Every civilization must answer the same question: where do the dead go? The answers betray each one’s deepest worldview — the Greeks gave death an administrator, the Norse split death into two classes, and the Indian traditions made death a judgment and a departure. Three underworlds side by side show three understandings of what it means to be alive.
Hades is no devil — he is the brother who drew the underworld by lot, a strict but not evil administrator. Nearly all the dead go to the same grey place, regardless of virtue. The Greek afterlife neither rewards nor punishes; it is simply the administrative district of "the end."
🗝️ Hades · See this figure →The Norse sorted the dead by how they died: the battle-slain feast and train in Valhalla awaiting Ragnarök; those who die of sickness or age descend to the cold mist-realm of Hel, Loki’s daughter. How you die decides where you go — a warrior society’s values written as an afterlife.
💀 Hel · See this figure →Yama was the first mortal to die, and so became king of the dead. In Hindu and Buddhist tradition he presides over the reckoning of the departed — yet death is no terminus: karma drives the next birth. Carried east with Buddhism, he became the Chinese "King Yama" of popular religion.
💀 Yama · See this figure →Greece: an equal ending. The North: your death decides your address. India: judgment, then return. Set the three answers together and the pattern shows — how a civilization imagines death is very nearly how it prices life: administration, glory, or karma.