All of the
fodder characters people unique to this mystery have names that reference Greek or Roman gods. This is fairly obvious and I would expect most people to pick up on this. The names are somewhat random and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why certain names are Greek and certain ones are Roman.
- Minerva (Roman): Greek name Athena
- Apollo (Greek or Roman)
- Juno (Roman): Greek name Hera
- Ares (Greek): Roman name Mars
- Hades (Greek): Roman name Pluto
- Diana (Roman): Greek name Artemis
- Venus (Roman): Greek name Aphrodite
- Hestia (Greek): Roman name Vesta
Also, the clue from the paper was Saturn (Roman): Greek name Cronus.
The planets are named after the Roman gods but there are only 3 names there that correspond to a planet (4 if you count Pluto). So unless we get a whole bunch of new characters in the next chapter then it's got nothing to do with
our planets.
It should be noted that the Greeks and Romans only recognized 5 planets (7 including the moon and sun).
- Moon
- Mercury
- Venus
- Sun
- Mars
- Jupiter
- Saturn
Of the 5 planets, only 3 are mentioned in our names. Out of the 7 total, we have 5 since Apollo and Artemis can be used to represent the sun and the moon.
I also have a bit of a theory about Minerva and Apollo's family. Athena and Apollo are both born of Zeus. Minerva and Apollo also have a dead sister and a dead father whose names are not mentioned. Sister aside, it is possible that their father might represent Zeus. If this is true then our total would be up to 4/6 in our Greek planet list. All we would be missing is Mercury (Roman) aka Hermes (Greek). Hermes is a son of Zeus so if you ignore the gender thing he would fit perfectly as the sister's representation. In that case we have all 5/7 of the Greek planets.
However, there is a problem with this. If this is indeed what Hades is referring to by his Saturn, at least one cat is involved. Since I can't really see him blowing up a cat just for revenge, it's likely that this isn't a hit list. It might just be there to draw a connection to the hint of Saturn. However, this would also mean that Diana is involved in some way. In order to solve the riddle, one would have to know Diana and her cat and the chance that the person (or Scotland Yard) solving the riddle would actually know her and realize that she was connected. It is also likely that he handed out so many papers because his chance of getting someone who knew Diana (or perhaps reaching the person that Diana brought on purpose) would be higher.
Another thing I considered was the relationships between the gods when compared to the characters with their names. There isn't much of a relationship at all. Apollo and Artemis aren't even related to each other even though by mythology they are twins. There are only 3 children of Cronus (Saturn) represented in the characters: Juno, Hades, and Hestia. Hades and Hestia are both evil so I would say it's a good bet that Juno has something to do with this mess too. Plus having a mother go against her children is very Detective Conan-like. The rest of the characters are named after Zeus' offspring (only Ares being the legitimate one from Hera and Zeus) with the exception of Venus who was born from sea foam/Uranus' junk.