What Alignment are Zeus and Hades?

[imp_fireball]

Zeus being the god of lightening and Hades being the god of crops and lord of the underworld, etc., etc.?

This is based on the actual real world ancient lore about Zeus and Hades.

[Argeus]

Which one are we talking about here? The Disney version or the Greek Mythos version?

- Disney:
+ Zeus: Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral
+ Hades: Chaotic Evil
Because it's Disney.

- Mythology:
+ Zeus: Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Neutral, depending on interpretation. When he's the King of Gods he's the lawful big daddy out there, but when he's down there flirting and sleeping with mortal women... Duuuude...
+ Hades: Lawful Neutral. By far, since they always say that everyone's equal in death, so that pretty much makes Hades THE most lawful out there, even further compounded by the fact that he doesn't appear much.

[SilverSheriff]

moral of the story: Disney destroys everything, on-top of hiding Cyborg Walt Disney so he can continue to feast on the flesh of children from third-world countries.

Also:

Hades was also a Deity of Wealth.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Which one are we talking about here? The Disney version or the Greek Mythos version?

Why would we be talking about the Disney version? Even if the OP hadn't specifically said "real world ancient lore" why assume Disney?

According to Deities & Demigods, Chaotic Good and Neutral Evil respectively. These are the listed alignments, but I'm not sure they are backed up by the (reasonably accurate) fluff, for instance it stresses that Hades is "not particularly malicious and hateful" and generally attributes to him an attitude to his portfolio closer to neutral than to evil.

[deuxhero]

- Mythology:
+ Zeus: Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Neutral, depending on interpretation. When he's the King of Gods he's the lawful big daddy out there, but when he's down there flirting and sleeping with mortal women... Duuuude...
.

I think the "forcible" under the modern morality the alignment system (seems) to be designed under makes Zeus fall closer to "evil" than "neutral".

[Calmar]

I think the "forcible" under the modern morality the alignment system (seems) to be designed under makes Zeus fall closer to "evil" than "neutral".

That's the reason why guys like Platon aren't fans of myths where the gods act immoral, as well.

[Zaydos]

Ultimately Zeus is probably True Neutral with some evil tendencies (he ate his first wife Metis to keep her from giving birth to a son). What good he does is simply to maintain his own position as king of the gods, and he is only lawful enough to maintain that rule. Even then it is by fear, as shown when the other gods do decide to band together and tie him up in his sleep they comment on being unsure whether they should do this as Zeus is stronger than all of them combined. There are some myths where he does act as moral arbiter to men but in most of these he is creating a double standard where men must be good but the gods are allowed to be however bad they want, which is a fairly lawful evil action strangely enough. Based purely on real world myths it is probably easiest to present Zeus as neutral with a larger tendency towards evil than good, which actually saddens me since I loved the myths as a child.

Hades is actually a little harder. He's definitely lawful, but except for Persephone he doesn't do anything Evil. He is mean, he is dour, but unless you have a reason to be there he won't try and get you so I'd say lawful neutral with again a greater tendency towards evil than good.

Also the 3e Deities and Demigods is horrible as far as fluff goes which is rather laughable since they had real world myths to run off. The 2e Legends and Lore got the fluff better. Although they ignored/contradicted some common myths they did so by getting some obscure ones right. [/tangent]

Myth nut, sorry.

[Lapak]

*snip*
Myth nut, sorry.

I think you have the Greek gods pegged just right. On the good/evil scale, they are pretty much universally Neutral with Evil tendencies. All of them tend to be more concerned with their own interests first and anyone else second, and actually putting yourself against any of them (intentionally or not) gets you smacked down hard, but for the most part they don't really care. They're a bit more spread out on the Law/Chaos scale, though. Hades is definitely Lawful, Aphrodite and Eros Chaotic, Hera Lawful, Ares Chaotic, Athena Lawful, Artemis and Hephaestus probably Neutral...

[Mulletmanalive]

Most of the time, the gods of olympus behave like people, with serious bratty tendencies.

I think all of them are Neutral [a bit of everything] with Evil tendencies. I think Scion has them down pretty well, in that it has their pantheon being so busy messing with humans and each other and declaring their own importance that they managed to miss the fact that the titans had gotten out until Gaia was breathing down their necks...

[Lysander]

The best way to determine their alignment is to determine their portfolio's alignment. Is wisdom good or evil? Is the sun good or evil? Is the afterlife good or evil? Are storms good or evil?

Take the view that everything in nature is governed by a sentient being. If a natural force is there specifically to help mortal creatures (the sun, wisdom, spring) it's good. If it's there to hurt them (war, discord) it's evil. If it can do both or does neither (storms, oceans, love, afterlife) it's neutral.

[Tengu_temp]

Zeus is a huge, spoiled brat with godly powers who does what he wants and doesn't care about anyone else, harming them to get what he wants and often just for the lulz. Neutral evil, maybe chaotic evil.

Hades is lawful neutral - he did one mean thing, but that's not enough to shift his alignment towards evil, and apart from that he's one of the most dependable and non-assholish Greek gods.

