Talk:Greek underworld

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This does not look like a stub to me any more.

[edit] Hades has more info

There's more info about this in Hades. If someone sees this, please copy the relevant info over. I'd do it myself, but I'm a bit busy. Sir Fastolfe 23:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] three-part division

This page depicts the dead being sorted out and sent to a good place, a middle place, or a bad place. That's not how I read Elysium, Asphodel fields, and Tartarus. Elysium is aboveground near an entrance to Hades. It is reserved for the divine offspring of the gods. Tartarus is far below Hades. It is a place of imprisonment and torment for those sent there individually by the gods. Unless the gods intervene on a case-by-case basis, folks go to Hades, which is basically sad and gloomy. Jonathan Tweet 14:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Your description seems like a three-part division. I've never heard that Elysium was reserved for the offspring of the gods, only that it was reserved for the heroic, who often were said to be offspring of the gods. What we have is the especially good (as defined by the mythology of the time) going to Elysium, the especially bad going to Tartarus, with most people going to a middle place, which is not especially good or especially bad, but a pale shadow of this life. The idea of who gets to go to Elysium, or some sort of reward in the afterlife expanded, as the idea of what constituted a meritorious life changes.--RLent (talk) 17:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)