| Hades | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Other Names |
Pluto |
|
First Appearance |
Greek Myth |
|
Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
Hades was the king of the underworld and god of the dead. He presided over funeral rites and defended the right of the dead to due burial. Hades was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals.
In the ancient Greek religion and mythology, with which his name became synonymous of the underworld. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth (long the province of Gaia) available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side.
Hades desired a bride and petitioned his brother Zeus to grant him one of his daughters. The god offered him Persephone, the daughter of Demeter. However, knowing that the goddess would resist the marriage, he assented to the forceful abduction of the girl. When Demeter learned of this, she was furious and caused a great dearth to fall upon the earth until her daughter was returned. Zeus was forced to concede lest mankind perish, and the girl was fetched forth from the underworld. However, since she had tasted of the pomegranate seed, she was forced to return to him for a portion of each year.
After Cronus was overthrown by his sons, his kingdom was divided among them, and the underworld fell by lot to Hades. There he ruled with his queen, Persephone, over the infernal powers and over the dead in what was often called “the house of Hades,” or simply Hades. Though Hades supervised the trial and punishment of the wicked after death, he was not normally one of the judges in the underworld, nor did he personally torture the guilty, a task assigned to the Furies (Erinyes). Hades was depicted as stern and pitiless, unmoved by prayer or sacrifice (like death itself). Forbidding and aloof, he never quite emerges as a distinct personality from the shadowy darkness of his realm, not even in the myth of his abduction of Persephone.
Those dark and unknowable aspects were complemented by an opposite and beneficial aspect. The god of the underworld was usually worshipped under a euphemistic epithet such as Clymenus (“the Renowned”) or Eubouleus (“Good Counsellor”).
In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the word Hades is used for Sheol, denoting a dark region of the dead. Tartarus, originally denoting an abyss far below Hades and the place of punishment in the lower world, later lost its distinctness and became almost a synonym for Hades.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Hades from before January 1, 1930 are in the public domain in the US.
Notable appearances are listed here and below:
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter
- Theogony by Hesiod
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Humdinger vol. 1 #4
- Zip Comics #40
Notes[]
- The trope Everybody Hates Hades, means when a deity or mythological character that is related to themes such as death, destruction among others, is represented as evil, even if in its own source it is represented as neutral or even benevolent. Having multiple explanations of why this happens, the main ones being the comparison with Lucifer, Satan and Devil of the Christian religion or the fact of the common fear of death, among others. Obviously the trope was named because of how used Hades is as a villain in modern representations, being that originally he was a fairly neutral or even good figure.
- The Digimon Hadesmon was named after the Greek god Hades.
- The Japanese name of the One Piece manga character Silvers Rayleigh meaning Hades or Pluto.
Gallery[]
