#winion entertainment

[sparrow-the-tired-lesbian]

HELP THE NEW SAGAS WERE PUBLISHED UNDER WINION ENTERTAINMENT IM GOING TO DIE

[mydnyteraven]

Now we have a very small sample size of two a year and there was a VERY big delay between sagas 2 and 3 because of a lot of reasons most especially because EPIC got very very big and Jorge needed to get lawyers and ended up with his own record label.

So it may be safe to say we can hope they’ll come out a… little faster?

Doing the math and that is that there will be 9 EPIC albums total. 3 have already come out, meaning there are 6 left. Jorge releases about 2 a year, meaning we still got to wait another 3 years for the full set. I'm just going to collapse. See y'all.

[epicthemusicalstuff]

btw why did jorge rerecord cyclops and troy????

He re-recorded them because the original Troy and Cyclops sagas were produced with Blair Russells Productions, which then did not give Jorge any of the royalties to the music, and did not give him full rights to it. The Ocean Saga onwards was recorded and produced by Jay himself- and so by re-recording the first two sagas that gives him full rights over the musical again!

[nyssasatelier]

Just heard CF Entertainment's "Hades in God Games"

Immediately had to trow my Hades design of Casper Fox in the ring.

"Goddess of wisdom why do you cry? When it took you two little minutes to say your Goodbye!"

[leynaeithnea]

EXCUSE ME FUCKING WHAT??????????? THEY RERECORDED THE ENTIRE CYCLOPS AND TROY SAGA???????? THERES GONNA BE NEW ANIMCATICS??????? THEYRE GOING TO BE RELEASED WITH THUNDER SAGA? ARE UFKCING WITH ME I CANT WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK IM NOT NORMAL ABOUT THIS HELP ME GODS WHAT YOU KNOW ILL BE UP AT 4 AM FOR THIS SHIT NOW FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK

[lankanweirdo]

OH MY DAYS

NEW VERSIONS OF THE TROY AND CYCLOPS SAGAS

ON TOP OF THE NEW SAGA

AN EPIC LISTENING PARTY TO ENJOY ALL OF IT IN ONE GO

No one told me it's Christmas already!

[sweetea-rosey]

Y'all two surprise rereleases with the new saga is crazy he's reaching Taylor Swift levels

For my Swifties, imagine Taylor Swift surprise released Debut (TV) and Rep (TV) with TTPD that's what the Epic fandom is going through rn

[antinous-is-alive]

*Antinous blinked in surprise, then looked back at Astyanax,*

"Yes, it's me, Astya, ^^."

*He chuckled, and moved towards the kid.*

"Been a bit... But... I'm back."

Open Starter: Home. I'm Home.

*Antinous slipped through the streets, avoiding any eyes of others around. His eyes glancing about everywhere that he could see.*

*Obviously, something wasn't right here... No one was near the palace at all... No one was outside for only a few minutes at a time...*

*Worry had filled him... What if Luci was having the same thing happening to her, that happened with Queen Penelope-?... Something- That had led him to get mostly everyone he knew, killed?*

<Tag List, Ask To Be Added Or Removed: @maggiemelodies09 @googlyeyedlucy @hesjust-a-boy @/anyone.>

[cowboys-tshot]

A Beginner's Guide to Epic: The Musical

Are you new to Epic: The Musical and overwhelmed by four years worth of content to go through? This is for you! (Note that this is a work in progress post that will be added to in the future as new information and Sagas are released).

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/24

*There will be some spoilers in this! The Odyssey is thousands of years old, but Epic: The Musical is an adaptation, meaning things are different. I recommend listening to all the songs in Epic before reading this, as this guide is intended to clear up misunderstandings/confusing moments and provide context.

**All of the underlined bits are links to whatever it is I'm referring to, just in case I'm making no sense. I will try to include sources for everything, or at least indicate where I got certain information from if there's no link available.

General Info:

*This is basic information about Epic: The Musical as a whole. This includes where to find new information and content, BTS things, etc.

