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A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Sadly Mythtaken]] and a form of [[Adaptational Villainy]]. Compare with [[Hijacked by Jesus]], when the similarities with Christianity are painfully obvious. Contrast with [[Don't Fear the Reaper]]. See [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] for when this is applied to historical rather than mythological figures. See also [[The Theme Park Version]] and occasionally [[Mythology Upgrade]].
Named after the [[Greek Mythology|Greek God of the Underworld, Hades]], who is often a victim of this in modern times, seeing as myths involving him are very popular and a good source for adaptations.<ref>Probably the worst thing Hades did is kidnap his niece and
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Both ''[[Mazinger Z]]'', ''[[Great Mazinger]]'' and ''[[Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen]]'' involve [[Greek Mythology]], and Hades is the villain. In ''Shin'', Mazinger Z [[Rocket Punch]]es him in the face. Zeus does like-wise with ''his severed arm''.
* Hades is a major antagonist in the ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' anime/manga series. His "evil" is apparently off the charts.
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** Fun fact: Hercule was a name originally given to Mr. Satan by the french anime translation ([[Captain Obvious|Hercule is Hercules in french]], amusingly enough), but it wasn't due to [[Bowdlerisation]]; rather, the name Satan was already taken, as they'd given it to Piccolo from his [[Big Bad]] days (when he was known as the "Great Demon King").
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Of all the places this trope could be averted it had to be on a Disney comic. Yes, the same company that forever cursed Hades as evil in media. In a European Disney comic, Hades appears as a somewhat goofy and sympathetic character, whose relationship with Persephone has met a problematic stage and as a consequence the summer had extended and caused a global warming. Fortunately, Donald and his nephews fix their relationship and everything gets back to normal. In this comic Hades is also not portrayed as the demon like being he was on Disney's ''[[Hercules (1997 film)||Hercules]]'', but rather as one of the dog faced people that fill the Disney comics.
** So Hades resembled...[[Incredibly Lame Pun|Pluto]]?
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** Hades himself also shows up in the re-telling of the myth of Orpheus. He is presented as cold and uncaring and probably not a very ''nice'' deity, but he isn't directly evil. And in his defense, he had enough sympathy for Orpheus to let him take his dead wife from the Underworld (even if that didn't turn out so well in the end).
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* In the dread ''[[My Immortal]]'' the "goffic" analogue of Sirius Black uses the nickname Hades. Much like all [[Designated Hero|supposed "good guys"]], he is at best unsympathetic (not to mention his sadism). Given that the "goffs" are satanists, it pretty much implies that Hades is satanic. Of course, many assume the author is either a gigantic [[Troll]] or simply [[Too
* Hades in the ''[[DC Nation|JLA Watchtower]]'' universe was first class. Yes, the whole thing was an [[Evil Plan]] to get Athena off the throne of Olympus; he believed that, as he was eldest of Chronus and Rhea, he should have been in charge anyway. His tactics during the plan were appalling, however. Mind-wiping and seducing Omen? Blatantly cheating during the Titans' challenge of his heroes versus them? Forcing Nightwing into a fight to the death {{spoiler|and making sure Nightwing lost}}?! Killing {{spoiler|Arsenal}} ''after'' the Titans won despite the cheating, then sending in a [[Zombie Apocalypse]] as a last resort? Yeah, good thing he got his in the end...
* ''[[Divine Blood]]'' inverts this. Hades is the only one of the big three of the Greek gods to not be a [[Complete Monster]].
== [[Film]] ==
* The Disney animated movie ''[[Hercules (1997 film)||Hercules]]'' casts Hades as the villain, probably the most well-known example of this trope. This portrayal, in addition to some of the ''other'' liberties taken with the myth, meant that the movie had to be marketed as ''Beyond the Myth of Heracles'' in Greece to avoid a national backlash, which... [[Americans Hate Tingle|didn't exactly work]]. However, due to how [[Deadpan Snarker|funny]] and [[Affably Evil|genuinely]] [[Ensemble Darkhorse|likeable]] Disney Hades is, you probably won't find any viewers (Greek Mythology buffs excepted) who hate Hades, except for being [[That One Boss]] in [[Kingdom Hearts]].
