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Channel Staff and Personalities
General
- Arch-Enemy: Red, Blue and Indigo each describe what their nemesis would be like in "OSPod Episode 25: Britain, Athens, and Enemies to Lovers Fanfic".
- Blue's nemesis would be his evil Spanish brother with a moustache, Azule Cerulean. Their rivalry is based on Azule believing in unsourced, ethnonationalist hot takes, and might be a neo-nazi, and they legitimately hate each other.
- Red doesn't care all that much about who her nemesis would be, only that they can swordfight. She also suggests that this nemesis should be rich.
- Indigo's nemesis would be a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis named Indifo.
- Berserk Button: A common annoyance that the whole cast shares is shipping Red and Blue. Red is asexual and Blue is married to Cyan. As Red and Blue have stated more than once, the two are Platonic Life-Partners, and that's it. Red and Blue especially get annoyed with the implication that they're secretly a couple or would make a good couple.
- Cast Full of Gay: A majority of the OSP cast and crew are asexual. In the podcast series, Red jokingly blames it on LGBTQIA+ people having a strangely accurate ability to find each other without even knowing.
- Censored for Comedy: The cast are usually not one to curse in their videos, but it's usually bleeped out when they are, and often for comedic effect. Blue typically uses a standard censor beep when he swears, whereas Red usually uses the sound of a Yoshi sticking its tongue out. During his video on Ukraine, Blue admitted that he had "procrastinated [his] way into an actual [beep]ing war" after the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 began before he had finished doing his research, with the beep presented as a way of Blue telling on himself.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each cast member is identified by their avatars, and named after the color of choice that the avatar is drawn in.
- Colourful Theme Naming: They are mostly referred to by their colors, with their real names either unknown or rarely used. Played for Laughs in one of the podcasts, where Blue claims his full name is Blue Cerulean.
- Deadpan Snarker: Each of them of fond of sarcastic, dry humor. Hence the origin of the channel name.
- Five-Man Band: Codified in-series, as of the latest OSPodcast:
- The Leader: Blue, who has "big protagonist energy."
- The Lancer: Red, with a contrasting personality and higher energy to contrast Blue's chill.
- The Smart Guy: Indigo, who runs most of the channel/podcast's tech.
- The Heart: Cyan, Blue's wife, who tends to hold everyone together.
- The Big Guy: Cleo, Blue & Cyan's cat (and certified himbo).
- Ink-Suit Actor: Their chibi-versions naturally look a fair bit like them. Blue in one podcast jokes that everyone looks exactly like their avatars.
- Legacy Character: "Green" is the name given to every one of Blue's roommates.
- Mistaken for Romance: Red and Blue often get questions online asking if they're either married or siblings. They generally react the same way each time, and it's a big Berserk Button for the cast and crew that they keep having to deny that Red and Blue are romantically involved. Red is asexual, and Blue is married to Cyan; Red and Blue frequently stress that they are Platonic Life-Partners, and that's all they are.
- Motor Mouth: Both Blue and Red are fast speakers.
- Blue is slower than Red, but does one in this video
about the War of the Roses where his speech is sped up to make him talk incredibly quickly. - Red's line delivery is consistently fast. Acknowledged and inverted for an April Fools' video, in which she speaks at an excruciatingly slow pace to accommodate viewer complaints (before she loses her temper in the middle and has to cut the video short).
- Red summarized the Mahabharata in just sixty seconds. And unlike Blue's video on the War of the Roses, Red's speech wasn't artificially sped up; she really was talking that fast.
- Blue is slower than Red, but does one in this video
- Platonic Life-Partners: Red and Blue are close friends and co-workers, but that's all they are. Red is asexual and Blue is married to Cyan, with multiple members of the channel expressing annoyance and anger at anyone who ships Red and Blue together, which includes Red and Blue themselves.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: While they're both equally silly and sarcastic, Red is the Red Oni and Blue is the Blue Oni (appropriately enough). Red tends to be the zanier one when she and Blue are both in a video together, whereas Blue tends to be very straightforward and grounded. Also, while Red's style of humor is more silly and goofy, Blue tends to be The Comically Serious.
- Technician Versus Performer: In regards to Red and Blue's style of how they present their videos to viewers. Blue is the Technician with his videos being more on history in his realistic and little serious way while Red is the Performer with her videos being presented on fiction in her entertaining and hilarious way that has garnered more views then Blue's.
Red
Here's Red. So... yeah.
The resident book nerd, mostly covering fiction and tropes.
- The Anti-Nihilist: Discussed. She has proven to be this, believing that Hope Springs Eternal and that it's necessary for the human condition. In her Trope Talk video on grimdark, Red even admits that her pet peeve is pessimism, and she hates any story that paints hope as childish as a general rule of thumb. As a creator who studies history, she knows that society doesn't always stay the same, and the idea of an afterlife is too interpretive to give a concrete answer. Red believes that hope is a good thing and necessary for society's progression, and that while there have certainly been dark moments in history, things have continued to get better as time has passed.
- Been There, Shaped History: In the April Fools video, she claims to be the one who sunk Atlantis, caused The Tunguska Event (with a power bar), condemned Balder to Hel by way of not crying for him, and told Pandora her keys were in the box.
- Berserk Button:
- Don't mention The Taming of the Shrew, Pandora, her presumed hatred of Percy Jackson, or any particularly morally-heinous/ Idiot Ball actions of the people/media she's presenting about (e.g. Selene, Victor Frankenstein, the main villains of Titus Andronicus, etc.) Also, don't be Agamemnon.
- Don't claim that there's a "true/real version" of a mythological story, especially when the story you're citing as the "real" version is well-known to have been written with a direct authorial bias (such as Ovid's take on the Medusa myth).
- Don't treat spiritualism as a science. The constellations, for instance, have a complicated history and aren't as straightforward as you'd think. The zodiac signs also represent the mythologies of different cultures and the cycles are different in each region, so they don't really align with each other at all and are used as part of their respective, mythological narrative. If someone uses their zodiac to justify a behavior, she will not ignore it. She was also genuinely pissed off by the "mythology" behind the Capricorn zodiac, as it appeared to have been fan fiction that someone placed as a source on Wikipedia. This caused Red to go on a rant about how it interfered with her research.
- Don't pretend that baseless uncited claims are anything other than baseless uncited claims. When Red comes across a retelling of Persephone's descent into the underworld claiming to be a 'pre-patriarchal' version despite such a version never existing, Red goes on a rant about how this unsourced version went on to inspire other retellings, which in the end served to absolve a lot of the Greek Pantheon's morally repugnant acts.Red: This is citogenesis in action, people! Either cite your sources or admit you don't have any!
- The one Berserk Button of hers that's played for laughs: Do not admit fault at the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
- Bias Steamroller:
- When discussing her dislike of zombie stories in "Trope Talk: Post-Apocalypses" she admits that her dislike is partly from hating their usual message of "Humans Are the Real Monsters", as she firmly believes that Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!, but she also just loathes zombies as a concept.
- Red hates grimdark works pretty much out-of-hand, as any story that paints hope as childish really gets on her nerves. It's a particular pet peeve of hers when such stories present themselves as "realistic" or that they're meant to inspire hope, as Red feels that more straightfoward hopeful stories inspire people way better than grimdark does. As such, any works which advertise themselves with how dark, edgy, gritty, etc. they are tend to be dismissed by Red before she even goes into them.
- Big Entrance: In "Top 12 Fictional Pseudo-Christmases", Red arrives to co-present the video by materializing on the usual red armchair with a stock explosion visual effect.
- Catchphrase: She has several.
- She frequently ends off her videos with: "So... yeah." Especially her Trope Talk videos.
- "ENORMOUS "F***-YOU!" DRAGON!" whenever a giant dragon shows up in one of her videos.
- "Feel-good novel of the century!" when something horribly dark happens in a novel.
- "TRULY A VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF JUSTICE!" another sarcastic comment made when the heroes do something dickish.
- "TRULY A VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF AN ENORMOUS "F***-YOU!" DRAGON!"
- "Why don't you just kill them?!"
- In the livestreams, she tends to fail miserably at something and immediately yell out "Argh, my hubris!"
- Also during livestreams, she tends to greet characters with a "hey buuuuddy" or a "hey guuuurl".
- Fatal Flaw: Played for Laughs. Whenever she fails at something in a livestream, she blames her hubris.
- Gender-Blender Name: Justified in that she's named after her color, just like everyone else in OSP.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Any time her videos has dogs involved, expect her to show her appreciation for them. Notable examples include: The time she cried for Odysseus' dog in the Odyssey video, the Wild Hunt video where characters receiving dogs as gifts gets her praise, and the entirety of the Shippeitaro video. On that matter, those who harm dogs usually tend to get her ire, like Tantalus.
- Hope Springs Eternal: A firm believer in this trope, which contributes to her dislike of works that frame idealism or optimism as "childish" or "dumb".
- Let Me Get This Straight...: When Red runs into narratively contradicting points during the videos, she'll often stop her rapid-fire delivery and repeat them in an increasingly perplexed tone to see if she's reading it right.
- Moral Pragmatist: Discussed in the trope talk about pure evil. To Red; morality is a spectrum and she believes the definition of evil is hurting others without justification or necessity. However, she acknowledges this reasoning gets shaky when applied in more extreme situations; for example, people being badly hurt and mistreated led to amazing progress in the fields of science and medicine, but she can't really claim those actions were good.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: She apparently went on her own version of The Hero's Journey for one Trope Talk, leaving Blue to handle it in her place while her normal spot is covered in notes.
- Pride: Or rather, hubris. Frequently blamed as the reason for her failures in video games.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the Red (no pun intended), being the more exuberant of the two main hosts.
- Signing Off Catchphrase:
- "So... yeah." She ends every episode of Trope Talk with this phrase.
- It's her job to sign off the podcast, which she jokes that she constantly gets wrong.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Discussed:
- In "Trope Talk: Post-Apocalyptic" she admits to hating Humans Are Bastards and Humans Are the Real Monsters as tropes, pointing out that this message is both overdone and demonstrably untrue, saying "we already have enough angry sixth-grade poetry, guys; we can stop writing 'people are all terrible' stories now."
- In "Trope Talk: Realism", she admonishes the idea that "realistic" means "depressing and miserable". She takes aim at DC Comics in particular for becoming "Grimdark City" after the financial success of Watchmen, emulating its atmosphere while completely missing the underlying hopeful message.
- She also shows disgust towards Of Mice and Men, and states how she wants to forget the book as soon as possible. While Red made a video discussing the book, she also refused to draw anything for this video, because she gets too emotionally invested with her characters.
- She harpoons the Grimdark genre for this reason; Red believes that hope and idealism are the main drives of humanity and states her exhaustion with the constant despair from Grimdark and Nihilism.Red: Hope is the ultimate motivator; on some level, it's the only motivator. If it seems like I have a personal beef with Grimdark as a genre, it's only the same beef I have with everything that treats hope like a dumb childish concept rather than the fundamental core of human experience. Hope makes us believe things can be better; once we stop believing that we stop trying to make things better and guess what, then things don't get better. Pessimistic nihilism is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy and maybe it's the 2020 talking, but man, I have straight up run out of patience with people who give up on a better world and then have the audacity to tell other people they're naive or stupid for still trying. The Grimdark worldview preaches that everything sucks and nothing will make it better. If the ideal of the Grimdark genre is really struggling in the face of hopelessness then act like it, dare to believe the world can be better and fight for it, and if that's really the ideal of Grimdark, then why does every other genre do a better job of inspiring it?
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: Her avatar is depicted in a tank-top. Live-action videos reveal she's always bare-armed in real life as well.Red: I'm a sleeve hater with very high standards, alright. If I'm going to be displaying these deadly weapons, I want to do it in a nice case, you know? God... That's on the internet forever...
