As a hetro cis female, I do whole heartily believe that Dionysus is bi or pan. I love canon Greek Mythology, so you'd be happy to know Dionysus is the one who created the dildo in myth. A farmer promised to help him save his mother from the underworld, IF only Dionysus would *ahem* give him a ride, so to speak and Dionysus happily agreed. Before Dionysus could make due on his promise, the farmer ended up dying...Not one to go back on his word, Dionysus crafted a phallus shaped object from a fig tree...and proceeded to use it on top of the farmer's grave to pay respects. And apparently, Dio was sooo good the farmer's soul ascended to Elysium..XD
There's also an argument to be made about Dusa loosely representing trans queerness. While bonding with her, she'll eventually talk about struggling to find work since she doesn't quite fit the mold of other gorgons. She's offended and upset when Zagreus asks about her body, and later when he apologises for hurting her, she says “Oh don’t worry about it. It’s just… the past me, it’s as though it wasn’t even me. This is me now and I’m glad I’m here!” which resonates with a lot of trans people, myself included. Further, once she turns Zag down, she says “I never thought you’d have those kinds of feelings, for someone like me. It makes me feel complete." which in context also sounds very trans. I know for a fact that a lot of trans people agree with this, too, though it's rarely talked about since it's so subtle and the trans community is small in the first place. I recommend looking up her whole story arc on YT and seeing it through trans lenses. You'll see it too, trust me. Also 👻
@@JTurn a lot of vibes but his features and voice direction have a kind of "femininity" entwined with his masculinity and maybe some other quality I don't really know how to describe that feels similar to some of my trans friends. Could also be some enby projecting from me
As a cis het guy, I frankly love the amount of diversity in hades. It never felt forced, and it opened up many more opportunities for compelling relationships. Achilles and Patroclus, Meg Than and Zag, Dusa, Hades and Persephone, even Theseus and Asterius. Hades is a story about love, in all senses, which is a very Greek theme. also, ancient Greece was VERY bisexual, so its nice to see myths not being twisted to fit the hetero norm. Love the video and your energy, keep it up.
I came out as bi a couple years before Hades, but playing through and romancing both Than AND Meg was galvanizing for me Also, this game's character designs are just flatout lethal for bisexuals lemme tell you *fans self*
Oh my GOD I can imagine!! Seeing dionysys' thigh AND aphrodite right next to each other??? A LETHAL hit!! Lmao and I'm so glad that the game resonated with you as a bisexual and hearing about your journey put a big ass smile on my face! 🤩😍 Thanks for your comment I look forward to seeing you around!
@@JTurn lmao yes! Hades meant a lot to me in many ways. I wrote about one very unique way on Medium: "How Hades Made Me Feel Represented In A Way I Never Have Before"
The fact you can't romance Sisyphus, or even try to flirt with him is an 👏 absolute 👏 crime. I love this game, the music, art, story, characters... Absolute fave.
Hades is SO SICK I can't stop playing it I loved the main story and now every run just gives me a SLIVER of new story to keep me playing and it's just so delicious
🏆 As for misgendering Chaos, in some languages gender neutral pronouns don't exist. They/them doesn't exist in French because if you're talking about a large group of people you refer to them with 'ils', plural masculine, and you can't invent new pronouns because ALL words are gendered. Trees are masculine, chairs are feminine, rocks are feminine,... even verbs and adjectives. Belle is feminine pretty, beau is masculine pretty. All default verbs are masculine, unless you add an 'e' at the end which is feminine
Hey, great video! Yeah, in brazil's portuguese, Chaos happens to be gendered sometimes, but It goes both ways, calling they in both masculine and feminine pronoums
I have to admit, I did NOT expect a Greek Myth game to actually go this route, and I certainly didn't expect it to go this well. Then again, I do have a crush on Ares now... "Ha! Gayeeeee!" Shut up, Ken Jeong, I don't care.
