Growth and Decay

It is definitely a conundrum.  Originally, I believe that Hades’ true purpose was to help the souls cross over to either the better or the worst place.  Over the centuries, he realized that the more souls stayed and found themselves without hope, the more powerful he became.  When he was semi-stalking Zelena, he found in her a kindred “soul” – someone as terribly wicked as he was and someone who also felt the stigma of being “wronged” by their sibling.  His initial game plan was to use/trick her.  But I believe he actually fell in love with her, unfortunately, having no heart and being corrupted by malicious power he is incapable of understanding what “true love” is.  He thinks of it as a means to an end to complete his vengeance against his brother.  He wants to rule Underbrooke with Zelena, but also, he wants to replace Zeus & Hera and rule Olympus – hence the need for a baby to perform the time traveling spell, after he receives TLK from Zelena causing his heart to beat.  I’m betting a 100 cookies, that the TLK will indeed make his heart work, but the affect it will have on him will not be what he expected.

I think it’s an interesting twist on the persephone story that Zelena and Hades’ relationship effects on growth, specifically nature-related growth… only obviously instead of their story affecting the mortals within the own seasonal sphere of existence, the life vs decay consequences are intrinsic to the underworld itself (and just bringing the mortals along for the ride).

I think there is going to be a twist of some sort — there is obviously a connection between the frozen heart, the souls’ entrapment in UW, and the need for hopelessness. But so far, I have no idea how to put it all together. I can see how trapped souls might be powering the UW, and hopelessness prevents them from moving on. But wouldn’t the simple solution be to plop them all down into the River of Lost Souls (or whatever it’s called), and just call it a day? Trapped for all eternity, and voila, problem solved. No person, no problem. Or is Hades not able to do that? In the case of Hook, he didn’t seem to have any problem dunking him (outsourced to some sort of crane, but still). In the case of Gaston vs Rumple, he was setting up Gaston or Rumple to do it. But again, if he wanted a particular outcome, why not do it himself? I get it that he probably can’t drop a living person in the water of doom – some kind of limitation on his powers – so my only explanation was that he was really banking on Gaston getting the best of Rumple, but would have been satisfied with the opposite outcome because it fulfilled another function. I’m guessing in this case that quantity of souls in river of doom is in direct correlation with amount of general hopelessness in UW.

On the other hand, what would restarting his heart do, pragmatically, for Hades and UW? Clearly, Hades isn’t trapped in UW, but I wonder if his stopped heart is something that limits his powers? On the other hand, I wonder if a stopped heart might connect to immortality? What if Zeus was actually doing him a favor?

So this whole growth and decay thing has me very confused and I would love some help understanding. In the previous episode, Hades said something along the lines of “despite my best efforts I cannot get anything to grow here. Things only decay here”. In this episode, however, Hades finds a flower growing and is determined to make it decay. This seems a bit backwards to me as his statement from last week seems almost ashamed or disappointed that things can only decay in his world; yet when flowers begin to grow there he must stop the “hope”.

It just doesn’t add up for me. I don’t understand Hades, his goal, or his motivations. Any insight would be much appreciated!