“The Odyssey” and Gruesome Storytelling

How much do we actually need to see?

September 21, 2026 | 6 minutes

Art Life

I’m continuing to ponder my art style. Something I keep coming back to is story, particularly whether it is visually grounded in imagination or realism. How much I can stylize — and should I. What kind of details are necessary to show.

Because there is a stark difference in viewers’ reactions to something filmed versus animated. Like jumping off a skyscraper, both in Mission: Impossible and Into the Spider-Verse. Animation exaggerates and focuses on aesthetics. The visceral sense of reality keeps us invested in live action. They serve different purposes, produce different reactions.

Interestingly, even though both variants of the medium prefer different kinds of details, both in recent years have moved toward more gruesome, graphic details.

What Christopher Nolan Taught Me (by accident)

I watched The Odyssey a few months ago. I won’t bother you with a Letterboxd-esque review, because that’s not what this is meant to be. It’s a very well-made movie. But I noticed something while watching, and it’s come up in other movies too.

I noticed how gruesome and violent The Odyssey was. Impaling. Stabbing. Dismemberment.

I’m sure horror connoisseurs would tell me, “The body horror’s not that bad; I’ve seen worse.” But goodness. I haven’t looked away during a movie in a long time.

While I could only stand watching snippets from online commentaries, Obsession is similarly gruesome. In the animated medium, Invincible has similarly gory scenes.

Call me sensitive. R-rated movies, let alone R-rated horror, is a rarity for me. So that alone has made me more sensitive. But for The Odyssey, the issue surprisingly isn’t that it’s bloody. I was actually surprised by how little gore there is in it.

Yes, there is both a storytelling and thematic purpose to it. This adaptation definitely highlights the terrors and consequences of war. It all comes back to haunt Odysseus, his family — even his kingdom.

This isn’t really about The Odyssey; it’s about how graphic details appear across many movies. My question for this blog is: how necessary is gruesomeness in storytelling? Must it all be shown?

Seeing It All

Plenty of stories are intense, even dark, but not gruesome. Think of Disney animated features up until the end of its 2D “golden age.” Among their G- or PG-rated movies, different protagonists undergo the following:

• exiles himself under the alleged guilt of murdering his father, who died before his very eyes
• tries to take in a boy after murdering their mother (technically this happens in two — Brother Bear and Hunchback of Notre Dame)
• murders the jungle predator who murdered his parents, and watches a hunter hang himself
• escapes an island that turns inhabitants into donkeys (funnily, very Odyssey-like)

These movies have an intensity to them, despite not always showing the critical moments explicitly. So it makes me wonder: when is gruesomeness “required” for a story? Is it, at all? Can a dark story and theme be effectively conveyed without it?

For stories like The Odyssey, which revolve around the horrors of war and violence, it can seem non-negotiable. But a movie comes to mind that is both effective about these themes, revolving around the Holocaust, while at the same time not overly graphic: La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful). Surprisingly quite the comedy, but it hits dark and emotional notes too. The violence is offscreen and implied.

And remember, wars are in Disney movies too. Mulan? No, the good one, where they sing and there’s a tiny dragon. It’s mostly lighthearted, up until you see the remains of a pillaged town burned to the ground. All they show is a doll, but it still strongly impacts the scene.

A surprisingly emotional battle scene lives in The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. The antagonist pride tries to ambush and kill Simba. He escapes, but only when one of the enemy lions dies from his own greed. It’s a great sequence about blame, responsibility, and teaching your children who you love and hate.

Strangely, the subject matter and even the tone isn’t what separates kid-only and adult-only movies, most of the time. It’s just how graphically it’s depicted.

The Possibilities of Less

Storytellers tell a lot with a little. That’s honestly their greatest challenge: tell everything the audience needs, with only a small set of words. Or a stage. Or images. Or sounds. Or a sequence of images and sounds, fast enough to feel like it’s playing out right in front of you.

The advances of technology and productions enable artists to show more and more and more. The brutal swordfight. Realistic dismemberment and gore. People murdered in cold blood.

But I think we miss the effective storytelling done with less.

Thankfully, we live in an era where indie films are farther-reaching and more appreciated, thanks to growing festivals and platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Indie films have less to work with. They often accidentally prove themselves just as effective in storytelling while telling, well, less.

It’s an example told to death, but Up’s montage comes to mind. Little is shown. A lot is expressed and felt. Or Pixar’s Paperman. No words are uttered for the entire short. But the sheer breathtaking awe and investment in these two meeting each other. Most of the implications of the story are left to still frames during the credits.

There’s a lot of possibilities in how much we can tell. But strangely, that doesn’t mean stories become better told. They’re just told with more details.

A Comparison (and Ode) to Video Games

We see similar waves in the game industry. Contrary to the belief of game auteurs, photorealism does sell. It’s easily marketable, feels higher-production, and immerses players. And I think it is necessary for many games: the simulation genre, including Flight Simulator, or even realism-based shooters, deserve that level of graphics.

As any artist can tell you, more detail doesn’t always mean better. Often, less detail can make the remaining details just as powerful. It brings focus.

Most gamers can think of a game with stylized or just bad graphics that affected them drastically. A lot of those are also indie games, or at least smaller-budget games.

For me, two that come to mind are Freedom Force and Mini Ninjas. If you know these games, you’re a ball knower. Freedom Force played out like comic books in a surprisingly long campaign, with arcs for nearly every superhero you play as. Low-poly and low-res, but a great game. Mini Ninjas is heavily stylized, and one of the most peaceful games I’ve ever played. You can literally paddle along a calm lake and fish while sitting in a bowl-shaped hat. Absolute cinema.

For my Stories

I’m still exploring my style and stories. And I don’t think I’ll really be able to finish until my next Blender add-on course is done.

For my stories, I can think of a couple moments from each that are dark or graphic. An overpowered hero not pulling punches. A wounded boy. Bloody hands on a wall. Sadly, not all my ideas are kid-friendly.

But I definitely don’t want these scenes to be graphic “just because.” And I think this blog post is my realizing I don’t have to. They can still be effective for viewers, told with less.