- Stating the Simple Solution: She often does this when summarizing myths and stories. For instance, Red ends up wondering why the Olympians didn't just kill the people causing them trouble, or why the protagonists in H. P. Lovecraft's works never just move away from the obviously-cursed town.
- String Theory: She frequently describes her research process, especially for deep dives, like this, and the thumbnail of her Loki video shows a massive conspiracy board.
Blue
You wish he looked at you the way he looks at Venice.
The resident history nerd, mostly covering historical events.
- Amazon Chaser: Played for Laughs. His first meeting with his wife Cyan was as his fencing opponent, where she proceeded to strike his blade so hard that his sword shattered. Red joked during a livestream that Blue had fireworks exploding in his head immediately afterwards.
- Art Evolution: For most of the channel's early history, Blue did all of his talking points from the chair Red sits in during her Trope Talks. In 2019, he started getting stand ups of his own, allowing him to produce a wider range of expressions and body language.
- Been There, Shaped History: In the April Fools video, he claims to have been the one to explain monotheism to Akhenaten, joking about just guillotining everyone to Robespierre, suggesting to Virgil that he just copy The Iliad for his project when it was due, stole the Horses of Saint Mark during the Crusades, caused said Crusades, kidnapped Tripitakanote , and stole the Library of Alexandria, burning the foundations to cover his tracks.
- Berserk Button:
- Played for Laughs: Mispronouncing "bolgia" is a good way to get under his skin.
- Played straight:
- He has a general distaste for the Holy Roman Empire, describing it as more a kindergarten of states than an empire.
- When the British Empire is brought up, Blue is notably angry towards them. As shown by how angry he gets about the fights between England and Scotland.
- He doesn't think Alexander the Great was all that great. Whenever the man comes up in Blue's videos, Blue always refers to Alexander with an epitaph other than "Great" instead, such as "Alexander the Perfectly Alright" or "Alexander the Summarily Adequate".
- Brief Accent Imitation: While talking about the history of Scotland, he briefly imitates the accent before switching to his regular one.
- Cargo Ship: Played for Laughs In-Universe. His love of Venice and its Republic frequently goes a bit beyond the realm of academia, and more into the idea that he genuinely is infatuated with the city.
- Catchphrase:
- "Let's do some history!" when he starts going into the meat of a video.
- Is also fond of "Teamwork makes the dream work".
- Colourful Theme Naming: Applies to everyone, but even more so with him. In a podcast, he jokingly states that his last name is Cerulean.
- Cool Sword: Blue loves swords so much that he ordered one made and sent to him. Twice!
- Cultured Warrior: He loves anything related to history and culture and also happens to fight off a horde of ninjas when they jumped on him after he butts into one of Red's videos.
- Cultural Posturing: Zigzagged. Blue is half-Greek through his mother, but in the Acropolis video, Blue says that the many, many visits on it made him quite resteful of the monument. He has since begun taking a better view of the monument itself, but without ignoring the imperialistic past of Athens that the Acropolis has come to represent.
- Deuteragonist: While Blue eventually became a co-host of the channel and he does coordinate the gaming live streams, Red is the official owner of the channel and its creator.
- Evil Twin: Played for laughs. He jokingly claims in a podcast that he has an evil twin named Azul Cerulean, who's just a carbon copy of him with a mustache and an over-the-top Spanish accent.
- Happily Married: To Cyan, as of late 2021.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After learning about the Ptolemaic dynasty's family tree (which is horribly inbred) he says this. He also mentions having to go and "recuperate in a pile of Odysseys" after detailing the historical context of All Quiet on the Western Front.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Subverted. Early videos have referred to him as "Gregory" twice, although the audience still generally calls him Blue.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the Blue (as you can probably guess from the name), being the calmer of the two.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: While Blue generally does not like discussing modern history as much, he has made exceptions.
- He spoke about the history of Hong Kong to raise awareness of the the citizens' protests against the Communist Chinese Government takeover during mid-2020.
- He had been planning to talk about the history of Ukraine for a while, but managed to "procrastinate [his] way into an actual [bleep]ing war" in 2022 with the Russo-Ukrainian War, causing Blue to bump it up in his schedule. He spoke about the history of Ukraine while also calling the Ukrainians brave heroes for attempting to fend of the invading Russian forces.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Blue is uncomfortable around dirty jokes and being hit on by multiple people. His wife, Cyan, does tease him playfully during videos. Played With after he comes out as asexual.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
- Played for laughs. He mentions on the podcast that he has a recurring dream where he visits Malta and a police officer tells him to stay in at night, since there has been an increase in Yakuza activity. He then jokes that his deepest, darkest fear is the Maltese Yakuza.
- Played straight with thalassophobia (the fear of the deep ocean), which Blue legitimately has. As Blue notes on this fear, "the further down you go, the more nightmares there are", and "there is always a bigger fish" in the ocean.
Cyan
And now we're here in Copenhagen!~
Blue's wife, and occasional joiner of livestreams and vlogs.
- Action Girl: Cyan was on a fencing team for several years. She had been sparring for some time by the time she met Blue, and their first meeting resulted in her striking his sword so hard that the blade shattered. Red joked during a livestream that Blue "had fireworks exploding in his head" immediately after the blade broke.
- Ascended Extra: She made a few appearances in earlier episodes before she married Blue. After that she became a co-host of the livestreams with Blue and Red, and also frequently appears on the OSP podcast.
- Catchphrase: "Heck?" seems to be her phrase of choice when she's startled or frustrated.
- Deadpan Snarker: Cyan has plenty of lighthearted jabs to give out whenever she joins a stream or podcast episode.
- Happily Married: To Blue, as of late 2021.
- Lame Pun Reaction: She responds to a lot of Blue's puns in their vacation vlogs with lighthearted booing.
- The Tease: Downplayed. Her husband, Blue, is uncomfortable around dirty jokes and being hit on by multiple people. Cyan does tease him playfully during a few videos and livestreams, but it's almost always to either get a rise out of Blue or make him laugh.
Indigo
"Tumblr is right"
Editor for Blue's videos and lover of memes. She's occasionally made appearances on the OSP livestreams and is currently running the Overly Sarcastic Podcast.- Berserk Button: Fitting for The Movie Buff, she very nearly blows up at Red when she admits that she fell asleep while watching The Godfather and hasn't watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This is one of the few times she has spoken during the discussion part of the podcast, and she did so specifically to chew out Red. During the Valentine's Day 2021 podcast, she also became a little angered when Red brings up watching Speed Racer in lightly sarcastic fashionnote .
- Female Gaze: Called Trevor Belmont a "stone-cold hottie" during a video, which has been referenced by her and the rest of the crew multiple times since.
- The Movie Buff: She's a self-professed cinephile, and runs her own podcast (Movie Struck) talking about films with guests.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Subverted. While she's simply referred to as Indigo in her appearances, her video-credits has her real name listed as Sophia.
- Only Sane Man: She's known among the cast of the Overly Sarcastic Podcast as the one who has to wrangle Red and Blue back to their routine whenever they start going off on tangents or taking the topics too far. The art for the one year anniversary special even depicts her exasperatedly looking at her watch while Blue's covering his face and Red's speaking to Cleo.
- Recurring Dreams: She apparently has one where she's Tony Hawk and has to perform stunts without having any idea of how to skateboard.
- The Smart Guy: Discussed. Per the podcast, she's this in the gang's Five-Man Band, being in charge of the technical side of livestreams and podcasts.
- Token Minority: Inverted for laughs. She jokes on the podcast that she's the sole representative for Allosexuals (not-asexual) on the channel.
- The Voice: Indigo only appears on livestreams (with no camera) and podcasts, so she exists purely in voice alone, which she frequently jokes about. OSP After Dark finally gave her a physical form... as a plushie. She finally gets a proper physicalized form in the 2 million subscribers special.
Magenta
"I'll fight all of you in the comments!"
Red's sister who occasionally joins in on livestreams. She also did a Detail Diatribe focusing on tabletop roleplaying games that aren't Dungeons & Dragons.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Her plushie form in the Detail Diatribe she hosts wears a pair of square-framed glasses.
- Family Theme Naming: Magenta is a shade of purplish red.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: She's only referred to as Magenta.
Cleocatra
"Meow!"
Blue and Cyan's adorable pet cat, and HR manager for the channel. A frequent source of adorable moments and shenanigans who frequently crashes the livestreams. This eventually merited a video just for the cat.- Cats Are Mean: While she is very sweet most of the time, Cleo is a cat, and thus tends to target Blue's collection of LEGO architecture when she wants to be fed.
- Once per Episode: Cleo has a tendency to crash or interrupt the OSP livestreams and podcasts, leading to the inside joke of "The Cleo Cameo."
- Red: Cleo cameo! Check it off your bingo cards!
- Punny Name: A cat named Cleocatra.
- Spoiled Sweet: Cyan dotes on her frequently and she's very well cared for.
- Team Pet: Cleocatra often causes mishaps off-camera, even sleeping on Blue's script for his Plague Hijinks video. She's become something of a mascot for the channel due to the Livestream interruptions.
- The Cameo: Cleo crashes the livestreams and podcasts so often that her appearances have been dubbed "The Cleo Cameo." She has a full video dedicated to interruptions!
Azule Cerulean
Blue's evil brother, made Spanish for some reason. Looks just like Blue with a moustache. He doesn't actually exist, but Blue mentions him in podcasts for comedic effect.
- Cain and Abel: He and Blue loathe each other. The rivalry is apparently based on Azule having unsourced, ethnonationalist hot takes.
- Family Theme Naming: Azule is a shade of blue.
- The Ghost: Everything we know about him is from Blue's description. Because he doesn't actually exist.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Blue outright calls him a Nazi, and is quick to mock his belief in ethnonationalism.
- Unexplained Accent: He has a Spanish accent, as he's Blue's 'Spanish brother.'
Classical Mythology
The Olympian Gods
General
- Color-Coded Characters: Each member of the pantheon is drawn in a specific color.
- Zeus: White with light blue highlights
- Poseidon: Aqua
- Hades: Black and teal
- Hera: Gold
- Athena: Grey
- Apollo: Yellow
- Artemis: Light blue
- Dionysus: Purple
- Hermes: Light orange
- Demeter: Green
- Hestia: Fiery orange
- Ares: Dark red
- Aphrodite: Pink
- Persephone: Lavender
- Hephaestus: Copper
- Eyes Are Mental: Any time a god takes on a mortal disguise, their eyes stay the same color.
- Jerkass Gods: The Olympians have vast power over the mortals of ancient Greece, and more often than not, tend to abuse said power for petty reasons. Most notably with Zeus, Hera, and Aphrodite.
- Power Echoes: Any time they speak, there's a noticeable reverb in their voices.
Zeus
"Rejoice, mortal! For I have decreed that we shall bang!"
Click here to see him after his first fight against Typhon
God of the sky, storms and lightning, and king of the gods.
- Abusive Parents: He's not exactly the greatest father in the world. When Ares runs to him crying after getting injured in The Illiad, Zeus just snaps at him to man up.
- Animal Motifs: He's commonly associated with eagles, as it was his sacred animal. Bulls often come up in his iconography as well.
- Asshole Victim: When things do go wrong for him, it's hard to pity him since he's a casual rapist, an abusive parent, and an adulterer.
- Awful Wedded Life: His marriage to Hera is extremely dysfunctional at best. It doesn't help that he's constantly cheating on her with mortals and other deities.
- Berserk Button:
- Violating Sacred Hospitality is a good way to piss him off since it's part of his divine domain.
- One of the few things he and Hera can agree on is that oathbreakers are the absolute scum of humanity, most notably with Jason.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: His weapon of choice and favorite way to deal with disobedient mortals.
- God of Order: The less well-known aspect of his divine domains, as he's in charge of things like laws, oaths, and hospitality. While he doesn't get angry all that often, an easy way to push his Berserk Button is to violate that part of his domain - see King Lycaon, Tantalus, and especially Jason.
- God of Thunder: One of the most well-known examples.
