#my first love is achilles’ codex

[spineless-lobster]

Hey supergiant hey hello what the fuck is this why would you do this to me why would you want to hurt me like this I am in pain I am in pain now supergiant how do you feel you did this to me what the fuck man

[subbyp]

seriously Achilles’ codex entries are a trip and if you don’t read them you’re just missing out

the entry on Meg where he admits multiple times that he’s just too scared of her to ask her to spar or dig into her history with Zagreus

his opinion that the archers of Elysium must be experiencing some seriously diminishing returns by now in terms of skill gained with practice

his noting that Hades and Artemis have a very similar temperament and could probably reconcile if they tried, which is why they probably never will

”how many of my brethren did [Poseidon] drown during my mortal days? he comes across as affable, yet I’ve not forgiven him” damn son ok

his entry on Cerberus starts out roughly “yes, his three razor-lined maws have rent asunder countless fleeing souls and hubristic interlopers, but he’s babey”

the brief aside in the Varatha entry about Hades insisting that Posiedon’s trident is a cheap Varatha knockoff

he notes that for the record he has asked to help Dusa with her housekeeping duties and she may have literally tried to bite him for it

his recurring thoughts on gunpowder and explosives (gross and scary, probably also cursed)

the brief aside in the pom of power entry about “antioxidants, whatever those are, and whatever they are for”

his entry on trout which is basically “it’s a fucking trout”

when you first meet the Elysium npc, and his dialog box name tag is just “???”, but then the codex updates, so you look at the entry, and it’s just “PATROCLUS: Forgive me. It is not my place to speak of him now.”

the entry on Thanatos, which starts out describing his personality and divine portfolio, takes a hard left turn into him being in love with Zagreus, and concludes with, basically, “something something something therefore Zagreus is the god of blood”

[mbabol]

hadesgame experiences sofar:

ares has continued to try to fuck my stepmom.

athena may also want to fuck my stepmom

endgame romances with megaera vs thanatos is megaera having exhausted most of her storylines so she just shows up to chill in the lounge and make snippy little comments and fuck. meanwhile thanatos is embroiled in so many storylines that more than a 100 runs in hes STILL showing up to argue with zagreus and then bounce. he has NOT fucked since the first time.

turns out gods get progressively angrier the more you ignore them in godcompetitions. in dialogue and in the difficulty of their encounters. poseidon is fucking furious at me. i htink i will choose him when he shows up again

BOULDY SPOILERS UNDER CUT ?

i befriended sisyphus last and wasnt really interested by him at all tbqh. but after a certain point he introduces you to his boulder which he has named bouldy and anthropomorphized. this opens the interaction options “Talk?” and “[Nectar]?”. you can then talk to bouldy and, if you so choose, gift bouldy a nectar. nothing happens. obviously. theres some fun dialogue from sisyphus and zagreus about how happy sisyphus is that youre bonding with bouldy and zagreus just vaguely entertaining his nonsense. you run out of dialogue after a couple times and the nectar also doesnt do shit EXCEPT a little heart icon/animation appears like every other character in the game that has a friend meter. bouldy does not appear in achilles’ codex. im intrigued by the animation however and continue to give nectars to see if theres a secret little thing u can unlock if u do. nothing happens. i have given like 10 nectars at this point. i already have sisyphus and bouldys cthonic companion so it cant be that. i lose interest and figure its just a fun little joke animation they threw in. fast forward endgame and i have a lot of nectar at this point so theres no reason for me to not throw a nectar in every time i come across sisyphus. like as in i have 70 nectars rn. so why not. about a 120 ish runs in, i give a nectar to bouldy, as per usual. and for the first time in many, many runs, zagreus finally says a new piece of dialogue: “huh?”. you notice something has changed in your boon icons. there is something there that you dont think was there before. you open your boon menu.

there is a new boon. it is called “Heart of Stone: You believe in Bouldy, and Bouldy believes in you.” it says it gave you 5%+ movement speed.

CUT TO EVEN FURTHER DOWN THE LINE (but only about a handful of runs this time). you have received several bouldy boons at this point. he bestows one every time you gift a nectar to various effects, not just move speed. there is new dialogue from sisyphus. you talk to him. he asks you, concerned and a bit hesitant, if you’re aware that, well...bouldy isn’t REALLY alive. obviously. you know he can’t really respond right? he asks while you sit with your 2% damage reduction boon (you believe in bouldy, and bouldy believes in you) just There in your boonlist. zagreus is kind of indignantly like oh come on sisyphus, i know better than that. of course bouldys real! i believe in bouldy.

oh shit, i think. did sisyphus really not believe in bouldy all this time?? has zagreus accidentally Created life from bouldy from his continuous devotion/offerings??

NO. SISYPHUS IS LIKE HAHA I KNOW, IT JUST MAKES BOULDY SO MAD WHEN I SAY STUFF LIKE THAT. JUST TEASING YOU, BOULDY, YOU KNOW I LOVE U  BESTIE (?????????????????????????)

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[wykwryt]

ok things i know they have to preserve in the new game

the rougelike genre obv and with it the boons system (we straight up saw nova strike in there and dash, attack, special, and cast magick are still here as are status effects and basically just all of that stuff) edit 2: okay wait actually upon reevaluating casts and magick are not the same thing, cast is still a thing we just also have magick. so all the same stuff plus being a witch!!!!!!!!! i wonder what we can do with that... what buttons would we even press.... wait maybe it's more like a god gauge. yeah that'd make sense. maybe we don't quite get godly summons like zagreus did because we're a disciple of hecate but there's something else we can do as a result?????? gah too many theories.

some kind of home base with plot progression and stuff after death

probably a three tiered + bonus level design. i wonder if the bonus will operate differently than the temple, that’s totally a thing they could completely change

keepsakes????????????????????? there must be something like them but they’re such a zag thing to have what with his whole god of bonds and blood thing (god i fucking loved that i love this game so much)

i wonder about the mirror. i think mel in the myths is one of nyx’s kids although obv not here. i think a canon aspect of zag was always tied with hades but i don’t think that’s the case for mel. man that’s funny, he thought he was nyx’s kid but actually wasn’t and she’s not but actually is. idk ignore me i’m babbling. anyways the mirror. i hope nyx is there actually she seems like a good character to keep her role as it was. i really hope we see chaos too i love them. they also provided such a unique boon service, they must come back as is.

