#so him taking the title of hero rather than deity
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I come here to mention how the god list An = Anum (or also called ‘the great god list’ which is basically a list containing the mesopotamian deities) mentions at least ten children of Ninsun and Lugalbanda (gil’s mom and dad) which brings me to think- gil has siblings-
#;ooc#ooc#me: -opens eyes- gil has siblings omg-#dont fully quote me on this bc my research could be wrong of course but#pretty wild;; I always thought he was an only child#many of them were mesopotamian deities too#like; they were worshipped as such#and its now curious to me bc despite having the same father and mother; (being 2/3god and 1/3 human) in comparison to his siblings#gil is mostly remembered as a hero rather than a deity#i mean; if im correct; gil was worshiped as a god later on but#you know; he's mostly know for his role as a hero#*known#even tho he could have just been regarded as a deity like his siblings#which brings me to think;; that fate wise it feels very fitting#you know;; if you take in consideration his thoughts in regards to the gods#so him taking the title of hero rather than deity#-sits-#anyways
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❝Your father was weak - I expect you to be so much greater Daniel...❞
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
DANIEL AJMAL SPECTOR - KHATRI is the child of Marc Spector and Halima Khatri. Danny was raised by his mother Halima, a United Kingdom Royal Marine in London. Despite having what would appear to be an ordinary childhood, Daniel's mother kept the history of his father completely hidden, which would lead to Danny's life eventually coming to a dramatic turn by the age of twenty.
Attending Aston University to study Biomedical Engineering, Daniel came home to his mother's flat one fateful night after class to discover her lifeless body lying in the kitchen with a hammer lodged into her skull. The giant body of Raul Bushman stood over her, waiting for her son and the child of his mortal enemy to return home. The trained mercenary proceeded to beat the young man to a bloody pulp.
During this moment, the blur of a man dressed in white ensued in a violent clash with Bushman. The battle left the hero known as Moon Knight dead, yet his enemy remained alive.
On the verge of death, Daniel Khatri reached out to his mother, letting his hands touch her face one last time before allowing the embrace of the afterlife to take him... but an otherworldly presence had other ideas. With his original host dead and lifeless, the Moon God known as Khonshu reached out to the child of his former champion.
"Do you want revenge?" asked the God "Do you desire to bring your mother's killer to justice?" a hand slammed onto the floor next to Daniel's body... "TELL ME! Tell me before you are gone! Before it is too late! I have the power to give you what you desire... and to save your life."
It was a reaction he would later regret... one he wasn't even sure he truly meant to say. But suddenly, Daniel's lips formed the word: "Yes.."
"RISE-" Commanded the God of the Moon, slamming the butt of his staff into the ground. "RISE SON OF SPECTOR! BECOME MORE THAN YOU WERE - MORE THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN! RISE AND RECLAIM YOUR FATHER'S TITLE AS MY... MOON KNIGHT!" White wraps of linen suddenly appeared, his wounds and bloodied face healed slowly, his eyes turned a bright blue, and suddenly... Daniel Spector was someone else entirely.
ANCESTRY
Daniel is of Jewish, Palestinian, and Indian heritage. Despite his father being Jewish, Danny has no connection to the religion nor does he have any interest in religion in general. Daniel considers himself an atheist and believes that Khonshu is simply a powerful scientific being rather than an actual God.
SEXUALITY
Daniel is heterosexual, but has a hard time often forming romantic relationships due to confidence issues.
AS MOON KNIGHT
Danny is considered Khonshu's High Priest but does whatever he possibly can to ignore the whispers in his mind that the Egyptian deity plants. His relationship is even more complicated through the God due to Daniel having a particular disdain for his father, Marc Spector.
Daniel is against the idea of killing, which Khonshu takes great offense to. A pacifist for most of his life, Danny tries to extract vengeance through an unrealistic softer approach that is slowly fading from his reality. Despite this fact, Daniel has no issues with physically hurting or traumatizing criminals depending on the severity of their crimes.
Daniel only chose to become Moon Knight to avenge his mother's killer. While he considers himself a pacifist, he has every intention of finding and killing Raul Bushman.
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sorry this is my first time doing a req, but since you like iida tenya, i was wondering if you had any knight iida tenya headcanons?
So I was re-enacting a bakuiida hurt/comfort scenario I made up for exactly 2 hours since I started during 10:00 pm and it is 12:00 AM
gist of it: bakugou’s inferiority complex acts up and so he doesn’t take care of himself bc he’s too busy training and iida tells him how much he (Katsuki) means to him, (Tenya) and that there aren’t enough numbers that exist that could tell him (Katsuki) how much he (Katsuki) meant to Tenya
and then I remembered my tumblr account and one of the asks I got was “do some knight Iida Tenya headcanons this is my first time doing a req” and I was like oh wow I am v blessed that I am the person who took anon’s req virginity so here we are
CW: few times of cursing, mention of me talking about a car kink
Knight Iida Tenya Headcanons
Part of the King’s guard no I do not. Take criticism
If he isn’t he’s most likely in a very high position of knight rankings in the fantasy AU
His chivalrous spirit could rival canon Kirishima’s
But since Kiri’s a dragon hybrid here,,well
Did I mention
He’s TALL
Like. Bumping his head on every single fucking doorway kind of tall
He is a staggering 6”6
HES TALLER THAN MY BEDROOM WALLS JSJSJ
anyways so like bc he’s so tall he learned the very hard way (literally) that you should not wear a metal cone hat while sliding down ladders
Was this inspired by that one (1) video on YouTube where this guy’s character slid down a really long ladder wearing a golden metal cone hat
I will not agree nor will I deny this accusation
So bc he’s so tall he grudgingly cannot wear a fancy Iida helmet from the prestigious and noble Iida family line
ofc his brother was a knight before him, it’s so obvious
(Speaking about Tensei, his brother wore it anyways even though his brother is taller than him because he was always on horseback anyways, but having to patrol the streets of the kingdom on a daily basis trailing after the King or Prince or whatever he can’t let a helmet hinder him from going after people
Anyways so like because he is So Tall people often make jokes about his height and how rectangular his body was
So poor bby got insecure about his height and prefers not to talk about it, stays silent when someone thinks he can’t hear them whispering and making jokes about his bulky stature
speaking about bulky things his canon costume is lightweight in design because if speed and leg strength makes up 100% of your quirk you can’t have stupid accessories and additional weight.
But of course since what he’s going for (the Ingenium title) is pretty much set in stone, there’s a heavy emphasis in visuals (in canon) so like 90% of his fucking costume is for Decor
And I hate him for that
Because TENYA FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE 100% INGENIUM YOU CAN BE YOUR OWN INGENIUM
Even if you were put the pressure on yourself to become like your brother, don’t feel burdened to make sure your hero career is 100% like his
OK I kind of swerved away from topic but since we’re talking about hero costumes and knight armor
Since this is fantasy and most fantasy-ish things are set in a European medieval style because of fucking Hollywood and not in a more traditional Japanese style since apparently fire spitting dragons are cooler than Kitsunes with ten tails, power over nature elements and are literally considered deities—
Knight armor is made of metal, right?
So in that case..his armor would really weigh him down.
But because this is FANTASY and science and physics can go fuck themselves here,
It’s possible that there’s a chance magic could make his armor more lightweight, like Uraraka’s quirk
but like there’s a chance that his armor is ALREADY lightweight because again, canon Tenya really went after the design of his brother’s costume
And his brother’s costume was inspired by his parent’s and grandfather’s own costumes, which kinda looked the same since it had the white modern accents and holes in the helmets kinda aesthetic
SO ASSUMING THAT THE IIDA FAMILY LINE IS V NOBLE AND FAMED FOR BEING IMMERESED IN THE KNIGHTHOOD SHITE FOR A V LONG TIME
And his brother did copy whatever his parents and ancestors’s armor was or whatever
And they’re noble, right—so they’re rich. Because magic exists, plenty of wizards mages and other magic people for hire also exist
Enchanted lightweight metal armor
there’s a reason why you shouldn’t trust knights in shining armor and that’s because if their chest plate is too pristine, that means they’ve never went to battle
Here’s a rule for all you y/ns: don’t trust a knight in shining armor if it’s not enchanted
what I’m saying is if you wanna date Iida, the knight in shining AND enchanted armor, go for it bestie TT
Also His Boots
Assuming he doesn’t have his sexy engines on his calves in this AU
(Or perhaps the sleek, modern looking engines are replaced with steampunk ones O.O)
OK SO WE’RE GOING WITH THE STEAMPUNK MUFFLERS
Because holy shit that’s such a cool fucking concept??
Oh you bet your y/n messy buns that steampunk iida hcs are next
so since fantasy usually goes with at least one (1) “primitive” tribe with their own kind of technology centered around weapons and battle
And that one (1) “”tribe”” that’s an entire fucking kingdom/city like the Carja in the game Horizon Zero Dawn
Speaking of Horizon Zero Dawn, the “primitive” tribe with their own kind of technology centered around battle and more battle are the Banuk
They’re hardcore fam
They give me Bakugou Katsuki vibes because those people would literally rather die than say a challenge is too big to overcome
again going back to the topic: Steampunk
In “”fantasy”” medieval AUS there’s always that one steampunk inventor that’s a Mei Hatsume ripoff (Tangled The Series I’m looking at you)
And of course the Support Students need their time to shine too, so like — Steampunk City let’s gooo
(The closest Horizon Zero Dawn’s “tribe” got to steampunk is whatever the hell the Oseram are doing.)
So now Tenya has sexy, sexy steampunk mufflers that are very well taken care of
<SKIP THIS PART, I TALK ABOUT RANDOM EVENTS AND BAD CHOICES I MADE IN MY LIFE>
god I’m so sorry but me talking about mufflers like they’re a full course meal is reminding me of the time where I joked to my friends that I had a car kink
and not that I had a kink to have sex inside the car, but to be fucked BY the car itself
like your ass being just wrecked by a fucking shalon poofa
if you get that joke get off this site
one of my messages was very specific
It read:
“I eagerly lick car-senpai’s oil of his exhaust pipe”
And Yeah
unsanitary and a health hazard
While discussing about simpable men one of my friends were like
my man has a CAR your man, Tenya Iida, doesn’t
And I just stared at her
Because bitch MY MAN IS THE CAR
anyways if you actually read this may god have mercy on you
<DON’T SKIP THIS PART BECAUSE I CONTINUE>
Because I make the rules
Wouldn’t they be a hindrance to him bc of his metal boots?
So Let Me Tell You A Story
you know the Ingenifoot (the boots in canon Iida’s costume)
It’s special since it has holes punched into it for the mufflers to retract out of
Who says Ingenifoot can’t be steampunk as well?
I DON’T
But it can’t be steampunk bc this is a Knight Iida hcs and not Inventor Steampunk Iida Hcs
:<
So it’s plain boring white carved steel or smth with a small section where a part of the boot flexes for the mufflers to stick out
Speaking of carved steel, Knight Iida’s armor def has intricate details and shite on it
Maybe even his family crest
OK so it is 12:45 AM rn I am gonna sleep
Goodnight
#iida tenya#tenya iida#iida tenya hcs#iida tenya headcanons#knight iida tenya#iida simping hours#will continue dw my loves
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Stay Where You Are And Then Leave (prologue)
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Pairing: Zhongli / Reader
Tags: #yaksha! reader, #historical references, #yaksha war, #unreliable narrator, #angst and hurt/comfort, #enemies to friends with xiao, #found family trope, #you know until they start to slaughter each other, #chuckles nervously, #female! reader, #tho i want to write it as genderneutral as possible
Words: 1.1k
Summary: When Rex Lapis picked your soul to serve him as Yaksha, nothing could have prepared you for the suffering and hardships waiting on your neverending journey to bring peace to Liyue.
But you are not alone. A hot-headed Ifrit-Yaksha who loves flowers but cannot collect them for every living thing fears fire; a gruff D'ao-Yaksha who has a hard time letting go his mundane life; a dishonest Raijū-Yaksha with an addiction for gambling; and a lone Garuda-Yaksha they call "Conqueror of Demons" who doesn't care about any collateral damage on his purge of all evil.
And you in the middle of everything, the only Yaksha who cannot remember her past—and if it were up to Rex Lapis, he'd rather it stays that way.
Note: The title is inspired by John Boyne’s book with the same title: ‘Stay Where You Are And Then Leave.’ In the books, this was said to the soldiers waiting in the trenches until it was their time to leave for the battlefield.
Prologue: Where The Dream Ends And The Nightmare Begins
Farewell, ye woods! Headlong from some towering mountain peak
I will throw myself into the waves; take this as my last dying gift!
— Vergil
The earth shook, the air pulsed, and you felt a thousand needles puncture you from all sides. A force took hold of your mind and twisted it, squeezing it and kneading it like dough into an entirely different shape. You screamed into the darkness.
Pain washed the world white. When you blinked away the dazzle, your eyes opened to a cavern ceiling twinkling with gems shaped like stars, mapping constellations you didn’t recognize, and an unfamiliar voice calling your name.
“Menogias of the Aqua Morte. I summon thee to this mortal plane in service of Liyue and its people. Wake up.”
A ban broke. Your muscles, tight and hard like stones, relaxed, finally allowing you to become their master. You were lying in water, nearly horizontal so only your face broke the water’s plane. Like a magnet needle pulled towards the northern skies, your body rose to your feet. Exhaustion tried to coax your weary bones back into the quiet; the safety of the water but the voice was a chord strung tightly around your mind, commanding one step after another towards its source.
A young man was waiting for you, balancing effortlessly on stones protruding out of the water. He wore a white tunic without sleeves that showed muscular, bare arms that shined with golden lines, leaving the blue gleam of the stones set in the cavern’s walls bleak. A hood concealed most of his face, only showing a sharp jawline and thin, pale lips.
You didn’t know who this man was exactly, but you knew what he was. Gracefully, you sank to one knee, still inside the water, and dropped your head in devotion.
“My Lord.”
Rex Lapis considered you for a moment, his golden eyes were stern, yet not unkind. With a slow gesture, he allowed you to get back on your feet.
“I know you have many questions,” he said, and just as the words left his mouth, questions flooded your mind like a tidal wave. Who were you? Why were you here? Before you could ask any of them, the Geo Archon continued, “About your past, about the present. None of them are important, for you shall have one purpose only.” He offered you his hand and helped you out of the water. Even though you felt the Geo energy flow through his body, his skin was soft and the golden blood running through his veins warm. He held on for a second longer than necessary, averting his gaze when you looked up at him in question. Instead he nodded towards a small shrine built from the same stone as the rest of the cavern that presented a beautiful white bow. They called to you like a lone wolf calling to its comrades, and without waiting for Rex Lapis’ approval, you closed the distance and pressed your fingers to the smooth ivory and elegant curves, built by a true master of their craft.
You plugged its string and closed your eyes at the familiar sound. Blurry pictures flashed before your eyes. A little village tucked away inside a mountain pass. Standing with arms spread wide on bridges shaking dangerously between clouds like a wingless bird ready to take flight. Greedy flames climbing towards the wooden ceiling of a house. Your eyes snapped open when the taste of smoke and ashes settled on your tongue. You looked up at Rex Lapis.
“Someone came to destroy my village. I remember anger. I remember fighting to survive. Is that why I am here?”
Rex Lapis turned away, his gaze following the gems lining the walls up to the cavern where an opening showed the moon glimpsing down at you two from up high, a silent watcher sworn to keep conversations like these secret to the sun.
“I have called upon you because your heart is noble and your courage sharper than your bow’s arrows,” he said. “Your past life is of no concern to the journey lying ahead of you.”
“But I—” I still want to know. It was like the desire to know how the end of a story turned out, the want to turn a book to its very last page to make sure the heroes received their well-earned happy ending. You wanted to know if you had your happy ending as well.
“The war goes on,” Rex Lapis continued. “The relentless fighting between the warmongering archons takes its toll on Liyue. Those who die with bitterness and rage become evil monsters who ravage the land and turn it into a wilderness, into a pandemonium. Hence I am calling upon the yakshas to protect this country. Liyue needs every single one of you.” He dropped his gaze from the moon and fixed his eyes on you. Looming above you, it was easy to finally get a good glimpse of his handsome face and the piercing amber eyes with an edge harder to them than freshly cut Cor Lapis. “I need every single one of you.”
A shudder crawled up your spine. You looked to the ground. “I solely exist to follow your command, my Lord.”
Rex Lapis hummed in agreement and took a step closer, his approach quiet as his barefoot feet didn’t make any sound on the cool stone. A warm finger brushed against your forehead, the touch conjuring the picture of a moonlit lake on top of a mountain.
“I await all of you by the end of the next moon at this place.” Rex Lapis’ voice was barely a whisper. “Mount Hulao. Until then, be fierce, my yaksha. Fierce but good.”
Something about the way he said my yaksha made you raise your gaze back up, expecting … to see what exactly in his eyes? Anything else besides the cold calculation of a deity worshiped as the God of Contracts? This was no different from a commerce, your serving the bargaining chip to a second chance on the mortal plane even though you are unsure about the fine print.
Rex Lapis’ face was unreadable like a board wiped clean. His hand hovered over your face a second too long before he quickly pulled it back, withdrawing completely as if touching your burned him. A last inquiry emerged like the tip of an iceberg from your mind. You said, “Wait. This anger … were they angry with me? Did I do something wrong?”
But he had already disappeared—without any flourish, just like a village swallowed up by an earthquake, there and then a second later gone.
#philliamwrites#ao3#fanfiction#genshin impact#reader insert#zhongli#genshin zhongli#xiao#genshin xiao#zhongli x reader#genshin impact x reader#zhongli x you
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My First Destiel Fic, vol.3
Thank you guys for sharing your memories! My First Destiel Fic is a nostalgic survey open to any destiel fan and has a simple goal - to celebrate fics that were our gateway into a wonderful world of destiel shipping. Thank you, fic writers, you are our heroes!
from @nextheirofslytherin
my first destiel fic was “In This Secluded Spot I Respond As I Wouldn't Dare Elsewhere” by RhymePhile. the girl i liked who got me into supernatural in middle school recommended it to me, so it always has a special place in my heart 😅 it was the first fic i read on ao3 too! i read it while i was watching s3 (cas hadn’t even shown up yet!) but the show was in its 9-10th season
All fic titles link directly to the fic, when it’s possible, we have added another link to our review or submitted rec post.
In This Secluded Spot I Respond As I Wouldn’t Dare Elsewhere by rhymephile [M, 34,000 word count, posted 2010] (our review)
It's 1995, and Castiel's high school years are destined to be difficult: home-schooled until eighth grade, he is awkward, shy, and socially inept. The weird kid with the funny name would rather isolate himself and draw in his sketchbook than deal with the constant bullying he faces every day. Things only get worse in his junior year when he excels in home economics class, leading the captain of the baseball team, Alastair, to start taunting him for being gay. Then new student Dean Winchester arrives at Flour Bluff High School, sharing many of Castiel's classes. Castiel has seen his type before -- handsome, athletic, arrogant, and sure to be the most popular kid in school. But Castiel eventually learns that he and Dean have more in common than he thought, and they form an unlikely friendship.
from @deansbff
i joined the fandom in the beginning of 2019 and molting expectations by tricia_16 was the first fic (over 11k words) that i read. it really made me fall in love with deancas because i realised i didn't need them to be in the canon!verse to be so wonderful, their relationship was amazing in whatever universe they were in and it was always intriguing to read about!!
Molting Expectations by tricia_16 [163,100 word count, posted 2019]
After having trouble coping with a traumatic incident on the job, Dean takes his little brother's advice and leaves everything behind to go stay at the old family cabin in Colorado. Nobody's been there for years so it needs some major work, but it's secluded, and that turns out to be exactly what Dean needs in order to start to feel at peace again. Now in the mountains with nothing but nature to amuse himself with, he takes up bird watching and plans a hike into the mountain range across from his cabin in search of a golden eagle. High up in the mountains, he discovers human footprints. Thinking someone is in danger, he follows them into a cave and quickly becomes familiar with a form of wildlife he never could have imagined: winged people who call themselves angels.
from @bornonathursdayinmarch
I actually started out in the fandom against Destiel. I mean, it was pretty clear that Dean Winchester was not into men. But then I read “Redemption Road” by accident around 2015. I didn’t know it was Destiel. But I got really into it and this fic totally changed my mind on Dean/Cas. I have since read hundreds of Destiel fics and I am more into the ship than ever. My absolute favorite fanfic is “Sweaters and Cigarettes” by lemonoclefox. I love how shy, caring Dean softens cynical Castiel and how in love they are despite being so different. It makes me smile when I’m down.
Redemption Road by spnredemption (the fic is a collaborative effort of a group of destiel writers and artists) [NC-17, 650,000 word count, 24 episodes, posted 2011-12)
With Castiel having set himself up as the new God, drunk on power and volatile as a nuclear reactor, Dean, Sam, and Bobby find themselves on the run from the jealous, capricious monster wearing the face of their friend. Desperate for protection and wary of his brother’s mental state since Castiel unlocked Sam’s memories of Hell, Dean knows Castiel must be defused before he can wreak further havoc in Heaven or on Earth. Although Bobby advocates for destroying Castiel by whatever means necessary, Dean is convinced the Cas he once knew still remains, buried somewhere beneath the mass of poisonous souls and calling out for help. Determined to save the angel who once rescued him from Hell and redefined his purpose in life, Dean himself must resist the allure of the false deity vying for his obedience, and come to terms with the knowledge, long-suppressed, that his feelings for Castiel run much deeper than brotherhood. It is this bond, and the dubious distinction of the Righteous Man, that will ultimately grant Dean access to where Castiel’s grace languishes in Purgatory. However, what Dean brings back with him is broken, angry, and only half-angel, certainly not the Castiel he remembers—and nor is it the only thing that returns to Earth with them…
Sweaters & Cigarettes by lemonoclefox [NC-17, 150,000 word count, posted 2014] NOTE - the fic was deleted from ao3 by the author, please see our review for more details
Dean Winchester is in high school, crushing hard on Castiel Novak, the unbelievably hot goth who Dean does his very best to convince himself he hates, despite the fact that he can’t really stop staring at him. Dean tries, but when the two of them finally cross paths, their first conversation takes a surprising turn. And suddenly, they both find themselves falling harder and faster than they ever could have expected.
from @iamasphodelknox
Hi! The fic that made Destiel my OTP was The Walk series by Persephoneshadow. It blew my mind and I hadn’t even started watching Supernatural yet. 🙈 I started watching the show last year, just as Season 15 was starting. I’m a newbie but this comfort ship felt like coming home. I also read a turn of the earth by microcomets just as I got to season 4 and it is one of the best things I’ve ever read, fic or no. :)
The Walk by Persephoneshadow [NC-17, 190,000 word count, posted 2017]
Castiel tells himself it was a one time thing, even if his night with a hooker named Dean changed his whole world, but he can’t keep away from the man fate keeps throwing in his path. Castiel is married and he knows his sexuality is an affront to God and everything he’s ever been told is right. Dean tells himself he doesn’t care about the weirdo with blue eyes, but every time they meet he gets a bit closer to something like hope. Dean’s nothing but a homeless waste of space with a brother in foster care a world away and a father in the wind. As the connection between these two lost men deepens, it threatens the carefully maintained lies their lives are built on in a story of faith, mistakes, and the journey of love.
a turn of the earth by mishcollin microcomets [NC-17, 95,300 word count, posted 2015] (our review)
Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run. Frigging fantastic. (Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline pre series and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)
If you enjoyed the fic, please drop by the archive (AO3) and let the author know with your comments and/or kudos! And if you found our recs useful, let us know by Liking and/or Reblogging our posts!
You can find all My First Destiel Fic posts under this tag!
#destiel#destielfanficnet#my first destiel fic#hey guys#these are all submissions we received#if you don't see yours here#please contact mod flyingcatstiel directly#nextheirofslytherin#deansbff#bornonathursdayinmarch#iamasphodelknox
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Eren Yaeger: A theory why the person devoted to freedom is in fact the least free character of all. (up to ch. 136)
Questions that lead me to this theory: Why did Eren behave so strangely? Why did he isolate himself from the rest? Why the hell did he decide to end the world? And why did he never really try to find another way?
“What about you is free?” - Chapter 134
So, despite the flood of possible theories people came up with, I couldn’t find any that provided satisfying answers for several contradicting moments. It had me reading the manga after all and musing three days and nights until I settled with a surprisingly simple approach that I haven’t yet found among the common theories. The short answer for Eren’s weird behaviour and decision for apocalypse remains the same: “Because I was born into this world”. But, in a different way of interpretation. If you don't want to read the long version, there's a summary at the end as well ;)
So far, this quote had been mostly interpreted as justification for the freedom to live, and the freedom to fight for survival. It’s the ultimate justification for Erens decisions, no matter how despisable they are, since he's fighting for their own survival. Yet, it sounds somewhat odd from Eren Yaeger, who had always been anything but a philosopher to begin with. Why wouldn’t he justify his decision with “because they will never leave Eldia in peace”, “because it’s the only way to end the war”, “because they had taken everything from me” or simply “because we have to keep on fighting”. That would have sounded much more like him, but not such a cryptic statement.
With the latest chapters, it became apparent that Eren was indeed severely suffering under the guilt and notion of destroying the world. So why would he not think of a different way? Why don’t we see him talk to his friends and discuss alternatives? Why does he never even try to find a solution? If anyone, it would be Eren to fight against a future he didn’t want to accept, no matter how small the chance of success. But all he does is to refer to the inevitable, unchanging future. The only spark of rebellion shown is in the pathetic attempt to safe one boy, which again end in him stating that "the future doesn't change"
The idea that Eren is in fact not free to choose their future first struck me during his conversation with Rainer, where he claims they were both the same. Yes, they had both believed to do the right thing, to be a hero, but ended up with nothing but guilt, the wish to be judged upon and to finally put an end to it all. But in that moment, Eren had yet the chance to decide. It would have been so easy to accept Rainer as scapegoat for his revenge, but he only acts as if his decision was already set in stone. He never looked angry with Rainer to begin with. So it clearly wasn’t revenge he had in mind when attacking Liberio. In fact, he was simply moving forward and carrying out Zeke’s plan which would eventually lead him to his true goal: To eliminate the enemy.
Who or what exactly is the enemy/ enemies? (As far as I know, there’s no difference in Japanese language) First, it’s the titans, then the Marleyans, but now it seems to be cycle of life, death and hatred itself. Rainer, Zeke and Eren all came to this conclusion and even the last season’s opening song suggests this true motive: “Destruction, regeneration, you are the real enemy” (-My war-).
“Because I was born into this world” - reinvented
Chapter 121 underlines yet again that this phrase contains the central key to Eren’s motives. After all, it’s all it needs to thwart the great plan of Zeke – the most sharp-witted character that had been fooling everyone else throughout the whole story. Zeke’s demise came from assuming that Eren had been brainwashed by his father, hence believing it was possible to change his mind. And that’s totally legit since no normal person would be born “like this”, showing such hatred and craving for freedom from birth. In fact, the story shows no other character than Eren who despises the walls, even though he’d been living a fairly comfortable life.
Zeke probably realized in that moment: Eren was never a normal child (Carla: “He’s already great because he’s born into this world). That doesn’t only refer to his character traits and motives, but he even proves that when opposing Zeke in the other world. First, by freeing himself from his shackles, and later when he stops Ymir (Zeke: “It’s pointless, Eren. Once Ymir, the founder begins to move, nothing in this world can stop her.”). This gives two options: Either, Ymir is not the founder, or Eren is not of this world (or both). And since the idea of Eren being the true founder for whatever time-wrecking reason is far too screwed for me to grasp, I’ll stick with the latter option. It could be what Carla refers to as well, and a reason why his titan looks a lot more devilish than any other shifter before.
What does Eren really want?
When chapter 122 “From you, 2.000 years ago” responds to the very first chapter’s title, it seems very likely, that the original message was from Ymir to the present. When Eren finds her, he already knows that she had been suffering and waiting there for someone – most probably him – (“Is it you who led me here? You must have been waiting. All this time.”) and shows deep empathy by going as far as to hug her by choice (at this moment, I can’t remember him showing such affection to anyone else before, but feel free to correct me). It looks as if his intrinsic will to fight for freedom has led him to this single moment of importance, where he frees Ymir from her curse to serve the power of titans.
Interestingly enough, even though everyone knows that she gained back then, no one knows yet what the devil wanted in return. Seeing that Ymir is not at all the almighty deity, but not more than a slave, it’s likely that this was not her wish at all, but part of the bargain she now has to endure “into eternity” (as determined by the first king). Perhaps Eren symbolizes the in-time reincarnation of the devil to fulfil the bargain. But more likely, Eren was created ‘like this’ because he was the first chance in the timeline to enable her liberation (my wild guess is that Ymir herself sent him, but it could as well be the devil, the true founder, a twisted part of a past Eren or all of them at once. I don't think it doesn’t really matter who exactly started the whole ordeal.)
In chapter 122 he finally reveals he wants to “put an end to this world” to do so. He repeatedly says that he will destroy the world, but he never once said he wanted to do it, or that he wanted to kill all the people. As I see it, “putting an end” refers more to breaking the cycle than to committing omnicide.
