Characters / Lore Olympus Olympians And Other Deities

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Deities In General

• Adaptational Nice Guy: Zig-zagged or varies on a case-by-case basis. Generally, the gods are nicer than they were in the original myths, and certainly a lot less murdery. For example, Persephone doesn’t even rat Minthe out for sending her to Tartarus, let alone kill her. But then there’s Apollo, who is arguably a lot worse, and Hestia, who is easily a lot more Holier Than Thou. See Blue-and-Orange Morality, and the gods’ adaptation tropes.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Olympians in the original myths are so powerful that they're effectively untouchable to everyone except each other and a small handful of high ranking deities. Here, the power scaling is much more murky, with many minor and mid-level gods and creatures being strong enough to give the Olympians pause.
• The Ageless: What the gods truly are. The deities like to pass themselves off as true immortals, impervious to any death- but its a lie, or at least just what they think. The gods CAN die, it just takes a lot of effort and specific circumstances. But it can happen.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: They all have colorful skin tones.
• Cast of Personifications: Each of the Olympians and most of the other deities exemplify one specific emotion or aspect of it. Sensing and even enhancing that emotion in others. Much like the original mythology, Lore Olympus is hard on the deconstruction side of these tropes. As each of the gods can only see the world through their specific lens, giving them all a pretty bad case of Lack of Empathy when something falls outside of their specific emotion or its after effects. Usually by being pretty clueless about what happens after or how it effects others. Like Aphrodite setting off random orgies, Ares intentionally making people mad, or Demeter being a scary and controlling maternal figure. Somehow every last one of them don't understand why people don't like them. That's not even getting to actual villains of the Story like the narcissistic to a fault Apollo or the 'Chaos is fun' Eris.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed. There’s a bit of Politically Correct History in regards to their morals (Eros reacts with shock learning the Apollo assaulted Persephone), but they treat mortals flippantly. You have such sweethearts as Eros, Artemis, and Persephone committing massacres against humans, with only one of them being reprimanded for doing it, all because of the lack of a permit. Even Hades, one of the overall kindest characters in the pantheon, casually remarks to Persephone that mortals are "a dime a dozen." We also see him rip out a photographer's eye for daring to slander Persephone, which suggest he holds the reputations of his fellow gods, and especially Persephone above other's lives harkening back to the original mythology.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: The realms (aside from the mortal one) run on something like this. Surprisingly, not from Olympus itself. Sure, the city of the gods hands out grand policies like awards and blocking off the realms. But as for the Day to Day operations, paperwork, even trade regulations- The underworld handles most of it. Technology development, Lawyers, Death adjacent war study. Anyone with a brain lives and works in the Underworld. Its quite literally a bottoms up system.
• The Clan: Of the four realms, three are ruled by a trio of brothers. Most of the high positions are staffed by their direct descendants, with the underworld being an exception with their king being infertile. Even then, Hades happily employs his nieces and nephews. As for the mortal realm, Demeter, the sister to the high queen, applied to become its queen but was voted down.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The comic relies heavily on color to distinguish characters and backgrounds.
• Elixir of Life: Most Deities are born gods, adult or otherwise. But it is not the only way. It is rare and only seen once in the series, but mortals can become gods. Ambrosia. Apparently, only the high king is authorized to hand it out, or at least know about it. Strangely enough, this new god keeps their mortal color scheme instead of becoming Amazing Technicolor Population like the rest.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: After the Titan war, what was once The Team has more or less gone their own ways. Becoming Queens and Kings of their own domains. Children to raise. Realms to rule. They still come together for the occasional official meeting and festive event, but by Hades own words they're 'a shadow of what we once were'. Its rather sad, actually.
• Friendless Background: It’s easier to list the gods that do have friends than the ones that don't. The gods have big personalities that demand complete control over their domains. Meaning, they feel compelled to have their way- with dang near everything. Thus, its hard to be around them for very long. Even for other gods. The few deities that have friends are eithe obfuscatingStupidity (Hermes), Faux Affably Evil (Apollo), or just that nice (Eros).
• Generation Xerox: Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus; all cosmic rulers who overthrew their parents to claim the top position in Olympus. One image specifically illustrates their similar features. They also all did it through seducing fertility goddesses (Gaia, Rhea, and Metis) for their power, according to Demeter. And it looks like Apollo is on the path to join them.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: It's explained in Episode 257 that, while the Titans and primordial gods were independently powerful, the Olympians need the belief of mortals to maintain their strength and purpose. They don't need the worship of mortals to exist but none of them want to go back to a life without them either.
• Immortality Begins at Twenty: The gods stop aging completely somewhere in their early to mid twenties. Demeter speculated that Persephone might have stopped aging early at 19.
• Immortality Hurts: Boy does it! Much like the original mythology, the gods can heal from almost any wound- 'almost' being the operative word. When something can hurt a Deity, it sticks with them. Usually for the rest of their immortal lives.So far the best way to do this is injuries inflicted by another Deity. The scars from Kronos, being the biggest example.
• Immortal Ruler: As the gods are immortal themselves, they get this by default. Granted, entire generations of gods have died by the time the series started- but the current record for longest reign is 2000-ish. Pretty good.
• Incest Is Relative: While the comic goes to great pains to show that not ALL the gods are related, most are. Adding to that, theres a very limited pool for gods to court. While direct siblings are off limits, so far, apparently it’s fine to court the child of said sibling. Best example, Hestia and Athena. The former is dating what amounts to her sister's step daughter. They do it in secret, but that's for... other reasons.
• Mayfly–December Romance: The gods have a low opinion of mortals but they are often highly loving and protective of those they take as lovers and any children that come the pairing.
• Morphic Resonance: When the gods transform themselves into animals, they retain their respective color schemes. In Episode 93, their mortal guises of Zeus and Poseidon retain the injuries and scars that their actual bodies have.
• My Way or the Highway: The gods are, well, gods. And have been in charge a long time. So they think and act with complete authority of their chosen area. Even against other gods of higher authority when needed. Ironically, whenever someone tries to pull this it’s usually the instigator that walks away.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Part of their purpose driven immortality. The god's priority, first and foremost, is their given task. It is their reason for being. The realms, each other, their own children, forget mortals; everything is a distant second at best to their job. Because of that, the gods are a bit cagey and tactless when it comes to their 9 to 5. When one god's task conflicts with another, it's bad. Every time.
• Purpose-Driven Immortality: Gods seem to operate on something like this. In mind and function if nothing else. For deities, nothing is more important than their given task. If anything comes in conflict or challenges their position, the gods see it as an active existential threat. The very least, if their task is violated it causes them physical pain and mental scars that last.
  • No better is this seen in Hera, the goddess of marriage. Her husband, Zeus, Really Gets Around. Hera herself has no faith or trust in her husband, but every time he cheats on her, Hera feels more than just embarrassment from the scandal, she feels pain, mentally and physically, each time.
• Shapeshifter: They are capable of changing forms, although only a few of them (Zeus, Hera, Hades, Aphrodite) have shown this ability so far.
• Semi-Divine: All over the place. Most deities are born but mortals can become gods. The gods themselves regularly court and reproduce with mortals. These children range from regular Muggles that don't even know about their devine heritage, demi-gods who are mostly mortal but have watered down devine gifts, to outright deities in their own right. The degree of mortal-god child divinity appears to be random and largely depends on luck.
• The Team: During the Titanomachy, this seemed to be the six traitors dynamic. Zeus was the Rebel Leader, the only one allowed to grow into his power and unite the team. Hades was the Submissive Badass, quiet and defective but undeniably powerful and under Zeus's thumb. Poseidon, doing double duty as The Heart and The Big Guy. Hera was the Honey Trap and The Medic. Hestia's role was unknown, but she was strong enough to survive the war. Demeter seemed to be the Only Sane Man/ The Dissenter Is Always Right and most independent minded of the group.
• Turn Out Like His Father: Each high king of the gods got that way by seducing and draining the power out of a fertility goddess. Each time the son usurped the father. Each but the first did so because their predecessor was a hero king who became corrupted trying to hold onto power.Each time it killed the fertility goddess in question. Usually the mother of the next king. All are descendants of Ouranos. At the time of the series, multiple 'young' gods have tried to restart the cycle. Luckily, they are fated to fail and the cycle will be broken as the current fertility goddess' chosen is nothing like the rest. The question is how it happens.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation:
  • Multiple characters' familial relationships have been removed in an attempt to circumvent the Divine Incest rampant in Classical Mythology.
  • Hera, Demeter and Hestia are all Ambiguously Related as they were all made by Metis but are not blood relatives. Rachel Smythe has gone back and forth on whether or not they are considered true sisters or just companions who are as close as siblings, even updating dialogue from older pages to remove references to them being sisters. Persephone has a close relationship to both Hera and Hestia but never refers to either as her aunt and Athena has no issue with dating Hestia who would otherwise be her adoptive aunt.
• We Are as Mayflies: This is more or less how the gods view mortals. Deities value and need mortals for some unexplained reason- Gods of one stripe or another predated humanity. Regardless, while Gods need mortals as a whole, they view mortal lives as pretty cheap. Individual, towns, even armies of worth of mortals slaughtered like livestock? At best you'll get a shrug.

Hades

Hades

King of the Underworld, god of the dead and of wealth.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: Even ignoring the kidnapping of Persephone, Hades in classic mythology was known as a dark, cold, unyielding figure with a wrathful temper towards anyone who crossed him and little interest in anything happening outside of his realm. He wasn't an evil god but he wasn't the affable figure shown in the comic either.
• And I Must Scream: His father Kronos ate him alive when he was six and kept him in his stomach for thirteen years.
• Archnemesis Dad: Kronos was the father to half the traitors dynasty, but Hades was his first and most hated son. After the war, Hades was his warden in charge of jailing him. During his escape, Kronos used Hades as his main tool to regain power. Even aside from all that, the feud between Father and Eldest son is much more personal and bitter than his other boys. The latter two (Rebel Leader and The Big Guy) arguably doing more against him during the war than the broken Hades. It's rather damning that during his escape, Kronos enjoyed tormenting Hades but treated Zeus as an afterthought. Zeus suspects that this is less because Hades actually did anything to anger Kronos and more because Hades reminded him of Ouranos, his own father.
• Bait the Dog: Toward Thanatos, Hades' long time sidekick and unofficial adopted son. After the trial and Thanatos' role in it, Hades called him into his office to cuss him out. Thankfully they started talking. It even looked like they were going to work out their issues together, but then Kronos took control of his son at the worst time and told the god of death that he wished he drowned Thanatos the day they met before ordering him to Get Out!. See below for Kick the Dog.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Easily the smartest of his brothers. Hades is the brains of the big three compared to pretty boy Zeus and dumb muscle Poseidon.
• Benevolent Boss: Played With. See below for Mean Boss. During meetings and setting company policies, Hades is demanding and controlling. A proud micromanager. But outside of that, Hades has been shown to be rather casual with his employees. Asking and listening how their their days are going. Occasionally working out with them at the company gym. Hades even hands out literal gems as tips for his staff's services. Granted, that last one was only after Persephone entered his life, but still.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Whilst he is generally a nice person (despite most of Olympus being wary of him) he does have a scary side to him. He shows it in episode 49 when he confronts the reporter who took a picture of both Persephone and Hades walking at his house for a tabloid and his form changes from his usual suit clad self to a huge terrifying being. He also is a veteran of the war against the Titans that followed Kronos and the oldest of the pantheon, suggesting Hidden Depths still not touched on on top of those given from his Deal with the Devil.
• The Big Damn Kiss: After HUNDREDS of Cannot Spit It Out moments with Persephone, he finally tells her what he feels about her, immediately leading to a VERY passionate make-out. So good, the young goddess turns into a swarm of butterflies.
  • And mirroring that, the time he finally says I love you, is as she's being sent away for her punishment, she fades into the ether in his arms before she can reply.
• Blue Is Calm: Blue is Hade's natural colour and he is the most calm of his his brothers. That doesn't mean he's a true stoic, however. Hades has a big at temper as anyone on Olympus. Hades just has the most self-control.
• Color-Coded Emotions: Is the color blue and is usually melancholic.
• Control Freak: Regularly micromanages his employees, keeping track of their internet usage to make sure they're no slacking off during work and harshly chastises Thanatos for coming in under his soul quota. To be fair on that last one, the pie chart Hades had prepared was showing that Hermes was doing three times the work of Thanatos in collecting souls, despite having other duties.
• Cool Uncle: Hebe, Athena and Hephaestus all seem to like him. Ares shows him a moderate amount of respect.
• Covered with Scars: His body is seamed with scars, visible in scenes where he's shirtless. Chapter 133 confirms that they're from his father Kronos vindictively biting pieces out of him when Zeus rescued Hades from Kronos's stomach.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hinted at throughout the first season through flashbacks, references, and his extensive scars. Hades eventually tells Persephone the full story in chapter 133, and it's a rough one: Kronos ate him alive when he was six years old. Hades stayed in his stomach for thirteen years, during which Kronos was the only person to talk to him. When Zeus finally freed him and Poseidon, Kronos bit pieces of him off, causing wounds that took years to heal and left him Covered in Scars. Due to the lengthy isolation, he struggled with speech for some time afterwards, and admits to Persephone that the trauma has never entirely gone away so much as he's simply learned to manage it.
• Deal with the Devil: In order to be the King of the Underworld and to properly contain his father Kronos, he did a deal with Erebos. He's not sure yet what he's lost, but he can't stay away for more than two weeks, and he can't have children. Though he's unsure if the latter is part of the deal or just from his father's torture.
• Demonic Possession:The victim of it, thanks to Kronos. Thanks to Persephone's tree in Tartarus, Kronos regains enough strength to, through Hypnos, influence Hades and thus, the Underworld and its denizens. Incidentally, we learn that Kronos is VERY crass and his treatment of young people has NOT improved over the years.
• Domestic Abuse: A victim of it. Thank Minthe for that.
• Endearingly Dorky: After you get past the scary king of the underworld bit, Hades is essentially this. Anyone who manages to get to know this gloomy blue deity comments on it. All the way from his fellow kings- his brothers, to Hera, Hecate, to even the fates themselves. The only authority in all of Olympus that even Zeus can't boss around. And every last one of them think its a point in his favor. Hell, even the furies- Hades own hit squad- thinks the most scandalous thing about a tabloid photo of him exiting his home with a teenage goddess is that Hades looks like a 'dusty ass dad'.
• Everybody Hates Hades: In-universe, he seems to have an unpopular reputation among many of the residents of Olympus thanks to his position, on top of being unfairly lumped in with his brothers regarding their public bad behavior. This plus his own social awkwardness means that, though he's able to get on well with those closest to him, overall he's rather isolated and something of an outcast. He's also shown in one cutaway gag panel to have his real life reputation with mortals as one is seen trying to shoo him away, while he's surveying a volcano. In Chapter 77, he states that Minthe is the best he could get at romance, since his job won't let him be with any nice women. Thankfully, Persephone seems to be proving that fear wrong.
• Eye Color Change: See below. Also, when thinking about Persephone, his irises turn fuchsia.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Inverted since Hades isn’t evil, just intimidating. Hard yes on the Equal opportunity thing. Hades, and therefore the underworld, will take anyone. Shades of heroes and nobodies, sure. Primordials that don't even have a body, welcome aboard. Other Deities who's natures run counter to his own, please turn in your W-2 by next week. Hell, Hades was banned from a strip club for poaching their best dancer after he discovered she was better at speech writing than he was.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: His romantic feelings for Hera started to develop when she took care of him while he was in a weakened state. He seems to be mostly over it in the present.
• Foil: To Zeus, in... pretty much everything. Hades was the eldest brother. The most loved by thier mother and hated by their father. Hades grew up broken and isolated. Zeus was spoiled and smothered. Both had the same first love (Hera). She valued Hades but chose Zeus. Each king had relations with their PA's, but Hades did it openly and kept it out of work. Both depend on the women in their respective court, but only Hades has respect for any of them. One is a Mean Boss the other is a Pointy-Haired Boss. The list goes on. But what really connects and contrasts these two is that both have had long Friendless Backgrounds for most of their immortal lives, stuck with a Lonely at the Top situation. The real difference is, One is Everybody Hates Hades the other is Everybody Loves Zeus.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible to Zeus's Foolish.
• Genius Bruiser: Goes along with this three-way contrast with his brothers. Zeus is the Guile Hero. Poseidon is The Heart. Hades is this. Sure, he's not the most book smart (Hecate). The best in technology (Hephaestus). But he's not too far off either, with endless talent for administration. Let's also not forget, he did fight the titans with the rest of the six traitors.
• Happily Married: Though they are not married yet Hades and Persephone already seem to have a much healthier relationship than other couples, most notably Zeus and Hera.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Has 7 of them (including Cerberus) that he's frequently shown to treat well.
• Hidden Depths: He's the most low-key of his brothers and never been shown to have gone all out with his abilities, just small burst to quell situations. He however obtained powers to rule the underworld enough to contain his father and is the oldest of the Gods. Only Zeus has seemingly challenged him in any significant way, but even then does it through civil means.
  • As of the Season 2 mid-season finale He's only once turned into a Titan-like form and it was only because of Persephone's insistence that he stops. Even then, just by transforming and clawing his way out of the room, he's shown to be able to crack a few windows, splinter a door and maybe ruin a floor or two of a hotel.
• I Have Many Names: His business card lists a multitude of names and titles: ᾍδης, Aidoneus, Dark Zeus, Dis, Plouton, Pluto, King of the Underworld, God of the Dead, God of Wealth.
• Kick the Dog: See above for Bait the Dog. Not his fault though. Hades’ adopted son spilling his heart out, only for Hades to cruely announce he wished he killed Thanatos on day one and then toss him out. Thanatos wanted nothing to do with Hades after that. Thankfully, Hades revealed Kronos was controlling him during all that later and they forgave each other.
• Lonely at the Top: As the King of the Underworld, his grim and dark but necessary job isolates him and he doesn't lead a very good social life, in comparison to his brothers. He dreads the idea of taking a wife for the sole reason of believing they'll feel this way about ruling the underworld.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: During the 10 year time skip, Kronos escapes and takes control of the Underworld. He traps Hades in his dreams, forcing his jailer son in a loop of what he wants most... living the life of a loving family man, where he spoils his toddler, carries his infant, and shares a meal with his wife, Persephone.
• Love at First Sight: What kicks off the entire story. He is absolutely smitten when he first sees Persephone. Though he later acknowledges that this reaction may have been largely superficial, his deep affection for her never wanes in the series.
• Mean Boss: See above for Control Freak. While Hades is demanding, micromanaging his staff up the wazoo, he actually bothers listening to their concerns. Even scheduling a single day a month out of his busy schedule for his entire workforce to list their complaints to him, one by one. That being said, don't expect anyone to invite the boss out for drinks when they punch out for the day.
• Mr. Fanservice: As the webcomic has continued, the illustrators have began to show off Hades’ physique as often as possible, even in episode 145, where he doesn’t even have a line, it’s just a comedy bit about Persephone gleefully reacting to him getting out of the pool. Hades seems aware of his physique, judging from his embarrassment of accidentally showing his chest to Persephone in the Workout Fanservice scene referenced below.
• Nice Guy: Though he does have to act with authority as a king, and most do not think highly of him he is honestly a good and respectful person. Persephone is one of the few who willingly gets close to him.
• Parental Substitute: Something he was adamantly against. He hasn't said it, but Hades' believes his entire bloodline aren't meant to be parents. Considering his own brother's style of fatherhood, the god of Manchildren and Party Animals, only reinforces this. Hades would much rather be the Cool Uncle. Which he is to most of his nieces and nephews. Hades was unknowingly this to Thanatos after Nyx leaves him in the Underworld. He wasn't too good at it. The blue Deity was reluctant from the start and only gave his charge what he thought the boy needed: Food, shelter, employment. Always staying at arms’ length, at best. When it was finally pointed out to him that he was all but a father, Hades was terrified at the prospect.
• The Problem with Fighting Death: Remarks to Persephone that he doesn't care if mortals don't actively worship him because they all eventually die and their shades enter his domain and serve him forever.
• Pungeon Master: Man has a love of puns. A flashback shows him getting a critique on a speech and arguing that "the puns tie it together".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When his eyes are glowing red, he is pissed.
• The Reveal: He is infertile. This partly explains his stormy relationship with Minthe and his issues with accepting women into his life.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Almost literally. After Zeus rescued him from Kronos, the most Hades could do was attempt conversation- at best. That's what happens when you spend your first couple of decades broken and isolated in a dark room with only your father's insults to keep you company. Hades is a LOT better now, but he's still not the most social of his family. The only other god that beats him here is Hephaestus.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To Kronos and Ouranos. When he's angry, he takes on a form that more resembles the night sky similar to Kronos and he pretty much has Ouranos' coloring, down to his white hair. It's implied that the latter is why Kronos hates him so much.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Hades is a private god who lets few people into his life. Anyone in that circle knows Hades for the loving- if a bit clingy- dork that he is. Anyone on the outside? Thanatos, Hades own adopted son viewed him as the cold, unfeeling, and harsh King of the dead. It only gets worse from there. Persephone is trying to change that.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Ask anyone- who's not terrified of him- Hades is easy on the eyes. The tallest god. And the King of the dark and gloomy underworld. Pretty self-explanitory, really.
• Truly Single Parent: It's true... sort of. Its been revealed that Cerberus wasn't some random magic dog Hades stumbled on and took in. He created the hell hound as a present for Hera. Hades himself doesn't consider Cerberus his offspring, just his oldest friend- but the dog does. Cerberus always referring to Hades as his 'papa'. Regardless, this reveals that the seemingly infertile Hades can create life, just not in the traditional way.
• Unknown Rival: By all accounts, Hades was the best choice to be the King of Olympus instead of the ruler of the underworld. While he might not be the most charismatic, Hades is a tireless workhorse with endless talent for administration and organization. Oh, lets add polite and respectful to a fault to the list. Something no one- no one, can deny. Least of all the god of manchildren-Zeus. Downplayed in that Hades knows this and his brother's feelings about the subject, he just chooses not to care and ignore it.
• Workout Fanservice: While technically after the workout, Hades goes on a morning run and returns with a box of donuts for breakfast. Not noticing Persephone is in the room due to his earbuds playing loud music, he uses the front hem of his sweatshirt to wipe his brow, showing off his chiseled abs and pecs. He then notices her, and quickly pushes down his sweatshirt with blushing cheeks.

