Zeus saw Demeter's sorrow might starve and kill off all mankind if winter continued and so he sent Hermes to the Underworld again this time not with a request but a demand to release Persephone. But Hades knew Hermes would be back and so he formed a plan; It was said that once a soul had eaten the food of the dead they were beyond any miracle of the gods and would remain in the Underworld forever and so Hades offered Persephone a pomegranate, once she finished it she would be his for all time.
Persephone had heard she was not to eat the food of the dead but her hunger had been growing for months and she had come to trust Hades, so when Hades told her it would not hurt to have a few little seeds of a pomegranate she finally gave in and ate the fruit seeds. When Hermes arrived to take Persephone she confessed she had recently eaten fruit of the Underworld and it seemed Hades' claim was beyond even Zeus' authority.
But Hermes asked Persephone how many seeds she had eaten and Persephone told him it was four so Hermes offered a compromise that Persephone remain in the Underworld for four months of the year and remain with Demeter the rest of the year; Hades agreed, assured Persephone would be returned to him in eight months and he would see her every year regardless of Demeter's thoughts on the matter.
Another myth tells of Hades' involvement with Asclepius, a mortal son of Apollo who was a gifted healer and the world's first doctor. Asclepius was so gifted he was able to give mortals longer lives by curing plagues and showing them how to take care of themselves. Asclepius brought people back from the brink of death many times. Eventually though Asclepius started to bring people back from the dead for hefty sums of money. It was with this feat that Hades lost his temper and stormed up to Mount Olympus demanding that Asclepius pay the price for openly mocking death.
Zeus appeased Hades by personally striking down Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo, enraged at the death of his son, killed the younger generations of Cyclops that forged the bolt.
Enraged at Apollo's defiance, Zeus forced him to serve a mortal king for a year as punishment. Asclepius was later deified as the god of healing. One of the few other myths Hades played a major antagonistic part in was the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a cleaver and charismatic king who feared death and made up his mind to find a way to evade Hades.
When it came time for Sisyphus to die Hades bestowed Thantos with chains made by Hephaestus that could bind a one's very essence as a precaution. Sisyphus spotted Thanatos ready to sneak up on him, immediately turned and lavished praise upon Thanatos for the finely crafted chains he carried, Thanatos was initially perplexed at the extroverted flattery but while handling the chains to gasp at the beauty, Sisyphus used a quick slight of hand to trap Thanatos instead.
After Hades found death was no longer in play, due to Thanatos being bound, he arrived to free Thanatos and drag Sisyphus to the Underworld himself. While Thanatos was still bound Sisyphus had told his wife not to bury him with fare. Sisyphus told Persephone of how Hades had snatched him up before he even had the time to get a funeral and his wife and forgotten his last rites. Persephone sent Sisyphus' ghost back to ask for his last rites but Sisyphus instead remained in the world of the living as an undead, content to live forever in undeath rather then go to the Underworld.
Thanatos refused to approach Sisyphus again, so Hades told Sisyphus that for every day he lived one of his people would die - in an attempt to socially pressure him to do the right thing or be marked a pariah for it; However Sisyphus was beyond divine shame.
For a long time Sisyphus escaped death by offering one of his people in return and, being a beloved king, his people were willing to offer themselves to Hades on his behalf. Exhausted from Sisyphus' scheming, one day Hades called for the soul of Sisyphus' wife as offering. Sisyphus was terrified of living without her and so he finally conceded. His wife gave him his last rites and Sisyphus went to the Underworld. Hades was so angry at Sisyphus for holding the natural order hostage that he arranged a special punishment for him.
Hades put Sisyphus on the edge the pits of Tartarus but told Sisyphus that his schemes would be overlooked and he had a chance to go to the paradise of Elysium if, and only if he could roll a large boulder up a hill. Hades said he wished to show Sisyphus that cunning would not avert fate; Sisyphus, apart from being humbled took the proclamation as a dare and quickly agreed and tried to push the boulder up the hill but it fell.
Sisyphus slyly pointed out that Hades had not said Sisyphus could only attempt this once and so Sisyphus used the wording as a loophole to try again but again it fell, content that his superior intellect had doped Hades himself into sparing him from Tartarus.
