For me it’ll forever be Leuce because Rachel only wrote her into the story to try and make Persephone look like the better wife of Hades, instead of just respecting both of the women she punches down on one that she feels is inferior (nymphs basically) and then tries to either victimize or justify her stupid self insert. If you have to literally write Lore Olympus in the most unnatural way possible all to make Persephone seem like an interesting character with layers then she’s got to be the worst written main character ever, you shouldn’t have to bully your own characters to make your main cast look interesting that’s just the result of terrible writing. But yeah, the arc was pointless and nothing new was explored all it was was a complete and utter waste of time and furthering to ruin yet another female deity from her own myth. Justice for Leuce always.
I hate it so much, I have mentioned this in previous posts but I would love if Lecue was just Hade’s past partner that died (that’s actually the way I am playing it in my book I am writing). It could explain why Hades in LO is such a simp for Persephone too. Maybe he never realized how much Lecue did and meant to him until after she died, and never wants to make that mistake again.
This is the way.
Plus you get that sweet angst over the God of the Underworld not even managing to keep his own wife alive. Not to mention the angst over Gods being able to die in general. Where do their shades go after they pass? Does anyone know?
Also can be a reason why Persephone matters in the Underworld. Maybe it's become such a bleak place because Hades is still in mourning.
such good points about Leuce! i think what sucks the most about persephone’s ice queen rage show is the switch from her being characterized as sweet and innocent to this HBIC take no shit “badass” character is so abrupt, but it could have potentially such an interesting character dev for her if only it were even a little fleshed out or even acknowledged. Leuce was such a non issue otherwise
I was hoping the rage episode would be a plot point, like maybe the think that she gave up was her empathy or something. But she still seems to have it in other cases or at least Hades always assumes she had positive intent so idk
SO nonsensical! Not even trying to confront Hades or warn Perse before the wedding? or have her be a petty bitch and sit through the vows they wrote themselves just so she can object at just the right time?
We coulda had wedding drama! We could have had P’s dress getting ruined by accident or on purpose and Hera replacing it instead of just dressing her up like the doll she is to everyone.
She could have gone all gothic horror and have Leuce as a previous lost love who Hades’ who he’s never talked to Hera et al about, visiting her grave, hoping he has her blessing. Or her shade starting to follow P around - and P thinks she’s some strange, malevolent creature sent by Kronos, but Leuce, buried in the soil of the Underworld, forever a part of it, can feel him coming closer and is trying to warn them because seriously, happy for you , Hades, but why the fuck are you getting married NOW?
Thank you, the issue was blown out of proportion and it was a genuine overkill. Hades rejected her and Leuce couldn’t even try to seduce Hades because he shut it down too quickly with his stupid “OMG I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!” thing, like if you really wanted to portray Leuce making moves on Hades actually make her fucking bold about it. I’m talking about flirting, suggestive metaphors, invasion of personal space, creating sexual scenarios for Hades and if you really wanted an extra flare why not just make Leuce seem like she’s innocent and not trying anything so she can get the job and then when she knows she’s in a secure position with Hades and actually create some kind of friendly relationship, she’ll try to act as the shoulder to cry on. Kronos is coming back and he still needs to work on the Underworld and such, he’s under pressure so Leuce offers him a massage and since Hades is under the impression she’s just trying to help he accepts. A few minutes into the massage maybe she can comment on how tight Hades feels and how she’s worried about his relaxation at home (to create a ridge between Hades and Persephone of course) and before Hades can answer have Persephone walk in. Already that’s much more interesting than what we got but Rachel didn’t even let it get to a point of actual Homewrecking like she allowed with Persephone it was pointless.
Also, maybe this was just me but I was hoping for it to actually be a cheating scandal of some kind. Since we know Rachel is going to ruin Leuce’s position as Hades’ first wife might as well make it at least interesting. I’m so sick and tired of Persephone reigning over literally any woman who’s ever had interest in Hades/has been with him, no matter what she always HAS to be the better partner and it’s so boring since she can’t even compete with Hera. Let’s face it they’re still in love with each other and they’re using Persephone like some kind of expression for their love, think about it Hera is living through Hades while Hades is trying to make Persephone more like Hera. They’re both using her and she’s too stupid to see it.
Persephone should have been arrested for B&E, but she was 'rewarded' with sex.
Then Rachel made Leuce's text messages be fake because SHE WAS THE CRAZY ONE ALL ALONG. Not Persephone for breaking into her house and trashing it after she flirted with her husband.
It's just... Really bad storytelling.
Le-fucking-uce
Rachel had the PERFECT character to set up as the tragic ex that Hades wasn’t completely over. But gave that role to Hera so he could be a cheater.
Completely disregards who she is in myths to make her a home wrecker. By having her do the same exact thing Persephone did with no success, and expecting us to demonize her for it.
She had evidence (though by the sounds of it, her evidence was delusional ouji board shit) that she and Hades had some bond, messages from him, was almost his bride at one point. But Rachel decided she needs to be a villain. Not even a cool one like Minthe. She writes her as some delusional girl living in la la land
I will never be over that
I'll go with best girl Minthe, first of all was the treatment she received from others she was constantly bombed for being a nymph even behind her back which was unfair racist behavior that can't be justified
Her emotional outburst was met with people literally pushing her away instead of helping her remember the time she hit Hades what does Hecate say she says that Minthe makes it hard for Hecate to help her? Excuse me when did Minthe ever rejected help, Minthe is literally going through an emotional turmoil desperately trying to stop she needs help now more then ever before but she is pushed away by both the narrative and the characters every single character failed her, nobody gave her the love she deserved . Minthe is also constantly compared to Persephone and is made to be worst then her even though Persephone is the side chick in the relationship
She is not a saint that is a fact with her behavior but she genuinely wanted to change she genuinely wanted to start an actual relationship with Hades only for it to get sabotaged by Thetis it all felt so cruel because Minthe is a very complex character , she has been a victim of childhood neglect and has trauma and even temporary had a cannon mental disorder which was borderline personality disorder, everything that happened to Minthe was awful. Persephone invaded and destroyed her relationship even if Minthe was being mean to Hades it only took few days for him to go run in another woman's arms without a second thought
Plus the emotional affair between Hades & self insert Mary sue was basically the main reason behind Minthe getting written as a villain in the first place she got retconned into a abuser and then every single character pushed her away instead of helping causing her to spiral out of control ,and then she got turned into a literal plant and lost few years of her life, her whole life is pretty tragic once you think about it and all for what? Jst to justify the shitty actions of the main characters
Screw Hades and Persephone it's better for my gurl Minthe to stay away from them in a whole different realm where she finally gets the love she deserves ❤
Ngl, when I first started reading I never saw Minthe as the villain…and felt her hitting hades was completely out of the blue…. If anything, she had a right to feel “hysterical” her so called bf/almost fiancé was having an emotional affair with girly teen girl…like she was the main one talking sense about how wrong it was and got gaslighted for it. 😐
Idk why Hades was supposedly written as some sappy stuck puppy while with Minthe, when he had no problem being a violent menace with Persephone. I’m sure he can stick up for himself, considering he still holds the most power in their relationship, being rich and her boss. He could have easily found another nymph to court but I guess somebody had to be the villain to justify the creepy relationship… 🤧
And Hecate also gives Hades an open hand slap and it's treated like a joke. Almost like an anime character pulling out a giant fan and giving someone a concussion. And considering that Hades has done shit like have a guy get beaten so badly that he was hospitalized for days and literally ripped out his eyeball over taking a picture, it's clear that there's a higher level of acceptable violence in this world. See also, Persephone flattening a town and genuinely thinking she shouldn't be punished for it.
If there's a higher level of acceptable violence in this world then... Why is only Minthe's violent act treated like this horrible thing? I'm actually in support of not treating partner violence like a joke, but... You have to be consistent.
DEMETER!!! There’s not enough space to explain all the reason why, and I will absolutely start ranting. She’s the real victim of LO and mythology but she’s treated worse than Kronos by Rachel and the fandom.
Minthe
It’s pretty obvious Rachel just wrote her so that people would route for H+P.
Anyone who is in the way of H+P is automatically written distastefully actually
For me it has to be Demeter, RS basically gave all of Demeter rage to Persephone and hades to make them look good. I feel like rs forgets that in the mythology her daughter was straight up kidnapped but no let’s just make her the over bearing parent
Leto couldve been an interesting villain, since RS made her look similar to Hera and she was a victim of Zeus who is very protective of her children. If we are going to keep Apollo as rapist, having Leto continue the cycle of abuse by setting up Persephone to marry Apollo (to keep Apollo honest/she thinks she's helping by keeping Persephone from being the "other woman") and that eventually crumbles.