FISHING MINI GAME HELLO

oh hey what about the house upgrades? home base will need to be important enough to have that kind of customization make sense. at this point i’m thinking we’re simply going to be in the house of hades for all this. maybe we’re doing repairs again from the damage of whatever kidnapped hades (ha). or maybe they do get rid of this entirely? it’d be a loss of a whole way to spend currency though.

the codex. bet hecate gives it to her maybe. see this is the weird thing to be because it seems like she is to mel as achilles is to zag but unlike him she’s an important character to the main plot.

different weapons for different play styles. we saw her blades already what else? (please give her a sword swords are cool. i feel like her daggers will prolly operate a lil bit like the fists. fists and sword are my faves <3) something to strengthen the weapons too like the aspects (i hope there’s one like the shield of chaos that talks to you but that’s just me) edit 3: ok the trailer shows just the daggers and what seems like a magic staff. i'd say the magic staff could be comparable to the spear but the spear doesn't do magic. there's a lil thrust action but it's all obviously spells. realllly wondering how the magick works because there's way more than just an attack and special here, she's got so many spells. too little here to really tell but it looks like the big difference between the daggers and the staff is the daggers involve more mobile magic and attacks while the staff seems more stationary but with bigger magic effects not to mention all the area attacks. there's no way we can't do magic without the staff so maybe the spells in our inventory are different depending on what weapon we choose. so far the staff looks significantly more powerful than the daggers, i wonder how they'll balance this stuff out. and other weapons???? oh hey wait i bet the spells are dependent on the weapon aspects or whatever they'll be called in this game. yeah okay that seems like it lines up.

bosses. i know this is obvious but i’m giving it a bullet because now i’m wondering who they are. they wouldn’t be any of the underworld staff probably so. wait actually who are the enemies we’re fighting in the first place if not dad’s employees?? so much of this hinges on whether we’re actually in the underworld or not. if we’re dealing with kronos then maybe we’re fighting to go down deeper into tartarus rather than up and out? the game reveal still makes it look like we’re above ground though…

replayability!!! for the three dozenth time idk what to think about this because i have no idea what the story will be like. i repeat, family or fight? and what would keep mel continuously doing the dungeons past the end of the main plot the way zag does it as official head of security?

ayo wait can we have skelly back? please he has to, we need a practice dummy room and there’s no reason to invent a new character when he’s right there. yeah no way they’re gonna get rid of skelly.

speaking of iconic characters… eurydice? need a new iconic ashley barrett song (as well as both her and darren korb song?) yeah ok whatever songs there are they’ll probably be attributed to eurydice and orpheus in game even if the characters themselves aren’t in there. wonder if we’ll be able to buy and collect the soundtrack… OH MY GOD A NEW SOUNDTRACK HOLY SHIT. I MEAN THEY’LL PROBABLY KEEP SOME ICONIC SOUNDS LIKE WHAT WAS IN THE REVEAL TRAILER BUT HOT DAMN NEW MUSIC WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

bonds and something to forge them with. she may not be zag but nectar and the like must still be a thing. (heyyyy any romancable characters?? the dora shade looked interested)

ok the more i keep thinking about this and trying to discern the shape of the new game and add more bullets the more i just end up tracing the original so things that could be different? :

like previously stated, the mechanics of the final level (the temple of styx in the original) edit 4: ok it would be so sick if the bonus level is zagreus boss fight where they slowly bond and then eventually zagreus trusts her and they get along and then they keep doing the fights for fun like in the og after the main plot is over

something is probably going to replace keepsakes. idk how but it’s such a specific thing and very specifically relevant to zagreus’s characterization, this’ll prolly change

the currencies

special rooms like shops and characters. moros and dora’s rooms looked like these although who knows how they function. also the timed rooms and than rooms (very curious if he’ll show up what with the whole time and death thing being the big things in this game edit 1.5: ZAG THAN ROOM).

EDIT: CERBERUS PETS??? where would i be without giving cerberus pets every run? absolutely wild that petting him 10 times was a rare achievement, you guys suck at playing this game.

[elvesofnoldor]

only in hades game do you have the shade of achilles, telling you, the son of hades, how to do a mini rpg romance with your childhood best friend thanatos, the embodiment of death, who by the way has the fashion sense of a hot topic employee and the temperament of a emotionally constipated college student.

 Time and time again im amazed by this game’s unlimited potential in being a tumblr shit post. 

[c-is-for-circinate]

As promised: let's talk Hades, and how acts of abuse can create toxic environments for everyone around them, and also how people react to those environments--and to them being disrupted.

(For reference, I have just kicked Theseus's ass for the first time, it was exactly as satisfying as it was intended to be, and then I got predictably slaughtered a couple of chambers into Styx. Spoilers for everything through that point, but please no spoilers in reblogs/comments for anything after that!) Also, TW for a whole lot of discussion of abuse, particularly verbal and emotional abuse, and abusive familyworkplace dynamics.

Okay, so. To start out with, Hades is an abusive parent. He engages in innumerable acts of verbal and emotional abuse towards his son, because yep, that's what you call it when a parent constantly berates and belittles their kid for every perceived failure, including the ones the parent themselves could have prevented. Sometimes especially the ones the parent could have prevented. Zagreus failed at his office clerk job because Hades refused to teach him how to do it and then blamed him for not already knowing how. Cerberus tore up the lounge because Hades, who was actually there, chose not to stop him. Hades created, possibly deliberately, and then took full advantage of every opportunity he saw to insult and demean his kid, and the clerk job flashback shows us that he was doing so even before the escape attempts started. I'm pretty sure we're all on the same page here, but: yep, that all constitutes abuse, even if they're gods. Even if Hades has reasons for Being Like That. Even if you think Zagreus seems okay and unharmed by it (which: repeatedly throwing yourself into a gauntlet of violence that inevitably ends in your own pain and death because you're so desperate to escape home, not actually an indicator of someone who's okay). We all good on that?

Cool. Because I'm not really here to talk about how Hades' abuse directly impacts Zagreus right now (although there's for sure an essay in that too). I'm thinking about how it impacts everybody else.

Hades isn't as obviously unreasonable with anybody else in his kingdom the way he is with his kid. When we see him lecture somebody else, it's usually for an actual failure to do their job: Hypnos for literally falling asleep on the job and not doing anything that was assigned to him, Megaera for letting us past her so many time, Orpheus for being a court bard who refuses to sing. His attitude is super confrontational and unpleasant, but on the surface it doesn't necessarily look as fucked-up. Thing is, though, whether any individual act of aggression towards an employee/family member is justified or not (I would generally argue 'not', because aggression towards employees/family members is, y'know, not justifiable)--it's not about the individual acts. It's about the entire cultivated atmosphere of toxicity and abuse.

One of the very first things Meg ever says to us is, "I'd rather be on your bad side than his." Up until that point, we've got no reason to believe Meg has any history whatsoever of fucking up at her job. In fact, we've got plenty of reason to believe she's good at it. She's fiercely proud of it, she's frequently Employee Of The [Time Period], and we've apparently never even met her sisters because she handles her shit herself. But she's still scared of Hades. Dusa, who is an anxious wreck at all times because oh god what if she gets fired what if she gets fired what if she gets fired, in spite of apparently being absolutely exemplary at her job, is scared of Hades. Every single shade in the Hall is clearly terrified of Hades, and it's not because of what he's done to each of them. It's what they've seen him do to other people.

Which is how toxic environments work, whether they're work environments or families. The Court of Hades is of course both, always, with the bonus hell layer of you can't quit even if you DIE. An abuser in authority doesn't have to target you in order to make you feel scared, cowed, and desperate to please them. Humans (and gods who are basically extra-powerful humans) are good at learning by example. The residents of the Court get the picture.

So this Court is a minefield--and everyone except Zagreus is very good at tiptoeing around mines. We see it in Meg, so desperate to do her job well. We see that Hypnos very clearly does not give a shit about anything, but he still makes sure to have a list of excuses ready if/when Hades ever confronts him about failure to do his job, just in case. We see it when Achilles tells us that my ability to help you is constrained by the authority your father gives me, or whatever the line was sixty runs ago when he couldn't let me into locked chambers. The system, such as it is, works, and if Nyx talks to Hades as little as possible, if Thanatos avoids the Court entirely, if Achilles treads very carefully and knows how to keep his head down--well that's just the system, right? That's just how things are.

