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Ruthlessness Lyrics Epic: The Musical

Ruthlessness Lyrics

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[LAESTRYGONIANS]
Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon

[ODYSSEUS, spoken]
Poseidon

[POSEIDON]
In all my years of living
It isn't very often that I get pissed off
I try to chill with the waves
But damn, you crossed the line

I've been so gracious
And yet, you hurt the son of mine
That's right, the cyclops you made blind, is mine

[ODYSSEUS, spoken]
No

[POSEIDON, LAESTRYGONIANS]
I'm left without a choice
And without a doubt
Guess the pack of wolves is swimming with the shark now
I've gotta make you bleed
I need to see you drown
But before you go, I need to make you learn how

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
Ruthl?ssness is mercy upon ourselv?s
Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
Ourselves


You are the worst kind of good
'Cause you're not even great
A Greek who reeks of false righteousness
That's what I hate

'Cause you fight to save lives
But won't kill and don't get the job done
I mean you totally could have avoided all this
Had you just killed my son
But no

You are far too nice
Mercy has a price
It's the final crack, we're about to break the ice now
You reveal your name
Then you let him live
Unlike you I've got no mercy left to give 'cause

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
Ourselves
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

[ODYSSEUS]
Poseidon, we meant no harm
We only hurt him to disarm him
We took no pleasure in his pain
We only wanted to escape

[POSEIDON]
The line between naïveté and
Hopefulness is almost invisible
So close your heart
The world is dark and

[LAESTRYGONIANS]
Ruthlessness is mercy-

[POSEIDON]
Die

[LAESTRYGONIANS, SOLDIERS]
Ruthlessness is (Captain) mercy upon our- Captain
Ruthlessness is (Captain) mercy upon our- Captain
Ruthlessness is (Captain) mercy upon our- Captain
Ruthlessness is (Captain)
[ODYSSEUS]
What have you done?

[ENSEMBLE]
When does a ripple become a tidal wave?

[POSEIDON]
Forty three left under your command

[ENSEMBLE]
When does a man become a monster?

[POSEIDON]
I am your darkest moment
The monster that always draws near
Any last words?

[ODYSSEUS]
All I gotta do is open this bag

[POSEIDON]
What?

Remember me

Song Overview

Ruthlessness lyrics by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
First frame of the animatic: Laestrygonian silhouettes chant Poseidon’s name beneath a bruised-purple sky.

The “Ruthlessness” lyrics slam open like a storm door, yanking us into Poseidon’s salt-corroded courtroom. Dropped on December 25 2023 as the climax of The Ocean Saga, the track crowns Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s four-song gauntlet with a god-sized tirade. Within thirty-six hours of release, the saga broke one million Spotify streams; by mid-2025, “Ruthlessness” alone had become one of the cast’s most-looped anthems, its animatic circling 2 million YouTube views and counting.

How to sing

  • Key & meter: D-minor at 150 BPM. Verses ride a 6/8 swing; choruses snap to militant 4/4—waves versus war drums.
  • Range: Poseidon rumbles G2–E4 (bass-baritone thunder); Odysseus answers B2–F?4; the Laestrygonian chant hovers around C3 for impact.
  • Breath game: Notice the relentless triplet on “Ru-thless-ness”: grab micro-breaths after “is” or risk drowning like the crew.
  • Tone colors: Use gritty fry on Poseidon’s “Ruthlessness is mercy” to mimic crashing surf; keep Odysseus brighter—hope fighting erosion.
  • Staging tip: On “Any last words?” drop to utter stillness—audiences inhale, waiting for the bag of winds to hiss.
Cast of EPIC performing Ruthlessness
Poseidon (Steven Rodriguez) cracks the sea floor; Odysseus stumbles amid spectral blue flames.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Ruthlessness” is less a duet than a moral autopsy. Poseidon, voiced with road-gravel resonance, indicts Odysseus for the mercy that spared Polyphemus—mercy that, paradoxically, now dooms dozens. Rivera-Herrans scores this indictment with brass detonations and choir stabs that feel like judicial gavels.

