Hecate

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“

Time forced our hand, Melinoë. Nary a soul expected you to slay our enemy last night, on a new moon, no less! But, you accomplished something of great import.

„

~ Hecate

Hecate

General Information

Title

Witch of the Crossroads

Alias

Headmistress Hecate

Type

Titaness

Affiliation

Keepsake

Silver Wheel

Relationships

Relations

Hades (Boss)
Persephone (Boss)
Nyx (Boss)
Melinoë (Pupil/Ward)
Nemesis (Pupil/Ward)
Eris (Former Pupil/Ward)

Animal Familiar

Hecuba & Gale

Behind the Scenes

Voice

Amelia Tyler

Hecate is the Titan Goddess of Witchcraft, Necromancy, Doorways, and Crossroads closely associated with the Moon.

She appears in Hades II as Melinoë's mentor and leader of the Underworld's resistance against Chronos. Hecate can be found in the cauldron area of the Crossroads where she can be interacted with.

Hecate is the Guardian of Erebus.

Characteristics and Personality[]

Hecate is strong-willed, independent, and a morally dubious witch. She is primarily a source of comfort and encouragement for Melinoë, serving as a mentor to Melinoë, and loving her dearly, but is very strict and rigorous with her training. However, Hecate does not see herself as a parental substitute and is shown to be greatly annoyed whenever Melinoë implies that she sees her as anything more than a teacher.

Hecate is very mysterious, withholding much of her past involving dark magic and avoids answering certain questions as much as possible. One such instance is when Melinoë asks Hecate for a way to remove the curse of Arachne. Hecate explains that Arachne's fate is not for Melinoë to undo and accidentally reveals her knowledge of the feud between Arachne and Athena. When Melinoë questions her on how she knew about the feud between them Hecate brushes her off.

She also possesses a sense of humor, finding it fun to transform Melinoë into a sheep during their fight at Erebus. She reserves her attention and affection exclusively for Melinoë and acts very strictly with her other pupil Nemesis, who Hecate puts in second place due to seeing her behavior as a detriment and only tolerates both her and her sister Eris because of her oaths to Nyx.

Hecate is more covertly blaming herself for Chronos taking over the Underworld, as she was tasked to defend it from such forces, seeing it as her greatest failure.

Physical description[]

Hecate wears a large, wide-brimmed hat with a crescent moon and the Silver Sisters braided cord, alongside a purple cape over her top and dress. The top is of a lighter shade than the cape and ends with a silver trim; above it she uses a silver crescent moon neckpiece as well as a pin of the House of Hades's symbol. For the bottom part, she uses a purple dress below a burgundy one, the latter noticeably having a star pattern on top, and both being topped by a black fabric; above it she uses a loose double silver belt, adorned with moons and the circle seen in her spells. Her belt and shoulders have green tassels hanging from them. Most of her face is veiled by a burgundy fabric, leaving only her green eyes visible. Although most of her body is not visible, her outfit leaves her toned midriff exposed. She has pauldrons in the shape of a head on each shoulder which connect to her neckpiece and veil with silver moons. Her hair is long and braided and is shown to emit a silvery green tone under the moonlight. Her signature weapons are a pair of Torches.

Hades II[]

Hecate was charged with detecting any threats against the Underworld. Unfortunately, Hecate like many others did not foresee the return of the Titan of Time, Chronos. When the Titan attacked, she was ordered by Hades to escape with the infant Melinoë and to take care of her. Hecate took Melinoë, Hypnos and the unfinished portrait of the royal family to the Crossroads.

During the game's events, Hecate leads the resistance against Chronos and oversees Melinoë's progress on her mission to slay the Titan. She serves as the boss encounter of Erebus, the reason being that she needs to make sure that Melinoë is strong enough for the challenges in the lower levels.

As the story progresses, Melinoë is able to finally kill Typhon for good and collect the final reagent needed to deal with Chronos. Melinoë then casts the incantation and proceeds to Erebus to begin her journey to Tartarus. Hecate like always waits for Melinoë at the edge of Erebus but this time, she is caught by Chronos who takes her to the House of Hades as a prisoner. Melinoë reaches Tartarus and battles her grandfather, using the empowered Gigaros to destroy him. However, Melinoë begins to have doubts and when she meets her brother Zagreus, she asks him to spare the Chronos of his time so that he can possibly rejoin their family. Zagreus then locates and succeeds in convincing Chronos to abandon his plans.

This created a timeline where Chronos was reintegrated into his family, becoming a dotting and loving grandfather to Melinoë. These memories were experienced by all the members of the House of Hades except for Hecate. In the present, the memories of this timeline causes Chronos to have a conflict of heart who releases Hecate from her prison. Hecate was furious by the outcome of these events and almost strikes Chronos down but was convinced by Persephone and Hades to stand down. Ultimately, Melinoë spares Chronos after he promises to restore the House of Hades. During the restoration, Hecate is seen with Nyx watching over Chronos.

