Headscratchers / Clash of the Titans (2010)

• How did Perseus know that lifting his sword at that moment would cause it to get struck by lightning for some reason? And why does throwing the sword at Hades apparently trap him in the Under World again?
  • He didn't. Throwing the sword was the most logical attack. What else could Perseus have done in that situation? Leaped off the cliff and try punching Hades? Second point is Rule of Cool, as apparently the lightning of Zeus can do whatever the plot requires, it's the manifestation of a god's power after all.
  • This troper thought that since they showed the lightning earlier and since he thrust his sword upwards before throwing it, that Zeus was watching and had enough power left to at least throw a lightning attack, thus Perseus lifted the sword up to say "Target This for the Win!" and threw it, Zeus aiming the strongest lightning bolt he could at the sword to help damage Hades...Father and Son working together. Which , combined with Hades being drastically weakened by the Kraken's death, might also explain Hades going back to hell, from the power of a god and demigod combined.
• The people of Argos are the ones who invoked Hades wrath by desecrating the statue of Zeus. Persus' family was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shouldn't he be more pissed at them, than trying to help them?
  • This is Hades, depicted as the most malevolent of the gods in the movie. As he said, he regards humans as the dust beneath his fingernails. "Oh, there are some more humans over there in that boat." is like "More cockroaches to squash." Unlike the other gods, Hades doesn't need to have considerations for the feelings of mortals. He alone doesn't need their love. All they have to do is feed him their death and fear.
  • I think the OP was asking why PERSEUS wasn't more pissed with the people of Argos, since it could be said it was their fault his family got caught up in Hades's attack.
• What was up with the owl thing? No really. It just came out of nowhere.
  • The owl was the annoying wacky talking robot animal sidekick in the 1980s film. Viewers of the 1980s film had mixed reactions to it.
  • Bubo's a bit of a No-Respect Guy, he preformed many genuinely awesome and heroic things in the film. But some have mistaken him for a useless Kid-Appeal Character.
• Since Perseus is a demigod, would he become more powerful if people began to worship him?
  • That wasn't usually the deal with demigods, though it may have been what Zeus was offering him. As an Olympian, the prayers of mortals might have given him immortality/powers/full godhood. It still might. Personally, I figure he's like a Dhampir: he might not get stronger with worship, but he won't keel over if people don't know who he is, or even start despairing/hating him.
• So, uh, why did Zeus help Perseus at all? He was clearly on board with Hades' plan up until Hades come right out and explains how it's going to screw Zeus. There doesn't seem to be any reason to give aid to the person who is going out of his way to stop your return to power.
  • For all of Zeus' faults, he always felt at least a small degree of affection and concern for his children, i.e. granting Artemis her wishes to be young and unmarried forever and saving Dionysis by sewing him inside of his thigh so he could be born.
  • Having watched the deleted scenes on the DVD, it seems that the plot used to make more sense. The sword, the Pegasus and even the coin for Charon were originally going to be done by Apollo, who had seen through Hades and so was finding a way to stop him without pissing off daddy. Then all those scenes got cut. I honestly can't think why.
    • It probably made the "Sucky stupid bad gods! Take your magical sword and your immortal girlfriend and fly off on your winged horse to promote atheism!" overtones of the movie too Anvilicious to take.
• "Don't look at her face." Followed by "Oh that's her stomach, let me continue looking up, up, oh crap." Then "Oh no, he's stone I guess I shouldn't look at her, ooh pretty oh crap" Then "Let them know men did this, with their eyes open when I could easily close them." Seriously, they were trained soldiers.
  • Advice is easy to give and acknowledge when you're safe and sound and planning things out but harder to remember and follow when you've got a cackling murderous snake-woman right in front of you.
    • In the case of "Let them know men did this" part, that was a sacrifice play specifically to distract Medusa. Medusa has to actively use her power of petrification, which was supposed to give Perseus an opening to get her from behind. He didn't quite take it.
• When Hades told the entire kingdom that the Kraken would arrive in x-amount of days to destroy their city...he didn't say they couldn't leave. So why the hell did the entire city of people just sit around waiting for the Kraken to kill them all? They had plenty of time to relocate. Even if there were no towns nearby, they would still have had enough time to find a new place to build a temporary home and not be smashed to pieces by a giant angry fish thing.
  • Relocation was not really an option. Even if they fled the gods could have still killed them by sending a plague. They would have had to leave most of their supplies behind making them vulnerable to death or enslavement by another city-state. No other city-state would have let them in their borders due to fear of the gods.
• The Djinn was immune to Medusa's gaze because he was not a man. But a tentacled monstrosity like the Kraken takes one look at her and turns to stone?
  • That's not the reason. Medusa can petrify only living beings, and given that Suleiman is made of wood, he is not technically alive. He is like a walking piece of furniture to her.
  • The three hags spell it out explicitly: Medusa's gaze petrifies everything made of flesh, not wood and charcoal.

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