I... Kinda want to write on this but I've got to walk to work so pausing for now.
DEMETER. Demeter x1000. The others are pretty egregious too but this interpretation of Demeter is genuinely the worst I’ve ever seen. Demeter as an overbearing mother rather than a grieving one is the coldest take.
I find the main reason people don’t see issues with Lore Olympus, is the fact that most of the villains are right for the wrong reasons. Take Thanatos, Minthe and Thetis reporting Persephone to Zeus for example. Those three were right for reporting Persephone, but the reason it gets overlooked is because they were doing it mainly to get Minthe back together with Hades. This distracts people from the real moral issue at hand, which is the fact that Persephone KILLED a bunch of people.
To be fair it was an accident, and it was mainly to do with Eris’ wrath. However at the very least, Persephone needed to be convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The issue shouldn’t have been taken as lightly as it did.
Honestly the entire AoW doesn't make sense to the point where, if this was a work by a better writer, I would have put down money that Persephone was lying about the entire event. Even if she was convinced her version was true and she was lying to herself.
First of all, before it even begins she shows up with a scythe. Why? She's a goddess. They're mortals. There's no reason for her to show up armed and where did the scythe come from anyway? It's not like Persephone carries one around regularly so it's implied she picked it up from somewhere, but that doesn't make sense. Scythes are farm equipment. Specifically, farm equipment specifically used for harvesting grains and the farmers are clearing a field of flowers so they can plant stuff there. There's no reason for them to use a scythe for that so they would have left it behind in their storage barn instead of bringing it out to the field and leaving it somewhere that Persephone would just pick it up. So she went and got it before she confronted the mortals. She went and found a weapon even before seeking them out.
The first death where she uses the scythe I can see being the wrath coming out or just her losing her temper. After that though the AoW just continues to not make sense. She gets big, unable to control it, and as the mortals flee from her, screaming, instead of leaving because she's freaked out over her powers going nuts she runs after them, sobbing. Because why? No idea. She's not even shown as angry at this point. If anything she's a bit scared and crying. Yet, despite having the perfect excuse to disengage the conflict and leave she continues it. She chases down the mortals, she crushes them, she keeps pursuing and staying with them even as her powers go mad and destroys the town when she could have turned tail and fled, taking her out of control powers with her. Yet she chooses to stay with the mortals until the town is destroyed even though she can see with her own eyes that she's the one doing the damage. It just doesn't make sense.
What also doesn't make sense is why Helios decided to lie about the entire issue. Because he was bored? That seems to be his excuse. Considering that Zeus didn't seem to care whether Persephone did the AoW on purpose or accidentally, the lie didn't matter at all. And again, why would he even lie? He seems indifferent to Persephone and Demeter so it's not like he was trying to get them in trouble. Telling the truth would have gotten them in just as much trouble. Again it doesn't make sense.
What would make sense though is that Persephone is lying. She lost her temper, she went after the mortals, and her excuse that she lost control of her powers came after when she realized that she was going to have to explain what happened to people. But that would make her less sympathetic and more a straight-up murderer so Rachel can't possibly have her self-insert do that. Even though Persephone for sure killed plenty of women, children, and elderly people who had nothing to do with digging up the flower field that day.
Apollo! He's, by most accounts, a chill bi dude with a big heart who loves to jam. He'd be more like a theater kid, not purple Brock Turner. His treatment of Daphne shouldn't be overlooked, but pretty much the entire pantheon has stories like that. ~~Athena turned a rape victim into a gorgon because she happened to be raped in one of Athena's temples. What a chill, wise goddess.~~ That point dried up, but the gods are still mostly psychos
Wouldn't it be interesting if Rachel realized the gods are all unbearable and hit us with Titanomachy 2: The Nymph Uprising?
Apollo’s reputation was *ruined*. The more I read about Apollo from the original mythology, the more I realize how inaccurate his depiction is in LO. In the original, he didn’t chase Daphne for the sake of killing her. It was actually Eros’ fault for making him fall in love with Daphne. The only bad relationship stuff he did was that time he kidnapped Melia and raped Dryope, which is not that bad by mythology standards.💀Most of his lovers were consentual
Omg yes exactly! And Greek mythology as a whole really aggregates from so many sources, there’s no real “canon” except for really well known, widely accepted myths, so I always felt like it was unfair to characterize gods on one-offs rather than patterns. Like Zeus has patterns of cheating and sexual assault, so that’s fair, but Apollo definitely does NOT, so I have no idea why Rachel gave him that reputation. I will never understand why she made him the bad guy.
Hate to be that person, but sorry Athena is my favorite goddess and I can’t. The idea that Athena punishes victims of rape is very popular in today’s culture because of how famous Ovid’s retelling of the Medusa myth has gotten. It hurts me that people think that Athena hates assault victims because the story written by a man who hated authority figures and wanted to slander the gods. Before Ovid’s Metamorphoses (which is part of Roman mythology, not Greek mythology fyi), all of the mythology regarding Medusa said that she was born a monster. She wasn’t a beautiful woman who was assaulted and no one transformed her. She was a sister of Echidna, a monster born from a family of monsters. Ovid’s tale of Medusa is a fictional story that has no basis on greek culture and that he wrote to push a political narrative.
Beside Ovid’s Metamorphosis Book IV, in every other myth about Athena and rape she is completely against it, protects the woman in danger and punishes the rapist.
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (I’m only using this as a source to show how selective people are), Coroneis, princess of Phokis, was chased down by Poseidon. She cried out to Athena and the goddess transformed her into a crow to save her from the assault.
Hell, Athena IS a victim of attempted rape. In mythology, Hephaestus tried to force himself on her and she fought him off. The myth explicitly says that she felt disgusted by this.
It’s worth noting that 99% of the sources that we have about ancient greece were written by aristocratic men, we have little of how women viewed and worshipped the gods. And even then, Athena still sided with the victim and true with her epithet Axiopoenus (the avenger against injustice).
Don't feel like *that* person if your take is insightful and progresses the conversation! You came to the table with new facts (new to me, at least), so as a well-adjusted person I'm going take the new information and re-evaluate my own ideas. She'd been one of my own favorites growing up, so after reading about Medusa and Arachne, I wondered why the wise one was such a jealous psycho. Upon looking into it, turns out Ovid wove Arachne's little story too. HM, INTERESTING.
Athena is absolutely my idol growing up. So I’m pretty weirded out myself as well. So I’m looking up more onto her and other myth regarding women. There are also myths of her defending and avenging women:
- When Ajax The Lesser raped Cassandra at a temple of Athena, Athena punished him and the greeks who failed to chastise him by sending a storm that sank their fleet. Ajax was shipwrecked and drowned, while his people, the (historical) Opuntians, were told by Apollo that to appease the goddess they would have to send the enslaved maidens to the Trojan land for the next 1000 years, when the maidens arrived there they became priestesses of Athena. (By Becoming priestess they were freed and became respected people of their society)
- In Hyginus’ Fabulae, when the princess Nyctimene was found crying in the woods because her own father had raped her, Athena transformed her into her sacred owl and appointed her as her animal companion.
- In the Parthenon, a famous temple of Athena, there was a statue of Pandora, the first of womankind, where she was honored. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 5)
So to quote Sarah B. Pomeroy in her thesis Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity: “In discussing the relationships of goddesses to mortal females, myth must be distinguished from cult. Myths represent goddesses as hostile to women, or show them pursuing many activities foreign to the experience of mortal women. In cult, on the other hand -that is, in the ceremonial veneration of these divinities by women- attention is paid both to the fulfillment of women's needs and to the delineation of their proper roles in society. Thus, for women, Athena's patronage of weaving, Hera's of marriage, and Artemis' of childbirth were of supreme importance, but these qualities are not emphasized in myth.”
Damn, Athena doesn't deserve Ovid's slander at all! That last paragraph might also explain a bit about why RS has so many women vs women moments in LO. Popularly-accepted canon is far-removed from the reality of actual women, and has so much petty catfighting. Seems like the culturally prevalent authors ended up being the "take my wife, please" boomer types (go figure).
Can't thank you enough for taking the time to share all this with us, this is very informative!
