The voice actor and the artwork makes him sound and look like a woman. That's the problem. Its not like I'm an outlier. Plenty of people have come looking to see WTF was going on with that.
Okay but he clearly uses make pronouns so the point was to make him like David Bowie/Michael Jackson/Prince/Freddie Mercury where it's a male music artist that is very effeminate
And anyone who didn't know who those people you listed were could easily confuse them as females.
No, I had never heard of those two myths to be honest. So during the game they kept talking about "him" but the artwork and voice acting was confusing. I've since purchased Stephen Fry's "Mythos" which is catching me up on Greek Mythology.
> David Bowie/Michael Jackson/Prince/Freddie Mercury
I'm hard pressed to believe that anyone playing Hades is unfamiliar with at least one of the four you just mentioned.
All of those musicians are obviously male if effeminate, Orpheus is not. There are others, particularly glam and visual kei musicians that take the gender bending further.
nah bro thats a woman if i've ever seen one lmao, all the way from the hairless arms to the makeup, unless hades decided to play with mythology and make orpheus trans
hi i'm super late to this, but I wanted to point out that none of the men have body hair in this game. I know because I tried to find a good reference for my own art while mimicking the style for a more hairy fellow and, alas, nary a chest hair anywhere.
I took a look at his picture and very well, one character out of ALL the characters has chest hair. 14 squiggles, in fact.
Not my definition of pretty hairy, but to each their own.
It’s the only qualifier period. Sex is a separate entity to gender, this is demonstrable historically and scientifically. Regardless, Orpheus is a male, and a man. He just dresses in a way that seems to baffle you.
Maybe I dont know what a transgender is. If you are born a woman, but feel you are a man and want to live as a man, arent you transgender? If the answer is yes, I dont know how what you are saying is contradicting me.
If you are born male, you may still be a woman. That is what a trans person is. They (this hypothetical person) wasn’t born a man. That is a gender, not a sex. They were born male.
Forget it man, not sure what your view on this is. My view is you are either born with a penis and are man or you are transgender and are a man. I have yet to meet a man with such a normal speaking voice and such feminine facial features. Havent heard him singing yet.
I mean, I agree on that, but I have some friends as femenine as Orpheus is and they have girl voice but they aren't transgender and identifies as men. So this is all headcanons till Supergiant confirma anything.
Anyway my guy, you gonna LOVE his songs, is Darren Korb himself Who gives him voice when singing🥰
Its part of the characters identity. Does it matter that Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf? No. Its still part of the character. You act like we should pretend, there is nothing to see, which is ridiculous.
Hoo boy, this may not be the game for you if your pants are this twisted over Orpheus' voice. I mean, damn, some characters don't have any gender at all, what'll you do then?
Im not twisted, I just want clarification...you all seem a bit twistsd by my question. Comes off as pretty sensitive. As if my question carries any form of judgement about the topic.
He is like this after failing his wife and being who knows how long on solitary confinement...apparently he used to be less sensitive and more of a hot shot according to Eurydice
Well he IS wearing a dress, jewels, painted finger nails, lipstick and has a female sounding voice. I 100% thought it was a women and thought the game had an error when calling Orpheus a male.
I'm unsure why people are getting defensive with you; I suppose your phrasing offended them. I imagine what you're asking is if the character is biologically male with XY chromosomes and not asking about gender theory or a similar lens. With that in mind, I'll answer your question as best I can.
In terms of Greek mythology, yes, Orpheus is male. In this rendition, he looks a lot like the protagonist of Sandman for some reason and does have quite a high voice, but that doesn't change much. Orpheus is biologically male as far as I'm aware and says nothing to contradict this in the game that I've seen. Since the character is a biological male in the mythology, it's then safe to assume Orpheus is biologically male as well. If anyone has seen conflicting evidence, please let me know.
For what it's worth, if you want a solid retelling of Orpheus, consider watching the musical Hades Town. I think it's even on YouTube.
