So, you’ve escaped the underworld as Prince Zagrias and clashed a couple of times with titans above and below as Princess Melenoi.

As you’re kicking ass and seeking vengeance across ancient Greece, maybe you’re thinking, “Hey, this mythology stuff’s kind of cool.

Maybe a flash of curiosity has you open that old high school textbook on the classics gathering dust in the corner or scroll through a handful of wiki pages.

But then curiosity becomes confusion. These myths were born thousands of years ago. After all, Hades is a place, the underworld that’s sometimes called Arabus, sometimes Tartarus, but it’s also a deity.

And oh yeah, he’s also sometimes called Dispatter, sometimes Orcus, sometimes Pluto. Titans made the gods, but then they ate them.

And then they wared with them. The Olympians were 12. Fine, that’s not so much.

But they were a little too frisky and multiplied into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of gods impossible to keep track.

There’s Niads, Dryads, Niads, Orids, Oceananids. And with hard to pronounce names like Namosin, Apotus, and Jason, it can all be a little daunting.

So in this video, we’re going to tackle foundational Greek mythology that inspired the adventures of Zagrias and Melenoi.

Then talk of a son’s rebellion against his father to discover the truth of himself and his parentage and a daughter’s vengeance for her house as an ancient enemy usurps the underworld and threatens to topple Mount Olympus.

This is the complete story of Hades and Hades 2. It all began with this guy.

Homer was a poet of ancient Greece in at least the 8th century but possibly as far back as the 10th century BC who rose to prominence towards the end of the Greek dark ages a 400year period of societal collapse that followed the end of myian civilization.

In this age of cultural darkness the flame of Homer sparked and he’s credited with the authorship of Western antiquity’s greatest epics the Iliad and the Odyssey.

From these works came the best preserved accounts of Greek mythology. And Homer is the dry narrator of both Hades and Hades 2, whose sarcasm follows the characters as they journey.

In his Lord father’s very private chambers, Zagrias, the lock removing prince, discovers a most delicately painted likeness of none other than Pesphanany herself.

But it’s important to remember that Greek mytho history was shaped largely by oral tradition.

This manner of history is prone to amalgamation and as the years pass stories change shape.

Not to mention many different minds added their own accounts. All this to say there’s no one canon.

You can think of Greek mythology as a multiverse with several versions of any given character.

Another poet, Hessiad, who lived perhaps a generation or so after Homer, contributed greatly to our understanding of Greek creation myths through his work, The Theogy.

The third major source of inspiration for Hades and Hades 2 comes from the Orphic tradition.

Orpheus is himself a mythical figure, but a real cult and religion spread through the ancient world with writings attributed to him.

Orpheus had his own theogy different from Hessiods in many respects. Nearly 100 Orphic hymns dedicated to gods and forces.

Pendar, Uripides, Virgil, Avid, and others also wrote of myths. Some expanded on points while others contradicted them.

So, it’s near impossible to give precise accounts of mytho history. For the purpose of this video, we’ll focus on the three mentioned.

First, there was nothing but chaos, the primeval void above and below the earth from which the rest of the universe emerged.

For untold ages, chaos reigned in unbroken nothingness. But then, suddenly, two children emerged from the void.

Nyx, the goddess of night, and Arabus, lord of darkness. Again, silence ruled for ages.

But then from night and darkness came a child, aos or love, and suddenly the universe exploded in contrast.

Love brought forth light and radiant day in the form of ether and hemorra, children of Nyx and Arabus.

Along also came dim Tardus, the deepest foundation. As things took shape, a world was needed for things, especially humans, to dwell.

Two primordial deities arrived and set themselves apart from the rest of Greek cosmo mythology.

Nearly all gods are humanized in the Greek world, given traits, personalities, and appearances like mankind, except for Gaia, Mother Earth, and her husband Uranus, Father Sky.

Two others, sometimes children, sometimes siblings of Gaia, arrived in Ora, the mountains, and Pontis, the sea.

The earth and sky were ever present, foundational, critical for life. So, it makes sense that they’d be held in a different light.

The Earth, it is told, was formed naked, and so as covering, she created the starry sky as a blanket to cloak her.

Thus, Uranus is both child and husband to Gaia. The primordial couple birthed three different generations of children.

The first two were monsters, humanoid, but unnaturally large and powerful. The first generation were the hundhanded ones or hecaten curies, three giants with 50 heads and 100 arms each.

The second children were the cyclopes. Three brutes that each had one eye as large as a wheel and rose like mountains to sew ruin.

The third generation were respplendant, intelligent, and not entirely destructive. The Titans, 12 in number, six male and six female, who greatly shaped the earth and future.

Most of the 12 paired together and produced dozens more Titans as well as the incarnations of ideas or natural phenomena such as the moon and the sun, air, premonition and the mind.

Most of the ideas manifest appear in the Hades franchise as children of Nyx such as the Morai or three fates, hypnos, sleep manifest, Thanoos, death, nemesis, retribution and countless more.

The three fates were destiny incarnate. Cloth wo an individual’s faith. Lesus measured the length of their span and atropose cut the thread at the moment of death.

Destiny was a natural and universal law circumvented by neither mortal nor immortal. And so the morai held a special place as not even gods or titans could outmaneuver fate.

Thanoos brought graceful nonviolent death to mortals while Hypnos came with night to deliver blessed rest to all.

Another child of Nyx came in Keron, the Stigian boatman. Karon was responsible for delivering souls of the dead to the underworld and guided them along the waters of first the Aaron, the river of woe and pain, and then the sticks, barrier to the underworld, and the river of oaths, where many beings swore powerful obligations.

Karon didn’t perform his duties freely. In Greekerary rights, golden coins or oals were placed either on the mouth, the eyes, or under the tongue of the deceased to be used by their shade as payment for Karon’s ferry.

It was believed by many that those who couldn’t pay had to wait along the river banks for a century of purgatory before gaining access to Hades.

In the Anid, Virgil describes Kon, his eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire. A girdle foul with grease binds his obscene attire.

In the Hades games, Karon is a vendor who plies the underworld’s rivers and offers various wares to both Melenoi and Zagrias for due payment, of course.

Most other cathonic deities are intimidated by Karon, and he appears aloof, but has a unique partnership with Hermes.

This is because Hermes in myth is a psychop, a divinity with roles both on the earth and in the underworld.

Bike Keron, the messenger god, guides souls to Hades and interacts between realms. Nemesis ensured justice while her sister Aerys stirred strife.

[music] The youngest of Nick’s children, Aerys was despised by all for the damage she caused.

This age of Greek cosmology is difficult because most entities have both a personified and a nebulous form.

Tardus, for example, is both a god and also the deepest location in the underworld.

Hyperion is a titan of wisdom and in some myths, the literal son. In any event, the most significant plot in Hessiad’s theogy is the succession myth, whereby Uranus would be overthrown by his children, who would then be overthrown by their children.

Their father, Gray Torrenos, rejected his sons and nicknamed them titans, for he said they foolishly stretched to commit a great deed and would one day pay a price for their actions.

Uranus [music] despised his children, especially the hundred-handed ones, and bound them in Gaia’s secret corners while he ruled the cosmos.

Mother Earth groaned at the anguish of their imprisonment, and in anger, she fashioned an adamantian sickle and urged her Titan children to use the weapon against their father.

The Cyclopes and Titans all feared Uranus’s power, however, and refused. All except the youngest Titan, Cronis, who confronted Uranus and armed with his mother, Sickle, castrated his father.

Uranus’s castration and emasculation resulted in accession of the Titans and Cronis assumed his father’s position as ruler of the cosmos.

Cronis is himself a bit of a mystery as there was in myth the Titan Cronis but also time incarnate Kronos.

As centuries went, the two merged into a single deity, but at first Cronis bore little resemblance to Father Time and wasn’t even associated with the concept.

Now masters of reality, the Titan pairs under Cronis’ stewardship ushered in the mythological golden age and themselves produced more generations of gods.

The innumerable offspring of the 12 include the rivers, the sun, moon and stars, dawn, evening, the winds, Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and more besides.

The most critical in the succession myth, however, are the descendants of Cronis and his sister wife, Rehea.

After he seized power, his parents told Cronis of his doomed prophecy, just as he had overthrown Uranus.

Cronis would soon be usurped by his children. To prevent this, he did what any self-respecting father would do and ate his offspring as they were born instead of, you know, not having children in the first place.

From Hessiad, we hear great Cronis gulped the children down as soon as they emerged from kneeling Rya’s divine womb.

He wished to prevent Aranos’s famed children from becoming king over the immortals. For he learned from Gaia and Star Reanos that though he was strong, his own son was faded to overthrow him through the plans of great Zeus.

And this is where we get the strongest connection between the Titan and what he represents.

Just as time ravages all things, Kronos consumes all. He swallowed his children, Hera, Hestia, Demiter, Hades, and Poseidon without remorse.

The grieved Rhea spared her youngest child, Zeus, through deception. She carried him to the remote aisle of Cree, and in hisstead presented Kronos, with a heavy stone, tricked the Titan into believing it was his son, and offered it up to be devoured.

Zeus was raised in secret and under the toutelage of Rya and Gaia greatly increased his own power.

When he came of age, Zeus confronted his father and forced Cronis to disgorge his siblings.

He next liberated the cyclopes from their prison in the earth and as was awarded his famous power over lightning and the thunderbolt.

The three cyclopes were renowned smiths and fashioned for Poseidon his legendary trident and for Hades his helm of darkness.

Aided by the cyclopes his brothers and sisters, Zeus led the new gods against the old gods in a war over supremacy of the cosmos known as the titanomaki.

The war fractured the universe, upended the earth, and saw much destruction on both sides.

Into its 10th year. Zeus found and freed the hundred-handed ones whose support tipped conflict in the new god’s favor.

In a final flurry, the hundredhanders launched salvos of boulders and Zeus rained down an onslaught of thunderous lightning, defeating the titans.

But one final challenge presented itself in monstrous Typhon, offspring of Gaia and Tartarus. Described at times as a hundred-headed snake, a dragon breathing destruction, and at times a creature fell and foul like no other god or mortal, Typhon battled Zeus over supremacy of the cosmos.

He himself produced such monsters as the watchdog of the underworld, Cerberus, the hydra of Lerna, and the Chimera.

Armed with thunderbolts, Zeus made quick work of the monster and asserted his authority. The new gods imprisoned the old gods in the lowest depths of Tartarus and placed as their guardians the hundred handers.

Cronis specifically was torn to pieces and his essence spread far. Uranus’s curse came to fruition.

But this curse was cyclical. It was foretold that Zeus too would eventually be overcome by his children.

But Zeus was forewarned of this prophecy and to avoid its result consumed his first wife Mus before she birthed offspring.

And so Zeus became king of a new generation of gods. The 12 greatest and most influential of these known as the Olympians for their abode on Mount Olympus.

Zeus along with his brothers Poseidon and Hades drew lots for the domains in which they would rule while the earth would act as common ground where gods could go as they pleased.

Poseidon claimed dominion of the seas, Zeus of the sky, and Hades the underworld. There were also in ancient myth ages of man that corresponded with the rule of divinities.

The first age, the golden age, occurred while the titans still held power. These men fashioned by the gods from gold lived blessed and peaceful lives well beyond normal mortals.

The silver age followed with men still noble but less pure than the golden age.

Were fashioned by Zeus and the gods of Olympus. These men lived long as well but refused to worship their creators.

So Zeus angered at their impiiety destroyed them. Next came the Bronze Age, where men lived shorter, more brutal lives.

The passions of Aries were their domain, and they killed themselves in war. Not blessed like those before them, the Bronze Age men dwelt in Hades after death.

Next came the heroic age, a period of demigods, of noble hearts, and brave warriors.

This age contained the myths of the Trojan War of the Theban battles of Edipus, Thesius, Achilles, and more.

Finally, the Iron Age or the current age of man at the time of Greek antiquity.

This was the most base where men lived short lives and where no scruples ruled besides that of might makes right.

It was foretold at the end of this age Zeus too would destroy mankind. If you’ve spent any time at all perusing the genealogies of the world’s great monarchies, you realize something.

Families are complex. The Greek pantheon is a melting pot of incest and polygamy. Where husbands are sons and nephews, where wives are daughters, grandparents are cousins, and where children spawn from nothing.

So, let’s sift through this sludge of relationships to see the connections. First up, we have the 12 Olympian gods.

Zeus, as mentioned, was the youngest child of Titans Cronis and Rehea, but for his integral role in the Titanomachi was elected king of gods and ruler of Mount Olympus.

Zeus is the god of law, justice, sky, winds, lightning, and perhaps most importantly, rain.

Many experts believe that the figure of Zeus was born from earlier worship of a rain god.

Rain was critical to early mankind for it brought life, growth, food. Because it was so essential to survival, we can understand why Zeus became the king of gods.

He wields the thunderbolt [music] to punish enemies and guards himself with the legendary eegis.

The scale and the eagle are often his symbols. Zeus is husband to his sister Hera and father to many other Olympians as well as myriad deities and even demigods.

In fact, he’s a well-known philanderer. Many are the promiscuous accounts of Zeus’s lust and Hera’s jealous retribution against his lovers.

