#FAQ

Is Persephone brave?

/ kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

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Persephone is called brave twice in the entirety of the Persephone trilogy, and only once by Hades. But it made quite an impression on the goddess (as I’m sure being called brave by the Lord of the Underworld would.) She immediately denies it, thinks about it for two books, and denies it again.

“You’re strong and brave. More than you know. You stood and fought in Tartarus.”

I shook my head. “I’m not brave. I’m just stupid. When something scary or bad happens, my mind shuts off and I act. Believe me, later, when it has time to process, I’m terrified.”

Their difference of opinion here has to do with the definition of brave. To her, it means not being afraid, which some of my readers agree with. Since Persephone quakes in fear and cries after the fact, to them she’s not brave. That’s a matter of opinion, and is open to reader interpretation. Those readers are not why this is a frequently asked question.

To Hades, being brave means moving forward despite your fear. Which means you can’t possibly be brave in the absence of fear.Persephone  was scared of Pirithous and stabbed him with a pencil, when she stood up against Hades in the clearing, when she stood up to Hades in the Underworld, when she learned self-defense, when she opened her mind on purpose to Boreas’s dreamwalking after Melissa was taken. When she faced Pirithous in the Underworld, and finally when she faced Pirithous in the end. She was scared, and while internally she may have quaked, and while she cried, and shivered, and sometimes whined after the fact, she took her fear and pushed it aside moment by moment, often at the risk of her own life. These aren’t always reactive situations either. She makes plans to do something scary from a place of relative safety and implements them in moments of danger throughout the trilogy.

Many readers agree with Hades’s definition. That’s a matter of opinion and is open to reader interpretation. Those readers are not why this is a frequently asked question.

This is a frequently asked question because Persephone can’t lie, so when she says “I’m not brave,” it’s not false modesty, she absolutely does not believe bravery is one of her traits.

The whole not being able to lie thing gets complicated when the gods start talking in absolutes. She doesn’t say “I don’t think I’m brave.” She says she’s not. Period. And to her, that is true, but her truths don’t dictate other people’s opinions. So reader’s (and Hades’) opinions are still valid here, because she’s not talking about something steeped in fact. It’s not “Does 2 +2 = 4?” It’s “Does that equation look pretty?” A god can answer in an absolute to that question, because to them it either does or doesn’t. That is their truth.

 

 

Why can’t the people sent to Tartarus drink from the Lethe to give them a blank slate?

/ kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

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I get some variation of this question a lot, and understandably. The idea of Tartarus, of people suffering for all eternity, is very disturbing. It should bug people. But this was addressed in the book here:

“We also use it (The Lethe) on people who’ve done bad things in life,” Cassandra continued. “We take away all their memories, and they serve in the palace or around the Underworld until their sentence is up.”

That didn’t seem like much of a punishment. “Why?”

“For most people, their circumstances contributed to whatever crime they committed. This gives them a blank slate. When they finish their sentence they can live the rest of their afterlife in peace. Of course it doesn’t work like that for everyone, but between me and Moirae we can usually tell who should go straight to Tartarus.”

Anyone can choose to drink from the Lethe, but some people are sentenced to it. Some people are just evil. Not because of something that happened to them or was done to them, but because they just are. Those people still get the option of the Lethe, but because they’d be a danger to the other souls and they need a more severe punishment, are still sent to Tartarus.

I completely get why this is bothersome to a lot of people. But I did base this world off Greek mythology and Tartarus was absolutely a factor that can’t be ignored.

 

FAQ Friday: Weird Names

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Why doesn’t anyone bat an eye at all the strange names in the otherwise modern day Persephone universe? Find out below:

FAQ Friday: Why doesn’t Persephone recognize references to herself?

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If Persephone is learning mythology, why doesn’t she recognize references to herself in the myths she’s learning about in school?

Because Persephone lives in an alternate universe where the myths are still unfolding. There IS no Persephone in mythology yet. She’s THE Persephone. Not a reincarnation, not a cyclical version of herself trapped in a recurring myth. There has never been a Persephone before her that had any mythological relevance and there won’t be one after her. That’s also why she doesn’t recognize Orpheus’s name or many of the other names of famous mythological figures she encounters. She recognizes the name Demeter, but she thought the name of her mother’s flower shop was just a play on the ancient goddess as Demeter doesn’t go by Demeter in the modern day (literally no other character that wasn’t a god ever referred to her by name, so I didn’t have a chance to explain that without it seeming info dumpy until she introduces herself to one of Apollo’s priestesses in book 3).

