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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 776187" data-attributes="member: 2205">Yes, Tacky, but I'm not arguing that the Iliad isn't epic, I'm merely claiming that according to a lot of the definitions here, it isn't epic.&nbsp; Since Homer essentially defined what it means to be epic, I find that those definitions lose a lot of credibility with me real fast.I find then, that scope is not a good indicator of &quot;epicness&quot; as exemplified in Beowulf, for example (saving a rural petty king and his surrounding farmlands is very low-level scope in terms of typical D&amp;D adventures.)&nbsp; Heroicism is not a good indicator of epicness as the Iliad shows, since few (if any) of the characters therein would fit the bill of true heroism, certainly not in our society (although arguably Achilles was a paragon of heroic virtue to the Dark Age Greeks, at least to a certain extent.)&nbsp; And heroic power (level) is not a good indicator of epicness as the Lord of the Rings shows (Frodo and Sam can't be more than a few levels up the chain, for the entirety of the story.)So epic must mean something else.&nbsp; Personally, I don't think you can put your finger on exactly what epic means -- as the supreme court justices say about pornography, you can't define or describe it, but you know it when you see it.&nbsp; YMMV, though.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 776187, member: 2205"] Yes, Tacky, but [i]I'm[/i] not arguing that the Iliad isn't epic, I'm merely claiming that according to a lot of the definitions here, it isn't epic. Since Homer essentially defined what it means to be epic, I find that those definitions lose a lot of credibility with me real fast. I find then, that scope is not a good indicator of "epicness" as exemplified in Beowulf, for example (saving a rural petty king and his surrounding farmlands is very low-level scope in terms of typical D&D adventures.) Heroicism is not a good indicator of epicness as the Iliad shows, since few (if any) of the characters therein would fit the bill of true heroism, certainly not in our society (although arguably Achilles was a paragon of heroic virtue to the Dark Age Greeks, at least to a certain extent.) And heroic power (level) is not a good indicator of epicness as the Lord of the Rings shows (Frodo and Sam can't be more than a few levels up the chain, for the entirety of the story.) So epic must mean something else. Personally, I don't think you can put your finger on exactly what epic means -- as the supreme court justices say about pornography, you can't define or describe it, but you know it when you see it. YMMV, though. [/QUOTE]

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