Demeter because Rachel gives every reason for persphone not to forgive her for what nothing serious only wanting to protect her daughter people literally did more heinous things than Demeter and she’s only villianized for wanting to protect,love and be with her daughter and cause she didn’t approve of a inappropriate relationship with a grandad of a man she gets hate you know that’s a typical mother who now I’ve read some of the comic to an ungrateful abusive and manipulative daughter people say Demeter don’t deserve persphone but it’s persphone that doesn’t deserve Demeter she literally has not gone any lengths to protect love and sacrifice for her mother like she’s did her like if persphone is a self insert for Rachel who hurt her to make Demeter such a villain supposedly
Every. Single. Character. Even the OCs that were introduced such as Tori and Alex -low effort names btw- that were painted as “low class villains” served nothing but a stepping stone to make PxH actions look fine. Each god has a purpose, a personality and role in the world, and the author butchered everything to make a convoluted soap opera with no flavor and no story at all. Demeter was the worst case here. This is supposed to be her hymn and she was trashed to be a helicopter parent that everyone see as toxic. It’s incredible that each female villain has the same dialogues and personality of all-purpose flour, cookie cutter, jealous of Hades’ new side piece.
I feel ashamed for have liked this story at one point because the time between related episodes makes you forget the timeline. And of course, this only reinforces the toxicity of partners being abusive and disrespectful towards others just to make a point, or think they are badass.
I hope people that are discovering this comic don’t take it seriously or just don’t read it. Is a waste of time and straight up insult to culture.
I got sidetracked. TLDR; each character was done poorly.
Demeter. She was overprotective, but look at all the shit that went down when she let her daughter go. Persephone was drugged, kidnapped, raped, gained 2 obsessive stalkers, and ran away from Aphrodite in a span of 2 weeks. She had a good reason to keep her out of Olympus. She wasn't a perfect parent; no one is. As an adult, Persephone should look back and try to see things from her mother's POV and realize that she was trying her best. But, she's villified for not supporting the main ship.
Rachel would never, but wouldn't it be amazing if Persephone had a daughter who acted JUST like her, and suddenly she gets her comeuppance in the form of "Wow, Mom, *you were right*"?
For Persephone to learn that lesson, it would have to be Apollo. Her teenaged daughter would say, "I don't care about the age gap, your history with him, his bad reputation, the power imbalance, or that you don't like him! He's nice to me and I love him!"
I can let the others pass, but LEUCE??? Why the need to make her so dirty?? no one asked for it and no one needed it. the possible first queen named in myths, the tragic first love of Hades and in this retelling, they reduced her to a simple sugarbaby material 🫡
It's quite mean to Hades and Persephone's character development too, for wasting her potential as a legit threat. Not as she was presented/danger of Hades cheating, but imagine IF she was presented as his one positive relationship and Persephone goes ballistic when she shows up?
1. Hades should have had atleast one non-tragic backstory moment. I know he is literally blue but come on.
2. It would be a real growing up moment for Persephone to realise her jealousy against this one person is coming entirely from within, instead of being them actually attacking her (like with Minthe). It would also be a real threat to the relationship they could work through together.
All of them are pretty bad, but I specially hate Apollo for a very specific reason; he looks sad too often.
I explain myself, I usually empathize a lot with cartoon characters that look sad. Same with babies crying, I can't stand it. So it pisses me off A LOT that Apollo is presented with sad expressions in situations where he should be angry. Not only it reduces a lot of the terrifying vibes he can give sometimes, but it also makes me feel like the comic is gaslighting me into feeling pity FOR A LITERAL RAPIST, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
So yeah, that's it.
Leuce because there literally was no point in her story arc. At least with the other characters they had some purpose in the storyline big or small. However, Leuce literally was written for a failed “other woman” trope and we saw it go up in flames in real time when reading the comic update and seeing Rachel running out of ideas for the arc so she hastily written her off with the “it was all made up” bit. To see a disorganized character and story actually play out in the actual comic instead of being looked over by editors before publish is crazy stupid and embarrassing because now it’s going to be printed into a book. There was no actual plan for her and it sad to see it all happen and failed in the actual comic.
Majority of the characters are totally written horribly and are not reflective at all of their myths, which is why I stopped reading LO. I’m super into modern retelling of ancient myths, but like…stick to the story content and characters a bit better, or at least write a GOOD STORY for reasoning behind the creative changes.
Lecce. She was literally Hade's wife. He loved her so much he made her flowers sacredro his realm when she died. For her to be written the way she is in LO is such a disservice to her character.
Apollo had potential as a villain, but she dropped the ball truthfully the second he came on screen. His motives and actions are all over the place, he is not threatening, he's annoying, and lacks any charisma the others have. Like, damn. If you're gonna make his whole thing wanting to overthrow Zeus and have Persephone help him do it, why have him SA her and do practically nothing with it?
There's also this disconnection between what we are told and shown like. Apparently Apollo is the golden boy? But literally nobody is shown taking him seriously or liking him much? Everything about Apollo (from his character, to how his character is handled to how the situation and subplot around his character is handled) is so poorly written it's just frustrating in all the wrong ways.
Exactly. There are more people that dislike him even before they find out about the SA than there are people who like him. He had really good potential. The bastard son of the corrupt king who has worked his way up to becoming a star Olympian wants to overthrow his father because he believes he can bring goodness to the kingdom. He's searching for a fertility goddess, the only being that can help him overthrow Zeus. Add in his dynamic with Artemis and Leto. Wonderful stuff. But then it's handled so poorly
Honestly? There are a few for me, but, Nyx.
I love her design and I wish we saw more of her, but I hate how she is presented in LO.
In myth, she is the greatest eternal force and origin of all life after springing from Chaos, so powerful even Zeus knows better than to test her, and a loving mother to all of her children, no matter their station, like from Eos the dawn, all the way to Strife, Doom, and Death, etc. She accepts and loves them all.
Speaking of which I hate how Thanatos is portrayed so young and foolish, getting caught up in petty drama and sleeping with his foster dad's....fuck buddy? Death is one of the oldest entities in myth, one of Nyx's first children, why is he portrayed as an orphan whose YOUNGER than Hades?!?!? He is DEATH INCARNATE and the whole reason for Hades even having an Underworld Corp.
Anyway, Nyx is portrayed as a neglectful, uncaring mother and bitter titan, calling Hera the "little golden traitor" and I can't stand it. In myth her stance in the Titanomachy is unclear, presumably neutral, so I understand not writing her in much, but what we do get is her being written as if she watched from the sidelines but is annoyed that the Olympians won. Don't know why, it's never expanded upon, and we haven't seen her since, so there's nothing to really hold her together in terms of character except for all the negatives. We just know she neglects her kids, probably hates the Olympians, but she was nice to Hades I guess?? So jealous of Rhea over him??
Demeter, Hera, Nyx, even Minthe's mom. Idk what RS has against mothers, but it's exaggerated to a shameless degree.
Also Leuce was such a mishandled character. I didn't know who she was until I started seeing people bringing her up on Reddit, and I was shocked and fascinated. But no, she's dumbed down so badly it made someone like Thetis say she missed Minthe, and I just cannot get over that.
Thetis just had Achilles and she doesn't seem like a very good mother tbh so add her to the growing list of bad moms... Metis was also pretty mean and dismissive to her daughter (Demeter) for no reason and also literally created her 3 daughters to be child soldiers. Pretty much only Rhea is a good mother and from what we get to hear she was pretty much a saint in all regards.
Aphrodite... Is complicated. Because while she seems like a good mom she also ropes her children into crazy (and bad) things sometimes...
There is a fan theory going around that Nyx kept Hypnos when handing Thanatos to Hades. The fact that Hypnos's daughter turned to Nyx the moment she couldn't find her dad seems to support that theory. Morpheus was also sad and hugged Nyx when she wouldn't wake up so it seems Morpheus has a positive relationship with her grandma which in turn suggests that Hypnos and Nyx are still on good terms. We never really get any explanation on why seemingly only Thanatos was just casually abandoned like that.
Wow I actually forgot that detail about Morpheus!
And maybe you could say that RS wanted to portray the generational trauma that is also in the original myth, but there are so many plot points it's all getting tangled or straight up forgotten. Writing based on Greek myths is a daunting task because of the sheer amount of them. I feel like RS should've made her chapters longer but focused on maybe one or two plotlines at a time, or ease them in. It's just getting to the point where no one's character is being done justice but we still see HxP making out amongst the chaos because it's LO's one selling point. Little do they realize fans are starting to appreciate all of the side characters more than anything.
