Ares

### Family

Zeus (father)Hera (mother)Enyo (twin sister)Eileithyia, Hebe and Angelos (sisters)Hephaestus (brother)Athena, Artemis, Persephone, Thalia Grace, the Muses, the Charites, the Horai (paternal half-sisters)Apollo, Dionysus, Hermes, Hercules, Minos, and Perseus (paternal half-brothers)Eros, Phobos, Enyalius, Deimos, Diomedes of Thrace, Kyknos and William Sherman (sons)Hippolyta, Otrera, Clarisse La Rue and Harmonia (daughters)Ares' Cabin members (children)

## Behind the scenes

### Faceclaim

Gerard Butler

**Ares** is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, the son of Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the gods, and his Roman counterpart is **Mars**.

## History

Ares is one of the few children of the Olympian gods Zeus and Hera. He developed a love of violence that surpassed that of any other Olympian, which made him the perfect candidate for being the god of war. It also made him unpopular among his fellow deities who despised him for his overt love of war regardless of there not being a reason to fight at all. Despite this, he was given a place on the Olympian ruling council possibly due to his parentage.

As the god of war, Ares would often participate in mortal conflicts, but he would often fare poorly in divine contests. He would lend strength to whatever side he favored, but was known to be somewhat fickle and change sides in the middle of a battle. The blessing of Ares is known to give invincibility in battle. Despite his great strength and fighting ability Ares often fared poorly in battles with other supernatural enemies. His half-brother Hercules is noted to have stalemated him in battle twice. At one point he stripped Ares of his armor and another time defeated Ares and one of his children with the aid of Athena. The Alodai giants (Otis and Ephialtes) defeated Ares and imprisoned him within an airtight bronze jar. During the Trojan War Ares sided with the Trojans despite promising Hera he would aid the Greeks. For his actions, he was wounded by the mortal hero Diomedes with the aid of Athena. After Zeus allowed the Olympians to participate openly in the war he challenged Athena, only to again be defeated by her, and forced to flee the battlefield. Apollo also defeated him in a boxing match during the first Olympic games. Ares also fled in fear of the giant Typhon when the monster first attacked Olympus, though most other Olympians (other than Zeus) did as well. Even though Ares was the god of war, some say he disturbed the gods with his loud bellows when he lost. Despite these setbacks, Ares fought bravely in the Gigantomachy and defended Olympus successfully against several other enemies.

### Olympian Murder Trial

After Halirrhothius (Poseidon's son) attempted to rape Ares' daughter Alcippe, she summoned her father for help. The infuriated god of war quickly arrived, and brutally slew Halirrhothius. An outraged Poseidon demanded that Ares be put on trial for the murder of his son, to which Zeus agreed. The first ever Olympian murder trial took place on the Areopagus Hill in Athens. Zeus, as the god of honor and justice, was the chief justice, while the other ten Olympians served as members of the jury. In the end, Zeus justly acquitted Ares, since the latter was defending his daughter's honor.

### Relationship with Aphrodite

To Ares' outrage, Zeus had paired his other son, Hephaestus, up with the beautiful goddess Aphrodite to be married. Aphrodite was miserable with her marriage. Because of that Ares and Aphrodite began to have several love affairs. Ares and Aphrodite would frequently meet up and do whatever they pleased. Hephaestus discovered his wife's promiscuity through Helios, the all-seeing Titan of the Sun. One day when they were laying together in bed, Hephaestus planted an unbreakable golden chain-link net so small to be invisible that they got tangled up in. Hephaestus called all of the Olympians to so that they could mock and shame them.

He first called Hermes, and asked him to send a message to all the gods. However, Zeus and Hermes found the situation hilarious, and were promptly joined in prolonged and very contagious laughter by the other gods, with Apollo jeering at Ares and Athena at Aphrodite. In the end, however, Poseidon convinced Hephaestus that if he let them go, Ares would have to pay an adulterer's fine for his offense.

### Sisyphus Prime P-2

King Sisyphus “Sisy” of Corinth, not wanting to die, managed to cheat death by immobilizing Thanatos with heavy chains and placing the latter under his royal bed. As a result, with Death itself imprisoned, mortals were unable to die, much to the dismay of Ares, who relished military carnage. As a result, the war god promptly found Thanatos and freed him, after which both gods incinerated Sisyphus.