Sisyphus would keep trying to push the boulder up the hill so he would never be brought to be punished in the fiery pits and one day he could get out and go to Elysium.. However, Hades never told him the boulder, like all parts of the Underworld, obeyed his wishes and would always roll down and that was his punishment.
Depending on version of the story, Hades had intentionally left his wording ambiguous to bait Sisyphus' ego so that Sisyphus would continues to try to escape Tartarus forever punished by his own ambitions.
Hades is said to have worn a helmet that granted him invisibility and is his iconic item as Zeus has his lightning bolts and Poseidon his trident.
Hades had a loyal monster dog named Cerberus who could actually eat the souls of the dead and hunted down any souls that tried to leave the underworld. He commands a legion of Grim Reapers. In The House on Hackman Hill , Anubis is portrayed as a monster who mummifies people alive and threatens the main characters.
Starkly averted in Moonflowers where Hades is one of the first deities to help out the Song family. He arrives because he's worried that Alima Song's grief for her presumed-dead parents has gone on for months without closure, then takes great offense when he finds out they AREN'T dead.
He initially thinks that The Wild Hunt is playing a sadistic "prank," and nearly starts a speech about how they're fucking up "the natural order. Myth-O-Mania depicts Hades as usually the most helpful god, and the Lemony Narrator , though it also provides in-universe examples of this trope.
For instance, Zeus claims that Persephone only became Hades' queen because he kidnapped her, when actually she hitched a ride on Hades' chariot while escaping her overprotective mother. Additionally, mortals who mistake Hades as a messenger of death fear him, a discrepancy he expresses annoyance with.
Nation gives us Locaha. He's the god of death, but also in charge of judging whether people have done well enough to enter the better world. They all choose to stay and make the real world better instead. He's friendly to Mau and even gives him hints a few times. He also argues against Imo destroying the world when he gets frustrated with it. Percy Jackson and the Olympians : In The Lightning Thief , Hades is the prime suspect of the theft of the master bolt in order to overthrow the gods.
It turns out to be a subversion. It's not him; he thinks it was Percy and only wants the bolt so he can return it, along with his stolen helmet. The real thief? Ares, being manipulated by Luke, being manipulated by Kronos. Humorously, this version of Hades mentions on his profile page on the official Percy Jackson site that Disney's Hercules is one of his favorite films.
He even claims to like being portrayed as the bad guy for the movie; his only gripe was the blue flaming hair. It's possible he's being sarcastic.
Percy even starts to feel a little bad for him as he sees him as the Olympian Black Sheep due to his job as lord of the dead, pointing out their treatment of him would make anyone bitter. In a way, the book even has a hilarious Take That! When Percy actually confronts him, Hades is infuriated that people think he would want more subjects, seeing how he already has his hands full with the incredibly large numbers of death occurring every day.
Hades: Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone? How many subdivisions I had to open?! More security ghouls! Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion! Double overtime for the staff! Live-Action TV. Vorenus declares himself utterly relentless and merciless, as well as desperate enough to call upon the Stygian deity.
In Classical mythology he's the god of wine, intoxication and excess and a bit of a douche with a chip on his shoulder, like all Greek Gods but in the TV series he's clearly a devil red skin, horns and everything whose worshippers are clearly vampires.
As for the man himself, Hades was treated quite well, despite the franchise's reputation for playing fast and loose with mythology. On occasion, he expresses annoyance with this trope, noting he is derided as dark and evil simply because of his domain and dressing in black.
Though snarky and sometimes complaining about his job, Hades works hard to keep the Underworld running smoothly whereas the other gods can be lazy or outright vindictive. He often helped the heroes and was quite reasonable. Even his relationship with Persephone is portrayed sympathetically; in this version, they were very much in love from the start, and he only abducted her because Demeter forbid their relationship.
Charmed : Except for a mention of being the father of the demon Nikos in a novel, Hades himself never appears. However, Hecate, another underworld god dess , comes off particularly badly, being turned into a demon. Yama is the amoral gatekeeper of Chinese hell who tried to snatch whatever spirits were not "properly buried" and drag them to hell, regardless of whether they were good or evil.
