Okay, letās not kid ourselves here. Relationships in Greek Mythology are
almost unilaterally really bad. Zeus and Hera get some flack for Zeusās
nonstop adultering- -with extremely unwilling mortals- and Hera subsequently punishing the
innocent mortals involved, but thatās got nothing on the story
of their actual marriage, which I will not be
recounting here because- it is so far from consensual thereās
no way for me to be funny about it. And āfar from consensualā is a
recurring theme in the mythos - Zeus, Poseidon and Apollo especially
tend to default to kidnapping- -when a pretty mortal catches their eye, sometimes combined with their whole
divine shapeshifting dealio- -to trick or coerce those mortals into
banging them. If the mortal is lucky,
they survive the process- and gain some superpowers,
or kick off a lineage of heroes. If theyāre not, they usually die horribly. Some of Apolloās famous
lovers die tragically after- -a fulfilling personal
relationship with him, but most of them die tragically
trying to outrun him. Thatās straight-up f*cked and
everybody knows it. Check almost any Olympian godās
ālist of loversā and youāll usually find- -at least one character who super
didnāt want to be on that list. Yes, even your favorite. Yes, even Olympian soft boy Dionysus. And Iāll be the first to admit that I gloss
over a lot of this stuff in my videos! And I do that because it makes me
incredibly uncomfortable! Can you blame me?? Itās not like Iām the only one! I grew up with a freaking picture book
that told me- -Zeus was a cool guy who had a lot of
cool kids that did cool stuff! I watched a Disney movie
about these people! I donāt have an easy time
reconciling the fact that- -these shining, heroic figures
that inspired so many incredible stories- -were characterized as absolutely garbage
in several very key ways! And when I do talk about that stuff, it feels disingenuous to talk about
anything else- -as if that first thing isnāt very much
a dealbreaker- -for finding the characters
heroic or compelling! Basically every modern retelling or
reimagining of Greek mythology- heavily sanitizes the stories
in one way or another. The Greek Pantheon gets given
the same treatment as most- -beloved āproblematicā celebrities - we love
it for the stories it gave us- -and we pretend not to notice the part where
it wonāt stop assaulting underage fans, because that behavior doesnāt fit the
image we have of it. And thatās because we,
as a collective audience, are primed to think of gods as good guys. And good guys donāt do that kind of thing. Thatād make themā¦ bad guys. And that is exactly why
only one Greek god- gets consistently held responsible for
these āproblematicā behaviors - none other than Hades, lord of the dead
and unjustified Satan analogue. Because of our social biases,
most of which come from- -a pop culture understanding
of Christianity, which is the same source for our
āgods are necessarily goodā thing, a modern audience starts off
primed to hate this guy. Lord of the underworld?
We all know what that means! Cartoon Lucifer, king of hell, token evil divinity, blatant bad guy, easy peasy! And he kidnapped his wife?
What an asshole! No wonder nobody hangs out with this guy! Man, what a jerk. Anyway, I just love Apollo! Heās the hottest thing since hotness! And isnāt it tragic how many of
his true loves die? Wonder why that keeps happening. When retelling or reinterpreting ancient
stories in a modern context, we almost always end up cherrypicking the
parts that make the most sense- -to our modern worldview
and sensibilities, and working around the parts that
suffer from the worst of the culture clash. Ancient Greece was pretty cool
about a lot of stuff, but women, for example,
were not on that list. So from a modern perspective, when we
look back at the original tellings, itās very difficult to see Zeus doing
his thing and conclude anything- -other than that the king of the gods is
an omnipotent serial r*pist- -who leaves a trail of shattered lives- -and bastard children in his wake and
this pantheon is a f*cking nightmare. But that is not the perspective a
contemporary Athenian would have had, itās not the impact the contemporary
storytellers wouldāve wanted to produce, and it is not the image most
modern writers want to attach- -to their sky-father king-of-the-gods
hero character. The idea that gods are supposed to
be good is comparatively new. For the ancient Greeks, gods were
reflections of what was true- -rather than what was ideal
or morally right. Ancient Greece was terrible to women,
so that was reflected in the gods. But to us, and our pervasive
pop-culture Christianity, deities and divinity-adjacent figures are
thought of more like paragons, idealized representations of
goodness and virtue. So when we try and apply that
moralized perspective to the Greek Gods, we get some serious cognitive dissonance. So the adaptations usually
end up buffing it out. Sure, in all but the most squeaky
clean versions, Zeus is usually still cheating on Hera,
which from our societal perspective- - is typically seen as a much
more forgivable crime, especially if you also rewrite Hera to be
as deliberately unlikable as possible- <i>cough cough</i> the Romans - but most of Zeusās trysts get rewritten
as affairs of the heart, because those are almost universally seen
as significantly less bad- -than the nonconsensual alternative, a distinction that did not exist
in Ancient Greece. Among other things, ancient Greek art
used a lot of stock poses- -to signify major story beats,
and there was literally no distinction- -between the stock pose for ākidnappingā
and for āmarriageā. Same result, same concept. What registers as an unforgivable
crime to our eyes- -wasnāt even recognized in the
culture it came from. This specific culture clash is
pretty significant, which is why this is the part that mostly- -gets ignored, sanitized or otherwise
rewritten for modern audiences. I mean, unless youāre Hades.