## Appearance

Ares is described as a huge, muscular man with a belligerent attitude and a vicious sneer. He typically wears black jeans, combat boots, a black leather duster, and a red muscle shirt under a bulletproof vest (his shield in disguise). He also has a large hunting knife strapped to his thigh. In the official artwork, he wears a necklace made from a heavy padlock and thick chain. He wears red-tinted wraparound sunglasses to cover his flame-filled eye sockets. His features are handsome, but in a cruel and brutal way, with knife-scarred cheeks and an "oily" black crew cut.

To complete his thuggish biker guise, his spear and shield become an aluminum baseball bat and a bulletproof vest respectively. His war chariot also takes the shape of a black Harley Davidson motorcycle "the size of a baby elephant" with a flame pattern paint job on the gas tanks. The seat is apparently made from "Caucasian human skin", and loaded shotgun holsters are riveted to the motorcycle's sides. In its true form, Ares' chariot is red-and-gold (decorated with pictures of grizzly deaths in war), and pulled by four fierce, fire-breathing horses.

In *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares wears Imperial Gold armor, that "burned with harsh light." According to Percy, when a bloodthirsty Ares rode into a battlefield wearing his golden war helmet, "he was too scary for most mortals to look at, much less fight." His golden shield is described as always smeared and dripping with blood and gore.

According to ReadRiordan, Ares usually wears his leather-clad biker unless he goes to war, where gleaming armor and a helmet that strikes fear in his enemies’ hearts.

## Personality

Ares is aloof, cruel, impetuous, proud, and violent; an easily angered bully who seems to care only about fighting and killing. He is also very sadistic, roaring with laughter whilst fighting Percy and blowing up mortal cops during their duel in *The Lightning Thief*. Because of this, he is disliked by many gods and mortals. However, Ares does have a loving relationship with Aphrodite, and is good friends with Thanatos, since the god of war does not enjoy bloodshed without Death, and personally freed him after Sisyphus chained Thanatos up. Also, despite their occasional quarrels, Ares was usually on good terms with Poseidon, who spoke up for Ares when the latter was imprisoned and humiliated by Hephaestus.

Ares was dominantly experienced and knowledgeable in all military tactics arts, making him a dangerous enemy to cross. However, because of his arrogant and brutal nature, Ares can be extremely reckless, overconfident, narcissistic and foolhardy, leading to him making crucial mistakes in a confrontation. He is supremely confident in his abilities, to the point of believing that he is invincible. This means that, despite being an excellent battle strategist and a fierce warrior, his reckless nature sets him apart from other Olympians like Athena, who is more calculative and precise in battle and does not make mistakes out of recklessness or overconfidence, her being the Goddess of Wisdom. Ares also appears to value physical strength in a fight, as opposed to astute strategy, and enjoys bloody wars - he saw that family feuds were the most vicious and therefore the most exciting.

Even when brainwashed by Kronos into starting a war among his family, Ares still thought it was amusing. He is a capable strategist, but his temper makes him tend to focus on brute strength and his arrogance leads him to underestimate his opponents, allowing clever fighters with less skill to get the better of him, his duel with Percy in *The Lightning Thief* being a notable example. Ares despises being called a coward and is willing to pick fights with people for no apparent reason. Ares believes that any problem can solve through fighting and encourages rebellion and violence above all else.

Despite his personality, Ares does have a soft spot for his lovers and his children even though he can be a strict parent, as shown with Clarisse. However, Ares is very protective of his children when they are in danger, as shown in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods* when Ares violently kills Halirrhothius for trying to rape his daughter Alcippe. In addition, Ares was angered when Hephaestus imprisoned his mother Hera, and was the first to demand that the blacksmith god release her. Also, after greatly suffering in the Bronze Jar at the hands of Otis and Ephialtes, Ares gained a soft spot for prisoners of war, and would severely punish anyone who chose to treat them disrespectfully. Ares is also mentioned to have an extreme fear of jars, as a result of his ordeal.

## Abilities

As a son of Zeus and Hera and one of the twelve Olympian gods, Ares is an extremely powerful deity whose power surpass that of minor gods and demigods.

