History Characters / ClassicalMythologyMonsters

* RapeAsBackstory: Medusa, in the Roman myths where she was raped by Poseidon, usually in Athena's temple. In all other versions, she willingly slept with him and knowingly broke her vows to Athena. The myth of Medusa being raped was invented by the poet Ovid who hated Emperor Augustus for banishing him because he commited adultery.

* IncestIsRelative: Depending on the version she is either Typhon's niece or his full sister.

* IncestIsRelative: Echnidna is his niece or sister, though at this point in the page you probably stopped caring.

* UnholyMatrimony: With Echidna.

* CutTheKnot: One of the solutions for Heracles' to kill an animal with an invulnerable hide - just choke it to death with his bare hands.

* CanonImmigrant: Adopted into Myth/ClassicalMythology from Persian Myths.

* EveryThingsBetterWithCows: What they guard

* UltimateEvil: As close as Greek myth gets to having one, what with being the offspring of MotherNature and {{Hell}}.

* OurSphinxesAreDifferent: She's typically portrayed with wings and a woman's head, sometimes also with human breasts or a serpent-headed tail. She was malicious and dangerous, and guarded the road to Thebes, killed all who could not answer her famous riddle and took her own life when Oedipus got it right. She was usually considered one of the many monstrous children fo Echidna, making her a sister to the Chimera, Cerberus and other monsters, and to have lived in Ethiopia until Hera sent her to plague Thebes.
* RiddleOfTheSphinx: The TropeMaker. "Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?" The answer: [[spoiler: Man.]]

* NecessaryEvil: Zeus may think so, as some versions have Echidna be left alive so she and her children can act as challenges for future heroes.

* UnholyMatrimony: With Typhon.

* YouWillBeSpared: In some versions, Zeus spares her life, on the grounds that her offspring will become a NecessaryEvil for heroes to prove themselves against.

* NoSavingThrow: Their CompellingVoice bewitches ''anyone'' that hears it, regardless of what they desire or how much HeroicWillpower they possess. Odysseus only survived listening to the sirens because he was tightly bound to the mast of his ship prior to entering their range; he ''was'' under their enthrall, and would have leapt to his doom if given the chance.

* ALoadOfBull: Not an example itself, being an actual bull instead of a bull-man, but being the father of the Minotaur makes it the UrExample, or at least the progenitor of the actual UrExample.

* ALoadOfBull: The TropeMaker!

* BadassBeard: [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Zeus_Typhon_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_596.jpg In artwork depicting him with a human head.]]

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: His form is inconsistently depicted, but he is always described as a dragon of sorts.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Very different, and different in so many ways. In addition to speaking human language, he could have as many as one hundred heads or just one with one hundred eyes, depending on the description. Others say his head was half his total length.

* Psychopomp : It seems the Sirens accquired at least some characteristics of psychopomps, as time went on. Throughout the Greek world figurines depicting Sirens were placed in the graves of the freshly deceased to guide and protect them on their way to the Underworld.

* BalefulPolymorph: A little-known fact about the Sirens, they used to be Persephone's handmaidens. When they failed to find her after her kidnapping, [[MamaBear a furious Demeter]] transformed them into bird-women, either as punishment or to assist in the search.

* ForTheEvulz: They didn't seem to have a reason to drown and eat all of those people. They just did. Although BalefulPolymorph above gives the possibility of a FreudianExcuse.

* SadlyMythtaken: [[SirensAreMermaids They were not mermaids.]] And they were not ''fully'' aquatic. This wouldn't make any sense; they are never stated to leave the rocks they live on and the one time they do, they ''drown''. Additionally, Demeter turned them into Sirens to aid in the search for the kidnapped Persephone. So unless she thought Persephone was at the bottom of the ocean[[note]]though if she did, she wouldn't be too far off the mark; Persephone was certainly at the bottom of someplace...[[/note]], she wouldn't have made them part fish. On top of that they weren't beautiful. They were mostly bird with the heads of women and looked a fair amount like vultures.

* EnthrallingSiren: Trope namers and codifiers.

* BrownNote: The Gorgons were so hideous, merely looking upon them would cause a man to be TakenForGranite.

** The Gorgons were first mentioned in the Trojan Cycle, completely unnamed and indeed, not even ''gendered'' (leaving it open for them to be male). They're established as TheDreaded from the get-go, as their visage is said to kill/petrify anyone who looks upon them and said visage not only graces Athena's Aegis, but they can apparently be found in the Underworld and Odysseus shudders at the thought of encountering one.

* PaperTiger: Highly famous and [[TropeMaker Trope Making]] [[ALoadOfBull minotaur]] [[ToServeMan maneater]] he may be, Asterion seems a tad less threatening when his record is viewed from afar since he really just ate a bunch of scared (and possibly starving, if they were stuck in the labyrinth long enough) young boys and girls that were trapped in the labyrinth with him. When Theseus was prepared to actually fight him while armed (or in some versions, even while ''unarmed''), Asterion was killed handily. The aforementioned unarmed accounts would downright make the popular portrayal of minotaurs being bigger and stronger than humans appear unfounded, but in general it would certainly seem that Asterion would logically have been pretty helpless against any armed and armoured ancient soldier.

A winged horse, and one of the most famous mythic creatures. He's the child of Medusa and Poseidon (the result of rape in some stories). Later became hero Bellerophon's steed after being captured on the Muses' Mount Helicon and helped him slay Chimera, as well as in a battle against the Amazons. After Bellerophon's fall (literally and [[FallenHero figurative]]), Zeus keeps him.

* PetTheDog: Hades cares for Cerberus such that one account of him requesting Hercules subdue with Cerberus "...without shield or iron" to capture him after which Hercules attacks him with [[ExactWords stone-tipped arrows]] leads Hades to be immediately irate over Hercules violating the spirit of the agreement's terms and has Hercules shoot at Hades too (which, given Hercules' track record with DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu, makes Hades a tad brave to get visibly upset).
* PuzzleBoss: AvertedTrope according to one account -- unlike most of the rest of Hercules' labors, he needed no assistance from the Gods or tricky methods for overcoming Cerberus; Hercules asked Hades if he could borrow Cerberus for his labor, Hades said yes as long as he didn't use any weapons (probably not wanting Cerberus harmed), and Hercules proceeded to wrestle Cerberus with little more than his strength, skill, and his Nemean Lion skin for protection.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: In some versions of the story baby Asterion was a victim of parental abuse and neglect, which created his bloodthirsty nature. Being locked in a lonely prison didn't help.