Because f*ck āim, right? We already hate that guy on principle! Thereās no need to clean up his image
so a modern audience will like him! In fact, maybe itās better if we
make him deliberately worse- -just so people know who
they should be rooting against! So, with that lengthy and
spicy preamble out of the wayā¦ Letās talk about Hades and Persephone. Now, these two show up off and on
throughout the mythology, but their best-known myth -
the story of how they got married - is recounted in the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter, written sometime around
the mid 600s BCE. This is pretty much the only detailed
source we have for this myth, although references to
Persephoneās abduction pop up- in broad terms in the Theogony and
the general folklore. The hymn begins with Persephone
chilling in a flower field when- -the ground splits open,
Hades erupts from the earth in a chariot, grabs her and dives back underground. The narrator helpfully informs us
that this abduction- -was sponsored and ordered by Zeus,
Persephoneās father, because Hades was
in love with Persephone but Zeus didnāt think
Demeter would approve, so he told him -
āeh, just kidnap her. Never fails for me!ā Demeter, of course, panics when
she realizes Persephoneās gone, and tears off in a fury looking for her. Nobody has any idea where she might be - until Demeter runs into Hekate,
the cthonic goddess of magic, who tells her she didnāt see anything,
but she heard Persephone being abducted. The goddesses continue
searching together, and eventually seek out Helios,
titan of the sun, who - from his lofty vantage point -
conveniently saw everything. He tells Demeter that Persephone
was taken by Hades, but the blame is all on Zeus,
who approved the kidnapping- -and gave Persephone to Hades as his wife. So this isn't really a kidnapping, so much
as it is an arranged marriage. Demeter is furious, but Helios tells her, hey, she could do a lot worse for a
son-in-law! Hades is a pretty cool dude, and as king of the underworld, his divine
domain is nothing to sneeze at - as firstborn son of Kronos,
the world was his by birthright, and even if thereās a bit of a delay,
everyone becomes his subject eventually. Hades is basically the best husband
Persephone could ever hope for. But thatās pretty cold comfort
for Demeter. Who evidently didn't want Persephone
getting married at all. She takes a bit of personal time and
disguises herself as an old woman, and ends up getting a part-time job as a
nurse to the royal family of Eleusis - fun fact, a major cult center of Demeter
and Persephone weāll talk about more later. Demeter cares for the baby prince
Demophon in her own unique way - by setting him on fire. Donāt freak out! Itās totally cool! Sheās just burning away his
mortality little by little, making him more and more
godlike as he grows. But one unlucky night his mother
Metanira spots Demeter- -setting her baby on fire and freaks out, disrupting the ritual and pissing off
Demeter something fierce, which at this point is becoming
a running theme. Demeter reveals her true
identity and orders them- -to build her a temple as an
apology, and when they do, Demeter takes up residence in her
fancy new chateau - but sheās still really pissed off and
sad about Persephone, so she sits back and has a nice
little sulk about it for a while. Itās okay, sometimes you just gotta
get it out of your system. One little problem, though. Demeter is
responsible for all plant growth. Grain, fruit, vegetables, the works. Livid at the loss of her daughter,
Demeter stops the plants from growing, shrouding the world in eternal winter and
straight-up killing quite a lot of people. Now, I think we can all agree that
people are very important. After all, without peopleā¦
we wouldnāt have any divine sacrifices! So the ice age and the mass casualties
draw the attention of Zeus, who notices Demeter seems
really upset for some strange reason. He sends Iris, goddess of the rainbow,
to summon Demeter, but she aināt budging. Zeus realizes this might be a problem and
sends the other gods to try and convince- -Demeter to stop with offerings, gifts, anything. But none of those things are Persephone,
so Demeter is unmoved. Desperate to escape the consequences of
his actions, Zeus sends Hermes to Hades- -to see if he can convince him to let
Persephone return to the surface. Hermes scoots down to the underworld
and finds the coupleā¦ well, this part of the text is
a bit garbled, but basically, Hades and
Persephone are hanging out, and Persephone seems kinda
bummed out and missing her mom. Hermes explains the whole āDemeter
murdering everyoneā situation and- -Hades is like, oh balls,
that doesnāt sound good, yeah, no, Persephone, absolutely
go and talk to her. He also takes a minute to ask
Persephone not to be sad - as his wife sheāll be a
queen of queens, ruler of the dead and highest
among the goddesses, and meanwhile he will work to be the
best husband he can be for her. Overjoyed, Persephone prepares to leave
for the surface and see her mom again. But before we pat Hades
on the back too hard, he does get worried that Persephone
might never come back to him, so he sneaks her a few pomegranate seeds
to bind her to the underworld - how that works exactly
isnāt really explained, mostly because this part of the only
manuscript that preserves this hymn- -is actually torn.
