Perseus (Clash of the Titans)

Perseus is the main protagonist of the 2010 film, Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans. He is the demigod son of Zeus and Danaë, the husband of Io and the biological father of Helius who began his hero's journey to save the Princess Andromeda. Along with several companions, he must defeat the Kraken and foil Hades and save the world from destruction by his evil grandfather Kronos.

Perseus is based on the character of the same name from Greek Mythology with several aspects of Bellphron, Hercules and Theseus.

Background
Acrisius, the King of Argos, laid waste to Olympus. In revenge, Zeus disguised himself as the king and slept with Queen Danaë. This resulted in a conceiving a child. Danaë gave birth to a son, named Perseus. However, as a baby, Perseus and his birth mother were cast into the sea. In retaliation, Zeus stroke lightning, and transformed Acrisius into the creature, Calibos.

Found at sea, Perseus was named and raised by a family of fisherman, a man named Spyros and a woman named Marmara. At a young age, Perseus wanted to know who he was where he came from and felt ashamed of not knowing who his biological parents were. Despite not being related by blood, Spyros and Marmara considered him their own son even as he thought he couldn't be anyone's child. Perseus considered them his parents and had a loving relationship with his adoptive sister, Tekla.

Personality
As a child, Perseus was quite adventurous, wanting to travel the world more and wanted to know where he came from. However, as he grew older, Perseus came to enjoy the peaceful fisherman life with his parents and sister. However, while Perseus wanted to know who his birth family was, he was happy with the family he had.

Because he was a simple fisherman, most of his initial companions believed Perseus was incompetent. However, the teen demigod was quite intelligent, and in fact, became a skilled leader over the remaining company after the attack of the Scorpions. The men of this small band willingly followed him, even going literally following him into the realm of Hades, all knowing that they might die on this adventure like the witches foretold them.Perseus was devoted to his family and loved them very much. Even though Spyros and Marmara weren't Perseus' biological parents, he still loved them and regarded them as parents, the people who rasied him and was happy with his little sister, Tekla and often helped her when they went fishing together. He wanted to avenge their deaths as much as possible when they were killed by Hades.

Perseus later fought for the world to be a better place for his son, who was one of the only things Perseus ever held dear to. He also showed visible signs of wanting to know who is birth parents were.He was shocked to learn that his father was  Zeus himself and learned the true circumstances of his birth. When Perseus learned that he and his birth mother were cast into the sea, Perseus was taking it all in as Io told him what happened to his mother. Perseus had a resentment towards his father, Zeus, and coldly rebuffed his birth father's gifts and even denied Zeus as his father. However, by the time of the sequel, Perseus did regard Zeus as his father and even went on a rescue mission to save him. He also regarded Agenor as his cousin and family member, but had a strong rivalry with his half-brother, Ares, who hates Perseus because their father always favored his demigod child over his god son.

Throughout the Clash of the Titans franchise, Perseus was only attracted and in love with two women, but was attracted to their character, and not their looks. His first lover was a woman named Io. At first, he resented Io's presence, but slowly fell in love with her on the quest to save Argos. The two of them married and had a child together, named Helius. He was very much sadden by her death twice and probably never loved another woman again. However, it turned out to be untrue, since Perseus began having feelings for Andromeda. He first met her when she was a princess and she was the only one in the kingdom to show Perseus kindness while everyone in the city was rude towards him. He later saved her life, causing Andromeda to fall in love with him and even offered him to become king, but Perseus refused and said he only served her as a man. When they met again ten years later, Andromeda was slightly jealous when he mentioned his wife very briefly. At the very end of Wrath of the Titans, Perseus gives her a very passionate kiss, implying they may enter a romantic relationship in the future, just like the myths.

In a deleted scene of Clash of the Titans, Apollo commented that Perseus is as hot-tempered as his father, Zeus is. It is reflected upon several times, such as Perseus wanting to immediately attack Hades without hesitation and thought. He later grew angry with the Stygian Witches when they would not tell them how to defeat the Kraken. After the events of Clash, marrying Io and having a son with her, Perseus became less hot-tempered due to fatherhood calming him down a bit. Since Io died, Perseus had been looking after Helius since, and both of them retain a very strong relationship with one another. To further show how committed he was to being a full time parent, Perseus refused to abandon Helius when his father needed him.