On the Chaos pronoun issue, I don't know anything about the Supergiant translations specifically, but I do know Romantic languages are heavily gendered with masc or femme for literally everything (idk re German, since it conjugates with masc, femme, and neuter, but I think their neutral term is "it", which has.. problems as a personal pronoun to say the least). Spanish speakers have started introducing "elle" and "-e" as a neutral alternative to "él/ella" and "-o/-a ", but you'd probably have to convince the translators to specifically use it, since it isn't standard within the language at all yet, with masc conjugations favored for most "neutral" contexts. (ie, pluralized mixed-gender groupings, etc.) If you really didn't want to bring new conjugations into it, maybe lean into the cryptic nature of Chaos and use abstract language for them? (i.e., "eso" or "lo que," maybe?) I'm not a native Spanish speaker but, since I'm interested in linguistics and a nonbinary Spanish student, I've had several conversations with nb peeps who are native speakers of these kinds of gendered languages, and it's actually a pretty controversial topic, even among themselves. You'd want to get a translator who was really committed to tackling the issue to come up with an appropriate solution.
Regarding representation of disabled people, considering this game is based on the ancient greek pantheon and its mythos, the only canonically disabled greek god is Hepahestus and he's grnerally not treated very well. On top of being disabled, he's said to be a deformed monster, too ugly for even his parents to love (that's canon by the way, Hephaestus' parents treat him like shit).
I can only speak for Spanish on the subject of Chaos' translated pronouns, but I speculate that they were gendered due to Spanish not having gender-neutral pronouns. There's been a move somewhat recently to include them in regular speech, but for the largest part, it's been mocked and dismissed by anyone who isn't queer. This isn't something that Supergiant can be blamed for though, in my opinion. The only thing that could've been done is reworking entire dialogues to avoid using any pronouns whatsoever but that frankly seems impossible.
every time I play Hades and I encounter any of the gods I find attractive (i.e. all of them) I always make comments about how they can [redacted] my [redacted] while my fiance looks at me in horrow. no other game has done this.
As a native Brazilian portuguese speaker, the matter of gender-neutral pronouns and linguistic treatment of gender non-binary people is very complicated. Portuguese is a very strongly gendered language. Most nouns are gendered one way or another and there aren't proper rules for gender-neutral language currently, though people have tried and are trying to create and spread the use of gender-neutral pronouns, in hopes that those will be added into the rules of the language. This has been a slow process so far and the use of gender-neutral language has been met with severe resistance, even from within the LGBTQIA+ community. I'm not saying the localization team is completely innocent but it's a tricky matter they had to deal with.
🎉“Most of the non-binary people I’ve met have been fantastically chaotic.”🎉 Immediately thinks of James Stephanie Sterling. 😎 And every enbie NPC I’ve ever created in D&D. 😅
Hi! I know you posted this months ago, but I wanted to add some perspective as an aroace person So, when it comes to queer signifiers, I think it is relevant to discuss the canonical sexualities of the greek gods, since the most popular interpretations of the various myths are assumed to be canon in Hades unless stated otherwise Which would mean that Zeus, Poseidon and Dionysus are bi/pan/mspec, that Athena is aroace and that Artemis is queer (queer because she is definitely not interested in men and might be interested in women) And for me, this really does seem to be the case, specifically with Athena and Artemis. How do I say this? They just really give off queer vibes through their dialogue and voice acting that's hard to put into precise words. Also, in Hades, Artemis mentions a nymph that she is very close to - which definitely reads as lesbian coding
I was also a little surprised that Artemis didn't get a mention in this vid since she very, very much reads as wlw to me, and I might be misremembering but I believe she even mentions being tired of her father Zeus wanting her to "grow up" and find a man, which definitely is also very queer.