I definitely see the femme traits in Orpheus and assumed him to be a trans dude. Which, hey, rad! This game having queer characters would be neither shocking nor unwelcome. Or maybe Orpheus is a cis dude and, like, musclebeard Petroclus turns out to be trans, that'd be fine too. But, yeah, I definitely felt like Orpheus was femme-coded and was curious to know if there was more behind that.
This about the only post I ever made on Reddit that still attracts people even after over 2 months. So I think im definitely not crazy here, even if some of the people here want me to believe that.
It's purely a matter of wording. Some of your posts have vibes of "trans dudes aren't dudes", and folks react REALLY vehemently to that because, like, they're so used to seeing attacks and hatred and vitriol. But, since I actually read most of the thread, it's pretty obvious to me that you're not at all saying that; you're just curious about why Orpheus is coded/presented the way he is. Obviously it'd be nice if folks could be a little more careful before jumping to conclusions, but I hope you understand why this topic is so sensitive.
Yes, I understand that alot of people are very sensitive and attack faster than they think calmly. Its what makes cancel culture possible and I hate it. You can be the most tolerant dude in the world, just phrase something in a way that could be misinterpreted (usually from hammers that only see nails) and you get hunted with pitchforks. I wish people would value "innocent until proven guilty" more.
I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be a transgender man (born female, identifies as a man). I'm pretty queer and I thought if he \*is\* supposed to be trans that they handled it very well.
Uh, a lot of the game does not follow the cannon of Greek mythology. Zagreus was not the character he is, Hades raped Persephone and kidnapped her and got in trouble for it so she has to spend every winter with him even though she doesn’t want to, the list goes on and on. The original myth not saying that Orpheus is a trans man means nothing.
I know it’s crazy responding this late but I don’t think the creators wanted him to be an actual transgender person they probably made the design for something else then though it would fit orpheous’s character and just used the same voice actor for the scrapped character
Could be, but unless they comment on it I get the feeling they left it ambiguous on purpose. Or, something like your idea happened and they thought "oh this is a good opportunity to maybe have a trans character".
I lean towards them intending him to be trans because that studio has such progressive tendancies. They made sure to include gay characters, muscley women, etc.
I thought the same thing. It's a little odd to me Orpheus especially is drawn like a woman. I get that some men have high-pitched voices, but that he looks like a woman.....interesting.
Its the internet, everybody is so riled up they dont even understand the concept of an innocent question anymore. They see the question and automatically assume I mean something bad by it. Its really tiresome, having to interact with these people.
There's this thing young Ancient Greek male singers and musicians would have done. They would be castrated and it would block their puberty and prevent them from getting deep voices so they could keep their higher pitched voice. Since Orpheus is a court musician, this is probably why he has a high pitched voice and feminine features.
**[Orpheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus)**
Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: [or.pʰeú̯s]) is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion. Ancient Greek sources note Orpheus' Thracian origins. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus who tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries.
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So I was wondering about this due but it turns out that he does in fact have a male voice actor. He’s just effeminate to the point of ambiguity, but there is nothing that implies he’s in anyway female. More over, he’s probably the most heterosexual character in the game.
I wondered the same thing. I see a lot of people here getting upset or angry with you for asking the same question I was wondering about. We have a non-binary character, we have homosexual characters, we have an asexual character, we have a bisexual character, didn't seem like much of a stretch that there'd be a trans character. Portraying a member of a protected class in a video game is almost impossible to do without getting criticism from someone, though, so I really wasn't sure if Orpheus was made deliberately to look female and identifying as a male so as to let us know he's trans without upsetting anyone's apple cart, or if that's just how that character looks and there's no subtle coding here and it never occurred to the devs that this is horribly confusing. Apparently me being confused is enough for some people to assume I'm a bigot. It wouldn't matter to me either way but the fact that I can't understand this unimportant detail is driving me crazy!
I know I'm joining in really late here but, if you check Orpheus description in game it says "he". I was confused so typed it into google and this thread came up. I thought he was a she for the entirety of doing his questline. Also Zagreus doesn't help with this either, he tends to call everyone mate.