• First of all, here's a quick rundown by the creator himself. There'll be some overlap in terms of what I cover here.

• Epic: The Musical is created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, often referred to as "Jay" or "Mr. Jalapeño" by his fans. This is who writes the songs, casts the characters, and voices Odysseus himself!

• Epic: The Musical was originally (pre-Ocean Saga) produced under Blair Russell Productions, but Jay has never been paid the royalties from the songs released under them (and they have yet to give back control of the Epic social media accounts), so Epic is now produced under Jay's own company, Winion Entertainment LLC. (source)

• Jay is most active on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. All videos that he posts to these platforms are generally the same, so don't worry if you can't follow him on all of them. He talks about several Epic-related things, including release dates, BTS, animatics, details about the music/story, snippets of released and unreleased songs, and also plenty of funny videos. He is very active within the fanbase, and you're likely to find him (and other cast members) leaving comments on posts by fans!

• Here are Jay's other links, including the Epic: The Musical Discord server. In my experience, the Discord server and Tiktok are the best places to get information as quickly as possible.

• Epic is still in progress. As of the latest update to this guide (09/01/24), the Wisdom Saga has just been released last week, leaving only two more sagas before the end. The songs are all part of a concept album, and there is currently no stage adaptation.

• Jay takes many creative liberties with The Odyssey for the sake of this adaptation of the story. He made a video recently explicitly saying to NOT use Epic as a basis for your knowledge of The Odyssey, at least when it comes to academic settings. Many of the things that occur in Epic DO NOT occur in the original story, and some parts of the original story have been cut out. Here is a video where Jay explains the purpose of Epic as an adaption. (I won't be including a list of differences in this post, but I might make a separate one if anyone's interested.)

• Although Epic takes a lot of these creative liberties, there are several little easter eggs sprinkled in among the actual plot points from The Odyssey. (I'll go into these later.)

• Jay will usually do a recap video before each new saga, going over all the events of the previous sagas for any newcomers.

• When a new saga is released, Jay will hold a LIVE listen-through. I highly recommend being there for these events, because they include lots of cool and important things such as:

official animations, animatics, and artwork, all of which provide insights into character design and events within the songs

Jay's live reactions (his facial expressions and little dances/lip-syncs are delightful)

details about the events within the songs that aren't made clear within the music itself (like what a character is doing, what is happening around them, etc)

Jay's comments in the LIVE chat, which includes details/easter eggs, BTS stuff, jokes, headcanons, and LOTS of love and praise for the actors and fans!

• Seeing as there is no stage adaptation for Epic, a lot of the visual elements come from artists and animatics/animations. Jay actually works with several of these artists for official trailers, artwork, and animatics/animations! Some of these artists include: Ainhoa Velasco, @wolfythewitch, @gigizetz, @_mircsy_, @drawing_angie, @anniflamma, Scilla_nimation, el_crafts, samantha_artt, and Giulia Toneatto. These people are all incredibly talented and deserve all the love from the Epic fanbase!

Info About the Music:

*I am not musically adept at all, and this post is already very long, so I am not going to list much specific information—just general common themes and some examples of them. Most of this information has been confirmed by Jay, in videos that I've linked below.

• If you're having trouble understanding the lyrics and/or the meaning behind the lyrics, Genius lyrics has the entire album and is full of helpful notes about the context within the musical. A lot of lyrics get misheard, so even if you think you understand what's being sung, I'd recommend checking just in case lol.

• The Troy Saga and The Cyclops Saga have been rereleased under Winion Entertainment LLC! This includes new vocals, altered music, etc. These were released alongside The Thunder Saga, along with new cover art. It's preferred that you listen to these versions of the songs, and NOT the originals, because Jay only gets royalties from the current ones.

• Many characters have their own musical motif, or even multiple motifs. There are also other motifs that are more general, like the "Danger is Nearby" motif.