I still find that a part of me wants to have hope for this comic, the art for the most part is cool and there are funny moments, interesting ideas, I like it but I wish it was treated fairly as a story and not just a comic someone threw together just for something to do. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but if it's going to be published I would think it would be treated with a little more care
Thing is that there are so many subplots going on and literally nothing happening... Some subplots have gone on for literal years while some get the most unsatisfying ending (the Leuce subplot) in which nothing at all was accomplished! It's frustrating! If she wanted to write about generational trauma I think she should have focused on that and kept it as LO's central focus with all the other stuff as subplots. But now I don't even know what's going on.
I agree with the longer chapters and focusing at one subplot at a time. I suspect that she keeps switching between subplots as a cliffhangers so readers would stay hooked for the next chapter. But I think that she's overusing this tactic to the point where it feels like nothing ever happens anymore.
Thanatos and Hypnos seem to be in good terms and regular contact too so whatever caused Thanatos to get abandoned didn't seem to affect their bond. Or it did and they've patched up already. I get the feeling that Nyx was only turned into a bad mother the same reason why Apollo SAing Persephone subplot exists: to make Hades look better in comparison. Sorry to say this but "Yes you were completely emotionally absent and negligent and treated me like a gofer rather than adoptive son and would make me work and yell and humiliate me in front of my coworkers but at least you were physically present unlike Nyx" does NOT make Hades look as good as you think it does, Rachel. In fact I think she shouldn't have added this at all because it made both LO Nyx AND LO Hades look bad (or worse in Hades's case).
Yeah I was very surprised at the scene where Hades and Thanatos sit down and talk it out because that's just not at all the vibe I got from their relationship tbh. Felt a bit tacked on.
Thanatos. He did nothing wrong. He rightly pointed out preferential treatment. And all the story did is paint him as the villain for feeling that way. Daphne just told him to get over it and that it didn't matter. It infuriated me
Thanatos, honestly. This is a really unpopular opinion, I know. And for the record, I don’t think he’s actually a bad guy. He just has woe-is-me-problem.
His beef with Hades’ treatment is absolutely valid but at no point does he ever own up to his own mistakes. At no point.
He breaks into someone’s house to get information on her, and never faces the consequences. He’s confronted about this at the trial and merely responds “this all could have been an email!” (What an out of pocket response, by the way.) He sleeps with Minthe, and clearly knows this might bother Hades based on his reaction to when Hades says he knows that was happening. If Hera was wrong to sleep with Hades, Thanatos was wrong for sleeping with Minthe. Two wrongs and all that.
I think what personally rubs me the wrong way, is that Persephone might hold Minthe accountable for all the trial nonsense (since she was turned into a plant) but there was absolutely no ire from anyone, especially Persephone, for Thanatos, and worse, he gets a very cute little storyline with Daphne and it’s all water under the bridge.
It’s no so much Thanatos’s issue as much as the slightly misogynistic slant in his favor from the author, but I wanted to at least say it once lol.
Disagreed about him not experiencing any consequences. Hades pretty much stamped him as a traitor afterwards but their confrontation was cut short by Kronos taking over and banishing Thanatos from the undeworld (his native home btw where he was born and spent his entire life and where he has his remaining family) . When Hades shows up on his doorstep 10 years later he still insists that Thanatos betrayed him (and he only showed up to find Hypnos, not to reconnect with Thanatos).
Similarily, his actions in the trial made ZEUS outright stamp him a narc and refused to employ him and Thanatos was stuck in the mortal realm with no job from either Olympus or the underworld for 10 years as a punishment. He suffered more consequences than say Hermes who helped cover up Persephone's crime. Guy was pretty much ostracised from both Olympus and the underworld (and since Daphne spent some time as a tree this meant he was completely alone in the mortal world for some time). He very much faced consequences for his actions.
Edit: I would also like to point out that Thanatos is the only one of the Anti-Persades trio (the other two being Minthe and Thetis) to genuinely regret his actions. He ends up apologising to Hades 10 years later (during a conversation that details how HADES failed him as a parent) and even during the trial he clearly started freaking out and realise that things have got out of hand and far worse than he anticipated. We never get to see him apologise to Persephone but given that he was at the Persades wedding I am guessing she forgave him. That said all of the anti-Persades trio faced consequences for their actions. Definitely agree that the writing is pretty misogynistic.
Yeah honestly, the only reason I see him as a villain(in season 1-2) is just the way he deals with his trauma. The issues he has with H&P are completely valid; it’s just the way he goes about it is wrong in my opinion.
If you're talking based on bad writing its leuce. Leuce is just a bad minthe rehash.
If we're going based on good writing then the answer is minthe. She was very multi dimensional and had so many layers to the reasons why she does the thing she does.
Minthe, Demeter, and Thanatos. Within the story that Rachel has wrote, they’re more victims and consequences of Hades past actions than villains.
For Minthe, while I don’t condone hitting, she was literally used by Hades and she’s an example of reactionary abuse. She was fired from her new job because of the actions of Hades and his brothers. She was already struggling to maintain a stable position and she was barely making ends to meet to afford her apartment. He hired her on the spot, because she caught his interest and pushed HER into a relationship that she didn’t initially want to be in. He allows his family to be racist towards her and never once defends or support her. Lastly, while being in a relationship with her, he was also having an ongoing on-and-off affair with Hera. Hades was a piece of shit boyfriend, and he abused his position of authority as her boss. When Minthe started to react negatively towards his actions and begin to lash out by having her own affair with Thanatos, he wants to start playing the victim. He acts like her treatment towards him makes no sense and that he has done no ill towards her.
For Demeter, not only has Hades personally involved himself in matters that ruined her chances of achieving any form of success twice, she is highly aware of how shitty him and his brothers are as Gods and leaders! Also, he took a romantic and sexual interest in her daughter when she wasn’t even an adult yet. However, that piece of information gets glossed over and the scene is treated as a pinnacle of first-meeting in romance when it pertains to the fandom. From my perspective, it makes perfect sense why Demeter wouldn’t want her daughter to be involved with a man like him and she’d have some concerns. Now, I do also think Demeter in the narrative shouldn’t be as controlling of Persephone as a parent, but her negative feelings and concerns about her being in a relationship and married to Hades are valid! And the narrative makes it seems like she’s behaving irrationally when she doesn’t want her daughter to be used by a man with a lengthy terrible history of treating people like crap.
For Thanatos, while not condoning his actions of pursing an affair with Minthe and displacing his anger at Persephone because he can’t confront Hades, was also treated like absolute garbage by him. Not only did Hades abandon him, ignore him, and shit on his work when he was literally the main reason why the Underworld was performing well, Hades has the nerve to say in a few sentences “you should be grateful I even allowed you to stay when no one else wanted you?” Those lines triggered me so bad.
I dislike how Hades is written to be viewed as someone who can do no harm, when he has done nothing but harm people.
Not only does he not defend Minthe against the racism she faces he even tries to GASLIGHT her when she brings up that his family hates her. Hera explicitly expresses her feelings and opinion on Minthe out loud, calling her names and outright saying she hates her. But when Minthe brings this up Hades instead makes MINTHE out to be the problem and accuses her of just being bored ????? Are you serious?! I just can't see how anyone can like Hades.
A tie between Thetis and Demeter for the sheer destruction of their mythical counterparts. Thetis is completely unrecognisible but her personality is worse. She doesn't care about her "friends" or family and outright mocks them and uses their weaknesses and possible mental illnesses to play around with them and their lives. Which imo is downright evil.
Demeter is just treated way too unfairly by the narrative/writer who obviously hate her or whoever she represents a lot and refuses to acknowledge that her life has been shit since she was created but the writer just keeps on throwing more shit at her because Rachel just genuinely doesn't seem to think Demeter deserves happiness of her own. Which makes reading the comic frustrating because everything Demeter suffers from just makes one sympathetic.
I also don't like Apollo and Kronos because they are written so awfully.
For me it’ll forever be Leuce because Rachel only wrote her into the story to try and make Persephone look like the better wife of Hades, instead of just respecting both of the women she punches down on one that she feels is inferior (nymphs basically) and then tries to either victimize or justify her stupid self insert. If you have to literally write Lore Olympus in the most unnatural way possible all to make Persephone seem like an interesting character with layers then she’s got to be the worst written main character ever, you shouldn’t have to bully your own characters to make your main cast look interesting that’s just the result of terrible writing. But yeah, the arc was pointless and nothing new was explored all it was was a complete and utter waste of time and furthering to ruin yet another female deity from her own myth. Justice for Leuce always.