* Prowess in Battle: As the God of War, Ares is an extremely fierce warrior, as well as a master of both armed and unarmed combat. He fought successfully in the First Gigantomachy, helping Hephaestus and Hercules defeat the mighty Giant Mimas. As revealed in *The Lightning Thief*, Ares defeated Luke (one of the best demigod swordsmen in 300 years) in a sword duel. However, his occasional tendency to underestimate his opponents and start toying with them has caused him to suffer defeats, like in his duel with Percy. In *The Last Olympian*, Ares participated in the battle between the Olympians and Typhon and managed to wound the colossal Storm Giant in the nose with his sword. In *The Blood of Olympus*, Ares and Frank fought side by side, and managed to smash through an entire phalanx of Giants, with the god of war disemboweling his opponents with his sword *"as easily as a child destroying piñatas."* ReadRiordan says that why Ares affects mortals into running away from his fights, he is a kind of a chump on Olympus as even Apollo beat him in once.
* Battle Precognition: Ares seems to have a sixth sense regarding the trajectory of assaults in the heat of combat. In *The Lightning Thief*, Ares managed to perfectly position his blocks before Percy could even swing his sword. Percy felt that "Ares seemed to know exactly what [he] was going to do the moment before he did it."
* Tracking Skills: As revealed in *The Lightning Thief*, Ares was one of the four gods Zeus sent to hunt down his Master Bolt when it was initially stolen, demonstrating Zeus' faith in his abilities. Indeed, Ares was the only one of the four that actually caught the thief, Luke Castellan.
* Immense Strength: As the God of War, Ares possesses colossal physical strength. During his fight with Percy, he was shown relying greatly on his physical strength - kicking Percy so hard that he smashed him through a sand dune over several feet. He also managed to remain alongside his fellow Olympians in their battle against Typhon, which lasted several days (while his brothers, Hephaestus and Dionysus, were taken out), attributing to his strength, as the Storm Giant was possibly the strongest being of all time.
* Powerful Roar: As revealed in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, when Ares was wounded by Diomedes and Athena, he roared so loud it sounded *"ten thousand men"*. When Percy wounded him in *The Lightning Thief*, Ares' roar blasted the sea back from him, leaving a wet circle of sand 50 feet wide.
* Warfare Expertise: As the God of War, Ares is an expert in all areas of warfare.
* War Manipulation: As the God of War, Ares has the power to manipulate war, strife, combat, and other forms of conflict - all to a highly advanced level. Through this power, he is able to influence all forms of conflict, including mental, physical, spiritual, and conceptual ones, regardless of the area and numbers involved, and he could even control how they progress and draw power both from the conflict alone as well as the dying. Ares could also start conflicts by influencing people or events, raise personal and fanatical armies, control and create weapons of every kind and even grant others extensive abilities of combat (such as Hippolyta's golden girdle). Ares is naturally, extremely skilled in all forms of fighting, weapons and both strategy and tactics as well as statistics of war. Ares has the incredible power to invoke war and chaos within an enormously large radius, ranging from a city to an entire continent. With this power, he has full control of the city or continent that is in war and chaos at the time.
* Telumkinesis: As the God of War, Ares has a great amount of control over weapons.
	+ Weapon Conjuration: Although his symbol of power is his spear, he can transform it into seemingly any handheld weapon conceivable, including a "huge" hunting knife, an aluminum baseball bat, a Late Medieval two-handed greatsword, and a shotgun.
	+ Weapon Transformation: He can transform weapons into something far less threatening, much like his daughter Clarisse transforms the arrows of the Apollo's Cabin into rubber in *The Last Olympian*.
	+ Weapon Curses: He can curse weapons (like he did to Percy's Riptide in *The Lightning Thief*, which came back to haunt almost two years later, in *The Titan's Curse*).
	+ Disarmament: He can disarm his opponents with a gesture (like he did to Bianca di Angelo and Zoë Nightshade in *The Titan's Curse*).
	+ Weapon Omniscience: He knows everything about a weapon when he sees it, shown when he examines Riptide in *The Lightning Thief*.
* Odikinesis: Ares has control over feelings and emotions of war (such as hate and rage), and frequently induces them in order to start fights. As seen in *The Lightning Thief* and *The Titan's Curse*, Percy always feels angry in his presence "as if [he] wanted to hit a wall" or "pick a fight with somebody." In *The Son of Neptune*, even just looking at the god's temple made Percy angry, despite his amnesia.
	+ Battle Jitters: Ares can instantly cure "battle jitters", as he did with Frank in *The Son of Neptune*.
* Pyrokinesis (limited): Ares is shown to have some control over fire, especially whenever he makes his appearances, as shown in *The Son of Neptune*. The flames in his eye sockets also intensify when he is angered. In *The Lightning Thief*, Ares creates a wall of flames that incinerates five police cars with a mere gesture. However, he does not possess the command over fire his brother has, nor is he immune to its power, as shown in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*.