In Forgotten Realms, Zeus is Talos and Hades is Kelemvor, only with much more important roles in the pantheon.

[Solaris]

Zeus is a huge, spoiled brat with godly powers who does what he wants and doesn't care about anyone else, harming them to get what he wants and often just for the lulz. Neutral evil, maybe chaotic evil.

I'd go CE. He just has really good PR.

Hades is lawful neutral - he did one mean thing, but that's not enough to shift his alignment towards evil, and apart from that he's one of the most dependable and non-assholish Greek gods.

Definitely. Even with the one mean thing he did, it wasn't that mean. He just kidnapped Persephone, not raped her, and he did agree to let her go for half the year.

[Primal Fury]

Well... there are plenty of sculptures, paintings, and poems dealing with that very subject that are entitled The Rape of Persephone, or at the very least heavily imply it. Even then it depends on which cause you attribute that to. Hades coulda just did it, or it could be that whole deal with Cupid. Either way, I'd still say Hades was still Lawful Neutral, with slight tendencies towards Evil in the first case.

[Telonius]

I'd peg most of the Greek/Roman pantheon as LN, true Neutral, or CN. Possible exceptions: Hestia (possibly LG), Eris (probably CN, but possibly CE), some of the muses (possibly CG).

[Lapak]

Definitely. Even with the one mean thing he did, it wasn't that mean. He just kidnapped Persephone, not raped her, and he did agree to let her go for half the year.

Um. He kidnapped her and forced her to marry him, which certainly sounds like rape to me. He imprisons her for half of all eternity in the Underworld as his queen.

He's certainly the most Lawful of the Greek gods (though not absolutely, unalterably so; Orpheus convinced him to bend a bit) and other than this one event he doesn't (for the most part) engage in actively maliciously behavior like most of them, but that one act and its follow-up was most certainly evil.

[Golden-Esque]

Zeus being the god of lightening and Hades being the god of crops and lord of the underworld, etc., etc.?

This is based on the actual real world ancient lore about Zeus and Hades.

According to Deities and Demigods, Zeus is Chaotic Good and Hades is Neutral Evil.

Zeus doesn't care much for laws or rule, but he's a generally good person who cares for mortals. Hades is relatively indifferent, but Disney tacked on an Evil Template to him. Personally, I use Hades as true Neutral in my Campaign; he's indifferent death, nothing more, nothing less.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Zeus: NE>TN, Dionysus brought about a change in Zeus. Began to soften the tyrant up some.

Poseidon: CE, he might as well be a god of maritime barbarians and The Hulk.

Hades: LN, he is the least offensive of the original three despite how his youngest brother took the domain that what was rightfully his and treated him as little more than a potential enemy ever since.

Apollo: LN, dude was called the lawgiver. He's Mechanus in a box. His one evil act was to trick his sister into firing off a headshot on a guy she was with who he felt wasn't worthy of her.

Hermes: CN, he's essentially the bastard love-child of Fharlanghn and Olidammara.

Ares: CN/CE, he's impulsive and makes young men eager for battle. Hard to tell if that makes him evil, or just a victim of an excess of testosterone.

Hephaestus: LN, he's a loner craftsman. I can't recall much about him at the moment aside from the fact that Aphrodite walked all over him.

Dionysus: CN/CE, depending on your view, he was either an empowering force for women or just an overgrown frat boy.

Artemis: CN/CE, she's to the forest what Poseidon is to the sea, in terms of her impulsiveness. One the one hand, she's the avatar of the women's movement. On the other, she could be absolutely merciless. Hard to pin her down on the G/N/E scale.

Athena: LN, Athena is the goddess of strategy and a craftswoman. She also curb stomped Ares when it came to the Trojan war. Pulling a Leeroy against her is doomed to failure.

Hestia: LN, the goddess of the hearth is the lawful counterpart to Hermes. Both are communicators, but where one is a improvising scamp, the other is an orderly maintainer of the peace.

Hera: LE, good grief was this one evil. Zeus deserved her.

Demeter: TN, the maternal spirit fused with the mentality of doing what works.

Persephone: TN, she's really whatever people need her to be though.

Aphrodite: CN, she and Ares were both gods of impulsive passion.

[someonenonotyou]

Hades TN all the way

Zeus i say is CG i mean yes he messes up but over all he tries to be good

Also arnt we NOT suppose to talk about religion here

[The Tygre]

Well... there are plenty of sculptures, paintings, and poems dealing with that very subject that are entitled The Rape of Persephone, or at the very least heavily imply it. Even then it depends on which cause you attribute that to. Hades coulda just did it, or it could be that whole deal with Cupid. Either way, I'd still say Hades was still Lawful Neutral, with slight tendencies towards Evil in the first case.

Well, you have to realize that 'rape' didn't always mean, well, RAPE. Indeed, rape used to also be an old term for 'capture' or 'theft'. Hence, the Rape of Persephone, or the Rape of Helen. This serves a bit of mythological importance; myths depend just as much on the storyteller and their perspectives. As such, if you want to paint Hades as a sympathetic figure, then it is the capture of Persephone. But if you want to depict him as a monster, then it is the Rape of Persephone. See?