Persephone

Persephone

Daughter of Demeter and the goddess of spring.

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• Academic Athlete: In episode 45, we learn that as well as Persephone being a 3-time chess and math champion that she was also a Junior and Olympian swimming champion.
• Adaptational Nice Girl: In the myths she was considered to be the Underworld equivalent of Hera, just as pitiless and stern as Hades; she immediately turned his lovers into a plant and a tree just for flirting with him. Here she's a Naïve Everygirl who, on top of not knowing the lethal extent of her own full power, is at first not quite aware of just how manipulative the beings outside her home in the mortal realm can be. She also admits that she's jealous of Minthe's relationship with Hades but chooses not to try and undermine them. Even after Minthe sends her to Tartarus out of jealousy, Persephone ignores the temptation to tell Hades and get Minthe fired. She does eventually turn Minthe into a mint plant just like in the myth, but only after finding out Minthe ousted Persephone and Demeter to Zeus and wouldn't have done it otherwise if she hadn't been pushed too far.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Genuinely Nice Girl. One of the few gods genuinely sympathetic to mortals and their plight. Is capable of enough bloody, spurty murder that gives even other immortals pause.
• The Big Damn Kiss: After HUNDREDS of Cannot Spit It Out moments between herself and Hades, an intense argument is what makes him finally admit his true feelings for her, immediately leading to a VERY passionate make-out. So good, the young goddess turns into a swarm of butterflies.
  • And mirroring that, the time he finally says that he loves her to her, is as she's being sent away for her punishment, she fades into the ether in his arms before she can reply.
• Boyish Short Hair: For most of the series, Persephone sported a pixie cut-when it wasn't growing all over the place. It highlighted her innocent nature, inexperience, and need for growth. She still sports it sometimes, but after becoming Queen, Persephone usually sports full on Rapunzel-like hair.
• Broken Ace: She's a sweet, beautiful Nice Girl who's great at accounting, science, chess, swimming and managing the world's harvests and plants. She's super powerful and has a good chance at marrying into royalty, thanks to her sort-of boyfriend being the King of the Underworld. She shows all the signs of even being a genuinely competent Queen and her potential subjects approve of her. She also watched the Anthousai who were her sisters in everything EXCEPT blood die horribly in front of her, her perfectly reasonable and well-meaning attempt to stop it ends in murder and the resulting panic attack cause a surge in her powers and ends in the deaths of innocents. Eris has gifted her with Rage Issues, which doesn't help with the whole "super powerful" bit that her mother kept from her in a misguided attempt to keep her safe. She's seen as a skanky Gold Digger to the Olympian public despite the fact that her relationship with Hades, while surprisingly close, is largely wholesome. Her best friend's brother raped her the very same day he met her and has made it his life's mission to blackmail her into being his wife. She's heavily punished for what is basically an accident, causing most of the other Realms to be punished along with her. Oh, and she's not great with technology.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Subverted. After Hades asks Persephone how she ended up in Tartarus, we see Persephone's inner turmoil as she imagines the pain and shame that Minthe would face if the truth came out, how it would tear her relationship with Hades apart—but she chooses to lie in order to protect Minthe, knowing that she doesn't want to be that catty and vindictive. Too bad Minthe doesn't return the favor.
• The Cutie: Persephone fits this trope to a T, what with her easygoing nature, her kind spirit, and her gentle teasing of Hades.
• Dark Secret: A flashback in chapter 63 hints at something very ominous in her past that caused mortals to go from calling her Kore ("Maiden") to Persephone ("Bringer of Death"). So far what exactly happened hasn't been shown, but Hermes apparently knows and was bribed by Demeter into fudging the records of just what sent a number of human souls to the Underworld.
  • What actually happened is gradually revealed throughout the story. At first we're lead to believe that she went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and murdered a number of innocent people when some people innocently picking flowers in a sacred garden leads to the deaths of Persephone's flower Nymph friends. It seems as though she even killed people who had nothing to do with it. This initial account later turns out to be a case of Unreliable Narrator. Hades knows for a fact that such a large number of people didn't suddenly die. Persephone did kill a number of mortals, but they had knowingly violated a pact with Demeter put in place to keep the flower Nymphs safe. They shoved Persephone to the ground after she was already at an emotional low point from an argument with her mother and seeing her friends die.
  • Chapter 132 further expands on this, revealing that while she did (in a fit of rage) kill the mortal that had pushed her to the ground and mocked her, the shock after realising her actions caused her to grow to massive size and made her powers go out of control. All other subsequent deaths came to pass as a consequence of the combination of these two factors, the panic which caught the mortals in the village as a result and Persephone trying to save the mortals, but being unable to control her powers and her strength in her new size, all whilst experiencing a massive Heroic BSoD.
• Eating the Eye Candy: While Demeter is imagining Persephone being terrified of Zeus arresting her, her daughter is sitting by Hades’ pool, sipping a drink and eagerly watching the muscular Hades emerge from the water in his form-fitting swimsuit.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Kore-cob.
• Flowers of Nature: An expression of her power as the goddess of spring. When her control over her power slips, a crown of flowers spontaneously blooms into being on her head.
• Foil: As the protagonist of the story, Persephone has more than a few- The most direct seems to be Thanatos, of all people. Both deities were considered young gods when they were sent to the Underworld for employment. Both of which Hades was forced to reluctantly accept. The main difference is that Persephone was warmly welcomed and given special treatment, albeit after a bad first start. Thanatos was treated as little more than the help and Hades' sidekick, ignored and dismissed on a good day. Their relationship with their mothers couldn't be more different. Nyx was a titan who couldn't get rid of her son fast enough. Demeter was one of the six traitors who refused to let her daughter grow up. Needless to say, what little relationship they do have isn't a warm one.
• Friend to All Living Things: She quickly wins over Cerberus, which Hades indicates is quite unusual. She's also shown playing with another of Hades' dogs in the background while Hades is on the phone with Zeus.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Seen in Episode 115.
• Good Is Not Soft: Is heading down this path, growing out of her sweet nice girl persona as part of her future relationship as Hades's consort. It begins with a meeting with Apollo, and progresses into stealing his lyre.
  • Of course, she was like that earlier - she called on her mother to give Ares a much-deserved beating for deceiving her.
  • She blackmails Minthe into helping her with computers by showing her she has PROOF of Minthe sending her into Tartarus in Chapter 111. Notably she tells Minthe she would tell Hecate, not Hades.
  • After the ten year skip, she's still a caring person with her friends, but she's completely done taking anybody's shit. Especially Zeus'.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: During a confrontation with Apollo in his car her eyes turned red before she completely lost her temper and let it rip on Apollo before Cerberus arrived as back up.
  • Has these for the final half of Episode 115.
• The Ghost: Is missing at the start of the second season.
• Hidden Depths: Putting aside being romantically compatible with Hades, in Episode 111, Persephone shows signs of having something of a Superpowered Evil Side. Said personality is red-eyed, more decadently dressed and shows little remorse over Persephone's desire for Hades or her acts of divine wrath.
  • Though those depths aren't as hidden later on her eyes are turning red a lot more in casual situations and she's showing a little less restraint about her emotions, nor containing outburst as the story goes on after that point. Even her turning Minthe into a plant, she seems more remorseful that Hades saw, than that she did it.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Persephone has powerful nature abilities but has little conscious control over them and this frequently has harsh consequences for her and others. Examples of this include when she accidental massacres a village, when her powers go out of control in the Underworld and she nearly puts herself into a coma from overexerting herself or when she turns Minthe into a plant out of anger and has no idea how to undo the curse. It's more than hinted that it's because she's the new fertility goddess mixed with her mother's over-protective nature that she's got no control over them compared to her counterparts.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: While all gods can change their size at will, Persephone and Hades have this dynamic. What, with the latter being one of the tallest gods and former one of the shortest.
• I Have Many Names: Originally went by Kore before a wrathful and partially unintentional rage of destruction resulting in the deaths of many mortals brought about the change to her current name. The handmade business card she gives to Hades near the beginning of the comic still has the old name on it, and he occasionally refers to her as Kore throughout the development of their relationship. She also briefly went under the alias of Proserpina at a clinic.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Persephone has a Pin Up Girl style of looks and fashion, not helped by Eros having been the one to help her pick out her wardrobe, and doesn't understand why Artemis has issues with her changing in front of her childhood friend Hermes.
• Kingmaker Scenario: Persephone doesn't realize it, but as a fertility goddess, she is effectively the kingmaker of an entire generation of gods. While she herself can hardly stand up to the likes of Zeus since he once burned her mother's entire crop yield down with ease, gods like Ares and especially Apollo are after her because of her power, the latter seeming to believe that she's his ticket to overthrowing Zeus.
• Mama Bear: In an unorthodox way. After Persephone delivered Dionysus, she refuses to allow Zeus to take him when she learns that he intends to leave the newborn at a nymph commune. Persephone claims the god instead.
• May–December Romance: Is shaping to have one with Hades, who is over two thousand years old when the story begins, while she's 19 going on 20.
• Meaningful Rename: Was formerly called Kore, meaning "maiden"; after an unspecified incident, the mortals renamed her to Persephone, meaning "bringer of death". Later it is revealed what she did to earn the name: after her flower-nymph childhood friends are killed by careless mortals, she shifts into a blood rage and kills one; afterwards, she loses control of her powers and accidentally massacres dozens more.
• Ms. Fanservice: Has the stereotypical bombshell body and wears clothes that highlight her figure.
• My Beloved Smother: Has this sort of relationship with Demeter. While the two do love each other, Demeter is so overprotective that she's controlled almost every aspect of her daughter's life with little regard for how stifled Persephone feels. It's bad enough that Persephone has a nightmare of her mother locking her in a greenhouse with no doors in order to "keep her safe," and a big part of her development during the story involves figuring out what she wants from her life and finding the will to pursue it instead of going along with the life Demeter has planned for her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She killed an entire village of mortals for the crime of only a few meddling in the sacred fields and has no idea whether or not those who did the picking actually DID know the fields were sacred. We still haven't seen what happened after the slaughter, but it's implied that she feels incredibly guilty over it. She gives coins to the shades on the shore of Styx out of penance for her actions leading to unnecessary deaths and improper burials, forcing those shades to wander Styx's shores for a hundred years.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Persephone tends to get really touchy-feely with people due to her sheltered upbringing on Earth. She's aware this isn't really normal on Olympus and that she's sending mixed signals with this, but can't tell what is and isn't going too far to rein it in.
• Pin Up Girl: On a meta level, some of the poses and attire is reminiscent of the art style.
• The Pollyanna: No matter what happens to her—whether she's brought to the Underworld against her knowledge, assaulted by a major god with power over her, led into Tartarus because of Minthe, or slut-shamed by Hestia when she's done nothing wrong—Persephone manages to stay kind and warm to those around her. And gods help you if she snaps at you.
• Power Incontinence: Seems to lose control of her powers whenever she's emotional, getting slightly better though due to Hades' help.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When her control over her goddess powers slips—for example if she's feeling stressed and vulnerable—one of the effects is that her hair grows out into long, flowing hair. As a result, her hair length varies constantly over the course of the comic as it grows out and she cuts it back again.
• Prehensile Hair: Uses her hair to steal Apollo's lyre.
• Pretty Butterflies: Dissolved into a bunch of these after kissing Hades.
• Rape as Drama: The day after she leaves the Underworld, Apollo takes advantage of her in her sleep and coerces her into sex. Her attempts to deal with the trauma - and how it impacts her sense of self and her relationships with those around her - become a central character arc for Persephone. Her fear and pain is so terrible that Hera can sense it, and she ends up blaming herself for what occurred. While she seems relatively okay the next morning, when she is forced to interact with Apollo later on she can barely stand it and has to leave the area.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Persephone gets genuinely angry, her eyes turn red, and she experiences power surges.
• Red Is Violent: When Persephone is truly losing her temper, her usual color goes from pink/rose to deep red, her eyes go scarlet, and her flower crown turns into red vines. Tellingly, nearly every instance has involved Apollo to some degree. Other characters soon discover that pissing off Persephone by putting her loved ones in jeopardy is a terrible idea.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Her color scheme is pink, including her hair, and she's a very sweet-natured and kindhearted person.
• Sinister Scythe: Her weapon. Thematically appropriate and used to terrifying effect in Episode 115.
• Something Else Also Rises: When she sees Hades' godly form accidentally, all the flowers/plants across the world grow and burst into bloom/harvest.
  • She turns to a swarm of butterflies after making out with him.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Essentially how Persephone defeats Kronos. When the newly-christened Queen of the Underworld had just been empowered to his level, Persephone chose to give the primordial Tartarus a temporary physical body to put the mad Titan king back in his place by swallowing him whole, ironically the same way Kronos imprisoned most of his children.
• Teen Genius: She's 19 and got a 100 on Biochemistry Theory test and was shown to have won many awards in academic fields. She's also very good at chess.
• Took a Level in Badass: In order to defeat Kronos, Persephone eats the pomegranate becoming the Queen of The Underworld, growing to Titan size and able to match Kronos' powers. She is able to reseal him in Tartarus undoing the damage his revival brought.
• Trauma Button: Flashing lights seem to have become one for her following Apollo assaulting her and taking photos of her while he did it, as Episode 54 shows.
• Unstoppable Rage:Kills every mortal in a nearby village for killing her flower nymph friends. Subverted when it turns out that Helios was an Unreliable Narrator: while her first kill was deliberate, the rest was a result of her guilt-induced Power Incontinence, and she was desperate to put a stop to it all throughout the ordeal.

Olympians

Zeus

Zeus

King of Olympus, Hades' brother.

