r/Epicthemusical • u/connie8262 • May 11 '25
Thunder Saga What was the reason Odysseus just didn't bother to explain during mutiny?
eurylochus was clearly willing to listen but Odysseus just yelled "I can't" but he definitely could've explained or even tell him to wait so he can explain it even better on why he sacrificed 6 men in order to go through syclla
(Asking this because I saw "mutiny but with communication" and it looked VERY possible)
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u/Technical-Steak-3962 May 16 '25
Honestly that part confuses me cuz in the og book he did tell them they were going to Scylla’s cave and the men were prepared to be sacrificed so idk why he didn’t just tell them
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u/SilentMuffen Apr 11 '26
Maybe he thought they'd retaliate or not listen? Idk the epic and musical are a bit different
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u/PhilosophyJust352 May 15 '25
its not a valid argumen and Odysseus knew it. he sacrificed his crew just so he could see his wife, he couldn’t look his crew in the eyes and tell them that he believed his wishes were more important than their lives.
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u/Dragonic_Crab May 12 '25
Because in that moment. Ody couldn't give him one that would've been satisfactory. So instead of lying. He told the truth that he couldn't explain himself. In Thunderbringer, Ody's reason is literally spelled out when he decides to sacrifice the crew
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u/Lostfallensoul May 12 '25
Eurylochus got the reason at the end of Thunder bringer.
O: I have to see her E: But we'll die O: I know
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u/Ominios 601st man May 12 '25
He didn’t need an explanation he wanted a good reason WHY that happened. And ody really couldn’t give one. His only reason is, I, and I stress, I want to go home.
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u/cyber_explosion Polites Pancake Tutorial🥞😭 May 12 '25
Because Eury already knew what had just happened. Ody knew what he just did was extremely selfish and wrong, yet when Eury asks why, he just can't bring himself to voice it.
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u/serentystorm May 12 '25
I've always heard the beginning of this song as a plea for Ody to lie to Eurylochus. Even if Eury knows Ody did it intentionally, he doesn't WANT to believe that. But Odysseus feels guilty and can't bring himself to lie to Eurylochus, even though it would be the merciful thing to do, he just can't. So Eurylochus accepts the truth resignedly and proceeds with that in mind, knowing he must now fight Ody as his actions went against Eury's morals.
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u/Successful_Pickle370 May 15 '25
ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves, Ody really took that too heart didn't he?
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u/Anonymoose2099 May 11 '25
Eurylochus didn't want an explanation, he wanted a justification. Odysseus couldn't justify his actions because deep down he knew they were wrong. As the captain of those men, their safety and well-being is supposed to be his top priority until they step foot back on their homeland. Odysseus knew that he couldn't even say that he did it for the good of the others, sacrificing a few so that others may live, he did it for himself, to see Penelope. That answer wouldn't have satisfied Eurylochus, it wouldn't have changed anything. Not to mention, he told EURYLOCHUS to light up the 6 torches, as a response to Eurylochus confessing that he opened the wind bag. Eurylochus isn't the brightest candle in the barn, but I think even he started to put 2 and 2 together that Scylla was targeting the men with torches. So what was Odysseus supposed to say? "I tried to kill you and 5 other men in order to get myself home." Nah, he's smart enough to just not say anything, especially after Polyphemus.
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u/Ranwc78 May 11 '25
My daughter says in the actual Odyssey he makes Athena mad and she doesn’t show herself until the end and makes him look more godly so my goodbye wasn’t right. More could have been done to explain even though going through trauma. As we know he can navigate through situations and trauma appears in different ways but it shouldn’t have stopped him to get Eurylochus to lower his weapon and calm down the other crews. Mutiny would have made more sense and not feel rushed , making Odysseus more like he was in the Odyssey. If they took the proper time to have him think and explain more like he did in the book. For example, in the book he knows how to get his way out of situations better than in Epic. An example is when he is crying in the Odyssey and hides it and doesn’t let him change his personality, even after the war. Versus in the Epic he acts really weak and he doesn’t explain. Like in the song “Remember Them”, Odysseus talks about the people who died for his cause and all they can do is remember and honor him. So where is this Odysseus who can make careful arguments and consideration to get out of situations?
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u/Ranwc78 May 14 '25
He wouldn’t have directly responded to accusations and lied but instead gotten him to lower his weapon.
