With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Ngamer11 · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"No. I don't have the authority to approve or disapprove. I raised the issue with Hephaestaean and he's already considering it. But Hephaestaean is working on reorganising the entire pantheon so you're your marital status isn't a high priority. And once that's done he is still going to need Hades's support. He and I are both aware that you did not enter into your marriage entirely of your own free will, but we've really got no idea how to handle the situation in a way that doesn't just blow up in our faces."

That should be removed.

Mr Zoat said:
"Would Persephone like Hades if they hadn't met like that?"

"No idea. Objectively, they have the best marriage amongst the major Olympians."

"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

Is this going to result in time travel shenanigans?

Kalem_Lee · May 2, 2022

Oh no. Paul's getting ideas again.

Eris laughs in chaotic delight.

DrThoth · May 2, 2022

Don't know if this means they're going to Lethe-dunk one or both of the couple involved, but that's the assumption that I made upon reading the end. I think that would be a terrible idea but certainly interesting to read about.

Hera could make herself useful and do marriage counseling, maybe. Or at least exercise her power in her new adjacent domain as God of Divorce adequately.

I'm kind of wondering if Hades's love for Persephone is entirely of his own volition or Zeus got Aphrodite and/or Eros involved somehow because he wanted Hades to get laid or whatever. I kind of want to see Paragon arrange a meeting between Hades and Teth Adom now, even if the specific details of their situation vary.

FeepingCreature · May 2, 2022

Kalem_Lee said:
Oh no. Paul's getting ideas again.

Eris laughs in chaotic delight.

Men make plans, and the Gods laugh.

Paul makes plans, and the Gods take cover.

Darko · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"I have lived in fear of that man for longer than your people have had the wheel. There is nothing."

Yeah, she may have known that he wouldn't force himself on her, but she probably lived with the fear that he might do it one day.

Mr Zoat said:
"I understand. I have grown accustomed to such disappointment."

That's just depressing.

Mr Zoat said:
"Ah, well, when Demeter went crazy crops failed and a lot of people died. Do you know what happens if the God of the Dead decides to spend all his time trying to woo his wife back instead of doing his job?"

I'm assuming a lot of ghosts running around.

Mr Zoat said:
"Oh. Would he do that?"

"Oh yes, he genuinely loves her.

But would he neglect his duties as god of the dead just to pursue her?

Mr Zoat said:
Hades has done everything he could to fix that."

"Other than letting her get a divorce."

"That wouldn't fix the relationship."

Not that Persephone wants one.

Mr Zoat said:
Case I was involved a while ago,

"involved in"

Mr Zoat said:
the temple-palace, then stop herself.

"stops"

Mr Zoat said:
"Would Persephone like Hades if they hadn't met like that?"

"No idea. Objectively, they have the best marriage amongst the major Olympians."

"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

Ohh, god, please don't tell me you're going to try time travel.

You do realize that you don't have to do such extreme things to fix things, right?

That thing with Jade and the resurrections didn't exactly work out.

Mr Zoat said:
Objectively, they have the best marriage amongst the major Olympians."

That's not saying much.

Vaermina · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"I have lived in fear of that man for longer than your people have had the wheel. There is nothing."

And by "your people" she means the British, because they were really late comers to the whole "wheel" thing.

Mr Zoat said:
"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

No good can come of this...

Massgamer · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"Would Persephone like Hades if they hadn't met like that?"

"No idea. Objectively, they have the best marriage amongst the major Olympians."

"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

Oh know, Paul has an idea!

SebazuD · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

I hope it's something simple.

Like letting them get a divorce and then Hades actually courting her.

Mr Zoat · May 2, 2022

Zig said:
There's an argument to be made that they were both raped by Zeus.

No there isn't. Because they weren't. That's a simple fact check. Has Zeus used coercion to compel either of them to have sex with him? No.

m_d said:
Assuming that Hephaestus' account is an accurate representation of what happened in your story, you have Persephone believing that she doesn't have a choice at the time. If you do not have a choice, you by definition cannot consent.

