#i love the ithaca saga

[kindlysludger]

i know would you fall in love with me again had its impact with the ithaca saga's release but hear me out with i cant help but wonder (spoilers for ithaca saga below)

picture: you are telemachus, 20 years old. you came home from a diplomatic mission to suitors cornering you to kill, saying theyd use you as leverage against the old king- wait. leverage? did that mean- and before you can process it there is a man with your eyes, covered in blood, nocking an arrow. the suitors are dead. the man shakes. you see stories coalesce into scars, time worn across his cheeks and eyes. you don't know how to greet him, but you think its poetic, this way. him saving you. his bravery in you- somewhere. you cant help but wonder if he couldve taught it to you easier. of he wouldnt have pushed you too far. athena hides behind a pillar. you hug your father. gods, this is your father. a man made into myth your whole life. you could weep- and then you recall. hes asking you to prepare mother for his return. he cries as he tells you he is finally home. you cry too- but you aren't sure where it comes from. not yet. and then as you walk off- you hear him speak to athena.

things make more sense. you wonder if the man made of stories could tell you his. all the time away from you. you wonder and wonder. all of it is within reach now. your father is home. finally home.

home feels more like home with the suitors blood staining its floors. staining your fathers skin. staining your own skin. home feels like waves of relief, crashing down onto a family that had been apart too long. your mother is happy. you have so much time left for more Home. you are excited to find out what that truly means.

[sloanslone]

You have NO IDEA how much he missed u Athena ...😭🙏(I'm gonna change my Athena design I dont like it🥲)

(Drew this awhile back btw but I still haven't recovered from love in paradise)

[hymnoeides]

Oh, my son

rkgk tonight playing around with some brushes and texture ^^

[justsmth2]

quick odypen sketch from the ithaca saga

[anniflamma]

NOT ODY SLAPPED EURY! 😭

Just saw it on the livestream, and welp... that’s definitely something I’m including if I ever make a Luck Runs Out animatic.

[xixovart]

odysseus and telemachus.

father and son.

they’re going to kill me some day

(thx to @ikea09 for the idea :])

[o3o-lapd-o3o]

people be wondering why there's no appearance from hades in any of the sagas, especially the underworld saga (even if he wasn't in the odyssey itself) i have a theory!

spoilers for vengeance saga and future ithaca saga!

do you not understand how busy that poor guy/god is during odysseus' terrible, horrible, no good, bad journey home™

first he has 7 freshly made pancakes men (14 if you count the club smash noises in survive, but we'll go with 7 for this) sent by chef polyphemus, appearing one after the other.

not long after that, you have 550 very soaked (drowned) men pop through in the blink of an eye, no thanks to his younger brother, mr ruthlessness himself, poseidon.

then while he's still counting/organising the paperwork for them, a young man appears, who happens to be very drunk (talking about pig men?)

not long after that, somehow a warship filled with mortal men breaks into the underworld, ALL ALIVE, and the (king? leader? captain? he's not too sure at this point) starts singing outside his front door about becoming a monster????? but before he can sic cerberus on them, they leave on their own

finally he thinks he has a break when 6 men holding torches (are some missing limbs?!?) have now joined the party down under (granted they're all in no mood to party, they weren't expecting to become snacks for a sea monster)

and just as quick as they'd arrived, in a flash (just like the snap of lightning that took them out) 36 crispy/fried men (gods damn it zeus) appear, weapons drawn like they were about to attack someone (how does that one guy at the front swing such a big sword?)

at this point hades is wondering what the fuck is happening upstairs, because ain't no way these 600 men are all from the same fleet/island under one guy's command (turns out the captain's name is odysseus)

he thinks his prayers are answered because he has had peace for 7 years, just the normal flow of souls into the underworld- (wait whats that chanting)

suddenly those previous 600 souls are flying their way outta the underworld (he didn't know they could do that) while singing "six hundred men! (six hundred)" on repeat

they return though (thank the gods, he didn't need to go soul hunting) and once again he thinks everything will be calm