• Many important characters have their own instrument that plays an integral part to the songs they're in. You can typically tell which instrument accompanies each character by listening to what is most prominent in a song that focuses on that character. (ex. Hermes with harps and the lyre, Athena with the piano)

• If you hear a character's musical motif or associated instrument in a song they don't play an integral part in, that can mean a few things (listed below). With the more general motifs, they have their own separate meanings outside of the characters.

That character is present, even if they're not singing. (ex. Hermes in "Puppeteer," signifying that he's listening to Odysseus' speech, which is brought up at the beginning of "Wouldn't You Like")

That character is related to whatever event/conversation is occurring. (ex. the same musical motif in "Ruthlessness" and "Storm," signifying that Poseidon is the one that sent the crazy storm)

The kind of instrument being played can indicate the emotion or tone of a scene. This is scene primarily with Odysseus, where the use of a nylon or acoustic guitar indicates that he is not being ruthless (source).

• When background vocals are accompanying a mortal, there is always a physical, in-universe source for those voices (ex. Odysseus' crew as background vocals in most of his songs). When background vocals are accompanying a god or other powerful being, there does not have to be a physical source for those voices—gods can basically summon a choir of voices at will (ex. "Ruthlessness"). (video explanation)

• Background chanting specifically is a common element in Epic songs. Typically, this chanting consists of the names of characters present/focused on in the song (as seen [heard?] in "Survive," "Ruthlessness," and "King").

Unclear/Vague Moments Explained:

*Some of the plot points, characters, etc. in Epic can be confusing on the first or second listen. So, I'll clear up some of the common things people (including myself) didn't notice or understand at first.

• The deep voice at the end of "The Horse and the Infant" is Zeus, voiced by Luke Holt. Zeus shows Odysseus a vision of Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, and tells him to kill the child.

• Odysseus drops Astyanax from the walls of Troy at the end of "Just a Man." Many people didn't catch this until the callback in "Monster" at the end of Act 2.

• "Warrior of the Mind" is quite confusing to those that don't have context. It is a flashback to a younger Odysseus, when he first met Athena and took her as a mentor.

• Athena has an ability called "Quick-Thought," which lets her have telepathic conversations with someone within milliseconds by pulling their mind into another dimension.

• Polites dies at the end of "Survive." He is the voice saying "Captain...". (I didn't realize this for a good while when I first started listening to Epic.)

• The voice telling Odysseus to wake up in "Keep Your Friends Close" is Penelope, not Aeolus.

• The lil' guys in "Keep Your Friends Close" are called winions (they're also the Lotus Eaters in "Open Arms"). Jay describes them as "little wind creatures that dance when they get excited and then float away uncontrollably." They don't actually exist in The Odyssey, but they're pretty cute!

• At the end of "Ruthlessness," the line "remember me" is said by Poseidon, who's basically sending his voice through the ocean fog (since Odysseus is very, very far away from him now).

• In "Done For," the yelling you are hearing in the background is essentially a Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh battle between Circe's chimera and the monster Odysseus summons using the moly plant given to him by Hermes. There is an animatic by mircsy to serve as a visual aide, which I find very helpful!

• In "There Are Other Ways," Circe was holding a knife and planning to stab Odysseus as she tried to seduce him. When he pulls away and rejects her, she quickly hides the knife.

• In "The Underworld," shades (souls) are in a constant loop, repeating whatever they were thinking when they died. Tiresias is an exception to this rule, seemingly because of him being such a powerful prophet. (confirmed in "The Underworld Saga" LIVE listen-through)

• I feel like this is fairly clear, but for those that aren't familiar with The Odyssey, I'll say it anyways. (Spoilers? I guess?) The prophecy in "No Longer You" is SUPER heavy on the foreshadowing. I won't go into it here, since many people already have, but let's just say the Greeks were big on self-fulfilling prophecies.

