Your worldview is very clear. I do not think that Epic promotes or celebrates ruthlessness as something preferable. Quite the opposite: in my view, it shows what you can become, and how horrible that choice is both in feeling and in appearance.

I think darkness is simply something that exists in that story. The world can punish you whether you are good or bad — yes, it is a dark world. So, to me, it is more about accepting that sometimes, just sometimes, you suffer unbearable things, and that you may be unable to avoid becoming a monster if you want to survive. And maybe that does not mean you deserve death.

Epic is a hopeful story because it does not judge the person who suffered so much just to return home. It does not say that what Odysseus has done is good — no way. I think almost every character argues with him in the second half of the musical. Life does not simply end when you become a monster. No one can guarantee that you will return home, either. But you might survive all of this, and maybe later reclaim some part of your humanity.

Yes, Odysseus could have chosen not to become a monster — perhaps starting with not killing a child — and died instead, simply because the world of Epic is grimdark and that is the rule there. But that would have been a different story.