Belief is not reality. Persephone did believe that. That didn't make it true. It wasn't true. The reality is that Persephone could have said 'no' at any time. Or just said 'let me just talk to my mother really quickly'. Her being weak-willed doesn't make Hades a criminal.

Look, Hades' intent doesn't come into whether or not rape occurred.

Yes it does. As do his actions. Persephone's misapprehensions don't when she does nothing to clear them up for a long time and the moment she does he apologises and backs off.

crazygrox said:
It may be worth seeing whether the young would adapt to the mental changes required to use a ring well and not go insane/bounce back from periods of squirrelliness any better, or whether they'd go crazy even more.

That sounds a little like a child soldier. In fact, it is a child soldier.

Thoracto · May 2, 2022

"No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Winter happens because that side of the planet is facing away from the sun."

That's night, Paul.

Mr Zoat · May 2, 2022

Ngamer11 said:
That should be removed.

Darko said:
"involved in"
"stops"

Thank you, corrected.

thepsyborg · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

Oh, fuckity fuck.

Brainwasher-Boy · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

…

Huh.

What. About. John?!

Seriously, at this point Paul is going to be single-handedly responsible for solving every problem on Earth (and likely several other Earth's) before he can finally get around to looking for him.

Z000 · May 2, 2022

Brainwasher-Boy said:
What. About. John?!

Seriously, at this point Paul is going to be single-handedly responsible for solving every problem on Earth (and likely several other Earth's) before he can finally get around to looking for him.

and John know that

Paul is so freaking proactive that he need these sort of thing to distract him cause Paul wouldn't just wait or get distracted naturally

Bramble Thorn · May 2, 2022

Brainwasher-Boy said:
Seriously, at this point Paul is going to be single-handedly responsible for solving every problem on Earth (and likely several other Earth's) before he can finally get around to looking for him.

He should weaponize this.

Call in a favor with Batman/the Justice League and tell them that a welfare check on John Constantine is a priority, and have a several years worth of villainous plots get accelerated for them to deal with in a couple months. Use the spell to do a clean sweep of all currently pending supervillian plots, including stuff they'd never have learned about otherwise.

Khornelius · May 2, 2022

Tech-Priest Khornelius 3:16: Sir Pavlos do you require my Forget-me Stick?
(holds up Chain-maul)

Tech-Priest Khornelius 3:16: I don't know if it will work on a Divine Entity but nothing is hurt by trying. If it breaks their skulls, Lord Hephaestaean can simply replace their weak fleshy skulls with nicer and stronger metal plates.

Idkusername · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
Yes it does. As do his actions. Persephone's misapprehensions don't when she does nothing to clear them up for a long time and the moment she does he apologises and backs off.

Just to be clear, what I assume the other person is saying that intent doesn't matter in deciding whether Persephone was raped. Where it does matter is in the answer to 'Did Hades rape her or not?'

Rape is by definition, an act of sexual intercourse under coercion, whether by violence or otherwise. By this definition, Persephone was 100% raped. She feared literal divine retribution from not one, but two major deities, which generally took the form of cruel and unusual punishments like Tantalus'.

This is not to say that Hades is at fault for what happened. In this situation, with the facts he was operating under, what he did was not rape, since Persephone did not communicate her lack of consent due to a misplaced fear of retribution.

Just as there are victimless crimes, there are crimes without perpetrators. Persephone was raped, but Hades is and was not a rapist.

Lothlo · May 2, 2022

I think that after all these adventures, that look like Paul not focusing his search on Constantine, he will finally find him. What do you expect Paul to do, ignore all these problems popping out? Never!
Just remember Iroh's words"SOMETIMES, THE BEST WAY TO SOLVE YOUR OWN PROBLEMS IS TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE."