• As mentioned previously, background chanting is a big thing in Epic. In "No Longer You," the background chanting also serves as a prophecy detailing the future events of Odysseus's journey. Currently, only part of these lyrics have been confirmed by Jay: "SIREN SONG - SCYLLA THROAT - MUTINY - LIGHTNING BOLT." This leaves two lines that are not confirmed.

• In "Mutiny," after Odysseus is stabbed, he is tied up and knocked out before the crew sails to the nearest island. Right before he says to get to the boat and row away, he manages to untie himself.

Fun Facts/Easter Eggs:

• Circe is voiced by Jay's girlfriend, Talya Sindel.

• When Poseidon kills off most of Odysseus' crew in "Ruthlessness," he says that there are only 43 men left. But in "The Underworld," the souls of his crew say that 558 men died under his command. Considering Odysseus started off with 600 men ("Full Speed Ahead"), this math doesn't add up. This is because in The Odyssey, when Odysseus and his men party with Circe for a year, a man in his crew named Elpenor woke up drunk on Circe's roof and proceeded to walk off the roof and die from the fall. He actually has a cut song.

• Jay messed up the amount of years in "There Are Other Ways." It had not been 12 years, but 10. This little screw-up is referenced in "Different Beast."

• Odysseus' mother is voiced by Jay's actual mother.

• If you see people commenting "rawr rawr rawr" or "🦖" on Jay's videos, they're referencing his April Fool's prank this year. He made a video saying he'd completely changed the Act 2 closing song, "Monster," and proceeded to play a happy-go-lucky sounding song going "I am the monster, rawr rawr rawr."

• In every single saga, Odysseus says "what." in an absolutely bamboozled manner (or "huh" in The Troy Saga, and he does it twice in The Ocean Saga). It happens in "Open Arms," "Polyphemus," "Keep Your Friends Close," "Puppeteer," and "No Longer You." Occasionally, this "what" will be said by a different character (Poseidon in "Ruthlessness," the siren in "Different Beast")

• Perimedes (another man in Odysseus' crew, who lives all the way until "Thunder Bringer") and Elpenor were best friends.

[stupendouspaintblob]

On the topic of fatal flaws and epic the musical:

I have been giving this a lot of thought lately, and this is what is going on. Epic Odysseus' fatal flaw is not necessarily the same as Homer's, obviously. Homer Odysseus does not go through the same character arc, and his flaw is hubris. Makes sense. Some people do characterize him with the flaw of curiosity or heroism, but honestly, in the ten year journey where he changes the most, hubris fits best. However, epic Odysseus is different. The biggest example of Homer Odysseus’ pride is the cyclops' island. However, his anger is further justified in epic by the death of his best friend, as well as bitterness and the spur of the moment, reckless decision in order to prove Athena wrong after being antagonised, getting abandoned and yelled at by his mentor in one of the worst moments of his life. The common fatal flaws of greek heroes are hubris, arrogance and loyalty among others. For epic, i entertained several flaws before landing on arrogance; the sheer confidence with which he approaches Aeolus, certain in his own abilities to convince the god to help them. He is arrogant with Athena in their song, and increasingly so with Eurylochus throughout the musical. Due to his love for Penelope and Telemachus, loyalty, especially when interacting with Circe and Calypso struck out, but anyone who knows the bare bones of the plot might argue in favour of arrogance.

For Eurylochus, it was somehow more difficult to chategorise. Homer' Eurylochus has the usual flaws; greed, arrogance, at least from what I can gather. But I read someone say that Epic Eurylochus' fatal flaw is, in fact, hunger. That makes so much sense, given how he is always the one to bring up food, or the lack thereof, as well as the fact that he literally killed Helios' cows due to his hunger and subsequently got everybody killed, BUT, what is he hungry for in his daily life? It can't just be food that is his weakness, obviously, but then what? Friendship, love, family, validation? Bottom line: I don't know. I could go one even longer about his arc throughout the musical and dissect each moment to figure out his flaws and talk about him in general because I adore his character, even if he is not necessarily a good person and though he makes too many mistakes because he is human and so inherently flawed, but I won't because this post is long enough as it is.

