Just divine, isn't it?
"I don't want to be popular, I don't want to be like Hera. I will never be a perfect goddess. [...] I just want to find my way as a goddess. But nobody accepts me for who I am!"
—Eris
Welcome to Mount Olympus, a peaceful sanctuary where the descendants of the titans come to learn to be the greatest they can be!
Young goddess Eris, daughter of Nyx, doesn't quite fit in though. She brings chaos wherever she goes and is rather blasé about studying. Until one day, the young mortal Paris of Troy arrives on Olympus. And suddenly, Eris' world doesn't seem quite so lonely anymore.
Gods' School: The Olmypian Gods is an independent personal animation project created by Gaylord.C.Libessart similar to Monster High and Ever After High. It was inspired by The Iliad of Homer and the Theogony of Hesiod.
Watch the official trailer here
. The first trailer can be found here.
The pilot premiered on January 31, 2019 and can be found here.
The project is funded through Kickstarter.
Tropes in Gods' School: The Olympian Gods:
- Action Girl:
- Athena, due to being the Goddess of war strategy.
- Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt. She even manages to outsmart and defeat the Aloads!
- Adaptational Heroism: The titans, specifically Kronos. Instead of being the gods' Archnemesis Dad, he's the Big Good and headmaster of Mount Olympus.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Hades was a stiff bureaucrat in his original myths who showed little to no empathy to other living beings and who's relationship with Persephone started when he kidnapped her and kept her in the Underworld against her will. Gods' School's version of Hades is an awkward, shy Nice Guy who loves dogs and who's feelings for Persephone are clearly reciprocated.
- Zeus in mythology is squarely in the Jerkass Gods category and infamous for regularly cheating on his wife Hera. In the series he's still a bit of a Jerk Jock, but him and Hera are exclusive and he really seems to love her. With her catching him and Poseidon spying on other girls in the Omma, however, it might just be a matter of time.
- Eris, who you might remember as the one responsible for the line of events that lead to the Trojan War. Here, she's just a lonely teenage goddess whom nobody can stand because of her powers and who really just wants to be left alone and live her life.
- Aphrodite was an immensely petty and promiscuous goddess in Greek mythology. Her iteration in this series is far more pleasant to be around and she actually feels bad for low-key flirting with Hephaestus in front of Ares once Hera calls her out on it.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Funnily enough, the series reverses the roles of Minthe and Persephone to turn Minthe into this. In the original story of Minthe, Minthe merely flirted with Hades and ended up being turned into a mint-plant, courtesy of Persephone being a Clingy Jealous Girl. This interpretation of her character is currently blackmailing Persephone into staying away from Hades so she can have him all to herself.
- Adaptational Wimp: Ares in episode 3. In the original myth, Ares was part of the Olympians' attack on the Aloads from start to finish, although he did end up captured. In the series, he doesn't even try to fight them and jumps on the first excuse he can get to stay on safe Mount Olympus.
- Alpha Bitch: Hera. Which should come as no surprise seeing as she is the most powerful of the goddesses by far and is currently dating equally popular Jerk Jock Zeus.
- Anything but That!: When the caryatids make fun of Eris, Sfiga comes to her aid and threatens the caryatids to claw their faces as scratching posts, thus resulting in a horrified reaction by the intimidated caryatids.
- Archnemesis Mom: The end of episode 3 reveals that the one responsible for the Aloads getting out of Tartarus was Nyx, Eris's mother.
- Attack Reflector: Athena's shield throws the attacker's force right back at them, as Ares finds out the hard way.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Hermes presents himself as a chipper Intrepid Reporter, but he's really an annoying little pest who doesn't know how to take 'no' for an answer.
- Blackmail: Episode 2 reveals that Minthe has... something on Persephone that allows her to pressure the latter into rejecting Hades' advances, even though she does have feeling for him.
- Blatant Lies: When Gaia asks about Paris' whereabouts and questions why he would just run away, Eris quickly replies that she doesn't know. She was the one who yelled at him to "go back where [he] came from" in the prior episode. Hermes calls her out on it right afterwards.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Eris is by no means a bad person. She just happens to have the power to turn people into overly aggressive jerks.
- Berserk Button: Sfiga despises being called a pet or anything other than a Sphinx. Paris does both of these things on their first meeting.
- Big Damn Heroes: Artemis enters the fight against the Aloads just when it looks like Athena, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are done for.
- Dark Is Not Evil:
- Eris wears a black toga and has a dark purple skin-tone, but she's nowhere near as bad as her classmates make her out to be.
- Hades' clothing is mostly black, so are his hair and eyes and he's the ruler of the underworld. However he's a Nice Guy and not nearly as scary as you'd think.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Eris makes her first appearance almost running over a dozen mythical creatures with her pegasus, then revealing that she wasn't doing it on purpose and just doesn't have the hang of riding yet. This establishes her as a misunderstood loner whom everyone steadily assumes the worst of and whose own actions often attribute to that.
- Hera's very first speaking line has her arrogantly dismissing the news of an upcoming mortal exchange student by asking why her fellow goddesses would even care about some mortal. Which all but cements her as an arrogant Alpha Bitch.
