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Classical Mythology/Characters: Difference between revisions
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* [[Cool Horse]]: He kept [[Pegasus]] after Bellerophon's fall.
* [[Depraved Bisexual]]: Usually goes for beautiful women but on occasion, ''extremely'' good-looking young men are included to his "diet". Just ask Ganymedes.
* [[Double Standard Rape (Divine
* [[Grandpa God]]: Was portrayed as this sometimes.
* [[Jerkass]]: However, his character in the myths is quite balanced, and this is not true in every story.
** [[Jerk
* [[King of the Gods]]: [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[Mister Seahorse]]: To Athena and Dionysus.
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* [[Making a Splash]]
** [[Giant Wall of Watery Doom]]
** [[Kill It
* [[Papa Wolf]]: [[
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Prongs of Poseidon]]: The [[Trope Namer]], for his [[Weapon of Choice]].
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* [[Manly Tears]]: Orpheus was able to get Hades to shed "iron tears" by playing his lyre.
* [[May-December Romance]]: Even though Greek gods don't age, there is still a generational gap between him and Persephone.
* [[Orcus
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Prongs of Poseidon]]: When he has to take action, sometimes he is depicted with a bident.
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* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power|Hearth Is An Awesome Power]]: Although today, Hestia's domains are considered rather insignificant, she was one of the most important gods in the entire Greek Pantheon (though this isn't reflected in the myths).
* [[Maiden Aunt]]
* [[Overshadowed
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Proper Lady]]: You know the whole 'divine dignity' thing? She's the best example with her ''proper'' behavior. The other gods are too [[Jerkass]] to mortals and each other.
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* [[The Power of Love]]
* [[Really Gets Around]]
* [[Sleeps
* [[Spontaneous Generation]]: Supposedly born when Kronos cut off Ouranos' genitals and threw them into the ocean. This lends to one of her other names ''Philommedes'' which translates as "lover of members". Because she was born from them, of course.
* [[Spear Counterpart]]: Her son Priapus, the [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|extremely well-endowed]] god of male sexuality and fertility, equally revered and feared but not as important since, back in those times, men weren't supposed to be interested in sexuality that much.
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* [[Lady of War]]
* [[Manipulative Bastard|Manipulative Bitch]]: Regardless of Medusa being a slut or a rape victim, she goes from beautiful priestess to monster to an [[Iconic Item]] on, where else, ''Athena's shield.''
* [[The Mentor]]: [[Trope Namer]] from ''[[
* [[My Girl Is Not a Slut]]: One of three virgin goddesses.
** Whether that specifically means 'never had sex' or 'never married' isn't made entirely clear.
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* [[Good Parents|Good Parent]]: Ares always supported his children and tried to protect them (namely the Amazons).
* [[Has Two Mommies]]: According to a Roman myth, Juno became pregnant with Mars by being touched with a herb grown by the goddess Flora.
* [[Jerk
* [[Light'Em Up]] / [[The Power of the Sun]]: Hesiod and Homer described him more or less as this.
** [[Light Is Not Good]]: [[Jerkass|Perhaps the best embodiment]] of this trope in the whole mythology.
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* [[Beast and Beauty]]: With his wife, Aphrodite.
* [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]: The inverse assumption, Ugly Is Evil, is played viciously straight by the other gods.
* [[Chained to
* [[Continuity Snarl]]: In some versions of Hephaestus' birth-myth, he was conceived by Hera without any help from Zeus; supposedly she was jealous over his [[Mister Seahorse]] act in bearing Athena. In some versions of ''Athena's'' birth-myth, Hephaestus helps dig her out of Zeus' head.
* [[Double Standard]]: Had multiple lovers himself but did not take his wife's infidelity well.
* [[Drop the Hammer]]
* [[Forged
* [[God Couple]]: Zeus put him together with Aphrodite in an [[Arranged Marriage]].
* [[Genius Cripple]]
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* [[Informed Flaw]]: By Greek standards, being crippled was enough to make a person ugly. Art says otherwise. However, given the the ancient Greeks knew better than to offend their gods, this might be justified.