- It Amused Me: Whenever he's not looking for a new mortal woman to bed or intervening on the behalf of his demigod children, he's usually helping someone because he finds doing so to be hilarious - such as forcing Aphrodite to stop intervening in Eros and Psyche's relationship because he thinks her being a grandmother will be hilarious, or agreeing to side with the Trojans because Achilles was upset at Agamemnon being a dick.
- Karma Houdini: Despite repeatedly raping women and being an overall dick, he suffers very few consequences, due to not just being a god but the king of the gods.
- Loveable Sex Maniac: As much of a horny piece of work as he is, there's no denying that Zeus is incredibly entertaining to watch.
- Mr. Seahorse: He gave birth to Athena (who burst from his forehead) and Dionysus (who he had sewn into his thigh when Semele was vaporized).
- Murder Is the Best Solution: He responded to Hades' request that he stop Asclepius from resurrecting the dead by vaporizing him (Asclepius) on the spot. A-boy got better.
- Really Gets Around: Practically half of the ancient Greek heroes were fathered by him in some way. Red even suggests that he changed his deific designation to "God of one-night stands".
- Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: How he gets away with his horrible treatment of mortals and his family; he was so powerful as the Top God that nobody could hold him accountable, so if they want to hurt him they have to do it indirectly by punishing mortals Zeus liked.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: How him handing off the decision on the golden apple to Paris is handled: Zeus wants no part in making that answer between his wife, favorite daughter, and the love goddess and tossed the role on someone else as quickly as possible.
- Shipper on Deck: He's the one who set up Hades and Persephone, much to the fury of Demeter. He also approved of the union of Eros and Psyche, mainly because he thought the idea of Aphrodite becoming a grandmother was hilarious.
Hera
"I bet Frigg doesn't have to put up with this..."
Goddess of rulership and marriage, and the wife of Zeus.- Abusive Parents: She tosses Hephaestus over her shoulder shortly after giving birth to him. Her relationships with her other children aren't much better.Ares (Di-vine Deities): My mother was the most selfish woman I ever met- she never gave me anything!
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Since she can't hurt or divorce Zeus, she punishes the demigods (particularly Heracles) for being the products of Zeus's infidelities.
- Animal Motifs: Her sacred animal is the peacock.
- Awful Wedded Life: To Zeus, who cheats on her regularly.
- Berserk Button:
- Zeus' non-stop philandering is easily her biggest pet peeve, especially since she's the goddess of marriage, so she holds the vow between husband and wife to be sacred.
- Possibly the one thing she has in common with Zeus is that both hate oathbreakers. The Medea video even has the titular sorceress sarcastically comment that hating Jason for betraying Medea and taking another wife is probably the only thing they can agree on.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Despite how utterly awful her relationship with Zeus is, when he announces he's taking another wife, she outright tries to murder the girl, who luckily was a dummy dressed up in wedding clothes as part of a zany scheme.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: For a goddess of marriage, she's in a legendarily toxic relationship with Zeus.
- Cool Crown: She wears a gold crown.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: She's drawn in golden yellow and is the pantheon's most powerful goddess.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Downplayed. She's generally pleasant to mortals who've earned her respect, but those who cross her often don't live long enough to regret it.
- Irony:
- Despite being the wife of Zeus and the queen of Olympus, the pair have only had one legitimate child together, while Zeus has cheated on her so many times that it's the equivalent of a spectator sport by now.
- For the goddess of marriage, Zeus really has a lot of commitment issues and Hera is trapped in one of the most toxic and loveless marriages in all of history and mythology.
- Jerk Justifications: She's in a loveless marriage with Zeus and she's denied the ability to punish Zeus for his many infidelities so she has to work around it by punishing the demigods instead. Her title as the goddess of marriage only twists the knife for her and she will destroy families as punishment for ruining her already broken marriage.
- Moral Myopia: Hera punishes the demigods of Zeus for being the products of his many, many affairs and only does so because she's under oath (like the other Olympians) to not fight another Olympian. She destroys entire families just to punish a demigod over the uncontrollable circumstances of their birth.
- Out-of-Character Moment: When Perseus arrives at her garden on his quest to find Medusa, Hera is oddly cool with his presence and allows him to pass through unscathed. Red notes how unusual this is for Hera, given that she typically reacts extremely violently when confronted with Zeus's children.
- Pet the Dog: When she isn't attacking the bastard children of Zeus, she does help Jason with his love life until he takes it for granted.
- Trophy Wife: It's never outright said, it's a pretty easy read that Zeus only really married Hera for her looks considering that he has severe commitment issues, only has one legitimate child with her (the rest were products of one night stands or in Athena and Hephaestus's case, produced asexually) and he has a legacy of being promiscuous. There is one myth, covered by the channel, that implies he does care for their marriage to some extent, but as Red is fond of pointing out mythologies have no canon and said story of Zeus salvaging his marriage with a convoluted scheme is one story among hundreds, if not thousands, of counter examples.
- Woman Scorned: Hera reacts very violently whenever Zeus cheats on her. Since she can't retaliate against her husband, she often seeks vengeance on the mortal lover in question or their child.
- Would Hurt a Child: While she normally waits for Zeus' kids to be adults before inflicting horrific agony upon them, Red recounts one myth where she has baby Dionysus/Zagreus ripped apart by the Titans so he won't usurp Zeus as an adult. She also manipulates Heracles into killing his own family as well as trying to kill him as a baby with snakes.
Poseidon
"Oh crap, that's a crime now?"
Click here to see him as Mycenaean Poseidon
God of the sea, earthquakes, and to a minor extent, horses. He's an older brother to Zeus.
- Animal Motifs: Poseidon is frequently associated with horses.
- Chivalrous Pervert: By the standards of Ancient Greek, Poseidon is a constantly horny deity who will do favors for those he's slept with upon their request ranging from being their wingman with a chariot to win a wife, granting them shapeshifting powers to escape slavery, and turning you back from your shrimp state. By modern standards he's a serial rapist who will do all of these things regardless if the relationship was consensual or not.
- Dishing Out Dirt: In addition to being the god of the ocean, he's also the god of earthquakes. In his older Mycenaean characterization, more emphasis was placed on this aspect of his divine role, designating him as the "earth-shaker" and the most important of the pantheon.
- Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: Poseidon apparently wasn't even aware that rape was a crime, and Red notes that he wouldn't recognize consent if it bit him in the nose. She does note that the rape of Medusa story was most likely anti-authority propaganda from Ovid, though.
- Hidden Depths: Pun aside, usually, when Poseidon shows up he's shown to be spun from a similar cloth to his brother, just with a few differences here and there (his affairs don't have the drama of a jealous wife for instance). However on a few occasions he shows some traits that paint him as notably responsible, and not just 'more responsible than Zeus': he handles the entire incident of Ares and Aphrodite's affair with a responsibility one would not expect of him most of the time for example. He's also a fair more caring parent than Zeus despite seemingly having just as many kids as Zeus does.
- Homosexual Reproduction: His relationship with Nerites was so mutually supportive and romantic that it spontaneously generated Anteros, god of requited love.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: Compared to his brother Zeus, yes. While he's a serial rapist like Zeus is, it's noted that he's not a cheater, as his wife doesn't associate sex with love. He's also far more capable of being the voice of reason when the other Olympians' antics get too out of hand.
- Lord of the Ocean: His godly domain is the ocean and all sea creatures.
- Making a Splash: Well, duh.
- Only Sane Man: He ends up as this in the Aphrodite's Affair episode, as every other Olympian featured is either fuming, laughing, or is avoiding the mess entirely.
- Papa Wolf: He did not take it well when Odysseus blinded his Cyclops son.
- Polyamory: Poseidon slept around almost as much as his brother, if not more so. But unlike Zeus, he never had to worry about hiding his affairs, because his wife Amphitrite didn't associate sex with love.
- Really Gets Around: Just as much as Zeus, although his offspring tend to be sea creatures.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: In the myth of Aphrodite's affair, Poseidon is the one trying to solve the situation while Hephaestus is brooding, Aphrodite and Ares are tied up, and Hermes and Apollo are laughing. He even offers to pay the dowry out of pocket if Ares refuses to.
Hades
"Long shot, but how about we just kill him?"
King of the Underworld and the oldest son of the titan Kronus. He's married to Persephone.- Abduction Is Love: He brought his wife Persephone to the Underworld by force but isn't presented as all that unhappy. It's worth mentioning that in Ancient Greece, this wasn't an abduction, but instead an arranged marriage. In the Homeric Hymn To Demeter it's directly mentioned that Hades spoke to Zeus about his intentions to marry Persephone and Zeus gave Hades permission to do so. And it was Zeus who came up with the kidnapping plot, not Hades.
- Ambiguous Situation: The actual reason is lost to history but Hades either convinced or tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds so she'd be bound to the underworld. Considering the relationship between Hades and Persephone, and Demeter's overprotective nature, it wouldn't be surprising if Persephone ate the seeds on purpose because she wanted to be liberated from her overbearing mother.
- Animal Motifs: Dogs, particularly his three-headed hellhound Cerberus.
- Berserk Button:
- Messing with Persephone is a surefire way to get him angry. Pirithous learned that the hard way.
- Trying to cheat death is another way to get under his skin.
- Beware the Nice Ones: While he's typically very mild mannered, you do not want to get on his bad side.
- Cool Helmet: It's often forgotten in adaptations, but just as Zeus has his lightning bolt and Poseidon his trident, Hades has his own iconic item forged by the Cyclops, namely the Helm of Darkness that allowed him to become invisible.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He might be the King of the Underworld, but in most cases Hades is characterized as a Nice Guy who just wants to do his job.
- The Dreaded: Ancient Greeks were terrified of the Underworld, so they would deliberately avoid invoking Hades' name so as not to get his attention. Even the most horrifying monsters in Greek mythology, many of whom were imprisoned in the Underworld (such as the Titans and giants), none of them even dared to escape because of how scary Hades was.
- Emo Teen: Red draws him as this in his youth during the Theogany.
- Everybody Hates Hades: Many ancient Greeks feared him because of his association with the Underworld, but in actuality, Hades is a really personable guy.
- Everyone Has Standards: Hades is no stranger to inflicting creative punishments to those who wind up in Tartarus, but even he was horrified by what Demeter did to Erysichthon.
- Flat Character: As Red points out in the "Hades & Persephone" video, Hades doesn't get much depth compared to the other major Greek deities, including his wife. She speculates that this may be due to him being something of a Canon Foreigner, as unlike Persephone and most of the other gods, he doesn't appear in Mycenean records.
- The Good King: In sharp contrast to his younger brother, Hades is a very polite and reasonable ruler.
- Happily Married: To Persephone.
- He Who Must Not Be Named: He was often referred to with vague epithets rather than his own name, out of fear that doing so would attract his attention.
- Misblamed: In-Universe, due to Hades's title as the god of the underworld he's blamed for pretty much everything. It was entirely Zeus's fault for casually murdering people and arranging the marriage in the first place.
- Mystical White Hair: Depicted with white hair.
- Perky Goth: Just look at the picture up there!
- Pet the Dog: The way he treats Persephone, kidnapping aside. Also a literal example with Cerberus, his beloved three-headed guard dog.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Towards his wife Persephone.
- Tranquil Fury: When he catches wind of Theseus and Pirithous' plan to kidnap Persephone, his reaction is to calmly meet them in the Underworld and offer them seats at his dinner table... before binding them to their chairs with snakes to be tortured for eternity, all while barely changing expression. This is also his expression when Sisyphus dies for real and faces him, Persephone, and Thanatos, the latter two are more visibly murderous at the guy who hoodwinked them.
- Workaholic: As a god of the underworld, he has a lot of work on his hands while dealing with the dead.
Athena
"Forget what I said, kid! You're the best around!~"
Goddess of war, wisdom, and crafts. She's the daughter of Zeus and his first consort Metis.- Action Girl: She's the goddess of war and battle tactics, and an incredibly skilled fighter.
