Persephone: Lines

I noticed a few of my friends here on dA were participating in a contest to re-design the Greek goddess Persephone, as "Queen of Hell." I popped over to the website and checked it out, but I was unhappy with the perimeters. They wanted a sleek, sexy, evil Persephone, and that's really contrary to how I see her.

I think part of the problem is because of our own culture when we hear "hell" we think "evil." But Hades was where everyone went when they died, even the warriors who died gloriously in battle--The Fields of Elysium are in Hades. To me, Persephone is the person who sees to the innocent dead--which would include a lot of children, considering the infant mortality rate of the ancient world.

For this picture, I wanted to look at her as new to the role, here she is just now eating the pomegranate seed. She's very young, just on the edge of womanhood. It's a pretty messed up story if you look at it right--he has a Lolita Complex and she has Stockholm's Syndrome (Not to mention he's her uncle--but this is pretty normal as far as relationships go in the Greek Pantheon. Everyone's related).

But there's also an interesting coming-of-age dynamic for her, albeit a little dark. She represents the seasons, rebirth, and new fertility. Even though she's captured by Hades, she's discovered she has this sort of power over him--but she's a little afraid to use it. As she eats the pomegranate seed, her eyes are both hesitant and a little daring. Are you going to stop her? She's not completely sure she wants you to.

Since I was doing this just for myself, I went for a little more manga-esque look, and had some fun with it.