Hello, what did you like about the Persephone and Hades ship? You made a lot of fan art about it for years.
I think what I enjoy the is the complexity of it, you watch the show and it leaves you with a lot of things to think about 🤔 This is about the ship and Hadestown in general, it’s so rare that a piece of media makes you think about it for months straight and you still manage to discover more and more things to think about the characters, the story, the themes etc.
Regarding Hadesphone, idk they are just so messy! They clearly love each other but also, at the point we see them in the story, they can barely function together because they clearly cannot understand each other. And I love how you can feel in what little we see of them that this situation seems like a product of many years of doubts, conflicts and misunderstandings blowing up in their faces. I enjoy that both of them want to feel loved but their perception of what is important about showing this love is so different it escalates their conflict to almost a point of no return. Persephone wants Hades to be the man whose priority is just to love her, wait for her and trust her to come back to him. All she wants him is to be *him*, the man who begged for her hand. And Hades due to his doubts feels like the only way he can “earn” her love is to be a “manly man” and a provider, which distorts his view of what his wife wants from him (“Wife loves warmth? Let’s build a furnace! Wife loves light? Let’s make the whole underworld shine like neons”) and feeds his insecurity which eventually causes his mistrust in her. Which in turn violates Persephone’s autonomy, one thing she wants him to respect as a promise he made to her, to wait when she’ll return to him in her time. But at the same time they are so into each other they can’t imagine living without each other.
Idk they just feel so real? It’s just two people who love each other for so long they have already forgot why exactly they love each other. They are so caught in all the mess, they can’t seem to see the end of it until Orpheus’ song reminds them of what is important. I think when Hades produced that red flower in the end of Epic 3 it literally blew my mind and changed my brain chemistry forever.
All that aside, I also wanna say that my love for this ship is also due to Amber Gray and Patrick Page’s brilliant performance. I legit watched a ton of bootlegs with them to see all the little details in their acting. I think it’s even more impressive when you remember that the two have very little scenes together where they actually talk, so a lot in their characterisation relies on you watching how they interact in silent scenes! Which is such a joy on every rewatch. I’m honestly not sure whether I would have been so into that ship if I saw any other pair in the roles during my first watch bc their delivery is so *chief kiss*, so much nuance 👌Such a tasty characterisation, you can see that their work on the characters has been years in the making!