(he also found out from zeus, that their brother got his godly-ass handed to him by that MORTAL odysseus! WHO USED HIS OWN WEAPON AGAINST HIM (something to help make him laugh over spring & summer and while he waits for his beautiful persephone to return home))

he finally thinks his time with odysseus and the souls that come from him/being around him is over. when in minutes of each other, the souls of 108 men appear, all killed in gruesome ways. then they tell him that they were killed by beggar who then revealed himself as king odysseus, from trying to marry his wife and take over his kingdom (ok very understandable murder then)

at this point hades doesn't know whether he's excited for, or dreading the day he actually meets odysseus in the distant future (yes distant, i don't care about/ don't accept the telegony. let the poor man enjoy the rest of his life with his son and wife!!!)

but yeah, understandable why you don't hear from him throughout the sagas

[tessabennet]

Penelope like you come here after 20 years, I was waiting, and now you have the AUDACITY to imply I wouldn't love you anymore?? Okay then how about you take your bed and get the fuck out of her. Oh what's that, you can't do that? That's what my husband would say you idiot, you don't get to come back here after all this time and say you're not my husband how DARE you do that you think you're the only one who's been waiting you beautiful moron of course you're my husband of course I fucking love you I didn't wait all this time just for you to show up here and say that I don't, now stop asking stupid questions

[immadeofgranite]

So not only is the song named ‘Odysseus’, like how every other monster song is named after the monster in it (See: Polyphemus, Scylla, and Charybdis), but the background vocals also chant ‘Odysseus’ like how ‘Polyphemus’ is chanted in the Cyclops saga, the beats of Odysseus’ arrows hitting the suitors are the same timing as the club hitting Ody’s men, and Ody aims for the suitors’s torches similarly to Scylla.

I could probably write a term paper about the similarities between Ody and the monsters, but these are the most obvious ones.

[messymoonmad]

Since im not very normal when it comes to designing im always more efficient when i design straight up on an illustration so here goes the main suitors :

Antinous (lion🦁) : loud arrogant and imposing. Will laugh at your face and threaten you in cold blood.

Eurymachus (snake🐍): hypocrite manipulative conniving bitch. Will gaslight you with a kind smile. Hates mediocrity

Amphinomous (bear🐻) : he's the answer to choosing a man or a bear. Not inherently evil. He thinks the beggar is funny (not knowing its ody). He is just a guy who's easily influenced by his terrible friends.

(Credit to pinkcherry097 on instagram for the joke)

[the-magical-beebledooble-fairy]

obviously Would You Fall in Love With Me Again has me in tears but I'm just imagining Telemachus standing outside the room, still covered in suitor blood, with his ear pressed against the door, absolutely losing his mind

[time-for-opinions]

odysseus actually saying the word rape in the song freed me of all the discomfort hold them down made me feel

idk why but it's just so. sexual assault has always been something that should have clear boundaries - and instead, you see the people in power, people who should punish and uphold the law, shift around definitions and wordplay.

as if it isn't a disgusting violation of a person, of their life, of their trust.

metaphors are beautiful, they're my favourite figure of speech. but metaphors, skirting around the topic, when it comes to rape, is what, to me, truly makes that feeling of disgust and discomfort, and yes, even panic, rise.

because the truth is? i know there are people who can excuse and disregard "taking her love and more". not consider it rape. not consider it assault. there are, unfortunately, people who can disregard a metaphor this clear. justify it, even.

but most of those people can't justify the word rape.

I dont know if this makes sense. forgive me if it doesn't. but to me, the intense nausea that hold them down brought about was erased and hell, even comforted, by the rage and protectiveness and bluntness of that one line in odysseus.

jay did a fucking fantastic job.

