Episode 98: Not Your Olympian
Editor: Annie LaHueReleased: 16 February 2020Content warning: themes of sexual assault, rape, abuse
Persephone tries to tell Apollo how she’s feeling, to disclose how his actions make her feel. It’s not a comfortable episode to read, especially knowing that they are alone and the situation is escalating. The tone of these panels is dark with weighted colors that visually keep the art in the same range of intensity of the story.
In handing Apollo his ruined lyre, Persephone is trying to show that while he feels angry and upset about his prized item, it is only a fraction of what she is feeling for him. She continues to explain that she was considering hiding his lyre from him, quietly enjoying his frustration from a safe distance. Visual imagery shows see she is in the Underworld with emotional red eyes. Her plans change after having to listen to him go on about his feelings. She needs to make her position clear; she doesn’t want him and he doesn’t want a relationship, he just has an impulse to control her.
The situation becomes increasingly more intense as Apollo doubles down on his narcissistic rant. Persephone is clearly upset and he takes offense when she admits that she’d rather deal with the fallout of what he’s done than let him hold onto his delusion. Apollo blames Hades for poisoning her thoughts toward him. Persephone stops his rant by grabbing the sides of his face, accidentally scratching the back of his neck, and drawing blood. She tells him she doesn’t talk about him with Hades and that she doesn’t want him or his offer. Persephone has left her bedroom and is now speaking to Apollo from her bathroom.
“Make someone else your Olympian.”
Persephone
As Apollo begins to gaslight and threaten her, we see Eros flying towards her bathroom window. In a thrilling and heroic series of panels we see Ampelus hand him his bow as she rides on his back. The conversation between Apollo and Persephone is no longer salvageable as he begins to get physical and threatens her. He compares their situation to the unhappy marriage of Zeus and Hera, saying he would be satisfied with a similar arrangement. Just as he implies that he knows more about Persephone than she realizes, Eros draws his arrow and fires through the glass window, slicing a cut across Apollo’s cheek.
CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE
Confronting your abuser without support can be unsettling and dangerous in worst-case scenarios. In this situation, Persephone is alone with her attacker and the situation is escalating in both emotional tone and physical touch. We understand that, as a work of fiction, the drama in this sequence is meant to show Persephone standing up to her attacker, but what we also see is her losing control of the situation and the dynamic between herself and Apollo worsening. Ultimately, Persephone is able to tell her attacker how she feels and while there may be further issues with Apollo down the road, she has made her position clear for herself. There is power in how she understands her own feelings.
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