Also, just predicting it here. I don't think Paul would go the time travel route....
- "Paul, are you going to time travel?"
- "Time travel to before they met? that would be crazy"
- *feels better*
- " I just made them both amnesiac and had meet each other in the mortal world inside Avatars so they known that love could have naturally blossomed between them"
-*PANICS*

Chojin Patriarch · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
30th October 2012
00:04 GMT -3

"Yeah, we… Saw this coming. Um. How blunt to you want me to be? Fair warning, I can do 'fairly' and 'very'."

The… Seedling's face has the suggestion of features, but it doesn't look like it's flexible enough to have actual expression.

A good reminder that she's not investing that much power into this. Mostly because if she did, it would likely qualify as an Avatar proper, and it's not her season to leave Erebos. Which is against the Rules... For now.

"You will refuse me. What is so different between-?"

"No. I don't have the authority to approve or disapprove. I raised the issue with Hephaestaean and he's already considering it. But Hephaestaean is working on reorganising the entire pantheon so your marital status isn't a high priority. And once that's done he is still going to need Hades's support. He and I are both aware that you did not enter into your marriage entirely of your own free will, but we've really got no idea how to handle the situation in a way that doesn't just blow up in our faces."

So, a very delicate situation. As it was said in Dune: Beginnings are a delicate time. In this case, the beginning of Hephaestaean's reign.

"So he might grant my petition at some point in the future?"

"It's possible. If you wish to help your case, I strongly suggest coming up with a solution that isn't just the petition being granted and you leaving. If there's anything that could allow you and your husband to reconcile, ask and I'll make it happen."

The problem is, will she accept that reconciliation? Could she accept it, as she is now?

"I have lived in fear of that man for longer than your people have had the wheel. There is nothing."

"Well… We'll try and come up with something, but it's going to be a while."

But will she wait that long? I get the feeling she's determined to have this done, consequences be-damned.

"I understand. I have grown accustomed to such disappointment."

She kneels, then the exterior of her vessel starts to harden and grow woody. After a few moments the skin is solid bark, and I see roots extruding from the lower part of the body into the ground.

Ouch, that sadness. This is not going to be pleasant down below...

"Huh."

"That was Persephone."

Ah, right, your first visitation by a God? Swamp Thing excluded, due to merely being an Avatar of his Kingdom..

"Ancient Greek telepresence. Honestly, that was quite creative. I hope we end up being able to keep her on board."

"I… So… She's in the underworld?"

Yes, quite impressive to cross dimensional barriers like that.

"Erebos." I flash her a smile. "Honestly, given your association with Euanthe, you'll probably end up going there when you die."

"Euanthe offered to have me reborn as a dryad."

Huh. I suppose with her Green-altered physiology, she's practically halfway there anyway.

"Oh? I didn't know that she could do that. Generous of her."

"She said it was…" She's staring at the bark-encrusted body. "Was because I was already so closely tied to her, she'd basically take my soul into her to make it happen."

...And that isn't a little concerning? I don't know, that does sound a little scary?

"Sounds plausibl-."

"Does-? Does winter really happen because Demeter misses her?"

She's powerful, but not that powerful...

"No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Winter happens because that side of the planet is facing away from the sun."

"No, I-. I know that. I just don't know how much of the stories are true."

Most likely the generalities are reasonably close, but many of the details have been garbled over the millennia.

"Demeter caused crop failures, but it wasn't over the whole of the world. If she'd tried that the gods of those regions would have stepped in and stopped her, which might have resulted in the Hellenes deciding to worship one of them instead of her."

"She doesn't want to be married to Hades."

Much to Hades' disappointment, alas.

"Correct."

"Why doesn't she just leave him?"

Because Zeus said so... But now that he's out, well...

"Ah, well, when Demeter went crazy crops failed and a lot of people died. Do you know what happens if the God of the Dead decides to spend all his time trying to woo his wife back instead of doing his job?"

