The Two Great Fears of Odysseus ("Epic" analysis)

First of all: I'd like to say more about just how impressive the sound itself is in "Epic." The complexity, the callbacks and callforwards, the smoothness, just the sheer beauty and skill of the voices and music. I don't know enough about music to properly dissect it though, so instead I'll direct you to these great track-by-track musical analyses by a professional vocal coach. She covers the music the way it deserves to be, and I actually learned quite a bit about music in general from watching her.

Now, on to my own wheelhouse.


Some time ago, Jorge Rivera-Herrans spoke up on the intended message of "Epic."

I'm no stranger to Death of the Author, but in this case I'm going to take the exact opposite approach; I'm calling the author's bluff. Rivera-Herrans apparently has a history of lightly trolling his audience. In light of that, I believe that in this statement he - like the trickster gods he likes to write about - is giving his viewers a test.

Here's my best attempt at it.


The Two Great Fears of Odysseus

I don't think that "Epic" is straying nearly as far from the original Odyssey's themes as that video would suggest. The tragic flaw of Odysseus isn't mercy or ruthlessness, it's hubris. It's a different, more modern *type* of pride than what got him in trouble in the original, but still hubris.

To make my case, I'll be taking (as I think the audience is meant to) everything that happens after Odysseus' fleet casts out from Troy as purely allegorical. The events of the first couple songs, with the sacking of Troy and the killing of Astyanax, may not be completely literal, but they're more literal. In the Troy songs, there are other human characters besides Odysseus and his men, and divine intervention is low-key, ambiguous, and implied to be the exception to the norm (like I said, "Horse and Infant" really makes it seem like the Zeus voice might just be Odysseus' inner cynic). Once they're on the sea, they don't encounter a single human character; every island they land on has gods and monsters on it, but none of them have normal people. I think that this is why the creators changed the lotus-eaters from a human community as per the Odyssey to squeaky cartoon-voice creatures. Additionally, I didn't know this at the time, but the first fully voice-acted nonhuman character they run into - Polyphemus - is played by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who also voices Odysseus.

I don't think that these are coincidences. I think that the creators wanted to make the sea-journey a completely different realm, divorced from "reality," with the characters in it being internal to Odysseus. The gods are aspects of reality as he percieves them. The monsters are his inner demons. The ships and sailors under his command are his self-perception as a man, a soldier, and a king.

With that context, I think Odysseus' struggle is him trying to avoid his two greatest fears. One of those fears is losing his wife and son forever. The other one is Eurylochus.


Just a Man Named Nobody

The entire album conspires to obfuscate what actually happened in the Polyphemus incident. Athena and Poseidon's songs both mention - in a single line apiece - that Odysseus screwed up by telling Polyphemus his name before refusing to kill him. But then, the entire rest of their songs, and all of the many other songs that Odysseus spends agonizing over his decision, are focused on the "not killing him" part. Trying to make it seem like this was a binary decision, rather than one with a third option. Because that third option is something Odysseus won't even allow himself to consider, even though it's clearly available.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus' boasting during his ill-advised name reveal is typical bronze age bragging of the "I'm stronger and smarter than you, you thought you were scary but I beat you." The modernization that "Epic" does here is in transforming this into moral boasting. Odysseus is virtue signalling about how bad Polyphemus should feel about trying to kill the people who broke into his house and killed his pet, and how today should be a moral lesson for him. There's no point in virtue-signalling if no one knows who the virtuous one is. Especially if they did things that they are very, very much not proud of, and think they need to cover themselves in halos and wings to make up for it. For a man trying to prove this point, there's no option of letting himself be a "nobody" who committed an ignoble deed for ignoble reasons.

Odysseus' need to feel like he was RIGHT in what he did is what brought down the wrath of Poseidon. In "Ruthlessness," when Poseidon commands Odysseus to apologize, Odysseus notably never says the word "sorry." In fact, he makes no admission of wrongdoing whatsoever.

"Poseidon, we meant no harm, we only hurt him to disarm him. We took no pleasure in his pain, we only wanted to escape."

No apologies, just justifications. And probably multiple lies. "We meant no harm" in trying to take the dense herd of farm animals packed deliberately together in a cave? Yeah, pull the other one. "We took no pleasure in his pain?" Nah, you can hear it in Odysseus' voice after the blinding. Polyphemus had just killed Polites, and he wanted to hurt him for it. It gets extra damning when you consider what Polites seems to represent; ignorance and innocence. The act of theft exposed a moral failing, causing the self-perception of innocence to be destroyed. And that makes Odysseus resent the thing that exposed his moral failing and want to hurt it.

There's a line in the oft-recurring "monster" refrain. "When does a ripple become a tidal wave? When does a candle become a blaze? When does a man become a monster? When does the reason become the blame?"

Poseidon's next line after the non-apology is "The line between naivete and hopefulness is almost invisible." Reading the words on a page, they seem like mockery for Odysseus thinking the demand for an apology was genuine and could actually save him. That's not how the voice actor sells it, though. He doesn't sound mocking, more just exhausted. In light of this, it seems just as likely that Poseidon was talking about himself there. "I'd hoped for an apology, but I wasn't naive enough to think you'd actually give me one, and I was right." More cynically, one might surmise that the ruthless Poseidon only ever asked for an apology because he knew Odysseus would never give him one, but that's almost besides the point in terms of what it says about Odysseus' character and motivations.

