Summary
- Both Hades and Red Dead Redemption explore the theme of fatherhood, showcasing the complexities and challenges of parental responsibility and personal growth.
- In Hades, the story focuses on Zagreus' desire to escape his father's realm and find his true mother, highlighting the importance of honesty and overcoming personal challenges for a stronger bond.
- The Red Dead Redemption games delve into literal and surrogate father-son relationships, showcasing moments of tenderness, toxicity, and disillusionment, challenging the idea of "perfect fathers".
Both Hades and the Red Dead Redemption games have been praised for their strong and emotional narratives. While each game offers something wildly different from the other, they share a significant thematic element, and looking at how that theme is developed in both Red Dead Redemption and Hades can yield unique perspectives on the matter.
While fans don't know much about Hades 2, the Red Dead Redemption duology certainly shares a common narrative thread. Red Dead Redemption 2 features many of the same core characters as the first game, showing them at different points in their lives and thus making them more complex and multifaceted. Perhaps one of the most admirable qualities of Red Dead Redemption 2 is that it manages to form a cohesive whole with the first game, despite the two releasing almost a decade apart and having to juggle several different plot elements. Hades is just one game, but it has a wealth of narrative content on offer, and its story and characters continue to unravel and develop long after the credits roll.
Hades and Red Dead Redemption Share the Theme of Fatherhood
As both Hades and Red Dead Redemption fans await their respective sequels, they may be revisiting these award-winning narratives and noticing something that is central to the stories: fatherhood. This parental theme is somewhat more figurative and complex in Red Dead Redemption 2 and more literal in Hades, but each touches on the same issues of responsibility, maturity, and personal growth. That said, both games have unique things to say about the idea of fatherhood.
In Hades, the story revolves around Zagreus attempting to escape from his father's realm. At first, this desire seems to stem from a sort of youthful rebellion, but players eventually discover that it's more complicated than that, as Zagreus wishes to find his true mother. Despite the pacing issues in Hades, the game manages to culminate in a shocking twist, as players learn that Hades was actually attempting to protect his son the whole time while mourning the loss of the life he could have had with his mother. The family drama of the game highlights how parents set out to keep their children safe, but how they can't control them as they grow older. It also shows the importance of honesty and overcoming personal challenges with the goal of forming a stronger bond between father and son.
Hades may have something of a happy ending, but the same can't be said for the Red Dead Redemption games. The tragedy of the series revolves around fathers and sons. In the first game, it is a literal father-son relationship as John fights for a better future for Jack, but it ultimately isn't enough. This leads to the epilogue of the game, wherein Jack's love for his father carries the story to its bittersweet conclusion. RDR2 still features John and Jack, but the cast has grown to include Dutch and Hosea, who serve as surrogate father figures for both Arthur and John. This relationship leads to moments of tenderness, toxicity, and disillusionment, as Arthur and John learn that these men, specifically Dutch, aren't the perfect "fathers" they once thought they were.
It seems that parenting has become quite a popular theme in modern gaming, let alone best-selling titles like The Last of Us and God of War center around fatherhood, and all the complications that come with it. But Hades and the Red Dead Redemption games handle this theme in ways that are a bit more singular, with their strong thematic cores playing a major part in keeping them engaging and emotionally resonant with players.