"Oh. Would he do that?"

There was a time not so long ago when another afterlife had a little disruption. I'm guessing Ivy would have been in high school, at the latest...

"Oh yes, he genuinely loves her. How well do you know the story?"

"I skimmed it as Poison Ivy. Hades tricked Persephone into staying in the underworld -Erebos- with him by spiking her drink with pomegranate seeds. Demeter turned the world into a barren wasteland until Zeus stepped in and negotiated a compromise."

As tempted as I am to quote Luke Skywalker

("Amazing, every word you just said was wrong.") As noted, some details would have garbled by human poets and scribes recording the tale...

"The main thing is that Hades got permission from Persephone's father to marry her, and incorrectly assumed that that meant that said father had talked it through with Demeter and Persephone. He hadn't. So when Hades turned up she thought that she was being abducted, but was too intimidated to actually say anything, and as far as I know the pomegranate thing didn't happen at all."

"But Hades knows now."

And he's been a complete gentleman, once she spoke up. Alas, the damage was done very early, so...

"And he keeps trying to improve their relationship because he does actually love her, and it's not working."

"Have-?" Dr. Isley shakes her head. "Have they considered marriage counselling?"

It's been thousands of years. I don't think there's any counsellor, mortal or otherwise, willing to step into that train-wreck of a relationship.

"They know all of their issues. I've talked to their children and quite a few other people who know them, and there isn't really anything that could be fixed by adding a new perspective. The problem is how the relationship started, and Hades has done everything he could to fix that."

"Other than letting her get a divorce."

Which wasn't entirely his choice. Doing so after having sealed his compact with Zeus (the original pact to marry her) would have been a slap in the face to his brother-king. And Sparky doesn't take that kind of thing well.

"That wouldn't fix the relationship." I quietly snort. "There was a… Case I was involved a while ago, in India. A group of refugees accepted refuge in a magical land, and one of their children was made the magical heir to the place. His mother freaked out because she hates magic, grabbed him and fled. The current ruler used force to get him back."

"I don't see the link."

Patience, I'm sure he'll draw diagrams if need be. Said situation began here, for reference.

"The boy and Persephone both have a place of honour. Neither are mistreated, and the consequences for them going elsewhere are bad for a lot of people. In utilitarian terms, the choice between being a prince and condemning a nation to death is simple. For most of history, a woman complaining that her king-husband who loves her, is faithful to her and is actually a pretty good father was a bit brusque when they first met thousands of years ago but apologised as soon as he found out about the misunderstanding would be…"

At least the Jarhanpur situation turned out better than the canonical comics storyline. The Persephone situation, though...

"Unreasonable. But at the same time, it's not right to force her to be somewhere she doesn't want to be." She frowns. "If Euanthe joins the Greek pantheon, does this become our problem?"

I shrug. "Not more than it is already. Has Euanthe extended the gift of chlororeincarnation to the rest of her worshippers?"

I doubt it would be as popular as you might be expecting. Only the most devoted might consider trading super-human flesh for enchanted wood and leaves...

"No, not yet. You mean that they're going to Erebos when they die?"

"Probably."

Won't know until some of them do die and turn up in the line for judgement.

"What do we..? Get out of worshipping the other gods?"

"Someone magical overseeing the parts of existence that Euanthe isn't and doesn't care about. And given that Hephaestaean wants the gods to become more active, probably low level blessings and active guidance for the devout. For me, afterlife services was the big thing I wanted because my rings already give me a mission and a method."

And that's quite the figurative commute for the Olympians. Nearly halfway around the world. I take it there's any number of mountains of suitable size for a permanent link to Olympus to be formed in the region?

"You worship Hades? That seems a bit sombre for you."

"No, I worship… In the sense of making offerings, to any gods who deserve it. My particular patron is Eris."

"What's she goddess of?"

Do you really need to ask, knowing him?

"Chaos."

