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Zeus and his siblings; the first generation of Classical Mythology's Olympian gods.

Zeus / Jupiter / Tinia

Ζεύς | Iūpiter/Iovis | 𐌀𐌉𐌍𐌉𐌕 | ♃ | Zeus^note Derived from Proto-Hellenic *Dzéus ("sky god"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Dyḗus ("daylight-sky-god"), from the root *di- or *dei- ("to shine, be bright" and "sky, heaven") / Jupiter^note Derived from Proto-Italic *Djous patēr ("sky father"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr ("father daylight-sky-god") , from the root *di- or *dei- ("to shine, be bright" and "sky, heaven") / Tinia^note Translated "diurnal, of or pertaining to the day", derived from Etruscan *tin ("day")

The god-king of the pantheon; his domain is the sky and thunder, associated with leadership and law. He is just as well known, if not more, for his astronomical amount of lovers and children. The Romans identified him with their god Jupiter,^note Or more accurately, Iupiter, a contraction of older Iou pater (literally "sky father"). The alternative English name Jove is derived from the oblique stem of Jupiter, Iov-. while the Etruscans equated him with Tinia.

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• Abduction Is Love: He carried away several of his lovers, most notably Europa and Ganymede.
• Abusive Parents:
  • He was on both the giving and receiving ends of this trope. His father Cronus was as abusive to Zeus as he was abusive to his children. He is not the best dad around (if he is around in the case of his demigod children...), but depending on what myth you read, he is downright horrible to some of his children.
  • Crossed with God-Eating. According to some myths, he swallowed his first wife Metis, the titaness of wisdom, when she was pregnant with Athena, because he was afraid of a prophecy that said that his and Metis's second child would eventually rise up to overthrow him like Zeus did with his own father Cronus and Cronus did his father Ouranos, and did not want to risk a second pregnancy for Metis (and not had the self-restraint to not sleep with her anyway). Some versions state that any son Metis bore would overthrow his father, and Zeus ate her out of fear of such a son. Fortunately for Zeus, it turned out that Athena was a girl. Unfortunately for Athena and Metis, this made them being eaten unnecessary.
  • Crossed with A Family Affair. In the Orphic tales, he sexually assaulted his daughter Persephone at least twice (he seduced her in the form of a serpent — the symbol of her husband Hades, Zeus' brother — committing rape by fraud), which resulted in the births of Melinoe and Zagreus. It should however be noted that Orphism conflates Zeus and Hades, as the respective celestial and chthonic aspects of a singular Top God. Therefore, the chthonic Zeus that appears in these myths is both Zeus and Hades.
  • He may have been responsible for making Hephaestus lame by throwing him off Olympus, although another version stated it was Hera who did that.
  • He let Ares get imprisoned by giants and often badmouths him.
• Adaptational Badass: It's believed that he was a relatively minor god in the Mycenean religion, with his Top God status instead belonging to Poseidon. In the Classical Greek pantheon, however, he's indisputably the king of the gods.
• Amicable Exes: With some of his other goddess paramours, most notably Demeter, with whom he seems to be on relatively amiable terms after the birth of Persephone. The only time she is seen getting mad at him, it was for a perfectly understandable reason — namely, marrying off their daughter without consulting her first.
• Angel Unaware: Like his daughter Athena and his sons Hermes and Dionysus, Zeus usually disguises himself whenever he has to interact with mortals, for various reasons.
• Animal Motifs: He was often depicted with an eagle and also associated with bulls.
• Anti-Hero: Pretty much how his character comes across overall. Of course, whether you encountered his favour or wrath depended on who you were, what you had done, and whether you encountered the big guy on a good day.
• Awful Wedded Life: His marriage to Hera is famously acrimonious and toxic. Filled with adultery, acts of revenge, abuse, and at least one attempted coup. And outside of that, in some versions of the myths he's been married anywhere from two to six times (Metis, Themis, Eurynome, Mnemosyne, Demeter...), most ending in divorce save for his marriage to Hera, and his first — and seemingly only happy — marriage with Metis, ending in cannibalism.
• Barrier Maiden: As the god that maintains cosmic order and divine law, the workings of the universe as we know it are dependent upon Zeus's authority. Zeus's daughters by Themis, the Horae (Hours/Seasons) and Moirai (Fates) control the flow of time/turning of the constellations and the lives of mortals, respectively. When Zeus is briefly incapacitated by Typhon, the result is very nearly The End of the World as We Know It.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Rhea is one of the only elder Titans whom Zeus not only permits to be worshiped, but actively encourages and over himself, not because she’s his mother, but rather because she saved his life at great risk to herself.
  • He immortalizes Baucis and Philemon together forever as trees to repay them for their kindness while he was slumming it as a mortal.
• Berserk Button: He has a couple of them:
  • He hates it when anyone breaches the divisions between mortals and gods. He originally considered fire to be the divine property, and after Prometheus's cow stunt, refused to let humans have it. When Prometheus stole fire and gave it to humans, Zeus furiously chained the former to a rock and sent an eagle to feast on his liver every day. Later, when his son Apollo's own child, Asclepius, became such a good healer that he could raise the dead, Zeus killed his own grandson with a thunderbolt for effectively giving humans immortality, although he may have done so to minimize damage given how Hades was furious that a mortal had robbed him of a subject.
  • Kinslaying and violations of xenia, the Greek custom of Sacred Hospitality, also made Zeus pretty hot under the collar. Tantalus and Lycaon both murdered and cooked their sons into meals they tried to serve to Zeus, who was their guest at the time. Ixion first invited his father-in-law to visit before throwing him into a pit of burning coals and wood, fled to Zeus for purification, and eventually tried to rape Hera while he was Zeus's guest. In every case, Zeus made sure they lived to regret it. Let's also not forget the party guests who stay passed the point of welcome, too. You can ask Penelope's suitors how that goes.
• Big Good: Despite his behavior in myths, the Greeks believed he held such a role in the cosmos. He was the patron deity of kingship, law, order, hospitality, and other things just about every ancient Greek citizen valued highly. Not to mention he was the father of several demigod heroes, thus playing a more direct role in some stories.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: His iconic weapon is the Trope Codifier.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Hera, his queen, is also his sister. He also slept with his other sister Demeter, producing Persephone.
• Canon Immigrant: It is believed that he is not actually of Greek origin, but seems to have arisen from the faith of the proto-Indo-European peoples, who had a sky god named *Dyēus. As late as the 1200s BCE, he was still known, but not yet considered a Top God.
• Composite Character: Zeus was syncretized with many other important deities throughout the ancient Mediterranean world- something that is generally thought to be a major contributing factor in his rather dissonant and schizophrenic characterization, along with his many lovers (as those gods' consorts would be syncretized with various other Greek goddesses). Notable examples include Serapis (a Hellenistic-age deity that combined Zeus, Hades, Dionysus, and several other Greek deities with Osiris and Apis) and Zeus-Ammon (combining Zeus and the Egyptian Top God Amun, depicted as Zeus with a ram's horns, whom Alexander the Great claimed was his father).
• Cool Horse: He kept Pegasus after Bellerophon's fall.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • He's possibly the god who suffered from this trope the worst. Myths involving Zeus as a noble protector of justice and those featuring him as a selfish philanderer were so different in how he was portrayed that they bear almost no resemblance to one another. There was also potentially a significant disconnect from how Zeus was portrayed in myths and how his worshippers actually viewed him, as there were many ancient philosophers who decried the depiction of Zeus as a lecherous tyrant as blasphemous.
  • Originally different cities had different goddesses as Zeus' wife. Eventually this became him having multiple wives with Hera as his chief wife and he himself being a serial polygamist. This has since been flanderized into him being a serial philanderer.
• Depraved Bisexual: He usually went for beautiful women, but like most Greek men of his age, he was charmed by a Pretty Boy or two, most famously Ganymede.
• Deus ex Machina: There are several stories where he shows up out of nowhere to magically solve a problem or end some poor sod's suffering only to then disappear.
• Dirty Coward: Some takes on him suggest that, for all his supposed righteousness, he's a coward at heart from a moral standpoint. He tends to pass any difficult decisions onto others and fail to protect said judges from the wrath of the losing god, will let injustices slide rather than deal with a powerful god, and will not stand up to his wife when she persecutes his (sometimes pregnant) lovers and their children by him. The general excuse for not standing up to other gods is that Zeus is not supposed to interfere in their domains (e.g. Hera has the divine duty to punish adulterers). This often comes across as more of an excuse than a reason, given how he is willing to violate his own responsibilities or the rules including the affairs of other gods whenever he wants something.
• Doting Parent: Played With. Seems to love his immortal daughters dearly, though that doesn't mean he won't treat them pretty badly once in a while. Athena is his favorite child to the point that she can borrow the Aegis whenever she wants it and to a lesser degree, his thunderbolt. He once gave Artemis ten wishes with no conditions though he later acts quite badly in his relationship with her by raping one of his daughters' companions with regards to the tale of Callisto. While his suggestion to Hades to kidnap Persephone seems to be a subversion, some versions of the myth note that two of her most troublesome, unmarried half-brothers, Apollo and Hermes, already have their eyes on her, so marrying her off to the calmer Hades to nip that in the bud is sort of understandable — and their actual life together may validate the whole thing. He also clearly quite loved Heracles, once blessing Heracles with his aegis and also being the reason Heracles is deified after his death.
• Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: The trope image and around a third of the examples are devoted to his "exploits", although him being a rapist rather than a mere philanderer is primarily an invention of Ovid. He chased Asteria, Nemesis, and Thetis (who managed to escape), as well as got forcibly involved with his own great-granddaughter Semele, Elara, Io, his own descendants Danae and Alcmene, Europa, Leda, Ganymide, and Callisto (Artemis' favorite hunter).
  Overly Sarcastic Productions: I will be the first to admit that I gloss over a lot of this stuff in my videos [...] And when I do talk about that stuff, it feels disingenuous to talk about anything else, as if that first thing isn't very much a dealbreaker for finding the characters heroic or compelling! Basically every modern retelling or reimagining of Greek mythology heavily sanitizes the stories in one way or another. [...] From a modern perspective, when we look back at the original tellings, it's very difficult to see Zeus doing his thing and conclude anything other than that the king of the gods is an omnipotent serial rapist who leaves a trail of shattered lives and bastard children in his wake and this pantheon is a fucking nightmare.
• Flanderization: Many adaptations (which don't just Bowdlerize out all his less than moral deeds) tend to focus on his promiscuity and cruelty because of the many myths about how something came to be because Zeus slept with a mortal woman and/or killed someone. There were also stories where Zeus's benevolent aspects, such as the god of justice or patron of Sacred Hospitality, would be emphasized (a prime example is the story of Baucis and Philemon), but these are (perhaps unsurprisingly) not as well-remembered. Values Dissonance does not help. An additional example, is his reputation as a serial philanderer. Due to monarchs of the time having multiple wives and in the earliest myths these were actual marriages, Zeus is closer to a serial polygamist making Hera in turn to a jealous chief wife.
• Freudian Trio: With his brothers. He is The Ego, prone to grand acts of self-indulgence and constantly bringing new wives into his harem, which is far less stoic than Hades but compared to Poseidon, at least he tries seducing his lovers first instead of just ravaging them. In addition, he is also far less methodical than Hades who can wait a literal lifetime to strike, but more in favor of poetic punishments than Poseidon.
• Fusion Dance:
  • Some interpretations of Metis' ultimate fate lean towards this — since she can't die inside him, she ends up subsumed completely and becomes part of him, with Zeus becoming wiser as a result. This is because Metis, as the goddess of thought, is the personification of the literal thoughts in his head.
  • According to one of the Orphic Fragments (from the Derveni Papyrus), Zeus also swallowed Phanes to subsume him into his being, becoming a Cosmic Entity that encompasses all other gods and the universe itself.
• Generation Xerox: In some versions of Dionysus' backstory, Zeus sends baby Dionysus to his mother Rhea to protect him from Hera, just as Rhea sent baby Zeus to her mother Gaia to protect him from Kronos.
• God-Emperor: Of the Greek deities.
• God of Light: Helios is frequently said to be his eye and the sun "Zeus borne light", particularly in Late Antiquity as both gods were equated. In Crete and in a few other regions Zeus was worshipped as an outright sun god.
• God of Order:
  • ZigZagged. As the king of gods, he is supposed to enforce law and leadership, with Sacred Hospitality as one his domains. His most admirable qualities are his hate for liars, oathbreakers and the unjust. Ironically, he was these very things in his personal life and often acts too much of a hedonist that a god of order is expected to act.
  • Zeus is responsible not only for law and leadership on a human scale, but for the natural order itself — the rising and setting of the sun, the turning of the seasons, the very laws of physics are all created and/or enforced by Zeus.
• God of Thunder: One of the most famous examples, if not outright the Trope Codifier, of a deity having Shock and Awe powers.
• The Good King: How his worshippers viewed him. Writers such as Hesiod depicted him in a very complimentary light, exemplifying his more noble traits and depicting as him a wise, respected and beloved ruler who frequently assisted humanity and created the core concepts of morality.
• Grandpa God: Depending on the Writer. Often depicted with silver/white hair and a beard, although classical art frequently shows him looking younger with darker hair.