Even Zagreus seems to have had a role in that system as the court fuckup. He's the kid who didn't have a real job or purpose. He could take the focus of Hades' generalized, day-to-day ire off of everyone else, without triggering some of the more direct and violent ire because the work he was doing didn't really matter (a LOT of Hades' rage-triggers seem to be related to job performance, which means that the people with real jobs are of course the most at risk). And he could do so "safely" (big emphasis on the quotation marks there) because he alone of the court is Hades' actual kid, who's Prince of the Underworld no matter how much he fucks up. If one of Nyx's other kids gets something really really wrong, she might be able to protect them from some consequences, but Hades doesn't have any layer of supposed parental affection holding him back from getting violently furious about it. Zagreus gets a nice bedroom and the abuse is limited to words rather than divine power, and Hades is a dick to everyone but he only occasionally condemns people to eternities of torture, and only for good reasons like refusing to sing when your job is to be court bard, so it's fine, everybody's fine, everything's totally fine, right?

Except it's not fine when everybody is so clearly worried about anything going wrong. And it's especially not fine for Zagreus, who's the person to finally say no. He's leaving, for his own sake, because he deserves better and he's finally convinced he can have it. And that turns the whole system into disarray.

I am endlessly fascinated by the ways this game portrays different characters reacting to this upheaval in their carefully-mapped minefield. It's different for authority figures and peers and servants, different based on how people are positioned in the house under Hades' rule, and it's so spot-on and I love it.

Nyx, for instance, is absolutely calm about the whole thing, because Nyx has power. Hades can't hurt her. Hades can't even really do much against her children, not when Hypnos and Thanatos are gods in their own right. Yes, Hades rules the kingdom, but Nyx owns the land, and she gives no shits about his rages. And it's interesting, too, to see the lines she doesn't draw. The deal seems to be that Hades doesn't fuck with her, and doesn't outright threaten her kids (because Hypnos is bad at his job, demonstrably so, and Hades hasn't ruined him yet), and she doesn't interfere with the way he treats the people around him. She gives Zagreus advice and support and the mirror, but she also doesn't take a direct stand against Hades. He can't hurt her, but he could make life...difficult. She's protected, her position in the minefield is more of a safe viewing platform than slogging through the middle of it, but the mines are still there.

And then we have Achilles, who is one of my favorite characters in the whole game because of how he reacts to this whole situation. Achilles, like Nyx, is so supportive. Every single time you see him he has something encouraging to say. He gives us his Codex, secretly finds us weapons, trained us for years, clearly wants us to succeed. And still he's limited, not necessarily out of fear for himself (though he has to be scared for himself, he knows what Hades does to people who anger him), but out of concern that if he gives Zagreus too much help in one way, he won't be able to provide help at all later. He's still so careful.

Achilles and Nyx are so fucking important to this story because they're the only authority figures Zagreus really has in his life except for his father, and they are so supportive. They're what keep this story from being a nightmare of psychological horror and depression. They can't stop the pressure from Hades and this life in his house being miserable for Zag, but they can give us hope, remind us that Zagreus is still loved. And they have such an incredibly important role when it comes to guilt, which is one of the biggest ways toxic systems maintain themselves.

If Zagreus leaves, what happens to everybody else? Who takes Hades' wrath then? Who becomes court scapegoat if he's not there, and also, who gets punished for his escape? These questions matter, and we see him worry about it! He asks Nyx and Achilles both, is it going to be okay that you're helping me, are you going to be alright, will my father hurt you for this? And they are both so firm about telling him no. No, I will be fine. See, here's the list of reasons about why I'm going to be fine, why my position in this minefield is secure. They make a point of telling us that it's fine, that we do not need to hold ourself back from getting out of this abusive situation for their sake. That is instrumental in Zagreus's ability to keep making these escape attempts without feeling too guilty and worried and selfish to go on. (Another thing that's actually really important in setting up that dynamic--we see that Hades cares about Cerberus, even if he's using him as a pawn against us, and Cerberus seems to be the one figure in court who Hades doesn't get mad at. The dog isn't at risk, and that is really essential in keeping the story from getting too grim.) These people who we care about refuse to let themselves be held hostage to secure our good behavior.

It's also really useful for raising the stakes later in the story--we see Hades arguing with Nyx once or twice, and we see Zagreus feeling guilty about it, but it's also a sign that we're making enough progress to piss him off. After I finally made it out of Elysium on my last run, I came home to find him furious with Achilles in a way that actually makes me nervous, because Achilles does not have nearly as much security in his position as he says he does. (Achilles is such a good teacher/authority figure, because he knows goddamn well what Hades could do to him, and still refuses to let fear for his own situation stop him from helping the abused kid under his care escape his. And no, not everybody has the capacity to do that, but it matters so much coming from the guy who helped raise us. It matters so much. I do not even have the words for how much.)

It's also no mistake that many of the people we find supporting us along our journey are either the people with the most power in their immediate environment, or the least. Sisyphus helps us because what more could they do to me than this? Orpheus is a little wild around the eyes and somewhat disconnected from reality, and he wishes us the best because someone should get what they want and also he no longer gives a single fuck what happens to him. Eurydice has her own cozy little corner of Asphodel, as safe from Hades' rage as anybody anywhere in his realm because she's tucked in such an out-of-the-way middle place she's outside his notice. Dusa is so scared of everything anyway that, crush aside, she isn't any more threatened by us escaping than she is just by her everyday life here. Charon is unfathomable and unstoppable; Skelly literally exists to be a punching bag, and yet he also seems basically immune to pain, no matter what we do to him. There's no threat from Hades there.

So the people most at risk when I flip the world on its ear are the ones who have so much standing that they have something to lose, but not enough to protect them from losing it. Which of course brings us to Than and Meg--who are, of course, the two people who also seem by far the most upset by my attempts to leave.

As authority figures, Nyx and Achilles are constantly reinforcing the message that it's Hades' fault, not ours, if they or anybody else get caught in the crossfire of his wrath. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's not my guilt to bear. From Megaera and Thanatos, we get the opposite message--I am fucking with things, I am hurting people, and I need to stop. Zagreus isn't just abandoning them, as a friend or brother or lover or all of the above they're Greek gods who even knows. He's betraying them. They were in this together, as friends or lovers or whatever, but now Zagreus is sending earthquakes through the minefield they both still have to stand in. He is about to capsize this boat in the middle of a thunderstorm, he is fucking with the system, and they're the ones who are going to get most hurt.

I'm so curious how this is going to work for Than, who out of everyone we meet holds the closest role to Nyx's in terms of being sheltered from Hades' wrath. He's the guy who gets to leave, after all, even though he always has to come back. I've seen the least of him out of anybody so far because it took forever for me to get to Elysium, but two things really stand out and I'm so interested to see where they go. One, he really genuinely does care about Zagreus. He wants us safe, he wants us unhurt, the accessory he gives us only grants its bonus if we clear a room without taking injury, he keeps showing up to help. And two, he wants us to give up and go back and recognize how good we had it. Which is SO fucking interesting, considering how miserable Zagreus so clearly was, and how legitimate his reasons for being miserable were.

It makes me wonder so much about Than's standards for comparison. Does he know something we don't about what's waiting for us on the surface, something that might theoretically hurt Zagreus even more than staying down below? Has his life, which apparently allows him more freedom than anybody else in the Court, sucked horribly in ways we haven't seen, and that's why he spends so little time there in the first place? Either of those things is plausible, both of those things are plausible, and yet either one leads to this sense of patronizing, because he refuses to simply tell us. If something terrible is awaiting us, don't give us vague warnings, tell us what it is and let us decide for ourself! If you're fucking jealous because we might get out entirely and you're still stuck coming back here, say so. If you're worried about your mom--and he does bring her up, how could Zagreus turn his back on her like that, does seem to worry for her--then let's have an actual conversation about how many times she has insisted I do this and also how much I love her.