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• 0% Approval Rating: Suffers this in the aftermath of him banishing Persephone and Demeter and separating the realms. Most of his family and the other Olympians are enraged and distance themselves from him. A furious Hades declares an embargo on Underworld goods that triggers mass scarcity through Olympus and a shopkeeper make it clear in less than polite terms that the citizenry think that Zeus should just let Hades marry Persephone so things can return to normal.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Most of Zeus' artwork depicts him as an older looking man with facial hair while here he's a much younger looking clean shaven man with long luxurious hair.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While he's still a philanderer, unlike in the original myths, there's no implication that Zeus is a rapist or otherwise forces his lovers to sleep with him.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the original myths, Zeus was the most powerful god with only a select few could ever dream of challenging him. In the series however, people are more annoyed by Zeus than afraid of him. The one time Zeus actually used his lightning, the Butt-Monkey of Olympus shrugged it off. In the rematch with his father, Zeus was curb-stomped by Kronos as an afterthought. Whatever skill as a warrior Zeus might've had, it's long rusted away from disuse.
  • Zeus is the only member of the 6 Traitor Dynasty to not be scarred and cursed by Kronos, implying that he fought the least in Titanomachy. It's later revealed that he was secretly using Metis and Hera's fertility goddess powers to boost his own abilities during the war.
  • In the comic, Zeus is intimidated when Ares angrily confronts him. In classic mythology, Zeus frequently has to help Ares in even minor fights and he makes it clear that he considers his son the most pathetic of all the gods and that he would have killed him if it wasn't for his mother.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Zeus is far from ideal, but he's a far better option than his son Apollo.
• All Take and No Give: Zeus and... everyone else. Zeus was raised spoiled and smothered. Becoming the god king because, mainly, his brother's didn't want it. Zeus' main talents lie in convincing other's do things for him- mainly his own work. But whenever anyone asks Zeus to return the favor he will deflect, gaslight, or just outright refuse.
• Always Second Best: Seems to get this attitude from his friends and family a lot in comparison to Hades, for pretty understandable reasons. Suffice to say, it's quite the sore spot for him.
• Archnemesis Dad: To Ares, and looks to be shaping up that way for Apollo.
• Bad Boss: Zigzagged. He doesn't abuse his workers/workmates, but he doesn't always hear them and can get Locked Out of the Loop. When that happens, he has to throw his weight around to get people to follow his orders.
  • Eros considers that Zeus doesn't care about the mortals but just wants to feel important by interfering in their lives.
• Berserk Button:
  • Really hates it when Hera brings up his affair with Thetis.
  • Implying that he is incompetent or immature and not showing him the respect he feels he's entitled to.
  • Anything other than blind obedience to his wishes also seems to set him off. Hades had to be all-but physically threatened into going to family brunch... at a strip club. And Zeus burned Demeter's crops to the ground when she refused to hide a nymph girlfriend for him from Hera and called him out on his adultery.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The beauty to Hades brains and Poseidon's brawn. Zeus is a proud pretty boy
• Big Brother Instinct: While he is the younger brother, his rescue of his brothers from his father's literal belly falls into this, especially when it's revealed that he was raised believing that he was an only child, and it was his mother's literal dying wish that he save them and take the throne.
• Big Damn Heroes: Shockingly, he pulls this to Persephone. Twice. First when he comes down from Olympus to save her from a Kronos-possessed Hermes, and then when he puts himself in the way of Kronos' direct attack on Persephone.
• Big Jerk on Campus mixed with Lonely at the Top: The King of the gods is a social deity. He loves to party, have fun, just hang out. The problem is Zeus makes it all about himself, has to have things HIS way, and doesn't care how it effects other people. Because of that, his family avoids him- at best- and he has no friends to speak of. Forcing the King of the gods to either browbeat or trick people just to spend time with him. The fact that every deity from his generation of gods got hurt and scared from fighting in HIS war but Zeus got off scot-free does not help.
• Born Winner mixed with Born Lucky: Essentially what Zeus is. Looking at his life compared to the other five of the original six traitors. From the time of Titans alone, he escaped his father eating him, emerged completely unscarred from the Titanomachy, and was elected king with work horses like Demeter, Hera, and Hades doing the boring stuff under him, like ruling. Deconstructed too, because he's never had to struggle, meet a problem he had to handle on his own, and receiving constant praise and hope on his shoulders since he was born; Zeus had never had to grow up and he can't empathize with people that have. Zeus's own children are better at the 'boring' stuff than he is. On some level Zeus knows this but because he's never had to grow in any real way in the thousands of years of his life, the king of the gods quite literally can't become a better person.
• The Bully: He can't stand it when someone doesn't show him the respect he thinks he deserves. It usually results in him dishing out Disproportionate Retribution, like when he burned down Demeter's crops for the crime of calling him out on his frequent cheating on Hera. When Persephone points out that he has no power in the Underworld in chapter 135, he flat-out threatens to subject her to A Fate Worse Than Death akin to Prometheus.
• Cannibalism Superpower: Possibly, Demeter believes Zeus eating Metis, whom she believed to be a fertility goddess, enhanced his powers enough to allow him to defeat Kronos and she fears he might do the same with Persephone.
  • It's outright confirmed he ate Metis, but claims that it’s because she was annoying him.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Immediately after hearing about how Demeter covered up Persephone's act of wrath, he starts smoking and getting paranoid.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of The Chosen One. The beginning of his quest to depose his tyrannical father could have been ripped straight out of the pages of a typical epic fantasy: After having been raised by loving caretakers in a somewhat isolated environment, the only source of strife being the occasional scramble to hide him from his father, Zeus was eventually met with his biological mother, who is about to die. She reveals the truth about his heritage, the key to getting enough power to defeat his father, and in her dying breath begs him to rescue his brothers, defeat his father, and be a better king before finally passing away in his arms. Zeus did all of those things, but while he turned out to be a much better king than his father, he still did a lot of things wrong and admits that many of the things he did to maintain his power were selfish even if they were ostensibly to prevent another madman like his father from coming to power.
• Desperately Craves Affection: While it's not as bad as Apollo, it's clear that he desperately wants his family's love and attention, especially from Hera and his brothers. This is implied to be tied to unresolved issues with his time living as an only child before he defeated his father. Hades even mocks him for it.
  • As it turns out , there’s a pragmatic reason for why he worries about losing Hera’s affection. Hera is the Fertility Goddess of the Olympian generation and Zeus is siphoning her power. He didn’t tell her.
• Destructive Romance: At one point, Zeus and Hera did love each other. That's specifically needed for a fertility goddess to empower her chosen. But over the years, their relationship has turned sour, bitter. Dysfunctional at best. At the start of the series, the two can't have one conversation without veiled threats or it outright turning into an argument. By the time skip, they've outright separated, with Hera only interacting with Zeus to rub in his failures.
• Didn't Think This Through: Upon figuring out Apollo's desire to usurp him with Persephone's power, he hastily exiles her to the mortal realm and forbids any contact with it to preserve his power without thinking of the consequences. With access to the mortal realm cut-off, Olympus quickly goes into a chaotic riot, it also prevents some gods from seeing their families such as Hermes and his mother. Him also not really taking Hades' feelings into account also causes him, Hecate and Hermes to completely sever contact with him. And adding insult to injury, his disastrous handling of the situation allows Apollo to be crowned Prince of Olympus and skyrocket his approval rating among the Olympians while his own plummets, inadvertently kicking a potential restart of the cycle of usurping.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Has a penchant for this, with Aphrodite and Hades both hesitating to get on his bad side.
  • When Demeter refused to help him hide one of his girlfriends, he summoned a massive lighting storm to devastate her forest home.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: After learning that Demeter had been hiding information about Persephone from him, he becomes much more aware of and bitter about the lack of respect shown towards him by the other gods and those even lower on the pecking order.
  • Thrown back in his face in chapter 136 when Hera points out he doesn't respect any of the individuals involved in the above incident either, despite Demeter fighting in the war that put him on the throne and Hades being his actual brother.
• Entitled to Have You: To Hera. Apparently he made Hades god of the Underworld as payback for flirting with her. This attitude also extends to his family: His support of Hades and Persephone getting together is because he believes his brothers are also entitled to being with beautiful women—so long as they're not the women he himself has chosen.
• Establishing Character Moment: Zeus had a doozy. Calling his brother in the middle of the night to bully Hades into hanging out with him, halfway through Hades' first meeting with his future wife, while laying in his bed after very unsatisfying sex with his wife. Thus showing Zeus to be a lonely manchild who needs constant entertainment and doesn't care about how he hurts others.
• Executive Excess: Zeus is the current high king of all the gods. The closest we get to see him doing his actual job is handing out punishments and cutting off the mortal realm at Persephone's trial. Along with the occasional award ceremony. Other than that? Hookers and Blow!
• Extreme Libido: What Zeus actually is. Zeus likes to portray himself as a Lovable Sex Maniac but really he's a full on sex addict. It doesn't matter what is happening, the situation, the stakes, or the people involved. If there's a chance he'll get laid, Zeus will do it. Its his Go-to move for any situation. Case-in-point, Hera tossed Zeus out for cheating on her after promising he'd try to do better, only to go straight to his current mortal fling.
• Foil: Zeus and his son Apollo share many things. All in the worst way. The two are spoiled, selfish, entitled Manchildren with pathological Never My Fault issues. Both are the most important person in the room, and they act like it. Physically, the only thing separating them is the hair style. The main difference here is, Zeus wants to be a good person. He usually fails, but intentions matter. Zeus might not admit it, but he is aware he does bad things. Apollo, not so much. The sun god only thinks he is a good person. Apollo can do no wrong, EVER. Because of that, Zeus can ultimately grow and change for the better. Apollo can't.
• Foul Waterfowl: In Episode 139, he’s shown using his swan form to harass people.
• Frequently-Broken Unbreakable Vow: Metis agreed to let Zeus eat her to gain the full breadth of her fertility goddess powers in the war against Kronos on the condition that he wouldn't use Hera's powers as well and let her live her life in peace. As soon as Metis was gone, he immediately tricked Hera into giving him her power before the final battle and continued to secretly drained her throughout their marriage.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied that part of the reason Hades got saddled with the Underworld is because of how close he was with Hera.
• Guile Hero: Hero is pushing it, but yes. Hades has administration down. Poseidon has emotional intelligence. Zeus has this. So far, no one can think on their feet as fast as Zeus can. Under pressure at that. While Zeus has and does do many stupid things, some of them are actually short and long term calculations that pay off down the line. It explains why a seemingly Insufferable Imbecile has been left in charge all this time.
• Heel Realization: Zeus has occasional moments of insight, demonstrating that he is aware he does bad things and is ashamed at his inability to better himself.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During his adventure in the underworld with Persephone, his mad father escaped and tried to grab the latest fertility goddess. In a shocking twist, the famously selfish Zeus jumped in his father's way and was impaled on Kronos's talons. His last words were apologizing to his fallen brother. It didn't kill him, but its the thought that counts.
• Hidden Depths: Very, very hidden. But yes. It's there. Underneath the layers of spoiled hedonism Zeus shows off to the world, there is a mind that explains why Zeus has been in charge all this time. He knows how to stay in power, or at least recognize threats when he see's them. See below for Pet the Dog.
  • The second season opens with him, despite his facade about not caring about people, being truly wounded by the lack of respect his own family shows him.
• History Repeats: Demeter believes that Zeus is walking the same path as his father and grandfather: A hero who becomes king of the gods but becomes corrupted in his attempts to hold on to power. With the revelation Apollo is his son and seeking to control Persephone, who is most likely a fertility goddess: He is also on path to be replaced.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He banished Persephone and separated Olympus from the mortal realm in order to keep her and her fertility goddess powers away from Hades and Apollo. This only resulted in him becoming immediately hated and isolated from his family and allies while Apollo's popularity explodes in the following decade.
• Hypocrite:
  • He was not happy with Hera and Hades being close, but cheats on her regularly and has never shown regret for suggesting Hades take the underworld.
  • Much like the father he overthrew, he swallowed Metis to gain the strength to usurp him.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He admits he believed as much when he swallowed Metis to use her powers against Kronos, broke his promise to her about not using Hera's powers as well then hid the truth about fertility goddesses from the pantheon, but also acknowledges that it served him in the process; even he doesn't seem to know if he really believed it or if it was just a selfish decision, and that he "doesn't know where the line is."
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: By Kronos' taloned fingers when Zeus shields Persephone and Hades with his own body.
• Immortality Promiscuity mixed with Dirty Old Man: He doesn't look it, but if he's is anywhere around Hades' age, Zeus is 2000-ish. If there's a chance Zeus can get laid, he'll do it. Damn the consequences. Just speculation, but it might have something to do with being raised in a Nymph commune where he was the only guy around.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Zeus is totally this. If Zeus can do something stupid, he'll usually do it. Thing is,Zeus can be smart. He just chooses not to most of the time. Always going for the easiest/ most expedient option, with no real thought of the fallout. Happily leaving his mess for someone else to clean up. Usually Hera (His Wife) or Hades (his brother). The problem and the Deconstruction? Zeus is the guy in charge and he doesn't care who knows. Eroding his authority and popularity bit by bit. With no attempt to clean up his act. Meaning by the time skip, Zeus has hit the 0% Approval Rating with no allies to clean up after him anymore.
• It's All About Me: Zeus is a self-centered god. His every thought and action always revolve around how it effects him. As the god king, the highest authority in all the realms there's some justification to it, or would be if Zeus ever bothered to do his job. Zeus himself is too important to do his own work, instead he pulls his brothers into shirking their duties and helping him get some mortal action or brow beating lowly nymphs and lesser gods around for fun.
  • His hasty judgment of Persephone and Demeter is partially to do with his fears of Apollo getting his hands on her, after it's revealed Apollo is his child. He only spares a moment to think of the pain it'd cause Hades.
• Jerk Ass Has A Point: He has a shallow view of Hades and Persephone's romance, only supporting it because he does want his brother to be happy but thinks that happiness is a fling with a young, pretty goddess. As things go on, it becomes clear that he doesn't realize they're genuinely in love, but this is at a time when the two of them haven't even been together for a year, and right after Hades seemed ready and willing to marry Minthe. Given that Zeus wasn't present for much of their relationship, it makes some sense that he'd assume that Hades and Persephone's romance would have been similarly shallow.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Upon hearing that Apollo likely raped Persephone, he immediately took Apollo's side and stated that if even if it was true, he didn't want to risk making Olympians look bad for the sake of a "b-grade goddess."
  • He does have moments where he realizes his behavior is wrong, including a heart to heart with Hades after one drunken night. However, those moments are far and few in-between; with him showing no actual overt attempt to grow out of this behavior, holds him back from any sort of redemption.
• Lack of Empathy: To a painful and honestly quite sad degree. Zeus simply doesn't get emotional attachments. He cheats on his wife constantly, abandons his children and flings at the first sign of trouble, casually murders and cruelly punishes people on whims. Though, the most insulting seems to be during the 10yr time skip. To get the underworld to reopen and start selling to Olympus again, Zeus lied to Hades about letting him marry Persephone but only showed up with a Nymph look-a-like. Zeus fully expected a glorified fling to be enough for his brother to get over and forget about the spring goddess. Throughout all of this, Zeus can't understand why everyone is so mad at him.
  • His Fatal Flaw, honestly. If Zeus is in trouble, it’s usually because he didn’t consider how a situation may affect someone else and they’re making their displeasure known.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Albeit in a somewhat more masculine way. Looks a lot like his father, Kronos, judging from Hades' nightmare in one comic.
• Manchild: Outright called this by Hera and she's not wrong. He possesses zero emotional intelligence, is entitled as all hell because of his position and never really admits to his faults. When called out by others, he's quick to deflect and shift blame. It borders on Psychopathic Manchild, as the incident with Demeter shows he's not afraid to get violent and destructive if he doesn't get what he wants.
  • Confirmed further when Episode 162 reveals that while everyone else in the Six Traitors Dynasty was branded and cursed by Kronos in some shape or form, Zeus got off scratch free, lacking the understanding of the pain and suffering the other gods and goddesses have gone through and ultimately making him unfit to rule (as the others very quickly realize).
• Love Father, Love Son: Not only is in a relationship with Hera but also a romance with her "mother" (more precisely her creator) Metis.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: What Zeus pretends to be. What his 1st, 2nd, and usually 3rd reason to get out of bed in the morning: SEX, sex, and more sex. Way down the list is staying in power and- MAYBE- hanging out with his brothers. Deconstructed too. It's only the sex that he's after. Not the women, not the eventual children, not the problems he leaves behind. Once the deed is done, Zeus is out of there. Leaving nothing but broken lives and fatherless children for other's to deal with.
• The Mole: Zeus's modus operandi. Something Zeus has done all the way back since the titanomachy. Whenever someone causes Zeus problems, he'll plant someone in their circle. Always female. They'll look all pretty, friendly, invaluable. All to spy on the mark, report back to Zeus and, preferably, sabotage the target. It makes sense for Zeus that he'd pull this. The lazy, misogynistic, cowardly, manchild that he is. He gets all the rewards, they do all the work- and take all the risk. Just ask Hera, Echo, and now Psyche.
• Moving the Goalposts: Accidental murder aside, this is pretty much what his banishment to the Mortal World amounts to for Persephone. Persephone is, after all, a perfectly competent harvest goddess and the greenery of the world that she had to manage in her mother's exile reflects this. She even managed to figure out curses and de-transformation magic in the coming decade, returning both Daphne AND Minthe to their natural forms. Unfortunately for Zeus, everyone in all four Realms has realized that he's actually just dragging his feet and are furious that he's slowing down life for what was effectively an accident and the consequences of being unable to keep it in his pants. As well as the fact that he's paranoid that one of the other gods (mainly Apollo) will use her power to overthrow him so he's using any excuse to keep her out of Olympus.
• Never My Fault:
  • In the past, he tried to pin his affairs on Aphrodite and Eros, leading to Hera banning them from using their love powers on gods.
  • When Hera confronts him over the nude picture Thetis has mockingly sent her, he quickly and forcefully changes the subject to her slacking in her duties.
  • In the past, he attempted to sneak another nymph, clearly uncomfortable, into Demeter's group so Hera wouldn't find her. When Demeter refused and demanded Zeus quit cheating on Hera, Zeus burned her entire fields down and still to this day refuses to understand why that was wrong.
  • In chapter 135, when Hades calls him out on his extremely poor handling of Persephone's situation he immediately deflects and claims that Persephone is just using Hades.
  • The few times he's admitted his fault, he's avoided actually growing from it or seeking help for it.
• No-Respect Guy: While almost all Olympians fear him for his status and power, pretty much nobody actually respects him because of his immaturity. He starts to realize this in season 2, but in typical Zeus-fashion seeks the reason for it in everyone but himself.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Zeus does have good intentions. He wants to do the right thing. But every time he has the chance, Zeus always stops when it no longer directly benefits him. By the god king's own words 'he doesn't know where the line is'.
• The Paranoiac mixed with Improperly Paranoid: Zeus is not a well adjusted god-king, ironic given that everyone else from his generation of deities has some sort of scar from HIS war. But whenever there's some change in the status quo that Zeus himself set up, his first and usually only reaction to it is to think it's some kind of rebellion against his authority... oh, and his brother's own domains. It's spelled out to him in front of all the realms during Persephone's trial when her ledger is shown to the court. It has so many details about the Underworld- its infrastructure, politics, its organization, etc- that when he got ahold of it, Zeus's first and only thought was that the young spring goddess, whom his brother thinks of his WIFE, wanted to overthrow the blue King of the Underworld. The very idea that the pink goddess of spring with the heart of gold just had some ideas on how to make the Underworld a better place never occurred to him. Something Hades himself calls his brother out on.
• Parental Abandonment: Zeus has been on both sides of this. Rhea hid the young Zeus at a nymph commune to keep him safe from Kronos, so the young future king had no idea who his parents were. Bad situation, but good intentioned. Zeus... not so much. Unless he has to worry about Hera's wrath, Zeus will not even pretend to care about all of his children he has abandoned over the years. When he's inevitably called on it by Apollo, Zeus is more embarrassed that it was done so publicly than anything else.
• Parental Favoritism: He an open soft spot for his daughters while his relationship with his sons are all rocky at best, likely because his daughters are much less volatile towards him than his sons are and he doesn't have to worry about one of them usurping him as one of his sons is fated to do.
• Pet the Dog: It was for entirely selfish reasons, but yes. He permitted Psyche, a mortal, to become a god. Allowing his grandson to keep his love, not just on Olympus but from losing her to old age. Granted the price was she had to become his spy. But still, Zeus knew what Psyche meant to Eros and he wanted it to happen.
  • Granted he was probably hoping for a daughter when he did it, but, yes, Zeus carried Dionysus to term after Semele passed.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Zeus is the current Top God. Meaning he's the one in charge and meant to set the example...he's pretty bad at it. Zeus is good at doing stuff under the radar, but day to day administration or setting policies? Zeus would gladly let other's do the 'boring' stuff. When Zeus is forced to put in the work, half-assed is the best you're going to get.
• Pops Looks Like a Brother: Due to the setting making gods stop aging, he's this to his older children like Ares. Especially Apollo and Artemis, who when together could pass for triplets.
• Properly Paranoid: The few things he's dead on about is Apollo's schemes and the rise of a new fertility goddess, unfortunately his handling of both situations has caused headaches and heartache for all involved.
• Purple Is Powerful: The King of the Gods is color-coded as purple. Interestingly, Hera is yellow, the direct contrast to his color.
• Raised by Dudes: Gender inverted. Much like Persephone, Rhea sequestered her youngest son in a nymph commune with no other men around. It explains why he's somewhat more effeminate than his brothers. Though not so much why he's a misogynist.
• Really Gets Around: Has this reputation to the point he's the reason several establishments do not allow gods to use their services or have heavy restrictions.
  • Ares points out that Zeus has so many children it'll be hard to tell which one he ought to be worried about usurping him.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He wants Hades and Persephone to get together, but he doesn't care about how they're mutually attracted to one another and would treat each other with love and respect. It's an extension of his sense of entitlement. Hades is Zeus's brother, a fellow king, and to him these facts mean that he should get a pretty young goddess for a wife. He even says that he wouldn't stop Hades if he resorted to kidnapping.
  • He also doesn't want Hades to marry Minthe, but it seems to be because he thinks Hades can do better than a lowly river nymph and is unaware of Minthe's abusive behavior.
  • On paper, the idea of Zeus wanting to punish Persephone for going on a rampage and murdering a great many humans over an innocent misunderstanding seems totally reasonable. However, if he'd take the time to calm down and analyze the situation, he'd realize that his star witness, Helios drastically embellished the story to make her look worse. It wasn't the result of a misunderstanding, but a group of humans directly defying a treaty they had with Demeter getting Persephone's friends killed. She at first tried to peacefully get them to stop, and involuntarily went berserk when they shoved her and ignored her. Eros even explicitly states that he's not mad that a bunch of innocent mortals were murdered. He's mad that it was done without his permission or involvement.
  • His chosen punishment for Persephone is noted by some fans as being fair for Accidental Murder on such a big scale, and it also seems to be designed to keep Apollo away from Persephone, but that seems to be motivated by the fact that he realizes how much of a threat to his reign Apollo—who was revealed to be his son—is.
    • On a related note his chosen punishment throws a big wrench in Kronos's plans by keeping Persephone out of his grasp, but he had no idea that the Titan was so close to escaping.
• The Runt at the End: Zeus was the last born son of Rhea, the second queen of the gods. He was also the only son she could save. Because he was the only one allowed to grow into his power, Zeus managed to rebel and defeat his lunatic father and become king. While Zeus does have his traditional thunderbolts and can boss the other gods around- Ares, the Butt-Monkey of Olympus, can shake off his lightning and no one seems particularly concerned by Zeus’s Divine power. Kronos himself directly called Zeus 'the runt of the litter' when they meet again during his escape.
• Shock and Awe: As befits his status as god of storms.
• Shipper on Deck: Actually supports his brother's romantic interest in Persephone, though Hades is annoyed.
• Sleeping Single Mixed with Sexless Marriage: Zeus and Hera seem to have this kind of relationship by the time the story starts. Hebe is eight at the start of the comic, so it gives some kind of timeframe.
• Slimeball: Essentially what Zeus is. Manipulating and gaslighting everyone around him. Twisting everything around him so Zeus won't have to put in any work, grow as a person, or take responsibility for his failures.
• Smarter Than You Look: Part of his Guile Hero set up. People view and Zeus usually is an insufferable imbecile... in public. Under the radar, Zeus is usually a pretty shrewd operator with knowledge and secrets that no other gods know. Not even his brothers. A little something he shares with Ares.
• Swans A-Swimming: Tries to invoke this to pacify an angry Ares. It doesn’t work.
• Taking You with Me: Attempts this on Kronos, by unleashing his Shock and Awe after getting impaled on his talons. It doesn't work, but that being Zeus, kudos for trying!
• That's an Order!: Regularly pulls rank as King of Olympus to get his wife and brothers to do what he wants. It's clear that at least his brothers aren't as daunted by this, but go along anyway.
• Turn Out Like His Father: And grandfather. Secretly, and infuriatingly, Zeus has followed in the footsteps of all the god kings that came before him. Namely seducing a fertility goddess', marrying her for power, and slowly draining her away until she's a weak shadow of her former self. What separates Zeus from his predecessors is that he didn't even tell his wife she was a fertility goddess. Which really just puts another slimy twist on it
• Unfit for Greatness: Read above for 'born lucky' and 'born winner'. Because of his early life of constant hits and success with endless back up, Zeus never learned to try or put effort into anything. During the events of the story, a few thousand years into his reign, Zeus is finally forced to struggle. He's dropping the ball every time and barely hanging on.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: His only siblings are Hades and Poseidon and his only publicly known children are Ares, Hephaestus, Athena, Hebe, and Eris. Not so publicly known are Apollo and Artemis, at least until the trial. It was originally planned that they be unrelated to Zeus.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Zeus is a lazy, spoiled, spiteful god king. Whenever he has the chance, Zeus will pick the laziest- quickest option. With no thought to the consequences. More often than not, this means lying and dropping the blame on someone else for his stupidity. His favorite target being his Hades, the god everyone fears and avoids so much the blue deity doesn't even notice. This has caused nothing but trouble. It's shown that nearly every problem in the series was caused by Zeus. By the simple fact that the war hero god king just didn't want to deal with it.
• What Does She See in Him?: While there is no doubt that Zeus loves Hades, he still sees the blue deity as his stuffy defective nerdy big bro. A humorless bore and a prude, at least to the god of manchildren. One of the reasons Zeus was so set on keeping Persephone in the mortal realm was that he was fully convinced that their 'fling' would fade away. Leaving the latest fertility goddess open to someone a little more 'exciting' like himself... like say, his bastard son- Apollo.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"??: In chapter 201 we get a little insight into Zeus' view on the subject. During his private time with Persephone in the underworld, Zeus reveals that he fully believed that the 'passion' between Hades and Persephone would fizzle away and fade over time. That the young Goddess's eyes would go wandering, to the ambitious and cruel Apollo no less. Clearly, Zeus can see relationships as flings and little more.
• X-Ray Sparks: Happen to the victims of his Shock and Awe powers.