• Handsome Lech: Though it is implied none of the gods have static physical forms, the ones he takes range from Bishonen, to regally masculine. Naturally no matter what form he takes, he tends to turn up the charm until the ladies (and gentlemen) feel like going for a roll in the clouds.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: He would often impregnate women by making contact with them in the form of an animal.
• Humanoid Abomination / One-Winged Angel: His true form is "the living embodiment of lightning and the tempest". In the myth of the birth of Dionysus, Hera tricked Semele into asking Zeus to show his true divine form. Due to swearing by the River Styx, he couldn't refuse and turns into an Eldritch Abomination. The only things left after that were Dionysus' fetus and Semele's ashes.
• Iconic Item: The Aegis, a vague sort of powerful protective device/shield/armor usually made from the skin of a slain monster (sometimes a slain giant, other times either Medusa or some other Gorgon, sometimes a goat, etc.) and tough enough to serve as the only defense against his thunderbolts, was this for him until he gave it to Athena as a gift, at which point it became her iconic item instead. In fact, an early epithet for Zeus was "holder of the Aegis".
• I Have Many Names: Where to start? Being one of the most-worshipped gods in Ancient Greece and Rome gives Zeus a boatload of epithets. In poetry, he's often called Kronion or Kronides ("son of Kronos"), Nephelegereta ("cloud-gatherer"), and Terpikeraunos ("who delights in thunder"). Other epithets include Eubouleos ("counsellor"), Basilius ("king"), Ombrios ("rain-giver"), Ouranios ("of the heavens"), Pankrates ("all-powerful"), Xenios ("protector of foreigners"), Panhellenios ("of all Greeks"), and many more. In Rome, he was also called Iovis and Iuppiter, and in modern Greek, he's called Δίας (Dias).
• Immortality Inducer: Notably made Tithonus and Ganymede immortal... somehow. That said, unlike the unlucky Tithonus, Zeus actually remembered to grant Ganymede eternal youth along with his immortality.
• Informed Attribute: Many Greek writers praise Zeus for his wisdom and strong sense of judgment, despite the fact that about half of the problems in the myths are caused by his terrible decisions.
• Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: He's selfish, a hypocrite and a lecherous cheat to be sure but the Ancient Greeks still viewed him as a genuinely benevolent protector god who rewarded the righteous and punished evildoers.
• Kick the Dog: He killed Iasion with a thunderbolt, for sleeping with Demeter after the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia. Why did Zeus do this? No apparent reason, he just disapproved of the pairing. Considering he impregnated Demeter to have Persephone, it may have been jealousy.
• Kissing Cousins: Several of his lovers/wives were also his first cousins, for example Leto, Selene, Asteria, Metis, Eurynome.
• Land, Sea, Sky: Zeus divided up the cosmos with his brothers, and received the sky as his domain, while Poseidon and Hades took the sea and the Underworld.
• Like Father, Like Son: Both Kronos and Zeus were the youngest of their siblings; both of them overthrew their father, married their most beautiful sisters and became the rulers of the universe. Kronos swallowed his children to prevent them from overthrowing him; Zeus went one step further and swallowed his pregnant wife to prevent her from giving birth to a son that would overthrow him. Luckily, she gave birth to a daughter named Athena who was Zeus's favourite child.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • He freed both the Cyclopes and Hekatonkhires to avenge themselves on the Titans AND gave pardons out like candy to every Titan who decided to abandon Kronos, basically gaining their rather considerable support to defeat and overthrow his father.
  • He orchestrated the Trojan War by not inviting the volatile goddess of strife, Eris, knowing she would cause mayhem among the gods, who could cause the deaths of thousands, especially with his help — given that he injured both the Greek and Trojan sides — for two reasons. One was because he was concerned that some of the many demigods now populating the world would eventually overthrow him and the other Olympians. The other was that Gaia was complaining to him that there were too many people living on her, and he wanted to keep her happy so she wouldn't create any more monsters like Typhon or the Giants. Either way, Zeus had little remorse for causing a war that killed many of his own relatives and offspring so he could stay in power.
• Mister Seahorse: To Athena (who was born from his head) and Dionysus (whose mother died before he was born, so Zeus put him under his thigh).
• Moral Myopia: Perhaps worse than the other gods due to his hypocrisy. As God of Law and Justice Zeus would punish mortals and lesser gods for things he often engaged in:
  • Zeus hated it when goddesses had affairs with mortals, only to have no problem with male gods doing the same. Calypso actually called him out on it, and Hermes had no good response.
  • Zeus condemned Ixion for attempting to rape Hera, among other crimes, despite Zeus having no problem with raping with other men's wives. In fairness, Ixion had also violated xenia after Zeus took him in out of pity.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Gender-inverted. The Other Wiki page of "Children of Zeus" has over a hundred entries.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Lust is probably Zeus's principal vice. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the majority of problems in Greek mythology can be traced directly or indirectly to one of Zeus's love affairs. However, those affairs often end up creating the characters or circumstances that make the story worth telling.
• Mystical Pregnancy: In addition to causing a lot of these, Zeus actually birthed two of his own children. Athena was born from his head, while Dionysus finished gestating in Zeus's "thigh" (possibly a euphemism for his testicles). Athena's birth is more akin to a Chest Burster situation, while Zeus was more explicitly pregnant with Dionysus.
• Nephewism: Depending on the Writer. He was raised by Amalthea, who's either a goat, or a sister of Rhea who own that goat.
• Never My Fault: Kidnapped Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus, and had to drive off the angry river god with a thunderbolt when Asopus found out. Zeus then sent Thanatos to chain Sisyphus, who had revealed to Asopus the identity of Aegina's kidnapper.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A lot of the worse things that happened in the mythos is because of the fact that he Really Gets Around.
• Nice to the Waiter: As part of following Sacred Hospitality, he was gracious both as a guest and when hosting them, since he invites even his rivals to Olympian feasts. And just for bonus points he was nice to literal waiters on Mt. Olympus like Hestia, Hebe and Ganymede — though they were respectively his favorite sister, one of his immortal daughters, and lover, so there is some bias there.
• Not Quite the Almighty: There's not actually such thing as a "supreme being" in Ancient Greek cosmology, but Zeus comes the closest. Despite his power over all the other gods and the universe at large, he still has to answer to older gods like Nyx, or the Fates, or risk undermining the natural order that he maintains.
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: As far as he was concerned as long as his lovers enjoyed it and/or said "yes" he could do whatever he liked to them, and shapeshifting was often at-play in these.
• Offing the Offspring: He has both been the victim of and perpetrated this.
• Parental Incest: Oh boy. Both ways, too.
  • In Orphic religion, he chased down his mother Rhea, both transformed into serpents, and raped her.
  • Also in Orphism, he raped his daughter Persephone twice; the first time, he took the form of a serpent and had Zagreus with her; the second he took the form of her husband Hades and had Melinoe.
  • Some versions state that Nemesis is his daughter, and that he forcibly mated with her to have Helen of Troy.
  • According to Nonnus, he also tried to sleep with another daughter, Aphrodite, only she escaped him. Another author says he had Priapus by her.
  • He had the Korybantes by the Muse Calliope. (Other stories say that Apollo is the father.)
• The Patriarch: He is the big daddy of the gods.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After abducting Ganymede, he takes pity on the boy's grieving father and compensates him by giving him high-stepping horses that carry the gods and reassures him that the boy was given an honorable position as his immortal cupbearer.
  • As a reward for their kindness to him and Hermes when they were disguised as poor travelers, he granted the elderly couple Baucis and Philemon their wish to die at the same moment by turning them into trees, an oak and a linder, embracing each other upon their deaths.
  • After learning that Tantalus killed and chopped up his own son as a sacrificial meal for the Gods to eat, he ordered the Fates to bring the boy back to life, and had Hephaestus create an ivory shoulder for him due to Demeter unwittingly eating his original one.
  • He helps out on Psyche’s quest to be with Eros. And he NEVER makes any attempt to force himself on her, and even gives his approval of her marriage to Eros and makes her a goddess. When Aphrodite protests this (mind you she’s responsible for Psyche’s pain and misery just cause she’s a rival in the looks department and didn’t want her son to be with her) he orders Aphrodite to back off.
• The Power of the Sun: He has traces of solar worship, especially in Crete and some islands, and he is identified with Helios, the sun god, in many texts.
• Really Gets Around: Often in trouble for sleeping with female deities and mortal women. Just ask Leto, Maia, and Lamia. He even sometimes goes after mortal men.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: This is how Zeus was often intended to come across, especially in a religious context. Hymns to Zeus laud him for bestowing abundance upon mortals, for keeping the cosmos running smoothly, and for justly punishing those who deserve it. A combination of Values Dissonance and Flanderization makes him appear a lot worse to a modern audience.
• Related in the Adaptation: One theory about why Zeus is such a philanderer is that ancient Greek cultures and cities all wanted their legendary heroes and founders to have divine parentage, and Zeus was the most popular choice for retellings.
• Revenge Myopia: Sent Thanatos after Sisyphus for ratting him out to Asopus, who then pursued Zeus and had to be scared off by the Olympian's thunderbolt. The fact that this wouldn't have happened if he hadn't kidnapped Asopus's daughter Aegina in the first place seemed lost on him.
• Sacred Hospitality: As Zeus Xenios, he was responsible for maintaining this law. In a myth recounted by Ovid, he and Hermes arrive in a town disguised as beggars to see how they will be treated. Everyone treats them badly except for an old couple, Philemon and Baucis. To reward them for their virtue, Zeus and Hermes not only grant them immortality by turning them into trees upon their deaths, but also ensure that the two of them pass simultaneously when their time has come.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: A combination of this and Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!. He is credited with establishing and maintaining the natural order of the universe and social order of mortals. Yet he violates both whenever he wants to even if it is wrong. He can get away with it thanks to a combination of no one being higher ranking than him and the fact to being the most powerful god short of most Protogenoi. This is an exaggeration. There are instances in which Zeus refrains from undermining the natural order that he established, because doing so would be an unwise move. One such instance is when he does not defy Fate to prevent the death of his son Sarpedon. Even though he technically could if he wanted to, doing so would enable all the other gods to defy Fate to protect their own children, resulting in chaos.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: He changed his form several times when he wanted to have an affair with a mortal woman.
  • Zeus turned into Hades just to seduce Persephone! However, this story was a ret-con when the rise of Polis was occurring and Hades was re-written as simply being a chthonic god, with Zagreus's paternity passed on to Zeus.
  • Perseus was conceived when Zeus rained on Perseus's mother, Danae, in the form a "shower of gold."
  • Carried off Europa in the form of a bull.
  • Used the trope's more usual form with Alcmene by taking the shape of her husband so well she was totally fooled.
  • The story that he (initially) hid his true form from Semele presumably includes him taking an attractive mortal human form with her.
  • He was in swan form when he chased and raped Leda (or Nemesis, Depending on the Writer).
• Shipper on Deck: In all versions, Hades asks Zeus's permission to marry Persephone. Zeus doesn't object at all and even suggests to Hades that the latter abducts his daughter.
• Shock and Awe: Zeus wields the thunderbolt, the most powerful weapon in Greek mythology. It was forged for him by the elder cyclopes.
• Solar and Lunar: With Hera. Plutarch says that Zeus is Helios (Sun) in material form, and Hera Selene (Moon).
• Sympathetic Adulterer: He was likely viewed as this by his worshippers. In Ancient Greece, the modern view of adultery didn't exist and husbands were allowed to take on as many mistresses and concubines as they wanted. This means that Zeus's behavior wouldn't be seen as immoral or at least no worse behavior than what the average Greek king got up to. Likewise, his many affairs led to the birth of many of Greece's most beloved heroes and allowed for the power fantasy that anyone could potentially have divine heritage.
• Top God: The Trope Codifier for the "King of Gods" version, effectively gained by toppling Cronus.
• Troubled Abuser: Sure, he treats his children like crap, but he didn't exactly have a happy childhood either. His father Cronus treated Zeus and his siblings far worse than Zeus treats his own children. Not that treatment justifies anything, of course.
• Truly Single Parent: Depending on some versions, Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus' head with no mother to be seen. In other versions, Metis was the mother.
• Weather Manipulation: As the god of Thunder, and the sky in general. The firmament was his domain and he had complete control over it though Shock and Awe was his specialty.
• Western Zodiac: Manilius associates Zeus with Leo, alongside his mother Rhea. Traditional astrology associates him with Sagittarius, as the sign ruled by Jupiter.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Surprisingly subverted, considering how attempts to avoid a prophecy usually ended in classical mythology, in The Theogony. After they married, Metis was destined to have a daughter with Zeus, then a son who would topple him. In order to avert this, he subsumes her into his being, essentially stopping her from bearing his son. Despite Athena's birth from Zeus's skull, the fated son of Metis and Zeus was never born. Not yet, at least.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Semele begs to see Zeus in his true, divine form. Zeus tries to talk her out of it, but for various reasons depending on the telling, has no choice but to reveal his true form to her. The resulting lightning storm incinerates her.
• Youngest Child Wins: The youngest child of Cronus and the one who ultimately triumphs over him and leads the Olympians.