So. What if Eren had never been in a position to make decisions, but Ymir? It looks like her motives are surprisingly simple, not more than a ‘normal person’s’. All she ever wanted is to be loved. She sacrificed everything, her life, and her humanity – even her freedom to die. But no matter what she did, she was only used for humanity’s (Fritz’s) greed. Over the course of the millennia, she gathered the hatred to destroy the world, but Eren is in no position to stop her because it goes against his destiny. In fact, Eren is quite graphically displayed as a puppet on strings. I think that’s also why Eren acted so strangely around his friends. Ever since seeing the entire future, he had been well-aware that he can’t do anything about Ymir and the apocalypse, but he hopes they are capable of ending him, and he went as far as to insult them only to make their job easier. Already back in ch. 84 when they had to decide between the life of Armin and Erwin, Eren claims to know it will be Armin to safe humanity, not him. This suggest again that Eren does not think of himself to be acting for the right cause, but rather as the (literally) spineless key for Ymir.
To summarize: Seeing just how tormented Eren was by what would happen, how he tried to subtly encourage his friends to judge and stop him, and how he didn't show any semblance of his defining will to fight a future he didn't want, I now believe that Eren has never been the one to make decisions in the first place, but a key destined from birth to only serve one purpose: To free Ymir and end the era of titans. The quote "I was born into this world" thus doesn't act as justification for his decision, but as reference to his key role for the inevitable.
Soo, feel free to prove me wrong or correct mistakes. After all, there’s only so many quotes I remember and it’s natural to see the world with a subjective filter once you have an idea in mind. There are still several details that don’t seem to quite fit, but this is the best conclusion I could draw.
Also, taking this theory further to the present plot of chapter 136 and possible endings, my suspicions are much more vague. But there's one more detail I picked up and would like to share:
Just before Ymir is about to die in her tale, someone says “You’re free”. It would fit Isayama’s sense for loops that Ymir, who had escaped death (= freedom) from being hunted down, now finally ends her prolongued life by being killed (= freed) by Eren Jäger. I think it would give more credit to his name than the usual reference to hunting (more specifically, eradicating) titans.
#Eren yaeger theory#Eren yaeger#Eren Jäger#Snk theory#Aot theory#Attack on Titan#shingeki no kyoujin#Snk spoilers#Manga spoilers
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Who could replace Hades as the new big bad? Overly long essay
Like pretty much everyone else in this fandom, I love Hades. Guy’s your typical pure evil villain with a personality larger than life itself and he’s having so much fun with it that it’s contagious. Every time he pops up, I’m delighted to see him. It’s so fun to see him do his shtick and have the time of his life with it, which also makes beating him feel so great. After all the crap he has put the main cast through, it’s so satisfying to blast him into the face because for a moment that confidence finally breaks and once it's all over, people cheer because they don’t have to live in horrible fear for a while at least. This characterization is mostly rooted on the sheer fear factor Hades had in the eyes of ancient people - even in civilizations which have rather chipper afterlife people tended to prefer living over dying, and this of course meant that they were absolutely terrified of the Underworld deities. Hades was mostly addressed by epithets in texts because people thought that if they called him by his name, they were drawing his attention and the last thing a sane person wants is the attention of an powerful god who has power over the dead. So if a god has this level of appeal, be it positive or negative, you may not even need excessive amount of mythological content to create a frame for a character!
This being said, I don’t believe his chances of coming back are as the big bad of a next game are high - that is unless we have to wait another 15-20 years to get a new game, but I’d like to be more hopeful than that. So if he isn’t coming back, who could possibly replace him as the new big bad of Kid Icarus? It’s not like the writers could ever run out of source material because there’s so many monsters to deal with and every god is more or less morally grey, meaning that there’s many possibilities for new bad guys regardless of the scale.
This took a lot longer than I originally expected and I’m sorry for that - there’s no worse idea than to jump into a rabbit hole and bringing a shovel with you because things will quickly spiral out of control into new interesting directions. The more info I gathered, the more interested I was on looking more into it and sometimes it even spiraled out of mythology into history and philosophy. If you’re interested on some specific reasons for why this took so long, here’s few: myths are long and there’s many different versions of them, epics are even longer, Peloponnese people couldn’t be bothered to write their own things down so I had to look what travelers wrote down, it takes Plato way too long to get into the point, Herodotus never gets into the point, someone translated the term metic as resident alien of all things which I thought was the funniest thing ever and Ludovisi Ares is really pretty.
This is the point where I give the obligatory warnings, so here - since I'm discussing mythology here, it's inevitable that there's some talk about violence and death. I'm not going to linger on the gruesome details, but know that it's there. At couple points this will spiral into a full-on history lesson because I thought that understanding the historical context was important regarding the topic I was discussing. Also this is a one long essay - and by long, I mean really, really long. If you want to read it all at one sitting, prepare some time for yourself. But with that all out of the way, let’s jump straight into the discussion on who could be the next possible big bad, shall we?
I’m limiting this mostly to the main 12 Olympians with the addition of some other big names to keep things simple - while some smaller mythological figures such as Arachne or Arke would work fantastically as villains, they don’t have that recognition or presentation the more well known characters have. We’re trying to speculate who could fill Hades’ shoes as the new main bad guy here after all, not who we could add on the list of great yet less significant antagonists like Medusa, Pandora and Thanatos. I’m excluding Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus and Demeter from this list for rather obvious reasons - Zeus because the the guy seems to be MIA for good so Palutena could rule the place, Athena and Hephaestus because Palutena and Dyntos practically are them and Demeter because Viridi pretty much is Mycenaean Demeter on steroids in a package way too small to contain all that anger within. I also don’t think her relationship with Pit and Palutena will change drastically, so she’s sitting comfortably on her friendenemy-zone.
As for already existing characters, I don’t think anyone of them could snatch the title of the big bad. Viridi is off the competition for already mentioned reasons and I don’t see anyone from Forces of Nature defecting to become the new main villain. Pyrrhon is either gone for good or went back to whatever is this world’s equivalent of Egypt to lick his wounds, so I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon - and if he’s coming, I don’t think he’s coming back as a main bad guy since he really wasn’t one to begin with. Thanatos’ only major mythological appearance is the myth of Sisyphus capturing death which doesn’t exactly strike confidence on his abilities in general and if that version of Thanatos couldn’t do his job correctly when meeting one guy too stubborn to die, do you really think that I believe our Thanatos has any chances of becoming the new big bad? Bringing back Medusa would be beating a dead horse at this point unless they really twist the formula and I don’t think that’s going to happen, so Medusa is off the competition. Pandora wasn’t all that big of a threat to begin with, so if she comes back she most likely stays that way. So it’s definitely going to be a new character, but who could it be?
As for who for sure can’t replace Hades as the new main bad, it’s Hestia. She probably has the lowest chance of any big Greek god to even appear in a possible future Kid Icarus game simply because there’s next to no material of her and that’s for a good reason. She was the goddess of hearth, domesticity, family, home and state. Most of these were and still are considered private, so that explains why there’s very little material of Hestia actually doing anything - we don’t write epic poetry about cleaning the house, making a macaroni casserole for dinner or going to bathroom and so didn’t the ancient people. With Hestia, you’re dealing with the bare bones of a character because she’s so passive and non-confrontational figure. It would be hard to make her a central figure in any kind of plot, especially for a one centered around action, so she’s out.
Hermes is also a figure I don’t think would work as a big bad or as an antagonist in general and I don’t really have any concrete reasons for why I think so. I just feel that he would be unfit for the role. He’s a trickster who started his shenanigans on the day he was born and the rest is mythology - by cunning escapades and underdog tactics he became the messenger of gods and from that point onward he kept collecting even more jobs such as becoming the god of merchants, shepherds and thieves, being a psychopomp, guiding dreams and helping heroes whenever he felt like it. He has a lot of going on but he’s always regarded as someone who knows all the tricks and isn’t afraid to use them, not all bad for a guy whose name was derived from a word meaning a pile of rocks.
As for why I think Hermes would make an terrible antagonist is mostly because of his status as the god of thieves and how it’s pretty much the easiest way to turn him into an antagonist. The thing here is that I just can’t stand antagonists whose main thing is that they’re amazing thieves and/or tricksters in games. While I think they can be enjoyable in other forms of media if they’re written on a smart way, in games this is almost never the case because gameplay and story don’t always match perfectly and writers need to use cheap tactics to make the character work - and by cheap I mean either A.I stands for artificial incompetence and the character is simply bad at being a thief/trickster despite all the characters and lore saying otherwise or that the game just starts cheating against the player to make them feel dumb even though they did nothing wrong. Thieves and tricksters are just really hard to balance in a game when it’s not the player character doing the deceiving. That perfect sweet spot for a great character is too goddamn tiny and if the thief/trickster isn’t exactly in there, you have an annoying character either because they’re incompetent at their job or because computer is a cheating bastard. So while there’s many enjoyable antagonists who share traits with Hermes, combine them all into a one character with the problems I already mentioned and most of the time you have a figure everybody hates due to how infuriating they’re to deal with. We’re trying to make people interested of going on and seeing what happens next here, not trying to annoy them to the point where they can just drop the game and never pick it up again. As for another reason I don’t think Hermes would work all that well as an antagonist is because his whole shtick is that despite his incredible powers, he still manages to be an underdog. Needless to say, the way underdogs are represented in media is vastly different from the way major antagonists are and while it can work, it’s hard to pull off. And of course there’s the thing of Hermes being portrayed almost always as a positive figure in myths, meaning that I and many others have a hard time imagining him as a bad guy. At his most evil we imagine Hermes doing stuff such as saying to his nephew that grandpa equals target practice, not anything that could threaten the world. Though if Hermes is included into the cast of a future game, I can image him having a theme that sounds similar to the BW rival theme for some reason. It has that I’m a one chipper fella but I’m also extremely busy right now so goodbye for a moment, see you soon-energy in it that I associate with Hermes.
As for what kind of role Hermes could be playing, he could work rather well as a quick cameo like Poseidon was in KI:U, where he offers help in some form. If one wants to go deeper into it, he could possibly run some service since he was the god of merchants and trade as well - though if one want to involve the fact of him being the god of thieves in addition to previously mentioned things, make him an occasional scammer because that’s what one would expect from a trickster. Or have him as a boss in a training gauntlet. Works either way.
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If Artemis was introduced into the series, I don’t think she would be antagonistic. I can totally see her having a cold personality and her being bit of a hard person to deal with, but I don’t see her being actively malicious character - only example of Artemis being overly cruel towards figures KI-characters seem to be based on would be her sending the Calydonian boar to cause chaos in Calydon. It’s interesting if you believe Magnus and Gaol are at least partially inspired by Meleager and Atalanta like I do, but I don’t think it’s enough to make Artemis an antagonist, much less the main villain so she’s off the competition. Not to say she isn't wrathful, I looked into it and her wrath far outnumbers her blessings, though it's rather messy at times and some of them even can't co-exist the ones about Orion and Callisto definitely can't but her wrath is divorced from the main KI-cast. You'd have to create new characters to excuse it and KI already has a rather large cast, so I don't think it would be all that wise to create new characters just for the sake of goddess cursing them for a plot line that's resolved in couple chapters. Maybe she’s just a cameo or possibly a boss in a training gauntlet.
Apollo would be an antagonist. I just don’t see any other way how he could be introduced into the series. He has potential to be a charismatic, funny and mostly harmless antagonist who isn’t there to cause any trouble, he just really hates Pit and only Pit. But why would he hate Pit? It’s not like the mythological Apollo dislikes Icarus or Perseus and that’s indeed true, but there’s one more thing. For a god who we associate with a celestial body mostly made out of hydrogen and helium, Apollo has extremely high levels of sodium chloride within him - which is to say that he has been salty starting from the moment Hermes robbed him that one time and that lake of salt inside him has only become larger ever since. That salt is directed at people he dislikes and while he doesn’t dislike Icarus or Perseus because he never met either of them, guess who he does dislike? Angel-like gods, or just Eros to be more specific.
The story goes that Apollo’s enormous ego took the better of him one day and so he started to mock his nephew for what he thought was mediocre use of the bow and arrow. Insulted Eros decided that Apollo had officially lost his uncle-license which led him to curse Apollo to have the worst love life imaginable, starting with Daphne. And as we all know Cupid is Roman version of Eros and Pit is named after Cupid, so this was hatred made in heaven and it would be disappointing to not use the opportunity when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And you don’t even have to come up with an detailed and intriguing story to explain why Apollo hates him - something could’ve very well happened during the three years Pit’s consciousness was in that ring. His body may have ruined Apollo’s chances to hit it off with people because it was destroying their cities or something similar. Or just leave it as a noodle incident that’s referenced multiple times, everyone wonders what the heck actually happened but only Apollo knows, refusing to tell the story because he just assumes that everyone already knows it and they’re just messing with him by pretending to not know. Either way, Apollo should be an antagonist if he’s featured in a sequel. Not a villain, definitely not the big bad but fun antagonist to deal with.
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This is something that most of you probably already know or at least you would know if you’ve actually read something other than Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or as I like to call it Jaded man screams at Emperor Augustus because apparently telling the Roman citizens to go all out on every monument the prude ever built clearly wasn’t enough, please tell me you have but Medusa isn’t an only child. She’s in fact one of Phorcys and Ceto’s seven children, both of them being somewhat monstrous primordial ocean deities - Phorcys has been described as a merman with red skin and crab claws, Ceto’s name in the other hand just literally means sea monster. Besides Medusa and the two other gorgons Stheno and Euryale, the list of their children includes the graeae sisters, serpentine dragon Ladon and Echidna, which is quite a lot of snake monsters for two deities who themselves don’t have any snake traits. There’s a lot of potential in this group but ideas of any of them becoming the new big bad end up falling apart because just like Medusa, they’re all rather bland characters like you’d expect from a mythological monster. They’re less like characters and more like plot devices that the hero needs to deal with. The only two members of this family besides Medusa who actually get to do something of importance are Ladon and Echidna and even those acts aren’t all that interesting. Echidna gets to have her many monstrous children with Typhon and then she’s apparently is killed by Argus, Hera’s servant-giant while sleeping on a cave just like her sister. Ladon guarded the garden of Hesperides which was well known for its golden apples and he doesn’t get to die with much dignity either, since Heracles just shoots him in the back and literally the next day other Argonauts find nymphs looking at his still twitching body. Alternatively Heracles just tricks Titan Atlas to do all the apple picking, which leaves Ladon alive.
Possibly one of the biggest problems writers have to deal with is setting. Ladon is very strictly tied into the garden setting and Echidna was cave dweller who never left her home, so writers would have to come with rather specific situations for them to appear. Of course if one wants to be lazy, Underworld could possibly serve as their home. It could very well house caves big enough to house a snake monster and Greek Underworld does have Elysium, which is basically Paradise and it could very well also function as a garden. But honestly even with the right setting, I don’t think either of them would make all that interesting big bads. They would definitely work fantastically as large-scale villains, but they don’t really have that much intimidation factor all things considered - you can blame Argus and Heracles for that.
But I’m not done with this family yet as there’s one character connected to them who’s probably the most feared monster of all Greco-Roman mythology and that’s Typhon, Echidna’s mate. He’s essentially an ancient Greek equivalent of a kaiju, more a destructive force of nature than a monster and everyone fears him - and by everyone, I mean everyone. There’s couple of versions of what happens but the most popular one goes that when the gods saw him, their first instinct was to shapeshift into animals and flee into Egypt. Those who did stay behind such as Hades were said to cover in fear in their homes while Typhon ravaged the land. Zeus tried to fight him but when he went for the kill, Typhon caught him and cut off his sinews, then threw him into a cave under the watch of another snake monster Delphyne. This didn’t stop Hermes and Pan from getting the sinews back and saving Zeus, and once his strength has been restored he and Typhon fought once again. Zeus eventually wearied Typhon down and then either casted him down into Tartarus or dropped a mountain on top of him, that being Mount Etna.
He could work very well as a big bad, problem here are just how high the stakes need to be for him to work. He’d had to be the ultimate villain if that was the case, the stakes need to be higher than they were with Hades. And considering how Hades was pretty much your typical pure evil villain causing chaos, what separates Typhon from him? Just some more chaos and no wisecracking dialogue because everyone is too scared to talk? He comes off as way too similar to Hades without all the fun personality. Maybe if KI:U became a KI:U-trilogy he could work as the ultimate big bad of the last game, but I got to say no otherwise. The bar for making him work is already sky-high due to how destructive he is and we don’t want to repeat the plot of Uprising here. So while he definitely can work, maybe save him for later.
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Hera and Poseidon both have potential to be serious antagonistic forces, but I don’t think they have it to be main villains. Hera simply fits the bill because most of the times she’s the antagonistic force actively trying to make people’s lives worse, all because she can’t direct her anger at correct people. Some times she’s just blatantly evil, like how she imprisoned her own daughter Eileithyia or you may better know her as Lucina to prevent the birth of Artemis and Apollo or how she tricked her pregnant great-granddaughter into disintegrating herself Semele is her great-granddaughter by the way. As for examples of Hera being wrathful which don’t involve Zeus being horny, she was said to be the one who sent Sphinx to Thebes, no reason given why or if there’s one, I couldn’t find it. Works either way.
Because she might as well be the personification of divine wrath, it’s pretty easy to see why one would think she would make a great villain. However that wrath also gives us a big problem, it being that her evil escapades are mostly rooted on anger and spite - while wrath is a good driving force for a villain, it needs more to work. With Hades, he does evil things for fun and is having a blast while doing it. Hera on the other hand just rages and most of the times it’s because of Zeus, who seems to be out of the picture. She’s not there to have fun and when you add her general lack of charisma on the top, you don’t end up with the most endearing character. While wrath can serve as a character motivation, it can become stale very quickly and this means that unless the story regarding villainy her is short (as in solved in 1-3 chapters) it starts to feel like dragging. I overall think that Hera does have very low chances to appear in general, but if she does appear as an antagonist she should preferably be a minor one in the same way Viridi was. You know the meme of what makes villain a supervillain and the answer is presentation? Hera doesn’t have that presentation. Writers can certainly just give her that which is what they did with Hades whose mythological counterpart was more or less a basement dweller, but why go trough all that trouble when there’s so many better candidates to work with?
On to Poseidon, who’s an important figure in the founding myth of Athens - it’s honestly quite odd how it’s never mentioned in any shape or form in KI:U despite Palutena being based on Athena. But then again, considering how much “care” this series put on the names of its cities and towns, this being ignored doesn’t really surprise me even if it does disappoint. He was a really big deal during the Mycenaean period, besides being the god of ocean he was also seen as the head god and the ruler of the Underworld. Then the Late Bronze Age collapse happened and Poseidon was nerfed in the lack of better words - during the Dark Age, Zeus became the new head god and Hades popped seemingly out of nowhere, taking over Poseidon’s role as the god ruling the Underworld. On the other news Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is somewhat dwarfed by the fact that most of his escapades involve banging and they don’t really feature any figures the main cast of KI seem to be based on. It’s annoying because he does so much but because it’s mostly banging people and either helping or bullying very specific heroes, it’s just not something that’s all that relevant in the context of KI. But there’s couple myths and stories that would make him an easy bad guy, first one is that of Atlantis - and we’re going to jump straight to the source material because on it’s core, it’s technically just another tale of Athena and Poseidon having a conflict. Fish people under the sea is fun as well, but by using the source directly it gives us the most potential.
So Plato tells in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias that when Athenian statesman Solon visited Egypt, he found some interesting records about certain events during 10th millennium BCE and translated them into Greek. Only thing here that’s true is Solon visiting Egypt, everything else was made up Plato - if you need more proof, know that 10th millennium BCE was during the stone age for context, Britain wasn’t sharing a land border with just France, but also with Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark during this time. It was that far into the past. As for the actual story, it begins by gods choosing lots of land for themselves and Poseidon chooses Atlantis. He then falls in love with a mortal woman Cleito, builds her a luxurious home, they have five sets of twin boys together and once the kids have all grown up, they divide Atlantis into ten parts and so is born ten different lineages of kings. But by each generation the kings become more and more human, meaning that it’s much more easier for their wealthy lifestyle to hit them in the head - compare that to Athenians in the story, who’re not tempted by luxuries and have quite Spartan lifestyle interestingly enough. This wealthy lifestyle of the Atlanteans quickly leads into colonialism and war mongering, leading into them trying to take over the Mediterranean but they’re are stopped by Athens because naval warfare was the only type of warfare Athenians actually excelled at. Zeus eventually looks down to see what the heck is going on and then tells Poseidon to do something because this racket is technically speaking all his fault. Poseidon agrees, causes an earthquake and then sweeps Atlantis under his rug, that being the ocean. So Atlantis is pretty much an antithesis of a perfect society, a concept that’s discussed more in Republic and the lesson here is that being consumed by hubris in the search of luxury leads to ruin - but since we’re not here for philosophy lessons, let’s forget all of that and think what kind of plot one could craft out of this mess.
Island nation in search of wealth is a good set-up for some action, so I don’t think there’s much that needs changing. Have Atlanteans attack some cities which alerts Palutena and that leads Pit into a mission in which he tries to tell Poseidon what’s going on. After 2-5 chapters of war against Atlanteans, Poseidon deals with the problem either willingly or by force - whether he just destroys the place or makes Atlanteans full on aquatic folk who can’t survive on land meaning that they have to give up the conquest is up to writers. It’s honestly quite refreshing to have the original tale working so well, because usually everything related to Atlantis in media is so divorced from what Plato told. Sure, a submerged city full of fish people could still work but by using the original tale as base we get a story with clear beginning and end which makes perfect sense in context of KI. Or maybe have the a plotline inspired by the original story first and then later have something related to the submerged city with the fish people. Best of both worlds, amazing!
Also orichalcum, the metal Atlanteans were said to have aplenty, is pretty much just copper. Reddish metal and only gold is more valuable than it, it couldn't be anything else but copper. The term even translates into mountain copper! So why is it never portrayed as copper in fiction?
Besides Atlantis, Poseidon has couple other myths I’d like to talk about too. The first one has him and Apollo losing their divine authority for a while and as punishment they have to serve Trojan king Laomedon father of king Priam and grandfather of Hector among some others if you’re wondering. The king makes them to build the legendary walls of Troy and he promises them great rewards, but once he doesn’t deliver them Apollo sends the plague upon Troy and then Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize the place Heracles kills it if you’re wondering. There’s also certain another situation which I’ve actually already talked about on a different post and how with little shaking it could work nicely on a future game - what I said was that Pit should do something Poseidon is going to hate to the point that the god is screaming for his head and that he wants to settle things on court.
The myth I used as reference was that of the supposed first trial in history, in which Ares kills Poseidon’s son Halirrhothius for assaulting his daughter and Poseidon loses his marbles over it. The gods gathered on Areopagus which is a real place in Athens, fun fact and I’ve heard two versions of how the trial goes. In the first version everyone agrees that Ares’ actions were justified and in the second one gods side with Poseidon, but goddesses side with Ares and since there was more goddesses present than gods, their words mattered more. Either way, Poseidon loses the trial and Ares gets away scot-free.
Were a future KI-game do their own twist with this myth, Pit would obviously take the role of Ares. Besides the fact that we’re trying to make Poseidon more antagonistic, Pit just being on a situation similar as Ares makes sense thematically speaking and I’m going to talk more about this later since it’s rather interesting. As for why the trial happens in the first place, it could very well be over anything. Maybe mix it with the one where Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize Troy just replace Troy with some unimportant city as this series always does and he’s so attached to it that seeing it getting slayed deeply saddens and angers him. You don’t even need to get rid of the idea that it was over a girl, even if the motive for killing the monster is changed along with what kind of relationship the girl could possibly have with the main cast. This is something I’ll get back into later because there’s in fact one other character who I’d like to talk about and how their most cruel and personal form of villainy happens to bound to a certain girl.
So back to Hera and Poseidon. There’s definitely potential for them to be antagonistic, but I’d say they would work much better as arc villains rather than as the main bad guy. There’s only so many things you can do with characters whose actions are rooted on anger or wrath, especially when they don’t have all that striking personalities.
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As for someone who could well work as the big bad, Dionysus is the first serious candidate. It’s partially due to how inconsistent his characterization has been, which I guess is something one should expect from a figure who has been around since the Mycenaean times and who happens to be the god of insanity, vegetation, orchards, fruit, grape-harvest, winemaking and wine. Does this sound like someone you’d expect to be a member of Forces of Nature? Because it sure does for me and I’d honestly be surprised if he wasn’t one if he was introduced to the franchise.
Symbolism behind Dionysus’ birth is pretty neat, my favorite version of it is the one written down by Diodorus of Sicily in Bibliotheca Historica and in that one Demeter is his mother. It starts the usual way in which the poor kid is killed shortly after his birth by Titans and Demeter comes back just in time to gather his remains to allow his rebirth shortly after. It references the harvest process and wine making - the god wine is born from the union of rain and earth just any plant is, he’s torn apart and boiled alive symbolizing the harvesting and wine-making process, his remains represent the fallen bare vines which become fertilizer for the earth and lastly wine itself is supposed symbolize the now reborn Dionysus. All of the versions of his birth myth do have this symbolism to a certain degree but I’d say this version has it the strongest because unlike his other the mother candidates, Demeter is a nature goddess first and foremost and also the goddess of agriculture.
This next point is somewhat tied to the previous one which is that he actually has valid reasons for his absence, that being his meanderings. Long story short - Hera’s angry over the fact that he exists, she injects him with madness and he wanders around like a madman for a while, then Rhea cures said madness and tells him to go on a journey so he could teach people how to make wine. So he goes and wanders around the world with the exception of Britain and Ethiopia for some reason teaching people the art of winemaking and does some other things in the meanwhile, such as apparently founding a city it’s told that on his campaign Alexander the Great came across a city that was supposedly founded by Dionysus. And this is a fun fact, apparently Dionysus’ popularity exploding around late 4th century BCE can be directly linked into Alexander, which is pretty neat. Once he comes back home he firmly establishes his place as a god and then he starts doing shenanigans much more familiar to us, such as giving king Midas his golden touch and marrying Ariadne.
So why do I think Dionysus is the first real contender for a possible new big bad? Well, do you know what’s the first thing he did once he came back to Greece? According to Bacchae, he brainwashed a city to worship him, caused an earthquake, set a palace on fire, gleefully watched when his worshipers teared a man into pieces and then turned some other people into serpents. Now that’s an entrance Viridi would be proud of!
Besides this, there’s also two similar stories in which Dionysus meets some pirates and they both show him as an unhinged god. They capture him and in the first one Dionysus shapeshifts into a lion and unleashes a bear against his captors, causing the scared pirates to abandon the ship and then Dionysus turns them into dolphins. In the other one he turns the mast and oars into snakes, fills the ship with ivy and the sound of flutes to make the pirates go mad and once again when they abandon the ship, Dionysus turns them into dolphins. The tale of him giving Midas his golden touch could also count as him being antagonistic since the act gives Midas nothing but suffering. So while he is much more friendly towards humans than your average god, Dionysus definitely has an antagonistic flare deep inside him and a place in the Forces of Nature and you can’t change my mind.
If Dionysus was a major antagonist or the big bad, I could see the plot going a lot like this - he comes home, causes some racket because he feels neglected, Viridi is happy about all of this and tries to control it while keeping him on this state of mind because who wants a happy party guy when you can have a chaotic deity, for a while she can do it but not for long before things snowball out of control and he becomes an unhinged god dead set on causing chaos. As for how he’s defeated, I can’t really come up with anything concrete on a fly but I don’t think Dionysus would be defeated the same way Hades was. And while he has the personality and presentation needed for a main antagonist, I just can’t see him as a pure evil villain like Hades was. He’s very much redeemable in my eyes and as for what happens to him after his defeat, I could see it leading to him mellowing down kind of like how Greek wine was watered down before it was used for anything - he’s still part of Forces of Nature and perfectly capable of doing all the same stuff he did as a major antagonist, but he would prefer partying with humans over destroying them. Viridi probably isn’t going to be all too happy about this, but it’s not like she’s going to be all that angry about it either.
Also fun fact at the end - in Dionysiaca, Ariadne laments if Eros and Anteros hate her because she had amazing dream about a wedding, only for Theseus to piss off and abandon her on Naxos. But as we all know, she would soon meet Dionysus who she does end up marrying so hey, the dream just wasn’t about the guy she thought she would marry. So if Dionysus isn’t going to be the big bad and the arc devoted to his villainy is relatively short, this could very well be used as a blueprint for a funny side story. Ariadne lamenting about Eros and Anteros would give Pit and Dark Pit valid reasons to be there.
This is not a joke, by the way. The part of Underworld which wasn't either Elysium or Tartarus was commonly referred as "the House of Hades" in ancient texts.
As for someone else who could also work quite well as the big bad, that would be Persephone. You all know the drill with her - Hades takes her, Demeter panics and goes to search her, she causes the Mediterranean summer on the meanwhile and does a thing which looks awful without context Demeter sets a baby on fire which is supposed to make him immortal if you’re wondering, everyone else decides that enough is enough because endless Mediterranean summer is a nightmare, they beg for Hades to give her back and he does that but not before the pomegranate trick. Demeter causes Mediterranean winter to come, the trouble is solved, we have a nice functional couple in our hands and they continue to appear together when Underworld is relevant to the plot - which surprisingly isn’t all that often as only Adonis, Heracles, Theseus who loses his arse and friend in the process, Orpheus who loses his wife and will to live in the process, Odysseys, Psyche and Aeneas managed to go to Underworld and back. That’s not really all that much all things considered.
