| “ | The architect who built this temple was a zealot. He lived only to serve the gods but went mad trying. The rumor is that he's still alive, still inside... still trying to appease the gods who abandoned him years ago... | ” |
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Pathos Verdes III was the self-proclaimed loyal subject and architect of the Olympian Gods assigned to the building of Pandora's Temple and eventually went insane in his quest to please them.
Biography
The Assignment of the Gods
Pathos Verdes III was a zealot with a wife and two sons. One day the Gods appeared before him and commanded him to build a temple to house Pandora's Box, the most powerful weapon a mortal can wield. Pathos, loyal to the gods, accepted the task and began his plans.
Construction of the Temple
Pathos Verdes III began the work building the temple. With the help of some Harpies, their riders, and the Gods, they subdued Cronos, who was cursed to wander the desert until he died. He then started to build the temple on the back of Cronos. His traps and designs were straightforward at first, but would soon become more and more difficult as he lost his mind.
Downfall into Insanity
While he was building the temple, his youngest son died, and soon after that, his oldest son died. After their deaths, he grew insane and started to lose faith in the Gods. While he was still building it, heroes began visiting the temple and many died. These first unsuccessful heroes would be cursed and as he grew more insane he began to make the traps more elaborate and harder.
Eventually, he used the bodies of his dead sons in the traps. This caused a serious problem with his wife and in an argument he stabbed her in the chest with a knife, killing her. Unable to continue working on the temple with his family gone, he killed himself, cursing the Gods.
The Temple of Pandora
The temple proves more difficult to traverse as Kratos proceeds, this may represent the increasing insanity Verdes experienced as he built it. He killed himself but it appears that he was planning to end the temple there as there are what appears to be unfinished sections in it. Also, it gives an insight into Kratos' hatred of the Gods.
Trivia
- Pathos Verdes III is many ways, similar to Kratos: both chose to serve a god (Kratos served Ares and Pathos Verdes III served Zeus and his brothers), both killed their families in a fit of rage while under control of the Gods, both have cursed the Gods, and both committed suicide in order to escape the madness (though only Pathos succeeded).
- Interestingly, in his suicide note, Pathos Verdes III writes that he remembered in the end, that the Gods came to him and trusted him to build Pandora's Temple, thus suggesting he may have regained a measure of faith in the Gods, though it could simply have been another expression of his madness.
- It is possible that Pathos Verdes III held a Blood Oath to the Gods and he continued building the temple out of fear of the Furies as they could do things worse than death for those who broke their oath.