Lore Olympus Part 1: Style Over Substance (Intro & Episodes 1-70) 

I just realized that I inadvertently held ALL comments for review, so sorry about that everyone!! I'll be responding to all of y'all as much as I can. Sorry for the goof!

I loved this comic in the beginning. I feel like I overlooked a lot of the issues because I believe this to be her first time doing a comic, and she was all alone. But as time has gone on and the more help she’s gotten the worse things are. And I agree she is not planning ahead for any of this, because everything has become so lost and hollow. I wish she would just hire a ghost writer to finish season 3. :(

LO is successful because it hits all the usual BookTok/romance genera buttons: young female protag without much personality for people to project onto, who then becomes a "girl boss" which she didn't actually earn, male lead that's rich and/or attractive to sweep said girl off her feet, drama and fighting over the girl, other females in the story being "jealous" or blindly simpering to her... LO reads like a self-indulget, self-insert fanfic. I would know; I read a lot of fanfic. Add in the "Greek mythology" (if you can even call it that by the barest whiff it has in there outside of the names, lbrh) and you solidified it. It *absolutely* appeals to the high school/fresh in college female demographic. It also does nothing innovative with said troupes and THAT is my problem, among many others.

when I loved this comic in the past I did feel sympathetic for minthe, but I was always conflicted bc rachel would first paint her like a sympathetic character and then all of a sudden painting her as an abusive bitch

In the mythology, Artemis and Apollo had survived a "childhood" of incredible trauma with only each other as support, including having to support their mother, isolated from the other Gods, even persecuted by some. This made them incredibly codependent on each other. * This series could have used that sort of history to explain Artemis having a trauma-spawned Blindness to Her brother's (even obvious) flaws. Like neurotically incapable of processing them. * in the very reductive secularization of the mythology that is the basis for these modern "re-tellings".

My pet peeve about LO is definitely that the characters just won't stay on model. It's super distracting when their noses change shape so much between consecutive panels that I get confused if I'm looking at the same character when they are even color coded to reduce that confusion. The graphic design background makes so much sense. The composition and colors are beautiful, but sometimes it's so hard to tell which way the characters are supposed to move or what's even happening in general. Also the writing is super juvenile. I think I would have loved this comic as a teenager, so I totally get its appeal but it's not for me at this point of time.

As a Greek gal, me and almost every other Greek girl I be spoken about this webcomic immensely dislike it for popularizing the idea that hades and persephone is a love story. Yes, the kidnapping of persephone *is* very much a love story, but not between her and hades. Smythe takes one of the most feminist myths and completely twists it in the abusers favor while villainfing the hero/victim. Smythe misses the cultural context. How things worked until very recently (our grandma's were the first women to jot have arranged marriages) was that the father of the bride and the groom would strike a deal about the marriage, and then the bride would go where her husband lives, that could be really far away from her home, causing her to rarely is ever seeing her family again. the myth takes that reality and makes it so the mother steps foot, and demands her child back, after the deal was struck and the girl taken against her will (the myth is named the taking of persephone for a fucking reason) and Demeter succeeds, if not completely, she gets to have her daughter for half a year and that half of the year is when the earth is at its finest, the earth blooms because of the happiness of the goddess of grain and goddess of flowers being together.

I always thought the Minthe's ears change to reflect her insecurities about dating a God because of lore olympus class rankings she would sometimes changes her ears to look more like a Goddess instead of a nymph. But I guess it's just one of the many things not explored more in depth.

almost fully through the podcast episode and i never really realized how time crunched the whole comic was! The reason I tolerated season one was because I had interpreted episodes 1-70 to be over six months, not five fucking days oh my god. This also puts the whole comic under a really scary lens also. In 5 days, nay 120 HOURS Persephone-the-nineteen-year-old gets drugged, raped, bought out, media-ambushed, groomed, a new job, a scholarship revoked, visited TARTUS, and gets attacked by the dead. On top of that its depicted in this interpretation that she's had MANY sheer encounters with older male gods BEFORE all of this, like when she was what? 16? 14? there is some huge timing issues with this comic

I personally would have made it so Persephone was just supposed to meet up with Artemis at the party, but something interrupts Artemis (maybe a minor myth) leaving Persephone (who's a couple hundred years old, isolated from Olympus for all those years and riding a freedom high) on her own. Then Eros happens, she vomits and cries in front of everyone, and Hades takes it upon himself to get her a hotel room to recover, also using it as an excuse to get away from the party and sleeps on the couch. Queue drunk trauma ramblings, an awkward Hades, and a regretful hungover Persephone who feels the need to prove herself to the rest of Olympus after her bad first impression.