* [[Drive Angry]] has an excellent subversion. There's a Satanist cult behind most of the film's events, and the Accountant encounters one of them left alive after the heroe's rampage through their 'church.' The Accountant makes it clear that, from his ''personal interactions'' with Satan, he's a well-read and rather pleasant guy. He made a foolish mistake eons ago, and has spent the entire time since then stuck as the warden to the worst prison in the universe. And what ''really'' ticks him off is having to watch people on Earth commit atrocities and claim that he had a hand in them.
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* ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]'' states Kali to be "The Goddess Of Death" and shows her followers acting like satanic cultists. The Hindu God Of Death is actually Yama, but Kali and her consort Shiva are also associated with death and change. Though she has violent qualities, particularly in her battle against Raktavija, Kali is considered a benevolent goddess by mainstream Hinduism. The villains of the film, however, are (very loosely) based on Thuggee cults, who did place Kali as their patron goddess.
* ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'': Kali is the "the goddess of death" in one scene, though this may have been an example of the trope being played with, as Mina suggests that by worshipping a goddess of destruction (or, incorrectly, of death) that Nemo is untrustworthy and possibly evil. However, a Victorian educated woman would have had little understanding of Hindu deities, and the whole scene basically served to illustrate that the team misunderstood and distrusted each other.
*
** Except he wasn't actually the villain, that was a colossal red herring. {{spoiler|Turns out it's a bitter Persephone.}}
* The plot of the ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' remake revolves around Perseus fighting against Hades to get his love back, which has nothing to do with [[Did Not Do the Research|the original myth]] or [[They Just Didn't Care|movie]]. To be fair, Hades isn't the only god with a [[Jerkass]] streak in the film, nor was he attempting to summon a "[[Hijacked by Jesus|hell on earth]]" as the [[Never Trust a Trailer|trailers suggested]].
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* ''[[Live and Let Die]]'' depicts Baron Samedi as the Voodoo equivalent of Satan, with the workers at the plantation convinced that they're literally in hell serving as zombies. The actual Voodoo Samedi is known mostly as a womanizer who makes sure the dead rot so they can't be turned into zombies.
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Percy Jackson
* Averted by [[Lord Dunsany]] in ''The Gods of Pegana''. Mung, the god of death, is an implacable force of nature who is genuinely perplexed at the way people fear him. He asks one man, "Were the forty million years before thy coming intolerable to thee? Not less tolerable to thee shall be the forty million years to come!"
* Utterly averted by the ''[[Myth-O-Mania]]'' books, in which Hades is the main character and portrayed as decent, sensible, and one of the smartest gods, choosing the Underworld as a way to avoid Zeus, who is a colossal [[Small Name, Big Ego]] [[Jerkass]] who takes credit for everything and became King of the Gods by cheating at cards.
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*** She ''is'' the Black God's daughter.
* Deconstructed in Flavia Bujor's ''[[The Prophecy of the Stones]]'' where Death, who is actually quite lovely, gets tired of being hated and quits. We are told this is not the first time it has happened.
* Subverted in the ''[[Shadowmarch]]'' series; the god Kernios is a pretty blatant counterpart to Hades (he's a god of death, darkness, and the underworld, and his brothers are a sky god and a sea god to boot) and it's heavily hinted throughout the books that he's the mysterious supernatural entity who is manipulating the mortal villains. {{spoiler|Nope- Kernios is in hibernation and has been for
* Averted in ''[[The Goddess Test]]'' series; Hades (known as Henry) is neutral and hardworking as the god of the dead, and Persephone was initially his willing wife. In the series, {{spoiler|Hera}} is the antagonist, not Hades. While the series twists some mythological details, it is a case of [[Artistic License]] rather than [[Did Not Do the Research]], and the differences are acknowledged and addressed by the characters.