Although, I think we can all agree that Zeus was an *******. But there are two sides to Zeus. There's the side we know, the petty human, wanton and destructive, but there's also a more deist side representing the whole of the divine, having in more in common with Abramic God, ominiscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He had different aspects for different people; one for kings, one for workers, one for soldiers, even one for thieves. It is possible the two aspects were in fact two separate gods. It would not be unusual; some Mythologists believe that there were two separate Aphrodites.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Zeus i say is CG i mean yes he messes up but over all he tries to be good

O_o

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Zeus is anything but good. His good deeds were primarily side-effects of looking after his own best interests.

[Dienekes]

Zeus is true Neutral. He is lawful when it serves his purposes, he is chaotic when he feels little hard will come of it. He's a total monster sometimes, he's a caring father and protector figure at others. Generally for all the terrible things Zeus did there are other stories of him being generally helpful.

Hades Lawful Neutral-Good. He's fair. The only thing that really was a point against him was to kidnap his wife cause he was so lonely. Which was generally seen as a social acceptable for the time. Sure he can be grumpy at times and not helpful but I cannot think of any single thing that seems truly evil (accept of course, the then social acceptable kidnapping)

It's kinda hard to fit these folk into the alignment system since our alignments and there's are completely different.

[AstralFire]

Zaydos pretty much has the topic nailed down - I'll just add that as Greece got older, there was a slight tendency to increase the 'Good' aspects of Zeus, Dionysus, Athene and Apollo.

[Jergmo]

Let's simplify everything.

Every deity of the Greek pantheon is Neutral Magnificent Bastard with Petty, ***hole tendencies.

(And Zeus is the king of Magnificent Bastards)

[Mewtarthio]

Zeus doesn't care much for laws or rule, but he's a generally good person who cares for mortals.

Sorry, what was that again?

he's a generally good person who cares for mortals.

...Are we talking about the same Zeus here? The Zeus whose main hobby is having affairs with mortal women, with or without their consent? The Zeus who once chained a guy to a rock where an eagle would eat his constantly regenerating liver every day for all eternity? The Zeus who sits idly by while his jealous wife kills his ex-lovers and torments his illegitimate children? That Zeus?

[Jergmo]

...Are we talking about the same Zeus here? The Zeus whose main hobby is having affairs with mortal women, with or without their consent? The Zeus who once chained a guy to a rock where an eagle would eat his constantly regenerating liver every day for all eternity? The Zeus who sits idly by while his jealous wife kills his ex-lovers and torments his illegitimate children? That Zeus?

Like I said, King of Magnificent Bastards.

[The Demented One]

Zeus seems to range from Lawful Good to Chaotic Neutral, depending on which myths you're talking about. In, say, the Aeneid, he's pretty much a fair arbiter among the gods and the source of all justice–and then you've got the Zeus who goes around boinking anything he can.

Hades is pretty straight-up-the-line Lawful Neutral, if you overlook the indiscretion with Persephone.

[Zaydos]

...Are we talking about the same Zeus here? The Zeus whose main hobby is having affairs with mortal women, with or without their consent? The Zeus who once chained a guy to a rock where an eagle would eat his constantly regenerating liver every day for all eternity? The Zeus who sits idly by while his jealous wife kills his ex-lovers and torments his illegitimate children? That Zeus?

You forgot to mention that the guy he chained to a rock helped him in the war against the titans (despite being a titan himself), was the person in Greek myth that actually cared about humanity, and Zeus did this because he bettered humanity's standard of living.

Which just helps further your point.

Zeus seems to range from Lawful Good to Chaotic Neutral, depending on which myths you're talking about. In, say, the Aeneid, he's pretty much a fair arbiter among the gods and the source of all justice–and then you've got the Zeus who goes around boinking anything he can.

Yeah most of the Greek gods come off as closer to LG in the Roman myths. I've gotten used to distinguishing Jupiter and Zeus for this reason because they do act differently. Just looking at Roman myths you could make a fairly good argument for a lawful and good Jupiter. I like the Roman Jupiter better actually. Note also: Roman Juno (Hera) is much less jealous and more regal than the Greek Hera who mostly just tormented Hercules.

[Jergmo]

The Greek goddesses also go out of their way to turn every exceptionally beautiful woman in the world except maybe Helen into horrific monsters.

The Harpies and Gorgons? Used to be drop-dead gorgeous.

[Lysander]

The Greek Gods do act pretty callous to mortals, but how well did you treat that cow in the last hamburger you ate? Humans are regarded like clever animals (which is a pretty accurate description).

[deuxhero]

Apollo: LN, dude was called the lawgiver. He's Mechanus in a box. His one evil act was to trick his sister into firing off a headshot on a guy she was with who he felt wasn't worthy of her.

Didn't Apollo... attempt something with a Satyr (or was it a Centar?)?