The Thunder Saga is the sixth chapter of EPIC: The Musical and the first saga of Act 2. It was released on July 4th, 2024. It gained over 10 million views in under 7 days after its release.
Songs[]
Plot[]
A siren, disguised as Penelope, tries to lure Odysseus in with her song and drown him. Seemingly unaware of this, Odysseus asks the siren to tell him the best path to avoid Poseidon’s wrath and then maybe he will swim with her as she pleas. The siren, upon the promise that Odysseus would jump into the ocean, reveals that the best path to take would be through the lair of Scylla, a massive, six-headed sea monster.
After receiving this information, Odysseus immediately stops playing along with the siren's act and shoots her, revealing that he knew that she was a siren the whole time and that his crew had taken the siren’s friends as hostages while she was singing. Odysseus explains to the siren that, after noticing an abandoned ship, he made the crew fill their ears with beeswax in order to resist the siren’s song and read the siren's lips in order to find the best path home. He then displays his newfound ruthlessness by ordering his crew to cut off the sirens’ tails and leave them to drown.
As the crew enters the lair of Scylla, Eurylochus tells Odysseus a secret that he's been holding onto since they landed on Circe's Island, he was the one who opened Aeolus' Wind Bag when Odysseus fell asleep. He begs Odysseus for his forgiveness and gets no response. Later, Odysseus tells Eurylochus to light up six torches, with the latter having no idea that Odysseus intends to pay the heavy price that comes with passing through the sea monster's domain. Scylla appears before the ship and brutally devours the six men that were set out as sacrifices, with Eurylochus almost being one of them.
Eurylochus, grief stricken by the loss of his comrades and no longer trusting Odysseus, rebels against his captain. The rest of the crew decides to join Eurylochus, leading to Odysseus getting stabbed by Perimedes and knocked out cold. When Odysseus comes to, he finds himself tied to a statue of Helios, the god of the sun. As Eurylochus and the crew gather the many cows on the island for slaughter, Odysseus realizes that they are in Thrinacia, Helios' sacred island, and that Eurylochus is about to kill his sacred cattle. Odysseus, knowing that the wrath of the gods will come down on anyone who kills these cows, tries to reason with Eurylochus and the crew to not give into their hunger, only for Eurylochus to slit one of the cows’ throats. Assuming command for one last time, Odysseus unties himself and instructs his crew to get as far away from the island as fast as possible. The crew doesn't make it far before thunder crashes in the distance, much to Odysseus' horror.
In a flash of lightning, Zeus himself descends from Olympus to present Odysseus with another ultimatum: sacrifice himself, and never see his family again, or let his crew face punishment for the crime that they committed. After much debate, Odysseus chooses to sacrifice his crew. As the crew desperately charges at Odysseus one last time, Zeus calls upon the power of his lightning bolt and throws it at Odysseus' final ship. The bolt destroys the ship and instantly kills everybody except for Odysseus, who is left in the middle of the wreckage to live another day.
Trivia[]
- Suffering and Different Beast are the only songs in EPIC that were not originally revealed for the sake of spoilers.
- Though, in the past, Jay posted a snippet of "Suffering" and during the time, the fandom thought the song was cut. [1]
- The release of this saga fell on Independence Day, which may reference how one of Zeus' symbols is an eagle, the national bird of the United States.