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Playing
* [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]]: Again, with Aphrodite.
* [[Ultimate Blacksmith]]
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* [[The Ingenue]] / [[Innocent Flower Girl]] (literally): Before her abduction. Her original name "Kore" meant maiden. She most likely leveled up into some kind of [[Perky Goth]] after that. Hey, being queen of the underworld isn't all bad...
* [[May-December Romance]]: Allegory of this trope. See Hades above.
* [[Orcus
* [[Physical God]]
* [[The Stoic]]: She and Hades both.
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* [[Different As Night and Day]]: Compare Selene's [[Single-Target Sexuality|obsession with a single man]] to Eos' [[Really Gets Around|many husbands and children]]. Bonus points for actually ''being'' Night and Day.
* [[Dude, She's Like, in
* [[Mayfly-December Romance]]: Attempted to avert this with Endymion.
* [[Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette]]: Often depicted as such.
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'''Prometheus'''
One of the original Titans, who apparently didn't take a side in the war between the Titans and Olympians- instead, his sympathies were with [[Puny Earthlings|man]]. One day he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man -- for this, he was [[Chained to
* [[And I Must Scream]]: Probably the [[Ur Example]]; his punishment was not only being [[Chained to
* [[Chained
* [[Chained to
* [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]]: He's chained to the Caucasus, and every day, a bird eats his liver. Bonus points for recognizing the liver's regeneration capability.
* [[Crucified Hero Shot]]
* [[Impaled
* [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]]: Apparently, about the only god who'd put humanity before himself.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: His name means "Forethought".
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* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]
* [[Blow You Away]]: As the first of the Protogenoi and the god of the air
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The closest thing to it in [[Classical Mythology]]. [[
* [[The Older Immortal]]: If it even has sentience, which is unknown. It is the oldest being in the Greek Cosmology
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: In ''[[
* [[Power of the Void]]: Maybe. It is a bottomless gulf where anything falls endlessly and is a place without any possible orientation, where anything falls in every direction
* [[Primordial Chaos]]: [[Trope Namer]]
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* [[Eldritch Abomination]]
* [[Hell]]
* [[I Fight for
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[True Neutral]]: Doesn't seem to have a preference as to what he's holding prisoner or who he's holding them prisoner for.
* [[The Underworld]]
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'''Gaia''' (Gaea)
The everpresent [[Mother Nature]]. [[Age of Mythology
Her Roman name is '''Terra Mater/Tellus''' (the first literally means "Mother Earth"). While she was widely acknowledged by the Greeks and Romans alike, she was very inconsistently distinguished from other fertility goddesses such as Rhea or Demeter, much like Apollo and Helios were often considered the same. Confusion ensued when the Romans equated other fertility mother goddesses worshipped by conquered peoples, but the cult of the Mother Earth was more important than petty differenciation between deities. Nowadays, as you might have guessed, Gaia is very much worshipped by Neo-Pagans, being thus perhaps the most well known and loved of all pagan goddesses, being the mother of gods, humanity and the universe alike.
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* [[Mama Bear]]: Sort of. It is unknown if she actually cared for her offspring or if she just wanted to have them out of her.
* [[Mother of a Thousand Young]]: Just like her sister Nyx.
* [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: She would like to have a word with [[Captain Planet and
'''Ouranos''' (Uranus)
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* [[Light Is Not Good]]: Sort of. In art he is generally depicted as a [[Grandpa God]] much like Zeus and Poseidon, generally wearing light blue or other light colours, but he was an evil tyrant. Of course, the only humanoid depictions made by the Greeks have him as considerably younger looking and naked, as otherwise he appeared as a dome or sphere as mentioned above, always carried by Atlas.
* [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]: His prediction to Kronos could be considered this, since it was paranoia from this prediction that led Kronos to swallow his kids alive. Guess how happy they were about ''that''.