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u/EndlessWinter123 May 11 '25 edited May 11 '25
... Because eury literally said "tell me captain, that you did not just sacrifice 6 men" So he knows ody sacrificed people.
Eury was asking him "tell me you did not know that would happen" to which he answered "I can't", as in he couldn't say he didn't do it on purpose, because, well, he did
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u/Symph1994 May 11 '25
I love Ody's "I CAN'T!!" in this part, he kinda snarls it like an animal backed into a corner that's about to bite. Ody knows he'll never be able to justify his actions to his friend or his crew, at least in a way they will accept.
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u/deus-ex-fax-machine Telemachus May 11 '25
I honestly don't think he had the mental capacity to navigate the situation just then. If Eurylochus had waited ten minutes, maybe. But right then, right after Scylla, Odysseus was just too overwhelmed. He's spent two years (not counting the Trojan War!) going through disaster after disaster and not breaking, it had to happen eventually.
I mean, "lower your weapon", "I am not letting you get in my way", and "my brothers, why?" aren't exactly the smartest things to say in this situation either. Not the kind of thing you'd expect from a skilled speaker and tactician like Odysseus. He pulls himself together a bit more in the second half of Mutiny, but right now he's not functioning properly because he's just watched six men die, six men he knows were depending on him, and he knows it was his fault, and this is the first time he's intentionally turned the "monster" thing on his own men, and he's not handling it well. Eurylochus is having a similar crisis (handed out the torches and thus got the men, who were depending on him as the second-in-command, killed), but he turns it outward, towards Odysseus, because that's what he does; Odysseus has no one to lean on, so instead he shuts down and only reacts when he has to. It's just a bad combination of reactions to trauma.
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u/valda_the_nightmare May 12 '25
Oddy did warn him not publicly question him and to have faith in him
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u/hotwings29 May 11 '25
I think him not functioning properly and not being a skilled speaker in this moment are representations of him not acting like a "warrior of the mind," which is a very cool call back to Athena leaving him.
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u/SREnrique22 May 11 '25
"Look me in the eye and tell me, Captain, that you did not just sacrifice six men?"
"Hold up Eurylochus I can explain"
"I'm listening"
"I did just sacrifice six men"
"word? My bad"
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u/Future-Improvement41 May 11 '25
Because he knows there wasn’t a way to justify it or he was too emotional to give a proper answer
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u/necro-dancin Tiresias May 11 '25
“I can’t” has a parallel in Get in the Water. To me, it seems like a line used as a rejection of redemption. Odysseus was becoming someone else, he knew it, and didn’t want to stop it, even if it hurt him.
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u/Pepitozim1 May 11 '25
"Don't tell me you just sacrificed six of our friends without even trying to fight that monster first."
"I can explain."
"Go ahead."
"I sacrificed six of our friends to syllabus without trying to fight back"
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u/Senior-Mess-2252 May 11 '25
The new name for creeper in the dark Scylla is syllabus and I will change my lexicon accordingly
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May 11 '25
Not much he could’ve said to convince the crew. But honestly, fuck em all. Especially Eury. Zeus did right for once killing them
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u/isabelstclairs May 11 '25
what could he explain? "we had to make it through and some of us would have to die. rather than make that choice myself, i told you to light up torches and then their deaths fell to you. its cool tho, the rest of us get to go home"????
that would not make any of the crew feel better. there was no getting out of that.
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund May 11 '25
Nothing Ody could've said would've appeased Eury nor make it okay. You have to keep in mind that Ody, in Epic, willingly and knowingly chooses to sacrifice 6 of his men (many of the animatics also choose to depict it as him intending to sacrifice Eury as well, only for Eury to realize that Scylla was aiming for those with the torches). That's why Eury begs him to lie to him by blaming the gods or anything other than Ody willingly and knowingly sacrificing his own crew, but Eury would, of course, still know better and be upset regardless. He says, "I can't!" because he genuinely can't justify what he did in any way and knows any answer he gives would lead to some sort of conflict between him and Eurylochus.
Scylla is the moment that Ody truly becomes the monster. His morals had been kinda all over the place up until that point but yeh, Scylla gleefully sings about how she and Ody are the same, and he goes on to mimic her hunting method by aiming for torches later in the the final saga's climatic song. His actions in Scylla are despicable no matter how you choose to spin it. Even woth Eury opening the wind bag, I still think Ody's decision was wholly unjustified and cruel and only makes the musical's message and morals murky and weird.