And, right, it's clear that a lot of Thanatos being upset is simply, you were going to leave me without even saying goodbye, you want to leave ME, which is understandable! But, like, he is demonstrably the one god who gets to visit the surface. He's the one person we actually COULD expect to see again. And he is absolutely also upset because there's an Order To Things, and we're fucking it up. We used to be his careless callow reckless friend who could talk back to Hades and get away with it, and now we're not, and everything is changing and we might leave him altogether, and we might leave him alone in that court without us, and he hates it.

Is it a short-sighted, selfish fear on his part? Yes, absolutely. Even if he's not scared of Hades on his own behalf, he is still frightened by what happens if we upset this system--and maybe it's the sanctity of a much bigger system than the Underworld that he's worried about! Maybe it's the whole divine and cosmic order. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect is enabling the abuse Zagreus has been dealing with for however-long he's been alive. Whatever system he wants so badly to protect OUGHT to be overturned, or at least shaken up. But this is what toxic systems DO. They convince the people within them that they have to be maintained, that a broken system that hurts the people within it is far better than no system at all, that changing the world is too scary and too dangerous. And Thanatos wants his whatever-Zagreus-is-to-him to be there, because he loves him and also because that's how the world works, and those things are all tangled up in one another, and that is how relationships are in a messed-up family like this so therefore I love it.

And Meg. Meg, the best for last, my dear, beautiful, furious, bitter, scared angry tired girl. I adore her. I am absolutely never going to date her, because the thing Zagreus needs most in his life hurts her, more directly than anybody else in the story, and that sucks, and it's not Zag's fault but they still shouldn't be together. Meg has taken more injury from this situation than anyone, quite literally as well as metaphorically, and it's not her fault any more than it's ours, but oh boy it has made her lash out and it's awful and it's perfect.

Meg's place in the Court of Hades is unique because she's not dead, not a mortal, not anything other than a god--but she's also not family. Nyx is not her mother. She's very much part of this system, she and her two sisters belong to Hades-the-realm and therefore also Hades-the-king, she can't leave, but she also doesn't have that protection of Nyx watching out for her in the same way. She's not royalty. She and her sisters (if you ask Hesiod instead of Virgil, which seems to be the interpretation the game's going with here) sprang from the blood of maimed Uranus at the same time as Aphrodite, but fuck knows Aphrodite isn't claiming them as siblings. And she can't be fired, exactly, but she sure can be demoted, and she sure can be made miserable in her job. Meg is vulnerable in a way very few people in Hades' employ are. She's a lot harder to do away with than any one random shade, but she's also a lot harder to miss blending in with a crowd.

What's more, she's the one person in this whole mess who is specifically tasked with stopping us from leaving. Hypnos isn't ordered to put us to sleep and keep us in our room. Thanatos can't be compelled or punished if he doesn't hunt us down. Achilles isn't told to lock us up and keep the keys. Meg is the one stationed at the doorway to Tartarus to keep us in. Meg is the one who gets in trouble when we leave. Meg (who Hades knows goddamn well Zagreus cares for, or cared for, who he absolutely knows we used to date) is the one who has to fight us again and again and again. And she's the one who keeps dying.

Again, it's this incredibly fucked-up guilt/hostage situation deliberately designed to keep people from fleeing abusive situations. Meg's insistence on fighting us now puts Zagreus in the position of having to hurt her himself again and again. Now suddenly we're the ones sticking a sword in our ex-girlfriend. Now suddenly someone can point to our desire to leave, to flee, to escape, and say, how selfish. How cruel. How terrible of us to want to go, when we're even willing to hurt the people we love to do it.

Except, right: Hades is the one who demands Meg stand there and stop us. Hades is the one who puts both of us in that position. Meg is also in an abusive situation, and she's willing to hurt us to protect herself. "I'd rather be on your bad side than your father's." It's easy to blame her at the start for being complicit, for being a tool of our father's abuse, for being on his side. It gets harder as the game goes on. I've killed her so many times. There's no way for her to beat me. She knows at this point that she can't beat me. She still fights, every single time, still throws herself upon that spike, not because she thinks she has any chance of stopping me but because she is so damn scared of what will happen if she doesn't try.

In fact, Meg's the one person we have actually seen face consequences for our actions so far, instead of just facing the threat of them. Her sisters are here. Her sisters, who she clearly does not want here, who are wild and violent and who she does not want in her life or anywhere near her, let alone near the job she takes so much pride in. She gets to deal with them now. (Hades doesn't have to deal with them. They're still not allowed in his court. But Meg does.) She gets stabbed, and bludgeoned, and shot, and lightning-struck, and poisoned, and every other thing we do to her. Thanatos doesn't. Nyx and Achilles and Hypnos don't. Bug Meg? Oh yes. Meg pays.

And yes, ok, she is complicit in this system. Everybody is complicit in this system. Zagreus who's trying to escape on his own behalf instead of overthrowing his father for the sake of everyone he'd otherwise be leaving behind is complicit in this system. Pointing fingers and pulling strings of who's more at fault? and who do we blame for this? is exactly how this sort of system perpetuates itself. Your sister always talked back at the dinner table and put everyone in an even worse and more violent mood. Your coworker refuses to work more than forty hours a week so now you have to take overtime to pick up their slack. You're enabling your dad by asking your sister to shut up, you're enabling your employer by working as hard as you do so you don't get fired, everyone's at fault, everyone's to blame, everyone is--

It's not everyone. It's Hades. It's Hades at the root of everything, and probably something big and institutional and fucked-up even beyond him. But even if everyone down in this Underworld does have to be trapped here forever, even if he's trapped here forever, Hades is neither challenging the system that put them here nor trying to make that fate better for anyone else stuck with him. He's just created an entire kingdom of backbiting and misery and people who can either go along with his whims or suffer the consequences.

At this point in the game, Meg is so fucking tired. Every time we run into her in the lounge, hunched over a table, the venom in her voice when she tells us "Do I look like I have anything to say to you?" is so bitter and so exhausted. There was a system, and she knew her place in the system, and it was a system divinely ordered by the gods themselves, and sure it was cruel but that's the literal will of the universe as far as she knows it. She had a role, and her role was vengeance and punishment and violence against those who'd committed the most egregious of sins in life, and there was a point to it, she was the divine deterrent to convince people not to do those things, and that was just, and that was right. The GODS THEMSELVES said so. How do you argue with that? You can't possibly argue with that!

And Zagreus is arguing with that. In trying to leave, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that nothing in the Underworld ever gets to leave it. In disobeying his father to do so, he's questioning the unbreakable rule that what the gods say is LAW. He's breaking everything.

And of course he's not trying to do any of that. He's not trying to destabilize the system at all. He's just trying to get himself out of it, to a place where he feels like he belongs and maybe a parent who's slightly nicer to him than this one. But toxic systems like this one break when the people within them have access to another option. When the kids find a way to actually leave, and not answer the phone, and not come home for holidays, and not deal with it any more. When the employees have the economic freedom to quit. When opportunities granted by education, money, social support, etc etc etc, show up and give people a choice. Even if the option is only ever for Zagreus--he's demonstrating that an option exists. Which is, of course, the one thing the system cannot ever allow.

