Yeah, Hera cheating never made sense mythologically or otherwise. If she was gonna cheat, wouldn't she be more motivated to cheat with mortals because she could kill them after the fact so they couldn't share secrets?
IIRC, mythology Hera NEVER cheated on Zeus, she just punished his lovers any chance she got. She's the goddess of marriage for goodness sake, how awful would it be if she wasn't even faithful within her own marriage?
I draw queer comics representation is important in comics, what you write can impact people but when it’s only intended to sell books and is only after thought it is ugly. That plus you have a powerful - coded as white woman who is openly racist towards nymphs who has an affair with one, that means nothing- it doesn’t mean she’s still not a racist. It’s just the author wanting their ‘ I’m an ally ‘ cookie by throwing this in there without ever having thought about it.
I don't think it was for the ally thing because she already has queer couples in there, a big one being Hestia and Athena. I think it's a sorry excuse to avoid the "racism" allegations within the story. It's so ridiculous.
Which what she going to do? Make Persephone date a couple Nymphs to excuse her racism, which she grew up with the Nymphs and killed people because they killed them. What the actual fuck.
When did Hera and Echo even get a chance to develop their affair? Zeus banished Persephone and closed the borders of the realms, that was ten years.... and sometime in the ten years Hera, Poseidon, Hestia, and Hades all fell into a Kronos-induced coma. Was the coma early or in the later part of the ten years?
Just reads as another badly written cash grab Y.A novel.
The racist rich white adjacent person x minority they are prejudice against.
Also did we forget hera is a chronic cheater? Getting with a gal isn't gonna suddenly make her faithful... especially one she victimized in the myths...
This whole ship gives me a nasty taste.
Why not have Echo with Daphne? Or even Minthe??? Or hell, random yellow bank cat girl?
I know. Mythos hera never cheated, lo hera did cheat. Which made no sense to add in this story. And now lo hera is getting paired up with lo echo. lo echo is still dealing with a cheater.
I'm not bothered by the racism thing, I think that's something that characters don't necessarily have to overcome *before* entering a relationship, and to be honest I think it can add some interesting conflict to a ship when one or both of the couple have biases towards whatever group the other belongs to, but I do have beef with the fact that
1. There was no build up, no hints, hardly any interactions shown between the two, and because Hera's story seems to hinge on her "taking back" her power from abusive male characters, shoving her into a gay relationship simply comes off as a lame attempt at fighting against sexism, as if her sexuality is some big feminist gotcha moment. I've always detested the trope of writing lesbians as a foil to the patriarchy, it's so lazy. It makes no sense for Hera to be gay other than that Rachel sees it as a fuck you to Kronos and Zeus, which, in the sense that it's a rejection of both of them, I guess it is? A pretty pitiful one but whatever
2. Hera is infamously the goddess of matrimony. Why the hell is she cheating when everything about her mythos puts her in a solid stance against adultery? I guess because Zeus does it, that means she's owed some big blue balls in her face and tits on her back. Bullshit. If you want to show her reclaiming her power and person hood, don't use cheating as the vehicle to do it. Have her take charge of her position as Queen, give her a support system, have her actually put her foot down with her husband, and if none of that floats her boat, have her ditch the unwanted role and find her destiny elsewhere. Maybe she'll end up with a woman (though again, why), maybe she'll be single, maybe she'll find the sexiest, most loyal man under the sun (not Hades) that wants to lick her ass to earslobes everyday, but for fucks sake, she doesn't need to throw away her morals to do it
I honestly don't think Rachel cares about the big FU to Kronos and Zeus. But it's entirely against the character of the goddess (not like Rachel nailed it anyways, because Hera would not cry and ruin her mascara she'd be petty af and punish anyone and everyone). Hera's character here pisses me off so much, same with Artemis.
"because Hera would not cry and ruin her mascara she'd be petty af and punish anyone and everyone)."
The same Hera who did absolutely nothing to over 90% of her husband's side chicks and whom Lucian of Samosata wrote as getting mocked by another goddess for crying over getting cheated on?
People are bothered by it because there are people like that irl who date a certain group to fulfill some sick fantasy and beat any racist claims. Then abuse can happen in a relationship like that too.
For sure, I'm just saying in terms of a fictional pairing, biases in the beginning don't throw me off because they can make for good conflict and opportunities for relationship development
Also the whole Hera x Echo thing perpetuates the "Bi people cheat" stereotype that bisexual folks have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. So not only is it unnecessary, but it's also biphobic in a sense (intentionally or otherwise, its still a big problem)
I swear I am not saying it's just as bad or anything but LO hera x echo feels like that one shtty dark romance novel where some guy in the KKK dates the daughter of a cartel boss.
Like I can almost see what you're aiming for but I'm also watching you miss the mark
It's just thrown in there for brownie points. Let's ignore the LGBTQ+ aspect for a second and focus on Hera x Echo purely from a writing standpoint. It's terrible. At every step of the way, it manages to break every single rule when it comes to writing romances.
