Webcomic / Lore Olympus

"While you are here, you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: Those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit of gifts, shall be punished forevermore."

—Hesiod

A drama webcomic by Rachel Smythe retelling the story of The Taking of Persephone with a modern skin. After Hades casually states that Persephone rivals Aphrodite in beauty when he spots her at a party, the goddess's jealousy leads to her placing the sleeping Persephone in Hades' car. What follows is Persephone's journey of self-discovery, Hades finding an equal to rule by his side, and the two slowly falling deeper in love. The comic is still ongoing. It can be read here.

With more than 6.5 million followers and 1.7 billion views, Lore Olympus is currently the most popular comic hosted on Webtoon. It has also won three Harvey Awards, two Eisner Awards and two Ringo Awards. In October 2019, the Jim Henson Company announced plans to adapt Lore Olympus into an animated series aimed at young adults.

The comic is currently set to release its final chapter on May 11, 2024.

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The webcomic provides examples of:

A-D

• A-Cup Angst: Once she finds out about Persephone, Minthe starts becoming insecure about her body and checks out her breast size in the bathroom mirror. Humorously illustrated in the December 29th Q-and-A, which included an image of Minthe and Persephone based on a famous photo of Sophia Loren side-eyeing Jayne Mansfield.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Most interpretations of Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon depict them as being middle-aged to relatively old men with thick beards. The comic depicts the three as clean-shaven businessmen who look and act like they're in their mid-thirties.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • While versions of the original myth vary in how willing Persephone was and how much say she had in whether or not she would stay in the Underworld, they mostly agree on the point that Hades purposefully carried her off to be his wife. In this version the "abduction" is completely accidental, brought about by the machinations of Aphrodite, and Hades remains reluctant to pursue any kind of relationship with Persephone for quite a while after due to the difference in their ages (Persephone is 19 and Hades is 2000+) and his feeling that she can do better.
  • In the Eros and Psyche myth, Aphrodite was very much the awful mother-in-law, sending Psyche on a mission that might well have caused her death. In this comic, she quickly regrets what she ordered her son to do, and when Eros abandons Psyche she takes the girl in and protects her while teaching Eros a lesson about trust. Likewise, Eros in the original myth basically tricked her parents into giving Psyche to him and her consent in their initial sexual encounter is rather shady. Here, he rescues her from an abusive family, teaches her to read and write, and doesn't touch her without her permission.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Hades in the original myths was not the villain many works make him out to be, but he was also nowhere as kind or awkward as the comic presents him as.
  • Poseidon is presented with a laidback and carefree attitude, a far cry from the greedy, bad-tempered and easy to offend personality of the original myths.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • While in the original myth Minthe was just a fling of Hades, here she's a catty Alpha Bitch who regularly demeans Hades and treats him like a walking wallet. She does get slightly better about this after realizing that her awful behavior might drive him away but she still has no love for Persephone.
  • Apollo in the myths is certainly no hero, but has redeeming qualities, particularly in his love for his mother, his friend Admetus, and various lovers. In this story, however, he has next to no redeeming qualities whatsoever and rapes Persephone, which the narrative presents as one of the worst crimes imaginable.
  • In the myths, Thetis was a loyal and kind nymph who saved Zeus from a coup and fostered Hephaestus after his mother rejected him. Here, she's a shameless, amoral homewrecker who also conspired to ruin Minthe's relationship with Hades out of jealous spite.
  • Psyche's parents are physically abusive to her and tried to force her into a marriage with a cruel man for their own benefit.
  • Surprisingly, Hestia has gotten some of this treatment, from what little has been seen of her. While in mythology, she's the quintessential Olympian Nice Girl, her depiction in Lore Olympus comes across as more than a little Holier Than Thou. She slut-shames Persephone for being photographed with Hades by a tabloid, and takes the fur coat Hades gave to Persephone apparently as a bribe (possibly upon a threat of revoking Persephone's scholarship or reporting the incident to Demeter).
