Once Upon a Time Bonus Article: The Hades Problem

I remember when Once Upon a Time’s Underworld arc began, I was actually highly intrigued by Hades as a villain, but as the series when on, the excitement slowly dwindled the more I saw of him, and I think I finally figured out why. Throughout my articles on this season of Once Upon a Time, I’ve often mentioned how Hades’ master plan has yet to be revealed. And after weeks and weeks of waiting, it finally dawned on me. He doesn’t have one. Not only that, he has no reason to have one. Allow me to elaborate. Hades is evil, there’s no doubt about that, but that fact is irrelevant when you consider that until our heroes arrived in the Underworld, Hades was more or less minding his own business. If you get bitten by your neighbors dog while trespassing in your neighbors backyard, it may very well be a mean dog, but that ultimately doesn’t matter as the dog was only trying to protect its territory from a perceived intruder. Likewise, any move that Hades has made against our heroes has been a direct act of retaliation to them meddling in his affairs.

Since we’re on the subject though, how about a little Greek Mythology 101. Since the release of Disney’s Hercules a trend of depicting Hades as a villain seems to have begun. What many of the writers of those works fail to realize is that the Hades of that film, while a fun an memorable character in his own right, was written less like the classic depiction of Hades in Greek myth, but rather to resemble the biblical figure of Lucifer, the Christian devil. It’s an honest mistake to make, Once Upon a Time’s Hades even makes reference to how the two are often confused, and while at first glance the two characters would seem very similar, there are actually several essential differences between the two characters, the most important of which being: in classic Greek literature, Hades was never a villain. While it’s true that the Hades of Greek myth wasn’t the friendliest guy going and was certainly someone you didn’t want to anger, the you could say the same about many of his fellow Gods. In fact, unless I’m mistaken which is a possibility, aside from the abduction of Persephone, Hades rarely involved himself in the affairs of mortals, especially when compared to the other inhabitants of Mount Olympus. Most of the time, Hades was perfectly content to do his job and keep to himself. Going back to Disney’s Hercules for a bit, the opening scene in which baby Hercules strangles two serpents was actually taken directly from the classic tale, only it was actually Hera, Zues’s wife who sent the snakes, not Hades. To use an example that actually got Hades right, in the television series Xena: Warrior Princess, Hades is usually depicted as an impartial figure with a great respect for the heroes who often asks them to intervene in the affairs of mortals on his behalf, often to positive effect. My point is, not unlike his Once Upon a Time incarnation, Hades is primarily content to keep to himself unless someone directly provokes him.

Going back to the main series, let’s think for a second. What exactly has Hades done that has not been a direct reaction to the actions of Emma and the others that has been so terrible. He made the Underworld look like Storybrooke: That’s more baffling than anything else. He declared his undying love for Zalena: While I find his taste in women extraordinarily questionable, that’s hardly a crime. He tortured Hook: Admittedly, this is a stretch, but it’s entirely possible that Hades only did that after he learned that the heroes entered the Underworld. He makes life a living hell for those who dwell in his domain: As I said, he’s clearly evil and his treatment of the dead souls in his charge may be cruel but as the literally God of the dead, they are his to do with as he pleases, and he only ramps up the cruelty to extremes when the good guys force his hand. He put a blind woman who eats children in charge of an establishment that serves food: Okay, you got me there, that’s pretty messed up. But all of this brings me back to my original point: Before the heroes arrived in his domain, Hades was mostly just minding his own business, and any actions of evil taken against Emma and the others were only necessary because the heroes brought them upon themselves. In fact, when they first came to the Underworld, Hades offered them every opportunity to leave and made it clear that there would be consequences if they didn’t.

And this brings us to the core of the issue. The good guys entire motivation for going into the Underworld in the first place was to get Hook back. However, while Hook’s sacrifice was negated by Rumple’s actions, his death was no less legitimate because of that fact and even though our heroes have a means to bring him back, they’re still upsetting the natural order as far as Hades is concerned. Hell, if this arc were a stand-alone tale, with a few re-writes Hades could easily be depicted as the hero of the story.

I’ll close this article with one final thought. Thanks to their meddling, Emma, David and Regina are now permanently trapped in the Underworld courtesy of Hades, and the only way back home is to find away to defeat Hades. Okay, let’s say they succeed. Then what? Going back to Greek Mythology for a bit, in the tale of Sisyphus, King Sisyphus had so pissed off the Gods that Hades made it a point to drag the little weasel to the Underworld himself. However, Sisyphus managed to chain Hades up in the process, effectively nullifying the rules of death throughout the cosmos. As a result, nobody could die, the sick and elderly were suffering eternally and the world was plunged into chaos. So, if our heroes manage something similar, are they really prepared to deal with those consequences, especially considering, if the tale of Sisyphus is any indication, that an eternity of pushing a boulder the size of a mini-van up a mountain likely awaits them should they fail.

This article has merely been food for thought. At the time I’m writing this, the season has yet to conclude and it could very well be revealed that Hades has some kind of master plan up his sleeve. If that turns out to be the case, I will gladly eat every single word I have typed into this article with an honest to god smile on my face. Until such a times as that however, I must express my disappointment in the writers of Once Upon a Time for their utter failure to provide adequate character motivation for this season’s main antagonist.