Mythology Retelling in Hades

When studying or thinking about the connections between mythology and video games, there are three approaches one can take. The first is to look at how video games retell the narratives in mythology: how do these classic tales look in this new format of storytelling? The second is to look at how storytellers are using this new medium as a conduit for their own stories. This is rather similar to the first, but an important distinction is in who is doing the telling. In the first, we have outside forces drawing inspiration from mythology, in the second it is the community itself who is doing the telling. An example of this would be Never Alone, which was created alongside an Inuit Tribal Council who saw video games as a valuable format to tell their traditional tales through. The third approach is in looking at video games as mythology itself. I’ve already done a video on this third approach, of video games as mythology itself. But in all honest, there are connections and relationships between these categories. Nothing when talking about people is ever clean to categorise and label, and this is no exception. So there are bound to be similarities, or games or conversations about games which either fit into several of these, or none of these.

But that’s all something to discuss at a different time. Today, I want to turn our attention to that first category: the idea of video games as conduits to tell old traditional mythologies. How do these new forms of storytelling use and translate old myths to new purposes? And for that, I want to focus on the game Hades by Supergiant games.

Before we get into Hades, I should explain one thing. Video games as storytelling mediums is actually a relatively new, and somewhat radical thing to say. Not for, like, normal people who play games, but for academia. In the early days of video game studies, the field was divided in two: people who thought of video games as primarily stories, and those who thought of video games as primarily games. It was called the narratology/ludology divide. While this debate is more or less gone considered irrelevant now, it’s worth noting that for even early views of video games, the idea of thinking of them as stories was actually debatable. As far as this little petty argument is concerned, we’ll situated ourselves right there in the middle. Video games are definitely storytelling mechanisms, but they are also games. We can actually think of it as both at once.

Anyway, let’s talk about Hades. Hades was initially released in early access in December 2018, with a full release in 2020. Players play as Zagreus, the son of Hades and Persephone, who has been kept away from the rest of the Olympians by his dad. Encouraged to try and find his mother, who is currently away from the Underworld, Zagreus decides to escape the Underworld to reach his mother and Mount Olympus.

The developer, Supergiant Games, as made some of my favourite games. Bastion and Transistor are masters in the combination of narrative and game. Everything works so beautifully together, from the gameplay to the music to the story and the voice over work. Their third game, Pyre, attempted to play with procedural storytelling. But the nature of that game meant that replaying it wasn’t really on the cards for many players. So Supergiant made Hades a roguelike game, where players are required to replay areas and sections of the game continually, which allowed them to truly explore this form of storytelling.

As Zagreus progresses through the many different rooms and layers of the Underworld, he is given encouragement and boons from the other Olympic gods to imbue him with extra powers and advantages to help his escape, most of which is erased from him at death. But because Zagreus is prince of the Underworld, death for Zagreus is never really death, but simply a restart to his quest.

Obviously, Supergiant leaned on Greek mythology to create Hades. Interestingly, they picked a relatively obscure figure in Greek mythology to center the whole narrative on. Like a lot of myths throughout space and time, there are some variants to Zagreus, even with his far fewer references in comparison to the much more popular counterparts.

Before I get into these variants, it’s important to remind you, as I’ve said this a few times before, that alterations in the oral tradition is not always due to simple memory. Often, storytellers would actively choose to change the narrative to reflect alterations that either had happened, or they wanted to happen, the society around them. Other times, their own interpretation to create ease of understanding would also come into play. Either way, these variants are part of storytelling and important.

Anyway, the variants for Zagreus are quite a few. The first is that Zagreus is not always understood as the son of Hades. In some narratives, he’s the son of Zeus and Persephone. In this version of the story, many of the Olympians are lusting after Persephone, and so Demeter hides her daughter away in a cave. Zeus finds her and disguises himself as a serpent when he, ya know, takes advantage of her. The biggest resource we have for this story is the Dionysiaca, a 48-book epic poem focused on the god Dionysus.

The connection to Dionysus is important. Zagreus is often associated with Dionysus, sometimes so closley that they are understood as the same person. According to mytholographer Timothy Gantz, in the lost poem of Callimachus, the poet refers to a “Zagreus Dionysus” - one name. However, the exact amounts of these are a little in question. The Zagreus Dionysus is considered by these considerations as the first Dionysus, who was dimembered by the Titans as an infant.

So here we have three important aspects of Zagreus: he is Hades’ son, he is Zeus’ son, and he actually is Dionysus, or at least closley related to him. These are some fairly large discrepensies for a storyteller to take on, especially one in 2018 writing a video game.

Supergiant had a few options for how they wanted Zagreus’s story to unfold for them. Their version of Zagreus could be any of these, and Supergiant chose for Zagreus to be, solidly, Hades’ son. There is no question of whether or not Zagreus is Hades’ offspring. They look fairly similar, this fact is repeated regularly in the game script, but also Zagreus’s apperance solidifies his heritage of both Hades and Persephone. Zagreus has heterochromia: his left iris is the same colour green as his mother Persephone, and his right the red of Hades. Supergiant left no question on this front.