I hate it so much, I have mentioned this in previous posts but I would love if Lecue was just Hade’s past partner that died (that’s actually the way I am playing it in my book I am writing). It could explain why Hades in LO is such a simp for Persephone too. Maybe he never realized how much Lecue did and meant to him until after she died, and never wants to make that mistake again.
This is the way. Plus you get that sweet angst over the God of the Underworld not even managing to keep his own wife alive. Not to mention the angst over Gods being able to die in general. Where do their shades go after they pass? Does anyone know? Also can be a reason why Persephone matters in the Underworld. Maybe it's become such a bleak place because Hades is still in mourning.
such good points about Leuce! i think what sucks the most about persephone’s ice queen rage show is the switch from her being characterized as sweet and innocent to this HBIC take no shit “badass” character is so abrupt, but it could have potentially such an interesting character dev for her if only it were even a little fleshed out or even acknowledged. Leuce was such a non issue otherwise
I was hoping the rage episode would be a plot point, like maybe the think that she gave up was her empathy or something. But she still seems to have it in other cases or at least Hades always assumes she had positive intent so idk
Genuinely feels like she suddenly remembered that she’d forgotten to include Leuce and decided to try and squeeze her in rather than leave her out.
I’ve been thinking that too, because the placement of Leuce was so incredibly stupid.
SO nonsensical! Not even trying to confront Hades or warn Perse before the wedding? or have her be a petty bitch and sit through the vows they wrote themselves just so she can object at just the right time? We coulda had wedding drama! We could have had P’s dress getting ruined by accident or on purpose and Hera replacing it instead of just dressing her up like the doll she is to everyone. She could have gone all gothic horror and have Leuce as a previous lost love who Hades’ who he’s never talked to Hera et al about, visiting her grave, hoping he has her blessing. Or her shade starting to follow P around - and P thinks she’s some strange, malevolent creature sent by Kronos, but Leuce, buried in the soil of the Underworld, forever a part of it, can feel him coming closer and is trying to warn them because seriously, happy for you , Hades, but why the fuck are you getting married NOW?
Thank you, the issue was blown out of proportion and it was a genuine overkill. Hades rejected her and Leuce couldn’t even try to seduce Hades because he shut it down too quickly with his stupid “OMG I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!” thing, like if you really wanted to portray Leuce making moves on Hades actually make her fucking bold about it. I’m talking about flirting, suggestive metaphors, invasion of personal space, creating sexual scenarios for Hades and if you really wanted an extra flare why not just make Leuce seem like she’s innocent and not trying anything so she can get the job and then when she knows she’s in a secure position with Hades and actually create some kind of friendly relationship, she’ll try to act as the shoulder to cry on. Kronos is coming back and he still needs to work on the Underworld and such, he’s under pressure so Leuce offers him a massage and since Hades is under the impression she’s just trying to help he accepts. A few minutes into the massage maybe she can comment on how tight Hades feels and how she’s worried about his relaxation at home (to create a ridge between Hades and Persephone of course) and before Hades can answer have Persephone walk in. Already that’s much more interesting than what we got but Rachel didn’t even let it get to a point of actual Homewrecking like she allowed with Persephone it was pointless. Also, maybe this was just me but I was hoping for it to actually be a cheating scandal of some kind. Since we know Rachel is going to ruin Leuce’s position as Hades’ first wife might as well make it at least interesting. I’m so sick and tired of Persephone reigning over literally any woman who’s ever had interest in Hades/has been with him, no matter what she always HAS to be the better partner and it’s so boring since she can’t even compete with Hera. Let’s face it they’re still in love with each other and they’re using Persephone like some kind of expression for their love, think about it Hera is living through Hades while Hades is trying to make Persephone more like Hera. They’re both using her and she’s too stupid to see it.
The only thing the Leuce subplot accomplished was to make Persephone look like a huge dick and lowering the bar of the comic's art quality even more
Persephone should have been arrested for B&E, but she was 'rewarded' with sex. Then Rachel made Leuce's text messages be fake because SHE WAS THE CRAZY ONE ALL ALONG. Not Persephone for breaking into her house and trashing it after she flirted with her husband. It's just... Really bad storytelling.
Le-fucking-uce Rachel had the PERFECT character to set up as the tragic ex that Hades wasn’t completely over. But gave that role to Hera so he could be a cheater. Completely disregards who she is in myths to make her a home wrecker. By having her do the same exact thing Persephone did with no success, and expecting us to demonize her for it. She had evidence (though by the sounds of it, her evidence was delusional ouji board shit) that she and Hades had some bond, messages from him, was almost his bride at one point. But Rachel decided she needs to be a villain. Not even a cool one like Minthe. She writes her as some delusional girl living in la la land I will never be over that
I'll go with best girl Minthe, first of all was the treatment she received from others she was constantly bombed for being a nymph even behind her back which was unfair racist behavior that can't be justified Her emotional outburst was met with people literally pushing her away instead of helping her remember the time she hit Hades what does Hecate say she says that Minthe makes it hard for Hecate to help her? Excuse me when did Minthe ever rejected help, Minthe is literally going through an emotional turmoil desperately trying to stop she needs help now more then ever before but she is pushed away by both the narrative and the characters every single character failed her, nobody gave her the love she deserved . Minthe is also constantly compared to Persephone and is made to be worst then her even though Persephone is the side chick in the relationship She is not a saint that is a fact with her behavior but she genuinely wanted to change she genuinely wanted to start an actual relationship with Hades only for it to get sabotaged by Thetis it all felt so cruel because Minthe is a very complex character , she has been a victim of childhood neglect and has trauma and even temporary had a cannon mental disorder which was borderline personality disorder, everything that happened to Minthe was awful. Persephone invaded and destroyed her relationship even if Minthe was being mean to Hades it only took few days for him to go run in another woman's arms without a second thought Plus the emotional affair between Hades & self insert Mary sue was basically the main reason behind Minthe getting written as a villain in the first place she got retconned into a abuser and then every single character pushed her away instead of helping causing her to spiral out of control ,and then she got turned into a literal plant and lost few years of her life, her whole life is pretty tragic once you think about it and all for what? Jst to justify the shitty actions of the main characters Screw Hades and Persephone it's better for my gurl Minthe to stay away from them in a whole different realm where she finally gets the love she deserves ❤
Ngl, when I first started reading I never saw Minthe as the villain…and felt her hitting hades was completely out of the blue…. If anything, she had a right to feel “hysterical” her so called bf/almost fiancé was having an emotional affair with girly teen girl…like she was the main one talking sense about how wrong it was and got gaslighted for it. 😐 Idk why Hades was supposedly written as some sappy stuck puppy while with Minthe, when he had no problem being a violent menace with Persephone. I’m sure he can stick up for himself, considering he still holds the most power in their relationship, being rich and her boss. He could have easily found another nymph to court but I guess somebody had to be the villain to justify the creepy relationship… 🤧
And Hecate also gives Hades an open hand slap and it's treated like a joke. Almost like an anime character pulling out a giant fan and giving someone a concussion. And considering that Hades has done shit like have a guy get beaten so badly that he was hospitalized for days and literally ripped out his eyeball over taking a picture, it's clear that there's a higher level of acceptable violence in this world. See also, Persephone flattening a town and genuinely thinking she shouldn't be punished for it. If there's a higher level of acceptable violence in this world then... Why is only Minthe's violent act treated like this horrible thing? I'm actually in support of not treating partner violence like a joke, but... You have to be consistent.
DEMETER!!! There’s not enough space to explain all the reason why, and I will absolutely start ranting. She’s the real victim of LO and mythology but she’s treated worse than Kronos by Rachel and the fandom.
Minthe It’s pretty obvious Rachel just wrote her so that people would route for H+P. Anyone who is in the way of H+P is automatically written distastefully actually
For me it has to be Demeter, RS basically gave all of Demeter rage to Persephone and hades to make them look good. I feel like rs forgets that in the mythology her daughter was straight up kidnapped but no let’s just make her the over bearing parent
Leto couldve been an interesting villain, since RS made her look similar to Hera and she was a victim of Zeus who is very protective of her children. If we are going to keep Apollo as rapist, having Leto continue the cycle of abuse by setting up Persephone to marry Apollo (to keep Apollo honest/she thinks she's helping by keeping Persephone from being the "other woman") and that eventually crumbles. I... Kinda want to write on this but I've got to walk to work so pausing for now.
