Hades: Shadow Lord ​

​Hades, Greek mythology’s god of the Underworld, regularly emerges in modern popular culture. Often he is depicted as a hellish villain (consider Disney’s Hercules for a memorable example) yet, in antiquity, Hades was not necessarily evil; he just served a vital, albeit unsavoury, duty.

Although debuting as a summon in Final Fantasy VII, most frequently Hades’ Final Fantasy appearances range from fightable enemies to fleshed out major villains. Square Enix depicts Hades as either skeletal or human, depending on how prominent he is in a particular game’s story. Like antiquity’s Hades, the dark god of Final Fantasy also assumes other pseudonyms: Melvien (Final Fantasy XI) and Emet-Selch/Emperor Solus (Final Fantasy XIV). Let’s open the gates and descend deeply into discussion.


Scene Setting: Underworld or Underwater?
It is impossible to discuss Hades without first referring to his abode in the Greek Underworld/afterlife; after all, Hades spent the vast majority of his time there in myth. The Underworld itself was visualised as a place beneath the Earth, with ideas about sub-regions developing over time. It was also sometimes considered to be connected to the real world via various entrances, and some earthly rivers were said to flow into it. So inseparable is Hades from his realm that his name became a byword for it as early as Homer.

According to mythic tradition Hades was assigned his domain by lot. After the victorious Olympian gods overthrew the Titans, the three brothers (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) divided the world’s territories between them (Homer, Iliad:15.87-91; Homeric Hymn to Demeter:84-87). Zeus took the heavens, dominion over the earth and supremacy above other gods and beings. Poseidon ruled the sea (although his powers extended to land as the entity behind earthquakes). Hades drew the short straw by finding himself isolated from the other gods in the somewhat less agreeable kingdom of the Underworld.

Likewise, Final Fantasy’s reclusive Hades also occupies gloomy regions, albeit not always where we might expect to find him. Square Enix have established a trend of placing Hades deep at the bottom of the ocean. The materia enabling the player to summon Hades in Final Fantasy VII is acquired in the sunken ruins of the crashed Shinra transport airship Gelnika (which the player can access using the submarine). In Memoria, Final Fantasy IX’s Hades can be encountered within a magical reproduction of the seabed. Final Fantasy XIV presents Hades/Emet-Selch as a loner residing deep at the bottom of the ocean in the light-drenched world of the First. Here, avoiding detection in his dark final refuge, tactically eluding the Flood of Light above the surface (especially harmful to an agent of darkness like himself), Emet-Selch sets up his base of operations and indulges himself in his memories by creating an illusion of his former home: the destroyed city of Amaurot, from which Emet-Selch is one of only a handful of survivors.

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