Stealing The Narrative: Why Hermes Is The Unreliable Storyteller In Hadestown

Broadway musicals are so much fun. The music sweeps us away, as do stunning visuals and vocals. Hamilton so far has been the best one in terms of soundtrack and unified theme. Hadestown has been taking up my attention for the past few days.

The person who controls the story can also color our view on how they are seen. An unreliable narrator makes you question the story with the little details that betray their agenda. Sometimes the narrator has good intentions, and sometimes they are nefarious.

Way Down Hadestown

Hadestown is a folksy twist on the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Instead of ancient Greece with its wayward serpents and cults of Dionysus worshippers, we get scrabblers surviving the Great Depression and a storm upon the land. Hades becomes a capitalist, and his wife Persephone running an illegal speakeasy to deal with her frustrations on being trapped in a capitalist nightmare. Orpheus tries to compose the song that will reconcile the gods, only for Hades to steal away his wife to Hadestown to become an overworked wall-builder. He needs to walk the railroad tracks to sing for her freedom and return prosperity to the land. Orpheus only succeeds in restoring prosperity, until the tale restarts.

As you can tell, I love this show a lot. The music stays with you and rings through laptop speakers for eternity. Reeve Carney's vocals are Orpheus are haunting. I've been watching it on loop.

Hermes is the narrator of our show. He acknowledges that the tale is sad, and he can only hope that by telling it multiple times that the ending will become happy in one iteration. While in the original play Hermes comes across as more distant and blunt to Orpheus, in the Broadway musical his warmth gives Orpheus the push he needs to travel to Hadestown via the railroad tracks. He cares for the young boy, whom he raised.

This is all nice and good, and Hermes has quite a set of pipes. There is something that struck me as suspicious: Hermes is no muse or narrator in classic mythology. He's the god of messengers, thieves, and medicine. His caduceus is a classic symbol of healing. So why he is the one that is ushering in the band and giving sensible advice to his nephew Orpheus?

Hermes wants to heal the world by retelling the story. He cannot, however, because he is an unreliable narrator and ignores the flaws that he projects upon Hades. I argue that Hermes also stole the tale to retell on his terms. For that reason, he cannot find his happy ending and neither can his family within the story. As Orpheus lacks the means to let go of Eurydice, Hermes can't let go of the story.

Taking Out The Muse

Calliope, Orpheus's mother, would be the one best suited to tell the tale. She was one of the nine Muses, the storytellers who would inspire epic writers such as Homer. You can see one modern interpretation of Calliope in the comic Sandman, where she dated the title character and Orpheus was their son. While she isn't a dangerous god or demigod, she is powerful in what she inspires.

Hermes cuts Calliope out of the narrative. He tells the audience that he raised Orpheus as a favor to his mother. We don't know why Calliope, a demigod in her own right, is suspiciously absent from this depressing wasteland. It's possible that if she were there, she would have provided guidance for Orpheus on how to finish his song and pay attention to Eurydice at the same time. If her interpretation in Sandman has a grain of truth, she is one of the nicest demigods.

Removing Calliope removes what gave Orpheus the connections that he needed to even bargain with Hades and return from the Underworld alive. Orpheus received his divine gifts from Calliope and his father Apollo in Greek mythology, and he used both to charm Cerberus, the dog guardian of the Underworld. A handful of other Greek heroes used their connections to mount such rescues, but Orpheus was remarkable in that he used no violence, just his song. He failed because you cannot undo death.

If you remove Calliope as a positive influence — Apollo was a serial rapist and a flighty guy — then you leave Orpheus with Hermes, the thief, and messenger. Hermes gets to paint himself as the only reasonable person in the play who is not drawn into everyone's petty disputes. We see a reason that Orpheus is a thoughtless dreamer that wants the world to be better. He's never had to deal with the despair that real life brings.

There's a problem with this interpretation, however; Hermes was no better than Apollo in Greek mythology. He would dally with Earth women, sometimes forcing himself on them and letting their relatives murder them to preserve honor. Yet in the play, Hermes shows himself advising Orpheus to court Eurydice slowly and listen to her. The messenger god would be the worst paragon to have to raise a powerful demigod if we go by the actual legends. Hermes conveniently leaves these details out when telling his side of the story.

Even worse, Hermes projects these predatory aspects on Hades, the most faithful Greek god. Hades maybe had one affair, and the poor lady was turned into the mint plant for invoking Persephone's wrath; some versions even say that Minthe tried to seduce Hades and paid the price when he refused her. The play shows Hades luring vulnerable people to sign contracts and work for eternity in his city of death. Persephone, rather than offer a way out or convince Hades to change his mind, runs an illegal speakeasy and demands high prices for her wares from the exploited workers. She only switches gears when Orpheus walks into town and begs for his wife's freedom.

Hades by far was the fairest god in Greek mythology, in addition to being the most faithful. He accepted his place in the Underworld and also was the god of wealth. While anyone would be mad at Zeus for giving him the short end of the stick, Hades made the best of his situation. When he did bend the rules, circumstances forced his hand. The Persephone tale is the only case where he kidnapped a woman and forced her to marry him, and it seems bizarre compared to the other tales. Making Hades evil is common in Western media, to the point that a trope is named after him because we fear death. Here, however, it seems like Hermes is invoking it to tell the story his way.

