Netflix’s ‘Kaos’: A basic guide to the Greek myths and figures in the series

If you’ve actually read The Iliad, Metamorphoses, The Aeneid, or The Odyssey; devour myth-inspired fiction like Circe; played every minute of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Hades; and regularly quote Disney’s Hercules, you’ll watch Netflix’s Kaos with serious knowledge (and probably alone, like me). But if you’ve been elsewhere doing other things, don’t worry. As ill-fated narrator Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) says at the beginning of the show, “Some of you may have heard of me. Don’t worry if you haven’t.” 

In Charlie Covell’s Greek mythology-based series, Prometheus gives you a one-liner introduction to each figure and location, but the show’s not Greek Mythology 101 by any means — there’s narrative progression afoot and whatnot. So if you’d like a little more context to get the most out of Kaos, here’s a basic (and I mean it) guide, from the mighty gods to the Earthly human heroes. 

For the record, my sources here are Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, Barry B. Powell’s Classical Myth, Stephen Fry’s Mythos, Mary Beard’s Women and Power, Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Iliad, Charlotte Higgins’ Greek Myths, Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths, Liv Albert’s Greek Mythology, and David Raeburn’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Yeah, I dug out my uni textbooks for this. 

Reader beware, there are SPOILERS in here for Kaos.

The gods and mythical beings

Zeus (Jeff Goldblum)

The king of the gods and big cheese of the weather. The series constantly incorporates Zeus’ signature weapon, the lightning bolt, it’s sewn into his clothing and linens, and you’ll spy a giant bolt under glass in one of the palace rooms on Olympus. Kaos also makes more than a few references to Zeus’ infidelity and constant impregnating of human women, notably leaving out the constant assault element for the show (same goes for Poseidon and Hades).

Hera (Janet McTeer)

The queen of the gods; goddess of women’s sexuality, fertility, and marriage; and Zeus’ wife (and sister, as Kaos reminds us). Hera holds a grudge and will often seek brutal vengeance against Zeus’ lovers, but she contains multitudes. As Fry writes, “It is easy to dismiss Hera as a tyrant and a bore — jealous and suspicious, storming and ranting like the very picture of a scorned harridan wife (one imagines her hurling china ornaments at feckless minions)…” Luckily, McTeer gives Hera more to do than throw decorations at staff.

But what’s with the bees? In Mythos, Fry also writes of the Greek myth about how the bee got its sting: At Zeus and Hera’s wedding, a competition for “the best and most original wedding dish” saw a small, buzzing, winged attendee, Melissa, present them with honey. For her efforts, Zeus bestowed her with a cruel sting that would kill her if used. Lovely wedding.

Poseidon (Cliff Curtis)

God of the sea and earthquakes, Zeus’ brother, also Hera’s brother. Rules the oceans, often depicted in art with a trident. In Kaos, Hera and Poseidon are lovers, but I believe this is a creative addition to their stories separate from the myths; in myth, he’s married to sea nymph Amphitrite. Perhaps she’ll turn up in Season 2.

Hades and Persephone (David Thewlis and Rakie Ayola)

The king and queen of the Underworld. Zeus’ brother Hades was assigned to run Hell after the Olympians won a major battle over the Titans (Zeus got the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld). Powell writes of Hades: “He commanded legions of demons. A pitiless master, he never willingly allowed any who came to him to return to the land of the living.” Persephone, in myth, was kidnapped by Hades and tricked into being trapped there with a tempting offer of six pomegranate seeds — so she must spend six months of the year in the Underworld, six months on Earth. In Kaos, Covell rewrites this situation as a tale of actual love between Hades and Persephone, and the myth as one of bad PR spread by Hera. “Every kid on Earth, when they learn about the Underworld, they think I’m there against my will,” Ayola’s Persephone says in Kaos. 

Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan)

The party fiend of Olympus, Dionysus is the god of wine, hedonism, pleasure, and madness. The name “Dennis” apparently derives from what you call a follower of Dionysus, and it’s notably the name of the kitten the god adopts in Kaos.

As Prometheus mentions in the series, Dionysus’ mother was mortal, a Theban princess named Semele whose fate was pretty awful in Greek myth. Powell writes that she slept with Zeus appearing “in all his glory, burning Semele to a crisp, Hermes saved the fetus and carried it to Zeus, who sewed it into his thigh. Three months later he removed the stitches, and Dionysus was born again.” (Stay with me?) In Kaos, Semele was turned into a bee offscreen by Hera (the fate of all Zeus’ human mistresses in the show,) but Semele is indeed burned by an angry Zeus in the Season 1 finale.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus is also the husband of Ariadne — and in the final episode of Kaos, it becomes clear Dionysus has spotted his future mortal love. We leave him standing outside the palace of Knossos. So, maybe Season 2? 

