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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 775581" data-attributes="member: 5171">Ah, but saying that "two spoiled brats fighting over the shared wife/mistress" negates things from being epic ignores the fact that a ton of Epic Literature is based around stuff like that.Epic clashes are often, if not always, about the clash of different archetypes, or the destructive fury of two forces of the same archetype hitting each other.  The archetypal nature of these characters forces them, in some ways, to become stereotyped or one dimensional.  Not to bring religion into it, but I would argue that the story of Exodus is a good example of an epic story, in terms of archetypal confrontations.  In the story (and I'm thinking of it as a story in this case and really trying hard to avoid any kind of religious argument), it is said that God "hardens Pharoah's heart" so that he wouldn't let the Israelites go, which, if you squint, is really just an attempt to justify the one-dimensional character of a tyrannical ruler.This is not to say that people in (what I think of as) epic stories don't suffer from indecision.  A great warrior might be forced to choose between obeying his ruler and siding with his friend, when his friend has been declared an outlaw and his ruler has ordered the warrior to find and kill the friend.  Either way he chooses, he's heading for one archetype or another.Although, like numerous other people have said, we're coming into yet another definition of epicness.So perhaps it's better to figure out whether we're thinking about:Epic Level -- Level 20+Epic Saga -- Characterized by having the same characteristics as the ancient Norse sagasEpic Scope -- Characterized by the fact that the scope of the battle means that most of the known country, world, or universe is at stakeEpic Heroism -- Characterized by the archetypal nature of the characters, each of whom generally embodies a singular emotion or idealThere's a bunch of spillover possible, and I just made all that up, so it's possible that I'm really really full of it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />-Tacky</blockquote>

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