*zeus voice* i love all my children equally! ares, athena, and *looks at smudged writing on hand* hepatitis
Hephaestus was not Zeus’s child, he was Heras. After Zeus gave birth to Athena through his skull and Dionysus through his thigh, Hera attempted to give birth by herself (although she did not know that Zeus ate Metis to prevent a prophecy and ended up giving life to Athena or that he accidentally killed Semele by showing his true form and burning her, then putting her charred organs into his thigh to make Dionysus) so Hephaestus came out half formed and did not fit Heras image of an ideal family so she chucked him off of Olympus before Zeus could find out, crippling him for his immortal life. Hera was a bitch like that. But yeah, Hephaestus isn’t Zeus’s kid.
