Established, modified, and fervently debated upon, the boundaries between right and wrong, good and bad, and honour and treachery have been refined numerous times throughout history. Those once glorious heroes have been pulled down from their pedestals and branded as criminals while once despised villains have been vindicated and established as valiant saviours with some of the most notable figures in question being: Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus, and Thomas Jefferson. Due to these countless cases evoking avid discussions and vehement debates, the line between hero and villain has become pencil lines, the ability to classify figures in history into two categories crushed beneath the frenzy of moderations and controversy. Yet, the hurricane of controversy is not constrained to the confines of human history but is stretching towards archaic myths and tales of supernatural beings forcing even the once worshipped god and goddesses into the court with humanity’s scrutiny and debates acting as the jury to decide their fate. Unfortunately, these juries are plagued by prejudices and limited to a frame of the modern perspective with some changes in views caused by societal change and perspective rather than the actions of the figure in question making some prejudices unjustified and unreasonable. One of the many beings and deities ensnared by the superstitions and biases of mankind is Hades himself, the god of the underworld and death.
In Greek myths, Hades was depicted as an altruistic god withlittle to no villainous actions with the story of Persephone creating oneblack mark in the otherwise sterling record of Hades’ deeds. Despite hisrole as the mediator of the underworld and god of death, he was fair andoften showed empathy to humans. For example, in the myth of Orpheusand Eurydice, Hades allowed Orpheus one last chance to save his lover.While their story was a tragic one, Hades’ willingness to bestow anotherchance shows his generosity. In addition, Hades lent Perseus his helmetto help him defeat Medusa. He also lent it to Hermes to aid him in his jobas a discreet messenger for the gods and to Athena in the Trojan war.Unlike Zeus or Poseidon, never lending their thunderbolt or trident toanyone, Hades showed his compassion by allowing mere mortals to borrow his symbol of power. Also, his actions towards Persephone, while still questionable, are mild compared to the evil the other Olympians were capable of. For example, Zeus among numerous other defining ‘evil’ qualities was disloyal to his wife, Hera, often cheating on her and employing deception, bribes, threats, and trickery to hide his infidelity. He also kidnapped countless people female and male alike, flooded human settlements under the excuse of cleansing humanity which surely killed numerous kind and generous people, striked down mortals with his thunderbolt when in a bad mood, punished Prometheus with eternal pain from his eagles for giving fire to humanity, and had numerous romantic relationships that ended with tragedy, namely: Io, Semele, Europa, and countless more. Poseidon was no different. Poseidon raped and seduced Medusa in Athena’s temple and when Athena lashed back, he abandoned Medusa, terrified by her appearance despite the fact that he had caused it. He also drowned cities based on his emotional fluctuations, cursed and punished people who should not have merited such harsh treatment, was also disloyal to his wife seeking relationships with numerous mortals despite having a wife, and frequently caused natural disasters while conflicting with numerous gods due to his thirst for power. The female goddesses were no different. Aphrodite caused the Trojan war just because she desired to possess a golden apple while Hera cursed innocent mortals who had been seduced by Zeus,
rather than the latter. Demeter could be just as cruel as shown in the myth of Erysichthon where she made Erysichthon crave food until he ate himself due to the fact that he cut down a few of her sacred trees. Artemis destroyed whole villages when they forgot to give her a few pieces of fruit as offering. These cases clearly illustrate how Hades’ crimes are less serious in comparison to the other gods and goddesses’ atrocious behaviour. Therefore, in Ancient Greece, Hades was a lenient, kind, compassionate, and honest god.
However, this perception of him was greatly altered by the new rise in pop culture. The modern times took a significant toll on Hades’ reputation, ignoring his past exploits as an amiable god and forcing him into a facade of the devil, depicting him as evil, malevolent, and villainous, the antagonist in movies, animations, TV shows, pictures, paintings, and more. In the 1997 animation movie Hercules, Hades was the main
antagonist, a villainous character with flaming hair, a double chin,and a malicious heart. This is despite the fact that Hades had aidedHercules three times: allowing him to subdue Cerberus, aiding himin his hunt for the Erymanthian Boar, and helping him carry theburden of holding up the heavens in his quest to find the golden apple. Recent pop culture has also merged Hades and Satan, establishing them as one and the same despite the stark differences between the two. This can be attributed to Hades’ link to the underworld and death which supersedes all his good deeds in the eyes of the modern world leading to the inevitable depiction of him as a villain with horns sprouting from his head and a desire to destroy everything and wreak havoc.
One essential element that should be considered is the change in societal norms and views as previously mentioned in the introduction.The story of Persephone and Hades was written at a time where womenwere seen and treated like objects and men were free to exert powerover them. Therefore, Hades’ actions may have been interpreted asdashing and authoritative, the depiction of a male seizing control over a female’s life. While such views clash violently with rising feministvoices and illicit disgusted murmurs from people, this was theconventional way of thinking at that time. Hades could have been seenas a knight in shining armour, whisking Persephone away into a place ofnever depleting jewels and luxuries to rival the world above. In the paintings, Persephone, despite being kidnapped has an oddly tranquil and close to happy countenance with her arms splayed out dramatically as if she was enjoying herself instead of being kidnapped which further emphasises that this tale may have been far from a tale that shows Hades’ evil nature in the past. Therefore, when Hades is criticised and depicted in ways where his defining ‘evil’ characteristics are blown ridiculously out of proportion, his past acts of kindness and the perspective and intention of the writers in Ancient Greece must be considered in order to provide an unbiased, impartial decision on Hades once and for all.
Sophia (NLCS Jeju)
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