10 Villains Who Were Completely Screwed By Movie Adaptations
7. Hades - Pretty Much Everything
The God of The Underworld has had a bad lot in Hollywood, not only in the God-awful Clash Of The Titans remake (and initially in its lunatic, confusingly named sequel) but also in the Percy Jackson series, which relied on a similarly binary idea of good and evil (or at least heroes and antagonists) without really delving into the complexities of the character.
At his best, Hades tends to appear as a petulant spurned second son, living uneasily in Zeus' shadow, and unhappy that he was given the short straw of ruling the Underworld, with traditionally expressed aspirations to make a play for a more "prominent role." He tends to bear the usual defining characteristics of evil - charisma, dark charm and a propensity to violence, and even when not entirely evil (as in Wrath Of The Gods) he remains the antagonist.
Rather unfairly, Hades has also become synonymous with the Devil, particularly in Disney's Hercules, and also in the Smallville TV, which re-imagined Darkseid's history with humanity with an explicit link to both Lucifer and the darker iteration of the Hindu goddess Kali.
The Truth
Frankly, Hades wasn't all that bad - yes he basically tricked his way to getting a hot wife (Persephone,) but the mythology of the figure has been somewhat lost in more modern interpretations, and an over-riding association with death, which has come to have graver connotations, particularly with religion losing popularity to XBox.
Rather than having aspirations to take over one of his brothers' realms - of either the Earth (from Zeus) or the seas (from Poseidon) - Hades basically stayed in the Underworld judging the dead, and strictly forbade any of his subjects or underlings from attempting to leave his domain. The only times the god ever really kicked off was if anyone tried to defy death, or to steal souls from the Underworld.
It's also important to distinguish the difference between the Underworld and Hell, which is akin to one part of Hades' realm - Tartarus - as opposed to the entire place. So there wasn't a great deal of reason why Hades would want to leave, which is particularly useful considering how much of a spiteful, petulant douche his little brother Zeus tends to be, especially when it comes to threats to his power.