Hera

Hera

Wife of Zeus, queen of Olympus, and the goddess of marriage.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: Hera of classic mythology was vindictive and spiteful to a murderous extent, and the victims of her fury were more often than not the demigod children Zeus sired or their mothers, with the former obviously having no agency in their conception and the latter sometimes having fought against Zeus for fear of her wrath, but never Zeus. Here this is not the case, and she stands up against her husband's selfish ways.
• Alien Blood: Golden ichor, like the other gods, obviously but thematically important for Hera. It's actually why Kronos liked her so much. After all, who wouldn't like a goddess who's the color of BLOOD? This association with ichor makes her Embarrassing Nickname even worse; it's a polite way of saying the "Bloody Traitor."
• Awful Wedded Life: Zeus and Hera famously have the worst relationship in Olympus, or did before Hades got involved with the intentionally terrible Minthe. To give you some idea how bad it is, the two started their relationship AFTER Zeus ate his first wife- Hera's mother- Metis. And it only got worse from there.
• Beware the Nice Ones: According to Ares, she's the angriest god in the pantheon, after Persephone.
• Career vs. Man: Hera's choice to marry Zeus ammounted to this. Hades was her first love, or at least the brother she was closest too. Hera saw Zeus for the spoiled, sex addict, man-child that he was at first glance. Hera was truly tempted to be with Hades. But he would be lord of the underworld- not be the High King. Zeus would have that spot. Hera suffered in the war, more than her sisters. Hera felt she had earned her place as High Queen. Even if it meant letting go of the love of her life and chaining herself to Zeus for eternity.
• Color-Coded Characters: Yellow, the complementary (opposite) color to her husband.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's a master of verbal judo. Especially against her husband. She even admits that her main strength is conversation.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: She gets upset that when she starts getting texted mocking nudes pictures of Zeus from one of his nymph lovers, Thetis unbeknownst to her, and Zeus refuses to do anything about it.
• The Empath: Her role as the goddess of women, marriage, and family gives her an empathic sense related to her domain. After Persephone's assault by Apollo, Hera immediately senses that someone is suffering; in a later scene, shaking hands with Persephone gives Hera an acute sense of Persephone's feelings of violation.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The "Golden Traitor" for how she seduced and betrayed Kronos at Zeus' behest.
• Fantastic Racism: Has a very low opinion of nymphs, likely because her husband is having an affair with one and she regularly sees how awful Minthe treats Hades.
• Good Parents: Holds her daughter Hebe in her arms and brings Hades to the house to make her happy. She also has a very good relationship with her son, Ares. Her relationship with her other son Hephaestus however, as in the original myths, isn't good, though it seems less antagonistic on both sides than other iterations.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: She smokes with a cigarette holder when she’s stressed.
• Irony: As goddess of marriage, her union with Zeus is rather stormy. Hades also brings up the fact that she couldn't get a good match for him.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: A major soucre of grief for Hera, the other being Zeus's 'shenanigans'. When Hera was a new god, she had endless potential, believing she could do anything. She gave it all up to help Zeus and seduce Kronos. To be his little traitor. While Hera has become the queen of the gods and co-ruler of all the realms as a reward, she sees herself as a glorified matchmaker with no real authority. One of the main reasons Hera is so protective of Persephone is that she sees her younger self in the spring goddess and will do everything to keep her from following in her footsteps.
• HA HA HA—No: Unleashes an epic 8-panel one when Apollo comes to her requesting to marry Persephone, tearing up and burning his application in the process. He really should have thought better than to try this when he already pissed her off earlier that day by attempting to manhandle her while she was disguised as Persephone.
• Honey Trap: Was this during the war to weaken Kronos. It worked... but got her torn in two as a result.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch:
  • She turned a shady pawn shop owner into a duck for trying to sell Persephone's belongings and underwear online.
  • She turned Leto into Olympus's biggest social pariah after an unspecified falling out. It was revealed to be because Leto slept with her husband, Zeus.
• King Incognito: She uses her shapeshifting ability to spy on her perverted husband and brothers, as well as trick Demeter into believing her daughter is fine by pretending to be Persephone. She takes advantage of the latter to get some information from Apollo, enough to convince her to never let him marry Persephone.
• The Kingmaker: It was her seduction of Kronos that gave Zeus the foothold he needed to take down his father. She’s actually this for the Olympians as their generation’s Fertility Goddess. She’s not happy when she realizes that Zeus knew and never told her.
• Lady Drunk: She loves her gin and tonic, and even gets offended when a waiter gives her tap water to drink.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She's a fertility goddess but Metis and Zeus chose not to tell her, the former in order to give her a normal life and latter to secretly drain her powers during their marriage.
• The Matchmaker: As she is the goddess of marriage.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Just like many other gods, she could be mistaken for her older children's sister rather than mother. This especially goes for Hebe, who at times look like a younger doppelganger of her and Ares, who could pass for her twin.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The In-Between to her sisters Hestia's nice and Demeter's mean. Played with in that Hestia is a self-centered Bitch in Sheep's Clothing while Demeter can be nice, she just chooses not to most of the time.
• Never Mess with Granny: For a good chunk of time, Zeus blamed his affairs on Aphrodite to avoid Hera's wrath. Its probbaly not true and it’s unlikely Hera bought it, but she does not like the love Goddess regardless. Because of that, she views all of Aphrodite's children 'her spawn'- at best. Bottom line- Eros, Hera's grandson, is terrified of her.
• Scars Are Forever: She has two scars around her stomach, remnants from when Kronos tore her in two during the war. They even sometimes reopen partially.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She separates from Zeus in the aftermath of him banishing Persephone and Demeter.
• Secret-Keeper: Originally One of only two people, who knows the truth about what Apollo did to Persephone. As the story goes on she entrusts her son, Hephaestus to delete the photo evidence Apollo attempts to blackmail Persephone with bringing the circle to three. Hermes starts to piece it together but doesn't have proof and Persephone finally tells Hades during the trial. All of them keep it to themselves out of respect for Hera or Persephone.
• Shipper on Deck: Initially she's one reluctantly, for Hades and Persephone. She wants her old friend to be happy but doesn't approve of their age difference. She purposefully assigns Persephone an internship in the Underworld as a Secret Test of Character to prove his mettle. In her personal book of hook ups she's confirmed that she finds him suitable enough for them to court.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Hades had a thing for her before Zeus married her. It's shown that Hera reciprocated those feelings at points, most notably during an era they call ''The 80s''. But after attempting to come on to him, just to be rejected and finally receiving a letter laying out he's moving on, Hera expressed that she's happy to see that Hades had "outgrown" her by pursuing his interest in Persephone.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In chapter 136 she finally gets fed up with Zeus' bratty attitude and tells him off for being such a poor ruler, husband and brother.
• You Killed My Father: Gender inverted. Zeus openly admits to eating Metis-the second Fertility goddess of the titans generation and Hera's mother. It hasn't really come up and we don't know the details, But Hera was close to Metis and, uh... that couldn't have been a good start to their marriage.
• Your Makeup Is Running: From chapter 135 on her eye shadow is a mess, due to her not bothering to hide her grief anymore.

Poseidon

Poseidon

The god of the sea and the sibling god to Zeus and Hades.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the original myths, he was ill tempered, greedy and just as much as a selfish philanderer as Zeus.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The Brawn to Hades’ brains and Zeus's beauty. Poseidon has the odd pearl of knowledge and wisdom from time to time, but he was and is the dumb muscle of olympus.
• Berserk Button: Has a definite dislike for Odysseus.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He has the playboy tendencies of Zeus, but it's implied that he and his wife are in an open relationship so it's not cheating. He actually gives good advice at times, and there's no signs that he will pursue women without consent.
• Disappeared Dad: Turns out to have a horse son with Demeter, who she claims constantly asks about the sea deity.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has one running down his left eye. According to Hades it was the result of Kronos eating him.
• Handsome Lech: Implied; he is happy to prowl about for women with Apollo (at Hades' request). But possibly downplayed, overlapping with Chivalrous Pervert, because—as described below—clearly he has standards for how to treat women.
• Has a Type: Of all the girls that the deity of the sea has shown interest in: Serene, Amphitrite, even Demeter- each one has been shown to be the same shade of green he is.
• Parental Neglect: Its not shown how Poseidon is with his other children, but it is confimred by Demeter that he has never even met his horse son Arion- oh, and refuses to pay child support.
• Only Friend: After the 10 year time skip, he's officially this to Zeus. Being the only olympian and family member that hasn't cut the god king out of his life. That said, even the king of the ocean has his limits with his purple brother- being the first to call him out for exiling 'the closest thing the underworld had to a queen'.
• Out of Focus: He's the only one of the three kings to remain mostly uninvolved in the comic's ongoing plot.
• Smarter Than You Look: Points out to Hades that emotional intimacy with another person who isn't your significant other can be just as damning as physical intimacy in between making pancakes in the shape of cats for brunch in episode 84. He also thinks some of Zeus' relationship advice is sketchy.
• Strong Family Resemblance: His brothers’ appearances take after their father and grandfather. Poseidon is the only one to have Gaia’s coloring.
• Surfer Dude: Has a definite laidback and carefree attitude.
• What Were You Thinking?: Said dang near word for word after Zeus exiled Persephone, right there in the court room the moment after it happened. Shaking the god king by his toga as all hell broke loose.

Artemis

Artemis

Goddess of the Hunt and Persephone's roommate.

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• Always Second Best: Though Artemis is a mighty goddess with impressive powers, she feels like she doesn't measure up to her twin-brother Apollo, who she believes outshines her in every way.
  Artemis: I'm silver-footed and glorious. But even so, I'll never be golden.
• Broken Pedestal: After Apollo's little stunt during Persephone's trial, Artemis pretty much saw her entire family as this. The goddess of the hunt did not appreciate her twin brother and mother keeping the fact she had a father secret from her her entire life. While Zeus did put in the effort to bond or at least get to know his newest daughter, Artemis herself had never liked him and after the King of the gods exiled her best friend and then spent 10 years nitpicking the pink deity's work... she's less than enthusiastic about the god of hospitality being her dad.
• Cool Big Sis: Tries her best to be this for Persephone.
• Cosmic Motifs: The Moon, specifically. That ball of silver in the sky, allowing direction and light in the dark night. Deconstructed in that it mostly only shows slivers of its greatness at a time, only at its best on occasion, and always trailing after its more famous twin- the Sun. Artemis is a legendary god, revered by all and feared by some. Has a great relationship with her twin, Apollo. But Artemis is defined by her relationship by others. In spite of being the goddess of the hunt, she is unobservant at best with a painful lack of initiative. The only reason Artemis got along so well with her narcissistic brother- before the time skip, that is- was because they both acknowledged that he was the top twin, with Artemis always trailing behind. Silver can never beat gold.
• Colour-Coded Characters: Artemis is purple and is the same shade of purple as her twin brother Apollo.
• Does Not Like Men: Downplayed. She immediately assumes that Hades is a creep, and has a (general) rule about not letting men in her house. She gets upset whenever Eros or Hermes comes over to her house unannounced. However, she still has male friends (including both of the above), and trusts Apollo much more than she should.
• Foil: Naturally, with her brother, Apollo. Before the start of the series, he's easily their parents' favorite child. While it hasn't been said that Leto doesn't love her daughter, she doesn't seem to care that Artemis is distressed by what little she does know and understand about the reality of Apollo and Persephone's relationship. Given how she tries to warn Persephone against Hades and "kings," she doesn't have a high opinion about Zeus. Apollo seems to feel he's in competition with his half-brothers and uncles and makes a point on trying to prove that he's literally better than everyone. Artemis, if she bothers thinking about comparison at all, mostly feels this towards her own brother. Both twins have issues with entitlement and obliviousness but only Artemis' seems accidental. It's mostly motivated by wanting to trust and help her loved ones (her brother Apollo, her mother Leto and her roommate Persephone) and said loved ones hiding their issues/problems/crimes.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Seems to hold a grudge against Hades, who is by all accounts a good man with no moral problems. However, she does trust Apollo, who assaults Persephone in her sleep. Though in Apollo's case one can understand that as her twin brother Artemis has a blind spot for him.
  • She also thought Eros's love story was a bullshit farce and that he brought on his own tragedy.
• Irony: A goddess who in the mortal world is known as a protector of maidenhood and young girls is tragically unaware of the sexually coercive and abusive treatment of her own best friend has been enduring at the hands of her twin brother. She eventually finds out during the Time Skip and is appropriately horrified.
• Jerkass Realization: At the beginning of the second season, Artemis is forced to realize that she hasn't been as good a friend or roommate to Persephone as she'd thought. In particular, she's dismayed when both Hades and Eros tell her that Persephone hasn't been doing well, since Artemis was completely unaware that Persephone was struggling and just assumed everything was fine.
  • There's a minor moment during Persephone's disappearance where she needs the assistance of both Hera and Eros. She insults him when they prepare to contact his grandmother Hera. Eros promptly reminds her that Persephone being missing is HER problem, not his and to cut the attitude. Artemis awkwardly apologizes.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Granted, part of that is because of her being unobservant, a Horrible Judge of Character, and taking Persephone's Stepford smiling at face value, but she's the last person to know most of what's going on around her. She still has no clue of what truly went down between Persephone and Apollo because Persephone is still not ready to relive her trauma with her, and Eros is loyally keeping the secret; she learned of Persephone's act of wrath from the news because Hermes would keep quiet; the last straw that makes her lose it is when she finally notices that even Hestia and Athena have been a couple all along and didn't bother telling her.
  • She also is seemingly the only one in her immediate family unable to connect the dots that she and Apollo are Zeus's children with her mother, until Apollo publicly declares it. The fact that her mother and brother kept this from her is part of the reason she chooses to leave Olympus and accompany Persephone in her banishment.
  • She eventually clues in to what Apollo did to Persephone and severs ties with him.
• The Only Believer: After learning that Persephone loves Hades and that Hestia and Athena are in a relationship with each other, Artemis is angry and frustrated that she was the only member of the Eternal Maidenhood to actually commit to her vows.
• Parental Favoritism: To Zeus, with him being visibly moved upon realizing he's her father. He even admits to her that he considers finding out she's his daughter to be the only good thing to come out of the fallout from Persephone's trial.
• Platonic Life-Partners: As the series moves along, her and Hermes. Of all the men she knows, she trusts him to always be honest with her. To the point that after the Time Skip, she moves in with him. A very big change from "No Men Allowed."
• Purple Is Powerful: She is the Goddess of the Hunt as well as a child of Zeus.
• Super-Speed: Is considered one of the fastest gods on Olympus.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Persephone asks her if she's even been in love she gets a stressed look on her face and says "No! Never!" and states again "Nope!" when Persephone presses the question, looking even more stressed.^note Those who are well versed in Greek Mythology probably know of the one and only person Artemis loved romantically, the hunter Orion. It did not end well as either Apollo or Gaia, via a Scorpion killed him.
• Token Good Teammate: To the Zeus-Leto family. Pretty much everyone involved is a self-centered jerk, on a good day. Artemis is pretty much the only one that not only does no scheming, but actually tries to be a good person. Emphasis on the trying part, but points for effort.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Her job as the goddess of the hunt is not a stereotypically feminine job and she has even been described as 'unladylike' by Hera. However, whenever she sees Persephone dressed up such as when she got ready for her job in the underworld she couldn't help but comment on how cute Persephone looked.
• The Unfavorite: It's made quite obvious that Artemis is no more than an annoying afterthought in her mother Leto's eyes, who so far only interacts with her just to ridicule and gaslight her, while she is constantly spoiling and coddling Apollo's every want and need. This clearly doesn't help with her constantly feeling inferior compared her twin.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: She's able to take the form of a deer to visit the human world incognito, an ability she uses in a flashback to get her first look at Persephone before they meet face-to-face.
• Vow of Celibacy: Artemis is part of The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood, the same group that are funding Persephone's college scholarship, and due to this she has a house rule of men being banned from their house unless there are special circumstances.
• White Sheep: Of her family. While Artemis is by no means perfect ^note See Queen Niobe, she's largely content with her life and doesn't go out of her way to ruin someone's day or social climb. Her brother Apollo is an Entitled Bastard and the series' largest Hate Sink, her mother Leto encourages his behavior for unknown, yet concerning reasons and her father is confirmed to be ZEUS. So far, she's also the only one shown to be capable of accepting that she can be wrong and attempting to change for the better in some fashion.

Demeter

Demeter

Goddess of Fertility and Persephone's mother.