Gotta love those primary sources. Anyway, when the signal fuzzes back into focus, Hermes and Persephone are explaining
to Demeter that Persephone canāt permanently leave the underworld, presumably because of the
whole pomegranate situation, so sheāll have to split her time
between Demeter and Hades. Demeterās just happy to have her back and
stops the whole killing-everybody thing, producing spring for the first time. Zeus, finally having the
audacity to show his face, confirms that Persephone will
need to spend roughly- -one third of the year in the underworld - the exact fraction varies from
telling to telling, but broadly, when sheās not around,
Demeter gets all bummed again and- -stops letting the plants grow
as a fun callback- -to that time she nearly killed
the entire planet, explaining the seasonal cycle
very handily. With our status quo firmly established,
the hymn ends. Now thereās a few surprising things
about this story! For one thing, the hymn itself goes
out of its way to absolve Hades- -of all responsibility except for
the pomegranate bit. Everything else is on Zeus, as father of the bride and authorizer-
slash-orderer of the kidnapping. Hades as wicked, villainous kidnapper- -is a later interpretation unsupported
by the original framing. And, perhaps more surprisingly,
Persephoneās role in the coming of Spring- -isā¦ fully incidental. Itās Demeter
bringing the world back to life. Which means, functionally, Persephoneā¦
isnāt the goddess of spring. Spring is Demeterās job. The only thing Persephoneās explicitly the
goddess of is the underworld. And if we go looking through
the rest of the mythology, we only find more evidence for this. The Theogony refers to the couple as
āStalwart Hades and Dread Persephone.ā The Iliad does the same thing -
Hades gets a few anecdotes- -but is mostly referred to obliquely- -when the text calls the Underworld
āthe house of Hades.ā Meanwhile, Persephone gets namedropped
as āDread Persephoneā on the regular. In the Odyssey, when Odysseus
travels to the underworld- -and is tormented by ghosts,
he assumes Persephone- -must be responsible for their actions. None of this lines up tonally with- āinnocent flower goddess
dragged into the underworldā. Persephone is a straight-up
queen of the dead. And if we dig a little deeper,
things start looking even weirder. First of all, when we do our standard
dive into Mycenaean records, we find that we have no actual evidence
that Hades predates Ancient Greece. And thatās weird, because
we have plenty of evidence- -that Demeter and Persephone do. Both of them are referenced in Mycenaean
Linear B texts under various titles, including the collective āWanassoā,
meaning āThe Two Queensā. and uh, remember that,
weāll come back to it later. Zeus and Poseidon also have clear
Mycenaean counterparts - but not Hades. And that wouldnāt be super weird if
it werenāt for the fact that- -the story of Persephoneās
descent into the underworld also- -seems to predate Ancient Greece,
and by extension, Hades. Now just because we canāt find
his name in Linear B- -does not strictly mean that Hades
didnāt exist in some form. But we do know that in the Mycenaean
inscriptions we have, the role of king of the underworld
was filled by Poseidon, which wouldāve made
Hadesās role redundant. And Poseidon is frequently referred to
collectively with the āWanassoā- -with the epithet āWanaxā,
meaning āThe Kingā, implying that Mycenaean Poseidon, Demeter
and Persephone were worshiped together- -in some form of trio capacity. So even if the kidnapper wasnāt
Hades back in the Mycenaean days, Demeter and Persephone were still
mixed up with the king of the dead. Anyway, the Homeric hymn is the
main written account we have- -of the abduction myth, but it was also
ritually reenacted every year- -at the Eleusinian Mysteries, an initiation rite for the cult of Demeter
and Persephone at Eleusis. We donāt know what exactly they entailed, because the whole thing with mystery cults
is they kept their exact rites secret, but the theory is it was
originally derived- -from an agrarian Mycenaean religious
ritual that predates the Greek dark age. The central theme of the mystery
seemed to be- -the three-part journey of Persephone -
her descent into the underworld, staying in the underworld while
Demeter looked for her, and ascending out of the underworld
to reunite with Demeter. Hades had a part in the mystery as it
was practiced in ancient Greece, but if itās as old as the theory believes, Hades might not have existed when
it started in the Mycenaean age. And heās not as central to the narrative
