I love ancient religions because often, in the source material,
the death and death-adjacent deities are like chill as fuck.
My favorite example is Hades. He gets the Underworld mostly because
his younger brothers put their fingers on their noses and said “not it.” So like a good big-bro he
goes down there and proceeds to basically be the god of bureaucracy.
He gets everything set up so he doesn’t actually have to do
anything. Thanatos is the God of Death (also chill as fuck) and he’s the one
who ends lives (but only off the shopping list the Fates give him), Hermes’ psychopomps
are the ones who bring the souls down, it’s three dead guys who are the ones to
judge your soul, and the fearsome three-headed guard dog… Hades named him Spot.
All the shitty stuff that goes on in Tartarus (Hell), yeah,
that’s mostly Zeus’ doing. Hades doesn’t come up with the punishments, just
provides the acreage. And when gods come down and want to bring people back to
life (often after some god has gotten them killed), Hades is like “nah man,
paperwork is finished, transfer’s complete, let them have their rest, find
someone else to be your punching bag.”
As for the whole Persephone thing, that is a strange one. I’m
like 85% sure the story is mostly Demeter propaganda because that goddess is
not chill as fuck. I mean, I guess Hades could have kidnapped Persephone with
serious malicious intent, but then did a 180 after realizing he was being a
total d-bag. Because, seriously, he pretty much lets Persephone take over
everything. Like, everyone knew who wore the pants in the Underworld, the motherfucking
Iron Queen herself.
And as much as I love Hades in the Hercules animated movie because of the perfect comedic timing of James
actually-a-horrible-human-being Woods, yeah, Hades couldn’t give a crap about
what everyone else was doing. He often stayed neutral in wars, be it between
mortals or gods, mostly because death does not discriminate, all souls end up
with him in the end.
When it comes to the Underworld, Hades is basically the equivalent
of the general manager who pokes his head in now and again to make sure nothing
is on fire. The rest of the time he’s playing with his shiny rocks because
being Lord of the Underworld meant he also had domain over gold, silver,
gemstones, basically all the pretties.
Hell, Hades needs an actual Helm of Fear in order to be
intimidating because otherwise, yeah, nope. I like to think of him as
Skinny!Steve whist his brothers are like, well, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman (aka Poseidon).
Let’s face it, Momoa could kick your ass just by looking at you sideways and
may actually be a demi-god.
So, please, if you’re writing Hades in anything, don’t make
him out to be the modern idea of Satan or Lucifer. He’s really just an introvert
with high functioning organizational skills who loves rocks and women who can
kick his ass.