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- 1 de Abr, 2025
Epic: The Musical (the concept album) is a sequence of EP’s by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, a certified theater kid and TikToker. He took Homer’s “The Odyssey” and transformed it into a series of EP’s that are incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking… but also deeply flawed.
Problems began in Epic’s third EP, the Storm Saga. First, some context: the Greek captain Odysseus and his crew are sailing home after emerging victorious in their decade-long year war against the Trojans. On their way home, Odysseus and his crew encounter Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. They attack but do not kill Polyphemus, with Odysseus challenging his mentor, Athena, on her motto of ruthlessness.
This act of rebellion against the ruthless order enrages Poseidon, who tries to drown Odysseus’ fleet with a storm. Before he can finish the job, however, Odysseus spots an island in the sky; he, along with his men, throw harpoons to free their vessels from the raging tide.
Odysseus, after an argument with his second-hand man Eurylochus, scales the island and asks Aeolus for help. Aeolus offers Odysseus a bag, in which Poseidon’s storm has been trapped. (How the bag came to be is unclear; perhaps Aeolus made a deal with Poseidon?) Aeolus warns Odysseus that intrigue among his men will lead them to try opening the bag, which quickly comes to fruition and summons not only the storm but Poseidon in the flesh.
In a fit of divine rage, Poseidon kills nearly all of Odysseus’ men, leaving only 43 standing. Odysseus, being ever-clever, uses the remainder of the winds left in the bag to push his vessel far, far away from Poseidon, allowing him and the remainder of his men to escape death.
Now, I don’t know about you, but so far, this is all fairly reasonable. While the wind bag may seem contrived at first, it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for Odysseus. The purpose of the wind bag is twofold: One, to show the power of the gods over the minds of Odysseus’s crew, with Aeolus’ minions poisoning the minds of Odysseus’ men, claiming the wind bag is actually full of treasure! Two, to shine a light on man’s tendency toward self-destructive intrigue, with the gods a metaphor for the chaotic, fickle nature of men’s hearts. After all, Aeolus seemed rather benevolent (if not a little ominous) when speaking to Odysseus, but when he spoke with his men, Aeolus’ minions revealed a different side of the wind god.
Clearly, the wind bag is a carefully-considered plot device with real purpose. It would be a shame if the wind bag suddenly appeared again from someone OTHER than Aeolus and wrecked the most fundamental of the story’s rules!
Much, much later on in Epic, at the second-last Saga, suddenly, Hermes the messenger god comes down and gives Odysseus the wind bag… again! Yeah, just… again. Bonus. And he tells Odysseus to not open the bag, but… there’s no crew at this point. Odysseus sacrificed all his men so he could stay alive. There’s no intrigue or temptation about the bag now, it’s just a “nuh uh” toward Poseidon’s storms.
How the HELL did Hermes get this? “We went through so much to get this” is the “Somehow, Palpatine returned” of this musical, I swear. It’s such a ridiculous pull only accentuated by Odysseus opening the bag ANYWAY and using it as a… Jetpack..? Odysseus is a sailor! Everything in this story has been so methodical, so well conceived, and all of a sudden we’re pulling left hooks that belong in a bad shonen.
Now, this is by no means my only qualm with Epic, but I thought this would be a good starting point for discussion. Also, if you haven’t listened to Epic yet… please do! It’s a real treat.
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