Hera / Juno / Uni

Ἥρα | Iūnō | 𐌉𐌍𐌖 | ⚵ | Hera^note Etymology uncertain. Possibly derived from Proto-Hellenic *i̯ḗrā-, the feminine variant of *i̯ḗrōṷ- ("period of time"), itself ultimately derived from Proto-Indo European *Hi̯eh₁r-éh₂-, the feminine variant of *Hi̯eh₁r-oṷ- ("period of time"). Alternatively, may instead have been derived Proto-Indo European *ser- (“watch over, protect”). Possibly instead from Proto-Hellenic *héřřō ("to bind, to tie") or *həřřō ("to take, to grasp, seize"), from Proto-Indo-European *sērah₂- ("(good) to be taken/robbed", i.e. "a girl who has been forcibly taken/robbed"), from the root *ser- ("to bind, to tie together" or "to take, to grasp, seize"). Or instead from Proto-Indo-European *sērah₂- ("female partner", i.e. "the female who is attached/coupled" or "the female who attaches herself"), a vṛddhi derivative of *sor- ("woman, female") / Juno^note Either derived from Proto-Indo-European *dyúh₃onh₂- or *dyúh₃nh₂- (“having heavenly authority”), from the root *dyeu- ("sky, heaven") or from Proto-Indo-European *h₂yúh₃onh₂- or *h₂yúh₃nh₂- (“the young goddess”), from the root *h₂óyu ("long time, lifetime") / Uni^note Etymology uncertain. Possibly derived from Latin iūn-, a syncopated form of iuvenis ("youth")

Zeus' older sister and wife. She was the queen of the gods and goddess of marriage and women. Perpetually ticked off at anyone who wronged her, such as insulting her, allowing themselves to be seduced by her husband or being the love-child of such an assignation. The Romans identified her with their goddess Juno, while the Etruscans equated her with Uni.