I tried to show that Persephone is set in a previously Persephone-less world by opening with her teaching talking about THE myth that’s used to explain the origin of Winter. In our society, that myth is the Persephone myth. In this one it’s not. They used a similar (and yes, existing. Boreas and Oreithyia are mythology figures and that is their story even outside the world of my book) myth. That’s the myth that school children everywhere learn instead of the Persephone one. Because there is no Persephone one. It hasn’t happened yet.

 

 

FAQ Friday: Why Does Persephone Go by Kora?

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In Persephone, and certain parts of Daughter of Earth and Sky, Persephone goes by her middle name, Kora instead of Persephone. This is actually a nod to the original myth. Before Persephone’s abduction to the Underworld, she was only referred to in mythology as Kore or Kora, which translates to girl or maiden.

In other words, in the myth she didn’t get a name until she became someone important.

Names mattered a lot in Greek Mythology. The gods had entirely different names or titles for different roles they played. So it only made sense to make sure that names mattered a lot in my series.Every book title is one of Persephone’s titles, and there’s a lot of character development that goes into Persephone choosing to abandon her more “normal” sounding nickname, and embracing the name Persephone. At first she lets people call her Persephone in the Underworld because she figures she won’t be there long enough, and the people there don’t matter to her enough, to bother correcting them. But over time, the people there and her time there come to matter so much, than in book two when she’s returned to the living realm, it feels strange when people call her Kora. By book three, when she’s completely given up clinging to both her idealized version of her human and the parts of her divine life she likes, and embraced her actual life, the name Kora is never uttered again because she became Persephone.

Using different names for different roles, particularly related to age, isn’t unique to Greek culture.  Childhood nicknames are common. When I was really little, my nickname was Katie, and it’s telling who still calls me that. Older family members. Because to them, that’s who I’ll always be. When I hit my teenage years, I decided to go by Kat, which I loved. But as I grew up, introducing myself as Kat started feeling strange. So everyone in my adult life calls me Kaitlin except for a few friends from high school, because to them that’s who I’ll always be. I was a different person entirely in high school, and THAT was a different person from the little kid known as Katie.

Outside of age, the names I go by today show a lot about my relationship with the person using them. People who call me Ms. Bevis for instance don’t know me at all. But the person who calls me Mommy knows me on an entirely different level than all my friends that call me Kaitlin. And that’s a whole different relationship than the man who calls me hon. Names matter.

What names do YOU go by? What do they say about you? What do they say about the people using them?

 

FAQ Friday: Roman VS Latin Names

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Why is a Professor teaching a group of high school students, and shouldn’t he be using using the Roman names since it’s a Latin class?

Professor Homer is modeled after two of my high school teachers, a certain professor (and that title was a matter of pride to him, so we did use it despite being a high school) and my Latin teacher. My Latin teacher was the sweetest old man you’d ever meet, and he felt it was important to distinguish between Roman and Greek deities. Minerva is not just Athena with a different name. She’s an entirely different god. There’s tons of similarities between them in the same way there’s a ton of similarities between Samhain and Halloween. There are enough differences distinguish between the two holidays just like there are enough differences to distinguish between the two gods.

**I do need to add that while they are different gods, even within their own specific culture they could be worshiped for different roles by making slight variations on the name. So the blending of the gods worked very well because both cultures believed that there were many different aspects to each god. Add that to the oral tradition and the far flung reach of each deities worshipers, and you get some major variations in personality and sequence/existence of events.**

Anyway, I decided to take the same approach my Latin teacher did with my stories by sticking with the spellings of the version of the myth that inspired me most. Professor Homer only tells one myth in the entire series, and that’s the abduction of Oreithyia. The earliest myth of Boreas and Oreithyia I could find was from one of the Simonides fragments (534 to be specific) and it features an Athenian Princess, so to me it made sense for him to stick with the Greek names.

However, if it makes you feel better about him as an educator, he did go over the proper Roman names and roles at the beginning of class. The story just picks up after that classroom lecture.