"That makes a lot of sense." She nods. "I'll tell Euanthe about this when she finishes with her tree."

Do make sure she takes all due diligence with the experiment, though. Don't want to leave any backdoors for unwanted attention.

"Thank you."

She nods and starts to walk back towards the temple-palace, then stop herself.

...Sometimes, all you need for a problem is a fresh pair of eyes on the matter...

"Would Persephone like Hades if they hadn't met like that?"

"No idea. Objectively, they have the best marriage amongst the major Olympians."

Says says a lot about the others, doesn't it?

"Kind of a shame they can't just start over."

"Yes, it-."

...Oh, dear. that's the sound of a Paul-iphany...

…

Huh.

There is quite a clever Checkov's gun sitting around in Erebos, just waiting to be picked up, you know...

For everyone thinking 'Time travel': What was the by-product of the water-purification process used in Hecate's little water-park, again?

Perhaps with a little tweaking, they can have a fresh start without forgetting everything. At any rate, if OL remembers that, this could be cleared up in record time and he can get back to what he was supposed to be doing.

(Oh, and can we drop the arguments about the root issues of the Persephone situation, before a higher authority has to come in and bust heads?

People have started to argue past each other, I think...)

Mr Zoat · May 2, 2022

Idkusername said:
Just to be clear, what I assume the other person is saying that intent doesn't matter in deciding whether Persephone was raped. Where it does matter is in the answer to 'Did Hades rape her or not?'

Rape is by definition, an act of sexual intercourse under coercion, whether by violence or otherwise. By this definition, Persephone was 100% raped. She feared literal divine retribution from not one, but two major deities, which generally took the form of cruel and unusual punishments like Tantalus'.

This is not to say that Hades is at fault for what happened. In this situation, with the facts he was operating under, what he did was not rape, since Persephone did not communicate her lack of consent due to a misplaced fear of retribution.

Just as there are victimless crimes, there are crimes without perpetrators. Persephone was raped, but Hades is and was not a rapist.

No, because there was no coercion. Any coercion happened entirely within her head. As such, it was not rape.

And you definitely need a rapist to have a rape. Because rape is when one person compels another to have sex with them.

There was a case on Ally McBeal I remember finding amusing, where a woman tried to claim that a man had raped her despite the sex having been consensual because he had misrepresented himself when they met at a bar and so was practising deceit. I can't help but feel that that sort of nonsense distracts from cases of actual rape.

Ct613hulu · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
Belief is not reality. Persephone did believe that. That didn't make it true. It wasn't true. The reality is that Persephone could have said 'no' at any time. Or just said 'let me just talk to my mother really quickly'. Her being weak-willed doesn't make Hades a criminal.

Yes it does. As do his actions. Persephone's misapprehensions don't when she does nothing to clear them up for a long time and the moment she does he apologises and backs off.

I covered this in my last post and will just briefly summarize it again: Placing someone in a position where they have good reason to believe that they must consent to sexual advances in order to avoid harm is wrong and people with power have a moral responsibility to avoid this situation.

Hades has a tremendous amount of power over Peresephone. He consequently has a moral responsibility to make sure that Persephone knows he won't harm her if she rejects him. His failure to do that means that he is guilty of some form of sexual assault. The exact extent of his guilt can vary depending on whether he was truly ignorant of how Peresephone was with him only out of fear (a very unlikely scenario given the tremendous length of their relationship and how it has been made clear that Persephone doesn't want to stay with Hades whenever she is mentioned or shows up) and whether he is going to let her leave him now that it is impossible to ignore that the only thing keeping them together is her fear of his reprisal.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would Hades have actually have "apologized and backed off" if Peresephone seriously tried to get away from him? It seems like this very latest chapter shows that both OL and Peresphone believe that Hades will respond to her escaping him by causing some kind of massive disaster. Isn't someone preventing their spouse from leaving through threats of harm the very definition of marital abuse? If the current version of Hades is willing to go so far than can't we assume that an earlier version who hadn't yet sought to become a better ruler and was still living according the (frankly horrific) rules of Ancient Greece would have been willing to do far worse?

