Hello there! I come to you today with a simple offering. As I have mentioned, I have been obsessed with Epic Musical, and with the new Wisdom Saga out, there has just been something tickling my brain that I can't stop thinking about that I need to impart on all of you, of course.
in none other way than with a PowerPoint presentation. Now, this idea is all about a certain conflict, a certain game, if you will. That is of course none other than the incredible finale of this saga, God Games.
Now, something that I noticed is that this particular song is all about conflict. It's all about resolution. It's all about arguing.
And there are few things that I love more. Focus on me, focus on me, focus on me, focus on me. Thank you. And there are truly few things that I love more than arguing about shit that doesn't matter. Now, of course, if you've listened to God Games, you'll understand that the entire plot of this song is Athena pleading Odysseus'case to let Zeus free him from Calypso.
isle. Now in order to release him, Zeus of course makes her play the god games. Why not make it a game? Of course she has to go in front of daddy Zeus and beg for Odysseus's release. And what does he do?
He says the choice is not up to me, it's up to these five gods. They will be the ones to decide Odysseus's fate. Totally not me, Zeus, at all.
While Athena does make some wonderful cases to the gods, quite frankly, I think I can do better. Now, quick little disclaimer before we get started. I am in no way criticizing this song, or criticizing Jorge Rivera Heron's writing of this song. In fact, I think it's wonderful. This song fucking slaps.
It's so good. What I am saying is that the arguments made during this song do have loopholes that I am willing to exploit. Now.
Since Athena herself is the one that is stating all of these arguments and I am poking holes in them, does that mean that I am therefore smarter than the goddess of wisdom? No. That is not at all what I'm saying. That, my dear friends, is what we would call hubris, and that is a very, very stupid thing to say. If you'll excuse me.
Anyone come in? Come on. Alright. Have a seat.
My audience. If you will. Come in. Come on up. Come on.
Can I help you? Don't lay down right there. Oh my god. As I was saying, Athena's rebuttals to these gods'arguments, they have plot holes in them.
The rest of the gods are hot dumb idiots. They aren't able to come up with these rebuttals themselves. That's why I'm here.
I'm the brains of the- operation. Let's get started. Our representative for the defendant in this case is none other than Athena herself.
Athena is of course the goddess of war and the goddess of wisdom. Now she's war with the little asterisk of strategy. Her main focus is the strategic brain side of war, you know, the math nerd part. One of her symbols is of course a beautiful owl and most of the time she's portrayed as a very large owl lady.
Look, she's just tall and she's intimidating and she's standing like a foot and a half over Odysseus. Short little king meet tall owl god. Now Athena is of course a daughter of Zeus. and Athena is very notoriously the one that came out of his skull. And of course doing so, she took all the brains with her.
She is also daddy's favorite child. Being a parent, you can't pick favorites, but Zeus being a shitty parent absolutely has favorites and is 100% Athena. Having all of the wisdom in the world, also routinely likes to help out little stupid humans, usually men because they can't think for themselves.
One of these humans being our beloved Odysseus of Ithaca. Last but not least, our queen here is notoriously not into dating. She's one of the few gods and goddesses out there that really never takes a suitor, never takes a male or female friend. She's just jamming on her own and I love it.
All right, her whole thing, no touching, all right? Six foot rule. Stay back. Now that we've become acquainted with the defendants team, bring on the prosecution. Bring it.
Apollo! Apollo! He is of course the god of music and also the sun. Now he is not the only god of the sun.
The other god of the sun is Helios. The sun gods cows who they kill, those were Helios'cows, not Apollo's cows. Apollo also has a herd of cows, also a sun god, not the same sun god's cows that they killed. Different sun gods cows he has.
Yes? Separate cows. I don't know why he's also the god of the sun.
This is stupid. They had to give him something to do because he's cute. He is also...
Oh, the god of healing, archery, dancing, oracles, herding, and something that Wikipedia called protection of the young. I don't know what that means, but based off of his dating history, I don't think that's accurate. Now, Apollo is, of course, another son of Zeus, and he is also the less cool twin of Artemis.
You know, the antisocial huntress god who's either also asexual or a lesbian. This is her, like, dumbass brother. that is far less cool than her, but he is also here.
He's fine. Artemis is just better. Now, as I previously mentioned, Apollo is notorious for just being the worst boyfriend.
This little bisexual disaster here just has the longest list of lovers. I couldn't even fit it all in one screenshot from Wikipedia because it's in two different sections split up into men and women and they're both like at least 18 people long. He is just like a walking dumpster fire, alright?
Most adaptations paint him as just like this sad little heartbroken bi boy and he's so cute and everyone loves him. Except if you've read Lore Olympus then you'll know that he's like the fucking worst. But anytime besides that, he's just like, oh, heartbroken little boy. He brings this on himself.