* The last book of [[In the Net of Dreams|the ''Dreamland Chronicles'' trilogy]] subverts this, Hades is pretty much the only decent god. While the rest of the [[Classic Mythology|pantheons]] are preparing for an interfaith war, Hades is trying to get back his rightful throne from a usurper who has upset the balance of life and death. He deals fairly and honestly with the heroes to get their help.
== [[Live
* ''[[Rome]]'': An enraged Lucius Vorenus shouts, [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|"I am a son of Hades!"]] The line works on modern audiences because it sounds like he's calling himself the son of Satan, ie a horrible, monstrous person. However, the line also works from a Roman perspective, since Hades/Pluto/Dis is a rather grim god, and screaming that you're his son would make you sound like a lunatic with a death wish.
** Though Pluto/Hades wasn't an evil deity per se, but invoking his name was an extreme taboo, only done when swearing an unbreakable oath. Vorenus basically declares himself utterly relentless and merciless, as well as desperate enough to call upon the Stygian deity.
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** Also averted with Hecate who is [[Shown Their Work|portrayed favorably in this show as the patron deity of witches]].
* ''[[Smallville]]'', on the other hand, did an episode where Lois got possessed by Isis and tried to bring Osiris back into the world—which, despite him being the just ruler of the dead, was treated as a very bad thing.
** Although it wasn't a very bad thing because Osiris himself was bad, it was a very bad thing
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' played this straight and subverted it, depending on the episode. If it was [[Don't Fear the Reaper|death personified]], he was usually nice and just wanted to help people move on but was feared. When someone made a [[Deal with the Devil]], he was usually trying to create an [[Fate Worse Than Death|ironic fate]] with an overconfident person.
* Averted in [[All There in the Manual|the manual]] of ''[[Caprica]]'' and ''[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'': Hades is a heroic figure to the Colonials and the capital of Canceron is named after him.
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** Osiris comes closer to this trope, being pretty much a [[Jerkass]].
== [[Oral Tradition|Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends]] ==
* While Disney did go a bit over the top, [[Trope Namer|Hades]] was ''not'' a favorite god of the Greeks, who didn't even like to say his name and would avert their eyes when sacrificing to him. He was said to "enrich himself with our sighs and our tears" by Sophocles. In Homer's ''[[The Iliad|Iliad]]'', Agamemnon described him saying "Hades who is utterly unyielding--and hence he is, of all gods, the one most hateful to mankind." While he was not considered out-and-out evil, being a death god put the kibosh on his ever getting ''that'' popular.
** But Hades couldn't have been hated that much his wife was goddess of springtime and flowers plus Hades was god of Precious metals meaning both of them must've been worshiped a lot.
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*** His daughter Hel, who is actually the goddess of death, was probably victim of this. Older myths tend to depict her as a serene guide to the other world for departed souls who had died from natural cause. Demonization of pagan deities by the Christians made her an hideous hag preparing an army of the dead for her father. And, similarly to Hades, can you guess where the word ''Hell'' comes from?
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* Hades wears lots of intimidating spikes and routinely [[Beaming Grin|blows out fire]] but is usually a [[Face]] on the US Indy scene. His opponents usually [[Invoked Trope|try]] to convince cheering audiences that he's [[Obviously Evil]] to no avail.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''
** The splatbook ''Deities & Demigods'' lists Hades as [[Neutral Evil]] largely so they could give him levels in the assassin [[Prestige Class]]. The book specifically notes that he isn't actively hostile or vicious, and that he mostly just ''is''; everyone dies eventually, and someone has to run the afterlife. Anubis on the other hand was listed as [[Lawful Neutral]].
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** And then there's a bunch of pretenders and impostors passing themselves for existing legitimate gods, usually for less-than-virtuous reasons, many of whom are actually [[Eldritch Abomination]]s (notice another pattern?)
==
* Subverted in Stephen Sondheim's ''The Frogs.'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeTSecKRho Listen for yourself].