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• Abusive Parents: Demeter has shown every kind but outright Physical abuse. Demeter is a controlling matriarch. She NEEDS to have everything her way. When it comes to her daughter, top marks and exact instructions with no room for flaws or even Kore's own choices. When Persephone nudges even a little out of line, Demeter starts at nitpicking, grows to guilt trips, graduates to public shaming, until finally just shouting insults until Demeter gets her way. It really says something that Hestia, Demeter's sister, head of TGOEM, and a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing in her own right, calls her out on it.
• Always a Child to Parent: How Demeter treats Persephone, on a good day. Even when Kore herself is currently in her early 30's, Demeter refuses to treat her daughter any differently than when she was nine. Granted, a few decades is little more than conception to an immortal race that lives for millennia. But no other God treats Persephone this way, even after acknowledging her young age. It comes off as little more than a tool for Demeter to keep her daughter in line.
• Archnemesis Dad: Dangerously, Demeter has potential to be this with her daughter. Doing a run down: so far, Demeter has been offered the title of queen twice, that we know about, and each time she was turned down. Both times she was lead to believe Hades was responsible when it was actually Zeus. Regardless of that, Demeter eventually had a child, who she had tried to raise as passively and hidden as possible but, her 'naive and helpless' daughter had defeated the mad Titan king, BY HERSELF, and became queen to an entire realm. The kicker to all of that? She married the same man that denied her the crown. That has got to sting.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Makes one of these to Hermes after he witnessed something related to Persephone. She paid him, of course, but also left no room to doubt what would happen to him if word ever got out.
• Arc Villain: Well, Anti-villain. Demeter is the main antagonist and driving conflict of the Marriage arc. During those chapters, Demeter did everything she could to destroy and separate Persephone and Hades' relationship. In her usual Fantasy-Forbidding Mother kind of way. In classic Demeter fashion, she started at public humiliation, shaming, guilting, gaslighting. Stripping her daughter of any and all dignity, power, and pride. Literally and metaphorically. Then whining to Zeus when that backfired. Also in classic Demeter fashion, this only horrified Demeter's only allies and outright caused her daughter to elope. Causing the very thing Demeter was trying to prevent.
• Because I Said So: Whenever anyone- usually Persephone- asks why about anything, this is where Demeter STARTS.
• Believing Their Own Lies mixed with I Reject Your Reality: Demeter NEEDS to have everything her way. Everything. She will pull out every reason under the sun to guilt, force, and threaten to make it so. Even if they are blatant lies. When called on it, Demeter will double down again and again and learn nothing from it. The Goddess of the harvest simply cannot fathom she could be in the wrong.
• Big Sister Bully: Demeter is bossy, intense, with a hard 'My Way or the Highway' attitude. Not hard to see why both her sisters are scared of her. Even a few thousand years into adulthood.
• Big Sister Instinct: Ironically, Demeter is also this. Even thousands of years after the fact, Demeter is still pretty miffed about Hera being chosen as high queen over her. Regardless Demeter is always insulted and offended by Zeus' continued cheating and abuse of her little sister. For Hestia, it's much less intense but Demeter still showed naked concern and fear when her other little sister's titan scar started bleeding.
• Birdcaged: Ends up captured, courtesy of Leto. and more recently got out of being metaphorically birdcaged living as a mortal for her punishment on helping Persephone cover up the murders.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Mom, but yeah. It's not just Hades, but any male whatsoever. She has some justification here, what with Zeus's children coming out the Wazoo to 'seduce' the latest fertility goddess. Her beating up and threatening most of them- But Demeter never told Persephone this. Which makes Demeter seem smothering and controlling. Luckily- for her- that's pretty on brand. The perfect cover.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In an extended flashback we see Zeus try to hide one of his mistresses with Demeter and her group. Demeter almost obliges, but then puts her foot down and tells Zeus to stop cheating on her friend, his wife. Zeus's response is to burn her crops in a divine rage.
  • She was on the receiving end shortly before Persephone's act of wrath, with Persephone calling her out on her controlling nature. Demeter responded by calling Persephone ungrateful and grounding her.
• Conspiracy Theorist: She believes that fertility goddesses have unlimited power and are doomed to be targeted, seduced and used by god rulers in an endless cycle of usurping. She has on a tin hat in one scene during her explanation of this theory. It's made clear by the end of the trial, her fears aren't too misplaced about the targeted part.
• Control Freak: The biggest in the series, and that is saying something. A recurring theme in the series is that when it comes to their domains, the deities have crippling levels of OCD toward their specific subject, often to the point of bleeding heavily into other aspects of their lives. Part of their Cast of Personifications bit. Even the nicest gods are proud micromanagers. Demeter is the biggest one; it's not just her own domain of the harvest that she demands control over, it's everything Demeter finds herself involved in any way. The highlight so far is Demeter insisting on being her own defense in a trial- oh, and demanding her daughter go back to being her Number Two instead of queen of a realm.
• Does Not Like Men: Downplayed. See below for 'The First Cutisthe Deepest'. Demeter has a very personal and justified grudges against the three brothers and their descendants but the few men she interacts with outside of that bloodline has been mostly indifferent.
• The Dutiful Daughter: All of her daughters loved Metis, but Demeter was born with an explicit purpose. A weapon against Kronos. One she latched onto hard. Demeter feared and hated the mad god, sure. But most of it was just to please Metis. Deconstructed too. When Demeter eventually became a mom, she tried to instill that same devotion into her daughter. Which translated into little more than Fantasy-Forbidding Mother, Abusive Parent, and My Beloved Smother. Pushing Kore further and further way. Demeter doubled down again and again, causing an endless cycle.
• Education Mama: A flashback shows her scolding Persephone for making a few errors on an assignment and it's clear most of Persephone's scholastic endeavors were pushed at least in part by her.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Mother: If Demeter had her way, Kore would stay sequestered at the nymph commune she controls. Acting as her Number Two and mascot until the end of time. A constant agreeable companion. Even the necessary schooling would be commuted. But that's not what Persephone wants. Too bad for everyone, Demeter will fight tooth and nail to have her way. Their wishes- NOT HER'S- be damned.
• Fatal Flaw: Demeter is many things. An Abusive Parent, Big Sister Bully, The Friend Nobody Likes. Good intentions are always there, but when you boil it down Demeter is just an unpleasant Jerkass. Metis explicitly created Demeter as a weapon against Kronos. Demeter has shown to have the same fertility powers as Metis, Persephone, and Rhea- But Demeter is just such an unpleasant entitled Leader Wannabe that no Ouranos descendent could love her. Which is explicitly needed to empower them with her life force. Thus, Demeter failed the very purpose she was created for. All because she couldn't stop being a Jerkass. Which has only carried on well into the modern age and her own attempt at parenthood.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: It's not shown how or why, but Demeter has slept with both Zeus and Poseidon. Promised Queenship by the former and having a horse son with the latter. She was promptly abandoned by both. Since then Demeter has hated anyone from the Kronos bloodline.
• Foil: Horrifically, to Apollo. The two have more in common than they'd care to admit. The two deities have massive Never My Fault, Entitled Bastard, and Control Freak issues that NEED to make everything about themselves. But what matters is their relationship with Persephone. Each has their own big plans for her with absolutely no regard for her own input. One has known Kore all her life, the other only recently. Each has smothered, violated, and abused Persephone. Gaslight her up the wazoo, followed by using force to keep her in line. They both can't fathom Kore being her own person. Its rather damning that from the Big Bad Kronos to random Mortals, Demeter and Apollo are the only people Persephone fears. The only real difference? One lies to themselves that its for Persephone's own good. The other simply doesn't care.
• A Fool for a Client: Instead of following her daughter's lead, she chooses to represent herself at the trial. It ends up with her losing her position and forced to live among humanity, though that wasn't a result of her representing herself but due to Zeus quickly trying to distract from the information just revealed due to an untimely interruption by Eris and Apollo.
• Freudian Excuse: Demeter was the first born of Metis. The second fertility goddess of the Titans generation. She hated Kronos for abusing Rhea and turning into a tyrant worse than his father. So she created Demeter explicitly as a weapon against him. Demeter was pretty bad at it. She fought, yes. But Demeter was a terrible teammate, a sorry sister, and lousy Leader Wannabe. Her failure has haunted and isolated Demeter for literal thousands of years. All of her issues and failed relationships always comeback to her Unfulfilled Purpose Misery.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: See above for Fatal Flaw. Demeter is... just an unpleasant person. People can love and like her, she just makes it very hard. Demeter was born with a terrible burden. The pressure got to her quick. Demeter's sisters and allies either didn't know or want to help her. So Demeter had no outlet for her it. Leading Demeter to be controlling and contrarian about everything. Which pushed everyone away. Demeter has no friends even after thousands of years of existence. Her family either actively avoid her or have an active grudge against her. It looks like it's only getting worse over time.
• Hates Being Alone: Not at first. Demeter is a loner by nature, but after the war with the titans Demeter was pretty jaded with what was once The Team. Sequestering herself at her compound in the Mortal realm. She stayed there for a very, very long time. At first she was content but eventually the loneliness and isolation got to her. When it did Demeter found that everyone had moved on from her and she had no one to lean on. Thus she became a Truly Single Parent just to alleviate the isolation. The very thought that daughter might leave her terrifies Demeter. It's implied not for Persephone's safety, but because Demeter would go back to being alone.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: A classic to all control freaks. Whenever Demeter has a goal, she always goes all out. Their logical extreme. Thing is, life doesn't work this way. As the goddess of the harvest she grows everything into neat little rows but refuses to make the tiniest adjustment. Meaning there's always the threat of famine. Demands to be the defense for herself and her daughter at a trial- she makes everything worse. Tries to be a Fantasy-Forbidding Mother to her daughter, every move just pushes her further and further away. In her quest for dominance and control, Demeter has no one and nothing.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: In a very, very, sad way. Twice, that we know of, Demeter had the chance to be queen; once as high queen and the second of the mortal realm. Both times, Zeus was the cause and blamed Hades, thus alienating his sister in law and causing a feud between a powerful ally and his right hand.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Demeter's function in a nutshell. Demeter isn’t bad, but she is not terribly likable. Demeter's sisters (Hera and Hestia), her daughter (Persephone), even her own nymph commune will try to avoid spending time with her. When the realms were reopened, anyone who could leave Demeter's compound did, giving lip service to her hospitality and rushing out the door. Not surprising when controlling, intense, and demeaning is her personal motto. They love her but they don't LIKE her. As for the fans, they would pick Knights of Cerebus villains over her any day of the week.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Deconstructed. Demeter is right about a lot of things, but she is controlling and contrarian about it, so no one will willingly listen to her. The closest people in her life (i.e. her sisters and her daughter) actively avoid Demeter whenever they can. It's gotten to the point that no matter how right Demeter is about something, people will disregard her out of spite.
• Kick the Dog: With a steel toed boot, to her own daughter no less. Because of her grudge against Hades and need to dominate her daughter, Demeter tricked Persephone into an 'intervention'. The goddess of the harvest did little more than nitpick, guilt, and shame the goddess of spring, in her own childhood home- in front of the same commune that Persephone had led and cared for for a solid decade. The worst was literally stripping her daughter of her dark queenly attire and forcing on Kore's old virgin white flower picking toga. All in the name of keeping her 'safe'.
• Knight of Cerebus: Downplayed, but the comic's tension for Season 2 starts with her entrance.
• Lack of Empathy: Demeter is a compulsive control freak. She has to have everything HER way. Because of self-centeredness, Demeter is unable to empathize with anyone. She has No Sympathy toward her oldest 'friends', whose Dark and Troubled Past she has full knowledge of. She’s willing to shelter Zeus's discarded nymph flings in her compound, but Demeter doesn't seem to know any of their names and treats them more like free labor than anything else.
• Leg Focus: In a scene taking place shortly after the Titanomachy, the brothers are discussing women and weighing their options. Zeus lists her legs as a pro about her.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Her choosing to live on Earth among mortals means that she is unaware of Persephone's relationship with Hades and the various rumors surrounding them, which is ironic given her original reason for cutting off ties was because she was wishing to hide and protect her daughter.
• Mama Bear: Deconstructed. She's protective of Persephone to a stifling degree, to the point Persephone has nightmares about Demeter locking her away. She also for some reason never told her daughter she was a fertility goddess and kept her from developing or learning how to control her powers to their fullest extent. All of this contributed largely to Persephone's self-esteem issues and her lack of control over her most basic powers. It's eventually revealed that her overprotective nature towards her daughter stems from her fear of Zeus or one of his sons taking advantage of her fertility-goddess powers.
  • The second she meets Apollo, she grabs his face and tells him to stay the fuck away from her daughter, marking one of the few times a character drops the word unprompted when meeting someone. Keep in mind, she wasn’t aware of what Apollo did to Persephone, but his mere presence spelled out he was up to no good with her daughter.
• My Beloved Smother: Demeter is stiflingly overprotective of Persephone, raising her in near-isolation on Earth apart from the other gods and not even allowing her to take walks in the forest outside their village without being accompanied by flower nymphs. She seems to have deliberately kept Persephone ignorant of her own nature as a fertility goddess and is instead railroading her into joining The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood by insisting that Persephone accept a scholarship from the organization in order to attend college; even then, she only agreed to let Persephone live on Olympus (instead of commuting to her classes) after the event that caused humans to start calling her "the bringer of death" instead of "the maiden."
• My Way or the Highway: Demeter's first and usually only matter of course. Demeter must have her way- always. Ironically, it almost never works and she ends up the one walking away.
• Never My Fault: While she undoubtedly means well, her overprotectiveness over Persephone causes more problems than it solves and she just seems unwilling to admit that. When Persephone called her out on her overbearing nature in the past, she merely dismissed it as her daughter being ungrateful and naive, without acknowledging that said naiveté was a direct result of her never letting Persephone live her own life and denying her the most basic freedoms. Then she’s goes as far as to trick her into attending intervention and guilt-trip Persephone into staying with TOGEM, while trapping Hades. All of this only drives Persephone away from her and accept Hades’ marriage proposal. Demeter’s response is to stop the union by filing a petition to Zeus, failing to comprehend her own faults.
• No Sympathy: Seems to hate Hades for no other reason than just being Kronos's son and Zeus's brother and literally for no other reason than just that, even though he was just as much a victim of their crimes as she and her family are.
  • Somewhat justified, as it turns out. She also hates Hades for refusing to allow her to be crowned Queen of the Mortal Realm, as this would disallow him access to volcanos. Mind you, the other Traitors would be okay with her being a Queen. Zeus only changed his vote when Hades said no.
• Only Sane Man. More of a deconstruction of one. She certainly thinks she is this to The Six Traitors Dynasty, and probably to all of Olympus and The Underworld in general. And while she does make some perfectly valid criticisms, it's made quite clear that this just make everybody—even her own daughter!—mostly see her as a Stick in the Mud Know-Nothing Know-It-All Control Freak who thinks she's better and smarter than everybody who just constantly complains and criticizes everybody for their smallest flaws and past transgressions.
• Parental Hypocrisy: The goddess of nature and fertility is pushing her daughter to take a vow of eternal celibacy. It also seems like Persephone is also a fertility goddess like in classic mythology, but Demeter is trying to hide and suppress this trait for some reason, to the point that Persephone isn't even aware of it herself until Hades brings it up.
• Parents as People: She truly loves Persephone and wants nothing more than for her to be safe and happy. However because of how dangerous life of a fertility goddess can be, she ended up going overboard and essentially made her a prisoner in her own home.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Demeter tried this, twice. First with her disaster of an 'intervention'. Second, by directly going to Zeus and whine technicalities. Thankfully, both times she failed.
• Psychological Projection: Everything she accuses Hades of in regards to Persephone- She's nothing but his crown jewel. Meant to look pretty and prop him up but never allowed to do anything on her own. Squander and smother Persephone's potential... That's exactly how she treats her daughter. Everyone else seems to have caught on to this, but Demeter is in hard denial.
• Rules Lawyer: What she does to stop Hades and Persephone's wedding. Since Hades' proposal took place in Demeter's home and without her blessing, she can go to Zeus and cite it as a violation of Sacred Hospitality, one of Zeus' divine domains. While Zeus isn't happy about it, he technically has to enforce it, as even if it's a flimsy grievance, it is a ''technically' valid one.
• Scars Are Forever: She has scratch mark scars on her back. According to Hades she was cursed by Kronos when she got them.
• Sanity Slippage: Heavily implied to be one of the main reasons for her stifling parenting, and the cause being the culminated Trauma Conga Line of both seeing her beloved mother murdered, and from having to watch an enraged Kronos tear her little sister in two.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Pays Hermes handsomely to forge the Underworld's records of soul intaking to cover up Persephone's act of wrath.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: She wanted to protect her daughter from those who would use her (read: Zeus and his sons) by hiding Persephone's fertility goddess powers, suppressing her and hoping she wouldn't find out. This leads to the extreme amount of death caused by Persephone's powers going out of control, and her eventual discovery by some very interested Olympians, one of whom seems to be planning to usurp Zeus—Apollo, who turns out to be Zeus' son.
• Stage Mom: While she does genuinely love Persephone and genuinely means well in her... ''questionable'' parenting, it's been implied that she at least subconsciously is also using her as a means to live out the life that she wanted for herself, but was not able to have, due to the Titanomacy and its aftermath.
• Tough Love: What Demeter thinks she does to Persephone. It's not. See above for Abusive Parents.
• The Unseen: Throughout season 1. Residing in the mortal world rather than Olympus means she's far removed from the events of the story, and most of the gods would rather keep it that way. When she actually shows up in person in episode 116, it quickly becomes a crisis.
• Troubled Abuser: Demeter's smothering of Persephone is the result of her fear that other gods would one day take advantage of her or even consume her to gain access to her powers as fertility goddess. She's not taking well the realization that she may have contributed to some of her daughter's issues.
• Truly Single Parent: Persephone has no father; she created her daughter on her own.
• Tyke Bomb: Metis explicitly created Demeter as a weapon to overthrow Kronos. Unlike most examples, Metis was pretty open about this. Predictably, through the gods Purpose-Driven Immortality, Demeter lached onto this hard. Deconstructed too. After the war, her little sister Hera chosen as High Queen over her. Leaving Demeter with no purpose and cheated of reward or direction.
• You Killed My Mother: Demeter's greatest reason for hating Zeus is because during the Titanomacy, he killed her mother Metis, who was a Fertility Goddess, so that he could have her powers for himself.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Goddess of love and Eros's mother.

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• Adaptational Heroism: Instead of the cruel trials she forced Psyche to do in the original myth, she put her under her protection to teach Eros a lesson on trust.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Well, nice girl. Not a complete sweetheart, but holds far less of a grudge than does her mythological counterpart, and is fully willing to give Persephone and Psyche another chance.
  • She also does not seem to be cheating on Hephaestus with Ares, and generally shows Hephaestus a lot of affection.
• All Women Are Lustful: Subverted in Episode 69, where she seduces Zeus only to get Eros out of trouble.
• Berserk Button: It really isn’t a good idea to say that some other woman is more beautiful than the goddess of sensual beauty within earshot of her. Downplayed since all she does when Hades makes that mistake is tell Eros to get Persephone very drunk, then stuff her in Hades’ car.
• The Charmer: As befits the goddess of sensual beauty. She once slept with Zeus to get her son Eros out of trouble with him, although her consent in this is debatable.
• Evil Is Petty: Though petty is as far as this version goes.
  • After hearing Hades call Persephone better looking than her, she had Eros get her heavily drunk and stuffed in Hades's car to try and embarrass them both.
  • After mortals began saying Psyche was more beautiful than her, she sent Eros to try and ruin her life.
• Fantastic Racism: Demanded that Persephone woo Hades from Minthe on the sheer principle that she was a goddess and letting a nymph have something she wanted was shaming their kind.
• Foil: Aphrodite's got a twofer.
  • Persephone: Both are carefree Nice Girls and considered the most beautiful goddess of their generation. Their respective colors are only a few shades apart. The main difference is that Aphrodite is a Proud Beauty with a Hidden Heart of Gold that has and needs the desire of everyone on sight, excluding Hades. Persephone is an Innocent Fanservice Girl at worst who only wants to attract one person (Hades) with terrible Suppressed Rage hidden below the surface.
  • Hephaestus: Physically Aphrodite was born an adult and aesthetically exquisite, immediately gaining attention and acceptance with just her first few breaths. Hephaestus, on the other hand, was born missing most of his limbs and if the original myths are followed, rejected at birth. Aphrodite is a social deity that needs attention. Hephaestus is a recluse who hates the spotlight. Adding to that, both have a single Only Friend that is entirely within their power (Psyche and Aetna). The good part, and their Commonality Connection, is that underneath it all, the two are good people and effective gods but very lonely and just want someone to love them.
• Give Geeks a Chance: With Hephaestus. After finally having enough of Ares and his obsession with Persephone, the heartbroken love goddess wandered into the same room as the forge god. It was a rocky start, but after meeting up a few more times the two really hit it off. The two married some time during the time skip. To give you some idea, Hephaestus gave Aphrodite a cannon so she could continue her duties even when stuck on Olympus. Something no one has ever given her. Not even her war god ex-boyfriend. (On the other hand, there's a chance that she married him just to get back at Ares.)
• Glomp: Aphrodite likes to surprise hug her kids when she can.
• Good Parents: Aphrodite is many things; unpredictable and petty are on the list. Above all of that, though, the love goddess is a surprisingly good mom. Probably the most functional parent in the entire setting. Which... really says something about the pantheon. Regardless, Aphrodite has been shown to be nothing but nurturing, affectionate, and supportive- even when no one else knows. Even sneaking in surprise hugs when she can. Her children adore her because of it.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Her skin tone and color scheme favor lilac.
• Hidden Depths: She is desperately looking for someone special to her, whom may be hurt, and is consoled by Eros about it briefly... It's most likely that she is searching for Ares.
  • For all the jokes about her vanity and pettiness, Aphrodite really does take being the World's Most Beautiful Woman seriously. Beauty being her divine domain, she is sincerely offended by someone saying she's not.
• Love Goddess: Of course.
• Mama Bear: She will protect her son from harm, no matter what it takes.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Due her immortality, she looks as young as her eldest son.
• Official Couple: She and Ares, they have several children together. And while they're also well known to not be mutually exclusive, they seem to care deeply about each other and the person she distressingly appeared to be searching for was most likely him. Subverted after the timeskip. Aphrodite grew tired of his philandering ways and his obvious crush on Persephone and married someone else, much to Ares' agony.
• Nice Girl: Downplayed. While she can be petty and vindictive, Aphrodite does have an affectionate, charming, and caring side, mostly seen with her family and her few friends.
• Pet the Dog: Took Psyche under her wing after Eros abandoned her.
• Proud Beauty: By her own admission, Aphrodite IS beauty. It is what she is. When others, not just males, consider someone else more beautiful than her, Aphrodite considers it an active existential threat. Thankfully the few times this has happened, fittingly, it involved romantic love. Once Aphrodite learned of this, she actively becomes a Shipper on Deck for the couples. Even befriending them.
• Only Friend: With Psyche, a mortal that captured the heart of her eldest son- Eros. According to Psyche, Aphrodite doesn't have many friends. If any.
• Shipper on Deck: Explicitly her job as the goddess of love, Romantic or otherwise. She spends most of her day seeding mortals with desire and attraction. Though, Aphrodite only shows real interest in couples when one or both consider the other prettier than her. At first she is insulted and threatened by such accusations, but when Aphrodite learns that potential true love is involved, she throws her full support behind such a union.
• The Last Straw: During their time together, Ares and Aphrodite had ups and downs. She even liked that part of their relationship to some extent. Ares being a neglectful deadbeat and rabble rouser that just wouldn't stop babbling about other goddesses... not so much. It finally hit the fan when Aphrodite stumbled on Ares asking Hera, the goddess of marriage, for a shot at Persephone- at her own trial. She cut him out of her life after that.
• True Love is Exceptional: If there is one thing Aphrodite believes in, it's this. No surprise, as the goddess of it. While Aphrodite is happy with common lust and the occasional fling, true love is what gets this goddess out of bed in the morning. When she sees the potential for it, Aphrodite will do all within her power for it to happen. Even if at great personal effort or cost.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: As the goddess of desire and attraction, she explicitly NEEDS to be this. It is the foundation to her very existence. The idea or chance that someone is more beautiful than her, is an active threat to not just her immortal life but her reason for being. Thankfully, it rarely happens. When it does, its usually a sign that true love is at play. Which, as the goddess of love not just attraction, Aphrodite has shown to always support.

