Lore Olympus: Volume One

Smythe, a folklorist, uses Ancient Greek mythology as the backbone of Lore Olympus, though its themes and characters are modernized for a contemporary audience. As such, her characters are drawn from the well-known gods of Greek antiquity, though their roles vary from character to character from their inspiration. Smythe makes many allusions to Greek mythology as a world-building technique, both capitalizing on and subverting reader assumptions about what certain archetypal figures and character dynamics suggest.

According to mythology, after being formed from Chaos, the world was ruled over by the titans, led by the Kronos, father of Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Other titans mentioned in Lore Olympus Volume One include Rhea, mother of Hades; Gaia, the titan of the Earth; and Hyperion, the titan of the sun. Kronos, fearing his children would rise against him, consumed several of them before being deposed by Zeus and banished to Tartarus, an area of the Underworld akin to Hell. This is alluded to in Hades’s nightmare in Episode 25. Zeus and his brothers establish themselves as the rulers of the new Pantheon: Zeus is the king of the gods, ruling over Olympus and the rest of the Pantheon, Poseidon becomes the ruler of the oceans, and Hades becomes ruler of the Underworld. Though famously complex in the mythological tradition, family relationships among the gods are not fully explored in this point in the Lore Olympus series. Zeus is the father of many other gods; present in Lore Olympus are the twins Artemis and Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Athena (mentioned by name). All of these children are results of Zeus’s infidelity. Zeus is wed to his sister, Hera, and fathered Persephone with another sister, Demeter.

While these relations are as close to “canon” as Greek mythology gets, having no centralized belief system, it is unlikely that they are entirely canon to the world of Lore Olympus, given the portrayed ages of and relationships between characters. Smythe does retain some of the basic relationships between the gods: Zeus rules over Olympus, figured as a bright, modern city in the graphic novel. Hades rules the Underworld, a dark, neon-lit metropolis. The gods retain their mythological functions in the form of jobs: Hermes delivers messages and mail, Apollo drives the sun across the sky, Eros (the Greek version of Cupid) plays matchmaker at the behest of Aphrodite. Zeus is just as infamous among the gods for his infidelities as he is in the myths; Hera is aware and jaded by it.

The abduction of Persephone by Hades is one of the most famous stories in Greek mythology; it is the core of the story of Lore Olympus and a major source of inspiration for Smythe. Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture, who raised Persephone away from Olympus in the mortal realm. Hades falls in love with Persephone and decides to make her his queen, taking her to the Underworld. In many versions of this myth, Persephone is abducted against her will and becomes trapped in the Underworld after eating a pomegranate grown there. In some versions of the myth, Persephone is allowed to leave the Underworld once a year to visit Demeter, bringing spring to the earth. In other versions, Persephone is not abducted but consents to becoming Hades’s queen. Smythe’s version of the myth in Lore Olympus plays on this last version, granting Persephone greater agency, portraying Hades as a good character, and allowing for their love to grow out of a consensual (if dramatic) relationship.