The Angel of Death, on the other hand, is portrayed more or less sympathetically, especially during his first appearance.
He does his job in ensuring that everyone dies at the appropriate time. If somebody who must die does not, it will cause the natural flow of death to halt and put the entire world in chaos. Stargate SG-1 : Though none of them are actually the gods they've adopted the personae of, Anubis of the Goa'uld is considered the most evil of the bunch, even by the Goa'uld themselves.
The higher echelons of their race are all psychopathic despots with a god complex , but Anubis is the only one who's a complete Omnicidal Maniac. In episodes of The Twilight Zone featuring a personification of death , he was usually nice and just wanted to help people move on, but was feared. In the Greek Myths spin-off of Jim Henson's The Story Teller , Hades is presented as a bitter being who is unmoved by Orpheus's music and it takes Persephone groveling at his feet to get him to acquiesce.
They are described as mindless killing machines who reek of rotting flesh. On the other hand this description is given by the Mai and should be taken with a grain of salt. When actually encountered the Jackals are nasty but not as one dimensionally as described and there's at least one sympathetically portrayed one.
Supernatural : Death is notable in that, among the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , he's the only one who's not outright evil. Another subversion with Anubis.
In contrast to both many times this trope has been invoked with him and Supernatural making almost every supernatural being evil including most gods, even if they weren't in their original mythology , Anubis here is closer to Egyptian mythology, as he simply weighs a person's heart to decide whether they go to Heaven or Hell. In Once Upon a Time Hades is the villain of the second half of season 5 when the heroes go to The Underworld which is basically Purgatory to save Killian and he doesn't want any souls leaving his domain for any reason.
He's so vile, in fact, that he's able to pull Eviler Than Thou on every previous villain in the series, who are all shown to be downright terrified of him. The Librarians does this with Anubis, who is summoned by fellow god Apep AKA Apophis , and turns an entire research facility into werewolves. He is clearly portrayed as evil here, willing to aid Apep in unleashing the Ultimate Evil.
Legend of the Seeker : Not actually everyone for some reason he has followers , though most people do loathe the Keeper of the Underworld and with good reason, as in contrast to most death gods he wants to destroy all living things permanently. In the meantime he visits misery on them when alive or under his control afterward. The upside: It led to "Mr. Mythology and Religion. While Disney did go a bit over the top, Hades was not a favorite god of the Greeks, who didn't even like to say his name and would avert their eyes when sacrificing to him, as they worried about attracting his attention.
He was said to "enrich himself with our sighs and our tears" by Sophocles. In Homer's Iliad , Agamemnon described him saying, "Hades who is utterly unyielding—and hence he is, of all gods, the one most hateful to mankind. You could pray to other gods for success in war, a safe journey, or a good harvest, and those prayers could seemingly be granted.
But no matter how much you pray, nobody is coming back from the dead. While he was not considered out-and-out evil, being a death god put the kibosh on him ever becoming that popular. To be fair, making Hades a "Good Guy" god in the eyes of modern audiences would require you to whitewash some aspects of his character and background, especially concerning how Persephone becomes his bride How specifically he was treated depended largely on the source, however.
Homeric hymns, epic poetry, and most Hellenic literature depicted him as The Dreaded , not evil, but certainly feared and despised. Orphic hymns identified him with Zeus as a sort of Messianic figure, and highly revered his wife Persephone; Pythagorean thought, which has a variety of similarities to the Orphic cult, depicted him as a god of great significance on par with Zeus, far more so than Poseidon.
The perception of Hades, and his negative treatment in myth, was rooted in how the Greeks looked at death. To put it simply, while not a Satanic Archetype by any means, he was certainly considered a grim and terrible figure. The modern perception of him in a more positive light actually owes itself to three things. First: the push-back against adaptations showing him as a God of Evil.
