PG Olympus

We love Greek mythology in all its fucked up, incestuous, cannibalistic, blood-soaked glory and even made a whole zombie-filled version of Antigone in which an understandably frustrated Creon is the good guy (which will, unfortunately, need some more work on the artistic part, so don’t expect to read it anytime soon). This is why we can’t help but roll our eyes whenever someone decides to clean them up for the more sensitive crowd.

The worst offender (that we know of), is Disney’s mangling of the Heracles myth. Zeus and Hera as loving parents? Hades as a scheming villain? Megara as a ghost temptress? This whole thing was ridiculous. Especially as it would’ve been very easy to cut all the unsavory stuff leading up to the famous Twelve Labours and just focus on the adventure part of it, but this? Why? Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series of books turns the Greek myths into a YA adventure featuring half-human children of the Greek pantheon, including Athena. Yes, really. Judging by that detail, we’re guessing Riordan did a lot more than just removing the R-rated stuff. We get that there are great stories in Greek mythology underneath all the patricides, matricides, rapes, and human sacrifices, but we still don't like to see it neutered into some generic fantasy that doesn’t even respect the core characteristics of its characters. However, at least Disney and Riordan were trying to keep it PG. WTF is Lore Olympus’s excuse?

ICYMI, Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe is a modern re-imagining of Greek myths centred on the Hades/Persephone relationship, which is now forbidden love rather than kidnapping. Don’t let its colourfulness fool you, though - this story features sexual assault and revenge porn. Done by Apollo to Persephone because that’s the level of fidelity to the source material (even taking into account existing variations in the myths themselves) that we’re dealing with here. Yes, we know about Daphne, whom Apollo chased after Eros hit him with one of his arrows to mess with him on purpose. But these aren’t the only changes Smythe has made. Remember how Hephaestus tried to rape Athena? Or how he made a chair that trapped his mother Hera and then demanded beautiful Aphrodite, who had a relationship with Ares who was also the father of most of her children, as payment for letting Hera go? And then, when he found out his unwilling wife had been hooking up with the guy she had actually chosen to be with behind his back, caught them in a special net mid coitus and paraded them around for the other gods to see? Well, according to a Webtoon Canvas add on Instagram, he’s now the sensitive guy who sees more than Aphrodite’s beauty, unlike Ares, who just wants to fuck, and the comments section enthusiastically approves this possible new couple. On Reddit, some argue that Aphrodite is too shallow and mean for it to work. Yeah, that’s the problem with this couple. And there’s more. In the myth, Thetis was such good friends with Hera that she turned down Zeus - here, she’s a scheming bitch who seduces Zeus and tries to convince him to dump his wife and marry her instead. The always faithful Hera, Goddess of Marriage, is revealed to have cheated on her husband, and for some reason, Ares has the hots for Persephone. Oh, and of course, asexual, aromantic Athena is now in a lesbian relationship and goes around wearing masculine outfits because Smythe probably stopped reading after Athena, Goddess of War, and missed the part about her also being the Goddess of Crafts (which she took very seriously, to the point where she turned a woman who boasted about her superior weaving abilities into a spider). And how predictable is it that the (supposedly) non-feminine one was turned into a lesbian? Wouldn’t it have been better to keep Athena as she is? Surely there were other, more ambiguous characters that Smythe could’ve turned lesbian. Also, where are all the gay men? All the guys seem to be focused on women. In a story linked to Greek mythology? Seriously?

Smythe’s changes are baffling. According to google, Lore Olympus is rated 16+, and it’s clear that, unlike Disney and Riordan, she’s not averse to including more adult situations in her work. So why do this? What’s the point of randomly changing these beings beyond any recognition? If Persephone isn’t going to be kidnapped, why was it so necessary to keep rape in her story that the act was transferred to someone else? And why would anyone even want to make a creep like Hephaestus a good guy (apart from all the Sansa Stark/fugly loser she must love to redeem herself shippers)? Then there’s the main couple. We get the appeal of Hades/Persephone despite everything it involves and of course, making it a consensual relationship is essential, but Lore Olympus with its bubblegum art and romcom shenanigans ends up neutering the darkness you’d expect from a romance involving the God of the Dead.

Even more baffling than Smythe’s choices are the positive articles praising this for its adaptation of Greek myths. Were they by any chance written by fans of Disney’s Heracles? Basically, Lore Olympus does to Greek mythology what Twilight did to vampires, and that’s just sad.

(If you’d like to read more Greek mythology-themed posts, try The Fantasy of Helen of Troy and Film Review: Clash of the Titans)