And before anyone says anything about seasons here - Mediterranean climate is a thing and it’s best known for its hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. One of these is much more preferable for plant life and in this case, it’s not summer. The more you know.
While there’s not much material of her when compared some other people in this list, I’d say there’s enough to create a frame for a character. In both Theogony and Iliad Persephone is described as dreaded and in Odyssey Odysseus assumes Persephone is the one sending ghosts to torture him while he’s visiting the Underworld. Just like Hades she has her fair share of vague epithets like Despoina (mistress) and Kore (maiden), presumably for the same reason as to avoid getting her attention. And while the etymology behind her actual name is rather muddied, the popular theories are that it means something in the vain of to destroy, to bring/cause death and she who brings destruction. And people have the gall to say she isn’t scary!
With this info and Hades’ characterization from KI:U in mind, you could very easily create a powerful pure evil villain who’s not going to be happy to learn what happened to her husband. As for why I believe she would be pure evil instead of redeemable one like Dionysus, it’s simply so she and Hades would match on their villainy. Considering how the big thing about Hades and Persephone is that they genuinely love each other to the point of possessiveness Pirithous and Minthe learned it the hard way, it would be weird if they hadn’t rubbed on each other during the time they were together. There’s an amazing chance for drama here and it would be dumb to ignore it when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And besides, unholy matrimonies are quite fun in fiction. Villains too have something they love.
As for attempts of villainy that don’t revolve around her being antsy at Pit about Hades, we interestingly need to look at the list of those she granted favors rather than those that had to deal with her wrath - or just one of them in particular, Psyche. As I’ve already mentioned she was one of those mortals who managed to go to Underworld and back and to make things better, she went to Underworld specifically so she could speak to Persephone. Persephone greets her with a nice cushion to sit on and a banquet, which Psyche declines because it’s a trap this is practically just the pomegranate trick on a larger scale. She tells why she came into the Underworld in the first place and Persephone fulfills her request, which is to say that she gives Psyche boxed death.
Coming to Underworld to speak to Persephone in particular definitely gives Psyche an edge compared to others when it comes to exploring Persephone’s potential villainy. But just why is Psyche such a big deal when compared to someone else like Orpheus, Adonis or Aeneas? Well, Psyche just happens to be the girl who would become the goddess of soul, a job that isn’t currently filled by anyone in KI-universe which Hades has kindly illustrated to us in KI:U by eating and repurposing souls for his own purposes. She’s also Eros’ wife with the addition of being the mother of his daughter and as we all know at this point, Pit is mostly inspired by Eros. While Persephone just being angry about her husband’s treatment makes a perfectly fine motivation, why not use the chance when it has been represented to us on a golden platter? Because while KI has a large cast of characters, most them are quite divorced from one another when it comes to their mythological counterparts interacting with each other. This subverts it since Persephone actually gets to interact with someone important to the figure Pit’s inspired of, which is more than almost anyone else in this list can say. The opportunity is there and there’s an open position for a new god, so why not take it?
Also if Persephone is going to be in a future game, I say I’m going to be so disappointed if there's not at least one pun about her epithet Kore. Like imagine if she was introduced on a chapter called Lost Kore or something similar and then the characters would just continue on making bad puns, annoying her. Wouldn’t be too out of line when it comes to this series humor.
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I know what I’m going to say next is probably going to be controversial, but anyway - if Ares ever makes an appearance, I don’t think he would be a bad guy and this is mostly due to how Pit has been characterized. I know that may sound weird at first but trust me, I do actually have a point with this.
So let’s start with something that may seem completely unrelated at first, these being a history lesson and some talk about over-demonization. We honestly don’t know much about how some city states worshiped gods and what specific versions of the myths they had because some people just couldn’t be bothered to write things down. Besides it being extremely annoying for me, this is also probably where the misconception of all of ancient Greece being either like Athens or Sparta came from, which just is completely false. However what is correct is that city states didn’t really like one another all that much and often engaged on stupid wars with each other, only uniting when there was a much bigger threat looming on the horizon - and with war comes propaganda and when only some people write things down, we’re usually left with really one-sided information when it comes to both good and bad. For one example of this coming off as hilariously hypocritical to me is Athena being worshiped under the epithet Areia in Athens. Areia is very obviously derived from Ares and means warlike, but Athenians had their heads so far in their arses that they came up with a reasoning that this version of the epithet is actually derived from areô or areskô, meaning to propriate or atone for. It’s most likely just some crap Athenians came up with to excuse the worship of Athena Areia, which I just can’t help but find pathetically funny - you can only blame your own propaganda for this, guys.
Historically speaking Ares most likely originates from Thrace since besides his popularity in there Herodotus notes in Histories that only gods from Olympian Pantheon that Thracians worshiped were Ares, Artemis and Dionysus, a really odd trio if I have to say so myself, it’s also said to be his birthplace in the myths. His name can be found on Linear B scripts, a writing system that goes as far back as 1450 BCE and which disappeared during the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BCE. This informs us that he was part of the Mycenaean Pantheon in some way, most likely even then as a war god - it also informs us that he predates gods such as Apollo, Hades and Aphrodite who just don’t exist in Mycenaean texts at least in any recognizable forms. As for Ares during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenic period, especially when it came to places that weren’t either Athens/Attica or Sparta, I had to mostly rely on travelers who wrote things they saw down because some people just didn’t bother to write their own stuff down. Pausanias’ Description of Greece was especially helpful with the research, but what must be remembered is that he lived during 2nd century CE and that he was an outsider to these cultural aspects so how old some of this stuff here is and what the exact context behind it was, I don’t know and neither do others at least currently, one sure can hope so we know more in the future. Then again past is another country so maybe I'm setting my hopes way too high. When given anything in Linear A, people channel their best "I never learned how to read!"-impression.
As for how Ares’ Roman counterpart Mars came to be, it’s mostly due to syncretization. He probably was originally an agricultural god who was later associated with warfare once the Roman Republic started expanding. It’s possible that he was syncretized with an Etruscan deity called Maris, who was usually portrayed as a young boy whose caregiver was Menrva, a goddess who was later identified with Athena and Minerva. While this isn’t an universally agreed take, it’s still pretty interesting in context of Kid Icarus even if it wasn’t intentional or in the case of the take, true. Once Romans started to interact with Greek settlers from Magna Graecia Mars was syncretized with Ares, giving us the Roman god that looks familiar to us. One notable thing to keep in mind is that most of those Greek settlers in Magna Graecia originated from Peloponnese and what I’ve managed to find, they held Ares on much more higher regard than those originating from Attica did.
Okay, now when that has been cleaned out of the way, let’s go to the slightly more interesting stuff which is cult titles and epithets. Just like any other god he has his fair share of both, some examples include Teichesipletes (stormer of cities/walls), Hippius (horseman, of the horses), Theritas (beastly/brutish), Enyalius (warlike), Obrimus (strong/mighty), Thurus (violent/furious), Chrysopelex (of the golden helm) and Chalcocorustes (armed with bronze). I’m using Latin spelling of these to make things easier for myself if you’re wondering. But there’s two titles I specifically want to talk about, both them originating from Arcadia around Tegea because apparently all the cool stuff happens in Arcadia.
Interestingly also in Tegea there was a temple of Athena under epithet Alea. Pausanias tells that her priest there was a boy who held the title until he reached puberty, meaning that her priest was a child. Now this has nothing to do with Ares, but it’s pretty interesting when thinking of Pit. It’s not exactly same for sure, but could this mean that he would leave Palutena if he ever grew up?
The first one is Gynaecothoenas, meaning “Feasted by women” - and no need to worry, it’s nowhere near as sexual as it sounds. The story goes that Tegeteans were at war with Sparta and what decided the victory was an ambush by Tegetean women. Because of this, they offered Ares a sacrifice and celebrated the victory alone. The king of the Spartans at the time was said to be Charilaus, meaning that this victory must have happened around early-to-mid 8th century BCE, making this rather old cult title by the time Pausanias was writing. If only the research for everything else here could’ve been as easy as this.
The other and much more interesting title was Aphneius, meaning “Abundant” and under this title he was worshiped as the giver of food or abundance. The story behind this title goes that Ares fell in love with Tegetean princess Aerope and they had a child together, but she died during childbirth. Ares, doing his damndest to keep his son alive, managed to find a way for the baby to still have milk. Once he grew up, his son Aeropus then managed to do the thing that’s near impossible for a demigod, which is to live a normal life as the lord of Tegea. Now this would make a great character backstory…
… What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, history lesson is over! Finally! Now into the fun stuff, which is Pit’s characterization. It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that that Pit’s inspirations are Icarus, Perseus and Eros but when it comes to his characterization, Eros definitely takes the cake as the main inspiration. He is a fully realized character with multiple myths under his wing, unlike Icarus or Perseus.
Starting with Icarus, he isn’t even a character but a plot device. He’s a tool for Daedalus’ character development and that’s where his importance ends. He’s a miniscule part on a much larger narrative in which the most important part is the Minotaur, as it drives the plot for everything else in it. Icarus’ death serves to drive Daedalus’ character to the point which eventually leads into him killing Minos. He exists for a metaphor that pop-culture has blown out to be way more important than it originally was and that’s it.
As for Perseus… The guy is just really bland. While all the other heroes have their flaws like hubris and wrath, Perseus doesn’t really have any flaws. He doesn’t have that many achievements in either bravery or stupidity due to his method of dealing with things being the quickest way possible. This makes all of his battles extremely boring and because he’s one of the first demigod heroes in the mythological timeline, he doesn’t even get to interact with anyone who could be interesting. How many of you even know that he’s supposed be the founding hero of Mycenae? Not many, I’m sure about that. The most interesting thing about the guy his that he’s an ancestor to people such as Tyndareus, Alcheme, Heracles, Penelope and Telemachus but this doesn’t save him from being any less boring. He's that famous ancestor nobody gives a damn, so to speak. Pit certainly doesn’t get any part of his personality from a plot device or a blank of wood, only a literary reference and an antagonist.
Also can I quickly rant about the Angels in art vs. Angels in Bible meme because I hate it? For some reason most of times when people show art of these supposed angels, they aren’t even showing biblical angels but Erotes/Amores or Nike/Victoria instead. Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria are winged Greco-Roman gods, not biblical angels and using art of them proves absolutely nothing. Also you may have forgotten that there’s in fact hierarchy of angels and not all of them look identical. In Christian faith angelic hierarchy is composed of three orders, there being nine different kinds of angels - Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim/Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Seraphim and Cherubim do indeed look terrifying and so do Ophanim, but Thrones are just bizarre because apparently they’re elderly carrying God’s throne, whatever that means also I’ve seen people use Ophanim and Thrones interchangeably which just makes the whole deal even bigger of a mess. And then there’s Dominions, who’re just really pretty winged people, proving that the idea of all biblical angels looking terrifying is completely false. I couldn’t find what Virtues looked like, but if they’re anything like Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels they’re most likely pretty winged humanoids. So yeah, surprising amount of biblical angels are indeed just pretty winged humanoids and only the highest order of them is clearly inhuman - so if you ever wondered why so many angels in art actually featuring Biblical angels have them looking so humanlike, now you know! It's not the highest rank's job to interact with the human world. Though in modern language, the term angel is simply used as an umbrella term which refers into a winged humanoid being regardless of which religion they originated from - so by using this as a frame, it would indeed make Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria angels along with some other winged gods such as Eos and Iris. This would also make Iris’ twin sister Arke a fallen angel because as punishment for siding with the Titans during Titanomachy, she was casted into Tartarus and her wings were ripped off so she could never escape from there. And then much later her wings are given as a wedding gift to Achilles’ parents, my god! You could actually a craft a plot out of this, hmmm. When it comes Pit and Dark Pit, I do think they’re angels only on this broad, modern way definition due to them being mostly inspired by the Greco-Roman Erotes/Amores and it’s possible that they’re only referred as angels because not only is the term Erotes/Amores is strictly associated with Aphrodite and only Aphrodite, it's also much more specialized term than just "angel". There has also been cases in art featuring multiple Nikes, but Nike's special role as the goddess of victory still prevents its use as a broad term. So I believe that in the case of KI, angel is just an useful umbrella term and nothing more.
So Pit’s mostly an Eros-expy when it comes to his personality and attributes, so what makes him so special when compared to many other Eros-expies in media? It’s actually a surprisingly small thing, but boy does it make a difference - on a thematic sense, Pit’s a total daddy’s boy and in this case the dad would be Ares. Most of the Eros-expies you see in media are completely divorced from anything related to Ares despite the guy being Eros’ dad but not in Kid Icarus, where we have a very blatant Eros-expy whose connections to his main mythological inspiration come almost exclusively from Ares. Just why is Pit doing Nike’s job? Because Nike happens to be Ares’ daughter according to some sources, like in the Homeric hymn dedicated to him. Why’s he a soldier in an army? Because Ares was a soldier and in some parts of Greece he was seen as a model of a perfect one who’s resilient and has physical strength that isn’t matched by anyone else. Apparently in Sparta they even had a statue of shacked Ares, supposedly as an attempt to keep the martial spirit and victory in Sparta I don’t know about you but for me this sounds like a very bad move, as if they were asking for the god’s wrath. Then again Athenians did the same thing with wingless Nike, so I guess it was fine in some twisted way. Why does Dark Pit exist? Because would you know it, there’s myth in which Ares and Aphrodite spot lonely little Eros and decide to create Anteros to be his brother, their only differences being hair, wings and weapons of choice Anteros has longer hair, plumed butterfly wings, golden club and lead arrows when compared to Eros' golden bow + both golden and lead arrows. Why does Magnus possibly being based on Meleager matter? Because would you know it, the dude’s sometimes a son of Ares. Why did he spend three years trapped inside a ring? It could parallel the tale of Ares and the giants, in which he spent a lunar year trapped inside a jar. Why does a dog help him during that section? It could still very well be reference Ares and the giants as Hermes and Artemis came to save him and one of Artemis’ sacred animals is a dog and Hermes is the god guard dogs. Also one of Ares’ sacred animals is dog as well, meaning that it could reference this as well. Honestly if Pit ends up having a divine parent and it’s not Ares, I call bullcrap.
So now when that has been made clear, what can writers do with Ares? Well if you take the myth of Poseidon wanting to settle things on court and give it to Pit, you end up losing one of his three major myths in which he’s wrathful towards someone odd I know, you’d probably expect a god of war to be much more wrathful but no, he’s not. The two ones that are left don’t really give all that great material either because in the first one, the target is Adonis and whether it even was Ares’ wrath that killed him is left open - in some versions it’s Artemis who wants him dead because she’s angry at Aphrodite for causing the situation which lead to the death of her hunter Hippolytus, sometimes it’s Apollo who still hasn’t forgiven Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus, occasionally it’s Persephone of all people because she’s angry at Adonis for wanting so spend time with Aphrodite and at times it’s just an accident this all makes me think it was an elaborate coup. There’s always a reason for a divine being to be angry at Aphrodite because she just can’t help but cause trouble whenever she can. When it comes to the second one, it’s honestly pretty odd because not only does Ares forgive the man who originally was the target of his wrath, it illustrates how good of a parent he is on Olympian standards not that it’s a high bar but anyway - even better than the lady whose favorite boytoy he is, and she’s well known for being an overprotective parent.
The myth starts with this lad called Cadmus, who founds the city of Thebes, becomes its king and then kills a dragon residing on a nearby spring. Ares is furious about this since the dragon was sacred to him and apparently it’s sometimes his son, don't know how that works and as punishment, Cadmus has to serve Ares for eight years he got it easy when compared to Adonis and Halirrhothius. Once that service is over, Cadmus marries one of the two daughters of Ares and Aphrodite, this being Harmonia, the goddess of harmony. However not everything is all sunshine and rainbows because Hephaestus is still salty about how his marriage with Aphrodite went south and once he hears about a wedding, he prepares two gifts for the bride - first one was a beautiful necklace that could keep its wearer eternally youthful and the other one was a luxurious robe. But there was a catch, since both of these objects were cursed to bring bad luck to those who owned them. The bad luck eventually took its take on Cadmus’ mental state and one day he remarked that if gods fancied those serpents so much, maybe his life would be so much better as one. Gods fulfill this wish, he’s turned into a serpent and once Harmonia notices what has happened, she wishes the same. At one point Dionysus comes to the city, trashes the place and then gives them a propechy of this happening. Either way, Ares comes down to get the unlucky couple and then scoots them to safety in paradise-like Elysium, where they get to reside from now on.
You may already be familiar with this myth to a certain degree because Pokemon B/W could technically count as an adaptation of it. N is of course the most obvious parallel due to him getting his second name from Harmonia and Ghetsis takes a role comparable to Hephaestus. It all becomes even funnier because Harmonia hits some characteristics associated with yin - she’s passive, feminine figure who represents harmony which can only exist due to lack of action, an idea. It gains even more hilarity points thanks to existence of Adrestia, Harmonia’s sister and the goddess of revolt - she’s pretty much yang to Harmonia’s yin and to make things even more hilarious, she was often portrayed as a beautiful winged maiden. Now who would expect the goddess of revolt to be a lovely winged lady and the goddess of harmony to be at least momentarily a serpent?
While this is indeed an interesting myth, I don’t think it would make all great material for future KI-game, at least on its current form. The cast of KI doesn’t really get to interact with humans on a personal level, which is something this myth largely relies on. Honestly, I think the best way it could be referenced in game would be just Pit going to Elysium and meeting Harmonia still trapped on a draconic form. Considering the way Hades had been characterized in KI:U, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had just kept trapped Harmonia as a pet lizard in his garden. Maybe say something on the vain of him eating the husband’s soul or using it for something else to explain why she’s there all by herself. And if you want to make fun of the fact that the fourth wall might as well not exist, throw Adrestia in Elysium as well as a dragon as a nod to Pokemon. “The Twin Dragonesses of Elysium” sounds like it would make a very cool boss fight.
So a wrath or blessing, Ares gives us not much to work with either of those at least when it comes to him actually doing stuff - but that doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing because there’s three myths that I’ve glossed over quickly that could give us something, one just for comedy and two others actual plot. As for the one that’s just for comedy, it’s the one in which Sisyphus captures Thanatos. Ares is actually the one to save Thanatos from the tough situation since after it has continued for a month, he bursts into Sisyphus’ house, frees Thanatos and drags Sisyphus’ spirit to the Underworld… Only for him to come up with a sad story, which leads into Persephone letting him go only for it to backfire. Ares then disappears from the story, but it ends up with Sisyphus doing P.E for eternity in Tartarus once he dies for real as you all already know. This is pretty funny if a bit morbid myth, so it could be really easy to use it as a comedy goldmine if Ares ever interacted with Thanatos. Maybe have Thanatos trying to act like they’re friends, only for Ares to become more and more frustrated the longer Thanatos continues. Maybe once he mentions some of his escapades involving Pit, Ares finally decides that enough is enough and shows to Thanatos that mortals don’t call him by the name Thurus for nothing.
To the myths you could get some serious plot out of, the first one is very predictably the one in which he earns the title Aphneius. It just has everything a great character backstory needs on its original form, meaning that it could easily be inserted on the game with minimal changes and it could still work fantastically. It has a romance between a god and a mortal which ends up on a tragedy during a moment that was supposed to be joyous not because of any divine whim or I guess it could’ve been Aphrodite being salty because she has a habit of releasing her wrath upon Ares’ loved ones or relatives, usually grandchildren such as Hippolytus, but I think it would’ve been written down had the story actually said it was Aphrodite behind Aerope’s death, but because of something beyond their control. And instead of taking his frustrations on the baby like so many fathers in these stories do, he instead does everything to keep him alive and so Aeropus grows up to be fine ruler, if an unremarkable demigod. A writer could easily use Aeropus as a base for an interesting heroic character… And I guess you can already see where this is going. I already said that Ares would make the most sense as Pit’s divine parent if he indeed has one, so this would make an excellent backstory if that was the case.
I could see the timeline going something like this if this was true - Ares meets KI-universe’s equivalent of Aerope, the two have an adorable romance and are expecting a kid but something goes horribly wrong and Aerope dies, instead of letting Aerope’s family to take care of the kid Ares takes the baby with him because who knows what they would do to a winged baby so many myths have families abandoning their kids for dumber reasons than this so why wouldn’t he take the kid with him + this dude had 3-6 winged kids, one all by himself, so he definitely is the one hogging all the wing genes instead of Aphrodite, he tries single parenting but it’s hard when certain goddess is constantly shooting stinkeyes and paralyzing glares at his direction and it leads into him asking help from Palutena because a winged kid wouldn’t look too out of place among her angel minions. Considering how Palutena and Poseidon were capable of having a conversation in KI:U without any horrible atrocities being committed, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine her relationship with Ares being along your typical sibling-relationship rather than what Atheanians wrote down Ares and Athena were actually worshiped together in the town of Olympia under titles Hippius and Hippias, fun fact. You could also see it as a favor inspired by how Menrva took care of Maris. Anyway, this deal goes swimmingly for a while until the events of a certain other myth take place, which makes Palutena the sole caregiver of Pit - some unspecified amount of time later que the events of the original Kid Icarus and onward.
Fanfic time over, now to the other myth which could explain Ares’ absence - it’s the one about him and the giants. Long story short, there’s these two giants called Ephialtes (derived from the word meaning nightmare) and Otus (either derived from the word meaning insatiate, doom or horned owl) who’re sons of Poseidon because of course they are, goddammit Poseidon and a mortal woman Iphimedeia, they’re also called by the name Aloadae. They were planning to storm into Olympus to kidnap some wives for themselves, Otus wanting Artemis and Ephialtes wanting Hera what great choices, you complete imbeciles, absolutely amazing. So one day Olympians are surprised to find these two giants piling up mountains on top one another and as expected, there’s a big fight between them because no one comes to the Olympian home turf without facing the consequences. Once the two giants finally leave, the Olympians notice that someone is missing, that being Ares. Ephialtes and Otus probably realized way too late that kidnapping the god of war wasn’t the brightest idea and because letting him go wasn’t an option, they locked him inside bronze jar of which he tried to break out without success. It took around a lunar year for the giants stepmother to rat this out to Hermes, who went to save Ares with Artemis. While she distracted the giants and made them throw their spears at each other, Hermes lockpicked Ares out of the jar and so the three returned to Olympus.
So how could this myth be used while crafting a plot for a future game? I’d say it depends on whether writers want to use Ares as a full-blown good guy from the start or as an antagonist at first - and while I do still believe that Ares wouldn’t be a bad guy on his own free will, who said he’s going to burst out of that jar with that free will still intact? It’s not like we haven’t seen brainwashed antagonists in the series before, Gaol was a one.
So if we have Ares as an antagonist who’s brainwashed and crazy, how could the possible plot be handled? I could see it starting with the two giants resurfacing for something trivial but because they’re being destructive, it catches the attention of Palutena who sends Pit down to deal with them. The giants are dealt with in 1-3 chapters and one way or another Pit finds a large jar and breaks it, releasing the crazed Ares. Neither side recognizes each other and there’s possibly a boss fight which ends with Ares leaving and him becoming a wandering antagonist who causes racket when someone angers him. He most likely isn’t connected to any other antagonist or the main villain, but I could see them trying to recruit him without any success. As for how he was brainwashed in the first place, it could be the Aloadae wanting to get some use out of their prisoner and they decided to make him into an indestructible living weapon either to themselves or someone else - maybe it even was commissioned by the big bad because who wouldn’t want an powerful living weapon who’s loyal to you and only you. Either way it proves fruitless as Pit frees Ares from the mind control and slowly but surely he starts to establish himself as a good guy and an ally to Pit and Palutena.
This would actually go pretty well along with a certain another thing about Ares, that being helmet and symbolism connected to it - you see, mythological Ares was often portrayed to have something I like to call Meta Knight-syndrome. He was said to be a beautiful man with a lovely face, apparently much more prettier than any other male Olympian which could possibly explain why he’s Aphrodite’s favorite boytoy and he wasn’t particularly proud of it - just what kind of self-respecting enemy would take you seriously if you have a face of an angel? But that didn’t stop people from drawing or sculpting him without a helmet, and the result were indeed pretty my goodness is Ludovisi Ares a one beautiful sculpture. Just considering how the art we see of Ares can be categorized into him either with or without a helmet, writers could easily craft a narrative out of this - while wearing a helmet he’s under mind control and once freed he fights helmetless, allowing player to see him as who he really is. Helmet obscuring the face equals bad guy and once it cracks, we can have a very confused ally who cries over the fact that his baby is a big boy now, cries some more because there’s two of them now, may or may not join us to missions if there’s a two-player mode for story or just help with training and also maybe cracks dad jokes few times because humor is a valid coping mechanism. This all kind of reminds me how one other popular trend relating to Ares in art was to have him disarmed with young Eros playing with his armor. Cute!
Somewhat relating to the idea of Ares starting as a brainwashed antagonist turned ally once the helmet is smashed, I could see him having two different themes which illustrate the different natures of him. First one should be something brooding and terrifying, maybe something similar to Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War which a really great piece of classical music that has inspired composers all around the world, even at Nintendo. If you haven’t heard it, you certainly have heard at least one song inspired by it metal genre can thank its existence on Mars, no kidding. As for the other theme, I think it should be a warm, calm and welcoming one with a hint of sadness, a complete opposite of the battle theme when it comes to the first expression. I’ve been recently listening a lot of TSFH and Hans Zimmer so if I had to say what kind of energy I’d want this possible theme to have, I’d probably say something between TSFH’s Friendship To Last from the demonstration album Nemesis, Final Days of Rome from album Unleashed and Now we are free from Gladiator. They all have this bittersweet yet beautiful feeling in them I love. Maybe there’s a shared leitmotif or something between the two themes connecting them into each other. Thurus and Aphneius were both titles for the same god after all, even if they were about wildly different aspects of him.
So just like with Apollo, I think there’s only one way to bring Ares into the franchise and in this case it would be making him Pit’s dad. It just makes way too much sense to me considering how Pit has been characterized that it would be odd if there wasn’t any connection between the two. And there’s even couple out-of-universe reasons why I don’t believe he would be the bad guy, the first and most notable being that the names Ares and Mars are already associated with morally righteous characters or at least characters we’re supposed to root for in Nintendo games. Sakurai certainly knows this, Marth has been in Super Smash Bros since Melee as a playable character and his name just blatantly is Mars in Japanese and his English name is just the Japanese way of saying Mars. You don’t bastardize the face of another franchise in your own one, especially if you’re both exclusives to the same company and the other franchise is much more bigger and important than yours is.
Since it would be hard to introduce Ares into the franchise, I would be completely fine with him not being featured in next game at all even though I would find it extremely disappointing. But if you’re not going to have him, at least have a reference to him in form of a weapon like Blade of Ares or Blade of Mars because would you know it, the legendary sword of Attila was also known as the sword of Mars. We’re probably never going to get actual swords in KI but blade has been used as a synonym for them, so there being a blade with said name could work just fine. That or finally add spear and shield combo into the game. But if you want to use the character who would work as the big bad the best into their fullest, maybe it would be a good idea to have Ares as well... All roads may lead to Rome, but not to the arms of Genetrix in this case.
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Call me crazy, but I think that Aphrodite would make the perfect big bad. Does she have that charisma and personality comparable to Hades? Yes she does, and unlike him she had all that in real life - one of her titles was Pandemos, quite literally meaning “of the people”. This made her extremely popular among people regardless who they were or where they lived, and how can you blame them since there’s not many people whom things such as beauty, love and sex don’t matter in some shape or form. Only Olympian who really matched her when it came to popularity was Zeus, but considering how he was the king of all gods it was to be expected that he’d outrank her on the popularity board. She was the most popular goddess in Greece by a longshot and that was also true for Venus in Rome, even if Mars took the place as the second most popular god after Jupiter. Due to her being the mother of Roman founding hero Aeneas, she was viewed as the mother of all Rome and it was used by people as a way to climb up the political ladder. The Julio-Claudian dynasty claimed to descend from her through Aeneas and it didn’t stop there - you can actually trace the ancestry of multiple mythological European figures all the way back to her! Some notable examples of this include Bladud/Blaiddyd, Leir of Britain, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia of Britain and supposedly even king Arthur himself last one is a bit iffy, but all the others are concrete, Aphrodite just flat out is their ancestor through Aeneas. She definitely has the charisma and presentation needed for a big bad because you simply couldn’t be able to pull of any of the previously mentioned things without them and if she could do it in real life, who says she couldn’t do it in a fictional world?