* [[Taking You
'''Thalassa'''
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Three brothers: Briareus (sometimes known as Aegaion), Kottos (Cottus) and Gyges. They are sons of Ouranos and Gaia. Embodiments of natural forces, they each have a hundred arms and fifty heads, which Ouranos thought so ugly that he sealed them away in Tartaros shortly after they were born with their other brothers, the Cyclopes. In some versions, Kronos either freed them and put them back in some time later, or just kept them inside Tartaros, guarded by the Dragon Kampe. In the final year of the Titanomachy, Zeus freed them and they proved a pivotal point in the Olympians' victory. Afterwords, they served as jailers to the Titans in the same way Kampe was to them. They had the same names in Roman myths, but their collective name was '''Centimani'''.
* [[Depending
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]
* [[Elemental Embodiment]]: Of Natural Disasters.
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* [[Beam Spam|Rock Spam]]: With their hundred hands, the Hekatonkheires were able to launch hundreds of mountain-sized rocks at the Titans continuously until they were too overwhelmed to fight back.
* [[Person of Mass Destruction]]
* [[Sealed Good in
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* [[Abusive Parents]]: Well, Ares was [http://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cupidchastised.jpg Ares], but even Aphrodite had her moments such as leaving him with the [[Ax Crazy|Maniae]] and punishing him for [[Sarcasm Mode|daring]] to have a beautiful wife.
** That painting is actually of their Roman counterparts (Mars and Cupid). Ares in Greek myth [[Jerk
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]: Of love.
** That is the minor god version, Eros as a Protogenoi is seen as procreation and desire more than the feeling of love.
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* [[Physical God]]
* [[Spoiled Brat]]: Even his mother knew he was this.
* [[The Power of
** [[Heart Beat-Down]]: If he has anything to say about it (and he does) you will feel the love tonight, no ifs, ands, or buts.
* [[Theme Twin Naming]]: With Himeros, and sometimes Anteros.
* [[Thicker Than Water]]: Despite Aphrodite being shallow, unreliable, and all around bitchy, he still served her faithfully.
* [[What Kind of
* [[Winged Humanoid]]
'''Psyche'''
Former [[Every Thing Is Better With Princesses|mortal princess]] of Sicily, and now [[Happily Married|wife]] of the God of Love and personification of the Soul. Very [[World's Most Beautiful Woman|beautiful]] and [[Curious
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]: Of the Soul.
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* [[Beautiful Dreamer]]: Why Eros/Cupid [[Love At First Sight|falls in love with her]] and cannot go through with his mother's plan.
* [[Beast and Beauty]]: This tale fits most of the same elements, but acts as a subversion: in a [[Prophecy Twist]], the "[[Winged Humanoid|winged]] [[Love Hurts|monster]]” she was to marry ended up being the God of Love.
* [[Ascend to
** [[Winged Humanoid]]: Shown with butterfly wings.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]:
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** [[My God, What Have I Done?]]
** [[Tears of Remorse]]: As Eros flew off, Psyche was “prostrate on the ground, filling the place with mournful lamentations.”
* [[Curious
** [[Curiosity Is a Crapshoot]]: She’s the page image.
** [[Didn't Think This Through]]: Even after all that has happened, she still takes a peek into the Box of Beauty.
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* [[Horrible Judge of Character]]: At least when it comes to her sisters (at first).
* [[Impossible Task|Impossible and (often) Deadly Tasks]]: Given these to earn back her husband. The tasks are: 1) Sorting huge piles of grains and lentils in a single night, 2) Retrieving some golden wool from vicious sheep, 3) Retrieving water flowing from an elevated cleft that is impossible to achieve on foot and is also guarded by great serpents, and 4) Retrieving a Box of Beauty from the Queen of the Underworld. She succeeds (with some help); Aphrodite/Venus is [[Why Won't You Die?|not pleased]].
* [[Chained to
** [[Human Sacrifice]] / [[Virgin Sacrifice]]: She and her family thought she was going to be this.
* [[Love Hurts]]
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* [[Nature Adores a Virgin]]: Another virgin goddess.