Overall, Perseus was a very brave man, willing to lay his life down on the line for anyone and continued to live in Argos and raise Helius, and giving him a weapon for the first time.

2010 re-make
Perseus first appears in the film, Clash of the Titans.

Io, an immortal woman, guided Perseus and his mother to the mortal man, Spyros, who was out finished and brought out the coffin that had both Perseus and his deceased mother. Spyros gave Perseus' mother a proper burial and kept her child, naming him Perseus. He was later adopted by Marmara. At approximately eight years old, Perseus' parents concieved a biological child of their own. However, boy Perseus admitted to his father that he doubted that Spyros and Marmara would love him less when the new baby arrived and says that he is no one's son. However, Spyros promises that both he and Marmara will always be his parents and Perseus will be their son.

Twelve years later, Perseus and his entire family go fishing on their boat. However, they get no fish sneered into their net. Spyros says that one day someone will make a stand to the gods' tyranny. The following night, Perseus awakens to the thunderous night. Spyros comes out and remembers that a storm is what brought him to Perseus in the first place. Even though is father has no answers to who he is, Perseus tells Spyros that he has everything he could ever want right there. The following day, Perseus' family are killed by Hades, but Perseus is the only one to survive the incident. The young man is left to grieve for the parents and younger sister he lost, and is shortly found by Argos soldiers

While visiting the Argos Palace, Perseus meets Princess Andromeda for the first time. Their celebration is suddenly ruined with the arrival of Hades after Cassiopeia foolishly compares her daughter's beauty more beautiful than Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Perseus attempts to attack Hades, but Io refrains Perseus from doing so and promises that he will one day get his chance to avenge his family. The lord of the Underworld swears he will unleash the Kraken in ten days unless they sacrifice Andromeda for their queen's insolence and reveals Zeus has Perseus' birth father.

Perseus refuses to help save Argos, feeling lost without the family who were killed by Hades. Imprisoned in the Argive dungeons, the jailer, Draco reveals to Perseus someone is there to visit him. Perseus recognizes her as the woman from before, Io, appearing to tell him how he was born. Perseus asks who she is, and Io reveals her  name and that she is cursed with agelessness. Perseus asked if he really was the son of Zeus and Io confirms it is true and begins to tell him the story of how he was born: revealing that he was born between the union of Zeus and Danae in the guise of Danae's husband, Acrisius. Perseus also learns his mother and he were thrown into the sea but when he was found, his mother was already dead. After learning the true circumstances of his birth from Io, Perseus, still angry at his family's murder, doesn't care how or why he was born and inquires how to get to Hades. Io reveals that if he kills the Kraken, then he'll be able to strike a deathly blow against Hades. This prompts Perseus to accept the King's offer to save Argos if it means he'll get to Hades.

The quest does not start off well for Perseus, as he is constantly teased at by most of his companions and learns fighting skills from Draco.

During this time, Zeus gifts Perseus with a sword of magic and pegasus but Perseus refuses each of them, perferring to do it as a man than a demigod.

Trivia
Perseus is based on the mythological figure from Greek Mythology of the same name.
 * Perseus is the first character in 2010 to be named Perseus, and the second is Percy Jackson {{small|(whose full name is Perseus). Coincidentally, both films were involved in Greek Mythology.

Comparison to the 1981 version

 * Perseus was raised by his mother in the original while he was raised by two adopted parents, Spyros and Marmara in the remake.
 * Perseus is only given ten days to find a way to defeat the Kraken before Andromeda is sacrificed during an eclipse while in the original film he has thirty days before she was sacrificed on the longest day of the year.
 * The original Perseus had to answer a riddle to marry Andromeda.
 * He falls in love with Io as opposed to Andromeda and has a son, Helius in the sequel.
 * However, Perseus and Andromeda are heavily implied to enter a romantic relationship in Wrath of the Titans. like their 1981 and mythological counterparts.
 * In the 2010 film, Zeus gave Perseus the gold coin to cross the River Styx as opposed to a member in Perseus' party.
 * Perseus' main rival in the film are Hades and Acrisius (also Calibos in this version) while the original film was Thetis and Calibos.