Which Mythology Has the Most OP Gods?

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In a battle of lightning powers, who would win: Hammer-wielding Thor or the mighty Zeus? Could the sun god Ra defeat Hades and escape his terrifying underworld? And could the third eye of Lord Shiva burn Anubis to ash? We’ll measure the feats and statements of the gods from various mythologies, weighing them against their own pantheons and their mightiest cosmic contemporaries around the world. Once we’ve analyzed the data, we’ll have definitive proof of which mythology has the most powerful gods.

Before we start, we want to clarify that whatever our findings are, this video is not meant to disparage anyone’s genuine spiritual beliefs. Our depiction of these legendary figures and gods should be taken with a grain of salt, and we don’t claim to write the canon. With that small caveat out of the way, let’s begin this celestial skirmish by starting with some of the most well-studied gods in the world: the Olympic Pantheon of Greek mythology.

We have some serious contenders here. From the lightning bolt-hurling sky god Zeus to the lord of the sea Poseidon and the master of the underworld Hades, these three brothers set the baseline for what makes a powerful mythological god. While many other Greek gods and goddesses are mighty in their own right, none can claim to be truly equal in prestige or power to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

After the Titanomachy, a grand conflict where the gods overthrew the Primeval Titans for control of the universe, Zeus and his two most famous siblings gambled among each other for who would lead the pantheon. Although Zeus won the coveted spot as father of man and leader of the gods, the fact that the brothers chose a game of chance implies that their skill in combat is comparable enough that a three-way battle between them would have had an uncertain outcome.

Of course, this is not the only measuring stick for strength among the Greek trio. Each possesses unique abilities. Hades, for example, has the supernatural power of invisibility, which, while not boasting the raw destructive power of Zeus’s lightning or Poseidon’s oceanic storms, would give the keeper of souls an advantage in executing surprise attacks and retreating from the battlefield. The paranoia that might come from Hades’s potential presence would make any of his enemies wary, especially considering that he can manipulate the crust of the Earth to create chasms and fissures.

While Zeus’s eventual intervention led to an uneasy compromise between Hades and Demeter, it is clear that Hades commands great power, especially within the territory of the underworld. As the one who judges the souls of the dead, Hades can inflict elaborate karmic punishments on any soul within his realm. The fate of King Sisyphus is one such example, condemned to forever push the same boulder up a hill only for it to tumble back down every single time. However, this ability is less impressive when you realize Hades can only use it on dead humans and quasi-divine beings.

Poseidon, better known for meddling with living heroes, is able to cause terrible earthquakes, rendering Hades’s geokinesis a non-factor in a fight between them at sea. He can command the wind and rain, stirring up powerful storms and tidal waves. His greatest feat, however, was creating horses, which would go on to revolutionize warfare and become the favorite animal of many young children.

Poseidon’s powers are still limited compared to his brother Zeus, who controls the sky above and can shake the Earth just as easily while also dropping lightning bolts from on high. Zeus once defeated the monster Typhon, who was too fearsome for the other members of the Greek pantheon, by lifting up a mountain and hurling it into the creature’s head. There’s also Zeus’s ability to shape-shift into anything from a white bull to a beam of sunlight, which, while mostly used for recreational purposes, might have greater capabilities than Zeus lets on.

Through these three brothers, who represent the pinnacle of the Olympian pantheon, we can understand that a truly powerful god must be able to command the elements throughout a major portion of the mortal realm—at least the Earth, sea, or sky. Additionally, they must hold a position of authority or some important station within their pantheon without being meaningfully challenged by any similar god in that role.

Next, let’s see how these Olympians stack up as we move on to our next pantheon: the Norse gods. A cursory look at Norse cosmology reveals that the Viking pantheon resides within nine realms, mostly under the control of their leader, Odin. A wise and shrewd chief god, Odin made sacrifices to the universe in exchange for greater power. He obtained an infinite source of knowledge by dropping his eye into the Well of Mimir, gained the power to compel other beings through poetry, and became fluent in the runic alphabet and their magical properties by impaling and suspending himself from the Tree of Life for nine days.

While the mythological record doesn’t feature Odin in combat as much as some of the other Norse gods, he is classified as a god of war due to being the ruler of Valhalla, a great hall for Viking warriors who met their fate in battle. Odin is more than a mere fighter; he is a strategist of impeccable quality who has foreknowledge of all events within his nine realms. His wisdom places him a cut above the prior chief gods we’ve mentioned. For all their elemental fury, the Greek gods were defined in their actions by mortal flaws and pettiness—Zeus’s lustful escapades, Poseidon’s personal beefs with mortals, and Hades’s reluctance to leave home.

Odin would run circles around these predictable brothers with his intelligence, and his sons may very well be the Olympians’ rivals in terms of strength. His most celebrated offspring is Thor, the Norse god of thunder, who trivializes Zeus’s lightning bolts with his own divine weapon, Mjölnir, a striking hammer that can kill most beings in the nine realms in a single blow and summon storms and lightning. Thor’s other artifacts include the Megingjörð belt, which doubles his already godlike strength, and his chariot pulled by goats, Snarler and Grinder, who break mountains in half as they ride.

The Norse gods seem to be operating at a higher level than the great gods; however, they do have a clear weakness: their vulnerability to prophecy. Most of the Norse pantheon is fated to die tragically in a cataclysmic event known as Ragnarok. A lenient reading of this could imply that this means Odin, Thor, and the rest of their kin are invincible in any other battles besides the one destined to be their end. But since we’re measuring actual power and not the relative thickness of their plot armor, the fact that the Norse gods can die means their immortality and overall ability to win fights are limited by the existence of Ragnarok as a concept.