I don't know about the languages you listed, but I know that in french there are no gender neutral terms like they (though say the plural of he when referring to a non-binary person because it can mean "those/that boy(s) and girl(s)") so I don't know how they can fix it and I know in a lot of European languages there are always feminin and masculin words eg. a table : une table : una mesa and a tree : un arbre : un árbol and everything else is gendered too :(
13:57 so, I can’t speak for all translations, but I did play this game in german, and it’s just… well, impossible to perfectly use Chaos’ correct pronouns, because we just do not have gender-neutral pronouns that are used for people. We have "es", which is just "it", and I hope I don’t have to explain why people don’t want to use it for enby people; as "they", we’ve got "Sie", which is just "she" with plurl forms of verbs; and when speaking about an unidentified person, we usually resort to "er", "he". So the german "Hades" dialogues use alternatively "er" or "sie" (pl.) and exclusively gender neutral substantives, like "elternteil" (parent) to refer to Chaos. And it’s clunky, but it’s an attempt to respect such an identity in the confines of what we are capable of… saying. This is something I feel english-speakers have trouble understanding, other languages are just built different, and CAN’T PULL OFF all the things you do. And of course the absence of such ways to refer to non-binary people comes from the historic erasure of such people, but just wanting to represent and be represented does not automatically give you the ability to do it. Linguistic reforms are HARD, and LONG. There have been attempts, and there are attempts to add elements to languages like german or spanish (god, I haven’t even talked about the whole thing with romanic languages, and how it affects nb people, like here in Italy) but it’s taken years, and IT WILL take more years, before we come to some agreeable conclusion. Sorry for the long comment, but I want to talk to my friends in a way that respects their gender identity, and it makes me angry that sometimes I just CAN’T.
I LOVE that you brought up the body issues - since I was recently looking into that Bigorexia and toxic world of guys taking anabolic steroids to "get jacked" to be conforming to their own or others expectations of how a "man is supposed to look like" (which is a belated issue in the "male" side of the world after women were held to sickening standards for the most part of their existence already, I'm well-aware, which doesn't diminish the severity of either issue though). So, another point about Ancient Greek Aesthetic "Standards"/Norms, that might "interest" particularly the gay community might be the thing about the size of their genitals: small was supposed to be "better" back in those days since "big" was associated with "uncivilized" character traits. Of course hedonists would prefer the latter then... But it's a great point to start interesting (philosophical/psychological) discussions, i.m.h.o. And the Greek Pantheon of Gods does give a pretty wide range of Personalities - even though, it's hardly complete nor should anyone take Astrology or Myers-Briggs-Classification as serious as scientific - read: able to be replicated in fairly accurate (if not even sufficient by scientific standards) manner - tests like the "Big 5" Test for example. Oh, this whole topic can explode into all directions since it's touching so many layers/levels of human existence, it's really fascinating/exciting. (homo-demi-hypersexual and mostly homo-romantic [with very few exceptions] is what I'd find myself at in "the spectrum" if I got all the definitions right, but I'm first of all human-rights-for-everyone before all the sexual stuff is even looked at, since any phobias [homo-/xeno-/whatnot-phobias] seem to be interconnected "functions of 'fear of the [still] unknown'" and especially fear of death as the ultimate "End-Boss" - why "Hades" [the Greek God of the Underworld] and "Thanatos" [God of Death] are somewhat interesting Archetypes in this context - and also "Hypnos" as a "voluntary" and essential to survival state of "unconsciousness" throughout our lives. Of course, if there was a "God of Orgasms" [which is supposedly the "little sibling of Death"] would also be interesting since all those states of [having lost our] minds are something "natural" and some of them even "desirable" [orgasm] to many humans. But enough of my "ramblings" for now...I just wanted to give a little example of some of the implications these ideas behind the whole setting, characters and relations inspire in me. If I had people to constructively discuss these things with, I'd be happy for YEARS I think, if not until the end of my Life even. But I have not and too many are incapable or unwilling to hold constructive and respectful conversations even, so f**k it ;-P )
In German, there isn't really a genderneutral pronoun. Singular is like english he she it - er sie es, but you wouldn't say es - it to a person. "They" in german is also "sie", so you can't differentiate between 'they' and 'she', as it is the same word. :/
One thing that I dislike about the queer community is how sexualized it is and since I’m Ace, that kind of makes me uncomfortable. So, even though I’m apart of that community, I don’t tend to identify with it.
