GUYS ITS FINALLY CONFIRMED

I need to go to sleep but someone remind me to ramble about Scylla for 20 hours tomorrow

This is beautiful

I feel like there's something there. like I'm onto something. please fill this in

I like to imagine that in Different Beast, while the men are singing they all think they’re in sync. But they’re not, like at all, they’re super unsynchronized actually. The only reason they are synchronized in the song itself is because that’s how they think they sound, but in reality their singing is so off you can barely make out what they’re saying

And meanwhile the sirens are cringing so hard hearing the crew sing. Like this is torture for them fr.

If you set your EPIC playlist in homeric order:

1-4 of the Wisdom Saga

↓

Horse and Infant - Thunderbringer

↓

God Games

Guys, it does things.

It emphasizes the Problem and not the Man, creates new tensions and makes every crack in Odysseus's sanity since the Infant, feel heavier. It introduces the videogame vibes earlier and also how Athena's time stopping works.

On the con side, it's a little less thrilling when everything is a flashback.

Yes I'm aware I'm saying something very obvious, changing the order in a narrative changes the narrative. But, what a fun exercise. 10/10 will do again.

...........

EDIT

I’m so happy there are so many people on board! I hope you enjoy the experiment. So, just in case you get lost,  I guess I’ll expand on my vision (you’ll probably have more ideas, though):

We start on Ithaca, Telemachus, and the suitors. We meet Athena, we’re introduced to the time stop and the video game fights. We learn she regrets breaking her friendship to someone. Then, we learn this someone is Odysseus and we get BIG EPIC INTRO TIME through Athena’s mind travel (if you've seen the Phantom of the Opera, kind of like the chandelier intro moment). And now Odysseus is suicidal and we have all these voices that will make sense further in the musical. So, what’s the tea?

Ok, now we’d need to imagine some kind of transition, but. Off to The Horse and The Infant we go. And now there’s a noticeable difference between the enthusiastic Odysseus that was back then and what he is now. And how cold Athena was. And it’s kind of a punch to the gut. And then things get worse and worse. And then God Games.

And then we would be free to go forward with the story. Ta-da!   

EDIT 2

Telemachus introducing the Monster theme in the conventional, fantastic way, and then the Actual Monster development of Odysseus? Arghh

Day five of my snarky sarcastic side speaking quotes from my page-a-day calendar! This time featuring a special guest-

“Manifest in one hand.

Poop in the other.

See which fills up first.”

The calendar is taking quotes from the @ unspirational Instagram account by Elan Gale.

My snarky sarcastic side collaborated with my friend’s impulsive side for this one. :3 They don’t have a tumblr account or I’d @ them here. To see more of their artwork, you can check out their red bubble here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/JessaKinney/explore?asc=u&page=1&sortOrder=recent (ITS ALL REALLY GOOD ART THEYRE A REALLY GOOD ARTIST (shameless friend promotion))

Redbubble

JessaKinney Shop | Redbubble

JessaKinney is an independent artist creating amazing designs for great products such as t-shirts, stickers, posters, and phone cases.

Have a happy Sabbath!! 🌄

HOW DID I NOT KNOW UNTIL NOW (in the MIDDLE of the Wisdom Saga stream) THAT IT WAS STRATEGIES AND NOT TRAGEDIES

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THAT

A silly doodle I made as the year ended, featuring my silly friend group. Happy 2024!!

white people go like “is anyone going to redesign this nonhuman evil character as a poc?” and not wait for an answer

Thoughts on God Games

Don’t mind this post being on Wisdom when Vengeance already came out school is a lot okay-

So in a previous post, I mentioned how I was a little disappointed by the end of God Games. It came down to a combination of my expectations for the Zeus “round” versus the reality and some (well thought out) posts I read in my frazzled I-survived-the-wisdom-saga-livestream state critiquing Zeus’s character in Epic. I’m not going to go into more details than that for now.

While I was grappling with how I felt about God Games and how that impacted my thoughts on the Wisdom Saga and Epic as a whole, I started thinking about what I would have done differently, or what I would’ve liked to have seen done differently, in God Games. And this exercise turned out to be pretty fun and helped me with my thoughts and feelings about the actual God Games. So I decided to share some of my thoughts with you!!

So for my thought-scenario, I wanted to change God Games, but not drastically. I didn’t want to change any gods in the games or even alter how it ends. I just wanted to figure out how to tweak it just right. And I think I figured out the key: more time!

God Games is long by Epic song standards- at 5:19, it’s the longest song in the musical so far! And there’s one small word in the published song that’s distinctly different from the drafts Jay’s posted- Zeus’s “and me” versus “or me”. I have a small theory that there was originally going to be more to the song, that Zeus was going to be the final round instead of Hera. But that part likely got scrapped due to how long the song was/could’ve gotten. But hEY, THAT’S JUST A THEORY; A MUSICAL TH- I’m sorry I’ll go see myself out

So for my little re-imagine, the primary thing I’m doing is leaning *into* the length of the song! Make it longer! Honestly I was expecting more of an 8 minute song here and I’m impressed by Jorge’s ability to condense it all but still make it easily follow-able.