• Adaptational Wimp: Thanatos in the Greek myths was the personification of death, feared and hated by all and close Hades in the Underworld food chain. In the comic, he's a mid-range employee at Undercorp and something of a whiny suck-up. He's frequently belittled by his superiors and co-workers and it's implied that anyone could fill his shoes in retrieving mortal souls.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • The original myth was about Hades kidnapping Persephone to be his wife with the permission of Zeus and her enraged mother Demeter creating drought and famine on Earth until Hades agreed to allow her daughter to return her for six months out of every year. In the comic Hades and Persephone's relationship is completely consensual and Zeus, fearing that her powers as a fertility goddess may threaten his rule, has her banished to Earth indefinitely in order to keep her from marrying anyone. In response, an infuriated Hades holds back resources from Olympus and creates extensive scarcity throughout the home of the gods until Persephone is allowed to reunite with him. Later on, the mortal realm is struck by famine but it's not caused by Demeter. Instead, it's an unintended consequence of Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld.
  • Rachel Smythe has admitted to enjoying dropping references to The Trojan Cycle in the comic but stated she has no intention of including the Trojan War in the story in any meaningful way. This is why Odysseus is already a god at the start of the story even though Achilles has yet to be born and Cassandra is still working as a priestess.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Hades and Zeus both call Hera "Bunny", though she doesn't especially seem to appreciate it.
  • Hades also calls Minthe "Tadpole" as an endearment.
  • Apollo calls Persephone "Persie". She doesn't like it. She does, however, like Hades’ nickname for her, “Sweetness”.
• Alien Blood: True to mythology, the blood of gods is gold in color.
• Always Night: The Underworld, which always has a starry sky. Hades explains that it's always dark there because he dislikes Apollo and doesn't want the sun god in his territory.
• All for Nothing: All of Apollo's efforts to force Persephone to marry him have only increased her hatred of him. This ensures that, even if he did somehow get his way, he wouldn't benefit from any of her powers, since they require love in order to be shared.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Eros is frequently embarrassed by both of his parents, especially when they're all under the same roof and he has to put up with Ares and Aphrodite's kinky sexual shenanigans on top of their general immaturity.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Characters are depicted in bright solid colors which also serves as color-coding with the exception of mortals who have regular skin tones (such as Psyche and Semele).
  • Persephone and Hades have pink and blue skin respectfully.
  • The twins, Apollo and Artemis, have purple skin.
  • Minthe has red skin.
• Ambiguous Time Period: Odysseus appears in the second chapter, having already ascended to deityhood and is openly hated by Poseidon. However, Hades and Persephone's marriage happened before the Trojan War and Thetis is still with Zeus and has yet to give birth to Achilles. Until Achilles appears as a toddler post Time Skip.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Hades is the ruler of the Underworld, but in all respects is quite the Nice Guy.
• Bait-and-Switch: A drunk and lonely Ares texts Aphrodite—who by now is broken up with him and married to Hephaestus—that he misses her. Aphrodite sends a text making plans to meet for coffee. At the coffee shop, Aphrodite is greeted…by Psyche. Cut to Ares being notified that Aphrodite has blocked him.
• The Bet: Faced with Hades' unwillingness to accept her as an intern, Persephone challenges him to a game of chess. If he wins, she'll take no for an answer, but if she wins, he has to give her a job. She beats him.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • How Hades handles getting payback at the photographer who caught him and Persephone is not unlike something out of a Mafia movie abduction and interrogation scene.
  • When another photographer attempts to know more about her and Hades' relationship, Persephone's eyes start turning red and she wears a rather forced looking grin as she grips the photographer's arm to the point of starting to hurt him.
  • When Apollo starts accusing Persephone, Eros, all-around cheerful and campy guy, immediately starts peppering him with arrows and, when he still doesn't get the hint, vows to utterly ruin whatever chance at love he might ever have if he doesn't back off. If Greek mythology is anything to go with, he is not bluffing.
  • The normally sweet Persephone and her darker impulses. Particularly, her Act of Wrath, which resulted in her going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and murdering a ton of people over the deaths of her friends.
• Big Damn Heroes: Hecate arrives just in time to rescue Hades from further abuse from Minthe, suspending her until further notice. Eros also gets a moment to shine when he arrives to save Persephone from Apollo when she confronts and tries to explain how much she despises Apollo.
• Bilingual Bonus: Episode 40 features Hades speaking unsubtitled Greek. His command to the spirits in Tartarus, "Συγκαλεῖσθε," means "Assemble". His last line of the episode is "Εἰμί βασιλεύς ἀπαίσιος" - "I am a terrible king".
• Bland-Name Product: In Episode 45, Hades tries looking up Persephone on Fatesbook and Oracle, which are thinly-veiled references to Facebook and Google respectively. In a nod to the original myth, the Apple iPhone equivalent are smartphones from a brand called "Pomegranates".