[sloanslone]

Sexy fish...(Warrior Penelope au)

Penelope my spirit animal 😩🙌

Ib: @gigizetz

Btw, thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone 🥲🩵

[fandomtrash-whataboutit]

Never getting over Penelope matching Odysseus’ wits, his love, his intensity, and generally his freak. There was no other way to write their reunion. Jorge we had nothing but faith in you and you wholeheartedly delieved

[alastair-1205]

FUCK THE ITHACA SAGA. Thinking about the transition from this:

To this:

LIKE HOLY FUCK MAN THE WORLD BROKE UR BOY ATHENA.

He really said "if you want that better future you're gonna have to make it yourself because I am DONE"

[anniflamma]

Trigger warning: topic about SA, aka Im gonna rant about the suitors plan

----

So, I’m going to talk about something I actually dislike ALOT in Epic: The Musical. The whole subplot about the suitors wanting to gangrape Penelope. The more I think about it, the more I realize how unnecessary this addition to the story is.

If you removed it, it wouldn’t change the outcomes of the story at all. Odysseus would still kill them. Nothing has ever stopped him before— neither the infant, Polites’ ideology, nor the fact that he willingly led his remaining crew to certain death while always ensuring his own safety above theirs. But somehow, a group of 20-year-olds is the line he can’t cross????? Like, “Oh no, they’re just rude guests, I can’t kill them!🙁” It doesn’t make sense. Odysseus would kill them either way, they don’t need to be wannabe gangrapists to motivate him. It’s entirely in character for him to do so without additional justification.

I understand why Jorge added this to the story, is to raise the stakes. Odysseus has just defeated the personification of ruthlessness itself (Poseidon) by using a fucking jetpack and punching the god really hard. Symbolically, Odysseus has taken the title of “ruthlessness” for himself. So, what can the next threat be that’s stronger and more menacing than Poseidon? Ah yes.... it's the gangrapists /s

For me, it would be more thematically fitting with Odysseus’ ruthless nature to not have a justifiable "motivation" to kill the suitors. Imagine instead if they were portrayed as having the same youthful energy as Telemachus. Like a bunch of rude young men! And then the story could show an adult man brutally murdering a group of young people with no mercy. Then, the song ends with Odysseus seeing Penelope’s horrified face as she looks around the throne room splattered with the blood and gore of her guests. At that moment, Odysseus realizes he’s messed up, putting his biggest fear, which is Penelope rejecting him (something he expresses in Keep Your Friends Close) at risk of becoming a reality. And then, the musical end with Odysseus begging Penelope to accept him despite what he has become. Like what I said, the outcome will still end up in this moment despite with or no sexual violence. I mean, the suitors wanting to kill Telemachus is enough as a motivation. Ody don't really need that much.

I dunno , I think this would hit harder, rather than "Ahh you saved me from the rapist my husband! Thank you!~😍 " "All for you baby girl~~ 😘"

The gangrape plotline only exists to make Odysseus look good for the audience, making him into the good hero who saves the damsel with zero screentime, and reassures that the suitors are antagonists. But it does also puts Penelope in a position where she has to take Odysseus back, or else she risks being seen as “ungrateful” by the audience. I promise you, if Penelope were to reject Odysseus after he saved her from the suitors, most of the fanbase would despise her for it. Of course, that won’t happen, Penelope will accept Odysseus no matter what he does, cuz that is what her characterization is. She is Odysseus' happy ending, if she rejects him then the story wont have a happy ending.

The sexual violence just isn’t necessary. Especially when Jorge went out of his way to make the relationship between Odysseus and Calypso as vague as possible. There’s no explicit statement in the musical that Calypso assaulted Odysseus, and I’m Not Sorry For Loving You is even depicted in a sympathetic light. That was a deliberate choice. So, why remove and downplay the sexual assault from the original story with Calypso, only to add a sexual assault subplot towards Penelope that wasn’t in the original?

It’s unnecessary. Just let Odysseus commit cruel and ruthless deeds without a "good justification" or feeling bad about it afterward for once.

However, the last saga isnt out yet, so there is a possibility that Jorge have rewritten it. I do hope that he removes it, but at this moment, it looks like it will be in there. Welp, maybe he pulls the rug under my feet with a twist or some sort. We can only wait and see!