History Characters / ReceiverOfMany

* AnythingThatMoves: To great displeasure of his wife. He is mentioned to have had hundreds of lovers both mortal and immortal and many, many bastard children from these affairs. As Persephone notes during her visit to Olympus, he is completely open about it shamelessly flirting with a nymph in the middle of his court.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: She is almost universally loved and respected by her subjects. When she is to be taken away back to the surface, the whole Underworld cries.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Being the Queen of Chthonia comes with having control over the whole realm and all gods and creatures dwelling there, as well as an impressive set of other powers, all of which lets her kick serious amounts of ass.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: He was leading the rebellion against Cronus, which ultimately let him claim the throne of the Gods.

* NotSoDifferent: From Demeter. They both shun Olympus as a nest of vipers and take their duties to mortals very seriously. At the beginning Hades, like Demeter, tries to shield Persephone from any harm, but as the result he isolates her in his palace and doesn't tell her many things she should know as the Queen of the Underworld. During their first quarrel Persephone actually accuses him of being worse, since he ends up showing her what she could have become and then snatching it from her, when Demeter kept her oblivious the entire time. Later he also proves himself willing to tear down the order of the cosmos or even end the world if it would let him keep his wife by his side.

* NotSoDifferent: She is more similar to Hades than she would be willing to admit. They both shun Olympus as a nest of vipers, both seem to actually care about their duties to mortals unlike many other gods, both love Persephone and try to shield her from any harm but end up smothering and isolating her in the process, both are also willing to end the world to keep her by their side.

* TheTrickster: He known for his cunning.

!!In general

* DarkAndTroubledPast: His father devoured him after he was born and he spent many years in darkness, before being freed and thrown into the ten year war with the Titans. All these events left scars on his body. He considers this part of his past to be very ugly and at the beginning does not wish to show it to Persephone

* DistressedDude: [[spoiler: Minthe spikes Hades' drink with ergot so she can freely rape him. The ergot paralyses him and leaves him completely unable to fight back and has to be saved by Persephone.]]
* [[spoiler: DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Averted. The one who faces Persephone's wrath is Minthe, not Hades. After (unintentionally) killing Minthe, Persephone's immediate concern is to help her husband and ease the effects of the ergot drug Minthe used to paralyse him during her attempted rape.]]
* DrowningMySorrows: He becomes depressed after drawing the shortest straw and receiving the rule of the Underworld instead of the heavens. He spends some time holing up in his chambers and drowning his sorrows in wine, until Thanatos tells him to get his act together.
* EveryoneHatesHades: Mortals are afraid of him and other gods shun him. Before the Pomegranate Agreement he didn't have any temples or shrines and very sporadic offerings. It takes Persephone returning and spreading the word about how the Underworld really works for him to become more revered.

* HappilyMarried: To Persephone

* {{Revenge}}: When he was freed from Cronus his main objective became vengeance on his father.

* SingleTargetSexuality: Towards Persephone. Even before he claimed her as his wife he didn't have eyes for anyone else. The WordOfGod said that if he was ever alone with Aphrodite she would most certainly take form uncannily similar to his wife, as one that he finds the most beautiful.

* TheDreaded: Mortals refuse to even speak his name out of fear. Many gods are just as scared of him.
* TheInsomniac: He usually slept very little due to constant voices of shades and Cronus coming to him through the Key. He started sleeping better some time after Persephone arrived.
* TheKindnapper: He is forced to hastily spirit Persephone away [[spoiler: to prevent Demeter from permanently changing her into a tree.]] It puts a strain on their relationship, since at the beginning Persephone doesn't understand why he did it and later doesn't believe him outright, when he tells her the truth.
* TheSnarkKnight: He puts himself to the same high standards he does everyone else.
* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove?: While he seems to have felt love for Persephone before he was shot with the golden arrow, this event awakened his feeling with new intensity and let him feel lust for the first time. He spends some time being terrible confused by what's happening to him.