To explore a higher level of power, we’ll need to take a trip down to the Nile River Valley and meet the gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Arising from a watery abyss of primordial chaos and building a new world out of the ether, the various Egyptian gods possessed elemental control and vast knowledge comparable to the chief gods of previous pantheons. Their portfolio also extends to universal concepts such as order and life itself. The god Osiris even survived his own murder at the hands of his brother Set, becoming a guardian of the underworld and a judge of souls comparable to Hades.

Osiris shares responsibilities over the afterlife with Anubis, who was the original caretaker of souls before Osiris took his place. It can be harder to conceive the power of many Egyptian gods, as most had more important duties than engaging in battles. The Norse and, to a lesser extent, Greek gods were often understood through the lens of warfare, while the Egyptian pantheon was rather uncontested in most of their duties, keeping the cosmos balanced as the thriving civilization that worshiped them continued to evolve politically.

However, the cyclical adventures of one particular deity demonstrate him to be not only a top-tier champion of battle but also a god that transcends the limits of death. His name is Ra, king of the gods. In addition to being the god of the sun, he is the creator of life and an essential part of Egyptian cosmology. Every day, Ra sails in a mystic divine boat that carries the sun through the sky, and every night, when the sun goes down, Ra sails a different boat through the underworld, battling all the monsters of chaos and evil that exist there. Every morning, no matter how difficult the battles, Ra returns with the sun.

It’s one thing for Osiris to survive death, but for Ra to continually face the symbolic death of traveling into the underworld and returning makes him officially a being beyond the very concept of death. Additionally, there are versions of Ra’s lore that grant him power over the secret names of all things. This magical ability is more powerful than Odin’s manipulation of the runes, as Ra can speak beings into existence simply by calling out to their essence. This is an extension of Ra’s ability to bring maat (order) from isfet (chaos). In this way, Ra not only created the conditions for life to exist within his cosmology but also gave humanity the capacity to create civilization and pursue higher-minded goals.

In terms of power scale, we’ve gone from the Greek gods, who have control over nature and the world of mortals, to the Norse pantheon, which has control over many realms and forbidden knowledge, to the Egyptian gods, who oversee creation and exist above its limitations. This would seem to be the highest power level we can go, but there is one pantheon that reaches an even greater level of divine might.

Can you guess which one? The Trimurti of Hindu mythology are a trio of supreme deities that govern not only the creation and preservation of the universe but also its destruction. However, to attempt to put the role of each member of the Trimurti so simply would be a disservice to how truly powerful they are. In a cosmology where the aspects of creation, destruction, and preservation are given equal weight, our mortal conception of what these processes even mean is called into question.

Brahma is the god of creation among the three, and his origin has a few similarities to the rise of the Egyptian gods. Before Brahma existed, there was only a vast ocean of nothingness, and then he hatched from a golden egg that he himself created. Once he had shed his eggshell, the first god in the Trimurti created all the planets and stars, as well as the living things that populated his creation. The exact details of Brahma’s role in the Trimurti beyond this description are the subject of continuing academic study and debate, but it’s important to note for the sake of gauging his power that Brahma can return to creation from absolute nothingness. This means that no force of destruction, not even the next member of the Trimurti, can truly prevent Brahma from simply existing again and creating entirely new universes.

This proves to be one of the only conceivable blind spots of Lord Shiva, who is sometimes referred to as the destroyer in the context of his role in the Trimurti. Though this title sounds ominous, Shiva is not an evil being. He is, in fact, among other things, a yoga instructor and music teacher who bestows cosmic wisdom upon mortals and gods alike. His true nature is not violent, though he is certainly capable of it when there are demons to destroy. Rather, it’s more accurate to think of Shiva as a being that personifies necessary change, much like the dimension of time. Shiva is impartial and total in his destructive potential, as shown in one of his iconic aspects: the third eye, which can reduce anything, including other gods, to mere ashes. Once this cycle of reality reaches its natural stopping point, Shiva will destroy every part of the universe and leave behind only nothingness. But as we’ve established, Brahma can simply bring it all back.

However, a universe of only creation and destruction wouldn’t truly exist in any meaningful way, which is why Vishnu, the third member of the Trimurti, tends to its preservation. On paper, it would seem as though Vishnu could be equal in power to the gods of absolute creation and absolute destruction, but there are several stories that show how powerful he is across many of their shared myths. Vishnu and Shiva have fought several one-on-one duels, and the winner is different every time. It’s therefore generally believed that the two rival each other in fighting ability. This makes intuitive sense, as Vishnu wouldn’t be much of a preserver if he were easily defeated by destruction. However, given that change is inevitable, Vishnu will sometimes allow himself to take a loss if it means something good for the continuation of the universe in whatever form that may be.

When comparing the chief gods across these many mythologies and belief systems, there is no contest that the Trimurti rank highest in terms of power, followed by Ra, then Odin, and then Zeus. But the world is much bigger than these mythologies, and there are many other gods out there in the collective human consciousness that have been worshiped as the mightiest of all. So, what god do you think is the strongest? Is there a mythology you want us to explore next? Leave your comments down below. Could the god of the underworld beat the god that can shake the Earth to its core? Would the god of war stand a chance against the goddess of war? All will be revealed in today’s introduction to the great Greek masters of the universe.

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This version maintains the essence of the original transcript while ensuring it is appropriate for a wider audience.