Prometheus (Stephen Dillane)

Our humble narrator, a bearded Titan suspended in shackles from a cliff face, is Prometheus (played by Stephen Dillane). He and Zeus made humans out of clay, then he pissed off his stormy pal by giving them fire, so he’s doomed to have his liver pecked out by an eagle every day. Though it’s a legendary move by Covell, Prometheus’ love for Charon is only in the show.

Medusa (Debi Mazar)

Despite appearances, Medusa has a tragic tale in Greek myth. Known as a Gorgon with snake hair, her story is best told by Mary Beard in Women and Power: “There are many ancient variations in Medusa’s story. One famous version has her as a beautiful woman raped by Poseidon in a temple of Athena, who promptly transformed her, as punishment for the sacrilege (punishment to her, note), into a monstrous creature with a deadly capacity to turn to stone anyone who looked at her face. It later became the task of the hero Perseus to kill this woman, and he cut her head off using his shiny shield so as to avoid having to look directly at her.”

In Kaos, she’s middle management in the Underworld. Justice for Medusa. 

Charon (Ramon Tikaram) 

Charon is the ferryman to the Underworld, bringing the spirits of the dead across the River Styx (named for “Hate”) and Acheron (or “Woe). Fry writes, “There the grim and silent Charon held out his hand to receive his payment for ferrying the souls across the Styx. If the dead had no payment to offer they would have to wait on the bank a hundred years before the disobliging Charon consented to take them.” Folks like Eurydice and Caeneus in Kaos haven’t money to pay Charon (their loved ones stole the coins they were buried with), so they’re sent to the Centre for the Unresolved.

Charon’s crew in Kaos has regular-sized sniffer dog versions of the great three-headed dog of the Underworld, Cerberus. Plus, Charon speaks of the Scylla in the series, a sea creature that chomps on Orpheus’ fellow Underworld adventurer. In myth, the Scylla is a beast who was once a sea deity — but pissed off the sorceress Circe. Also, Charon’s parents are Erebus (personification of darkness) and Nyx (goddess of night), so his emo tendencies are hereditary. 

The Furies (Natalie Klamar, Cathy Tyson, and Donna Banya)

The trio known as The Furies (also called The Erinyes) exist to punish evildoers. Called Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, they cruise around in Kaos exacting justice, though it might not appear that way. Hamilton writes, “The Greek poets thought of them chiefly as pursuing sinners on the Earth. They were inexorable, but just.” Kaos thankfully leaves out The Furies origin story: They’re said to have sprung from the blood on the floor after the primordial god of the sky Ouranos was castrated by his own son Cronos. Yikes.

The Fates (Sam Buttery, Suzy Eddie Izzard, and Ché)

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the three prophecy-makers of Kaos, are known collectively as The Fates. They’re a key trio in Greek mythology, writing prophecies and declaring that “knowing is our whole thing.” As Graves writes, Clotho is the “spinner,” Lachesis (or Lachy in Kaos) is the “measurer,” and Atropos is one “who cannot be turned or avoided” — yeah, they wield the badass scissors of fate. As we see in Kaos, Zeus’ relationship with The Fates is tempestuous. Graves writes, “Zeus, who weighs the lives of men and informs the Fates can, it is said, change his mind and intervene to save whom he pleases, when the thread of life, spun on Clotho’s spindle, and measured by the rod of Lachesis, is about to be snipped by Atropos’s shears.” But he also writes that “Zeus himself is subject to the Fates.”

Polyphemus (Joe McGann)

The cyclops Polyphemus comes in the form of an eye-patched bar owner called Poly in Kaos. Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon and the Oceanid Thoosa, and his big role comes in The Odyssey, when he captures Odysseus’ crew in his Sicilian cave when they find it full of sheep. In Metamorphoses, Ovid describes him as an “inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts / On mangl’d members of his butcher’d guests.” Yeah, he eats some of them, then falls asleep (but not before blocking the exit with a boulder). Odysseus outwits Polyphemus by getting him pissed and blinding him, and the crew tie themselves to the bellies of the sheep in the cave, who then walk on outta there. None of this happens in Kaos, which is a real shame.