While it is fair to criticize these portrayals, it probably goes too far to allege Hades was actually nice. Second: a change in the perception of death. In modern times, while dying is still roundly feared, death is primarily associated with peace and rest whether you believe in religion or not. For the Greeks, death meant bleak oblivion. Third: what the ancient Greeks feared about Hades actually appeals to modern readers: he was inexorable. To the Greeks, this meant he was merciless, cruel, and unmoved by compassion; to us, it means he was fair and lacked the capriciousness that makes the other Olympians seem like Jerkass Gods.
Hades' wife, Persephone, was equally feared by Ancient Greeks for being his queen, and was called things like "The Dread Queen. Since "Hades" was the name of the underworld as well as it's patron God, a decent chunk of the times you see " Hell " in your English New Testament, it actually said Hades in the original Greek text.
Samael, the Archangel of Death itself, had no part in these rebellions. Norse Mythology : Some mythologists actually theorize that Loki, the default Big Bad of the myths, got hit with this as soon as Vikings started embracing Christianity. Unfortunately, this was around the same time the Vikings started writing down their mythology. His daughter Hel, who is actually the goddess of death, was probably another victim of this. Older myths tend to depict her as a serene guide to the other world for departed souls who had died from natural causes.
Demonization of pagan deities by the Christians made her an hideous hag preparing an army of the dead for her father. And, similarly to Hades, can you guess where the word Hell comes from? Baldrs Draumar pretty much shows her welcoming Baldr with a feast, and some have theorised that this is a surviving depiction of what Hel was like before demonisation.
Older sources also don't speak of Helheim in particularly negative terms, implying that it wasn't that awful. It is noted that her armies side with the villains during Ragnarok, though interestingly, Loki is leading them while she's conspicuously absent.
This can be attributed to how Shinto has a serious case of Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness going, with Impurity being the product and source of all of creations ills, from diseases to depressions, and death being both the greatest source of uncleanliness, to the point where just talking about it can make you unhappy, as well as being the greatest toll Impurity can take on a life.
The most prominent Yomotsukami is Izanami, the dead wife of Izanagi , who resolved to kill living beings every day, with Izanagi in turn resolving that he'd give life to every day, essentially inventing mortality itself over a quarrel with her former husband.
An odd case of aversion in Chinese Mythology. The Chinese afterlife is called Diyu and you are interviewed by the higher powers before they allow you into heaven.
If you fail, you will have to go through a maze to exonerate yourself of sin. There's an apocryphal story about Christian missionaries trying to convince the Chinese that they will go to Hell if they don't convert.
The response the Chinese gave was "that's what you call it? Mostly subverted with Supay - the reason the Conquistadores thought he was the Incan Devil was due to the fact that he was portrayed as genuinely greedy and vicious, causing death in the world as repayment for taking his property, the ore of the Earth, and known for actually making a Deal with the Devil a much shorter life in return for that life being of fantastic wealth and success, since he will inevitably get his money back when the other party dies.
Again, mostly subverted , as he wasn't portrayed as evil so much as ruthlessly fair. The Voudoun loa note Intermediaries between Humanity and the supreme creator, Bondye; comparable to angels. The goddess Kali from Hindu Mythology is commonly depicted with blood dripping from her mouth, while wearing a both a necklace of severed heads and a skirt of severed hands, while holding multiple blood-stained swords in her multiple hands.
So she must be a goddess of evil who demands human sacrifice, as she is commonly depicted in western media, right? That blood dripping from her mouth? It's the blood of an Asura. Those severed heads around her hips? The heads of mortal Evil Overlords.
Chernobog, the Slavic god of darkness, could be a victim of this, or perhaps actually was thought of as evil by ancient Slavic people. Due to an extreme lack of any form of records from any pagan from that time period, we really have no clue what they thought of him.
In medieval times, the Slavic god of the underworld, Veles, was associated with the devil because of his opposition to Perun, who was syncretised as St. Pro Wrestling. Hades wears lots of intimidating spikes and routinely blows out fire but is usually a Face on the US Indy scene. His opponents usually try to convince cheering audiences that he's Obviously Evil to no avail.
Other than being Indian, having relatively dark skin, and sticking out his long tongue once in a mockery of The Undertaker , the wrestling "Khali" really bears no relation to the goddess he's named after, and has in fact undergone two Heel Face Turns in the course of his career. So, Quadruple Subversion? Tabletop Games. The book specifically notes that he isn't actively hostile or vicious, and that he mostly just is ; everyone dies eventually, and someone has to run the afterlife.