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• Abusive Parents: In several versions of Hephaestus's origin myth, Hera throws him off the side of Olympus as a newborn because of his deformities.
• Action Girl: While most people play up her submission to Zeus, it's worth to note that several myths cater to her war-like sensibilities, most notably in The Iliad where she is the charioteer of Athena, and in her confrontation with Artemis she effortlessly disarms Artemis of her bow and thrashes her with it, taunting her all the while to stick to hunting wild beasts. She fights Artemis a second time in The Dionysiaca, with similar results.
• Affair? Blame the Bastard: She can't do much against Zeus himself due to his position and power outranking her, so she takes it out on his lovers and bastards. Take Heracles for example: Zeus names him Heracles (literally, "Glory of Hera") specifically to try to appease her and defy this trope... but she's not having any of it, and tries to have Heracles killed at least once.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: One of the few gender-flipped versions and for a specific reason. As goddess of marriage she refused to be bedded by anyone not her husband. When Zeus shape-shifted his way into sharing a bed with her, she insisted the two get married to preserve her honor.
• Animal Motifs: The peacock is her sacred animal though she was also associated with lions, cows and the cuckoo.
• Arch-Enemy: Towards Herakles; while she hated a lot of Zeus' illegitimate children, she had it out for him the most, to the point that even his name was a futile attempt at appeasing her. She got over it when he saved her from the giant, Porphyrion, and allowed him to marry her daughter Hebe when he became an immortal.
• Awful Wedded Life: It's honestly a wonder she never invoked her powers as the goddess of marriage to simply divorce Zeus the way their grandmother Gaia did Oranos.
• Big Bad: Of Herakles' labors. She's the one who hates him for having the wrong dad.
• Birds of a Feather: The whole point of her relationship is that she and Zeus are very much alike—that is to say, they're both volatile and capricious. She alone shares his ability to govern the weather, which none of their children (legitimate or otherwise) possess. Then again, the ability to change the weather might be one of those things that tends to skip a generation; Cronus didn't have them either, yet Ouranos before him was a sky deity.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Big time. Many of the myths involving her have her going after innocent mortal women and their children, because she can't take out her anger on Zeus.
• Blaming the Victim: It didn't matter if Zeus took somebody by force or deception; she'd wreak cruel vengeance against them regardless.
• Brother–Sister Incest: She and Zeus were siblings and wife/husband. Not that this was unusual in Classical Mythology, they're just the prime example of this.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • For justifiable reasons. Zeus is her husband, after all, and she has a right to feel slighted by his infidelity. However, her response to it is usually Disproportionate Retribution.
  • The majority of Zeus's lovers, most of whom tend to be quick flings, actually often go unbothered by Hera. The prominent handful that do suffer her wrath tend to be the ones Zeus shows significant affection and attention to, such as Leto and Semele.
  • The only thing she hates more than her husband's infidelity is the idea that he might take another wife other than her. One myth has her leaving Olympus after a nasty quarrel with Zeus and refusing to return. To lure her back, Zeus dresses up a wooden statue in wedding clothes and announces that he is taking a river nymph as a new bride. Upon hearing about it, an enraged Hera immediately crashes the fake wedding and assaults the dummy, becoming so relieved that it was just a trick that she quickly forgets her anger and reconciles with Zeus.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: She's the goddess of marriage, but she can only stand by and seethe while her husband cheats on her over and over again.
• Didn't Think This Through: Hera at one point rallies the other Olympians to join in on her rebellion against Zeus. They manage to successfully capture him and separate him from his thunderbolt... and then the rebellion almost immediately crashes and burns because they get too wrapped up arguing who should actually become the new leader of the Olympians.
• Disproportionate Retribution: May as well be her middle name. She is often excessively cruel to Zeus's various mistresses, regardless of whether they are gods or mortals. For example, she tried to prevent the goddess Leto from giving birth and tricked Semele into being burnt to cinders by Zeus. Her treatment of his children by his mistresses is worse — she made Heracles insane so that he'd kill his own family and then continued to plague him during his penance, and Dionysus had to be hidden away from her so she wouldn't try to kill him (again). According to some stories, she even flung her own son Hephaestus off Olympus simply for being ugly, permanently damaging his legs.
• Domestic Abuse: Zeus has been known to beat her before. On one occasion, he even hung her by her wrists from the heavens, with anvils attached to her ankles weighing her down.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Hera has a lot of them and mostly goes full villain when they are not met, but even at her worst, Hera is still woefully embarrassed by Ares's actions. The tragedy of this is Ares learned most of it from watching her, but goes so far into Blood Knight territory, she is personally embarrassed by him.
  • She was initially Jason's patron (albeit partly due to her hatred of his Evil Uncle Pelias) and would often go to great lengths to help him, but after he abandoned his wife Medea despite promising to love her forever, Hera and all the other gods stopped favoring him and left him to miserably live out the rest of his life.
• Evil Virtues: Even when she's the antagonist, she has virtues born of her character flaws — fittingly, someone who will Kick the Dog when it disobeys her is actually going to Pet the Dog when it shows her Undying Loyalty, see Argus, Hebe and Echidna.
• Freudian Excuse: Hey, Zeus cheated on her one too many times. That shit don't fly on Mount Olympus. To say it’s an extreme embarrassment to have an unfaithful husband while maintaining her role as the goddess of marriage would be an understatement.
• God of the Moon: Associated with the Moon/Selene as a goddess of childbirth, since in ancient Greece they believed women had the easiest labours during the full moon.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Easily slighted and as vengeful as they come. Granted, many myths are told of Zeus's progeny by lesser wives, whom she is predisposed to dislike.
• Green-Eyed Monster: A likely reason for her going after Zeus's children via his lesser wives is that he openly holds many of them in higher esteem than the children he has with her.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Doubly-so if you're one of Zeus's paramours.
• Happily Married: It doesn't come across in the myths at all, but actual cults who worshipped her and Zeus as a couple portrayed them as being very loving and happy together.
• The Hecate Sisters: Some of Hera's epithets reference the different stages of a woman's life; she's called Pais ("child"), Nympheuomene ("bride"), Teleia ("adult woman"), and Khera ("widow"). (Ironically, Hecate herself is not an example of this trope.)
• The High Queen: When not wrathful, she's a benevolent and fair queen who protects mothers and wives and is generally well-disposed toward faithful husbands.
• Jerkass to One: If you weren't involved with Zeus, she was a fair queen with a strong sense of justice and loyalty to her servants and followers. If you were (especially if you were one of Zeus's lovers or kids by someone other than her), then she was a spiteful monster who'd stop at nothing to ruin your life no matter what you actually did.
• I Have Many Names: Among Hera's epithets are Boopis ("cow-eyed"), Basilia ("queen"), Leukolenos ("white-armed"), and Gamelia ("of marriage").
• An Ice Person: In the Dionysiaca, when fighting Artemis, Hera freezes Artemis's arrows with a veil of clouds and then throws them back at her as hailstones.
• Ironic Name: One of the proposed etymologies for her name (proposed by Plato, before modern linguistics arose, so...) is "beloved," to convey that she married Zeus out of love. This is despite their relationship consisting of an endless cycle of spite, not to mention that in some versions, she married Zeus in shame after he seduced her in the form of a cuckoo bird and then raped her.
• Karma Houdini: While she did occasionally get punished, she usually got away scot-free for the things she did to Zeus's mortal children and lovers. The Orphic story of Zagreus is possibly the best example, as the Titans who murder baby Zagreus get smote by Zeus for it... but Hera, who instigated the whole thing, is never punished for having a baby ripped apart.
• Kick the Dog:
  • She drives Heracles into a temporary fit of madness, during which he kills his entire family.
  • In one version of Tiresias' myth, Hera struck him blind for taking Zeus's side in an argument.
  • Hera killed Queen Lamia's children after Zeus showed interest in her, driving her to such madness that the torment turned her into a murderous snake monster. Hera also cursed her with insomnia to prevent her from any type of reprieve from her grief.
• Lady of War:
  • In some myths, she has the same power to control the weather as Zeus and goes to town with it. As the Roman Juno, she is more consistently so.
  • In The Iliad, she beats the stuffing out of Artemis, who goes off crying to her daddy Zeus.
• Lunacy: As a lunar goddess.
• The Masochism Tango: The one thing she hated more than being married to Zeus was the idea that someone else might be. She might yell at him, try to overthrow him, and torture his lovers and children to get back at him, and he might physically abuse and cheat on her, but the one time she tried to leave him, Zeus got her back by pretending to marry a nymph (actually a wooden doll dressed up in wedding clothes); when Hera heard of the "marriage", she immediately returned to attack Zeus's new wife.
• Misplaced Retribution: Hera couldn't act against Zeus for his infidelity, so punishing others was her only method of getting even.
• Moral Myopia: It should be noted that the modern-day view of adultery did not exist in ancient Greek culture and husbands were permitted to have mistresses and concubines. This implies that Hera, as the goddess of marriage, either condoned or didn't care about other husbands cheating on their wives but was enraged over Zeus being frequently unfaithful to her.
• My Beloved Smother: To Hebe, whom she fawns over as her only legitimate, birth daughter.
• Pet the Dog:
  • There are a few myths where she's mostly neutral or even benign; the story of Jason (of Golden Fleece fame) is probably the most well-known, as she was his patron goddess and gave him a high blessing. ...At least until Jason dumped Medea and told her to be content as his side-chick.
  • Despite her legendary hatred of Zeus' children, she didn't attack Perseus in any way, and nymphs attending her orchards aided him in his quest. It probably helps that Perseus is a Momma's Boy and a caring husband who never cheats on his wife, qualities that Hera is sure to appreciate.
  • While famous for her wrath, she inversely was quite grateful for faithful service to her and commemorated both Argus and Karkinos after their deaths with the peacock's tail being made to represent Argus' many eyes and the Cancer constellation resembling the crab Karkinos.
  • During the whole debacle about Eros and Psyche, Hera is sympathetic towards Psyche and ships them. As a result, she occasionally gives advice and encouragement to Psyche and also tries to persuade Aphrodite to tone down her antagonism, which sadly fails until, ironically, Zeus comes to interfere on Eros' behalf.
• Revenge by Proxy: Since there's nothing she can do to directly confront Zeus about his serial infidelity, she harasses his mistresses and illegitimate children instead, especially Herakles.
• Shipper on Deck: She along with her sister Demeter both supported Psyche in her attempts to reunite with her husband Eros after she took the time to clean their respective temples. Though they were unable to aid her directly, they did give her much-needed counsel.
• Second Love: She is Zeus's second wife, and he devours Metis to be with her, ironically making Hera the first "other-woman".
  • Zig-zagged. Taking it even further, Hesiod says Hera's actually Zeus seventh and last wife, in the legal sense. His previous wives being Metis, Themis, Eurynome, Demeter, Menemosyne and Leto (and, additionally, Dione, who was his ancient feminine counterpart). Although he devoured Metis, he never ended his relationship with either Themis, Eurynome and Mnemosyne, with whom Hera coexisted peacefully, Leto being the only one driven out of Olympus by Hera, probably because her future children (Apollo and Artemis) were destined to be even greater than Hera's children.
• Solar and Lunar: With Zeus. Plutarch says that Zeus is Helios (Sun) in material form, and Hera Selene (Moon).
• Top Wife: What she actually is. Due to the standards of the time, monarchs typically had multiple wives and in the earliest myths, Zeus' romances actually were marriages to various goddesses, meaning Hera is actually a jealous chief wife rather than a victim of an unfaithful husband. The actual victims are Zeus' lesser wives and their children.
• Virgin Power:
  • According to a myth from Argos, Hera restores her virginity annually by bathing in the spring of Kanathos. According to other myths, she gave birth to Hephaestus without any male involvement.
  • According to a Roman myth, Juno gave birth to Mars (Ares) without any male involvement, but Vulcan (Hephaestus) was fathered by Jupiter.
• Weather Manipulation: Occasionally considered a sky-goddess, especially after her marriage to Zeus when she became Queen of Heaven. She was also occasionally called the "mother of breezes" and there was the story of her turning Artemis' arrows into hailstones.
• Western Zodiac: Manilius associated her with Aquarius, as Zeus's opposite.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Much is made of her having large, dark eyes, especially since one of her sacred animals is the cow. Common epithets are "sloe-eyed" and "cow-eyed."
• Wicked Stepmother: She manages to get this trope Older Than Feudalism. She often conspired against Zeus's mortal offspring as revenge for her husband's infidelities, including Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, and, most famously, Heracles, being the Archenemy and Big Bad of his arc.
• Would Hurt a Child: She occasionally would try to kill Zeus's lovechildren before adulthood.
  • Heracles famously had Hera send a snake after him as an infant.
  • In Orphic tradition, she murdered Zagreus by having Titans tear him apart.
  • She might have killed Lamia's children, or tricked her into killing them herself, though there's also versions where she just kidnapped them.
• Woman Scorned: Most myths about her focused on this aspect. If you know anything about Zeus, you'd know that he provided many reasons for her to feel this way.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: If the hymns dedicated to her are to be believed, the ancient Greeks actually considered Hera to be this, referring to her as "the greatest beauty among immortals or goddesses." In contrast, Aphrodite, despite modern presumptions, is rarely referred to this way.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She the Big Bad of more than a few stories involving Zeus's children, but said antagonism is the result of Revenge by Proxy against the cheating husband who sired them.
• Yandere: To a certain extent; most of her crazy is generally turned against Zeus's paramours, though he felt the lash of her scorn as well. It's just that she couldn't do anything to Zeus besides yell at him.

Poseidon / Neptune / Nethuns

Ποσειδῶν | Neptūnus | 𐌔𐌍𐌖𐌈𐌄𐌍 | ♆ | Poseidon^note Etymology uncertain. Possibly derived from Greek words pósis ("lord, master, husband") and da, which is classically explained as the Attic/Ionic variant of an archaic Doric form of gê ("earth"), thus translating as either "husband of Earth" (referring to Demeter) or "lord of the earth". Alternatively, the second element might instead have been derived from the (presumed) Doric word *dâwon ("water"), itself derived from Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- ("water") or *dʰenh₂- ("to run, flow"), thus producing *Posei-dawōn ("master of waters") / Neptune^note Probably derived from Proto-Italic *neptūnos, itself derived from Proto-Indo-European *nébʰos ("cloud, moisture, mist"), from the root *nebʰ- ("damp, wet, moist"), but this is disputed / Nethuns^note Possibly derived from Umbrian *Nehtuns, itself derived from Proto-Indo-European *nébʰos ("cloud, moisture, mist"), from the root *nebʰ- ("damp, wet, moist")

