LogFAQs > #952443540

Jiggy101011 posted...

Hades is basically the Greek version of Lucifer right? A fallen brother that is tasked with guarding the underworld because someone needs to?

Nah, the Underworld isn't an evil place in Greek mythology: it's just the afterlife. The Greeks(and Romans) pretty much believed that this life was the time for greatness and joy, and that the afterlife was kind of sad and vaguely depressing for most. In the Odyssey, Odysseus visits with a few shades briefly, including Achilles and Tiresias, but they're just shadows of their former selves.
Hades kind of got screwed: he was the eldest son of Kronos, but wound up ruling the least prestigious sphere.
The only bad thing he ever does(that I can think of) in Greek mythology is abduct Persephone, but it really seems like he's just really lonely because nobody visits him and even his fellow Gods find the Underworld creepy and depressing(and thus avoid him). He's featured prominently in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where he comes off as fair-minded, even generous. The realm of Hades; however, is not a place of punishment. That would be Tartarus.
Stuff like the Elysian fields; in other words, notions of a positive afterlife better than that to be found in Hades, were a later evolution in Greek and Roman theology, possibly inspired by contact with other belief systems that had (potentially, at least) more positive outlooks on death.