I really like this game.

[carbootsoul]

also i saw you got hades!!! what do you think so far!! it might be my favorite game of all time tbh i have almost 100 hours in it :’D

ok so i have played hades before, since my friend bought it months ago and we used to hang out while i played it (not as much anymore since we're occupied making our slow way through the aa games but like) and i got to like. early elysium playing with her so the last few days have def not been my first acquaintance w the game but GOD IT'S SO GOOD. tragically no game can compare to ace attorney in terms of how much brain space it's cursed to take up at all times but hades is without question my second favorite game. i think having played w my friend a bit was good tho bc it let my OVERWHELMING EXCITEMENT abt this game simmer a bit before i bought it and now i am just. incredible excited. i have a billion thoughts so heres another readmore lol

i've never liked roguelikes since i hate losing progress on things or doing things over and over again but hades works somehow?? like (ok today i was weird overcaffeinated so i've been a little hyperfocused anyway) but i spent like 5 hours literally doing the same thing over and over and it was SO FUN. altho i met patroclus three times before realizing he wouldn't talk to u until you opened his bit in the codex and that fact is bringing me physical pain :( u know me i always go for the dad characters in media so my main goal since i started the game has been to reunite him and achilles and it's driving me insane i missed all those opportunities to give him nectar >:( also it's fun because it's one of those pieces of media that i can like. trust if that makes sense? it was the same way with rgu where i can see what they're doing and trust the execution will be good and there won't be anything weird and homophobic/sexist/etc in the middle that i'll have to ignore. its rly nice.

also also zag is genuinely my favorite video game protag ever (along with apollo justice who. inarticulate rambling i love him so much) like he enhances the game so much. his little witty commentary all the time (side note the fact that the game has subtitles is so nice and something i didn't realize i wanted until they gave it to me) and how he's so stubborn and he knows to stand his ground (his conversations with hades in the final fight r so good) but also he's a genuinely kind person and he loves his friends and family and puppy dog and :pleading: i've got a soft spot for talking to achilles bc i like achilles but also i love how zag responds! he loves his family and he's so grateful to them for taking care of him. love that. the way he talks to meg and than is awesome too like it would be so easy for them to write a protag who gets annoyed with them both but he DOESN'T and i LOVE HIM. idk i think the game has such incredibly human and loving characters for something whose main cast is almost entirely immortal.

im rly glad i decided to buy it for myself tho! it's fun to start like. strategizing in the game. like the shield is my favorite weapon (bc i like ranged attacks but can't aim for my life) and then having doom on the special.. chefs kiss. love walking away from an enemy and then them dying behind me. idk i love it so so much. game of all time. i also am OBSESSED w how well balanced it is. like everything seems somehow both super hard and completely achievable and thats so fun. like the hades boss fight? the fact that he has three stages (i think) is jsdklfjsf especially since i can barely get through the first but also i can get through the first so i know i can get through the rest and thats soo good. like the way you can tell you're improving both because you're stronger but also the game has such a good learning curve that you actively get better at the game??? kjsldfj i love how much there is to discover!! going to the codex and seeing how much you haven't found is so exciting and idkidk i love it.

anyway yeah i love this game so much. (i could gush for hours abt the art and CHARACTER DESIGN OH MY GOD but like i'm sure u already know so. i will leave it at the fact that i saw zag and than interact for the first time and my only thought was oh my god it's narumitsu. i mean than is obvious but zag has backwards phoenix hair. also chaos... chefs kiss oh my god. NYX???? HYPNOS?? PATROCLUS AND EURYDICE AND ORPHEUS?? was going to keep listing characters but then i wouldn't be able to stop so :sob:)

[aviatrickss]

I only did one run on Hades tonight but it was So Much so I’m blabbing my thoughts into the void:

(To be fair, one run for me is now like 45min of gameplay, which is v cool!)

Poseidon’s legacy boon is Fishie Lures???

On a related note, why is catching the goddamn fish the hardest part of the game?? I didn’t know it existed until a week ago jfc

On a related note, Zag’s fishing lines are so fucking cute oh my gooood

Ares and Aphrodite really try to fuck in front of you when they give you the duo boon huh

FUCKING!!!!!! Than popped up in Asphodel and was like “woooww almost couldn’t catch up w you speedy boi” (ft. Hermes boon) and then at the end of the contest when Zag is like “i dont need ur pity help >:(“, Than is like “oh i was just in the neighborhood nbd im still Mad *poofs*” like ???????? I see thru you, petty pretty bastard man

(I think he was salty bc I beat him 😌)

Also?????? I used a death defiance in the contest (possibly i was being reckless in order to beat him), this bitch imediately yells across the fuckin battlefield “BE MORE CAREFUL!!!!” sir i am care you

I just found out about Eurydice being Orpheus’ muse but every time I go into Asphodel now I can’t find herrrrr :( i just want love to win

Listen... I thought Theseus/Asterius was just, yknow, cute sorta plausible fanon but..... there’s fucking lore there? They love each other???? I’m supposed to be nice to Theseus Dickhead now bc of it???????

Hypnos being sad bc Than is a shit brother is killing me where’s the button to make him be nice to his little clown brother

Achilles gets nectar-drunk and talks about Patroclus for the first time!!! But I don’t think Zag knows that Patroclus is the Elysium Lad (even though it’s in the codex?). It’s still cute tho he loves his gay dad :(

Hades really initiates a whole convo to make a minotaur joke about you being bull-headed huh

You. Really just walk in on Than and Meg negotiating Who Gets Zag huh

AND THEY FUCKIN CATCH YOU EAVESDROPPING GODDDDD

Love is real but second-hand embarrassment is realer

[maid-of-nope]

Hi so I’m not savvy enough to answer you without my main witchy blog being the one who answers in the notes but also my answer ended up being way too big for Tumblr Notes to deal with anyway lmfao 

So! My personal take on Achilles’ saying of “Fear Is For The Weak”:

Fear is For The Weak is a saying Achilles teaches Zagreus as a mantra that Zag repeats back in times of doubt. It could be a relic from Achilles’ war days, it could be something Chiron had taught Achilles. Regardless, it’s a phrase that young Zag takes to heart. I can easily see it being a source of comfort and courage for a young Zag especially when he first starts out learning and training, because here is this soft Prince of Hades, this curious and rambunctious boy (because he is a boy) needs to be tough, is surrounded by death and judgment and will not (and is not seen) as an Heir to Hades so sayeth the Fates.

To Achilles, this is simply a phrase one says like ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ “Have Courage”, etc. Just a phrase one says when they want to invoke.

in The Codex Entry Instance though? It’s the equivalent of plugging your ears and shutting your eyes and saying “I don’t see you, I can’t see you, I won’t acknowledge this”. I got this entry after Patroclus and Achilles both talked about the War, the War that Achilles did not go to, the War that Patroclus went to in Achilles’ stead, the War that took Patroclus from Achilles and made Achilles into a monster before he too followed death. 

The War is a giant vulnerable spot for both men, as it tore them apart, it was staring the Fates right in the eye after ignoring for so long what was inevitable. Achilles didn’t want to fight, he had been dishonored and despite literally being the Star Quarterback of the Achaeans said “Nah, fuck that’. Patroclus, who in turn decides “Just let me do it” instead of making Achilles own up and take rank, ENDS UP DYING BECAUSE HE CANNOT FULFILL ACHILLES ROLE AND POWER. 