- Animal Motifs: Often associated with owls, due to them being symbolic of wisdom.
- Born as an Adult: She burst from her father's forehead upon her birth, fully grown and ready for battle.
- Brains and Brawn: With Ares, as she represents the nobility of war as well as its leadership, strategy, and tactics. Whereas Ares represents the brutality of war.
- Celibate Heroine: She's one of the three Olympian goddesses to swear a vow of chastity. It is possible this is because of Athena being asexual, considering she is explicitly clarified several times in mythology to be immune to Aphrodite.
- Red: And there's Athena. Noted as one of the only three beings who Aphrodite has no power over.
- Daddy's Girl: She's very close to her father, and she's implied to be his favorite child.
- Lady of War: She's not called the goddess of war for nothing.
- Not So Above It All: She's generally considered one of the more level-headed of the Olympians, but her handling of the Arachne and golden apple of discord situations demonstrate that she's not above the pettiness typical of her family.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: When Arachne uses her tapestry to display Zeus and Poseidon's numerous infidelities, Athena reacts with understandable disgust at seeing a graphic depiction of her father and uncle banging anything that moves, and instantly rips the tapestry to shreds.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With her half-brother Ares. They're both gods of war, but while Ares represents the bloodlust and brutality of war, Athena represents the glory and strategy of war.
- The Smart One: As the goddess of wisdom, Athena is often shown to be much more intelligent than the rest of the Olympians.
Apollo
"Hi! Name's Apollo! Wanna be graced by my presence for the rest of your life?"
God of the sun, truth, archery, and music. Twin brother to Artemis, and son of Zeus and Leto.- Born Unlucky: The poor guy just has the worst luck with romance, as most of his lovers either die tragically, turn into plants, or die tragically and their bodies turn into plants, if they don't outright reject him first. Although, as Red points out a few times, there were also plenty of lovers in his past who died tragically because they tried to get away from him and he refused to let them.
- The Casanova: As Red puts it, "The only thing longer than his list of male lovers is his list of female lovers."
- Cool Big Bro: While he and Hermes start off on the wrong foot, they quickly get along after Hermes invents the lyre. Apollo even gives Hermes the ceduceus, which Artemis thinks is spoiling him.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After his lover Hyacinthus is killed by a jealous Zephyr, Apollo runs off to Dionysus's bar on Olympus to cry and presumably drink his pain away.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The foolish to Artemis' responsible.
- Mood-Swinger: Appears to be depicted as such, as he's variably shown switching between being friendly to mortals he likes and being cruel to the ones who break his heart on a dime.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: He reacts very poorly when he believes that Orion is romantically interested in his sister Artemis. He somehow failed to realize the fallacy in such an idea.
- Polar Opposite Twins: He's the promiscuous god of the sun and music, while his twin sister Artemis is the chaste goddess of the moon and virginity.
- Pretty Boy: He's one of the more handsome Greek gods, with an ego to match.
- Really Gets Around: Much like his father, he has a very long list of lovers, both male and female.
Artemis
"Next time you kill one of my friends, I'm telling Mom you didn't do right by Calliope."
Click here to see her as Diana Trivia
Goddess of the moon, hunting, and virginity. Twin sister to Apollo, and daughter of Zeus and Leto.
- Action Girl: She's a talented archer and warrior.
- Animal Motifs: She's frequently associated with deer, as well as bears.
- Bad "Bad Acting": When she's forced to "flirt" with Otus so Hermes can free an imprisoned Ares, she acts extremely wooden and is very clearly disgusted at what she's doing. Hilariously, Otus still falls for the ruse.
- Celibate Heroine: Like Athena and Hestia, she swore a vow of chastity. She also enforced this rule of chastity among her huntresses. She took this vow extremely seriously, something Actaeon found out the hard way when he accidentally stumbled across her bathing in a spring. note
- Curbstomp Battle: She's on the receiving end of one from Hera during the Olympians' brawl in The Illiad, because despite Artemis' archery and hunting prowess, Hera is still the Queen of Olympus and underestimating the most powerful goddess in the pantheon is a huge, HUGE mistake.
- Deadpan Snarker: She frequently snarks if something about romance or sex comes up and it is someone else's problem.
- Does Not Like Men: Being a virgin goddess, she doesn't really care all that much for men, preferring the company of her huntresses instead. She does make exceptions for male followers, like Hippolytus and, in some versions, Orion. However, men are often punished by Artemis for accidentally spying on her or her huntresses nude or for outright trying to sexually assault them.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Apollo's foolish.
- The Lad-ette: She's very tomboyish compared to the other goddesses.
- Ms. Fanservice: Red notes that a lot of artists saw Actaeon's encounter with her in the springs as the perfect excuse to draw her naked, which defeated the intended message of the story. Other artists were fond of drawing Zeus seducing Callisto in the form of Artemis for a similar reason.
- Only Sane Woman: Aside from the incident with Actaeon, Artemis doesn't cause nearly as much havoc as most of her fellow Olympians do, mostly content with just hunting game in the forest with her hunters. Whenever she does get dragged into the latest divine conflict, she's usually bemused.
- Platonic Life-Partners: According to Red, it's very uncharacteristic of Artemis to get into relationships since she made a vow of chastity. So it's more likely that she and Orion were good friends until their relationship soured (either Orion is killed by Gaia as punishment for hubris, killed by Apollo out of paranoia and overprotectiveness, or even killed by Artemis herself after Orion tried to sexually assault her friends.)
- Polar Opposite Twins: She's the virgin goddess of the moon and hunting, while her twin brother Apollo is the god of the sun with an innumerable list of lovers.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Zigzagged with Orion. While some stories depicted her as being in love with Orion, Red notes that most myths involving the two explicitly state that Orion was just another hunting companion who just so happened to be a dude. Not to mention the numerous other myths where Artemis outright kills Orion for assaulting her friends.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: With Aphrodite. Given Artemis's vow of virginity, and the fact that many of her followers pursued the same practice, this put her in direct conflict with Aphrodite, who pretty much stood for the exact opposite. Needless to say, there have been more than a few stories of the two coming into conflict with one another. Hippolytus is a notable example.
- Unprovoked Pervert Payback: The most common story behind Actaeon's death is that he accidentally stumbled upon Artemis (and her nymphs in one version) bathing and she cursed him to be devoured by his own hounds as revenge. As the Goddess of virginity, a man seeing her naked, even if it was accidental, is considered sacrilegious.
- The Worf Effect: The trope is namedropped when discussing her fight with Hera in the Trojan War, where Red notes that since she's already well-known for being an expert archer and good at killing things in general, having Hera beat her up effortlessly serves to establish Hera (who doesn't generally fight in most stories) as having power to go along with her status as Queen of the Gods.
Aphrodite
"Oh, I totally ship it!"
Click here to see her as Aphrodite Areia
Click here to see her as Aphrodite Urania
Click here to see her as Aphrodite Pandemos
Click here to see her as Venus Genetrix
Goddess of love, sex, and beauty. Either the motherless daughter of Ouranos, or the daughter of Zeus and Dione, depending on the story. She's married to Hephaestus.
- Adaptational Badass: In Sparta and Kythira, she's seen as a goddess of war because of the role she played in triggering the Trojan war and is known to them as "Aphrodite Areia", meaning "Aphrodite the Warlike". However, despite being the oldest rendition of the goddess, the other Greek regions left the warrior attributes in Kythira and Sparta because they didn't agree with it.
- Adaptational Modesty: Her title as the goddess of sex is rarely brought up and the title as a goddess of love is the primary focus.
- Adaptational Wimp: In Kythira and Sparta, she was originally seen as a goddess of war and was called "Aphrodite Areia" but the remaining Greek regions rejected the epithet and made repeated attempts to disown the title because they believed a goddess of love doesn't belong in a war zone. Red believes that Zeus's quote in The Iliad about how Aphrodite shouldn't be involved in the war is way too specific to be a coincidence, as the poem was likely written during the debate about Aphrodite's title as a war goddess.
- Alpha Bitch: She's often characterized as this in most videos, and had a well-known reputation for being spiteful and petty towards mortals.
- Animal Motifs: While many animals were associated with Aphrodite, three of the most common ones were swans, doves, and hares.
- Awful Wedded Life: She's married to Hephaestus but the relationship is... sour to say the least. Ether Zeus wanted the gods to stop fighting over her or Hephestus requested Aphrodite's hand in marriage in exchange for freeing Hera. Either way, it was a marriage of convenience as Aphrodite hates commitment and is more interested in Ares. Resulting in the two having an affair and Hephaestus divorcing her after humiliating them.
- Berserk Button: The fastest way to earn Aphrodite's ire is to forsake relationships and make her committed to one.
- Born as an Adult: Aphrodite was born fully grown from the sea foam created by Ouranos's castrated testicles. Red amusingly refers to the event as "the bath bomb ballsack".
- Brainless Beauty: She's often shown to not be very intelligent compared to her fellow gods.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: For a goddess of love, she hates commitment and has an affair with Ares while she's married to Hephaestus.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: She's absolutely furious when her son Eros falls in love with Psyche, who'd previously been established as being so beautiful, local mortals had begun worshipping her as an object of beauty instead of Aphrodite. In response, the vengeful goddess imprisons Eros in her palace and forces Psyche through deadly trials in an attempt to get rid of her. She's ultimately forced by Zeus to back down and the lovers are properly wed.
- Love Goddess: Her dominions in the pantheon are love and beauty. In some cases, she has different epithets appended to her name depending on which aspect of love she was being worshipped in. Aphrodite Urania was a version that represented pure, divine love in an abstract capacity, Aphrodite Pandemos represented the physical aspects of love and beauty and sex, and Aphrodite Areia, who combined aspects of love, sex and war and was typically worshipped exclusively by the Spartans and Kytherans.
- Mama Bear: She's fiercely protective of her children, to an almost smothering degree.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's gorgeous and she knows it.
- Pink Is Erotic: Aphrodite is the goddess of sex and is colored in pink. The drawing of Aphrodite Pandemos takes this further by having her drawn in hot pink to reflect her representation as the physical aspects of love, beauty, and sex, she's even drawn wearing a backless dress.
- Pink Means Feminine: She's colored entirely pink and is the most feminine of the Olympians.
- Really Gets Around: Aphrodite has no issues sleeping around with anyone but her husband.
- Sexy Surfacing Shot: Her rising from the sea foam is depicted in this way.
- Shipper on Deck: As the goddess of love, she adores setting people up in relationships, regardless of whether or not both parties involved consent to the idea. Sometimes it works out well, like with Atalanta and Hippomenes, but other times it ended in disaster, like with Helen and Paris.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: With Artemis. Fundamentally, they represent two completely different things, with Artemis representing virginity and hunting and Aphrodite representing love, sex, and beauty. Needless to say, this has led to numerous conflicts between the two. Just ask Hippolytus.
- Skewed Priorities: She has a habit of letting her shipping reflexes distract her from the bigger picture, most notably with Aeneas and Dido.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Hephaestus. Most of the time, she doesn't even acknowledge his existence, preferring to fool around with Ares or some other random lover.
- War God: Since she is derived from Ishtar, she originally had a war aspect when she came to Greece via Sparta, codified in the epithet Aphrodite Areia. This was watered down as her worship spread, but she earned some of it back through the Venus Genetrix epithet, the Mother of Rome.
- Wife Husbandry: Gender-flipped with Adonis. Aphrodite found him as an orphaned baby and gave him to Persephone to raise. But when Adonis grew up to be incredibly handsome, she wound up falling in love with him and getting into a fight with Persephone over who Adonis gets to stay with.
Dionysus
"I thought I died once. Turns out that's just what happens when you make daiquiris with Hephaestus's special stash."
Click here to see him as Orphic Dionysus
Click here to see him as Mycenaean Dionysus
God of wine, drunkenness, and ritual madness. He's the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Semele.