It was perfectly reasonable for Persephone to assume that Hades would harshly punish her for any attempt at escape and it seems like Hades has done nothing to convince her that this assumption was wrong in their multi-millennia relationship. This means that Persephone deciding to submit rather than resist can be considered a question of her weighing degrees of suffering rather than a failure of will. She did her best to make the most out of a terrible situation. That should make her a subject of praise and not denigration for failing to completely escape the abuse (deliberate or inadvertent) of her far more powerful spouse.

SebazuD · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
No, because there was no coercion. Any coercion happened entirely within her head. As such, it was not rape.

And you definitely need a rapist to have a rape. Because rape is when one person compels another to have sex with them.

There was a case on Ally McBeal I remember finding amusing, where a woman tried to claim that a man had raped her despite the sex having been consensual because he had misrepresented himself when they met at a bar and so was practising deceit. I can't help but feel that that sort of nonsense distracts from cases of actual rape.

If a boss asks an employee out and the employee is scared that they might be fired if they don't comply, is there no coersion involved? Even when the boss completely ignored the power inequity involved?

If someone in power aproaches someone who is much weaker there will always be some implied danger.

Saying "it was all in her head" is like saying that if someone is carrying a gun and asks to borrow money from an unarmed person, it's their fault for not trying to find out if the other person is planning to shoot them or not.

Mr Zoat · May 2, 2022

Ct613hulu said:
I covered this in my last post and will just briefly summarize it again: Placing someone in a position where they have good reason to believe that they must consent to sexual advances in order to avoid harm is wrong and people with power have a moral responsibility to avoid this situation.

Agreed.

Hades has a tremendous amount of power over Peresephone. He consequently has a moral responsibility to make sure that Persephone knows he won't harm her if she rejects him.

Do you frequently walk into a shop, approach a shop assistant and say 'I just want to be completely clear that I am here to exchange money for goods and have absolutely no intention of robbing you', before carrying on with your shopping? Because that's what you're expecting Hades to have done.

Most men are strong than their wives. Your formulation of rape would have us recast most of the sex in human history as rape.

His failure to do that means that he is guilty of some form of sexual assault.

Vehemently disagree.

Darko · May 2, 2022

Chojin Patriarch said:
There was a time not so long ago when another afterlife had a little disruption. I'm guessing Ivy would have been in high school, at the latest...

Yeah, if I remember correctly it was mentioned here and called the "Plague of Ghosts", which makes sense seeing as Lucifer banished everyone from Hell.

Chojin Patriarch said:
For everyone thinking 'Time travel': What was the by-product of the water-purification process used in Hecate's little water-park, again? Perhaps with a little tweaking, they can have a fresh start without forgetting everything. At any rate, if OL remembers that, this could be cleared up in record time and he can get back to what he was supposed to be doing

I doubt Persephone would be willing to have her mind messed with.

Though if she does agree to it then I can honestly see it in a tragic light; like say someone suffering a horrible fate and the only way they can be free is through drug use or a lobotomy.

Splinterface · May 2, 2022

Huh. You can really see how the orange light is starting to affect Paul. He's becoming just that little bit more self-centered. He just deposed Zeus because he had Diana put into Tartarus for turning down Zeus' offer of marriage, but he even directly admits that he doesn't care that much about Persephone who's been stuck in a marriage she hates and fears for thousands of years. Pretty much null empathy just because it would be disruptive for Hades who Paul likes. I wonder if he's even going to recognise that yeah while letting Hades prisoner free would be work, so was getting replacements ready for Zeus.

Nice job Mr Zoat, I honestly hadn't even thought about the orange light contamination thing in ages, and I kinda thought it had just faded into the background as "Paul has superpowers" for all that it had been pretty major early on. But I guess that's the thing about exposure to the Lights long term. Can be pretty subtle.

