The Show's Premise
Blood of Zeus follows Heron, an outcast who discovers he's a son of Zeus, as he battles demons and navigates divine politics. The show is heavily inspired by Greek mythology but tells a largely original story.
What It Gets Right
The show's depiction of the Olympian gods is surprisingly faithful. Zeus is a philanderer whose affairs cause problems. Hera is vengeful toward Zeus's illegitimate children. The gods bicker, scheme, and take sides in mortal conflicts — all very true to Homer.
The giants and the Gigantomachy (war between gods and giants) are drawn from real mythology, as is the concept of demigod heroes struggling to find their place between mortal and divine worlds.
What It Invents
Heron is not from Greek mythology — he's an original character. The specific demons and their origin (created from a fallen giant's flesh) are also original to the show. Seraphim, the main antagonist, is a wholly invented character.
The automaton army and the specific plot about Hera trying to use demons against Zeus are Netflix creations, not mythological events.
The Art Style
The show's animation draws heavily from ancient Greek pottery art — the black-figure and red-figure styles that depicted myths on vases. This visual choice is brilliant and gives the show a unique aesthetic that connects it to its source material.
Verdict
Blood of Zeus isn't trying to be a faithful retelling — it's using Greek mythology as a foundation for original storytelling. It captures the tone, the family dynamics, and the moral complexity of the myths while telling its own story. Think of it as a new myth in the Greek tradition rather than a retranslation.
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The Real Myths Behind the Main Plot
Blood of Zeus was created by the brothers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides and animated by Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind Netflix's Castlevania. It premiered in October 2020, followed by a second season in 2024 and a third, concluding season in 2025. Although its characters are mostly new, its central situation borrows directly from one of the oldest patterns in Greek myth.
The closest ancient parallel to Heron is Heracles. In the mythographer Apollodorus, the gods learn that they cannot defeat the Giants unless a mortal fights on their side, and Zeus fathers Heracles partly to fill that role. Pindar's first Nemean ode has the prophet Teiresias foretell, while Heracles is still a baby, that he will help the gods overthrow the Giants on the plain of Phlegra. A half-mortal son of Zeus as the hinge of a war between gods and Giants is therefore not a Netflix idea at all; it is the plot of the Gigantomachy.
Hera's hostility toward Heron and his mother likewise follows a long ancient record. She sends serpents to the infant Heracles' cradle, delays his birth so that Eurystheus will be born first and rule over him, tricks Semele into demanding to see Zeus in his true form, and, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, refuses to let the pregnant Leto give birth for nine days. What the show adds is a Hera willing to ally with monsters against Olympus itself, although even that has a mythic echo: the Homeric Hymn to Apollo says Hera bore the monster Typhon out of anger at Zeus.
Monsters Born from Divine Blood
The demons in the series are spawned from the blood of a fallen Giant. That specific mechanism is invented, but it rests on a genuine idea: in Greek myth, shed divine blood is generative. In Hesiod's Theogony, when Cronus castrates Ouranos, the drops that fall on the earth produce the Furies, the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs, while the severed parts in the sea give rise to Aphrodite. When Perseus beheads Medusa, Pegasus and Chrysaor spring from her neck. Ancient listeners would have found the show's logic familiar even if the demons themselves are not.
The Giants' fate after defeat also has precedent. Ancient writers buried them under volcanoes and islands: Enceladus beneath Sicily (and Etna), Polybotes under the island of Nisyros, which Poseidon broke off Kos and hurled on top of him. The image of a vast Giant whose dead body still affects the world above is close to how Greeks explained earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Machines, Gods and the Olympian Family
The page above notes that the automaton army is a Netflix creation, but mechanical servants made by gods are ancient. In Iliad 18, Hephaestus is attended by golden maidens who can think, speak and move, and he builds self-moving tripods that roll to the gods' assemblies. In Apollonius' Argonautica, the bronze giant Talos guards Crete by circling the island and hurling rocks at ships until Medea brings him down. A war fought with bronze constructs is a modern escalation of a genuinely Greek idea.
The show's divine cast is more conventional. Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Apollo, Ares and Poseidon behave roughly as they do in Homer, where the gods quarrel openly, take sides among mortals and are restrained mainly by fear of Zeus. Viewers coming from the series should know that in the ancient sources there is no single canonical story of what happened after the Gigantomachy; poets felt free to invent, and in that sense the series is doing what Greek poets themselves did.
Further reading
- Apollodorus, Library 1.6 — the fullest ancient account of the war against the Giants, including the prophecy that a mortal ally was needed and Heracles' role.
- Hesiod, Theogony — the birth of the Giants and Furies from Ouranos' blood, and the succession myths behind the show's divine politics.
- Pindar, Nemean 1 — the infant Heracles strangles Hera's serpents and Teiresias prophesies his part in the Gigantomachy.
- Homer, Iliad 18 — Hephaestus's golden attendants and self-moving tripods, the ancient model for divine automatons.
- Stephen Fry, Mythos (2017) — an accessible modern retelling of the Olympian stories the series draws on.
Frequently asked questions
Is Heron a real figure from Greek mythology?
No. Heron is an original character. His role, a mortal son of Zeus needed to save the gods from the Giants, closely mirrors Heracles in the ancient tradition.
Is Seraphim from Greek mythology?
No. Seraphim and his backstory were created for the series, and the name itself comes from the Hebrew Bible rather than Greek tradition.
How accurate is Blood of Zeus?
The gods' personalities, Hera's jealousy and the Gigantomachy are drawn from real myth; the hero, villain, demons and most plot events are invented. It is best watched as a new story in an old setting.
How many seasons of Blood of Zeus are there?
Three. The first arrived in 2020, the second in 2024 and the third, which concludes the story, in 2025.