YMMV / Receiver of Many

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Demeter certainly comes across as this; while the reader can't help but feel sorry for her grief over the loss of her daughter, her actions throughout the book negate any sympathy one would feel towards her.
  • To start she decides to forcibly take away her daughter's agency and life by turning her into a tree to prevent Hades from marrying her; prompting the legendary abduction. Persephone later calls her out on this because this last desperate scheme of Demeter leading to Hades' abducting her almost ruined her chance for a happy marriage; also pointing out that by doing so, she (Demeter) was trying to defy the very will of the Fates themselves.
  • She never bothered to properly teach Persephone to defend herself or even properly educate her; constantly removed her friends and forbade her from speaking to mortals. As Persephone herself points out, Demeter never truly had the decency to show her daughter any respect.
  • She decides to abandon to mortals who depend on her by causing widespread famine and winter, which result in hundreds, if not thousands, dying; all to get back at Zeus for allowing Hades to marry Persephone.
  • She completely ignores Hecate telling and showing her that Persephone is safe and provided for with Hades, by stating that Hades has "manipulated" her daughter into loving him.
  • When Persephone returns to the Upperworld, Demeter ups her My Beloved Smother tendencies, ignores Persephone constant outright stating that she wasn't raped and sees any sign of Persephone's maturity as "taint" from being in Hades' company.
  • She outright states her belief of Hades being a rapist to his face moments after Persephone had outright stated that she hadn't been raped. Later she whines about the fact that Persephone chose to spend a night in the company of her husband, rather than going to a festival, due to the fact that she hadn't seen him for three months. This is despite the fact that Demeter knows that the power need to spontaneously grow flowers like Persephone did, only happens during an act of love between an earth goddess and her mate.
  • Later she goes out of her way to completely attempt to sabotage her daughter's marriage to the point that it leads to Hades' being drugged and almost raped by Minthe.
• Word of God: Rachel (Kata Chthonia) stated that despite popular belief, Melinoe and Zagreus are not going to be Zeus' kids; pointing out that during the rise of the polis, different cultures had different traditions that were then looped in under the worship of the Theoi.
  • This is accurate because at times in Ancient Greece, with the Orphics in particular, it was believed that Zeus and Hades were the same deity and were portrayed as such. Zeus was portrayed as having an incarnation in the underworld identifying him as literally being Hades and leading to Zeus and Hades essentially being two representations and different facets of the same god and extended divine power. This nature and aspect of Hades and Zeus displayed in the Orphic stories is the explanation for why both Hades and Zeus are considered to be the father of Melinoë and Zagreus