“Fear is for the Weak” being repeated over and over again in the Codex is Achilles saying “I can’t go, I won’t go, I see you, I want you, I want to be with you, I fucked up, I fucked up and I am irredeemable, I led to your death, I will not abandon my post but my place is with you, I won’t make you fix me again, you won’t ever have to deal with me again” it’s him facing that despite the fact that here, he is removed from who he was at the War-He is Zagreus’ mentor, wise and kind, gentle and steadfast, he believes in the boy and his belief is enough to keep him alive and Zag always comes back, doesn’t he?-he also realizes what a farce that is. 

The entire time, his lover, his friend, his brother in arms, has been here-He knows because he vouched for this-But he thought the whole time if he just...Stayed away, if he just kept the memory of Patroclus as a memory, he would be able to convince himself that this was doing Patroclus justice. He could set aside the way he was in life and in death be the one who instead gave his lover life beyond death, he could keep him safe and never deal with the feelings he had both with his love for Patroclus and the utterly frightening realization that he failed him in life, and just....Go about his days (or nights).

Here, you see Achilles terrified. Overwhelmed. Quietly freaking out because oh gods, it’s all here again and he has to make a choice, he has to fight or flee and he fucked up the last time he can’t do this again....

It’s also what makes Patroclus’ words to Achilles that much more powerful. “Risk it All.��� It’s not Patroclus enabling him to sit out. It’s finally telling him “If you want this, you have to fight.” It’s putting home that courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s moving forward despite the fear. It’s both men learning and finally allowing themselves to be who they should have been in life, which ultimately is an underlying core of what the realm of Hades in this game is, especially with the side-quests. 

Sorry I went off on a tangent here, I have so many thoughts on the stories this game depicts and how it nods into the source material and just...Supergiant knocked it out of the park and I have feelings for these stupid war-entwined husbands. 

I hope this answered your question a bit and I’m so happy and honored you asked me.

[ravel-puzzlewell]

I would love some advice on how to not suck at Hades, I keep dying lol. And do casts just sort of suck or am I using them wrong?

okay, so if you’re struggling with surviving, Hades has an easy mode, and no, it’s not “God’s mode”. It’s Athena’s dash. Put Athena on the dash and dash a lot, which you should be doing anyway. Like, I cannot overstate how much of a bulletproof vest Athena’a dash is. 

Overall, Hades is a game with a lot of hidden mechanics and a lot of things just straight up suck if you don’t set them up correctly. I’m gonna try to give quick examples of builds that 100% work and are relatively easy to get, so you can try them to see how good the weapon actually can be, and also mention things that do NOT work, so you’re not stuck in a miserable build, trying to make it work and thinking it’s your fault somehow.

General rules of choosing boons:

For attacks that have high base damage (sword main and special, main bow attack, main spear, gun special) you want boons with percentage upgrades, like Artemis, Aphro, Athena (triple A), Demeter. Poseidon is generally not great for melee, bc he knocks enemies away when you want them in range for hits. 

For attacks that have low base damage, but high speed (bow special, fists, AK-47) you do not want percentages, but boons with flat damage, like Zeus, Dionysus, Ares. 

You’re right, casts do kinda suck by themselves, they are normally supplemental damage at best, but you can make a cast build, you have to use specific weapons: Poseidon sword, Hera bow, Achiless spear, Beowulf shield. I’ll explain cast builds later, but generally you want to focus your build on one or two things that do max damage and not try to have everything upgraded at once, bc then everything will be mediocre and miserable. Like, if you’re playing vanilla sword with Artemis attack and Aphrodite special, focus on them, don’t try to upgrade cast or dash or whatever.

There are higher chances for rare boons, duos and legendaries in the rooms with minibosses. You cannot get a Duo boon of two gods in their trial. Use codex to see what exactly you need for legendaries and duos, and what gods are best to choose to compliment the main one you have. Try unlocking Privileged Status in the mirror as soon as possible, it’s +40% damage bonus if you have two curse effects going, which is pretty easy to get. Great Hermes boon combo is Hyper Sprint that gives you 100% bonus move speed after dashing and then Rush Delivery, that gives you damage bonus based on any bonus move speed. Epic Rush delivery is 100% bonus damage, so after dashing with hyper sprint, you’ll do 100% more damage, it’s pretty fucking OP.

Now I’ll go thru the weapon list with easiest best builds:

Shields are generally seen as the best defensive option for first clears. I don’t love them personally, but I agree, they are pretty good for defense. For easy shield build, slap Ares on special, someone from AAA on attack. I don’t think shields need a lot of advice, they are pretty easy. 

Fists: the best build for fists is Merciful End, and it also allows me to show how untransparent game mechanics are. It’s Ares+ Athena duo that allows Doom to trigger every time you deflect and it needs Ares attack\special + Athena attack\special. If you try it just like that, frex, Athena attack + Ares special, it kinda sucks. Ares attack + Athena special also kinda sucks. No, to make it work, you need to put Ares on attack, Athena on special AND Athena on dash. Athena on special is only there to unlock the duo boon, but it only becomes good if you actually activate it with dash instead of special. So the most efficient way to play is quickly applying Doom with attack (take Ares’ Impeding doom and Dire misfortune for bigger doom damage), and quickly dashing so massive Doom damage triggers every time you dash. This shit erases bosses and keeps you pretty safe despite melee range bc of Athena dash. 

Bow: vanilla bow kinda sucks, ngl, but Chiron, Hera and Rama are pretty fun.

Chiron thrives on the power of its special, you just hit someone with attack and spam special without even aiming. Dio is very good on special here, and for attack you can put Ares or Aphro, both of whom have useful duos with Dio and also allow for Privileged Status. if you take Dio’s cast, you can go for his legendary, but it’s not that great to like build for it on purpose.

But also try the Sea Storm build, which is: Poseidon on special, Zeus somewhere (he’s bad at bow attack and his cast and dash are generally garbage, but his call is good) and then get Sea Storm, which is Zeus+Poseidon duo. Good supplimentary boons: Zeus’ Jolted, double strike, Poseidon’s Razor Shoals, wave breaking. Jolted+Razor Shoals allow you to apply Priv Status in one hit. Poseidon’s legendary is garbage, don’t bother, but Zeus’ is decent if you can get it. This build let you do massive damage while staying safely away from the enemies

Sword: vanilla sword is meh, Nemesis is very good, Poseidon is decent for cast builds. Athur is slower than Thanatos, but pretty tanky.

For basic Nemesis build, get like Arty attack, Aphro Special, Athena’s dash to be safe, go for Arty+Aphro and Athena+Arty duos, and Arty’s boons focused on critical damage like Pressure Points, Hunter’s Mark, Clean Kill. Mainly use dash-strikes, you don’t want to stand in one place to finish combos bc you’ll get hit. If you get Athena’s secondary boon with Exposed status effect, you’ll get Priv Status, and also you should be backstabbing a lot with how much you dash. Hermes’ boon with additional dashes is a must have here, but it’s also great in general. 

Gun: Lucy is ok, but Eris rail is the best one, slap Zeus on attack and all of his supplementary boons (Jolted, Storm lighting for legendary, double strike), but most importantly, pray for Cluster bomb and Rocket bomb hammers. If you can get them, this shit becomes insane. With Arty or Aphro on special it’ll do thousands of damage in seconds. Tbh, I don’t really like playing with Eris, bc it’s too easy and also doesn’t even require skill, but I got my highest heat (40) and quickest time (12 min) with it because it’s just that OP. You don’t even need Athena’s dash, Poseidon’s dash is very good here, esp if you get Sea Storm, it makes clearing small rooms in styx very quick and easy. 