DrThoth · May 2, 2022

Ct613hulu said:
It was perfectly reasonable for Persephone to assume that Hades would harshly punish her for any attempt at escape and it seems like Hades has done nothing to convince her that this assumption was wrong in their multi-millennia relationship.

I more or less agree with the general thrust of your argument, but in this specific statement, I feel like Persephone does know Hades wouldn't punish her? Like someone quoted, the moment she realized he wouldn't force her to do anything, they never shared a bed again. My impression was that the main reason she never tried is not because of Hades specifically but because of Zeus, and the system that (up till now) doesn't allow her to divorce. I might be misremembering things, and it doesn't help that we've never seen Hades and Persephone interact onscreen in this story.
It's Persephone's specific statement of having feared Hades forever, implicitly even after her realization post-Mellinoe's birth that he wouldn't (actively) make her do anything she didn't want, that strikes me as slightly irrational, albeit understandable as a result of trauma.

Mr Zoat liked my previous post, and though I don't know which specific part of what I said was the reason, I'm really hoping it's when I said Hera should step in, so we have some narrative payoff for her now being the Goddess of Divorce and hosting a relationship talk show and doing something impactful onscreen- and the marriage of Hades and Persephone is almost as high-profile as hers and Zeus's.

I forget if this is an accurate myth but I seem to remember Poseidon 'winning' or claiming Amphitrite as his wife by catching her in a swimming race or something. I wonder if she'll make a case as well (not a lot of healthy godly marriages in classical myth, really- Eros and Psyche might be the best example?).

One thing to consider in terms of things blowing up is that we should basically already be at that stage. Persephone's essentially made a public petition to Hephaestaean, in intent if not in execution because people are approaching him through Paragon and that's not really official protocol or anything. That means Demeter must already know or will find out quite shortly, and now that there's an actual chance of getting her daughter back for good, I think she'll be even more intense than in her myth. The other thing to consider is that for all his power, Zeus had more power than Hades, and now Hephaestaean occupies that role with the metaphysical might to back it up, and with the backing of Metis, Athena, Hecate, Demeter (especially for this issue) and presumably the other virgin goddesses and goddesses of women, I don't know if I see Hades as someone who wouldn't acquiesce (again, we've never seen him talk to or about Persephone in the story so far, and Paragon hasn't really broached the subject with Zagreus or Melinoe, though that might change now that things are in motion. It's hard to gauge what will really happen, as opposed to what people think will happen).

I think there's that one myth of a nymph trying to seduce Hades and Persephone turned her into a mint plant and stomped her- did that still happen in some fashion? Did she just do it because it's an insult to her dignity in the social role of wife, and she had the power to quash it?

Mr Zoat said:
Do you frequently walk into a shop, approach a shop assistant and say 'I just want to be completely clear that I am here to exchange money for goods and have absolutely no intention of robbing you', before carrying on with your shopping? Because that's what you're expecting Hades to have done.

As previous people have said, you can compel/coerce someone without intending to compel/coerce them. Paragon's intimidated people without meaning to; his very first chapter has him 'buying' some clothing from criminals without ever realizing the context- a banal example, yes, but it should still demonstrate the basic principle. Hades just didn't 'do shopping wrong' in the context of ancient Greek social customs. And what is 'right' is often inconvenient and thus not actually what happens in everyday life- and obviously a value judgement based on socio-historical context.

It'll be what Hades decides to do now that Persephone's stated her desire to leave him that'll determine readers' opinion of him, more than anything.

Just like there are degrees of complicity and severity in crimes like murder (first/second/third-degree, murder vs manslaughter), I think we can apply something like that to a term that's subject to so many interpretations like 'rape' and less prominently 'sexual assault'. Of course this is all messy and complicated, because reality (life, sex, power and relationships) is messy and complicated, and laws are there to bring some semblance of structure and (in theory) fairness to these things.