Anubis on the other hand was listed as Lawful Neutral. Hel, of course, gets the "evil" treatment and one that affects her personality more, likely due to her being half rotting corpse , despite being by far the least antagonistic of Loki's children in the original myths. Ironically, Loki has a strange case of this: in the section on Norse deities, the book tells the DM that if the setting is before the slaying of Baldr, Loki, despite being Chaotic Evil , would not be actively evil.
Notably, the book also adds the idea of the Repose domain, which seems designed as an attempt at averting this: it's meant to represent gods of death that aren't cackling foes of all life, and whose clerics are more likely to simply mind the graveyards and conduct funeral rites.
Gods which play this trope straight usually get the Death domain, which is the one with all the overt necromancy, spreading fear, and instant-killing, whereas gods who view death as more of a passing thing i.
Anubis and Osiris get the Repose domain. Averted back in second edition Planescape , where Hades' realm, also called Hades, is certainly not in a nice place, but Hades himself is depicted pretty much as a cynical version of his Greek Myth self. Hades is Lawful Neutral. Hecate, however, abandons her mythologic role as a complex goddess and falls more in line with Shakespeare's vision of her in The Scottish Play.
The big exception is Osiris, who's listed as Lawful Good. In various other books, the deity of death tends to be Lawful Neutral instead, and there tends to be a different underworld for each alignment. From the Greyhawk pantheon, the death god Nerull is sometimes called the Hater of Life and the Foe of All Good, and his clergy are all serial killers. The hatred is heartfelt and mutual. Averted with Greyhawk's other major death diety, Wee Jas.
She's a Lawful Neutral goddess of magic as well as death who's not terribly nice or popular but is respected. Sadly, played very straight in 5th edition, where the lack of a Death domain in the Player's Handbook it's instead found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, as a class option for villain NPCs is explicitly handwaved with the "fact" that most Death gods are evil and so most Clerics with the Death domain will be villains. It does mention that it's possible for Death Clerics who aren't evil, specifically citing Anubis note here portrayed as the Lawful Neutral God of the Underworld and Nephthys note here portrayed as the Chaotic Good Goddess of Mourning of the Egyptian pantheon, who contrast Set, note here portrayed as a very stereotypical Chaotic Evil God of Murder as reasons why, but it's only mentioned in passing.
While Death Clerics focus on death as an ender of life and specialise in necrotic-type offensive spells and dealing huge damage, Grave Clerics focus on gods that are the guardians of the dead; to a Grave Cleric, death is just another part of how the world works on a fundamental level, and resisting death or desecrating the dead is an abomination.
Grave Clerics' abilities focus is on destroying undead creatures, easing the passing of the dying, and staving off death. Varies somewhat in the Forgotten Realms setting, where there have been a total of four gods of death over the years. Jergal was uncaring and unsettling, Myrkul was cruel and capricious, and Cyric was outright Ax-Crazy. The incumbent Kelemvor, however, is Lawful Neutral and directs his clergy to comfort the bereaved and slay undead rather than propagate them which is sometimes difficult when your temple is a repurposed one to Myrkul or Cyric, due to Kelemvor only having been on the job for two years as of 3rd Edition.
The trope still applies to Kelemvor, however, as he was Lawful Good in Second Edition, and other deities including good deities forced him to adopt a Lawful Neutral alignment because the authors didn't like the idea of a good Death deity. Jergal in particular actually Inverts the trope twice over: He was originally a Neutral Evil god of strife, death, and the dead, but he eventually grew bored with this position and became the Lawful Neutral god of morticians and undertakers instead.
It's the lowest score of any deity in the book. Pathfinder : Averted with the core deity, Pharasma. She's pretty reasonable overall, gets along with nearly all the other gods, her church has a reputation for being good mediators and avoiding conflict, and even though she's The Grim Reaper , she has no problem with you being resurrected it wasn't really your time yet.
