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Dec. 28th, 2020 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchancebeen a while since I updated, but I wanted to talk about the video game Hades under a spoiler cut (because spoilers; I have friends who are playing or might yet play), which you can't do on Twitter. so:
One thing that made me wary as I started playing Hades was the relationship between Hades and his son Zagreus, which starts out..... tense, to put it mildly. Hades is a pretty lousy dad. I mean, he's dad of the year by mythological standards, but by RL standards, not great. There's the ridiculousness of Hades setting up a situation where Zagreus has to fight his way out of the underworld, dying repeatedly and violently, but some of the more realistic stuff (where Hades has unresolved issues and takes them out on Zagreus via neglect and emotional abuse) hits a little closer to home.
At this point, I've seen wayyyy too much media that has the trope where an adult who's estranged (or even just resentful) of their distant or abusive father finds out that daddy really loved them all along, even if he was bad at showing it! and he was trying to do the best he could for them! and probably had trauma issues that he wasn't dealing with! and that makes everything okay! so if the kid refuses to forgive and forget, THEY'RE the asshole! And I am very, very tired of that trope turning up in every single bit of media about estranged parents or adult children of abusers.
(Note: this can happen with mothers too, but it's less common.)
Hades could have very easily been that trope. After you initially escape the underworld and find Zagreus's mom Persephone, subsequent runs turn into trying to find out more information about what the fuck went wrong between Persephone and Hades, why Hades was trying so hard to stop Zagreus from coming to the surface or Persephone from remaining in the underworld, and slowly helping to piece together the whole picture and then to fix Hades and Persephone's relationship. There's some dialogue from Zagreus about "but you're family and we're stuck with each other because that's how it goes," and I was braced for this game to go there because it's otherwise enjoyable enough to stick with it.
But the really nice thing about the game? It DOESN'T go there. Yes, eventually Persephone returns to the underworld and reunites with Hades, and Hades starts to soften up and talk about his reasoning for doing what he did, but the thing that's often missing from these stories? Hades genuinely apologizes to Zagreus for his shitty behavior, Zagreus says he's still pissed and that Hades has to put in the work to rebuild any kind of trust, and that's OKAY. Hades says he gets it. Persephone doesn't push them to reconcile. Even if you do the relationship-building mechanic with Hades, things get a little less frosty but when Hades thanks Zagreus for bringing Persephone back, Zagreus says it wasn't for HIM, and Hades is basically like, "Yeah, that's fair. I've been a total asshole, and you deserved a better dad. Sorry."
I still haven't gotten to the quest where Persephone and Hades try to make peace with the other Olympic gods, so that could totally screw the pooch in terms of "but faaaamily" stuff, because whoo boy, Persephone and Demeter's relationship seems to be a clusterfuck, but I'm pretty satisfied with the Hades and Zagreus post-game dynamic at least.
So yeah, not only is the game a Cerberus-petting simulator and a "date death" simulator, it's also a "your shitty dad apologizes for his bad behavior without excuses and tries to do better without anyone demanding you forgive him" simulator. It's really refreshing. Would recommend.
One thing that made me wary as I started playing Hades was the relationship between Hades and his son Zagreus, which starts out..... tense, to put it mildly. Hades is a pretty lousy dad. I mean, he's dad of the year by mythological standards, but by RL standards, not great. There's the ridiculousness of Hades setting up a situation where Zagreus has to fight his way out of the underworld, dying repeatedly and violently, but some of the more realistic stuff (where Hades has unresolved issues and takes them out on Zagreus via neglect and emotional abuse) hits a little closer to home.
At this point, I've seen wayyyy too much media that has the trope where an adult who's estranged (or even just resentful) of their distant or abusive father finds out that daddy really loved them all along, even if he was bad at showing it! and he was trying to do the best he could for them! and probably had trauma issues that he wasn't dealing with! and that makes everything okay! so if the kid refuses to forgive and forget, THEY'RE the asshole! And I am very, very tired of that trope turning up in every single bit of media about estranged parents or adult children of abusers.
(Note: this can happen with mothers too, but it's less common.)
Hades could have very easily been that trope. After you initially escape the underworld and find Zagreus's mom Persephone, subsequent runs turn into trying to find out more information about what the fuck went wrong between Persephone and Hades, why Hades was trying so hard to stop Zagreus from coming to the surface or Persephone from remaining in the underworld, and slowly helping to piece together the whole picture and then to fix Hades and Persephone's relationship. There's some dialogue from Zagreus about "but you're family and we're stuck with each other because that's how it goes," and I was braced for this game to go there because it's otherwise enjoyable enough to stick with it.
But the really nice thing about the game? It DOESN'T go there. Yes, eventually Persephone returns to the underworld and reunites with Hades, and Hades starts to soften up and talk about his reasoning for doing what he did, but the thing that's often missing from these stories? Hades genuinely apologizes to Zagreus for his shitty behavior, Zagreus says he's still pissed and that Hades has to put in the work to rebuild any kind of trust, and that's OKAY. Hades says he gets it. Persephone doesn't push them to reconcile. Even if you do the relationship-building mechanic with Hades, things get a little less frosty but when Hades thanks Zagreus for bringing Persephone back, Zagreus says it wasn't for HIM, and Hades is basically like, "Yeah, that's fair. I've been a total asshole, and you deserved a better dad. Sorry."
I still haven't gotten to the quest where Persephone and Hades try to make peace with the other Olympic gods, so that could totally screw the pooch in terms of "but faaaamily" stuff, because whoo boy, Persephone and Demeter's relationship seems to be a clusterfuck, but I'm pretty satisfied with the Hades and Zagreus post-game dynamic at least.
So yeah, not only is the game a Cerberus-petting simulator and a "date death" simulator, it's also a "your shitty dad apologizes for his bad behavior without excuses and tries to do better without anyone demanding you forgive him" simulator. It's really refreshing. Would recommend.