structure as Persephone and Demeter - heās basically just a
walking inciting incident- -to get Persephone into the
underworld in the first place. He might not have been strictly
necessary in the Mycenaean version, which is good, because as
near as we can interpolate, he canāt have been in it, or at least not
as the character weād recognize later. And on top of that, the whole descent-into-and-ascent-
out-of-the-underworld thing- -is a very common story structure in
Indo-European mythology, as weāve talked about with Ishtar - and that base story format does
not require an abduction. And thatās not the only instance in the
mythology where Hades takes a backseat. Persephone and Demeter are central to a
very ancient Arcadian mystery cult- -that doesnāt seem to
factor in Hades at all. In Arcadia, Demeter and Persephone are
collectively referred to as āDespoinaiā, meaning āthe mistressesā,
which you may note is quite similar- -to the Linear B āWanassoā
two-queens title. In Arcadia, Persephone was also
individually called Despoina, āthe mistressā,
and this gets a bit confusing, because Despoina is sometimes described
as distinctly separate from Persephone, and by āsometimesā I mean
āexclusively by Pausinias in the 200s AD, fully eight hundred years
after the Homeric hymns, and apparently by nobody else.ā Other than him, basically everyone seems
to recognize that Despoina is Persephone, but itās hard to say for certain, both because mystery cults keep their
secrets, and because Despoinaās whole deal- -was that her true name was forbidden. Only those initiated in her mysteries
were allowed to know or speak it. Soā¦ it mightāve been Persephoneā¦ ā¦but weāre not allowed to know. The Arcadian mystery cult of the Despoinai
is theorized to straight-up predate- -the Greek-speaking
immigrants to the region, so Demeter and Persephone might have
originally been the Greekified version- -of a very ancient duo of spooky
eldritch goddesses. Also, fun fact, in Arcadia, Despoina is
seen as a child of Demeter and Poseidon, rather than Zeus, and more confusingly,
everyone involved- -in that particular story
is shaped like a horse. Demeter turns into a horse
to outrun Poseidon, Poseidon turns into a horse
to chase her down, they have a beautiful horse baby who
later grows into Despoina, aka Persephone. That is too many horses.
Put those back. But it also does parallel that weird
connection we noted- -between Poseidon and the
Queens in the Mycenaean version, hmmmm. Thereās also more confusion about
Persephoneās name specifically, because in some parts of the mythology, usually when discussing the
time before her abduction, sheās referred to as āKoreā,
meaning āmaiden.ā Now, unlike Persephone, āKoreā
does occasionally get- -specifically referenced as
a nature goddess. But the other weird thing about that is
that āKoreā is a really vague title. āMaidenā is the classy translation - itās
equally valid to say it just means āgirlā. And that sounds a hell of a lot like
a vague pseudonym- -you use when you canāt say their name - like in the case of Despoina, and,
more notably, Hades. See, underworld gods were
scary as hell, pun intended. And it was generally believed that
calling them by name- -was a really good way to get their
attention, which was a scary bad thing. So rather than saying
Hadesās name outright, heād mostly get called by
epithets or euphemisms, like āthe one with many namesā, or āthe one who receives many guestsā, which has the bonus benefit of
sounding raw as hell. So weāve got Persephone,
which is, as near as we can tell, her actual name, but weāve also got
two extremely vague- -but very distinct titles,
Kore and Despoina, that seem to have been pseudonyms
originally arising from people- -specifically playing it safe and trying
not to get her attention! Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles
actually calls her Nestis, which supposedly means āthe fasting one.ā All these vague nicknames and pseudonyms
lend some pretty significant credence- -to the idea that Persephoneās
oldest version, whatever it was, was really really scary. Like- ādonāt speak her name, you
might get her attentionā scary. And the fact that Persephone
has potentially over- -a thousand years of secret
mystery history, while the first concrete confirmation we
have of Hadesās existence is the Iliad, is actually kind of reflected in how theyāre
characterized in the actual mythos. Because Hadesā¦ doesnāt actually do much. He rules the underworld and shows up
whenever someone visits, but he doesnāt, like, go out and do stuff.
