Just looking for some feedback about some of my ideas.

[ascanius]

Ok first off I have always been curious about the dynamic of Persephone and Hades in Greek mythology and I never like how either was portrayed. Hades as a dark unloving figure of death ruling over a inhospitable underworld, and Persephone as the young girl who loathed what the fates dealt her and incapable, and how she just there. To me their relationship is perfect if you look at the actual meaning behind it. Life and death, rebirth and decay. Hades is also the god of rebirth and the soil, while Persephone is the goddess of life through her mother, her name escapes me at the moment. This is my first question do you think that trying to examine their roles on life and death with a different take will work. Taking the view of Persephone and Hades set in my own world and showing them in a different light and not as what we know them through Greek mythology. And second do you think a relationship where he rapes her and everything works out in the end, love what you will is possible. It's an idea I have been toying with for a while and just wanted some thoughts on the matter. Most importantly which ways will it not work. Is there away to work around the whole Stockholm syndrome, I don't want that. I thought that in the end I could make this her decision based off entirely different external events. Oh and she is by no means a weak simpering girl if I do this. Also is there anyway to do this without portraying such events as acceptable?

I fear this could be a fine line to tread, and if done incorrectly could give readers the wrong idea, or am I worrying about nothing. I mean the story of Persephone and Hades while old had an entirely different mindset among those who knew the story, the Greeks and Romans. I am worried about the way we today view such events influencing how this is taken by the reader. I don't want to romanticize how the relationship starts but the relationship between them. Do you see my problem?

The overall idea about this would be that bad things happen and they choose to come to terms with those events and move on, not letting what happened between them and prior events to stop who they are and what they must do and believe is right. Or to put it another way I want them to understand that they cannot change what happened and must move on or forever be lost in a past that cannot be changed and thus unable to experience what their lives still have to offer.
I don't know if these questions give this idea justice but it was just an idea.

 

[Ghost]

You're not worrying about nothing here. Rape and its consequences are very polarizing subjects and understandably so. It sounds to me like you don't really want to go there and deal with the emotional fallout. My advice is to not have the rape at all if that's the case.

I think it's possible to write Hades as a desperate and broken man so readers are conflicted about rooting for him. But, and this is a big problem for me, some writers like to romanticize rape as "he loved her so much he had to have her." Even if you don't intend that, people might read it that way. It's like saying the rape is okay if he really loves the girl. That sort of thinking makes me want to projectile vomit into someone's face. Besides, rape isn't about love.

If rape is a part of the story, you have to think long and hard about how it impacts the characters and their judgement. Persephone isn't a weakling, but she's willing to forgive a guy who has no respect for her body and her feelings? Pfft. If they end up together, I'd expect a it would be a long time after the rape occurs, a lot of investment in healing both characters, and redemption of Hades. He has to suffer to even things out. She has to suffer or be an emotionally detached sort of character, and then we have to see why she'd choose someone who could do that to her.

I don't think Persephone would say, "Oh, well. Let's leave the past in the past and get on with our lives" and go skipping arm and arm with Hades into the sunset. I would physically throw a book where that happens. Most women wouldn't choose their rapists. There are those who might for various reasons (Stockholm Syndrome, as you say, fear of the rapist punishing them, shame, etc), but you still have to show readers why. I don't think a relationship like that would ever end up as real love or mutual respect.

I don't think this is a bad idea at all, but you'll need to get deeply into both characters' headspaces which can be uncomfortable or difficult to comprehend. You've mentioned you have a difficult time understanding women, so I'm honestly curious as to how this story will work out for you.

 

[Ravana]

Keep in mind that "rape" used to simply mean "carrying off by violence"–for whatever that's worth, since it's a reasonably safe conclusion that in most cases such as this, the more modern meaning would logically follow soon after. However, it could conceivably be applied to "carrying" off a woman who wanted to be carried off, but who was prevented from going with her intended by societal rules… though I think you'd probably have more people fussing at you for using it that way (with the implication, intended or not, that "some rapes are justifiable") than you will get by portraying a victim who eventually comes around to loving her assailant. Maybe.

The Persephone myth might not be the best example to use when the topic under discussion is rape in itself, since it is, as you note, clearly an explanatory story (and one that hearkens back to the Mesopotamian Tammuz/Dumuzi–who was male: he entered Greek myth, in a slightly different role, as Adonis). Others might be better: Zeus was a frequent repeat offender at this, for instance. Interestingly, Helen's abduction to Troy is rarely referred to as a "rape"; not sure what that is intended to indicate.

What is unquestionable is that rape was historically regarded as an acceptable practice, in many if not most times and cultures. It may rarely have received legal sanction, but it was widely considered an inevitable consequence of war: going back to Troy, for instance, the Iliad begins with a fight over who would receive a particular woman as spoils… so it was not the gods alone who got to do this with societal impunity. Presenting it thus may involve invoking unpleasant aspects of the past, but it is nonetheless realistic.

I think you're correct, though, in thinking that modern readers could easily be turned off by anything that portrayed it in other than a negative light. At a minimum, I'd say a character would need to undergo a long period of adjustment before she "comes to terms" with it in the end. Ultimately, how someone deals with having been raped is a very individual matter. I've known a couple victims who speak of it matter-of-factly and have largely dismissed it from their ongoing lives… but these are rare: I know more who still have nightmares about it decades later. Age and prior sexual experiences appear to be factors that influence this, in my experience, but I'd hesitate in making any sweeping generalizations even between a woman in her late twenties with several partners behind her and a fourteen-year-old virgin: it remains a traumatic experience regardless, and one that can shatter the victim's sense of self-worth permanently.

However… I also think gods might see things differently. I've heard that said about them a lot.…