Hythlodaeus goes absolutely still for a few moments when Hades says that Venat apparently thinks his friend should have left him dead. While of course he is not happy with how Hades went about getting his revenge, the thought that Hythlodaeus himself should have stayed dead and Hades is at fault for suffering so... well. It's a chilling one, and one that maybe makes him a little angry, and the next thought that comes is that Venat must have changed terribly over the time, too. It's sad, really, and for a brief moment Hythlodaeus feels painfully lonely; he wonders if it was like that for Hades, too, but stretched over millennia.

He shakes himself mentally, returning to the here and now. There is not much he can do for his friend right now but be there; he wraps an arm around Hades's waist, pulling him into a hug, his other hand still petting his hair in what he hopes is a soothing gesture.

"I know you better than anyone, Hades. Better than Venat, certainly. And I cannot imagine a world where you wouldn't have tried. Even now... you hate mortals because you care, do you not?"

His voice is quiet, but Hythlodaeus hopes that the words reach his friend. And while it is true that Hades has committed many atrocities over the years, this is what Hythlodaeus has come to see it as: fury and hatred that are born of the despair of someone seeing the good in people disappear again and again. If Hades truly loathed mortals, he would not speak of their inability to learn, he wouldn't have come to love the Warriors of Light, he wouldn't have given the shard of Azem in his world a chance to stand with or against him.