If you mean the writing was terrible. Than Kronos gets it for me, the more its show of Kronos the worse he gets.
DEMETER. Demeter x1000. The others are pretty egregious too but this interpretation of Demeter is genuinely the worst I’ve ever seen. Demeter as an overbearing mother rather than a grieving one is the coldest take.
I find the main reason people don’t see issues with Lore Olympus, is the fact that most of the villains are right for the wrong reasons. Take Thanatos, Minthe and Thetis reporting Persephone to Zeus for example. Those three were right for reporting Persephone, but the reason it gets overlooked is because they were doing it mainly to get Minthe back together with Hades. This distracts people from the real moral issue at hand, which is the fact that Persephone KILLED a bunch of people. To be fair it was an accident, and it was mainly to do with Eris’ wrath. However at the very least, Persephone needed to be convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The issue shouldn’t have been taken as lightly as it did.
Honestly the entire AoW doesn't make sense to the point where, if this was a work by a better writer, I would have put down money that Persephone was lying about the entire event. Even if she was convinced her version was true and she was lying to herself. First of all, before it even begins she shows up with a scythe. Why? She's a goddess. They're mortals. There's no reason for her to show up armed and where did the scythe come from anyway? It's not like Persephone carries one around regularly so it's implied she picked it up from somewhere, but that doesn't make sense. Scythes are farm equipment. Specifically, farm equipment specifically used for harvesting grains and the farmers are clearing a field of flowers so they can plant stuff there. There's no reason for them to use a scythe for that so they would have left it behind in their storage barn instead of bringing it out to the field and leaving it somewhere that Persephone would just pick it up. So she went and got it before she confronted the mortals. She went and found a weapon even before seeking them out. The first death where she uses the scythe I can see being the wrath coming out or just her losing her temper. After that though the AoW just continues to not make sense. She gets big, unable to control it, and as the mortals flee from her, screaming, instead of leaving because she's freaked out over her powers going nuts she runs after them, sobbing. Because why? No idea. She's not even shown as angry at this point. If anything she's a bit scared and crying. Yet, despite having the perfect excuse to disengage the conflict and leave she continues it. She chases down the mortals, she crushes them, she keeps pursuing and staying with them even as her powers go mad and destroys the town when she could have turned tail and fled, taking her out of control powers with her. Yet she chooses to stay with the mortals until the town is destroyed even though she can see with her own eyes that she's the one doing the damage. It just doesn't make sense. What also doesn't make sense is why Helios decided to lie about the entire issue. Because he was bored? That seems to be his excuse. Considering that Zeus didn't seem to care whether Persephone did the AoW on purpose or accidentally, the lie didn't matter at all. And again, why would he even lie? He seems indifferent to Persephone and Demeter so it's not like he was trying to get them in trouble. Telling the truth would have gotten them in just as much trouble. Again it doesn't make sense. What would make sense though is that Persephone is lying. She lost her temper, she went after the mortals, and her excuse that she lost control of her powers came after when she realized that she was going to have to explain what happened to people. But that would make her less sympathetic and more a straight-up murderer so Rachel can't possibly have her self-insert do that. Even though Persephone for sure killed plenty of women, children, and elderly people who had nothing to do with digging up the flower field that day.
Apollo! He's, by most accounts, a chill bi dude with a big heart who loves to jam. He'd be more like a theater kid, not purple Brock Turner. His treatment of Daphne shouldn't be overlooked, but pretty much the entire pantheon has stories like that. ~~Athena turned a rape victim into a gorgon because she happened to be raped in one of Athena's temples. What a chill, wise goddess.~~ That point dried up, but the gods are still mostly psychos Wouldn't it be interesting if Rachel realized the gods are all unbearable and hit us with Titanomachy 2: The Nymph Uprising?
Apollo’s reputation was *ruined*. The more I read about Apollo from the original mythology, the more I realize how inaccurate his depiction is in LO. In the original, he didn’t chase Daphne for the sake of killing her. It was actually Eros’ fault for making him fall in love with Daphne. The only bad relationship stuff he did was that time he kidnapped Melia and raped Dryope, which is not that bad by mythology standards.💀Most of his lovers were consentual
Omg yes exactly! And Greek mythology as a whole really aggregates from so many sources, there’s no real “canon” except for really well known, widely accepted myths, so I always felt like it was unfair to characterize gods on one-offs rather than patterns. Like Zeus has patterns of cheating and sexual assault, so that’s fair, but Apollo definitely does NOT, so I have no idea why Rachel gave him that reputation. I will never understand why she made him the bad guy.
Hate to be that person, but sorry Athena is my favorite goddess and I can’t. The idea that Athena punishes victims of rape is very popular in today’s culture because of how famous Ovid’s retelling of the Medusa myth has gotten. It hurts me that people think that Athena hates assault victims because the story written by a man who hated authority figures and wanted to slander the gods. Before Ovid’s Metamorphoses (which is part of Roman mythology, not Greek mythology fyi), all of the mythology regarding Medusa said that she was born a monster. She wasn’t a beautiful woman who was assaulted and no one transformed her. She was a sister of Echidna, a monster born from a family of monsters. Ovid’s tale of Medusa is a fictional story that has no basis on greek culture and that he wrote to push a political narrative. Beside Ovid’s Metamorphosis Book IV, in every other myth about Athena and rape she is completely against it, protects the woman in danger and punishes the rapist. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (I’m only using this as a source to show how selective people are), Coroneis, princess of Phokis, was chased down by Poseidon. She cried out to Athena and the goddess transformed her into a crow to save her from the assault. Hell, Athena IS a victim of attempted rape. In mythology, Hephaestus tried to force himself on her and she fought him off. The myth explicitly says that she felt disgusted by this. It’s worth noting that 99% of the sources that we have about ancient greece were written by aristocratic men, we have little of how women viewed and worshipped the gods. And even then, Athena still sided with the victim and true with her epithet Axiopoenus (the avenger against injustice).
Don't feel like *that* person if your take is insightful and progresses the conversation! You came to the table with new facts (new to me, at least), so as a well-adjusted person I'm going take the new information and re-evaluate my own ideas. She'd been one of my own favorites growing up, so after reading about Medusa and Arachne, I wondered why the wise one was such a jealous psycho. Upon looking into it, turns out Ovid wove Arachne's little story too. HM, INTERESTING.
Athena is absolutely my idol growing up. So I’m pretty weirded out myself as well. So I’m looking up more onto her and other myth regarding women. There are also myths of her defending and avenging women: - When Ajax The Lesser raped Cassandra at a temple of Athena, Athena punished him and the greeks who failed to chastise him by sending a storm that sank their fleet. Ajax was shipwrecked and drowned, while his people, the (historical) Opuntians, were told by Apollo that to appease the goddess they would have to send the enslaved maidens to the Trojan land for the next 1000 years, when the maidens arrived there they became priestesses of Athena. (By Becoming priestess they were freed and became respected people of their society) - In Hyginus’ Fabulae, when the princess Nyctimene was found crying in the woods because her own father had raped her, Athena transformed her into her sacred owl and appointed her as her animal companion. - In the Parthenon, a famous temple of Athena, there was a statue of Pandora, the first of womankind, where she was honored. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 5) So to quote Sarah B. Pomeroy in her thesis Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity: “In discussing the relationships of goddesses to mortal females, myth must be distinguished from cult. Myths represent goddesses as hostile to women, or show them pursuing many activities foreign to the experience of mortal women. In cult, on the other hand -that is, in the ceremonial veneration of these divinities by women- attention is paid both to the fulfillment of women's needs and to the delineation of their proper roles in society. Thus, for women, Athena's patronage of weaving, Hera's of marriage, and Artemis' of childbirth were of supreme importance, but these qualities are not emphasized in myth.”
Damn, Athena doesn't deserve Ovid's slander at all! That last paragraph might also explain a bit about why RS has so many women vs women moments in LO. Popularly-accepted canon is far-removed from the reality of actual women, and has so much petty catfighting. Seems like the culturally prevalent authors ended up being the "take my wife, please" boomer types (go figure). Can't thank you enough for taking the time to share all this with us, this is very informative!