Every single person that he has ever dated has either been killed directly by him, indirectly by him, or he has caused them to kill themselves. My name's Trevor. What's yours? But no, he he brings this all on himself.
Don't fall for it. Don't fall for it. Finally, all of these gods did help out during the Trojan War, but Apollo notoriously uh helped out Paris during the Trojan War.
If you know, you know. Now, Apollo's whole case against Odysseus is that Odysseus killed the sirens, which ended their singing. Again, him being the god of music, this is a problem because he loves singing. The bitch loves to sing. Rest in peace, Apollo, you would have loved glee.
Athena's rebuttal against this is that, you know, maybe he did kill some sirens, but now... they'll know better for next time and they'll be able to sing more, which Apollo should love singing and that's good for the sirens apparently. I have some questions about this. First off, this is a musical.
Does everyone realize that they're singing? Like, I know the sirens, their whole thing is singing. That's in mythology. That's what they do. They sing and then they lure men into the water.
In this scenario, the sirens are singing, but everyone else is also singing. So like, is that canon? like does everyone just sing in this world? and if they're all singing shouldn't apollo be like a bigger deal? if everyone communicates via song and he is the god of music shouldn't he be like the god?
like shouldn't the god of communication be like the biggest one out there? is this a self-aware sort of situation or is it all like in their heads? i need to know. jorge answer me please.
but moving on from that what apollo should have said is that the sirens in fact don't know better now. Because they're all dead, Odysseus killed them. They can't know better for next time because they're dead. He specifically said let them drown. They don't know to be wary of humans and therefore they cannot live to sing another day.
The argument is flawed. Now in this situation Athena could say something like it's a warning to the other sirens, you know, they see their bodies floating in the water they'll understand to be cautious. I'm not buying it. In every single situation in the Odyssey and in Epic the Musical, there has been no point in which murdering a group of people's friends has led them to like a rational thought process that promotes, you know, thinking before you act. Absolutely not.
If we've learned anything, it's that losing some of your friends just sends you into like a rage-fueled murder rampage. It's happened to Odysseus multiple times at this point. okay it doesn't work in any case more of these sirens going after sailors is going to end up with them dead which puts us right back where we started case closed up next Hephaestus.
Hephaestus here is the god of blacksmithing and forges and also volcanoes. That's so sick. Dude, I want to be the god of volcanoes.
Hephaestus is also possibly the son of Zeus. He's definitely the child of Hera. It's up to some debate whether he is actually Zeus's child or if Hera just had some sort of like immaculate conception situation and gave birth to him herself. Like Jesus. In any case, Hephaestus is just like the definite of mommy issues.
He's definitely Hera's kid and Hera definitely doesn't like him. In any version of mythology, he was literally like drop kicked off of Mount Olympus as a baby and has not emotionally recovered since. Now Hephaestus is one of the only gods that is canonically disabled.
While that is very cool today, One of my neighbors was looking in the window. Now, while that is pretty cool by today's representation standards, disabled characters fucking rock, it was not at the time and it's always described in just like the meanest fucking way possible. Either he was born with like a congenital birth defect or being drop kicked off of Mount Olympus left him a little bit crippled. I don't think they ever specifically say what was wrong with him, but everyone is just like, hey, you know Hephaestus, the ugliest motherfucker on the mountain?
I hate him. And he hates them all in return. Now lastly Hephaestus is also very unhappily married to Aphrodite.
I don't know if they're married in this version of the story but that's usually where it ends up. Now Hephaestus's whole argument against Odysseus is that he betrayed their trust when he sacrificed them to Zeus. Again. He does have trust issues from his mommy and also he's all about, you know, forging bonds as the god of the forges.
He wants to forge good relationships, you know? Everybody go to couples counseling. Athena says, no no no, don't worry about it. Uh, the crew didn't listen to him so it's totally okay that he sacrificed and killed all of them.
His actual loyalties lie with his family. The crew was never important, don't worry about the crew. Wrong. What Hephaestus should have said was that the crew did not betray him, Odysseus betrayed them first with Scylla. He was the one that went to the lair and just offered six up on a charcuterie board and said, bone apple teat, I'll be seeing ya.
Now Athena could make the argument crew actually betrayed Odysseus first, with the windbag. I mean like she's got a point. He told them not to open it up and they did open it up which like is a fair argument if I if I might say so myself. Thank you. However, rebuttal to my own rebuttal, Odysseus did not know who the specific offenders in this case were.
In all probability they were already like punished when they were killed by Poseidon. Remember he had like 600 men down to 47, 48, 46. 43. 43. Started off at like 600, down to 43. In all probability, they were already killed by Poseidon. And even if that is the case, the issue is that Odysseus was loyal to the crew until he wasn't. You know, there's nothing I wouldn't do if it was you I had to save, except that no longer counts, because I don't want to anymore. With his loyalties so frail, how do we know that as soon as the metaphorical tides turn on his family?
that Odysseus will not also turn with them. I rest my case. Up next Aphrodite. Sorry ma'am.
