YMMV / Lore Olympus

• Adorkable: Hades likes puns, sings to his dog on the way into work, and although Olympus is fully modern he still keeps a checkbook because he enjoys balancing it.
• Awesome Art: The breathtaking visuals look like something ripped right off a Grecian vase. The atmosphere, beautiful scenery, and gorgeous splash panels all help to give the comic an ethereal vibe to it.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Minthe is arguably of the biggest. One camp hates her for her toxic attitude nearly tricking Persephone to go to Tartarus despite her not knowing about Persephone's fertility goddess powers and her abusing Hades, including hitting him and comparing him to Kronus, as well as consistently falling back into shitty behavior, proving she's learned absolutely nothing. The other camp sees her as a nuanced, pitiable character surrounded by bad influences and hope she can grow past her insecurities into a healthier direction. Episode 214 sees this FINALLY happening with Minthe, to the absolute JOY of the fandom.
  • Artemis is starting to lean towards this path, as she has a lot of fans for her Action Girl status, but some haters for her hatred towards the kind-hearted Hades, believing he is a pervert like his brothers but has a HUGE blindspot to her twin brother Apollo, who secretly raped her best friend and roommate in her sleep. She also told Eros as he is crying about his love story that it was a load of bullshit.
  • Eris is quickly becoming this. There are many fans that hate her and put her on par with Apollo for blessing Persephone with Wrath as an infant and attempting to kill her mother Hera, causing the Rampage incident and were very disappointed to see her escape Apollo's attack on her. Others love her for being The Dreaded who Hates Everyone Equally, gleefully watched her help Demeter take the Kings down a peg, feel that Persephone's powers in general were more to blame for the incident rather than just Wrath and feel that she may have a point about her Wrath Blessing giving Persephone both ambition and a backbone.
  • Hera. Either you like her due to how much of an Adaptational Nice Girl she is compared to her mythological self and for how supportive she is of Persephone and Hades' relationship, or you hate her for her hypocrisy regarding Zeus’ infidelity, her racism towards nymphs, and her efforts to push Persephone towards Hades despite knowing how much Demeter and Hades hate each other.
  • As of season 3, Hestia is tentatively moving in this direction. Her growing a spine, calling Demeter out twice on her public shaming of Persephone, and actively helping out Hades has earned her a modicum of good will with some readers. Others still feel that her initial treatment of Persephone is hard to live down.
  • Persephone. Her fans view her as a well-written character with amazing development who has earned her happy ending after all the suffering she's been through, and like how she can be both sweet and kind as well as powerful and terrifying. Her detractors on the other hand see her as a Creator's Pet, who is allowed to get away with anything and hardly gets any punishment for her more unsavory actions, especially in season 3.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In Season 2, after Apollo corners and threatens 'Persephone' yet again, Hera (pretending to be a missing Persephone so that Demeter doesn't realize what's happening) has her suspicions confirmed and takes immense delight in burning Apollo and revealing herself. Apollo's not going to get away with his shitty behaviour a moment longer.
  • Hermes calling out Thanatos, Thetis, and Minthe on their bullshit in Episode 126.
  • There were many cheers in the comments section when Daphne finally catches on to Apollo's manipulative nature and escapes their date in chapter 139.
  • Aetna erasing the photos Apollo took of Persephone, destroying the last semblance of power he had over her. There was much rejoicing in the comment section.
  • Minthe finally paying for all her viciously spiteful and impulsively awful actions when she verbally assaults Hades by preying on his insecurities and slipping that she reported Persephone and Demeter to Zeus (after he offered her an upgrade to her job in one of the other towers knowing she wasn't getting over him). An enraged Persephone finally lets loose and turns her into a mint plant.
    Minthe: I-I'm sorry.
    Persephone: Oh, it's too late for sorry.
  • Have a seat, Chapter 182 is a cavalcade of catharsis. Persephone and Demeter finally talk about her first meeting with Hades. While she acknowledges that her mother only wants to protect her, Persephone points out that she's left bereft of friends who aren't already family and desperately lonely. Worse, his not returning to the Mortal Realm led her to develop self-esteem and self-worth issues. They aren't technically together but Persephone admits to her mother that she's as smitten with Hades as he is with her. Next in getting exactly what they deserve, Apollo badgers Hephaestus about his rape of Persephone, trying to convince the hacker blacksmith that he's innocent. Hephaestus' response is succinct: "I saw what I saw." Then, because Apollo, again, refuses to stop bothering someone who clearly wants nothing to do with him, Hades ends up listening in on their conversation. Being a smart man, Hades talks to Persephone to gently confirm what he has overheard. After a few moments of deflection and hesitation and a massive moment of bravery, Persephone sits Hades down for a talk. The last image of the chapter is Hades' epic rage face.
