Hero's Glory

The will of the Gods are absolute. The Older Gods or the Titans are the only ones that could oppose the Gods. However, they have been defeated and exiled in the deepest parts of Tartarus. With their exile the Gods have reigned supreme above all, they are now the masters of the world with their wills challenged by no one.

Even in the Trojan War, there are manifestations of how absolute the will of the Gods is. Every triumphs and falls, every defeats and victories, every lives slain and spared is done according to their will.

It is shown that when the Gods will not intervene in battle the Achaians and the Trojans will be equal in everything and neither will win nor lose. The Trojans only win because it is the will of Zeus Almighty. In the same manner, the victory of the Achaians was caused by the help of Poseidon plus the scheme done by Hera when he seduced Zeus.

But does this make the efforts of the hero's useless? Does it make their valor mean nothing? No it does not. They may be like puppets dancing while the gods pull the string, like chess pieces moving according to the Gods' plans but they can still achieve something that will make all their efforts have a meaning... they can still achieve the greatest treasure for most of the heroes, Glory. The Gods may be the reason why a hero kills another but the glory will still be given to the hero and not to the God. In fact glory is what almost all heroes are fighting for. In every story of war there will always be someone that will say "If we will die, then, we would rather die fighting!" and in the Iliad it was Aias who said it.

What is it that makes glory so great? What makes glory something you will die for? Actually in the Greek belief the underworld is divided into four parts the palace of Hades, the Fields of Ashpodel, the Fields of Elysium and Tartarus. The Fields of Ashpodel serves as their purgatory where the dead waits for them to be sentenced on where they will spend the rest of their life. Tartarus is their hell where the evil ones stay with the Furies punishing them, but those who are pure evil are sent to the palace of Hades, with the God himself punishing them for eternity. And lastly Elysium where the good guys including the glorious heroes go spending their lives in the eternal paradise.