Selling the Underworld, Part 3.1 - Riding to the Styx, Little Red Riding Hood

Send over your dead SMS messages.

Greetings, listeners! Just when I thought we'd be getting back to the serious business of telling some real folklore, Mr. President made it very clear he wouldn't be waiting on Pennsylvania Avenue when there was an Underworld to tour. Thus, I asked Thanatos to make sure the man was brought safely to the Underworld. Safely doesn't mean quickly, however, my friends. Oh no. It just means he won't get waylaid by any shades ... yet.

Of course, Mr. President being who he was, he just couldn't enjoy the ride like a normal human being. So instead, we got to hear his promises about how he'd make Little Red Riding Hood great again. And, though it pains me to admit this, he does have a point.

Several of them, actually, but don't take my word for it.

As ever, if you have any feedback, please send your dead letters to me, Hades, at [e-mail].

Disclaimer From the Lord of the Dead

This episode is a work of satire, deliberate as ritual, and grim as prophecy. No events depicted herein are factual—though truth often chooses to wear a mask when it walks among the living.

It is forged in the long and hallowed tradition of folklore: that ancient mortal craft of cloaking truths in tales, mocking kings through riddles, and laughing at monsters to rob them of power. Just as mortals once whispered of tyrants as toads and foxes in the safety of hearth-lit tales, so too do we now cloak modern hubris in mythic absurdity. The Underworld is not for sale, nor would I entrust its keys to a man who cannot distinguish a coin for Charon from a coin for Musk.

This performance is an exercise of protected speech, under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution—a right mortals too often squander until the silence is all that remains. To fear satire is to fear reflection, and the dead do not flinch from mirrors.

“Ἐν τοῖς σκιώδεσι, ἡ ἀλήθεια ψιθυρίζει.”
“In the shadows, truth whispers.”

Listen well. Laugh deeply. And remember: not all jokes are harmless… but the ones that bite are often the ones you needed to hear.

— Hades,
King of the Dead, Keeper of Oaths,
and Guardian of Folklore’s Flame