| “ | I am the goddess of the Mist. I am responsible for keeping the veil that separates the world of the gods from the world of mortals. My children learn to use the Mist to their advantage, to create illusions or influence the minds of mortals. Other demigods can do this as well. And so must you, Hazel, if you are to help your friends. | ” |
–Hecate to Hazel Levesque in The House of Hades. | ||
Hecate is the Greek goddess of magic, the Mist, crossroads, necromancy, the night and the moon. She is a Titaness of the third generation, daughter of Asteria and Perses, and serves the goddess Persephone as her attendant and minister. Her Roman counterpart is Trivia.
History
Early life
Hecate is a third-generation Titaness born to Perses and Asteria, daughter of Koios and Phoebe. She is often accompanied by a black Labrador retriever and a polecat, who used to be mortal women before she turned them into her familiars.
First Titan War
Hecate decided to side with the Olympians during the First Titanomachy, which allowed her to retain her duties after the Titans were defeated.
Abduction of Persephone
The abduction of Persephone, which Hecate overheard.
When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Hecate was in a nearby cave and overheard the former's screams. She immediately rushed to help, but upon arrival, Persephone was already taken to the Underworld. Hecate sensed that someone was abducted, but couldn't identify who it was or the kidnapper, as her magic was weak during the day. Unsure of what to do next, she decided to go back into her cave and wait until nightfall to gather more information through her spells. However, both Zeus and Hades were covering up the abduction with stronger magic, preventing Hecate from learning more about it.
After ten days of searching, Hecate found Demeter calling for Persephone in the area around her cave. She immediately pieced together what had happened and met with Demeter, sharing her belief that Persephone had been abducted by a powerful god, which made Demeter even more distraught. Feeling sympathetic, Hecate offered to help by using her torches to light the goddess' journey through the night. During the day, Hecate returned to her cave to rest, promising to help Demeter again after nightfall.
Eventually, Persephone was reunited with her mother. As a reward for helping Demeter during her search, Hecate was given a place in the Underworld as an attendant to Persephone, which made her more than happy as the darkness of the Underworld made it a better place for working magic than a drafty cave.
First Giant War
During the First Giant War, Hecate was opposed by the giant Clytius. She defeated the giant by setting him alight with her torches.
In Series
In the early 1900's, Hecate operated a magic school in her house outside Gramercy Park. She was happy to teach potential witches. However, during the outbreak of World War One, the students chose sides and fought amongst themselves. Eudora begged Hecate to intervene but the goddess refused as she felt the students must guide themselves through the crossroads. Then eventually, things got bad enough that Hecate was forced to close down the school and fire Eudora.
In the decades following, Hecate would begrudgingly help clearsighted children see that there was nothing wrong with their eyesight. Angry that she could not teach them.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
The Sea of Monsters
Circe, her daughter.
Hecate is mentioned to be the mother of Circe.
The Battle of the Labyrinth
Dionysus mentions that she has gone over to Kronos' side, tired of not receiving enough respect as a minor goddess. She sends two of her empousai (Kelli and Tammi) to attack Percy Jackson.
The Last Olympian
It is mentioned that Hecate uses her magic to help Morpheus cast a huge sleeping spell over New York City, causing all of the mortals in Manhattan or near the area to fall asleep. She later sends magical lights towards Olympus, which are quickly repelled by the wards of Olympus and Aeolus' wind minions.
After the war ends, Hecate's Cabin at Camp Half-Blood is under construction, along with those of many other minor gods. Her cabin is made of magical stones that, if dropped, would either explode or turn everyone within a half-mile radius into a tree.
The Heroes of Olympus
The Lost Hero
Hecate is mentioned as being the mother of Lou Ellen Blackstone, the head counselor of the Hecate Cabin.
The Demigod Diaries
Son of Magic
Hecate makes her first appearance and tells her most powerful son, Alabaster C. Torrington, that she was forced to rejoin the Olympians to keep them from killing her rebel children, as she already lost more children in the Second Titan War than any other god.