God of the oceans and earthquakes. The Romans equated him with their god Neptune, while his Etruscan equivalent was Nethuns. In the Mycenean period, Poseidon was a chthonic deity who may have been Top God, but these elements were lost over time.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Before he got married, he was this for Demeter.
• Adaptational Wimp: He was the Top God in Mycenean Greece, being the ruler of the ocean and land, in contrast to being 'merely' the ruler of the seas in Classical Greece.
• Always Someone Better: Poseidon always resented being second to his younger brother Zeus, despite being master of the seas. In The Iliad he protests when Zeus commands him not to aid the Achaeans, saying he and Hades are Zeus's equals.
• Animal Motifs: He is frequently associated with horses. And with sea creatures, for obvious reasons.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • He made the first horse as a tribute to win Demeter over, by the time it started working he was too bemused by his own creations to even notice Demeter.
  • He just sort of lost interest in tormenting Odysseus after his vacation.
• Attention Whore: He fights with Zeus frequently out of resentment that his little brother gets all the literal praise and hates that Athena became patron of Athens.
• Big Bad: Of The Odyssey. Basically all of the trials that Odysseus has to face are being thrown at him by Poseidon.
• The Casanova: He Really Gets Around even more than Zeus, but since so many of them were sea-creatures, he tends to be less famous for this. That said, his wife didn't seem to care, probably because she didn't want to marry him in the first place, though one myth has her turning one of her husband's paramours, Scylla, into a monster out of jealousy. Poseidon's philandering does give us two major stories:
  • According to Ovid, Medusa (originally a beautiful priestess) became a hideous monster because he slept with or raped her in a temple of Athena.
  • Poseidon slept with/raped Queen Aethra of Athens on the same night as her husband Aegeus. The resulting child, Theseus, was therefore partly Poseidon's son and partly Aegeus' (the Greeks, as mentioned before, didn't know how reproduction actually works). This is probably an after-the-fact myth to explain why Athens seemed to have such power over the sea.
• Chariot Pulled by Cats: Poseidon has a pair of hippocamps draw his chariot.
• Cool Horse: The hippocampi that pull his chariot, his sons Arion and Pegasus, and the magical horses that he grants to Pelops (and other mortals he favors).
• Decomposite Character: Mycenean Poseidon seemed to also have dominion over everything chthonic, and, in the eyes of the chthonic-centric Myceneans, made him Top God rather than Mycenean Zeus. By the classical period, however, most of his chthonic elements were stripped and went to the god that became Hades, and he also lost his Top God status to Zeus when sky gods became more popular, leaving Poseidon Demoted to Extra.
• Dishing Out Dirt: He's god of earthquakes, some of which are so strong they make Hades tremble.
• Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: In some versions of Medusa's origin myth, she was a priestess to Athena who had sworn an oath of chastity. Poseidon raped her in Athena's temple as an extension of his rivalry with Athena.
• Father Neptune: As Neptune himself, Poseidon is certainly the Trope Namer, maybe the Trope Codifier.
• Freudian Trio: With his brothers. He is the Id as he is the most likely of his brothers to smite humans for mild inconveniences and very much prone to things like fits of rage.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He often quarreled with other gods over worship rights to cities, was more prone to holding grudges and Disproportionate Retribution compared to other gods, and being as changeable as the sea would be known to conjure storms when set off by nearly anything.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Fell in love with Pretty Boy sea god Nerites, who returned Poseidon's affections. Their coupling gave birth to Anteros, the personification of requited love.
• Hot-Blooded: Easily the most passionate of the Greek Gods, his intense feelings usually result in him acting aggressively hostile even at his most petty and vindictive.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: He impregnated Demeter by making contact with her in the form of an animal.
• I Have Many Names: Like Zeus, Poseidon is also called Kronides or Kronion, being the son of Kronos. Some of his other epithets are Aegaeon ("of the Aegean Sea"), Ennosigaeus ("earthshaker"), Hippios ("of horses"), Kyanokhaites ("dark-haired"), Aglaotriaina ("of the bright trident"), and Pelagaeus ("of the sea").
• Kill It with Water: He was fond of using tidal waves and whirlpools to punish those who offended him. He loved the Giant Wall of Watery Doom.
• Land, Sea, Sky: When Zeus divided up the cosmos amongst himself and his brothers, Poseidon got the sea.
• Lord of the Ocean: DUH!
• Multiple-Choice Past: In some versions of the Olympian origin story, Rhea was able to save Poseidon from being eaten by hiding him after she gave Cronus a horse that she claimed to give birth to. In other versions, Poseidon gets swallowed just like his older siblings.
• Papa Wolf: Odysseus messed with one of his kids and lived to regret it.
• Pet the Dog: As listed under Pet Monstrosity, Poseidon was mostly known for creating sea monsters and fearsome creatures that terrorized humanity. But he did also create the horse, depending on which story either in an attempt to woo Demeter or to impress the humans in Cecropia. Neither attempt worked but it shows he could create things other than monsters when he wanted to.
• Pet Monstrosity: Poseidon was not adverse to keeping sea monsters and aquatic Eldritch Abominations as pets, siccing them on mortals who incurred his wrath.
• Prongs of Poseidon: The Trope Namer. Poseidon is traditionally associated with the trident, a modified fishing tool that became the cultural symbol of the god of the seas.
• The Rival: He has a notable rivalry with Athena over Athens.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Poseidon never had a merman's fish tail. The fishy lower half actually belonged to Poseidon's son Triton, god of waves and his father's herald.
• Settle for Sibling: He eventually marries Amphitrite, the older sister of his former lover Nerites.
• Shapeshifting Lover: For instance, some myths say he took the form of a bird to seduce Medusa.
• Sore Loser: While competing with Athena to become the patron deity of the city that would become Athens, he offered the citizenry a salt water spring, a useless gift even if the city wasn't already near the sea, while she offered to bless them with olive trees. When the Athenians picked Athena's gift, an angry Poseidon beset the city with violent floods.
• Unwanted Spouse: To Amphitrite, who hid from him when he asked for her hand in marriage. He sent dolphins to try and persuade her into marrying him, which they did, making this a possible subversion (it's too hard to tell though since Amphitrite doesn't appear much).
• Western Zodiac: Manilius associated him with Pisces, because fish.

Demeter / Ceres / Zerene

Δημήτηρ | Cerēs | 𐌄𐌍𐌄𐌓𐌄𐌆 | ⚳ | Demeter^note The first element da is classically explained as the Attic/Ionic variant of an archaic Doric form of gê ("earth"). The second element is derived from Greek mḗtēr ("mother"), itself ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr ("mother"), thus translating as "Earth-Mother" / Ceres^note Derived from Proto-Italic *Kerēs ("with grain"), itself ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₃-os ("nourishment, grain"), from the root *ḱer- ("to grow, to nourish") / Zerene^note Derived from Macedonian goddess Zeirene, whose name is possibly a compound of Greek zeiā́ ("spelt") and eirḗnē ("peace"), thus translating as "spelt of peace"

Goddess of the harvest and "life" parts of the life-and-death cycle. Her name literally means "Earth Mother" (de + meter). The Romans equated her with their agricultural goddess Ceres (from whom English gets the word "cereal"), while her Etruscan equivalent was Zerene.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Poseidon is this to her. She rejected him, he couldn't take 'no' for an answer, and chased her down until he caught her.
• All Women Are Lustful: She had several romantic adventures.
• An Ice Person: To Person of Mass Destruction levels, but only when she gets pissed. Demeter's wrath and grief at losing her daughter Persephone to Hades is what causes winter.
• Animal Motifs: Associated with pigs and snakes.
• Appetite Equals Health: When Persephone is kidnapped, she falls into rage and depression, and accordingly stops to eat and drink.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Ate human meat. Granted, she did not know what is was, but apparently it didn't taste off to her.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Big time. She and Zeus are the parents of Persephone. She also had twins, Despoina and Arion the horse, by her other brother Poseidon, though it was not exactly her choice.
• Chariot Pulled by Cats: Demeter gave Triptolemus a serpent-drawn winged chariot after she was reunited with her daughter Persephone. Her own chariot was drawn by her dragons.
• Deus ex Machina: She tasked Triptolemus with scattering seeds across the world and teaching humans the art of agriculture. Triptolemus then ended up getting imprisoned by an evil king who wanted to take all credit for himself. Demeter then turned up out of nowhere, transformed the king into a lynx and set Triptolemus free.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Turned Ascalabus into a lizard for mockingly laughing at the way she drinks.
  • Turned the Sirens into half-birds for not saving Persephone.
• Earth Mother: One of the older examples.
• Empathic Environment: When Persephone was first kidnapped, and every time she leaves for Hades, nature dies and nothing grows, reflecting Demeter's emotions and state of mind.
• The Famine: What she caused as a bargaining chip in order to get her kidnapped daughter back.
• Fertility God: Comes with her being a goddess of agriculture.
• Fill It with Flowers: The earth after Persephone is returned.
• Fisher Queen: As detailed in the myth of how Persephone was kidnapped to be Hades' wife. Demeter's depression caused winter, the freezing season when plants cannot grow. Though after she found out where she was she deliberately kept the plants from growing as a way of holding the world as ransom. In the earliest versions, Persephone’s absence instead caused summer, which gets blisteringly hot in the Mediterranean.
• Flowers of Femininity: The goddess of plants and flowers. The poppy in particular was sacred to her.
• Food God: As goddess of agriculture, and while she is not the goddess in charge of animals, they *do* rely on her plants and crops to thrive.
• Forgets to Eat: While Persephone was gone, she did not eat or drink. This led her to getting exhausted and thirsty, so when she finally asked for some drink, she drank very clumsily. Ascalabus mocked her over that, and she turned him into a gecko.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Not very smart to anger her, unless of course you like starving from a lack of crops. Once, a mortal king named Erysichthon decided it was a good idea to chop down all of the trees in Demeter's sacred grove, killing a dryad nymph in the process. Demeter answered her by cursing him with insatiable hunger, and no matter how much he ate, he always craved for more. He ended up eating himself.
• Green Thumb: Obviously, as the goddess of the harvest.
• Good Is Not Soft: A genuinely helpful and nice goddess who gives humans food, but you do not want to cross her.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A very nice goddess who has golden hair.
• Happily Married: In some versions, she ended up marrying a demigod by the name of Iasion and mothered at least two children with him. In other versions, she wanted to marry him, but Zeus killed him after discovering that the two got intimate.
• Heartbroken Badass: The goddess of the harvest, who had her daughter taken from her, and caused a great famine to get her back, bringing Zeus himself to his knees.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Blessed Pandareus to never suffer from indigestion. Pandareus, who then tried to steal a sacred dog that had guarded Zeus as an infant.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Accidentally. Tantalus once served his own butchered son to the gods. They all saw through this except for Demeter, who took a bite out of his shoulder. Some versions justify this by mentioning she was too distracted by her grief over Persephone's abduction to notice.
• I Do Not Drink Wine: While looking for Persephone, she came to Eleusis. Queen Metaneira offered her some red wine, only for Demeter to refuse.
• I Have Many Names: Epithets of Demeter include Eukonos ("rich-haired"), Euplokamos ("bright-tressed"), Anesidora ("she who sends forth gifts"), Karpophoros ("bringer of fruit"), Kyanopeplos ("dark-veiled"), Potnia ("queen"), Melaena ("the black"), Panachaea ("of all Greeks"), Eleusinia ("of Eleusis"), and Polyphorbos ("all-nourishing"). Her name means "earth mother," and she was also called simply Deo (of the earth).
• I Want Grandkids: In one Orphic Fragment, Demeter expresses a desire for Persephone to have children with Apollo. It doesn't come to pass.
  Demeter: But going up to the fruitful bed of Apollo, thou shalt bear splendid children, with countenances of flaming fire.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Is an earth and fertility goddess like her mother Rhea. Also counts as a father-daughter version, since Cronus too is a god associated with the harvest and the earth.
• Locked Out of the Loop: It may have slipped Zeus' mind to mention to her he betrothed their daughter to someone.
• The Lost Lenore: Iasion is this for her.
• Mama Bear: She almost destroyed humanity when her daughter went missing. In one tale, she turned Minthe, a Naiad nymph, into a mint plant for suggesting she was better than Persephone and that Hades would make her the Queen of the Underworld. Dare to do anything to Persephone, and she'll come at you.
• Meaningful Name: The meter part of her name means "mother." Some scholars suggested that the de- element means "earth", so that her name would translate to "mother earth," but this is far less certain.
• Missing Child: Her daughter is away for many months a year.
• Mood-Swinger: Put the polar in bipolar, her mood changing being what affects the seasons. She's usually pretty nice, but falls into sorrow when her daughter has to leave for the Underworld.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Depictions of Demeter and Persephone clearly depict both as rather youthful and some accounts claim that they looked so alike as to be practically identical. Their Mycenean-era title of "the Two Queens" and some mystery cults thereafter suggest they had a history of being a pair of goddesses with connections beyond being mother and daughter.
• Mystery Cult: The Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the largest and most famous mystery cults in the Ancient World, was dedicated to her and Persephone.
• Nature Is Not Nice: Though not outright cruel. She is not the type of nature goddess to punish you for eating, say, beef — after all, animals eating other animals is normal... but, by that same logic, guess how many craps she gives about hunters that pray for help after getting cornered by wolves.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: She obviously does not like Hades for kidnapping her daughter and keeping them separate for 3/4 of the year.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Tries to exercise it. Zeus was ready to give in, but Persephone had already consumed food from the Underworld.
• Person of Mass Destruction: While this applies to all the Children of Kronos, Demeter is of special note because once she goes into Berserk Mode she does not care about the balance of nature, obligations, or even human-life. Zeus is terrified once she starts creating a famine over Greece, because he realizes she can not be bribed, threatened or reasoned with until she gets Persephone back and would think nothing of destroying all life on earth until then.
• Physical God: Like the rest of the Olympians, she appears as a human woman.
• Really Gets Around: Had surprisingly many lovers for a female god, including Zeus, Iasion, Carmanor and Mecon. Poseidon would count too if it wasn't for the fact that he raped her.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In most myths actually. For example, when she counsels Psyche on how to get Aphrodite on her good side without pissing her off any further as thanks for cleaning up one of her temples.
• Rape as Drama: Three different myths (depending on source) have Demeter being raped by Poseidon while she was grieving over Persephone. In all of them she turned into a horse to get away from him but he did the same thing and had his way with her (this is how the immortal horse Areion was conceived).
• Revenge: When Erysichthon caused the death of one of her dryad nymphs, Demeter took revenge by cursing him with insatiable hunger until he ate himself to death.
• Sanity Slippage: The poor lady is driven mad with grief at Persephone's disappearance that she leaves Olympus for the mortal realm and tries to claim her hosts' baby as her own in order to replace her lost daughter. The immortalization of the infant fails thanks to his mother interfering. Demeter eventually does snap out of her episode and manages to get Persephone back, even if it's for half of the year.
• Seasonal Baggage: Persephone leaves to meet Hades for half of the year. The seasons are a result of Demeter's emotional state during Persephone's presence or absence.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • For Psyche and Eros during Psyche's attempt to reunite with her husband. She and Hera tried to convince Aphrodite to let the two lovebirds be together, to no avail.
  • In one Orphic Fragment, she's also this for Persephone and Apollo, though we ALL know how that turned out. This, interestingly, clashes with other versions, where Demeter not only chased Apollo away from Persephone when he started courting her, but also emphatically did so with any guy who had his eye on her, averting this trope.
• Sinister Scythe: It may not be well known, but she does have a weapon of her own. One of her epithets means "Lady of the Golden Blade" or "Lady of the Golden Sword". And she has been depicted holding a sword. Other interpretations suggest the blade is a scythe, and some sources say she found the scythe of Cronus and used it to harvest grain.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: As goddess of food, Demeter's natural opposite is Limos, the god/goddess of starvation. In fact she and Limos live as far away from each other as possible. Though this didn't stop Demeter from asking for their help when she wanted to punish Erysichthon with insatiable hunger.
• Supporting Protagonist: She, not Hades or Persephone, is the protagonist of the myth about Persephone's abduction, as it focuses on her efforts to find her lost daughter.
• Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: She did not consume nectar or ambrosia after Persephone was abducted.
• Walking the Earth: After Persephone was abducted, Demeter disguised herself as a mortal woman and searched the entire earth for her missing daughter, during which she had numerous other adventures, most notably at Eleusis.
• Western Zodiac: Manilius identifies her with Virgo, the only sign with her iconography.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Starving the entire world? Definitely extreme. Starving the entire world because Persephone was married to Hades without her consent or knowledge, which would also mean Demeter would never see her again? Still extreme, but more understandable.

