#with a vengence

[silver-does-artstuff]

RAH I FUCKING LOVE CREATURES!!!! I LOVE LITTLE GUYS!!! LITTLE FUCKING GUYS MAKE ME SO HAPPY!!!1 SERATONIN! DOPAMINE! I LOVE GUYS! I LOVE GUYS SM!!!

[faceless-es]

All right all right, for my well-being I shall go to sleep. I know I am so excited my mind is racing but I can’t think of any theories or analyze things right now, and I need to get some sleep before my responsibilities catch up to me

ily Mikoto

[perplexi-glass]

I have delivered🫡

Based on my HC from… literally half a day ago blasting 600 strikes on repeat can do wonders apparently

[hannahlockillustration]

Let Gromit garden in peace!!!!

[anniflamma]

I’ll give you this cursed thing before going on my trip.

[happydragon]

I was inspired by another meme

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

See the thing is, Odysseus still tried to reason with Poseidon. He tried to resolve this with words, with his wit. That didn't work. It would never work with Poseidon. So, he became the monster he needed to be to get home. He turned the lesson Poseidon taught him back on him. He was ruthless. And at the end of it, he got his mercy. He got to go home. But he did try, one last time, to be the man Polites believed him to be. Open arms didn't work. So ruthlessness it was.

[i-am-abnormal]

[blondebrainpowered]

Woman in Vultee-Nashville, Tennessee operating an air drill for a A-31 Vengence dive bomber, February 1943. Not colorized, Kodachrome.

Photographer: Alfred T. Palmer.

Although built in the US, the A-31 was used by primarily British and Australian forces during the war.

[girlypopjazzy]

Jorge that is NOT what I meant when I said I wanted Odysseus violently thrusting into Poseidon

[gamerbeta]

“I’m sorry, Reigen. This is for Emmet.”

[sbed]

they accidentally wore matching fits

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Odysseus: So, what did we learn?

Poseidon:… Don’t stop you from seeing your wife.

Odysseus: Because what will happen if you do?

Poseidon: … You will defy the laws of nature and stab me repeatedly with my own trident.

Odysseus: Good boy. Now I need to get home and to my wife.

[star-rinalina]

So, I remember someone had the idea that gods have gold blood...

EDIT: Yes I'm aware that it's part of the mythology. But in epic canon it's shown as red. That's where I was coming from with the of caption

[therandomfandomme]

We're all going feral over the whole "Mercy? Mercy?" which is so valid of us, but the way mercy comes back as a theme in this final saga is really interesting to me, because before this, Odysseus is asked for mercy, for forgiveness:

"Old king, our leader is dead

You've destroyed the serpent's head

Now the rest of us are no longer a threat

Old king, forgive us instead

So that no more blood is shed

Let's have open arms instead"

"No"

He has become Poseidon, the one that first forced him into believing that mercy isn't something he can afford ("Look what you turned me into"), which is made doubly poignant with Eurymachus echoing the open arms of Polites ("Greet the world with open arms"). Now I'm not saying he should have forgiven the suitors for what they were planning on doing, however, this interaction directly informs this one later:

"Throw down those weapons

And I ensure you'll be spared"

"After seeing what the king will do to us

We wouldn't dare"

Because Odysseus doesn't show mercy to Eurymachus, Melanthius doesn't want to take the risk when Telemachus extends mercy to them, which then leads to the starting interaction.

When extending mercy and creating a kinder world is discussed again, it's by Athena. She is the original god, who pushed him towards a lack of mercy, who found that a warrior of the mind is one that showed not mercy and Odysseus believed her during the war, even threw a baby of a roof about it, and it wasn't until after that he rebelled her teachings only to be forced into it by other gods (Poseidon and Zeus most specifically). To which this is said:

"If that world exists, it's far away from here

It's one I'll have to miss, for it's far beyond my years

You might live forever, so you can make it be

But I've got one endeavor, there's a girl I have to see"

"Very well"

"Father, she's waiting for you"

I especially want to highlight that Odysseus says it is beyond his years. He has become that monster and he can't undo that in the years he still has. If this is to happen, then it must be the future generations that Athena has to influence to make that world. Having her reply to that getting interrupted by Telemachus is very purposeful to me. Because he does still extend mercy, he is the new warrior she trained and she trained him differently because her belief changed.

But I also think having her show Odysseus her face with the lightning scar as she agrees is very telling. When she pushed Odysseus to be ruthless she had not been on the other end of no mercy, which is what makes Odysseus turn against her ("Unlikе you, every time someone dies I'm left to deal with the strain"). She now has been on the other side of it by the hands of someone Odysseus also faced and they were both shown the same lack of mercy. For Odysseus that was his final turning point where he chose no mercy, while Athena did chose mercy.

And in the end, she did get some mercy from Zeus in response from it. Zeus also learned from her, from the lesson Odysseus taught her, which was taught to him by Polites. And that mercy gets paid forward allowing Odysseus to get home (yes, I'm emotional about Polites helping Odysseus get home in the end). Almost every time mercy is shown, his journey progresses (Lotus eaters, Aeolous, Circe, Zeus).

Athena has been through not receiving mercy, but she still believes, is still working towards that future. And while she accepts Odysseus words about him being beyond such a world, she doesn't agree with him. Her reply feels more like accepting a dismissal rather than an agreement. And Telemachus shows up as a reminder that she is more correct than Odysseus in this, and he leads them into Penelope.

God, I love Penelope. With her, Odysseus tells someone yet again that he has changed ("I am not your kind and gentle husband") and that he would understand if she did not love him anymore. And then we get this banger:

"Only my husband knew that

So I guess that makes him you"

Penelope shows him mercy in this. She has asked him what he has done and she is given the option to not want him anymore after hearing about the monster he's turned into, but she doesn't. She forgives him. He asks for forgiveness and she grants it. That is mercy.

Not only that, but she also affirms that he is still him. The usage of husband here is important to me, because he says he's not her husband, who was gentle and kind, and she tells him that he is. He believes him beyond that world where people are empathetic and kind, but the roots of that world he created in Ithaca and with Athena allow him to come home. He isn't a monster beyond redemption, he is also a part of that kinder world, regardless of what he has done.

And then you have the music echo the Just a Man melody when Odysseus sings:

"I'm just a man who's trying to go home

Even after all the years away from what I’ve known

I'm just a man who's fighting for his life

Deep down I would trade the world to see my son and wife

I'm just a man"

He is brought back to who he was when he was still just a man, before he became a monster. He did trade the world to see his son and wife and that makes him just a man.

The whole musical asks the question when a man becomes a monster and I think while it is never explicitly answered, that the answer is: when he isn't shown mercy. And that by showing someone mercy, you can reverse that. That it isn't permanent. I really love the moral question of mercy vs. ruthlessness in that Epic has, so it was really interesting to see how it came back in the end :D

[moon-buggg]

Have the haunted house boys ever been scared themselves?

"The game's never gone this far before, I don't know the rules."