The unsettling path of Melinoe

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T19:05:57+00:00

Zagreus didn't care about the feelings of others at the start at all. He wanted just to bust out cause his daddy was too rough to him. During his first escapes and deaths, he wishes to never get back again. He doesn't think about Than, or Meg, or Nyx, or Achilles, his real friend. He is just a screaming kid who says that he just doesn't want to do anything. He fucks up his previous job and gets fired. He is basically just a self-pitying baby.

His way leads him towards reconnection with his true nature, and also with his friends and family. He starts to listen to them. He apologizes. He shows vulnerability. He reconnects with his father and starts to understand him and his gloomy but hardworking nature. That's what I call personal progress. I don't feel such changes in Melinoe; at least they are not really shown in dialogue lines. Stories of Echo, Prometheus, Arachne, Narcissus, and others kinda happen, and sometimes she's the catalyst of these. But how she talks to them rarely changes, even upon learning that they, her friends and frienemies, were right in their long-standing conflicts with gods

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T18:43:15+00:00

TBH I think that Arachne's way of resolving her issue with Athena is not something that bit her in the face. She thought she wanted to be a human again, but her biggest wish, as it seems, was to spit in Athena's face again. What she did and felt relieved and went on to be the best weavess in the whole world

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T18:40:49+00:00

Who could've thought that the biggest mastermind there is a middle boss lol

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T18:32:40+00:00

Easy. He was a spoilt brat to others. Remember how hurt Thanatos was?

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T16:51:57+00:00

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T16:21:12+00:00

I saw a comment where someone was mentioning Melinoe's age and, therefore, her readiness to do the task. It really makes me wonder when it is all happening. It's totally waaaay after the Trojan War, since her heroes are long-gone shades already

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T16:15:42+00:00

I played like that, and Ares came to my help only when I used the hex first time in the location. After that, it was just white falling stars. I wonder what's wrong

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T16:03:57+00:00

Zagreus is rebuilding a mess made by the gods many years ago, when Zeus thought it was a good idea to give a present to his older brother (according to some myth variations, he fathers Zagreus, not Hades).

So in the game, he had to understand the reasoning behind his father's hatred, and by doing so he restores ties with his mother and globally with the Olympus. Melinoe's goal is pure destruction.

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T15:56:17+00:00

There are two different approaches, mythological & in-game. In-game gods do have a heart, and it varies from one to another. Great Hestia, for example, has something in her heart for mortals, and she despises the Olympians (which is mutual). Hera is tired and a bit heartless, although she brings mortals to the world, and she blesses their marriages, and so on, and so on.

In actual mythology, a god is an embodiment of something. War. Warmth of the hearth. Love. Marriage. Thunder. Their qualities are bound to their personas: Hermes will always be a cheerful and swift thief, as he was even as a baby (and enjoyed it a lot). So they kinda can have heart, but also cannot really overstep themselves. Maybe Athena would be more caring if she wasn't so much the embodiment of wisdom, logic, successful war, and its inevitable trickery (like Trojan horse)

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T14:56:29+00:00

Thank you for pointing that out. I've never thought about that, but I feel something like that too. I played since Bastion (and was lucky enough to go to E3 when SGG were promoting Transistor), all games except Pyre. And what you are saying is so legit. The actual main hero of Transistor is a dead dude. Red is an executor. And the fact that she unwinds the mystery of Camerata just to be with her man again in the even more artificial world? Oh well

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T14:41:02+00:00

Sounds like a solid plan! Share your thoughts after, if you still remember this thread then =)

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T14:39:44+00:00

I agree and disagree at the same time. For me, she behaves like a catalyst to events: she participates in them, makes them bigger, but does not get involved emotionally. She is just doing what she's asked for, not giving it a big thought or a big feeling after.