There's still a missing piece here, though. What happened after Polyphemus and before Poseidon?


Boring Idiot Asshole Eurylochus

Before they landed on the lotus/cyclops island, there was a member of the crew who blasely recommended raiding the island and stealing whatever was on it. No moral consideration. No pride, and no shame. After riding high on his victory and virtue-signalling over Polyphemus, Odysseus' bubble is burst by that same member of the crew opening the Pandora's Box symbol, forcing Odysseus to face the ocean's judgement once again.

Odysseus already knew that Eurylochus was bad news at this point. Aeolus warned him. But, instead of cleaning house and dealing with the problem, Odysseus just set himself on the impossible task of staying awake for ten days and ignoring it. Taking on a grandiose, superhuman burden, that - when he failed - would be a grandiose failure, a tragedy of the frailty of human limitations, rather than one particular human's act of stupidity. Notably, Eurylochus' sabotage also took place when Odysseus was asleep. Asleep, and dreaming of being able to assure his wife that he's still a good person, war didn't change him, he didn't get corrupted by the trauma and desperation and become something he's not proud of.

"So much has changed, but I'm the same, yes I'm the same."

That's literally the last line he sings in the dream before he's awoken by the bag opening.

Now, here's the REALLY telling part. After trying to be better and set himself on the path to growing as a person in the Circe/Underworld arcs, Odysseus once again stumbled when he had to confront the extent of his wrongdoings head-on in order to get passed them (literally seeing the ghosts face to face). And, when he fails to do so, he gets grandiose and melodramatic in the opposite way from before. "The world is evil, so I must be even more evil! My only sin is not being brutal enough!" Ignoring the fact that he'd JUST seen that there are other ways, having literally taught Circe the lesson that he now refuses to learn himself (he even drags her through the mud a little to help convince himself that evil is indeed necessary, in "Monster").

After that point, he starts doing what is essentially anti-virtue signalling. Committing these performative acts of cruelty like chopping the sirens in half and letting them die in slow agony, or opting to sacrifice crew members before even trying to think of another trick to get passed Scylla. A man who tried to be good, but was brought low by this sinful earth. A tragic monster forged in injustice. That's cool. That's romantic. Monsters are sexy. Look at Scylla over there, singing about blood and death and betrayal in haunting six-part harmony as she stuffs sailors into her belly. Scylla was awesome, right?

Here's the thing though. Eurylochus didn't rhapsodize about the harshness of the world and what it forces him to do when he suggested raiding that island. He didn't do any Byronic brooding when he suggested abandoning the transformed men on Aeae. There was no drama or performance in his dropping the torch so someone else would probably get eaten instead of him.

Eurylochus isn't a "monster." He's just greedy, selfish, and cowardly. And that's lame.


True Natures Shall Be Revealed

In "Thunder Bringer," I mentioned that giving a commander the opportunity to fall on his sword for his men was considered normal and honourable in the ancient Mediterranean world. Odysseus' refusal to do so was him revealing his true nature. A true nature that had just been foreshadowed with Scylla.

"Fall on your sword" was exactly what Odysseus was giving Eurylochus the chance to do, with the torches. He confessed to opening the bag, and thus was given the chance to apologize for it properly by sacrificing his life to protect at least one of the remaining crew. He didn't do it. Then, when the final ruin comes at the hands of Zeus, it takes place at a time when Odysseus (literally) has his hands tied and Eurylochus is making all the decisions. Just like the bag opening happened when Odysseus was asleep and fantasizing about being the person he wishes he still was, and Eurylochus was given free reign to act.

As the reigning authority of the world, Zeus represents The Way Things Are (as Odysseus perceives them). While he was at war, the baby had to die. That was just The Way Things Are, and Odysseus just wishes he didn't have to be burdened by a conscience while he did it. After giving in to his most ignoble tendencies in an undeniable, unhideable fashion with Scylla, Odysseus is forced to contend with his own reality now. The Way He Himself Is. He can no longer convince himself that he was doing the tragically necessary thing for the good of the many. That his failing was in being too merciful and too empathetic for the task appointed to him. Nor was it him being some horrible monster worthy of song and story and tragic backstory embellishment. He murdered the baby prince just like he'd have murdered anyone else to simplify his return home.

He is not a hero or a monster. He is boring idiot asshole Eurylochus. That's the part of him that takes over when all else is paralyzed. That's who he turns into when the chips are really down. A nobody.

Time and time again, he refused to face that fact in order to preserve his vaunted self-image. He refused with Poseidon. He refused in Hades. He refused with Scylla. And thus, he doesn't improve, doesn't grow, and lets that part of himself lead to complete self-destruction. He can't just admit that he made a mistake. Until he confronts the person the war turned him into, he'll never become a person who can come home from the war.



hahahahaha they ate the mermaids