i hate the implication that you’re not a full person if you’re not in a romantic relationship, so here’s to everyone who doesn’t need to find their “other half” because they’re already complete

It's Dusa, showing her aro pride!

Hades is a game with a lot of likeable characters, but Dusa has to be the best one, so I wanted to show my appreciation for her. She is just, Extremely Good, and also canon aro, which makes her, like, Double Good.

(Before anyone protests, yes, she is. She has a conversation where Zagreus asks her if she has romantic feelings for anyone, and her answer includes something to the effect of “I don't like anyone that way, it's not really my thing?”. This is literally the aromantic equivalent of an allo character explicitly stating what gender(s) they're into.)

I need to emphasise how big of a deal it is to have a character like Dusa turn out to be aro. For most of her relationship route with Zagreus, it reads every bit like she must have a huge crush on him, with her stammering and frequently running away and having hearts come out of her portrait whenever he talks to her and is nice to her. Zagreus himself is apparently romantically wooing her after a certain point, because he assumes that she feels the same way about him.

And then he eventually goes and actually mentions the romance thing to her, and it turns out she just... doesn't feel that way about him at all. She never did. That was entirely Zagreus's assumption (and likely the player's, too), and it was wrong.

Because sometimes things that look stereotypically obviously romantic just aren't, actually! Nobody has the right to judge whether a person's feelings are romantic or not except for that person themselves. A relationship should be defined by the people in it and them alone, not by external amatonormative expectations of what Romance Must Look Like. There is literally always a potential platonic explanation for things, and sometimes - more often that a lot of people tend to think - it's the correct one.

As they clear up the misunderstanding and agree to stay good friends, Zagreus is presented as having been the one in the wrong for making assumptions, not Dusa for “leading him on” or whatever bullshit. It's not her fault he assumed incorrectly. This is exactly as it should be and not a sentiment seen nearly enough in, well, anywhere.

Heck, even my firmly anti-amatonormativity aro ass assumed Dusa had a crush at first. Not because I wanted her to or would have ever thought that if she were real, but because I've long since begrudgingly accepted that things that are Written That Way in fiction are just obligatory writer shorthand for romance, and it's never usually allowed to play out in a more nuanced and unexpected way. I cannot stress enough how rare and refreshing it is to have this so completely, unambiguously subverted. I have certain other gripes about how some of the relationships in this game are handled on the amatonormativity front, but Dusa in general is such a delightful breath of fresh air.