Yes! Acknowledgment that hades sucks and is also an abuser , and minthe is underrated and deserves better! She had interesting writing , personality, and lore, and yet she was tossed to the way side to make the otp look better. Just look how she and persephone contrast throughout said comic. There are definitely elements of purity culture there. Am I defending an abuser? No. (I see that argument a fair bit when people bring up minthe. It's okay to like chaotic characters , just be honest about them. )but I know for a fact that hades wasn't any better and got off pretty much Scott free for it, as well as most the ugly things he's done in said comic. He does have financial power over her among other things. I wish more focus was on Minthe, honestly. Missed opportunity.

The more and more I learn about Lore Olympus, the more I am convinced this is just like.... a case of "The Author's Poorly Disguised Fetish" Its a self indulgent age gap fantasy about being swooped off your feet by a rich hot older man with a plot just kinda stitched together to make excuses for these things to happen. It's not inherently wrong to create stories with that kind of fantasy, its just kind of a shame that it grew in popularity under pretenses of being more subversive or ambitious than it really is, and then really didn't examine itself or what it was doing.

The thing with Apollo not really showing any signs of being an assaulter is that they often don't show signs IRL. They are often great at acting like they're not bad people who would do something like that. This often is a big reason victims go unbelieved, cause "I know him! He's a good guy! He would never!" So I find the idea that Apollo wasn't obvious about this side of him fairly realistic. Edit: Also, a r@pist's friends and family will often be the last people to believe this person is in fact not all he's cracked up to be and are also often huge victim blamers

I have two major problems with how the myth is interpreted in lore Olympus. 1. Persephone was actually like REALLY feared by mortals, she was almost definitely as, if not more feared than Hades and her name was used in some curses (so why is she, as Eros puts it, a cinnamon bun?) 2. Persephone was raped not once but twice and it wasn't Apollo, it was Zeus and Zeus was also her father (in the original myths) Here's one bonus issue I have with it! the Psyche and Eros myth is decently accurate, except Psyche had to complete deadly tasks to see Eros again, she wasn't Aphrodite's shopping buddy, she was more like her punching bag (Of course take this with a grain of salt cause I stopped reading the comic by maybe episode 80, 90ish) Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong cause this is basically all just knowledge I gained 2 years ago so some of it might be inaccurate given my faulty memory

It’s nice to see a more nuanced discussion about this comic, and as an aspiring comic book writer your tips are very much appreciated!

I've always hated this comic so this review is just what I need. You two really explain the issues eloquently in a detailed way. I am totally here for this dragging.

Ok so I know I'm a month late but great video! Admittedly I've been hesitant to really speak out against Lore Olympus as a fellow Webtoon author, as I've been worried that people might see me as "attacking other creators", so this video is like a breath of fresh air. What bothers me with Lore Olympus's big cast is that Smythe COULD have made it work. Shonen casts are often very large, and while there are definitely some characters that get more love by the author than others, with enough time and care(and planning) they can flesh out multiple story arcs and characters. Also I love seeing more people talk about Cursed Princess Club! I love that series so much that when I first binged the series I couldn't put it down. Great job on the video and I can't wait to watch the other parts :)

2:18:41 the pomegranate is linguistically named 'apple of seeds' and the product naming convention seems to echo tech companies so basically Hades's brand is. Seedy apple.

What was pretty weird was the fandom after the thing with Apollo. I know the fans are young but still. Basically they thought that this story was accurate to greek mythology. And I've heard of hellenistic people who pray to Apollo who were harassed online for worshipping him, because of this webtoon. Like wtf? The Apollo from LO has nothing to do with greek mythology Apollo.

webcomics being a new thing is so weird since i've been reading them since probably 2005. back when drunk duck webcomics and smackjeeves were the dominating hubs. i gotta say the rapid, and sudden, corporatization of the medium due to korea and japan getting in on it is alien. webcomics now are such a far cry from the indie passion projects of the early 2000's. there are still a lot out there like that but the culture is so different, there are so many social rules now, and indie passion projects don't get near as much attention as the new mainstream, copy/paste stuff made my underpaid, over worked korean artists.

your analysis is deeply appreciated but i can't stop admiring how your outfits match so nicely with the green & blood-orange combo lol super cute!