Heās pretty passive most of the time. Even in his own core myth he takes a backseat- to the core mother-daughter drama. Persephone and Demeter have
so much going on we- -literally canāt tell how many other
goddesses and cthonic rituals- -might be caught up in their
personal mythology, but Hades is exactly what it says
on the box. He feels simpler. Now this might be because the underworld
kinda creeped the Ancient Greeks out, so they avoided talking,
thinking, or writing about it- -in case they attracted its attention, but while that would explain Hadesās
broadly inoffensive- -and generally lawful characterization,
it wouldnāt really explain why Persephone, also a dread underworld deity, is disproportionately so much more
complicated than him. Now itās impossible to be sure about
almost anything about this, but my guess - and this is just me theorizing - is that Persephone as dread queen
of the underworld is- -probably her oldest characterization, and all her other names and versions
came from the deliberate vagueness- -people used when talking about her
because of how scary she was. The flowery Kore spring-goddess stuff
seems to have been a later retcon- -to give her some pre-underworld lore- -that wasnāt reflected in how
she was actually worshipped. And if I can get a little wilder
in my speculation, I think Hades mightāve started off as an
offshoot of Mycenaean Poseidon. Now as weāve discussed,
Mycenaean Poseidon was- king of the underworld, and he had an
unclear but definitely extant- -connection to Demeter
and Persephone. In fact, in some Minoan and
Mycenaean cults, there was a very widespread duality
between the paired figures- -of a god of the underworld and
a goddess of nature - and in the Mycenaean version,
that god of the underworld role- -was filled by Poseidon,
and the goddess of nature- -seems to have been Demeter, although
there is some debate over that. The parallels keep popping up. But after the Greek dark age,
Poseidon was definitely- not the king of the underworld anymore, and that connection to the Despoinai was
mostly lost - and Hades got it instead. So this might be another Hermes situation,
where Hermes started off- -as a specialized epithet for Pan before
getting carved off into his own god. If Poseidonās āking of the underworldā
duties got peeled off during the Dark Age- -and formed a new god filling
an ancient role, thatād account for the discrepancy and
why Hades is curiously absent- -from the pre-Dark-Age sources, and barely
factors into Homeric stories either. Itād also potentially indicate that,
in the pre-dark-age roots- -of the abduction story, Poseidon
filled some variation of the role- -that later belonged to Hades. This is one hundred percent
my own crack theory, though, I canāt find anyone else
making this connection, and thereās no ironclad textual
evidence to support this - we are in fully in the
thumbtacks-and-string zone here. But if thereās one thing we can
definitely take away from this, itās that this is a uniquely snarled
part of the mythos. Thereās a ton of moving parts,
epithets, and pseudonyms- -making everything confusing. This is not helped by the fact
that thereās also- -a lot of widely-accepted misinformation- -about the story in general and
Persephone specifically. On one side, thereās the misinterpretation
that Persephoneās abduction- -was a horrifyingly violent assault, which
stems from the fact that the ancient word- -for ākidnapā has taken onā¦ much more
unpleasant connotations over the centuries. Which... was not its original application
in the story. And on the other end of the
misconception spectrum, thereās the fairly modern idea that in the
āāāoriginalāāā version of the myth, Persephone willingly walked into the
underworld and the kidnapping thing- -was a later retcon to strip away
Persephoneās agency and girl power. I traced this telling all the way back to
the archaic era of 1978, when author Charlene Spretnak wrote- -āLost Goddesses of Early Greece:
A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Mythsā, which was intended to make the mythology
more palatable for her young daughter- -since she didnāt want to expose her to
all the kidnapping and sexual assault. This book attempted to interpolate
what a theoretical- -pre-patriarchal no-kidnapping version of
the myth might have looked like, but it has no sources because- -there are no pre-hellenic
pre-kidnapping sources for this story. We just don't have them, they don't exist. So this is fanfic. And thatās fine, people have been writing
Greek mythology fanfic since- -before there was Greek mythology, but itās definitely not
āthe original versionā because- -we straight up do not know
the original version. At this point, we'll probably never know
the original version. This book was then later adapted
