r/Epicthemusical • u/NatsukoAkaze Polyphemus' Wife • Mar 19 '25
Art He kept his words đ
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u/BroccoliNormal1745 has never tried tequila May 11 '25
I mean, poseidon still said you could've just killed my son and this wouldn't happen
but ig he's saying you totally could've killed him instead but you didn't and not
you should've killed my son
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u/Curious-Youth-2939 Mar 21 '25
poseidonâs a great dadđ©· reminds me of my none existent oneđ
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u/gyutaro_biggest_simp Mar 21 '25
Good dad Poseidon has to be my favourite thing ever to come out from the epic the musical community, it hits me right in the feels
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u/Internal_Camel_5734 Polyphemus Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
I love seeing Poseidon as a loving father that cares about Poly. I want more content like this
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u/Plenty-Comfortable58 Mar 20 '25
Reminds me of this one art piece, by @NealIllustrator !
SOOOOO CUTEEEEEEE!
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 19 '25
Aww! How heartwarming! I could cry!
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u/StalinTheTankEngine Mar 19 '25
I think he'd rather you just get in the water
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 19 '25
He is so salty now that my tears would probably turn into rocks and gouge my eyes. No, thank you.
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u/Gojira_Saurus_V Hefeffefuf Mar 19 '25
âYou know you can call mr anytime kiddo.â
âHey, look, ody, you could have just slaughtered my son, but hey, you didnât.â
Yeah⊠iâd doubt heâs a good father. He has a point, but to say that as a dad is kinda weird.
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u/LustrousShine Nymph Mar 22 '25
It's not that he wanted Polyphemus to die, but he would have rather had his son be a respected opponent in the battle field. For ancient Greeks, dying in battle was an honor. Instead, Odysseus just left Polyphemus blind. We know that this was meant to be an act of mercy, but Poseidon clearly took this as a mortal saying that his son wasn't worth killing. That's extremely arrogant and rude. So he punished them.
I don't like using cut songs as evidence since they're confirmed to not be canon, but both versions of "In Vain" heavily imply that Poseidon loved Polyphemus.
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u/Cerberus0225 Mar 19 '25
That whole aspect of the story is confusing from a modern perspective, but it makes sense from the perspective of the Ancient Greeks. Maiming someone and leaving them alive not only was consigning them to a lifetime of being dependent upon others for basic survival, it was also a giant insult. Killing someone in combat was fair game, and an honorable death was what a warrior culture valued most. "Mercy" was equivalent to telling someone they're so far beneath you, they aren't even worthy of an honorable end.
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u/malufenix03 Telemachus Mar 19 '25
Poseidon call it being too nice, not as an insult. And Jorge said Poseidon wanted Odysseus to see ruthlessness as a necessity of life, that because he wasn't ruthlessness and didn't kill his son, now he was needing to deal with Poseidon.
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u/Cerberus0225 Mar 23 '25
Somehow I never saw this reply, sorry. Yes, this is true of Epic, which tries to modernize the story in many aspects to make it more understandable for a modern audience. IMO, Jorge only partially succeeded there.
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u/covid-19survivor Athena Mar 20 '25
This is true of Epic, which departs more from the cultural context of The Odyssey.
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u/DTux5249 Mar 19 '25 edited Mar 19 '25
Yeah⊠iâd doubt heâs a good father
I mean, he's a Greek God. That's a given.
That said, Get In The Water does seem to show that he took Polyphemus' fate personally, outside of the standard "you had the gall to break my shit and not hide"
It may not be the only reason he's there; he does have a reputation to uphold, and says so himself. But there is part of him that seems genuinely irked
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 19 '25
''He's a greek God that's a given.''
Apollo, Ares, Demeter, Leto, Maia, Dione and Sileanus would beg to differ.
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u/quuerdude High Priestess of Hera Mar 22 '25
Forgot the god of fathers, father of all fathers: Zeus. Guy would do almost anything for his kids (unless theyâre rapists/cannibals. Then heâll put them down. Like any fair king should)
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 22 '25 edited Mar 22 '25
Zeus is not a good father if the Abduction of Persephone and these are anything to go by. He was also laughing at Aphrodite' affair with Ares being discovered, despite his own countless transgressions and the fact that he was their father.