The humans

Eurydice and Orpheus (Aurora Perrineau and Killian Scott)

Preferring “Riddy” in the series, Eurydice is the leading lady of the artist-beloved Greek myth in which she dies on her wedding day. As the story goes, minor god Aristaeus attempted to assault Eurydice; she ran, stepped on a poisonous snake who bit her, and died. It’s awful. Her grieving husband Orpheus (a guy with musical superpowers and/or a really good lyre from sun god Apollo) travels to the Underworld to get her back. Graves writes that Orpheus “not only charmed the ferryman Charon, the Dog Cerberus, and the three Judges of the Dead with his plaintive music, but temporarily soothed the tortures of the damned.” This guy must be good.

Having won over Hell with his tunes, Orpheus makes a deal with Hades (Higgins writes that it was Persephone’s idea) to play her out of there as long as he doesn’t look back. Spoiler: he does. Eurydice is a passive soul lost forever in the myth, unlike in the series, where she’s given her own agency in the Underworld and allowed to return to Earth (thanks to Persephone).

Caeneus (Misia Butler)

In Kaos, Caeneus is a trans man who had to leave his home with the female warrior group the Amazons, but was then murdered by them, declared a “traitor” to their tribe. It’s an awful, TERF-driven story of hate. In myth, Caeneus is indeed a trans man, but not of the Amazons. Graves writes that Caeneus, a nymph, requested to have his sex changed by his lover Poseidon. 

Ariadne and Theseus (Leila Farzad and Daniel Lawrence Taylor)

Two figures inherently interlinked in Greek mythology, Ariadne and Theseus are most famously associated with the tale of the Minotaur — the same goes for them in Kaos. The daughter of King (not President) Minos, Ariadne doesn’t have a twin in Greek mythology, but her half-brother is the Minotaur — more on that below. (Kaos names her brother Glaucus, for a sea god.) Theseus, sometimes referred to as the son of Poseidon, is recruited to slay the Minotaur in the labyrinth beneath Minos’ palace at Knossos. 

In Kaos, Ariadne has a crush on Theseus, but he’s in love with Nax. In Greek mythology, Theseus abandons Ariadne on an island called Naxos after she helps him slay the Minotaur (rude). In the myth, Ariadne eventually marries Dionysus — which the show indicates in the final episode is where next season might head. 

Pasiphaë (Shila Ommi)

Known as Pas in Kaos, the First Lady of Krete is King Minos’ wife in myth. Pasiphaë is actually the mother of the Minotaur — something Covell cleverly adapts for Kaos. Hamilton describes the Minotaur as “half bull, half human, the offspring of Minos’ wife Pasiphaë and a wonderfully beautiful bull. Poseidon had given this bull to Minos in order that he should sacrifice it to him, but Minos could not bear to slay it and had kept it for himself. To punish him, Poseidon had made Pasiphaë fall madly in love with it.” Bing, bang, boom, you’ve got a Minotaur — and a king set to imprison the beast with the help of an inventor…

Daedalus (Mat Fraser)

The great inventor, designer, and architect, Daedalus is at the beck and call of King Minos. Hamilton writes about the labyrinth he was commissioned to build to contain the Minotaur as “a place of confinement for him from which escape was impossible.” Sadly, when Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned in the labyrinth, Daedalus’ escape plan of constructed wings went awry when Icarus flew too close to the sun. This is mentioned in Kaos, but in the show, Daedelus says Icarus built the wings to escape the palace after realising his father’s role with helping Minos imprison the Minotaur. In the myth, a group of young Athenians were sacrificed to the Minotaur in the maze on the regular, so Theseus is called in to kill the Minotaur (Ariadne helps him, with Daedalus’ assistance). In Kaos, it’s Minos who kills the Minotaur, his own son in an effort to thwart his own prophecy.

Hecuba and Andromache (Gilian Cally and Amanda Douge)

The two women summoned to President Minos’ palace in episode 3 are Hecuba and Andromache. They’re the most powerful women of the Trojans, both enslaved after the Trojan War — in Kaos, they’re living in the same abysmal conditions without rights as the rest of the Trojan refugees. Andromache is a Theban princess married to the Trojan prince Hector, who dies by Achilles. Their son, Astyanax, features in Kaos as a Trojan rebel and Theseus’ lover. In myth, he’s thrown from the walls of Troy as a baby (in Kaos, though he makes it to adulthood, he’s executed and hung from the Knossos palace wall). Hecuba is the Queen of Troy, married to King Priam, and Hector’s mother.

