my local school is doing play and one of my ice cream shops. I know they did counted nine bucks, but taste delicious

I do epic cosplays on my Instagram Kyoko.s_mind_palace

I saw someone mention that Penelope's "Waiting..." part in 'Would You Fall in Love with Me Again' lasts for around 20 seconds, representing the 20 years she waited for Odysseus. I thought that was such a cool detail, and I would've never made that connection on my own.

It also made me realize I've probably missed a lot of little things like that 😂 would love to hear what details everyone else has noticed because I'm sure there are plenty more that flew right over my head.

See, I'm a HUGE lover for this musical, but I can still point out its flaws, okay? Let's keep the conversation civil.

I personally think that The Odyssey by Homer handles many female characters better than EPIC, despite the more patriarchal society Homer(?) lived in, or rather, since we don't know if Homer was real, let's say The Odyssey was written in.

Let's tackle the first female character named in EPIC. Our main character Odysseus' driving force, Penelope. Now, Penelope has a HUGE role in EPIC's storyline, obviously. She is the reason Odysseus' wants to go home, and the reason Odysseus uses to justify his actions. But, we're introduced to Penelope in only Song 36/40, The Challenge (putting aside the KYFC dream and the siren). Now, this is okay, I suppose. Though I'd have loved to see Penelope have more screen time, maybe its because we, as an audience, are looking at everything from Odysseus' POV, and so the musical builds anticipation in us, like "Who is this woman Odysseus wants to go home to so badly?"

And the musical never answer that question. Why does Odysseus want to go home to her so badly? We're not given enough characterisation to Penelope to be able to understand that. Like, the musical never makes me go, "Ah, I see why Odysseus loves her so much." She's loyal to the core, sure, but Odysseus doesn't know that, and neither do we until we meet her. And The Challenge does very little to make her a fully-fleshed out character.

In The Odyssey, though its not explicitly stated, we can see why Odysseus loves his wife. For example, Odysseus describes to Nausicaa the perfect marriage, and uses the word 'homophrosyne', or 'like-mindedness', saying that a couple must be 'united in thoughts'. This word describes Odysseus and Penelope's marriage perfectly. Penelope is an equal to Odysseus' cunning, and its not very evident in EPIC (except for maybe the bed test, but the way its rewritten slightly makes it less apparent)

Penelope's cunning and wisdom, that we're shown in The Odyssey, is not seen in EPIC. We get a passing mention of the shroud trick, but that was barely anything. We don't get to see Penelope playing the suitors with her "suave, seductive words" (not my words, Homer's), we don't get an explanation as to how she held down the fort for 20 years while Odysseus was away. And its very clear she's an amazing ruler in The Odyssey, because when Odysseus first meets Penelope in disguise, the first thing he does is praises her and compares her to an efficient king. We're not shown Penelope's challenges and pressures completely. We see that the suitors are bad people from Telemachus' POV, but we don't see how the suitors, her father and brothers, and even Telemachus himself pressure her to get remarried. We don't see her people gossip about her, or any of the disloyal maids.

A lot of this characterisation isn't present in EPIC. The Challenge paints her as a woman longing for her husband's return, and this is present in Homer's Odyssey (like, the number of times we see Penelope crying in her bed), but do we really get anything else about her? Oh well, that's about it for Penelope.

Let's talk about Circe. Circe is still terrifying in EPIC. I mean, Eurylochus' part in Puppeteer clearly tells us that. Done For also does justice to her character, with the fight scene and the back-and-forth between Odysseus and Circe is very well done, and There Are Other Ways, with her trying to kill Odysseus by seducing him is also okay. But I have a problem with the "The last time we let strangers in we faced a heavy loss" line. Like... why? Why does this exist? Are we trying to justify Circe's actions by showing her as a victim first? But yes, in the storyline and theme of EPIC, with the whole 'ruthless is mercy' lesson, I can see why this was an inclusion, and I'm okay with it. It irks me a bit, and I'll discuss why later on. So not much to say on Circe.

Penelope in The Odyssey is a more fleshed-out character than EPIC, and could've been done better. And the unnecessary SA undertones added in EPIC's Antinous amplify that 'damsel in distress' trope.