The mantra—“Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”—flips Homeric virtue on its head. In River-Herrans’s cosmology, mercy isn’t kindness, it’s risk mitigation; spare a foe and you invite divine collateral damage. The Laestrygonian chorus chanting “Poseidon” in a three-note rising motif mirrors sirens on a naval destroyer: warning, chaos, impact.

Ruthlessness lyric video by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
The lyric “Ruthlessness is mercy” flickers like a lighthouse viewed through sleet.
You are the worst kind of good, ’cause you’re not even great.

Punch-line of the century? Maybe. Poseidon lobs it with rap-battler swagger, shredding Odysseus’s heroic branding while a distorted sub-bass growl traces the god’s anger line.

Verse Highlights

Opening Invocation

Laestrygonian monks chant Poseidon’s name—six repetitions that mimic pounding breakers. The sea god enters to a choked trumpet, hinting at the brass leitmotif Rivera-Herrans always tucks beneath Poseidon’s scenes.

First Chorus

Percussion doubles in tempo; the phrase “ourselves” stretches over a four-measure melisma, as though echoing inside a sea trench.

Bridge – The Price of Mercy

Guitars drop out, leaving only low strings and a heartbeat kick drum while Poseidon lists Odysseus’s moral failures. The emptiness is terrifying—like stars disappearing mid-voyage.

Instrumental Interlude

Eight bars of rising wind samples foreshadow the bag’s reopening—white noise morphs into Aeolian flute, tying back to the saga’s first song.

Annotations

The Laestrygonians appear

The Laestrygonians are a tribe of man-eating giants, said to descend from Laestrygon, son of Poseidon and Gaia.

Chanting the sea god’s name

Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon.

(1) The rhythm mirrors Po-ly-phe-mus in “Survive,” fitting because the Cyclops is Poseidon’s son. (2) Each “-seidon” rides the familiar Danger-Is-Nearby motif, as composer Jorge Rivera-Herrans confirmed.

Odysseus whispers the inevitable

When he repeats Poseidon, sheer fear cracks through his voice: he now grasps that the raging storm came from an enraged god.

Waves woven into the score

Jay layered real ocean sounds beneath high staccato strings to build Poseidon’s theme — the sea itself becomes the orchestra.

“It isn’t very often that I get pissed off”

Myth says otherwise: floods, quakes, sea-monsters — Poseidon’s grudges drown cities. Troy, Crete, even Athens tasted that wrath.

“I try to chill with the waves”

A wry pun: the sea god “chilling” in his own element while hurling storms at mortals.

Crossing the line

A subtle echo of Athena’s warning in “My Goodbye”: “This way, you can’t cross the line.” Odysseus just did.

Punishing the one who blinded his son

Poseidon reminds Odysseus that the Cyclops he maimed was his child and that the seas stayed strangely calm until now.

“No” — the wave of realization

A swell crashes in perfect sync with the word, underscoring the moment the truth hits.

“Without a choice, without a doubt”

Odysseus’s panicked reaction proves Poseidon’s point: he has cornered his prey.

Wolves meet the shark

Odysseus descends from Autolykos (“the wolf himself”); now the “pack of wolves” swims with a predator of the deep — the sea god.

“Bleed … drown”

Sharks smell blood; Poseidon threatens both blood and water, a double doom.

“Before you go, learn how”

Parallels Polyphemus’s taunt in “Survive”: both father and son force Odysseus to learn through pain.

The creed

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.

Rivera-Herrans explained: to Poseidon, ruthless action removes future threats — a twisted mercy.

“Ourselves”

He claims slaughter protects him, his giants, and the sea from further Odyssean damage.

“Worst kind of good”

Poseidon calls out Odysseus’s hypocrisy: pretending to spare lives yet leaving Polyphemus blind, suffering, alive — false righteousness.