• Breather Episode: After a highly emotional arc where Minthe is worried about her and Hades' relationship and Hades confesses his love for Persephone in a letter he never intends to send, we get the much more comedic Episode 48 about Hades sending the Furies to kidnap the photographer that snapped him and Persephone.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Minthe is not happy once she sees the article about Hades and Persephone. When Persephone subsequently shows up to start her internship at Underworld Corp, Minthe sends her off on a Snipe Hunt - into Tartarus.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Olympian is a solid color that makes it easier to tell them apart.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In Episode 81, Apollo refuses to leave even after Hades and Persephone both make it clear she doesn't want to talk to him. After warning Apollo that he's brought this upon himself, Hades sends Poseidon a message that Apollo wants to cruise the mortal world with him as wingman - which Poseidon is only too happy to oblige, immediately.
  Apollo: I didn't— [suddenly poofed into a green chiton]
  Poseidon: LOOK! Now we match! We're going to have a blast.
• Couch Gag: From the episode where Hades hears that Persephone is called Kore-cob, each episode onwards ends with an image of a sulking Persephone in a corncob costume.
• Covered with Scars:
  • When Hades is shown shirtless, his body is seamed with scars. Eventually, it's shown how he got them: His father Kronos bit pieces out of him when Zeus and Poseidon rescued Hades from Kronos's stomach.
  • Athena and Hera have also been shown with multiple scars; Hera's, being mostly across her waist, are usually hidden by her outfit. The comic suggests that this was caused by her being pulled in half if her words of “torn asunder” wasn’t an exaggeration.
  • Demeter for her part seems to have a large claw swipe across her entire back she doesn't seem to make any effort to hide.
  • Ares is another Olympian who sports a collection of scars. He tends to have some recent injuries showing as well, leaving little question that his scars come from his actions in his role as a god of battle.
• Crossover Cosmology: In a throwaway line, Persephone floats the idea of running away and joining the Norse Pantheon.
• Cuteness Proximity: Hades tries to be as professional as possible while showing Persephone the ropes around Underworld Corp. Cue seeing her acting adorable in Megaera's borrowed Fury outfit and internal screaming.
• The Cutie: Persephone fits this trope to a T, what with her easygoing nature, her kind spirit, and her gentle teasing of Hades.
• Cutting the Knot: When Hades and Ares find Thanatos trapped in Sisyphus’ pithos, Hades notes that the lock is a complex puzzle which would take him time to solve. Ares simply breaks the jar open with his head.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While the Underworld is a place to house the land of the dead, it's by all accounts a nice, if dark, place. Hades rules over it, and he has adopted seven dogs, treats his workers fairly, and takes care of Persephone when he finds her in his car. And between his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, he appears favorably.
• Death Glare:
  • Hades occasionally has one when he gets angry at someone.
  • Hera sports a positively murderous glare when she crashes Zeus' family brunch to rake him, Poseidon, and Hades over the coals for their crude talk about Persephone.
  • The one Persephone gives Ares when she realizes he lied about being illiterate in order to score with her. If looks could kill, Ares would have imploded.
• Destructive Romance:
  • Hades knows his relationship with Minthe is toxic and unhealthy, but decided that since they're both unhappy people they might as well be unhappy together. When Minthe thought Hades might be leaving her for Persephone, she admits that what they have might not be love but she's doesn't want it to end, showing that she's emotionally dependent on Hades to some extent.
  • Deconstructed when Hades eventually realizes he doesn't want this sort of relationship with Minthe anymore, leaves her and refuses to come back.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: In Episode 235, there’s a flashback wherein Hestia notes one morning that Demeter is glowing. In response, Demeter excitedly reveals to her that she and Zeus slept with each other the night before.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Persephone recalls her mother suddenly becoming protective of her growing up, making her cover up more, making her always have a chaperone, trying to keep her away from the godly realms, etc. While the ostensible reason is so that Persephone wouldn't be married off or be exploited for her fertility powers, Demeter's actions are reminiscent of a mother worried that her budding young daughter is being leered at by perverts.
• Don't Try This at Home: The author has half-jokingly told the comic's fans to not try any of the tropes present to seduce their employees or their employer.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Lower tier gods and other non-mortal beings can be rather snippy and rude to the Olympians, who are supposedly the highest authority in-universe. The Olympians themselves are also a lot more tolerant of disrespect than their original incarnations would ever be, although even they have their limits as seen when Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades basically intimidate their way into a strip club they were banned from.
  • Persephone's trial starts to swing in her favor after it's revealed that the mortals she killed belonged to a kingdom that was trying to expand into Demeter's private lands and inadvertently murdered two of Persephone's friends, something that the gods in attendance consider far too disrespectable to go unanswered.

