I Will Not Forget, and Neither Should You - an analysis of the SA plot and the path that it's on.
A long while back, I made a post outlining why I felt like LO was morally bankrupt and incapable of sending any positive messages within its narrative, even when it desperately tries.
At the time, I didn't think it was even possible for LO to stoop any lower. Obviously, I was proven many times since then that it is, both through its art and writing, but I feel it now more than ever with a sudden but subtle development that I can't force myself to ignore - the retconning of Persephone's sexual assault.
Rachel has never been good at addressing the SA plotline in LO. Considering it was never in the pilot version of the comic and the actual SA scene in the Originals version allegedly didn't have a trigger warning attached at first (apparently her own fanbase had to explain to her why it was, in fact, rape), it's clear Rachel bit off something she didn't anticipate and has been choking on it ever since.
From the lack of consistency in how Apollo behaves (in some scenes he's obsessed with Persephone, in others he claims she's a worthless nobody; in some scenes he's acting like a maniacal villain who's plotting to use Persephone to overthrow Zeus, in others he's just a dumb asshole with zero comprehension of the shit he's gotten himself into) to the behavior from Persephone that treats Apollo more like a shitty ex-boyfriend than a rapist when she's now more than aware of what he did but still insists she can reason with him (in her bedroom where he assaulted her, to add insult to injury), to how little the SA is actually present throughout the plot and Persephone's character arc even when it would be necessary - all of these things together tell us a lot about how hard Rachel is clearly trying to move on as fast as possible from the SA, while still using it as a cheap way to generate easy drama and clicks.
But something's been changing lately. Little things that are unfortunately adding up to something that feels sinister.
Let's start with the big one - Episode 248.
Inappropriate and misleading thumbnail aside-
(seriously, look at this, good god. it was certainly a choice to crop out the nymph ears here and use the comic's chronic Same Face Syndrome to its 'advantage' u.u)
-this episode is very divisive. Many are justifiably pissed (myself included) because we shouldn't be spending so much time on the point of view of the rapist. It's already a problem in media where rapists are written and then immediately empathized upon, as if we should "feel bad" for the person who did a morally apprehensible thing. So this episode feels very much like S3 of 13 Reasons Why, an unnecessary look into the mind of someone trying to justify what they did - but there is no justification for rape. Period.
On the other side of the argument, people are claiming that it could serve as a good way to see into Apollo's mind and see just how twisted he is.
But why do we need that? We've already seen how messed up his perspective is on countless occasions through his actions. Peeking into his mind for a "deeper look" accomplishes nothing that we haven't already been informed of and really just gives us too close of a look into the mind of someone who thinks they didn't do anything wrong. It enters the realm of empathizing.
And that's especially apparent through Apollo's central focus within this episode - overthrowing Zeus.
The fanbase does not like Zeus. The narrative does not like Zeus. Even after Zeus has done things for the sake of others, it's immediately shafted by him doing something selfish or stupid (or both). The most recent act committed by Zeus within the narrative is attempt to "dump" Dionysus on nymphs who APPARENTLY don't exist, even though we've never seen Mt. Nysa and thus just have to take Persephone at her word... and Persephone herself is not a reliable narrator, as we've clearly seen countless times throughout the story.
All that said, Zeus is a "bad guy". You're not 'supposed' to root for him (though many will still because damn is he a great character, flaws and all lmao).
So what does that say when Apollo, a rapist, monologues about how he wants to do Olympus a favor and overthrow Zeus, a tyrant?
Do you see where I'm finding the flaw in 'seeing into Apollo's mind' in this way? Besides the fact that it's an uncomfortably close look at someone we already know is a delusional abuser, it also frames Apollo as the 'good guy' because Zeus is the bigger evil. After all, how can you root against the rapist when he's done soooo much good for the community? How can you root against him when he wants to overthrow that other guy who you also hate?
It would be a different story if we knew Zeus was a good King and could thus be proof that Apollo is an unreliable narrator, but we never see this. The last decision we saw him make as the ruler of Olympus was sentence the story's main character to live in the Mortal Realm and cut off the realms so no one could move between them. And of course, he never had an actual deadline on this punishment, just dragged it out as long as he could. So, within the narrative, Zeus is clearly a "bad King." This makes this extended sequence of Apollo talking about how shitty Zeus is and showing all the good things he's done incredibly uncomfortable because it makes it clear that Apollo is meant to be the 'better option' to Zeus, who the narrative has made clear is a lazy scumbag.
Straight up, it's giving Hillary vs. Trump vibes. It's pitting two evils against each other and asking you to pick the 'lesser' of the two. And in this case, the narrative is framing Apollo as the lesser one and expecting us to empathize with him. There would be no other purpose in showing us this otherwise.
The second thing I want to pick apart is the most recent FastPass, Episode 252.
This episode is morally terrible for a lot of reasons, as it covers a lot of... really messed up shit, but I'm gonna focus on Persephone during her conversation with Hera because she said something that really stood out to us in the ULO community.
This... is a flat out lie.
Because, unlike all the other occasions where the narrative didn't fill us in on important information, it did make it clear how Persephone felt about Apollo in the beginning.
The only time we see in this scene where Persephone implies he's "handsome" is this one panel:
Aaaand it's not exactly enthusiastic. This is, of course, immediately followed with the scene of Persephone reluctantly accepting his apology and then Apollo grabbing her for a photo and it's written clear as day on her face that she is not comfortable:
So to now suddenly change Persephone's inner feelings from clearly uncomfortable to "I thought he was handsome and I felt so special around him" feels so disgustingly disingenuous to the narrative and its audience as a whole. We know Persephone wasn't comfortable around him, she did not like him, and she definitely did not feel 'special' around him, because it's written clear as day in both their dialogue interactions and on her face.
