Technically Asterion was happy in Hades, and it should be possible for MC to go there if he "converted to the religion". I'm not sure how that works, but still. It may be true that greek myths tend to tragedies, but I do believe we will have a good ending. Just not an utopian one. This also comes down to personal preference, in that I find that bending the rules to force the narrative to become the perfectest ending is shallow and demeaning to the story I got invested in. Obstacles can be overcome or worked around. That's what makes a story worth telling, but if you just take the challenges away without proper resolution, they shouldn't have been introduced in the first place.
Viewing post in What's to come/Possible Endings (Spoilers for Chapter 19)
Just speaking from video-game knowledge, there could be the possibility of a "true/perfect" ending, if you chose some specific things throughout your playthrough. Or for example: you unlock a "hidden" path, if you collected some or all the achievments.
That is what some game-developers have done in the past as well, so that might be something, that could be included into Minotaur Hotel as well.
In addition to that, they already did 4 different endings for the bad/sadistic-Route haven't they?
(I don't know how much they differ in the amount of content, since I couldnt bring myself to be mean to Asterion once xD)
So there might be more different endings than just for "you accepted the tasks" and "you didn't accept the task".
And yes, the greek myths often end in tragedy, but I think that the MC once said to Asterion, that it's not the story of the Minotaur anymore, it's their story and they are the ones to dictate it now.
So that could mean, that they break free of the typical tragic end, that comes with greek mythology.
Also, there already is a lot of media, where the gay love-story ends in tragedy, so in a way it would also be welcome to have just a nice ending.
(Not saying there isn't also some, where there is a good end but more bad endings come to mind)
But you are completely right, it most likely boils down to personal preference and what the reader/player wants to get out of the story.
Some might want to have a realistic ending, where most of the time, there isn't a perfect happy end in life and other might want to escape reality for a bit and have their perfect escapist wishes fulfilled.
What I can hardly imagine though is, that the MC would convert to a different religion during the game, especially when he most likely isn't too fond of them, after everything that they put Asterion through.
So if that's a possible ending: granting him the title of a hero would make way more sense for the story, (especially when he helped some of those gods regain their sanity) which would also grant him access to the elysian fields in Hades like the heros befor him.
So after his death, he would be able to see his beloved minotaur again.
Yeah, some games do that and i'm not really a fan. particularly due to how they are structured, "do all of the everything so that you can finally play the real route for real and this is the ultimate super mega route". That's to say, if there is a bestest true ending, then it should be possible to get in a single run. When you artificially lock the best ending behind the worser ones, it's like your first try doesn't even count, cause you need to beat the game once before you can play the "real" version.
Right now I can only see the do the hermes task or not endings, but that doesn't mean I think they are the only ones there will be. I just don't have quite enough information to be making educated guesses as to what other options there will be.
The ruthless route isn't really sadistic, there are like 4 chapters but it's played from our good boy Nikos' perspective. He is at his goodest self during this route. The chapters themselves are pretty much linear with very little variation, or quite similar bits at the very least, it just has 4 different outcomes. Aside from that, there's a good amount of lore reveals we don't get in the main route yet, including one way to free Asterion, which is one of the outcomes.
Personally though, I don't think MC has that much beef with the gods. Queer people tend to be at odds with religion, considering how the most popular ones currently are constantly used as an excuse to try and abolish us. But that doesn't mean religions are always this xenophobic. Greek myths themselves are quite queer, and that's just what survived various cultural erasures promoted over the centuries.
In the trials about half of the gods were agains the labyrinth, Athena being the main one to blame and potentially manipulate the votes. But more importantly, the talk with Robert about how hells and afterlife in general work, it's implied you go to the afterlife of your specific religion, so that's why if Asterion and MC are to meet in the afterlife, one of them might have to convert, and I don't see our bull boi doing that.