Pretty much only thing about Aphrodite that stays constant is her popularity because in the myths, her characterization is wildly inconsistent - I guess that something one should expect from a goddess who rules over matters such as beauty and love, two things one can never truly understand. However with that being said, there’s trends that stay with her regardless her ever-changing personality. She’s technically speaking an outsider to the Olympian family tree as her most popular and possibly the oldest one as well birth story has her as the motherless child of Ouranos, emerging fully formed from seafoam. Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus form the first generation of Olympians and Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus are principal members of the second generation. By adding Eileithyia, Persephone and Hebe into the mix you get the main Olympian family, making Aphrodite feel like even more of an outsider. She only starts to fit among the family when the third generation is added and speaking of said generation, part of it forms her attendants. The two most important ones are her sons Eros and Anteros, love and love requited, whom she let’s to do pretty much all they want as long as they stay loyal to her. However once that loyalty shifts, she can be quite cruel towards them which is illustrated in the myth of Eros and Psyche quite well - and I’m going to let Aphrodite herself to do all the talking, so here’s a quote from from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass:
‘This is a fine state of affairs, just what one would expect from a child of mine, from a decent man like you! First of all you trampled underfoot the instructions of your mother--or I should say your employer--and you refused to humble my personal enemy with a vile love-liaison; and then, mark you, a mere boy of tender years, you hugged her close in your wanton, stunted embraces! You wanted me to have to cope with my enemy as a daughter-in-law! You take too much for granted, you good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer! You think of yourself as my only noble heir, and you imagine that I'm now too old to bear another. Just realize that I'll get another son, one far better than you. In fact I'll rub your nose in it further. I'll adopt one of my young slaves, and make him a present of these wings and torches of yours, the bow and arrows, and all the rest of my paraphernalia which I did not entrust to you to be misused like this. None of the cost of kitting you out came from your father's estate.’
Let’s file that under yikes. She’s saying this to her injured child and it’s about a girl he loves more than anything but she can’t stand her. And it’s not like Aphrodite dislikes her for any valid reasons, it’s all because Psyche is pretty and Aphrodite took it as a personal attack. This temperament is a stable with her, be the fuss she causes either positive or negative. It goes well in the line of the idea that she was never a child and was born fully formed, as it’s pretty hard to learn those important childhood life lessons as an adult. And do you want to know the best part about this mess? After this massive rant she’s confronted by Hera and Demeter, two goddesses who in all intents and purposes should understand what she’s feeling right now and guess what they do? They call Aphrodite a hypocrite in her face because that’s exactly what she is. Why is she so angry at her child for growing up and experiencing romantic love for the first time when she spends most of her time either being in love or making others fall in love?
Let’s leave the sad lovers behind for a while and talk about Aphrodite in some other myths. There’s not many myths about her that don’t feature romance or sex in some form, but those few are usually about her competitive nature. There’s a myth about Hermes and Aphrodite participating on funeral games yes, this was a real tradition organized by Apollo and she won, her prize being a zither which she later gave to Paris. There’s also a myth about her and Athena having a weaving competition which ended on her losing miserably because as one might expect, challenging the goddess of weaving into a weaving competition couldn’t possibly end well. But since these kind of myths are about things out of her assignments, there isn’t many of them. Most of them are about her helping people with their relationship problems, some examples could be her giving Galatea life on Pygmalion’s wishes and gifting Hippomenes the three golden apples so he could win the race for Atalanta’s heart. But it’s also really easy to earn her anger, some notable immortals who were victims of her wrath are the titan goddess of dawn Eos (she didn’t want to share Ares so she cursed Eos to feel uncontrollable desire towards a new man every day), the titan god of sun Helios (he ratted out her relationship with Ares so she cursed him to forget everyone he ever loved romantically and then made him fall in love with princess Leucothoe - it ends badly and that’s how we got heliotropes), the muse Calliope (Aphrodite saw Zeus asking her help for covering the whole deal about who gets to keep Adonis as a personal attack and so she cursed her son Orpheus to have a horrible death in the hands of Dionysus’ worshipers - interestingly enough this has nothing to do with the fact that Calliope did also sleep with Ares or that she married Oeagrus who’s sometimes said to be Ares’ son, which would make Orpheus his grandson), a minor ocean deity Nerites (he refused to follow her into the land so she turned him into a shrimp) and Pan (Aphrodite and this handsome lad Acheilus had a beauty competition and Pan was the judge - he said Acheilus was prettier so Aphrodite turned the poor lad into into a hideous shark-creature and then cursed Pan to be hopelessly in love with the nymph Echo, the very same Echo who had her eyes on Narcissus). It could even be said that her blessings aren’t going to last for long and by using Hippomenes as an example once again, we learn that in one version of the story she turned him into a lion all because he didn’t pay his respects back to her soon enough. Guileful Aphrodite indeed.
Due to her temperament and general lack of caring about the consequences of her actions, Aphrodite has earned the ire of many gods - just look no further than Adonis, there’s four possible culprits who could’ve caused his death. Because of their contradictory natures, she’s often portrayed as not getting along with Hestia, Athena and Artemis and while there’s not much material for Hestia there’s multiple myths of Aphrodite causing unpleasant situations for Artemis and her hunters, Hippolytus being the shining example of this. The judgement of Paris establishes her relationship with Hera and Athena as a rocky one and the Trojan war has them full-on enemies on opposite sides, Athena even telling the Greek Diomedes during the war that he should avoid fighting literally any god with the exception of Aphrodite - it leads into him throwing a spear at Aphrodite, piercing her wrist and this leads into Aphrodite cursing Diomedes in return. Also in some records such as Cypria Helen’s mother is stated to be the goddess Nemesis, so add her into the list of gods Aphrodite has angered so it turns out the goddess who truly was Nemesis’ enemy was never the one from Blue Sea Star but rather the one who represented Morning Star, how ironic. Her relationship with the male Olympians are a bit better but not always, in fact she has no meaningful one with Apollo at all. Her marriage with Hephaestus was an unhappy one and only after they divorced were they both allowed to be happy, Hephaestus by marrying Aglaea and having a family with her and Aphrodite by continuing her many affairs without any worries. She did scorn Zeus when he tried to get it on with her, but otherwise there’s not much either good or bad blood between them. Besides Ares, Aphrodite did find both Poseidon and Dionysus handsome and had affairs with them, but it’s unclear if they resulted any children - Rhodos has Telchine Halia and Amphitrite as her other mother candidates, Peitho is almost always said to be a child of Tethys and Oceanus instead, the Charites were more often said to be children of Zeus and Oceanid Eurynome rather than Aphrodite’s and Priapus just has no parents set in stone because no telling was seemingly more popular than others. The birth myth of Hermaphroditus starts with Aphrodite telling Hermes to piss off because he doesn’t come even close to her standards, so he asks little help from Zeus to get what he wants and therefore I can’t imagine them having a positive relationship because of this. And after reading so many myths in which Aphrodite targets Ares’ grandkids for whatever reasons, I’m starting to think that he should start running away and quickly. Maybe she really did kill Aerope.
Now returning to the love story with a happy ending which has the most famous victim of Aphrodite’s wrath, Eros and Psyche. It begins in a town with no name given oh, so this isn’t completely baseless in KI where princess Psyche (meaning either soul or breath of life) is having trouble socializing - the people have declared that she’s as if not more beautiful than Aphrodite and they have started worshiping her, denying normal human interaction from her. This obviously pisses off Aphrodite because it has been established that she has the self-control skills comparable to a toddler and so she orders her son Eros to make Psyche to fall in love with something hideous. While he agrees to do the deed, once he sees the beautiful Psyche he can’t help but to fall in love with her and then he chooses to defy his mother, crafting a plan on what to do next. In the meanwhile the loneliness is making Psyche miserable and that doesn’t go unnoticed by her parents, so they go to visit the oracle of Apollo for help. Considering how Apollo is still very much salty at Eros for cursing him to have the worst love life imaginable, his words aren’t all that comforting (another quote from The Golden Ass):
‘Adorn this girl, O king, for wedlock dread, and set her on a lofty mountain-rock. Renounce all hope that one of mortal stock can be your son-in-law, for she shall wed a fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster. He, flitting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart. Why, Jupiter himself must fearful be. The other gods for him their terror show, and rivers shudder, and the dark realms below.’
She and her parents are obviously horrified by this, but they do as they were told to and Psyche is left alone on a cliffside where the god of west wind Zephyrus picks her up. He brings her into a lovely meadow where she takes a refreshing nap and after she wakes up, she sees a beautiful palace and goes in. She’s charmed by the looks of the place and then a disembodied voice tells her that she will be provided by many invisible servants while living in there. Once night falls she’s nervous to meet her husband, but after the first meeting she starts looking forward on their nights together. This continues for quite some time, but in the meanwhile Psyche’s family is starting to get worried about her and she’s in return worrying about them. Eros promises that her sisters can come to visit, but also tells her that she shouldn’t listen them if they sound jealous. Psyche agrees and Eros gets Zephyrus to scoot the sisters down to visit, but as expected the sisters get jealous really quickly and start to make her worry if what the oracle told about her husband was indeed true - what finally broke the camels back was the sisters suggesting that he’s planning to kill her and their unborn child. So when the next night falls, she has prepared herself a lamp and dagger to see if her husband really is a monster - once she draws the lamp near and sees that he’s in fact Eros himself, she’s awestruck and accidentally stabs herself with one of his arrows, making her fall for him even harder. But while admiring him some oil spills from the lamp on Eros, causing him to wake up and leave. Earlier in the story Psyche had said that she’d much rather die than throw this marriage away and she’s willing to live by that statement, so she goes to search Eros and atonement - meanwhile Aphrodite is beating her son in the head by talking how horrible child he is for daring to fall in love and then she imprisons him Genetrix knows nothing in this case. Hera and Demeter call her a hypocrite, which doesn’t ease her anger in the slightest.
Psyche eventually finds her way into a temple of Aphrodite and she calls her two servants to beat the poor girl to make herself feel better. After having a good laugh over Psyche’s suffering, she gives her another beating herself and then dumbs different kinds of grains on the ground, saying that she should sort them by night if she ever wants to see Eros again. Sometimes prompted by him, ants nearby take pity on Psyche and help her - predictably Aphrodite isn’t all too happy about this and she comes up with a much more deadlier task. By morning she tells her that she should get some golden fleece from the sheep living on a grove across nearby river. This disheartens Psyche because she knows gathering the fleas directly is a suicide mission, but she’s consulted by local river deity who tells her how the sheep behave and that instead of approaching the sheep at all she should just collect fleas caught on foliage. She does as was told and Aphrodite becomes even more enraged, telling her to go gather water from river Styx. While she finds her way to Styx without much hassle, she’s overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation - luckily for her everyone has come to the conclusion that Aphrodite is being horrible and Zeus sends one of his eagles to help Psyche to get the water.
At this point Aphrodite’s patience is running thin and she gives Psyche a box, tells her to go into Underworld to get a part of Persephone’s beauty and come back with it because this whole deal of torturing her little daughter-in-law has been so hard for her and she needs to look good while going to the divine theatre. After being consulted by a tower on how to actually get into the Underworld without dying, she does as was told and and it doesn’t take long for her to be greeted by Persephone. After refusing to fall into an obvious trap, Psyche told her why she was visiting her and Persephone agreed to help her without hassle - but after returning into the mortal world, Psyche’s curiosity took the better of her and she wanted to see that beauty herself. Turns out it was Stygian sleep fancy words for boxed death and Psyche drops on the ground like a rock, but at this point Eros has escaped his imprisonment goes straight to her. He draws the sleep back into the box, gently pricks her with an arrow to wake her up, the two have a heartfelt reunion and Eros brings Psyche to Olympus, asking Zeus if the two can now get properly married. Everyone agrees, Zeus tells Aphrodite to stfu and they give Psyche ambrosia, making her the goddess of soul. The two have a glorious wedding and some time after it Psyche gives birth to their daughter, either named Hedone or Volupta(s) depends if it’s a Greek or Roman telling the story, the personification of pleasure, joy and delight. I personally prefer the name Volupta, it rhymes much more nicer with rest of the family.
And since we’re at here, that gorgeous painting by John William Waterhouse that everyone thinks has Pandora wearing a pink dress? It’s actually Psyche opening the deathly beauty box. Don’t believe me? Just check Psyche opening the golden box and you see who’s right. He however did create an equally pretty painting about Pandora though.
So now when the story time finally over, what can we do with all of this info? Well, it does tell how perfect of an antagonist Aphrodite makes for an Eros-expy. She has power over him and isn’t afraid of abusing it when she feels betrayed. Compare this to the tales of Icarus and Perseus which really don’t have a main antagonists - Icarus has no personal stakes in the story because he’s a plot device rather than a character and from Daedalus’ point of view, the main antagonist is Minos but mythology doesn’t really treat him as all that horrible person. After he died he became one of the judges of the Underworld and probably sent Daedalus to Tartarus once he died, which illustrates a one seriously big missed opportunity which should’ve been used if Icarus truly was that important inspiration for Pit. Instead it just makes it even more clear how irrelevant Icarus and the narrative about the Minotaur are to KI. As for Perseus, I already talked about how Medusa is a mcguffin while alive and the other ones aren’t much better. Polydectes, Phineus and Acrisius are all dealt with so quickly that they don’t really matter - his only fight that isn’t solved by a handwave is against Cetus and it’s just a sea monster sent to kill Andromeda by Poseidon. Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is a topic I’ve already discussed and the already mentioned possible fusion of the myths of Poseidon sending a sea monster to harass Troy and Ares’ trial covers the idea of Pit saving a girl from a sea monster which is bit funny because in the former one, oracle tells that king Laomedon should let it eat his daughter Hesione to get rid of the monster, so that doesn’t really add anything new here. But with Aphrodite as the big bad it could be rather easy to craft two different but overlapping plotlines, one with a main goal and the other with a personal one. Aphrodite always was Eros’ biggest personal antagonist who treated him as a trophy child and didn’t take it well when he stepped out of the line - how dare her little doll grow up, behave like a man and then decide that he wants to move on to build a family of his own, which now takes the priority over her? Him choosing Psyche over his mother is his defining myth, with the addition of it being the myth in which he finally gains the respect of the other gods. Besides having its message about heart and soul being capable feeling and creating joy while together, it also functions as a coming of age story for its main couple - and when those stories have an antagonist, things tend get really personal.
So going back to those possible two plotlines and goals, what could they possibly be about? I’d say that the main plot line shouldn’t really be based on any myth but instead it should take advantage of her popularity among ancient people, more so when it comes to Venus and Rome. Even as a city, Rome was massive - by the time of 1st century CE it had reached the population of million people, being the first city in history to do that. And this was only the capital of the empire! Rome wasn’t build in a day indeed. Venus wasn’t worshiped by the thousands, her popularity was in the millions during this time period. That’s a lot of power for one goddess and as we all know, too much power can easily hit one in the head - especially when remembering that we’re dealing with a Pantheon composed entirely of manchildren. Give Aphrodite an empire that looks up to her, doesn’t do anything without a last world from her and you’re set with a supervillain who has it all from power to personality. In this case, the reason why Aphrodite should be stopped is that she’s a conqueror who rules by fear, saying that if she was ever abandoned she would curse them and take away all the blessings she has ever granted, leading her empire to ruin. If you want to make her feel even more villainous, don’t even give her an army of her own like Hades and Viridi had but make her use the people of the empire she rules over. There’s nothing more evil than using people who look up to you for protection for your own selfish goals. What those selfish goals may be, writers can be creative with them - maybe she wants to be viewed as the supreme goddess above everyone else, maybe she wants everyone to worship her and isn’t afraid to use extreme measures to get what she wants, maybe she wants to wipe out everyone who could be a threat to her, everything goes. Considering her role on the judgement of Paris, her causing a war or chaos for selfish reasons isn’t out of character. But whatever her reasons may be, there’s going to sparks in the air and fights of massive proportions. Ares may be Pit’s father but Aphrodite definitely isn’t his mother, so she’s not going to show him any sympathy or kindness if he gets in the way of her plans.
This would be the plotline that’s more on the background and focused on Aphrodite’s relationships with Palutena, possibly Ares and the other gods, the main goal is their goal. It’s why they want her defeated. If Palutena is anything like Athena, she can’t get along with her and she understands that allowing Aphrodite to do whatever she wants will have catastrophic consequences even if she herself couldn’t care less about those. If Ares was featured on a future game along with Aphrodite, their relationship would probably be focused on how they feel betrayed by each other. The myth of her cursing Eos illustrates how she sees their relationship open only from her end so she’s very likely still angry at him for leaving her, be it for Aerope or something else entirely. If you want to go with the depressing idea of her being the one who ordered Aloadae to kidnap him, she probably feels even more betrayed because even under mind control he didn’t come back to her like she had anticipated. And if it’s indeed her favorite ex-boytoy’s son with some other lady who has been foiling her plans, her blood quite possibly starts to boil. Ares’ feelings of betrayal would likely stem from Aphrodite trying to kill his child for no other reason than sheer pettiness, along with orchestrating his kidnapping and torture just so she could get her boytoy back. Other gods probably want her stopped for similar reasons as Palutena, maybe with some selfishness rippled in - the consequences of her actions are hurting them and because she doesn’t care, something must be done to stop her. For example, Viridi could possibly oppose Aphrodite because she doesn’t care about how she’s hurting nature on her attempts to viewed as the supreme goddess. Not to say that Pit doesn’t also care about this goal since he’s an empathetic youngster, but I think that the more personal plotline should be his and it’s goal his main motivator during the story.
As for the plotline with the more personal goal, the myth of Eros and Psyche makes the perfect outline for it. Aphrodite is already the main antagonist of the tale, so there’s no need for any massive changes when it comes to her jealousy and want to dispose Psyche. The tasks she gives to her could also be mostly unchanged, if adjusted with something that makes gameplay more immersive assuming we would get to play as her like we got to play as Dark Pit in chapter 22 in KI:U. However what needs to changed is Aphrodite’s relationship with Pit, how he and Psyche first meet and how their relationship is evolves from that point onward since following the myth to a T isn’t an option in this case. I could see Pit and Psyche’s first meeting being a result of Aphrodite’s wrath manifesting on a relatively harmless way, meaning that she already knows about this new, pretty princess that challenges her status as the supreme goddess and she’s not having any of it. As for how her wrath could manifest, it could be a your garden-variety monster attack in the first chapter disguised as someone else’s troops so no one would suspect it was her behind it. The sheer weirdness of it could catch Palutena’s attention so she sends Pit down to investigate it and to get rid of the monsters. While getting rid of them, he meets Psyche in one way or another - maybe she’s trying to escape from them or she’s trying to fight against them, either way Pit comes to her aid and they befriend each other. Maybe she’s featured on a few following chapters as minor character doing something on the background, giving them more possibilities to interact and become better friends - in these chapters Apollo could possibly be introduced along with reintroducing Poseidon, to foreshadow the roles they would play later on. What side plots would these chapters have, it could anything - maybe Pit meets Ares for the first time at this point of the story, but he’s not freed from mind control just yet.
At this point Aphrodite could be getting more angrier but she doesn’t want to out herself as the main villain yet, so she crafts a plan that would eventually lead into Poseidon hating Pit into the point of him wanting to take things into the court. Maybe she tricks Poseidon and Apollo into becoming mad at Psyche’s home city for whatever reason, like how they got angry at Troy in mythology proper. If this was the case, I think that she would keep Poseidon in the dark while letting Apollo fully know what’s going on - if Poseidon doesn’t know the true reason why Aphrodite wanted his sea monster to terrorize the city and why it was killed, he would be much more enraged when it happens. I’ve already established reasons as for why Apollo would dislike Pit, so he probably wouldn’t really need any prompting to cause Pit suffering since he’d still want some payback from that embarrassing noodle incident. So Poseidon sends his sea monster to terrorize the coastline and once citizens start asking help from the gods, Apollo lets the hate flow through him and offers nothing useful - instead he tells them to take the Hesione/Andromeda-approach and let it eat someone to calm it down oh look, it’s a reference to Perseus that’s not about Medusa for once, nice. In this case, it would be Psyche and Pit’s of course not going to let his friend die so he goes to save her, be it with or without Palutena’s approval. In my head I did imagine this as a chapter that would work amazingly with multiplayer, starting with Pit and Dark Pit distracting the monster, then Pit freeing Psyche and them setting out to kill the monster before it causes more harm. Player 2 would have to deal with changing characters on the fly but if Pittoo and Psyche had similar weapons, I don’t think it would be too distracting since they’d be playable on different parts of the chapter. But once the monster has finally been defeated, the joy is cut short by Poseidon interrupting and wanting vengeance for what happened to his monster, ending the chapter. The plot would immediately catch on the next one and what I could see happening on this chapter is that Pit’s taken into the court by Poseidon and he’s not allowed to have anyone defending him, but Dark Pit and Psyche go into his defense anyway Pittoo being the playable character. After a long and treacherous journey they find they way to the divine courthouse and tell their point of view on the events, which gives Pit the sympathy of the court and he gets away scot-free. Poseidon and Apollo may face on consequences at this point and they may even rat Aphrodite out on a subtle way, but the main group doesn’t catch it.
The following few chapters would be breathers before the plot kicks in again, Aphrodite ousting herself as the big bad in one way or another. Maybe she has sent her troops to attack some place, possibly in search for Ares since he would make a great ally on this brainwashed state. Much to her dismay he declines her offers, he and Pit fight and the helmet is smashed, but Palutena recalls Pit before anything can come out of it. The fight continues for couple following chapters, Palutena and Aphrodite are gradually getting more and more mad at each other and maybe she comes down to face Pit herself because the little brat getting on her way is starting to be really annoying now this would make a pretty cool unwinnable boss fight, but Ares comes just in time save him - que silent, cold anger between them, confusion from Pit and Palutena’s end with some extremely awkward reunions and explanations.
What could follow from here is another set more lighter chapters focused less on Aphrodite’s plans to become the supreme goddess and more of the cast getting to know each other better - Palutena and Ares reconnecting, Ares trying to form a meaningful relationship with Pit and Dark Pit, Pit and Psyche becoming better friends, etc etc. Not to say Aphrodite has given up on her plans - she’s still doing things on the background, but it’s implied that what little chaos she currently causes is serving as distraction to hide her bigger plans. Persephone could possibly be introduced at this point of the story, making it clear that she knows about the events of KI:U and that she’s going to get her payback on what happened to Hades in one way or another, possibly drop an implication that she’s working together with Aphrodite. But since everything good comes to an end and so do the breather episodes, plot would go on with Aphrodite kidnapping Pit and getting Persephone to throw him into some dark part of the Underworld, maybe even to Tartarus. And now we get into the fun part of the myth, Psyche’s four tasks!
I could see the plot separating into two directions from here on, first one being Pit’s great prison escape from wherever Persephone threw him into and the second one being the titular four tasks. The prison escape is more focused on traversing the Underworld and Pit trying get out of there while Persephone throws all kinds of obstacles at him - maybe it ends with a ghost gauntlet, since Odyssey illustrated that she can summon ghosts. Arke would make a pretty great boss fight here as well, since she could be classified as a fallen angel. Maybe her motive for going after Pit is to get his wings for herself as a mean to escape, since her own ones were ripped off as punishment for siding with the Titans. But since Pit’s a brave boy, this isn’t enough to stop him and he eventually finds his way out so there could be reunion and a final battle against Persephone.
While Pit’s great prison break is going on, Aphrodite makes an empty promise to rest of the cast that she can give Pit back, with some conditions - but just like in the myth, all she actually wants is Psyche’s death so the danger factor is amped up to eleven. I honestly don’t know how the one about sorting grains could be handled I guess it could work as a puzzle chapter, but the rest work rather well without massive changes. The one about gathering te golden fleas could now take a more direct approach, the one about getting Styx’s water is now missing the helpful eagle and the Underworld trip is largely same with the exception of Persephone not being cooperative. This would be the point where the two plotlines merge together and they take Persephone down together before leaving from the Underworld. Psyche falling for Stygian sleep in this version is up to debate, I say it could work either way. It mostly depends on when she’s going to wake up - if it’s too early it might as well not matter, if it’s after the final battle I’d say that’s too late.
As one might expect Pit’s escape makes Aphrodite furious and she challenges him into a one final battle - that brat has stolen her favorite boytoy from her, satisfaction of getting rid of the annoying princess and also her chances to become the supreme goddess way too many times, she has reached her third-act breakdown and at this point she has nothing left to lose anymore. Ares isn’t going to come back to her, Psyche is not going to die and the people under her empire have started to become less dependent of her, the last thing she can do is get rid the troublesome kid that brought her into this situation. Of course Pit ends up winning, sending the goddess to Aether to hang with Hades where they can now together sulk over the fact that they got defeated by an angel. Pit triumphantly returns to Skyworld where Palutena and others have been waiting, there’s a joyful reunion between all of them and if one wants to follow the original myth at this point, Psyche could gain divinity or immortality for her bravery for standing against Aphrodite as a mere mortal. People have become immortals for dumber reasons in Greco-Roman mythology, so at least Psyche doesn’t become immortal merely because one god thought she was pretty. Have some little banter at the end between the cast and then credits can finally roll in.
When thinking of some nice bonus content, maybe there could be a secret ending player can unlock after beating all the chapters on a certain difficulty, which confirms that everyone is doing well. If we have to deal with another long hiatus that could last for decade or two or eternity, best the game can offer is closure. Pit doesn’t have to a married man with a daughter, but at least show that he’s doing well and ready for a new adventure or that he has had many of those under his belt at this point. All one can do is hope at this point that there will be a new adventure or a happy ending that ties all the loose ends together. Praise Volupta, maybe one day dreams can come true.
______
Welp, this turned out to be much more longer and heavier than I originally expected! If nothing else, that would make an interesting fanfic. Anyway, I think I made my point clear - Aphrodite has everything a big bad needs from power to personality and motives to harass the already existing KI-cast. Even if you don’t want to go with the ideas I came up with, there’s so many myths to use and modify in which she could fill the role of the main villain. And just because there’s heavy themes it doesn’t mean it has to be without humor - I mean, there’s a lot of heavy implications in KI:U yet the game still manages to be a comedy gold mine despite those heavy implications. Writers just need to know when to be serious and when levity is needed, good pacing is something that every great story needs. For some reason I could definitely see there being a gag in which Pandora has regained her true form, only for Aphrodite to snatch it away because Pandora was living on borrowed beauty anyway and she’d like to have it back.
Though I must say that I’m proud of all of these plot bunnies I came up with. It was a fun journey to me to research, overthink, adapt and mix myths while trying to imagine who could be the next possible big bad and what the plotline relating to their villainy could be. And I came out wiser from it, so I really can’t be angry over it even if it took so me so much longer than I originally planned. I never thought that me wanting to write about a Nintendo game would make me read this much about history and philosophy yet here I am. Also now when I’m thinking of it, that last one would tie a lot of threads nicely together if they had a plotline like it on a future game - Poseidon gets to be an antagonist, Apollo gets to be an antagonist, Persephone gets to be an antagonist and Aphrodite gets to be the villain. It’s so nice when things work out this well together! Dionysus is left out though, but I guess it’s not all that bad because having too many antagonists would make the plot feel overly complicated.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts of who could replace Hades as the big bad. You can’t change my mind on Aphrodite being the best possible candidate but if you disagree with me, who do you think it could be? I’m always open for discussion so feel free to talk with me. Now there’s only one question remaining on my head - if a future Kid Icarus game had Arachne, would she be a jorōgumo?
#kid icarus#kid icarus uprising#ki#kiu#pit#dark pit#palutena#viridi#tagging them all since they're relevant at certain points#and all of them expect pittoo are featured in my doodles in some way so there's that as well#does this count as a doodle dump?#bella draws#bella writes#overly long essay#mythology typical violence tw
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Greek mythology references in Ulysses Dies at Dawn masterpost
I saw a post a while back by @spacetrashpile analysing all the arthurian references in High Noon Over Camelot, and since I know quite a bit about Greek mythology I figured “hey! I should do something like that for Ulysses Dies at Dawn!” I’m just going to go through each of the songs in order and analyse/explain the references in them - hopefully other people will find it interesting!
“The City”
Starting with the title - Ulysses is the Latin name of Odysseus, legendary king of Ithaca and hero of the epic poem The Odyssey. Interestingly, Ulysses is the only character in UDAD who is given a Latin name instead of a Greek one. There’s a couple of potential reasons for this but the most convincing to me is it’s meant to reflect Ulysses’ opposition to the Olympians, who are all based on the Greek gods.
Jonny calls the story a “labyrinthine task of a twisted tale”, referencing the Greek myth of the Minotaur, which was kept in a labyrinth to hide it from the world. This reference becomes even clearer when we later learn the City’s original name.
This one’s less a reference to Greek mythology and more to like, actual history, but the description of the City expanding to cover the whole planet is reminiscent of Greek expansion in ancient times. Ancient Greece was made up of many city-states, or poleis, which established colonies or “daughter-cities”, mostly in western Asia, or “Asia Minor” as the Greeks and Romans called it.
The story opens at a “run-down gin join” called Calypso’s - Calypso is a sea nymph who plays a fairly major role in The Odyssey, keeping Odysseus/Ulysses trapped on her island for seven years.
Fittingly enough, Calypso’s apparently pays money to Dionysus, whose mythological namesake is the Greek god of wine.
Broken Horses
Ilium is the Ancient Greek name for Troy, the city that Greece went to war against, according to myth,. Part of this war is described in the epic poem The Iliad, in which Odysseus is one of the soldiers laying siege to Troy.
Much like the Trojan War of Greek myth, the siege of Ilium is said to have lasted a decade.