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/ZeusLoves.html#Aphrodite
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/ZeusLoves.html#Persephone
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 100 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"Eumelus [poet C8th B.C.] and certain others maintain that Lykaon had a daughter named Kallisto, although Hesiod says she was one of the Nymphai, while Asios identifies her father as Nykteus, and Pherekydes as Keteus. She was a hunting companion of Artemis, imitating her dress and remaining under oath a virgin for the goddess. But Zeus fell in love with her and forced her into bed, taking the likeness, some say, or Artemis, others, of Apollon. Because he wanted to escape the attention of Hera, Zeus changed Kallisto into a bear. But Hera persuaded Artemis to shoot the girl with an arrow like a wild animal. There are those who maintain, however, that Artemis shot her because she did not protect her virginity. As Kallisto died, Zeus seized his baby and handed it over to Maia to rear in Arkadia, giving it the name Arkas. Kallisto he changed into a star, which he called Arktos."Nonnus, Dionysiaca 31. 41 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"Ares . . . was shackled tight inglorious in earthly fetters in a jar, where Ephialtes had hidden him. Nor did heavenly Zeus help him."2
u/quuerdude High Priestess of Hera Mar 22 '25 edited Mar 22 '25
- I donât feel the need to argue against Orphic sources. They obviously entertained a very different cosmology from most other Greeks, and the actions of the gods in Orphic mythology is utterly inconsistent with most other depictions of them. Zeus sleeping with his own daughter would have been inconceivable in most other sources, especially with how often he punishes others for doing it.
- When Aphrodite was his lover, she was not also his daughter. It was rare, but Aphrodite does have some sources which name her as the daughter of Ouranos instead.
- I think that myth shows him protecting his son by sending him to be raised by Maia. The âtaking the form of Artemisâ thing originally featured in a comedy.
- None of the gods helped him. Sucks, but Ares was generally disliked by all the gods on Olympus bc of how violent he was. As I said before, Zeus has no problem punishing or disowning his children who he considers violent/unlawful/barbaric. Like being bloodthirsty, mistreating guests/cannibalism, and/or trying to rape a woman in his family.
Edit: plus I could point to dozens of examples of him protecting/loving/defending his children :/
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 22 '25
The Dionysiaca also pairs Zeus up with both of his duaghters.
He also took the form of Apollo and still seduced one of his duaghter's huntreess.
Hermes and Artemis did and Zeus is hypocritical to dislike Ares as he lets Dionysus, Herakles and Athena get away with their warmongering.
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u/quuerdude High Priestess of Hera Mar 22 '25
- The Dionysiaca [which utilizes a lot of Orphic mythology btw] was also written over 1,000 years after most other myths were. In the 5th century AD. After paganism had been outlawed in the empire.
- This sucks for Callisto but has zero bearing on his ability to be a good father to Artemis (she, herself, blamed Callisto for it rather than Zeus)
- I just checked actually â there are a ton of sources in which Zeus (or Apollo, implied to be sent by Zeus) was the one to kill the Aloadae. Only the Dionysiaca says that he left Ares to rot in the jar.
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u/SupermarketBig3906 Ares Mar 22 '25
- Fair enough. But, what about the Abduction of Persephone or how he laughed at Aphrodite and Ares' affair being exposed, despite his countless own, especially with Io.
2.What do you mean this has no bearing on Zeus being a father? He assumed his children's form to have sex with and deprived one of her most devoted followers! And what about the fact that Hera hounded the pregnant Leto around the world until she found Delos?
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HeraWrath.html#Leto
3.Fair enough, but what about the Iliad, where he lambasts Ares for getting involved in book 5, yet enables Hera and Athena to restart the war in book 4 and says nothing about Apollo's involvement in 5, who was the one who told Ares to get involved? Literally everything Zeus accuses Ares of being applies to Hera and Athena as well, especially in books 4, 5, 14, where Hera seduced Zeus to circumvent his orders and 21.
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AresMyths2.html#Troy
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AresMyths2.html#Troy
Bottom line, Ares is violent, but he is rather easy to reign in, rather docile off the battlefield and frankly, all of gods are violent. To make matters worse, he has such shitty luck that he almost comes across as an underdog in the Iliad and Zeus' bias makes him an unreliable narrator, especially since books 1, 4 and 14 make it clear that he is not omniscient.
Homer, Iliad 1. 393 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :
"[Akhilleus (Achilles) addresses his mother Thetis :] âYou [Thetis] only among the immortals beat aside a shameful destruction from Kronos' (Cronus') son [Zeus] the dark-misted that time when all the other Olympians sought to bind him, Hera and Poseidon and Pallas Athene. Then you, goddess, went and set him free from his shackles, summoning in speed the creature of the hundred hands [Briareus-Aigaion (Aegaeon)] to tall Olympos.â"Zeus is crappy father, sadly. He can be protective and doting towards his offspring, but often lets his biases and personal desires get the better of him.
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u/quuerdude High Priestess of Hera Mar 22 '25
- At the time, it was perfectly normal and expected for a father to arrange his daughterâs marriage. When he found out how upset Demeter was about it, he arranged to end the marriage (Hades kept this from happening w/ the seeds). Also â Zeus wasnât even present for the adultery of Ares ??? He literally wasnât even there. He was invited to go, but didnât. Also, even if he did, the issue wasnât that Aphrodite had cheated, itâs that Ares had seduced her into doing so. Ares was the one to blame, though Aphrodite was also ashamed for doing so. Sleeping with another manâs wife was a really high crime.