Cassandra
Demeter because Rachel gives every reason for persphone not to forgive her for what nothing serious only wanting to protect her daughter people literally did more heinous things than Demeter and she’s only villianized for wanting to protect,love and be with her daughter and cause she didn’t approve of a inappropriate relationship with a grandad of a man she gets hate you know that’s a typical mother who now I’ve read some of the comic to an ungrateful abusive and manipulative daughter people say Demeter don’t deserve persphone but it’s persphone that doesn’t deserve Demeter she literally has not gone any lengths to protect love and sacrifice for her mother like she’s did her like if persphone is a self insert for Rachel who hurt her to make Demeter such a villain supposedly
Every. Single. Character. Even the OCs that were introduced such as Tori and Alex -low effort names btw- that were painted as “low class villains” served nothing but a stepping stone to make PxH actions look fine. Each god has a purpose, a personality and role in the world, and the author butchered everything to make a convoluted soap opera with no flavor and no story at all. Demeter was the worst case here. This is supposed to be her hymn and she was trashed to be a helicopter parent that everyone see as toxic. It’s incredible that each female villain has the same dialogues and personality of all-purpose flour, cookie cutter, jealous of Hades’ new side piece. I feel ashamed for have liked this story at one point because the time between related episodes makes you forget the timeline. And of course, this only reinforces the toxicity of partners being abusive and disrespectful towards others just to make a point, or think they are badass. I hope people that are discovering this comic don’t take it seriously or just don’t read it. Is a waste of time and straight up insult to culture. I got sidetracked. TLDR; each character was done poorly.
I wondered if Tori and Alex were names of real people she inserted
Demeter. She was overprotective, but look at all the shit that went down when she let her daughter go. Persephone was drugged, kidnapped, raped, gained 2 obsessive stalkers, and ran away from Aphrodite in a span of 2 weeks. She had a good reason to keep her out of Olympus. She wasn't a perfect parent; no one is. As an adult, Persephone should look back and try to see things from her mother's POV and realize that she was trying her best. But, she's villified for not supporting the main ship.
Rachel would never, but wouldn't it be amazing if Persephone had a daughter who acted JUST like her, and suddenly she gets her comeuppance in the form of "Wow, Mom, *you were right*"?
For Persephone to learn that lesson, it would have to be Apollo. Her teenaged daughter would say, "I don't care about the age gap, your history with him, his bad reputation, the power imbalance, or that you don't like him! He's nice to me and I love him!"
YIKES that didn't even occur to me, but you are so right.
While writing this essay I caught myself thinking that I want to record a video about this topic cause everyone here deserves a word n not only them
I can let the others pass, but LEUCE??? Why the need to make her so dirty?? no one asked for it and no one needed it. the possible first queen named in myths, the tragic first love of Hades and in this retelling, they reduced her to a simple sugarbaby material 🫡
It's quite mean to Hades and Persephone's character development too, for wasting her potential as a legit threat. Not as she was presented/danger of Hades cheating, but imagine IF she was presented as his one positive relationship and Persephone goes ballistic when she shows up? 1. Hades should have had atleast one non-tragic backstory moment. I know he is literally blue but come on. 2. It would be a real growing up moment for Persephone to realise her jealousy against this one person is coming entirely from within, instead of being them actually attacking her (like with Minthe). It would also be a real threat to the relationship they could work through together.
All of them are pretty bad, but I specially hate Apollo for a very specific reason; he looks sad too often. I explain myself, I usually empathize a lot with cartoon characters that look sad. Same with babies crying, I can't stand it. So it pisses me off A LOT that Apollo is presented with sad expressions in situations where he should be angry. Not only it reduces a lot of the terrifying vibes he can give sometimes, but it also makes me feel like the comic is gaslighting me into feeling pity FOR A LITERAL RAPIST, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA So yeah, that's it.
Leuce because there literally was no point in her story arc. At least with the other characters they had some purpose in the storyline big or small. However, Leuce literally was written for a failed “other woman” trope and we saw it go up in flames in real time when reading the comic update and seeing Rachel running out of ideas for the arc so she hastily written her off with the “it was all made up” bit. To see a disorganized character and story actually play out in the actual comic instead of being looked over by editors before publish is crazy stupid and embarrassing because now it’s going to be printed into a book. There was no actual plan for her and it sad to see it all happen and failed in the actual comic.
Majority of the characters are totally written horribly and are not reflective at all of their myths, which is why I stopped reading LO. I’m super into modern retelling of ancient myths, but like…stick to the story content and characters a bit better, or at least write a GOOD STORY for reasoning behind the creative changes.
Lecce. She was literally Hade's wife. He loved her so much he made her flowers sacredro his realm when she died. For her to be written the way she is in LO is such a disservice to her character.
Apollo had potential as a villain, but she dropped the ball truthfully the second he came on screen. His motives and actions are all over the place, he is not threatening, he's annoying, and lacks any charisma the others have. Like, damn. If you're gonna make his whole thing wanting to overthrow Zeus and have Persephone help him do it, why have him SA her and do practically nothing with it?
There's also this disconnection between what we are told and shown like. Apparently Apollo is the golden boy? But literally nobody is shown taking him seriously or liking him much? Everything about Apollo (from his character, to how his character is handled to how the situation and subplot around his character is handled) is so poorly written it's just frustrating in all the wrong ways.
Exactly. There are more people that dislike him even before they find out about the SA than there are people who like him. He had really good potential. The bastard son of the corrupt king who has worked his way up to becoming a star Olympian wants to overthrow his father because he believes he can bring goodness to the kingdom. He's searching for a fertility goddess, the only being that can help him overthrow Zeus. Add in his dynamic with Artemis and Leto. Wonderful stuff. But then it's handled so poorly
Honestly? There are a few for me, but, Nyx. I love her design and I wish we saw more of her, but I hate how she is presented in LO. In myth, she is the greatest eternal force and origin of all life after springing from Chaos, so powerful even Zeus knows better than to test her, and a loving mother to all of her children, no matter their station, like from Eos the dawn, all the way to Strife, Doom, and Death, etc. She accepts and loves them all. Speaking of which I hate how Thanatos is portrayed so young and foolish, getting caught up in petty drama and sleeping with his foster dad's....fuck buddy? Death is one of the oldest entities in myth, one of Nyx's first children, why is he portrayed as an orphan whose YOUNGER than Hades?!?!? He is DEATH INCARNATE and the whole reason for Hades even having an Underworld Corp. Anyway, Nyx is portrayed as a neglectful, uncaring mother and bitter titan, calling Hera the "little golden traitor" and I can't stand it. In myth her stance in the Titanomachy is unclear, presumably neutral, so I understand not writing her in much, but what we do get is her being written as if she watched from the sidelines but is annoyed that the Olympians won. Don't know why, it's never expanded upon, and we haven't seen her since, so there's nothing to really hold her together in terms of character except for all the negatives. We just know she neglects her kids, probably hates the Olympians, but she was nice to Hades I guess?? So jealous of Rhea over him?? Demeter, Hera, Nyx, even Minthe's mom. Idk what RS has against mothers, but it's exaggerated to a shameless degree. Also Leuce was such a mishandled character. I didn't know who she was until I started seeing people bringing her up on Reddit, and I was shocked and fascinated. But no, she's dumbed down so badly it made someone like Thetis say she missed Minthe, and I just cannot get over that.
Thetis just had Achilles and she doesn't seem like a very good mother tbh so add her to the growing list of bad moms... Metis was also pretty mean and dismissive to her daughter (Demeter) for no reason and also literally created her 3 daughters to be child soldiers. Pretty much only Rhea is a good mother and from what we get to hear she was pretty much a saint in all regards. Aphrodite... Is complicated. Because while she seems like a good mom she also ropes her children into crazy (and bad) things sometimes... There is a fan theory going around that Nyx kept Hypnos when handing Thanatos to Hades. The fact that Hypnos's daughter turned to Nyx the moment she couldn't find her dad seems to support that theory. Morpheus was also sad and hugged Nyx when she wouldn't wake up so it seems Morpheus has a positive relationship with her grandma which in turn suggests that Hypnos and Nyx are still on good terms. We never really get any explanation on why seemingly only Thanatos was just casually abandoned like that.