Aphrodite is of course the goddess of love and beauty. She is of course the little matchmaker of Mount Olympus. She absolutely loves like digging into people's shit and riling them up.
She also 100% without a doubt started the Trojan War to win a bet. Remember the whole Trojan War started because our three goddesses were fighting over who was hotter and Aphrodite here bribed Paris and you know and kicked off all those events but I must say she did win the hottest. Aphrodite here is also a daughter of Zeus but in some iterations she is um born from Orinose's severed testicles being thrown in the water.
That's right she's just straight jizz. Aphrodite is also of course in quite a little affair. with Ares.
She's not literally his mom. I was gonna say thank god they're not related, but they are related, but she is not his mother. Okay, don't don't worry about that. Anyway, Aphrodite's whole case against Odysseus is that While he was off fighting in the Trojan War, while he was making his way home, he allowed his mother to die sad and alone. Being the goddess of love, of course, most people equate that to sexual love, but she is the goddess of all love, familial love included.
This is obviously a big issue for her. Athena makes the case that it wasn't Odysseus'fault that she died while he was away. He was off fighting a war, which was caused by Aphrodite.
And so therefore, he's not at fault for that. Aphrodite, being the smartest bitch out here, she actually... actually fights back against this argument.
Let me just tell you, hot girls get shit done. She's like, no, I don't buy it. He wasn't fighting in the war. He was too busy fighting the Cyclops.
Remember, hubris is a big no-no. She does not like this, and she's like, you know what? He deserves to fucking stay on that island and rot, all right?
He's gonna die sad and alone, just like his mother. Now, later on in the song, during Ares'verse, Athena comes back, and her argument to this case is that maybe Odysseus'mom did die sad and alone, but a broken heart can mend. That is absolutely the most fucking brutal argument I have ever heard. Aphrodite is saying that Odysseus allowed his mother to die sad and alone and Athena's argument is get over it.
What? You know what Aphrodite- And he should say to that, No, the fuck it don't. That's his mother.
I am yours. Sure, you can get over a heartbreak from, you know, like a breakup or whatever, but allowing your mother to die alone, that's not something you get over. That's something that haunts you for the rest of your life.
It does haunt Odysseus for the rest of his life, but saying get over it is not a good enough argument. And since that is not a valid argument, I stand on the side of Aphrodite saying think of something better. Moving on.
Ares. Now Ares is very famously the god of war. While Athena is also a god of war, her specialty lies more with strategy and his specialty lies more with brutality.
He is like the bloodshed, you know, 1v1 guy. He's also the god of courage, which is where all of his main arguments come from. Ares is also one of the few gods who is actually a legitimate child of Zeus and Hera.
Hephaestus is a bit up in the air. It's pretty much Ares, Hebe, Hebe, Hebe, I don't know what her name is, Hebe, and then there's like one other. He's like the official prince of Mount Olympus.
As I mentioned earlier, he's also in a little rumpus relationship. with Aphrodite, or as Wikipedia likes to call it, his liaison. Ares really just has a reputation of being just an empty-headed gym rat douchebag meathead. Whether or not this is true, it's kind of up to debate because, um, There's actually not a whole ton about Ares in Greek mythology, whether it's because everyone was scared of him being the god of war or whether he just like wasn't that interesting, I don't know.
But like if you look at his Wikipedia page, the entire thing is about the size of the list of Zeus's lovers. Of course, it's a long list, but like his entire history is like a footnote. in Zeus's history. You know what I'm saying? Look it up.
There's only like two pages there. Anyway, Ares'whole argument against Odysseus is that he is a coward. He sacrificed his own crew to Scylla and he used deceit to win the Trojan War by hiding inside of the wooden horse instead of fighting all of his battles outright.
On top of that, this doesn't really have to do with Odysseus at all, but Ares makes it very well known that he doesn't like Telemachus. Now, I know Telemachus is everyone's favorite little baby boy and- I love him too, but Ares here has got a point. Telemachus, while he gets baby girlified by every single person in the fandom, he is in fact a 20 year old man. He really cannot do anything on his own. He doesn't know how to fight.
He just kind of floats. He's a floater, you know? Like Achilles and Patroclus, they went to war when they were like 16 years old.
At the same age, they were like seasoned veterans and Telemachus is just like at home playing with his Legos, you know? Now, this is where Athena draws the fucking line. She's like, you know what?
Telemachus might be a baby girl, but he's my baby girl. You watch your mouth. She also says that Odysseus, in order to get home, he's gonna murder anyone and everyone in his path. Like, don't you worry about it. The corpses will line.
the streets of Ithaca like a fucking Paris catacomb. The fact is this does not dispute our case at all. The issue here is not the amount of bloodshed. Odysseus has of course killed many people already and caused the deaths of many more, but the issue here is how all of these deaths are coming about, and those are from cowardice. Again, Ares, the god of courage, doesn't like a coward.
