Favourite deity cast in a bad light

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
Who is your favourite deity from any mythology who has been cast in a bad light? Hades, Pluto, Morgan Le Faye, Loki, etc.
 

Nadai

Active Member
Hades is my all time favorite god, but unfortunately most everyone see,s to view him as more of a bitter and angry devil rather than the powerful and kind recluse that he really was.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
Hades is my all time favorite god, but unfortunately most everyone see,s to view him as more of a bitter and angry devil rather than the powerful and kind recluse that he really was.
I always found him rather likeable, and it seems he only appears to be actually evil in re-interpretations of the mythologies. (i.e. Hollywood)

E. M.
 

fibi ducks

Active Member
Hades is my all time favorite god, but unfortunately most everyone see,s to view him as more of a bitter and angry devil rather than the powerful and kind recluse that he really was.
Oh, he is kind? Could you tell us more?
 

Nadai

Active Member
In the Rape of Persephone Hades, after being given permission by the king of the gods, kidnaps Persephone, his niece. He steals her from the fields where she's picking flowers with her friends. Hades takes her on his black chariot down into the underworld where he tells her she will rule as his queen. She's angry and afraid and horrified because she's heard stories about how terrible her uncle is from Demeter and the other gods. He rules over darkness and death. But she comes to learn that death is his dominion not his nature. He is kind and reserved. He brings her gifts daily. He never pressures her and he is never cruel. He gives her anything she asks for, except freedom, and eventually she falls in love with him because of his kindness. By the time Persephone eats the seeds from the pomegranate she is happy to stay and she is sad when she finds out she has to leave her husband.
It's our interpretation of death and the underworld that makes it something scary and horrific. There are several layers to Hades (the place and the god) both good and bad and in between (like with both god and man alike). It's unfair for us to think that, because he presides over Hades that he is automatically evil. He rules Hades because that's the realm that was left when he and his brothers chose their domains. But he is the only one capable of ruling it. Persephone sees Hades' power and understands that he has an important job in the world. Without Hades we would be lost. Our souls would have no place to go once we died (something we didn't even do until Zeus took over).
Hades' Roman name is Pluto which means wealth. He is the god of wealth because he rules the Underworld. No matter how much a mortal has, however rich they are, they all go to Hades. Even the gods, once they die, will go to Hades. He is the god of wealth because when the world ends there will be nothing but Hades. We get all of our riches from the Earth which he rules.
Christianity has taken the idea of Hades and turned him into some evil and sinister being and people accept that, but when the Greeks created Hades and when they worshipped him, it wasn't some evil terrifying demon the worshipped, it was a god just like any other.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
In the Rape of Persephone Hades, after being given permission by the king of the gods, kidnaps Persephone, his niece. He steals her from the fields where she's picking flowers with her friends. Hades takes her on his black chariot down into the underworld where he tells her she will rule as his queen. She's angry and afraid and horrified because she's heard stories about how terrible her uncle is from Demeter and the other gods. He rules over darkness and death. But she comes to learn that death is his dominion not his nature. He is kind and reserved. He brings her gifts daily. He never pressures her and he is never cruel. He gives her anything she asks for, except freedom, and eventually she falls in love with him because of his kindness. By the time Persephone eats the seeds from the pomegranate she is happy to stay and she is sad when she finds out she has to leave her husband.
It's our interpretation of death and the underworld that makes it something scary and horrific. There are several layers to Hades (the place and the god) both good and bad and in between (like with both god and man alike). It's unfair for us to think that, because he presides over Hades that he is automatically evil. He rules Hades because that's the realm that was left when he and his brothers chose their domains. But he is the only one capable of ruling it. Persephone sees Hades' power and understands that he has an important job in the world. Without Hades we would be lost. Our souls would have no place to go once we died (something we didn't even do until Zeus took over).
Hades' Roman name is Pluto which means wealth. He is the god of wealth because he rules the Underworld. No matter how much a mortal has, however rich they are, they all go to Hades. Even the gods, once they die, will go to Hades. He is the god of wealth because when the world ends there will be nothing but Hades. We get all of our riches from the Earth which he rules.
Christianity has taken the idea of Hades and turned him into some evil and sinister being and people accept that, but when the Greeks created Hades and when they worshipped him, it wasn't some evil terrifying demon the worshipped, it was a god just like any other.
That is exactly how I see Hades. As a good but misunderstood deity of the Underworld.

I believe the first of the three male gods - Zeus, Poseidon and Hades - drew straws for each dominion - the Heavens, the seas and death. Death was the last any of them wanted but Hades got the short straw, so he was stuck with it. :( Poor guy. Now he will forever be associated with death.

E. M.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I believe the first of the three male gods - Zeus, Poseidon and Hades - drew straws for each dominion - the Heavens, the seas and death. Death was the last any of them wanted but Hades got the short straw, so he was stuck with it. :( Poor guy. Now he will forever be associated with death.

E. M.
Yes. That's how I learned it.
 

Benst

New Member
In Hindu mythology, there is a Demon King called Ravan. He's the one who kidnaps Sita and is eventually killed by Vishnu in his Ram Avatar in the major epic the Ramayana. For me, although he was a pretty bad ass bastard, he was also a very capable King. There are versions of the Ramayana from South India which depict him as a devout worshipper of Shiva, as a major city builder, and as a devoted family man. It's funny, Demons (or in the sanskrit, Asuras) are alwasy viewed negetively, yet there are many examples of good demons who eventually are reborn in more divine forms.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
Hmmm... Interesting. I don't think I've ever thought about Rāvaṇa as a deity but since he is in fact worshipped in places even outside India, I suppose that [a deity] is exactly what he is. One of the reasons for his worship is in fact the aspect of him that you mention: he is supposedly the most revered devotee of Śiva [Shiva] (so in essence it's like he is worshipped for being a worshipper [of another deity] himself[?]).