The stone Rya gave Cronis to save Zeus, the god of thunder, set in Deli after his father disgorged it, a sign and marvel to mortal men.

The oracle at Deli was most famous for prophecy and dooms in the ancient world.

In Hades, Zeus appears with flowing hair that billows like a raincloud and he grips his famous thunderbolt.

His boon does Zagrias charge attacks with lightning and cause a jolted effect on enemies.

To Meenoi, he grants the blitz curse, a thundercloud that strikes once targets suffer enough damage.

Unlike in some myths, the Zeus of Hades didn’t father Pphanie. Poseidon was the middle son of Cronis and Rehea, god of sea, storms, water, earthquakes, and horses.

His aotment gave Poseidon mastery of the waves. He wields the trident and is often depicted in a chariot drawn by hippocamps, mythological seahorses.

A Bellicos and ambitious god, Poseidon often offers competition to other deities in displays to prove himself.

He brings calm seas to his favored and whips torrancet to shipwreck his enemies. Though he supported the Greeks during the Trojan War, Odysius made an enemy of Poseidon when he blinded the Cyclops Polyphimis, who was one of Poseidon’s children.

The sea god hounded Odysius and delayed his return by 10 years. Myth claims Poseidon challenged Athena for primacy over the citystate of Athens and brought the shore up to the city’s walls so it could become a maritime power.

Athena’s gift, however, swayed them more and she became patron goddess of Athens. Mortals performed horse races and feats of strength to give thanks to Rockus Poseidon.

Other myths claimed the god of seas fathered hero Thesus, the paragon of Athens, and gave to Minos a white bull so that the man could claim the throne of Cree.

But when Mino slighted Poseidon, the god made his wife fall in love with the bull and give birth to the Minotaur, Asterius, whom we’ll discuss later.

In Hades, we see Lord Poseidon branishing his fame trident, and his headband is shaped like the mythological hippocamps.

His boons to Zagrias and Melenoi call forth the foaming surf. They cause knockback to foes and deal additional damage over time.

Hera was the youngest daughter of Kronis and Rheea, wife to Zeus and queen of the Olympians.

Hera is the goddess of marriage, maternal duty, and childbirth. A bit ironic given the infidelity of her husband.

As such, the queen of gods keeps an eye on Zeus and is often stirred to rage.

She takes his symbols, the peacock and cow, among others. She’s often depicted with a diadem and veiled as a married woman.

Hera is antagonist to many gods and heroes of mythology. She’s jealous of her husband and despises all the women Zeus has had affairs with, often hunting down them and their children.

Some of the most famous include a myth of god Dionis who by some accounts was born of the mortal Simi after liaison with Zeus.

Hera used deception to persuade Simile to demand that Zeus appear in his full divine form before her.

Sworn by an oath to obey, Zeus had to consent. But the raw power of his nature killed Simei.

The god took the fetus of Dionis and sewed it into his own thigh to birth his son later.

Hera is also hateful stepmother and namesake to the hero Heracles. She sent a pair of snakes to kill the infant, but Heracles throttled them.

And then later, Hera drove the hero to madness where he killed his family. For his part, Heracles also attacked Hara twice, delivering serious wounds to the goddess.

Their feud is woven through many legends. The Hera didn’t appear in the original Hades, but presents boons to Melenoi.

She bears a scepter with two rings bound, a symbol of marriage from which the feather of a peacock hangs, and her marital veil also resembles the long feathers of the bird.

Hera’s grace manifests in the hitch curse, which binds enemies together in suffering, a reference to union by marriage.

Hestia was the oldest of the siblings, the first consumed by Cronis and the last spit out.

She is the goddess of the hearth, home, fire, and domestic duty. She tends to the fire of Mount Olympus and receives the first sacrifices on mortal altars.

Hestia is one of the few virgin goddesses who took no husband and are purported to be immune to Aphrodite’s power.

Though both Poseidon and Apollo had at times approached her for her hand in marriage.

Many myths claim that it was Hestia who renounced her place on Olympus proper for the arrival of Dionis.

In Hades 2, Hestia has a braier full of coals balanced at top her head and holds a stoker, both symbols of hearth and home.

She offers incendiary boounds that cause scorch on enemies and defensive upgrades to improve magic and health.

In the Hades games, Hestia, Demiter, and Hera aren’t children of Kronis and Rhea, but rather Hyperion, Titan of the Sun, and Thea, Titaness of Earth’s minerals.

Last of the first generation of Olympians is Deer, the middle daughter of Cronis and Rehea.

She is the goddess of agriculture and fertility with power over the seasons and the critical life-giving harvest.

She has at various times been a lover to both her brother Poseidon and brother Zeus with whom she had a daughter named Pphanie.

Deer takes a symbol wheat, cornucopia, and the torch to highlight her bounteous nature. While Pracphanany resides in the underworld, Demiter ushers in frost and refuses to let plants grow.

She and Dionis are both harvest deities and as such were essential to ancient Greek worship.

Their food provided life and nourishment, but so too are they connected to death. In the cycle of the seasons, things come and grow, but they must also wither and pass.

It’s painful and somber, and the stories of both Demiter and Dionis manifest such emotions.

They are the two gods with such visceral attachment to how fleeting life can be.

In Hades, Demiter appears bearing a cornucopia behind her and is surrounded by shafts of wheat, both symbols of the harvest.

In Hades 2, she also holds a scythe with which to reap the earth’s grain.

Her boons inflict chill and frost. Hers is the relentless coming of fell winter. The second generation of Olympian gods are born from either Zeus or Hera and only occasionally from both members of the ruling couple.

Some cosmologies claim Aphrodite emerged from the blood of Uranus’s genitals as it mixed with the oceans, while others claim she is the child of Zeus and an oceanid.

Regardless of birth, Aphrodite is the goddess of love, pleasure, passion, beauty, and desire. Her rapturous powers claim the hearts of mortals and even gods.

And her symbols include the dove, rose, apple, and bee. Aphrodite is wife to Hestus.

Though like Zeus, she’s had many amorous affairs with other gods, most notably Aries. And even with mortals, as was the case in the myth of Adonis, the most beautiful man in all the ancient world.

Aphrodati alongside Hera and Athena are the three women goddesses whose quarrel led ultimately to the Trojan War, a myth we’ll cover when speaking of Ays, Strife incarnate.

And so she features heavily in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Anid. We’re told that Helios, the sun god, happened upon Aries and Aphrodite making love in the bed of her husband, Hephestus.

Helios told of the adultery, and Hesus crafted a net to trap them both, then brought all the gods before them to laugh at their shame.

Poseidon, stirred by sympathy, eventually ransomed Aries release. Aphrodite, this time under the Roman name Venus, is mother of Anias.

She was made to fall in love with the mortal shepherd and Kises of Troy, father to Anias, who survives the fall of Troy and ultimately founds Rome.

Aphrodite is closely associated with OS, god of love, and lustful passions, and also had attendance in the three graces, splendor, cheer, abundance, and the three hours, order, justice, and peace.

In Hades, Aphrodite appears naked as she was most often depicted and her boons inflict weak on foes, an illusion for her ability to cause frenzied love and make others lose their senses.

It’s interesting that in Hades 2, Aphrodati wields spear and shield and war paint, possibly a reference to her liaison with Aries, but also it could be referenced to a more warlike side of the goddess Aphrodite Ara, who stirs lust for blood.

Athena is a goddess of wisdom and warfare. She’s the only child of Zeus and his first wife, Mus.

Though the king of gods consumed his wife before she could give birth, legend goes that Athena emerged spontaneously from Zeus’s forehead, fully formed and cloaked in warlike reignment.

The wise owl and diplomatic olive branch are her symbols. Athena is responsible for the transformation of Medusa and her sisters into Gorgans and also that of Arachnne into the first spider after the two parttook in a weaving competition.

She was the patron deity of Athens and beloved by all its people. In myth, she’s described as having gleaming and piercing eyes, words that in Greek share cognate with the owl, a bird with its own glittering eyes.

And perhaps that’s where this connection comes from. Owls are also symbols of wisdom. The olive branch, a symbol of diplomacy and prosperity, became Athena’s after she defeated Poseidon in competition over patronage of the city Athens by granting the citizens domesticated olive trees to cultivate.

The famous Parthonon of the Acropolis is dedicated to her. She’s often depicted in armor and shield, ready to lead her people to war.

But unlike Aries, Athena demonstrates restraint in combat, the virtues of justice and moral heroism rather than barbaric bloodletting.

Athena is the goddess of Greek heroes. Her aid playing significant roles in the myths of such famous warriors as Jason and his Argonauts.

Perseus, slayer of monsters and founder king. Thesius, the hero of Athens, and Heracles, strongest of mortals.

Athena appears to Zagrias in her armor and shield, bearing the wise owl on her hand.

The exposed status of her boons demonstrates Athena’s prowess in battle, and she also offers defensive boounds to shield Zagrias.

In Hades 2, Athena’s busy fighting Kronos and only appears on Mount Olympus. Her Eegis this time bears Medusa’s Gorgon head, an illusion to the myth of Perseus.

Next is Artemis, goddess of the hunt, archery, sometimes night in the moon and the wilds.

She’s a child of Zeus and the goddess Leato, whose beauty attracted the storm lord’s notice, as is her twin brother, Apollo.

Her symbols include bow and arrow, the moon, and various woodland animals. Artemis is another virgin goddess.

Her domain is health and well-being, especially towards the protection of women. Artemis traveled often with a band of chased nymphs who enjoyed the hunt but would furiously attack any who disgraced nature or failed to maintain its harmony.

She aided Troy during the Trojan War after King Agamemnon of the Greeks incurred her wrath and even fought against terror.

In Hades, Artemis bears all the symbols of her myth. She carries bow and arrow, is surrounded by woodland animals, wears pelts of her hunts, and has a necklace and headband that hearken to the moon and its cycle.

Her boons offer the marked curse, which increases critical chances and highlights her skill as a marksman.

In Hades 2, Artemis is one of the unseen and the silver sisters due to her connection with the moon.

Her brother Apollo is the god of the sun, light, truth, music, and foresight. He is claimed to be the most beautiful of the gods, and also an eracular deity of prophecy who understands well the weaving of the fates.

His symbols include bow and arrow, raven, and most importantly, the liar, the musical instrument he supposedly created.

His domain of foresight made Apollo the patron deity of the Oracle at Deli, and he’s often described as an averter of evils.

Some myths claim the twins invented archery, and Apollo can deliver cures as well as illnesses with the tip of his arrows.

As the god of music, poetry, and dance, Apollo often accompanies the muses, the nine goddess daughters of Zeus and Namosin, who were inspiration and creativity manifest.

Apollo and the sun god Helios shared many overlapping traits and as time went on the two merged into a single deity.

Apollo didn’t appear in Hades but AIDS Melenoi and flashes in golden light wielding his bow with strings that mimic the liar or harp.

His boon curse is days which makes it difficult for enemies to land hits as if they stared too long at the sun.

As court musician, Apollo appears in the palace of Olympus alongside Zeus and Hera. Then there’s Aries, the god of war, blood, and manly virtue.

He’s the son of Zeus and Hera. As such, he’s of a noble pedigree. But even so, Aries is despised by all the gods for the violence he stirs in their hearts.

Only Aphrodite accepts him, and she is the goddess with whom he has liaison. Aries symbols include the spear and shield, boar and dog.

Most viewed Aries with ambivalence. War was a necessary part of life in the ancient world, but it was feared for the death and destruction it caused.

Prayers to Aries might have been said on battlefields, but more often he was hated as there are several uncovered statues of him bound in chains restraining his blood lust.

Zeus says to him, “To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus.

Forever quarreling is dear to your heart. Wars and battles.” And even the Spartans, famed warrior society, invoked Athena’s name more than Aries.

He fought alongside Troy in the Trojan War, but was defeated by his sister, Athena.

In Hades, Aries appears bearing all his symbols of war. Sword, shield, helmet, and armor, and gifts boounds that increase combat effectiveness.

His boon curses doom and wounds allow Meleninoi and Zagrias to deal even more damage to injured foes.

Hestus is the god of the forge and fire. Like Aphrodati, his origins are obscured as some claim he’s a son of Hera and Zeus, while others purport Hera bore him alone to get vengeance at her husband.

Regardless, Hesus takes his wife Aphrodite. But due to a birth defect which plagued him with lameness, he was cast from Mount Olympus.

Another myth claims he saved his mother Hera from Zeus’s advances and was thus thrown from Olympus, irreparably damaging his legs.

He’s the god of blacksmiths of crafting and metallurgy and also invention. His symbols include hammer, anvil, and tongs.

Fesus was the private blacksmith for Olympus and forged most of the god’s weapons and armor.

One addict myth concerns return from exile. Angered that his mother threw him out, the god fashioned a throne of gold that once her set upon it prevented her from standing up.

He refused all pleas to return to Olympus until Dionis, god of wine, made him intoxicated.

He promised to release Hera only if he could have Aphrodite’s hand in marriage. The union of Hesus and Aphrodite is quite interesting as we have the literal embodiment of beauty and sexual desire tied to someone whom others viewed as a gross [ __ ] Other myths claim Zeus offered Aphrodite to Hesus so no other gods would quarrel over her.