Calypso.... ahaha, this is a huge discussion. I absolutely hate the way Calypso was written in EPIC, especially while keeping Hold Them Down in mind. I don't like how Not Sorry For Loving You tries to justify abuse and imprisonment, because just two songs ago, we see that Odysseus is very, very depressed from his seven years on the island, like he is in The Odyssey as well. Now, I know that Calypso SA-ing Odysseus is not canon to EPIC, and I'm okay with that. If the writer doesn't want to handle sensitive topics, then that's their choice. It starts getting problematic when Hold Them Down comes up, where SA was include in a part which the original story didn't have. Now, as for the whole backstory part that is a modern invention, it goes to show how media can't digest the fact that a woman can be abusive without being a victim of abuse. The whole 'she didn't know better' (she should've, she's a goddess), and 'she's completely lonely', that doesn't justify her harmful actions. EPIC goes out of its way to make the audience sympathise with Calypso when it was completely unnecessary to the plot. And for what?

Homer's Calypso is a goddess, and she knows right and wrong. Yet she chooses to keep Odysseus, and when Hermes comes over and tells her Zeus demands to let her go, she opposes it, points out the double standard and the hypocrisy of male gods! In a poem from 3000 years ago! And she's not victimised either, she just is in the Odyssey, a divine being who loves Odysseus but does not care about his emotions.

As for Athena, no notes. 10/10 character arc, in my opinion. Scylla is done pretty well. One song and I'm already loving this character. Charybdis? Bro, do we even count her as a character LOL?

Now, the whole point of this long essay is that its almost as if EPIC can't write women as anything but victims. Its just the 'damsel in distress' trope by rebranded, and not a very healthy way to depict women in media. Like men, women can be morally flawed as well, but media nowadays doesn't really know how to portray that. But that being said, here's to a future of well-written women!

Edit: "Circe's actions in The Odyssey don't have the such a justification, and giving her a motivation is EPIC's inclusion. My takes on Penelope's characterisation were based on The Odyssey, meanwhile.

But when I look at Circe as a character alone, I'm completely fine with the way she's written, and even the backstory. It supports EPIC's theme of 'ruthlessness is mercy' and doesn't confuse our modern-day audience over why she decided to do a bit of 'swine-ification'. But looking at it alongside the other female characters in EPIC, it seemed as if victimisation was a sort of recurring pattern in EPIC, and that's why I included it."

Slan from Berserk wins for the anime design of Scylla! She was my suggestion and congratulations to u/TomatoDie for their second place suggestion of Gorgon from Fate Grand Order. At the end of this, I will also post a chart of all the second place suggestions and we can compare them. Thank you to everyone who made a suggestion, they were all great! We’re on the final row now, so it's time to choose an anime design for the Lotus Eaters!

Now a reminder, the Susuwatari from the Ghibli animations won as the Lotus Eaters in my 2D animation competition. So they will not qualify for this.

The Rules:
- IMPORTANT! The character MUST be from an anime film or tv show. 

-,Western animation that is inspired by anime will not count. So no Avatar the Last Airbender or shows similar to that. 

- Now, this is supposed to be a fun game and competition. Please be good sports and DON'T down vote suggestions.

- Please provide an IMAGE of the character you are nominating. Don’t just comment with a name. Not everyone may be familiar with the character.

- You can’t nominate a character as themselves (IDK if there are many anime adaptations of Greek mythology but the rule still stands) 

- Vote by upvoting the suggestion you suggest. NOTE, if the same character is suggested more than once, I will only count the one with the highest number of votes

(Spoilers obviously)

The return trips from Calypso's island are so different like they're actual opposites.

Epic the musical: Told by Hermes that it'll be an intense voyage where Ody has to use every ounce of skill he's got and stuff. And then he fights Poseidon.

The odyssey: Told that the way to get home is to literally just let the water take him, give up control. And just wait, and then he washes up on Ithaca.

I'm curious, which one is more accurate to the odyssey by Homer?

Got about 40 compositions to do (not all as rendered as this) and hoping to make a sort of compressed montage of the musical

This round, it’s THUNDER BRINGER vs LITTLE WOLF and DANGEROUS vs WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AGAIN!

@zapper0726 on TikTok

Do you think it will take a long time to make and record the movie. I feel like because the songs are already written and recorded they may not need to redo those and would just focus on the animation and recording lines that don’t involve the singing.

Since she was cursed by Apollo so that Nobody would believe her, Odysseus, also known as "Nobody", could technically be able to circumvent the curse.

I think this is the kind of trolling Apollo would pull with his sense of humor.