However, when her daughter Lamia comes to kill Alabaster, Hecate steps in and saves them from each other's magic. She decides to restore Alabaster's companion, Dr. Howard Claymore, in Mistform, so that he may watch over her son while he is in exile.
The House of Hades
Hecate made Hazel Levesque choose her path in the three gates in the Mist. It is revealed that she helped Marie find the spell that resulted in Hazel's birth. Hecate promised to obscure the progress of the Seven but said that Hazel needed to learn to manipulate the Mist. At the climax, Hecate fights by Hazel's side against the Giant Clytius. Together, they defeat the bane of magic.
The Blood of Olympus
During the Seven Heroes of Olympus' final battle with the giants in Athens, Hecate fought alongside Hazel. After the battle, Nike tried to put a golden laurel wreath on Hecate's head but she swats it away.
Between Series
A few months after the Second Giant War ends. She runs into Eudora for the first time in a century. Panicked Eudora mentions how Percy is doing quests college recommendation letters and thinks he would be a good fit for watching her pets.
The Senior Year Adventures
Wrath of the Triple Goddess
During Percy's senior year, after he claims his first Letter of Recommendation, Hecate sabotages his mission by telling the other gods to leave him alone, deeming their other quests unworthy of his time. Around Halloween, she appears at Alternative High School at the principal's office, summoning Percy before assigning him her quest: to pet-sit Hecuba and Gale while she celebrates the holiday. She then tells him to arrive at her house that evening so she can explain the rules of pet-sitting, asking him to bring Annabeth and Grover along. After the three arrives, Hecate gives them a tour and lays down rules for them to follow and instructions to care for her pets. Before leaving, she explains she will be gone for the week and to keep everything in order for her arrival.
A few days later, she checks in on the son of Poseidon as he is taking the subway. Unwilling to tell the goddess he lost her pets and destroyed her home, Percy lies that everything is going well and convinces Hecate to extend her trip by a few hours.
On the day after Halloween, Hecate returns early in the morning, waking Percy and his friends. They introduce Nope, a hell hound puppy they found while she was away, to Hecate as goddess inspects her house and finds an empty soda bottle. As the three struggle to find an explanation, Hecate reveals she is alright with them throwing a party, as she for saw it, and gives Percy his letter. Before they leave, Percy reveals the truth of that week's events to Hecate, how they lost her pets and destroyed her house and how they used her torches to summon and control ghosts to repair the damage. Percy also explains that Hecuba and Gale asked him to request more freedom on their behalf. At first, Hecate is unamused but considers their requests after further explanations from Percy. He also asks that Hecate reopen her magic school and convinces her to rehire Eudora. The three spend the weekend going over fine details
The Trials of Apollo
The Tyrant's Tomb
Apollo recalls that when the Romans renamed Artemis, Diana, she began to back Hecate.
Appearance
According to Rick Riordan's website, "Hecate is usually dressed in dark robes, holding twin torches (all the better to see you and burn you with, my dear). She is accompanied by a she-dog and a polecat. In later times, Hecate was pictured as a woman with three heads, or three entirely different forms for the morning, noon, and night."
In The Demigod Diaries, Hecate had green eyes and black hair that barely came down to her shoulders, like her son Alabaster. Her face was like a Greek statue — pale, beautiful, and ageless. She was surrounded by green light. Hecate dressed in white robes with ornate silver designs, like runes or alchemy symbols.
In The House of Hades, Hecate was described as "beautiful, but deathly pale" with black eyes. Her blond hair was set in an Ancient Greek style high-set ponytail. Her dark, sleeveless gown seemed to ripple as if the cloth was ink spilling off and wore sandals. She carried two old-fashioned reed torches.
In Wrath of the Triple Goddess, Hecate has three faces all connected at the torso. The Maiden is a girl with milk-white skin and platinum-blond hair, the Mother is a middle-aged woman with onyx eyes and thick, black hair surrounded by green fire, and the Crone is a wizened old woman with ashen hair. The faces can also transform into animal heads, those being a palomino horse, a lioness, and a hound. She wears a dark sleeveless gown and, while interacting with Percy, defaults to the form of the Mother.