Spear unfortunately sucks a lot in Hades, tho it seems fun at first. Achilles is the best aspect and only because it’s for cast builds and you won’t use the spear itself. 

It pains me, because I love Guan Yu, but I gotta admit, it does kinda suck. Healing shit is not really worth it unless you get a Quick Spin hammer, but even then you risk being hit for more than you’ll heal. The only viable option of playing Guan Yu is a no-hit sniper rifle. You have to get Charged Skewer hammer, something heavy hitting like Arty on the special and just spam the special from across the room. I like playing this build, it’s pretty fun and with backstab you can get 1k in one hit, but it is kinda limited and depends on the hammer. They buffed the main attack lately, but it’s still too slow and clunky to be worth it. Poseidon on special is also pretty good here, because you want to knock enemies away, and Sea Storm is good with it too. 

Cast builds: Poseidon is a good cast option with +50% cast damage, but Achilles is the best, because it has +150% damage after special for 4 attacks. Try Achilles with Zeus cast, which normally sucks, but with Achilles becomes very good. Another great option is Athena, with Aphro on something else to get Athena+Aphro duo that allows casts to backstab. 

Casts that need specific builds to work: Ares cast is only good with Arty duo, try it. Also get Ares supplementary boons for his rifts that make them bigger and longer, etc.

Demeter base cast sucks, but if you get a full build, it’s very OP. full build is: Arty+Demeter Duo MUST HAVE, Glacial Glare that makes lasers stay longer also must have, and pom it as high as possible. If you don’t get one of these things, it’s gonna be miserable, if you get them, you don’t have to make a single hit yourself, icy lasers of death will melt everything. Get as many cast stones from Chaos as you can.  

Hera bow is a great cast weapon, try Athena cast, Poseidon that has great AOE and slides nicely into Sea Storm, or Aphro cast. Trippy Shot (Dio cast) with Hera is very fun and both Dio duos with Zeus and Demeter are very good, and you can get them at the same time, tho it’s unlikely. To be safe, focus on Zeus+Dio, if you get Demeter too, it’s a nice OP bonus. 

Beowulf shield works basically like Hera and same shit works for it too.

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask while I still have this fucking database in my head lol

[leonas-herbivore]

I was REALLY worried about Aphrodite's design when I first started playing Hades. I don't know what I was expecting and I can't put it into words properly but I was dreading seeing her design. But I was very surprised and super excited when I saw her. I would say that she's got native american-esque features. I love her cheek bones. So sharp! And her hair!!! I've always imagined her with pink hair. Pink is a good color for her. She's naked but her body doesn't feel sexualized and her proportions aren't out of wack. It's like, her nudity is just part of who she is, it's normal for her and everyone respects that. Sometimes, people depict her as being weak or being an airhead because she's the goddess of love but in Hades, that's not the case. In the codex that Achilles gives Zagreus, he says that Aphrodite is the most powerful Olympian. Look it up!! It's in the codex!! I saw it with my own eyes!!! I just love her demeanor, her dialogue, everything about her. Aphrodite is one of my faves and I just love her a lot. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[c-is-for-circinate]

Ok, Hades gameplay reaction time!

(Because I have been terrible this quarantine year about posting thoughts about stories I've been invested in, and I'm really enjoying this game, and I'm playing basically blind and I have theories, and what is tumblr for if not recording those things to look back on later.)

I love this specific kind of fantasy/speculative fiction, that straddles the line between 'allegory clearly designed to explore a real-world issue' and 'the themes of this reflect real-world issues but also everything is times one million for drama and setting's sake'. I love it so much. Because, look, this is a story about a teenager/young adult trying to gather up the skills and resources and help he needs to escape his controlling, possessive, emotionally abusive father's house. That's it. Strip away all of the trappings, and that's what the story is about. By comparison, I think about Star Wars. (I love Star Wars too.) That's also a story about a dysfunctional fucked-up family dynamic. But that family is fucked up because dad went on a magic-corruption-induced killing spree, and his twin children were separated at birth to be raised in seclusion with the intention of someday taking him down, and look, that's cool, but it's definitely not how people actually are. All of the dysfunction in that family is an outgrowth of the fantastical setting, which means it is fantastical dysfunction. It can occasionally mirror or remind us of real-life interactions, but it's a fantasy. Which is great and fun to watch and very comforting and so on, but I don't necessarily want that in every story, and I love Hades because it is not that, at all. When you extend out the basic 'kid trying to escape his toxic home environment', Hades is the story of Zagreus trying to get out with the help of his dad's estranged, complicated, wealthy and powerful family, who are absolutely part of the reason why dad is Like That in the first place, and may not be any more reliable in the long run but who he needs right now. And his stepmom and teacher, who love him enough to help him leave, unconditionally and supportively (ask me how many feelings I have about 'look, Hades can't hurt me for helping you, don't worry about me, I am going to take care of you and that means helping you get out of this house' coming from an adult authority figure, ask me). And his dad's employees, who like him but also have to fear the old man's wrath, and walk that line in different places the best they can. And stepmom's long-estranged parent, because this is a story about families and how they split apart and come back together. And all of that is so real, so grounded in actual, concrete, this-is-how-humans-work family dynamics. But it's also individual. The story works so well because Hades isn't just a silhouette of the controlling asshole father; he is clearly The Way He Is for reasons, complicated ones, good and bad alike. The Way He Is has details, particularities, paperwork, a dog he pretends not to love and rely on. He is specific. Nyx and Achilles are specific, not just generic kind stepmom here to be a trope inversion and cardboard cutout teacher. Nyx has backstory and personality of her own, Achilles has a complex history, opinions, a missing lover, and they BOTH have very particular relationships with Hades that aren't just boilerplate script. Yes, there's abstraction there, you meet these characters in brief visual novel-esque three-line conversations over the course of dozens of escape runs, of course there's abstraction--but there's the very real sense that all of these people have nuance, have good and bad days, that they've made choices to be who they are, even if we don't know what those choices are yet. And, like Star Wars, some of the ways in which this story is so specific rely entirely on the fact of the otherworldly setting! I've seen stories that go the other way, that try to use their setting entirely as window dressing, and they end up feeling so flat I can't even remember them right now because they don't let the environment lend complexity and nuance to their characters at all. The environment these characters live in matters. The absolute control Hades exerts over his surroundings is a divine power. The fact that everyone Zag runs into, for or against him, is either immortal or immortally dead, changes how the react to

one another and to the situation at hand. The shape of his attempted escapes (gauntlet combat with a variety of legendary weapons) might be an allegorical construct of the genre, true, but it doesn't work in any sort of real-world setting where there exists the possibility of authority figures above or aside from Hades and his extended fucked-up family. That's part of why the family is so fucked-up in the first place. But these changes still fit well within the realm of, 'yeah, if you took this extremely real-life dynamic and added these factors to it, I can envision people doing this thing'. I can envision these specific people doing this thing. They add to the specificity of these characters. Letting them be influenced by their unreal surroundings makes them more real. So hell yes for good storytelling!!!!