* WildHair: When he was freed from Cronus his hair and beard were long and tangled.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: In desperate attempt to not be forever separated from his wife, he starts considering waging war against Olympus and overthrowing the old order. However, he is ultimately talked down by Persephone.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: She is almost universally loved and respected by her subjects. When she is to be taken away back to the surface, the whole Underworld cries.
* IHaveManyNames:
-->'''Merope:''' Before you came here, the Arcadians and Thracians didn’t call you Kore. They called you Despoina. In the easternmost islands of Hellas and the lands of Phrygia your name isn't Persephone— it's Perephatta. Beyond Phrygia, in the crescent land of the two rivers, you are called Ereshkigal. And in the desert sands, across the water to the distant south, you are called Nephthys and also Isis. The stories they tell about you are different, but The Lady Beneath the Earth is one and the same. The same divine role; and in the end, the same destiny…
* She is also associated with the Hindu goddess Parvati.
* InnocentFlowerGirl: She spends much of her life as Kore, maiden goddess of flowers. Her mother clearly believes that “childlike innocence is her nature.” Subverted later on when she grows into The High Queen, yet Demeter and others keeps insisting she is still the innocent flower maiden.

* MindLinkMates: When Hades shares the Key with her they become able to speak with each other through thoughts.

** Praxidike, name she is called in Tartarus, may be translated as “justice”, but also as “vengeance”, since in the ancient Greek culture these two concepts were heavily intertwined. [[spoiler: She makes good on this name, when she drops Sisyphus kicking and screaming into Tartarus.]]

* NotSoDifferent: From Demeter. When she thinks she may be a child, yet faced with the possibility she will never see her husband again, she finally understands why her mother held on her so tightly and did everything in her power to protect her, and that she herself would do the same for her child by Hades.
* ParentalNeglect: Her father didn't get involved in raising her. His only contributions in her life so far seem to be siring her, giving her away to Hades and then trying to annul her marriage, when Demeter forced him to. Though considering the type of person Zeus is this may have been for the best.

* TakeALevelInBadass: She grows from a fearful girl into a fearsome, powerful Queen, who have terrors of Tartarus at her command and can make even other gods soil their pants in fear.
* TheHighQueen: She was literally born for this role. Even under Demeter's smothering influence she still shows glimpses of natural ruler and when she is finally taken to the Underworld and allowed to blossom fully, she steps into the role with surprising ease.
* TheIngenue: For most of her life Demeter tried to shield her from anything involving men and sex and gave her the bare minimum of needed information. While by the time Hades gets to her she already has a general idea of how her body works and where children come from, she still knows nothing real about sex and romantic relationships. As a consequence when she encounters weeding in Eleusis she starts perceiving love in an idealized way. When she is finally taken underground by Hades, she is ill-prepared for marriage life and has hard time building healthy relationship with her husband.
* TheNeedsOfTheMany: She is ready to sacrifice her own happiness and her marriage to stop more mortals from dying due to famine and winter caused by Demeter. Even when she does find a way out of this situation, she still agrees to spend half of each year away from the Underworld and Hades to give mortals enough time to grow food and stock for the winter

* TheAtoner: Maybe. He certainly feels guilty and seems determined to not let anyone endure what [[spoiler: Voleta had to suffer for him.]]

* TheFerryMan: Of course.

* MotherOfAThousandYoung: She gave birth to many sons and daughters. To Charon, Thanatos, Hypnos, Morpheus, the Keres, the Tribe of the Oneiroi

!!In general
* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: In contrast the gods of the Underworld, gods of the world above need prayers and worship to continue existing, though this knowledge is heavily guarded for obvious reasons. When Demeter causes famine and winter, mortals quickly turn away from their gods focusing instead simply on survival. All gods are severely weakened by this situation, including Demeter herself. She manages to get her strength back by establishing the Eleusian Mysteries, when other gods remain just as weak as before, which forces them to finally bend to her wishes.

* GreenEyedMonster: Despite leaving Demeter after the war, he is still extremely jealous of her. He killed her mortal lover Iasion and the thought of Triptolemus putting his hands on “his Demeter” got his blood boiling.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: He killed Iasion, Demeter's new lover and clearly implies he would be willing to the same thing to Triptolemus.
* NewOldFlame: He tries to invoke this with Demeter, when he asks her to end the famine. He promises her the position of the Queen of the gods and his love. Unfortunately for him Demeter knows better than to trust his words.
* NotSoDifferent: From Cronus. He seems really like having power and is very paranoid about keeping it. He also have a tendency to use honey sweet words and promises he may not even be willing to keep in order to get his way.
* ProperlyParanoid: He is very paranoid that one of his relatives may try to take over his throne. Seeing as gods have a history of Antagonistic Offspring and there was already at least one attempt to overthrow him, this attitude is pretty justified.