I hated that persephones SA was sorta dangled over the viewer. Instead of exploring it and seeing her heal at a good pace, we got small teases (for lack of a better word) and as you pointed out we get more panels of hades sexualisng then we do of her inner turmoil. I also expected her virginity cult thing would be explored more. It felt like it would be a theme - she's been SA yet she's in a virginity cult, feels theme worthy. I don't think Racheal had the guts or know how to do so. I've been reading a book on Virginity and the history of its concept (Preforming Virginity by Kathleen Coyne Kelly) and there's some really interesting interpretations on how virginity is reconciled with SA through history that are so relevant today. Like I wonder how exactly did she do her research.

Apollo was one of my favorite gods, so when I saw the role she put him in, I didn't think I would read it. I read a bit and found so many problems with the story, the tons of characters that their colors tend to overlap, so I'll get characters confused, and I couldn't continue.

Oh and to add to the very end: a popular webtoon that is wholesome with great writing, gorgeous art, unexpected twists, awesome setup and payoff, and a cute romance has to be Castle Swimmer!

Minthe is easily the most interesting and well-written character in this series don’t @ me 😂 Edit - the algorithm gave me these videos today, and I only got to episode 2 before Webtoon had them removed lmao. They really and truly can’t handle criticism of their biggest property

I think the timing is extremely difficult for Webtoon's weekly format. There were a few comics I got into at a later point, so I could binge through at least 50+ episodes. Once I reach the latest episode though and the weekly waiting starts, I often start to enjoy a series less. Even something like I Love Yoo, that I really like. Right now there's this flashback arc, that I also like. But it's been going since like half a year or so? It absolutely kills any pace the story had before. I understand creators want to show stuff. But you really have to think about if you can drag an arc or a scene over a span of several weeks or months and what you can do to keep people engaged (and I don't mean harsh cliffhangers, those get boring too when they happen every week).

I’m here as a Punderworld/Mythology fan that has never read Lore Olympus but really enjoyed your breakdown of the series.

I actually really liked the art at the beggining more than later on. Poeple say it got better, I think it just got more basic, more how poeple should look like and it diverted from how original and different it was from everything else. Now its just people with different skin color, but before it had a special artistic flare to it. After the art changed and the story was not progressing I stopped reading it.

I'm still in the process of listening, but I love what I'm hearing so far. Hades is so icky, I'm rereading and there's a part in the early chapters when he unbuttoned his shirt cause he misinterpreted Persephone in wanting to sleep with him. 🤢 And when he talked about her mom when it came to about why he was single. Idk why that STILL didn't turn Persephone away, but yuck yuck.

They took all of your videos down!!! I was just watching them. I hope you guys can get this resolved soon :(

1:28:00 yeah I would have preferred to spend a few chapters exploring Pers coping with Her assault, and only picking up on the courtship stuff after we've spent time with the Aftermath. Also y'alls spreadsheet format looks hella useful!

I used to be a LO fan, but after reading some criticism, like the age gap, and Persephone’s Mary Sue-ness, then the plot just kept getting bigger and emptier, and the episodes started to drag with endless plot hangers, I lost interest. While I think the story had merit, I think it lost it

I read somewhere that perse's naivity, is actually her masking her actual intelligence and that the chess scene was proof of that.

A thing that bugs me is how in season one Apollo isn’t really threatening. It’s like the writer is scared to ever have Persephone be afraid of him, like it’ll make her weak. It’s this weird thing where Apollo needs to desire Persephone and go crazy for her (because she’s the main character), never be a threat to her (because she’s the girlboss main character) and also be a terrible person (because Hades is her love interest). It’s boring. It really feels like she wrote in the sexual assault just to make Apollo worse. If you take it out their relationship could be more interesting.

Can't wait for more. Also I did not notice the light going down at all, I was legit surprised when you turned the light on.

