ψ Jк Aѕunvαh ☀

this is cute but i don't understand why everyone romanticizes them... he kidnapped her and forced her to be his wife.

Ashen Key

most stable divine greek mythos marriage with terrifying wife, here for iiiiiiit

I mean as Greek myths go, he's better than Zeus

- so, a bit more seriously: yes, we all know the background here. well. we know the backgroundS. Plural. There are variations! Both back in the "original" Greek mythos (so far as that is a thing) and in all the storytelling done in the two and a half millennia since then.

When people are messing around with things and telling stories, we're not beholden to always tell The One Popular Story. There are others. There have always been others.

So, problematic? Sure. But you can run with it to make it Super Super Problematic or play around with it to make it less so, or deal with the ramifications of it and how these fictional people move past it. The latter doesn't mean dismiss, mind you. It depends on what people want to do with it.

I personally find a lot of modern stories and takes on the story to be more inspiring because they give Persephone back her power as an utterly terrifying goddess. The Queen of the Underworld, the goddess of curses. Not just a pretty girl who gets kidnapped, or the prize of a marriage bargain (which Hades did strike with her father, Zeus)

But that's me, and I know people who go, "no, I can't". And that's equally fine.

And to a certain extent.... it's greek mythos. there's nothing that isn't problematic there.

Nimil : I guess you could take it negatively as Stockholm Syndrome, or positively as 'you got me out of the house and you're giving me everything, maybe I can get to like you after all.'

Nimil : Considering how much freedom the Greeks didn't give their women, you could take it that way, yes. Or you could take it as a convenient excuse to give a domineering father and helicopter mum. Even in the original myths, it certainly didn't take long for Kore to relax and eat those pom seeds.

Ashen Key : the first time I became aware of 'alternate takes' on legends was Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Mists of Avalon". I now enjoy reading multiple takes on classic legends from any era

these are very good points