The different descriptions in the novels can be explained that as, a goddess, Hecate can change her appearance at will. Furthermore, Hecate is considered to be the triple-faced goddess, having three separate appearances and personalities.
Personality
Hecate is a lover of solitude and expects people to make their own choices. According to Clytius, she sends acolytes to do her bidding, take all the risk and offers vague promises of magic.
Despite her many years of faithful service, Hecate resents the Olympians for being treated as a minor goddess, which leads her to support Kronos in the Second Titan War. Since her children have been given their place at Camp Half-Blood, she has given up her grudge against Olympus but becomes protective and worrisome of her children, many of whom were lost, captured, or embittered in the war, showing herself to be a parent that loves her children equally, regardless of their affiliations. After Percy Jackson mentions the events with Peter Stuyvesant, he notices that a tear seems to escape from the goddess who admits that Peter wasn't her best attempt at parenting.
Hermes describes her as insufferable, but this was siding with Kronos during the Second Titan War so it could have been nerves or resentment fueling his statement.
Percy believes that Hecate is a team player -- as soon as she's sure which team will win.
Hecate is shown to greatly care for her animals Hecuba and Gale who were both mortal women before they were transformed by the goddess. After seeing their memories, Percy realizes that Hecate had transformed them not as a punishment but rather because she cared and was trying to help them, although Hecate has grown too controlling as time goes on, creating resentment amongst her pets. Percy later convinces Hecate to trust them more and even to allow Gale to practice her alchemy again with the help of assistants who have opposable thumbs.
It's shown that Hecate is lonely and full of regrets, something that Eudora says is not good for her as Hecate gets gloomy. Eudora had tried to rectify this by having the goddess open a magic school where she could train promising young students, something that Hecate had enjoyed doing before World War I had divided the students and forced Hecate to close her school. Eudora tells Percy that Hecate believes in crossroads, in people making their own choices good or bad, and so she had refused to intervene when the situation devolved which Percy believes was Hecate sabotaging herself.
When she hires Percy, Annabeth, and Grover to house-sit, Hecate seems to be purposefully testing them, leaving each with temptations, including a strawberry-flavored potion that draws in Grover, a magical library that tempts Annabeth, and a set of her torches with an instruction not to use them except in an extreme emergency, the latter of which greatly confuses Chiron due to how dangerous the torches can be. Percy later believes that Hecate was showing them a crossroads and that she had wanted the chaos that ensued to happen which allowed the demigods and the satyr to truly understand what Hecate's pets need and the true problem with her mansion. After convincing Hecate to reopen her magic school, Percy tells Eudora that Hecate is good at offering people a crossroads, but she isn't very good at showing them through it which Hecate needs help with.
Trivia (Goddess)
Hecate can change into her Roman counterpart of Trivia. As Trivia, she becomes more disciplined, militaristic, and warlike. While Greeks envisioned her as a powerful and mysterious being, for the Romans she was the "Queen of Ghosts" because of her role of guarding the borders between the human world and the realm of the dead.
Despite this, Hecate claimed that she had no Roman aspect, that she was always Hecate. However, this could be because she is not affected by the Greek/Roman split. The goddess Trivia is sometimes viewed as a separate deity, patron of travelers, and crossroads.
Abilities
Hecate possesses the standard powers of a Titaness and goddess.
- Mystiokinesis: As the Titaness of Magic, Hecate has divine authority and absolute control over magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. Her magic is weak in the daytime and strongest at night. Her presence makes the area she is in engulfed by magic.
- Empousai Creation: By combining dark magic, animal, bronze, and ghost, Hecate can create the Empousai, bloodsucking, winged monsters.
- Prophecy: She can see multiple futures that could happen and predict prophecies.
- Chronokinesis: Using time spells, she can control and manipulate time.
