deadcatwithaflamethrower:

serakosumosu:

dovewithscales:

miyukey-arts:

honorthegods:

secondgenerationimmigrant:

bunjanecrocker:

luxlustravi:

oftaggrivated:

sonneillonv:

kata-chthonia:

I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry.

Is OP aware that oh so many books exist on this subject?

And that almost universally the ones authored by people with doctorates in classicism and mythology disagree with OP?

Including the… epic hymn that first told this story? You know what’s in that original source material… right?

Abducted, yes.
Demeter mourned? Definitely.
Rape, no.

So here’s some info on Ancient Greek wedding traditions which (oh my stars and garters!!) included abducting the bride. With the father’s permission, which Hades got before he took her away.

Here’s a whole book on the subject of Ancient Greek wedding custom and its conflation with funeral rites. (Which sounds a bit like Hades and Persephone to anyone who’s ever dabbled in things like explication and context)

Here’s a link to another book that talks about Persephone’s rise to power as a result of her willingly eating the pomegranate seeds.

Oh shit!!

Here’s a whole bunch of myths and hymns that talk about her Queen of the Underworld badassery!!

Holy pug tacos Batman!!

Here’s another book about the myth focusing on the seasonal religious and liminal rites. WHICH TAKE PLACE IN THE DRY SUMMER (not the fucking winter), which you know if you read a book.Way to go, OP!

All these fucking books!  What could anyone possibly do with them all?!?!?!?! Do you eat books to absorb their powers instead of read them?

A better guess would be that you got into a moral panic over the name of a certain Renaissance statue and maybe after reading three pages of Edith Hamilton or the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article. And then used that to castigate and demean not only the people who actually take their limited time to create gorgeous art but also to denigrate modern day worshippers of Persephone and Hades?

Maybe next time, you stringy piece of over-boiled okra, you might want to take your own advice and pick up a book, instead of reducing the feared and respected Queen of the Underworld who held power equal to or in many interpretations GREATER than her husband into a meaningless pastiche of female disenfranchisement that you seemingly plucked from your own ass.

JESUS CHRIST THANK YOU

I don’t often reblog posts of people getting owned, but when I do…

man the ancient greeks didn’t dare to speak persephone’s name she was that powerful and venerated (they called her Kore, “the maiden”), hades didn’t get that honour

Rebagel for those book links, I find the Persephone and Hades stuff on here fascinating and I want to research it more

Book links, owning and the sheer badassery that is Persephone.

reblog forever

Reblogging for the links until this misapprehension finally ceases.

See also: Seduction and Rape in Greek Myth and Predatory Goddesses, both by classicist Mary Lefkowicz.

I really like it. People who don’t really understand the situation try to “protect” anything from romanticising… Huh, that could be possibly funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Thanks for the information.

Thank you for correcting this stupid reactionary bullshit!

I feel like it bears pointing out explicitly. The notion that Persephone is a victim in this story is not just a more recent, and patently incorrect, interpretation. It’s also the misogynistic one.

Why do so many people have so much trouble understanding that to insist that Persephone must be seen as a victim is disenfranchisement?

Our mythology isn’t literal. It’s never been literal. Most of them were written by playwrights and poets, not religious scholars. They’re stories. Which is not to say they’re not true. I’ve ranted about that at length many times. My position on the subject is clear. Stories are true because of what they tell us about ourselves. The gods are real, but the stories we tell about them are human stories.

So when you tell a story about Persephone as a victim, you are choose to take away a woman’s power. Which was the intention of the first person who told that story. That version of the story exists because of people who didn’t like the idea of Persephone as the Queen of the Underworld. They objected to a woman who loved a king and became a queen and wields as much or more power than her husband, so they retold the myth to make her out to be a victim.

You’re not helping by reinforcing their version of the story.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

I thought this migh be rtyi?

A+ use of Bill Murray gif, too.