The king of the gods, who hosts the meeting where nobody agrees to help.
Zeus is the king of the Olympians, drawn from the Greek god of the same name and played by Russell Crowe as a man who has enjoyed being worshipped for a very long time. He heads the Council of Godheads in Omnipotence City, which is where Thor goes for help against Gorr the God Butcher, and where he gets none.
Zeus will not raise an army. The gods Gorr has been killing were, in his telling, lesser gods, and he is more interested in the orgy he has planned. When Thor pushes, Zeus turns his thunderbolt on the group and breaks Korg’s body with it. Thor throws it back through Zeus’s chest, and Valkyrie takes the bolt to use against Gorr.
Minor spoiler
He survived. The mid-credits scene has him sending his son Hercules to deal with Thor, and to make men fear the gods again.
Show detailsA kinder Zeus was cut
Deleted scenes had him more helpful than the finished film: turning up at the hospice where Jane Foster is being treated, explaining to Thor how the thunderbolt works, and telling him to find the Gates of Eternity. A different Zeus, voiced by Darin De Paul, appears in the animated What If…?, which this catalogue does not count for live-action characters.