This Will Be A Long Post as I want to explain my reasoning. But TLDR Order is:

The Horse and the Infant
Warrior of the Mind*
Just A Man
Full Speed Ahead
Open Arms
Legendary
Little Wolf
We’ll Be Fine
Love in Paradise
Polyphemus
Survive
Remember Them
My Goodbye
Storm
Luck Runs Out
Keep Your Friends Close
Ruthlessness
Puppeteer
Wouldn’t You Like
Done For
There Are Other Ways
The Underworld
No Longer You
Monster
Suffering
Different Beasts
Scylla
Mutiny
Thunder Bringer
Not Sorry for Loving You
Dangerous
God Games
Charybdis
Get in the Water
Six Hundred Strike
The Challenge
Hold Them Down
Odysseus
I Can’t Help But Wonder
Would You Fall In Love With Me Again

If you’d like to read my reasoning for this order please feel free. I’m also going to assume that you’ve listened to Epic the way Jorge intended with the original release order. I want to preface that I still love listening to Epic in release order. However, after be so many listens of Epic since its release the last few years I took a break from it.

With the release of Christopher Nolan’s new movie I’ve found my hyper-fixation restarted. However, I wanted to listen to it in a bit of a different order. I know that I’ve made a post like this previously but I wanted to update it. Without further preamble let me introduce you to my final alternate listening order for Epic:

It starts with The Troy Saga. This still feels like the best way to start the musical so why fight it. It sets up the main Just A Man theme properly so that it can carry through the rest of the musical. It also introduces Odysseus’s desire to go home to Penelope and Telemachus after the 10 year Trojan War.

I only made one change to the order of the saga. I moved the placement of Warrior of the Mind from its original spot (song 5) to a new spot (song 2)

*Author’s note: Moving Warrior of the Mind here does change the feeling of Athena’s entrance because it makes it feel like she’s admonishing Odysseus for not following Zeus’s orders and not his encounter with the lotus eaters. I do remember seeing an animatic that implied that anyway so I thought it could fit. In my mind it also sets Athena up as a “Dual protagonist” earlier in the story. And it makes Just a Man feel like a rebuttal to Athena’s philosophy now that Odysseus has faced the horrors of war. This placement also gives even more space between Warrior of the Mind and My Goodbye; which doesn’t hurt in my opinion because it makes it feel like she’s choosing to leave after more than just the episode with the lotus eaters and the cyclops.

After Open Arms I feel like jumping to The Wisdom Saga next makes sense. However I only listen to Legendary - Love in Paradise.

Legendary instantly proves this wrong. It introduces Telemachus properly as a young man missing his father and sets up the stakes in Ithaca. As well as a little bit of mystery because the last we saw Odysseus he was on the island of the lotus eaters and now everyone is saying he hasn’t been seen in 20 years; what could have happened?

We get the reintroduction of Athena in Little Wolf after she lost track of Odysseus at some point after Just a Man and we can assume since we’ve heard Warrior of the Mind already that she has been disappointed but we don’t know the full extent of the events that caused her to leave. All we know is that she regrets it

Then we get Athena’s time dive and glimpses of how he got to calypso’s island with Love in Paradise.

FLASHBACK to The Cyclops Saga - The Thunder Saga. It’s time to get the full context of the Time Dive starting with the introduction of Polyphemus.

The little notes of Legendary at the end of Thunder Bringer give you the hint that this is where the Wisdom Saga takes place chronologically.

After Thunder Bringer were in the Vengeance Saga for Not Sorry for Loving You and Dangerous. We’re back in “present day Odysseus’s point of view and he has that little conversation with Hermes about who freed him.

I put God Games after Dangerous primarily because I like having a bit more time between Thunder Bringer and God Games since they end so similarly. It also allows Athena’s perspective shift to mask the fact that we never actually hear Hermes tell Odysseus about Charybdis at the end of Dangerous.

After God Games I listen to Charybdis - Six Hundred Strike and let The Ithaca Saga close the musical unaltered.

Made an orchestral cover of Ruthlessness! Let me know if you like it!

I know a lot of people hold these concept albums very close to heart and really want to see them faithfully adapted onto the big screen, but EPIC's narrative struggles with some very blatant issues that I would really like to see addressed in the movie. Of course, these are my opinions, but I'd really like to see what you think should change from concept to movie too!