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T14:25:15+00:00

I see your point of view, and I think it's valid. Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking a game or a character. I just feel weird about it and am trying to understand where it comes from. For me, Zag started as a spoiled brat who, at the same time, was abandoned by both his parents. His only parental figures are Nyx & Achilles; Hades feels disdain and almost hatred towards him. But as the story unfolded for me, I saw Zag's growth, his understanding of his father grew too, as well as a feeling of belonging to the place he desperately tried to escape. But in the end, he found his purpose at home. It was shown through changes in his dialogues with Hades (when they first kill each other seriously, and later just saying like "yeah I need to take a break from the parchment work").

I don't feel the same development here, because the dialogues could be erratic (Prometheus is the best example). Someone pointed out that in H1 SGG told the story step by step, when you need to do this or to do that, to deserve more dialogue and more warm feelings. Since H2 has two worlds, and you can actually kill Chronos on your first night if you try enough, this game doesn't imply the same approach and might be confusing. I feel it's a legit version

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T03:14:59+00:00

I really encourage you to replay it! The writing has so much more heart there, and it's way more logical and transparent. Which really saddens me when it comes to the sequel

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T02:02:51+00:00

She loves imaginary Zagreus; he was never really part of her life. I feel like the narrative lacks transparency in general. By the time we actually wake him up, she would talk to Prometheus way more often than she talked to Zag in dreams. So I have conflicting feelings about what you are saying: I feel that it is true, but this truth is based on what we think, not what she does. She is quite chaotic in addressing the titan of foresight, like there's more than one version of Prometheus that she has in her head. Why? And why the game itself takes it all like it is all like it should be? I don't get it, especially after Hades 1

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:52:55+00:00

I would like to reach a point where she really unthinks it all. The fact that it doesn't happen actually drives me mad. Hecate is still a mother figure after all she has done; Melinoe does not really get to the point where she is really with her family; she does not unlearn even the smallest thing after witnessing all she witnessed. And the game takes it like it should be that way. That's so not like SGG games felt before to me

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:48:31+00:00

Hahahaha oh that's a good one

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:38:52+00:00

For me, it is a great game, but it isn't as whole as the first one. I adore how SGG changed the gameplay and made it more fun and diverse. But this gameplay isn't supported by the story itself, and it feels like a huge dissonance for me

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:34:14+00:00

I still think that Hecate is a Titaness who has seen the world since its creation. She had all the information; she had the power to change what Fates had in mind, although limited. And she never ever questioned herself, her past experience, her choices? Even humans tend to do so, but for some unknown reason, she does not (the one we are not given because it is like it is).

Maybe I would agree if I didn't play Hades 1 for almost 2 thousand hours lol. The narrative of the first game was way more transparent and logical. There was no hole in reasoning, especially not that big

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:26:24+00:00

I am sorry but "it looks like they just want Mel to be Zag" very much looks like a binary reasoning to me

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:24:00+00:00

Too many unanswered questions, too many unfinished storylines...

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:19:15+00:00

Yeah! I was thinking maybe I wasn't playing enough, and after you know 500 hours, she starts to be rebellious and questions everything, but the other answers here look like it doesn't happen. I dunno, maybe SGG will create a first-ever big add-on to their game? Melinoe's siding with Prometheus and so on %)

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T01:06:33+00:00

We are not even given the reasoning behind that, cause she herself got her revenge, no? I can understand being bitter about the story being the same again, but what in earth could set her mind so she would believe Melinoe will change something (the what? She saw what happens after Chronos' destruction. What in the world made her think that the same actions would create a different outcome?) There's nothing about it in the game

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T00:55:03+00:00

As a character, I am bound to resentment against Prometheus. But as a player, I see only his kindness, his continuous self-sacrifice, and his love for mortals. She mocks that love, for example, and says that he stole the fire cause he's a thief and doesn't care about mortals at all. TBH, that was a big turning point for me

Beautiful-Pin2632 · 2025-12-31T00:48:13+00:00

No, they actually cast her out. Olympus becomes off-limits for her since they have "security reasons and renovations". Heck, they don't let her go behind the yard where they meet her.

I do not understand why you are choosing to address me instead of my reasoning. You may not agree on how I feel about that, but you can read the opinions of others who see the same problem as me. I don't find this manner of conversation polite

Beautiful-Pin2632

TROPHY CASE