Though she had many affairs, her husband was loyal and loved Aphrodite. Hestus forged her beautiful jewelry, ornaments, and even a device to enhance her bust.

So was the first bra invented. Hesus didn’t appear in Hades, but aids Meleninoi in Hades, too.

We see him, hammer in hand, sitting in a wheelchair with a prosthetic as illusion to his lameness.

Aesus’ boounds are geared towards defense, granting armor or imbuing Melenoi’s weapons with power, and his snare rains down hammers on caught enemies.

Fleefooted Hermes is the god of travel, commerce, and diplomacy. His role is messenger to all other gods.

Hermes often guides the souls of the dead towards the river sticks and is thus connected to the underworld.

He’s a son of Zeus and the nymph Maya who takes as his symbol the snake twined staff, winged sandals and the stork.

Many myths tell of Hermes tricks and thievery. Some report he either invented the liar or stole it from half brother Apollo and others tell how his speed created many games and races.

As messenger of the gods, Hermes could venture anywhere in the cosmos. His widespread travels corresponding with trade and merchants.

One of Hermes most famous roles is in the myth of Pandora. After the Titan Prometheus, whom we’ll cover later, granted humanity the gods stolen fire in angered Zeus planned retribution.

He had her festus create the first woman, Pandora, and each god attributed her certain guiles and gifts.

Hermes was said to have given her a deceitful nature and the power of speech.

The god then brought her alongside her box of plagues to the titan Epimetheus as wife.

When opened, Pandora’s box scattered all the ills of mankind. But it was closed before the last gift, hope, could escape.

In Hades, Hermes goes between the surface and the underworld with messages, and he’s also in business with Kon, which hearkens to his role as a god of commerce.

He wears his winged sandals and bears his famous staff. Hermes boons enhance either Zagrias and Melenoi’s speed, or else make it easier to gather coin on their missions.

Dionis is the 13th Olympian and occasionally included as one of the 12 in replacement of Hestia.

He’s the youngest of the gods. Dionis is the god of wine, debauchery, madness, festivity, and ecstasy.

Born of Zeus and a mortal woman, he’s the only Olympian to be tied to mortality.

Dionis’s symbols include the grapevine, the cup, leopard, and goat among many others. Also called Bacus, the god of wine represented the freedom from self-consciousness that alcohol ensures and its marrynt besides, but also when taken to extremes, the destruction in drunkenness.

Dionis is one of the more confusing gods as there are several conflicting origin myths and he’s had many deaths and rebirths.

In most he has a semi-deine birth from Zeus’s liaison with the mortal Simei, though some claim he was an underworld son of Pphanie.

Many accounts also relate his wide travels abroad, his invention of wine, and his eventual return to Greece as an outsider.

Dionis often defends his godhood and cult against disbelief. He’s frequently captured or thought to be something other than a god, and he proves himself through divine power.

He’s the center of the Orphic tradition and connected to Zagrias, which we’ll talk about shortly.

Cults of his worshippers, especially single women, were infamous throughout ancient Greece for their madness.

And Virgil’s Anid tells of how they’re to be avoided at all costs. In Hades, Dionis’s wreath in ivy and grapes carrying his mystical wine.

His boon status hangover illustrates the dangerous potential of consuming too much from the god of realry.

Besides the gods of Olympus, there also exist Cathonic deities, those who dwell in the underworld or beneath the earth and are connected to the cyclic nature of both life and death.

Chief among these is Hades, firstborn son of the titans Cronis and Rehea, whose allotment after the war was to administer the underworld.

As lord of the dead and king of the underworld, Hades name became synonymous with his domain.

He’s cold but not cruel and delivers justice without malice for his role is necessary in the universe.

Hades wields a bidant and his helm of darkness while he presides over souls in the underworld and guards vigilantly against those attempting to escape his domain.

The Stigian symbol found throughout Hades represents the gods bidant, but also the twisting connection between life and death.

And at least to me, infinity represented in the underworld. And the heaps of paperwork, construction, administrative duties, all represent how the god of myth is dedicated to keeping balance between the upper earth and the underworld.

The three-headed hound, Cberus, is Hades faithful companion and watchdog of the gates to the underworld.

Early myths report the hound had 50 or 100 heads. As a child of the monster Typhon and the snake beast Ikidna, Cerberus also used to be depicted as part snake or with snake heads.

Praphanie, a daughter of Zeus and Demiter and niece to Hades, is also his wife and queen of the underworld.

She is the goddess of vir and spring, also known as Corey or the maiden.

She dwells on the surface for half the year. Her arrival in the underworld corresponds with winter on the surface.

And when she returns, the earth blossoms with life. We’ll soon discuss Pphanie and Hades most famous myth, which covers how the pair became married.

Like her mother, Demiter, Pphanie is an agricultural goddess critical for yield and abundance. She also carries sheets of grain as her symbol.

Praphanie’s role in Hades is critical to the story and a time will come to discuss it at length.

But one thing worth noting is that in the game she isn’t the child of Zeus and Demiter, but rather Demiter in an unnamed mortal farmer.

Nyx, the primordial incarnation of Knight, has many overlapping roles with Hades and so is found in close association with him and the underworld.

As one of the primordial deities, accurate definitions or descriptions of Nyx are difficult as she’s by nature incomprehensible.

But Nyx was closely associated with her other celestial children, Ether, upper sky, and Hemorra day, who guided a chariot across the horizon that also included siblings Seleni, the moon, Helios, the sun, and Eos, dawn, to denote the passing of the dayight cycle.

Nyx, though missing in most of Hades 2, appears in Hades to aid Zagrias. Her dark cloaks, dazzling headdress, and jewels of darkness all evoke night incarnate.

Through herself or through her relationship with Arabus, the Lord God of Darkness, Nyx has birthed many other Cathonic deities besides the already mentioned fates, Thanos, and Hypnos.

Moros, Doom incarnate, is envoy of the three fates. He’s a god of prophecy and portent, visiting mortals in the moments before doomfalls them.

Like Hades and Thanoos, his aotment is sad, but he is not cruel, a necessary part of the universe.

The Arines, also known as the Furies, are sister goddesses of vengeance that dwell in the underworld and mercilessly hound those found guilty of ethical crimes or immoral behavior.

Some claim the furies emerged from the blood of Uranus that fell to the earth during his castration.

Others hold that they are daughters of Hades and Nyx and still others that they are children of Hades and Pphanany.

Regardless of origin, they are among the oldest inhabitants of the underworld. Most often they’re portrayed as three sisters, Alto, Megara, and Tiffany, and are described with serpent hair, terrible visages who leave fear and woe in their wake.

The two most important myths in Hades come from the Orphic tradition and are concerned with the origins of Zagrias and Melenoi.

Zagrias also called the first Dionis is the central deity of the Orphic mysteries and covers themes of suffering, death and reincarnation.

This god was born in cree men say of Zeus and Pphanany and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory writes that he was torn in pieces by the titans.

Zeus in the form of a dragon or serpent seduced Pphanie who birthed the prince Zagrias.

So cherished by Zeus was the infant that the king of Olympus declared Zagrias his successor and even had him sit on the throne with Thunderbolt in hand.

This stirred Zeus’s wife Hera to wrath who then instigated the Titans to seize the boy.

They tricked Zagrias into giving up his thunderbolt with toys and mirrors that attacked the young prince, shredding him to pieces and consuming him.

Athena preserved Zagrias’s divine heart, which she showed to Zeus, who then turned the Titans to ash with his thunderbolt.

It said the soot of the Titans gave rise to sinful mortal man, whose only hope of salvation is preserved in the immortal heart of Zagrias.

Myth claims that Zagrias’s heart was then implanted in the child of mortal Simi, who by Zeus gave birth to the god Dionis.

Same was kept for a more brilliant union. For already Zeus ruling on high intended to make a new Dianisis grow up, a bull-shaped copy of the older Dionis since he thought with regret of the ill- fated Zagrias.

This reincarnation pairs well with other Dionian myths as the god of the vine is a harvest deity and tied to the nature of seasonal life and death.

The Orphic hymn to Melenoi is the only surviving textual reference to this deity. She was the frightening underworld goddess of prophecy and propitiation of the spirit world.

Followed by a train of shades, Melenoi often visited in dreams or darkness and caused insanity through nightmares.

She also was child of Pphanie and Zeus who used disguise to appear as Hades and infiltrate Praphanie’s bed chamber.

When the queen of the underworld learned the truth, nothing could contain her wrath. And it said that all Pphanie’s fury into her child born on the banks of the Kakitis, the river of lamentation.

Hence partly black thy limbs and partly white from Pluton dark from Zeus ethereal bright.

Thy colored members men by night inspire when seen in spectred forms with terrors dire now darkly visible involved in night.

Puspicious now they meet the fearful sight. Melenoi’s appearance vexed mortals who offered many sacrifices to plate the goddess of madness.

In some myths, Melenoi is simply another name for the goddess Hecati, and there is substantial overlap in their powers in witchcraft, necromancy, affiliation with night and the moon.

Another story essential to understanding the Hades franchise, is the rape of Pphanie, most famously told in the home hymn to Demiter.

In this myth, Pphanie, goddess of springtime and daughter of Deer, is abducted by Hades and dragged to the underworld.

Hades fell in love with Praphanany and wished to marry her. He approached his brother Zeus, who secretly aided the abduction.

The young goddess was playing in a meadow full of flowers. But as she reached to pluck one, the wide pathed earth yawned there in the plane of Nissa.

And the Lord Hades with his immortal horses sprang out upon her, the son of Cronis.

He caught her up reluctant on his golden car and bore her away, lamenting. As Hades chariot sped off, the spring goddess let out a cry that was heard by none but the gods Hecati and Helios.

For many days, Demiter searched the world over for her missing daughter, but to no avail.

So distressed by Pphanie’s disappearance and obsessed with her return was Demiter that the goddess of the harvest gave up her duties.

Terrible chill descended upon the earth. Crop would not yield and mortals [music] suffered. Finally Zeus sent Hermes to retrieve Pphanany so that a reunion might return reason to Demiter.

While in Hades, Pphanany hadn’t been mistreated, but rather honored by the god of the dead, who offered her position as wife to him and queen of the underworld.

The two were joyful and united. But before her departure, Hades gave Pphanie pomegranate seeds to eat.

The pomegranate is symbol of the underworld and holds great power. After ingesting them, Pphanie was bound to the underworld.

So though she journeys to the surface in springtime and resides there half the year, Pphanany must return to the underworld and her throne the second half.

Her leave causes Deer to grow cold, uncaring, and bring forth dread winter. Thus are the origins of the seasons.

One final myth worth mentioning is that of Hecati, who plays a prominent role in Hades 2.

In many accounts, Hecate is a goddess, sometimes a Titan s associated with several domains.

Depicted often in triplicate form with twin lanterns to illuminate. Hecati is goddess of the crossroads.

Crossroads are important features. They act as boundaries between spaces and ideas, but also inflection points between possible paths, directions, futures.

Hecati manifests these. She’s a deity of boundaries, mostly between the living earth and the underworld, but also in the shadow that separates light from darkness.

According to Virgil, Hecati possessed keys to the gates of the underworld and was equally powerful in the heavens and in Hades.

She is an interesting goddess. Her appearance, her powers, her lineage all remain nebulous. Yet, there’s strong evidence to support she was a widespread household deity.

Though seldom mentioned directly, she was prevalent across antiquity. It’s as if nature mirrors her myth, always happy to dwell in the peripheral shadow, away from the spotlight.

Orphic hymns and Hessiods the give great difference to Hecati, purported to hold domain over Earth, sea, and sky.

She was believed by some to have been as powerful as Zeus and as important as Deer.

Her nocturnal nature eventually hardened into belief that she was a goddess of witchcraft, of potions and poisons, of death, the night and the moon.

One myth of Hecati calls her a triplicate goddess whose three forms are Luna or Seleni, Diana or Artemis, and Proerena or Pphanany.

In Hades 2, this connection between the goddesses is displayed in the silver sisters organization.

A most important story claims that during the rape of Praphanany, Hecati, rather than Demiter, was the only god who went searching through earth and the underworld for the missing goddess.

She guided Pphanie back to the surface using her lanterns and then promised to act as the queen of the underworld’s adviser and administrator.

Hecates also closely associated with the goddess of shades and nightmares, Melenoi. And in fact, some traditions claim the two are conflated for the same individual.

Melenoi being a lesser form or different name for the Titan S. Other characters of renown, gods, locations, and myths appear throughout both games, but this should give us a foundational understanding of the world in which Zagrias and Melenoi [music] find themselves.

>> Few tales are told of Hades, whose very name inspires fear and penitence. Reminding us of the inevitable fate which we all share.

I however mean to tell you such a tale. Listen carefully. Goodbye, father. Hades throws us straight into the action and the middle of the story.

Zagrias, prince of the underworld and son of Hades, shatters the window of his father’s house and sews havoc throughout Tartarus.

Zagrias fits the classic mold of a petulant child who at every corner rebelss against his parents’ command, mostly for his own amusement.