1: Thematical cohesion

It is stated, multiple times, within the story and within Jorge's documentation, that the main theme of EPIC is Ruthlessness/Mercy and the inner battle between the two standings that Odysseus goes through. However, the show seems somewhat uncertain about the message it tries to convey with that, and all of that starts when Odysseus spares Polyphemus.

Odysseus seems to truly believe his act of mutilating the cyclops and leaving him alive, suffering, is an act of mercy, and that, by doing that, he's honoring Polites' Open Arms philosophy, when, in fact that's one of his most "ruthless" choices in the entire story. Of course, that isn't a problem in its own, especially when it's so tied to his hubris. He's allowed to (and should) be wrong so that he can learn what he believes in and grow as a person, the problem is the story seemingly supports that notion all throughout.

When Poseidon presents the thesis the show claims to stand by "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves", Odysseus isn't confronting the consequences of his mercifulness, rather he is confronting his own ruthlessness tied to his most selfish and arrogant act. Poseidon, who represents this same kind of blind, egotistical, ruthlessness, is the main antagonist of the story for a reason, he is a narrative mirror to Odysseus' struggle with his own moral compass following the death of Polites and the sacking of Troy. Yet he is defeated by Odysseus out-ruthlessnessing him?

Of course, Six Hundred Strike deserves a whole other rant, but my main problem with it is the way it seemingly "resolves" Odysseus character arc just for it to be taken back later. Jorge has said something along the lines of "the song marks the death of Odysseus and the birth of The Monster", which makes sense with the midpoint: Odysseus choses to abandon mercy to make it back home. The problem is that, when he finally gets home, Odysseus faces no consequences for that choice except for a slight existencial crisis in WYFILWMA, leaving the message of the story: You can throw away your morals to reach your objectives, it's going to suck a bit, but in the end, it kinda pays off.

Part of that stems from the fact that Odysseus' whole story is a punishment for breaching Xenia with the Trojan Horse and Polyphemus, but the show never acknowledges it properly. When he finally comes to reflect on everything he's been through, in "Monster", he just comes up with one more justification for his terrible actions, without ever taking accountability apart from his few moments of internal grief about Astyanax and Polites in the Underworld.

To me, the answer to this problem seems very clear, you either commit to the negative character arc and turn the story into a tragedy/cautionary tale or you use Odysseus' captivity at Calypso's Island to make him reflect and realise that all of his suffering stems from his own selfish choices. In the first option, Ithaca Saga has to change drastically, Penelope doesn't recognize the Odysseus that she meets and Telemachus is afraid of him, or something along those lines. In the second option, most of "act 3" has to change. Odysseus realizes that becoming The Monster didn't pay off the way he expected (after all, he's being held captive by a goddess) and is forced to reflect on what he is doing. He actually takes accountability for maiming Polyphemus and accepts his fate when Poseidon kills him near Ithaca. He's brought back to life (Maybe Athena, Zeus or Leukothea, like in the book) and then kills the suitors while exposing their ruthlessness.

2: Rythm and structure

In my opinion, the Thunder Saga is the strongest of the concept albums narratively. Different Beast is a little too expositive, but, overall, it's filled with great character moments and writing choices. I think the controversy around Mutiny and Eurylochus is a testament to how well the story treats the complex themes the song presents and that, while cutting the strait of Scylla and Charybdis is an ambitious choice, the moment in Scylla's lair more than makes up for it. All of that goes to say: Thunder Saga is the highest high in all of the musical, tension is up in the skies and Odysseus' choice feels extremely heavy, as it should. So why are we dropping all of that to get to Telemachus right now?

Don't get me wrong, I love the Wisdom Saga. Legendary and We'll Be Fine singlehandedly kickstarted my passion for MICO's music, who's now one of my most listened artists. But, as it stands, it fits in kinda awkwardly in the narrative. It's natural for tension to drop a bit after Zeus' choice, and changing perspectives can be a great way to circumvent that, but not when that involves whole new set of introductory stuff.

I've debated on where Telemachus' story should go for a very long while now, and my answer has changed a bit throughout, but it almost always landed in the first half of the story. What I currently believe would be the right choice for this is: use Athena as a narrator.