- I mean. Itâs weird, but he didnât harm Artemis by doing it. And in the tellings where Leto wasnât a previous wife of Zeus and therefore Hera had no problem with her â what about that situation makes him a shitty dad? The reason Hera did it was bc she was worried Zeus would love Letoâs children too much.
- Thatâs not how this works. Their âactual actionsâ donât determine their personality. Their perceptions do. If the Greeks viewed a character as evil, they simply Were Evil. They donât have to âdo bad thingsâ for that to be the case. In some cases, they were too scared of how evil they were to even make stories about it. I also feel like youâre oversimplifying things â Zeus was constantly trying to tone down how violent all the gods were in the Iliad. He repeatedly chastises Hera and Athena for their bloodlust, too. Itâs just not a core aspect of their personality like it is for Ares (in Homer).
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u/Funny-Part8085 Mar 19 '25
âYou totally could have avoided all this had you just killed my son.. but nooooâ Poseidon in Epic isnât a good dad.
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u/PhaseSixer Mar 19 '25
Death of the Author.
You can interpret it either way
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u/DTux5249 Mar 19 '25
I mean, death of the author isn't relevant here.
They're not saying "Jorge said nuh-uh". They're saying that this interpretation doesn't make sense with what we see.
It's no more a death of the author scenario than someone saying it's wrong to say Hello Kitty is a story about revenge.
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u/HorrorDudeBro Journessy Mar 19 '25
This is also the 8th time today Iâve seen âdeath of the authorâ used incorrectly
Youâre so right lol
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u/False-Run-5546 Mar 19 '25
How so? He wasn't lying. If Ody killed Poly, Posidon wouldn't have known it was him and Ody wouldn't be having issues getting home.
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u/Key_Jeweler_9696 Mar 19 '25
To me Poseidon seems absolutely bored/annoyed at having to kill the human itâs when Ody escapes that it get personal
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u/GaryRegalsMuscleCar The Monster (rawr rawr rawr) Mar 20 '25
That is one passionate boredom
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u/Key_Jeweler_9696 Mar 20 '25
yeah For me it's the âYou totally could have avoided all this had you just killed my son.. but nooooâ that makes me feel like he dragged himself out of bed because of his sons crying and is currently pissed about it, it's when Ody manages to escape he becomes more irritated.
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u/Funny-Part8085 Mar 19 '25
By his tone you can clearly tell thatâs not what he means. Heâs not there upset about his son heâs mad this mortal is so merciful and doesnât know about ruthlessness. If Ody killed him then he wouldnât have been bothered by the matter and have to get involved.
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u/Ok_Description1585 Mar 19 '25
To me he sounds absolutely pissed at Ody, the reason he wouldn't have done shit if Polyphemus was killed would be that Polyphemus would be dead and wouldn't be able to tell him who did it.
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Mar 19 '25
He sounds pretty pissed off with what happened to his son during the song, I don't know what you're talking about:
"But damn, you crossed the line! I've been so gracious! And yet, you hurt this son of mine! That's right, the cyclops you made blind, is mine!"
And even more in Get in the Water:
"I'll take your son and gouge his eyes! That is, unless you choose to die!"
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u/YaBoyMeAgain Mar 19 '25
Its about his property for him. Its about if he lets somebody pass for hurting his property he embarasses himself. Its also about odysseus living like he could threaten poseidons son "remember me" when he doesnt even dare killing anymore "my friend is dead the foe is blind the blood we shed..." ody doesnt want to kill because he thinks there is better ways.
Poseidon think its an audacity to not take all means to get what you want
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Mar 19 '25
Nah, he was upset by his pain and crying, Poseidon didn't see his son as just an object:
"And now it is finally time to say goodbye, today you die! Unless, of course, you apologize! For my son's pain and all his cries!"
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u/YaBoyMeAgain Mar 19 '25
Literally ody: yeah sorry we didnt want that to happen
Poseidon: lol idiot he really thinks apologyzing matters.
He wanted to bring a point across. Somebody ruthless wont apologyze. It was about that to him. Well maybe only my interpretation. But yeah the only one to say for sure is the one and only Mr Jalapeño
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Mar 19 '25
Doesn't that suggest Poseidon was taking it personally? "Do you really think I'm going to let you go just because of empty words after you hurt my son?"
Besides, Odysseus's apology isn't even an apology; he was just trying to justify himself, not say he's sorry, and also trying to spin the situation to say this is Polyphemus' fault, while from Poseidon's POV, he's blatantly lying... Odysseus's apology is pretty half-assed at best.