  • Episode 214 combines this with heartwarming and awesome: Minthe becoming a teacher, completely content and confident in her image and walking away from Thetis for good.
  • While one can still wonder about this with literal love gods running around, in Episode 229, one of Persephone's fears is put to rest: a Fertility Goddess CAN'T increase the power of someone she HATES. As a result, Apollo won't get Persephone's powers no matter what he says.
  • Chapter 237 has Hermes moving out of his and Apollo's apartment. Upon finding out about Apollo's rape of Persephone, he slugs the narcissist for daring to say that HE'S the victim.
  • Episodes 273 and 276: Hera is the missing Fertility Goddess. Persephone, with Dionysus' help, reawakens her powers over life. This allows Hera to grown to Titan-size to take the fight directly to Kronos. She looks like the night sky dotted with glowing, golden stars in the form of a Goddess. After she defeats him, she makes it clear to Kronos that she doesn't care that Ouranos was a horrible father and a monstrous King because Kronos himself was STILL BOTH OF THOSE THINGS.
  • Episode 277: Thanks to his own machinations and Persephone' guile, Apollo is hit by a True Love arrow. He SIMULTANEOUSLY falls in love with her and becomes completely aware of everything he's put her through. Unable to deal with what he's feeling, he begs a quietly raging Persephone how to make it stop. Before leaving, she tells him to publicly confess what he's done to her to the approaching Oracle News crew (who he called in advance to announce his "engagement" to Persephone) and to stay away from her forever. Which he does, on camera, surrounded by Persephone's infuriated family and friends and in Broken Tears. May his reputation rest in pain.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Hebe. Her adorable banter with her mom helps to endear her to the audience, as well as the fact that her conversation with Hera allows for Hades and Persephone to interact more.
  • Athena quickly got attention, due to her funny personality, silver Bifauxnen good looks, and her genuine adoration of her uncle Hades, unlike the majority of deities. Her being an already loved goddess in Classical Mythology also helped.
  • Despite being introduced late in the series, Daphne managed to raise a huge fanbase already, thanks to her design, her kind personality and her refusal to put up with Apollo's treatment of her or Thanatos's self-centeredness and prejudice against Persephone.
  • Chiron became a big hit in just a couple of episodes thanks to her being a really good (and really well-written) psychiatrist. During Persephone's first session, Chiron's constructive observations, firm-but-nurturing attitude, and overall kindness without sounding condescending made her resonate a lot with that part of the audience that already related to Persephone's insecurities and/or trauma.
  • Hephaestus is gaining a following for literally one line, said to Apollo: "I saw what I saw."
  • Similarly to Daphne before her, Kassandra got an unanimously warm reception upon introduction for channelling pretty much the entire fanbase's opinion of Apollo.
    Kassandra: "Yuck, it's you."
• Fan Nickname: Asspolo for Apollo, due to his Jerkass behavior. It's also used, especially on Tumblr, to differentiate posts about the Lore Olympus version from the Apollo of the Hellenic religion.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Pay close attention to the Greek sprinkled throughout the comic. Everything has its meaning.
  • A specific example: None of Eros's younger siblings are actual Greek gods. Their names are Ancient Greek for various different types of love.
  • In 135, Zeus calls a meeting of the Olympians. While Apollo and Demeter don't attend, Hestia is looking in via Athena's web call rather than using her own computer; in some versions of the stories about Hestia, she willingly gave up her position as one of the Twelve Olympians when Dionysus joined the pantheon in order to keep the peace.
• Iron Woobie: Persephone, full stop. The poor girl has been drugged, taken away in a car by a strange man, sexually assaulted by her best friend's brother, has her naked body photographed against her will, is currently being stalked by said rapist, and is being punished for having sex with someone she didn't even have sex with. Despite it all, she remains a sweet and gentle girl.