Hestia / Vesta

Ἑστία | Vesta | ⚶ | Hestia^note Translated "hearth, fireplace, altar", derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ews- ("to burn"), itself ultimately derived from *h₂wes- ("to dwell, pass the night, stay") / Vesta^note Derived from Proto-Italic *Westā, itself derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ews- ("to burn"), ultimately derived from *h₂wes- ("to dwell, pass the night, stay")

The Eldest child of Cronus and Rhea and Goddess of the hearth, meaning that she was the goddess of home, house, and family. An important goddess, but one whose domains did not lend to participation in many stories, which is why most people forget she exists. This, in addition to her modest and discreet nature, would keep her out of trouble. Her Roman equivalent was Vesta (as in "Vestal virgins").

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• Abdicate the Throne: It's common for some modern authors to claim that she gave up her seat as one of the Twelve Olympians — preferring to sit in the centre and tend the hearth — to allow Dionysus to join without conflict. But no such story was recorded in ancient Greece.
• Above the Influence: She, along with fellow virgins Artemis and Athena, were the only beings completely immune to Aphrodite's powers.
• Action Girl: She fought against Cronus along with the rest of her siblings.
• Actual Pacifist: Post-Titanomachy, she is the only Olympian who never really took part in the antics of her siblings.
• All-Loving Hero: The only deity in the entire pantheon that uniformly loves everyone and is loved in return by everyone, even the crueler gods such as Ares and Eris are fiercely protective of her since few others treat them nicely.
• Almighty Janitor: Both as a trope and quite literally. Hestia is one of the most powerful beings in Greek myth and she spends her days cooking, cleaning, and giving her family a shoulder to cry on.
• Bookends: All proper Greek prayers open with a prayer to Hestia, then the main prayer to whoever, then the same prayer to Hestia in closing.
• Boring, but Practical: Hestia is Out of Focus amongst the Olympians because of her passive and uncontroversial nature compared to the Dysfunction Junction of the rest of her family and their more interesting domains, like nature, war, and justice. But the thing is that none of the other stuff matters if you have no home to return to, and as such, Hestia was a very important goddess.
• Cosmic Keystone: The hearth that her Roman priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, cared for was never allowed to go out, and if a Vestal Virgin did allow it to go out they would be punished by scourging or beating, as it was a sign from Vesta of the continued prosperity and security of Rome.
• Covert Pervert: As Vesta she has a few myths where she impregnated virgins with a phallus.
• Dump Them All: Apollo and Poseidon were rivals for her hand in marriage. She wasn't interested in either of them and instead swore on her brother Zeus's head to never marry.
• Embodiment of Virtue:
  • Kindness. A good chunk of her work is to ensure that everyone in her Big, Screwed-Up Family could at least count on her to be treated with kindness. In return, she's genuinely appreciated and she completely averts No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
  • Chastity. Chose chastity of her own free will, having little to no interest in all things sexual. And since she never delves into Slut-Shaming and never looked down on Aphrodite nor Dionysus for their lustful apetites, both respect her wish to remain chaste and both gave Priapus a sound beating when he tried to force himself on her.
• Fire of Comfort: Hestia's 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.
• For Happiness: In general, this was the mind-set her priestesses engaged in as well, acts of kindness purely to spread contentment.
• God of Fire: Hestia is the goddess of the hearth. Despite having one of the most destructive elements, she only uses fire to warm and cauterize. Being a goddess, even when she cauterizes wounds, she does so without pain.
• God of Good: The most benevolent Olympian in and out of universe has domains featured in the warmer aspects of human nature, such as family bonds and the comfort of home.
• The Heart: This is essentially her divine role; as keeper of the hearth fire, she's the most trusted deity because she's the one who's always there for you to return to. One of the few things her family could agree on was how much they loved Hestia, and Hestia was universally worshipped and loved for her unfailing kindness. She's one of the few gods universally seen as an example to look up to, rather than a danger to tiptoe around.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Although Hestia's domains are mostly irrelevant to mythology, she was one of the most important gods in the entire Greek Pantheon. She was the goddess one would pray to for most of the daily troubles. She was the center of the home (where the hearth was located), the city (because there was a central hearth for every city) and the earth (because they thought there was a fire in the center of the earth and the stones and earth surrounding this fire kept it from blazing out of control... which is funnily enough, sorta close to the actual truth of the Earth's molten core). And since they believed in a geocentric universe, she could be interpreted as the center of the universe. Heart is an awesome power indeed!
• I Have Many Names: Among Hestia's epithets are Basileia ("queen"), Potheinotati ("beloved"), Khloomorphos ("verdant"), Polyolvos ("rich in blessings"), and Aidios ("eternal").
• Irony:
  • The pacifist was equated by the Greeks with the queen of the Scythian gods.
  • Though she was one of the most important divinities in ancient Greece ^note As the goddess of home, family and fire she was relevant to pretty much everyone, while for instance Hephaestus would only be relevant if you were a blacksmith or artisan, and Greeks who don't go out to hunt have little use for praying to Artemis she is relatively obscure today because she didn't do much in myths (since she was pretty much the Only Sane Woman and didn't pull off stupid shenanigans and got in trouble).
• Living Emotional Crutch: Acted as this to all her relatives when they were going through hard times. Every Greek settlement, town, and city was required to have a temple to her because her family (including Hades who had a "never interfere in mortal affairs" clause) would consider it open season on smiting if she wasn't acknowledged. As a result, she had a role in all religious ceremonies, and was even said to automatically deserve and receive a portion of every sacrifice to the gods.
• Loved by All: The only deity in the entire pantheon whom everyone could not only tolerate but actively adore. Everyone from Athena, to Ares, to Zeus himself not only gets along with her but become obsessively smite-happy if anyone disrespected their dear aunt/sister. Just ask Priapus. When he saw her snoozing after an Olympian party, he tried to ravish her in her sleep but never got the chance to, since she woke up, saw him, screamed, and every single Olympian rushed in to kick Priapus's ass; this includes Hades, who never interfered because he could wait for revenge. Assuming you buy Herodotus's interpretatio graeca, she was also the queen of the Scythians.
• Maiden Aunt: To all of her siblings' many children.
• Morality Pet: Since she is the only goddess who got along with EVERYONE, she's pretty much the only reason they could/would share the same room. She's the only thing that keeps the Big, Screwed-Up Family from imploding.
• Mystical Pregnancy: As Vesta, she has a few myths that she sent a phallus to impregnate virgins, and they give birth to twins Romulus and Remus and King Servius Tullius.
• Near-Rape Experience: She is nearly raped by Priapus, but screams before he can do anything and the other gods come running. The other gods do not take it well. Turns out even Zeus has standards.
• Neutral Female: Vase-work depicting her often does so as a passive observer to other gods' quibbling. Goes hand-in-hand with being an Actual Pacifist and the resident Only Sane Man.
• Nice Girl: The nicest in the entire screwed-up pantheon. Even the more benevolent deities tended to have their moments of being petty and vengeful, but never Hestia.
• No-Sell: She, along with fellow Virgin goddesses Athena and Artemis, were the only beings whose hearts Aphrodite had no power over. For context, not even Zeus or Aphrodite herself were immune.
• Only Sane Man: The reason there are so few stories about her is because she never got up to the sort of shenanigans that her relatives did; nobody ever got cursed for claiming to be prettier/a better homemaker than Hestia, she, as a virgin goddess, never participated in any romantic or sexual escapades, she never had any petty squabbles with her fellow deities, and never felt the need to prove herself or her domains. She just did her job to the best of her ability.
• Out of Focus: She was actually a very important goddess to the Greco-Roman religion, being patron of both home and community, but there aren't a lot of stories about her, largely because she didn't get into the kind of shenanigans the more well-known gods did.
• The Paragon: She was used as the role-model. Worshiped mainly for the example she set rather than to placate her.
• The Pollyanna: Very often portrayed as this. She is the only god who never gives into anger.
• Promoted to Parent: Considering many sources list her as the eldest of the original six Olympians, it's safe to assume she took on the maternal role for her siblings while they were trapped in Cronus' stomach.
• Proper Lady: You know the whole 'divine dignity' thing? She's the best example with her proper behavior. The other gods are too Jerkass to mortals and each other.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: One of, if not the most moral of the Olympians.
• The Reliable One: Hestia is not involved in any of the epics of ancient Greek poems, plays, or stories. However, she is the single most reliable background character. Rather than fighting monsters or propping up kingdoms, she is concerned only with keeping the fires of the hearth and home burning for her more extroverted siblings when they are done for the day, as well as for the commonfolk enjoy basic creature comforts. Notably, she is the only deity in Greek folklore (and one of the few religious figures worldwide) who never strikes, quits, quibbles, or withholds her services in any way; she is simply there, ready to keep the home and community of others functional.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She is said to be a beautiful goddess despite not caring about her appearance, but it has gotten her bad attention more than once. First, Poseidon and Apollo were unwanted suitors for her hand, but they at least stopped asking when she swore 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.
• Supreme Chef: The only god the others consider fit to make Ambrosia and Nectar — food so delicious it renews youth and drink so refreshing it renews power.
• Team Mom: Essentially the role she plays among the Olympians, not that she's very good at maintaining them.
• Virgin in a White Dress: Her priestesses all wore exclusively white garments to signify their virginity and chastity to mirror their patroness. Modern depictions of Hestia tend to avert this by giving her orange robes instead, to follow her theme of fire.
• Virgin Power: One of the three virgin goddesses, along with Artemis and Athena.
• Vow of Celibacy: She takes one shortly after the defeat of Kronos — notable in that her most rape-prone brother was about to marry her before he found out she made said vow yet honors it out of pure respect.
  • She is also the goddess mortals made such vows to, and while she will not punish you for breaking said vow, the rest of her family will curse you for daring to lie to their favorite relative; And don’t even started on what happens to people who made you break said a vow. As such said vows were considered highly sacred.
  • The Vestal Virgins made such vows as part of their service to her, and a Vestal breaking said vow was considered a Very Big Deal since this might mean Rome would lose Vesta's favor. Vestals who were convicted of unchastity would be immured, and if their sexual partners were known, they would be publicly beaten to death.
• Western Zodiac: Manilius associates her with Capricorn.
• White Magician Girl: Since she does not fight, this was the role she took to help her kin.