Ulysses’ gambit with the horse statue sending out a signal driving the people of Ilium mad is pretty obviously a reference to the Trojan Horse - the wooden horse the Greeks built as a “peace offering” to the Trojans that they used to sneak their soldiers into the City and that brought them victory in the war. Like in the UDAD version, Odysseus/Ulysses was apparently responsible for coming up with this plan.
“Olympians”
Ulysses’ wife is named Penelope, same as Odysseus’ wife in the myths
The Acheron is the name of one of the five rivers of Hades, along with Styx, Cocytus, Lethe, and Phlegethon
As a sidenote, in Greek mythology Hades is the name of the underworld as well as the name of the God of the dead - fittingly enough reimagined in UDAD as the controller of a vast network of half-dead minds (and also Ashes)
The most powerful families in the City are called the Olympians - the name given to the twelve most important deities in the Greek pantheon
Poseidon Industries is named for Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and one of the twelve Olympians. Jonny calls them “one of the architects of the Ilium War”, which seems like an odd reference since iirc Poseidon doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the Trojan War. I guess that’s just there to give Ulysses a reason to want to rob Poseidon Industries.
In the Odyssey, Poseidon hates Odysseus/Ulysses for attacking his son, a cyclops called Polyphemus. In UDAD this is changed to Ulysses stealing the diamond from Poseidon Industries’ laser, which is also called The Cyclops.
My Name is No One
The song’s title and chorus is a reference to Odysseus’ famous trick for escaping the Polyphemus’ cave. He tells the Polyphemus his name is “no one/nobody” (depending on the translation) so that when he attacks Polyphemus and the cyclops tries to call for help, he calls out “No one is attacking me” which obviously none of the other cyclopes take seriously. (There’s also a great pun in the original Greek based on the Greek words for “no one” and “cunning” being very similar, but it loses a lot in translation)
However, just like in UDAD, Odysseus messes up this plan badly by calling out his real name when he’s still too close to the island of the cyclops. (although in the Odyssey it’s motivated by him wanting Polyphemus to know his name so he can get glory, rather than just being drunk)
Odysseus bests the cyclops by taking out his eye (there’s debate around it but cyclopes are generally depicted as having only one eye). Obviously in UDAD the cyclops is a machine not a monster, so this is replaced with the diamond at the heart of the laser being called its “eye”.
Also, I’m not sure if this is an intentional reference, but there is a fun irony to the fact that in the Odyssey, Odysseus tricks Polyphemus by getting him drunk so he can then blind him, while in UDAD Ulysses steals the eye of the Cyclops while drunk themself.
“Trial By Wits”
As well as My Name is No One, the whole concept of no one knowing anything about Ulysses’ appearance, gender etc. could also be seen as a reference to the “My name is nobody” trick, or possibly just a spin on Odysseus being a kind of “archetypal hero” - they could be anyone!
Heracles is better known by his Latin name, Hercules (son of Zeus, demigod, inhumanly strong and all that jazz)!
Ariadne is the name of the Cretan princess who helped Theseus slay the minotaur
Orpheus is another of the most well-known Greek mythological figures - the main myth surrounding him says he went into the underworld to rescue his dead wife Eurydice
Oedipus is most famous as the main character of a famous tragedy. His parents are given a prophecy that he would kill his father and have sex with his mother, and so decided to abandon him. As is so often the case with Greek oracles, he ended up doing both things anyway, seeing as how he, y’know, didn’t know who his parents were. The mechs apparently chose to reference this in the most mature of ways by having Jonny call Oedipus a motherfucker. Kind of a lot.
Aside from committing both patricide and incest, Oedipus’ other achievements in myth included winning a battle of wits against the Sphinx, a monster that was killing anyone who couldn’t solve its riddle. This monster is reimagined in UDAD as a disease that Oedipus finds a cure for.
Riddle of the Sphinx
The chorus of the song is taken almost word-for-word from the riddle asked of Oedipus by the Sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” The answer to the riddle is “man” - crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane (third leg) in old age. The Mechs being the Mechs, this is made completely literal in the world of UDAD.
“Ulysses’ Will”
Like the Oedipus of myth, UDAD Oedipus also ends up killing his father and marrying his mother without knowing. Since he’s replaced his eyes with data sockets by the time he helps kidnap Ulysses, it’s pretty strongly implied that he blinded himself like mythological Oedipus as well.
The “twenty years of sirens” could be a reference to the twenty years Odysseus spends away from Ithaca in the Iliad and Odyssey
Sirens
The sirens were half-bird half-human creatures that Odysseus encountered as part of the Odyssey and that tried to lure him to his death with promises of knowledge.
As well as referencing this story, the line “let the lotus set you free” references another episode of the Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of the Lotus-Eaters. Anyone who eats the Lotus fruits falls into a state of apathy and will never want to leave the island, so it’s a fitting episode to reference in a song about Ulysses drugging themself to escape their memories of war.
“Trial By Strength”
Heracles’ backstory is essentially the same in UDAD as in the original myths: one of the many children of Zeus’ many affairs, except in UDAD Zeus has affairs with women from “the lower levels”, instead of just mortal women.
Favoured Son
The tasks Heracles performs for Zeus are a reference to the most famous myth about Heracles - the twelve labours he performs to atone for killing his family.
The song references “the ferryman” who takes people into the Underworld. In Greek mythology the dead travel to the Underworld in a boat rowed by the ferryman Charon.
In both the myth and in UDAD there are...what you might you might call “extenuating circumstances” for Heracles killing his family - in the myth he’s driven mad by Zeus’ wife Hera (bc she’s very angy about Zeus having all those bastard children with mortal women) but since Hera doesn’t play a role in UDAD this is changed to him being framed by Zeus himself.
In addition to being king of the gods, Zeus is also the god of thunder - which is where Heracles’ nickname “The Thunderbolt of Zeus” comes from
“Loose Threads”
Heracles and Orpheus “Backing up Jason on the fleece job” is a reference to the myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece along with his crew (the Argonauts), which included Heracles and Orpheus.
Hylas was Heracles’ servant and another member of the Argonauts. While on the quest he was kidnapped by nymphs, and depending on which version of the myth you’re looking at, either fell in love with them and stayed there forever, or was murdered by them (Hylas is also the only character referenced I had to google to even know who they were lol)
Heracles telling Ariadne that “Your dad helped me out once” is presumably a reference to the seventh labour of Heracles: capturing the Cretan bull. Now the story of the Cretan bull is actually really long and ties into a bunch of other myths but essentially it was sent to Ariadne’s father, King Minos, as proof that he was the rightful ruler of Crete. However, Minos ended up helping Heracles by letting him take the bull with him to prove that he’d successfully caught it (which seeing as the bull was destroying Crete at that point doesn’t seem like a huge favour on Minos’ part, but ok)
Trial By Song
UDAD Orpheus shares the mythical Orpheus’ main defining trait: his skill at singing that he used to help him on his journey to the underworld.
Trial By Song is a lot more metaphorical than all the others so there’s not that many direct references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the lyrics - probably the most direct one is “But all the landmarks moved as I walked past/Now I can’t look back”, which references Orpheus’ deal with Hades that he can take Eurydice back to the world of the living as long as he doesn’t look back at her.
“The viper town that bled me dry” could also be a reference to Eurydice’s death from a snake bite.
“Hades”
UDAD Orpheus’ motivation is the same as mythical Orpheus - wanting to bring back their dead lover from Hades.
Ulysses, Heracles, and Orpheus all visiting the “underworld” is taken directly from mythology (although unlike in UDAD, Ulysses/Odysseus never actually speaks to Hades).
Underworld Blues
In Heracles’ confrontation with Hades, he says that “I was sent here your dog to seize/Of my tasks, of my tasks/This was to be the last”. There’s a couple of points here - the mythology reference is to the last of the twelve labours of Hercules: capturing Hades’ guard dog Cerberus. However, I do wonder whether this is meant to be literal (in which case guys, why are we not talking about the fact that Ashes obtained a pet dog while in The City?), or if this is a similar case to all the mentions of ‘horses’ in High Noon Over Camelot actually being about motorbikes.
Orpheus singing to Hades and trying to convince them to release Eurydice is also taken directly from Greek myth, except instead of being moved by Orpheus’ song and agreeing to release his love like in the myth, Ashes just tells him he’s poor for a bit and then says he should go commit some crimes.
“Trial By Love”:
The general concept of Ariadne’s backstory - her helping Theseus fight the minotaur only for him to abandon her - is the same basic idea as the myth of Ariadne and Theseus. Although UDAD Ariadne is at least a bit more fortunate in the sense that she wasn’t truly in love with her Theseus, and he also doesn’t straight up leave her on a deserted island.
Ariadne’s family creating the minotaur is also part of her character in the myth. The difference is that in UDAD the minotaur was created intentionally, while the mythological minotaur was the result of Poseidon making Ariadne’s mother fall in love with the Cretan Bull as punishment for King Minos not sacrificing it to him (I said the Cretan Bull story tied into a bunch of other myths!)
The presence of the minotaur in the City is yet another thing that makes even more sense when we learn about the City originally being called Labyrinth!
Ties That Bind
Ariadne’s family name is Minos, same as the name of her mythical father King Minos.
Ariadne describes her family’s actions as casting a “dark horned shadow” over her, which references the typical depiction of the minotaur as a man with a bull’s head and horns.
In the myth of the Minotaur, Ariadne helps Theseus by giving him a ball of string that he then unwinds as he walks through the Labyrinth, letting him find his way out again. In UDAD this is changed to “strings of code”, that shut down the minotaurs programming. (And if you think that pun’s bad, just wait until we get to Torn Suits!)
The song’s title also brings to mind string or thread, so it can be seen as a subtler reference to Ariadne’s gift to Theseus. Same for Ariadne’s line about “heartstrings long since cut”.
“The Daidala”
Daedalus, the leader of the Suits, shares a name with the mythical craftsman and father of Icarus
He is rumoured to “trade as an Olympian under the name Hephaestus” - a fitting alias as Hephaestus was the god of craftsmen and artisans like Daedalus
The rumour that he killed his son for “getting too ambitious” references the myth of Icarus, who famously died after literally flying too close to the sun using wings held together with wax. The heat of the sun caused the wax to melt and Icarus to fall into the sea. The story is often interpreted as a warning about the dangers of ambition.
Interestingly, it could also reference another myth surrounding Daedalus - one in which Daedalus kills his nephew Talos because he was jealous of his achievements.
Daedalus is also apparently the architect of The City, which was originally known as Labyrinth. This once again references the labyrinth which held the minotaur, and which Minos forced Daedalus to design. Considering the labyrinth’s purpose in myth, it seems like an appropriate name for a city that keeps all its inhabitants trapped with no way out.
Presumably the Daidala in the title refers to the City: Daedalus’ finest creation. In Homeric Greek, daidala is a word that refers to finely crafted objects such as armour.
This track also has another reference to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth when Orpehus offers to sacrifice himself to open the vault - “But he can’t see it through can he? Flinches, looks back. And it doesn’t work.”
Torn Suits
This song is notable for having quite possibly the worst pun in Mechanisms history - “Ulysses pulls out their snub-nosed laser and fires the last shot, splitting the beam across twelve axes”. This references one of the climactic scenes of the Odyssey, where Ulysses/Odysseus wins an archery competition against his wife’s suitors by shooting an arrow through twelve axe heads. (get it, axes as in the weapons becomes axes as in the plural of axis do you get it?????)
Another, marginally less bad pun is Heracles getting “the lion’s share” of the beams, referencing the popular image of Heracles wearing the skin of a lion he killed as one of his labours.
“Sunrise”
The code to Ulysses’ vault: Elysium, is another word for the Elysian Fields. In certain Greek religions, this was an afterlife separate from Hades’ world where heroes and those chosen by the gods would go after they died.
Ulysses’ vault is revealed to contain the “sole surviving oak tree”, under which Penelope is buried. While it’s not as direct a reference as some of the others, this is pretty clearly inspired by the way Odysseus proves his true identity to Penelope at the end of the Odyssey - by telling her that he carved their bed from a tree still rooted to the ground, something only the two of them know.
The track ends with an homage to Homer’s use of similes in the Odyssey: “And as the weary hound, once more at its master’s feet after so long, lays down with the sunlight warming its fur, breathing its last – even so did the eyes of Ulysses close forever.” Not only is this stylistically identical to Homer’s similes, it also doubles as a reference to Odysseus’ dog Argos, who waited for him for twenty years and finally died when he saw Odysseus again.
Elysian Fields
This is possibly a bit of a stretch but the image of Ulysses lying beneath the last tree, next to where Penelope is buried, especially with how they say they’re “with my beloved” and “beside my wife” really brings to mind the scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus and Penelope lie in their tree-bed together for the first time since Odysseus’ return. Which, incidentally, is theorised by some to be the “real” final scene of the Odyssey and everything after that was added on later, but that’s another story.
That’s everything I’ve picked up on but it’s possible there’s more I’ve missed so let me know if there’s any more! I’d like to thank the Mechs for giving me an opportunity to put my useless and extremely niche knowledge to good use!
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Poseidon – Greek God of the Sea
Poseidon is the ancient Greek god of the seas. He was known as a protector of sailors as well as the patron of many different Greek cities and colonies. His ability to create earthquakes gained him the title of “Earth Shaker” by those who worshipped him. As one of the Twelve Olympians, Poseidon is featured heavily throughout Greek mythology and art. His powerful role as god of the sea meant he interacted directly with many Greek heroes as well as various other gods and goddesses.
Poseidon’s Origins
Poseidon was one of the children of the Titans Uranus and Rhea, along with Demeter, Hades, Hestia, Hera and Chiron. Uranus was fearful of the fulfillment of a prophecy which stated that one of his children would overthrow him. To thwart destiny, Uranus swallowed all his children. However, his son Zeus conspired with Rhea and overthrew Cronus. He freed his siblings, including Poseidon, by having Cronus disgorge them.
After his father, Cronus, was defeated, the world was said to then be divided between Poseidon and his brothers, Zeus and Hades. Poseidon was given the seas to be his domain while Zeus received the sky and Hades the underworld.
Who is Poseidon?
Poseidon was a major god and as a result was worshipped in many cities. His more magnanimous side saw him creating new islands and calming the seas in order to aid sailors and fishermen.
When angered, however, he was believed to cause floods, earthquakes, drownings, and shipwrecks as punishment. Poseidon could also cause certain disorders, specifically epilepsy. Poseidon’s association with the sea and sailing meant that sailors venerated him, frequently praying to him and sometimes even sacrificing horses to him by drowning them.
Amongst the peoples of the isolated island Arcadia, Poseidon usually appeared as a horse and the river spirit of the underworld. Arcadians believe that while in horse form, the stallion Poseidon pursued the goddess Demeter (who was also in horse form as a mare). Soon after, Demeter gave birth to the stallion Arion and mare Despoina. More widely, however, he is known as the tamer of horses or simply as their father.
The Children and Consorts of Poseidon
Poseidon was known to have had many lovers (both male and female) and even more children. While he fathered quite a few minor gods and goddesses as well as mythological creatures, he was also believed to have sired some heroes, such as Theseus. Here are some of the most significant consorts and children connected with Poseidon:
Amphitrite is a sea goddess as well as the wife of Poseidon. They had a son named Triton, who was a merman.
Theseus the mythical king and founder of Athens was thought to be a son of Poseidon.
Tyro was a mortal woman who fell in love with a river god named Enipeus. Although she attempted to be with him, Enipeus refused her. Poseidon, seeing an opportunity to bed the beautiful Tyro, disguised himself as Enipeus. Tyro soon gave birth to the twin boys Pelias and Neleus.
Poseidon had an affair with Alope, his granddaughter, and through her fathered the hero Hippothoon. Horrified and angered by their affair, Alope’s father (and son of Poseidon) had her buried alive. In a moment of kindness, Poseidon turned Alope’s body into the spring, Alope, located near Eleusis.
The mortal Amymone was being pursued by a lecherous chthonic satyr who was attempting to rape her. Poseidon rescued her and together they had a child named Nauplius.
A woman named Caenis was abducted and raped by Poseidon. Afterwards, Poseidon offered to grant Caenis a single wish. Caenis, disgusted and distraught, wished that she could be changed into a man so that she couldn’t be violated again. Poseidon granted her wish in addition to giving her impenetrable skin. Caenis was thereafter known as Caeneus and went on to become a minor Greek hero.
Poseidon raped Medusa inside a temple dedicated to Athena. This angered Athena who punished Medusa by changing her into a monster. Upon being killed by the hero Perseus, two children emerged from Medusa’s body. These were Chrysaor, depicted as a young man, and the winged horse Pegasus—both sons of Poseidon.
Poseidon is also thought to have fathered the Cyclops Polyphemus as well as the giants Alebion, Bergion, Otos, and Ephialtae.
One of Poseidon’s male lovers was a minor sea deity, known as Nerites. Nerites was thought to be in love with Poseidon. Poseidon returned his love and their mutual affection was the origin of Anteros, the god of requited love. Poseidon made Nerites his charioteer and showered him with his attentions. Possibly out of jealousy, the sun god Helios turned Nerites into a shellfish.
Stories Involving Poseidon
Many of the myths involving Poseidon reference his quick temper and easily offended nature. These stories also tend to involve Poseidon’s children or gifts.
Poseidon and Odysseus
During the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus comes upon one of Poseidon’s sons, the cyclops Polyphemus. Polyphemus is a one eyed, man-eating giant that captures and kills many of Odysseus’ crew. Odysseus tricks Polyphemus, ultimately blinding his single eye and escaping with the remainder of his men. Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon, asking for him to never allow Odysseus to arrive home. Poseidon hears his son’s prayer and thwarts Odysseus journey back to his home for almost twenty years, killing many of his men in the process.
Poseidon and Athena
Poseidon and Athena both competed to become the patron of Athens. It was agreed that both of them would give a gift to the Athenians and then the king, Cecrops, would choose the better one between them. Poseidon thrust his trident into the dry ground and a spring appeared. However, the water was salty and therefore undrinkable. Athena offered the Athenians an olive tree which could provide wood, oil, and food to the Athenian people. Cecrops chose Athena’s gift, and incensed from losing, Poseidon sent a flood to the Attic Plain as punishment.
King Minos and Poseidon
To justify his new position as King of Crete, the mortal Minos prayed to Poseidon for a sign. Poseidon sent a gigantic white bull, who walked out of the sea with the expectation that Minos would later sacrifice the bull. Minos became fond of the bull and instead sacrificed a different one, which angered Poseidon. In his rage, Poseidon cursed Mino’s wife, Pasiphaë, to love the white bull. Pasiphaë eventually gave birth to the famous monster, the Minotaur who was half man and half bull.
Symbols of Poseidon
Poseidon rides a chariot pulled by a hippocampus, a mythical horse-like creature with fins for hooves.
He is associated with dolphins and allied with all creatures of the sea as that is his domain.
He uses a trident, which is a triple-pronged spear used for fishing.
Some other symbols of Poseidon include the horse and the bull.
Poseidon in Roman Mythology
Poseidon’s equivalent in Roman mythology is Neptune. Neptune is known as the god of freshwater as well as the sea. He’s also associated strongly with horses, even going so far as to be known as the patron of horse racing.
Poseidon in Modern Times
Poseidon is worshipped today as a part of modern Hellenic religion as the worship of Greek gods was recognized by the Greek government back in 2017.
The young adult book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan prominently features Poseidon. The main character, Percy, is the son of Poseidon. In the novels, Percy fights Greek monsters and frequently encounters other children of Poseidon, some of whom are evil.
Lessons from Poseidon’s Story
Lecherous and Lustful – Poseidon is frequently lascivious and driven by his need to possess others sexually. His thoughtless actions impact many of those around him, although rarely himself.
The Destroyer – Poseidon’s powers lean far more strongly towards destruction than they do towards creation. He is the god of earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. He takes out his anger and frustration on those who are often innocent of helpless to stop him.
Emotional Rollercoaster – Poseidon’s emotions run deep. He is a poor loser, and often displays uncontrollable rage. He can be either cruel or kind and seemingly change between the two on a dime. He often operates from based in emotions rather than logic.
Poseidon Facts
1- Who are Poseidon’s parents?
Poseidon’s parents are the Titans Cronus and Rhea.
2- Did Poseidon have children?
Yes, Poseidon had numerous children. Some of the most notable include Pegasus, Chrysaor, Theseus and Triton.
3- Who are Poseidon’s siblings?
Poseidon’s siblings include Hera, Demeter, Chiron, Zeus, Hestia and Hades.
4- Who were Poseidon’s consorts?
Poseidon’s consorts include Demeter, Aphrodite, Medusa and many others.
5- What is Poseidon the god over?
Poseidon is the god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.
6- What were Poseidon’s powers?
Poseidon could control the sea, creating storms, manipulating tides, lightning and tsunamis. He could also make the earth quake.
7- Could Poseidon shapeshift?
Like Zeus, Poseidon could transform into other shapes. He often did this to have affairs with mortals.
In Brief
Poseidon’s impact on Greek mythology is enormous. As one of the Twelve Olympians as well as ruler of the seas, Poseidon interacts with other gods, monsters, and mortals alike. Frequently, he can be seen granting boons to heroes or, conversely, raining destruction upon them. He is a prominent figure in pop culture today, appearing in books and television, in addition to still being worshipped by modern day people.
https://symbolsage.com/poseidon-god-of-sea/
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Felix Month Day 18
Supernatural @felixmonth
“So, you are magical beings who grant superpowers to humans in order to... fight evil?”
“Yep, sounds about right.” The tiny cat flew lazily around the room while snacking on some cheese. The large bee, however, flew close to him.
“It’s slightly more complicated than that, sir. The miraculous have only been given to holders in very dire situations. Like the misuse of the butterfly miraculous to manipulate people’s negative emotions.”
“And two teenage boys are the answer to that because?”
Adrien bounces onto the couch and grinned. “Because we are the only ones pure of heart enough to save Paris with the power of love!”
“Yeeep, that’s it.”
“No, it’s not. You were chosen by the guardian to protect Paris. We hardly knew we were coming.”
Felix was silent for a moment, considering the small mythical creatures in front of him.
“Adrien?”
“Hmm?”
“What was that show you wanted to watch with me? The one with the goat man?”
“You mean Buzzfeed Unsolved?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Mind getting it up on the laptop? I’ll make popcorn.”
“No problem, but why, exactly?”
“Because suddenly, I am interested in learning about the supernatural.”
—
“So, genies are real.”
“Yes sir.”
“Unicorns are...”
“The ill-dated experiment of a Ladybug who was slightly...”
“Crazy.” Plagg supplied.
“Anything else that I should know about?”
“Nothing that immediately comes to mind.”
He sighs and hands her a piece of honey candy. “Thank you for your help.”
Pollen buzzed happily as Felix turned back to his screen.
Since attaining the miraculous, Felix had gained an interest in the supernatural, specifically, what was true and what was mythical. It was a hobby of his to take his mind of school and girls and... no just the two.
“Hey Felix check it out!” Adrien three his phone across the room at him and it landed perfectly in his lap. “Looks like you’re a cryptid now.”
Felix glanced at the screen, fully expecting to see a picture of his hero persona mid-fight.
Instead he was greeted with a picture of him, Felix Culpa-Agreste, looking dead-eyed into the camera of a prying photographer.
The title read, Felix Agreste; Paris’ own cryptid?
Felix stared at the phone for a moment, before reading the article.
Felix Agreste is one of Paris’ favorite bad boys, having accumulated many adoring fans since his debut in modeling with his brother Adrien.
Felix is known for being rather reclusive and having odd answers to interviewers. But no answers were quite as odd as the ones he gave our Celebrity Courier interviewer.
Q. So, Felix our readers have been dying to know. How do you keep up your looks?
A. I summon this form from the heavens every day when the sun rises. If there is a blemish, I erase it with a flick of my fingers.
Q. What do you do in your free time?
A. Nothing. This form is like a piece of clay I inhabit. If I am not needed by my father, I simply cease to exist.
Q. So, is there a girlfriend or boyfriend in the future for you?
A. No. Your weak human bodies disgust me.
Q. Do you like working with your brother? Or do you not enjoy sharing the spotlight?
A. Brother? Yes, I suppose that is what you would call it on this planet. Yes, I do enjoy gathering data with my brother.
Currently, the most popular theories are ghost, alien, or even a deity; Felix’s answers could support any one of them.
Are these just normal celebrity lies? Or are they hidden truths? Only time will tell.
Felix groaned and threw the phone at Adrien.
“I blame you.”
“Why? You’re the one who lost the bet. Think of it this way; now you finally have things in common with the cryptids you like so much.”
Felix groaned again.
#bro au#ml felix#felix agreste#felix culpa#ml adrien#adrien agreste#ml pollen#ml plagg#a scribble#felix month#felixmonth
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all gifs from christianscody !
JAZMINE HARPER - TV TROPES
manipulative bastard
The Manipulative Bastard is the master manipulator of people, in essence, a character who manipulates others through their emotions, perspectives, psychologies and any other way they can get them dancing to their tune. This is the guy or gal who gets off on playing head/mind games—clever and dangerous and lacking comedic overtones (usually). She always has a plan ready, but rather than do any work, the Manipulative Bastard prefers to play on other characters' emotions and mental states and then watch the victims destroy themselves as they waste their energy on fighting against fake dangers or their friends.
are we surprised? with a lack of loyalty to others, including her own family, jazmine will gladly step on others and use their weaknesses to her advantage to get what she wants. she’s been a manipulative bastard since she was a child, ever since she first discovered how much her mist control could control the perceptions of others. observant and resourceful, jazmine has no qualms using her talents to gain unauthorized information about others and using it for her personal gain. she views people as her pawns, and her selfish way of thinking gives her little guilt about physically or mentally forcing others into submission. this is a trait she’s picked up from her own father, which we will delve into in the next trope.
daddy’s little villain
mention of emotional abuse tw
She's the daughter of an Evil Overlord, who shares her parent's ambition, cunning, and cruelty. She could be anything from a simple Spoiled Brat to an Overlord in waiting. She's also likely to be a Princess (since even villainy is improved with that), although she will still prefer wearing black or dark colors over pink.
jazmine’s mortal father can largely be thanked for the way she is now. from as young as she can remember, he was training jazmine to be a powerful force in both the demigod and mortal world. while he raised her to think she could accomplish anything she worked toward, she was mostly a pawn to satisfy his thirst for power. he didn’t care much for her as a daughter; mostly for what she could do for him. she started to recognize this during her formative middle school years, consequently turning her childhood role model into her worst enemy. when she started rebelling against him and acting out, he sent her away full-time to a camp on the other side of the globe. since then, the issues only progressed, eventually leading to a falling out in which she hasn’t seen or spoken to her mortal family in many years.
this upbringing has fueled her desire to constantly be the best in her fields of expertise, which is partly why she quested for years in hopes of some type of recognition. with the heavily hidden hope that she could one day rub in his face that she had succeeded without him, all her life she has fought to try to ‘prove her worth’ to others despite being the daughter of a minor goddess (or titan). because her father only loved what she could do for him, she places everyone in two categories: the puppets, and the puppeteers.
and she will never be the puppet again.
broken ace
He's tall, charming, strikingly good-looking, well-spoken in five languages, and classically trained in even more instruments. But inside, he's an ugly, writhing mass of self-hatred and Parental Issues. Expect him to have at least one bizarre trait or ability that should not be overlooked, as well as an unhealthy attitude about love, life, and humanity in general. He most likely doesn't have anyone that loves or respects him for what he really is. This may be justified. This character is usually male, but not always. Also, he may just be a perfectionist crumbling under his own standards. The chief difference between the Broken Ace and the usually female Stepford Smiler is that the Stepford Smiler wants to appear normal at all costs, often to the point of hurting herself emotionally (or because she's sociopathic). This guy has the same setup, but is more talented and wants to be the best, loved by all, and accepted.
although the timeline wasn’t as accelerated as she had hoped when she was a child, jazmine was making waves in the world of deities before her last quest against zeus had occurred. now, as a semi-retired quester, she is captain of the football team and starting to make a name for herself in the mortal fields of business and sports. despite the air of nonchalant superiority that she constantly tries to present, she is in a constant state of despair. right when she starts to undergo some development in her relationships with others, they leave, and she is constantly failing her own impossibly high standards. she’s crumbling, and at any point she is ready to run away again.
ice queen
Much like a Tomboy, the Ice Queen is a major character archetype which is somewhat hard to define. Her signature characteristic is that she is cold; the ambiguity comes from what "cold" means. She has a cold heart, a frosty demeanor and very often a resting bitch face; she attracts but will never be wooed. The Ice Queen is considered dangerous to love because she will not (or cannot) love back. She's not much for friendship either, preferring to be alone. Situations where an Ice Queen "thaws" and learns to enjoy the company of others are so common that they have their own trope.
she’s cold and takes no shit. she holds people at a distance, even those that could potentially be considered friends. she doesn’t believe in unconditional love, and she believes that most affection direct toward her is generally a ruse to get her guard down. she’s unnecessarily rude to others, almost relishing in the negative reactions at times, but to her, she’s just keeping it real.
the trickster
A trickster is a character who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. The Trickster openly questions and mocks authority, encourages impulse and enthusiasm, seeks out new ideas and experiences, destroys convention and complacency, and promotes chaos and unrest. At the same time, the trickster brings new knowledge, wisdom and many An Aesop. Even when punished horribly for his effrontery, his indomitable spirit (or plain sheer foolishness) keeps him coming back for more. Tricksters can be anything from gods of chaos, bedeviling heroes for a few laughs, to master manipulators who use cruel ploys and sadistic choices. They can also be heroes (or more likely Anti-Heroes) who make up for a lack of strength or bravery with manipulation, planning, or just plain cheating. The trickster is often a Master of Disguise and may have magical or super-powers. They're often found Walking the Earth.
although this description was much more relevant when she was younger, jazmine has a penchant for drama and chaos. she genuinely has fun engaging in pranks and tricks, and she gladly lifts a symbolic middle finger to authority in any chance that she gets. in middle school, she was nearly expelled from a mortal school because of all her tricks, and she spent a sizable portion of her adult years before eonia traveling and engaging in casual mayhem. when she isn’t getting revenge or fulfilling a paid request, she generally has fun toying with others.
deadpan snarker
A character prone to gnomic, sarcastic, sometimes bitter, occasionally whimsical asides. The Deadpan Snarker exists to deflate pomposity, point out the unlikelihood of certain plans, and deliver funny lines. Typically the most cynical supporting character. In most cases, it is implied that the snarker would make a good leader, strategist, or consultant given their ability to instantly see the flaws in a constructed plan. More often than not, their innate snarkiness is the only thing preventing the other characters from comprehending this for themselves. In other cases, the Deadpan Snarker resorts to sarcasm because they're the Only Sane Man. Tends to be shot a Death Glare when they go too far (and probably isn't without one of their own, either). Note that due to the definition evolving, the "Deadpan" part of the title has gradually become The Artifact and a deadpan delivery is no longer a necessary part of the trope.
jazmine is no stranger to delivering biting remarks coupled with foul language. she’s quick to point out flaws, opting for the brutally honest approach more times than not. she’s aware that her language can hurt others, but she finds it easier to escape the frivolities and get to the point. depending on the person, she exaggerates this trope by trying to draw out a bad response from them, mostly for her own entertainment. people already view her as heinous, so why not embrace the reputation, right?
survivor guilt
death mention tw
You might be the Last Of Your Kind or someone else made a Heroic Sacrifice for you or you lived through a Restricted Rescue Operation, but whatever the reason, you're going to feel a massive sense of guilt.
although the quest with adelphie and celeste was technically a success, with the trident successfully being returned back to poseidon, the team had faced major losses. adelphie had lost her life, and celeste had suffered debilitating injuries. physically, jazmine suffered the least, and it’s a guilt that she continues to carry.
aloof big sister
to the majority of the hecate family, especially @rostameu
He's smarter, stronger, faster, more talented, and more refined than the hero, and — just to add insult to injury — he's probably sexier, too. His only problem seems to be moving his face out of that expression of bored, dignified disdain. And he just happens to be the elder brother of one of the main cast, which often gives them a raging inferiority complex. Will most likely double as the Ineffectual Loner and Noble Demon, thereby running the risk of becoming an Ensemble Darkhorse. May or may not be evil, strictly speaking, but is almost guaranteed to fight against the protagonists at one point, and spout off Cryptic Conversation to prove how much better informed he is. May or may not be a Stealth Mentor and/or consider his younger siblings annoying. Often an integral part of a mysterious organisation, and may be the Enigmatic Minion or even a Hero Antagonist in that case.