** That is, until she lost her virginity to Hermes.
* [[Overshadowed
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Poisoned Weapons]]
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* [[Handicapped Badass]]: In one Aesop fable, he appears as a lame man.
* [[Knight Templar]]: The aforementioned Aesop fable describes how he drags an oath-braker off a cliff!
* [[Orcus
* [[Physical God]]
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* [[Canon Immigrant]]
* [[Healing Hands]]
* [[Hijacked
* [[Inexplicably Awesome]]: As the result of being an addition from a different religion, he never quite fit into the scheme of the pantheon.
* [[Light'Em Up]] / [[Light Is Good]]
* [[Physical God]]
* [[Spell My Name
'''Flora'''
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'''Phobos'''
The son of Ares and Aphrodite, his name means "fear" or "terror". [[Exactly What It Says
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]
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* [[Magical Girlfriend]]: Unfortunately for Jason, a [[Dark Magical Girl|Dark Magical Girlfriend]]: which eventually turned her into a...
* [[Psycho Ex-Girlfriend]]: Jason should have known what he was getting into; the woman ''killed and dismembered her own brother'' to slow down her father's pursuit.
* [[Woman Scorned]]: [[Trope Namer|The phrase comes from Euripides' play]] entitled, well, ''[[
* [[Yandere]]
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* [[Abdicate the Throne]]: Odysseus leaves Thesprotia to Polypoites after the queen dies. Admittedly, he just goes right back to being king in Ithaca.
* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: Odysseus (Ulysses) is treated as a pure villain in Roman mythology, such as in ''[[
* [[The Alliance]]: It was his idea in order to stop a battle between the Kings Of Greece for the hand of Helen by creating this. It actually came to bite him in the ass later on. But he tried to escape even this.
* [[The Archer]]: His skill and strength with a bow was amazing: none of the suitors could even string his bow, much less shoot an arrow through a row of twelve axehandle rings.
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* [[Bluff the Imposter]]: Invoked when he returned home and revealed himself to his wife. She doesn't quite believe him, and makes an offhand remark that their bed was moved. Odysseus states that his bed's headboard is part of a massive tree (which he himself carved) that the palace is built around, and that it's virtually impossible to move. This removes any lingering doubt.
* [[Call to Agriculture]]: Odysseus' goal after going home.
* [[Double Standard]]: Odysseus screws a number of women. Penelope waits twenty years for a husband that she believes to be dead and never cracks. But in the Odyssey he [[Double Standard Rape (Divine
* [[Eye Scream]]: Eat Odysseus' sailors and reap the consequences!
* [[Genius Bruiser]]
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* [[Divine Parentage]]
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: During his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] he beats down the local river god... while crossing his river.
* [[Doomed
* [[Fatal Flaw]]: Both pride and wrath.
* [[Glory Hound]]
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* [[A Tragedy of Impulsiveness]]: The eponymous character kills his father for basically cutting him off in traffic (and being a complete [[Jerkass]] about it). He marries his mother, completing the other half of the famous complex, at leisure though. Having been adopted by another family and kept in the dark about his parentage, he did not recognize either one.
* [[Awful Truth]]: Guess. By modern times it has become [[It Was His Sled]].
* [[Blind Seer]]: He becomes this in [[Sophocles]]'s ''[[Oedipus
* [[Break the Haughty]]: In spades. Oedipus goes from a strong and beloved king to a shell of his former self in the course of a single day.
* [[Determinator]]: He ''had'' to find out who killed the king.
* [[Eye Scream]]: A broach pin to the eye cannot feel good. That is one painful version of [[Brain Bleach]].
* [[Guile Hero]]: His defeat of the Sphinx makes him the epitome of this.
* [[Hired to Hunt Yourself]]: His crusade to find out who killed the king. The issue being [[Tomato in
* [[I Have No Son]]: Although Antigone is so great she's almost a substitute for one.
* [[Irony]]: He's its bitch.
* [[Oedipus Complex]]: [[Trope Namer]], though he himself did none of that deliberately or knowingly.