First change we’re making- turn that “or” back into “and”! There’s no choose whom to convince situation here, Zeus is clearly the final round.

Moving swiftly forward to Apollo and Hephaestus! Both of these verses are great on their own, but for this I’m thinking we extend them by just a couple extra lines.

Perhaps Apollo doesn’t need more convincing, but he says an extra quip towards Athena to sort of pay homage to the Odyssey, where he’s also watching over Odysseus (I think, I’m not a Greek mythology or Homer expert). Something like…

Apollo: “You’re not the only one who’s watched over him” ;)

Athena: “… Thank you.”

Apollo: “Release him!”

Or something similar. Hephaestus, now, I don’t have any specific ideas on how to make his verse longer, but I’d just add a couple other back-and-forth lines before he says to release Odysseus.

Aphrodite and Ares were perfect. They were great, I love them. Athena could potentially have an extra line towards Aphrodite about how, even though he missed his mother’s passing, if he’s released he won’t waste another second to get home to the rest of his family he loves. Not entirely sure how to condense that into a witty verse, but there ya go 😅

Hera!!! Hera’s… is perfect. I can’t see any good way to stretch it out, and I love how succinct it is. So leave that verse 100% as-is.

Now for the big one- Zeus! In this version of God Games, Zeus is the final round, so Athena hasn’t won yet. The verse even starts with Zeus instead of Athena. I’d pay homage to the original Odyssey again here, and have Zeus ask Athena why she desires to go against the fates, which is what ultimately landed Odysseus on Calypso’s island in the first place (by spiting Poseidon’s son and the cattle incident, even though it wasn’t Odysseus who killed the cow in the first place) (once again, not an expert, I’ve read this part of the Odyssey only once, so I could be forgetting/misremembering some details).

Athena may reply with something like “he’s paid his fair due, he deserves to go back home”, and also challenges(?) fate as to leaving Odysseus on Calypso’s island for such a long time. Athena’s and Zeus’s lines in this part are longer than most of the other gods’ lines in their verses.

Alternatively, instead of saying “fate” is what led Odysseus to the island, it’s Zeus’s divine punishment to Odysseus for the mistakes he’s made on the voyage home, and for the cyclops and cow and all the crew who died. In this case, Athena is (in)directly challenging Zeus’s authority on the matter. Maybe there’s another couple lines back and forth here, but it winds up to Athena directly calling Zeus out for Odysseus’s pain and demanding that Zeus release him as he’s suffered enough. And *thiiis* is what sets Zeus off.

I imagine his lines here are pretty similar to the ones he actually sings, but tweaked (obviously) to fit this new situation. Something like

“You dare to defy me?! To make me feel shame?! Your foolish pride is what will make you LOSE MY GAME”

I’m not entirely sure on the pride line, I know there’s something in Greek Mythos about pride/hubris being a solely *human* thing, something that the gods just don’t have problems with? But on the other hand, to Zeus this is Athena rising above her place and defying his authority, something he needs to put out right *now*. What would it be if not some sort of pride? (Obviously it stems more from Athena’s friendship with/care for Odysseus but that’s not gonna factor into Zeus’s perspective)

And from here on, the rest of the song goes as it was. Thunder bringer, the flashback, Athena standing her ground, and her making her final plea to Zeus.

And those were my thoughts on how I would expand God Games and fit a whole round with Zeus in it! I had a lot of fun coming up with this reimagining, and it’s actually helped me enjoy the God Games we got more too! I’m always blown away by how musically Epic(TM) the songs are every time I listen to them and the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. Maybe God Games didn’t go the way I originally expected it to go but it’s a great piece of work, and I like seeing the depths of character Jorge’s able to convey in each song- even with Zeus!

And the biggest moral of the story for me is to not browse tumblr until my brain breaks the morning after a saga livestream. Good lessons, good lessons.

If you’ve made it this far I hope you enjoyed my God Game ramblings and could see a little bit of my vision with expanding the length of the song!

Also no Athena’s not dead, it’s not denial, it’s called foreshadowing with Calypso’s line and the fact that Athena doesn’t even get *close* to death in the Odyssey- I know Epic’s a loose adaptation but there’s no way Jay would deviate *that* much and kill her off, if Athena’s actually dead I’m gonna flip out probably I’m going to be *so* upset—

Me: *listening to Love In Paradise in the car*

Calypso: “Oh handsome, you may try~ but last I checked, goddesses can’t die!”

Me: *turns car off* “Are you sure about that Calypso” >:3