* Necromancy (limited): As revealed by Clarisse and subsequently proven in *The Sea of Monsters*, the spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares - he presented her with a ship full of perfectly obedient Confederate skeleton warriors.
* Ares' Blessing: Ares' blessing, which is only bestowed upon people who show unflinching courage (or blood-lust) on the battlefield, grants the person who receives it superhuman strength and near-invulnerability. As shown in *The Last Olympian*, after Ares had blessed his daughter, Clarisse, she seemed to be unstoppable - destroying a drakon and anything else in her path as she charged through the battlefield.
* Reality Warping: In *The Lightning Thief,* Ares explained that he altered the magical connection between Zeus' Master Bolt and its sheath, so that the Bolt only returned when Percy reached the Underworld.
* Forceful Transformation: As mentioned in *The House of Hades,* Ares had an infamous reputation of transforming his enemies or those who had offended him (such as Cadmus and Harmonia) into serpents. However, he has also been shown to utilize this ability as a way of rewarding - after Frank had proved his worth, the God of War transformed a Katobleps into a python for him.
* Control of Animals (limited): As shown in *The Lightning Thief*, Ares can summon and control animals that are sacred to him, such as vultures and wild boars.

## Attributes

Ares' symbols were his bloodstained shield and spear, while his sacred animals were the wild boar (due to its penchant for viciously charging at anything and it being extremely hard to kill), the vulture (due to its penchant to feast on corpses after a battle), the Stymphalian Birds, and the venomous snake. He also has his own gloomy iron fortress in the mountains of Thrace, where he kept his numerous spoils of war.

## Attendants

As mentioned in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares' attendants are usually his fearsome twin sons Deimos and Phobos, who drive his war chariot (pulled by fire-breathing horses), though his lover Aphrodite sometimes takes their place while spending time with Ares. He was also frequently accompanied into battle by Eris or his sister Enyo. His mountain fortress is guarded by nearly a dozen minor warlike gods.

## Trivia

* Ares states in *The Lightning Thief* that he considers the U.S "the best thing since Sparta" as ordinary citizens are allowed weapons and the constitution allows more freedom when it comes to punishment by law.
* As revealed in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares was the first Olympian ever put on trial by his fellow Olympians gods for murder (of Poseidon's son Halirrhothius). However, since Ares was defending his daughter's honor, he was ultimately acquitted. The trial is said to have taken place on the Areopagus Hill in Athens.
* Ares' name is believed to be derived from the Greek word ἀρή (*arē*), meaning "bane, ruin".
* Ares has an intense fear of jars, as a result of his ordeals at the hands of the Aloadae Giants.
* Ares uses sunglasses to cover his eyes, which are actually hollow sockets filled with flames.
* Ares' aluminum baseball bat is actually his sword/spear in disguise.
* Ares' preferred form for his chariot is a motorcycle.
* In *The Demigod Files* it says his home town is Mount Olympus but under his bumper sticker reads: "I wasn't born in Sparta but I got here as fast as I could."
	+ As mentioned in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares was very venerated by the Spartans, who would worship him through human sacrifices. The Spartans also had a massive and chained up statue of Ares in the city's center. According to legend, as long as the statue remains chained, Ares will remain the patron god of Sparta, granting its citizens victories. This statue later re-appears in *The Blood of Olympus*.
* Ares was often associated with the northern region of Thrace, whose native peoples were viewed by the Greeks as barbaric and war-like. Thrace was believed to be the god’s birthplace, and many of the native tribes claimed to be descended from him.
* According to *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares is Zeus' least favorite divine son.
* As revealed in *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares is the Amazons' most worshipped Olympian god, since the greatest Amazon warriors were always his demigod daughters.
* According to Rick Riordan, Ares' best quote is "Kill it dead."
* According to *Percy Jackson's Greek Gods*, Ares hates being compared to the character from the game *God of War*.
* In myth, Ares is portrayed as a military general or professional warrior but in America, he took on a 1950s rebellious "Greaser" persona.
* Ares, in term of rocketry, are three Shuttle-derived launches of vehicles under development under NASA program, which are named after him.
* His Latin name Mars gave us the word *"martial"*.
* *The Battle of the Labyrinth* is the only book in the *Percy Jackson & the Olympians* series that Ares did not appear in.
* When Mars gifts *The Art of War* to Frank Zhang, Percy jokes that he doubts whether Ares could read.
* His Egyptian equivalents are Onuris and Horus.
* His Norse counterpart is Tyr.
* His Mayan counterpart is Nakon, they even wear similar clothes.