* The main antagonist of ''[[Once On This Island]]'' is Papa Ge, a Vodou Loa associated with death whom the actual lore seems to portray as [[wikipedia:Guédé|a pretty decent guy]] (at least as far as [[The Other Wiki]] can be trusted on the subject).
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* In ''[[Hadestown]]'', Hades is depicted as a welfare capitalist, with all the false promises (to the dead in general, and Eurydice in particular) that entails.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[Castlevania]]'', Death is [[Dracula]]'s [[The Dragon|Right Hand Man]]. And while Hades is not present in this series, his wife Persephone is a villainous [[Ninja Maid]].
* Subverted in the ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'' series, where Hades is no more evil than the other gods of Olympus [[Dark Is Not Evil|despite his demonic appearance]]. However, it's played straight in the manual, which describes him as "a greedy god who is greatly concerned with increasing his subjects." In the sequels, he is finally motivated to kill Kratos out of revenge for his niece (Athena), brother (Poseidon) and wife (Persephone), thus making his actions at least understandable.
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* HADES from ''[[Horizon Zero Dawn]]'' seems to be a clear-cut example at first, since he's an evil AI with a hellishly deep voice who leads a cult of lunatics dedicated to awakening machines that could wipe out all organic life on Earth, and named after the Greek god of death to boot. But it's revealed later that {{spoiler|he isn't malicious, just malfunctioning: as a subordinate function of the AI GAIA his task was originally to destroy failed biospheres if GAIA wasn't able to recreate them right. Thanks to the interference of an unknown, malicious third party, he's simply following his programming in the wrong context.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' thankfully both [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html discusses and subverts] this trope with a good deal of [[Shown Their Work]].
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' gives us a few different soul collectors and versions of "death" that correspond to various religions and myths. All of them seem quite nice and even enjoy conversation with mortals who can see them.
* ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'', the assigned Grim Reaper, really doesn't like his job of (among with a whole list of other things) [http://www.pholph.com/whole_arc_viewer.php?id=5&sid=561 ripping lovers apart.]
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Largely averted in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'': Stygian, who apparently is the incarnation of the god Hades, isn't a bad guy. He's just so depressed that he's willing to do pretty much anything if it will kill him. Hekate, on the other hand, is a mutant who really earns her rep as ruthlessly evil.
==
* ''[[Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab]]'' averts this. His depiction in the flavor text of the Hades-themed perfume oil is more [[Dark Is Not Evil]] [[Lawful Neutral]], although not particularly friendly.▼
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Subverted in the ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' animated film. Hades looks like he's agreeing to free Ares so the restored god of war can kill, well, everyone, on Earth and provide Hades with their souls, but it turns out there's only one soul Hades is really interested in, revealed when his [[Evil Plan]] comes to fruition.
** His evilness is up for debate. Sure he was a bit of a dick but he did put one of the worst psychopaths ever on a permanent lockdown and well... [[Asshole Victim|Ares and his son deserved it.]]
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{{quote|'''Anubis:''' [[True Neutral|Death is the ultimate fairness. Young or old, rich or poor, all are equal in Death]].}}
* Averted in the Sunbow ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' episode "The Gods Below". Osiris, the Egyptian God of Death, and the other Egyptian gods that appear, for the most part, are portrayed as good or at least neutral. The only exception is Set who's kind of already an evil god in Egyptian mythology, [[Depending on the Writer|depending on which period of Egyptian history any given myth comes from.]]
* Played straight in ''[[Mummies Alive]]'', in which Anubis is a dim-witted villain who works alongside Set. In mythology, Set disowned him, since Anubis chose to side with Horus and helped Isis mummify Osiris and restore him.
* The ''[[Watership Down]]'' animated series pulls this with the Black Rabbit of Inle. When he starts appearing in season three, he glows red and gets vanishes in a burst of flames.
▲* ''[[Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab]]'' averts this. His depiction in the flavor text of the Hades-themed perfume oil is more [[Dark Is Not Evil]] [[Lawful Neutral]], although not particularly friendly.
{{reflist}}
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