- Zeus is introduced entering the school in a blaze of light while the other gods stare in awe. Hera lights up instantly when she sees him and they share a quick sweet moment together. He immediately starts a game of disk- throwing with his brothers Poseidon and Hades afterwards, establishing him as a very popular Jerk Jock who knows he's popular and doesn't mind showing off why. And who's in a relationship with Hera.
- Poseidon is first shown trying to flirt with an utterly unimpressed Athena. When that fails, he tries his luck on some nymphs, but ends up utterly embarrassing himself when he accidentally hits himself with a beam of water from his own trident. Establishing his status as resident Casanova Wannabe and Butt-Monkey.
- Hades mostly stands off to the side, almost immediately ditches his brothers to shyly ask out Persephone and looks pretty hurt when she rejects him. This informs the viewer of his Nice Guy qualities, as well as his rocky relationship with his crush Persephone.
- Eyes Always Shut: Medusa always has her eyes closed, probably to keep herself from turning everyone around her into stone.
- Fantastic Racism: None of the Olympians seem especially empathetic towards Paris. When he goes missing, none of them but Eris is willing to search for him. Medusa even gleefully admits that she hopes he's dead.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: An error example. As Sfiga and Eris leave the caryatids after the former defended her friend from them, the mouths on three of the five caryatids present suddenly change to cringes.
- Hypocrite:
- Ares gets mad at Aphrodite for flirting with Hephaestus, but in episode 3 he's blatantly making the moves on Eos.
- Hera yells at Aphrodite for her Skewed Priorities and how she puts her love life above the dire situation they're in, but starts raving about how worried she is about Zeus right afterwards.
- It's Personal: Medusa has a pretty hefty grudge against mortals, stemming from her being beheaded by one in the past.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Hera kind of has a point when she tells Aphrodite that it's kind of messed up of her to worry about her relationship with Ares while Olympus is under attack. Not to mention four of their own are out fighting and risking their lives. Though she was still unnecessarily harsh about it.
- Kick the Dog: Hera viciously tearing into kind-hearted Aphrodite and calling her selfish and stupid for worrying about her and Ares' relationship.
- Lean and Mean: Minthe is noticeably haggard and an Entitled Bitch who threatens Persephone to keep her away from Hades.
- The Magnificent: Gods are granted epithets in a special ceremony after particularly notable deeds. When Artemis defeats the Aloads, she gets the epithets "Artemis of the Deer" and "Artemis Savior" and a new outfit alongside them.
- Mocking the Mourner: Subverted. Sfiga threatens the caryatids by saying how they would like to join their missing sister, which shocks the caryatids and finally shuts them up from verbally tormenting Eris.Sfiga: How would they like to join their missing sister?
- My God, What Have I Done?: Eris regrets her harsh words toward Paris when she realises he's gone missing during the Aload's attack.
- Mythology Gag:
- Eris is always wearing a pin in the shape of a golden apple. A golden apple was what Eris in the original mythos used to start a fight between Hera, Aphrodite and Athena as revenge for not being invited to Peleus' and Thetis' wedding.
- Upon seeing the gods and goddesses at the entrance ceremony, Kronos swoons about how cute they all are and remarks how he just wants to eat them all up. In the original Theogony, that's exactly what he did.
- In episode 2, Poseidon suggests changing his appearance as a possible gift for Hera from Zeus. When Zeus transforms into a chicken, Poseidon exasperatedly tells him to be more creative and turn into, for example, a white bull. Those familiar with Greek mythology might remember that a white bull was what Zeus turned into to kidnap princess Europa. Which makes Artemis' comment on the idea all the more hilarious.
Artemis: A bull? How romantic.- In Episode 4, Zeus and Poseidon use the Omma to spy on women, with Zeus picking out a particular woman named Danae and trying to get her attention by making golden rain. In the myths, this was how he impregnated her and how Perseus was conceived.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Eris tries to defend Paris from Hermes and the other gods, which results in her accidentally using her powers and causing all of her classmates and Paris to go crazy for a short time. Paris thanks her by ratting her out as soon as the other gods put the slightest bit of pressure on him afterwards.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Sfiga is this to Eris. Downplayed slightly since almost none of the other characters are human either.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Zeus orders Artemis to stay behind and leave fighting the Aloads to him and the guys. Downplayed, as he's perfectly fine with Athena accompanying them. Though that may just be because he needed her to show them the way.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Eris has golden eyes and is a goddess of chaos. When she unleashes her magic, the people affected gain golden eyes too.
- Token Human: Paris is the first and only human to go to Mount Olympus as part of an exchange program.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: Since the gods are all teenagers in the series, their family trees have been changed significantly. Zeus is no longer the father of most of the present gods like Ares or Apollo, Artemis seems to be his sister and there is no significant connection between him and Hermes.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Gods and Goddesses can take on every form they want.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sfiga doesn't even like Paris, but she still calls Eris out on feeding him lotus fruits to make him forget.
- Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Eris has gold-yellow eyes and the power to turn mortals and gods into berserkers in an instant. Slightly subverted as Eris doesn't do it on purpose and is actually going through a fair bit of Heroic Self-Deprecation afterwards.