But they then do something very interesting with the story of Zagreus. This is primiarly focused on the mechanic of the granting of boons throughout the playthroughs of the game.

Almost every time a god shows up during an escape attempt, when they grant Zagreus their boon, they have something to say. At times, these are funny little witicisms. Ares may make some comment about war, for example, or Artemis makes a comment about the hunt. Other times, they convey interesting commentary on the story of the game. The dialogue system for Hades is rather complicated, and is programmed to reveal on certain lines of dialogue at very specific times when they are relevant to the player’s unique choices or experiences. Sometimes gods will remark on the boons already in Zagreus’s possession, for example, or will note on progress through the primary story. Duo boons, or boons where they are a combination of two gods powers, will also create unique dialogue. Aphrodite and Ares, for example, make commentary about their relationship before the player/Zagreus has to make their choice.

At one point, after receiving a gift from Zagreus, Zeus says this:

“Ah, most splendid of an offering, young man. And while we’ve yet to even meet in person, I already feel as though the two of us are close, why, closer than you must be even with your father! Oh, hahaha! Perhaps we ought to go telling everybody I’m your real father, am I right?”

Supergiant, therefore, has decided to incorporate all the varieties of Zagreus’s myth simultaneously, in the same narrrative. In some ways, it makes a lot of sense. These variants exist in our world, so why not in a different world? Despite playing a game where we, as the player, know explicitly that Zagreus is Hades’ son, we are now given an explanation of sorts for why there is a variant of Zagreus as a spawn of Zeus.

The nature of the game as a roguelike means that the game is often telling multiple stories at once. Stories only progress when certain acitivities or conversations have been met. For example, one of the characters Zagreus can meet in his journey through the Underworld is Sisyphus (and his boulder). The story of Sisyphus can only be progressed when Zagreus talks to him or gives him gifts. But sometimes, the player may not encounter Sisyphus on their attempt. This means that stories progress at different times and in different forms. Sometimes, a run may progress the story with Nyx, sometimes with one of the Olympians, sometimes with Sisyphus, and sometimes with no one at all.

There is another small side story that unfolds through several different conversations and attempts. During a conversation with Dionysus, the god of wine proposes to Zagreus that they play a little prank. Zagreus agrees, and the next time the player/Zagreus speaks to Orpheus in the House of Hades, he tells Orpheus that he and Dionysus are the same, connected back from a time that Zagreus was devoured by the Titans.

Later, Orpheus can be heard playing a song telling hte story of Zagreus, in which Orpheus explores the deep connections between Dionysus and Zagreus. Even when Zagreus attempts to tell Orpheus it was a joke, Orpheus does not listen.

To explore this further, most of the connections between Dionysus and Zagreus are taken from Orphic sources, or the writings from Orphism, a mysterious religious group following Orpheus. You know, the bard. Therefore, the choice to have these variants of Zagreus being told specifially by Orpheus is actually a direct commentary on the connections and stories of the Orphic sources.

So, what does all this mean? Well, the first is that Supergiant games has told a wonderful story with Greek mythology. The game developers and writers were able to tell their story about Zagreus, with references to all these various Greek gods and mythic figures, and always pay some kind of homage to the variants of the myths that exist in our world.

What is interesting about Supergiant’s own retelling of Greek mythology is in their acknowledgement of the variants of the story. Instead of picking one version and sticking with it, forsaking all others, they provided reasons for the others existing. Zeus is both joking and bragging about the strong figure fighting to escape the underworld being his own son. Orpheus was mislead by a joke to tell a fanciful, and ever growingly elaborate, version of Zagreus as Dionysus who had been devoured by the Titans. We see these other versions existing, and can provide reason for them. They are not just ignored, but incorporated into the existing narrative.

But we cannot leave out one important facet; by telling their version of Zagreus, they are adding to the canon of Zagreus myths. For many people, probably the vast majority who did not spend their extra time reading myths or reading about the study of myth, Hades was quite possible the first and only time they have ever encountered the figure of Zagreus. Therefore, their version of Zagreus becomes a primary one for many. And not just in aspects like his parentage or whether or not he’s actually Dionysus. But also smaller aspects of the story, like his perosonality, the fact that he’s openly bisexual and polyamorous, and his many feats, even when gudied by the player. These aspects of the story become a version themselves. Maybe not as old as the Orphic sources, but still present and still impactful. Without Supergiant, the figure of Zagreus would still be that obscure mythological reference.

As I said at the beginning, these categories of how to study myth are seldom clean. Even in this example, we have to admit that, at times, video games can be myths themselves. They still tell these stories and have the power to influence the ideas and interpretations of these old and complicated figures. This retelling of the myth becomes a version of the myth itself, one which, at least for now, seems to be rather enduring.