The classic chthonic god Hades depicted as villain in Disney’s 1997 Hercules film – character profile image in the Disney fan wiki

(1) CHTHONIC DEITIES

Chthonic deities are underworld deities – “gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility” (usually more the former than the latter). I mean, they were going to get special mention just based on the word chthonic alone, one of my favorite words.

It is somewhat unfair to rank chthonic deities as villains in mythology – and as my top special mention at that.

For one thing, while some gods are clearly more chthonic than others, “virtually any god could be considered chthonic to emphasize different aspects of the god” – Demeter and Hermes are classic examples, but even Zeus was referenced with the epithet at times.

For another, with those gods that were clearly more chthonic such as Hades, just because they were associated with death or the underworld did not make them evil or villainous as such. They could equally be neutral or even benevolent.

However, even when such deities are neutral or benevolent, there is just too powerful a tendency to default to depictions of them as adversarial or antagonistic – as with Hades himself, all too often cast as Olympian villain in popular culture. That’s just how the bones roll when your iconic association is with death or the underworld.

And for all the chthonic or underworld deities that are neutral or even benevolent, there’s others that are indeed chaotic, destructive or outright evil. After all, the Devil himself is a chthonic deity…

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (DEVIL TIER)