Splinterface said:
Pretty much null empathy just because it would be disruptive for Hades who Paul likes. I wonder if he's even going to recognise that yeah while letting Hades prisoner free would be work, so was getting replacements ready for Zeus.

It would be interesting to see how Indigo Paul/Saul Talbot would handle this situation.

Handlewithcare · May 2, 2022

Idkusername said:
snip

If Zeus tricked Persephone and Hades wouldn't it be technicaly correct to say he raped both of them?

Both of them had sex under false pretense,which means neither of them consented to what was happening, because you can't consent to something you don't know about.

If someone roofies two people who have then sex with each other the person who drugged them is the assaulter.

Katillno · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
A group of refugees accepted refuge in a magical land, and one of their children was made the magical heir to the place. His mother freaked out because she hates magic, grabbed him and fled. The current ruler used force to get him back

Huh? What's this referring to?

Also excited to see what shenanigans Paul gets up to to fix things

Ngamer11 · May 2, 2022

Katillno said:
Huh? What's this referring to?

Also excited to see what shenanigans Paul gets up to to fix things

A minor plot from Episode 74: Gods and Mortals. Just look for Rama Khan and you should find it.

Ct613hulu · May 2, 2022

Mr Zoat said:
Agreed.

Do you frequently walk into a shop, approach a shop assistant and say 'I just want to be completely clear that I am here to exchange money for goods and have absolutely no intention of robbing you', before carrying on with your shopping? Because that's what you're expecting Hades to have done.

Most men are strong than their wives. Your formulation of rape would have us recast most of the sex in human history as rape.

Vehemently disagree.

My key point is reasonable fear. It isn't reasonable for the shop assistant in your scenario to be afraid of their customer and is perfectly reasonable for Persephone to be afraid of Hades in their specific situation.

It also would have been incredibly easy for Hades to have let Persephone know that she could freely end their relationship and that he would never harm her. All it would take is a single conversation or a promise on the Styx if she is unwilling to accept his word. His failure to do anything that could have given Persephone the option of safely escaping their relations for thousands of years makes me think that he is deliberately letting her remain afraid in order to maintain the status quo. He must certainly be doing so now if he does nothing to improve the situation now that it has become impossible to ignore that Persephone is only continuing their relationship out of fear. This would make his actions fall directly under the accepted definition of assault due to the threat of harm.

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A more comparable example would be a heavily armed man coming into a store every day and grapping items off the shelves before immediately leaving without paying. The shop owner would attempt to get outside assistance only to fail miserably as the corrupt laws of their community make what the man is doing perfectly legal. Their family tries to help out but the man is too strong for them to achieve anything but get the man to reduce his visits to once every other day. The man eventually starts giving minor gifts to the shop owner and taking less expensive items. He never stops taking items or gives any indication that he plans to stop in the future.

The shop owner's fear of the man and desire to not have him take items from their shop are immediately obvious to any competent observer. Everyone in the local community knows that the shop owner does not want to be in this situation and it is hardly kept as a secret from outsiders. The shop owner still refrain from directly challenging the man or outright asking him to stop as they know that there is nothing stopping him from doing far worse if he is angered by their protests.

Does this scenario make us view the man as the innocent subject of a misunderstanding or a robber? Is the man's claim that he would stop taking items from the store if ever asked plausible or sufficient to totally shield him from any responsibility for the suffering of the shop owner? What if the man continues his actions even after the shop owner makes a public plea for assistance from the new police chief and mayor that he could not have possibly have missed?

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I hate applying this type of moral philosophy to human history as it always end up providing some horrific conclusions. You are absolutely right in that this definition could lead to much of the sex in human history being defined as rape or some other form of sexual abuse. It is particularly disturbing that our civilization has only started treating marital rape as a crime in the last few decades. There isn't much we can say on the topic that isn't incredibly depressing.

With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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