Zeus

**Zeus** is a main character featured in *Clash of the Titans* and the sequel, *Wrath of the Titans*.

## History

### Early life

Born to the Titans Kronos and Rhea, his mother gave birth to Zeus on the island of Crete. His father planned on eating him so Rhea hid the infant Zeus to the nymphs and disguised a rock and gave it to Kronos, who ate it instead.When he was a grown young man, Zeus had rescued his siblings, and agreed with Poseidon and Hades to end the reign of their parents. At the end of the Titanomachy, Zeus ordered Hades to create the horror known as the Kraken, which defeated their parents in the Gardens of Stygia.

While Rhea was spared, Kronos was imprisoned. In the very end, Zeus had taken the skies, Poseidon the seas, and Zeus tricked Hades and banished him to the underworld to watch over their father, and left Hades be hated, and in sadness and misery, something he would later regret.

### Clash of the Titans

In the 2010 remake, Zeus is portrayed significantly younger than Laurence Olivier's performance having brown hair as opposed to white. He also interacts with Perseus more than once in the film.

Angered by the Mortals' resistance, Zeus is angered by their defiance and denies all of the gods' conviction to reach a truce with the humans. They are disturbed by the arrival of Hades, who proclaims that he has a way to make the humans love and respect them again. Blinded by anger, Zeus  allows Hades to go to Argos and threaten the humans with  unleashing the Kraken. Hermes comes to Zeus and announces that his son, Perseus, is alive.

Despite claiming not to help Perseus, Zeus gifts his son with a sword and a winged-horse, Pegasus.  However, Perseus refuses everything his father gives him. After Perseus confronted the three Stygian Witches, Zeus appeared to Perseus and offered his son immortality. However, Perseus refuses to acknowledge Zeus as his father and accept the god's offer of Immortality.  Instead, Zeus gives Perseus a drachma  to bribe the ferryman, Charon.

Hades reveals his intentions to his brother: to feed off of the fear of humans and gain more power. Zeus realizes he can only rely on Perseus now.

With the combined forces of father and son, Zeus is called upon by Perseus and sends lightning to his son's sword, who hurls it at Hades and banish Hades back into the Underworld with Perseus' sword and Zeus' lightning. They both predict that Hades will return and attempt to take advantage of men growing weak and their fears again.

### In between Films

In between *Clash of the Titans*, and *Wrath of the Titans*, Io had died of natural causes and mothered Zeus' grandson, Helius with Perseus.Perseus would not pray to his father or any of the other gods and didn't want Zeus to resurrect Io like he did before. Most of the time, he visited Helius in his grandson's dreams and visited Perseus from time to time. Of course, it was just recorded as "just passing through."

### *Wrath of the Titans*

Ten years after the destruction of the Kraken and the defeat of Hades, Zeus appeared to Perseus in a time of need. They sensed the walls of Tartarus falling and Kronos wanting to break out and reek havoc onto the Grecian world, and the end of it all as they know it. However, Perseus refuses his father in favor of staying with his son, Helius. Zeus travels to the Underworld alone, where he meets with Hades, Poseidon and Ares. However, the gods of the Undrworld and the god of War immediately ambush Zeus and Poseidon, who is mortally wounded and gets away. Hades and Ares announce their plan is to drain Zeus of his power and life source and bring Kronos back into power.

Rendered useless, Zeus sends a call out to Perseus, who is on his way to rescue his father from the Underworld.Nearing death, Zeus apologizes to Hades for abandoning him in the Underworld to be hated. At that moment, Perseus, Andromeda and Agenor appear. Perseus uses Poseidon's trident and the powers he inherited from Zeus to break his father out of his prison. Ares hurls Hades' pitchfork at Zeus,. Though it wounds Zeus, Perseus is able to claim it and form the Spear of Triam, the only weapon able to defeat Kronos. Zeus tells Perseus to use the love and motivation for his son, Helius to face off at Kronos.