OKAY, so the running joke with jazmine is that she dislikes her siblings, which is very true tbh. i’m not going to speak for rostam and say most of that stuff actually applies, but jazmine is very cold toward her younger brother and views herself as much better in every way. with loner tendencies, disdain toward her brother, and shady side hustles, she matches this trope very well, and it was only fitting to add a trope about disliking siblings to jazmine’s task. and yes, she’s technically one of the youngest right now but hush.
#eutropes#( tasks. )#emotional abuse tw#death mention tw#whewww i didnt bother proofreading this but lmk if anything is just ... impossible to read LMAO
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Gold Saints Power Ranked
So, according to the conversation I had with my friends, that started the previous post about Shaka, this is the result.
I am trying to be realistic here, as much as Saint Seiya can allow me. So, no pot bullshit and no miraculous victory for the sake of the show.
Only five of them are properly ranked. All the other ones fall under the same category, sort of.
Mostly anime based, but there’s a few canon information from the manga as well. I wanted to be as thorough as possible.
Under the cut so if you’re not interested you don’t need to scroll down like a madman.
This is a really long post, and it contains all the stuff I’ve written over time plus the conclusions I’ve got from talking about this with my friends.
I will hopefully be back with the honest opinions maybe on Wednesday. It depends on what happens the day before.
#1 Virgo Shaka
“The man closest to god”
If this alone doesn’t convince you that he’s the most powerful of the Gold Saints, remember what the premise of this character is.
Eyes closed as to stockpile huge amounts of cosmo, almost a literal deity who has Buddha with him, feared by everyone at the Sanctuary, his “death” shocked every single Saint in a five mile radius.
He used the Athena Exclamation to awaken the Eight Sense and travel to the Underworld, instead of... you know, just being annihilated from existence thanks to the power of the Big Bang.
He wasn’t the strongest Gold Saint in the past, being overpowered by Aiolos and the twins, but became the most powerful (especially in terms of cosmo) thanks to constant training and refining.
Moreover, he has 13 years of training more that Aiolos, and possibly a good amount of training more than Saga (because come on, you really think he thought about becoming stronger during his tyranny?) and Kanon (was trapped in Cape Sounion for more that 5 minutes, I believe).
All of his techniques are terrifying. His illusions are straight-up dangerous, almost impossible to overcome, and he can get rid of a person’s five and/or six senses in the blink of an eye.
Not even Saga, Camus and Shura, who knew him and were still as powerful as they were before dying, could escape from that.
#2 Saga & Kanon
Yes, they are more powerful than Aiolos. Why, you ask?
Canonically, Saga is the strongest Gold Saint of his generation and the most powerful Saint to have ever served Athena. Kanon is basically the same. They’re not the actual strongest Saints just because it’s really illogical for them to be better than Shaka, and I’m not going 100% canon here, but somewhat 50/50 between canon and “realism”.
And... Well, they’re been alive for longer.
For the same exact reason, by the Hades Chapter, Kanon is way stronger than Saga, even though they’ve been on the same level until Saga’s death during the Sanctuary Arc. There’s no way I’ll believe that Kanon didn’t get stronger during the time Saga was dead. It’s unrealistic.
They both have incredible mind controlling power, a claim backed up by the Demon Emperor Fist (Saga successfully mind-controlled Aiolia with this, while Kanon did the same with both Lune and Rhadamanthys), and they're able to conjure extremely powerful illusions.
They’re obviously not on Shaka’s level, because let’s not forget what happened to Saga during the Sactuary Arc: Shiryu, being blind at the time, easily defeated his illusions.
And! Kanon was able to trick Saga when he came back as a Specter, even if he retaliated.
The most dangerous technique they have clearly shows their true cosmo, and I’m not talking about the Galaxian Explosion. Sure, that’s capable of obliterating anything and anyone in its path, but it can be countered.
No, I’m talking about their ability to send people in other dimensions.
Saga’s Another Dimension and Kanon’s Golden Triangle (I think this is the English name, I might be wrong) are something to be afraid of. Not even the Thanos snap can compare to that. One second you’re chilling out in your dimension, the other you’re lost in nothingness for the rest of eternity.
But, in the past, Aiolos was stronger than them. They only got so far, in the present day, because Aiolos died, thus allowing them to surpass him.
Still on #2 Dohko
To whoever thinks Dohko is not one of the most powerful Gold Saints of this generation... what the hell are you doing!?
Seriously, though.
Dohko survived his generation’s Holy War, 100% not out of luck, and is by far the most experienced of them all. Not only that, his cosmo is clearly out of this world. This man, misopethamenos (I had to do a double take on that one) or not, spent two hundred years without using a single drop of his cosmo.
And believe me, even if his heart slowed down, I doubt his cosmo would have simply stopped growing. It was still two hundred years. Do you want me to believe he just stayed there, idly watching, without gaining anything from that much time passing?
Yeah, no.
Still don’t believe me? Saga himself, in the manga, said that he’s the strongest Saint.
Not enough to overpower Shaka, obviously for the reasons stated above, but enough to retain his second place alongside the twins.
#3 Aiolos
Yes, your heard me right. Third place.
Fair is fair. Aiolos was so powerful that Shion wanted him to be the next Pope. There is no denying that, and there is no denying that canonically he was stronger that Saga.
But... you see the problem, right?
Aiolos died in the past. Even if he was the strongest back then, he had no way of keeping his strength going.
I still believe no one, aside from who already was as powerful as him, could be able to become stronger, so that’s the reason he gets third place.
By the time he came back in the Hades Chapter, I saw absolutely no reasons to believe it was still possible to describe him as the strongest of them all. Moreover, I saw no reasons to believe, would Aiolos be still alive, that he could claim the title of Pope as his own.
Realistically speaking, by the end of the show, Aiolos is probably the one with the least experience (having died young this sentence sounds weird) and anyone would be a better choice than him.
But we’re talking about cosmo, and his cosmo gets him the third place.
#4 Mu
Yep.
Our beloved self-licensed blacksmith gets a spot among the most powerful Gold Saints of this generation.
Why?
First of all, his master was Shion. And if you have a good master, you are a good disciple.
Second, he has the strongest psychic powers of his generation. Much like Shion, in fact. No one is better than him at psychokinesis, teleportation and telepathy, and this is backed up by the Sanctuary Arc.
Remember the time Shaka asked for his help because he didn’t have enough power to teleport both himself and Ikki back to Athena’s Sanctuary? Because I do.
He might not be that memorable, in fact even one of my friends claimed he isn’t that good, but I beg to differ.
Mu is experienced, he had Shion to help him become a Gold Saint, he can repair any Cloth thanks to his skill, and he’s dangerous. Even if the classic series doesn’t give us the impression Mu could be a real threat, the Hades Chapter fixes everything.
The Crystal Wall? Impenetrable. The Starlight Extinction? Oh boy, what a treat. In fact, this technique in particular tells you how versatile Mu’s ability with psychic power is, since he’s able to use it both defensively (aka when he teleported Seiya away from the battle) and offensively (aka when he teleported Deathmask and Aphrodite with the objective to kill them).
Don’t tell me he can be underestimated. because he will kick your ass into outer space.
#5 is all of the other ones, in no particular order, because I believe they are mostly on the same level. Well, that... and they haven’t been described as “the strongest” in canon works.
Milo
Kind of obvious I would still start with him, but at this point you know who my favorite of this 12 idiots is.
Milo’s power is a tricky one. At first it might not seem much, and I’ve been around people who described him as weak, but that’s inaccurate.
First of all, I think many people forget how devastating Milo’s cosmo is, showed to us by the destruction of Andromeda Island, but this is not the point I’m making.
Rather, I want to focus your attention on the Scarlet Needle.
Which, admittedly, is a scary technique, to the point of Milo not using it if the opponent surrenders.
We know that Gold Saints are not spotless heroes. They kill without thinking twice about it, they’re brutal, they never abandon a fight until someone dies. Taking this into account, the sheer fact that Milo refuses to use the Scarlet Needle on someone who surrenders is enough to make you think about it.
It is stated time and time again what the Scarlet Needle is and what it does. One single hit can make the victim suffer tremendous amounts of pain, even if it doesn’t kill.
If we say that this technique mimics the way a scorpion’s poison works, it’s even worse because of the effect it could have on the body.
Canonically, the Scarlet Needle causes potentially lethal blood loss on top of agonizing pain, and (but I’m not sure about this) could get rid of the five senses. Moreover, the victim can easily go crazy due to the amount of pain, and I’ve always believed a realistic effect would be an early body paralysis. He uses a technique called Restriction, after all.
Sure, if he doesn’t use Antares, if the victim doesn’t die of blood loss or succumbs to the pain, this technique can be survived. But I don’t think anyone less than a Gold Saint, a Marina General or a Judge could actually survive without Milo’s help. After all, we do see Milo stopping the course of his technique with both Hyoga and Kanon.
The reason why I don’t believe he’s stronger than the average Gold Saint of this generation (don’t forget that all of them are god-tier warriors in any case) is the random chance this technique bears.
One hit cannot kill a strong opponent, and even if his entire fighting style is based on quick actions there’s no way for him to predict if every single needle will hit, and there’s no way for him to know if someone he hit with Antares would 100% die. In most cases the victim dies, but they have a slight chance of surviving.
Camus
Let’s immediately address the elephant in the room. Camus cannot reach the Absolute Zero.
Now, while in my non-canonic works I go the realistic way and make him master this temperature, I will be keeping my logic ass down.
The only thing that makes Camus different from the other Gold Saints is the fact that he uses his cosmo to stop the atoms, instead of manipulating them in other ways. In one word, cold.
There’s nothing else special about him, and I will not be biased by the fact that I love this character.
He is a cold person, he can appear insensitive and strict, but nothing about him tells me he is more powerful than the average Gold. He’s just different, not stronger.
Obviously, I recognize how dangerous his Freezing Coffin is. If you get trapped in there, it’s over. It might not be deadly (even if it should definitely be, given a normal person is going to suffocate inside a solid block of ice), but it’s something to be afraid of.
However, it has some important weaknesses. One, it’s almost useless against moving targets. It takes too long to create, so encapsulating a person that’s moving around is not happening. Two, anyone who is able to create a lower temperature while being inside it can get out.
On a more realistic level, I believe the Freezing Coffin could be an almost instantaneous technique. Camus’ cosmo is definitely able to summon enough cold energy to create one without needing too much time (think about the Freezing Coffin in Saint Seiya Awakening), but! since he’s not actually able to be that fast... you see where I’m going with this.
Aphrodite
He has the same problem that made me put Milo in the average Gold Saints. I know that he’s dangerous, that his roses are not something to underestimate, but there’s a huge problem with random chance here.
He is said to be one of the strongest among the Saints, and people are terrified of him because of his fighting abilities and personality, but I don’t think he makes the cut to be on top simply because of the fact he mostly relies on items to channel his cosmo.
Roses and vines can be effective up to a certain point, cosmo or not.
Even his most powerful technique, the Bloody Rose, can be stopped much more easily than a blow fired with raw cosmo (that is a weird sentence and I know). It can be destroyed before it hits, and a person can successfully shield themselves. I know a Bloody Rose is powerful enough to pierce a Gold Cloth, but it can be stopped.
In the end, the effective power of the rose lies in Aphrodite’s ability to use it, but if his opponent knows him or uses a good defensive technique... well, it won’t work.
The vines are similar. Sure, they’re imbued with cosmo, but someone could be able to counteract them, and then what?
Now, if Aphrodite had one particular technique, one that we’ve seen another Pisces Saint use... things would have been different. I would have believed with no question asked that he deserves to be above average.
What technique am I talking about?
Crimson Thorn. Albafica’s unique attack, that he can use thanks (ironically) to his poisonous blood.
That technique doesn’t rely on external items. It doesn’t require roses, or vines, or anything else. Just the blood of the Saint. It’s dangerous because it’s almost impossible to counteract, I believe it to be extremely difficult to be aware of if you’re the opponent, and it’s lethal. That’s pure poison shot straight into your body, with no other media used to inject it.
Unfortunately for Aphrodite (or luckily?) he cannot use it, so the random chance of his attacks is very much still there, hindering my ability to put him at the top.
Deathmask
Right off the bad, I deeply respect his psychic abilities. Being able to reach all the way to China with his cosmo is not an easy feat. This is similar to what Camus did to sink the ship even more, but ten times more powerful, since he actually took control of Shunrei’s body to make it levitate and fall.
But is this enough to win him the top spot? Nope.
Of course, I’m not saying he’s not powerful. Deathmask is able to snatch the soul off of his opponent body and send it straight to the Yomotsu Hirasaka. That alone is scary. Imagine if there is a man, out there, capable of pointing his finger at you and BOOM you’re not in the realm of living anymore. Your body id still out there, but your soul is trapped with the souls of the dead, ready to die as well.
The thing is... there’s nothing else about him. Sure, he can use his cosmo to travel between the two places, but we don’t know how powerful he really is.
With us knowing just one technique, and with him not getting that much attention, I have no reasons to say he deserves to be on top.
I have no evidence of him being more powerful than the average.
There is a reason I liked Manigoldo more than him, after all.
Aldebaran
Ok. Aldebaran is a problem I didn’t account for when writing this.
Technically, he is the strongest of them all. Physically, at least. He might not have that tremendous cosmo of his fellows in the top 5, but he is the most powerful in terms of physical strength.
Because of this, I was conflicted about whether to put him, if above average or among average.
In the end, I decided for the latter.
Sure, Aldebaran is an amazing fighter, and could have easily defeated the Bronze Saints at his temple (as stated by Mu, he didn’t fight to his full potential), but physical strength is not the most important characteristic in a Saint. At least, not in a Gold Saint.
There’s a lot of enemies in the Saint Seiya world that are not going to be defeated by using physical strength. And even though I fully believe the physical strength of a Saint can overpower another person’s cosmo, I don’t think that mainly relying on it it’s a successful strategy.
Of course, betting everything on your cosmo is useless as well, and the Hades’ barrier is a perfect example of that, but there is a threshold you can cross with your cosmo (i.e. someone with a divine or almost divine cosmo would not have a single problem against this kind of defenses, realistically). With physical strength... eh, there’s a limit.
Spiritual power can be enhanced infinitely, I don’t see anything preventing you from doing that other than your own mind, but physical strength is different. I don’t care how powerful you cosmo is, how divine your blood is. Your body has limits than cannot be crossed, even supernaturally speaking.
You can refine your cosmo to the point of being able to break a planet in half, but there’s no way I’ll believe something like that is possible with physical strength, and that’s why Aldebaran is not above average.
It’s amazing that he’s so different from anyone else, but relying on something that is, no doubt, limited... eh, it makes him less powerful.
Aiolia
I can already fell you people coming for me for putting Aiolia among the average Saints. But honestly... can you blame me?
I am aware of the “reincarnation of Achilles” thing, don’t worry. And I don’t deny in any way that he’s powerful and that he is undoubtedly a skilled fighter.
But he doesn’t stand out that much.
I asked some people to give me an opinion of him, and the majority of them said that Aiolia has to be really powerful since his master was Aiolos (like the thing between Mu and Shion), but I have my doubts.
First, Aiolia only trained with his brother for a short time. Second, even though Aiolos was his master, I don’t think it’s accurate to use this as an assumption for Aiolia being more than average. This situation was not a “master chooses his disciple” thing, but a “helping a little brother out” thing.
Now, on a fighting skills level I think he is above average. There’s no way people started talking about him as Achilles, otherwise. He has a fiery personality, I respect that.
Though, his cosmo is not that out of the ordinary. Sure, he has a shit ton of techniques, much like his brother, but I have no evidence supporting the fact that he could be more that what we see.
I love that he has an healing cosmo, I cannot stress this out enough, and I love that people just tremble in fear because of his presence.
But in terms of training he did nothing special, if anything all the gossip about him made it even more difficult to develop a cosmo similar to his brother’s. Like I said, I’m looking at the more logical path here, and it makes sense that his past would have taken away something from him.
BUT I am absolutely not forgetting what Episode G told me. He can generate electricity with is cosmo, something that could kill gods. Now that’s something that would put him above average, for sure, if you don’t take everything else into account.
Shura
He was difficult for me to analyze in terms of power, because it’s never actually him fighting with his raw cosmo, but it’s Excalibur. The sword resides in his arms and legs, so technically you could still say it’s him, but I though about it and concluded that yes, he is the one doing the fight, but without channeling his cosmo through Excalibur I don’t think he’d be that scary.
This doesn’t make Shura less than any other Saints, let me be clear. He is the Capricorn Saint, and the Capricorn Saint always had Excalibur to begin with. His capabilities are measured by looking at how skilled he is with Excalibur, not with his raw cosmo.
The reason why it was difficult for me to understand where to actually put him is the fact that Excalibur alone is a terrifying weapon (I know I keep using that word, but I’m honestly stressed out and my vocabulary is lost somewhere in my stress-free life).
As far as we know, every Capricorn Saint has a different level of skill and power regarding Excalibur. Capricorn Izo, for example, as Hyoga said had a stronger Excalibur than Shura. Capricorn El Cid, on the other hand, successfully used Excalibur to kill a minor god, even if aided by Sisyphus.
Shura as well knows the art of this sacred sword by heart, and in Episode G he reached the power of the gods, but this thing is never highlighted enough for me to actually be able to give him a spot among the above average Gold Saints.
The majority of the things we know about him don’t spend particular amounts of time praising his power, and from what I can see I don’t want to gift him a spot he probably doesn’t deserve.
Even if I love him.
#saint seiya#i cavalieri dello zodiaco#los caballeros del zodiaco#os cavaleiros do zodiaco#knights of the zodiac#gold saints#gold saint#aries mu#taurus aldebaran#gemini saga#gemini kanon#cancer deathmask#leo aiolia#virgo shaka#libra dohko#scorpio milo#sagittarius aiolos#capricorn shura#aquarius camus#pisces aphrodite#i tag too much i know#dont judge me#i have a small blog
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Young Link might have PTSD - Part 2: Termina is NOT a Parallel World, Technically
This is a continuation of my last post so if you’re seeing this and haven’t read it, go here.
This is the part where I somewhat smoothly segue into Majora’s Mask. Link, lonely and filled with unprocessed trauma, leaves Hyrule in search of Navi. According to most sources (which take from Hyrule Historia probably? don’t quote me on it), Link falls down a hole into Termina, a parallel world to Hyrule, that contains many familiar looking denizens of Hyrule, but playing different roles. And well, if you probably guessed by the title, I have a rather different interpretation.
Okay, so in a nutshell my theory is that Termina is in fact all a dream, kind of like Koholint Island. Except the one dreaming up this world isn’t some deity like the Giants or Skull Kid or the Moon. It’s Link.
(big explainey hoo hah below)
Evidence 1: Link begins the game sleeping. Yes, I know literally every Zelda game begins this way and it’s a whole tradition thing. I am beginning with the weakest points first and working my way up to the strong ones. We’ll get there.
Evidence 2: The reuse of character and environment models from Ocarina of Time. The literal IRL reason for this is of course the game famously being given only one year of production time, which meant that the most practical method was to reuse as much material from MM’s predecessor as possible (eg. Romani Ranch sign is the Kakariko Village sign, and still says Kakariko Village on it). It seems like a rather offhand afterthought for Nintendo to chalk it all up to “oh its just a parallel world like Link to the Past or something. But think of it like this; when we dream, we often see familiar people from throughout our lives put in strange and unexpected situations, like that irritable old farmhand you hated so much is now a depressed circus master for some reason. Dreams don’t make sense. Things you know will mix with other strange inexplicable things, fleeting thoughts in your mind, all roughly tied together by whatever emotions you had been feeling when you went to bed. Malon is split into two people, Romani and Cremia, her older and younger self. This might reflect how Link feels about Malon, that she changed so much in those 7 years that she’s like a different person entirely, that it’s hard for him to process that they are the same, because the change was so shockingly sudden for him.
Evidence 3: Gorons in the snow, Gerudo by the sea. Yes, I know that sounds a lot like good evidence for a parallel world (that’s why the idea is widely accepted in the first place, it has merit), but it also works in as dream world evidence too. As a child, my family was obsessed with skiing. We would go to the same mountain every winter, and we would stay at the same lodge. It almost became like a second home for me. So much so, that one night I dreamed that my house had been replaced by the lodge, so it wasn’t on a snow-capped mountain, but in a bushy Australian suburb. Okay that kinda got off subject but I’m bad at conclusions so in summary Dreams Just Be Like That (tm). You get what I’m saying right? No? Sorry, let’s just move on.
Evidence 4: The Milk Bar. AKA my favourite location in the game! It’s often overlooked as the “haha funny they couldn’t put alcohol in kids game so its kiddy milk hee hee”, but it is actually a strong thematic pillar of Majora’s Mask. As I mentioned in Part 1, if you put a 9 year old in a 16 year old’s body and call him an adult before ripping that all away is probably going to leave the kid with an identity crisis. What is a mature place open at late hours when children are sleeping? A bar. What is a drink associated with the young, being produced for the purpose of helping children grow? Milk. No please don’t go I swear there’s more to this, stay with me. In order to gain access to the bar, Link must prove he is mature enough by wearing a mask, a disguise, like Adult Link is to Young Link. Being adult isn’t earned through years of natural living experience and mental development, it’s a thing you are given by adults to just BE when they deem you worthy, at least from how Link sees it. So that is the amalgamation of dream thoughts that is the Milk Bar. Is it mature? Is it childish? What is the line between the two? Is there one? It’s the culmination of his anxieties and confusions that he doesn’t know how to express. Another, smaller expression of this anxiety is the Clock Town Guards. When Link is a Deku, the guards say they don’t allow children outside the gates. When Link turns back however, the guard goes to stop him because he looks too young, but sees that he has a sword, and lets him pass. Why the sword? Well, in one way this is a callback to Kokiri Forest, where Mido doesn’t let Link see the Deku Tree until he has a sword. But also, what is the item that lets Link travel through time and become an adult in OOT? The Master Sword. Link seems to believe that adulthood is measured by the things you have, physical markers of maturity, which is how lots of children see adulthood. You’re an adult if you can drink, if you’re tall, if you’re married, if you have a house, a car etc. But in reality this isn’t how it works. Heck, I’m technically an adult but I sure as hell don’t feel like one, because I know I still have things to learn about responsibility, patience and all the other things, that can only come with time, which is the moral conclusion of OOT, but clearly Link missed the memo. Don’t get me wrong, there are some indicators to show he’s grown a bit. He can ride Epona, use the bow, do flips like some kind of acrobat etc. But those strange and confused feelings linger, and manifest in the young boy’s dreams.
Evidence 5: The four transformation masks. The four masks represent different aspects of Link’s self, and the way he grew and changed in OOT. Deku Scrub the Innocent, Goron the Confident, Zora the Mature and Fierce Deity the Hero. Link began only knowing the Kokiri Forest, and nothing of the world outside. As he set out on his journey, he grew more confident in his skills and defeated greater foes. When evil took over, he learned from his fatal mistake and worked to right it. And when it was finally time to face the greatest threat, he was ready, with all the heart pieces, bottles full of fairies, Biggoron Sword in hand. At that moment he struck the final blow he probably felt like the strong and unstoppable hero everyone in Hyrule told him he needed to be. And that feeling of pure uncompromising strength, with the whole world behind him, manifested in the Fierce Deity. Fierce Deity is much taller than Adult Link, and packs so much of a punch that he can beat Majora without batting an eye, like some overpowered Super Saiyan. It reminds me a lot of Undertale, with young Asriel becoming what he imagines to be an all-powerful godlike being, like something you’d see as a children’s drawing. Fierce Deity gives off those vibes, like “he has a HUGE SWORD that SHOOTS BEAMS OF LIGHT and he’s 8 FOOT TALL and CAN KILL ENEMIES IN A SINGLE BLOW!!” Before the final battle on the moon, when Majora gives you the mask, he childishly asks if you want to play a game of good guys and bad guys. And the good guy always wins, no matter what. Fierce Deity makes the final boss a cakewalk, but its supposed to.
Evidence 6: Anju and Kafei. Short one, because it falls a lot into everything else I’ve said regarding childhood vs adulthood. Kafei is effectively a switcheroo of what happened to Link in OOT. An adult shrunk back to childhood, uncomfortable in his new body and looking for a way to fix everything. He’s a reflection of how Link now kinda feels like an adult in a child’s body, because he had started to be used to being called an adult.
Evidence 7: The Moon. I haven’t super touched on the main meat of the game yet, so here it is. The moon and the 3 day mechanic is an allegory for constant mounting pressure, that builds and builds, never ceasing, because the world is in danger, and there’s only one person who has been chosen to save it. I’ve always been interested in the Chosen One narrative, and how different media explore the idea of the world’s very existence being pushed onto one person. How at the end of it all, they can never be the same again after all they’ve gone through. When you’re somehow expected to hold up the Moon itself single-handed, and your life and everything you care about suffers because you’re putting everyone else before yourself. That feeling of complete loneliness under a crushing weight, and although other characters may come to help you, in the end its still all down to you, and you never had a choice in any of it, as all the decisions were made by someone else. You must do what they tell you. Believe in yourself, believe...
Evidence 8: Skull Kid. The story goes that long ago in Termina, the Skull Kid and the Giants played together, until one day, the Giants left, leaving the Skull Kid alone and heartbroken, with nobody to turn to. As life moves on, things may change, and people always come and go from your life. Your friend might move overseas, or stop texting you, or you might fall out of friendship after an awkward event from which you could never recover (no, these have totally not all happened to me, shut up i’m fine), or your fairy companion might just disappear without so much as a goodbye after their task is complete. And it feels like you didn’t matter at all. That they never really cared about you, and you’re as easy to drop and move on from as a child’s toy. You might get angry, and want to shut them out, and give them a taste of their own medicine. Majora’s Mask teaches you that this isn’t the case. Life is ever changing, but you will always have the memories of times with your friends, and a chance to make more with new friends, like a sassy talkative fairy sprite and her shy brother or a child made of wood who wants to destroy the world. Friends come from unlikely places, so accept that change will happen and hope that wherever the people you knew are, they’re okay. You’re thinking about them, so they might be thinking about you too. And who knows? Life is unpredictable. They might just come back one day, and it’ll be like they were never gone.