• It's the Same, So It Sucks: Many fans feel that the second conflict against Kronos is too similar to the first except with lower stakes. In the first, Kronos had taken over the Underworld, possessing Hades and the other gods and forcing the rest of the realm into perpetual sleep. This forces Zeus and Persephone to descend and confront him, with Persephone defeating him by unlocking the full scope of her fertility goddess powers. In the second conflict, Kronos kidnaps an unknown child god, later revealed to be Melinoe, and Hades as well, forcing Persephone and Hera to descend into Tartarus to confront him. Hades and Hera defeat him for a final time, the latter doing so by unlocking the full scope of her own fertility goddess powers.
• Jerkass Woobie: Minthe. While no one can argue that she's a sympathetic person, least of all herself, it's still hard not to feel bad for her when she discovers the ring that Hades was going to give her, and she finally realizes that she may have pushed the only person who loved her away. It gets worse once she believes her lover may drop her for another woman. It's enough to drive her to Hades's doorstep sobbing. Additionally, while Minthe wants to make things work with Hades and is capable of realizing when she might be going too far in regards to Persephone, Thetis sabotages her attempts to be better herself.
• Memetic Mutation: Hades telling Persephone to "never apologize for being a Sicilian" in Episode 80 is often taken comedically out of context as an example of the comic being overly melodramatic.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • For most readers, Apollo crosses this either when he sexually assaults Persephone in her sleep, or in 113 when he Blackmails her with photos, or when he tries to trick Hera who's smarter than she looks that in order for him to apply for an application to marry Persephone anyways even after her mother Demeter told him to stay away from her daughter, or when he attempts to go behind Hera's back and appeal to Zeus, getting very vocal about his demands for Persephone's hand, and even hands over Demeter in exchange for Zeus actually "taking it into consideration" when he tells Hades, driving a deeper wedge between the two brother kings. He even has the gall to taunt Hades and dress like a king, saying that Hades has been "playing house with Persephone long enough."
  • Minthe herself may cross it when she hits Hades, compares him to Kronos, and takes no responsibility for her faults.
    • Minthe takes the entirety of Snarky Chat (herself, Thanatos, and Thetis) with her over the line at the end of Season 1 when they drag the entire Four Realms into a petty workplace rivalry by reporting Persephone's act of wrath and Demeter's cover-up to Zeus. For Minthe and Thanatos, it's jealousy over Hades breaking up with the former, while the latter was hypocritically jealous over Persephone getting a job he thought she was unqualified for (when he himself was literally forced up Hades as a child by Nyx). However, Thetis wants to stir up trouble and create an issue to ruin Zeus and Hera's relationship.
    • As a matter of perspective to the above, Minthe and Thetis, when they find out Zeus wants to make Persephone the new Prometheus, they're ecstatically gossiping about it. However, Thanatos feels disgusted with himself.
• Never Live It Down: Hestia has received considerable character development and revealed some Hidden Depths over the course of the story, but her initial treatment of Persephone is hard to forgive for a big portion of the fandom.
• No Yay:
  • Apollo and Persephone. Apollo and Persephone are both very attractive young people, and Apollo is very invested in her. Doesn't erase the fact that he sexually assaulted her when she was in a very vulnerable state and refuses to leave her alone.
  • Same goes for Minthe who constantly abuses Hades emotionally and, in chapter 76, physically.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Hestia has regained some good will with part of the fandom for finally standing up to Demeter in defence of Persephone and releasing Hades to let him help Persephone. This has however merely promoted her to a Base-Breaking Character, as for many other readers she can never leave down her initial jarkassery.
• The Scrappy: Hestia is hated by a fair number of people, thanks to how she engages in Slut-Shaming against Persephone and how radically different this makes her from her kind, motherly mythological self.
• Seasonal Rot: After the Trial arc, a growing subset of the fanbase started to become disillusioned with the comic's direction, citing issues like Persephone's Act of Wrath being downgraded to accidental killing, her wrath being a gift/curse from Eris, and the conclusion of the arc. Season 3 broke the fanbase even further, with many fans criticizing the 10 year time skip, how several character arcs were concluded, the demonization of several characters (notably Demeter), as well as the reveal for how "Fertility Goddesses" work. The art also started to receive criticism for how the characters completely change face and body shape from panel to panel (the worst with Persephone, where she was stick-thin in the beginning and is now suddenly super-curvy), character's heights and skin colors constantly changing, and some of the facial expressions looking... less than desirable. There's also cases of Same Face Syndrome and Only One Female Mold with characters of either gender. The subreddit Unpopular Lore Olympus was made in response to these issues.