* [[Older and Wiser]]: In ''[[Oedipus
* [[Parental Incest]]: Oedipus's wife is his mother and all his children are also his half-siblings.
* [[Patricide]]: The killing of King Laios.
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* [[Angry Guard Dog]]
* [[Everything's Better
* [[Hell Hound]]
* [[Our Giants Are Bigger]]
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* [[Healing Factor]]
* [[Hydra Problem]]: [[Trope Namer]]
* [[Kill It
* [[Multiple Head Case]]: Usually depicted as starting off with nine heads.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]
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* [[Beauty to Beast]]: Some versions state that Medusa and her sisters were so beautiful that Athena got jealous of them and turned them into gorgons just for that.
* [[Functional Magic|Protective Magic]]: The Gorgons' image was often used this way, in hope that the user's enemies would be turned to stone.
* [[Rape
* [[Reluctant Monster]]: Depending on which myth, Medusa will be played this way, being turned into a monster by Athena.
* [[Taken for Granite]]: While it was technically the act of looking ''upon them'' that turned you to stone, it's popularly remembered as ''them'' looking upon ''you'' that results in petrification.
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* [[Scylla and Charybdis]]: [[Trope Namer|Trope Namers]].
* [[Sea Monster]]: Both
* [[Spell My Name
'''Cetus''' (Kētos)
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Three brothers: Steropes, Brontes and Arges. They are sons of Ouranos and Gaia. Embodiments of brute strength and power, they each have one single eye in the middle of the foreheads. Ouranos feared them for their power and violent tempers, and then sealed them away in Tartaros shortly after they were born with their other brothers, the Hekatonkheires. In some versions, Kronos either freed them and put them back in some time later of just kept them inside Tartaros, guarded by the Dragon, Kampe. In the final year of the Titanomachy, Zeus freed them and they forged the Olympians' weapons for them (if Hephaestus didn't do so already). Afterwords, they served as assistants to Hephaestus in his forge. They had the same names in Roman myths, both individually and collectively.
They had four mortal sons named Euryales, Elatreus, Trakhios, and Halimedes, and there was also a mortal tribe of them that lived near the island of Sicily, the most famous of them being [[
* [[Always Chaotic Evil]]: The mortal ones that lived off Sicily, like Polyphemos.
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* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: The mortal ones that lived off Sicily, like Polyphemos.
* [[Monster Progenitor|Monster Progenitors]]: Starts with three, the rest of the race came latter.
* [[Sealed Good in
* [[Shock and Awe]]: Each of the immortal three represents a part of the nature of lightning that they each put into Zeus' thunderbolt: Steropes is lighting itself, Brontes is thunder, and Arges is its brightness.
* [[With Friends Like These...]]: When Zeus killed Apollo's son Asclepius Apollo wanted revenge but could not directly injure Zeus. Some writers have him kill the cyclopes who forged the lightning bolt while others, noting that the sons of Gaia are immortal, have him kill the four sons instead. In some versions, the three had helped to make Apollo's bow beforehand.
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* [[Avenging the Villain]]: The Gigantomachy was to rescue the Titans from Tartarus.
* [[Barbarian Tribe]]: Thought to represent those kinds of people from the North.
* [[Depending
* [[Our Giants Are Bigger]]: While a few others get called giants, these guys were the giants propper of classical mythology.
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[War Arc]]: The Gigantomachy.
'''Typhon/Typhoeus'''
The biggest, nastiest, deadliest and most terrifying monster in Greek mythology, with arms that reached east and west - with a hundred dragon/serpent heads on each - huge wings that blackened the sky, fire blazing from his eyes and mouth, [[Depending
* [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever]]
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* [[Our Giants Are Bigger]]: Emphasis on big. When he raises his hands above his head they can nearly touch the stars.
* [[Our Monsters Are Weird]]: Even by Greek monster standards, his appearance was bizarre.
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[Snake People]]
* [[Ultimate Evil]]: As close as Greek myth gets to having one, what with being the offspring of [[Mother Nature]] and [[Hell]].
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