Hades relationships, more serious
I mean OP is a joke mostly by omission--Zagreus does call on Meg, Than, and Dusa in battle but also relies on powers from a whole host of cousins and uncles, and can use the help of his teacher and the teacher's husband, and a ton of other friends. And of course the whole thing is set in the framework of family strife slowly turning to reconciliation. I think what I really like about battle in Hades is that it's about relationships, like the story itself.
Hades, autism, potentially controversial?
The first character that I thought was coded as autistic, though, was actually Tisiphone--and I know that can be read as derogatory since Tisiphone's being nonverbal is played for comic effect and she's primarily encountered as an enemy to be vanquished. It's not like being nonverbal is inherently a bad thing, though, and as with all the characters more layers emerge in her over repeated encounters. Tisiphone learning to say Zagreus's name over time reminds me a lot of how my child grasps words, and it's clear Zagreus likes her and wants to build more of a relationship with her as he does with everyone. She's not malicious like Alecto, she just does a grim and necessary job as an indispensable part of the underworld and the moral universe at large.
@ljwrites yeah i think you also mentioned the ‘pull the rope’ scene in the volcano, which i think was what clued me into the fact that she’s actually nonverbal
It’s such a nice little accommodation moment
@Satsuma yup, I love how nobody treats it as a big deal and everyone just treats her with respect!
@Satsuma yeah, and I liked how fleshed-out and unambiguous her being nonverbal was, with the sign language and everything!