#leuce & mintha

[dragaliareferencearchive]

Model references for Hades: Lantern of Lethe - Aether Gazer

[bunneechan-gaming]

Small details from Aether Gazer that I adore:

Heimdall’s heels being the appropriate height for horse-riding

Hades being a big sister to Leuce and Mintha

Hades, Oceanus, and Marduk adopting kids and being parents (additionally, having an ultimate skillchain with them)

On that note, Hoenir raising Tyr and Edward as their second father

Anubis, Bastet, and Sekhmet having pseudo-tails as part of their outfits

Anubis and Sekhmet having psychology degrees

Odin lending Gengchen clothes

Odin having Gengchen over at Aether Gazer to play director for a day

Odin and Gengchen’s friendship overall

Kali and Kuramitsuha probably getting along

Izanami’s sword, Curse of Yomi, repairing itself if ever broken (also its beautiful design)

Oceanus being a sculptor and his element being water fitting the analogy of water carving a stone

The little mythology-accurate details sprinkled around the game

The Functors having their own backstories and lore

Modifiers resembling their assigned Functors

The headpieces characters have

[mystiika]

re; hades’ ties with minthe & leuce

m i n t h e

   to start, i do not acknowledge minthe as a lover or consort of hades. there are a few different depictions but i personally use the story that she tried to ( or at the very least intended to ) seduce him but was killed by persephone before she could succeed. & honestly i don’t blame persephone in the slightest.

   minthe was a daughter of kokytos, said to be the most beautiful naiad-nymph, & was of mount mintha in elis ( southern greece ). she claimed she was more deserving of hades’ love than persephone, that she was superior in every way & went to the queen to gloat about how she was to steal hades away from her. in her anger, persephone turned her to dust. while he had no love for her, hades felt a sense of pity & it was from this dust that hades ( or persephone story depending ) caused hedyosmos ( mint ) to grow.

"For she had said that she was nobler of form and more excellent in beauty than dark-eyed Persephone and she boasted that Aidoneus would return to her and banish the other from his halls : such infatuation leapt upon her tongue. And from the earth spray the weak herb that bears her name." — Oppian, Halieutica 3. 485 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd A.D.)

"Near Pylos, towards the east, is a mountain named after Minthe, who, according to myth, [ claimed to be ] the concubine of Haides, was trampled under foot by Kore (Core) [Persephone], and was transformed into garden-mint, the plant which some call hedyosmos. Furthermore, near the mountain is a precinct sacred to Haides." — Strabo, Geography 8. 3. 14 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)

& in one of the depictions where it was persephone that turned her to mint rather than hades: "Persephone of old was given grace to change a woman's [Mintha's] form to fragrant mint." — Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 728 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)

   the mint plant was also later closely associated with hades due to the fact that mint was likely used in ancient funerary rites to mask the smell of the dead & so came to be regarded as a sacred plant of his.

l e u c e

   leuce is a more complicated topic. in terms of timing it seems like a lot of sources agree that leuce pre-dates persephone. there are many depictions where she is mentioned to be a close companion of persephone & we’re left to assume she was either a friend or servant but i genuinely just don’t think hades would go behind persephone’s back to sleep with a close confidant. this in turn means that i rely on a lot on the tales that imply that her time with hades pre-dates that of his marriage with persephone.

   as for who leuce was, she was the daughter of oceanus & a simple nymph. she caught hades’ eye & so started an infatuation with her — him, as the result of her beauty, & her, as the result of his affections as well as the appeal of him as a god. hades, who had so little interest in the typical whims of most, took interest in her & his attention was flattering, of course, but more than that it made her feel special, it made her feel seen. but he was god of the underworld & had duties to attend to. he asked her to come with him to the underworld & naturally she agreed. it was there that she lived out the rest of her days, regrettably as a consort rather than a wife, but he still cared deeply for her. while he cared for her & gave her what he hoped was a happy life, she was still mortal & their time together was short. he wished he could extend her life but it would go against everything his role as a god stood for. so at the end of her life, he mourned her loss greatly & so hades turned her into a white poplar which he placed in the elysian fields.

   these trees could be found in elysium as well as scattered around the living realm. beyond this story she has no role in mythology, she was simply a women who managed to capture the elusive heart of the god of the dead. additionally, to celebrate the hero heracles’ own return from the underworld, he crowned himself with a branch of this tree.

"Leuce was a nymph, a daughter of Oceanus, who was carried off by Hades. After her death she was changed into a white poplar in Elysium. The white poplar was sacred to Hades. When Heracles returned form the underworld, he was crowned with poplar leaves." — R. E. Bell, Women of Classical Mythology (sourced from Servius on Virgil's Eclogues 4.250)

"Herakles found the white poplar (leukê) growing on the banks of the Akheron (Acheron), the river in Thesprotia, and for this reason Homer calls it Akherois (Acherois). So from the first down to the present all rivers have not been equally suited for the growth of plants and trees. Tamarisks grow best and in the greatest numbers by the Maiandros (Meander) . . . So it is no wonder that the white poplar grew first by the Akheron." — Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 14. 2 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)

[dragaliareferencearchive]

Model references for Hades: Puppet Master - Aether Gazer *Please note that her released model is missing textures for her claws, shoes, and garter