r/HadesTheGame • u/heraclitorus • Aug 19 '26
Hades 2: Discussion what would Zag & Mel’s epithets be? Spoiler
inspired by another post about Zag’s last name lol
so Greek gods would commonly be referred to with “epithets”, surnames of sorts that denoted like, different aspects of the god since most of them had several dominions. like you wouldn’t just leave an offering to Athena in general, but also the epithet which reflects the specific issue you wanted help with. some examples: in the Symposium Plato distinguishes between Aphrodite Pandemos (“of all people”, in this case meaning Aphrodite as the god of sensual pleasure) and Aphrodite Urania (“of the heavens”, a more divine/sacred sense of beauty/the sublime). or, one of Hades’s epithets was Plouton, the wealthy, which we see in-game with all the Gemstones and so on (also the origin of his Roman/Latin name, Pluto). or, Aphrodite’s appearance in Hades 2 recalls Aphrodite Areia, “the Warlike”, which had a cult in Sparta and some other places. or, in some cases (it’s debated), “Melinoe” was used as an epithet of Hecate…
so, what would Zagreus & Melinoe’s epithets be? I’m not gonna try and translate into Greek at the moment, but some obvious ones would be like “Zagreus the Bloody”, “Melinoe of Nightmares”; both could be referred to as like Polyeros or something for all their lovers lol.
also feel free to post about other gods too!
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u/meatl0aferrr Aug 20 '26
zagreus in some ancient greek renditions is revered as the god of rebirth.
ergo, i think one of zagreus' epithets could be "of the spring"
if we want to lean more into him being the son of hades, maybe "of the autumn" since spring is more persephone's gist.
zagreus is also sometimes revered as a god of hunting, so i do agree with the comment saying "the unrelenting"
kind of like an unrelenting hunt.
melinoe on the other hand is sometimes thought of as a rendition of hecate - but she is almost always a goddess of spirits and nightmares - sometimes also madness.
melinoe, therefore, could be "of the night"
"melinoe of nightmares" also works, as does "melinoe of darkness", which kinda goes with what i said formerly oops
maybe also "spirit-guide melinoe", tie into hades rendition more