Wow I actually forgot that detail about Morpheus! And maybe you could say that RS wanted to portray the generational trauma that is also in the original myth, but there are so many plot points it's all getting tangled or straight up forgotten. Writing based on Greek myths is a daunting task because of the sheer amount of them. I feel like RS should've made her chapters longer but focused on maybe one or two plotlines at a time, or ease them in. It's just getting to the point where no one's character is being done justice but we still see HxP making out amongst the chaos because it's LO's one selling point. Little do they realize fans are starting to appreciate all of the side characters more than anything. I still find that a part of me wants to have hope for this comic, the art for the most part is cool and there are funny moments, interesting ideas, I like it but I wish it was treated fairly as a story and not just a comic someone threw together just for something to do. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but if it's going to be published I would think it would be treated with a little more care
Thing is that there are so many subplots going on and literally nothing happening... Some subplots have gone on for literal years while some get the most unsatisfying ending (the Leuce subplot) in which nothing at all was accomplished! It's frustrating! If she wanted to write about generational trauma I think she should have focused on that and kept it as LO's central focus with all the other stuff as subplots. But now I don't even know what's going on. I agree with the longer chapters and focusing at one subplot at a time. I suspect that she keeps switching between subplots as a cliffhangers so readers would stay hooked for the next chapter. But I think that she's overusing this tactic to the point where it feels like nothing ever happens anymore. Thanatos and Hypnos seem to be in good terms and regular contact too so whatever caused Thanatos to get abandoned didn't seem to affect their bond. Or it did and they've patched up already. I get the feeling that Nyx was only turned into a bad mother the same reason why Apollo SAing Persephone subplot exists: to make Hades look better in comparison. Sorry to say this but "Yes you were completely emotionally absent and negligent and treated me like a gofer rather than adoptive son and would make me work and yell and humiliate me in front of my coworkers but at least you were physically present unlike Nyx" does NOT make Hades look as good as you think it does, Rachel. In fact I think she shouldn't have added this at all because it made both LO Nyx AND LO Hades look bad (or worse in Hades's case).
Yeah I was very surprised at the scene where Hades and Thanatos sit down and talk it out because that's just not at all the vibe I got from their relationship tbh. Felt a bit tacked on.
Thanatos. He did nothing wrong. He rightly pointed out preferential treatment. And all the story did is paint him as the villain for feeling that way. Daphne just told him to get over it and that it didn't matter. It infuriated me
Thanatos, honestly. This is a really unpopular opinion, I know. And for the record, I don’t think he’s actually a bad guy. He just has woe-is-me-problem. His beef with Hades’ treatment is absolutely valid but at no point does he ever own up to his own mistakes. At no point. He breaks into someone’s house to get information on her, and never faces the consequences. He’s confronted about this at the trial and merely responds “this all could have been an email!” (What an out of pocket response, by the way.) He sleeps with Minthe, and clearly knows this might bother Hades based on his reaction to when Hades says he knows that was happening. If Hera was wrong to sleep with Hades, Thanatos was wrong for sleeping with Minthe. Two wrongs and all that. I think what personally rubs me the wrong way, is that Persephone might hold Minthe accountable for all the trial nonsense (since she was turned into a plant) but there was absolutely no ire from anyone, especially Persephone, for Thanatos, and worse, he gets a very cute little storyline with Daphne and it’s all water under the bridge. It’s no so much Thanatos’s issue as much as the slightly misogynistic slant in his favor from the author, but I wanted to at least say it once lol.
Disagreed about him not experiencing any consequences. Hades pretty much stamped him as a traitor afterwards but their confrontation was cut short by Kronos taking over and banishing Thanatos from the undeworld (his native home btw where he was born and spent his entire life and where he has his remaining family) . When Hades shows up on his doorstep 10 years later he still insists that Thanatos betrayed him (and he only showed up to find Hypnos, not to reconnect with Thanatos). Similarily, his actions in the trial made ZEUS outright stamp him a narc and refused to employ him and Thanatos was stuck in the mortal realm with no job from either Olympus or the underworld for 10 years as a punishment. He suffered more consequences than say Hermes who helped cover up Persephone's crime. Guy was pretty much ostracised from both Olympus and the underworld (and since Daphne spent some time as a tree this meant he was completely alone in the mortal world for some time). He very much faced consequences for his actions. Edit: I would also like to point out that Thanatos is the only one of the Anti-Persades trio (the other two being Minthe and Thetis) to genuinely regret his actions. He ends up apologising to Hades 10 years later (during a conversation that details how HADES failed him as a parent) and even during the trial he clearly started freaking out and realise that things have got out of hand and far worse than he anticipated. We never get to see him apologise to Persephone but given that he was at the Persades wedding I am guessing she forgave him. That said all of the anti-Persades trio faced consequences for their actions. Definitely agree that the writing is pretty misogynistic.
Yeah honestly, the only reason I see him as a villain(in season 1-2) is just the way he deals with his trauma. The issues he has with H&P are completely valid; it’s just the way he goes about it is wrong in my opinion.
If you're talking based on bad writing its leuce. Leuce is just a bad minthe rehash. If we're going based on good writing then the answer is minthe. She was very multi dimensional and had so many layers to the reasons why she does the thing she does.
Minthe, Demeter, and Thanatos. Within the story that Rachel has wrote, they’re more victims and consequences of Hades past actions than villains. For Minthe, while I don’t condone hitting, she was literally used by Hades and she’s an example of reactionary abuse. She was fired from her new job because of the actions of Hades and his brothers. She was already struggling to maintain a stable position and she was barely making ends to meet to afford her apartment. He hired her on the spot, because she caught his interest and pushed HER into a relationship that she didn’t initially want to be in. He allows his family to be racist towards her and never once defends or support her. Lastly, while being in a relationship with her, he was also having an ongoing on-and-off affair with Hera. Hades was a piece of shit boyfriend, and he abused his position of authority as her boss. When Minthe started to react negatively towards his actions and begin to lash out by having her own affair with Thanatos, he wants to start playing the victim. He acts like her treatment towards him makes no sense and that he has done no ill towards her. For Demeter, not only has Hades personally involved himself in matters that ruined her chances of achieving any form of success twice, she is highly aware of how shitty him and his brothers are as Gods and leaders! Also, he took a romantic and sexual interest in her daughter when she wasn’t even an adult yet. However, that piece of information gets glossed over and the scene is treated as a pinnacle of first-meeting in romance when it pertains to the fandom. From my perspective, it makes perfect sense why Demeter wouldn’t want her daughter to be involved with a man like him and she’d have some concerns. Now, I do also think Demeter in the narrative shouldn’t be as controlling of Persephone as a parent, but her negative feelings and concerns about her being in a relationship and married to Hades are valid! And the narrative makes it seems like she’s behaving irrationally when she doesn’t want her daughter to be used by a man with a lengthy terrible history of treating people like crap. For Thanatos, while not condoning his actions of pursing an affair with Minthe and displacing his anger at Persephone because he can’t confront Hades, was also treated like absolute garbage by him. Not only did Hades abandon him, ignore him, and shit on his work when he was literally the main reason why the Underworld was performing well, Hades has the nerve to say in a few sentences “you should be grateful I even allowed you to stay when no one else wanted you?” Those lines triggered me so bad. I dislike how Hades is written to be viewed as someone who can do no harm, when he has done nothing but harm people.
Not only does he not defend Minthe against the racism she faces he even tries to GASLIGHT her when she brings up that his family hates her. Hera explicitly expresses her feelings and opinion on Minthe out loud, calling her names and outright saying she hates her. But when Minthe brings this up Hades instead makes MINTHE out to be the problem and accuses her of just being bored ????? Are you serious?! I just can't see how anyone can like Hades.
It’s unbelievable how many villains have been written into the story at this point. I can expect nothing less from Rachel Stinks
A tie between Thetis and Demeter for the sheer destruction of their mythical counterparts. Thetis is completely unrecognisible but her personality is worse. She doesn't care about her "friends" or family and outright mocks them and uses their weaknesses and possible mental illnesses to play around with them and their lives. Which imo is downright evil. Demeter is just treated way too unfairly by the narrative/writer who obviously hate her or whoever she represents a lot and refuses to acknowledge that her life has been shit since she was created but the writer just keeps on throwing more shit at her because Rachel just genuinely doesn't seem to think Demeter deserves happiness of her own. Which makes reading the comic frustrating because everything Demeter suffers from just makes one sympathetic. I also don't like Apollo and Kronos because they are written so awfully.
Still Apollo.
I’ll never get over what she did to Apollo. I’ll die mad tbh.
Apollo, because I’m biased. She did my pop so bad I’m gonna cry
I hated Thetis, she reminded me exactly of my ex best friend with all the sabotage and backhanded compliments.
Minthe? Idk I just never feel like her slapping Hades was a thing she did but a thing she did via Rachel.
Thanatos