Ares [Epic: the musical]

Ares is the god of war, but not of glorious or just war. He does not represent the honor of a defended shield, but the crash of a broken lance, the blood that splatters the earth, the cry of a man falling. He is not strategy or wisdom; that belongs to Athena. Ares is impulse, rage, and destruction. When he appears, he does so with violence, without warning or measure. He is feared even among the gods, not out of respect, but because of his unpredictable and ferocious nature.

He doesn't appear much in The Odyssey, at least not directly, but his trace is in every scar left by the Trojan War. The men who returned—if they returned—did so carrying something of him in their eyes, in the way they held their swords even after it was all over. Ares doesn't stay on the battlefield; he settles in the mind and heart, and there he lives.

They say he was wounded by a mortal once, that he screamed like ten thousand men when he fell. Ares can bleed, yes, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous. He doesn't fight for noble reasons. He fights because that's what he is. And that makes him even more fearsome.

When I imagine him, I don't see him as majestic or just. I see him as a contained storm, walking among the living, looking for excuses to explode. He offers no comfort or guidance. He doesn't teach you how to win a war, only how to survive it. And yet, for some reason, his presence can be strangely reassuring. Not because he brings peace, but because when he's near, you know exactly what you are: flesh, bone, and will.

Ares doesn't promise victories. He only reminds you that you have the right to fight.