The prince despises the administrative duties thrust upon him by Hades and spent much of his early life drowning beneath piles of death certificates, renovation contracts, or stuck at a cramped desk, dispensing judgment on the shades of perished mortals.

Essentially, his existence was a drag. Zagrias was surrounded by other Cathonic deities as a child, but heard occasional tales of his extended family, the lords and ladies who dwelt on Mount Olympus and embodied to the prince’s mind everything a god should be.

They ruled through power rather than paper. And Zagrias decides to finally pull himself out of his father’s shadow, escape the underworld, and reconnect with his estranged family.

This is no easy task. The self-described chief of security tests his father’s defenses by attempting to flee Hades.

Death isn’t an end, simply the beginning of another triad escape. His journey takes Zagrias across the many regions of the underworld and against some of its most famous denisens.

Zagrias begins in the House of Hades. Here, his father holds courts surrounded by shades of the dead and constantly berates his rebellious son.

>> Stupid boy. I told you nobody gets out of here, whether alive or dead, >> how is your want and ransacking of my domain?

>> Several allies aid Zagrias, or at least don’t interfere with his mission. Chief among them is the shade of Achilles, a famed demigod and Greek hero who led the Mermadons against Troy during the 10-year Trojan War.

Myth claims he was dipped by his mother Thetus in the river sticks while performing an incantation that made Achilles invulnerable everywhere except the ankle by which she held him.

He defeated the hero Hector but was slain by Hector’s brother Paris who let loose an arrow guided by Apollo that hit Achilles heel.

As a shade, Achilles was employed by Hades to train and mentor young Zagrias. In exchange, Hades allowed the hero’s lover, Patrick, entry into Allesium.

Achilles is the author of the Codeex Zagrias uses in his journey. Then there are the twins Hypnos and Thanoos.

The immature embodiment of sleep, constantly struggles against it. In myth, Hypnos is depicted as a winged youth and often follows his mother, Nyx, bringing sleep to mortals and gods.

As night descends, he welcomes newly arrived shades to the House of Hades and constantly gives Zagrias unasked for advice.

>> Wait, I know you. Guess that means you died out there, huh? Well, don’t be sad, though.

Pretty much everybody dies sometime. >> Thanos, death incarnate, is solemn and meticulous. His work often takes him to the surface where he offers peaceful passing to mortals.

In myth, he’s described as having a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitilous as bronze.

Whomsoever of men he has once seized, he holds fast, and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.

In Hades, Thanos appears and offers competition to Zagrias based on how many opponents they fell.

As the story progresses, he betrays his oath to Hades and helps Zagrias escape. Then there is Duca, the disembodied head of the Gorgon Medusa.

Born from primordial sea gods, the Gorgans were three monstrous sisters with fearsome visages who could turn men to stone with their gaze.

Of the three, only Medusa was mortal, and she was slain by the hero Perseus during his adventures with Athena.

In reverence to the deity, Perseus gifted Athena the head, which she placed on her Eegis for both protection and to frighten others.

In Hades, Duca is a simple maid, perhaps only the memory of Medusa’s soul. She claims that the blood spilled from her death gave rise to the gorgans found in Asphodel.

Nyx, mother knight, also resides within the house. Nyx is described as a blackroed goddess who drives through the sky on her chariot to cloak day in darkness.

She dwells at the ends of the earth. She was one of the first beings brought into existence and so great was her renown that even Zeus feared to displease her.

In Hades, Nyx rules the underworld alongside Hades and acts the mother to Zagrias. She’s made an oath to protect and assist the prince and to that end gives him the mirror of night for Zagrias to reach his true potential.

Finally, there is Meora, first of the Furies. The Furies are responsible for bringing adulterers, oathbreakers, murderous thieves, and all those guilty of transgressions to justice.

Born of the blood of Uranus, the Furious had snakes for hair, could shapeshift, and sought greatest vengeance against those who did harm to their own families.

In Hades, Nagura remains pledged to the house, and she’s tasked personally by Hades with stopping Zagrias.

She doesn’t do it out of spite or malice, but out of duty’s bond. Besides the boons offered by his remote family on Olympus, Zagrias is aided by Datalus hammers and palms of power.

The hammers are a reference to the genius of myth Datalus who was an Athenian unequaled in crafts and smithing.

He created the labyrinth of Cree for King Menos to imprison the Minotaur. More on that story later.

And apparently invented carpentry along with its tools, moving statues or automatons, and also the wings with which he and his son Icarus attempted to escape their own imprisonment.

These datalless hammers are boons from the craftsman to refine Zagrias’s infernal arms. The palms of power, meanwhile, are illusions to the fruit pomegranate, which featured in the rape of Pphanie myth.

Pomegranate’s a symbol of life, death, regeneration, all themes that parallel Zagrias’s own myth and to consume the underworld fruit aids him greatly.

The first task after leaving the house of Hades is to overcome the spirits of lowest Tarteus.

This once was prison for threats to the gods, but later became the region where sinful souls were judged and punished.

It was believed a bronze anvil falling from heaven would take 9 days to reach earth and nine more to reach Tardus.

It’s the foundation of the underworld and the river sticks meanders in and around it.

Its evershifting chambers create a maze so shades of the most sinful can’t flee. In myth, Toddus was primordial child of Gaia and Ether, who was also a prison for the hundred-handed ones, Encyclopedes, and later the Titans.

One ally here appears to aid Zagrias. Cisphus, the founder and one-time king of Corinth, also called Aira.

In mythology, Cisphus betrayed the secret confidence of Zeus, so stirred the god’s wrath, who sent Thanoos to kill him.

Cisphus was a cunning man and cheated death twice. First chaining Thanoos and later after he died, convincing Hades to allow him to return to the surface.

When finally he was caught, Seisphus was brought to Tardus and forced to endure eternal feudal labor by pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down.

Zagrias can find the king of Corinth and his boulder, and he offers a boon as the prince escapes.

Your father sent me. All in all, I’d rather be on your bad side than his.

Now you can turn back like a good little man, or I can send you home the painful way.

>> What will it be? >> I’ll have to go with the painful way. >> To leave Tarteus, Zagrias must fight one of the three furies.

In myth, the Arinees dwell in Arabus and are older than the Olympian deities. They’re described as cloaked in black, a monstrous mix between gorgans and harpies, and often considered a single entity.

In Hades, each has a different domain. Mega, the oldest, punishes oath breakers and has the closest relationship with Zagrias.

Tiffany, tormentor of murderers, is quite unstable and speaks only murder. Alto, the youngest, is the punisher of passion, especially anger and love.

That they drop Titan blood upon defeat is a call back to their mythological origins.

Zagrias must then navigate the smoldering fields of Asphodel, watched by the ever splitting bone hydra.

In Greek myth, the Asphodel Meadows are where ordinary souls dwell, neither evil nor inspired in life.

Some tales describe it as a gray misty expanse of fields and meadows, while others claim it’s a molten landscape choking on ash.

Its name hearkens to the asphodel flower which supposedly dotted this region. In Hades, the once verdant plains of Asphodel are now engulfed in scintillating flame, having been flooded by the river Flethon.

And the CEX entry describes it. Asphodel is the vastest region of the underworld, not dissimilar in ways from soaring surface plains, save for the presence of the ever burning river Flethon.

This river is one of the five of the Greek underworld known as the river of fire.

The mythical ally of this region is Uritysy, singing and light-hearted muse of Orpheus. In Greek tradition, the story of Uritysy is also the story of Orpheus, greatest of mortal musicians, whose liar enchanted all, and who was reportedly more skilled than even Apollo.

On the surface, Uritysy was sometimes described as a nymph, sometimes a mortal woman, who was the beloved wife of Orpheus.

One day, Uritysy stepped on a viper, was bitten, and succumbed to its venom. Orpheus was so distraught he braved the depths of the underworld to return his wife to life.

In the chamber of Hades, Orpheus composed music so moving and heart-rending that Hades, Pphanany, and even the Furies were driven to tears.

Hades promised the musician he could reclaim Uritysy, but commanded Orpheus blindly guide his wife to the surface and claimed that if he dare looked back, she would be dragged to the underworld.

Orpheus took Uritysy far, but on the threshold of the surface, he stole a glance back to make sure Hades hadn’t deceived him.

Uritysy slipped from his grasp and dwelt forever more in the afterlife. Some myths claim that after Orpheus died, their shades were finally reunited.

And the figure of Orpheus, especially his descent to and return from the underworld, are critical in the Orphic cult religion.

In Hades, Zagrias finds Uritysy in Asphodel while Orpheus’s shade dwells in Hades house as the court musician.

>> You called upon your humble court musician as I understand. >> Well, Orpheus, if you’re quite finished with your little stint with >> But without his muse wife, Orpheus cannot perform.

Zagrias mediates the couple’s wrongs and helps them reconcile. Asphidel’s guardian is the bone hydra whom Zagrias playfully calls Lernie after its inspiration, the Hydra of Lerna.

In myth, the Hydra was a spawn of Typhon, a monstrous serpent whose heads grew back two-fold if one was ever severed, and who terrorized the region of Lerna.

One of Heracles 12 labors included slaying the hydra by wrapping all its heads together, then cutting them in one swing.

In Hades, the undead remains of the hydra stalk Asphel’s lava, its skin melting in hot flows to reveal only bone.

The prince must then triumph against souls of righteous heroes in Allesium, the highest and most serene place of the underworld, where those deemed worthy dwell in eternal paradise.

As the CEX tells us, only the great get in. Many mortals strive for greatness all their lives, never quite realizing there’s no existing formula for it, not even a specific definition for it.

In Greek mythology, heroes and those blessed by the gods were allowed entry into this afterlife.

Some claimed it was at the edge of the earth by allencompassing oceanis, while others claimed it was a series of fortunate isles beyond Troy.

In the underworld, Allesium was said to border the Leafy River, another of the five mythical rivers.

This one known as the waters of forgetfulness. Tradition held that only shades who drank its waters and forgot their past lives could be reincarnated back to the upper earth.

Though most all of Allesium’s shades continue to partake in feats of glory, one unnamed shade meditates in his own misery.

Guilt eats him, though he offers Zagrias boons. Only if looking into the CEX or speaking with Achilles while wearing the bracers of the Merrmadons is it revealed that this shade is Patrick, Achilles partner and companion during the epic Trojan War.

In death, the pair are separated and Patrick sank into depression after taking Achilles place in Allesium while his lover resides in Tartarus.

Ellesium’s guardian is actually a pair of individuals, Thesius and Asterius, whose stories are entwined in myth.

According to the ancient Greeks, Thesius was a great hero comparable to Heracles, although greater in wisdom and cunning rather than raw strength.

These traits were prized by Athens, the city that claimed him as their paragon. Some legends tell Thesius was the son of Aius, king of Athens.

Though he was raised in exile without knowing his own identity. When Thesius discovered his noble heritage, he sought out the king, who was married to Medadia, a powerful witch and sorceress, whom we’ll talk about later.

She nearly poisoned Thesius. But Aius knew instantly upon looking at him that Thesius was his son, and the two embraced.

The Athenian hero is most remembered for his slaying of Asterius, the bull of Minos, also called Minotaur.

When King Minos slighted the gods, they cursed his wife to fall in love with the bull and mate with it.

Her child was born half man, half bull Asterius. The monster ate people for sustenance.

So Minos had renowned smith Datalus construct the labyrinth as Asterius’s prison. A maze no one, not even the architect, could escape.

Mino sent his aisle of Cree or Suzarin to Athens and every nine years demanded the best and bravest youths be sent to Cree and sacrificed to the Minotaur.

Thesius disguised himself and joined a bunch of Athenians to be sacrificed. With the aid of Minos’s daughter, Ariadne and advice of Datalus, Thesius navigated the labyrinth and decapitated Asterius after a great battle.

In Hades, Zagrias must fight the pair in Allesium’s arena, and they seem to be companions.

Once Hades hired Thesius to prevent his son’s escape, the hero of Athens demanded Asterius be sent to Allesium as he valued the bull’s character and skill.

The Codeex tells us, “I do not know if it was merely for pity that Thesius vouched for the bullheaded Asterius to join him in Allesium, doubtless risking his own station there.

Some say Asterius is merely an unwilling servant of his now, but I know mortal battle builds strong bonds.

The Minotaur submitted to Thesius and an oath of mutual respect binds these companions. The pair are complete opposites.

While Asterius is calm, measured and humble, Thesius is vain glorious and prone to emotional outbursts.

After overcoming Allesium, Zagrias must force his way through the guards of the temple of sticks, massive rats, saters, and snake- like monstrosities.

So close to the surface, the prince of the underworld must fight Hades most famous guardian, Cerberus.

In Greek mythology, Cerberus, the hound of Hades, is a three-headed dog, often with serpent features, born of the monsters Ikidna and Typhon, placed by the gods as vigilant century to ensure no dead pass beyond the underworld’s encircling rivers.

The story of Cerberus is found as one of Heracles 12 labors, which we’ll discuss a little more later.

But to atone for his sins, Heracles had to complete 12 impossible tasks. And one of these was to subdue Cerberus without any weapons and deliver the hound to the surface.

