The gods in saint seiya are some of the most hateful pricks i ever saw (As much of the saint seiya franchise i can remember)

Other than Athena pretty much every god wants to conquer earth and exterminate mankind for no reason other than the basic empty vague idea that humans are evil and corrupt or something (let’s ignore the gods are also corrupt as hell), let’s by parts:

1-the gods are just people

Literally, they are basically just humans with a shit ton of cosmo. It’s canon information. When Poseidon tries to flood the earth he isn't a sea spirit acting on his aggressive nature, he’s just a guy wanting more power and to kill his niece. Hades also just wants to kill his niece.

The gods are just nobles who are pissed off the peasants don’t do as they say, they hating on saints is just old money people hating on the upstarts.

I am making this point because i just know someone will try to defend the gods by saying that they are different from mortals and such, it happens a lot in these types of discussions.

2-they can just leave

There is a whole universe out there, nothing is stopping Hades from moving the underworld to pluto and making his little reign of not life there, Poseidon could just go to a water planet, they have no reason to want earth other than personal beef with their niece.

3-athena is fucking punished

In heaven’s prologue (direct translation from portuguese) the other gods are punishing Athena for the death of Hades when Hades was the one invading her territory (by the way she fought him multiple times without killing him and she is the most forgiving person in the entire franchise, this is to say Hades’s death was a “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” situation). Actually this brings into question why they kept doing the whole divine war stuff instead of just ganging up on her and finishing this from the beginning.

4-the fucking underworld

It would be one thing if the underworld just naturally sucked and Hades left that way because he doesn't care but no, he actively engineered the place to be an eternal torture chamber to every human who ever lived, my personal headcanon is that if you are miraculously too pure, Hades himself will obliterate you out of sheer pettiness. Athena would be more reasonable to try to takeover the underworld from him (not that she could, just stating a fact about the situation)

This is not me criticizing the manga, just shower thoughts.