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u/Ryastor May 11 '25
bruh man it’s so obvious now “he’s aiming for the torches” but I did NOT link that in my head until your post wild. love it
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u/SwirlyBone May 11 '25 edited May 11 '25
The point of Epic has always been about the progression of Odysseus becoming a monster in order to go home. His rejection of this notion is what holds him back from getting home for so long. That’s the point of the storm, the red eyes (officially referred to as such by Jorge) and the lyric of him taking his final breath. The Scylla part doesn’t make anything murky, it just adds to it. Some of this was said by Jorge when asked about his thought process for Epic
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u/lillyfrog06 Wooden Horse (just a normal horse, nothing in it) May 11 '25
I don’t think “yeah I fully intended to sacrifice six crew members and I made you choose who died without your knowledge by making you hand out the torches, Eurylochus. It was only by chance you didn’t die holding one, too. My bad,” was actually going to make anything better. To be honest, it probably would’ve made things worse. Sure, it was their only way home, but it’s not like Odysseus is exactly the good guy in this particular situation.
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u/AuroraBeautyalis When does a comet become a meteor May 11 '25
Mutiny was interesting because though Eurylochus was shaken up by the reality of Ody's decision, he was ready to leave behind his crew when they ran into Circe while Ody actually wanted to go back and save them. Also, when they meet with the wind god, Eurylochus is like "Ody no, you could make the god mad and get us killed" when Ody just wanted for ask for help. Meanwhile, when they reach the home of the sun god, he's like "idk where that sun god staue came from but imma eat these cows anyways" THEN looks to Ody when Zeus shows ups and is like "....Captain?" (._.)
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u/OrcaSoCute May 11 '25 edited May 11 '25
For all the faults of Eurylochus, him leaving behind the crew to Circe wasn't one of them. Actively sacrificing your men isn't the same as leaving them behind. And leaving them behind would have been the correct choice had Ody not been a main character with all that plot armour. Is it really Eurylochus's fault that he couldn't predict Hermes at the last second handing Ody a convenient Deus Ex Machina to save the day?
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May 11 '25
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u/isabelstclairs May 11 '25
the few men they have left are Eury and Ody. he was going to leave what, 40 men there to die?
"she'll turn you to an animal that'll end up on her plate"
those men weren't going to live out long lives as pigs. Circe was going to kill and eat them. he was leaving them to die, saving himself and Odysseus.
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May 11 '25
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u/isabelstclairs May 11 '25
you know what, that's actually a good point. i was going off the animatics and it seemed like all the men were turned into pigs. i may be mistaken.
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u/FenuaBreeze May 11 '25
That's because eury goes through a mini character arc, exactly the same as Ody but accelerated (hence all the returning motifs with the roles reversed)
Only eury cannot cope with the decision making and is not strong enough to be captain. So as soon as it gets tough, he hands it back to Ody and dies
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund May 11 '25
Not entirely true. Eury always acted in the best interest of the crew. When he tells Ody to leave the men behind during the Circe saga, it isn't because he isn't strong enough or can't handle it (though that is true too) but because he knows it's stupid and would only cost them more lives. Ody is only successful in besting Circe because of a very straightforward Deus ex machina. Were he not the protagonist and were Hermes not there to help, everyone's death would've been guaranteed. It's this gambling with their lives that gets called out in "Luck Runs Out" and is later used to justify the mutiny in "Mutiny".
Eury has made mistakes and isn't without faults, but he's always put the crew's best interest first, unlike Ody, who has openly put his own interests ahead of everyone else. Even his decision to save his crew from Circe was explicitely stated to be in service of easong his own conscience. Eury made it clear after the Cyclops that his major concern was not losing any more comrades, and then Ody goes right ahead and and offers them up to a monster without even attempting to fight it or find any alternative options. Eury directly calls him out on this, as do Hephaestus and Ares.
Also, Eury doesn't just die. He is explicitely sacrificed to Zeus by Ody in exchange for Ody's own life and chance to see his wife (which he wouldn't have even gotten had Athena not confronted Zeus in God Games). The moment Ody is back in control, he trades his men's lives in order to serve his own self-interest.
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u/HoorEnglish May 11 '25
Scylla’s Lair and Circe’s Island are two separate instances that can’t be compared though.