Hades appears to his brother, and claims that he forgives his brother before transferring some of his powers to Zeus, restoring his youth and some of his powers. The reconciled brothers decide to go out on the battlefield and use their powers before they had weapons. During the battle, Zeus is mortally wounded by Kronos.

Before he crumbles to dust, Zeus thanks Perseus before disappearing. Zeus tells Perseus to use his powers wisely and that the world needs people like him.

## Physical Appearance

Zeus takes on the appearance of the middle-aged man who had medium brown colored hair that was long and wore a short beard. When he appears in mortal form when meeting Perseus for the first time, Zeus mostly wore rags and also wearing a cloak and hood. Perseus didn't recognize his father in that form until he took off his hood. In his god form, Zeus wore gleaming golden armor.

## Personality

In his youth, Zeus saved his brothers and sisters from Kronos. Most of them didn't like Zeus' attitude, especially assuming charge. However, they all knew that Kronos was very blood-thirsty and preferred Zeus over Kronos.

Zeus has an authority over the other gods of Olympus, the skies, and the mortals, appearing as a divine figure. He is capable leader, having most of the gods to follow him, especially during the Titanomachy. He was fairly hot-tempered, as he refused to listen to reason when the other gods pled that there could be a peace between them and the Humans. Zeus' brother, Hades, took advantage of his younger brother's anger, directed it towards the humans ignoring the gods and no longer feeding them prayers.  In his anger, he would let it cloud his judgement, such as following Hades' council. When he first learned that Perseus, the son he lost, had in fact survived, Zeus apparently felt no need to help his son. However, he kept a figurine of Perseus hidden and decided to leave his son a sword and a Pegasus for Perseus, who denied both gifts, and rather would have fought this as a man than as a god. Zeus did attempt to convince Perseus out of this dangerous quest and to make him immortal. However, he immediately refused. Instead, he gave Perseus a drachma in order to pay for the ferryman. At the end of the film, Zeus saw that Hades had in fact wanted power and realized that though he wanted men to worship them again, Zeus did not want it to cost him Perseus.

He was a paternal figure towards all his children up except for Ares, who betrayed the Olympians after Ares hated his father for favoring Perseus and having a human side, believing he had grown soft. Zeus' favorite children were his daughter Athena, and his son Perseus. In a deleted scene, Zeus nearly cried when he saw Athena and his other children chained. Zeus encountered his own grandson, Helius in his dreams sometimes and often visited the boy in them. In the final film, Zeus reveals that his motivations for keeping Kronos at bay, was he was trying to make the world a safer place for Perseus.

Zeus had a sense of humor, as he called Perseus' life as a human "mundane," it caused Perseus to slightly huff in amusement. It was also exhibited in the sequel, where Zeus enthusiastically told Hades that they should "have some fun" while using their powers against Kronos, as they used to have powers before they had weapons.

At the very end of his life, Zeus told Perseus that Helius gave his father strength as Perseus gave Zeus his. In the sequel, Zeus admits he regrets banishing Hades to the Underworld to be hated. Zeus was, after all, only human and had finally learned from his mistakes, as him tricking Hades to the Underworld drove him down the path towards the dark side.  However, even Hades no longer held a grudge against his younger brother and finally accepted his forgiveness. As a last sign of affection, he gently touches his son's cheek before crumbling to dust

Despite how powerful all the gods were, Zeus believed his son, Perseus, was stronger than he ever realized and probably stronger than a god. Ares mocked Zeus, believing his father to be weak and had an undying hatred for his biological father because of favouring Perseus.

## Trivia

### Character Notes

* According to Ares, Zeus always favored Perseus over himself. Zeus' favored daughter was Athena.

### Production Notes

* Zeus was originally going to be more antagonistic, such as refusing to help Perseus on his quest and also nearly attacking his son. However, Zeus was given more of a paternal figure to his children in the newer version.