by Marjorie Graham- (without crediting Spretnak, by the way) -into a beautifully-illustrated retelling
that advertised itself as- -āthe much older pre-patriarchal
version of the mythā and- -āwhat is thought to be the goddess-
worshiping Bronze age version of the tale,ā which is a nice way of saying itās
completely unsourced and I hate it. See, this is
how misinformation spreads, people! This is citogenesis in action! Cite your sources or
admit you donāt have any! But myth-conceptions aside, at its core, the story of Hades and Persephone
is surprisingly compelling. They are one hundred percent
the most functional- -canon relationship in Greek mythology. Among other things, Persephone is in
the extremely rare position of sharing- -equal power and authority
with her husband. They also never cheat on each other, and
whenever someone tries to intrude- -on the relationship by kidnapping
or seducing one of them, the other one does something
really nasty to the intruder. This is all just canon! We donāt even need
to sweep any indiscretions under the rug - itās just there! And thatās why this story is so
incredibly popular with modern writers. There are at this point dozens of
reimaginings of their relationship, and while some of them lean into the- -āHades-as-Satanā angle for
some easy villainy, most of them focus on the strange
and contradictory beauty- -of the ultimate pastel goth love story. Their relationship started with an
arranged marriage kidnapping and- a near-apocalypse and- -seamlessly transitioned into the most
functional love story in the entire mythos! Thatās a fascinating scenario for
writers to explore - from Lore Olympus reframing
the controversial parts of their love story as a matter of
unreliable narrators, to Supergiant Gamesā Hades painting
Hades and Persephone as- -deceiving the other gods with
the story of the original myth, to Hadestown playing up how
strained and tragic- -their love has become over the years. Thereās tons of complexities to explore! This story has the worst rep out of any
Greek myth because of the whole- -āHades as bad guyā bias we start with, but when we pull back the curtain of
societal preconceptions and- -look at the real story as the
Ancient Greeks told it, we find a very strange and
surprisingly loving relationship- -between two very different people. Itās beautiful! And itās basically the only
relationship in Greek mythology- -thatās less horrifying when you
read the original version. But, all justifications and
recontextualization aside, donāt kidnap your loved ones. Not even if their dad tells you to. We know better now. (Red sings "Let It Snow")
I didn't realise there was so much surrounding this one myth.
Personally, my favorite version of the myth is the "they already know each other" version. Hades and Persephone have an existing romantic relationship, but they know Demeter wouldn't approve if they got married. (The father of the groom was not available for comment.) They start conspiring to elope, and Hades appeals to a higher authority (Zeus) in order to get permission to basically heist Persephone out from under Demeter's nose. After that, the myth proceeds basically as presented, except Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds deliberately so Demeter can't force her to come back.
I prefer this version because a) it allows Persephone some agency in her own marriage without completely twisting the myth out of shape like the Spretnak version, and b) it seems more consistent with Hades and Persephone's later characterization. The events of the myth itself don't really change, but the context and motivations do.
Hades gets such a bad rap he doesn't deserve, simply because he is associated with Satan. As an aside, can we change Persephone from innocent flower girl back into queen of the dead and goddess of ghosts(the Odyssey reference in the video)? That's way more badass than any modern representation.
what its new!?
Does anyone know what the music is at 9:17 ?
When I was reading The Wicked + The Divine I was wondered why Persephone, who I assumed was just a plant deity, was treated like some scary entity of doom. I couldnāt find an answer the , but this explains everything about her character.
W+D is worth the read if youāre looking for something involving gods who are also music stars.
Hades > all other Greek god.
Hades is one smart cookie; This dude became ruler of the Underworld, which lets him avoid all the unnecessary drama the rest of the Olympians deal with 24/7. Not only does this also effectively make this absolute madlad of a deity the richest in the cosmos (as everything beneath the surface is his domain, which includes all the finest ore and jewels you can find), but he's also playing the long game; There will be a massive delay but one day, everyone will be his subjects.
they are couple goals (with all the kidnapping)