Polites was pretty straightforward; optimism. But, was it really? Indirectly, sure. His optimism, naïveté, led to his death. But at the end of the day, I think it might be his loyalty, maybe trust, that was his demise. I mean, the entire song, he's trying to convince Odysseus about open arms. He believes the winions, hell, it was his insistence out of concern for his friends that was, in the end, the thing that caused his death.

Then again, there isn't much difference between optimism and trust in both cases, so anything works.

[psychicbluebirdmiracle]

Was looking at the fan wiki for the wisdom saga and 2 things

One ITS GONNA BE 18 MINUTES LONG HECK YEAH

And 2 WINION ENTERTAINMENT LLC??????? XD

[anime-booknerds-blog]

How The Odyssey/EPIC characters react to finding out theres a musical about their trauma

Odysseus -

“So people take joy or entertainment in me not seeing my family for twenty years…”

And all your crew dying around you. It is pretty entertaining to be fairrr-

“Well I’m glad you can take joy in my suffering.”

… we won’t take more suffering from y-

“I have had enough.”

Hehe

“Gods-“

Telemachus -

“WOAH IM IN A PLAY?!”

Well musical- close enough.

“DOES EVERYONE SEE MY UPPERCUT?!”

I-

“O O AND AND-“

We see everything Telemachus

“REALLY??”

Yes Telemachus.

“LETS GO!!!”

Antinous -

“Who the fuck are you.”

not important asshole.

“Whatever. So I’m assuming I’m the most popular person in this little play.” *sly ahh smirk*

no. You’re only here Because some people like you-

“So I AM popular..”

Go suck a d-

Polities -

“Oh, that’s awesome!”

*tearing up*

“Why- why are you crying?-“

*rocking in corner* This life is amazing when you greet it with open armss

“Uh… do you need a hug..?”

NO YOU NEED A HUG

Winions -

“*winion noises*”

You aren’t even in the original story-

[gotstabbedbyapen]

🎄 Epic The Musical Secret Santa 🎄

Dear @salty-lemonss,

I’ve been chosen to be your Epic The Musical Secret Santa! Although I don't know what you like exactly in your gift, I hope you’ll still enjoy this short story. I wish you an awesome holiday!

Take care and Merry Christmas,

Your Secret Santa - The Pen

You can’t return what the wind gave

The howls of rising winds distorted Odysseus’ guttural scream as it echoed from one end of the ship, but his cry of despair could not undo what had been done.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer!”

“Never really know who you can trust.”

“Never really know who you can trust.”

The sailors that surrounded the opened bag just now were knocked back like ragdolls, their eyes widened in shock as a violent swirl of dark clouds erupted from the container like an unstoppable force unleashed upon the sea and cast a grim shadow over the vessel with a crack of thunder. A storm had coalesced.

“Full speed ahead!”

Amidst the yelling thrown back and forth among the sailors rose the jiggles of laughter as if the horror and huddle entertained them. Little creatures of soft, gray fur swarmed the ship like the blown-away fluffs of a dandelion, dancing merrily in circles and carrying flows of cold, salty mist with them. The winions had come to witness the satirical comedy of men’s greed.

“Let’s see how you escape!”

Their sing-laughs filled the air as they dove between the masts. One sailor yelped as a winion tugged at his hair, loosening his headband and causing it to fall off and obscure his eyes, almost leading him to tumble off the deck. Another angrily flailed at the wind creatures when they darted around him, only for them to snatch the rope he was holding, swiftly knot its length into a snake-like bundle, and toss the tangled mess back at him like a sick joke.

Despite all their effort to adjust the ship’s direction, it seemed to be pushed further and further away from the homeland island, and the crew could only watch it drift out of reach. Odysseus was still straining his throat trying to instruct his men to pull the sail, but he couldn’t focus on the task when another flurry of winions dashed around their next chosen target. Enraged at their meddling, the Ithacan king snapped to the side and grabbed one of them as it sped by, yet his hands only enclosed a thin wisp of vapor as the winion dissipated as soon as he blinked.