I'm still relatively early in the game (by which I mean I'm like thirty runs in but only just got past Meg for the third time, because I am not good at this game, although in my defense it's only the seventh video game and second button-mashing game I have ever played in my life so there's that), but I'm starting to develop suspicions about Persephone. Because, look, outside of Persephone's absence from the underworld, this story knows its Greek mythology, uses it, revels in it. And there is some kind of mystery still shrouding Persephone leaving in the first place. She left a goodbye to Cerberus in her letter but not to her own son. Nyx has warned Zagreus multiple times not to let the Olympians know she's his mother. He literally never even knew she existed. That's complicated! Add to that, Persephone left--the exact thing we are trying and failing to do again and again and again. She left with one note, which means either she managed a one-shot speedrun out of the entire realm or she had some other way to leave, because if she'd washed up in the Styx pool to plod back to her room and try again, she wouldn't've needed to leave the note in the first place. And, you know, she's Persephone. Really quite famous for leaving the Underworld! Also quite famous for being forced back. So. I'm wondering if Zagreus, so conspicuously absent from her goodbye, has something to do with it after all. Six pomegranate seeds condemned Persephone to six months, half a year, half her life. I wonder if a child that's half of her her constitutes a fitting trade instead. Which, of course Hades would be even more resentful and dismissive and cruel to the kid he got in place of the wife he loved (who he chased away by being cold in the first place). Of course Persephone would have difficulty saying goodbye to her son in those circumstances. It would make sense. The tricky thing here is how the Olympians fit into it, because I also suspect the rift between Hades and Zeus sprang from Persephone's departure. And yet, if the Olympians never knew Zagreus existed, let alone that he's Persephone's son--how can he count as payment into the deal in their eyes? So in that case, what does Zeus think is the justification for Persephone leaving, after the pomegranate thing? Or are we just not doing the pomegranate thing at all? It would be a shame to lose it entirely, out of a story that really seems to enjoy the myths it's playing with. And there should be something complex here, something more than simply 'mom fucked off and left because dad sucked and now I'm following her because same'. It feels more complex than that. 'Mom and dad had a baby to try and save their marriage, it didn't work, but when mom left she had to leave me behind because otherwise dad would have gotten the cops and her extended family involved' feels more right, while still just as grounded in reality as the story has been so far.

I sort of want to write some meta about how each of the six legendary weapons corresponds to their original divine wielder, but I haven't unlocked all of their codex entries yet (look I am very bad with ranged weapons in this game ok, I am working on it), and I still need to think about the details. Aside from, of course, fuck yes of course Hestia's the one with the railgun. Leave drama and elegance and traditional weaponry to her brothers and sister (Demeter, who knows how to get her hands dirty, gets a pass). Hestia is out here to get shit done. With a grenade launcher.

[c-is-for-circinate]

More Hades thoughts:

Chaos just told me, "This space grows more interesting when you occupy a small amount of it." Chaos is, without doubt or exception, my favorite family member. They are so completely different and removed from everything and they still love us. In their own primordeal strange way that does not experience love in any mortal sense and yet still experiences emotions of good and yes and approval when Zagreus is near, when they can see what we're doing, when we come by to talk. I put their aspect on my shield. They are my stepmom's parent and that makes them my grandparent, sorry, no take-backs, you used to play hide-and-go-seek with Nyx when the universe was little, and you told me about it, and now I love you forever, kthxbye.

I continue to love the family relationships in this game entirely. We have seen more and more cracks between the Olympians, where they don't entirely like or trust each other even as they put on big smiles and talk about being a Big Happy Family Up Here, Come On Zag, What's Taking You So Long, Why Would Hades Ever Want To Leave This? (The dialogue for Zeus and Aphrodite's duo boon makes me cringe, it's perfect and also perfectly awful). The game does such a good job of being subtle about highlighting some of the issues within this family. Athena is the Reasonable One, who talks about how Nyx seems sensible in the same breath that she mentions how the Olympians don't have much to do with cthonic gods, of course, and also that underworld is simply wretched, let's get you up here where you belong--and okay, the underworld is wretched for Zagreus, but also, hey, I just put down new rugs and installed an oven in the lounge kitchen, it's not that bad, and not only has Nyx been endlessly kind to me, you are currently under the impression that she's my mother, so maybe don't give me that "you won't be judged for your parentage up here on Olympus" like she's something to be ashamed of, ok?

Speaking of relationships, I've finally met Thanatos, and, welp. First of all, he is great (his accessory gives me more attack if I don't take damage in a room! He doesn't want Zagreus to get hurt!!!). He is terse and full of Emotions that he pretends not to be experiencing. He is also, based on the way he said "you didn't even say goodbye" the first time I ran into him, very clearly Zagreus's actual, current boyfriend (unlike Meg who is very clearly his ex), who we didn't actually technically break up with before we started trying to escape Hades and get up to the surface, so that's Extremely Awkward. (Achilles called him our "closest friend". Why not just call him our "dear companion", Achilles, come on, and also yes I am still keeping an eye out for your boy, he's got to be in Elysium somewhere do I need to nectar you up to get you to spill details come on.) Like, you could make a case for platonic affection with a vast unplumbed reservoir of UST, I guess, but that is not the most obvious interpretation. (Also awkward: given the timing of everything, Zagreus probably last saw Than before the Persephone-discovery, which means that if they were in fact dating, then, welp. Congrats, Zag, you are definitely a Greek god. Thanatos and Hypnos's dad is canonically Nyx's brother in the first place, it's probably fine. Do love that dialogue line they decided they had to put in about 'I should've known you couldn't be my mother, Thanatos and Hypnos couldn't possibly be my brothers', though. Got to be very delicate about admitting to such things when you're making a game about Greek mythology.) Anyway love the dynamics of Meg who loves but also feels owned by her job enough that she has to try and stop us, vs Thanatos who pretends he's not helping us while absolutely helping us, vs Nyx who knows so much more than she's telling anybody but has an agenda here that we can only be glad is probably for our benefit. (Fun fact, in the Aeneid, the three Furies were the children of Nox and Pluto, aka Roman Nyx and Hades, so like, there's that, too.)

You know, running the same gauntlet of enemies again and again should get boring, and at points it does, a little, but there's something almost meditative about the pattern of it. And I think the really rewarding thing might be that as Zagreus gets stronger, I do too. I might do a little more backstab damage and have a lot more hit points than I did when I started, but none of that matters if I can't position myself to do the backstabbing. I think I may have figured out how to take out the giant purple crystal miniboss without absolute misery and spending fifty hit points on it, and that's not just Zag's build getting better, that's me as a player. Hell yeah.

It's increasingly clear how this game intends to keep going even after I reach the surface, which I am almost going to manage to do. (Yes, it's going to take me ninety runs. Whatever.) Because, look, it says right in the codex: "The darkness, having taken root within, connects the bearer to the Underworld and makes them inseparable." Unless I strip every point of Darkness out and make a full run with zero buffs--which, spoiler alert, is NEVER going to happen--Zagreus is gong to be four thousand points into the darkness by the time I get up to the surface no matter how many times I try. It's not the pomegranates, it's the dark of he underworld itself, and whether we are going to be the Persephone of this myth or simply take her place so she doesn't have to descend again and again each year, we will never get to stay on the surface for long. We can visit, maybe, if we're willing to battle our way back out past every enemy and exit each time we go. But we're not going to live on Olympus, and we're not going to move in with our mom in her little cottage by the sea. Not right away. Maybe not ever. Even though the Fates have prophesied that we'll escape--the reward for fulfilling that one is so much more Darkness. We will leave, soon. But that sure doesn't mean we're going to get to stay.