Came from Reddit, gonna put this on while I play sims. Side note, amazing vibes outfit wise. I love the makeup and outfits as much as I despise LO.

it seems like none of these characters pass the bechdel test, not even the men

I love seeing your perspectives! I haven't seen such a great criticism of the comic before, in video form I mean.

LO is a little overrated but it’s not a bad thing. 2 major criticism, for me at least, is the art style mainly the height inconsistencies mainly with Persephone and the other female cast. They fluctuates a lot but that’s more of a nitpick. Second criticism is that we hardly see the story through the pov of the other characters. I know that it’s a retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth but we the Eros and Psyche myth and during the trial and Persephone’s banishment we barely see anyone else’s pov.

When you said this was first on Tublr everything came into place. I 100% agree that this was a series of imagined scenes and moments and good ideas that were set up poorly and very rarely followed through or explored the consequences of. Her assault from Apollo was shocking to me because it reflected my SA and I wanted to badly for it to be explored and persephone to process and heal from it. But I stopped reading when I realize it was just a plot device to make the mc more sympathetic.

I LOVE both your styles so much. I love your channel's theme & the casual color coordination. And I adore people talking about art & story structure for hours on end. About to binge thru your whole channel

I'm not a huge fan of Lore Olympus (I got bored of it, and I found the story and characters hard to follow) but I can understand why so much emphasis is put of Hades rather than Persephone if we imagine it more like a women's fantasy, kinda like 50 Shades. I've always felt like Persephone is so undefined and generic bc the writer and fans are putting themselves into her shoes. Just like Anastasia Steel, you're supposed to easily step into her role to engage with a fantasy where a very attractive, rich, powerful, closed off man suddenly can't think about anything but you. Maybe you feel lonely and ditzy and insecure in the rest of your life, but now you get to feel really important because you've managed to earn love and softness from someone who's usually very cold simply by virtue of who you are, no real effort required. I think that's why Persephone flip flops so much between innocent and flirtatious too. No matter how sanitized the webtoon becomes it's clearly (imo) meant to invoke the ideas of an erotic fantasy. And there's a lot of appeal in the idea that you (the one indulging in the fantasy) can be sexually appealing while also being sweet and innocent. It kinda aligns with the "born sexy yesterday" trope. Like I said I'm not a fan of the webtoon itself, and when made to stand on two legs as a narrative it definitely falls flat. But when serving the purpose of fantasy fuel I think it does fairly well. Also, obviously not all women are going to enjoy fantasy material like this, and not only women can enjoy said material. But I'm just saying it has merit to people who do.

Wait, wtf, did all the videos got taken down… I was just listening and suddenly they just disappeared 😒 Really enjoy them, loved the work, honestly I never payed much attention to those details, been following the comic for so long I never realized all the issues it had. I mean I just enjoyed it less and wasn’t expecting each chapter every week, it’s sad. Hope more comes out soon. Maybe, you mentioned Unordinary, would be interesting, idk, or any other comic❤

I think the whole story could have benefited if we were to follow Psyche. Think about it. Shes a human turned into a nymph and send to olympus. Throu Psyches eyes we could explore all three realms(because later in myth Psyche needed to go to underworld for Persephones beauty). Throu her eyes we could also see just how oppressed nymphs are and how they face rasism from gods.

I need to just scream it here but jesus the fucking treatment of Apollo and the complete disregard of his entire symbolism as a mythical figure just drives me nuttttts like I had to stop early on, both bc of the r* scene and that disregard. Like he's a god of youth. He protects them. Why would he fucking do that. Just why. He's not the god for this. He's just notttttttt

I really enjoyed listening to this take. I really wanted to enjoy lore Olympus, I loved the unique style it had even if it wasnt as technically polished as other works. I was really interested in seeing how the story would turn out just based on the premise and art alone. And while I dont hate it, I cant get myself to really like it even tho I really thought that I would.

I didn't realize how validating it would be to have somebody side with minthy as well! Stumbled on your video and sat and watched the whole thing. Your views are pretty much spot on with mine. I originally started reading cause I liked the art style but within a few chapters often found my self liking minthy and finding hades and persephone cringey but couldn't really place it. It wasn't until you pointed out that not only is the timing within a few days but you're right, she never gushes about him back. Ironically she did more character development for minthy and did it well. That coupled with the straight up obvious Mary Sue ish tendencies left me rooting for minthe. By the chapter u ended on for the video I was hate reading. Still am actually, mostly for the art. Thank you for putting my critique of the show into a more eloquent summary, subscribed!

