Something I noticed about Queen of Pain's name (Akasha)

Akasha is the name (or variant of the name) of the fifth element in many religions such as Hinduism, Wicca or other neopaganism, with its roots deriving from ancient paganism.

"Akasha", when translated to English (from Sanskrit), means "aether" (do a google if you aren't familiar). It must be noted that this element is sometimes seen or represented on the top point of a pentagram, a symbol sometimes misused as one of evil (when, in fact, they mean an inverse pentagram as the one of evil, a regular pentagram is quite the opposite), and could have been intended to show or derive from QoP's sadistic nature.

It is also interesting to note that Aether was a Greek deity (of the element of the same name) whose mother was named Nyx. It's probably not too far stretched to say that it wasn't mere happenstance that got two related Greek deities into DotA 2.

Very interesting. There may be a story behind each character. :)

Also, clever discovery.

Yeah, I thought so too. Anybody know when Akasha was implemented in DotA's (the original, this is) lifetime? If it was during IceFrog's time he might just have a large interest in Greek deities, or maybe he simply knew the roots of the name.

After some googling of random names of heroes in google, I also found this -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(mythology)

It's almost certainly not happenstance that many of these Greek mythological figures have burned their way into DotA.

The fact Zeus is a hero isn't exactly something that should be ignored, however obvious it is, either.

This one might be a stretch -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(son_of_Agenor)

Though it's obviously far, far more interesting that Phoenix is called Icarus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus
"is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus


******** I'VE UNCOVERED THE MYSTERIES OF DOTA NAMES OR SOMETHING


It seems that about 75% of heroes with names are completely unrelated to Greek mythology, but a good 25% of them are. IceFrog certainly has something to do with it, hence why Nerubian Assassin was renamed to Nyx Assassin.

Very cool! I love trying to figure out the origins of character's names. :P

I know this is off topic from ancient mythology.


The character Lina is an anime character called Lina inverse. She was from an anime show called the slayers. There are subtle hints. First was her design were similar to the anime character. 2nd was her special moves. Example Dragon Slav. This link or video shows an example
Play Video
Her new dota 2 back story is ok.

The anime is called "Slayers". I'm currently watching it!

Yeah, Lina's based off Lina Inverse. In the original DotA, she was still fully called "Lina Inverse", too. Loosely, to be sure. Ragna Blade in the anime is nothing like Ragna Blade in DotA.

I'm glad they didn't just copy/paste her from the show. If they did, her main DPS tool would be "Fireball" and she'd have a levitation spell similar to Batrider.

This has nothing to do with Lina from DotA.

Woah. That's awesome guys. Anyone know if Kardel Sharpeye is a real person?

I think that's just a person from the Warcraft III campaign, and it has been used for Sniper's second name since the model of Sniper is the model that Kardel Sharpeye had in the campaign. Just my theory.

I'm not sure if you're joking, but it definitely does. Lina Inverse is based off Lina Inverse from Slayers, hence why Lina's title in DotA is "The Slayer".