Evidence 9 (the final one, I promise): The Song of Healing. At the end of all things, after losing ones you love, connections to family and friends, memories of things long past... you need time to heal. Link’s journey through Termina is a constant gauntlet of running into his own past traumas, forced to relive them again, and again, and again. But sometimes you should take a deep breath, gather your thoughts, and take time to heal. Although it can be important to confront your fears and learn to surpass them, it is exhausting, and you can end up more emotionally broken than when you started. The three masks all had regrets of powerlessness; unable to protect your community, your loved ones, or even yourself. Troubles you’ve gone through that keep plaguing your mind, and you’re wondering if you’ve done enough, seeking answers where none can be found. And the best thing you can do... is accept and move on. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself time to heal. Link’s way of processing his grief and trauma is to create an entire hellscape world in his own head, but not everyone processes it the same way. Sometimes you feel like you need to busy yourself, or listen to soothing music, or talk to people you trust, or spend copious amounts of money, or make some angst art, or cuddle your plush toys until their stuffing squeezes out. Sometimes life hits you in the face and you want to blame yourself for standing in the firing line, but it’s not your fault. It’s okay to feel however you feel, whether you’re drenched in a pool of tears or you just feel numb, it’s okay and natural. You’re okay. You’re here.
Okay so it got kinda personal at the end there but I hope it was informative, and made you think a little bit differently about Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time. You probably want to go back and play them now. Me too.
So was this all just an excuse for me to gush about how cool Majora’s Mask is? Hell fucking yes it was. Congratulations for making it through my monstrous ramblings, you get the secret prize of looking at my weird art on my DA. Here you go. Have a nice day, Zelda Nerds.
#long post#legend of zelda#majoras mask#young link#fierce deity#zelda theory#wow i cant believe i never realised i wrote fuckig outset island instead of koholint im dumby af
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For definitely no reason whatsoever, in response to nothing specific, can you rank the DC Multiverse Earths and tell us a bit about why each is in its place on the list?
Were this in response to an article, I could assure that I generally enjoy the writer’s output perfectly well from what I’ve seen and was absolutely baffled by the bizarrely selective research that went into it. Anyway, I hope you feel guilty enabling the amount of work I put into this truly ridiculous task by the end.
Cliff notes for the relatively uninitiated: that gorgeous monstrosity up above is The Map Of The Multiverse from the miniseries Multiversity, presented as a series of concentric circles bordered by the ‘Overvoid’ that all of reality is suspended in (and framed in such a way as to make clear it is the white of the pages comics are printed on). You go inwards from the borders of creation - moving moreso with each sphere from abstraction to the realm of the physical - to the Monitor Sphere in which once lived the near-omnipotent, now nearly extinct Monitor race that observed and maintained the multiverse, into the Sphere of Gods where the various beings of myth and divinity dwell, and into the innermost sphere where ‘we’ live. The 52 Earths you see within aren’t the whole of the multiverse but the ‘local’ 52 worlds, with infinite other Earths dwelling in their own dimensional pockets; all these universes actually exist in the same three-dimensional space at the same time but suspended in a higher-dimensional substance called ‘the Bleed’, and vibrating at distinct frequencies. Also there’s a ‘Dark Multiverse’ that’s cosmologically speaking ‘beneath’ the map, disintegrating half-formed potential realities that new proper universes are culled from. There’s a lot more to it than even all of that, but that’s enough to explain what’s up with these.
My ranking here is obviously subjective, but mostly comes down to a mix of ‘how cool is this Earth’, ‘how much would this Earth be worth using again’, ‘how well does it work in the context of being part of a shared multiverse’, and ‘do I seriously see creators unearthing any of this Earth’s potential down the road’. Also, Earths 24, 27, 28, 46, and 49 aren’t here, as they’re among the 7 Unknown Earths on the map that were left behind for future creators to define; 14 and apparently 25 have since been revealed.
64. Earth 14
A worthy bottom-place entry, Earth 14 is at the top of the Multiverse Map, and is shown as physically different from the other Earths, seemingly vibrating as if in two places at once; map co-designer and illustrator Rian Hughes suggested in an interview the intent was that this was where new universes entered the multiverse. Instead, ending up the first Unknown Earth to be revealed after the doors were opened to other creative teams, it was shown as a generic dystopian world home to a ‘Justice League of Assassins’ that were quickly dispatched by a generic cosmic threat. A monumental tribute to contextual ignorance and creative laziness.
63. Flashpoint
This is one of several Earths I’ll touch on that exist in neither the ‘local’ nor Dark Multiverse, but has directly crossed over or been framed in reference to the currently operating version of the DC Universe and so is probably worth a mention even if I’m not going over every Elseworlds and Imaginary Story DC has ever published. Another dystopian world, in this one an attempt by The Flash at fixing a change to history resulted in an Earth torn apart by war between Aquaman and Wonder Woman, where Cyborg was America’s greatest hero and Kal-El was held captive his entire life in a military bunker rather than becoming Superman. Aside from the prospect of a Thomas Wayne who became Batman when Bruce was gunned down as a child rather than vice-versa - resulting in him being pulled into a recent Batman run after this worlds’ destruction, the reason for this Earth’s inclusion - absolutely nothing of value came of this or the stories tied into it, such that astonishingly in spite of being the impetus for one of the biggest DC reboots of all time with theoretically an entire revised history to play with, essentially no one cares about this anymore.
62. Earth 1
The site of DC’s standalone, bookstore-market oriented ‘Earth One’ graphic novels. The incredible tunnel vision of marketing these for that purpose with titles that exist in reference to their multiversal structure aside, the Green Lantern book is the only one of those I’ve heard about being even kind of good; the rest top out at an interesting failure in Wonder Woman, with a standard forgettable failure in Teen Titans and truly flabbergasting misfires in Superman and Batman. Even Multiverse Map co-designer and writer Grant Morrison described this Earth in a blurb as having a history ‘in flux’, implicitly permitting the reader to believe it’s something else if they really want to, but as it stands in spite of the theoretical wide-open possibilities the foundations have already been built on salted Earth.
61. Watchmen
Home to the cast of characters of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal miniseries. Crossed over with the DC Universe 30+ year later in Doomsday Clock, which clearly intended to set up this world as one ripe for future stories and development rather than a singular text, but instead misinterpreted, stripmined, and otherwise nuked essentially everything that might have had one interested in exploring it further in the first place (in spite of the source text’s very definitive conclusions to all major narrative threads and characters). The only reason this is not ranked even lower is the possibility that the upcoming, as-yet untitled Watchmen project by Tom King and Jorge Fornes might manage to dredge something out of this.
60. Earth Negative 11
The first of the Dark Multiverse Earths here, a gender-flipped Earth where Bryce Wayne generically altered herself into an Atlantean in order to do battle with Aquawoman and the forces of Atlantis. As the Dark Multiverse worlds we have seen thus far are described as being borne of Bruce Wayne’s fears, it’s odd that as opposed to the ‘want of a nail’ scenarios shown on all others, this includes the additional twist of making Bruce a woman, yet does nothing with that. Anyway, this is a very clear product of the Dark Multiverse’s debut in Dark Nights: Metal wanting an evil Batman to correspond to each member of the Justice League, and it’s the oddest, most perfunctory of the lot.
59. Earth 34
Home to the heroes of the Light Brigade, defenders of Cosmoville, this is an Earth meant to evoke the classic creator-owned superhero comic Astro City. However, as Astro City is itself made up of archetypal signifiers yet isn’t meta about its usage of them, being defined by its storytelling principles rather than the shared universe it builds up in the background, there are essentially no stories to be told here that couldn’t be told with the regular heroes of the DC universe. Which is a shame, those are some neat character designs.
58. Earth Negative 12
A Dark Multiverse Earth where believing Wonder Woman killed in a battle with the war god Ares, Batman took up the deity’s helm in hopes of redefining war, instead being corrupted by it and becoming an unstoppable monster. There’s basically nothing here.
57. Earth Negative 44
A Dark Multiverse Earth where a computer program meant to replicate Alfred after the butler’s untimely death, attempting to protect its charge, takes control of Batman by way of mechanizing him and turns Gotham into a digital nightmare. A little more on-point than the previous entry, but still not much here.
56. Earth Negative 22
A Dark Multiverse Earth where Batman is finally pushed into killing the Joker, but the Clown Prince of Crime secretes a particularly potent Joker Toxin upon his death that corrupts the Caped Crusader into a second Joker known as The Batman Who Laughs, who slaughters his way across his universe before ultimately making his way to the ‘main’ DCU. The prospect of a Batman/Joker combination is interesting, but an origin for the ultimate corrupted Batman ‘he got drugged into going bad’ falls short.
55. Earth Negative 32
A Dark Multiverse Earth where Bruce Wayne moments after his parents’ deaths was judged worthy of a Green Lantern ring, but having only his hatred of crime rather than the discipline and morality he would come to develop becomes the murderous terror of the underworld, with even the Corps unable to stop him when he manages to force the darkness of his heart through the ring into ‘dark constructs’. Another ultimately throwaway Earth, this at least illustrates the properties of the Dark Multiverse in an interesting way: the constructs he creates aren’t something that’s ever been indicated as being possible or even sensible with the ‘real’ Green Lantern, but as this is a world literally made of nightmares that’s irrelevant.
54. Earth 39
Home to the United Nations superspies the Agents of W.O.N.D.E.R., who operating using super-technology with eventually deleterious side-effects. A pastiche of the obscure T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, it’s hard to imagine anyone with much to say about them wouldn’t simply wish to write an actual comic about them under the current rights-holders, though the concepts described in Morrison’s provided information are enticing.
53. Earth 41
A riff on several of the superheroes published by Image Comics over the years, they’re worth having around for the occasional heroes of the multiverse groupshots for your big crossover comics and Dino-Cop turned out to be charming, but it’s doubtful someone with a big Spawn story in them for instance would use Spore as their outlet.
52. Earth 9
All I know about this is that this is a ‘what if superheroes really changed the world’ Earth, and when those are a dime a dozen, the additional conceits of the names of the various characters not at all corresponding to their traditional backstories and attributes, and being the brainchild of creator Dan Jurgens, are far from enough to sway me. I understand there are some fans out there who may heartily disagree, to be fair.
51. Earth Negative 52
Another Dark Multiverse throwaway Earth, this time one where a Batman shattered by losing his various partners taps into the Speed Force so that he can finally be everywhere at once to stop all crime. This is distinct however in that he achieves this by defeating The Flash, chaining him to the hood of the Batmobile, and driving it so fast their atoms explode and merge, which is thoroughly rad and gets it big-time bonus points next to its contemporaries.
50. Earth 37
An Earth based on the DC works of creator Howard Chaykin, its conceit of being a world that progressed technologically far faster than our world but culturally remains decades behind us is interesting, but I’m not much of a fan of his work that I’ve read and most of what’s been drawn upon here doesn’t seem to have much of a following.
49. Earth 30
The world of Superman: Red Son, where Kal-L landed in the Ukraine and grew up to become leader of a global Soviet Union, before realizing he had deformed humanity’s development and faking his death. Leaving Earth in the hands of a Lex Luthor who while still very much a bastard found public approval in America for fighting Superman, Lex ultimately led Earth into a utopia that over time fell into complacency and became its universe’s version of Krypton, Jor-L (Luthor’s distant descendant) and Lara sending their baby back in time to survive and establishing a predestination loop. While several elements of the DC Universe are present in a limited capacity that could in theory be expanded on, Superman and Wonder Woman are the only superheroes of long-term note and both their stories are very much concluded, seemingly leaving little to do here except have the Superman with the hammer and sickle logo show up in event comics.
48. Earth 6
The world of the Just Imagine Stan Lee Created The DC Universe series, where the father of the Marvel Universe rebuilt several DC figureheads from the name and a few pieces of imagery up. The results were mixed at best, but a series of gorgeous artists involved in the projects mean the characters certainly look interesting even if it’s hard to imagine creators going back here in any meaningful capacity.
47. Earth Negative 1
A Dark Multiverse world where Superman turned on humanity for reasons unknown, and Batman deliberately infected himself with the ‘Doomsday Virus’ to gain the properties of the hulking monster and defeat his former friend. Now numbed to human emotion and vulnerability, this Batman hopes to spread the virus as to make humanity similarly indestructible, as well as shield them emotionally from what he has come to see as the false hope Superman represents. This Batman didn’t end up a major figure in the same way as The Batman Who Laughs, but the conceit is killer and I hope someone picks up on it one day.
46. Earth-52
A universe somewhere outside the local 52, a ‘remnant’ of sorts of the main DC universe circa 2011-2016 prior to cosmic revisions resulting in the current setup. A world where superheroes had emerged approximately 5 years earlier and home to lots of dudes in very dumb battle-armor, most fan-favorite stories from this era have been carried forward into the current history, and its unique version of Superman under Grant Morrison - a socialist crusader in a t-shirt and jeans who battled corrupt institutions and cosmic supervillainy in equal measure - was depicted as set loose from his world after 2016′s continuity changes as a defender of the multiverse. While a significant part of DC history both in-universe and publishing-wise, there wouldn’t seem to be all that much left here worth exploring.
45. Earth 2
A world where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman alone represented the first wave of superheroes, they nobly fell in battle repelling an invasion of Earth by Darkseid. In time a new generation would emerge that were modernized, youthful iterations of the Justice Society of America, the superhero team predating the Justice League in DC’s publishing history. While the logline’s an interesting one and the successor to Superman Val-Zod debuted to some acclaim, for the most part this reinvention didn’t end up received well by either new or longtime fans, and a last-minute overhaul where this bunch was transplanted into a rebooted world without superheroes probably didn’t help. You still see them in crossovers and there are promising concepts, but this world seems basically dead.
44. Earth 50
When Lex Luthor ascended to the presidency and soon thereafter executed The Flash, Superman snapped, executed him, and took over the world alongside his allies as the Justice Lords, until they were ultimately overthrown by way of a parallel universe Justice League and a repentant Lord Batman. A Better World unequivocally rules, but given this is supposed to be those specific versions of the Lords rather than a new iteration, it’d be weird to see them up against any universe other than the DCAU. And, well...
43. Earth 12
The DCAU, currently world of Batman Beyond and a future Justice League. The DCAU, you may be aware, extremely rules, but is also somewhat redundant in this context - the ‘regular’ DCU already has all its core components without too much aesthetic differentiation, and there’s already frequently a Batman Beyond in the future of said universe. It has its unique attributes that make people love it, it’s cool that it’s here, but on the macro scale it’s too clean an adaptation to bring much to the table to crossovers and whatnot, and you’d never see any further stories told there otherwise as really being part of the DCU cosmic landscape so much as a comic tie-in to the TV show.
(Also it’s odd this is placed here with the Justice Lords Earth as if to go ‘it’s secretly been part of the 52 all along, you just never noticed when it only crossed over with the one other!’ when there were two other parallel universes in the DCAU.)
42. Earth 43
A nightmare world haunted by the once-heroic, now vampiric Blood League, the obvious potential would be for this world to function as DC’s equivalent to Marvel Zombies. Recently however DCeased has come to fill that position, and while this world in practice if not concept skews more closely towards that source material as the former heroes still have vestiges of their old personalities - in theory distinguishing it as its own spin worth keeping around - it’s hard to imagine most takes on ‘Justice League but monsters’ won’t come out under the DCeased banner for the foreseeable future.
41. Earth 40
A world of pulp villains made to oppose Earth 20, these guys are simple but a hoot.
40. Earth 35 aka the Pseudoverse
More analogues to analogues, this time of the Awesome Comics characters largely defined by Alan Moore in Supreme. This opens up the promising vista of ‘DC if it were designed by Alan Moore’, but in practice as demonstrated by his work with both DC and the analogues these mimic, that would just be...well, good DC comics, which you don’t need a whole extra universe for. The notion of this as a universe artificially created by Monitor ‘ideominers’ however both gives it a unique place in the multiverse, tackles its status as a pastiche in a unique way, and gets back to ideas of the power of imagination in both Supreme and Moore’s other works, so it’s likely there could be something to be done here.
39. Earth 11
A bit of a study in contradictions. This is seemingly a rather straightforward ‘gender swap’ Earth with Superwoman, Wonderous Man, and so forth. Also, its version of Star Sapphire implied it’s not subjected to constant crises in the same way as the main universe it mirrors, maintaining a greater degree of consistency in the process. At the same time however it’s mentioned that the Amazons rather than leaving Man’s World for Themyscira shared its technology and philosophy with the world, changing it forever, suggesting a far different world from what we’ve seen in glimpses here. Until it decides one way or another whether it’s a simple mirror to the regular DCU or a radically different take, it hovers in a state of uncertainty.
38. Earth-2 aka Earth Two
The original version of Earth-2, home to the DC Universe of the 1940s with aged versions of Superman and company and the original Justice Society of America. The first take on a DC universe that would progress in something resembling ‘real time’ rather than keeping the headliners as perpetual twenty-to-thirty-somethings, this was also the birthplace of heroes such as Power Girl and Huntress. I’m of the perhaps controversial opinion that this is a concept that was explored better in later takes: there’s a sense here that the largely forgotten follow-up generation eventually introduced, with the exception of the two heroes mentioned above, will never really matter in the same way as their still fully-active predecessors in spite of ostensibly taking over the family business, meaning you never quite actually get what you want here, which is to see a DC where things meaningfully change and move on - well into his middle age and his mentor’s death long behind him, Dick Grayson is still Robin. Add in the odd, ignominious demise of the original Batman and its Superman’s odd eventual fate - which slide from bizarre to intolerable if you accept the frequent implication that these are meant to be the original versions of them from the 1930s - and I can’t help but think the enjoyable high concept was never realized as well as it could be here.
37. Earth 4
The Earth of the characters of Charlton Comics who would go on to inspire Watchmen, this initially seemed like one of the most promising worlds after its debut in Pax Americana drew perhaps the most pronounced critical acclaim of any single issue in the past decade as the site for creators with something to say to work with Watchmen without actually touching that property. Now, however, Watchmen itself is in the mix: most wouldn’t reasonably go here while the material they’re truly referencing is now freely available (especially those simply wanting to draw fan attention by visibly playing with those toys, the way Earth 4 sidestepped) even though that world itself is now massively compromised past the original text, and with the ‘Watchmen Earth’ no longer an option and the characters themselves - if cleaned-up, more mainstream versions of them - existing in the DCU proper, this world’s role seems to have been largely stripped from it. I have to imagine there’s still potential here for those with the talent and commitment though.
36. Earth 44
A world where in the absence of natural superhuman beings, Doc Tornado created a Metal League of robot superheroes to protect the Earth. A promising concept definitely worth a few stories.
35. Earth 15
Once a perfect universe destroyed in a rampage by another Earth’s Superman, it was artificially reborn through the will of Countess Belzebeth - a cosmic vampire - as a copy of the Prime universe with the Green Lantern Corps replaced by Belzebeth’s despotic Blackstars, the uncertain and bitter heroes of this universe warped through the lens of Belzebeth’s perceptions of them had no chance against her forces. While its inhabitants are a bit samey what with all life having been subsumed into the diamond will of Blackstar Controller Mu, the idea of a conceptually weakened DCU being turned into an army against the rest of the multiverse makes for a terrific threat, and the prophecy of the ‘Cosmic Grail’ (a Green Lantern power battery lost somewhere in the multiverse) and that the First Lantern of the multiverse Volthoom hail from its original incarnation lend it some extra mythological weight.
34. Earth 32
A mashup world hosting the likes of the Justice Titans, Young Justice International, and the Doom Society. A world that’s home to Aquaflash will probably never have an ongoing all its own, but plenty of stories, miniseries, and even a brief line of comics have been based on mashup characters before, so there’s plenty of proof of concept for this being able to endure.
33. Earth 23
An Earth where Batman (naturally) is the only white guy on the Justice League, and Superman is not only President of the United States in his secret identity as Calvin Ellis, but the leader of the multiverse-spanning superteam Justice Incarnate. It reads like Morrison trying to do his idealized take on an ‘Ultimate DC’, a more diverse and politically engaged superhero landscape that doesn’t scale down its big ideas in turn, and if I were ranking it at the time it was introduced it would go much higher. The problem is that its version of Superman is modeled after Barack Obama, and that guy isn’t President anymore (and for that matter his legacy seems to grow more complicated by the year). As a result the vibe goes from triumphant to wistful mourning if not outright bitterly ironic, and that’s a needle that would have to be threaded before doing any substantial work here.
(Also, since several Justice Leaguers here rather than being made black are replaced with various black counterparts they’ve had over the years, that means Wonder Woman here is the 70s Amazon Nubia. And, uh, that name is something that would have to be...something.)
32. Earth 19
Steampunk superheroics; superhero period pieces are usually fun, and this is built on a foundation of pretty Mike Mignola art (though confession that I’ve never read Gotham By Gaslight), so sure, this one has potential.
31. Earth 18
Same as above but cowboys instead. This gets extra credit because cowboys mesh better with superhero conventions, and the additional twist of this world being frozen in history by the Time Trapper, forcing them to approximate modern technology with 19th century resources.
30. Earth 31
A post-apocalyptic waterworld where humanity is protected by Captain Leatherwing and assorted other pirate superheroes. Another ‘superheroes but in another genre’ setup, the post-apocalyptic, environmental twist makes it unfortunately more relevant than its peers, though I don’t think it’s quite the best end of the world as we know it on the list.
29. Earth 42
Home to the adorable, innocent world of the chibified Little League...secretly robots unwittingly enacting an endless stage play for the malevolent being known as the Empty Hand, running scenarios of his devising in preparation for a coming war with the rest of the multiverse. It’s a neat little multipurpose world, able to be played both as amusing contrast, or as parody whether light-hearted or cynical, in their endless ‘playtime’.
28. Earth 7
Formerly home to counterparts of the heroes of Earth 8, it was shattered by the Empty Hand’s forces and its desiccated cities made his throne, the zombie hordes that were once its champions his armies. The ‘Ultimate Marvel’ to Earth 8′s Marvel proper (and now Marvel Zombies), the idea of the broken remains of the cool version of the cool superhero universe as the lair of the ultimate evil has a certain appeal.
27. Earth 52
The last of the Earth 52s on this list, this newly added 53rd core Earth is home to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight books. Much as the reception to it over the years has become...mixed, at best (for my money Dark Knight III is the only one that’s not at least bad in a very interesting way, and even it still has its moments), the surprised generally positive reception to the most recent entry in Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child suggests there’s still life in this oddball corner of the cosmos yet.
(Fun fact: this was Earth 31 in a previous version of the multiverse, and Morrison intended it to be included as such in Multiversity - hence why Earth 31 is made up of inky scratches on the Map - but Miller requested he not since he wanted to keep his domain separate from DC’s ongoing storylines. Instead he agreed later to Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s use of it in Dark Nights: Metal as DKR is famously Snyder’s favorite comic, bringing it in as Earth 52.)
26. Earth 47 aka Dreamworld
Where the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld dwells, baby: all is groovy. It’s incredibly specific in both era and theme, but a psychedelic universe with heroes to match invites tons of possibilities.
25. Earth 10 aka Earth X
It’s the Nazi Earth that sucks. It has superheroes who unnervingly are about as well-intentioned and effective as the standard set in the New Reischman, opposed by the few remaining dregs of the Freedom Fighters led by Uncle Sam; only their Kal-L, Overman, once Hitler’s weapon, truly understands the scope of the atrocities that led to their ‘utopia’, having grown a conscience too late and ever-aware that no feat in the present can ever redeem the oceans of blood on his hands. You can do horrifying introspective stuff with them as in their Multiversity chapter, you can tell Freedom Fighters stories like the recent miniseries, or you can just have the Justice League show up to fight the Nazi Justice League. A Nazi world is a standard one in multiverse stories for a reason, you don’t get easier targets.
24. Earth 5G
The DC universe that’s...sort of here and sort of not. Doomsday Clock and other upcoming stories appear to be shifting us over to this, but in most of DC’s line of titles the leap hasn’t taken place yet. As we haven’t seen the bench of successor heroes apparently primed to take over only so much can be judged, but the vast changes suggested by the new ‘official timeline’ that’s been leaked suggest a bizarre attempt at incorporating as many of their editorially-favored biggest hits as possible into a bizarre selective mishmash, without particularly serving the status quos any of the constituent characters said history is meant to bolster (with the exception of Wonder Woman, now framed as the first superhero, which would at least be interesting and a deserved bolster to her profile if there were any particular impression her new standing would be meaningfully followed-through on), while also not only reinstating the mutually destructive retcon of the JSA as preceding Superman, but taking the absurd extra step of actively presenting them as his inspiration. Of course we haven’t seen it in practice yet, and at the end of the day good stories will surely still be told here, but the foundations here are about as shaky as they’ve ever been for the ‘core’ DCU as a wholehearted capitulation to placing dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s over the actual narrative logistics of making a shared universe function smoothly.
23. Earth Negative Zero aka Betwixt
A world where those whose senses of self entire disintegrate fade away to seeking to feed on those still well-defined, this bears similarities to the realm of Limbo where ignored superheroes reside, but with just enough conceptual differences and a hellish, malleable twist that makes it the best thing anyone’s come up with to date to do with the Dark Multiverse.
22. Earth 48 aka Warworld
While its iconography is rooted of all things in castoff characters from Crisis On Infinite Earths and no-hopers from Countdown To Final Crisis, the actual conceit here of a world where literally everyone and everything is a superhero that operates by superhero rules, a world built by the New Gods as defenders of reality, is wide-open and tantalizing.
21. Earth 38
Another major shot at a DCU that aged in real time, this version has its own idiosyncrasies but far more of a sense of forward momentum and meaningful change, with the original Superman and Batman still leading the pack one way or another but successors to both them and the rest of the heroes truly stepping up. Also the predominant hero of the 21st century is Knightwing, the grandson of both Superman and Batman who has only partial Superman powers but also Batman training, which is just really cool.
20. Earth 3
The good ‘ol classic evil mirror universe, where strength is the only law, the forces of evil always win in the end no matter how bright the day may become, and thus the Crime Syndicate operates as it pleases. It’s never quite as interesting as you want it to be - its villains are largely one-note - but its warped societal and cosmic rules, and that each character has a handful of twists on the mythology of their counterparts rather than being an exact (if morally inverted) duplicate, means it could easily one day come to live up to its obvious potential in the right hands.
19. Earth 21
Here, most superheroes were forced into retirement after World War II by McCarthyist paranoia, but at the dawn of the 1960s the few remaining and a new generation are emboldened to step back into the light, spearheaded by the Justice League of America. DC: The New Frontier is a modern classic, with a direct standalone follow-up virtually out of the question; as it doesn’t quite lead into the world of the actual 1960s DC Comics either, its sole function in its capacity as a world in the multiverse is as a 60s ‘period piece’ Earth. Given that’s where most of the architecture of DC as we now know it was built however, that’s hardly a problem.
18. Earth 26 aka Earth C
Funny animals are fun, and in a superhero universe that means you get superhero funny animals, courtesy of Captain Carrot and his amazing Zoo Crew. What’s not to love?
17. Earth 22
While time has somewhat dimmed the acclaim that originally surrounded it, Kingdom Come and its tale of a Superman coming out of retirement alongside his allies to try and reign in an out-of-control new generation remains a landmark moment in the genre, and in many aspects still holds up. Unlike many stories of its stature this world has always played nice with the mainline universe in terms of guest appearances and crossovers, including works by the original creators Mark Waid and Alex Ross, and as the most iconic and conceptually expansive work to date set in a DC universe that has joined in the march of time, that makes it a prominent and useful one to have around.
16. The Antimatter Universe of Qward aka The Reversoverse aka the Anti-Verse
The original dark flipside of DC reality, this has occasionally also played home to the Crime Syndicate - and their best stories by far, to boot - but mainly serves as a home base to the Weaponeers of Qward and occasionally Sinestro. While largely unexplored it has a massively central place in DC’s cosmology and the birth of the multiverse, the glimpses of a society of pure evil in early Silver Age Green Lantern and JLA: Earth 2 are far more fun and interesting than anything seen in Earth 3′s history, it’s about to get even more room under Morrison to find definition, and as the ultimate mysterious Forbidden Realm of the DCU the possibilities could be essentially endless in the right hands.
15. Earth-1985 aka Earth One
The DC universe of 1956-1986, and the dragon an entire generation of creators have spent their livelihoods chasing as the ‘classic’ iteration, as evidenced by one of them flat-out confirming it still exists somewhere out there. While that makes it frequently redundant when the main DCU is trying hard to mimic its feel - a few divergent notes such as Maggin’s idiosyncratic take on latter-day Superman and its version of Jason Todd aside - the prospect of a DCU that remained in that mold forever to a greater or lesser extent even if time may have moved forward could, in principle, free the main universe to go off in wildly different directions, knowing this image of DC always exists in its own space to return to when so desired rather than actively turning the current status quo to face backwards.