I've never read Lore Olympus, I don't like the Hades/Persephone myth so I just didn't even bother with it, (despite the concept of dating or loving death being a favourite trope or beat of mine) but I have always been intensely fascinated by it (how and why it got so popular, how it uses the framework of the myths to construct it's story and world, where it differs etc), so I am quite happy to be watching several hours of content. Can't say I'm particularly upset that I didn't go read it.

As a fellow creator I really like this analysis of Lore olympus. The part where you talked about pacing and character interactions struck with me as I'm working on the follow up episodes for my call to action webtoon and in an early episode was going to hint at 5-6 characters but the first of them doesn't show up for at least 8-10 episodes which would be like 4 months in real time. so I realized i should move that scene back closer to when they start getting introduced. this is great sound for when working on my own stuff.

Rachel went rabid on your channel after seeing your LO videos lol

I can agree with everything but I always get very iffy when people talk about Persephone's height. As someone who is 4"6' - 4"9' I'm getting really tired of people saying short women are minor coded. I just so happen to enjoy expressing my inner child and am engaged to a 6"2' guy who is 3 years older than me. Now I get the proportions in LO can be weird. It's not consistent and it does infantilize Persephone but it would be better to clarify that the proportions in the art are the problem, not their height differences. If I misunderstood the intent though and you did mean the proportions I'm really sorry. I'm just tired of people basically saying tall man dating short women = creepy predator.

As someone who read the original run: after she decided to redo it, she ran a poll asking of her audience would like the serious to be darker/more dramatic, and I feel that run was less... sensual?

I loved Lore Olympus at first. I stopped reading a long time ago. I lost interest when the photos were deleted off of Apollo’s phone. I don’t know if Rachel brought that particular plot point back around but she’d made such an issue of it and then, poof! They were gone. Also I had started feeling gross about Hades and Persephone. Yes. They are immortal gods. No, they are not human. So the age difference doesn’t matter in technical terms. HOWEVER. I kept waiting for Rachel to show that either Persephone was not as naive and immature, not as helpless or as fragile, as we believed. To put her on a more equal footing with Hades. She never did. Persephone just kept having stuff handed to her because she was cute. I wasn’t into it. Also the pacing sucked all throughout what I read. I know nothing about Greek mythology or anything so I had no issues there. But overall it stopped being enjoyable.

Hey just discovered this podcast, hope you guys start posting again

Lore Olympus will be one of the few Examples of why taking creative liberties is not a bad thing to do, when the animated show gets made

Alex and Persephone not getting equal treatment under the law makes sense when you consider the racial and socioeconomic differences between them. There's no way that was intentional, though. That would require Rachael to be critical of the gods' prejudices.

Something I liked about persephone was her relatability. She was an heiress, but she had no money to her name, had never worked a job before, and was living for free in someone else's house. She tried not to ask for money, she cooked for artemis in some parts, and she insisted on paying people back or paying for stuff herself. She got her laptop by digging around in a garbage bin. This changed once she started dating hades and he just bought her everything and she accepted it. It was a total 180 for her

HOW IS YOUR CHANNEL THIS SMALL??????? ive been listening to the whole video while working on my stuff and its sooo high quality!!

The video is on the web archive now but clementines criticism of the at the time top 4-5 webtoon comics was sooo good.

No but I felt this. I used to really love Lore Olympus and I think the art is beautiful. But as somebody who studies mythology very deeply, everything they've been trying to do really is hollow. A lot of these myths weren't meant to be taken literally. They're metaphors that require an understanding of cultural context. It seems weird to make the decision to paint Apollo as a r*pist for example (as opposed to Zeus, which would be more accurate) but completely ignore the fact that it actually is the canon that Hades truly did kidnap persephone according to the Eleusinian mysteries. I feel like a lot of people take offense to that, saying that the myth doesn't give power to Persephone's story when on the contrary, the entire myth was meant in part to be an allegory for the unbreakably close relationship between mother and child. Which is why Lore Olympus' hollowness can be pointed out with that one detail- the fact that Demeter is merely a side-thought and is shown to be a crazy, over-protective mother Many of the other references to the gods are also pretty hollow. It just seems weird from my perspective to have a comic about greek mythology and clearly demonstrate no deeper knowledge or research on the subject. I know there's the argument that "oh this is just an artist's interpretation it's not that deep, etc. etc." but I would like to counter the fact that it IS that deep because the mythology didn't just die when Christianity overtook Europe. plenty of people still value and cherish the stories as they are, so to take them and turn them into a story about petty workplace drama and treat them as if they belong to everyone equally just because they've already been so heavily diluted in the mainstream is just....idk. Feels ick. Though I'm sure that's not Rachel's intentions, still feels bad nonetheless.