- The Alcoholic: Almost every time he's on-screen, he's either drunk or experiencing a hangover.
- Animal Motifs: Bulls, particularly in his older characterizations. He's also symbolically associated with snakes.
- The Baby of the Bunch: He's canonically the youngest god among the Olympians.
- Beware the Silly Ones: He might be the goofy god of wine, but underestimating him is a very bad idea. A group of sailors learned that the hard way when they tried to abduct him for ransom, and Dionysus responded by driving them all mad and turning them into dolphins.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's often depicted as being a bumbling drunk, but when provoked he's capable of inflicting madness and various horrible punishments on his tormentors.
- Driven to Madness: He's briefly driven crazy by Hera and wanders around for a while before Rhea fixes his brain. He also has the ability to inflict said madness on those who cross him.
- Fun Personified: Dionysus is often characterized as the fun-loving party animal of Olympus.
- Happily Married: To Ariadne.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: A gender-inverted example. He's the god of wine and parties, so it's to be expected.
- History Repeats: His father Zeus was sent away to be raised in secret by his grandmother Gaia to protect him from Kronus. Much later down the line, Dionysus would also be sent away from Olympus and raised in secret, and in some versions of the story, he's raised by his own grandmother Rhea.
- Multiple-Choice Past: An especially notable example, as Red's video on him discusses this trope heavily with him. The guy has so many backstories and pretty much all of them contradict each other.
- Nice Guy: He's one of the few Olympians who's genuinely kind to most people. When Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus, Dionysus stopped by to comfort her and later married her.
- Purple Is Powerful: He's primarily colored purple and is a very powerful deity.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Usually depicted wearing just a leopard skin around his waist and laurels in his hair.
Ares
"What are you knuckleheads doing?! Getting stabbed means you're out!"
God of war and courage. He's the son of Zeus and Hera.- Brains and Brawn: With Athena, who represents the nobility of war as well as its leadership, strategy, and tactics. Whereas Ares represents the brutality of war.
- The Brute: His approach towards war relies mainly on brute force and violence rather than actual strategy.
- Dumb Muscle: He's incredibly strong and brave, but not very smart most of the time.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He might not be the most well-liked god, but he adores his mother (even if she barely acknowledges him).
- Jerk Jock: Practically the Ur-Example.
- Shirtless Scene: Played for laughs rather than fanservice in the Iliad video, when Athena dope slaps him so hard that his armor randomly poofs out of existence. It returns immediately after she's done chewing him out, with no explanation.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With his half-sister Athena. Both of them are gods of war, but while Athena represents the glory and strategy of war, Ares embodies the violence and bloodshed of battle.
- The Unfavorite: He hardly ever gets acknowledgment from his father, who called him a disappointment to his face during the Trojan War. His relationship with his mother isn't much better.Ares: My mother was the most selfish woman I ever met, she never gave me anything!
Demeter
"You get one on your knee from "tripping", and now this?"
Click here to see her as Mycenaean Demeter
Goddess of nature and fertility. She's Persephone's mother.
- Abusive Parents: The overprotective variety, Demeter does not want Persephone leaving her side and will cause a famine every time Persephone leaves for a couple of months to stay with Hades in the underworld.
- Benevolent Boss: She's just as much of a Mama Bear towards her nymphs as Persephone. Erysichthon found this out the hard way.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Gender-inverted. When Demeter found out that Persephone was married to Hades, she caused a winter that created a famine that could have doomed humanity and the gods themselves. She only calmed down when Persephone returned to her just to calm her down and she spends several months of the year staying with Demeter. According to Red, Demeter causes a famine every time Persephone leaves her to stay with Hades.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: She's not pleased to learn that Persephone was taken to marry Hades, although it's not the choice in spouse she objects to. It's more like she didn't want Persephone to be married at all.
- Fisher Queen: Her depression over Persephone being kidnapped causes all plant life to stop growing, straight up killing a large number of people. Only when her daughter is returned does Demeter allow the plants to grow again.
- Green Thumb: As the goddess of nature, she has the power to make plants grow. Also, Red depicts her as being literally green.
- Mama Bear: She's incredibly protective of her daughter, to the point where she stopped all plant growth in the world when she was taken to the Underworld to wed Hades.
- My Beloved Smother: To Persephone. While Persephone was content to become Queen of the Underworld and escape her mother's overbearing behavior, she still misses her.
- Parental Marriage Veto: Demeter would never approve of the marriage between Hades and Persephone and she was so famously overprotective of Persephone that Zeus encouraged Hades and Persephone to just elope. Demeter was so enraged to find out that Persephone was in an arranged marriage that she caused a famine by sulking about the marriage.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The Horror Hunger she asked Limos to inflict on Erysichthon destroyed him in a horrific fashion, but this was after he cut down a sacred grove for no apparent reason, and personally cut down a tree that was obviously the most sacred - even as it became increasingly obvious this tree was an innocent dryad that was a personal favorite employee of hers. And as the blasphemy cherry atop the murder sundae, he declared he'd even cut down the tree if it were Demeter herself, and giving gods death threats isn't generally a good thing.
- Tranquil Fury: Demeter was depressed by Persephone vanishing. Erysichthon killing a nymph she was fond of out of petty ego to show up his men made her angry, and her expression does not change as she calmly orders a messenger to find Limos, goddess of starvation, to make his life a living hell.
Persephone
"So, do I get swanky black duds or do they just happen?"
Click here to see her as Despoina
Click here to see her as Kore
Goddess of the Underworld and consort of Hades. She's the daughter of Zeus and Demeter.
- Berserk Button: Do not exploit her kindness for your own gain. Just ask Sisyphus.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Much like her husband, crossing her is a bad idea. Many myths refer to her as "dread Persephone", which Red notes could indicate that Persephone was just as feared by the ancient Greeks as her husband was.
- The Dreaded: Like Hades, invoking her name was a very bad idea. A lot of her older references seem to be intentionally avoiding addressing her by name, instead giving her epithets like "Kore" ("Maiden" or "Girl") or "Despoina" ("The Mistress").
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Before becoming Queen of the Underworld, she wore a light purple dress.
- Happily Married: To Hades.
- The High Queen: Of the Underworld. She's typically benevolent and kind, but won't hesitate to punish those who wrong her.
- History Repeats: Hades fell in love with her, which ended with the time she spends with him and the time she spends with her mother being divided between the year. Aphrodite would later fall in love with Persephone's adoptive son Adonis, leading to them dividing the time he spends with each of them.
- Morality Pet: To Hades.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: With Hades. Her abduction was ordered by Zeus, and despite the chaos that ensued, it ended up becoming one of the most functional and happy marriages in Greek mytho-history.
- Perky Goth: She adjusts rather well to becoming Queen of the Underworld, and genuinely adores her husband.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Underestimating Persephone as just a ditzy flower goddess is a huge mistake. She was known as "dread Persephone" and "the Iron Queen" for a very good reason.
- Single-Target Sexuality: The only man she's ever loved is her husband Hades.
Hermes
"You want me to...un-arrange a marriage?"
God of lies, travellers, merchants, and thieves. He's the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia.- Annoying Younger Sibling: He comes across as this in many videos, especially to Apollo, when they're not being Those Two Guys.
- Cool Helmet: He's often seen wearing his iconic winged helmet.
- Nice Guy: Compared to most of the Olympians, anyway. Of course, that doesn't mean that he'll let you get away with doing something bad to him.
- Psychopomp: One of his duties was guiding dead souls to the afterlife.
- Trickster God: He's the god of trickery and lies, and he's often shown to be very mischievous.
- Uncanny Valley: "Proto-Pan", an early incarnation of Pan and Hermes, is drawn with deliberately uncanny traits to emphasize his primordial and strange nature.
Hephaestus
"It's a quick fix, but it'll cost you."
God of blacksmiths, fire, and craftsmanship. He's the son of Zeus and Hera, and the husband of Aphrodite.- Adaptational Attractiveness: He lacks the deformities that he's traditionally known for and this depiction of Hephaestus is taking the disabled interpretation.
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: When Ares and Aphrodite had a child called Harmonia, Hephaestus chose to spite the two one last time by giving her a cursed necklace on her wedding day that would bring disaster to anyone who wore it.
- Almighty Janitor: He forged the gods' weapons, chained Prometheus to a rock, and was put in charge of Mount Etna by Zeus to guard Typhon.
- Art Evolution: His earliest appearance was in Pandora and he had a full head of hair, a beard, and no disabilities on display. In later appearances, he would have a bald head, a shorter beard (possibly a long goatee), and a crutch.
- Awful Wedded Life: He's married to Aphrodite and the relationship is... sour because it was simply a marriage of convenience. In one version of the myth, Zeus only married them so none of the gods would fight for Aphrodite's hand. Aphrodite hates commitment and was sleeping with Ares on the side. Hephaestus did get his own back by humiliating the two by capturing them with a net mid-coitus and he gave Aphrodite's daughter, Harmonia, a cursed necklace out of spite.
- The Blacksmith: His deific domain is metallurgy and craftsmanship.
- Disabled Deity: He's partially paralyzed in his legs due to being thrown off Olympus as an infant.
- Emasculated Cuckold: His wife, Aphrodite, cheated on him with Ares and he humiliated the two out of revenge by trapping them in a net mid-coitus and calling in all the other gods to laugh at them.
- Genius Cripple: Being partially paralyzed in his legs doesn't stop him from being incredibly skilled at his craft.
- Like Parent, Like Child: Like his mother Hera, Hephestus is often cheated on and he seeks revenge by punishing the products of Aphrodite's infidelities.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With Aphrodite. She'd much rather sleep around with various lovers.
- The Unfavorite: A consistent version of the myth is that he's dropped off the mountain by either Hera or Zeus after they either were repulsed by his appearance (Hera) or got them angry at them (Zeus).
Hestia
"Come, child, and take your place among the gods!"
Goddess of the hearthfire, family, and the home, and one of the three virgin Olympian goddesses.- Abdicate the Throne: Subverted. Red does mention the commonly held belief that she gave up her throne to Dionysus, but brings up that this doesn't actually happen in any myths. Rather, the stories flip-flop a bit on who's the twelfth Olympian, so modern writers tend to explain it as Hestia having the throne first, then giving it to Dionysus.
- Celibate Heroine: She's a virgin goddess, like Artemis and Athena.
- Fire of Comfort: Hestia's divine domain. She rarely partakes in myths due to having to keep the eternal celestial fire going, not that she minds, and the sound of fire crackling is said to be her laughter.
- Flaming Hair: She's often drawn with orange fire for hair.
- Heal It With Fire: Despite having one of the most destructive elements at her disposal, she only uses fire to warm, cook and cauterize. Being a goddess, even when she cauterizes wounds she does so without pain.
- Out of Focus: She doesn't get as much screen time compared to the other gods. Red points out this is mainly because Hestia very rarely stars in any myths of her own, as her role as goddess of the hearthfire made her one of the most important foundational deities in ancient Greece. As she was symbollically in every home and a portion of every sacrifice went to her, it made telling stories about her rather redundant.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She is said to be one of the more beautiful goddesses, certainly the most beautiful of those not trying to look beautiful, but it has gotten her bad attention more than once; First there was Poseidon, but he stopped asking when she said she wanted to stay a virgin. Priapus, on the other hand, did not take "no" for an answer, thankfully he never got the chance, but it was a very close call.
- Vibrant Orange: She's drawn in fiery orange, befitting her role as the goddess of the hearthfire.
The Trojan War
Achilles
The man, the myth, the blanket burrito.
- Achilles in His Tent: The trope namer himself, portrayed as bundling up in a blanket burrito.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In the original story, Achilles (like most Greek heroes) was bisexual. Here, he has Single-Target Sexuality for Patroclus.
- Desecrating the Dead: Does this to Hector until Priam manages to persuade him to give Hector's corpse back for a proper funeral.
- Keet: Achilles before the Trojan War is very gleeful to go find some glorious battle.