In some legends, Heracles also rescues Thesius from a throne of forgetfulness in deepest Tartarus after the hero made moves against Pphanany.

Cerberus’ embarrassment was short-lived. After he proved his feet, Heracles returned the Hound to its rightful place in the underworld.

In Hades, Cerberus guards the gate to freedom and the surface. But Cerberus is also bonded to Zagrias.

Though it knows its duty, the dog can’t possibly go against the prince of Hades.

Nor can Zagrias fight such a good boy. >> The guardian of hell itself decides the time has come for a short break and snack.

So, a snack is offered as sacrifice and distraction. Cberus is defeated and the gates are open.

Finally, after such tribulations, Zagrias feels the surface beneath his feet, but must still confront Hades, the god of the underworld, who personally ensures his son never leaves.

The story of Hades is a journey of self-discovery that revolves around the many attempts of Zagrias to escape the underworld.

Mother Nyx is responsible for the young prince’s first contact with his lost kin through Athena.

In the name of Hades. Olympus, I accept this message. >> Hail noble cousin. Now, let’s get you from that miserable place.

I’ll see that all of us upon Olympus do our part, beginning here with me.

>> And this is a brilliant Easter egg to the myths we’ve already discussed. It makes sense that Athena, goddess of wisdom, would have knowledge of Zagrias.

But also, Athena was the goddess who saved Zagrias’s heart after the Titans slew him in the story of the first Dionis.

He learns that the Olympians had little to no idea of his existence, as though he was blinded from their view.

After Athena brings word of Zagrias to the other gods, they pledge assistance to the prince of the underworld and reunion with his stranged kin become Zagrias’s chief goal.

Only contempt remains for his father. And Zagrias wonders why Hades kept the prince from the Olympians.

Again, Zagrias turns to his mother for aid, and it’s revealed that Nyx pledged long ago to assist the young god in any capacity and to her fullest power, even if it defies the rule of Lord Hades.

This becomes a point of contention within the house, as those beneath the god of the dead are commanded to fight his own wife and child.

You yourself shall have to choose allegiances. I have steadfastly told you this throughout our shared ordeal.

>> I thought that both of our allegiances were to this house, Nyx. It seems I was mistaken.

>> Despite her affection, Zagrias also questions if Nyx truly is his birthmother. Neither she nor Hades are forthcoming with information about the prince’s earliest days, and an unsettled feeling within, as though he doesn’t quite fit in with the other Cathonic deities of the house, worms its way into his heart.

Thanos and Hypnos, his brothers, bear no striking resemblance to himself, and Zagrias knows even less of his other supposed siblings.

The impetuous prince decides to investigate the truth and so conscripts the assistance of Hypnos who agrees to cast a deep slumber upon the house and allow Zagrias to discover what he may secretly.

Zagrias rifles through his father’s possessions for clues of the past. Here he stumbles upon a letter written in a thin delicate hand and signed simply Pphanie.

In an instant, Zagrias’s world shatters his mother’s hand. My mother’s hand. Wait, what? You’re saying this Pphanie that she’s my mother?

>> He’s not the son of Hades and Nyx. His birth and birth mother were a lie to cover up the disappearance of Pphanie.

This realization brings more questions than answers in confrontation with his supposed parents. Well, she seems quite lovely.

So, knowing you, you probably tricked her into signing a pack to come join you or something.

Since you weren’t allowed on Olympus, why not have Olympus come to you? >> Here, Zagrias learns that Pphanany absconded from Olympus with Hades.

Though whether forced or willingly, he isn’t yet certain, where she was then invested as queen of the underworld next to her king.

Hades and Pphanany gave birth to a stillborn child, Zagrias. As the lord of death, Hades is unable to create life and therefore infertile.

The pain was too much for Pphanie, goddess of Verger, to bear. So, she fled the underworld and settled in isolation to repair her fractured spirit.

Hades was bereft of a queen. All that remained of his wife was a dead child.

To honor his love for Pphanie and cherished the gift with which he’d been blessed, Lord Hades employed Nyx to use her might and resurrect the still >> alive.

Sounds as though Nyx revived me sometime after I was born. But by that point, mother had already left and they let her be.

Nyx, you saved my life. Gave me life when I was born. Father told me.

>> Suffice it to say that your revival required the extent of my ability and considerable time.

Nyx goes against her daughter Fates and exhausts her full power, but succeeds in giving the child life.

To protect infant Zagrias from the painful truth, Hades and Nyx falsify his birth, claiming he came from their union instead.

Not too far from the truth, actually. The origins of Zagrias and Hades are an illusion to his myth.

As we’ve already mentioned in it, the first Dianisis sar Zagrias also dies once and is reborn.

With his heritage discovered, Zagrias’s mission hasn’t changed, but his objective has. Rather than unite with the gods of Olympus, he pledges to locate his birthother.

Nyx is bound by oath from speaking more, and Hades bound by emotion and perhaps live together with Pphanie away from his detestable father.

More trials, ransacking, and deaths strengthens Zagrias, who finally stands against his own Lord Father.

On the surface, Hades berates the youth. Old skeletons are better left alone. He sends Zagrias, who’s made it so far, reeling back to the house of Hades and back to square one.

As the prince continues this impossible mission, relationships with his Olympian kin grow. >> No, it is nothing, Little Sprout.

It’s just I hear such wicked rumors now and then about my daughter lost to me and what became of her.

>> As does that with his adoptive mother Nyx. She works to undermine Hades command so that Pphanie might learn of her child, though Nyx’s motives remain her own.

Eventually, the young prince accomplishes his herculean task and dispatches Hades. With nothing in his way, Zagrias happens upon the glade in which Pphanie has made her abode.

It’s a warm reunion, and in their catching up, Zagrias learns that his mother never felt like she belonged in Tartarus, despite Cathonic kindness, and that her son’s fate was the final straw that pushed her to flee.

She, however, had no knowledge that Zagrias was spared from death. Both wonder why Hades or Nyx would keep such information secret.

But before the prince can have all questions answered, he succumbs to illness. >> So I now presume you are bound to this realm by powers greater even than mine.

>> Here is the fate’s cruelty. As a being tied to the underworld, Zagrias can’t survive long on the surface.

Death comes for him and drags him into the depths of Tartarus, but not before he makes one final resolution.

To learn why his life was kept a secret, why Pphanie hides from all in seclusion, and why his father never searched for her.

With time and escapes, Zagrias slowly pieces together a complete picture of the situation. The heart of Hades story revolves around a retelling of the homeriic hymn to Demiter.

And Zagrias’s own journey unfolds in the middle of this tale. Demiter seeks the lost Panie.

The Olympians threaten wrath upon those guilty of her disappearance. The beauty of Greece is covered in harsh snow to represent Deiter’s abandonment of duty.

The prince learns from Praphanany that she would have gone to the furthest depths of the underworld to unite with her son had she known of his existence.

But after she discovers that Olympus aids and observes him, Pphanie begs Zagrias no longer to return.

Sacrias, it’s wonderful to see you, but I need to ask something of you. That you not visit me again here in this place.

She enjoys the simple life. And though she didn’t belong in Tartarus, neither does she feel at peace on Mount Olympus.

Not only that, but if the Olympians, Demiter especially, were to uncover Hades involvement in her disappearance, war between heavens and the underworld would be inevitable.

Hades, for his part, attempts at every opportunity to constrain his son because he wishes to protect Pphanie from his kin.

Zagrias’s reckless actions are like a beacon drawing Olympus to Pphanany. And Hades fears most the god’s reprisal against his queen.

And Nyx, who we learn had been shielding not only Zagrias, but also extending her obscuring influence to Pphanie as a means of cloaking her against Olympus, desires only to mend the broken house of Hades.

She works in mysterious ways but knows destiny demands that Zagrias, Hades, and Pphanany reconcile.

Lies, deception, broken communication created a hopelessly confusing narrative. Like many other families, the Olympic pantheon is dysfunctional, and war hangs on a thread due only to misunderstanding.

The gods misunderstood Pphanie’s flight, that she wasn’t kidnapped by Hades, but accepted his proposal to escape her suffocating family.

Hades misunderstood Praphanie’s abandonment of Tartarus and misjudged how he should relate the truth to his son.

Praphanie misunderstood Hades continued love, was kept from the truth of Zagrias’s birth, and had presumed much of her own family’s reactions.

All these fractured motives and partial perspectives are collected by Zagrias through successive escapes who persists through both his family’s resistance and assistance.

In Zagrias’s last trip to the surface, he tells his mother how much his father Nyx all the underworld wishes for her return.

Praphanie finally relents and as they are fed back to Tardus devises a plan to diffuse Olympus’s wrath.

Sarus. >> Back in the house of Hades, the royal family is reunited. Zagrias and Lord Hades come to an understanding.

The cold, stern exterior of their relationship melts into truer feelings of warmth between father and son.

Hades apologizes to Pphanany for hiding the truth of her son and requests she return to her seat as queen of the house.

Praphanany thus satisfied elaborates a scheme to calm the tensions between Tardus and the surface.

Invitations are sent for a great gathering of gods, a festive celebration in which all will be revealed.

Or at least that’s the pretense. Pphanie, a great diplomat, understands that with family, especially divine family, some things are better left unsaid.

As the gods gather in the underworld, she’s strategic about her story, leaving out certain details and altering others to mitigate harsh feelings.

>> Well, fortunate Uncle Zeus seemed to catch on right away and went along with it.

But this whole elaborate tale you spun, I remember. >> It’s mentioned on more than one occasion that Zeus seems to have assisted Pphanie in weaving a believable tale.

This is again reference to the hymn to Demiter in which Zeus gave consent to Pphanie’s flight with Hades and pre-arranged it.

After the revalry and the reunions, the gods of Olympus accept Pphanie’s story and Zagrias’s motivation.

But the prince of the underworld knows how dangerous lies can be. And this one in particular sits uneasily with him.

But every family has its secrets, and much of the past is simply water under the bridge.

With crisis averted and his mother returned to him, Zagrias once more gathers his weapons and rampages through Tardus as he seeks to break to the surface.

No longer malicious, these are simply to ensure proper security and that truth lives up to the claim that there is indeed no escape from death.

>> You are somewhat stronger than expected, boy. Many years pass. The family welcomes a fourth member in young Melenoi, goddess of madness and nightmares, and peace falls over the house of Hades.

But this happiness is not to last. Kronos, the defeated Titan who’s languished for centuries, his body scattered in pieces throughout Deepest Tardus, catches Hades and the Olympians unaware.

Infiltrating the underworld with his influence, Kronos establishes a secret cult of worshippers who perform rituals to reconstitute the Titan of Time.

Restored in power, [music] Kronos deals a swift two-pronged strike. He personally leads the assault on the underworld and destroys the House of Hades while the Titan of Foresight, Prometheus, whom we’ll discuss soon, invests legions on the surface in a siege of Mount Olympus.

Kronos’s attack corresponds with Melenoi’s birth, and the princess is mere infant when she’s forced to flee.

Hades sends for Hec Hecati, Pphanie’s handmaidaiden, and charges the witch with Melenoi’s protection and with training her to eventually reclaim her birthright.

>> But Lord Hades, I >> You have your orders. Now return to Shadow and take care of her for all of us.

No harm shall come to young Meleninoi, my lord. In this, at least I shall not fail you.

>> The two escape to the shadow of the crossroads [music] just as Kronos arrives.

Nyx, Zagrias, Pphanany, the entire house are trapped in a moment of time while the Titan usurps Hades’s throne.

The revenge against his son consumed the Titan’s mind. It wasn’t his chief motivation. Kronos tears down the tapestries, the statues, the monuments to degrade his son and in place erects memorials to his own glory.

But more importantly, the Titan comes in search of answers. >> Though I do have such a command for you.

Tell me exactly where the fates reside. >> He wishes to know where the fates are hidden.

Destiny is the only thing stopping Kronos’s full return to power over the cosmos. To control the Morai is to control the outcome of this new war.

More years pass in godly bloodshed. The exiled princess grows in power and knowledge under the toutelage of Hecati.

While obscured by the shadow of the crossroads, vengeance and reunion are powerful forces that drive Melenoi in her mission to put an end to time.

>> Death to Kronos. As in the first game, Hades 2 thrusts us straight into the action and Melenoi’s story in the fallout of Kronos’s return.

The crossroads are a haven for the underworld’s refugees and all those deities working against Kronos.

From this base, they formulate strategies to defy time, aid their Olympian counterparts, and liberate the realm of Hades.

Melenoi is key to the plan. She alone has the birthright necessary to infiltrate the underworld and the resolute power needed to not only confront the Titan of Time, but to elude his grasp should she fail.

If the story of Hades was one of origins and self-discovery, Hades 2 is a tale of vengeance in two parts.

Kronos, Titan of Time and father to the first generation of Olympians who suffered defeat by his children during the Titanomachi, takes revenge upon them.

Melenoi, meanwhile, pursues vengeance for her mother, her brother, her father, and his house. She won’t rest until the usurpers destroyed and her family freed from whatever eternal torment they suffer.

Like her brother, Zagrias, Melenoi’s road is fraught with danger and often ends in failure.

