| rdfs:comment | - Oh, c'mon, what's wrong with Hades? He's a pretty nice guy. Not his fault he drew the lot of being god of the dead... why is Hades always so evil in media? Why? Death is scary. We fear death because we simply do not know what will happen to us once it inevitably comes a knockin'. So, by default, anything associated with death can't be good, right? And since Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work, a god who brings death must be an evil one, right? Examples of Everybody Hates Hades include:
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| abstract | - Oh, c'mon, what's wrong with Hades? He's a pretty nice guy. Not his fault he drew the lot of being god of the dead... why is Hades always so evil in media? Why? Death is scary. We fear death because we simply do not know what will happen to us once it inevitably comes a knockin'. So, by default, anything associated with death can't be good, right? And since Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work, a god who brings death must be an evil one, right? Many religions throughout history have produced deities who rule over and/or represent some aspect of death and are not portrayed as being malicious. They're not evil, they're just doing their job. Those dead souls won't collect themselves. Of course, that doesn't stop some modern writers from looking upon these otherwise benign beings and seeing nothing but an easy villain for their mythology based opus. After all, who cares about accuracy? Viewers are Morons after all, and most people see death as something to loathe and fear anyway, so half the work is already done! And then there is the whole Satan analogue... It's also quite possible that they simply Did Not Do the Research. Or were limited by time constraints and had to do something with what they had on the fly... or They Just Didn't Care. To put it simply, this trope is invoked whenever an author takes an otherwise benign or at least neutral death-related deity and makes them evil for whatever reason. A Sub-Trope of Sadly Mythtaken and a form of Adaptational Villainy. Compare with Hijacked by Jesus, when the similarities with Christianity are painfully obvious. Contrast with Don't Fear the Reaper. See Historical Villain Upgrade for when this is applied to historical rather than mythological figures. See also The Theme Park Version and occasionally Mythology Upgrade. Named after the Greek God of the Underworld, Hades, who is often a victim of this in modern times. In the original Hercules myth, Hera (Zeus's wife) was the antagonist, because Hercules was the product of Zeus's... um... "extra-marital activities". Poor Hades had nothing to do with the operation. But that just wouldn't set well with Disney's lovely-lovely family image now, would it? Much easier to make the creepy death dude the bad guy. Examples of Everybody Hates Hades include:
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