- No Sympathy: When Patroclus tries to get him to back onto the battlefield on the basis that the Acheans were dying in droves without him, he refuses and happily imagines Agamemnon dying in battle.
- One-Man Army: Basically singlehandedly sacks everything around Troy that wasn't protected by the city walls.
Agamemnon
The overall leader of the Greek army, brother to Menelaus, and total asshole.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the original Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon really didn't want to sacrifice Iphigenia, and only did so because the soldiers present would've rioted if he hadn't, which would've killed Iphigenia anyway. Here, he has a brief pang of conscience before doing the deed anyway, and never expresses any remorse.
- Hate Sink: The entire OSP cast hate his guts. He's so hated that his mere existence is another thing added to Tantalus's already-extensive rap sheet.
- Jerkass: Spends most of his screen time happily antagonizing everyone he can.
- Karmic Death: Clytemnestra kills him for sacrificing Iphigenia and bringing home Cassandra as a concubine.
- Kick the Dog: Refuses to ransom Chryseis just so that her dad will suffer knowing his daughter is Agamemnon's slave. And then when he's forced to give her up anyway, he demands Briseis from Achilles just so somebody would be unhappy with the outcome.Agamemnon: Knowledge that you've lost her forever is priceless!
- Nominal Hero: In command of the Greek armies, but they probably would've done better leaving him at home given that he almost stopped them from sailing at all and later nearly gets them defeated by angering Achilles.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: For a certain definition of 'hero', and with adjustments for Values Dissonance.
- Skewed Priorities: Considers finding a replacement slave girl worth antagonizing his best soldier and quite possibly losing the war.
Cassandra
The never-believed prophetess herself.
- Cassandra Truth: Of course, as the trope namer. Every scene with her has her predicting that some choice is going to doom everyone around her... only for them to brush it off and do whatever it was anyway. The only time someone did believe her was when she said Paris was her long-lost brother.
- Broken Bird: Poor girl goes through a lot of crap, from being cursed by Apollo, being a Trojan princess when Paris provoked war with all the Greeks, to being taken as Agamemnon's slave and murdered by Clytemnestra.
Diomedes
A Greek king who faced down multiple gods on the battlefield, with the encouragement of Athena.
- Badass Normal: Manages to drive off both Ares and Aphrodite once Athena gives him some encouragement and the ability to tell who's actually a god in disguise, though he's smart enough to back down when Apollo threatens him.
Hector
A Trojan prince and hero who, sadly, is just a little less good a fighter than Achilles.
- Anti-Villain: He's just protecting his city and family. Helen remembers him as the one person in Troy to be nice to her.
- Badass Normal: A match for anyone but Achilles.
Helen of Sparta/Troy
The face that launched a thousand ships and got unfairly blamed for things Aphrodite did.
- Adaptational Sympathy: A minor example. In the Illiad, it's left ambiguous whether she ran away with Paris of her own free will (though she's clearly grown to hate him by the time of the poem), and her motivation was hotly debated in Ancient Greek circles (see The Trojan Women, where Helen argued she wasn't at fault because the Judgement of Paris forced her to go with him, while Hecuba refutes it and argues that she went to Troy of her own accord), but Red goes with the modern consensus that Aphrodite essentially mind-controlled her into eloping with Paris.
- Badass Family: Castor and Pollux were her brothers, and her sister was Clytemnestra, best known for axe-murdering Agamemnon in revenge for his murder of their daughter.
- Cosmic Plaything: Poor girl got treated as a prize in a popularity contest, forced to live in a city that hated her for 10 years, and Aphrodite tried to force her to get together with Paris despite Helen hating him for stealing her away from her husband.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After 10 years in Troy, she finally reunited with Menelaus and they lived happily ever after.
- Half-Identical Twins: She and Clytemnestra were twins, but Clytemnestra's father was Tyndareus while Helen's father was Zeus.
- Happily Married: Genuinely loves Menelaus and lives happily with him after Troy finally falls. In certain tellings, she also chose him herself as her husband.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: And due to Aphrodite's meddling, she probably wishes she wasn't.
Menelaus
Helen's husband, Agamemnon's brother, King of Sparta, and surprisingly decent sort for the House of Atreus.
- Fiery Redhead: Red hair and absolutely willing to throw down with Paris to get Helen back; he would've killed Paris right then and there if Aphrodite hadn't saved him.
- Happily Married: To Helen, when Aphrodite didn't get her sticky fingers into it.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: The House of Atreus generally came to very bad ends (including Agamemnon), but Menelaus reunites with his wife, returns to Sparta, and lives happily ever after. Red speculates that Agamemnon was so bad he soaked up all the karmic punishment for himself.
Odysseus
King of Ithaca, former suitor to Helen, and unwitting instigator of the Trojan War. Also Solid Snake.
- Badass Bandanna: Wears one as part of being Greek Solid Snake.
- Disappeared Dad: To Telemachus, though not by choice.
- Guile Hero: Best known as a trickster, though he was no slouch in a straight fight either.
- Happily Married: To Penelope, to the point where they remained faithful to each other for two decades.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He was the one to suggest that all Helen's suitors swear an oath to defend the winner's marriage. This stopped the suitors from going to war with each other when Menelaus was finally chosen, but then Paris came along and the suitors had to put their money where their mouths were by going to war against Troy. And since Odysseus was one of them, he was forced to go to war too, which would lead to him being separated from his family for 20 years.
- Only Sane Man: One of the very few Acheans who brought a brain along.Odysseus: You'll want me too. I have actual cognitive faculties, quite rare in this army.
Paris
Prince of Troy who likes objectifying women and has no sense of long-term consequences.
- Dirty Coward: The reason he fights primarily at range, unlike other Greek heroes who use bows as secondary weapons.Paris: I love archery. All of the glory with none of the risk.
- Hate Sink: Nobody, in or out of universe, likes this guy. Even his own father is too busy mourning Hector to notice his death.
- Karmic Death: Philocetes shoots him in the dong ("which I think we can all agree is the real villain of this story") with a poison arrow, but he lives long enough for his first wife Oenone to refuse to heal him because of his cheating.
- Undignified Death: Shot in the crotch after gloating about how archery means he doesn't have to risk his life to fight.
Other
Actaeon
That guy who got devoured by his own hounds.
- Blasphemous Boast: The Bacchae cites him as having boasted about being a better hunter than Artemis.
- Depending on the Writer: Red notes that all sources disagree on everything about Actaeon except that he was eaten by his own hounds. Most of them state that he was a hunter and that he saw Artemis bathing, but this was in no way consistent; he might also have flirted with Semele or made a Blasphemous Boast.
- Never Live It Down: Actaeon's death by his own hounds was something of an Ancient Greek meme, being repeatedly referenced in both art and literature, but with contradictory (or no) details on the context.
Arachne
An excellent weaver who's unfortunately incapable of catering to her audience.
- Accidental Aesop: Red reads Arachne's story with the aesop of 'no matter how artistically talented you are, your audience are your judges, and you have to take their tastes into consideration'. Athena didn't destroy Arachne's tapestry because it was better than hers, she destroyed it because it ridiculed Zeus and Poseidon (a.k.a. Athena's dad and uncle) and it did so by depicting the various sexual acts those two are notorious for. Bear in mind that A). Athena is one of three Greek goddesses (along with Artemis and Hestia) that is known to absolutely not be interested in sex to begin with, and B). Athena has to interact with Zeus and Poseidon frequently and really doesn't need to be reminded about what her father and uncle get up to.Athena: Considering your audience is essential when creating any form of art!
- Blasphemous Boast: Said she was a better weaver than Athena. The contest proved she did have the skills to back it up... now if only the tapestry she wove wasn't blasphemous itself.
- Driven to Suicide: Tried to kill herself after Athena destroyed her tapestry. Athena saved her by turning her into a spider.
- Smug Super: She genuinely was as good a weaver as she said she was, and her tapestry matched that of Athena. She could've tied a competition with the Goddess of Crafts had she not decided to mock her opponent.
Atalanta
An Arcadian princess raised by a bear and later a group of hunters, growing up to be a huntress herself.
- Action Girl: Once beat Achilles' dad Peleus in a wrestling match and got the first strike on the Calydonian Boar.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: In the original myth, the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes ended with them being turned into lions by one of the gods, frequently Zeus (either as punishment for some act of sacrilege or as a reward for defying their expected gender roles by being able to hunt forever away from the society that would judge them, depending on the author), while Red's telling simply ends with their marriage. In the closing credits of the episode, Red acknowledges the original ending in the text scrawl.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Easily distracted by shiny objects, like Hippomenes' golden apples. That said, she does figure out what he's doing after the first golden apple, and only chases the other two because she wants to let him win.
- Badass Normal: Had no divine heritage whatsoever, but still managed to help kill the Calydonian Boar.
- Classical Hunter: Raised by hunters who found her in the woods as a child and grew up to be an expert huntress herself.
- Engagement Challenge: Makes up one where her suitors have to either beat her in a race or die in order get them to stop bothering her. It nearly backfires when she meets Hippomenes, whose affection she actually reciprocates, but fortunately Hippomenes planned ahead and with Aphrodite's help gave her the opportunity to plausibly throw the race.
- Impossible Task: Her footrace challenge was an attempt to get her suitors to go away by threatening them with death if they lost, as Atalanta was sure that no one could beat her. Hippomenes could, but not because he was faster than her; instead, he was nice enough that Atalanta genuinely fell for him and lost on purpose.
- Throwing the Fight: She notices what Hippomenes is doing by the second apple throw, and intentionally takes too long to go get the third, allowing him to win.Atalanta: Oh, I see where you're going with this.
- Happily Married: She liked Hippomenes enough to throw the race for him, and Red speculates they spent the rest of their lives being adorable together.Atalanta (introducing Hippomenes to her bear mom and hunter dads): And this is my awesome smart husband.
- Smurfette Principle: The only full-on Greek heroine.
- Super-Speed: Fast enough that 'beat Atalanta in a foot race' served as an Impossible Task for her suitors, and Hippomenes only won when she let him.
Hippolytus
Son of Theseus and hunter of Artemis, killed indirectly by Aphrodite for the heinous crime of being Asexual.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Wasn't interested in any suitors, but was especially repulsed by Phaedra, his stepmother, coming on to him.
- Asexual: Specifically tells Artemis he doesn't have time for a girlfriend or a boyfriend.
- Adaptational Heroism: Euripides' Hippolytus had him be a raging misogynist who refused romance because he hated the idea of women existing. Red (herself asexual) writes him as a nice kid who just doesn't want to bother with men or women.
- Back from the Dead: Red notes that he had a personal cult who believed that Artemis got Asclepius to resurrect Hippolytus, and he moved to Italy and became the Roman god Viribus.
- False Rape Accusation: His mother Phaedra makes one against him after he rejects her advances (after Aphrodite caused her to fall in love with him), which causes Theseus to call in a favor from Poseidon to get Hippolytus killed.
Narcissus
An amazingly beautiful hunter who rejects all suitors, both male and female. And unlike other mythological figures who do it because they're not into romance for whatever reason, Narcissus just thinks he's too good for any of them.
- Asexual: Defied. Characters like Artemis and Athena reject suitors because they're asexual. Narcissus rejects suitors because he thinks they're not worth his attention.
- Bishie Sparkles: To emphasize his extraordinary beauty.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Blows off Nemesis the same as everyone else.Narcissus: Sorry, 'disappointed albatross' isn't my type.
- Even the Guys Want Him: As was standard for pretty boys in Ancient Greece. Though given that it's Narcissus, they'd be better off if they didn't.
- Jerkass: Spends all his time rudely blowing off suitors or gloating about how flattering it is that people kill themselves because of him.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Red draws him as a tall, slender man with long purple hair.
- Narcissist: But of course. Nemesis doesn't even have to use any magic for his karmic punishment; she just points at a pool and his own ego does the rest.