E-H

• The Empath: Hera, in her auspices as the goddess of women, marriage, and family. She senses Persephone's suffering after the encounter with Apollo, though she's not aware of who it's coming from; later, shaking hands with Persephone is enough for Hera to sense Persephone's feelings of trauma and violation with such immediacy that Hera mentally checks out for a few seconds.
• Everyone Hates Hades: A major conceit of the comic is to defy this, as it portrays Hades as a dark, lonely, and brooding man who is in actuality an awkward Nice Guy who is self-aware enough to realize how uncomfortable his feelings for Persephone are. A telling example of this is while Zeus and Poseidon were banned from a strip club for sexual harassment (Zeus) and property damage (Poseidon), Hades was banned because he convinced the club's best dancer to quit and take a job at Underworld Corp.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Cerberus demonstrates an instant and intense dislike of Apollo. He may be able to sense Persephone's distress and discomfort regarding Apollo, considering that he manages to chase down Apollo's car at a time when Persephone is demanding that Apollo stop and let her out.
• Exiled to the Couch: Implied Trope in Episode 94. When Hades puts Poseidon and Zeus up in his house for the night, Zeus chooses to sleep on the couch, despite Hades offering him a bed.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The first 100 chapters take place over the course of less than two weeks.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Apollo first appeared to be friendly if full of himself, only to be revealed to be an egotistical, possessive sexual deviant.
  • Thetis acts like she's Minthe's snarky best bud when she really only cares about herself and even undermines Minthe's relationship with Hades out of jealously. She also acts like she's Zeus's kind lover when really she wants to ruin his marriage.
• Fertility God: Fertility goddesses are born roughly once every generation, and are notable for their ability to bear children who are considerably stronger than their fathers and tend to overthrow them. The protagonist of the comic, Persephone, is this generation's fertility goddess, even though she has no idea, as her mother made sure she had no contact with men and joined a chastity cult. She was not unjustifiably overprotective, though, since as soon as Persephone enters the outside world, she immediately becomes a target, leading to Apollo raping her in order to pressure her into marrying him. The fertility goddesses before Persephone included Metis, Rhea, and Gaia.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Any audience familiar with Greek Mythology will know that Hades and Persephone end up married at the end of their myth. In-universe, one story where Hades visits the Fates shows that Persephone will eventually be Hades' queen.
  • Thetis's scheme to get Zeus to leave Hera for her is destined to fail.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Episode 75 has a close-up shot of the Fates working a tape called "Thetis 25," hinting at the tumultuous future she's destined to have.
  • When Eros caught Apollo harassing Persephone, he threatened to ruin his love life if he didn't leave.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Hades and other gods usually wear 21st-century-esque clothing but change into the ancient chitons and peplos when they go to Earth or interact with mortals.
• The Four Loves: Eros is shown to have several younger siblings who don't exist in Classical Mythology, derived from the concepts of storge (familial love), philia (friendship), and agape (unconditional, self-sacrificing love) as well as several others sharing the same theme of different types of love.
• Friend to All Living Things: Persephone quickly wins over Cerberus, which Hades indicates is quite unusual. She's also shown playing with another of Hades' dogs in the background while Hades is on the phone with Zeus.
• Gold Digger: Minthe seems more interested in the expensive gifts Hades gives her than she is in the man himself, but as Persephone enters his life, Minthe realizes she has more attachment to Hades than she previously thought.
• Green Thumb: As is to be expected of goddesses of the seasons, agriculture, and plant life, both Demeter and Persephone can control the growth of plants, sometimes involuntarily in the latter's case. Special mention is when Persephone summoned an entire forest in the middle of Tartarus, where absolutely nothing is meant to live.
• Hate Sink: If Apollo's attitude towards Persephone wasn't enough to garner the fandom's hatred, the fact he sexually assaulted her cemented it. His only redeeming qualities are superficial and quickly swept aside by his persistent harassment of Persephone after she makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him.
• High-Tech Heaven: Ancient Greece is at an accurate level of culture and technology but Olympus and the Underworld have progressed into a 21st-century level society.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Artemis is suspicious of all men - except for Apollo, thus far the character in the webcomic she should be the most suspicious of where it concerns Persephone. Her enormous blind spot in regards to Apollo is no doubt because he is her twin brother, but it's an enormous blind spot nonetheless, as she repeatedly fails to recognize the obvious signs that Persephone is not comfortable around Apollo or the unpleasant undertones of Apollo's interest in Persephone.
• A House Divided: The Olympians mostly have nothing but contempt for one another and most of them can barely stand being in the same room with each other.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Hades is close to twice Persephone's height and Eros is close to being two heads taller than Psyche.
• Hustler: Persephone challenges Hades to a game of chess, pretending she's a complete novice, rather than a high school champion. She nearly breaks character halfway through the game, but Hades is too flustered to notice.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Hades orders them to track down someone, the Furies laugh that such a task is beneath them. Gilligan Cut to Alecto and Tisiphone fighting over a piece of steak like two dogs as Hades watches from around the corner.
  Hades: Damn, that's unsavory.

