamn life, and rescues the scouting party because of it.

so here’s why the order matters in the song monster: he’s working himself up to comparing himself to an olympian. he doesn’t list his foes in chronological order. he lists them in amount of power and intelligence. if you just take what he’s saying at face value, he says “well, polyphemus was justified, and circe was justified, and poseidon was justified, then i must be, too!” but if you read deeper, he’s comparing his evil deeds to the evil deeds of people far more powerful and complicated and experienced than him.

in the thunder saga, both scylla and zeus manipulate this pride. scylla uses it to drop odysseus’ guard, inviting him to compare himself to her, and to find kinship with her, as they’re both “monsters” (“deep down, you know that we are the same”). and zeus tests his pride, to see how deep it fully goes, and possibly to reveal to odysseus himself how prideful he is. like poseidon and athena, zeus may be trying to teach odysseus a lesson, albeit significantly harsher than the latter. (“if i had to make you choose the lives of your men and crew or your own, why do i think they’d lose?”) it’s one of my favorite moments in that song, because it’s really just zeus pushing all of odysseus’ buttons to force him to make the choice that zeus wants him to make.

anyway that’s all. it’s just so cool and i have a lot of thinks!! i could make a whole essay just about the gods’ desire to teach odysseus but i’ll save that for another time.

[doppy-enjo]

The Lair of Scylla... My take on Scylla! I know in the source material, the heads are dog heads, but uhhh humanoid heads can serve as back up singers so :]c (also for your information, she was fat even before she was cursed by Circe. So sayeth I)

[mgert-m]

IM SORRY FOR BEING OBSSESSED WITH HIM

I DIDNT MEAN TO

also scylla :D

[circusinarun]

Drown in your sorrow and fears!

CHOKE ON YOUR BLOOD AND YOUR TEARS!

Without effects

[helpmeplzimbeggin]

Just a little rambling about Scylla and Odysseus

I know that at least a handful of people have probably drawn a few similarities between them already, but that’s just NOT ENOUGH people so I’m just gonna dump some of the thoughts that have marinating in my noggin for a while now.

Does anyone remember when, at the very end of the song “Scylla” both Odysseus and Scylla sing the lyric “We are the same, you and I” in sync (and there a few other lyrics earlier into the song where Scylla sings similar lines on her own)? Becuase I do, and I thought it was WAY too intriguing to disregard. I understand that the scene was meant to mean that both of them would do terrible things to survive, but the being that is expressly said to be in the one place Poseidon wouldn’t roam (from the song “Suffering”), which could mean that he was afraid of Scylla, to actually see some random mortal as the SAME as her has to mean something, right? I know we all got majorly distracted by the the mutiny stuff and then whatever the heck Zeus’s song was (and maybe that was even by design so we wouldn’t look too deeply into the lyric), but it feels like such an important scene!

So I researched into who Scylla actually is, and it turns out Poseidon isn’t exactly afraid of her. She actually used to be a beautiful sea nymph that Poseidon fell in love with, but he asked Amphitrite to turn her into what she is now after after Scylla rejected him. So the reason why Scylla related with Odysseus so strongly was because they are the same. Someone forced to become a monster because of Poseidon’s cruelty, and someone who Poseidon himself would eventually come to avoid (bcus we all now edgy water boy isn’t going anywhere NEAR Odysseus after the beatdown he got in “600 strike”).

((Also, kinda random, but I also just wanna bring up that Odysseus (in the song “King Odysseus”) will be “aiming for the torches” just like Scylla was to the men in Odysseus’s ship! Probably just a coincidence, but it’s an interesting parallel nonetheless.))

okay bye thanks for listening to my Ted talk!!!

[poppitron360]

i love epic too! and i think ur super smart so can you share any cool things that you noticed/learned about it?

So I think my favourite song in Epic in terms of the composition is probably Scylla.

Btw this analysis barely scratches the surface of the composition/production of this song alone. I could talk for hours about this.

Also if I use any words you don’t understand, please please please ask me to elaborate and explain further (please). I tried my best to make it as easy to follow as possible but I grew up around this stuff so I tend to under-explain things and assume everyone knows what I’m talking about.

Most of the time when you’re recording vocals, you record the singer singing the melody two or three times (this is called double-tracking, and it makes the voice sound richer and better) and then you record the harmonies in the same fashion.

But with Scylla, they just recorded the singer singing the melody a bunch of times, and then pitch-shifted some of it to the harmonic note. When using any kind of DAW (Digital Audio Workspace (Sidenote but from what I can tell from the vids, Jay uses GarageBand, which I believe is free for most devices)), manipulating a note- changing the tempo, or in this case, changing the pitch- of a naturally-recorded instrument like a singing voice will make it sound really artificial.

