Hades & Hades 2

Pirithous' TLDR is basically thus:

Participated in the hunt for the Calydonian boar. Fought the Centaurs in the Centauromachy. Was supposedly Theseus' best buddy. Made a pact with Theseus that if their wives died they'd replace them with daughters of Zeus.

Their wives died. Theseus chose his target: The Helen of Troy (then 13 years old). Then they parted to steal the chosen target of Pirithous: Persephone herself.

Hades captured them both.

Later, during the final task of Herakles' famous 12 tasks, he found Pirithous and Theseus in hell. He decided to rescue them. He got off Theseus somewhat easily but due to the Hubris of wanting to take his own wife, Hades made it pretty clear to Herakles that Pirithous was a punk ass lil' bitch who was going to stay there forever and that it was time for him to fuck off.

So, Pirithous was left there.

Edited by Aszur on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:24:22 AM

Maybe Theseus didn’t mention him because he really enjoyed the sweet gig up in Elysium and didn’t want Hades to throw him down into Tartarus or worse.

Yeah, as M84 mentions it would make sense if Pirithous as not mentioned out of just how pissed off Hades gets at the mere mention of his name.

Cuz' to be frank that was probably the dumbest idea one could possibly have.

Edited by Aszur on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:37:45 AM

Here's an abridged version of P+T's shenanigans in the Underworld.

Imagine it in modern times: "Hey everyone it's your boy Pirithous, Theseus and I are gonna livestream breaking into the Underworld! Be sure to like and subscribe."

"Why are we doing this again?"

"Cause I'm gonna marry Persephone! She's hot."

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 8th 2021 at 12:45:28 PM

Sometimes in Greek myths, mortals are punished for things that aren't really fair: like Medusa, or Actaeon.

And sometimes, they're punished for being fuckwits who either kind of or totally deserve it. I figure those kinds of characters didn't appear mostly because using them would go against the whole "no matter how bad you let things get, you can find actualization somehow" themes of the game. Tantalus doesn't show up either.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 9:53:12 AM

Granted, this game did manage the impressive feat of redeeming Sisyphus. If you're familiar with the myth, you know that Sisyphus was not a good man.

Speaking of a dammed soul, I wonder how Tantalus is doing.

Still chilling with the whole "damned to eternal starvation and thirst while being tempted with fresh fruit and water just out of reach" thing.

Zagreus probably wouldn't be too keen on Tantalus anyway considering his own issues with his father. Tantalus was also an abusive father Up To Eleven - it doesn't get much worse than killing and cooking your own son.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2021 at 12:18:27 AM

Sisyphys got by because there's a disconnect between everything he did, and what he's most famous for doing. He's one of those figures who's famous for one story even though he's got more.

They kind of reference this with his role in the story: Zagreus only really has a surface understanding of him as a person, and so thinks he's down there unfairly, whereas Sisyphus himself has reached a sort of existential sense of understanding of who he is and was, and doesn't really care about leaving his eternal punishment.

Tantalus, meanwhile, is also most famous for one story despite having several, but that one story is about him feeling human flesh to people, so he got to go.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 8:42:04 AM

Tantalus has two stories, both involving food and abusing Sacred Hospitality.

Serving up his own son to the gods was him being a shitty father and a shitty host and violating the "no human sacrifices" taboo.

In the other story, he proved to be a shitty guest to the Olympians by stealing their ambrosia and bragging about it to his mortal friends.

To note, you also get the affect I'm talking about with Asterius, who shows up in the story as "the minotaur that Theseus fought" foremost and not "the minotaur that ate, like, so many children/virgins/whatever depending on the version you're reading."

Because the average player will think of the first thing first, even if they look it up, and the second thing second or even never, so it's easier to use the former to spin him as an honorable character.

And the first is the one for which he is primarily known, whereas the second tends to take some research for someone not familiar with him to become acquainted with - which is what I'm talking about. It's easier to spin a guy who's most well known for cheating death as a wily semi-mentor figure, even if he also did stuff like impregnate his niece specifically so he could murder his brother, than it is to spin a guy primarily known for eating people as the same.