* TheOathBreaker: He is willing to break vows he made in the past if it suits him, even Stygian oath. He is also ready to make promises he knows he is not going to keep in the future. Several characters call him out on this and note that it's a very dangerous trait for a king, since not only does it puts his honor in question, but also may cause his subjects to be unwilling to come to his aid or even make them step out against him.
* ThePatriarch: He is more or less the head of the Dysfunctional Family that gods are.
* TopGod: Officially he is the king of gods and men and actually one of the most powerful immortals around. The real scope and strength of his rule, however, is debated several times. Most inhabitants of the Underworld seem to recognize his authority only nominally and find it humorous that he believes himself to be the all powerful king. His will, like the will of any other gods, is also nothing compared to the Fate, which even he cannot change. Demeter's rebellion further undermines his position which he is aware of and not happy about.

* AManIsAlwaysEager: Seems to have this opinion at least about the Olympian men. Seeing how most of the Really Get Around, she is not far off.
* BrokenBird: Even not taking into account years spent in darkness after Cronus imprisoned her, she still suffered a lot. Her mentor abandoned her at the mercy of a man, who broke her heart and left her when she was pregnant with his child. Said man later killed her second lover out of jealousy. While she insists that time had healed these wounds, it becomes apparent during the story that they still fester to some extent.

* MyBelovedSmother: Oh, boy. She does everything she deems necessary to keep Persephone safe, which includes isolating her from gods and mortals alike, giving her as little information as possible about the world around her, exiling her nymph companions to keep her “innocence” and generally forbidding her from interacting with anyone Demeter herself does not approve of. She also keeps insisting that Persephone dresses and behaves like a child, despite Persephone already being an adult in body at least.

* TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest: She remembers Zeus breaking his promise to her and abandoning her to this day and feels quite bitter about it.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Demeter certainly comes across as this; while the reader can't help but feel sorry for her grief over the loss of her daughter, her actions throughout the book negate any sympathy one would feel towards her.
** To start she decides to forcibly take away her daughter's agency and ''life'' by turning her into a tree to prevent Hades from marrying her; prompting the legendary abduction. Persephone later calls her out on this because this last desperate scheme of Demeter leading to Hades' abducting her almost ruined her chance for a happy marriage; also pointing out that by doing so, she (Demeter) was trying to defy the very will of the Fates themselves.
** She never bothered to properly teach Persephone to defend herself or even properly educate her; constantly removed her friends and forbade her from speaking to mortals. As Persephone herself points out, Demeter never truly had the decency to show her daughter any respect.
** She decides to abandon to mortals who depend on her by causing widespread famine and winter, which result in hundreds, if not thousands, dying; all to get back at Zeus for allowing Hades to marry Persephone.
** She completely ignores Hecate telling and ''showing'' her that Persephone is safe and provided for with Hades, by stating that Hades has "manipulated" her daughter into loving him.
** When Persephone returns to the Upperworld, Demeter ups her MyBelovedSmother tendencies, ignores ''Persephone'' constant outright stating that she wasn't raped and sees any sign of Persephone's maturity as "taint" from being in Hades' company.
** She outright states her belief of Hades being a rapist ''to his face'' moments after Persephone had outright stated that she hadn't been raped. Later she whines about the fact that Persephone chose to spend a night in the company of her husband, rather than going to a festival, due to the fact that she hadn't seen him for three months. This is despite the fact that Demeter knows that the power need to spontaneously grow flowers like Persephone did, only happens during an act of love between an earth goddess and her mate.
** Later she goes out of her way to completely attempt to sabotage her daughter's marriage to the point that it [[spoiler: leads to Hades' being drugged and almost raped by Minthe]].
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: She causes famine and winter, which result in hundreds, if not thousands, dying and throw the world out of balance, almost destroying it completely. Her actions, however, are caused by her grief over losing her only daughter, whom she believes has been traded away like a sack of grain to the man she sees as heartless and cruel.

* DirtyCoward: He likes to pass for a great warrior, but tends to cower whenever he encounters something that can really hurt him. To his own credit he does try to battle his own fears as much as he can. It doesn't always succeed through.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: He scoffs at Hades for bringing three women – Persephone, Hecate, Eris – and a blind man – Morpheus – to storm Ephyra. He is quickly proven wrong, when Hecate effortlessly dispels Sisyphus' protective charms and Hypnos and Morpheus put everyone in the city to a walking sleep letting gods sneak in unnoticed. Persephone gives him quite a demonstration of her power [[spoiler: when she opens a portal straight to Tartarus and drops Sisyphus there.]]