When I first started reading a Lore Olympus, I really like it and really didn’t think of the flaws. Watching some criticism videos I feel offended but then at the same time I also see where they are coming from. As I reread the comics. I started to really see some things that I didn’t pick up. Do I agree with every criticism not always but still.

Hey guys, considering Webtoons copyrighted entire playlist, would you consider uploading it outside RU-vid for archiving purposes? It was such detailed and constructive analysis

Interesting discussion! I come from a similar background of reading a lot of manga before moving to webtoon. I started with Lore Olympus because a girl I liked swore by it but I never really connected with it the same way. At first I thought maybe it was a webtoon thing... and I guess on some level it is... But I've since put in the time to find Webtoons I really connect with on the same level as manga. So I appreciate this discussion because it helped clear a lot of my confusion up as to why I wasn't connecting with Lore Olympus on the same level everyone else seemingly was.

honestly I haven’t read this comic but by looking at it something bothered me and I wanted to know if I was the only one. It doesn’t have to do with the writing or anything, just the designs. They’re GREEK GODS. Idunno, for a god of death hades looks so boring. He’s just a blue guy in a suit? At least make himself design in any way interesting. He looks like your average guy but blue and that doesn’t strike me as what a god would look like, even with a more casual aesthetic.

I'm here because I was hooked for the first 2 seasons of this series, and then I slowly but surely slipped off the hype train during the first few episodes of season 3 and want an explanation

This is very off topic from the video and totally unnecessary, but I love how you guys sitting next to each other are like "swapped" versions of the other's colors (green hair above a red shirt, then orange-y red hat above mostly green shirt)

The way you guys analysed this was really interesting and I enjoyed it immensely compared to other critiques of Lore Olympus! I also really like the way you talk and discuss things.

I LOVED the original season, before the rewrite! I was following it weekly until it was rewritten, and adored the direction that the plot was going. The rewrite redid the plot that I was most excited for, of Hades and Hecate going after the guy that took the photo of the two of them early on, as well as introduced the Apollo sexual assault plot. I thought it was handled extremely poorly, and it was really just the most glaring change between the early days and the current story that I felt made it so much less compelling or interesting.

this is like, exactly what i've been waiting for

Oh hey, I just found your awesome podcast! Your takes are nuanced and I can totally understand where you're coming from. Also you guys look fabulous, love your colors and set up 🙌🫶

I got into lore olympus because i fell in love with the style. I think i didn't notice how slow paced it was because i came into it very late and had around 100 episodes or so to catch up to. I still wouldn't say I liked the webtoon tho. I also found myself struggling to remember who characters were because a lot looked too similar or just didn't appear enough for them to stay in my consciousness. I was shocked when I first heard people didn't like the webtoon. I looked more into it and yeah, their points are valid lol

Can I just say that I love the combo of it getting progressively darker outside as you two get more exasperated? lol Plus was the hair/hat/outfit coordination intentional?? Fabulous either way. Will be watching all of y'all's channel haha. And checking out your comics because clearly you care deeply about storytelling and comics as a medium!!

