these arguments make sense when you consider most of the people making them are hopped up on trad wife feminism which is really just misogyny with extra steps
they want to claim it's more "feminist" to make persephone a willing consensual partner
but really all they're doing is stripping women of their voices, contributing to sexual assault culture by implying that victims who speak up are just "troublemakers" and a woman's perspective can't possibly be trusted or believed (esp if it means villainizing a man in power), and erasing the very real harm that's been done historically to women over the course of centuries, harm that will not be undone if we keep censoring it with more "comfortable retellings" and pretending that that harm never existed in the first place.
sorry but it's not "feminist" to pretend like there's a version of Persephone consenting to her marriage that exists just for you to use that pretend version to discredit all the many currently existing scriptures that are undeniably 100% clear that it was non-consenting
the frustrating irony of all this is that whenever you argue with these types, many of them say "well you can't enforce MODERN IDEALS over greek myth! kidnapping and rape was a totally normal thing back then!!!" okay but you're literally trying to enforce your own modern ideals on the myth to the point of blatantly making shit up to suit your own narrative and personal tastes. why are you trying so hard to pretend like it wasn't against her will? because every translation makes it clear as day it was.
how is it 'enforcing modern ideals' to ask you to cite your sources? no one's saying that marriage and relationships were viewed the same way back then as they are today, but what we ARE saying is that the Hymn to Demeter isn't exactly ambiguous about Persephone's kidnapping being against her will and you can't use some imaginary version of a myth where she went down willingly as your proof to argue that point , not unless you can actually provide that proof in the form of translated scholar-backed scriptures.
and if your first reaction to that is to argue "b-b-but she'd still be HAPPY! because their marriage was still better than other marriages at the time!!!! therefore she clearly HAD to enjoy being Hades' wife and there's no way Hades was a bad guy!!!" then i hate to say it but you're probably someone who still really likes harry potter unironically in 2026 and that's not a compliment
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