Just don't be undead. Deities of un death, on the other hand, such as Urgathoa, tend to play this straight. Zyphus, the Grim Harvestman and a lesser member of the core deities, plays with this trope. He's the god of accidental death and tragedy read: Dropped a Bridge on Him and vehemently opposes the idea of a there being such a thing as an appropriate death. That being said, he's Neutral Evil , has been in a Rage Against the Heavens mode for as long as he's been a deity, and happily works with the Four Horsemen.
The Tian Xia god of death, Yaezhing, is a zig-zagging case of this: he's the Tian-Shu deity of murder, death, and punishment which exceeds the crime; he is patron of ninja and assassins; and despite being Lawful Evil is more of the Noble Demon type he's a Punch-Clock Villain and enforcer of justice among the gods.
Charon, the ferryman of the dead from Classical Mythology , is reimagined as an archdaemon and the eldest most powerful of the Four Horsemen — in other words, as the most evil and omnicidal member of a race defined by being utterly evil and devoted to the end goal of killing everything in the universe, then killing each other in a frenzy of hatred when that's done, and the last daemon standing then killing itself out of self-hatred, leaving behind an eternally dead and empty universe.
A big step up in villainy for a Psychopomp whose mythical depiction had him doing little beyond ferrying the dead from one side of the river Styx to the other. Ponyfinder : The ponykind death goddess, Soft Whisper, has been almost forgotten since her primary worshippers, the Tribe of Bones, were wiped out, and continues to exist only because pony souls still need someone to send them on and no other deity has arisen to usurp her role.
Despite this, she's a world-weary, gentle yet firm goddess who only wants to make sure that the spirits of the dead go on to their proper place in the afterlife, and who abhors necromancy. Scion : Averted — Hades is presented as he is in the myths — probably the only level-headed person in the Dodekatheon.
Aside from mild tendencies towards greed and irritation at being a "dwarf planet" , he's an all right guy. Among the Pesedjet, Osiris looks after his subjects, taking care of them, but is also someone who can tell you up front he's a manipulator, and still get you to go along with him because he seems so good and wise, while Anubis is a dedicated worker who hates being disappointed by his compatriots.
Then there's Baron Samedi of the Loa, who's the ultimate party creature, living un life to excess. On the other hand, Miclantehcuhtli of the Atzlanti is portrayed as being evil in a spiteful, petty bureaucrat sort of way; Hel of the Norse Aesir is cold, cruel and unfeeling, and the Ragnarok supplement mocks players who want to make her happy through the power of true love although it does leave open the possibility ; and Izanami of the Amatsukami torments other gods and Scions for being unable to save her from her tortured and rotten state as ruler of the Japanese underworld but she's still for all that a gracious hostess, and reluctant to have anyone condemn themselves to her fate.
All of these are pretty close to their respective myths, no less. White Wolf likes to do the research. Getting into the various little inaccuracies of Scion's depictions of certain gods can cover a lot more than this trope, but Mictlantecuhtli wasn't evil at all. He was very terrifying in appearance, sure, but he was really just a grump that took his job VERY seriously.
That job being keeping living people out of Mictlan and making sure dead people stayed in it. Of the non-core pantheons in 1e, Manannan mac Lir of the Tuatha de Dannan is a psychopomp, a quick-thinking trickster and seducer, while the Morrigan is seer, warrior and death-queen, a fearsome figure even to her fellow gods, but not unsympathetic; the Celestial Bureaucracy's Yanluo is a compassionate figure, who seeks to help the dead work through their sins; and of the Hindu Devas, Yama is a dispassionate judge who lacks a sense of humour, Kali is a fierce, terrifying change-agent, a necessary part of the cycle, and Shiva is a dancer, a nightmare, a destroyer and an ascetic mystic by turns.
For bonus point, Baron Samedi is also a douchenozzle in setting, though that may have something to do with his choice of mount. Palladium's Rifts is particularly bad about this. Here's a breakdown by pantheon: Aztec : Predictably, the cultural Values Dissonance wreaks havoc. Mictlan, the lord of the dead well, it's actually the name of the underworld, but by this point, who cares, right? Greek : Ironically, Hades gets off the easiest, coming off mostly as a Jerkass Knight Templar ; Ares is a bullying jerk, but that's the same as in actual myth.