Hades / Pluto / Dis Pater / Aita

ᾍδης / Πλούτων | Plūtō / Dis Pater | 𐌀𐌕𐌉𐌀 | ♇ | Hades^note Traditionally translated "the unseen one", derived from Greek aïdḗs ("invisible"), itself ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *n̥widḗs ("unseen"), from the root *weyd- ("to see") / Pluto^note Translated "the rich one", derived from Greek ploûtos ("wealth, riches"), in turn derived from pléō ("to sail, to float"), itself derived from Proto-Hellenic *pléwō ("to sail, to float"), ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *plew- ("to fly, flow, run") / Dis Pater^note Translated "rich father", derived from Latin dīves ("wealthy, rich"), in turn derived from dīvus ("divine, godlike"), itself derived from Old Latin deivos ("god, deity"), which is further derived from Proto-Italic *deiwos ("god, deity"), ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *deywós ("(sky) god"), from the root *dyew- ("to be bright, to shine") / Aita^note Etruscan borrowing of Greek god Hades, traditionally translated "the unseen one"

The god of the Underworld, though not a Grim Reaper-type figure (that would be Thanatos, who is often depicted as Hades's lieutenant). Reigned over the dead, wealth hidden in the ground and the earth as an element in general. Despite his association with death, his original depiction and characterization were never as despicable as the usual modern interpretation (though understandably, the Greeks still weren't too fond of the guy). In fact, he was a rather ambivalent figure towards mortals. ^note The only two times he interacts with mortals at all (defending Pylops from Heracles and lending Perseus his helmet), he's shown to be helpful. The Romans called him Pluto, latinizing the Greek epithet Plouton (meaning "wealthy"; gold and silver come from underground, he's the lord of the underworld—makes sense, right?), and also equated him with Dis Pater (Latin for "rich father"), while the Etruscans identified him with Aita.