I-L

• Identical Panel Gag: When Zeus learns that Hades is harboring a fugitive Persephone, he holds a teleconference with all the Olympians. At first, the other Olympians’ chat windows look exactly the same with every reaction shot during Zeus’ speech, implying they’re not taking the matter as seriously as he is.
• Idiot Ball: Zeus has Asclepius make a house call to see Hera after she has a medical situation. This is despite the fact that Asclepius is known to have broken doctor-patient confidentiality before.
• Internal Reveal: There are 42 chapters between Apollo raping Persephone and Persephone telling Eros what happened.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: At first, Apollo appears to be a jerk who only becomes close to Persephone to sleep with her, until he reveals a more sensitive, caring side with her, healing her cut finger and displaying a level of concern with how nonchalant she was about the Underworld. And then he coerces her into sex, photographs her naked body without her permission, and repeatedly ignores her lack of consent to force himself on her. At the end of the strip, he leaves her confused and feeling violated, without a hint of remorse.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Hades appears to have a fondness for puns, to appropriately exasperated response from Persephone. In the midst of an otherwise serious discussion about how he feels that Persephone has seemed sad every time he's seen her:
  Hades: And I happen to know a lot about being blue.
  Persephone: [facepalm] Oh my gods.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Minthe's spiteful and vindictive actions swing clean back at her when she blurts out that she reported Persephone and Demeter after Hades offered her a job move to help her get over him and do what's best for her. Persephone overheard her, and loses her temper, and transforms her into a mint plant.
• Likes Older Men: While it seems her preference for Hades is mostly a circumstantial thing, the fact remains that Persephone has fallen in love with someone old enough to marry her mother.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Apollo and Artemis being Zeus's illegitimate children is seemingly only known to the involved parties and isn't public knowledge, not even to other Olympians.
• Loving Details Hades starts practically swooning when Hecate tells him about how pretty Persephone's handwriting is.