The winions gathered in a larger swarm amongst the sky to jeer on the battered crew and the captain who had made a fool of himself. A drenched Odysseus glared up at the wind creatures with clenching fists, only to release them in pure shock to see a familiar emergence between the fluffy hoard.

Adorned in a single-shouldered jumpsuit with glowing turquoise outlines that stood out among the roaring darkness of the stormy wind, jovial Aeolus sat as an amused spectator enjoying the tribulation show below with their characteristic smirk.

Odysseus scrambled to the side of his ship, almost begging the deity, “Where’s the storm taking us?”

“I said to keep the bag closed, but you weren’t compliant,” Aeolus cackled. They put a finger on their cheek and bobbled their head left and right, “If I had to guess?”

The playfulness soon morphed into a menacing grin with bared teeth as the master of winds and their winions launched forward with their hands pushing onto the deck and declared at the constricting eyes of the rain-soaked mortal man, “You're heading to the Land of the Giants!”

Upon their final words like a taunting bid of farewell, the divinities vanished as abruptly as they came, leaving the fleet of twelve ships at the mercy of the crashing waves with no sign of quelling.

[sirjo-esque]

!!! Have been thinking the same, honestly sad this is ending.

Last year he said it was his favorite festival too!

My estimation is that if the Ithaca Saga comes out on Christmas he will tell us sometime this week-

[dkmbookworm]

Question for epic the musical community. I know there’s a lot of discourse regarding who was more at fault in the Eurylochus vs Odysseus, but the main point I’m most conflicted on is.

Would not opening the bag have saved them from Poseidon?

We know the big reason for the storm was that it was Poseidon pulling them further away from Ithaca or at the very least messing with them before their confrontation. Jorge even mentioned that you can hear some of Storm’s theme in Ruthlessness showing that he was the cause of it

When Ody goes up to Aeolus in ‘Keep your friends close’ they make the deal that if he can keep the bag closed they will get home. And the assumption we as an audience are operating under is that if Odysseus makes it home he will escape Poseidon’s wrath. However, do we know that would actually happen? Aeolus promises that “you will get what you’re yearning” but how do we know they’re not using genie logic here? Who’s to say that yes he will get home and see his family….right up until the point Poseidon comes. He could very well be speed running to ‘Get in the Water’ and be forced to choose his life or his family and kingdom.

We even see within the song that Aeolus cannot be trusted. After all one of the winions ends up interfering with the deal by planting the idea of ‘its treasure’ in their heads to sow discord amongst them. @anarchy-lives-eternal even points out how there can be a double meaning to the line ‘i give the fire enough to stay burning’. Wind helps fan the flames and similarly they are stoking the flames of distrust within the crew.

It’s the whole point to Eurylochus being wary of making contact with the gods because they are such fickle creatures. They don’t care about them in a meaningful sense, they are pets or pawns at best. Their sufferings are entertainment, “games” for them to play at. To keep alive so their favorite show will continue.

I don’t want to place the blame solely on Odysseus here, it’s a complication situation. But too much is being lain at the feet of Eurylochus. The whole point of these stories is the tragedy of human error in messing with such larger than life forces. They love and care for each other but it is continually tested throughout and ultimately they became weak to their greatest faults.

[odysseus-f1-au]

Odysseus: Remind me, why am I running an experimental front wing!!? The other one is perfectly fine!

Athena: Sorry about that, Zeus was planning on quietly changing the regs to catch as many people out as possible. The winions sent the FIA an email saying the sport was too "boring" apparently. What the hell!? Technical innovation is the prime of the sport and must not be curbed by the need for entertainment!

Odysseus: wtf so we have to continually change our car set up just bc the winions want drama

Athena: yeah, sums it up

(pretty much based on how sucky the FIA is)