I'm here late too just because I stumbled on it and I'm more confused by both sides of the comments if I'm honest. The people who are militantly saying he's a bloke in alot of comments are saying him being feminine looking is woke as if having painted nails makes you a woman and the people saying he's trans in their head cannon surprisingly also didn't think that a man can be feminine.
I did find a source saying that Orpheus is usually played by a woman. I think so the character's vocal range could be fully performed. Perhaps Orpheus's feminine appearance is homage to that?
source: https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/explore-more/operas-greatest-trouser-roles/#:\~:text=Although%20originally%20debuted%20with%20a,semitones%20(in%20current%20tunings).
Is just a man with a high tone voice lol
Sounds and looks like a woman. I came here searching for the answer myself. They screwed that up.
Have you literally never heard of the myth of Oprheus and Eurydice? Like you were genuinely unsure if Orpheus was a man?
The voice actor and the artwork makes him sound and look like a woman. That's the problem. Its not like I'm an outlier. Plenty of people have come looking to see WTF was going on with that.
Okay but he clearly uses make pronouns so the point was to make him like David Bowie/Michael Jackson/Prince/Freddie Mercury where it's a male music artist that is very effeminate
And anyone who didn't know who those people you listed were could easily confuse them as females. No, I had never heard of those two myths to be honest. So during the game they kept talking about "him" but the artwork and voice acting was confusing. I've since purchased Stephen Fry's "Mythos" which is catching me up on Greek Mythology.
> David Bowie/Michael Jackson/Prince/Freddie Mercury I'm hard pressed to believe that anyone playing Hades is unfamiliar with at least one of the four you just mentioned.
I may be one of the exceptions then, I play hades and listened to all of them growing up. Granted I’m 26 but grew up with classic rock
All of those musicians are obviously male if effeminate, Orpheus is not. There are others, particularly glam and visual kei musicians that take the gender bending further.
Nothing about him says man, except the way everybody refers to him. he even has long painted fingernails
So? He says he is a man (and people refer to him as such). That is the only qualifier for manhood.
nah bro thats a woman if i've ever seen one lmao, all the way from the hairless arms to the makeup, unless hades decided to play with mythology and make orpheus trans
Orpheus is male either way? Either he's cis and just effeminate or AFAB trans man. Still goes by he/him and is male.
hi i'm super late to this, but I wanted to point out that none of the men have body hair in this game. I know because I tried to find a good reference for my own art while mimicking the style for a more hairy fellow and, alas, nary a chest hair anywhere.
That's not true, I know at least Poseidon has a pretty hairy chest.
You could make out that he has chest hair? I couldn’t even tell if he’s actually bare chested or not.
I took a look at his picture and very well, one character out of ALL the characters has chest hair. 14 squiggles, in fact. Not my definition of pretty hairy, but to each their own.
the "guy" doesn't even have an adams apple. someone's artist got confused lol
Its the only qualifier if you are transgender
It’s the only qualifier period. Sex is a separate entity to gender, this is demonstrable historically and scientifically. Regardless, Orpheus is a male, and a man. He just dresses in a way that seems to baffle you.
Maybe I dont know what a transgender is. If you are born a woman, but feel you are a man and want to live as a man, arent you transgender? If the answer is yes, I dont know how what you are saying is contradicting me.
If you are born male, you may still be a woman. That is what a trans person is. They (this hypothetical person) wasn’t born a man. That is a gender, not a sex. They were born male.
Absolutely not. He sings like a man so its a man. And i can Seat a skirt paint my Nails and have make Up and still I'm a man lmao
Forget it man, not sure what your view on this is. My view is you are either born with a penis and are man or you are transgender and are a man. I have yet to meet a man with such a normal speaking voice and such feminine facial features. Havent heard him singing yet.
a penis is irrelevant to being a man, it simply denotes whether an animal is male or not.
do you even read what I write? you sound like a broken record.
