Everybody Hates Hades: Difference between revisions

** Basically, Mandos is a fairly standard "grim, gloomy, fatalistic, but not that bad of a sort" death god, and is portrayed as being without mercy but also without malice. ''Morgoth'', Middle-earth's actual [[God of Evil]], is also associated with death, but he's more accurately the god of the ''fear of'' death (among other things), rather than death itself. Indeed, ''natural'' death is called the "Gift of Men" and is supposed to be a blessing--as the Elves would tell you [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be]].

* In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Mort|Mort]]'' when Death is testing out the pleasures of being human, he allows himself to get drunk at which point he starts drunkenly moping about how everyone hates him and he has no friends. Death is portrayed as being incredibly lonely.

* Averted in ''A Tangled Web'', a short story set in the [[Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms]] series by [[Mercedes Lackey]]. Hades is simply in love with Persephone, who loves him right back, and when {{spoiler|Brunhilde}} is kidnapped instead of Persephone, he does his best to make her comfortable and help her get back to {{spoiler|Leopold}}. He also helps devise the tests (with Hecate, also portrayed in a more positive light than usual) to get {{spoiler|Leopold the immortality that Brunhilde has requested as her reward/compensation for everything that went down in Hades' realm.}}

* Averted in Tamora Pierce's [[Tortall Universe]]. One of her protagonists, Beka, even works for the Black God on occasion, and it is mentioned several time that he is actually ''more'' merciful and honest than the gods of life.

** '''Aztec''': Predictably, the cultural [[Values Dissonance]] wreaks havoc. With the exception of Quetzalcoatl and his pal/sidekick Xolotl, the entire pantheon is made up of [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]] and a few gods who feel they don't have a choice in following them. Mictlan, the lord of the dead (well, [[Did Not Do the Research|it's actually the name of the underworld]], but by this point, who cares, right?) deserves special mention, as it's the [[Eldritch Abomination]] co-ruler of Hades (the place, which is crawling with [[Our Demons Are Different|a bunch of demon races]]; Hades the god rules another chunk of it) with fellow abomination Modeus.

** '''Babylonian''': Apsu (an obscure water god mentionned in the [[Enuma Elish (Literature)|Enuma Elish]] as Tiamat's husband) is a titanic, even-more-overpowered-than-usual [[Cosmic Horror]] [[Sealed Evil in A Can|sealed]] just prior to the gods' rebellion; Ereshkigal (goddess of the dead) and her husband Nergal (god of the sun and destruction; both rule over the underworld) are secretly but gleefully on Apsu and Tiamat's side and wait for the moment when they can rejoin them and destroy th rest of the pantheon.

** '''Greek''': Ironically, Hades gets off the easiest, coming off mostly as a [[Jerkass]] [[Knight Templar]]; Ares is a bullying jerk, but that's pretty much the same as in actual myth. Hera is basically a [[Soap Opera]]-style Queen Bitch who's finally gone insane from Zeus' philandering, and is actively fomenting strife between Olympus and other pantheons, as well as thinking about [[Sealed Evil in A Can|freeing the Titans]]. The Titans themselves are either [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch]] or [[Humanoid Abomination|Humanoid Abominations]] - Cronos is a black blob of eyes and tentacles who created the first olympian gods as edible power batteries, and Hecate, while more or less human in appearance, is a ruthless power-hungry pragmatist who's mercenary enough to deal with the Splugorth (a ''species'' of eldritch abominations whose [[Planet of Hats|hat]] is being [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] imperialistic slave-traders).

** '''Norse''': Mostly untouched (Loki's a bad guy, of course), but Hel (goddess of the dishonorable dead)'s bad side is turned [[Up to Eleven]]: She's an [[Ax Crazy]] [[Omnicidal Maniac]] who wants to ally herself with the Mechanoids (think [[Doctor Who (TV)|Daleks Lite]]) to exterminate all humanoid life in [[The Multiverse]].

 

* Subverted in Stephen Sondheim's ''The Frogs.'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeTSecKRho Listen for yourself].

** Even in the play's storyline, this trope is played with- Papa Ge is implied to just do his job and isn't entirely evil. He even hangs out with the three other gods like good friends.

{{quote| ''And Papa Ge was gentle, as he carried her to shore...''}}