As someone who actively worships hades and works with him in my witchcraft, the way they portray him just gives me all the ick. Is hades this amazing person in the myths, gods no, let’s be real no gods or goddesses are perfect in anyway and that’s what sort of makes them so real, if that makes sense. But also to see the author infantilize this actual at times terrifying goddess, Persephone is called ‘the iron queen’ for a reason she’s often the one who doles out the punishments for the souls of the underworld. She’s not some ‘soft sweet UwU so naive cinnamon bun who doesn’t understand things’ she’s a full goddess who is feared and loved and is so wonderful in her way of being. And the fact they made the ages between hades and Persephone so stark, is even worse like apparently Persephone is 19?! And hades is thousands of years old. I won’t get on the Aphrodite side of things it’s just As a worshiper of hades, when people decide to ‘retell’ the myths and do it like lore Olympus where it’s such stark surface telling of the gods. I just get the ick and get so annoyed and sad. I stopped reading like pretty early on because it just….gave me this ick feeling in my stomach I couldn’t shake

Edited for terrible grammar mistakes/added spacing for long paragraph: I am enjoying this breakdown. I didn't stay with this comic (I randomly fell off checking webtoon out of the blue a couple years back) but did read I think the first season of this? Looking forward to the discussions surrounding it since the writing is hit or miss. I barely remember it but this is an interesting way to backtrack. To add, concerning 52:35 I want to say while I'm in no way defending the writing and its not bad to question this plot point but sometimes you don't know your family. At least, not the part they don't want you to see. Brother, sister, mom, dad, uncle, aunt etc, no matter their title, blood related or not, it's not strange to be unaware. Her not knowing her brother is a rapist is possible. I don't have sources or data (so could be wrong) or anything but close relations like family/family friend's ect. are more likely to hurt you or someone you know rather than a stranger or so I've heard. Whether it means being blind to red flags or said red flags were concealed well or whatever it's easy to fall victim to those close to you and those same people have the power to do so because they are close. Apollo being a gross creep may not have been something she'd have anticipated or was in denial or both. Sometimes family will make excuses too "I know he can be pushy but he'd never do that". I have learned that it's healthy to never say what someone, no matter who they are to you, will never do. No one is so transparent and even if so there are a myriad of factors to change that threshold, some unaware to those looking from the outside. Seeing as comments were hate for Apollo based on ship content and not being anticipation for future trigger content is a given (or poor set up/writing, or both). I think Lore Olympus has rough writing but ironically that part wasn't so off. I agree that while the trauma itself was handled well, the aftermath was not.

We live in a content driven world & while cutting scenes would have made the story move faster It seems to be about having as much detail oriented scenes as possible for fans to obsess over. But I started it when there were at least 100 episodes so binging the content was awesome I probably wouldn't have kept up with the comic in real time with how slow it moves. Personally I like the fan service of them constantly talking about how much they like eachother. But Rachel Smythe does shift motivations & personalities at the stop of a hat.

Man, Webtoon I swear.. I love your work so much, I hope things get better for you soon!

As a practicing pagan; I remember seeing commercials for this. I instantly rolled my eyes and didn't even want to touch it; cuz I know that it would be totally inaccurate to any actual myth. As well have little respect to original context

I really like this podcast, perfect background sound while I draw my WEBTOON!

It’s a great video and I can’t wait for more from you guys!

i started reading this because my friends were at the time and I'm so glad you put all these things into words. I really found it strange and so many things just sorta didn't go anywhere but since my friends were saying that it was fine and stuff i sorta overlooked most things. i had no idea about the timeline of it i felt like each scene must've been spaced with like days of time but i guess not lol

I do like the comic in a lot of ways, but the things I don't like about it are basically responsible for making the comic.... thematically confused? Like I would have loved if this comic was a bunch of drama soaked rich people who are totally out of touch and dramatic and powerful and bombastic. but trying to put in these issues of assault and trauma and consent in a way trying thats to adress important topics that are serious and relevant to a lot of people. this kind of whiplash can only work if its very very carefully treated and balanced, and it feels like Lore Olympus was always meant to be a dramatic "Gaiaonline OC RP" fun and drama filled romp.

I started reading LO in the summer of 2019. It was just a fun story to read. I really liked the creators use of colors. IMO the story started out strong but at this point it is just being dragged out. I can't even call LO my fun trash comic to read because there's so many inconsistencies with the writing, the art, I get frustrated because characters or side stories get built up then become incredibly anti-climatic. The chapters are way too short. I really wonder if Rachel is even trying anymore.

I love Greek mythology, and I wonder when Lore Olympus will show Persephone's and Aphrodite falling in love with Adonis, and Persephone sending a boar to kill him vecause he chose to stay on earth/mortal realm instead of the underworld. Zeus is, according to the real mythology, Persephone's father, and he conspired with Hades/Aidoneus (who is technically her uncle) to abduct the goddess when she was a child. I'm not 100% certain if they meant teenager or under, but given the age for marriage in Greece in that era was circa 14 to 16, many scholars also attach the same age range (some go as high as 19 years old).

