#they are repeating memories that cannot pass on and are trapped in a stagnant state of their death | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

seeminglyseph · 13 hours ago

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If you are concerned about Polites dragging Odysseus down in "Get In The Water," please know that Shades are not the same as Souls. They are not representations of the complete self. Once a person has died, they do not have their whole self anymore. The scene in The Odyssey, where Odysseus is able to have complete conversations with the dead, is due to magic kind of reviving them a little for a bit. There's definitely like... something there for a Shade to be judged and like... for there to be preferable afterlife options, etc.

But, Shade Polites being part of a mob dragging Odysseus down is not a sign that Polites or Anticlea having ill will towards him in any way. It is simply part of the tragedy of the dead that they don't possess the will or motivation of the living, and Polites did not receive proper funeral rites. His Shade cannot be set at peace, and so it repeats his last thoughts endlessly and reaches out without a mind towards things it vaguely recognizes without conscious intent to cause harm.

I think it's implied Anticlea walked into the sea at the sight of what seemed to be her son dying in a storm just off the cost of Ithica which is why she also did not have a body that could have appropriate funeral rites performed but I could be incorrect.

Funeral rites are really important for this reason, Shades that wander but can't pass on can be... just. Passively fucked up. It also fades over time. It's the stuff haunting are made out of.

#seph listens to epic #epic the vengeance saga #vengeance saga spoilers #polites epic the musical #epic the musical #get in the water #i probably got some of the details wrong but the point is that it's not really polites anymore #it's literally a pale shadow of polites repeating his most iconic lines to hurt us and odysseus #the shades like... ghosts but like... the kind that are not sentient #they are repeating memories that cannot pass on and are trapped in a stagnant state of their death #they might be a little vengeful because of that state they're stuck in but it's not like... the characters we knew #it's the shade doing a haunting #as a result of characters not doing funeral rites #it's very different and like... im doing a bad job of explaining it because you have to like...#accept multiple aspects of like... how souls work in the universe of this world and why funeral rites are so important #like there are whole sections of the iliad where they wage war just for patroclus and hector's bodies so they can have proper funerals #that shit was so deeply important to them that they be laid to rest properly #like the iliad literally ends with those funerals #not the end of the war. the funerals for patroclus and hector.#im expressing myself badly but like... dying is a tragedy for a number of reasons and not getting a proper funeral is a second death #because it's the death of a person's soul and ability to pass on

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