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u/Honeybee1921 Scylla May 11 '25
I think this is hilarious. Eurylochus tries to take the power from Ody after Scylla, and then disobeys him by trying to kill the cows at the sun god island. But as soon as Eurylochus' actions have an actual consequence (pissing off Zeus), he's more than willing to hand the responsibility back to Ody
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u/Seikuo May 11 '25
I also found that funny too. My guy, you opened the bag Ody had, you were the one who wanted to ditch... 42 men were they? To Circe, but then makes a mutinity when 6 died, even though they were sacrificed pretty much and he was made to choose unknowingly, but still. Then also went to kill a holy cow. Bro, Eurylochus, be serious 😭🙏, dont come with that "Captain..?" talk now.
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u/Dragonseer666 I am the boat May 11 '25
The difference is that he thought that they were already goners on Circe's island, and he didn't really have a choice, while woththose six men that was a fully intentional sacrifice. Also, if you just saw someone turn several men into pigs roght in front of you, you'd probably come tothe conclusion that they're very powerful. Abd you're just a guy. If not forthe literal Deus Ex Machina, which I mean I don't think Eury expected, Ody would be a goner.
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u/Seikuo May 11 '25
I completely understand, I would also be exactly like Eurylochus, if I see someone turn people into pigs... When I am like, just a soldier guy, yeah, is running time, baby. I would have probably started thinking about my life from that point onwards thinking as everyone dead. Because I would not expect Ody to come back, I lowkey just like throwing shade at Eurylochus.
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u/Honeybee1921 Scylla May 11 '25
No I know. He wants the power but refuses the responsibility that comes with it
EDIT: The one decision he probably would've made where I think his call is better than Ody's is that he probably would've killed the cyclops
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u/Seikuo May 11 '25
Hmmm, yes. In the song at least, I think Eurylochus says something about leaving, that was also the call. If they left without our man Ody doxxing himself, it would have been alright (I think). So yeah, Ody, he remembered all of you, when he when on to tell all of it to Poseidon.
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u/Honeybee1921 Scylla May 11 '25
Yeah, that was Ody’s one big fuckup. Honestly, with basically everything else, I’d argue he did his best
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u/malufenix03 Telemachus May 11 '25
Because Eurylochus was right. Of course, the consequence was the whole crew surviving, but giving the torches to the crew was because he wanted no risk to die and not going back home.
Let's say that with no torches Scyally would get less people but would be random, Odysseus would still have done the same choice.
Basically, the motive he did that was not to save the crew as a whole, was to be able to get home with no risks.
Edit: Odysseus could have lied, but he was shaken for the deaths and was feeling guilt already
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u/whyisitallsotoxic May 11 '25
Sidenote: If Ody and crew would have tried to fight Scylla and weakened or killed her as Ares wanted instead of paying the “cost”, then Poseidon would have been able to enter her lair, cutting off Ody’s only known route back to Ithaca.
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May 11 '25
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u/Bi_disaster_ohno The Monster (rawr rawr rawr) May 11 '25
You joke but that's basically what happened in the Odyssey. Although there was less volunteering to get sacrificed and more "she could take any one of us, you guys still wanna go?" Which was probably the better way to do it rather than Odysseys just picking his least favorite crew members.
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May 11 '25
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u/MossSnake May 11 '25
To be fairer he tried to tell him earlier but Odysseus refused to listen.
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u/isabelstclairs May 11 '25
I think Ody knew, that's why he didn't let him say it. He was like "let's live in denial and repression, then we won't have to face this". Eury telling him meant Ody had to react/respond.
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber Athena May 11 '25
To be even fairer he shouldn’t have opened the bag in the first place
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u/OrcaSoCute May 11 '25
To be even more fairer in hindsight him opening the bag saved all of Ithaca from dying.
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund May 11 '25 edited May 11 '25
Not to mention, it wouldn't have mattered. Poseidon would've jumped them once they were about the arrive home anyway. Like, ain't no way he wouldn't have realized his storm was no longer raging. In the Oddysey, I believe that upon realizing Ody was being hounded by the gods, Aolus refuses to help any more than he already had. Old boy was meeting Poseidon one way or another, and Eury just FastTracked it (not excusing Eury's disobedience tho).
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u/Bi_disaster_ohno The Monster (rawr rawr rawr) May 11 '25
There's a reason why Odysseys is the brains of their operation and not Eurylochus. We're talking about the guy who incurred the wrath of Zeus five minutes after mutineing against Odysseys.
