Circe Saga - Tumblr Posts
"I call this root: HOLY MOLY!" Hermes I love you so much you are SUCH a dork good for you
"Back at home my wife waits for me. She's my everything. My Penelope" and what if i started crying right here huh what if i started sobbing Odysseus what would you do then
I love the idea that instead of Jorge accidentally writing "12 long years", Odysseus just genuinely doesn't know how long it's been. Not because he's bad at math, no, but because he's been gone for so long. It feels like so much longer because every day to him hurts and feels like it drags on now without his Penelope or Telemachus. 10 years feels like 12 when the two people you love the most can't be with you.
Hermes has become my favorite god in Epic the musical. He sounds like he's in a whole different state of mind than everyone else. Here's Odysseus, fearing for his men, longing to see his family after ten years apart, and the guy has the courage to be laughing all the time and say "I call this root... Holy Moly!", among other gems.
Never change, Hermes, never change.
I like how Eurylochus says "What if she can't be killed?" about Circe, because it's one more of those lines that really highlight the type of person he is. He just thinks of one solution to their problem: killing Circe. He doesn't even consider they could reason with her. Which is just what Odysseus ends up doing, and it plays in their favor.
:DD
I’m not taking chances, Dear
Dunno how much I like my design for Circe cuz I went in blind without drawing her before but I think it still looks good. I feel like she looks more like Aphrodite? I’m still pretty happy
Click for quality
Yeah and that’s still one of the more tame things Circe has done :))
The fact that Scylla being a monster is literally Circe's fault will never not be ironic to me, like "ahh yes, the girl who I was jealous of who wanted nothing to do with my love interest at the time and poisoned her bath water is who I'm sending you past with no protection" like GIRL??????? LMAO
BROOO!!!
So today I FINALLY found someone who is into EPIC THE MUSICAL AAAAHHHHH!!!! (He's my classmate lol)
The whole room was filled with our noise of excitement and we were having MATHS LMAO 😭😭😭
Circe
"i've got you, dont worry Circe's got now~"
“Well, you know, Jay, I have been running for a long time. My entire life, which is about four million of your lifetimes. And, I don’t know if it helps or not, but it doesn’t stop. And there’s nothing bad about that, ‘cause there’s energy in it. And sometimes it’s nice to slow down and look out and…enjoy the view but, there’s nothing like the wind in your hair. So, if you’re gonna go fast, at least have fun with it ” —Hermes, February 28, 2024
Be careful at the store if you take a god like Hermes with you.
"Then I must be a god like you, cause I got this root from the ground with my bare hands!" (Odysseus)
"Hermes gave it to you, didn't he?" (Circe)
"Okay, fine, yes. But regardless..." (Odysseus)
This is literally top notch entertainment, 100/10, nothing beats this. (My fatty brain)
NOT JORGE DANCING AND TRYING TO LIP SYNC TO THE MUSIC
fandom crossovers to a whole new level
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
(lmao a lot of epic)
I CHALLENGED TUMBLR TO THE BIGGEST FIGHT EVER!
Tag you're mutuals and trade blows!
Me first!
@yellow-computer-mouse
EDIT: DO NOT TAKE MY WORD AS THE 100% TRUTH!!
I took some classes and wrote a paper about ancient Greek culture, but I am in NO WAY an expert. Please read through the reblogs to see some good criticisms and discussion about this topic further. My point overall stands that you can't apply modern rules and standards to ancient stories, but my evidence is undoubtedly flawed!
I'm seeing everyone pointing out the possible issues with Epic the Musical's deviation from the original story of Circe and Odysseus, and as someone who's studied Ancient Greece/ancient Greek myths a bit, I wanted to say some stuff about it. This will be a bit of a long one, so apologies for my rambling!
Note that I'm not trying to shit on SA survivor's perspectives and (completely valid) arguments. I'm just trying to offer some context surrounding the original myth and how it fits (or rather, doesn't fit) with a modern audience. If I'm wrong with any of this, feel free to call me out! Criticize the shit out of me! I like learning about Greek culture and myths and would 100% love to hear other perspectives on this.
So, a few points about Ancient Greek myths to kind of explain the context around Circe and Odysseus:
Greek myths generally did not have good views/depictions of women. Women were almost always depicted as conniving, selfish, sexually insatiable creatures. To largely summarize the process within actual Greek society, women had three/four stages in their life: child, dangerous/wild virgin (after first menstruation), married woman (whose wildness was tamed by her husband), and then a "real" woman (a mother). There are a few deviations from the "evil" trope, the most prominent of which being Penelope herself—she's basically the ideal Greek wife, staying loyal to her husband for 20 years and all that.