(I love this because it’s clear that Jorge doesn’t have the best equipment and he’s using it to his advantage. Something recorded on a crappy four-track tape recorder in your bedroom can sound so much cooler than something recorded at Real World Studios or Abbey Road with the world’s best recording equipment- but only if you know what you’re doing.)

Also, in the context of Epic, the more synthetic, artificial, and electronic sounds are reserved for the mythical characters- the gods and monsters.

Taking a quick re-listen to Scylla’s song, I’ve noticed she’s harmonising on the 3rd and 5th of the note (now, I don’t have perfect pitch (which is when you can tell what note it is just by ear) so I could be wrong).

This is a very simplified explanation, but basically any key has a scale, and most chords are comprised of the root (the first 1st note in the scale) the 3rd note, and the 5th note. You can add or take away extra notes to make it ✨sparklier✨.

So she’s harmonising on the 3rd and the 5th, and her harmonies are mostly moving in parallel motion (in the same way) with the melody. This gives a clean, sweet, consonant feel. (Consonant= not dissonant. Dissonant= “smushy”)

Most of the melody is conjunct (moving in steps- no big leaps) and also descending, like you’re falling down in steps with her. Then, at the end of each line rising back up again.

Except for “Deep down” which is disjunct (big leap), moving downwards. You are plunging into the depths.

This has a chilling simplicity to it. And the fact that it’s repeated over and over and over again makes it almost sickening. I love it.

What I love about this is the duality of simple, beautiful elements, and dark, haunting elements.

So! You have the combination of:

The main vocal melody being sung by a natural voice- imo showing how Scylla was once a beautiful nymph

The harmonies being sung by a pitch-shifted voice, giving it a strange, creepy, artificial, “mythical” sound to it- as established by the other uses of electronic instruments in Epic to show myth

Consonant harmonising on the notes of the chord, which is something we are trained to hear in music and feels very “right” and “natural”

The parallel motion of the harmonies, which give a simple feeling- you’re not being sent out in loads of directions. You’re falling down with her.

The descending nature of the melody taking you “deep down”, then rising back up.

The continuous repetition of this simple melody line

The fact that it’s sung in a minor (sad) key

Ultimately these two factors create a stark contrast- a juxtaposition- which creates a super cool and bone-chilling effect. The only thing I can relate it to is something akin to a creepy children’s nursery rhyme from a horror movie. It’s unlike any other song in Epic just because of how twisted it feels. This beautiful, creepy song being played as you hear Ody’s men screaming as she slaughters them

(While we’re on the topic of the screams, in music production there is this thing called “panning” which (if you’re listening in stereo and not mono) controls how much to the left or right the sound is coming from. This is why I love to listen to Epic, specifically this song, on headphones, because you can hear the men being gruesomely killed all around you.)

Also “Drown in your sorrow and fears/choke on your blood and your tears/bleed ‘til you’ve run out of years” is just a mood and a half (there’s a whole other post I could write for the literary analytics of the lyrics- how she uses imperative verbs. It’s a command. It’s an instruction.)

And so when Odysseus joins in with Scylla singing “We are the same you and I…” it really hits home just how much of a monster he’s become- how unfeeling he was when he sacrificed his men. This is so subtle but in my opinion it’s what really turns him. Jorge is using all of these contrasting techniques to make Scylla seem horrific and creepy as fuck, and Ody is empathising with her. He is relating to her. I just… *shivers* wow.

[the-tech-turn]

Whoops bro sorry for opening the bag my fault frfr

[kyuutpie]

I can't believe I finally finished this piece! I started it in July, and it is now September. I wanted to finish it while the Thunder Saga was still new, but it's better late than never. This was how I envisioned Odysseus betray to his men to Scylla. Fully abandoning them on a nearby shore to die.

Im so happy I challenged myself and made such a complex piece for my skill.

[madbard]

Listening to Epic is this intense battle between “they’re a very bad person, they’ve done awful things, they’re DOING awful things” and “damn their voice is hot.”

[yourartistness]

Poor circe 🥺

[micaartiste]

i have been listening to the song Scylla, from the Thunder Saga from the Epic the Musical Concept Album, on repeat for hours and this is what came out of it!!

[doppy-enjo]

Officially in my ??? era of Epic: The Musical fanart

[mythica0]

Question about Epic cause I’ve never read the odyssey, what is Scylla? And also why does she take sacrifices? What’s the purpose of that? What’s her motive? What would have happened if they tried to go through her lair without lighting any? Why are there six eel heads?

I’m wondering and hoping someone who’s actually read the odyssey or has more knowledge can answer lol.