• Spiritual Successor: To Disney's Hercules. While obviously, this story has no Hercules or Meg and Hades is the hero in this, it does have the "Greek mythology-contemporary times" angle and uses Amazing Technicolor Population to stylish effect.
• Strangled by the Red String: The first sixty chapters take place over course of about five days. Despite this short time frame, everyone in the comic takes Hades and Persephone's mutual attraction for one another as a sign that they want to get married or that they're lusting heavily for each other. It's Hades himself who is the first person to acknowledge that his attraction to Persephone is mostly superficial at the moment.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Apollo was presented as being one of the comic's main antagonists, having sexually assault Persephone and plotting to use her powers to help him overthrow Zeus. However, he is pushed into the background after the time skip, often disappearing from the story for months at a time and all of his plans achieve his goals are shown to be poorly thought through. By the end, his story comes to an almost abrupt end after he is magically forced to reveal all of his crimes after his final attempt to force Persephone to love him backfires and he is taken over by Ouranos in the final episodes.
  • Leto was originally presented as the true mastermind behind Apollo's scheme to overthrow Zeus, seemingly using her son as a way to get revenge for being banished from Olympus by Hera. After the time skip, she all but disappears from the plot and her role as the mastermind is instead given to Ouranos.
  • Poseidon is the Olympian who gets the least amount of development and screentime despite being one of the three kings and the only character who can relate to Hades' trauma of being eaten by their father.
  • Eris is initially built up as a major antagonist before the time skip but she befriends Persephone during her banishment and disappears from the narrative up until near the final episodes.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The ten year time skip left this impression on many readers, especially early on. In just a few panels, the story casually dropped hints that both Daphne and Minthe were back to normal, Artemis and Thanatos were roaming the Mortal Realm (the latter reunited with Daphne to boot), Helios was apparently happier now, and Eris was part of Persephone's retinue. The ensuing embargo war between Olympus and the Underworld was also only skimmed upon. While flashbacks did at least address Eris and Artemis immediately, the story fast-tracking to Persephone's katabasis and her ensuing battle against Kronos left many fans with little hope to see any of those other storylines properly resolved or explained, as they felt kind of irrelevant set against Kronos' return. This left many thinking that the overall pacing would have been better if Season 2 had concluded with the trial and Season 3 built up more gradually to the confrontation by interlocking Persephone's journey with relevant flashbacks. Thankfully, in season 3 the main conflict lulled with Kronos' temporary defeat, allowing for some more flashbacks. Minthe's metamorphosis and Thanatos' circumstances were explored at length, as well as giving resolution to Psyche's apotheosis and Aphrodite and Hephaestus' marriage. Some fans still feel robbed about Daphne, though, as her transformation back to a nymph could have been a highly emotional moment for her and Persephone, given her shared trauma over Apollo.
  • Many readers feel like Apollo's sexual assault on Persephone's was not given enough focus in the plot after the time skip, with Apollo being given less screentime and the narrative seemingly going out of it's way to avoid directly addressing his crimes up until last chapters. Persephone became Queen of the Underworld, but she doesn't attempt to use her new social and political power to take Apollo to task for his actions. Nearly half the main cast becomes aware of the assault of the course of the story but none of them do anything of true consequence to Apollo. This includes his sister Artemis who, despite being Persephone's closest friend and being made the Protector of Women by Zeus, does nothing but get upset at her brother for his actions. The story line is ultimately concluded in the fourth to last episode, where Apollo is magically guilted into revealing all of crimes after his plan to use an arrow of True Love on Persephone backfires.
  • Demeter's decade of being made to live like a mortal by Zeus is initially built up as a big, mysterious plot point but is ultimately pushed to the sidelines until near the end of the series, with it and the revival of her dead mortal son given a quick reveal and resolution over the course of only two chapters.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The narrative presents Hades as being one of the most level headed and responsible gods but a common complaint about him from readers is that his love life consists of unequal pairings that are unethical at best, potentially predatory at worst. Minthe was his girlfriend and his secretary, with him being her employer and paying for her apartment. When things fell apart between them, Minthe was terrified at the implication that he would leave her homeless and unemployed, though he was thankfully not that cruel. He also immediately became romantically obsessed with Persephone, despite only knowing her for a short time and learning that she was only 19 years old. He even changed the rules for her internship to allow her to get paid, a blatant ethics violation.

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