Plight of Persephone
is the first Fan Fic in the Hades And Seph Saga by Agent of Teal. After the Titan 'incident' Hades is outcast and alone, he comes across Persephone who is also lonely and something sparks. Can they really make it work, or will the many obstacles threatening to break them apart succeed...
This fanfiction contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Apollo has tried numerous times to gain Persephone's favor. Persephone however would rather keep him at a distance, finding his attempts rather obnoxious.
- Adaptational Consent: In the original myth, Hades kidnapped Persephone against her will and forced her to be his bride. Here, she not only is willing to go with him, but they legitimately care for one another straight from the get-go.
- Adaptational Villainy: Averted with Zeus. The Zeus of the Hercules film was a pretty swell guy, while the original Zeus of Greek Mythology...wasn't. However, while it's pretty clear that Hades loathes his brother and Zeus' flaws and/or mistakes are much more prominent than before, the fic overall portrays him as someone who is genuinely trying to resolve the issues regarding Hades, Persephone, and Demeter as best as he can, with pretty much no good options available.
- Affably Evil: If you still consider Hades a villain at this point (since his transition to becoming the classical myth Hades isn't really complete yet), he's now this at his worst compared to his Faux Affably Evil nature in the film. He only really slips into being Faux Affably Evil when Theseus and Perithious try to steal his wife away from him, and his reasons for being angry at them are pretty justified.
- Exemplified best in the epilogue, when Hercules comes down to the Underworld to retrieve Theseus. Considering how antagonistic their relationship was by the end of the film, Hades' interaction with Hercules ends up being relatively tame and polite, with the god even giving Herc a send-off that's downright cordial, all things considered. Of course, his wife (a) being there and (b) bringing out the better parts of his character probably helped.
- Affectionate Nickname: Her mother Demeter likes to call Persephone "Cora".
- Anti-Hero: Thanks to Persephone, Hades is starting to become this. In this particular story, he's probably lands somewhere along the lines of Unscrupulous Hero.
- Asshole Victim: Hades comes up with a plan to get revenge on Adonis for his treatment of Persephone. Nobody probably felt sorry for him all that much.
- Death and the Maiden: Hades, Ruler of the Underworld and all of the dead souls that live there, paired with Persephone, daughter of Demeter and goddess of life.
- Expanded Universe: Of Hercules, using the original Rape of Persephone story of Classical Mythology for reference.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even when he was still fully evil, the one crime Hades never committed was abduction (and by extension rape) of a goddess. A stark contrast to Zeus and Poseidon, if you know your mythology background...
- Everyone Hates Hades: The whole point of the saga at large is to reverse this trope. It's already been inverted in one sense, see Adaptational Consent above.
- Goth Girls Know Magic: Considering Persephone is a goddess that thrives in the gothic atmosphere in the underworld, she fits this trope rather nicely.
- Heel–Face Turn: One of the major themes of the entire saga is Hades undergoing this trope, although he hasn't fully gone through it yet. Hades still has some villainous tendencies and never really repented for unleashing the Titans on Mount Olympus, but Persephone's introduction into his life is clearly meant to signal his transformation into a better person.
- Love Redeems: No surprises here.
- Meet Cute: While Persephone has seen Hades at Olympus from time to time, she and Hades don't officially meet until he accidentally teleports into her garden trying to avoid Pain and Panic.
- Related in the Adaptation: The familial ties the various gods share (like Hades technically being Persephone's uncle) are brought up when it was never mentioned in the original film, though here Persephone is Zeus's step-daughter instead of his actual daughter.
- Revenge Before Reason: Subverted regarding Hades' treatment of Theseus and Pierithious. Similarly to the original myth, Hades allows Hercules to take back Theseus, who was really only there out of loyalty to his friend and was never really interested in quote-on-quote liberating Persephone, but refuses to let him save Pierithious, who came up with the idea in the first place. The story actually notes that Hades isn't all that unreasonable in this regard, and Hercules grudgingly has to agree with his uncle.
- Unholy Matrimony: Hades and Persephone elope with Demeter's blessing at the end. Subverted in the sense that neither of them, or at the very least not Persephone, can be considered evil by this point in the story.