- Hypnokinesis: Using sleep spells, she can manipulate sleep and dreams.
- Pyrokinesis: Using fire spells, she can control and manipulate fire.
- Mist Control: As the Titaness of the Mist, Hecate has divine authority and absolute control over the Mist. A swirling column of pure white Mist surrounds her when she is present. She can teleport people, summon Mistforms, and create illusions.
- Umbrakinesis: Hecate can control and manipulate darkness and shadows, though to a lesser extent than Hades and Nyx.
- Night Empowerment: Hecate is stronger at night or in dark places.
- Shadow Travel: Hecate can use shadows as a way of swift transportation over vast distances.
- Necromancy: As the Goddess of Necromancy, Hecate can control and manipulate the dead.
- Titanic Divine Form: As a Titaness, Hecate can incinerate any being lesser than a god/Titan only by being present.
- Titanic Energy: Like all Titans, Hecate can blast things hundreds of yards away from herself with a yell or a wave of the hand.
- Masking: She was able to mask the Seven as they journeyed through the mountains, as she held sway there, and even masked them from Gaea.
Attributes
- Her attributes are twin torches, key, rope, dagger, and three crossroads.
- Her sacred animals are dogs, polecats, and frogs.
Family
Immortal Children
| Partners | Children |
| Circe |
Demigod Children
| Partners | Children |
| Unknown | Lamia |
| Balthazar Jansz Stuyvesant | Peter Stuyvesant |
| Unknown mechanic | Josephine |
| Unknown | Several Amazons |
| Unknown | Unnamed members of Titan Army |
| Mr. Torrington | Alabaster C. Torrington |
| Unknown | Lou Ellen Blackstone |
Legacies
| Legacies | Relationship |
| Medea | Descendant |
Etymology
Her name means "will" but at the same time, but her name's spelling and pronunciation mean "operates from afar", "removes" or "drives of", "the far-reaching one" or "the far-darter".
Trivia
- Nyx states in The House of Hades that Hecate is her daughter, however, this is likely just Nyx exaggerating, since in the same book Hecate herself claims to be a Titaness, daughter of Perses and Asteria.
- In mythology, Hecate represents the dark side of the moon (or the Harvest Moon).
- In mythology, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades gave her power in all three major realms (the sky, sea, and the Underworld).
- In some myths, Hecate was a virgin goddess who has children using parthenogenesis, in a way similar to Athena's.
- Hecate appears as a character in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
- "Trivia" refers to obscure knowledge that Hecate/Trivia presided over.
- Trivia is Latin for three roads. This term is also used to refer to Diana (Artemis) who in Roman mythology became a goddess of crossroads.
- According to Roman mythology, her Roman counterpart, Trivia, used to kidnap young maidens, whom she later changed into nymphs.
- Her Egyptian equivalent is Isis.
- Her Norse equivalents are Odin, Freya, and Gullveig.
Gallery
References
| The Senior Year Adventures | |
| Books: | The Chalice of the Gods | Wrath of the Triple Goddess |
| Main Characters: | Percy Jackson | Annabeth Chase | Grover Underwood |
| Secondary Characters: | Eudora | Hecuba | Gale | Sally Jackson | Paul Blofis |
| Minor Characters: | Naomi | Barbara | Elevator Security Guard | Blanche | Lucius | Margaret | Sparky | Li'l Killer | Mrs. Foray | Dr. Samuels | Dr. Sharma | Peter Stuyvesant | Mrs. O'Leary | Chiron | Connor Stoll | Clovis | Harley | Valentina Diaz | Juniper |
| Gods: | Ganymede | Iris | Hebe | Elisson | Poseidon | Zeus | Demeter | Hera | Hermes | Athena | Geras |
| Titans: | Rhea | Kronos | Hecate |
| Mythical Creatures: | Nereid | Nymph | Horned Serpent | Hellhound |
| Related Content: | Rick Riordan | Percy Jackson and the Olympians |