M-Q

• Mama Bear: True to her overprotective nature, the instant Persephone calls for help after realizing Ares tricked her to take advantage of her, Demeter rushes in, wraps him up in wheat vines and beats him senseless with a pitchfork.
• May–December Romance: Much to Hades' horror when he finds out Persephone is 19 whereas he is over 2000 years old.
• Momma's Boy:
  • As a child, Hades was shown to be close with his mother Rhea.
  • Eros is just as devoted to his mother Aphrodite as she is to him. Though he still isn't afraid to call her out on her bullshit.
  • Ares is this enough to attempt to hit Zeus with a spear when the latter gets a little too hands-y with Hera.
• Mood Whiplash: Can occasionally happen at the end of chapters, if the Hermes variation of the footer is used to cap a particularly emotional chapter.
• Moral Myopia: The Olympians are expected to treat each other ethically but regard mortals as nothing but easily-replaceable pawns who are only good for worship, sacrifice, sexual flings and having their souls perform grunt work after they die.
  • Eros is aghast to learn that Apollo raped Persephone but was perfectly willing to have Psyche fall in love with a pig until he himself fell in love with her and when he thought she had betrayed his trust, he randomly murders 300 innocent mortals in a fit of rage. Zeus is upset not at Eros' massacre but because he doesn't have the permit to commit such an act of wrath and because he was harboring a mortal on Olympus while Aphrodite defends her son by saying that they can just make more mortals.
  • Artemis and Apollo murdered 11 of the Queen of Thebes 12 children simply because she said her kids were better than them and they were given medals and thrown a party for doing it. Hestia even compliments Artemis for being nice and letting her keep one child.
  • Hades once referred to mortals as being a dime a dozen and at Persephone's trial he dismisses her massacre of a mortal village as only amounting to Eros having to work half a day more on repopulation.
• My Beloved Smother: Demeter, natch. Before her in-person debut, she'd only appeared in flashbacks, but her overzealous drive to protect Persephone loomed large enough over the story to the point that Persephone was shown having a nightmare of her mother locking her in a greenhouse with no doors to "keep her safe".
• Mythology Gag: The list of Hera's possible suitors besides Hades for Persephone were all her suitors in the mythos who gave her gifts. Some of their relations in the series seem to correspond to this as well.
  • In the myths Ares gave her a spear and cuirass, in the series Ares was Persephone's first kiss and is willing to kill anyone who hurts her feelings.
  • In the myths Hermes gave her his rod, in the series he's on close terms with her, has seen her naked with her consent, and is very protective of her.
  • In the myths Apollo gave her his lyre, in the series she steals it from him after he rapes her.
• Oh, My Gods!: Even the Gods themselves do this: Aphrodite once says, "Oh sweet Gaia".
• The Older Immortal:
  • The three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, appear to be this. Lachesis addresses 2000-ish year-old Hades as "Young Blood".
  • Nyx waxes nostalgic about how cute Hades looked when he was little.
• Older Than They Look: Hades and all the other gods from the Titanomachy still look the same as they did thousands of years ago. Aphrodite looks and acts like she's the same age as her son Eros. Apollo (and by extension his twin, Artemis) is old enough to have an adult son. And while Eros and Hermes look like they're in the same age group as Persephone, they could easily be hundreds, if not thousands of years older.
• The One That Got Away: Implied to be the mutual case between Hera and Hades. Explaining why he's not married, Hades implies that he might have been interested in Hera but she was "off-limits" because of Zeus, and a flashback suggests that this had something to do with why he ended up with the Underworld as his domain.
• Our Nymphs Are Different: Various nymphs appear, most notably Minthe, the nymph of the river of the underworld, has bright red skin and hair and pointy ears but otherwise looks like a very attractive and slender human, and Thetis, a sea nymph with a grey and aqua coloration, fin-like ears, and a similarly attractive figure.
• Our Titans Are Different: The Titans depicted are all giants, with the exception of Leto, who for some reason is the same size as the gods.
• Pantheon Sitcom: The events of the comic largely play out like a regular daytime TV show. Deconstructed, hard. The relative harmless White Collar Worker antics in the underworld alone can and do cause drama and disasters that last for centuries. That's not even getting into the Game of Thrones style drama on Olympus.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When asked what he feeds Cerberus to make his coat so shiny, Hades replies "The souls of murderers and sometimes egg whites".
• Plant Hair: Flowers and vines spontaneously grow or wither out of Persephone's hair in response to her emotional state.
• Politically Correct History: Rachel Smythe has admitted that this trope is in full effect in the comic, applying modern morals and ethics to who are possibly the most infamously vindictive, hedonistic, and amoral mythical pantheon in history.
  • The author has revealed she has no intention of depicting Hades abducting Persephone. Instead, the scene of him accidentally taking her home with him at the beginning of the comic was her "hat tip" to the original myth.
  • In the original myths, the concept of women giving consent to sex didn't exist. In fact, stories of Greek gods and heroes finding ways to trick or force unwilling women into sex was often used to show how "clever" they were. In the webcomic, when Apollo raped Persephone, it's treated as the serious crime that it is.
  • Surprisingly inverted in the tale of Psyche. In the original myths, she couldn't find a husband because Eros refused to have anyone else but him fall in love with her. Here, love has nothing to do with it as Psyche's parents force her into an marriage with a wealthy and abusive man for their own benefit.
  • Another surprising inversion regarding Eros is that when he murders more than 300 people in a bout of heartbreak, he gets chewed upon not because what he did was a horrific act of mass murder, but because he didn't file the appropriate paperwork beforehand.
  • In general, the attitude of the gods towards mortals is for the most part entirely in line with Greek Mythology. The only gods to date who have shown them any kind of sympathy are Persephone and Eros, and the latter only after he experienced for himself the pain of heartbreak.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Persephone normally wears her hair short, but when she's stressed and feeling vulnerable her control over her goddess powers slips and she reverts to long, flowing hair. As a result, the length of her hair fluctuates constantly throughout the webcomic, and there are several points at which she is shown having to cut her hair short again after incidents like her initial encounter with Hades and her assault at the hands of Apollo.
• The Power of Love: As it turns out, this is the only true way to access a fertility goddess' powers. Thus making Apollo's goal impossible, thanks to Persephone's genuine hatred of him, rendering all of his efforts null and void.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: To avoid depicting incest, Smythe deliberately changed a lot of the familial relationships from classic mythology, so that none of the romantic pairings are related to each other by blood e.g. Hera, Hestia and Demeter are not the sisters of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades; Persephone was made by Demeter alone rather than being a daughter of Zeus, meaning Persephone and Hades aren't niece and uncle, etc...
• Pregnancy Scare: After waking up from a nightmare in which she’s pregnant, she freaks out, worrying that Apollo may have impregnated her. Fortunately, her test comes up negative.
• Prehensile Hair: At one point, Persephone uses the vines in her hair to open Apollo's car and steal his golden lyre as payback for him raping her.
• Pretty in Mink: In episode 7, Hades gives Persephone a white fur jacket to ward off the chill of the Underworld. He bought it for Hera, but she didn't like it, so he just held on to it, and fortunately, it also fit Persephone.

