So I listened to "My Penelope" and "There Is No Name" from Stories from Styx: Hades and Persephone earlier. (I listened to all of it, actually, but this is specifically about those two songs)
And. I just-
Okay. Not only the difference between the line "My Persephone" in My Persephone and There Is No Name, one from a lover/partner, one from a mother- a grieving, devastated one at that- but also. Just the way it can be interpreted.
Persephone, like Perseus, Perses, Perseis, and Perse (forgive if I've missed a name), all mean the same thing. Destroyer, or, to destroy. Destruction. Ruination. Ravage. Devastate. However you want to interpret it.
With Hades, it could be like, "you've ruined me for anyone or anything else," "a destruction of who I was to make way for who I will be," or even just, "you could ruin me and I'd welcome it."
But with Demeter? By the gods is it different. Not only is it the shift from "Kore" to "Persephone" (pretty sure we don't hear her called "Kore" again afterwards) but it's also a cementation of Persephone separating her (sense of) self from her mother and Demeter utterly plunging the realm of mortals into a- seemingly- eternal winter. "My Persephone" is literally a cry of "my destruction" or "my ruin" perhaps even a "damnation" of the people.
The dissonance between the "maiden" Kore and the Queen "Persephone" both as herself and in her mother's eyes is fascinating imo. I mean the whole storyline in sfs: Hades and Persephone is showing the- one of several interpretations of the actual myths- narrative of a woman growing up, going from a girl to a woman, a daughter to a wife (in terms of assumed roles).
Parts of it even narrating Persephone's desire to be allowed to grow beyond the child her mother envisions. But there is also such tangible rage and grief in Demeter's lines; how Zeus dismissed her, that her daughter was taken, that she fears her daughter is unsafe, how she fears that she has lost her child, permanently at that.
Anyways. I've been thinking about this for like 12 hours now.
Just.
"you ruin me" is so neatly summed up into "my Persephone." At least in my opinion.
Anyways give Stories from Styx a listen. It's definitely interesting.