Adultery only applied to women. Husbands cheating on their wives wasn't merely tolerated, but expected. Marital sex wasn't seen as enjoyable, rather something that had to be done for the sake of reproduction and continuing the bloodline/securing inheritance. Men cheated on their wives with various kinds of prostitutes, concubines, mistresses, etc, but sleeping with unmarried women (that weren't specifically prostitutes) or married women was looked down upon. Women didn't have this same standard. They could only sleep with their husbands, hell, their husbands were pretty much the only men they could even interact with (excluding family, obviously).
The original myth has Hermes very plainly lay out how Odysseus' confrontation with Circe will go: Odysseus will eat the moly, draw his sword at her, she'll proposition him, and Hermes directly tells Odysseus to accept. Basically a "sleep with her if you want your men to live" situation. (See this post for more specifics on this).
So, let's apply this to Epic: The Musical. Here's some reasons I think may explain the Circe myth being changed:
The Greek "women being evil" stereotype is... problematic. While I 100% understand that it's important to acknowledge male victims of SA, I don't think the original myth was focusing on Odysseus being a victim—I saw it more of an emphasis on Circe being a sexually selfish woman, as all Greek women were believed to be. Changing Circe to be less conniving and evil deviates from the concerning Greek stereotype.
The SA in the myth is not actually very clearly SA. Yes, with a modern perspective, it absolutely is sexual coercion, but for Greeks, not so much. It made sense to them that sex could be transactional. It's already been established that Epic, while still generally accurate to the original myth, does change things relating to morality/themes in order to better align with modern Western ideas (i.e. OG Odysseus not being as remorseful and merciful, as that was expected of a Greek hero, but Epic Odysseus having more empathy because that's more modernly heroic). If something from the original myth doesn't translate well into modern culture, then it's understandable to want to change or omit it.
In the case that the original Circe myth wasn't SA (I'm not saying one is more right than the other, I'm just covering all the bases), then it wouldn't even constitute as cheating. Like I described earlier, it was perfectly acceptable and expected for men to sleep with women that weren't their wives. Plus, being a goddess, she's already kinda exempt from being blamed if Odysseus slept with her—only women are ever really blamed for sleeping with (or being SAed by) gods, and even then, their husbands sometimes don't even give a shit. But modernly, we would not see it that way. To us, it's not societally acceptable for a married man to sleep with another woman (without his wife's consent, at least). While Ancient Greeks viewed Odysseus as a good (or at least okay) husband, a modern audience wouldn't. Making Odysseus loyal to Penelope and not sleeping with other women (assuming this wasn't SA, but again that's one interpretation) makes him the good, loyal, empathic, modernly heroic man that Epic is clearly aiming for. Repeating my last point: If something from the original myth doesn't translate well into modern culture, then it's understandable to want to change or omit it.
Applying modern perspectives on Ancient Greek society and mythology isn't worth it. Like, we all joke about Ancient Greece being super gay, but they didn't actually like gay men. Homosexuality was literally only acceptable when it was between a young man and a prepubescent boy (it was called pederasty if you want to know more) or between women (they only considered penetrative sex to be 'real' sex so they didn't really care what women did with other women). Y'know the Hades and Persephone story? Like, the original one with the kidnapping? Yeah, that was normal. The myth of Demeter and Persephone is tragic, yes, but it was so normal that wedding ceremonies often included references/recreations of it! Girls got married off ASAP after their first menstruation to men of at least 30 years old. We don't tolerate that shit today (for the most part, at least)! But it was normal in Ancient Greece. Applying modern rules and standards to ancient culture just does not work.
Anyways, I'll shut up now! I'm gonna go keep listening to The Circe Saga lmao
…ok I just want to know, how does Moly work??? Like, I know Hermes says “only for a moment”, but HOW LONG IS THAT MOMENT. AT WHAT POINT DID THE MOLY END
Bold to say as someone who’s gonna die next saga
I need more interactions of this two
I know a stage version would probably be sung-through but what if there was dialogue? A possible scene between "Wouldn't You Like" and "Done For"
Be careful at the store if you take a god like Hermes with you.