“Fight to save lives but won’t kill”

The orchestra slips in notes from “Just a Man,” linking Odysseus’s earlier hesitation about killing a child to this crisis.

“You could have avoided all this”

If Polyphemus had died, no complaint would have reached dad. Athena’s unseen piano motif sneaks in, as if saying, “I warned you.”

“But no”— when gods agree

Even Athena once urged, “Finish it.” For once, the goddess and the sea god stand on the same side.

Mercy’s price

A reference to the cut song Mercy Has a Price; Poseidon thinks the bill now comes due in blood.

“Final crack … break the ice”

A literal ice-breaker: their first real conversation shatters any hope of peace.

Name first, mercy later

Poseidon recalls that Odysseus boasted his identity and spared the Cyclops — the two wrong moves that doomed him.

“No mercy left”

Flips Odysseus’s own line to Athena — “mercy is a skill” — on its head.

Mercy dilemmas tally up

Infant in “Just a Man” (ruthless), Polyphemus in “Remember Them” (merciful), rumor-mongers in “Keep Your Friends Close” (merciful). Every soft choice backfires.

“Time to say goodbye”

A quiet nod to “My Goodbye,” hinting that Poseidon and Athena share certain cold ideals.

“Today, you die”

Pledge noted — he’ll repeat it for a decade.

“Unless you apologize”

A hollow offer; the sea god is past forgiving.

“For my son’s pain”

Polyphemus prayed precisely for this vengeance.

Odysseus’s excuse, not apology

We meant no harm … We only wanted to escape.

He defends motives instead of saying “sorry,” sealing his fate.

Naivety vs. hope

The gods prove Eurylochus right: divine danger arrives from a direction no mortal predicted.

“Die” — the death count

From 600 men off Troy, 14 died in the cave; now, all but 43 drown — roughly 543 lost in one divine strike.

“Captain!” and the motif

The pleas ride the same Danger-Is-Nearby notes, echoing their terror in “Polyphemus.”

Mercy for the captain

The staggered line “Ruthlessness (Captain) …” foretells that only Odysseus, the captain, will see Ithaca again.

“What have you done?”

Tsunamis obliterate every ship but one; shock freezes Odysseus.

Ripple to tidal wave

The Ensemble recycles Odysseus’s own words from “Just a Man,” now dripping with irony as Poseidon weaponizes literal waves.

“Forty-three left”

A detail lifted from Homer: giants crushed every vessel except the king’s own, leaving one crew to sail on.

“I am your darkest moment”

Poseidon mocks Odysseus by quoting his boast to Polyphemus.

The lurking monster

Though they won’t meet again until “Get in the Water,” Poseidon’s shadow will dog Odysseus across every sea.

“Any last words?”

Poseidon’s delay mirrors Odysseus taunting the Cyclops — hubris that lets the victim slip away.

“All I gotta do is open this bag”

The phrase flips Aeolus’s warning from “Keep Your Friends Close” and unleashes the trapped winds as an escape hatch.

“What?” — the shocked god

The fourth “What” of the Ocean Saga: even a deity can be blindsided by mortals with a plan.

The wind-bag interlude

The music reprises the moment the bag burst before — this time propelling Odysseus away from doom.

“Remember me”

Poseidon throws Odysseus’s own threat from “Remember Them” back at him — a promise that the sea’s vendetta is far from over.

Song Credits

Scene from Ruthlessness by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
Odysseus clutches the dwindling wind-bag as shards of hull drift past.
  • Featured voices: Steven Rodriguez (Poseidon) · Jorge Rivera-Herrans (Odysseus) · EPIC ensemble
  • Producer / Composer / Lyricist: Jorge Rivera-Herrans
  • Release Date: December 25 2023
  • Genre: Symphonic-metal musical; mythic rap-rock
  • Length: 3 min 57 sec
  • Instrumentation: Brass, distorted guitars, eight-voice male choir, tempest SFX
  • Label: Winion Entertainment LLC
  • Mood: Vengeful; titan-level dread
  • Track order: #13 on the full concept album, #4 in The Ocean Saga
  • Language: English
  • Poetic meter: Trochaic heave over 6/8 swing
  • Copyright: © 2023 Winion Entertainment LLC

Similar Songs Exploring Vengeance & Moral Ambiguity

  1. “Hellfire” – Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame

    Like Poseidon, Frollo sings his own indictment, couching righteous rage in cathedral acoustics. Both tracks fuse Latin-tinged choir with villain POV to chilling effect.