And what is Odysseus? A coward! He constantly relies on trickery to solve all of his problems instead of facing them head-on.
And there is nothing that he has done up to this point to prove otherwise. When Odysseus was faced with the Trojans, he snuck into Troy and the wooden horse and murdered everyone while they were asleep. Coward!
Facing the Cyclops, he tricked him into drinking wine and then stabbed him while he was asleep. Coward! For Circe, he tricked her with the molly, rendered her powerless, and then just like totally didn't kill anyone.
Like she was absolutely ready to kill his entire crew that was left and he was just like I can forget about it. Coward! With the sirens, he tricked them onto coming in board and then murdered all of them while they were already trapped.
Coward. That was a pretty ruthless killing, so Ares might be fine with that one, but fact is that he still used trickery to get them there. Scylla! He just avoided conflict entirely with her by sacrificing the crew in order to save himself.
And then he did that same thing again with Zeus. He sacrificed the crew in order to save himself. At no point has this man shown an ounce of courage.
and therefore he does not deserve to be released. Hey baby. Our final contestant here, Hera.
Hera, while being queen of the gods, she is also the goddess of marriage, family, and women. She is also very famously unhappily married to Zeus and is, I don't know, a little less famously, uh, his sister? Don't worry.
She's his sister. Now let me tell you about Hera. For everything about her, she is definitely not a girl's girl.
Every single time that Zeus cheats on her, which is like, there's like one for every breath of the day, you know? She takes out all of her pent-up rage and aggression on these women. She is like victim blaming all of them and on top of that she is absolutely not a fun stepmom either.
She will go after these women, she will go after their kids and Zeus's illegitimate children, and just fucking either kill them or make them wish they were dead. Even Hephaestus, one of her only actual kids, she treats like shit. Now in all fairness to Hera, she does get a really bad rep. Um is a lot of it deserved?
Yes. Like you gotta have at least like a little bit of synth- for her. She's the goddess of family and marriage and she's married to Zeus who cheats on her constantly and has like a thousand illegitimate kids. Like that's gotta be hard on her.
I'm not saying that she's a great person, I'm just saying that like, you know, a little bit of empathy goes a long way. Talking to her too. Now Hera, instead of creating an argument against Odysseus, puts it up to Athena and just says, you tell me why he's worthy of being freed. Give me one good reason why I should free him. And Athena says, he's got the mind of a genius.
Let him go. And Hera, much like Aphrodite, the hot girls, they know when trickery's afoot. She says, nuh-uh, not good enough. Try again.
Athena comes back with, he's skilled with words. He's quite the talker. Zeus is quite the talker too. She don't like it.
Try again. Athena says, he's kind of funny. That's kind of funny.
That's great. Hera says, not good enough. Try again. And what does Athena come back with?
Never once has he cheated on his wife. I'm not gonna drop my phone, I'm not an idiot. Absolutely no notes on this one.
This is incredible. Flawless argument. Hera doesn't have a comeback. I don't have a comeback.
As far as I see, uh, this is like bulletproof logic. Love it. No notes.
Well done, Athena. Hats off to you. Now, Hera being the final god of the god games, it's time for Odysseus to be freed. Unless... There is another.
Pride is a damsel in distress. Zeus. Big daddy Olympus Zeus. He's of course the god of thunder, the god of the sky, and the king of the gods himself. Zeus very famously will just bang anything with tits that moves.
Doesn't matter if it's human or not, he's gonna put his dick in it. And my god does he have a lot of children. If his list of illegitimate children were printed off the web from Wikipedia, it would single-handedly be the final straw that deforests all of Brazil. Of course, as you would expect, he's also an extremely egotistical man who's got a very bad temper. This does not bode well for us.
Athena just straight up walks up to him and is like, I won fair and square. You wanted me to disprove all of these five gods. I did it. Odysseus deserves to be freed. What does Zeus say?
No! He is just a sore fucking loser. He's like, you put me to shame and I don't like that, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna kill my favorite kid over it.
Not cool. What does he do? He brings down his like entire wrath of the fucking sky onto poor Athena, who's just trying to get her friend out of island jail.
After he is done, Athena gets back up and says to him, please, please let Odysseus go. Father, Papa, not only- does Athena sacrifice her own pride? Again, pride being big with Zeus. Athena sacrifices her own pride and her own life in order to save Odysseus because that's how much he means to her.
Now, if you know the Odyssey, you'll know that this story does have an end in which Odysseus is freed from the island of Calypso. Now, is she dead after God Games? Things aren't looking for her, but I do have hope for you.
It's all gonna be fine, we're all gonna make it out of this, because the last time I checked,