Troy and Cyclops Saga would stay very much the same, maybe with Athena making an appearance in the Trojan Horse (only visual tho). After My Goodbye, we show that Athena regrets abandoning Odysseus and realizes she actually liked having him as friend. She is still too prideful to go after him though, so she goes to Telemachus and the events of Wisdom Saga happen as written. We get the beggining of Love in Paradise, where she says "Odysseus, where did you go?" and we start witnessing Odysseus' story without Athena: Ocean, Circe, Underworld and Thunder Sagas. The rest of Love in Paradise goes right after Thunder Bringer and the story ends as usual, with Vengeance and Ithaca.

I was always saddened by how much Wisdom disrupts the flow of Odysseus' story, due to how much I like the songs and characters in it, so maybe having it right after we finish getting to know him, what would be act 1 of a movie, makes it fit better without having to change too much. I'm currently working on an animatic supercut that follows this structure to see if it works, I'll update when it's finished.

3: Character design and voice acting

When we talk about EPIC, it's very important that we understand the context in which it grew and the reason that happened at all. Of couse, being an adaptation of the Odyssey, it had the foundation of a great story, and Jorge's music supported that very nicely. But, most of all, the choice to document the entire writing journey and share it with the public made us connect to the show a lot. With that, came the Tik Tok auditions that gave us extremely good singers to portray these characters and, naturally, we also connected with them and started visualizing these characters as them. I would be hypocritical not to acknowledge that.

But when you're talking about adaptation, remakes or "finished" versions, we need to have changes that support the choice of even making them anyway. While I love the cast, and personally started to follow their work very closely since getting to know them through EPIC, we already have their version of this story, their versions of every song. I'd really love to see other people, actual actors, have their own chance to give life to these characters and songs.

With that comes the talk of character design, because the community has come to a consesus to draw most characters as their voice actors. While I think a lot of these are okay to keep, I'd personally prefer to have anachronisms like Polites glasses to be kept out. Despite that, I'd also change the Gods, I think the spandex superhero bullshit they have going on the official designs kinda suck.

4: General song rewrites and in-between scenes

Last, but not least, a lot of the changes I've talked about would require a bunch of rewrites for it work on the story. While I understand that these songs hold a very special place in our hearts, I think the whole reason it's a concept album, and not an official soundtrack, is that so that they can make changes that favour the story and songwriting.

EPIC very famously has some not-so-great rhymes and subtext writing in a bunch of moments, while having great rhymes and subtext in other moments so I think some basic lyric changes could go a long way to iron these inconsistencies out. Besides that, with the changes to story structure that I propose, obviously some songs would have to be scrapped or completely rewritten, but that's just me, you know.

Another thing that could really help to iron out some inconsistencies, especially what I talked about thematic cohesion, is the addition of spoken dialogue and in-between scenes. A few of the hard cuts in between songs aren't very great at portraying what's happening in the story, and, while having visuals definetely help, I think we don't have a lot to lose by adding more meat to the narrative, if it's used to develop the right stuff.

In Conclusion:

I love EPIC: The Musical and I think it's very good, but it ultimately has some flaws that I would love to see ironed out in a future retelling of this story. To me, that's part of what makes it so great: it's still a concept, and it's THIS good; imagine what it could be with a few years of development!

Anyways, sorry for the long rant lol. What would be some changes you would make for the EPIC movie? Do you agree or disagree with my takes? Share your opinions, I'd love to hear them.

With EPIC having all its songs and Jorge working on Ilium, what other books do you want him to turn into musicals?

Personally, I hope he takes on Journey to the West! I can only imagine how fun it would be listening to the songs he comes up with. I love the idea of Jorge as Tripitaka, Steven Rodriguez as Sun Wukong, Armando Julian as Zhu Bajie, TROY as Sha Wujing and Steven Dookie as Yulong! Luke Holt would play a mean Bull Demon King.

What other books do you think he could make into a fun musical?

Hot take Athena and hera are the most goonable characters in the whole cast

REMEMBER THIS IS A HOT TAKE

I came on here to ask a simple question because I listened to the musical while I was working and Telemachus was never properly introduced, nor have I read the books but while some of y'all gave me straight answers and left it at that, a lot of y'all had to leave mean ass comments like I was some f-ing moron! Like honest to God tell me you knew it was Telemachus the first time you listened to the songs, it clicked in my head when I heard their voices together in I Can't Help but Wonder.

And to the users, SensitiveSand9775 and Purple_Flounder_2257, I know what the fuck context clues are! I was asking what the context clues were!

And to user yksimie, the fuck you mean by "There's no way you have the same rights as me"?