Do we like Hades?
A character from Greek mythology (Homeric Hymn to Demeter and other myths) (Ancient Greece)
Our score: 4 out of 10. A fair, dutiful ruler who stays out of the squabbles on Olympus, but his best-known act is a serious wrong. We'd trust him with the dead and keep him away from the flowers.
Hades is the son of Cronus and Rhea. After the three brothers won a long war against the Titans, they drew lots to divide the world. Zeus received the sky, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the underworld. Hades was the only god not to reside on Mount Olympus, dwelling instead in a dark palace beneath the earth.
He is less a villain than a jailer. Once people died and went to the underworld, they could not leave, so he was often pictured holding a key, a symbol of his role as jailer of the dead. His realm is grim: dark, cold, joyless halls, locked gates and the hellhound Cerberus. But he rules it with order and strictness, not cruelty for its own sake. That duty, and his lack of interest in the other gods' dramas, keeps him from scoring lower.
His most famous myth is the one that holds his score down. Hades fell in love with Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and abducted her to live with him. Persephone was not in love with Hades but was taken by force. Her mother's grief threatens the world's harvests. In some versions, Hades gives her a pomegranate seed at the last moment. That seed means she must return to him for part of every year, which explains the change of seasons.
Elsewhere he is stern but fair. He traps Pirithous, who tried to steal his bride, but in the Orpheus story Persephone persuaded Hades to grant Orpheus's request to retrieve his bride Eurydice. He is no hero, but he is steady and fair outside that one act, so we give him a 4.