  2. “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” – Stephen Sondheim

    Another anti-hero anthem where a chorus narrates impending slaughter. Sondheim’s razor meets River-Herrans’s trident: mercy is luxury neither can afford.

  3. “March of the Witch Hunters” – Wicked

    Mob mentality, syncopated stomps, and a catchy mantra—sound familiar? “Ruthlessness” upgrades the pitchforks to spears but the psychology is the same.

Questions and Answers

Why does Poseidon call Odysseus “the worst kind of good”?
Because selective mercy feels like vanity; the god argues half-measures breed collateral loss, a thesis summarized by the mantra.
How many men survive the encounter?
Forty-three, a grim count Poseidon spits like a body-check statistic—straight from the lyric sheet.
Is the bag of winds really empty?
Not yet; Odysseus reopens it to yank the ship from Poseidon’s grasp, sacrificing navigation for survival.
Any notable covers?
Annapantsu’s female rock cover, featuring Chloe Breez, passed 1.6 million YouTube views within a year.
Will Ruthlessness appear in future EPIC stagings?
Rivera-Herrans confirmed in a 2024 TikTok Q&A that Poseidon’s live entrance will involve LED floor panels simulating rising surf.

Awards and Chart Positions

  • The Ocean Saga EP debuted at No. 1 on the US iTunes soundtrack chart Christmas Day 2023.
  • The saga crossed 1 million Spotify streams in 36 hours; “Ruthlessness” is now a top-five EPIC track by on-platform plays, per fan-curated playlists.

Fan and Media Reactions

“Ruthlessness goes so hard. Steven’s Poseidon is my most-played EPIC song.” u/No-Antelope-17, Reddit
“That ‘Ruthlessness is mercy’ hook? Tattoo-worthy.” Comment on Annapantsu cover
“Animatic’s color palette alone deserves an Annie.” @_windchild_art, TikTok
“Forty-three left under your command” still chills me every listen.” @PoseidonsTrident, Twitter
“Ocean Saga hit a million streams in under two days—indie musical who?” Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Facebook post

Music video


Epic: The Musical Lyrics: Song List

  1. The Troy Saga
  2. The Horse and the Infant
  3. Just A Man
  4. Full Speed Ahead
  5. Open Arms
  6. Warrior of the Mind
  7. The Cyclops Saga
  8. Polyphemus
  9. Survive
  10. Remember Them
  11. My Goodbye
  12. The Ocean Saga
  13. Storm
  14. Luck Runs Out
  15. Keep Your Friends Close
  16. Ruthlessness
  17. The Circe Saga
  18. Puppeteer
  19. Wouldn't You Like
  20. Done For
  21. There Are Other Ways
  22. The Underworld Saga
  23. The Underworld
  24. No Longer You
  25. Monster
  26. The Thunder Saga
  27. Suffering
  28. Different Beast
  29. Scylla
  30. Mutiny
  31. Thunder Bringer
  32. The Wisdom Saga
  33. Legendary
  34. Little Wolf
  35. We’d Be Fine
  36. Love in Paradise
  37. God Games
  38. The Vengeance Saga
  39. Not Sorry For Loving You
  40. Dangerous
  41. Charybdis
  42. Get in the Water
  43. 600 Strike
  44. The Ithaca Saga
  45. The Challenge
  46. Hold Them Down
  47. Odysseus
  48. I Can’t Help But Wonder
  49. Would You Fall In Love With Me Again

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