A few things about the skin colour of the gods, they probably took that liberty because there is a trend of whitewashing Greek and Roman history in general so that's just fighting a little bit against that whole thing I assume (also because of how living generally was the whitest anyone would probably be is around Hermes) Also Idk about the other languages but in Spanish you can correctly refer to someone without gendering them but like as long as it's kept within a few sentences, after that it gets really difficult, like you can't use the word parent or parents because parents is just the word for father with an S at the end (padres) and parent singular doesn't exist, you can use the word progenitor but it still brings to mind male genderification, and you can say like "chaos is my progenitor" and have it be okay, but good luck following up that sentence without gendering them as male, the closest you can get to it is gender fluidity but aside from that not being what chaos is, it's not going to feel grammatically correct to anyone The one thing you could do is go full on inclusive language but because it's so new there isn't a consensus about it, some want to apply its rules to every gendered word, some to generic words that are ment to refer to groups of people without a specific gender in mind but because of how Spanish has always worked the words themselves are gendered + a few words to use to refer to an nb person, not only that, until semi recently the character by which you would define gender neutrality has been in contention, here where I live, I can't talk for other Spanish speaking countries or regions for that matter and there's also the fact that this is not like the word "they" that has always been there, this is a literal change to the language so it's clearly gonna be waayyy more controversial than "just use they more often" people don't like change and a language's basic feature, especially when it's the only one you can speak is going to have a lot of push back (even if the change isn't big it's still gonna be a pain in the ass to introduce it), basically it's not worth for a foreign project to delve into that because then you use an ancient form of inclusive language from like 2016 and the people who hate it in general are going to hate you, the people who recognize it and or use it on a daily basis are also going to shit on you and them and the people who use it in different ways are going to complain and probably accuse you of not understanding how any of this works and just rainbow washing to appeal to everyone who that would appeal to (even tho playing the game you can see they wouldn't do it with those motives)
Just subscribed after seeing your channel’s trailer on your tumblr! Great video 😘 Secret question answer: Thanatos is BAE but Chaos is #goals so both of them 😁
I love the video!! I did want too flag a discussion around Chaos that (I'm,, not to fandom present, so I'm not sure how wide spread the critism is) I noticed. While I ADORE Chaos as they/them representation, as a they/them myself I would love too see some more,,, honest I guess representation? While I would love too be a primordial god I'm not - and while this is a game about gods, it would be nice too see a they/them who just is, and not a primordial being from the beginning of time
But the thing is i don't think it was thought like a corporate entity would "ah yes a God of creation let's give those nb's a treat by making them be represented by a primordial God, look at us we are super progressive now we can proceed to not think of more LGBTQ representation" but more like it was given non binarity because giving a concrete gender that aligns with our interpretations of it to a primary God is kinda weird, giving them a humanoid form is already kinda weird (which seems to be accounted for in the game given that their design isn't just a person, but also making them just a blob would have been boring and a cthulhian being too out of stylistic theme) My take is: why don't you think a being from the beginning of time would adhere to a gender? I get that you may just want a person who's just chilling to be nb but the use of the word honest (which I get that you seemed to struggle to find a word there so maybe it's just that you couldn't find it) seems to imply you think you are being purposely pandered to by them to at least a miniscule level, when from here it just looks like they concluded chaos would be nb and proceeded to handle them accordingly (if that makes sense?)
Remember when we didn't just give people a medal for having a gay character. Just appreciated it. Greek mythology had many homosexual relationships. Including hercules and appo not together but both had boyfriends. "Daddy issues" is just Greek mythology. Zeuse dad chopped of a certain body part of his farther that became aphrodite. Zeuse dad ate all his siblings except zeuse because his mother saved him. He saved his siblings and over thrown his farther. And zeuse is like the farther of half the gods. Including artemis, apollo, persephone, hermes, dionysius, ares and hephaestus. And thats not even all of them. This feels like your projecting on to them, your own stereotypes. Real progressive, being a complete stereotype.