R-Z

• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • Hades' eyes flash red when he's angry. When Poseidon pretends to be interested in Persephone, Hades gets so worked up that his sclera turns completely red. Persephone takes this a step further by sprouting a crown of red vines when angry, as well as her eyes turning red.
  • Being the God of violence, rage, slaughter, and battle, Ares unsurprisingly has blood red eyes 24/7.
• The Reveal: The season 1 finale shows how Kore got the name of Persephone (which means Bringer of Death). After a fight with her controlling mother ends with her being grounded, one of her flower nymph friends who was trying to talk to her is killed when some humans start unintentionally digging up the flowers that they were bound to. She hits her Rage Breaking Point which awakened a sadistic and bloodthirsty dark persona that gleefully slaughtered the offending mortals and their entire city. Demeter covered this up but Persephone's new moniker stuck. Later downplayed when it turns out Kore's account of the events is much more sympathetic and consistent with her characterization thus far: the humans were knowingly destroying land they'd sworn to leave alone, and were jerks when confronted about it. Most of her rampage was due to an out-of-control new power rather than malice.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Eros is very encouraging of Persephone's budding feelings for Hades.
  • Zeus and Poseidon are happy to encourage Hades in pursuing his interest in Persephone. Their "help" is rarely all that helpful, but Zeus does point out to a disapproving Hera how rare it is for Hades to take such an interest in someone. This prompts Hera to reconsider her objections and meddle a little on Hades' behalf herself by assigning Persephone to an Underworld internship.
  • Hecate, who initially is very disapproving of what she thinks is a selfish fling, becomes supportive once she realizes Hades' feelings are genuine.
• Shotgun Wedding: Discussed in Episode 244, when Ares enters Persephone and Hades' house where he discovers the newborn Dionysus in their care, he assumes that the couple already have a biological child. Ares then asks if it was a shotgun wedding instead, implying that he thought the alternate was that Peresphone was knocked up prior to the marriage. However, Dionysus is actually his half-brother that their father, Zeus, sired from Semele.
  Ares: Wow, the two of you didn't waste any time. Or was it really a Shotgun Wedding? I'm not sure about the timeline, though.
• Shout-Out: By Episode 53, Hades is trying his damnedest not to be more attracted to Persephone, only to be hit with another big dose of Cuteness Proximity and his internal woe looks a bit familiar◊.
• The Shrink:
  • Hades's therapist is the one who told him to write a letter to Persephone without sending it, and after he finds out about Apollo raping Persephone, Eros tells Persephone she should speak to his therapist.
  • A gender bent version of the Centaur Chiron is the therapist Persephone sees (The one Hecate suggested). She switched fields from medicine to psychology.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top:
  • Persephone frequently gets accused of this after the tabloid article of her and Hades walking around in his house makes the rounds and she gets an internship at the Underworld right after. It's completely unfounded, since the two have never slept together and Persephone repeatedly makes it clear to Hades that she does not want or expect special treatment from him, but that predictably doesn't stop people like Thanatos or Minthe from throwing it in her face.
  • Minthe is heavily implied to only still have her job because she's with Hades. Further supported by the fact that she worries about being fired, should Hades break up with her.
  • Thetis is utterly unapologetic about doing this with Zeus and outright refers to him and Hades as meal tickets.
• Smart People Play Chess: As shown in episode 43, Hades and Persephone are both skilled at chess. Persephone outright sharks Hades and beats him handily, and implies that he likely hasn't had to test his skills against serious opponents in a long time.
• Snipe Hunt: When Persephone arrives at Underworld Corp for the internship assigned to her by Hera, Minthe recognizes her from the tabloid article. Rather than let her into Hades' office, Minthe lies that he's out on his rounds and sends Persephone off to look for him elsewhere in the building complex.
• Special Edition Title: Episode 12 has the title written by Eros himself in pink ink since it’s the start of his spotlight story.
• Spiteful Spit: Hera's reaction to Zeus brushing off her concerns over Apollo raping Persephone is to spit in his face.
• Stress-Induced Mental Voices: A young Aidoneus will sometimes appear to Hades voicing his inner thoughts when he’s stressed or on the spot.
  Minthe: [Angrily storming towards Hades] SHUT. UP.
  Aidoneus: [To Hades] I don’t want to be alone with her when she’s like this.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon all share Kronos' strong facial profile — Hades in particular looks almost identical to their father — and the resemblance carries down to Athena, Ares, Hephaestus and Apollo.
• Super-Deformed: Megaera spends most of Episode 48 in Chibi form because her babbling about how Hades is supposed to be with her is funnier that way.