Apollo

Apollo

Artemis' twin brother, the sun god.

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• Abusive Parents: Implied. Asclepius seems to be afraid of him the only time we see them interact. There's also a heavy implication that Apollo strong-arms Asclepius into talking about his patients to him, which Asclepius seems deeply uncomfortable with.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the original myths, Apollo is one of Zeus's favorite sons and was doted on by him since the moment of his birth. Here, Zeus had no idea Apollo was his son until Persephone's trial and many of Apollo's villainous actions are motivated from a bitter sense of entitlement from being an unacknowledged son of the king of the gods.
• Adaptational Villainy: While he's a creep in the myths too, he was originally one of the many suitors of Persephone's and actually gave her his lyre as proof of affection. She was raped in that story too, but not by him. Surviving ancient literary sources also gave no mention of him plotting to usurp Zeus—that role actually went to Athena, Poseidon and Hera, who in one particular myth teamed up to attempt an ultimately failed coup against him.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: He outright states he'll make Persephone his wife even after she explains she hates him and is afraid of him.
  • In chapter 124 he literally went to Hera's office to apply to marry Persephone and when she told him no, he decided to go behind her back and ask Zeus for the marriage.
• Bait the Dog: Early on, he apologizes to Persephone for coming on a bit strong and he heals a gash in her hand. Persephone warms up to him slightly, and the audience gets the impression that, for all his douchiness, he isn’t that bad. That night, he goes into her room…
• Bastard Angst: Apollo and his twin sister Artemis are the children of Zeus, the king of the gods. Normally this would make them royalty, Apollo himself the next in line for the thrown. But their mother is not Hera, so the twins are illegitimate children, unacknowledged ones at that. This is a major sour spot for him, Apollo compensates by bragging as much as he can about his godly talents but its never enough. The golden sun deity always craves more. Notibly his twin sister does not share this with him, the god of the hunt being quite comfortable with her life.
• Bastard Bastard: He is the illegitimate son of Zeus, and is a nasty piece of work.
• Big Bad: Is hinted to be wishing to overthrow Zeus, and may end up being a bigger threat than anyone realizes. Though that isn't to say he might not get overshadowed by Kronos.
• Big Bad Wannabe mixed with Super Loser: What Apollo ultimately turned out to be. The sun god is a capable schemer and an expert bully. Desperate to succeed his father and become the next High King of the gods. Thing is, Apollo doesn't have the brains, muscle, or- most importantly- patience and allies, to back it up. Every time Apollo tries to be the big bad, he always falls on his face. Humiliated and impotent. The other gods and olympic public hating him more and more each time.
• Big Brother Bully: Apollo has shown care for his twin - but only his twin. Any of his other, many, siblings are fair game. This stands out the most with Hebe, his youngest sister by Hera. It's unknown if it's part of the grudge between Hera and Leto, but Apollo went out of his way to pin her as the fall guy to his patricide. Twisting the knife any chance he gets. A big smile on his face any time anyone brings it up.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Shows himself to the public as an all around friendly, respectful gentleman, when in reality he is the absolute opposite.
• Blatant Lies: See Gaslighting below. He also keeps lying to his mother about Persephone not really liking him, to the point that even Leto calls him out.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The single most traumatic event in Persephone's life? To Apollo, it was "one night from a decade ago", and he only even bothers remembering or considering it insofar as it threatens to ruin his reputation (and PR campaign) on Olympus.
• Color-Coded Characters: The same shade of purple as his sister and their father, Zeus.
• Condescending Compassion: His initial marriage pitch to Persephone is that he's isn't bothered with her being with a minor goddess and is willing to date beneath his status for her benefit.
• Cosmic Motifs: The Sun, specifically. The glowing ball in the sky that is center of everything, it gives both warmth and life to any that see it. Deconstructed, in that the the closer anyone gets to that ball of fire, the more they burn and the more they are suffocated by it. Apollo acts and believes that he is the most important person in the room, no matter where he is. That everyone and everything both wants and needs him. Much like the Sun itself, Apollo is only glamorous from a distance. The closer anyone gets to him, the more repulsed and smothered they are. Ironically, Apollo himself is not the Sun god. That would be Helios. The son of Zeus is merely the god of light, and the real Sun Deity’s jailor.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: To Persephone, and especially if she is with Hades.
• Entitled Bastard mixed with Spoiled Brat: How the other Olympians see Apollo when he presents himself as Zeus' replacement. The surviving original traitors have no respect for him. Other gods of his own generation can only roll their eyes. Even Demeter, who has an active grudge agaisnt Hades, calls the blue Deity a better candidate because he actually fought in the Titanomachy and knows how to govern a realm.
• Entitled to Have You: Is currently stalking Persephone and wanting to force her to marry him, declaring her "his girl" and is jealous of her relationship with Hades. Even when he was in a relationship with Daphne.
  • He also gets snippy when Daphne talks to Thanatos for all of a minute.
  • This seems to extend to all women, regardless of station, even in non-sexual interactions, as demonstrated when he barges into Hera’s meeting room (dressed in his sports jacket) to demand a marriage blessing for him and Persephone, ignoring the employees’ protests that Hera’s schedule is full. When Hera herself staunchly rejects his application, he barely restrains himself from attacking her.
  • It seems like it may be people's attention in general. He doesn't like it when Hephaestus, while answering his initial greeting, continues working on his computer and quickly gets in his face. Hephaestus IS one of the least social Gods, something that most beings are either already aware of or quickly realize. The conversation gets heated because Apollo refuses to leave him be.
• Even Evil Has Standards: One of the few redeeming qualities is that even HE dislikes Eris, and makes a move to stop her from tormenting the trial. Even then, how he goes about reeling her in is clearly to everyone's distaste due to his clear preformative heroism.
• Evil Is Petty: He decided to blackmail Persephone with photos of her naked body and show them to people if she told anyone about the sexual assault. Plus he decided to dig up her past about killing mortals and then told Thetis, Minthe and Thanatos who all have a vendetta against her and want to destroy her life. Apollo did all of this because she refuses to be in a relationship with him.
• Evil vs. Evil: Apollo vs. Eris in a nutshell. It's hard to tell who's less evil.
• Fatal Flaw: See below for Love Hungry. Apollo is very flawed: Attention Whore, Drama Queen, Shameless Self-Promoter, etc. The list goes on. But boil it down, Apollo is really nothing more than a spoiled Lonely Rich Kid. Everything he does. All Apollo's gifts, talents, godly domains- they were all so Apollo could gather the love and attention he never had. What, with 'That's not my kid' Zeus and 'Love is conditional' Leto.
• Faux Affably Evil: Apollo is a rotten piece of work. But he nows how to put on the charm and work the crowd. But the second things don't go his way- cracks start showing and the spoiled cruel little kid in a god's body is quickly revealed.
• Foil: To his brothers, Ares and Hephaestus. Aside from the obvious differences- being the favorite son that most takes after their shared father, but being unacknowledged.
  • For Ares: both act like they're the hotshot of Olympus with a creepy fixation on Persephone and just don't get along with Hades. The difference being Ares' creepiness is treated as an annoyance at worst, he and Persephone mostly get along, the war god hates rapists, and being the only deity that openly calls out his father for his actions- thus the only Olympian that Zeus fears.
  • For Hephaestus, Apollo is an attention whore who believes that everyone both needs and wants him- fully acting on it in ever scene. The very thought that this isn't the case sends the sun god to tears. Close to his exiled titan mother, creepily so and, of course, he blackmailed Persephone with evidence of his own crimes against the spring goddess. Hephaestus is a complete recluse who tries his best to stay out of sight, but he's also responsible for all but the mortal Realm advancing to the modern age- so while the forge god isn't wanted, he is absolutely needed. His relationship with god-queen Hera is distant and awkward-at best. Most of all, Hephaestus silently deleted said blackmail for the spring goddess.
  • To a lesser extent his sister as well, She is a virginal, well meaning oblivious person who has no big schemes and plans and is frustrated with the current order, but never attempts to overthrow it. Compared to him, she's a saint in this story. And this is not even getting into their mythological counter part's differences that have carried over.
• Freudian Excuse: It's heavily implied that his mother Leto has purposefully groomed and brainwashed him his whole entire life into being a pawn to overthrow Zeus as part of an implied revenge scheme on Zeus and Hera.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: As of the start of season three, Leto is the only family member he has who hasn't figured out that he's an awful person and chosen to cut ties with him. Zeus himself went from adoring him to only tolerating his presence because he's still popular amongst the public.
• Gaslighting: He lies about he and Persephone having been mutually attracted to one another and says that Persephone suddenly went crazy and started avoiding him when Artemis realizes that something very bad happened between the two of them.
• Generation Xerox: Just like Zeus, he is now vying for the affection of a woman infinitely kinder and less vain than him who would likely be much happier with Hades and is also genuinely attracted to him too.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Apollo is jealous of Hades because Persephone cares more about him and is comfortable around him than she is with Apollo.
• Hate Sink: Apparently. Whenever he appears in a chapter, you can bet the comments will be filled with fans insulting him with the most common one being Asspollo. Giving the kind of person he is, it's no wonder.
• Hidden Depths: Well, sort of. His role as a medical god, usually left out of adaptations, comes up here. Also a lot of people think that he's a Nice Guy when in reality his views and treatment towards women are considered misogynistis and a rapist since he assaulted Persephone the first day he met her.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His main obstacle to his having a relationship with Persephone isn’t Hades; it’s how Apollo treated and treats her. Taken to its logical conclusion in his ultimate comeuppance. He drags Persephone across the Mortal Realm, latches her to a pillar and forces Eros to shoot a True Love arrow at her to force her to fall in Love with him. She grabs the arrow with a vine and jabs HIM in the neck. Apollo is forced to fall in Love with her and immediately becomes cognizant of everything he’s put her through, at which point Persephone delivers her punishment: he must publicly confess his crimes against her. Something he can easily DO since he called Oracle News to where they were by telling the reporters that he and Persephone would soon be engaged. A mob of Persephone’s family and friends begins forming and once the camera begin rolling, a tearful Apollo obediently destroys his reputation.
• It's All About Me: He has a horrid case of Main Character Syndrome, and seems incapable of realizing that he isn't perfect.
• Jerkass: Oooh, boy. See Persephone's entry for more details if you aren't already convinced from his so far.
• Jerk Jock: As the son of Zeus, he considers himself entitled to whichever goddess catches his eye. And doesn't take rejection well at all, even if it's own behavior that causes him to be rejected.
• Junior Counterpart: To Zeus. The Olympian King even remarks that Apollo reminds him of a younger version of himself, though the reader is aware this is true in more ways than Zeus would probably like to admit.
• Karma Houdini: He's done well for himself in the decade following Persephone's banishment. He gets acknowledged as Zeus' son and a prince of Olympus, he has his mother's banishment overturned, and his popularity skyrockets as Zeus' approval rating nosedives. What's more, no one takes him to task for crimes against Persephone and Daphne as his victims and his most powerful opponents are either trapped on the mortal realm or secluding themselves in the Underworld.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Apollo has done plenty of terrible things. Kicking the Dog or Being a brat in every scene. But the guy knows how to be Faux Affably Evil. By the timeskip, Apollo is the top celeberity god and all but the heir apparent. Then the boundaries are lifted and his victims that were sequestered away from Olympus tell their stories. Cracks are already showing. People who once begged for his autograph now refuse to be in the same room as him. That's not even getting to his family and fellow gods.
• Laser-Guided Karma: A malignant narcissist and rapist who is known for his need of positive attention is forced to publicly confess his crimes and destroy his reputation because his attempt to force his victim to fall in love with him completely backfires.
• Lonely at the Top: At the start of the series Apollo was a famous god, worshiped by the mortals and olympic public, and beloved by friends and family. But by the time of the timeskip, Apollo is all but the Heir apparent and more famous than ever- but his family refuses to talk to him and his best friend disowned and assaulted him. Leaving Apollo with no one but his manipulative mother.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Essentially what Apollo is. Apollo was raised by Leto, a titan who didn't fall from grace until far after the war and Zeus' favorite Olympian. So, safe bet the sun god grew up in Luxury. While Apollo can work a crowd and charm strangers, he's only really had one friend outside of family. Apollo is a lonely god. Latching onto relationships until they die or run screaming. Apollo's ignorance of relationships show's when he tries to force and mold people into what he thinks friends and girlfriends should be.
• Love Hungry: A recurring theme for him, and fatal flaw. Unlike his father Zeus, who just doesn't get emotional attachments, Apollo craves them. He won't care about the people themselves, but he wants and needs their love and attention. Apollo can't function without them. The very idea that someone honestly wants nothing to do with the sun god sends Apollo to tears. When Daphne threatened to reveal his crimes, it wasn't punishment Apollo feared, it was the loss of the people's love.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Finally admits to not just Zeus, but the whole pantheon, that he and Artemis are Zeus' bastard children in Chapter 190. Zeus and Artemis are visibly taken back by this, though Zeus is more focused on Artemis being his daughter than Apollo being his son.
• Missing Steps Plan:
  • His entire plan to marry Persephone and take advantage of her fertility goddess powers seemingly began and ended with his belief that no woman could refuse him and he was at a loss at what to do when Persephone made it clear she wants nothing to do with him.
  • His plan to usurp Zeus was to poison him into a coma, pin the blame on Hebe and take the throne for himself. He did not take into account that Zeus has a wife, siblings and other children who are all also in the line of succession or that anyone familiar with Hebe wouldn't believe she would ever harm her father.
• Momma's Boy: He's shown to be very close to his mother and she seems to have him under her thumb. Part of the reason he's so determined to get Persephone to marry him is because Leto is pushing him to do so.
• Narcissist: To a quite literally insane degree. Indeed, even his own mother Leto outright wonders if her child is delusional. Apollo has always acted like he was the center of the universe, like everything revolved around himself. That everyone and everything both wanted and needed him. Not unlike the Sun itself. At first this seemed like just boasting bravado. A way to compensate for being the unacknowledged child of Zeus. But in chapter 184 we see his private thoughts, which reveals he truly does believe all of the above. The thought that someone honestly wants nothing to do with him brought this golden deity to tears.
• Never My Fault: To an outright delusional degree. This godly prince will twist any situation to Insane Troll Logic levels of lying and outright gaslight himself so he is not at fault. Apollo the eternal victim. This doesn't mean Apollo thinks he can do no wrong, but he will honestly believe himself justified in every despicable act he does. Either misremembering how terrible it was or feel himself forced to do so in a Why Did You Make Me Hit You? kind of way. Any time he's confronted about this, Apollo will double down again and again- fully incapable of seeing himself as the guilty party.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Chapter 190 gave him a twofer. The first by Persephone, his favorite victim- and the second by Zeus, his father. What was supposed to be his moment of triumph, capturing Eris the goddess of discord, in front of the entire godly court- was undercut by Persephone, who not only freed the chaotic goddess who blessed her as an infant but refused to be cowed by his glares. Not wanting to lose the moment and keep face, Apollo revealed to the entire godly host that he- and his twin sister- were Zeus's children via an affair with Leto. Only to be instantly cut down and sidelined when the (seemingly) indifferent king of gods pointed out the day wasn't about him. It also derailed his plan when Zeus put two and two together and realized if he didn't do something about Persephone—even if it hurt Hades—Apollo was about to restart the cycle. On top of all that Zeus' reaction seemed to be more focused on Artemis being his daughter, before he realizes the implications of Apollo's claim for the two of them.
  • Seen again in Chapter 256. With Zeus comatose, Apollo garbs himself in kingly attire and immediately tries to ascend the throne. Athena, Hades, Poseidon and Amphitrite immediately squash that idea.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His actions towards Persephone are truly awful, but the end result is that Persephone completely despises him and refuses to have anything to do with him, let alone marry him, which throws an enormous wrench into Leto's plans for her son.
  • Compounding above, independently both Zeus and Hera, have become weary of his repeated pushes to get their approval to pursue Persephone romantically. Hera going so far as to rip up his application in his face after his insisting she approve it. And Zeus gently snapping at him, after Apollo used the fact Hera was bed-ridden due to an old wound reopening to visit and ask for Persephone's hand again. So he can't even push for a political based marriage on normal grounds.
  • The biggest one comes in Chapter 190. Apollo, in an attempt to keep the trial's attention on him after Eris escapes thanks to Persephone's mercy for the goddess of Chaos, decides it's a great idea to reveal to the entire pantheon he's Zeus' son, and demands his rightful place as crown prince of Olympus. However, by this point, Zeus has already realized where Apollo is trying to go with this, and immediately makes his own countermove to stop Apollo by banishing Persephone to the Mortal Realm and make her take over Demeter's role with no contact to any god. By publicly playing his big ace, Apollo just ruined his chances to get his way.
  • By making Persephone hate him, Apollo has all but insured that he will NEVER get her Fertility Goddess powers.
• Parental Favoritism: Leto clearly favors him over Artemis, making him key to her plans to get back into Zeus's good graces.
• Puppet King: Heavily implied to be Leto's intended role for him if he succeeds in overthrowing Zeus as King of the Gods, with Leto herself as the real Ruler with Apollo as her gullible puppet.
• Purple Is Powerful: He is God of the Sun, Music and Medicine. As well as, the son of Zeus.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: What firmly sets him into his Hate Sink status. After hanging out with Persephone for a little while, he forces himself on her and takes pictures and video of the encounter, acting as if he's entitled to her time every moment after. Also, he doesn't seem to realize what he did to her was wrong and even going so far to say that she like it.
• Royal Favorite: It was heavily implied that he was Zeus' favorite Olympian before he started getting on his nerves by repeatedly demanding Persephone as his wife and started harassing Hades.
• Selective Obliviousness: About Persephone's GREAT dislike of him and the implications of her having a scholarship with TGOEM.
  • Surprisingly, even Leto thinks so, calling him straight up delusional or lying.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Downplayed, since he's somewhat of a Big Man on Campus on Olympus. Still, he's nowhere near the level of the six traitors. And yet he believed he could get away with threatening (and possibly attacking) Hera.
  • Seen again in chapters 256 and 257. He assumed with Zeus being comatose, he could waltz in and declare himself king. As Athena helpfully points out, they still have a Queen to rule (Hera) and the line of succession does NOT work that way.
• The Sociopath: He's has a charming and charismatic front that hides his true egotistical, manipulative and abusive personality. He's incapable of understanding that his actions have consequences, is unable to comprehend that someone he likes isn't smitten with him and is visibly troubled to process the idea that he can't have something he wants.
• Stalker with a Crush: Through his sister, he's figured out Persephone's schedule and where she's likely to be, and has an annoying tendency to show up uninvited.
• Spanner in the Works: To whatever plan Leto is cooking, first by making Persephone hate him, and then by getting on Zeus' bad side.
• The Starscream: It's all been directly said that he's currently scheming to usurp Zeus via marriage to the new fertility goddess. Though it's obvious enough to Zeus, who has seemingly thwarted every direct push, that Apollo's required his mother's assistance and revealing his parentage publicly.
  • He finally makes his move in chapter 253: he poisons Zeus with a herb-laced muffin and pins the blame on Hebe. He then throws Eros and Psyche in prison under threat of Leto murdering Kassandra. Apollo has the NERVE to waltz into Olympus only to be reminded that the line of succession does still exist and Olympus still has one other ruler.
• Straw Misogynist: He has openly said rude and sexist things to his sister and Persephone.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Not usually, but he has these when he rapes Persephone.
  • These seem to reappear throughout the series particularly when he's upset with either Persephone or Hades, such as when Persephone finally confronts him.
• Tantrum Throwing: Pretty much Apollo's default whenever he doesn't get what he wants. In a Deity culture where unreasonably proud gods get what they want, or else. Apollo manages to stick out by sheer scale and pettiness. Prime example was both his first appearance and after putting Zeus in a coma. A spoiled child whining about not getting his cookie after eating his Veggies comes to mind.
• The Unfavorite: When everyone finally finds out about Zeus being his father, Zeus seems much more impacted by finding out that Artemis is his daughter.
• Villainous Crush: To Persephone.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Apollo is very good at making the masses love him.

