HADES 2!?

I absolutely loved the ending. I have been waiting for this outcome since I first fought Chronos and heard him yelling “GRANDDAUGHTER”. I just wanted him and Mel to be a family, and was 80% sure that was what Supergiant was aiming.

But it could have been better. Not the outcome, but the minutes leading to it.

Melinoë trained her whole life to kill Chronos and get her family back. If you’ve been playing since the beginning of early access too, at a point it felt she was losing hope of ever breaking that cycle. She started detaching herself from the true objective of her task (family), and focused completely on putting Chronos and Typhon down.

Can you imagine how desperate she felt when she finally met her brother? She wasn’t only happy, all her emotions came flooding back to her, suddenly the reason for her task was clear again. She had finally found someone she could trust to actually achieve her life’s goal.

And he very much betrayed her.

(I think the choice of leaving Zagreus to decide Chronos future was unavoidable—Mel would’ve killed Chronos without hesitation. No room for mercy after so long. Leaving it up to her, the “family” ending wouldn’t be viable at all.)

Zagreus betrayed her and Chronos was still alive. How could she contain her anger? If Mel was allowed proper closure, she would lash out.

When she released Zagreus and realized what he did, she’d feel a whole life’s worth of disappointment, frustration, and rage. The turmoil of feelings after having all that she strived for get sabotaged—her mind wouldn’t be clear enough for her to rethink everything. That’s where the ending felt so damn rushed.

Now imagine: she attacks Chronos while he’s down, she won’t have any of it. She’s angry at Zagreus for not being true to his word, she’s pretty sure Chronos is deceiving her… But Zagreus vowed to protect his grandfather; even from Melinoë herself.

Getting in her way again, she easily sees her brother as a traitor. It’s not her conscience speaking, it’s the wrath. And Zagreus, even in his weakened state, tries to hold her back.

We get to fight Zagreus, but it’s almost an easy fight, he’s weak, he also doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Mel can get close to “killing” him, but then, only THEN, she notices what she’s doing to her own brother, and the pieces start falling into place. All this war has been happening because Titans and Gods could only resort to violence no matter how close they were to each other. And she’s just repeating the pattern.

…Maybe, after that, her emotions settle somewhat, she apologizes to her brother, and becomes willing to hear him and Chronos out.