Other Discrepancies In The Narrative

Hermes neglects to mention that there are several versions of what happened after Orpheus turned around and saw Eurydice transported back to the Underworld. In some cases, he was functionally immortal and became an oracle after Maenads or devotees of Dionysus ripped him apart and left his head intact. Some others lay mercy on Orpheus and have Zeus kill him with a thunderbolt for invoking the wrath of the gods, and he can spend eternity in the Underworld with Eurydice as a shade.

Hadestown ends right when Orpheus fails, Persephone and Eurydice mourn his exile, and Hermes restarts the story hoping that this time it will change. Yet I would argue that revealing what happens after is necessary. We need to know if Hadestown is really the Underworld, and what Orpheus does with his life after, knowing his power. We only know that he wanders the Earth, mourning the loss of Eurydice.

We also get a more active Eurydice, whose choices condemn her to Hadestown. She leaves Orpheus when hunger drives her. That didn't happen in the original myth; a snakebite drives Eurydice to the Underworld. While it's good to see a more active lady, we are concerned that she believed Hades. If someone calls you "little songbird" and invites you to paradise, run! Go in the other direction.

Eurydice fails because she succumbs to desperation. While she snarkily comments that Orpheus is a musician and a "lyre", she dives into the spark of hope that her future husband promises and thinks the happiness will follow. A good relationship requires actually putting in the work, and Eurydice didn't foresee that Orpheus is that oblivious. She promises afterward that if they make it out of Hadestown alive, she will do better. Orpheus promises the same, but because she left him once, and Hades lied to her, he doubts and turns around at the exact wrong time.

Changing The Message

Orpheus in the original tale is a man who cannot accept death. Sudden loss is unfair, as we can all agree, but he thinks that he can use his gifts to reason with Hades, who doesn't make the rules but must abide by them. In fact, Hades makes it a point to bend the rules because he likes Orpheus's song but notes it's a one-time occurrence. He allows for no takebacks or second chances.

Death comes to everyone, whether you are a hero or an every-person. Orpheus suffers because ultimately he wants the world to assuage his grief. The comic book Sandman has Orpheus's father — the Lord of Dreams in this continuity — tells his son bluntly that the best thing to do would be to move on and live his life.

The Greeks liked heroes who boasted but hated those who were driven by their hubris. A man that rides towards Olympus must be struck down before he can hit the pillars. Those who go into the Underworld to take Persephone or the three-headed dog end up suffering. Arrogance and thinking the gods will bow to your whims is a death sentence.

Hadestown portrays Orpheus's journey to rescue his wife as one of atonement instead of one of stubbornness. He tuned out Eurydice when she was begging for food and warmth and didn't notice that she was gone until the train had long left the station. His song reconciles Hades and Persephone because he doesn't sing it thinking he is the hero, but knowing he is a "poor boy" with a gift.

Trying becomes the effort that ends up saving everyone. It's when we aim to succeed that our failures weigh us down but the little actions spread out like ripples. Orpheus instills the other workers who beat him up with the spirit of rebellion while reminding Hades and Persephone why they fell in love all those years ago. Hades lets Persephone go back to the world, and promises that next fall they'll fix their marital problems. While the story starts over before that can reconcile, there is hope that they can do it.

Is there a problem with changing this message? Not for the play itself, but for Hermes making the changes to the mythology. Orpheus is doomed regardless, even though he's not going against the natural order of life and death. It seems crueler that he saves the world and that Eurydice lives in this instance so that we want him to succeed. Hades represents a version of death that takes regardless and manipulates others into joining him, as a means of venting frustrations about his wife. That is a more cynical view of how life is, and we cannot accept it.

Persephone also called Hadestown "unnatural" and that Hades's innovation only hurts others. That is far from the truth of what death is, and what the Underworld means. Hades is the most natural god, in that he accounts for everyone. This is the final nail in the coffin that Hermes is not telling the truth. He wants us to hate Hades in the hopes that it can save Orpheus. That hate isn't enough, just as Orpheus's song isn't enough to save Eurydice.

When Will We Get That Ending?

Changing the narrative does not fix the climax; Orpheus is always going to turn around too soon just when he and his wife make it. The reasons for doubt may differ, but his love for his wife drives him to break the rules. Hermes wants a happy ending, but Greek mythology has few of them. He keeps retelling the story, and we get an endless cycle of thwarted love and hopeful bards trying to control the narrative.

Hermes has to let go of the story so that we can move on and tell new tales. Trying to save Orpheus and Eurydice is a Sisyphean task; you can climb up that mountain and change the gear or type of walking sticks, but you will never reach the top. The best thing Hermes can do is accept his grief, the way Orpheus is advised to let his pass through him, but he refuses. Muses know when to stop singing to the bards; entitled Greek gods don't.

The story ends right when Hermes and Orpheus have failed yet again to change the cycle, and they give the tale another whirl. It's a sign that we the audience need to leave, and ensure that we can learn from the characters' mistakes. We may watch the show again and sing along, but our part is very over.

Hadestown is a great musical, a brilliant one that reminds us why we need to remember who tells the stories. Persephone totally steals the show, and Orpheus is endearing. I am proud that it won so many Tony's as well as our hearts. Looking forward to the show coming to Miami.