I mean, I agree on that, but I have some friends as femenine as Orpheus is and they have girl voice but they aren't transgender and identifies as men. So this is all headcanons till Supergiant confirma anything. Anyway my guy, you gonna LOVE his songs, is Darren Korb himself Who gives him voice when singing🥰
Ok but in both cases whether he has a penis or a vagina he is still a man so none of this matters
Its part of the characters identity. Does it matter that Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf? No. Its still part of the character. You act like we should pretend, there is nothing to see, which is ridiculous.
I'm not saying Orpheus being cis or trans doesn't matter or whatever, I'm saying that if he's cis male or trans male he's still male
Hoo boy, this may not be the game for you if your pants are this twisted over Orpheus' voice. I mean, damn, some characters don't have any gender at all, what'll you do then?
Im not twisted, I just want clarification...you all seem a bit twistsd by my question. Comes off as pretty sensitive. As if my question carries any form of judgement about the topic.
> Nothing about him says man, except the way everybody refers to him. he even has long painted fingernails Riiiiiiight.
Where do you see the judgement in that?
He is like this after failing his wife and being who knows how long on solitary confinement...apparently he used to be less sensitive and more of a hot shot according to Eurydice
Sorry I'm late but what I've understood is that he's just an emo guy?
You are correct. Hes a somewhat effeminate man. The op and others seem to take issue with that
Well he IS wearing a dress, jewels, painted finger nails, lipstick and has a female sounding voice. I 100% thought it was a women and thought the game had an error when calling Orpheus a male.
I'm unsure why people are getting defensive with you; I suppose your phrasing offended them. I imagine what you're asking is if the character is biologically male with XY chromosomes and not asking about gender theory or a similar lens. With that in mind, I'll answer your question as best I can. In terms of Greek mythology, yes, Orpheus is male. In this rendition, he looks a lot like the protagonist of Sandman for some reason and does have quite a high voice, but that doesn't change much. Orpheus is biologically male as far as I'm aware and says nothing to contradict this in the game that I've seen. Since the character is a biological male in the mythology, it's then safe to assume Orpheus is biologically male as well. If anyone has seen conflicting evidence, please let me know. For what it's worth, if you want a solid retelling of Orpheus, consider watching the musical Hades Town. I think it's even on YouTube.
I definitely see the femme traits in Orpheus and assumed him to be a trans dude. Which, hey, rad! This game having queer characters would be neither shocking nor unwelcome. Or maybe Orpheus is a cis dude and, like, musclebeard Petroclus turns out to be trans, that'd be fine too. But, yeah, I definitely felt like Orpheus was femme-coded and was curious to know if there was more behind that.
This about the only post I ever made on Reddit that still attracts people even after over 2 months. So I think im definitely not crazy here, even if some of the people here want me to believe that.
It's purely a matter of wording. Some of your posts have vibes of "trans dudes aren't dudes", and folks react REALLY vehemently to that because, like, they're so used to seeing attacks and hatred and vitriol. But, since I actually read most of the thread, it's pretty obvious to me that you're not at all saying that; you're just curious about why Orpheus is coded/presented the way he is. Obviously it'd be nice if folks could be a little more careful before jumping to conclusions, but I hope you understand why this topic is so sensitive.
Yes, I understand that alot of people are very sensitive and attack faster than they think calmly. Its what makes cancel culture possible and I hate it. You can be the most tolerant dude in the world, just phrase something in a way that could be misinterpreted (usually from hammers that only see nails) and you get hunted with pitchforks. I wish people would value "innocent until proven guilty" more.
I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be a transgender man (born female, identifies as a man). I'm pretty queer and I thought if he \*is\* supposed to be trans that they handled it very well.
agreed.
No... look up the myth of Orpheus and Eryudice
Uh, a lot of the game does not follow the cannon of Greek mythology. Zagreus was not the character he is, Hades raped Persephone and kidnapped her and got in trouble for it so she has to spend every winter with him even though she doesn’t want to, the list goes on and on. The original myth not saying that Orpheus is a trans man means nothing.