- Proud Beauty: Refuses to even talk to anyone he considers less pretty than himself, which is everyone.
- Spurned into Suicide: Causes this for either Echo or Amenias. He sees this as very flattering.
- Suicide Dare: Sends Amenias a sword for Amenias to put himself out of Narcissus's misery.Amenias: Maybe I could just see other people?Narcissus: Nope. Die now.
Theseus
Athens' founder hero, known for being kind of a dick.
- Designated Hero: Red considers him one in-universe, noting that Athens had a bad habit of altering myths to paper over Theseus's less nice actions like kidnapping a twelve-year-old Helen and abandoning Ariadne.
- Too Dumb to Live: Happily agrees with Pirithous's plan to kidnap Persephone.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Ariadne helped him get through the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur, and in thanks he dumps her on an island and leaves without her.
Journey to the West
Tripitaka's Party
General
- The Atoner: The disciples are on the quest to redeem themselves for their offences against the gods by helping Tripitaka.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Besides Monkey, who Red often calls Sun, all of them are refered to solely by their nicknames.
Tripitaka / Tang Sanzang
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: There are times when Tripitaka gets annoyed by the antics of his disciples and argues with Sun Wukong, but he truly does care for them all. When he thinks Wukong is dead (he is not, just pretending), Tripitaka gives a very heartfelt eulogy for the monkey.
- Bridal Carry: He's drawn this way after getting kidnapped — needless to say, it's basically a Running Gag to see him in Monkey's arms.
- Celibate Hero: Being a devout Buddhist monk, he has sworn off women, and even without that, doesn't seem to have much interest.
- Chick Magnet: Subverted, in Legends Summarized: Journey To The West (Part IX), he's only deemed the most attractive by comparison because he's accompanied by non-human disciples.
- Deadpan Snarker: Tripitaka's disciples will often be the wisecrackers, but Tripitaka isn't above some good old fashioned sass:Scorpion Demon: What do you do to relax~?
Tripitaka: Meditate.
Scorpion Demon: What else does that mouth do?
Tripitaka: (annoyed) Recite sutras.note - Distressed Dude: He is constantly kidnapped by demons during the journey. While Tripitaka's companions aren't always happy about his capture rate, Sun openly mocks him about it in Part X and cruelly tells the monk that he's also at fault for Sun killing his enemies.
- The Heart: While he's the one leading the group, he serves this role to the others, being the one that everyone cares for and wants to see safe, as well as the one most likely to be compassionate to strangers.
- Honor Before Reason: Downplayed in Part X. When Sun goes way too far with his cruelty and violence against some bandits, Tripitaka has enough and permanently kicks him out of the group. His grievances are justified, but getting rid the one disciple who single-handedly saved him over and over again, and one that the Buddha himself chose to protect him, is not the best decision thanks to his kidnapping record. Kuan-yin has to intervene by pointing out that defying the Buddha's judgement is a very bad idea, to which Tripitaka immediately relents and lets Sun back in.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: His model is drawn with black lines yet his irises are cerulean to emphasize his role as The Heart (and the fact that he's usually voiced by Blue).
- The Load: Very rarely does Tripitaka ever contribute to the fighting or resolution of a story, and most of his scenes involve getting kidnapped.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Tripitaka has had his problems with Sun Wukong's Blood Knight nature, but the incident with the Six-Eared Macaque was one of the very rare times when he is furious. Wukong killing and beheading two bandits wasn't the whole problem—it was the post-mortem mutilation, the Last Disrespects, the Blasphemous Boast Wukong shouted to their spirits, and in general embodying none of the Buddha's ideals when the situation didn't call for it. Tripitaka is completely unwilling to let him back into the group as a result, and won't even reconcile with "Wukong" when he makes a token of apology.
- Pretty Boy: While it is true that he's attractive by comparison to his disciples, Tripitaka has been described multiple times throughout the narration as a very pretty man.
- Supporting Protagonist: While he is the reason why everyone is on this quest, the story is focused on Sun Wukong.
- Vow of Celibacy: At times, his faith will be tested spiritually and (on several occasions) sexually, but being the devout monk he is always tries to hold himself above seduction tactics. Part IX covers two such incidents.
Monkey / Sun Wukong
- Complete Immortality: He's quintuply immortal, due in large part to his shenanigans:
- He first achieved immortality as a disciple of the Taoist immortal Puti Zashi.
- Second, he erased his name from Death's books.
- Third, he ate all three varieties of the Peaches of Immortality when the Jade Emperor unwisely made him caretaker of their orchard.
- Fourth, he drank some of heaven's wine while inviting himself to a party.
- Fifth, he found some of Laozi's immortality pills and ate them. Laozi's attempt to retrieve said pills by melting Sun Wukong backfired by instead bonding them to Sun permanently due to his sheer durability at that point.
- Fatal Flaw: Impulse and ego.
- Hidden Depths:
- He is genuinely clever when he isn't being ruled by his impulsiveness and ego, at times even using his reputation for impulsiveness and violence in his favour.
- Despite his rampage through heaven, he is on fairly good terms with much of the Celestial Bureaucracynote , and when Kuan-yin isn't outright telling them who can help, he often knows who to go to for help and is able to get said help.
- For all his impulsiveness and general inability to sit still, he appreciates the beautiful tranquility of a fresh snowfall. Part 10 reveals that, as the Intelligent Stone Monkey, one of his traits is that he recognizes the seasons, which may explain his appreciation for a sign of the seasons changing.
- Immortal Immaturity: He's got the impulse control of a child and achieved immortality several times through training, meditation, and eating.
- Immortality Seeker: He became terrified of death after seeing the deaths of his people. Due to his poor impulse control in heaven, Sun Wukong is now practically immortal.
- Insufferable Genius: He's the worst combination of impulsive, egotistical, talented at martial arts, and genuinely clever.
- The Leader: He's The Hero of the story, and takes charge in most of the dangerous situations.
- Logical Weakness: Having been born from a stone and achieved several kinds of immortality, Wukong has Complete Immortality and can't be killed by anything. But he's also a terrible swimmer, since his body is made of stone, and any water-based threats have to be handled by Wujing or Bajie.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In episode XI, it's revealed that the huge mountain perpetually on fire that's currently blocking their journey westward was actually Sun's fault; when he broke out of the brazier the Heavenly Court tried (and failed) to kill him with, one of the superheated heavenly bricks fell to earth and lit the mountain on fire. To his credit, Sun was already trying to solve the fire issue permanently even before he learned of his unintended role in its creation.
- Semantic Superpower: Played with, since it isn't technically a superpower, but he never actually had his role as Heaven's horse master revoked, meaning he is in charge of, and can give orders to, all horses. This includes Yu Lung when he is in horse form, even though he is actually a dragon.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Subverted. The reason why he's in heaven's bad books is that he demanded to be called "Great Sage Equal to Heaven" out of raw spite after getting a job that didn't represent his status as king of the monkeys. However, the Jade Emperor's attempts to punish him end up showing he has the power to back up that ego, requiring the intervention of the Buddha, who is literally one with the entire universe, to finally stop Sun, who by that point had single-handedly defeated almost every single warrior the Jade Emperor had thrown at him, all of whom were gods in their own right.
- Episode X arguably reveals this to have been averted from the start: He is one of the four Spirtual Primates, making him a completely unique being even before becoming immortal several times over, and one of his powers is that he can alter the courses of planets. Ultimately, this makes him out to be a very dangerous Smug Super.
- Undying Loyalty: While he initially disliked Tripitaka, and still isn't the best at following orders due to his near complete lack of impulse control, he is extremely loyal to his master, often falling into a deep depression when he has trouble rescuing him or gets kicked out of the group.
Pigsy / Zhu Bajie
- Abhorrent Admirer: His offence against heaven was hitting on a princess too many times when she wasn't interested. His appearance as a pig didn't do him any favours since he used his shapeshifting abilities to disguise himself as human until he got married.
- Acrofatic: Pigsy uses martial arts like Sun Wukong to fight demons.
- Art Evolution: In his first appearance, he has a similar slim design to the other characters with the exception of a pig head. In Legends Summarized: Journey To The West (Part IX), his stomach is a bit more pronounced and he looks more pig-like.
- Broomstick Quarterstaff / Gardening-Variety Weapon: On the few occasions where he's actually inclined to stand and fight rather than run away, he wields a rake as his weapon.
- Dirty Coward: When on the losing side of a battle, Pigsy's first instinct is to retreat. He's also known to kill weak opponents after they've fought Sun Wukong.
- Fatal Flaw: His laziness and need to spite Sun Wukong. He's more or less responsible for everything going wrong in the fourth episode, and does not wise-up to these flaws which leads to even more trouble for the disciples later on.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Due to Pigsy's cowardice and laziness, the disciples aren't too fond of him.
- I'm a Humanitarian: At one point he briefly mentions that he used to attack roadside travelers to eat them, and in fact the entire reason he's Journeying To The West in the first place is to seek atonement for this.
- Improbable Weapon User: As mentioned above, Pigsy fights with a rake, an odd enough weapon that even Sun Wukong questioned it when they first met (while the two were fighting each other).
- Kevlard: Subverted, while he is the burliest of the main cast and often fights alongside Sun Wukong, Pigsy is often too cowardly to fight and is frequently the first to be knocked out of the fight.
- The Lancer: He frequently accompanies Wukong on his excapades, and serves as his Foil, usually highlighting Wukong's awesomeness with his own incompetence.
- Lazy Bum: He'll often avoid work by any means at his disposal. Ironically, he was noted to be fairly hard working back when he was married.
- Pig Man: He's a humanoid pig.
- Stout Strength: Pigsy is burly and strong but is too cowardly to effectively hold his own.
Sandy / Sha Wujing
- The Big Guy: Downplayed. Monkey is by far the strongest member of the group, and the others tend to take a backseat while he kicks ass, but Sandy is the physically largest, and is not opposed to fighting himself. On one occasion, he volunteered to take on an entire army of Mooks while Pigsy and Monkey fought the more important opponents.
- Flat Character: He has the least characterisation compared to the other characters, next to the Horse.
- Nice Guy: Compared to suicidally (if he could actually die) impulsive Wukong and greedy and lazy Bajie, Wujing is the nicest of the three disciples, being an overall friendly and cheerful guy, which even Pigsy and Wukong admit.
- Not So Above It All: Despite being the voice of reason and the nicest of the three disciples, in Part VII he joins Sun and Pigsy in pranking the Taoists to steal their food offerings and trick the Taoists into drinking their urine and thinking it's "Holy Water".
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: While he is generally a good dude after joining Tripitaka, he occasionally lets his Demon nature show. In episode IX, a Taoist tries to stop him from taking some magical water and Sandy immediately breaks his arm.
- Token Good Teammate: Of the disciples, he's described as the nicest.
Yu Lung / The Dragon Horse
- A Day in the Limelight: Finally gets his chance to shine in Part IV, when everyone else has been taken out.
- Flat Character: Lampshaded repeatedly by Red.Red: You're a freaking dragon, you have no right to be this boring!
- Our Dragons Are Different: He's a typical Eastern dragon who is capable of shapeshifting.
- Team Pet: Essentially, being the group's steed.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He's capable of changing form at will, though his Shapeshifter Default Form is a white horse.
The Kingdom of Heaven
General
- Badass Bureaucrat: Despite many of them not looking the part, with several featured immortals designed with the aesthetics more towards 'Steven from Accounting' than warriors, they are all gods and very capable of destruction and divine retribution. Them struggling against Monkey is because he's that strong, not because they are weak.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: One of the oldest examples, if not the oldest, and pretty much the Trope Codifier. Many of the non-war gods are noted to have more in common with mild-mannered bureaucrats or court advisors, the Dragon Kings need to fill out paperwork and have the Jade Emperor sign off on it to create a proper storm, and violating the laws of thermodynamics can get you arrested.
