God of Depression (A comprehensive guide)

Many of us may know the story about the 12 labours of Hercules, the fall of the titans, who Zeus is or who Medusa is but very few of us know about the lesser-known Greek gods and goddesses whose story may be just as fascinating. This blog covers the story, background and powers of one such Greek goddess, oizys who is the Greek goddess of depression, a powerful and yet neglected figure.  

Who is Oizys and what made her so formidable as the god of depression?

Oizys was the Olympian goddess of misery and Depression. Her roman name was “Miseria” meaning misery which was appropriately named given her power.

Imagine feeling an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, despair, grief and your worst nightmare coming true, your worst fears reflected back to you, simply by getting in physical contact with something or someone.

It was said that her victims remained in a frenzy even when she was no longer in contact and as she continued to feed on these feelings of despair, her powers grew allowing her to form physical representations of which her victims grieved about and project needle like projections that would allow anyone struck by the needles to see visions of despair.

Does it seem easy to imagine? Does it give you chills by merely just thinking about it?That’s exactly what made Oizys formidable and rightfully made her the god of depression and misery.

Oizys’ Kryptonite: Oizys only stayed in power when she could feed on the feelings of despair in her victims. However, if the victim could overcome these feelings, then oizys would shrink and return to her  former tiny self.

Origin and Backstory

Oizys was born to Nyx and Erebus; Nyx was a primordial deity in greek mythology, meaning she came even before the titans. Nyx was the daughter of chaos from which all creation came into existence. Nyx was known in greek mythology as the personification of the night. 

Erebus was also a primordial deity who was born out of chaos who is described as the primeval void, chaos who was the personification of the deep darkness and shadows.

What made oizys different from her siblings?

 Unlike the other children of Nyx, who were helpful to humans, oizys was completely depicted as a malevolent spirit who gained power by hurting humans. Oizys was believed to have evil intentions towards humanity beyond causing woe and distress.

Oizy’s twin brother Momus was completely different from her. Momus who is known in history as the god of comical satire. 

Momus was even banished from Mount Olympus  for finding fault with all of the gods and goddess’s creations. According to Aesop’s fables, the only being  created by the gods that had  Momus found virtually no fault with was Aphrodite. When unable to find no other faults, Momus complained about the sounds her sandals made when she walked.

Powers and abilities

Apart from the size alteration, which can make her take on a monstrous figure as she feeds on the misery and despair of her victims, she could additionally manifest ghosts out of people’s despair. She could make her victims feel an utter sense of hopelessness and worthlessness.

Marvel fandom

Unlike greek mythology, the fandoms of the marvel universe offered more information on Nyx in their fan fiction page. According to this, Zeus waged a war against the other gods. (Well this is to come as no surprise as zeus was never known to be the most sensible god anyway) and had split Nyx’s soul into  three Night Shards and cast her and her children out into a prison of darkness and sealed by a spell that ensured their imprisonment given that the Sun shone upon the Earth.

(It seems like Zeus probably thought that there were no loopholes to this plan as the sun would always shine. He was always too full of himself anyway)

But what happened here was that out of her hatred for zeus (Can’t say i blame her), Nyx manifested Oizys, the Goddess of Misery. 

It was said thatOizys and her family remained chained to their prison of darkness until the Modern Age.

But due to a conflict between two Elders of the Universe , the Grandmaster and the Challenger, the Earth was briefly removed from its orbit around the Sun (Bet zeus didn’t see that coming) thus breaking the spell and freeing nyx and her children. 

Nyx now rallied  against the olympians, with the spell of imprisonment broken, Nyx rallied her children, engaging them in battle against the Olympians. She believed that the gods, the mortals and the universe itself to have all been spoiled after she spent an eternity of mistreatment, Nyx not only wanted revenge, she wanted much more. She was determined to recreate the universe to her image, returning everything to a state of empty and pure darkness.

When Nyx arrived on olympus, they were able to slaughter all the gods present in the scene including zeus and the victory was largely responsible because of oizys as she probed zeus’s mind regarding the whereabouts of the night shards.

With the  the rest of Nyx’s children busy and set out to retrieve the Night Shards, Oizys remained by her mother’s side, and helped her fight a group of Avengers, who had become aware of the Olympian massacre.Oizys was able to subdue the avengers as well with her power to manifest visions of despair bu lost her power when hercules was able to overcome his despair, thus returning oizys to her normal size, small enough to be squished under his foot.

Conclusion

This blog covered the story, powers and background of  Oizys who is the Greek goddess of depression, a powerful and yet neglected figure which is ironic because her persona makes her anything but forgetful.

If you’ve enjoyed the ”God of Depression” mentioned above, I would recommend you to take a look at ”Can Necromancers Heal Depression?” too.

FAQs: God of Depression

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References

https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses/oizys-goddess-of-grief-anxiety-and-depression/#:~:text=Oizys%20was%20the%20ancient%20Greek,daughter%20of%20the%20goddess%20Nyx.

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Oizys_(Earth-616)

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix8/oizysolympian.htm