Think, like, how it's easier to make a movie where Maleficent is a good guy than Cruella De Vil. Maleficent's known for attacking a kingdom, so you can make the king evil or something and downplay the attempted murder and such. Cruella De Vil is known for skinning puppies, which... er...

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 8:54:25 AM

Considering the abundance of centaur hearts I take it that there was total centaur genocide from the centauromachy right, with Chiron being dead?

Edited by Ookamikun on Mar 9th 2021 at 2:40:34 AM

Clearly you've never met Kardion: the centaur with a hundred thousand hearts.

He's an organ donor.

Not only did the Centauromachy kill off half of the Centaurs, another later battle would kill off most of the remainder.

Very few Centaurs survived both battles.

Don't feel too bad though. Barring Chiron, damn near all of the Centaurs were complete assholes. Hell, the Centauromachy was kicked off by them getting wasted and trying to kidnap and rape the women at a wedding party including the bride.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2021 at 2:54:54 AM

Huh. I never made that connection for the abundance of centaur hearts.

Hey, any theories as to which war the one supposedly going on up on the surface at the time of the plot is supposed to be?

All we know is that it has to be after the Trojan War, considering Achilles and Patroclus are already dead.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2021 at 2:59:02 AM

Also I believe there's Peloponnesian War which is alluded.

There's also the odd question of how old Zagreus is, since Achilles has be training him since he was a child.

He's mentally 20s-ish, but he's a god. We can't just assume "what's a war that happened 20 or so years after the Trojan War." Zag could be hundreds of years old for all we know.

The Peloponnesian War sounds like a decent guess, though. While the game does the typical "Athena and Ares hate each other" bit, I can't remember if any of their Duo conversations or quotes specifically note that they're actually fighting each other at the moment.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 8th 2021 at 11:04:13 AM

The Centaurs seem to be an embodiment of rape, given their origins. The entire race was born from Ixion raping a cloud in the shape of Hera.

It's not a coincidence that the sole decent Centaur Chiron did not have this origin. He was instead born from a Titan and a nymph.

The Duo conversation doesn't outright have them fighting each other, but Athena does tell Zagreus to be wary of Ares while Ares tells her to stay out of it. They very obviously do not get along.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2021 at 3:09:09 AM

Random thought, is there a mod that replaces the gods' portraits with Disney's Hercules?

Also I believe the Athens-Sparta war isn't fueled by the gods iirc.

Edited by Ookamikun on Mar 9th 2021 at 3:10:32 AM

I find it funny how many Greek myths/stories had people dying from getting hit in the head with a discus. We're lucky Frisbees are made of plastic nowadays. XD

EDIT: Speaking of Hercules, a background character totally panics◊ when Herc picks up a discus, though in his case catching it was dangerous too XD

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 8th 2021 at 2:11:45 PM

TBF, those stories all involve freak accidents meant to fulfill prophecies or a jealous Wind deity getting in an If I Can't Have You… mood.

Seriously, Zephyr. You could have at least told Hyacinthus you were into him before deciding to murder him.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2021 at 3:14:02 AM

Yeah. About the centaurs. The good ones could be counted in one hand. Chiron in particular was the one centaur that was known to be "civilized". He even appears in another Greek-themed videogame of old, Age of Mythology, as a good guy.

The whole centaur thing is iffy for me though mostly cuz' of all the theories regarding "Centaurs were just greeks' way of dehumanizing the horse-riding scythians to the East" theories.

And bear in mind the one "civilized" centaur of the Greeks spends a whole lotta time educating young boys.

The centaurs in Classical Myth were generally very poor guests - both of the massive battles that resulted in their near extinction were started by centaurs getting drunk and attacking the other guests at parties.

Which makes sense, given they were born from a blasphemous violation of Sacred Hospitality.