Hermes

Hermes

The herald of the Gods and an old friend of Persephone's.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: In Greek mythology, he’s the classic Trickster God. Here, he’s just a dumb jock. Season 2 establishes that he prefers to be a dumb jock as long as things are quiet; when trouble strikes he is fast in travel and thought.
• Ambiguously Related: There's currently no explicit evidence that Hermes is Zeus's son like in the myths, but Zeus briefly talking about how his mother Maia is classy and large breasted implies they had a past relationship.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Definitely one of the more approachable Gods. Doesn't hesitate to threaten Thanatos for being nosey, snitches on Thanatos just when it looks like the former will get away with revealing Persephone's past and PUNCHES APOLLO when he finds out that he sexually assaulted Persephone.
• Beware the Silly Ones: When Thanatos starts asking him questions about Persephone's past, he not so subtly threatens him to keep out of it.
  Hermes: Hey, Thanatos. A word to the wise.
  [abruptly looming over Thanatos]
  Hermes: Don't fuck with things you shouldn't be fucking with. M'kay?
• Black Eyes of Evil: Has these when Persephone sees him for the first time in ten years. He creepily leers at her and pursues her with possibly rapey intentions. They're the result of Kronos possessing him.
• Brainless Beauty: Somehow manages to lose his shirt on the way to deliver a message to Artemis, and is just as confused as she is when she asks him what happened to it.
  Artemis: How can you not know [what happened to your shirt]??
  Hermes: Don't ask hard questions.
• Childhood Friends: With Persephone. He even would secretly bathe with her, meaning Persephone has no problem being naked around him.
• Grand Theft Me: In the latest chapters he is shown to be possessed by Kronos. He's freed when Persephone defeats Kronos and imprisons him back in Tartarus.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Not to the extent of, say, Zeus or Poseidon, but he's got chin-length hair and quite a chiseled physique.
• Mama's Boy: He claims his main concerns in life is getting money and taking care of his mother.
• Mr. Fanservice: Has a habit of showing up shirtless. Chapter 176 in particular is made of him and this trope.
• Nice Guy: Hermes is a nice fellow. Problem is, he's perhaps too nice: he appears to have a tendency of not seeing people's flaws, if his friendship with Apollo is anything to go by. He does have his limits, however, and crossing them is not recommended... as Thanatos has the misfortune to discover.
  • He's been slowly wising up to Apollo's true nature though clearly struggling with it and attempting to give his friend chances to come clean. Apollo ultimately does... and blames Persephone. Hermes punches him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: At first, he comes across as just a dumb jock, but Season 2 establishes that he can be a fast thinking Trickster God whenever he wishes. At Persephone's trial, it's revealed that he purposely overplayed his "harmless fool" behavior to Demeter in order to continue his early friendship with Persephone. He also successfully deflects a large chunk of his blame in covering up Persephone's rampage over to Thanatos, as he was only able to cover it up so well due to Thanatos' laziness at his job and no one double checking numbers until the investigation into Persephone was underway.
• Psychopomp: Is currently employed by Hades to help collect souls, although he's fudging his numbers to look more impressive.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: His attempt to turn Persephone in to Zeus for her act of wrath to avoid repercussions for his own involvement lasts all of five minutes before he reconsiders out of friendship and loyalty to Persephone.
• Secret-Keeper: Is one of the few aware of Persephone's secrets, which the list keeps growing as the story goes.
• Taking You with Me: A non-fatal example, but he warns Thanatos as the latter takes the stand that he plans to make sure Thanatos goes down for being one of the whistleblowers of Persephone's situation.
• Trickster God: It wouldn't be Hermes if he wasn't. He's spent two seasons Obfuscating Stupidity, fooling everybody to protect Persephone and to a lesser extent himself.
• Worth It: Hermes, for his part admits that he'd willingly cover up Persephone's act of wrath again since he likes money AND he's Persephone's friend.
• X-Ray Sparks: When Zeus electrocutes him to stop Kronos from using his body to attack Persephone.

Hestia

Hestia

Goddess of the home and of the hearth. Leader of the Eternal Maidens.

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• Adaptational Jerkass: She's typically considered to be the most kind and benevolent of the Olympians - her role as the goddess of home and hearth, and the general lack of mythological shenanigans attributed to her, mean that Hestia is normally depicted as sweet, quiet, modest, and nonconfrontational - the worst that can be said about most of her adaptations is that she's not very interesting. This version is notably less sympathetic, between her participation in Demeter's plan to railroad Persephone into joining the Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood and her reaction to the tabloid article about Persephone and Hades. She also bluntly demands that Artemis put aside her personal discomfort with Hades' presence at their meeting because Hestia wants to milk him for a donation to their organization.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Applies to all the gods, but her case could be symbolic: the yellow-orange hue of her skin resembles firelight.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Hestia is noticeably more hefty than any of the other gods, but this doesn't really take away from the fact that she is a god and is just as attractive as one would expect a god to be.
• Characterization Marches On: As the series progresses, she becomes somewhat more likeable, and comes off as more cowardly and indecisive than actively nasty. Her early treatment of Persephone was overtly callous and hypocritical, wherease later in the series she comes off as well-meaning but stuck with a bad case of Bystander Syndrome and not having enough spine to stand up to Demeter. She seems to snap out of it by episode 231.
• Everyone Has Standards: Hestia is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that only Athena can stand to be around for long, but even she has limits. After the timeskip when Persephone had recaptured Kronos, Demeter had tricked Kore into an intervention with Hestia as her backup, which the latter thought was just 'explaianing Kore's options'. Hestia tried to warn her sister, but was brushed off. When Demeter publically shamed and stripped her daugher, in her own childhood home, Hestia called it quits and freed Hades.
• Hypocrite: Criticizes Persephone just for being seen with Hades in a tabloid while she herself is secretly breaking her vows by being in a relationship with Athena.
• Kick the Dog: Her first scene is confronting Persephone on the tabloid of her together with Hades and ripped her a new one just because of the article. Then she takes away the fur coat that Hades gave to Persephone as punishment. All while sporting a big smile.
• Pet the Dog: Despite her unsympathetic behavior in season one, in chapter 135 she seems to have been genuinely worried about Persephone's well-being. On the Olympian Zoom call, Hestia immediately jumps to reassure Persephone that she doesn't need to worry about losing her scholarship.
• Only Friend: Friend is pushing it, but more or less this was Hestia's role with Demeter. Her older sister is hard to get along with at the best of times. But Hestia has tried her best to temper her Demeter's My Wayorthe Highway attitude. That stopped when Hestia called out her sister for humiliating her own daughter in public. Only for Demeter throw Hestia's lack of children in her face. Hestia cut ties after that.
• Scars Are Forever: She has a cut running up her leg. According to Hades she was cursed by Kronos when she got it.
• Secret Relationship: With Athena.
• Slut-Shaming: Though the scene is depicted without dialogue, the tone is clearly evident when she lays into Persephone over that tabloid photo of her and Hades.
• The Stool Pigeon: Demeter doesn't go to her for help after Zeus puts out a warrant on her since she considers her a snitch.
• Vow of Celibacy: A member and, most likely, the founder of T.G.O.E.M. also secretly breaking her own vows by being in a relationship with Athena, who looks very much like and wears clothing styles similar to Hades'. Making all the above about about her berating Persephone for her relationship with Hades more ironic.

Athena

Athena

The goddess of wisdom and war, she represents the more strategic and pragmatic side of warfare.

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• Ambiguously Related: To Hera and whether or not she's her daughter. Word of God has stated that Zeus made her by himself in petty response to her creating Hephaestus by herself but Hephaestus has been established to be Zeus's biological son, leaving Athena's relationship to her currently up in the air.
• Bifauxnen: She has a very boyish look to her, but in an attractive way.
• Calling the Old Man Out: She tears into her father after the timeskip concerning the other gods being stuck in comas plus their scars from Kronos leaking ichor, does not believe that his reports about the mortal realm under Persephone's care being a total mess, and outright tells him to give Persephone back to the Underworld because the punishment he laid down doesn't even make sense anymore and all it's doing is making things worse for Olympus.
• Genki Girl: She's always enthusiastic.
• Lady of War: Self-explanatory, with her being the goddess of war strategy.
• Nice Girl: When we first see Athena she seems to be very supportive of Persephone's wishes. She's also very welcoming to Hades, in contrast to the reception he usually gets.
• Secret Relationship: With Hestia.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To her father (always assuming she's Zeus's biological daughter) and to Hades, her uncle, in particular; they have the same facial profile, hair style and even dress-sense.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: There's currently no evidence to suggest that her mother was Metis.
• Vow of Celibacy: She is also a member of the The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood.

Ares

Ares

The god of war, he represents the more violent and chaotic aspects of warfare.

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• A Lighter Shade of Black mixed with Poor Man's Substitute: Essentially what he is to his oldest sister Eris. While the first child of Zeus and Hera is feared and appeased by everyone, the war god is humored — at best. Most of the time, he's just seen as annoying. Whenever Ares crosses a line, he is usually beaten up or tossed out. Contrast this with Eris, with whom everyone — including her parents — is forced to play nice until she's had enough fun and leaves on her own.
• Adaptational Badass: In the comic, Ares stays on the warpath even when heavily wounded and is the only Olympian who isn't afraid of Zeus, being strong enough that even his father is intimidated by him. In classic mythology, Ares was regularly depicted as a contemptible figure, with him crying to Zeus for help every time he suffered a minor injury on the battlefield and his father flat-out telling him that he considered him the most pathetic member of the Pantheon. Even in Roman mythology, where his counterpart Mars is second only to Jupiter in terms of power and status, there's little chance he could openly challenge his father.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: On top of being an Adaptational Badass, his tendency for being a war-mongering manchild is also significantly toned down here, being more friendly and considerate to other gods (who do deserve it) than he ever was in the myths.
• Apologetic Attacker: Apologizes to Persephone for riling her up.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Sports a well-cut military uniform.
• Big Brother Instinct: He loves Hebe and is fiercely protective of her.
• Butt-Monkey: Ares... doesn't get a lot of respect. There's a reason for that. He's an abrasive bully that stirs the pot for the fun of it, much like Apollo and Eris. But what keeps him from being an outright villain is that he doesn't have the brains, power, or charisma to back it up. So whenever Ares acts up, he always falls on his face. At the beginning of the series, half the reason Ares was exiled to the mortal realm was becuase his family refused to stick up for him. After Kronos was recaptured, Ares has lost everything. His children have all outgrown him, his longtime girlfriend has dumped him for good, and he shows up in the middle of the night at his uncle's house, piss-drunk, crying out for his "backup girlfriend". It just gets worse from there.
• Calling the Old Man Out: He is not above calling out Zeus for his many misdeeds, such as sleeping with Aphrodite, threatening Eros, and not giving the other Olympians the full backstory regarding Persephone's rampage against the humans who violated their treaty with Demeter and killed her nymph friends.
• Cool Big Bro: Hebe seems to be happy that he is back, and writes her name and draws hearts on the cast he's wearing on his arm.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Returns Hebe's adoration and is utterly FURIOUS when Apollo accuses her of poisoning Zeus.
• Composite Character: His temper and bloodlust are reminiscent of his classic characterization, while his more honorable and kind traits are reminiscent of the Roman Mars.
• Domestic Abuse: Nowhere near his father's level, but after Aphrodite tossed him out and got married, Ares openly talks about leading the love deity on for centuries, leaving her alone for long stretches of time with no contact, and constantly babbling about how hot other goddesses were.
• The Empath: Apparently can sense others' anger.
• The Gadfly: Teases Persephone about her relationship with Hades purely because he likes seeing her get angry and defensive. He is at least somewhat concerned that he may have hurt her in the process, though.
• Good Parents: Lighthearted teasing and ribbing each other aside, it's quite clear that Ares and Eros love each other very much and have a much better Father/Son relationship than Ares does with his own father. He's also shown to be quite the loving and attentive father with his other children as well, as shown when he happily played with his son Storge's hamster, to Storge's delight.
• Groin Attack: Hurls a spear between Zeus's thighs as part of a dramatic entrance.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: When someone talks smack about him and Kore, he immediately grabs the offender and hurls him out a window.
• Hates Their Parent: He doesn't like Zeus. At all.
• In Love with Your Carnage: He compliments Persephone on her act of wrath in chapter 135, much to her discomfort.
• Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Ares is not the most pleasant person, but he clearly loves Hera, his children, and Aphrodite, and seems to want the best for Persephone.
• Lack of Empathy: A running theme with the Olympians, but especially prominent with Ares, what with all of them sensing or enhancing a specific emotion in others - the golden war god's being anger. But like the rest of his family, he's pretty clueless about the aftereffects, such as how intentionally making people mad makes them dislike you. He's pretty blindsided why people don't want to spend time with him. It's about the only thing Ares inherited from his father.
• Laser-Guided Karma: His obsession with and desire to marry Persephone — even after she's made it blatantly clear that she isn't interested — ends up costing him his relationship with Aphrodite.
• Manchild: Has shades of this. He loves his mother very much, and he either acts like an annoying brat or alternately has a temper tantrum.
• Manipulative Bastard: He sweet-talks Persephone into believing he's an illiterate boor, then she later discovers he has a planner.
• Momma's Boy: A positive example. He's much closer to Hera than Zeus.
• Official Couple: He and Aphrodite, they have at least one child together. And while they're also well-known to not be mutually exclusive, they seem to care deeply about each other and, unlike his parents, have a more stable relationship. Subverted after the timeskip. Aphrodite grew tired of his philandering ways and his obvious crush on Persephone and has apparently married someone else, much to Ares's agony.
• Obliviously Evil: As noted in Domestic Abuse, but less evil and more openly Jerkass to his girlfriend and mother to his children. The god of war seems honestly perplexed that she would throw him out for good.
• Off Screen Break Up: Somewhere during the ten-year time skip, the love goddess finally had enough of him and tossed him out. He seems honestly surprised by it.
• Papa Wolf: One of the reasons he goes berserk on Zeus is because he finds out that Zeus threatened Ares's son, Eros.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: He dislikes the mortal realm, but Zeus regularly sends him there for extended periods of time to "help manage the wars." Ares believes it just an excuse his father made up to keep him away.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His default appearance.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Zeus wants to punish Persephone for allegedly killing a great many humans, Ares sides with her. Not because he realizes that the accusations aren't credible, but because he thinks such an act of wrath is really cool.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Downplayed, but he and his mother, Hera, share a similarly warm color scheme and empathic powers; he also shares his father's facial profile.
• Troll: As above.
• Would Hit a Girl: Subverted. Chapter 92 ends with Ares seemingly hitting Hera mercilessly, but in the next chapter, his shock and concern reveal the strike was intended for Zeus.
• Your Cheating Heart: Played with. He and Aphrodite have an open relationship, but she views his attempt to convince Hera to let him marry her to be this, because she doesn't realize he only wants a leg up on Zeus and that marrying Persephone will give him that.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus

The god of fire, metalworking, stone masonry, forges and the art of sculpture. He is responsible for developing all of the technology the Olympians use, and prefers to keep his distance from his family.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Hephaestus in the myths was flat-footed and so ugly Hera threw him off Olympus right after his birth. This Hephaestus is fairly easy on the eyes, if rather nerdish.
• Adaptational Deviation: His position as the god of volcanoes was given to Hades in this version.
• Artificial Limb: He has a robotic arm and artificial legs.
• The Blacksmith: His role as the God of metalworking. It's implied he built his artificial limbs himself.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: While Hephaestus has always been disabled, in the myths he merely had a shrivelled leg. Here he is missing at least three limbs.
• Dysfunctional Family: While Hera appears genuinely fond of him when discussing him with Persephone, she is noticeably reluctant to call on Hephaestus even though she desperately needs his help with destroying Apollo's blackmail photos, and he doesn't seem too thrilled to hear from her. When they actually meet face to face they're very awkward around each other and it emerges that he's never even met his little sister Hebe, nor is he invited to the Olympian group chat. Hecate later flat-out states that he wants nothing to do with his family, although he does seem to get on fairly well with Hades.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Hera puts him on a list of potential husbands for Persephone in the first season, but he doesn't actually show up in person until the second season.
• Nice Guy: Social awkwardness aside, Hephaestus is quite the sweet gentleman once you get to know him. The only time he's seen to behave coldly to someone was him giving the cold shoulder to Apollo after learning about him assaulting Persephone and taking pictures of it.
• On the Rebound: During Persephone's multi-year exile he and Aphrodite start a relationship. It started after the latter randomly walked into a conference room he'd booked. This is all after Aphrodite decides to end things with Ares because he wanted to marry Persephone.
• Pet the Dog: He apologizes to Aetna for her having to look at Apollo's blackmail photos of Persephone, even though she assures him it doesn't bother her. In fact, she seems ecstatic at destroying them.
  • Apollo forces the conversation regarding the photos later on after figuring out it was him, but Hephaestus makes it clear that he does NOT take kindly to what he has done to Persephone.
• Secret-Keeper: Becomes one of these for Persephone's assault after his mother asks him to help delete the revenge porn Apollo is using on Persephone as blackmail.
• The Stoic: He's not a very emotional man; unless you're Aetna, Hades or Aphrodite, the most you'll get out of him is a raised eyebrow.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He shares the strong facial profile of all those descended from Kronos. He also possesses Metis' skin coloring.
• Tranquil Fury: When Hephaestus meets up with Apollo during the Trial, despite being completely stone faced and calm, he shows absolute disgust and contempt towards Apollo for what he did to Persephone.

Other Deities

Hecate

Hecate

Goddess of magic and witchcraft, and Hades' right-hand woman.

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• Big Damn Heroes: In episode 76 she comes just in time to stop Minthe’s abuse of Hades and the next episode starts off with with her suspending Minthe until further notice. She then hugs and comfort's Hades while he's mentally shutdown.
• Cool Big Sis: She acts like one with Hades. She's implied to be older than him, she acts as his right-hand man and emotional support and is fiercely protective over him when he faces physical and emotional abuse from Minthe.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: She doesn't believe that fertility goddesses are real despite the fact that most other gods believe in their existence, despite the near infinite array of powers and abilities displayed by the gods and despite having seen Persephone's powers first hand.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Became pen pals with Persephone after spending some time with her studying poisonous plants in the mortal realm.
  • She's also implied to be much older than Hades, so they qualify as well.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: After Kronos was foiled and reimprisoned, the now ruling couple of the underworld were bathed and redressed by their friends and family. Hecate among them, who decided to go with Hades- not Persephone... and proceeded to ignore the soaking wet and naked God king and focus on getting her phone service back.
• Only Sane Man: With Hades often falling victim to his emotions and the rest of the company too afraid to stand up to him, it often falls to Heacte to pull him back on track.
• Perky Goth: Has some shades of this, what with being quite gothic while also being very quirky.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Her relationship with Hades. Thanatos even points out that before meeting Persephone, Hades' kindness seemed reserved exclusively for her and Cerberus.
• Shipper on Deck: Her first reaction to the article is, understandably, bad. But once the misunderstanding is cleared, she is actually quite supportive.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Minthe storms in to confront Hades, Hecate's response?
  Hecate: Not my circus, not my monkeys! [vanishes]
• The Snack Is More Interesting: A constant source of humor for the goddess of magic. Endless drama and disaster surround her life in the underworld, and this perky blue deity always blows it off for the little things. Hades and his adopted son having a heart to heart? Hecate is texting away bored in the next room. A fertility goddess is missing on the first day of her internship? Hacate is trying to get a rare jacket online. A known fugative and goddess of the harvest hiding in your home babbling about fertility goddesses? Hecate just wants a soda. Oh, and see above for Not Distracted by the Sexy.
• The Weird Sisters: True to her mythologic roots, when she appears in her "full-blown true form" she has three heads, all of which are her. Also true to mythology, all three heads are young-looking, thus technically (and ironically) diqualifying her from the more recent The Hecate Sisters maiden-mother-crone interpretation.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Is the one to point out the concerning May–December Romance nature of Hades' interest in Persephone, and the fact that the consequences will come down much more heavily on Persephone than they will on him—while yelling at the top of her lungs at him about how big an idiot he is.

Eros

Eros

The son, and occasional lackey, of Aphrodite. Zeus calls Eros his grandson and mentions that he has "more of his father's spirit than he thought", meaning that just like in Greek Mythology, Eros is Ares's son.