Episode 252 continues on with the following:
Yes, this part is technically true, but I feel like it's being expressed in a different way this time. This panel comes right after she expresses how she thought he was handsome and felt special around him - so it casts this implication that she felt upset that he left her because suddenly he wasn't paying any attention to her.
That was not the case. She was upset he left because she had just been assaulted by him, had no idea what she was going through, and felt like her leaving him was abandoning her right after a very vulnerable moment when she 'gave up' something that was clearly very important to her. Him leaving her was against her idea of sex which she had been at odds with before, during, and after the assault.
She did not hate herself for getting upset over him leaving her. She hated herself because, in her mind, she was to blame for "not fighting back". She hated herself because she was terrified others would notice.
All of this feels like some weird attempt to claim that Persephone was ever into Apollo. That it was just some "enemies to lovers gone wrong" plot when it was, in fact, a girl being assaulted by a man she just met and never liked in the first place. It further drives home the school of thought that Rachel clearly never intended that scene to be SA, but had to have it explained to her that it was SA. To the point that she, allegedly, hadn't even included a trigger warning on the original SA episode.
Of course, it's a bold move to accuse Rachel of trying to retcon the plot away from the SA. But there's one final thing I want to touch on that I think further supports this.
The print version of Volume 4.
It's been mentioned a couple times across Tumblr and IG that the books are subtly changing things, but I don't think this most recent change is being talked about enough, especially in light of how the story has been progressing in the newest up-to-date episodes.
Here's the page specifically, sourced to me by a pal on IG:
The bottom three panels are not from the original episode.
(transcript if you can't make it out:
Persephone: "Wait, d-don't hurt him."
Hades: "W-What gave you that impression?"
Persephone: "I just want him to leave.")
Here's the original version, which has remained unedited despite its physical versions being changed:
Changes like this do not exist in a vacuum. Either Rachel, her editor, or someone working for Webtoons made the very intentional decision to make this change, and you can blatantly tell how recent of a change it is based on Persephone's face alone in the third panel ("I just want him to leave") as it's artistically inconsistent with the rest of the episode (you can tell it's been drawn in that S3 style).
What is the purpose of this scene? Why was this dialogue so important that Rachel felt the need to shove it in there?
Some have argued that it's more about the implication that Hades would hurt Apollo, as Hades at this point in the story has committed a violent act on behalf of Persephone by ripping out the photographer's eye. But Persephone doesn't know that yet. She doesn't find that out for three more episodes. So there's literally zero reason for her to believe Hades will do anything violent when she hasn't seen him commit any violence and doesn't believe the rumors and stories that Hades is a violent man.
So if it was meant to be related to that whole thing, then it's a logical plothole because Persephone shouldn't have any reason to suspect Hades would do something violent, this would have made more sense if she knew about the eyeball incident before this scene happened.
So that leaves only one other option.
Persephone doesn't want Hades to hurt Apollo, because she cares about Apollo.
Again, this makes no sense plot wise because literally a handful of panels later she steals Apollo's lyre with the intention of indirectly hurting him and then some time after that she tears into Apollo telling him how she doesn't care about him-
-but again, that begs the question, why add it? What does the narrative have to gain from painting Persephone in this empathetic light towards him? This scene literally just creates logical inconsistencies, and worst of all, it implies that somehow, Persephone actually cares about Apollo to some degree.
And it goes without saying, that retcon was revealed when the book was released: June 6th, 2023 - three days after the FP release of Episode 248, which predominantly featured Apollo and his point of view which was framed in a way to make him into a sympathetic underdog. That entire sequence and what lead into it was, by the way, hamfisted into the Demeter and Persephone therapy episode, changing the subject entirely... almost like it was being rushed into the story to match up with a real life date, not far unlike the shopping makeout scene lining up with Valentine's Day for free readers, or the sudden proposal releasing for free readers and the rushed wedding for FP readers landing on Valentine's Day weekend, or the random reveal of Dionysus lining up with Mother's Day weekend during its free release.
Look, I get it. A lot of these points sound like they're being based on flimsy rhetoric, tinfoil hat even. If all of these things were happening in isolation, I would just accept it as being a coincidence and move on. I wouldn't be digging so deep into it.
But all of these points I've made are fairly recent developments that have all happened incredibly close together - albeit incredibly subtly - and, when analyzed together, points to a bigger problem that I feel is looming on the horizon that we should all be paying attention to.
Maybe this is a response to all the points that have been made in the criticism communities pointing to how the pilot version of the comic didn't include SA and should have stayed that way. Maybe it's a response to the criticism towards Rachel's handling of the SA within the Originals version and how it's clear she never intended for it to be SA and, despite acknowledging it as SA, is still trying to write it as if it isn't. Maybe it's the SA being used purely as a publicity stunt because Rachel knows it's the only plotline people are sticking around for at this point, hence why it's been dragged out longer than any other plotline in the comic, even longer than the main romance plot of the comic, which is, by and large, resolved now with the recent rushed wedding.
Either way, it's very clear to me now that Rachel has been trying and failing to brush it under the rug, because you can't brush a plotline like that under the rug, it would be irresponsible to do so.
So now, she seems to be settling for the next best thing - she's trying to erase it entirely.
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