Hera is a Soap Opera -style Queen Bitch who's finally gone insane from Zeus' philandering, and is actively fomenting strife between Olympus and other pantheons, as well as thinking about freeing the Titans.
The Titans themselves are either Eldritch or Humanoid Abominations - Cronos is a black blob of eyes and tentacles who created the first olympian gods as edible power batteries, and Hecate, while more or less human in appearance, is a ruthless power-hungry pragmatist who's mercenary enough to deal with the Splugorth a whole species of eldritch abominations whose hat is being Corrupt Corporate Executive imperialistic slave-traders.
Norse : Mostly untouched Loki's a bad guy , but Hel goddess of the dishonorable dead 's bad side is turned Up to Eleven : She's an Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac who wants to ally herself with the Mechanoids who are borderline Dalek expies to exterminate all humanoid life in The Multiverse.
Hindu : Kali gets the full treatment Ax-Crazy Blood Knight who betrayed the pantheon to the aforementioned Splugorth For the Evulz , but then so does Yama, god of death psychopathic, sadistic Omnicidal Maniac ; notice a pattern yet?
Even Varuna is a bitter Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who'll stoop to any level to get back his former power. Maya : Barely touched upon, but all we see the lords of the underworld of Xibalba and bat-god Camazotz are demon lords.
And then there's a bunch of pretenders and impostors passing themselves for existing legitimate gods, usually for less-than-virtuous reasons, many of whom are actually Eldritch Abominations notice another pattern?
Averted in the Theros cycle of Magic: The Gathering. Nonetheless he is a Benevolent Boss to both charges and his followers, indeed he seems to be the nicest of the Theros gods. While none of the other gods seem to care about their worshippers Erebos at least empathizes with the desire for acceptance. His only flaws usually stem from his tunnel vision regarding potential escapees; You're dead, dammit, and you don't get to Screw Destiny by returning to life.
Champions is actually pretty scrupulous about this. In one myth, Pirithous wanted Persephone for his wife so he convinced his friend Theseus to help him try to kidnap the Queen of the Underworld.
When Hades discovered them, he chained them to Chairs of Forgetfulness. Eventually, Theseus was released when Heracles came by, but Pirithous, the instigator, had to remain for his penance.
This is quite a judicious reaction, as the mastermind behind the plan was punished for longer than the co-conspirator. Most gods would have killed them on the spot for trying to steal their wife! Hades was immensely difficult to bribe, an ideal trait for a guardian of the dead. As Lord of the Underworld, he has to be quite cold-hearted because many people pleaded for their lost loved ones to be returned to life. In some myths, Hades is described as having an iron heart. The Greek god Hades was trusted to judge the dead along with his personal choice of jurors.
Part of this job meant Hades had to keep the order of nature and maintain the cycle of life. When he punished people, it was not out of bitterness, jealousy, or revenge, but simply because they had upset the balance of life and death.
Then, Sisyphos avoided death for the second time by entrapping Death when he came to take him back to the Underworld. This caused chaos because nothing could now die with Death hindered. Sisyphos was punished by having to roll a rock up a hill for eternity.
Ironically, this punishment was dealt out by Zeus, again an override of Hades. The contentious one: the kidnapping of Persephone. But should it be labeled that? Hades took Persephone from the mortal world and into the Underworld to be his wife. But in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter , it actually states that Hades had asked Zeus for permission to marry his daughter.
So, by Ancient Greek standards, Hades had the right to take Persephone to be his wife in the Underworld. Not so fair on the woman, but that was Ancient Greek culture.
Also, in most versions of the myth, Persephone voluntarily chose to eat the pomegranates that bound her to the Underworld forever. Hades was not obligated to do this, but he did so.
This paints the god Hades not as a covetous kidnapper but as a man who followed Greek customs and even compromised to satisfy his mother-in-law. A struggle indeed! The Greek god Hades is comparatively a better husband than his peer gods. Leuce was an Ocean nymph with whom Hades fell in love and took to the Underworld.
When her life came to its end, Hades changed her into a poplar tree in Elysium.
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