After restoring the House, Melinoë chooses to still remain in the Crossroads with Hecate in order to keep watch over Chronos and keep Time flowing. Hecate, Melinoë and Chronos leave with Selene on her chariot to Mount Olympus to deliver Chronos to the Olympian Gods. Once Chronos leaves, they are joined by Artemis and Apollo who sing as they travel back to the Crossroads. From then on Melinoë focuses on her new task of keeping Time flowing, by destroying alternate versions of Chronos and Typhon.

Melinoë is also able to finally locate the Three Fates who have a small chat with her. Before they leave, the Fates imply that Hecate hasn't been entirely honest with Melinoë. With that knowledge, Melinoë goes to talk to Hecate. Hecate takes Melinoë to the Hot Springs to talk privately, it is there that Hecate reveals a great secret; she is an older Melinoë from a different future. Unlike the Melinoë of the present, Hecate was put on the Cocytus river and rescued by Selene who informed her of Chronos's usurpation of the Underworld. Hecate trained by herself and finally defeated Chronos however, things went awry when she tried to enter his subconsciousness, as the power of Nightmare and Time sent her to the past before Chronos ever returned and caused her to be transformed into a Titaness. Hecate ultimately bid her time throught the aeons such as integrating herself to Hades and Persephone to wait for the eventual return of Chronos and change the outcome of the events that she had previously suffered.

With this final revelation Hecate thought that Melinoë would hate her but this only strengthed Melinoë's love of her which causes Hecate to also tell her that she loves her. After their talk in the Hot Springs, they swear to never reveal the truth to anyone and continue their work as usual.

Affinity[]

Hecate's affinity gauge is maxed out at 14 hearts. To earn Hecate's Trust, Melinoë must achieve the True Ending then talk to her, where Hecate discusses Melinoë's decision. Once the conversation ends, the affinity gauge will be unlocked.

To get the bond forged with Hecate, you must achieve the Epilogue (locating the Three Fates) and talk to her at the Cauldron area. This will trigger a scene in the Hot Springs. Once the scene ends, her bond will be forged.

Affinity Gauge	Indulgences	Reward
	1	Silver Wheel
	1	First Hot Springs event
	1	2nd Conversation
	1	Second Hot Springs event
	1	3rd Conversation
	1	Fishing event
	1	4th Conversation
	1	5th Conversation
	1	6th Conversation
	1	Ambrosia Conversation
	1	Second Ambrosia Conversation
	1	Third Ambrosia Conversation
	1	Fourth Ambrosia Conversation
	1	Second Fishing event

Book of Shadows entry[]

'You wish that you were her. Understandable.
Yet how many times must she tell you she is not your mother? She, who taught you much of what you know, other than that which is already in your heart.
Remember that she has taught you, trained you only for one particular purpose. Should you somehow achieve it, only then may you begin to learn all that she could never possibly teach.'

Trivia[]

As the goddess of witchcraft, Hecate is presumably the patron goddess of all magic users within the Hades universe.
The head-shaped pauldrons allude to her being frequently represented as three-formed, sometimes just one body and three heads. While early literary depictions have her described as a singular figure (see The Theogony by Hesiod, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes), her three-formed depictions became widespread throughout the classical period as an apotropaic, or evil averting figure.
- Any references to the number three surrounding her, like her Triple Divide ability, also refer to this.
She fights with a pair of torches. Paired torches are one of Hecate's symbols.
- She is also a previous wielder of the Umbral Flames.
Her association with the moon is also present in her design.
- Noticeably, the moons on top of the head-shaped pauldrons and her hat show different moon phases.
During Melinoë's flashback of her childhood, Hecate howls like a dog. Dogs are one of her sacred animals and it was said her approach was heralded by the howling of a dog.
- Coincidentally, there's a pet dog in the Crossroads, as well as a polecat, another of her animal companions. They're called Gale and Hecuba.
  - Gale was a skilled witch who, due to being very lascivious and her abnormal sexual desires, Hecate transformed into a polecat in an act of wrath. Polecats became associated with Hecate ever since then.
  - Hecuba is the former Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, who after being handed over to Odysseus as a slave, snarled and cursed at him, so the gods transformed her into a dog. Melinoë mentions Odysseus' dog is in the Crossroads with him, likely referring to Hecuba, implying Odysseus is also her owner.
  - Hecate mentions her animal companions were formerly mortals, and based on how she describes them, "Hecuba retains her regal poise, Gale her mischief.", they likely are the above-mentioned people.
- Frogs are another of her sacred animals, but it would seem Melinoë is the owner of Frinos and not Hecate, though its mere presence might still be an allusion to this.
In Greek Mythology, Hecate is often depicted as being childless, just like in the game, but in other versions, she is sometimes placed as the mother of certain characters. Among them is Circe, Medea and Scylla.
Some Greek Myths portray her as a child of Nyx, which is possibly the inspiration to their close relationship.