Watching this at 2 am with absolutely 0 knowledge of this webcomic lol it’s interesting

I just know lore Olympus through the complaints but theres a missed opportunity for Persephone to feel really bad for minthe because of her backstory

BRUH did Webtoon really just copyright strike all your Lore Olympus videos?! I was only up to part 3 ): I don't even dislike the comic but abusing RU-vid's system to silence criticism is always such a petty move, not to mention makes you look SO insecure 🙄

omg I'm like halfway through the video and keep jumping at y'all putting your glasses down lol. absolutely loving the commentary so far

As I’m listening to this review of Lore Olympus, it does seem like Rachel Smythe wants to write a version of Persephone but as her like Kore self because I think if you want a inexperienced goddess, it would be her Kore self, Persephone should be way more intimidating.

Something that bothers me is how Apollo’s introduction and his major interactions with Persephone before he assaults her are the same as her interactions with Hades. Literally the same. And she reacts to him as though it’s creepy or a red flag (which it is) when before she was totally into it. LO loves to compare Apollo to Hades. I’ve seen several fans praise Hades for NOT assaulting Persephone “even though he totally could”. But this is just really weird and it feels like it’s setting up that Hades is a predator like Apollo, but I think the writer is just trying to make Hades look special. Like if anyone else did the things he did it would be creepy, but it’s cute when he does it. If it were me writing the story, I’d have Persephone be into Apollo a little bit. She reacts kind of how she did with Hades. And then he assaults her and she’s conflicted because NOW, when he says “you’ve been flirting with me all day” she knows he’s right. And while flirting does not equal consent, she would think that and believe it was consensual at first. Idk it just feels like a natural conflict that was sidestepped so Persephone could only ever show romantic interest in Hades. Like it’s a character flaw to be attracted to other people than the ML.

I would love to see a video of how you guys plan comics and write down in excel like you mentioned in this video! Great video and breakdown 😊

I tried to read the first few pages, and I legitimately do not know how it drew so much attention. The art design is pretty sure, but is off-model within the same page. The hyper-sexualized poses Persephone does, and the faces were just icky. And I could not even follow who was who half the time.

i found you on reddit! this video is great, it deserves way more likes :D

No way I got a webtoon ad on this bro 😅

2:37:37 My version of Aphrodite would be blue with white splotches and always sparkling- since she comes from the sea, I'd have her reflect the sea + seafoam. Think Daphne's splotches with Athena and Hera's shine, except Aphrodite would undeniably be the most beautiful (that's the point).

17:56 biggest mistake in the history of writing.

idk where else to say this but it looks like all y'alls lore olympus videos except for this got ganked by copyright- i was taken out of your latest vid in the midst of watching D:

Lookism really put Webtoons as a whole on the map when it first dropped

Did RS get to you guys??? 😭

Honestly, I just got bored with it. The drama just became too much and it kind of seemed like they were dragging their feet with certain plotlines, like the whole trial, and I just didn't want to read it anymore.

Honestly I’m the beginning I loved LO , I loved the telling of how they met , however it’s being dragged now and bland. Peresphone is Mary Sueish I kinda ma starting to realize it in later chapters more now , like how she is super intelligent,she can do no wrong,virgin,loves academics (nothing wrong with it just they kinda made that her only personality trait) she’s honestly really just became bland , but lord help anyone who calls her an Mary Sue then fandom will have your head , Honestly I’m more privy to Hera honestly she’s complex , not an Mary Sue actually has an decent plot, also I kinda feel as if everything was handed to Peresphone even the fight scene between her and Kronos kinda sucked all she had to was eat the pomegranate and bam! She had powers because she’s a fertility goddess and able to beat Kronos we like seeing our hero’s go through obstacles and struggle yes her being away from Hades was an struggle and up keeping the mortal realm without her Demeter but like those were the only struggles honestly. I’m not trying to downplay her SA but like it’s HARDLY talked about . The author misses the point of the lore , I get it it’s an re-telling but still and slowly this is starting to become some sexual fantasy almost. Sorry not sorry.