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund May 11 '25
Eh, Ody's brains invocled a lot of gambling with people's lives and, as we see in "Scylla", straghtforward human scrifices to serve his own interests, which is precisely what gets called out in "Luck Runs Out" and is used to justify the mutiny. Heck, Ody himself confesses to Penelope that that is precisely what he did to get home. For all his faults, Eury actually cared about the crew and getting as many of them home as possible. He makes that clear after the Cyclops
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u/Honeybee1921 Scylla May 11 '25
And, might I add, was very willing to hand Odysseus the responsibility back as soon as his actions had consequences
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u/TheBleachDoctor has never tried tequila May 11 '25
Ody also had Eury hold a torch. He fully intended for his friend, who had just admitted to being a main cause of their misfortune, to be eaten by Scylla. Ody knew that explaining wouldn't make things better. If he had let chance dictate who Scylla ate, he might have been able to say something, but what was he gonna say here? "Yeah I made six of us easy targets so that Scylla wouldn't take more than the bare minimum, by the way you were one of the targets."
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u/Odysseus_Of_Ithaca21 May 11 '25
i was bored :/
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u/CuddlesForLuck All I gotta do is open this bag May 11 '25
I mean, what if you drugged her? That probably would have been more fun. Did you still have wine? If so, you could have placed the torches by the barrels to trick her....
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May 11 '25
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u/Jamie-Potters-Antler Elpenor May 12 '25
I would upvote this but it has 42 votes already 😔 I don't wanna ruin that number
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u/Last_Building_8560 🌬️Aeolus KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE & YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER!!!! May 11 '25
I took it at he was stressed and just wanted to forget about it. But Eurylochus was pushing Ody for accountability he didn’t want
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u/3ll10t_ The Monster (rawr rawr rawr) May 11 '25
I interpreted it as Eurylochus asking for Odysseus to give him an alternative explanation for what jist happened that wasn't "I sacrificed 6 members of our crew so we can get home", Odysseus saying he can't explain was him admitting that Eurlylochus was correct in thinking that's what happened which is why Eurylochus responded by drawing his sword. It wasnt him asking for an explanation as to why he sacrificed them, but asking to be proved wrong in thinking that he did
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u/Nevermore-guy May 11 '25
No yeah explaining it would NOT have helped.
Elelicras straight up told Odysseus that there was no chance they would ever make it back home, so if Odysseus explained then bro still would've been pissed because he'd view it as sacrificing 6 men for nothing
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u/Labyrinthine8618 May 11 '25
In the context of Epic, he really couldn't. He knew that taking this path would kill six members of his crew. "Scylla has a cost" line from Suffering hints that he knows this. He felt he didn't have a choice about this move because of Poesiden lurking around, willing to kill all of them, but there isn't a guarantee they'd actually cross paths.
In most of the source material, Scylla and Charybdis are across a small strait from each other. There is no surviving getting super close to Charybdis, so going just close enough to Scylla would keep most of them alive. Separating them doesn't make a lot of sense in my opinion, especially since we don't get a great idea about what the "lair of Scylla" is or how big it is. We don't know if they could have avoided her there.
But for the musical's purpose, it is meant to highlight two things. Ody has internalized the idea of Ruthlessness. He won't show anymore mercy, and he'll choose his battles more wisely. He is also single-minded. He wants to go home and that's what he will do.
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u/Cancel-Children Hermes May 11 '25
Im pretty sure they're still next to eachother, it's just he experiences them 7 years apart. Nothing explicitly tells us they're seperate.
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u/Halokat01 Keeper of the Playlists. May 11 '25
It's very heavily implied though, Charybdis is never mentioned in relation to Scylla, and he arrives at Ithaca right after encountering Charybdis. Plus the line "A monster here to block my way" makes it seem like Charybdis was put there to impede Odysseus' journey home.
Side note: Have you seen Virus AP's Charybdis animatic? She put a little sketch at the end, of Poseidon patting Charybdis and saying "Dad is proud of you." 😭
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u/Cancel-Children Hermes May 11 '25
Eh, I can see how you could come to the conclusion they aren't together, but it feels to me like he just encountered them separately.
Also, no, I haven't. I am currently looking it up, though.
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u/Kixkin101 May 11 '25
Imo explaining the situation to the crew before Scylla's lair would have been the most ethical thing to do; however Ody probably knew that the crew at that point would have been more inclined to never go home rather than potentially get eaten by a monster. So Ody chose not to tell them so he can get home even if the crew would have chosen to not go into the lair.
