Just wanna correct some misinfo in the chat: in both Homer's Odyssey and in Epic, Odysseus' mother died naturally of a broken heart. There's a later version of the myth where she threw herself into the sea but that is explicitly not canon to Epic. See: Aphrodite's verse in God Games

Both of them just dying at 🎵 waiting...🎵 is so good. I tear up every time I hear this song, it's that good.

Penelope's voice actor appeared 4 times before this point. First in the "Keep your friends close", when Odysseus was dreaming. Second in "Suffering", third in "Different Beast" (although she only said the "What?!" there lol). And finally fourth as a come back in "Thunder bringer" with the line about suffering. This is the fifth time and her first "real" appearance.

The way No one has pointed ot that whenever Penelope sings the waiting melody...it stretches for 20 secs..."waiting" for the 20 year he's been gone

I don't remember if it was said already, but in The Challenge, at 1:42, right after the suitors sing "Time to be the man of the house", you can hear Odysseus' faint singing of "Penelope" in the background because the suitors are drowning him out, probably to symbolize how the suitors have already been trying to take over the throne. Once you hear it, you can't UNhear it, and I cry everytime 😭

3:00 how they both do that with they’re heads so in sync!?

Penelope sings waiting 9 times to reference the sagas and did it in 20 seconds to reference the 20 years

So in reference to the bow, this challenge was essentially made for Odysseus, because nobody remembers that his bow was strung backwards meaning it was never going to be tense enough to fire if you strung it normally. But only Odysseus would know that out of everyone, because he had unstrung it a long time ago.

There's actually speculation that Odysseus' bow was a Recurve Bow and that it was made out of strong oak which isn’t so easily bent, so only a royal like him would have access to at the time but would be very exotic or new for that time period, and requires a different technique to string it. Heck the reason Odysseus has it is because it was a gift from Polites. So the problem was never about not being Strong enough to string the bow, it's that you needed to know the technique along with their strength, and that rather than try to figure it out, the Suitors all just kept trying to brute-force it in the manner they were familiar with. It's yet another statement on how Odysseus' true strength lies in his cunning mind. In reality they have 3 challenges in one: Have the strength to string the bow, the intelligence to figure out the technique, and the skill to shoot it through the axes. If the suitor didn't have all 3, then he wasn't even worth consideration. Alas, I think (my headcanon is) that when Odysseus killed Antinous, he actually completed the challenge, stringing his bow and shooting Antinous through the axe heads, essentially dunking on the suiters and punishing them at the same time. What’s interesting is in the original Iliad/Odyssey makes it a point that Telemachus was about to successfully string his fathers old bow, but he was stopped by a divinely inspired realization that if he did that, he would actually ruin the plan for dealing with the suitors. This could also of course mean that he was about to figure out the technique for the bow on his own and didn't want to clue the suitors in on the fact there was a trick to it.

3:39 cackle oh you just wait