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• Armor-Piercing Question: Gives off two to his mother on different occasions. The first was about when she couldn't look for love in her job anymore, and was merely setting up Kore with Hades to spite them both. The second one is more serious: a heartbroken Eros asks her, in the aftermath of his liaison with Psyche, if this is how mortals feel when their hearts are broken.
• Badass in Distress: During Zeus' coma, Apollo has Eros and Psyche imprisoned by having Leto threaten to murder Kassandra.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Mean pranks aside, Eros is right up there with Persephone when it comes to niceness, the two even sharing their Rose-Haired Sweetie color. He also killed three hundred mortals after the whole Psyche affair ended with heartbreak for both of them. He also arrives to help Persephone during her confrontation with Apollo with a downright murderous look on his face and sends an arrow through a window right next Apollo's face.
• Big Brother Instinct: Becomes something of an older brother figure towards Persephone, and becomes quite protective of her as a result, especially towards Apollo.
• Big Damn Heroes: Fires an arrow at Apollo when he sees him in a confrontation with Persephone.
• Camp Straight: Has some stereotypically gay traits (his interest in fashion, for instance) but is interested in Psyche.
• Exact Words: He is charged by his mother to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest thing of all. When he steals her away, this is how he describes himself to the mortals.
• Heroic BSoD: Upon hearing about Persephone and Ares's relationship.
• Moral Myopia: He is aghast to learn of Apollo's sexual assault on Persephone and becomes her main pillar of support, but previously had no issue with making Psyche fall in love with a pig before falling in love with her himself and he murdered 300 mortals in a heartbroken fit.
• Nice Guy: Generally. Tries talking his mother out of her pettier schemes and goes out of his way to apologize to Persephone for her abduction.
• Never Mess with Granny: For a good chunk of time, Zeus blamed his affairs on Aphrodite to avoid Hera's wrath. It's probably not true, and it's unlikely that Hera bought the excuse, but she certainly does not like the love goddess. Because of that, she views all of Aphrodite's children as "her spawn" at best. Bottom line is that Eros, Hera's grandson, is terrified of her.
• Promotion to Parent: Downplayed, as Aphrodite takes an active role in her kids' lives and they seem to adore her. However, whenever she leaves, Eros, being the eldest, takes on a parental role for his rather young siblings.
• Secret-Keeper: For Persephone, when she tells him what happened with her and Apollo.
• Shipper on Deck: For Hades and Persephone, natch, once he finds out she's interested.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks a lot like his father.
• Villainous Lineage: As he was having his breakdown he killed quite a few mortals, prompting Zeus to say that "Eros has a little bit more of his father [Ares]'s spirit than [he] thought."
• Winged Humanoid: Seems to be his true form. He often appears without them, however.

Thanatos

Thanatos

The god of death and a son of Nyx. He's worked for Hades since childhood.

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• Adaptational Wimp: In the original myths, he was an intimidating figure who openly hated, and was hated by, mortals and gods alike. Here, he's a mid-range employee at Underworld Corp who regularly sucks up to Hades and is often belittled by his superiors and coworkers.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the myths, as a god of peaceful death, he was rather neutral about the gods and their actions and only cared about doing his job. Here, he has open dislike for the Olympians and is hostile towards Persephone to the point of trying to dig up dirt that could be used to get her fired.
• Armor-Piercing Question: He's on the receiving end of one from Daphne. Her asking him point blank why he's so obsessed with Persephone getting special treatment leaves him speechless and further pushes him to rethink his involvement with Minthe and Thetis.
• Everybody Knew Already: Turns out Hades (and probably others) knew Thanatos and Minthe had a thing going on. He just never said anything because, until recently, they weren't considered exclusive.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's got a fairly unpleasant personality and he willingly helps in the plan to expose Persephone's crime to Zeus, but when he learns that she could be punished very harshly (about on par with Prometheus) he starts having second thoughts, and he takes a massive step back from Minthe's attempts to win Hades back.
• Evil Is Petty: His main reasons for helping in the plot against Persephone are he’s annoyed by Hades’ nepotism towards her (which he’s not wrong about) and he’s attracted to Hades’ ex, Minthe. That’s it.
  • Subverted later as he realizes that those are very dim reasons to effectively ruin someone’s life, that doing this won’t make Minthe more interested in him and that Zeus intends to put Persephone in a Fate Worse than Death if he catches up to her.
• Freudian Excuse: Implied to have developed some issues from his mom Nyx basically dumping him on Hades to work for him as a child and never coming back for him.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Toward Persephone. Nyx was not an attentive mother. Quite literally dropping her son on Hades' doorstep and told the King of the Underworld to give the child deity a job. Hades' reluctantly accepted and proceeded to treat his new ward as little more than the help from then on. Having grown up as Hades' sidekick but given no respect, it's understandable that Thanatos quickly envied and disliked the young spring goddess when she was warmly accepted and given special treatment for seemingly no reason.
  • He eventually admits as much in chapter 216.
• Heel Realization: Hermes' "Reason You Suck" Speech in episode 126 kickstarts one for Thanatos. It gets cemented first in episode 127, when Thanatos realises the full extent of the consequences of his actions on Persephone, then in 138, when he gets fed up with Minthe's behaviour, and finally in episode 140, when Daphne encourages him to question why he even cares about Persephone in the first place.
• Hidden Depths: Turns out Thanatos is talented with photography. Not that Thetis or Minthe ever cared to find out – even we the audience start discovering new things about him once Daphne helps him focus on more positive activities.
• Hopeless Suitor: His antagonism toward Persephone seems at least partly motivated by feelings for Minthe. Despite at least a few secret makeout sessions, however, Minthe doesn't seem to consider Thanatos as a potential romantic partner at all, instead remaining fixated on her broken relationship with Hades. He later starts a relationship with Daphne after she realizes Apollo is obsessed with Persephone. This doesn't end well for him either as Daphne turns into a tree shortly after they decide to make their relationship official. Though she is eventually restored and they resume their relationship.
  • Chapter 139 shows him becoming aware of both this and that he's in over his head.
• Hypocrite: He disliked Persephone because he felt Hades gave her too much special treatment despite her being a new intern, believing it to be "Olympian nepotism." When he confronted Hades with this during Persephone's trial, his angered boss pointed out that Thanatos was the son of Nyx, who is very influential in the Underworld, and that the only reason he has his position is because his mother foisted him onto Hades without warning. Hades also reminds Thanatos that he himself was also treated very generously when he first came under his care.
• Jerkass: Is rather rude to Persephone and secretly had make-out sessions with his boss's girlfriend.
• Jerkass Has a Point: His jealousy and dislike of Persephone makes sense from an outsider's perspective. Despite having worked for Hades and Hecate for likely eons, he’s treated worse than Persephone, someone who has no experience in their now shared field and seems to have both of his bosses eating out of her hand. Daphne, during her Armor-Piercing Response, admits that he's not wrong about how unprofessional this is.
  • That said, he eventually realizes that most of his complaints about Persephone could have been solved if he just contacted Human Resources instead.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Unlike Minthe and Thetis, who are elated about the potential, Thanatos starts showing regret for reporting Persephone's act of wrath once Zeus starts planning to punish Persephone as harshly as he did Prometheus.
• Not What I Signed on For: He wanted Persephone either fired or at least taken down a peg, not becoming the new Prometheus. His nymph friends, however, don't share his reluctance.
• Only Sane Man: Deconstruction. To the little anti-Persephone group: himself, Minthe, Thetis and later Apollo. While Thanatos has never liked the young spring goddess, and is, in fact, quite jealous of her- the death god was the first to realize they were going too far and out of their depth the group was going. Thanatos even outright told the rest in the group they were digging their own graves, only to be ignored and dismissed.
• Parental Abandonment: Nyx, his mother and goddess of the night- quite literally dropped her son on Hades' doorstep when Thanatos was a child. The two haven't seen each other since.
  • Comes out he's since seen himself as something akin to Hades' son, though Hades didn't realize it and is initially shocked to hear. After an argument, where Hades mid-conversation becomes under the control of Kronos, turns ugly Thanatos is left to believe he's been abandoned by Hades as well. They have words once Hades is freed from control to bury the hatchet.
• Pet the Dog: He regularly checked in on Minthe after she was suspended for her violent rant towards Hades.
• Poor Man's Substitute: Toward both Hades and Hermes. As the god of death Thanatos is both feared by mortals and avoided by other gods, though to a lesser extent. For Hermes, both gods have the same powers but the messenger of the gods is much more well liked, does Thanatos's job better-not really- while having more duties.
  • Taken further with his mother, Nyx. Nyx gushes about how adorable Hades was as a small child and how she envied Rhea for him to the point of considering kidnapping him. When her own son Thanatos was around that age, Nyx couldn't get rid of him fast enough.
• Psychopomp: His job is to collect souls of dead mortals.
• The Scapegoat: Both Hermes and Thetis throw him under the bus during Persephone's trial to make themselves look less guilty in their actions towards Persephone. Not helping his case is the fact that he DID do most of the heavy-lifting for the plot^note Breaking into Artemis' house for Persephone's ledger, talking to Helios about what she did. despite being the least interested.
• The Slacker: Hermes is vastly outperforming Thanatos at his own job, judging by the scolding Thanatos gets from Hades about his performance. Thanatos is very surprised by that, so it might be because Hermes is actually forging death records by slowly incorporating Persephone's victims into his daily activities, thus "collecting more souls" than Thanatos does.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: While Thanatos is a jerk most of the time, many characters in the story have a tendency to treat him badly, either willfully or accidentally. As a result, he seems genuinely surprised when Daphne gives him an unprompted compliment in chapter 109.
  • Taken even further when they become an Official Couple after Persephone's banishment is lifted.
• Token Good Teammate: By Season 2 he becomes this to the Snarky Chat, starting when he second-guesses their ratting Persephone out once he learns Zeus intends to punish her as harshly as Prometheus. The other two members are, for their part, ecstatic about the potential, which shows there's no redeeming the two nymphs.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Deeply buried feelings of this are part of the reason he initially felt disdain for Persephone. His mother dropped him on Hades as a child and was never for them. While Hades wasn't very affectionate, he was the closest thing to a parent Thanatos ever had. He was able to deal with his lack of affection since he was that way with everyone—until Persephone came along. Then he realized that the lack of affection he grew up with really wasn't fair.
• White Hair, Black Heart: White-haired (or gray-haired), and part of Minthe's group of assholes. He's nowhere near Thetis' level though.

Hebe

Hebe

Goddess of youth, the daughter of Zeus and Hera.

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• The Bartender: As "Cupbearer for the Gods" in the original mythos, she serves ambrosia and nectar. Here, she makes Zeus and Hera's favorite drinks.
• Generation Xerox: After the 10yr time skip, young Hebe is a spitting image of her mother. Identical. They might be the only child-parent duo to follow such a trope. Of course the flip side of this is that Hebe is also a dead ringer for Leto, minus the eyes.
• Nice Girl: Definitely the sweetest of Zeus and Hera's children. This actually works to her benefit. Even if it wasn't against her nature as Cupbearer for the Gods, no one believes that Hebe would poison her father, no matter what the "evidence" or Apollo says.
• The Scapegoat: Apollo makes her his fall guy in his plot to dethrone Zeus by poisoning him with a muffin and leaving a note doctored to look like her handwriting.
  • The Exile: She's sent to the Mortal Realm soon after.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She looks like a little Hera, but she has the same eye color as her father. When we see an older version of her, she is a dead ringer for Hera.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Hebe is the one to point out that Hera is taking her anger at Zeus out undeservedly on Hades, forcing Hera to wonder if her eight-year-old daughter has more emotional intelligence than she does.

The Fates

Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos

Lachesis (left) and Clotho (right)

Atropos

The three sisters who run the destinies of all.

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• Badass Bureaucrat: Not even Zeus can get them to bend their rules on looking into past and future events.
• Loophole Abuse: Clotho helps out Hades over a memory with Persephone because, since the two are going to be together eventually, it's not breaking the rules.
• The Older Immortal: They're much older than the oldest Olympians, to the point that they refer to Hades - himself over 2000 years old - somewhat condescendingly as "young blood."
• Shipper on Deck: For Persephone and Hades; see above example.
• Two Decades Behind: They dress in 80s fashion, listen to cassette players and their tapestry of fate takes the form of a library of VHS tapes, even though the rest of Olympus and the Underworld having progressed into modern day culture and technology. They also talk in a rather antiquated dialect as opposed to the more current style used by the rest of the cast.
• Older Than They Look: They look like a bunch of 1980s teens but are immortals even older than the Olympians.

The Erinyes

Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera

The three minor goddesses of punishment. They work for Hades by carrying out hits for him.

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• Action Girl: They are the goddesses of punishment after all.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: They're not gorgons, but they have snake hair.
• Graceful Loser: After getting over the initial despair of Hades being with another woman, Megaera grows to like Persephone.
• Hopeless Suitor: Megaera has had a crush on Hades for a long time and is heartbroken when Hades is spotted with Persephone.

Aphrodite's Children

Agape, Ludus, Mania, Philia, Philautia, and Storge.

Minor gods of love who are the children of Aphrodite and the younger siblings of Eros.

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• Canon Foreigner: They're all original characters who don't identify with any of Aphrodite's children from the original myths.
• Mysterious Parent: Only Eros is confirmed to be the son of Ares while the paternity of his siblings are unknown. Agape in particular resembles her siblings the least due to her aquatic features.
• Theme Naming: Each of them is named after an aspect of the color wheel theory of love.

Eris (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Eris

The goddess of Chaos, and the oldest daughter of Zeus and Hera. Arguably the most dangerous and feared goddess in the entire pantheon to the point that the gods' only hope to deal with her is to appease whatever she wants as quickly as possible and hope she goes away.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Pretty certain she and Persephone did not interact much in actual mythology... let alone did Eris bless Persephone with Wrath.
• Ambition Is Evil: Argues to Persephone that she ought to be grateful she blessed her with wrath, since without it, she wouldn't have anywhere near the level the drive the young goddess has. Keep in mind, Eris is portrayed as the evilest goddess in the setting.
  • Surprisingly, when Metis found out from Persephone that Eris gave her Wrath, she agreed that she should be grateful.
• Ambiguously Evil: Even though her actions did have a somewhat harmful effect on Persephone, it's also vague if she cursed her with Wrath out of genuinely evil intentions, or she was just simply fulfilling her role as the Goddess of Discord and it wasn't really anything personal.
• Antagonistic Offspring: To Zeus and especially Hera. The latter notes that Eris tried to kill her.
• At Least I Admit It: Entirely or part of the reason Eris is how she is. Most Deities see mortals as little more than talking live stock-at best, even with the best of intentions constantly hurt and annoy their family, and as a whole (with a few rare exceptions) are entitled jerks. All while they can barely comprehend they can do wrong at all, let alone ruin lives. Eris hides behind no pretext. She knows she's evil and chaotic. Being so pleases and entertains her. It is who she is.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Honestly tries, in her own way, to mentor and help Persephone because she still tried to help Eris in spite of everything.
• The Bully: Like her father, she's this. If she's not entertained, it's implied she'll go on a rampage.
• Card-Carrying Villain: When Persephone asks why she would Bless her with Wrath, Eris replies, “Because it’s in my nature.”
• Dare to Be Badass: While Persephone and the other gods viewed Eris' "gift" of wrath as a curse, this is how Eris herself sees it. With the spectral presence of Eris often appearing in times where Persephone is having a flight or fight response to danger, urging her to stand up for herself.
• The Dreaded: Almost every god fears her whenever she wakes up to the point her parents disowned her. The easiest way to stop her is appeasement and letting her have a little fun.
• For the Evulz: Her entire personality. She gets off on chaos and misery.
• Foil: Unsurprisingly, for her half-brother Apollo. Both are villains of the story, but the two are opposites in nearly every way imaginable.
  • Eris basks in being hated and feared by all, was the ruling Monarch's first born but happily disowned after openly trying to kill her mother, and nonchalantly blaming her nature for all of it. Apollo on the other hand physically NEEDS to be wanted and loved by all, one of a LONG line of his father's illegitimate children that he wants to secretly depose, and when it comes to his own misdeeds the sun god will go full I Reject Your Reality.
  • No better is this shown in their relation to Persephone. Both have violated the spring goddess at different points in her life- and called it a blessing no less, but Persephone chose to help Eris in freeing her instead of letting the Sun god capture the goddess of Chaos for his own ends.
• Greater-Scope Villain: To Persephone. She's the reason Kore has the "blessing" of Wrath.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's somewhat implied that part of the reason for Eris blessing/cursing Persephone with Wrath was out of envy from her mother Hera, who disowned her, being openly loving and motherly with Persephone.
• Hated by All: Absolutely no one likes her and she is more than pleased to torment everyone in turn. She singles out Demeter during the trial just to have a bit of fun.
• Hidden Depths: While she delights in chaos and her own malevolent nature, her conversation with Persephone in chapter 194 implies that Eris is somewhat hurt that few people admit her powers have utility. She also, like Chiron, points out that Persephone can't make everyone happy all the time.
  "Wrath has its place."
• I Am What I Am: Like most deities of chaos and malice, this is Eris' entire motivation and justification for her actions. No more, no less.
• I Have No Daughter!: Her own parents disowned her. Hera nearly died at her hands, so it's justified.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Apollo briefly does this to her with an arrow that is designed to thin ichor, thus could potentially kill her. This allows him to capture her, but before he could do anything else, Persephone distracts him allowing her to escape.
• Karma Houdini: She's effectively allowed to do whatever the hell she wants and receives no punishment for it because she's so intimidating. In the story proper, she "blessed" Persephone with wrath, and escaped punishment for interrupting the trial when Persephone had an act of mercy trying to stop Apollo.
• Knight of Cerebus: Just like Apollo and Leto, almost all of the humor dries up the second she's on-screen.
• Mythology Gag: Her Establishing Character Moment is her complaining about not being invited to a major event between the gods... isn't that the prelude to The Trojan War?
• Odd Friendship:After the decade timeskip, her with Persephone. It could be simply because she's tired of being angry at Eris regarding her situation, but Persephone comes off as her long-suffering, Straight Man friend.
• Pet the Dog: As odd as it is, Eris seems to sincerely care about Persephone.
• Self-Made Orphan: Tried to be this to Hera.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She resembles Hera if she were bald and had wings.
• Teach Him Anger: While Demeter had tried to keep her daughter's existence secret since her very inception, she still asked every female deity she knew to bless her child. Eris somehow heard of this and decided complete the set, blessing the infant fertility goddess with wrath. It's still to be seen what the implications of this are aside from occasional red eyes, anger issues, and accidental mass murder.
• Walking Spoiler: Yeah, it was pretty obvious this was the case. Her appearance is Season 2's Midseason Finale effectively turns the plot on its head.

Morpheus

Morpheus

Goddess of Dreams, daughter of Hypnos and granddaughter of Nyx.

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• Gender Flip: Is male in the myths.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Is the leader of (and the only named member of) the dream gods called the Oneiroi.
• Mercury's Wings: They tend to pop out whenever she uses her powers as a dream goddess.
• Nice Girl: A bit on the nervous side but a very pleasant Dream deity. She also doesn't judge people based on what they dream about.
• Trust Password: Persephone and Zeus first meet Morpheus while Hades and the Underworld are under Kronos' possession and understandably assume she's a minion. She convinces them of her identity and allegiance by revealing aspects of their recurring dreams... and Zeus' nocturnal eating habits.

Dionysus

Dionysus

God of Wine, son of Zeus and Semele. Currently being fostered in the Underworld by Persephone and Hades.

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• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: His powers caused Semele to die before she could successfully carry him to term, leading to Zeus doing so himself. Persephone was the midwife.
• Brainy Baby: Granted, as a God, this isn't too surprising. Still, Dionysus has shown himself to be way more aware of things around him than what one would expect from someone who's only a few months old. He seems to have noticed something regarding Persephone's powers and the winter plague that he's desperately trying to communicate to her. He hasn't mastered speech yet though.
• Food-Based Superpowers: Not many yet but he sweats wine.
• Happily Adopted: Zeus was going to drop him off at a nymph commune, but Persephone insisted on keeping him. Dionysus so far seems very happy with Hades and Persephone as his foster parents.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He resembles Zeus, Hades and Ouranos, having purple skin and white hair.

The unnamed God (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Melinoe

A child God, currently being held hostage in Tartarus by Kronos.

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• Foreshadowing: She first appeared in Hades' dreams while he was possessed by Kronos. Before being officially revealed, she was characterized as a Bedsheet Ghost. Melinoe is known for being a goddess of nightmares, madness and ghosts.
• Kid from the Future: Kronos abducted her from the future in order to haunt Hades.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: After the events of Season 3, Hades asked that Morpheus erase Melinoe's memories. Specifically, he asked that if she remembers any of Kronos' treatment of her, that she thinks of it as a dream.
• Patchwork Kids: She mostly resembles Hades, having blue skin and white hair. She also has Persephone's pink eyes and white versions of her thorn wings from her true form.