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• Abduction Is Love: As noted, he brought his wife Persephone to the Underworld by force but their marriage isn't presented as all that unhappy. It's worth mentioning that in the Homeric Hymn To Demeter, Hades spoke to Zeus about his intentions to marry Persephone and Zeus gave Hades permission to do so. And before Persephone, there was Leuce, whom he also kidnapped and made his lover.
• All-Powerful Bystander: The reason he is in relatively few myths is he did not interfere in mortal affairs. This is mostly due to him eventually getting a crack at all mortals anyway. He doesn't have to interfere; he gets all mortals in the end. He can wait, though then again death happens all the time.
• The Almighty Dollar: He was a wealth god, mostly associated with the mineral wealth beneath the earth.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Both a stickler for due process and a master of the creating Ironic Hells.
• Batman Gambit: In most versions of the story of Sisyphus, he pulls one on the tricky king when he finally dies for good. Knowing that Sisyphus loved tricking the gods, he gave Sisyphus a potential way out of Tartarus that was actually a trap (telling him to roll the boulder up the hill; Sisyphus thought there was an obvious loophole in that Hades never said he only had one try, but the boulder would actually never reach the top of the hill and Sisyphus's punishment was to push it forever), counting on Sisyphus's great pride to ensure he never let up the task even when he realized its true nature because that would mean a god tricked him, thus sticking him with enough busywork that he couldn't plot any actual ways to escape the Underworld again.
• Battle Couple: In at least one (unfinished) text from antiquity about the Giant War, Hades is described with Persephone riding in chariots side by side, leading an army of the dead against the attacking giants.
• Berserk Button: Often cool as a corpse unless someone messes with his wife, his dog, or his job.
• Blue Oni: With Zeus and Poseidon as the fiery Red Onis.
• Brother–Sister Incest: With Demeter. In some myths, they had Ploutus, the god of wealth.
• Canine Companion: His pet companion dog Cerberus is an Ur-Example in fiction.
• Casting a Shadow: The night itself is credited as one of his domains (in spite of other deities like Nyx, though she is night itself instead of simply being a god of it).
• 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 Cyclopes, namely the Helm of Darkness that allowed him to become invisible.
• Cool Uncle: For the children of Zeus, Hades was the closest thing they had to one, at least when compared to Poseidon. With the exception of Apollo (and not without good reason), he had a good relationship with his nieces and nephews, especially Hermes. Zeus's various demigod children, such as Perseus and Heracles, were known to be able to approach Hades for assistance.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He was one of a very few gods who was never a Jerkass to mortals, although the Greeks, understandably, still weren't that fond of him due to his inexorable nature.
• Decomposite Character: Hades doesn't seem to have existed in the Mycenaean period's myths, instead being a result of Poseidon's demotion in the Greek Dark Ages that sent his Top God status to Zeus and his chthonic elements to Hades.
• The Dreaded: The Greeks were terrified of Death, and by default, of Hades as well. It didn't help that, unlike the other theoi, he was almost impossible to sweet-talk out of doing something; even his beloved wife only managed it once. There's also the fact that part of his job is keeping the denizens of Tartarus, which include the Titans, giants, and some very horrifying monsters, from escaping and causing untold havoc. Part of what keeps them from leaving is pure fear of Hades himself!
• Dream Weaver: Because dreams were thought to originate in the underworld, he was also the master of dreams.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Hades is a complicated case. Contrary to pop culture portrayals, he wasn't evil and — abduction of Persephone aside — he was generally a reasonable deity who just did his job and hardly messed around with mortals like his brothers did. However, the Greeks greatly feared him and saw him as terrifying for what he represented, as death wasn't exactly something you could reason with. They loathed to say his name and called him intimidating epithets, such as Agesander (roughly meaning "he who carries away all").
• The Fatalist: Why he hates mortals who try to cheat death.
• Fiction 500: The richest of all gods in terms of material wealth, because gold, silver, and gems come from underground and as such fall under his dominion.
• Fluffy Tamer: This guy was able to tie Cerberus to a post and tell him to "stay." You know, Cerberus the gigantic three-headed dog monster with a serpent's tail, a mane of snakes, and a lion's claws? In addition, one possible meaning of "Cerberus" is "spotted", meaning Hades named his dog "Spot", thus fulfilling the "Fluffy" portion of the Trope.
• Freudian Trio: With his brothers. He is The Superego, lawful to a fault, stoic and the least hot-headed of the group.
• God Couple: Married to Persephone, goddess of spring. In contrast to the acrimonious and adultery filled marriage of Zeus and Hera, and Poseidon treating Amphitrite like a trophy wife, Persephone and Hades are a healthy couple and Persephone is very active as co-ruler of the Underworld.
• God of the Dead: He was the god of the dead and lord of the underworld, ruling over the bleak fields where the shades of the dead wander forever. He was a grim and uncompromising figure, refusing to allow the dead to escape their fate when their time came to pass into death. That being said, he was still a fair god, rewarding those who lived heroic or virtuous lives, and he also ruled over the paradise realm of Elysium.
• God of Order: Holding people to their oaths was one of his duties, in part because the Styx, the river of oaths, was part of his domain. One of the most common things that could get the Furies sent after someone was breaking a sacred oath of some kind. The pre-Olympian era Underworld was also said to be a chaotic mess until Hades arrived and organized it so that souls/shades would go to their proper resting places based on their deeds in life.
• Good Is Not Nice: He has one of the more important jobs in the pantheon and he takes it very seriously, honors his deals, and is one of the most reasonable Gods who generally doesn't screw around in mortal affairs. That said, his dark and dour nature also means he's incredibly well-suited to his task.
• Hands Off My Fluffy!: Heracles recognized what a bad idea it would have been to complete his labor to fight Cerberus without first getting Hades' permission.
• Happily Married: He completely loves his wife Persephone and she loves him back just as much. He's one of the only gods in the entire pantheon who never cheated on his spouse (Minthe tried to get him to cheat, but Persephone nipped that in the bud). Sometimes it borders on Single-Target Sexuality. Messing with his beloved wife is the surest way to earn his wrath.
• He Who Must Not Be Named: Mortals and even the other gods don't like speaking his name. His temples are always dedicated anonymously because death worship is considered taboo.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his at times a fearsome and imposing exterior, Hades has a softer, gentler side, especially when it comes to his wife Persephone. In fact after the abduction that started their marriage (said abduction having been Zeus' idea to begin with) he sincerely apologizes for his actions both immediately after the act and right before sending her back to her mother for the first time.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: A stoic keeper of death who took in a stray monstrosity as a puppy, has a Wide-Eyed Idealist wife who adores him, and even was willing to give love a chance to conquer death when he heard Orpheus's story.
• I Have Many Names: Since the Greeks didn't like to refer to him by name, they had a whole list of other names to call him instead. The most common was Plouton ("giver of wealth"), or in Rome, Dis Pater ("father of riches"). According to Sophocles, he was also referred to as Klymenos ("notorious"), Polydegmon ("who receives many") and Eubuleus ("well-intentioned"). Other epithets include Necrodegmon (reciever of the dead), Eubouleos (of good council), Ageselios ("he who carries away men"), and Isodetes ("impartial"), and Zeus Khthonios ("Zeus of the Underworld"). Even his usual name is a euphemism ("unseen one").
• "Instant Death" Radius: The reason he was never invoked by even his few cults was the Greeks believed he had this as a default.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Helm of Darkness (obviously not actually a cloak).
• Irony : He's the eldest son of Kronos in Classical mythology; however as mentioned above, both of his "younger" brothers actually predate him by centuries, having existed in different forms in Mycenean Greece, where as Hades was a later invention spun off of Mycenean Posidon.
• Land, Sea, Sky: When Zeus and his brothers divided up the cosmos, Hades got the Underworld. (It's not "land," per se, since the surface of the Earth is neutral territory, but it is the earthy domain.) Contrary to popular belief, most sources do not suggest that Hades resents his lot. He seems quite comfortable in the Underworld.
• The Lost Lenore: In the Roman canon, before he met Persephone, Hades was in love with a nymph named Leuce. Unfortunately, she died, leading to Hades turning her into a white poplar tree which he planted in Elysium in memoriam.
• Magic Staff: Had a scepter that could split gaping chasms in the earth that led straight to the depths of the Underworld and control armies of shades.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: In the Orphic Hymns, he and Persephone made love on the banks of the Cocytus, conceiving Melinoe.
• Manly Tears: Orpheus was able to get Hades to shed "iron tears" by playing his lyre, which is probably just about the manliest possible tears ever. Noteworthy because many, many people begged him to let their loved ones back into the world of the living, and he would almost always refuse them because a) it was his job, and b) a simple fact of nature that people die, so he was obligated to be cold and professional about it. The music of Orpheus was just that sad.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: His Roman incarnation, Pluto, is the God of Wealth (although Taste is less certain). Not a villain, although he is the Trope Namer for Everybody Hates Hades, and early Christians adopted aspects of him for their depiction of Satan.
• Marriage Before Romance: While he was in love with Persephone from the start, Persephone was initially frightened by Hades. Which is understandable, since Zeus, her father, had kept her out of the loop regarding her engagement so she didn't know Hades was coming to claim her in secret and that she had nothing to be afraid of. However, she did fall in love with Hades afterwards and she not only had one of the rare stable Olympian marriages with him, but it would turn out they had a lot more in common than one would expect.
• May–December Romance: Even though Greek gods don't age, there is still a generational gap between him and Persephone.
• Multiple-Choice Past: As is the case in Greek Mythology.
  • In some stories, it's mentioned that Persephone's brother Ploutos was fathered by Hades. As in Demeter and Hades had a son together. While in others Ploutos was parented by either Hades and Persephone or Demeter and Iasion.
  • As mentioned above, Melinoe and Zagreus are either fathered by Hades or Zeus in the guise of Hades.
  • The philosopher Heraclitus, unifying opposites, declared that Hades and Dionysus, the very essence of indestructible life (zoë), are the same god. Among other evidence Karl Kerényi notes that the grieving goddess Demeter refused to drink wine, which is the gift of Dionysus, after Persephone's abduction, because of this association, and suggests that Hades may in fact have been a "cover name" for the underworld Dionysus. He suggests that this dual identity may have been familiar to those who came into contact with the Mysteries. Ironically one of the epithets of Dionysus was "Chthonios", meaning "the subterranean".
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Compared to his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, who were...let's say tempestuous in their dealings with mortals (and their extra-marital misadventures), Hades was very even-handed with mortals and he never cheated on his wife.
• Non-Idle Rich: Hades is the god of wealth and is generally portrayed as the god with the most subjects to govern, as everyone dies eventually.
• Not So Above It All: Hades generally avoids screwing around with mortals the way his brothers do, but he will if pushed too far:
  • What happens when you mess with his wife? Pirithous found out quickly that Hades can go from mild to wrecking your shit if you mess with Persephone. In addition, Sisyphus played games with all of the death-related Gods and Hades gave him his famous eternal task.
  • In some versions of Asclepius' myths, the reason Zeus killed the famous healer was because Hades was going to unleash his wrath on Apollo himself or destroy Asclepius' entire city.
  • Hades also seems to disapprove of kinslaying, like the rest of the gods. Zeus' son Tantalus cut up his own son, Pelops, boiled him, and served him up in a stew to test the omnipotence of the Gods. Except for Demeter, who was mourning her lost daughter Persephone and absentmindedly ate one of Pelops' shoulders, not one of the Gods ate it. Zeus ordered Clotho, one of the three Fates, to bring Pelops back to life. She collected his body parts and boiled them in a sacred cauldron (replacing the missing shoulder with one wrought of ivory made by Hephaestus and presented by Demeter). Zeus also banished Tantalus to Tartarus. At no point is Hades, who hates letting people come back to life, known to have protested against Clotho restoring Pelops; nor is he known to have protested when Zeus banished Tantalus to Tartarus, implying he would have done the same.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Orpheus made such a convincingly sad case Hades was moved to tears and gave him permission to return his love Eurydice back to the world of the living, something he really doesn't like doing. And after all that Eurydice didn't even get to leave. Though to Hades' credit that last part was Orpheus' fault. And he made sure they were together in Elysium once Orpheus passed.
  • Then we have Asclepius resurrecting the dead. Hades' exact reaction varies depending on source but Zeus had to strike Asclepius down to keep Hades from either dragging Apollo to the Underworld for encouraging him and/or killing all of Asclepius's hometown of Epidaurus in revenge.
  • Hades is rarely frightened and is seen by most as cold and inexorable, but he was visibly trembling at his post when Typhon attacked, and in The Iliad Poseidon makes an earthquake so strong Hades jumps out of his chair in fear that the Underworld will be exposed due to the quake.
• Odd Friendship: With Hermes, who apparently doesn't mind working with him on a regular basis, or asking for the Helm of Darkness.
• Older Than He Looks. He was the eldest of his brothers but, as Olympians never aged, he maintained a younger visage.
• Only Sane Man: Second to Hestia out of the original siblings outside a couple of Not So Above It All incidents. Hades generally preferred to just do his job without bothering with mortal affairs or conflicts with other gods. So long as it didn't interfere with his domain or his wife, he tended to be a fairly reasonable god.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Zeus pledged Persephone to Hades (a fairly common diplomatic practice between royalty in the day) — though he did forget to mention the arrangement to Demeter leading to shenanigans. Despite the calculated nature of the union and the need to abduct her to make good on the betrothal, Hades and Persephone actually have one of the best marriages in the entire pantheon. For instance, there are no stories about them cheating on each other.
• Pet the Dog: The way he treats Persephone, kidnapping apart. A more literary example with Cerberus: as the legend of Hercules shows, Hades was rather protective of his dog and didn't want Hercules to injure him.
• Pet Monstrosity: He keeps Cerberus, a three-headed canine Animalistic Abomination, as a guard dog.
• Physical God: Like all the other Greek gods, he appears to be a human man.
• Pretty Boy: While usually portrayed as a bearded adult, in some pieces of art, most notably the Morgantina Terracottas, Hades is depicted as a slender, handsome youth.
• The Problem with Fighting Death: The main implication of why Hades acts so cool-headed to the point of lethargic is this — no matter what a mortal does Hades can just wait them out... although this is also why Asclepius resurrecting the dead was over the line for him. Additionally, the Greeks feared Hades largely for this reason. Every other god could be dissuaded from a harmful course of action, but the most one can do with Hades is delay him for a bit.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Hades treated the dead according to their actions in life — the most virtuous went to the Elysian Fields, those who were neither very good or very evil existed in a state not that different from life, and only the wicked truly suffered. He also kept his deals, such as allowing Dionysus to leave Hades in exchange for his "best beloved" (his grapevines) and allowing Heracles to fetch Cerberus for Eurystheus to fulfill his final labor, stipulating only that he not use any weapons and bring Cerberus back once done. He only got pissed off when he was actually crossed, such as when Apollo's son Asclepius learned to raise the dead, which lead to Hades complaining about being cheated out of the deal that allowed him to reign over the souls of the dead. When Theseus and Pirithous tried to sneak into the Underworld to abduct Persephone, Hades imprisoned them in stone seats, and while he eventually allowed Heracles to free Theseus (who had been reluctantly forced to due to his oath), he did not extend that forgiveness to Pirithous, who'd come up with the harebrained plan in the first place. Essentially, Hades was reasonable but had some very serious dealbreakers: don't try to raise the dead without his express permission, don't try to cheat death (as Sisyphus did), and do not try to steal his wife.
• The Reliable One: As ruler of the underworld, most of the people he interacted with were already dead anyway, so he's one of the few gods that could be safely relied upon to do his job and not go out of his way to screw over hapless mortals who enter his line of vision. More over if you descend into his realm not because you want or are supposed to be there but due to something outside of your control he might be willing to let you leave as he did Theseus.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Cerberus, his three-headed, venomous hound with a live viper for a tail.
• The Sacred Darkness: Of the "does an unpopular, but important job" variety.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: At least on his end. Even in the Roman additions where he had Leuce and Minthe, they were former concubines who could not win him back after he met Persephone — it still did not end well for them.
• Shapeshifting Lover: Pre-Orphic Hymns state that this was the case of Zagreus' birth. After falling in love with Persephone and before he decided to marry her, Hades turned himself into a snake to get past Demeter and into the bed of Persephone, resulting in Zagreus' conception.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Towards Persephone, for the most part. In the earliest known versions of his myths, he is never described with anyone but Persephone. Leuce and Minthe seem to be later Roman additions.
• The Stoic: The one time he is driven to Tender Tears, they are tears of iron. Though it should be mentioned that, off the job, Hades did seem to have a passionate side, especially when it came to his wife Persephone.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: While he is on-the-job, he is The Dreaded to mortals and most gods alike; to his wife, kids and soul-chewing-doggy, he is a loving family-man.
• We All Die Someday: Nearly any story involving Hades making a personal appearance has this as its moral. In fact, he states this to Orpheus almost word for word.
• We Can Rule Together: Non-villainous example. In the oldest versions, when Hades offers Persephone the pomegranate, he speaks of, among other things, how as long as they are together, she rule by his side as an equal and that he will ensure that she is honored and respected. It is after this that she eats the pomegranate seeds.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: This is why he doesn't actually do much, because everyone dies eventually, he can just wait for his mortal enemies to die.
• Workaholic: As the God of the Dead, he has the biggest workload among the Gods. He oughta slow down, or he'll work himself to death!

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