Many Hindu stories actually paint the gods in a rather morally ambiguous (if not outrightly dubious) light when the deities use any means necessary to stop their āsura enemies from gaining the same power or status that they themselves possess, even though these enemies are actually their close relatives and acquire their power and "goodness" from the same source: protracted periods of tapas[ya]. So, at least in the narrative world of these stories, anyone who has the stamina to withstand the amount of meditation, self-denial and asceticism required could attain enough power to rival a god like Indra but when an āsura does so... it's bad and he must be stopped at all costs! :mad: (... Even if the āsura is himself really an okay dude like Balī the Great, who was defeated by an earlier avatāra of Viṣṇu [Vishnu].)
 

Benst

New Member
That's the thing with Hinduism though, the distinction between elements of good and bad all based on intention. Interestingly though, the Asuras must be devolved forms (some of them) of earlier tribal Gods, and so if history had been different perhaps Ravan would have been a deva and not a demon king. Then again, the Ramayana is a fascinating thing because there are many different versions, and the southern ones in particular don't paint Ram in an entirely positive light. You're right, it's interesting that when a Demon does perform religious asceticism to gain boons from Brahm or Shiva, they always seem to play an ironicly sick joke in order to undermine them. But, then again, it shows that the Gods are as subject to the Universe as the demons are... Brahma has to grant a boon to anyone who undergoes the correct orthaproxic rituals, regardless of what their intentions are with the boon granted. There's always loopholes though, like when Vishnu becomes Narasingh (half-man, half-lion) in order to be a loophole in a boon. Or, when Kumbakarna is woken up just mere days before he attains immortality after sleeping for 100 years... now THAT sucked.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
Or, when Kumbakarna is woken up just mere days before he attains immortality after sleeping for 100 years... now THAT sucked.
Agreed. That would suck. However, I do not know this story; could you share it, please?

E. M.
 

Benst

New Member
With pleasure :).

In the Ramayana (The Story of Rama), Rama is a King in northern Indian kingdom of Ayodhya. He's banished by trickery to the forest where he and his wife, Sita live in the wilds. Sita is abducted by a southern Indian Demon King named Ravana. Ravana rules a kingdom said to be on Sri Lanka, named 'Lanka'. Anyways, he has series of brothers, one of whom is a giant named Kumbakarna. Now, in Indian mythology if an individual performed certain rituals flawlessly, they could attain a boon or a wish from a God, mostly Brahma the Creator. Kumbakarna did austerities and asked for immortality, inwhich he was told to sleep for 100 years. So, war break out and Kumbakarna is the mightiest demon warrior, and is awoken just shy of his 100 years...and is killed in battle.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
Ahh... So perhaps the āsuras in the southern versions of the mythology (or at least of the Rāmāyaṇa) were originally the gods of ancient peoples populating that region, and the more favourable depictions of them therein hark to a time before they were defeated by the devās who then became the more legitimate Hindu pantheon(?)... I've always thought it sorta fascinating that Rāvaṇa and his predecessors are said to have built a kingdom on an island which today is an actual country. Are there are any connections between this story and what Sri Lankans believe[d] about their origins?

I've never come across that detail about Kumbhakarṇa's story - that he was offered immortality. I just finished reading some other aspects of his reception of boons from the gods, which, as ever, have Indra in a shady role. Rāvaṇa, Kumbhakarṇa and other siblings of theirs, jealous of the prosperity of their half-brother the god Kubera, performed tapasya at the foot of a mountain by fasting for two thousand years, each standing on one foot the entire time ( :eek: !). These efforts having failed to impress Brahmā (who incidentally was their great-grandfather), Rāvaṇa beheaded himself (a feat he achieved ten times since he had ten heads) and offered his heads to Brahmā (no explanation offered regarding how the Lankan āsura remained alive headless [residual energy from two millennia of tapasya perhaps?]). At this point Brahmā appeared and offered him the boon that nothing but a man could slay him. Fearful of what might transpire should Kumbhakarṇa secure a similar boon, the gods conspired against the giant, and the devā king Indra instructed the goddess Sarasvatī to dance upon Kumbhakarṇa's tongue as he made his request to Brahmā. The giant was going to ask for Indrāsana, "Indra's seat/throne," but instead ended up saying nidrāsana, "a bed upon which to sleep." He then tried to ask for nirdevatvam, which seems to translate to something like the negation/absence/annihilation of [all] devās. I wonder how Brahmā would've been able to grant a request requiring his own non-existence (a slightly different interpretation says that the giant's request was essentially that none of the devās would be able to conquer him), but at any rate Sarasvatī's activity garbled the word into the much more innocuously mundane nidrāvatvam, "sleep[iness]," which, together with the previously requested bed, was readily granted. Perceiving the gift to in fact be a curse, Rāvaṇa appealed on his brother's behalf that this action be reversed, and so Brahmā was gracious enough to allow that the giant prince of Lanka would be asleep for six months and then awake for another six months in a perpetual alternating cycle. So when Lanka was attacked by Rāma's army, Kumbhakarṇa was actually awoken, with great difficulty and through the employ of many artifices (such as needing to be trampled by a thousand elephants), before the completion of a six-month hibernation period which was still in effect.
 
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