Persephone & Hades - A Match Made in Hell - Greek - Extra Mythology

The famous story of the seasons, Persephone and Hades. A romantic kidnapping that ended up creating a situation where Persephone has to spend half of her time in the world above and half of her time in the world below. This story may be one of the most retold and reinterpreted myths for a long time, from Hadestown to Lore Olympus. And as a bonus, hey this is also where sirens first show up, though they're much more aerial and less aquatic from their usual representation.

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♪ Music: "Extra Mythology Theme" by Big Giant Circles

[GeneralLuigiTBC]

Persephone. Demeter's daughter, niece, first cousin once removed, and sister-in-law, among many other things.

[thisrandomdude]

Persephone: What will this vile monster do to me?!
Hades: *Gifts, gifts everywhere!*
Persephone: Huh...

[tordix]

Like most comments, most of what I've heard is that this was one of the more pure marriages in Greek myth. Like, in the culture of prize brides and the gods just taking whatever they wanted (including each other), even in this version Hades still took all the "proper" steps of the day. He asked the parent for permission (wrong parent), treated Persephone like a queen (didn't relegate her to a concubine), and no significant characters died in the process (humans don't count). As far as Greek lore goes, this story is a win. Sappy romances sure were wild back in the day.

[RTK-sowf]

Weirdly enough this was the most healthiest relationship in the whole patheon.

[marloyorkrodriguez]

Hate the story as much as you will but Persephone and Hades’ marriage was the most functional and healthy in all the Greek pantheon, you never heard of any demigod son of Hades.

[cdcdrr]

And Hades is still the most sympathetic of the Olympian gods. Think about that for a moment.

[llSuperSnivyll]

Demeter: "I can't even BEGIN to imagine the horrible things that wretched Hades must be doing to my dear daughter!"
Hades: "Oh, please, my dear Persie! Accept these gifts as a sign of my eternal love! I could even make you Queen of the Underworld so that we can be equals!"

[Lionstar]

Hands up those who love Overly Sarcastic Productions' version of the story that Hades and Persephone are a loving, remarkably functional couple - and also Red's drawings of them are super cute :)

[abcdef]

"Most of the Gods were related, so it got weird anyway".

Habsburgs: (Laughing in protuberant jaw)

[brycevo]

Honestly though, Hades is not a villain. He once allowed two mortals to just waltz in and do whatever they wanted until they threatened kidnapping persephone, he was fair and allowed a man to bring back his wife if he followed his rules, and he straight up lent his dog Spot to Heracles with no strings attached besides the leash for Spot.
And their relationship wasn't as one sided and toxic as you make it out (besides the Greek standard incest). Persephone originally hated Hades and their marriage, because of the kidnapping, but came to enjoy her time as the queen of the underworld. For she was given much more power and sacrifices when she was with Hades.

[bluke]

I like the version where hades kidnapped her, but she willingly became queen of the underworld

[alexie]

I heard there are versions where Persephone went with Hades willingly because she was tired of being a sheltered child.

[SEELE-ONE]

Are we gonna ignore that Hecate was trying to bribe Demeter with actual Magic cards?

[GrayBeardDamonsen]

This is one version, the more popular version of the event, bit another paints the two as mutually in love and having to come up with the “kidnapping” as a legit way to be together. Also... Hades gets a bad rep in general for no good reason. Lawful Neutral would be his character class in general.

[Googledeservestodie]

Persephone: oh look a flower
>Flower opens a gate to hell
Hades: *SWIGGITY SWOOTY*

[nonnayerbusiness]

Persephone's time in the underworld doesn't correspond to winter, but rather the dry season.

[rosscalhoun]

Why does this episode portray asking Persephone out on a date the "regular" thing to do even though it acknowledges the actual standard custom was to talk to the father?

[nether_emperor]

Persephones and hades relationship was actually pretty good compared to most of the other gods relationships

[DeanHarper]

Gonna have to add that there are several versions of this myth and Demeter is an over controlling monster in nearly all of them.

[MWhaleK]

The thing is that Hades had the permission of Persephone father to take her as his wife, so by the morals of Ancient Greece it was all cool.