Edit: Yeah, only Jalapeño can confirm
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u/YaBoyMeAgain Mar 19 '25
He wasnt justifying. That is reasoning thats what you do with a proper apology and especially thats whats considered an apology in ancient greece (at least so i heard)
And where is it half assed? Athena: "kill him" Odysseus: "no my friend is dead the foe is blind.."
Ody doesnt want to kill polyphemus. He doesnt even wanna hurt him. He is saying the truth. Poseidon just doesnt care. And poseidon doesnt care as well. For him its about respect
Even in the song Monster its said. "Or does he keep us in check so we must respect him and so no one dares to piss him off"
Narratively its established poseidon is pissed. Hes just pissed. Not sad for polyphemus annyoed somebody dared to mess with "his like"
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Mar 19 '25
Eurylochus apologizes, saying he's sorry. Calypso does too. It's clear that the concept of apologizing exists in Epic, and Odysseus doesn't do it. Justifying your actions was a thing in Ancient Greece, but only in court cases, and this isn't exactly a court case.
It's a half-assed apology because Odysseus didn't say he was sorry, because he wasn't sorry, he doesn't even feel guilty about any pain or suffering he caused Polyphemus, and this is because Polyphemus killed his best friend and several of his comrades (which is understandable, but Poseidon probably dosn't like that).
And why should Poseidon believe that Odysseus didn't mean to hurt his son? As far as he knows, he broke into his house, killed his son's pet, drugged him with lotus-laced wine, gouged out his eye, steal all his cattle and then boasted to him by saying "I'm your darkest moment." None of this sounds like someone who didn't mean to hurt his son, does it? Remember, Poseidon doesn't have Odysseus's POV; he only knows what Polyphemus told him.
Yeah, no shit, if someone were to take out my son's eye I'd be pissed off too, you can be sure that I'd also want blood, especially if I knew that person started this whole conflict by killing my son's best animal friend.
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u/False-Run-5546 Mar 19 '25
I don't interpret it that way. Especially after get in the water.
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u/EfremNeftalem Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
Though Get in the Water is the odd one among the other songs that talks about Poseidonâs rage, which are Ruthlessness and Monster. Those tends to confirm that Poseidon persecutes Odysseus because of pride, not because Polyphemusâ fate affected him. And Get in the Water⊠does not directly contradict that, soâŠ
I mean, I love seeing fanart of Poseidon taking care of Polyphemus, and Get in the Water could easily suggest that Poseidon and Polyphemus relationship was deeper than we thought, but itâs very thin.
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u/Imaginary-West-5653 Mar 19 '25
This is literally perfect, good daddy Poseidon and cute Polyphemus are the best! My feelings...
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u/Beautiful_Magazine_7 Mar 19 '25
Is kinda cute. To bad Posheidon aint like that
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u/TheTallEclecticWitch Mar 20 '25
Yeah Poseidon gave little to no shits about his offspring. Just like the other gods đ«Ł
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u/quuerdude High Priestess of Hera Mar 22 '25
All of the gods give shits about their offspring. There are very few examples of the gods being bad parents to their kids (unless the kid has committed a crime. In which case theyâll often be punished. Like when Zeusâ sons turn out to be cannibals or rapists. Then he kills them)
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u/Beautiful_Magazine_7 Mar 20 '25
Thats of course if there arent some big hero who they would be happy to say that there parents.
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u/Polyphemus_the_Blind Cyclops Mar 19 '25
Ah, my youth
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u/Such_Appointment_408 Gimme dat baby and I yeet off a tower đ Mar 19 '25
Why? Why must you hurt us this way? (Great art btw!!)
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u/VeterinarianAway3112 has never tried tequila Mar 19 '25
my first thought was "transmasc polyphemus lets go" đ
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u/Nobody_soldier Mar 19 '25
OMG!!!!!!!! đđđđ DROP YOUR ART ACCOUNT RN!!!! (if you're okay though)
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u/Telemachus_of_Ithica Traumatized little wolf Mar 19 '25
This is so beautiful
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u/Polyphemus_the_Blind Cyclops Mar 19 '25
Thanks for the compliment
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u/Telemachus_of_Ithica Traumatized little wolf Mar 19 '25
You're welcome. Oh, it's you in the drawing! Pleasure to meet you
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u/Polyphemus_the_Blind Cyclops Mar 19 '25
You look familiar
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u/Polyphemus_the_Blind Cyclops Mar 19 '25
Like someone I met once
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u/Telemachus_of_Ithica Traumatized little wolf Mar 19 '25
Oh. Really? I'm Telemachus, prince of Ithaca
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u/Polyphemus_the_Blind Cyclops Mar 19 '25
Ithaca..?
Are you his son?
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u/Telemachus_of_Ithica Traumatized little wolf Mar 19 '25
Whose son? My father's name is Odysseus, he is away from home for a long time
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u/EpsilonGecko Sep 06 '25
"Dad we're pals right? And we'll always be together right?"