The haven of the crossroads at the edge of Arabus is where the enemies of Kronos gather in secret to aid her mission.

Hecati, goddess of the crossroads of magic, necromancy, the night and the moon, is head mistress and leads the forces of the unseen against the titan.

She’s connected to both living and dead. All three realms of earth, sea, and sky are her domain.

Hecati swore oaths to both Hades and Nyx when Kronos first attacked. That she would raise and train the princess of the underworld, and that she would guard the other children of night.

The crossroads are thus a bastion of safety and obscurity. And here, Melenoi can find several mythical allies.

Beyond Heci is the shade of Odysius, the aonomous hero of the Odyssey. Odysius ruled as king of Ithaca and assumed an integral, if undesired, role in the Trojan War.

A master tactician, he led the Greeks for 10 years in their battles against King Pryam.

And his adventures on the journey home are the subject of Homer’s famed work. His shade offers sage advice to Melenoi, and Odysius runs the network of scouts and spies to keep allies informed on Kronos’s movement.

Then there are the children of Nyx. Hypnos, friend of Zagrias, has fallen into deep sleep since the underworld was attacked and can’t be stirred to wake.

Nemesis, [music] Retribution Incarnate, is a goddess of justice and revenge, especially against hubris. In myth, Nemesis is a fatal deity and concerned with balance.

Just as she punishes the wicked, so too does she act as a check against those favored by fortune.

Nemesis was often described as winged, and she played an important role in the legend of Narcissus.

And some even claimed she was Helen’s mother, famed maiden whose beauty helped instigate the Trojan War.

In Hades 2, Nemesis acts as sentry for the crossroads. But she bucks against this rule’s chains, and her manifest purpose drives her to pursue Kronos.

She leaves her post often and can be found in different regions at night when she challenges Melenoi in exchange for boons.

Gruff and temperamental, Nemesis bears grudging respect for the princess of the underworld. Moros, Doom incarnate, also finds his way to the crossroads as emissary of the three fates, the force that drives mortals to their ultimate fate.

Moros is rarely invoked and more often despised. Some myths claim that Prometheus saved humanity from misery by stripping Moros, or foresight of their own demise, from them and instead offering hope.

Moros brings with him his sister’s faded list, a scroll of foretold dooms to aid Meleninoi against Kronos.

And of course, there’s Kon, the Stigian boatman, who pies the waters of the underworld and offers shop to Melenoi on her adventures.

Though Hecate proved a great teacher in her youth, the times now come for Melenoi to test fate and challenge Kronos and Tardus.

Her training could take her only so far. Every foray from the crossroads carries hope that Melenoi will succeed.

And each defeat sees the princess safely retire back into the crossroads for the night.

Foiled but better equipped for tomorrow’s run. And still Kronos can’t find her hidden location.

This slow progress sees Melenoi work through an alternate route that leads to Tartarus, one not guarded by the Titan’s forces.

It’s an equal but opposite journey to that of her brother Zaggrias, who sought to escape the underworld.

Melenoi’s purpose drives her instead to its furthest reaches. First, she travels through the miscloaked forest of Arabus.

Again, Arabus is at once a being, a concept, a location. He is the personification of darkness, brother and husband to Nyx.

As a region, Arabus is sometimes synonymous with the dark corners that dead souls must travel through to arrive in Tartarus.

Arabus, their waiting area, lies shrouded in darkness, betraying to the dead no hint of whether they shall continue their existence in the splenders of Allesium or in the pits of Tartarus.

This region is the moon-filled forest that transitions between upper Earth and the underworld, where desparing spirits roam.

Two of Melenoi’s silver sisters frequent this region. Seleni and Artemis. The organization which includes Melenoi, Seleni, Artemis, and Heci are so named because all are affiliated with the moon.

They embody nature, magic, and the night. This organization is a nod to the mythological origins of all four.

Artemis derived from earlier iterations of Seleni, who was herself distilled from Hecati. And as we’ve discussed, Melenoi is sometimes another name for Hecati.

So all four are one in the same, a protohecy divinity. Arachnne, the spider, weaves exquisite silks and outfits Melenoi with mystic armor.

The legend of Arachnne comes most precisely from Avid’s metamorphoses. She was the most talented mortal weaver and claimed her skills surpassed even those of Athena.

The goddess challenged Arachnne to a contest, but surprisingly couldn’t find a single fault in the girl’s tapestry, so physically beat her in rage.

Arachnne hanged herself in despair, which moved Athena to pity. She transformed the girl into a spider and gifted her and her descendants mastery over weaving for all time.

Hence why the genius spinners are named Arachnids. Arabus’s winding trails lead to head mistress Hecgate, who challenges Melenoi to one final preparatory trial before she ventures completely into hostile territory.

During the fight, the witch of the crossroads uses lanterns and splits herself into three.

Both are references to myth, where the goddess is often depicted in three forms, bearing lanterns to denote a crossroads and the foresight needed to choose the correct path.

With resolve proven, the princess next descends to Oceananis. Like Arabus, Oceanis is both a deity and a location.

Personified, he was the eldest son of Uranus and Gaia, who remained neutral during Kronos’s attack on his father, and then later the Titan Maki, and as such retained his freedom following Zeus’s accession.

Physically, Oceanis manifested as the world encircling river, the great body of water that separated mortal world from both the cosmos above and the underworld below.

Oceanis is largely the domain of Lord Poseidon, but the edge of it spills out into the underworld.

The Book of Shadows goes on to say that the Denisens of Oceanis harbor no allegiance to gods or titans.

They’re hostile to all intruders, and with Lord Poseidon distracted by Kronos, the region grows lawless.

These dank waterways tee with many foes. But one mythological figure offers a kind of uninspired secondhand aid.

The shade of Narcissus has chosen the pools of Oceananis to eternally contemplate his own lovely image.

The myth of Narcissus tells he was a youth so beautiful that all fawned over him, man and woman, and pursued him for his hand.

But Narcissus was vain and conceited. He spurned every suitor, denied every love, which angered immortal and mortal alike.

Nemesis heard a woman’s prayer, and so cast a curse. Let he who loves not others love himself, just as Narcissus caught sight of his reflection in a pool.

Enrapttured by the image, Narcissist couldn’t tear himself away, not even to eat or drink, and so died.

His name gave rise to the term narcissist. Even in death, his vanity remains, and Melenoi finds Narcissus talking with and loving his own reflection.

A stirring song emanates from the depths of Oceananis. The princess of the underworld must confront Skila in the sirens.

In Greek myth, Skila was once a beautiful water nymph known as a Niad, who loved another sea god.

Some claim that the witch Cersei, whom we’ll discuss later, also loved this sea god, but he chose Skila, and out of vengeance, the witch of changing transformed her into a horrid monster.

Her book of shadows entry and the dialogue with Cersei seemed to point to the truth of this in game.

Skila and another sea monster, Kuribdus, guarded each side of the straight of Msina and brought many a sailor to their deaths.

Though she is joined by sirens, creatures whose lilting song enthrals mortals, Skila isn’t herself one.

The most famous account of these creatures comes in the Odyssey when Odysius and his men nearly succumb to the siren song.

In Ode to this myth, Skila leads a rock band and their catchy yet gruesome discoraphy describes what they do to their victims.

I am. [screaming] With Oceanus navigated, Melenoi next drops into the disorienting and depressing fields of mourning within the underworld proper.

These fields close to the river sticks are filled with wandering paths where the souls of the heartbroken and those whose memory still obsesses on earthly grief wallow aimlessly.

We see statues of ill- fated lovers and clinging myasma belches out everywhere. This region is painted most vibrantly in Virgil’s Anid when the hero Anias ventures into the underworld seeking his father.

He first comes across Daido, the Phoenician queen who fell in love with Anias and killed herself in grief when they couldn’t be together.

Before his trip, Anias was also advised to bring golden boughs to honor Pphanie and Hades who would grant him safe passage.

In Hades 2, we see these golden boughs used to guide Meenoi through the region.

A heavy sadness infects the princess of the underworld and works to dispirit her while monsters like the Lamia attack.

According to myth, the Lamia was the name of a queen, one of many women with whom Zeus had adulterous affairs, who was driven to madness after Hera killed her children.

She fled to the wilderness, hunting and eating other children, deeds that transformed her into a beast.

But even the fields of mourning aren’t without allies. Nero Melenoi comes across the dispirited nymph, Ekko.

The second less famous half of the narcissus myth. Ekko was once the fairest of all nymphs who drew even the amorous glance of Zeus.

Era as always jealous of her husband cursed Ekko claiming that she would always speak the last word but have no power to speak the first.

So silently, the nymph retreated to the world’s caves and chambers. When narcissist came about, Ekko too couldn’t help but fall in love.

Without the power to start conversations, she was reduced to following him quietly. Even entranced by his reflection, Ekko couldn’t speak to save Narcissus.

But legend claims as his final words of farewell left his mouth, Ekko repeated them to a dying Narcissus.

Here, Ekko still pines for the shade of her love and hopes to be united with him.

>> Narcissist, narcissist, narcissist. >> Oh, hey. Um, Eko and I, we were just catching up a bit, I guess.

>> Finally, Melanoi confronts the Infernal Hound. This is none other than Cerberus, beloved three-headed dog of the House of Hades and guardian of Tartarus.

Though not trapped like the rest of the house, he’s been expelled by Kronos, and the mournful souls attach themselves to him, agitating him to violence.

Melenoi plates the Hound, but Cberus remains wary of her. Though her scent might be familiar, she was taken away as an infant during the attack, and Cberus doesn’t recall the princess of the underworld.

Melenoi now enters the realm of Tartarus through its maintenance entrance, sneaks into the house of Hades, and confronts the target of her anger in the Titan of Time himself.

The evershifting depths of the underworld are not as they once were. Kronos now resides there with his retinue of Seder worshippers.

How exactly the Titan escaped an inescapable prison, he alone can say, but the groaning wheels and machinery throughout the place have grown more prevalent since his return, suggesting long, dormant plans that came finally to fruition.

Clocks, gears, and other time motifs show us that this is no longer Hades house, but his father’s.

The metallic sands of Chrysos, the god of gold, run around and throughout Tartarus. Even in this heart of Kronos’s layer, an ally is found.

>> Another tormentor come to break me or to try, and such a frail one at that.

Has the Titan lord a lack of decent help? >> While most of the house had been frozen in a moment of time, Hades has been chained and thrown into the same room where Cisphus endured his eternal anguish.

Apparently, the shade left Baldi the Boulder as companion for the disgraced god. Hades offers powerful boons to Melenoi in her final confrontation.

Driving through the sands of time brings the princess face to face with her grandfather.

Many mythological references can be found in the fight against Kronos. First are his wings and his scythe.

In most all renditions and interpretations, the Titan of Time is winged, and his scythe is the same weapon gifted him by Gaia to overthrow his father, Uranus.

Gold veins wind through his figure, which to me at least elude to Kronos’s fate after the Titanaki, being torn to pieces and scattered throughout Tartarus.

Now, in his full power, he’s reconstituted himself. Kronos demonstrates mastery over time, influences his and Melenoi speed, and the second phase of his fight takes place on the surface of a clock.

And so each night, Melenoi ventures along this route to confront Kronos and restore the House of Hades.

Both defeat and victory bring enlightenment. Melenoi slowly uncovers more of the Titan’s plans and learns that the situation above is nearly as dire as that below.

Prometheus’s forces have isolated the gods on Olympus. Boons and messengers reveal Melenoi’s mission in Hades is tied directly to their survival of Olympus.

>> We finally saw what it was like up here. Most of the others are holding out at the top of Olympus, and you are the reinforcements, so come on back when you can.

All right. At first missing from the crossroads, Moros, Doom incarnate and the envoy of the three fates, arrives and brings word that the fates have disappeared, even from his notice and that their disappearance coincided with the Titan’s return.

He implores Melenoi to investigate their whereabouts as their weavingings are critical to the outcome of the conflict.

As the nights progress, Meleninoi, like her brother Zagrias, also corresponds with Chaos, the progenitor of the universe, who’s very keen to observe Kronos’s plot.

In Greek cosmogyny, chaos is the first thing to exist. Its name is emptiness, void, abyss.

Many believed primal chaos to exist beneath the earth, but above Tartarus, a place of seething energy that also held secrets to immortality.

Chaos gave birth to Nyx and Arabus, and its domain is beyond the known or familiar, filled with the incomprehensible.

In Hades, Chaos is a distant, impartial spectator, a curious entity who can’t leave their realm for fear the universe would destabilize.

Chaos conducts experiments to satisfy their curiosity, and unlike other deities, presents boons, to Zagrias, and Melenoi with the sentiment of choice and free will.

Concepts Chaos holds dear. Their blessings can only be unlocked after suffering a minor curse.

Chaos appears more cold to Melenoi than her brother Zagrias. Perhaps because they have retreated from the world and despised the gods after the disappearance of their child Nyx.

>> As for your brother, I found him to be quite amusing or interesting that offspring can be so dissimilar.

>> Also, Chaos looks different between the two games. And interestingly, in Hades 2, they hold the head of their Hades iteration, suggesting this is another cycle of Chaos’s infinite lives.

