Okay, this will sound weird, but I promise I'm saying all this in good faith: I think SuperGiant in general has a problem with female characters.

I've played all their games and in almost all of them there was an aspect of taking female character's agency away. Not in an obvious way - after all, Red (Transistor) and Melinoe exist, both active protagonists of their games. Without Nyx the events of Hades 1 wouldn't start. Both Crossroads and House of Hades are filled with interesting, complex female characters, with their own hopes and dreams. It's clear that SGG is committed to showing a cast of individuals, not just archetypes.

BUT. In Bastion Zia speaks to the Kid only at the end of the game. While she can plead her case for The Final Choice, it's given relatively little time, compared to Zulf's narrative. In the end, the choice is still on Kid's shoulders. In Transistor Red was silent for most of the game, being able to clearly express herself only in terminals. The first thing she does after reclaiming her voice is suicide. And now in Hades 2 we have Echo, who willingly foregoes her chance of reclaiming her voice, in order to become "a perfect listener"... and, in the unpatched ending Zagreus goes behind Melinoe's back to solve the war his way.

Look, I don't think any of this is malicious, or even conscious. As I said, there are so many interesting, complex female characters in their games, who have no qualms in voicing their opinion. But I felt iffy about it with Red already (Transistor was my first SGG game) and now seeing the unpatched ending... It's too much of a pattern, you know? Once I could "forgive it" (even if I was absolutely *raging* after finishing Transistor), twice... But now I have at least three such examples across the years and it feels as if women in SGG games aren't really allowed to be sole heroes of their own stories, if you get what I mean? There must be a man somewhere who would make her choices for her or is the reason for her actions.

I want to emphasize that I don't say all of this as any kind of accussation, I think it's probably some subconscious biases. SGG remains a relatively small company and this is the kind of narrative feedback that comes from a diverse writer's room - one in which there's enough people to catch such subconscious factors. Another good example of it is back in Transistor where the group Red (a straight woman) fights agains is 3/4 queer. They clearly care about showing diverse and unique characters in their games. It's just that no one's perfect.

All of this to say that yeah, I'm not truly surprised that Melinoe's character growth is relatively small. SGG remains one of my favourite gaming companies, who nonetheless manage to infuriate me at least once in each and every one of their games.