* HonorBeforeReason: He knows Aphrodite will never be faithful to him, yet he himself refuses to take a lover to not dishonor his wife or the girl he would choose.
* TheConfidant: He is one for Aphrodite. She appears to be consulting with him on almost anything, even matters he doesn't wish to hear about.

* AbusiveParents: He devoured his children after they were born.

!!In general

* HappilyMarried: Subverted. For many years she thought that Sisyphus loved her back. When she betrayed him he kept her alive but forced her to play a loving wife and devoted mother.

* DoomedByCanon: [[spoiler:Played with. Anyone interest in Myth/ClassicalMythology knows she is going to end up changed into a mint plant. However, here she is first burned alive and only from her ashes does the plant spring forth.]]

* MurderByCremation: [[spoiler: She is burned alive by Persephone, when she catches her trying to violate her husband.]]
* ParentalAbandonment: Her mother died some time after she was born and her father didn't care that he sired her at all.

* AGodAmI: He orders his people to worship him and by the end he clearly believes himself to be equal if not more powerful than the gods.

* {{Reincarnation}}: [[spoiler: Of Iasion.]]

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Discussed. He doesn't like the idea that he will have to watch all people he ever loved die one day, yet at the end decides the chance to spread advanced knowledge about farming to the rest of the world is worth it.

* YourCheatingHeart: Married Olympians such as Zeus, Poseidon, or Aphrodite are just as prone to sleeping with whatever woman or man catches their eye as the unmarried ones. None of them tend to stick around very long around their lovers, either, going after new ones as soon the thrill of conquest fades.

* YourCheatingHeart: While it seems that he honestly loved Demeter during the war, it didn't stop him from turning his attentions elsewhere, even before he cast her aside for Hera. He doesn't remain faithful to Hera either and constantly has affairs with other women.

* YourCheatingHeart: She openly cheats on husband with Ares and several other men. Hephaestus has no delusions that she could ever remain faithful to him.

* BiTheWay: While he seems to prefer women, several of his passing comments suggest that he has nothing against company of men as well.

* AGodIAm: He orders his people to worship him and by the end he clearly believes himself to be equal if not more powerful than the gods.

* AnythingThatMoves: To great displeasure of his wife. He is mentioned to have had hundreds of lovers both mortal and immortal and many, many bastard children from these affairs. As Persephone notes during her visit to Olympus, he is completely open about it shamelessly flickering with a nymph in the middle of his court.

* TraumaCongaLine: Her husband kept her alive and forced her to play Happy Marriage Charade by threatening their youngest son. At the end he broke her legs, drugged her so she couldn't scream and burned her alive depraving her of her immortality. He also put glamour on her so she would be sent to Tartarus in his place. She spent three years in the Pit until she was rescued by Persephone.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: She wants to spear her daughter the same pain she and many other goddesses and mortal women had to endure at hands of the gods. This attitude, while understandable, makes her try to keep her daughter isolated and ignorant of the outside world. When it becomes apparent that Hades is going to claim Persephone, she decides to [[spoiler: change her daughter permanently into a tree.]] When she is taken anyway, Demeter causes famine and winter to get her back, which ends up with mortals dying like flies. She is called out on these extremist actions by several people, Persephone herself included.

* RageAgainstTheMentor: She is still bitter about Hecate abandoning her at mercy of Zeus, after she chose him for her partner during hieros gamos instead of Hades whom Hecate suggested her.

* LoveEpiphany: In a way. When Persephone accuses him of loving her only because of the golden arrow, he realizes that he loved her long before that, through his feelings seems to have been muffed and only awakened in full force when he was scratched with the arrow.

* IHaveManyNames: He is worshipped all over the world under different names -- Hades, Osiris, Nergal, Yama...

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[Spoiler: Averted. The one who faces Persephone's wrath is Minthe, not Hades. After (unintentionally) killing Minthe, Persephone's immediate concern is to help her husband and ease the effects of the ergot drug Minthe used to paralyse him.]]

* DistressedDude: [[spoiler: When Minthe poisons his drink with ergot. He is completely unable to fight back and has to be saved by Persephone.]]