In a battle of lightning powers, who would win - Hammer-wielding warrior 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 into ash?
We’ll measure the feats and statements of the Gods of many different mythologies, weighing
them against their own pantheons and their mightiest cosmic contemporaries around the
world.
And once we’ve cracked the code and run the numbers, we’ll have definitive proof
of which mythology has the most powerful gods.
But before we start, we’d like to make it clear that whatever our findings are, this
video is not meant to disparage anyone’s genuine spiritual beliefs.
Our depiction of the legendary figures and gods should be taken with a grain of salt
and the knowledge that 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’ve got some serious contenders, folks, from the lightning bolt-hurling sky god Zeus
to the lord of the sea, Poseidon, to the master of the underworld, Hades.
These three brothers are the baseline for what makes a powerful mythological god.
While most of the other Greek gods and goddesses are mighty in their own right, none can claim
to be 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 amongst 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 his own special abilities unique from the other two brothers.
Hades, for example, possesses the supernatural power of invisibility, which, while not boasting
the raw destructive power of Zeus’ 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’ potential presence would be enough to make
any of his enemies wary—especially considering that he can manipulate the crust of the earth
in order to create gaping chasms and fissures.
When Hades stole Persephone from her mother - the earth goddess Demeter - he was able
to open the earth, abduct his target, and disappear back below the ground while closing
it behind him - all without being stopped by any of the other gods.
Though Zeus’ 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 the same hill, only for it to tumble back down to the bottom every single time.
This ability is less impressive, however, when you realize Hades can only use it on
dead humans and quasi-divine beings such as nymphs and naiads.
It wouldn’t help him win a bout against another god.
His brother Poseidon is better known for messing with living heroes, including Odysseus, whom
he turned the ocean against for many years.
Though he is a marine god, Poseidon is able to cause terrible earthquakes, thus rendering
Hades 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 - the equine animals that would go on to revolutionize
warfare the world over, as well as become the favorite animal of many young children.
Poseidon’s powers are still limited, however, in comparison 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 onto the creature’s head.
There is also the Father of Man’s infamous ability to shapeshift into anything from a
white bull to a beam of sunlight, which, while mostly used for *ahem* recreational purposes,
may 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 be able to hold a position of authority or some important station
within their pantheon without being meaningfully challenged by any similar god in that role.
Let’s see how these Olympians stack up as we move into our next pantheon: the Norse
gods.
Even a cursory look at Norse cosmology reveals that the Viking pantheon resides within nine
realms, which are mostly within the control of their leader, Odin.
A wise and shrewd chief god, Odin made bloody sacrifices to the universe in exchange for
greater power.
He obtained an infinite source of knowledge by dropping his eyes into the Well of Mimir,
gained the power to compel other beings through poetry by questing for the Mead of Inspiration,
and became fluent in the runic alphabet and their magical properties by impaling and suspending
himself from the tree of life for nine days.
Yeah, the Norse legends were just kind of metal like that.
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 the heat of 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.
Odin’s wisdom places him a cut above the prior chief gods we have mentioned.
For all of their elemental fury, the Greek Gods were defined in their actions by mortal
flaws and pettiness.
Zeus’ lustful escapades, Poseidon’s personal beefs with mortals, and Hades being afraid
to leave home most of the time.
We can at least relate to that last one.
Odin would run circles around these predictable brothers with his intelligence, and his own
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’
lightning bolts with his own divine weapon, Mjollnir - a striking hammer-or-axe-like projectile
that can kill most beings in the nine realms in a single blow as well as summon storms
and lightning.
Thor’s other artifacts include the Megingjord belt, which doubles his already godlike strength,
and his chariot-pulling goats, Snarler and Grinder, who break mountains in half as they
ride.
From the looks of things, the Norse gods are simply operating at a higher power level than
the great gods.
However, they do have a clear weakness, and that is their vulnerability to prophecy.
Most of the Norse pantheons are 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 battle besides the one destined to be their epilogue, but
since we’re measuring actual power and not the relative thickness of their plot armor
- the fact the Norse gods can die means that they inevitably will die.
Their immortality and their overall ability to win fights are limited by the existence
of Ragnarok as a concept.
In order to go to a higher level of power, we’ll need to explore a pantheon that has
transcended death itself.
We’ll have 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 possess the elemental control and vast knowledge of the
chief gods of previous pantheons, but their portfolio also extends to such universal concepts
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 the responsibilities over the afterlife with Anubis, who was the original
solemn caretaker of souls before Osiris livened up the place.
It can be a bit hard to conceive of the power of many of the Egyptian Gods, as most of them
had more important things to do than getting into fights.
The Norse and, to a lesser extent, Greek gods were often understood through the lens of
warfare, seeing as they had constant battles against mythical beings in many of their stories.
The Egyptian Pantheon, on the other hand, 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, thrilling adventures of one particular deity demonstrate him to
be not only a top-tier champion of battle but also a god that completely transcends
the limits of death.
His name is Ra, King of The Gods, and 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 and
battles all of 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 Osirus to survive one 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.
In addition, there are versions of Ra’s lore that grant him power over the secretive
names of all things.
This magical ability is more powerful than Odin’s manipulation of the runes, as Ra
can wholesale speak beings into existence simply by calling out to their essence.
This is an extension of Ra’s ability to bring “Ma’at” or Order from “Isfet”
or 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 the power scale, we have gone from Greek gods that have control over nature
and the world of mortals to the Norse pantheon that has control over many realms and forbidden
knowledge, to Ra of the Egyptian gods who oversees creation and exists 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 the 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 Trimurti 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 before he existed.
Once he had shed his eggshell, the first god in the Trimurti created all of 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 is 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 that the next member of the Trimurti
who we’ll get to - can truly prevent Brahma from simply existing again and creating an
entirely new universe.
This proves to be one of the only conceivable blindspots 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’s certainly capable of it when there are demons
to destroy - rather, it is 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.
This is 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.
But 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 in
his many avatars.
Now, on paper, it wouldn’t seem as though Vishnu could be equal in power to 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 is, therefore, generally believed that the two rival each other in fighting ability.
This makes intuitive sense, as Vishnu wouldn’t be able to be much of a preserver if he was
easily bowled over by destruction.
Though given that change is inevitable, Vishnu will sometimes allow himself to take the L
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,
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.
What god do you think is strongest?
Is there a mythology you want us to explore next?
Leave your comments down below.
Now check out “The Real Story of the 300 - Battle of Thermopylae.”
Or watch this video instead!