Depiction of Hades
Hades is one of my favorite gods and here is some of my problem with depiction of Hades over the years (looking at your Hollywood).
Why does Hades dislike heroes, you may ask? Because
they are always little fuckin bitches to him, that’s why. Theseus and Pirithous
went to go and steal his wife. Main reason for this so they can marry the daughter. That isn’t a friendly thing to do! Mortals daring to compare themselves with the gods. blasphemy!!! They go into
the fuckin Underworld, they know the fuckin house rules - it’s for dead people ONLY,
the upper world is for living people, that’s a no brainer. So Pirithous paid
with his life and Theseus, with the help of Herakles went crying away back
upstairs. But that’s not the end of Hades’ hero woes. The motherfuckers just
don’t give up! Amphiaraus fell through his freak ‘in ceiling (check the
story here it's interesting),
Orpheus came to get back his wife (but Hades kind of liked him cause he was
polite and played nice music) and Aeneas went for a little Roman propaganda
wander too. But despite this he actually did help one or two
heroes!! Perseus is the main name, where Hades lent him his helmet of darkness,
without which, the hero would never have been able to slay Medusa. He also allowed Herakles to take Cerbereus to complete his labor and stop Hera tormenting him for awhile.
He is the Devil. NO. NO. Let me just. No. His
realm contains Paradise (or Heaven), Super-Paradise (the Blessed Isles), the
Fields of Asphodel (Purgatory), Reincarnation via the Lethe, and of course the
Fields of Punishment (Greek Hell) or Tartarus (Greek Super Hell). Which means
he supplies for pretty much every single religious requirement. Super awesome,
super-efficient and super well-run. NOT DEVIL. DAMN YOU CHRISTIANS AND YOUR PROPAGANDA!!!!!
Underworld God prejudice. Yup. And he’s not the
only one. Shout out to Anubis, who also gets hated on when we should all be
running away from Seth, Anubis’s dangerous father. Modern day people instantly know Anubis is Egyptian and pretty cool. The Romans didn’t help with
Hades either, as they were so afraid of him (and death), they made up a bunch
of nicknames. Philosophers, some poets and artists liked him though.
He is most
egalitarian of the gods. Unlike Hera, Persephone was seen as an equal
rather than a subordinate in ruling and the pair seemed to get on rather well
after their sudden start. Hades often listened to Persephone’s council (with
Orpheus etc.) and let her run parts of his kingdom - the souls of women and
children were sacred to Persephone (Odyssey, Bk 11). So, compared to pretty
much all of the other male gods, ESPECIALLY his brothers, he was much better
toward the ladies. Persephone was known to get viciously jealous of any other
women (2 in total, compared to Zeus circa a few thousand) who were Hades’
lovers (short story; she killed them), so we might interpret that as love. But
who knows what the gods were really up to? Although, out of all godly
marriages, Hades and Persephone’s was the most faithful (Hades cheated twice,
Persephone cheated once - hey, they were Greeks) and the most equal.
Thank you for reading my rant about Ruler of the Underworld and Happy Holiday!!!
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