The Jade Emperor
The ruler of the Kingdom of Heaven, and one of the highest ranking gods
- Didn't Think This Through: A major problem of his, both in Journey to the West and other legends covered by Red. When an advisor points out they should probably give Sun a relatively unimportant task to make sure he doesn't get bored, he decides that the best position for a monkey with poor impulse control is to tend a garden of delicious fruit. After they capture Sun, he tries to have him executed, despite knowing Sun is immortal five times over. When his unrulely sons decide to become suns and end up threatening to destroy the Earth, he asks Hou Yi, the Divine Archer, to deal with the problem, and is shocked and outraged that the Divine Archer used archery to solve the problem by killing all but one of his sun sons.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Despite being one of the highest ranking gods, with only the Buddha confirmed to be above him, he is one of the least competent gods in the Kingdom of Heaven. His default solutions to anyone causing a problem seems to be to have them killed, arrested, arrested then killed, or exiled, usually needing one of his advisors or someone from outside the Kingdom of Heaven to step in to tell him that is unwise and present a better solution. Part of this comes down to the majority of his appearances being in Journey to the West, a story that heavily favours Buddhism over Taoism, though he still shows this in some of the other Chinese legends Red has covered.
- Top God: Plays this role in the Kingdom of Heaven, and in any tales where the Buddha doesn't appear. Otherwise, the Buddha is this.
Gold Star of Venus
An immortal in the Kingdom of Heaven
- Not So Above It All: For all his wisdom and calm demeanor, he did tell the imprisoned Buddhists expecting a savior that said savior, Monkey, was very ugly and monstrous, seemingly for kicks.
- Only Sane Man: Tends to give solid advice to the Jade Emperor to balance out his tendency to default to unwise or reckless choices.
Prince Nezha
An immortal in the Kingdom of Heaven
- Adaptation Name Change: For some reason Red spells and pronounces his name as 'Nata.'
- Token Mini-Moe: He looks 12 compared to the various adult immortals.
- Playing with Fire: His combat forms tend to have fire aesthetics.
Other Deities/Immortals
Kuanyin
A bodhisattva who frequently assists the heroes on their journey, particularly Sun Wukong.
- Big Good: Is one of the most powerful beings in the story who almost always helps the gang when they're in a jam.
- Deus ex Machina: Whenever the gang encounters a problem they can't solve themselves, nine out of then times, Kuanyin is the one to bail them out through divine intervention.
- The Mentor: Is one to Moksha, often Sun's go-to advisor, and becomes one to the reformed Red Boy.
Demons
Red Boy
A young demon who wields the True Fire of Samadhi who abducts Tripitaka in Part 6.
- Heel–Face Turn: After getting his butt kicked by Kuanyin, she takes him on as a reluctant disciple as punishment for kidnapping Tripitaka, harming the heroes and impersonating her. By Part 10, he has genuinely reformed.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Red Boy is only the antagonist for one small leg of the journey, but his defeat has a ripple effect on the journey for heroes when they run to young demon's uncle in Part 9, and later his parents in Part 11.
Bull Demon King
Sun Wukong's old friend and father of Red Boy.
- Godzilla Threshold: When you need the help of the entire Army of Heaven, both Nezha AND Wukong in their Kaiju forms, the Four Heavenly Kings and Devaraja Li to defeat him, it is safe to say it has been crossed. Multiple times.
- Kaiju: His true form is a MASSIVE bull that is two miles long.
- Light Is Not Good: His true form is a pure white bull and he is an evil demon.
Mesopotamian Mythology
Ishtar
A Goddess who shows up in many myths.
- Love Goddess: Like Aphrodite she's a goddess of love. Unlike most versions of Aphrodite however, she's also a war goddess.
Gilgamesh
A legendary king and two-thirds divine being.
- Immortality Seeker: Sought out immortality after the death of his best friend Enkidu. Ultimately he failed.
- World's Strongest Man: There was practically no mortal being who could match him, so the gods created a equal in Enkidu to get him to calm down.
Nyanga Mythology
Epic of Mwindo
Mwindo
- Adorably Precocious Child: Exaggerated. He helped his mother with chores while still in the womb.
- Improbable Weapon User: A magic flyswatter that can both kill people and bring them back to life.
- Invincible Hero: Mwindo's only real struggle is finding the person he's chasing down. Otherwise, his only struggles are temporary. Subverted at the end of the story, when the Storm God takes him to demonstrate that Always a Bigger Fish is very much in effect.
- Made of Iron: Rather literally, in one version of the story Mwindo's relatives take him apart and forge him like metal. He's indestructible through the rest of the book.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: To be fair to Mwindo, his pond isn't that tiny. He's basically unstoppable on the earth or in the underworld. However when he deals with heavenly forces, he finds out that while he's a pretty big fish, he was in a normal-sized pond compared to them.
Shemwindo
- Archnemesis Dad: He tries to kill Mwindo as a child, so Mwindo spends most of the story hunting him down for revenge.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Shemwindo simply means "Mwindo's Father", and his real name is never given.
- Wanted a Son Instead: Inverted: He wanted only daughters, and tried to kill his son Mwindo.
Norse Mythology
Norse Gods
Thor
- Boisterous Bruiser: He really enjoys fighting giants.
- Disguised in Drag: In one myth, Thor disguised himself as Freya to get Mjolnir back from a giant.
- God of Thunder: The god of thunder and lightning.
- Humiliation Conga: Thor repeatedly fails tasks when visiting Utgard-Loki, like trying to lift a cat and losing a fight to an old lady. But at the end, it turns out each one was an Impossible Task, the cat being the world snake Jormungandr and the lady being the personification of old age.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Subverted. Red notes that, despite what modern interpretations of Mjolnir have led people to believe, there is no such enchantment upon the weapon. Mjolnir is just so powerful that anyone who isn't of a similar power level to Thor cannot wield it without being vaporized.
Loki
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: In a few myths he comes off as a Jesus figure in a very strange, post Christianization sort of way. Other times he is more clearly a satanic figure.
- Evil Counterpart: In several myths he not only comes off as this to the mothers of heroic figures like Perseus and Krishna, giving birth to monsters that come back to kill the Aesir despite their attempts otherwise just as those figures were sent against evil kins, but Jesus as a figure who dies to resolve the sins of the Aesir.
- Face–Heel Turn: Loki starts out as a harmless trickster, then kills Balder and turns on the Aesir in Ragnarok. However, some variants of the story play it off more as a Hazy-Feel Turn due to putting more emphasis on the Aesir's failings or seeing Ragnarok as a necessary thing.
- The Gadfly: He causes trouble just for fun, like when he cut off Sif's hair.
- King in the Mountain: The Aesir trap him in a cave with a snake that drips poison in his eyes. He's fated to escape at Ragnarok and kill Heimdall.
- Mr. Seahorse:
- In order to avoid paying the price for a fortress to a giant, the Aesir ask Loki to distract the giant's horse so they don't have to pay. To do this, Loki transforms into a mare in heat, and later gives birth to Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse.
- Loki once ate a heart that made him pregnant with the evils that plague man.
- Not Me This Time: He had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mjolnir, but was still accused of it by Thor. This prompted him to track down the real culprit, Thrym.
- Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: In one story, Loki turns into a mare and gets impregnated by a stallion.
- Trickster God: He often pulls pranks or starts trouble, which the Aesir force him to fix.
- What, Exactly, Is His Job?: One odd thing about Loki that Red speculates on is, what Loki's specific deific domain was and why the Norse would have worshipped him. Pop culture tend to portray him a the God of Lies and Trickery, but those are part of his personality. She speculates that Loki might have been a mischievous but benevolent protector of the home.
Odin
- Disabled Deity: Missing an eye.
- Eyepatch of Power
- Seeker Archetype: Odin often goes on quests to seek knowledge.
- Sir Cameos-a-Lot: Red points out that Odin pops up in lots of unexpected places in other mythologies too, including, possibly, as Santa Claus.
- Top God: The leader of the Aesir.
Freja
The norse goddess of fertility, beauty, sex and war. They had a lot of those.
- Ethical Slut: Unsurprisingly as the goddess of sex, Freja sleeps around a lot, even agreeing to sleep with someone as payment for goods and services.
- Pointy Ears: Alongside her brother, she's the only god who has these. Presumably, it's to denote her as a Vanir.
- Silver Vixen: When she temporarily starts aging when Idunn is kidnapped, she does so very gracefully, and Loki compliments her on her looks (admittedly mostly to flatter so she doesn't kill him).
- Token Minority: Unlike most gods in the norse pantheon, Freja is a Vanir, not an Aesir. She shares this with her brother, Freyr, and her father, Njord.
Egyptian Mythology
Egyptian Gods
Ra
- Adaptational Ugliness: Unlike most depictions of Ra, Red portrays him as a geriatric, slim man with a pot belly. He drops this once he retires to his sunbarge, however.
- Eye Scream: He takes out one of his eyes and turns it into the goddess Sekhmet.
- I Know Your True Name: Isis tricks him into telling her his true name, making her more powerful.
- Scatterbrained Senior: He becomes this after a while. When mortals begin to respect him less, he sends Sekhmet after them.
- Top God: The leader of the gods, before giving the throne to Horus.
- The Power of the Sun: The god of the sun.
Sekhmet
- Ax-Crazy: Ra can't convince her to stop killing people after she's started.
- Blood Knight: She has a lot of fun killing humans.
- Unsuspectingly Soused: The other gods give her what she thinks is blood to drink, but it's actually alcohol to make her pass out.
- War God: A goddess of war.
Apophis
- Arch-Enemy: To Ra.
- Big Bad: The greatest threat to the Egyptian Pantheon, wanting to devour Ra and plunge all the world into nonexistence.
- Dragons Are Demonic: A weird mix of this and Dragons Are Divine; Apophis is a God of Evil that takes the form of a giant serpent.
- Omnicidal Maniac: He wants nothing less than the destruction of all life.
- Our Dragons Are Different: This one is a giant, killer snake that can cause the apocalypse.
- Snakes Are Sinister: When the snake in question is an astronomical unit in length and wants to end all existence as we know it, "sinister" is putting it mildly.
Zoroastrianism
The Shahnameh
Zahak
The Serpent King of Persian myth, once a young prince who entered a covenant with Ahriman, becoming a monstrous tyrant with serpents for shoulders. Also known as "Johnny Snakeshoulders."
- Adaptational Nice Guy: A minor case. He's still very much an evil king, but Red makes him an Affably Evil dope who doesn't really want to oppress people and is happy to oblige Kavah's request in exchange for signing the 'Zahak is a good king' paperwork, while in the Shahnameh, Zahak only did it because Kavah made the request in front of people he was trying to impress.
- Affably Evil: Aside from the brain-eating serpents, Zahak is a pretty nice guy, who's all too happy to acquiesce Kavah's request to spare his last son.Zahak: Thanks, guys, couldn't have done it without you. Now give me your brains.
- Body Horror: He has live serpents that eat brains growing from his shoulders.
- Comical Coffee Cup: After becoming Shah, he gets a cup with "World's Best Shah" on it. In one scene, he lets his snake shoulder sip from it.
- Fallen Hero: Maybe not "hero", but he certainly started out as a decent enough fella who's only real flaw was being gullible. Then Ahriman got involved.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Sees nothing wrong with Ahriman's various disguises.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Lampshaded by Red; whenever someone is named "The Serpent King", theres a 99% chance that person is evil.
- Obliviously Evil: He's a gullible and naive sort and doesn't even realize that he's an evil tyrant.Zahak (to his snakeshoulders): You guys would tell me if I was a bad person, right?
Celtic Mythology
Pwyll, Prince of Dywed
A Welsh hero whose name is actually pronouned "pwush."
- Badass Normal: An ordinary human who defeated a fairy king while disguised as Arawn.
- Bed Trick: Firmly defied. When disguised as Arawn (long story), he refuses to do anything sexual with Arawn's wife because of how skeevy it would be.
- Pals with Jesus: On very good terms with Arawn after helping him take care of a rival.