Nax (Daniel Monks)

As well as Hecuba and Andromache, there’s a lot of Trojans in Kaos, reeling from the events of the Trojan War. They’re branded by the line on their nose in the series and viciously persecuted by the Kretians. Astyanax, a Trojan prince and son of Andromache and Hector, is called Nax in the series, forced to live with the Trojans in the crumbling refugee suburb of Krete called “Troytown,” with no citizens rights. He’s Theseus’ lover in Kaos and responsible for the literal shit pile on the gods’ statue. He’s the leader of the Trojan Seven, as they’re called in the series, a vigilante group demonstrating against oppression by the Kretians — and they’re publicly executed by the president. It’s a callback to the children thrown from the walls of Troy by the Greek army during the sacking of the city.

Cassandra (Billie Piper)

A prophet and princess of Troy, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy by a thirsty Apollo — including visions of the whole Trojan War and horse deal (Billie Piper’s character mentions this in episode 1). Cassandra wouldn’t go on a date with the god or something (ugh, entitled men), so Apollo made sure no one would believe her premonitions. “She shrieked and shouted out through all the city,” Homer writes in The Iliad of Cassandra warning the Trojans about the coming violence. Turns out the Ancient Greeks already knew the agony of women not being believed.

Hippolyta and Crixus (Selina Jones and Slavko Sobin)

In Kaos, Ariadne and Theseus attend the Munis, a Mad Max-style cage fight to the death. The fighters are named Carl Crixus of Sparta (named for the gladiator from Gaul) and Hippolyta (named for the Queen of the female warriors known as the Amazons, and daughter of Ares’ god of war, who is associated with the story of the 12 Labors of Heracles). In Kaos, Hippolyta’s also the one who murdered Caeneus.

The locations

Mount Olympus

Home of the gods. That’s all you need.

The Underworld

There’s a lot of geography covered in Kaos when it comes to the Underworld. When Eurydice first arrives, she’s put on the large ferry across the River Styx (se Charon for more on that). Then, the Asphodel port in Kaos is named for the Asphodel Fields, meadows of ghostly flowers in the first area of the Underworld, as Graves describes, “where souls of heroes stay without purpose among the throngs of less distinguished dead that twitter like bats.” 

Then there’s the River Lethe, which also appears in Kaos as the body of water people swim across to get to The Frame. In myth, the Lethe (named for “forgetfulness”) is a river in the Underworld in which people can quite literally wipe their memories. Hades and Persephone’s palace is another region of the Underworld, and in Kaos, it’s a mid-century modern testament to middle management. 

One thing Kaos doesn’t mention is that the Underworld has a Good Place and a Bad Place: Elysium and Tartarus. Maybe Season 2?

Krete and the Palace of Minos at Knossos

In myth, King Minos’ great palace at Knossos on Krete was home to a subterranean labyrinth where a Minotaur roamed — and it’s where most of the action in Kaos is set. See above for the story of Ariadne and Theseus.

Villa Thrace

Eurydice and Orpheus’ home in Krete in Kaos is named for Thrace, a region north of ancient Greece associated with Orpheus.

Panopeus

The nightclub we meet Dionysus in, seen in episode 1, is named Panopeus. According to Fry, Panopeus could have been the place where Zeus and Prometheus decided to source the clay to build humans: “History does not agree on exactly where Prometheus and Zeus went to find the best clay for realising the plan. Early sources, like the traveller Pausanias in the second century AD, claimed that Panopeus in Phonics was the place.”

The Cave

Though it’s said that the entrance to the Underworld was, in fact, a cave, in Kaos, the biggest correlation between Greek mythology and this dive bar venue is its owner. Check the Polyphemus section above for the story of Odysseus and Poly.

Tyndareus Gasoline

In Kaos, you’ll see a petrol station called Tyndareus Gasoline. It’s named for the king of Lacedaemon who married Aetolian princess Leda, who was impregnated by Zeus in the form of a swan, resulting in Helen of Troy (artists love Leda). Tyndareus and Leda also had Clytemnestra, who married King Agamemnon, the big Greek commander in the Trojan War. A lot of Trojan connections here. 

Notable mention: The cereal aisle

Shout-out to the set designers of Kaos, who’ve stocked an entire cereal aisle full of Greek mythology references:

• Gaea’s Granola: a wholegrain cereal named after the goddess of Earth.

• Achilles’ Heels: foot-shaped cereal for the Greek hero whose mother missed a spot when she dipped him in immortality.

• Spartan Crunch: Made with 10-percent Olympus honey, a cereal named for the ancient enemy of Athens.

How to watch: Kaos is now streaming on Netflix.