• Time Skip: Episode 190 ends with Zeus banishing Persephone to the Mortal Realm. Episode 191 takes place ten years later, with Persephone still serving her sentence.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: The narration in Episode 166:
  Three Gods, one nymph, and one mortal woman enchanted to look like a nymph were about to unknowingly embark on separate but simultaneous journeys to the Mortal Realm. On any other occasion, such a mundane trip would be harmless and altogether unmemorable. However, the combination of these specific individuals fated to cross paths on this particular day would prove to have disastrous results. And one of these five souls would not be returning to Olympus.
• Too Dumb to Live: The mortals who encroached on Demeter's lands and mocked Persephone as being an inconsequential minor goddess when she tried to stop them. They ultimately meet their end after they unknowingly kill two of Persephone's friends and cause her to go on a rampaging massacre against them and their countrymen.
• Truly Single Parent: Persephone has no father; Her mother created her on her own.
• Underground City: Fittingly, The Underworld has this dynamic. It has been shown to be not just very industrious but also responsible for near all of the trade of raw goods to the other realms. Though not all of it is functional and some of it abandoned. The only light being Neon and lava.
• Unequal Pairing:
  • Between Hades and Minthe and between Hades and Persephone, as he is their employer, there’s a massive power imbalance in their romantic relationships. Persephone appears to receive preferential treatment by receiving a salary although she's technically an "unpaid" intern, and Minthe’s career is affected by her personal (not work) relationship with Hades.
  • The fact that Hades is an Olympian god and Minthe a lowly river nymph is a source of her crushing insecurities.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: The comic's creator confirmed on her (now deactivated Tumblr account) and on the comic's official FAQ page that she will be avoiding the incest present in some of the original myths. Consequently, none of the couples in the webcomic are blood relatives, regardless of their familial connections in the original myths. This means that while Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon are brothers as per classical mythology, Zeus and Hera are not siblings and Zeus is not Persephone's father (so Hades is not her uncle).
• Unreveal Angle: In episode 273, Hades asks Melinoe when her birthday is. The scene changes to a wide shot facing Melinoe’s back as she answers him, so we cannot even see what she signed. Then it cuts back to Hades, who just says, "Wow, you’re from way in the future."
• Use Your Head: Ares buses his head to shatter the pithos holding Thanatos prisoner inside. Hades nicknames him “Sir Hardhead” for that.
• Video Call Fail: During the Olympian teleconference call in Episode 135, Artemis claims her mic is broken. Zeus, Aphrodite, and Hermes try to help troubleshooting, before Zeus impatiently interrupts.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Minthe and Thetis happily greet each other with insults. The trope is deconstructed, however, as it increasingly becomes clear how toxic their "friendship" really is. When Minthe is honestly trying to improve her relationship with Hades, Thetis becomes consumed with frustration and envy that Minthe and Hades are official and exclusive while she's stuck as Zeus' side piece and well aware he'll never leave Hera - and she reacts by deliberately sabotaging Minthe's relationship so that she can feel like less of a failure in comparison.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The gods, most notably Artemis, have been shown to be able to change their size and appearance at a whim. Cerberus has also been shown to be able to switch between being a normal dog and a giant, three-headed hellhound.
  Zeus: You wouldn't hit a swan, would you?
• Vow of Celibacy: Members of Hestia's organization, such as Artemis and Athena, take a vow of eternal celibacy. Demeter intends for Persephone to join them, and the group is providing Persephone's college scholarship.
• Wedding Episode: In Episode 234, Hades and Persephone formally marry. It is a small affair, as they were hurrying into it in order to get under the wire before Demeter’s embargo went into effect.
• We Have Reserves:
  • When Aphrodite is informed by Zeus that her son is in trouble for slaughtering more than 300 mortals without a permit her reaction is basically "Who cares? We can always make more mortals!".
  • During their very first meeting, Persephone asks Hades if there is a way to bring mortals back from the Underworld. Hades, kinda being able to guess why she's asking, assures her she doesn't need to worry since "mortals are a dime a dozen".
• Wham Episode:
  • The season 1 finale, which reveals the origin of Kore's dark side.
  • The Season 2 Mid-Finale ends with Persephone getting exiled to the mortal realm to take over her mother's duties while Demeter is turned into a mortal and separated from her daughter.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Hebe calls Hera out on the fact that she's taking her anger at Zeus out on an undeserving Hades, forcing Hera to wonder if her eight-year-old daughter has more emotional intelligence than she does.