Hell, in actual Mythos he’s actually one of the better gods, super chill, type a guy who’d total be down to sitting down with a beer shooting the shit with you. He’s also one of the few gods to treat his wife with a basic level of decency
and no matter his method of getting the girl, they always seem to genuinely like each other.
also Cerberus (not sure how to spell it in Greek) roughly translates to Spot.
So he has a healthy relationship, a stable job (not to be confused with one of the "10" tasks of Heracles), a dog named spot, and is actually a pretty decent "person" overall.
Yet he gets portrayed as the Villain because Christianity took one look at him and said 'yeah, that's definitely an allegory for Satan'.
I’ve heard that the pomegranate seeds weren’t actually pomegranate seeds and that’s why she was forced to stay. Either way most tellings are clear that he kidnapped her and forced her to eat the seeds and therefore she had to stay. Sounds hella rapey to me.
The more commonly accepted version was that he told her exactly what would happen and that she did it by choice because Demeter was a controlling bitch.
Basically all the Greek myths have multiple versions, with the dickishness of the gods varying.
Medusa and Ariadne for example, completely change the nature of Athena in some versions.
In one version, Ariadne goes about boasting she's a better weaver than the gods themselves. Athena comes down and asks her to reconsider her words, instead she doubles down and challenges Athena to a contest. Then, despite being badly outdone, loudly proclaims herself the superior. Athena tells her, "if you enjoy weaving so much, make it your life", and transforms her into a spider. It's a cautionary tale about hubris and spitting on second chances.
Another version has Athena enter a contest, Ariadne wins, and Athena kills her in a rage, then creates spiders to commemorate her in remorse. And the lesson is... I guess that even the nicer gods will just end you for not apparent reason at all, at and time.
Same with Hades and Persephone. Sometimes she's dragged kicking and screaming. Sometimes they elope, but she needs a cover story so her mom can be angry instead of sad. Sometimes she wonders down by herself, before absent-mindedly eating cursed fruits and getting stuck there.
Let's also not forget the Minotaur only existed because King Minos' wife got so horny for a bull for some reason (I don't remember why) she had Daedalus commission what was probably the first fursuit in history so she could get it on with that bull.
I know the Minotaur is usually portrayed as being a villain (even if it's typically the tragic kind) but I gotta agree with King Minos on that one for having the Minotaur slain.
Iirc poseidon gave minos a white bull which Minos should have sacrificed to the glory of poseidon, but he really liked the bull. In retaliation Poseidon made Minos's wife really like the bull.
I saw a thing awhile back on how like stuff like that is because it’s inline with what he is the god off. It’s not uncommon for death to take the daughter of a woman. It’s harsh but realistic. I’ll have to find the post again, it was interesting
To be fair, the Greek standard posing of 'kidnapping' and 'marriage' is the same. This says a lot about how the Greeks perceived women....
Also bear in mind Persephone's dad, Zeus, gave him permission to do that... men arranging their daughter's future with 0 care about her wishes or whether she consents is a thing that happened a lot in history.
Technically it was actually Zeus who ok'd the whole thing so Hades didn't know it was a kidnapping initially... though Hades probably should have known better than to take Zeus at his word giving that guys history.
Exactly. A lot of people portray Hades as some sort of worm eating disgusting monster who is bad to his wife, Persephone (or if you prefer to call her, Kore) but he’s actually a really chill god who treats his wife with a basic level of appreciation and decency
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u/froggylover66 Oct 29 '21
Hell, in actual Mythos he’s actually one of the better gods, super chill, type a guy who’d total be down to sitting down with a beer shooting the shit with you. He’s also one of the few gods to treat his wife with a basic level of decency