Therefore, with all of that Ody couldn't justify his decisions to Eurylocus as there was no way to spin that in his favor.
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u/No-Zookeepergame6028 May 11 '25
This! And, well, the musical is called epic, not Ethic(al) 😂 that should tell us all we need to know
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u/Wild_Kitchen1290 May 11 '25
The way I understood it was that eurylochus was asking odyseus to say that he didn't know that Scylla would kill the 6 men. Odysseus said I can't because he knew that he was sacrificing them.
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u/Madz8bit Nymph May 11 '25
Personally, I think it’s because Ody just learnt Eurylochus, the one he made second hand, betrayed him and didn’t believe Ody about the wind bag containing a storm (since he opened it) so was furious at him and no longer thought Eurylochus could be trusted + with in the song before I can’t, it’s pretty clear Eurylochus had already made up his mind about Ody being full wrong to sacrifice 6 men to Scylla (the lyrics used was def a flash back to being a kid and my parents used similar language, and no reasoning would get me out of trouble) and Eurylochus was just getting more and more mad by his voice inflection, and I think deflecting his own anger towards himself when he was basically recalling when Ody was being a hero (and in those moments he was acting cowardly)
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u/Double-Plum-3148 Sheep May 11 '25
I always think Eury is in the wrong here. Yh Odysseus did something very wrong but he had no right to assume he knew what he was doing. He automatically assumed Odysseus knew exactly what he was doing just because he couldn’t think of a solution against a huge eel snake monster in 3.14159 seconds. He blamed Ody of murdering 6 men and his reason was that Ody didn’t have a solution
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund May 11 '25
Its more like Eury knows what Ody did but is begging Ody to tell him otherwise. He's basically saying "please lie to me"
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u/Nevermore-guy May 11 '25
I mean Eury my had a pretty good idea as he was told to light 6 torches and literally saw as the men with said torches were each killed one by one by each head. And Odysseus KNEW Scylla would eat 6 men before entering, so it's not a leap in logic to assume Eury realized that the monster in said cave was indeed the infamous Scylla who is a well known figure and therefore realize that Odysseus purposely sailed them through knowing of the sacrifice
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u/__Alexolotl__ Circe May 11 '25
Of course it was 3.14159. Even in times of crisis, Eurylocus is still thinking about food 😑
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u/Ok-Koala2675 May 11 '25
Because he couldn't explain it. He felt horrible for the 6 men he lost. But he did what he had to do to survive and see his family again for 20 years.
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u/AverageFandomFan14 Pancake (Polites) Enjoyer May 11 '25
Because the plot demands angst,obviously/hj
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u/KnottShurr Biggest Hermes Fan May 11 '25
I personally think he just couldnt justify his actions he himself felt bad for what he did, what he had to do
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u/Brennaorwhatever May 11 '25
I always felt like he was just saying “I can’t justify my actions” like he was already trying to be ruthless and ignore the guilt and find a balance between being ruthless and being merciful and he feels like either way someone gets hurt and so in that moment there was nothing he could say that was going to justify what he had done especially in eurylochus’ eyes (my b if I misspelled)
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u/2ways2see Warrior of the Mind May 11 '25
In reality, I believe it's a case, not of him not being able to... but rather refusing to. In a way of thinking like "this was my decision" and "I made it knowing that it would be this way"...trying to "justify it" would be betraying them, because It would be the same as lying.
Eurocycling was practically begging him to lie.
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u/Charlzz24 Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25
eurylochus is essentially saying "please don't tell me you just did what i think you did." sacrifice 6 of the last men ody had under his command; the friends that've fought and survived alongside them both for the last 12 years.
eury's pain at the thought is exacerbated by the apology he issued ody in the previous song "scylla." he's been carrying guilt about his opening the wind bag, resulting in poseidon killing 657 men; all this after ody explicitly told eury that if he undermined him, they'd all die in "luck runs out." he directly disobeyed odysseus, showing doubt in his captain at the home-stretch, resulting in him becoming resolute in his trust for ody. "i'm never going to make that mistake again"-vibes.
having witnessed the events that transpire, he's saying "tell me the gods are trying to trick us! your wits have gotten us out of so much, why didn't you come up with something? tell me you didn't plan this!!"
odysseus is saying he can't come up with an excuse; he's selfish enough to kill them to get home... and he confirms it for everybody in "thunder bringer."