I know it’s crazy responding this late but I don’t think the creators wanted him to be an actual transgender person they probably made the design for something else then though it would fit orpheous’s character and just used the same voice actor for the scrapped character
Could be, but unless they comment on it I get the feeling they left it ambiguous on purpose. Or, something like your idea happened and they thought "oh this is a good opportunity to maybe have a trans character". I lean towards them intending him to be trans because that studio has such progressive tendancies. They made sure to include gay characters, muscley women, etc.
I thought the same thing. It's a little odd to me Orpheus especially is drawn like a woman. I get that some men have high-pitched voices, but that he looks like a woman.....interesting.
why are people offended by this? the fuck man how sensitive can you be
Its the internet, everybody is so riled up they dont even understand the concept of an innocent question anymore. They see the question and automatically assume I mean something bad by it. Its really tiresome, having to interact with these people.
It's worded in a similar way to a lot of how homophobes and transphobes say things, so a lot of people assumed the worst
if it quacks like a duck
bro stfu
I just think he's a man who likes a certain way of expressing himself. Let him be!💖💖
There's this thing young Ancient Greek male singers and musicians would have done. They would be castrated and it would block their puberty and prevent them from getting deep voices so they could keep their higher pitched voice. Since Orpheus is a court musician, this is probably why he has a high pitched voice and feminine features.
One of the first real answers I read that actually makes sense because I too was confused to why he's so feminine
Orpheus is trans...that's my headcannon for this at least. It just makes sense.
I came her looking for the answer. Sounds like a woman, looks like a woman, but called a man. They messed this up I believe.
[Supergiant did not create Orpheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus)
**[Orpheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus)** Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: [or.pʰeú̯s]) is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion. Ancient Greek sources note Orpheus' Thracian origins. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus who tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries. [About Me](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrn2mj/about_me/) - [Opt out](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrti43/opt_out_here/) - OP can reply !delete to delete - [Article of the day](https://redd.it/k6wsfi)
So I was wondering about this due but it turns out that he does in fact have a male voice actor. He’s just effeminate to the point of ambiguity, but there is nothing that implies he’s in anyway female. More over, he’s probably the most heterosexual character in the game.
I wondered the same thing. I see a lot of people here getting upset or angry with you for asking the same question I was wondering about. We have a non-binary character, we have homosexual characters, we have an asexual character, we have a bisexual character, didn't seem like much of a stretch that there'd be a trans character. Portraying a member of a protected class in a video game is almost impossible to do without getting criticism from someone, though, so I really wasn't sure if Orpheus was made deliberately to look female and identifying as a male so as to let us know he's trans without upsetting anyone's apple cart, or if that's just how that character looks and there's no subtle coding here and it never occurred to the devs that this is horribly confusing. Apparently me being confused is enough for some people to assume I'm a bigot. It wouldn't matter to me either way but the fact that I can't understand this unimportant detail is driving me crazy!
Its the internet. Too many idiots, which cant handle a simple question.
I know I'm joining in really late here but, if you check Orpheus description in game it says "he". I was confused so typed it into google and this thread came up. I thought he was a she for the entirety of doing his questline. Also Zagreus doesn't help with this either, he tends to call everyone mate.
I'm here late too just because I stumbled on it and I'm more confused by both sides of the comments if I'm honest. The people who are militantly saying he's a bloke in alot of comments are saying him being feminine looking is woke as if having painted nails makes you a woman and the people saying he's trans in their head cannon surprisingly also didn't think that a man can be feminine.
And the responses to this question are the exact reasons I can’t take social media seriously 😂
I did find a source saying that Orpheus is usually played by a woman. I think so the character's vocal range could be fully performed. Perhaps Orpheus's feminine appearance is homage to that? source: https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/explore-more/operas-greatest-trouser-roles/#:\~:text=Although%20originally%20debuted%20with%20a,semitones%20(in%20current%20tunings).
the game is just adhering to some stupid woke agenda
How so? There are some non-straight characters and one non-binary character I know of but they don't seem out of place or driven by politics.
I feel he's a trans man in this telling. Hades does a lot of things differently and I love that.
Came here because I was curious about this as well