#the circe saga

[olivsie]

My honest reaction to no longer you

[luminouslumity]

This looks so cool!

[modemica]

“I remember actions of passion, I have been in love once before.”

(epic!odysseus’ genuine love for his wife striking a chord with circe had me in shambles)

[rrainydaydreams]

[kiyomarus]

WOULDN'T YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF THE POWER? WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO USE MORE THAN WORDS? DEEP IN THE NIGHT THE FIGHT LASTS FOR HOURS, YOU CAN BE HURT OR YOU CAN BEAT HER! WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HAVE SOME OF THE MAGIC? WOULDN'T YOU LIKE YOUR OUTCOME PREFERRED? DEEP IN THE NIGHT THE FIGHT CAN BE TRAGIC, I'LL HELP YOU CONQUER HER!

[artemx746]

Am I celebrating Valentines Day? Bitch no I’m aromantic I’m obviously celebrating Circe saga day

[dreamsandconstellations]

Nobody:

Odysseus:

[ninadove]

Odysseus: I can excuse dropping infants from a wall, but I draw the line at cheating on my wife!

Circe: … You can excuse dropping infants from a wall…?

Source: Community

[perhapsitisthegreatergrief]

made this a while back and today feels like a good way to post this

[olivsie]

So before this saga came out, I accidentally fell asleep watching beekeeping videos (???)

And when I woke up Form The alarm I set. FOR A WHOLE MINUTE I THOUGHT I WAS A BEEKEEPER AND MY PHONE WAS A FUCKING HIVE. It Took me Actually turning on my phone and seeing the notification for the live stream to wake up and snap the heck out of it

Anyway I loved it Great saga loved it very much And thank you epic for snapping Me out of my beekeeping sleep state hell

[myreygn]

odysseus: you thought you could kill me but you're WEAK and you better RUN AND HIDE because i can counter your PATHETIC POWERS and if you don't give up i will SLAUGHTER YOU

odysseus five minutes later: pls help me i miss my wife 🥺🥺

[hyprfxtdbstrd]

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

EDIT: there is good criticism in the reblogs of this post that adds more perspective and corrects some of my generalizations/insights!!

[not-daryll]

HERMES IS SO GOOD

[tommysparker]

Happy valentine’s day but more importantly !!!!

[i-like-her-like-that]

Eurylochus: Since we've left home we've faced a variety of foes from a wide range of places; gods, monsters, y'know the roster, hostile creatures that we could resist. Eurylochus, very gravely: But this was a hell of a twist, 'cause we are weak to a power like this. Odysseus, expecting something serious: What was it ? Eurylochus: A woman. Odysseus, who has never once considered anyone other than his wife: What.