But it’s here that Melenoi learns what became of the fates. When he took Tardarus, Kronos questioned Hades on the sister’s whereabouts.

Despite his mastery of time and ability to prophecy, he’s still bound, like all beings, to the weavingings of fate.

He wishes not only to undo past failures, but grasp the future, using the fates to weave a reality of unequaled authority.

The siege of Olympus, the attack on the underworld, were distractions to hide this true aim of seizing the three fates.

He thought first to go to Nyx, mother of the fates. But having reached a dead end, approached primordial chaos.

Chaos isn’t a trickster and harbors no ill will. In fact, their naivity on evil is precisely what the Titan leveraged to his advantage.

Kronos tricked Chaos into assisting his plot. The progenitor of all things guided the Titan to the Hidden Sisters.

>> Not only have you ransacked my father’s domain and made war on Olympus, you had the audacity to deceive primordial chaos.

That takes a spine. >> Why, thank you, my girl. I must admit, I thought that chaos would be something of a bargainer, for I was willing to exchange their daughter Nits for the three fates, but now I have them all.

>> Chaos realizes the depth of their mistake and pledges aid to Melenoi in her efforts to disrupt Kronos.

But with the underworld taken, the surface world in a chokeold and fate itself in the Titan’s possession, time runs out.

Kronos stole the sister from their weavingings and cast them into the abyss. He saw destiny as a melesome force in his plots and severed their thread.

His rise in the assault of Olympus are now beyond what any can prophecy and the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

As Meleninoi works through the zones of the underworld and continues her conversations with her lord father Hades, their reunions bring clarity to the princess of the underworld.

She’s granted visions of the past, of the moments when Kronos first struck, and her spirit is buoied by her interactions with Hades.

Eventually, with the aid of her allies and faith in her own abilities, Melenoi overcomes Kronos.

But time isn’t so easily stopped. >> What is death to the deathless? A mere nuisance.

[snorts] Though his physical form disintegrates, it’s only a delaying tactic, for at the end of the night, the immortal titan reemerges.

Melenoi relies on the power of witchcraft and dream to move forward. She learns from Hecati a possible concoction to fuel a spell that undos Kronos’s immortality, but the ingredients haven’t presented themselves.

In the meantime, Melenoi steps into her brother Zagrias’s room and decides to use her abilities in the dream to cut through the expanse of time that separates her from a past version of Zagrias.

>> That voice. >> Wait, >> what? >> Um, is my hair getting lighter and my features getting fairer, or did I consume something that really isn’t sitting well?

>> Menoi recruits past Zagrias for one purpose. If Kronos can’t be stopped in her time, perhaps her brother can put an end to Kronos before he acrews power.

Their conversations are cut short to prevent the Titan of Time from sensing Melenoi and also because it’s a strain on her powers.

>> Although I am the designated security specialist around here, so perhaps I know the answer to that one.

>> Some security specialist. Kronos caught the house entirely off guard. Future discussions see the chief security specialist locate a cave of seder cultists performing a ritual to restore Kronos.

But Zagrias can’t simply bash the Titan in. No, to destroy his very essence requires both Melenoi’s incantation and a weapon powerfully enough to be imbued.

Kronos is impervious to the infernal arms used by the gods to defeat him eons ago.

Instead, Zagrias and Melenoi find Gagaros, the two-pronged spear of Hades. >> Gagaros, my father’s spear.

You said we would need a weapon that’s available in both our times is close to our family and not been used to slay Kronos before.

That one should do. It’s big and it hurts. This weapon, it turns out, is needed for Melenoi to gather the reagent necessary to perform her dissolution of time spell.

And that reagent is found on the surface. Meleno’s journey is twice as arduous as her brothers.

While Zagrias had only to escape the underworld, the princess of Hades must also ascend to Olympus on Earth.

And the realm of the living is anathema to Cathonic beings. Menoi suffers the longer she walks the surface and can’t possibly reach her family on Olympus until she concocts a spell to weaken the underworld’s grip on her essence.

>> Not a pretty sight up there. You mean to say you’ve seen all this firsthand?

How? >> You mean our birthright? Would you believe I learned a means by which I could withstand the surface climate for a while?

>> As in the underworld, several locations must be traversed to reach her ultimate goal at top the gods mountain and break Kronos’s siege of Olympus.

First is the desoiled city of Aphira, a seat that played critical roles in several tales from mythology.

Aphira was founded under a different name, the Polus of Corinth by a legendary line of kings supposedly born of Seisphus, the same Seisophus who tried too many times to outwit the gods and was sentenced to his punishment in Hades.

Corinth worshiped above the other gods, Hades and Pphanany. The city had strong ties to death and it was situated near one of the famed gates of the underworld.

These portals strewn about Greece allowed mortals to step into the realm of shades. This allegiance to the House of Hades is likely why Aphira was targeted by Kronos.

It now stands as a city of rot and ruin. Two semi- divine mortals offer aid to Melenoi in Afira, the witch enchantress Media and Heracles, greatest of heroes.

Media was daughterred to the king of Kulkus at the far end of the Black Sea and played a critical role in the quest for the Golden Fleece by Jason and his Argonauts.

The gods caused Media to fall in love with Jason and she used her magic to help him overcome impossible tasks set by her father.

She even killed her brother to allow Jason’s escape with the fleece. The pair married and settled in Corinth.

After 10 years, Jason rewarded Medadia’s fidelity with betrayal and decided to betray the young princess.

In vengeance, the witch killed her own sons to deny Jason’s blood and poison the wardrobe of the bride before fleeing from Corinth on a golden chariot.

Her mythological connection to the city is why Media appears in Afira. And she uses her power of hex’s to aid Melenoi.

In her chalice of blood, her robes, and her curses, we see Medadia’s embrace of the dark side of magic opposite to the witch Cersei, whom we’ll meet shortly.

And this links them to a familial relationship shared in some myths that media is actually the niece of Cersei.

The witch’s offered keepsake is the black fleece in reference to the myth of the golden fleece.

And in Hades 2, she’s allied to head mistress Hecati in the unseen using Aira to conduct research on how to thwart Kronos.

The pompous, brutish, and impressive Heracles also assists Meleno in his own way. One of the most famous mythological figures, Heracles was the comparison of Thesus, hero of Athens.

While Thesius embraced the Athenian ideals of cunning, genius, and courage, Heracles embodied the more barbarian manliness lauded by the rest of the Greek world.

Frank, muscular, a bit slow, hot-tempered, but exceedingly loyal, Heracles appeared in several myths about heroes conquering terrible odds.

Born of Zeus’s liaison with a mortal, Heracles was a demigod and bore the eternal hatred of Zeus’s wife, Hera.

His most notable feat was in completion of the 12 labors as penants for killing his wife Maggara and children in a madness induced by Hera.

These included, among others, slaying the Nemian lion, defeating the Hydra of Lerna, capturing the Cretan bull, and subduing then releasing three-headed Cberus.

Many of these labors are alluded to in Heracles outfit in Hades 2. And the arcana cards Melenoi can equip.

Heracles is a man of few words and is cautious with witches. His offers come in the form of challenges and as Melenoi completes them, earns also his respect.

Heracles shares a divine nature with Melenoi. After his death, the hero was blessed by the gods to ascend to Olympus.

Though by the time of Hades 2, he’s grown tired of godly expectations and hypocrisy.

During his mythological adventures, some claim it was Heracles who freed Prometheus from his prison within the Caucasus and killed Zeus’s eagle that ate his liver.

And this is why the hero appears alongside the Titan in [clears throat] battle when the vow of rivals is active.

>> Nobody played a dirty trick on me as Al. Bunch of sailors thought they could get away with my sheep, so I ate a couple of them.

The sailors, that is. But nobody got me when I wasn’t looking. Then he got away.

>> After Melenoi cleanses Afira, she must confront the city’s guardian, Polyphimis. The infamous Cyclops featured in the Odyssey, an antagonist who trapped Odysius and the Greeks inside his mountain layer and promised to eat them all.

In mythology, Polyphimmis was part of a tribe different from the cyclopes who aided the Olympian gods during the Titanomachi.

And when first we see him, he’s a humble shepherd, but with a taste for human flesh and a quick temper.

When Polyphimas traps the Greeks, Odysius first gets the Cyclops drunk, then gouges out his eye, leaving him blind.

They then tie themselves to the underside of sheep and pass by the unaware Polyphimis to freedom.

When Melenoi confronts him, we see Polyphimas still chooses the life of a shepherd and the blindfold over his damaged eye is a call back to the myth.

Polyphamis is a simple creature who wants only a calm, quiet life of hurting. No doubt he was easily swayed by Kronos, who promised him such near the ruins of Aira.

Thesali, a region of Greece steeped in mythology, was sight of pivotal battles during the Titanomachi, contains famed Mount Olympus, is connected to many mythic figures such as Jason, Achilles, and the Mermdons, centaurs, and has deep roots in witchcraft.

The simple fact that its roads lead to Olympus is reason enough for Kronos to attack, but it’s poetic that this new Titanomaki is unfolding on the same plains as the old one.

Of course, Thessalie has now been inundated. It was submerged by Poseidon attempting to hamstring Kronos’s legions, but actually made it faster to cross in creaking boats now born upon spectral winds.

As Melenoi moves between infernal vessels, she’s aided by two renowned figures. The first is the shade of Icarus, son of genius inventor Datalus.

>> As a mortal kid confined to a tower, I was relatively well provided for.

This >> Datalus, creator of the labyrinth, the myth of which we’ve mentioned, was thrown into his creation alongside Icarus by the king of Minos, for whom he built it.

Father devised a pair of contraptions that would allow them to fly above the labyrinth.

But during their flight, Icarus was heedless of Datalus’ warnings and soared too high. The wax of his wings was melted by the sun, and Icarus plunged fatally into the waters below.

His is a well-known cautionary tale against Hubris. A conversation between the pair reveals Icarus and Meleninoi’s past.

>> Your arm never got better, did it? I’m really sorry. I should [music] never have put you on the spot.

>> Not your fault. I had grown very confident in my abilities. Head mistress always said there [music] was no way to make shades whole again, but I thought otherwise.

Though her incantation failed and cost her greatly, Icarus still bears resemblance closer to mortals than shades.

He and his wings, symbols of freedom, can’t be contained by the underworld, and he’s one of the very few to walk the surface after death.

Icarus aids Melenoi with inventive weapons that in his humility are disguised as Datalus’ creations.

But later we learn that the apprentice son has taken over for his master father.

Molenoi also happens upon the enchanted aisle of another witch and devote of Hecgate. Cersei >> dash of Is that who I think it is?

>> Um, pardon. >> Oh well, isn’t this marvelous how you’ve grown, little myth? >> Myth claims her as the daughter of the sun god Helios and either a nymph or goddess Hecy.

And as we’ve noted, Cersei might also share bonds with the witch media. She appeared most famously as an obstacle for Odysius and his Greeks who happened upon her island of Aaya.

Cersei, the witch of changing, has power over transformation. Her isle abounds with game and woodland creatures surprisingly docil because they are in truth humans.

Cersei cast a spell over Odysius’s men and turned them into swine. The king of Ithaca wasn’t changed but spent the better part of a year as her lover.

In myth, Cersei is unpredictable and can be spiteful. One story claims she loved a sea god who spurned her for Skila and in a rage transformed the nymph into the monster we’ve discussed.

Again, the lore of Hades 2 holds subtle clues pointing to this act. She’s a witch of herbs and potions and uses her magic to aid Melenoi through fortunes of transformation.

Sent by Hecati to observe Kronis’ actions near the rift, the jovial Cersei offers advice and guidance for Melenoi, whom she views almost as a niece or daughter.

While crossing the rift, Melenoi must face one of two wardens. Kuribbdis, the sea monster, is second half to Skillis myth.

As mentioned briefly, the straight of Msina, which separates Sicily from Calabria, is narrow and treacherous.

Each side was guarded by a terrible monster on the one Skila and not but an arrow shot away.

Caribis ships faced an impossible choice. Caught between Skila and Kuribdus or caught between a rock and a hard place.

They were doomed either way. Kuribdus was a daughter of Poseidon who helped him against his brother Zeus.

So large was her m that she engulfed entire islands. But Zeus hurled a thunderbolt that sent Caribbdus to the bottom of the sea.

Still, her hunger’s insatiable, and three times a day, it was told, she inhaled the waters and sent dangerous whirlpools flowing.

This monstrous creatures ventured into the rift and bars Meleninoi’s way. The other, not a named figure in myth, but a nod to a significant tale is the Jargonaut.

The skeletal Brian wears Greek garb and his Book of Shadows entry suggests he traveled across many waters.

This alongside with his name, a reference to the journey of Jason and his men, the Argonauts, aboard the vessel Argo.

The Argo traveled from Greece to the Black Sea and then to Italy. Many of the Argonauts were great and famed warriors.

The shade of Odysius tells us likely the Jargonaut if the reports add up. There was a band of similarly named adventurers he may have hailed from.

The rift’s guardian is Aerys. Of all the incarnations, strife and rumor are believed to harm mortals most.

The goddess of strife, Aerys rejoices in discord and sews it between enemies and allies alike.