14. Earth 17
The Atomic Knights of Justice quest across the radioactive landscape of Novamerika in a world decimated by nuclear was in 1963 in search of Earth 15′s Cosmic Grail, their only hope against the coming of Darkseid. A mashup of the Justice League with the protagonists of one of the most fascinatingly bizarre comics of DC’s Silver Age in the Atomic Knights, a mythic quest, and most relevantly “What if Fallout had superheroes?” leaves this feeling like it’s just waiting for its moment to shine.
13. Earth 8 aka Angor
Known across the rest of the multiverse as the protagonists of the Major movies and comics (as opposed to the sub-imprint Essential Major reflecting Earth 7), in actuality the non-actionable champions of Angor - the Retaltiators, the G-Men, the Future Family, and The Bug, among others - are as real as any other superheroes, and while they struggle under the weight of both mistrust by the general public and frequent in-fighting, they’ve thus far protected their world from threats global, universal, and multiversal alike. The Big Two having stand-ins for each other is a longstanding tradition for good reasons: it not only allows for crossovers where the legal stars don’t align (and adds an extra fun shock of recognition whenever the reader realizes what’s happening), but provides each of them an ongoing version of those archetypes to play with within the confines of their own narrative, whether as contrasts or bending them to fit the tone of a very different shared universe than they were originally created for.
12. Earth 16 aka #earthme
The world where every sidekick, super-son, successor, and short-lived ‘new generation - of HERO!’ at last seize their moment in the sun...in a world already saved by their predecessors, with little left to do but lap up lives of super-celebrity and wish for one, just one little alien invasion or immortal tyrant to justify their existences for them. The best of DC’s futuristic/what-if-time-mattered alternate Earths in my opinion, taking to its logical conclusion the notion as stated by Morrison in interviews that as the Justice League will stick around as long as there are evils that need fighting, the ever-present promise of the torch being passed could only ever truly, permanently take place in a world where the job was already redundant. Playing as it does with in-universe history, real-life publishing realities, celebrity culture, generational divides, and the question of what being a superhero even means sans the usual confrontational justifications, it’s by its nature only going to become more expansive and interesting a commentary as time goes by and the regular DCU goes through its cycles of reboots, rebirths, and returns to form.
11. Pocket Universe 54471
Exactly what you see: Superman made a little pocket universe a half mile wide to go fishing in and he was gonna take Bruce and Dick there for the former’s bachelor party, and he knows about and/or created at least 54470 others. It’s absolutely delightful not only in its own right, but as an opening of the door to what the multiverse can mean in DC comics as a sci-fi idea generator beyond riffs on existing properties, while still being presented with a distinctly DC sense of playfulness.
10. Earth 45 aka Earth 45™
The origin of one of the best Superman villains of all time in Superdoomsday - the Superman idea in a world without him brought to life but twisted by committee into a murderous living brand - a horrifying corporatocracy standing for all Superman and company are meant to stand against, and an enduring threat with the world still in shackles and those in power still able to dream to life whatever vision they please of absolute power to be wielded in their name.
9. Earth 36 aka Terra
Justice 9, the defenders of Terra - or I suppose Justice 7 now after the losses of Optiman and Red Racer, though how long does that matter in a superhero universe? - is the most interesting of the direct analogue groups for my money. Technically speaking they’re another twice-removed set like 34 and 35, standing in for the heroes of Big Bang Comics, but given my understanding is that there’s no major “Like the DC heroes, BUT” twist in that book the way Astro City and Supreme have other than a retro ‘good old days’ bent (which definitely isn’t the case here with at least two queer members), Justice 9 basically function as direct analogues for the Justice League...in the same comics as the Justice League. To me, that’s actually fascinating: one of the most useful elements of stand-in characters like this is the ability to tap into the iconic power of archetypes without the familiarity surrounding the actual figures, in the way Planetary for instance uses just enough distance from the source material to make a couple dozen decades-old pop culture touchstones feel completely new, and this implements that approach to the material to the DC characters with heroes who can actually themselves team up with DC proper. As many approaches as could be taken with that though, that potential alone probably wouldn’t be enough to shoot it this high up the list if not for a major additional factor: in the same way that in the old-school DC universe the heroes of Earth-1 had comics reflecting the adventures of the heroes of Earth-2 long before learning they were real in another universe, DC Comics are published on Earth 36. Aside from the neat trick of putting our leads in the same position as the Golden Age heroes, it means Justice 9 grew up with the Justice League as their heroes in the same way as us the audience before becoming heroes themselves, and then they grew up to learn they were real. These folks absolutely deserve to become multiverse standbys.
8. Earth 51
The Earth where all Jack Kirby’s ideas live as a single cohesive world and adventure. No further justification is needed.
7. Earth 13
A world of occult danger where DC’s traditionally superheroic magical figures such as Zatanna and Deadman are given the full Vertigo horror treatment, while the more intimidating and morally dubious figures such as Etrigan and John Constantine get logos and codenames. Not only an expansion but an offputting inversion of one of DC’s most acclaimed corners, this oddball bunch could bounce off of the capes and tights crowd as easily as your Shadowpacts and Justice League Darks, in ways no other team from any corner of the multiverse could.
6. Earth 20
Pulp champions of a 21st century that remains aesthetically moored in the early 20th, of the handful of Earths converting DC standbys into different genre territory in the local 52 the homeworld of the Society of Superheroes hits hardest, given the role the likes of Doc Savage and The Shadow played in that time shaping the conventions of superheroes as we know them. Add the wealth of concepts presented in their oneshot and the decision to hew away from the traditional Justice League riffs of parallel Earths, and of all the truly new worlds introduced in Multiversity, Earth 20 is the one that most feels like it could support an ongoing all its own.
5. Earth 29 aka Htrae
You gotta have Bizarro World. You just gotta.
4. Earth 33 aka Earth Prime
The in-universe representation of our very own pale blue dot. Whether it’s the birthplace of Superboy Prime where assorted DC creators had to deal with a visiting Flash and Superman throughout the 60s and 70s, meta games with the various incarnations of Ultra/Ultraa, a looming threat yet also victim in need of rescue through the eyes of Justice Incarnate, or the unwitting home of the ‘Superman’ or ‘Batman’ of Kurt Busiek’s off-center takes on the characters in Secret Identity and Creature of the Night, over the years DC has shown a decent amount of restraint in not going back to this particular well too often unless someone has a really clever tale to tell, and as a result it has maybe the single best batting average of all the ‘parallel Earths’ that have been regularly returned to by DC over the years. Give yourselves a hand, folks!
3. Earth 5 aka Thunderworld
Home not to ‘Shazam’, but Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family in all their glory, a technicolor world playing by the rules set down by Otto Binder and company where a superhero can literally battle planets and the most dangerous villain of all may be a very, very mean worm with glasses, a place of dream logic and childish innocence even by the standards of superhero comics. Captain Marvel at his best is one of DC’s most iconically potent players yet many seem to agree that much of his woes in recent years have come down to trying to find a unique space for him in the DCU proper. While I don’t know that it’s at all impossible to make that work, it’s certainly true that Marvel as he was originally presented doesn’t quite make sense in that world, whereas back in his own he keeps a flavor entirely unique to himself and his partners, whether for solo adventures or teamups with the heroes of the other worlds, playing it straight or examining some of the unsettling implications established by Thunderworld or finding a new way to make it work. Much like Bizarro World, it’s simply a locale the place doesn’t quite feel whole without.
2. Earth 25 (?)
While I’m a bit dubious on it definitely being Earth 25 in the core 52 based on interpretation of an offhanded line from Mr. Terrific (it has a multiverse all its own!), the fact of the matter is that America’s Best Comics came roaring out of the gate as proof of its own title, and basically didn’t stop until it ended. A couple after-the-fact Tom Strong miniseries (containing perhaps the most singularly cowardly hack move in the history of shared universe comics in undoing the end of Promethea) can’t detract from the core ABC lineup being made up of some of the most singularly clever, gorgeous, and heartfelt superhero titles to hit the stands, pretty much the platonic ideal of what you want books like these to look like. If this universe can hang around in any capacity at all until someone god willing picks them up again in a big way, it’s a win in my book.
1. Earth 0 aka Prime Earth
The extant version of the main DCU for at least a little longer, it really does feel like more than just about any version before it - at least for my money - they finally got all their ducks in a row, albeit right before blowing everything to hell. Most of the stories you really want to still have some sort of weight for the major characters are still in play to be built on, and most of the stories that clearly needed to be dropped are dropped. The cosmology’s fleshed out and expanding, the big names mostly work as they should ideally work while still heading into new territory, the JSA is mysteriously somehow around in the past without interfering with the primacy of Superman and the Justice League as the first known superheroes (a mystery that will never be resolved now due to the current reboot; damn shame) and the Legion of Superheroes have a new coat of paint, and there’s room for stories cosmically massive and intimately personal and utterly bizarre throughout the line rather than there being a single overriding idea of what these books should be. It may not be the perfect DC Universe by any means, but it’s a real, real damn good one, and of course without that thing, none of the rest of these universes would have been there in the first place.
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Please Don’t Sleep on Hades
2020’s…been a real year, huh? At a time when in-person gatherings aren’t much of a thing and people have to stay in, video games are suddenly a pretty attractive option. That said, few games have really grabbed me this year; in a roundabout way, 2020’s been a year of reruns, as I go through a lot of games I’ve already played or games that are just yesterday’s news (but new to me!). However, in the nick of time, the folks at Supergiant Games delivered unto us their latest title, Hades. While they’ve been working on this game for years, with it hitting Early Access on Steam back in 2018, the full version of Hades finally hit Steam, the Epic Game Store and made the leap to consoles with the Switch, which is where I picked it up. It has been a WHILE since I’ve had a game grab me so strongly so early on, and I’ve been hearing this game’s praises for years now already, so allow me to happily state why I think Hades is worthy of the hype and is a fantastic game I’d easily recommend!
DADDY ISSUES
OK, so first things first…you don’t actually play as Hades in this game, but rather his son Zagreus. Ol’ Zag has had it with his father, and tries to literally fight his way out of hell to reach the surface, and no matter what his old man puts in his way, Zagreus (and the player) will meet the challenge. And probably die, but hey, that’s OK! In the underworld, death is more of an inconvenience than anything else, so after taking a moment to dust himself off, Zagreus will head out for another attempt. For as long as it takes.
Hades is a rogue-like, meaning it’s a game based around randomization and adaptation. On any given “run” of the game, the level layouts, enemies present and the variety of power-ups Zagreus can find will be left to chance, with the player challenged to amass the best build they can to eventually break out of hell and reach the human world and if you die…start from scratch. That said, Hades is among the ever-growing sub-genre of rogue-lites, in that there IS some permanent progression, which takes a bit of a sting out of dying, but more on that later. Now, most games of this type aren’t really big on story. They have a premise that’s little more than an excuse to play. Splunkey wants you to explore a cave, The Binding of Isaac sees you escaping a basement and in Enter the Gungeon you uh…e-enter the gun—you get the point! But what separates Hades from most rogue-likes/lites is that there actually IS a very interesting story that unfolds as you play.
There’s more to Zag’s desire to get to the surface than just getting away from his father, though their strained relationship certainly doesn’t help matters, and over the course of your many, MANY escape attempts, players learn of the rather screwed-up nature of Zagreus’ family of deities, though any mythology nut could tell you to expect that. Hades has an incredibly charismatic cast, superb voice acting across the board, and some real sharp writing that really got me wanting to meet anyone and everyone and learn more about this world. You’re likely to run into Hypnos first, who always has a “tip” ready for you when you meet your end to a given enemy or hazard, or the fabled hero Achilles, who acts as a mentor to Zagreus. There’s Dusa, the adorably frazzled flying gorgon head who acts as the House of Hades’ maid, and of course…Megaera, of the Furies.
She serves as the first proper boss in the game, and will be a pretty sizable challenge for most players, but as you eventually overcome her again and again, she and Zagreus end up attempting to reconnect with each other, and her recurring fights become an excuse to flirt and test each other. I may as well say too that it’s easy to fall in love with the characters in this game because…I-I mean, just look at them! This game is a bisexual’s paradise, that’s all I’ll say.
A bit of a fun fact, but Zagreus’ voice actor, Darren Korb, is also a composer at Supergiant, so he’s a man of many talents, since Hades has a killer score. From the laid-back tunes at the House of Hades where you can unwind and recharge after a botched run, to the pulse-pounding boss theme, there’s some GREAT music on display here. And that’s before you meet Orpheus and Eurydice, two characters with amazing singing voices that, if you play your cards right, might start singing together. The game’s visuals, meanwhile, aren’t a slouch either. While the level layouts are randomized, everything manages to look well-crafted, each region of the underworld having their own distinct look and feel. The fiery pits of Asphodel end up juxtaposing well with the paradise that is Elysium. Now, character models are generally less-detailed since the camera stays zoomed out to give players a good view of the action, but the portraits for the various characters more than make up for it with their distinct, detailed designs. A-And I’m not just saying that because everyone’s hot! Now, admittedly you might take a look at Zag and think he’s nothing but an edgelord and the game itself might be taking itself too seriously, but in reality, Hades strikes a pretty good balance, and definitely carries a sense of humor. Characters love to snark at each other, the various Shades chilling in the House of Hades’ lounge have some funny conversations you can listen in on and all told, the game only gets serious when appropriate. Really, I have no real complaints with the game on a presentation level; it’s all aces so far, and thankfully the game-y part follows suit!
LIVE.DIE. REPEAT.
Hades is best described as a dungeon-crawler. You have an isometric view as you move about, avoiding hazards and fighting off enemies as you climb each chamber on your way to the surface. Defeat every enemy in a chamber and get a reward. Sounds simple enough until you factor in all of the various permutations of events; Hades aims to make sure no two runs are alike, with different enemies, power-ups and challenges awaiting you. All of this is doled out slowly, as with each subsequent playthrough you begin to have more of the game unraveled. First and foremost, Zagreus can gain various Boons from the other Olympian Gods, who are sympathetic to his plight and lend him some power if he makes contact with them. Each God has their own twist on the abilities they grant Zagreus. They can all increase his stats in some way, or affect either his dash ability or his Cast, a projectile attack. For Zeus, naturally, all of Zagreus’ moves will gain an electric effect, whereas Artemis focuses more on upping Zag’s critical hit chance. Dionysus, the God of Wine, grants you the “hangover” status effect, allowing your attacks to uh…make enemies drunk? Sure! You’ll be given a random selection of three Boons to pick from, of varying rarities. Over the course of a run, you might try to nab as many Boons from the same God as possible, or vary it up and see which abilities synchronize together. At times, you might even be granted a Duo Boon, where two Gods decide to combine their power for a special ability that plays to both of their strengths. Still, at other times, you might be forced into a Trial of the Gods, where you must choose one God’s Boon over the other, with the snubbed God lashing out afterwards. Hey, just because they’re Gods, doesn’t mean they’re nice. Of course, you’ve also got a variety of health and weapon upgrades too. In fact, let’s gush about the weapons for a second, shall we?
At the time of writing, Hades has six weapons to play with. You start with a sword, which is the all-rounder of the set, but as you gain keys to unlock more weapons, you can start to really experiment. The bow and rail cannon serve as ranged options with different approaches, while the spear is the melee weapon with the best range at the cost of pure power. The shield grants you absolute defense at the cost of range, while the gauntlets let you unleash your fisticuffs on underworld scum, though leave you with limited ranged attacks. Each weapon has specific Boons and weapon upgrades you can find as well, some of which can radically alter how a weapon works. The rail cannon, for example, fires a lot faster than the bow, but this is balanced by needing to manually reload…unless you get a weapon upgrade that gives you unlimited ammo with the only catch being that you can only do burst fire. Adding to this, players eventually unlock hidden Aspects of weapons, morphing them into different forms which can also influence their moveset. Change the shield to the Aspect of Zeus, and when you throw your shield Captain America style, it stays out and continually spins, dealing tons of damage over time and effectively forcing enemies to get sliced to bits if they want to get near you. I didn’t expect this game to have half this many weapons or to have them balanced so well. Really, just like anything else, weapons are another tool you can poke and prod and experiment with until you get a truly killer collection of Boons and upgrades that let you just demolish anything in your way. It’s very satisfying when you finally clear a run with a great build…though depending on the RNG, you WILL get some crummy builds, but that’s the nature of the rogue-like!
It’s likely that a bad build (or really, just getting hit with a new boss or enemy you aren’t prepared for) will lead to a death, but as already established, death isn’t really that much of an inconvenience in the underworld. Zagreus just spawns back at home and is free to immediately try to escape again, but this brief reprieve lets you chat up whoever happens to be around, give them gifts, advance some side-quests, pet your dog Cerberus and practice with weapons and such before you’re ready to go at it again. It’s after a run that you also get to spend a lot of the spoils of your escape attempts. While you lose Boons and weapon upgrades and the like upon death, there’s a LOT of various items you keep with you that have plenty of uses. Darkness shards are used for permanent skills that can be applied to Zagreus, like Death’s Defiance, which grants Zagreus another life upon dying, which can eventually be upgraded to give him THREE extra lives, just as an example. Precious gems can be used to fund a variety of cosmetic changes to the House of Hades. Just because Zagreus doesn’t want to live there anymore, doesn’t mean he can’t at least make it look good! Nectar can be gifted to other characters to improve your relationships with them, with bottles of Ambrosia being required later on, while special keys can be used to unlock weapons, more upgrades for your Darkness shards, or just used as a secondary currency for trade. There’s really a LOT of different items to mess around with, though admittedly if you’re the type to want to max out EVERYTHING you’ll be in it for the long haul, as there is not only a LOT of stuff to upgrade and purchase, but the random nature of things means rewards are never a guarantee. Though it’s worth noting the game’s totally beatable without going nuts with completion. Which I guess leads me to the biggest compliment I can give this game: even after “beating” it, I still can’t stop playing, and there’s plenty of reason to keep going.
REPLAYS AND REWARDS
So, full disclosure, I’ve gotten Zagreus to the surface. Several times, actually. But I haven’t quite “beaten” the game yet. In fact, at the risk of sounding pretentious, it is as if the true game begins after you’ve beaten it once. Without getting into specifics, let’s just say the game gives you a very good in-story reason to keep playing, and you won’t reach credits without several completed runs under your belt. And even then, there’s still stuff to do. I’m almost 30 hours into Hades and I’ve barely scratched the surface honestly. Every major character has their own sidequest you can undergo, but it can be slow goings when it comes to advancing them. Trying out all the weapons and boons and different combinations will easily take dozens of hours to fully experience, though the game has a handy in-game list of what you’ve done and haven’t done, as well as in-game achievements with tangible rewards that will spur you on. I was admittedly surprised at how dense of a game Hades can be. A successful run will likely take you somewhere between a half-hour to an hour, which is pretty devious. Just long enough to stay engaging throughout, and short enough that I can keep convincing myself that I have time for “one more run” and then suddenly several hours have gone by. Strangest thing.
Something that’s become a bit of a staple of Supergiant’s work is customizable difficulty, various modifiers you can flip on to make the game harder if you so desire, which in Hades takes the form of the Pact of Punishment. After a successful run, you can turn on a given pact to spice things up for subsequent runs. Maybe enemies do a bit more damage, or you give yourself a super strict time limit to clear a run. You can give enemies armor that makes them sturdier, or jack up the in-game shop’s prices. You can even be forced to give up Boons in order to advance past certain doors! Probably the most impressive Pact is Extreme Measures, which ends up greatly affecting the boss fights in the game…trust me when I say you won’t be ready for them the first time you flip that on. Activating a given pact increases a “heat gauge” that, should it reach a given level, will end up granting you various special items to help with fully upgrading and unlocking stuff. Of course, with each successful run completed with a given Pact activated, you’ll have to raise the heat more and more in order to keep getting these upgrade materials so be prepared. You can also still gain these materials (albeit at a much slower rate) playing through the game normally though, and there’s really no penalty for choosing NOT to activate a given pact. On the flip side of things, there’s also a God Mode you can toggle on that makes Zagreus a little stronger with each death, which can help those that want to see more of the story but are struggling with the game. Have your God Cake and eat it too!
All and all, this game just delivers on every level and I’ve been devouring it since release whenever I have a spare minute. You can see that Supergiant is taking all the lessons they learned from each previous game and combined it to make what is easily their best game yet. I don’t throw around words like “masterpiece” lightly, but Hades is just such a slam dunk that I’m sorely tempted to call it just that. I mean, if you hate rogue-likes, I’m not sure if Hades will really push you over the edge admittedly? You get way more rewards retained after death than just about any other rogue-like I’ve played, but if you’re the type that hates having to constantly adapt and not being able to memorize what’s coming, I can see this not working for you. But for me at least, I’ve had an absolute blast with the game and the only issue I really have with it is a small nitpick at best. When it comes to getting to know various characters, you can talk to them and give them Nectar or Ambrosia as a gift right? But what happens if they don’t show up on a given run? Or what if they DO show up, but they’re locked into a conversation with someone else? That means you can’t really advance anything with them until a given dice roll pities you. MEGAERA I THINK YOU’RE COOL, PLEASE JUST TALK TO M—oh sorry, don’t know where that came from… So yeah, that’s the nittiest of picks.
I adore this game’s cast, the voice work and music is excellent to the ear, the combat is engaging, the gameplay loop is addicting…need I say more? I mean, I’ve said almost 3000 words, but to really sum it up…I highly recommend Hades and I hope you don’t pass it up if you’re even remotely interested. You can find it on Steam, the Epic store and Switch as of right now, and I don’t think you could go wrong with any version.
Blood and darkness await you.
-B
#Hades#Hades game#supergiant games#hades supergiant#zagreus#megaera#rouge like#nintendo switch#xb-squaredx
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Every god with a cameo appearence in SSiB
After much deliberation, here it is. The lore post promised long ago. The translator notes for SSiB focus on locations of famous shrines of the mentioned deities and include a few mistakes, so I figured it’s worth writing a short introduction to each of the gods summoned or otherwise mentioned in this manga.
The gods are arranged by chapter of first appearence; due to length and number of images, the list has been placed under a read more. Please do not take this warning lightly.
Chapter 1
Ama-no-iwato-wake no kami - one of the gods partaking in the “descent of the heavenly grandson” alongside Omoikane (whose Touhou counterpart is Eirin). Doesn't actually seem to be too prominent, sources available in English mention that he's a deity of gates (but not the only one and seemingly less versatile than a few other kami he shars this title with), and some Kojiki commentaries consider him an epiteth of Ame-no-Tajikarao, yet another participant of the descent, known for his prodigious strength, and for cooperating with Omoikane once before already – when Amaterasu refused to leave the cave Ama-no-iwato (which I assume is where the epiteth theory comes from). Based on Kanako’s comments from LoLK, it’s possible he’s a Lunarian in Touhou, like all the other Kojiki celestial gods.
“Lord Daikoku and his 180 children” - or rather Okuninushi, the ruler of Izumo and leader of the earthly gods in Kojiki. He's viewed as the gongen of the god of luck Daikoku, as both are gods of agriculture. All around nice guy, sometimes portrayed as unusually tall and strong, and hero of many myths, including these of white hare of Inaba and the god Sukuna-Hikona (both of whom are portrayed as his advisers from time to time; the scarecrow god Kuebiko plays this role in th Kojiki too).
Chapter 2
Chang'e needs no introduction, I think. Unlike almost everyone else here, she's not a Shinto deity.
Chapter 5
Sumiyoshi sanjin/daijin – the trio of Sokotsutsu no O no Mikoto, Nakatsutsu no O no Mikoto and Uwatsutsu no O no Mikoto. As the manga itself explains, they're the gods of sailing and safe voyage. They're brothers of the Watatsumi, who are, depending on the version, either three gods of the sea... or a single god, Ryujin, also known as Owatatsumi, who rules the seas from his Dragon Palace (and whose daughters the Watatsukis are based on). Curiously it seems they're also star gods, which certainly fits well with their role in SSiB plot (the stars they correspond to are the same ones Remilia names the rocket modules after, too). They're also associated with empress Jingu as she purportedly asked for their help before embarking on a military expedition against Korea.
Chapter 12
Gion – the former Gion shrine is known as Yasaka shrine today (no relation to Yasakatome). The enshrined deity is Susano-o, invoked to ward off disease. In the past he was often conflated with Gozu Tenno (who in turn was conflated with Matara-jin, but let's not go down this rabbit hole today), the most significant of the “epidemic gods” who acted as both sources of disease, presented as punishment in this context, and as saviors bestowing fast recovery and good health on the faithful. Like many similar shrines it was also involved in rituals meant to purify a certain class of restless spirits to make them act as deities protecting from diseases.
Chapter 13
Atago – the god of mount Atago, originally worshiped by Shugendo monks. He's a gongen (manifestation) of an aspect of Jizou, specifically “Shogun Jizou”, a tutelary deity of soldiers... and firemen (the idea is that Jizou can transfer injuries and suffering to himself). He is occasionally conflated with Kagutsuchi, the kami of fire killed right after being born (worth nothing Keiki's mythical counterpart is his sister). Other, more popular version, makes him a tengu who repented and became a protector of the pious human inhabitants of Mt. Atago; a variant of this legend claims said tengu was the true form of Nichira, a buddhist mentor of prince Shotoku (there's a Matara-jin connection here, as well, but let's save that for another day...)
Chapter 14
Honoikazuchi - one of the eight thunder gods created from pieces of Izanami's dead body in Yomi. They chase after Izanagi when his visit plan goes south, assisted by mysterious “hags of Yomi” (there are sources which claim the hags and thunder gods from this myth are what oni are based on in folklore, but such fanciful claims were only made by the “national learning” movement, which was seeking a way to purify culture from buddhist influences, and as such lack merit).
Kanayamhiko - a kami of metal, a tutelary deity of blacksmiths, miners, coalmakers, and so on (also, yet another sibling of Keiki's mythical counterpart, also “born” in the myth of Kagutsuchi). I assume he's summoned to change daggers into sand because early on in Japanese history save for some imported crafts all the iron was the result of a lengthy process relying on iron sand rather than ore. As a side note – most shrines related to blacksmith work enshrine a female deity named Kanayako, who's functionally identical to the Kanayamahiko from Nihon Shoki. Both historians and religious authorities appear to believe the gender of the deity was flipped at some point for unknown reasons. He had a slightly bigger cameo in WaHH.
Chapter 15
Amatsu Mikaboshi - an enigmatic earthly god mentioned in the Nihon Shoki – a god of stars (which explains why he's invoked to deal with Marisa's spellcards). He resisted the land transfer and was severly punished for it. Many online sources portray him as some sort of “primordial evil,” which is a misunderstanding, perhaps originally caused by a peculiar string of events (though more likely by ignorance) – first Mikaboshi with conflated with Myoken (the pole star; guess which obscure figure referenced in Touhou which won't be discussed here was Myoken associated with?), then, during the Meiji reforms, Myoken was rejected due to being a syncretic deity, and many Myoken temples were converted into temples dedicated to Amenominakanushi, one of the only gods explicitly predating Izanagi and Izanami in the creation myth (seemingly there were no shrines dedicated to him prior to the dawn of the “national learning” movement, though). “Primordial evil” Mikaboshi portrayals, which cut the middleman (eg. Myoken), extrapolate the heavenly gods calling him an evil deity into him being a god of evil.
Ishikori-dome – a tutelary kami of mirror-makers. Yet another associate of Omoikane, both in the myth about luring Amaterasu out of a cave, and then during the descent of the heavenly grandson. According to the myths she's responsible for creating the Yata no Kagami, one of the imperial regalia. Following the LoLK logic (“Lunarians are like the celestial gods,” eg. The Kojiki gods who descended from the heavens and subjugated the earthly ones) she might be a Lunarian.
Chapter 16
Ame no Uzume – a kami of dawn and dance. She too is an associate of Omoikane, partaking in getting Amaterasu out of a cave (which her SSiB appearence echoes) and in subujgation of the earthly gods during the descent of the heavenly grandson (she marries Sarutahiko, one of the rulers of the earthly gods – seemingly of a different group of them than the Izumo gods following Okuninushi). As above, probably should count as a Lunarian in Touhou.
Amaterasu – does she need an introduction? The central deity of Shinto, the ruler of them all, the sun, the progenitor of the imperial family. Simply put, a god too significant to show up in Touhou for longer than two panels. She's basically here as an extension of Ame no Uzume's myth.
Chapter 17
Oomagatsumi – ritual impurity given form, one of the two basically identical kami created while Izanagi was undergoing ritual ablutions after returning from Yomi, the land of the dead.
Chapter 18
Izunome – as far as I can tell, making her a shrine maiden is ZUN's own invention. In the Kojiki, she's born when Izanagi purifies himself after escaping the land of the dead, and that’s quite literally where her role both starts and ends. She seemingly has no shrines today, though Japanese wikipedia mentions an Amaterasu shrine which in the past held some festival related to “Izunome-jin”. I'm pretty sure she's here because she and Oomagatsumi are part of a single myth, and represent a specific instance of pollution and its immediate removal.
Chapter 19
Takeminakata – that's just Kanako. LoLK confirmed it, if anyone still had any doubts by then. There are dozens of versions of the myth, it honestly deserves its own post, so I won't discuss that here.
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