At times she aids Melaninoi and appears in the crossroads alongside other unseen. But she also bars the princess’s way to Olympus and stokes Kronos’s legions.

According to Hessiad, Aerys is the daughter of Nyx, but to Homer, she was the child of Zeus and Hera, sister of Aries, whom she was often seen beside on battlefields.

It’s told Ays was the great instigator of the Trojan War. She was one of the few gods not invited to the wedding of King Pelus and the nymph Thetus, future parents of Achilles.

And in retribution, Aerys cast discord among the guests by throwing a golden apple inscribed for the fairest.

This led to an argument between Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena on who was the fairest, and the young man Paris, son of Troy’s king Pryam, was made to judge.

Melenoi receives a golden apple upon her defeat, an illusion to this tale. As a daughter of Nyx, Aerys’s sibling to Thanoos, Hypnos, Nemesis, and many others, she holds a grudge against her family who looked down upon her as a petulant child.

She once took possession of the Adamant rail before it was housed in Hades infernal armory.

After Kronos sacked Tardus, it seemed she stole the weapon again and uses it to great effect against Melenoi.

The halls of Mount Olympus are Kronos’s ultimate target, and the Titan’s legions actively battle against the gods automatons throughout celestial corridors.

In Greek mythology, the Automatons were animate metallic statues of men, animals, and monsters fashioned by Hephestus, god of the forge, and the hero Datalus.

It was told the most exquisite could even think and feel like humans. The largest and most famous of automatons was Taos, bronze, guardian of Cree, invincible, save for a small vein near his ankle.

Other myths claimed Taos was the last of the race of bronze, a remnant from an age of man prior to the current one.

Taos did battle with Jason and the Argonauts, but was ultimately defeated by Medadia, who attacked his vulnerable ankle.

As an interesting side note, it’s the myth of Taos that named the Talis bone in the foot and ankle.

In Hades, Taos was said to have used the infernal arms the fists of Malfon, but they don’t appear in his possession when Melenoy confronts the automaton.

The princess of Hades can find the aid of two gods while in Olympus, Athena and Dionis, and the pair illustrate desperate camps during the current conflict.

>> At last, >> as a goddess of war, strategy, and wisdom, Athena takes an active role in orchestrating defenses against Kronos.

She destroys waves of the Titan’s army and grants Melenoi boons to protect her journey.

The god of wine and realry, meanwhile, seeks to avoid conflict at all cost. >> Who is this?

What sort of nip do we have here, not from the waters nor the woods, but wait, wait, wait.

Those eyes, Zack, that is that you. You’ve changed. I like it. >> Dianisis parties alongside saters and other creatures in a drunken stouper.

He appears in leopard print as an illusion to the animals close connection with Dionis of myth.

The god at first confuses Melenoi with her brother Zagrias, but offers his boons nonetheless.

The princess of the underworld finally nears the summit. And here stands one of the most tragic figures in Greek mythology.

>> What you know of my plight. You who flail against time itself. So much courage born of pride.

Come then, agent of change. Prometheus, the Titan of foresight, fire, and ingenuity, has thrown his lot in with fellow Titan Kronos.

Some traditions hold that Prometheus betrayed the Titans and either refused to fight in or aided the Olympian gods during the destructive Titanomachi.

He thus escaped the fate of his kind when Zeus assumed command of the cosmos.

Intelligent and discerning, Prometheus was a champion for humanity and according to several accounts, even created the race when he fashioned them out of clay.

So great was his love of humankind and perhaps his contempt for the Olympians that Prometheus stole sacred fire from Mount Olympus, a symbol of knowledge, life, and civilization, and bestowed it upon mankind.

Some myths also claim he fooled the gods into accepting the worst cuts of meat for sacrifice so that humankind could keep the choice pieces.

For these transgressions, the Titan was sentenced to eternal torment. Chained to the Cauasus Mountains and forced daily to endure the coming of Atos, Zeus’s eagle that pecked out his liver, only for the organ to regenerate and be torn at again unceasingly.

Most dreadful was that in ancient times, the liver was believed a being’s emotional center.

Only Zeus’s own self-interest freed Prometheus from this hell. As the king of Olympians believed the Titan of foresight possessed information on a prophecy in which Zeus would be threatened by one of his progeny, Prometheus used the information as leverage, and Zeus sent the hero Heracles on one of his labors to slay the eagle and liberate the Titan.

Like Kronos and Melenoi, Prometheus is motivated by revenge. He harbors resentment towards his own family and seething hatred towards the Olympian gods.

Prometheus won’t rest until the divinities, old and new, are toppled and perhaps pave the way for mortals to reign supreme.

Prometheus takes Kronos’s master because the Titan of Time seems most likely to grant him the retribution he desires.

But to go so far as calling them allies is an overstretch. The Titan of Prophecy despises time and might even take offense to Kronos’s meddling with fate.

When Melenoi confronts Prometheus at top Olympus, he admits that he’s foreseen his ultimate defeat at her hands, but intends to play his role nonetheless.

>> I thought you might show up. I know you think that you can get past me if you but continue to try and to try and to try.

The truth is you shall. Perhaps not this night, but inevitably nonetheless. >> Interestingly, Prometheus is aided by Aitos, the very eagle that tormented him.

The pair fight Melenoi, and Prometheus says, “Master of fire, attacks with flaming kicks and jabs.

Bandages around his midriff allude to the damage caused by the eagle.” The gravest of all threats, greater than Prometheus, and even Kronos, remains on the summit.

After Kronos usurped the underworld, he liberated the primordial enemy of the gods, the world, and the universe, and directed its destruction towards Olympus, a violent storm not even Zeus could subdue buffeted the peak, and bizarre alien creatures appeared on the summit.

The whirlwind cleared to reveal Typhon, father of all monsters. In Greek mythology, Typhon is described as terrible, outrageous, and lawless with a hundred flaming snake heads.

He was a monstrous serpentine being. Sometimes born as Gaia’s last child with Tartarus out of anger that her children, the giants, were defeated.

Sometimes born from Hera out of resentment toward Zeus for giving rise to Athena on his own.

Sometimes simply earthborn. But in all cases, he was feared most by the gods. With wings that touched the stars and a stature that surpassed all children of the earth, Typhon challenged Zeus for supreme control of the cosmos.

A tempestuous battle that Zeus nearly lost if not for his thunderbolts. Some myths claimed that Zeus cast Typhon into the depths of Tartarus, while others say Mount Etna held Typhon prisoner.

As father to all monsters, his children included Cerberus, the Hydra of Lerna, Chimera, and sometimes even Aitos.

In Hades 2, Typhon is a force of pure destruction, shackled by nothing, who was born as an experiment by primordial chaos.

Kronos admits that he freed Typhon, but that he cannot control the monster. And like the Titan of Time, Typhon is defeated, but never killed.

He emerges again each night to challenge Melenoi. This is where Hades Bidant, Gagaros, becomes critical.

Typhon drops samples of his essence upon his banishment. Reagents used alongside the Zodiac Sands of Time by head mistress Heci to distill a powerful spell, the disintegration of monstrosity.

This incantation supercharges Gagaros and allows Meenoi to turn Typhon’s boundless rage and destruction against himself.

This time, when the princess of the underworld fails the monster, she slays him entirely.

The essence of Typhon is excoriated from the universe, found in no realm of the living or the dead.

Typhon’s ultimate defeat quells the storm that surrounds Mount Olympus and weakens the siege enough for the gods to turn the tide of battle against Kronos.

With the surface spared, Melenoi must return to the underworld and finish her grandfather. Entropy, the material of slain Typhon, is used again by the witch of the crossroads as a powerful reagent with the sands of time to procure the dissolution of time incantation, which suppresses Kronos’s ability to reconstitute himself after death.

>> Time overstepped his bounds, which cannot stand. He shall be stopped as the three fates had planned.

But before the allies deliver their final blow, Kronos uncovers the hiding place of the unseen.

He sends his legions into the crossroads and himself kidnaps Hecati before returning to Tardarus.

Need and vengeance deliver Melenoi swiftly to Tardus where she confronts her grandfather a last time.

Melenoi subdues the present Titan, then travels once more into the dream and imbuss Gagaros with the incantation for Zagrias in the past.

Only one thing remains. For the prince of the underworld to dissolve Kronos before he fully materializes.

But at the precipice of victory, something quite strange happens. You really do mean he and I should have a chat.

So we become best mates. What then? Oh. Huh. He wouldn’t take over the house.

He wouldn’t have to. But father would absolutely lose his mind if he sees him again.

>> Zagrias feels empathy for his grandfather. The Titan who raged at his children who suffered an eon of anguish and who knows even his children’s children have been turned against him.

Zagrias breaks this cycle of contempt, however, and offers Kronos a vision of what could have been if the House of Hades lived in harmony.

We witness a Kronos seemingly reconciled with his family, [music] a grandfather who helps raise his adoring grandchildren.

Is this the future? Or is it the past? Not merely mine, but yours, granddaughter.

Everybody in this house. But dreams are strange. When Melenoi awakens, nothing’s changed. Nothing besides Kronos’s demeanor and his request for forgiveness.

But it’s enough to drive Kronos to repent for his actions and attempt to heal the House of Hades.

He offers himself to judgment of both Hades and Melenoi. >> Where are we? Is this my house?

Father, what is the meaning of all this? >> Oh, [snorts] Hades, perhaps the princess can explain.

As for the queen and prince and all the rest, the Linui, they need but hear your voice.

And I await their judgment and your own. Despite her whole life revolving around death to Kronos, Melenoi can’t bring herself to erase her grandfather.

Because above vengeance, all she wants is to have a family united. She and Hades stay their retribution and open their hearts to rehabilitation.

Kronos hands the reigns of Tartarus back to its rightful king and queen. The House of Hades is restored and all are reunited.

But this isn’t quite the end of the tale. I’ll create a shift whilst you enter.

Then you do as you must with the wrong-headed version of me and there. We shall be rid of the mere possibility of him.

Alternate timelines. Vestigages of Kronos remain that could reemerge and threaten the sanctity of this current reality.

Kronos swears an oath to aid Melenoi in destroying these rogue titans wherever they emerge.

As for Melenoi, her place is in shadow, not in the underworld. Though she remains a daughter of Hades, she joins the unseen and continues her work from darkness and dream, watching over both mortal and immortal realms.

And finally, there’s the issue of the fates who still haven’t been found. A request appears on the faded list with riddles that lead Melenoi through the underworld and earth toward the spinstress sisters.

Its final task sees her use their brother Moros’s keepsake in Oceanis. With death and fate defied three times, Melenoi draws the attention of the sisters from the void.

And here they speak their truth. >> That’s all right, sweetie. Think of it like uh you gods can do your own thing for a while, then mortals can do theirs.

It’ll be a brand new age. Been a while since the last one of those.

>> So, you’re retiring? All three of you. No more weavingings. We’re to keep fending for ourselves.

Come what may. >> They seek to retire which will bring about a new age of free will, of uncertainty and unpredictability.

The universe will no longer be predetermined but ruled by valition and will. First by the gods and then ultimately by humans themselves.

And one final mystery awaits to which the fates hint the true identity of head mistress Hecy.

>> Just ask your old teacher sometime. Now she’s pulled some strings. Let me tell you, >> it’s interesting that in the not tooistant past, Zagrias has no recollection of Hecy as Pphanie’s handmaiden, suggesting that she arrived only shortly before Kronos himself attacked Hades.

And several other interactions with the witch of the crossroads show her less than forthcoming with her past.

Only if their bond becomes unbreakable and the pair retire to the baths does hecate reveal to Melenoi her nature.

And is easier to explain, I suppose, if you look upon me as I am.

>> Mistress, what? I You’re You’re beautiful, but what is this? I I don’t understand.

Some trick you’re playing or some glamour or >> No, the trick is when the veil is on, look upon me and do not avert your eyes.

Like the myth of Meleninoi, this version was placed on the Kakaidus River, but was instead rescued by the moon goddess when Kronos attacked.

Without ally, this Meleninoi was self-taught and managed to defeat Kronos. But she created a terrible space-time anomaly while descending through her grandfather’s subconscious.

>> But at any rate, something did go ary. Time and nightmare fused, and I discovered I was someplace else.

Nightmare and time mixed to devastating effect, hurtling Melenoi through the universal fabric and into an alternate timeline where she was transformed into the titanis hecy.

Still bent on revenge, she bided her time silently for eons, waiting for the moment to strike.

But time has a way of repeating itself. And even as a being knowledgeable of the future, Hecati was taken unawares.

The truth of her identity pairs well with the myths of both Hecati and Melenoi.

As we’ve already discussed, the pair hold power in overlapping spheres and share in many things.

This is a clever way to show that some myths conflate Meleninoi with Hecati and that they truly were different names for one and the same goddess.

Neither dulge their secret, and the pair work alongside Kronos and the rest of the unseen to ensure time’s steady, ceaseless flow.

Thanks so much for watching this video on the complete story and mythology of Hades and Hades 2.

Let me know your thoughts on Zagrias Melenoi, your favorite Greek myths, as well as other characters or stories from Hades you’d like to learn more about in the comments below.

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