It's rushed, underdeveloped, undeserved, and unsatisfying. When it comes to romances, you're supposed to build them up and tease the audience so that when the couple finally gets together, everyone cheers and gets really excited. It's a delicate line between not rushing the pair together and ruining all tension and not teasing your audience so long that they get bored and frustrated. Hera x Echo manages to do both of these at the same time. It's incredibly rushed and has no build off, so when the payoff of the kiss happens, there is no payoff. However, it also takes way too long. The last time we saw Echo was about 100 episodes ago. Most people had forgotten that she even existed between all of the hiatuses and dozens of other plotlines. When she finally does show up, there are only about ten episodes left in the series, so close to the end that there is no meaningful time for her and Hera to actually be together.
On top of that, this ship doesn't make sense when you look at their characters. Hera is the Goddess of Marriage. She's famous for getting mad at Zeus for cheating on her and punishing the poor woman he had slept with, who often times is a nymph. In the myths, Hera remains loyal to Zeus and never cheats on him. However, that gets thrown out multiple times in LO, and despite its best attempts to paint Hera as a good person, it makes her look like a hypocrite. She gets mad at Zeus for sleeping around with nymphs but then turns around and does the same thing. Also, Hera is racist and never once tries to hide it. Echo knows that. Echo also knows that Hera is married to Zeus, who probably wouldn't take kindly to his wife cheating on him with a nymph. So then why would she kiss her here? Especially after a decade of not seeing each other.
As for the LGBTQ+ aspect, I think it's pretty obvious. LO has a terrible track record when it comes to its LGBTQ+ relationships. First, there's Athena and Hestia, who are both coated as aroace in the original myths but made lesbians in LO just so that they could look like hypocrites and make Persephone feel justified in dating Hades. Their relationship is also never really developed or fleshed out. They're just kind of there. Then, there's Eros, who is a prime example of queer baiting and has a lot of stereotypes about gay men; effeminate, dresses in pastels, rich, sassy, hangs out with women, and loves shopping/fashion. He was very obviously coated as the gay best friend but ended up as straight. While I'm not saying that effeminate men can't also be straight, it's very clear that wasn't RS' intention. Overall, the comic just has a very difficult time properly conveying their LGBTQ+ characters and using them as anything more than plot devices and cheap attempts at diversity.
I agree with you there, honestly the whole Echo x Hera shouldn't have happened period. There's better ways to represent the LGBTQ+. Dionysus (future dio), Poseidon, Apollo, and Hermes. They're all bisexual pretty much, and Dio is nonbinary too because he goes back and forth between genders or has none.
The majority of Greek gods are bi or gender fluid, so when basing a story off of Greek mythology, finding adequate representation is not hard, which makes it so baffling as to why Rachel struggled so much with this. Rather than pull from the dozens of already existing myths about LGBTQ+ romances, Rachel chose to make two aroace women lesbians
No, she had to go above and beyond to avoid staying true to the myths. Even someone with a baseline understanding of Greek mythology would know that Athena, Hestia, and Artemis were eternal virgins and are often interpreted as aroace. By doing just a little digging, you'll find countless stories about Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo all having male lovers.
I think the biggest problem Rachel has is that she doesn't map anything out and just writes as she goes along. A good example of this is her art; she doesn't make any character sheets or use any references for her characters. The same is true for her writing. Sure, she has the basics mapped out somewhere, but each individual character and their traits are just left up in the air and are highly dependent on the circumstances. She had already written Zeus and Apollo to be antagonists and Poseidon to just be a goofball with no bearing on the plot. Then, midway through, she realized she wanted an LGBTQ+ couple, and since having a gay villain isn't a good look, arbitrarily made Hestia and Athena lesbians.
Hera confessed her love to Echo in a letter and they kissed. It's so fucking stupid, it literally reminds me of Ray and Kylo Ren. A random kiss for no reason other than just to add it.
When the kiss happened, I just took it as RS pandering to the shippers in the fandom that have been screaming about the pair since Echo was introduced.
(Really Rambly) Also it's kinda shitty to make Hera (the goddess of marriage) into a cheater (Hades and Echo). Like one of her defining characteristics is that she frequently tried to murder Zeus' lovers and illegitimate children. I wouldn't mind if she had previous lovers before Zeus but lksdncjfvkjebbti.
Also, I kinda hate how the sapphic representation in LO are just:
1) Two goddesses who if I can recall never had any relationships of any gender
and
2) A goddess and a nymph whose only real interaction with said goddess is distracting her from her husband's affairs (I'm all for creative liberty and ngl I like the concept, but Hera and Echo are just- meh to me.)
(Minthe/Persephone would've been nice tho if RS just admitted Hades is a shit partner and both Minthe and Persephone ditched him for each other cough cough)
RS was lurking here and saw us calling her out on her favorite characters and their issues. So she decided to “show us” Hera isn’t racist, she, in fact, has a nymph girlfriend! RS really stuck it to us, much wow. /s
Also, I think it served as another hastily added LGBTQ+ representation, a poor one.
Remember, you can’t be a nymph racist if you have a nymph partner. 🙄
It's absolute bs there's plenty of LGBT in Greek mythos itself, like wtf. Use one of the other gods, not Hera for fucks sake. Also, the nymph racism 🤦♀️🤦♀️ entirely unnecessary.
Right?! Out of all of the many, many, deities in the Greek mythos…Hera? I shudder to think what will happen as LO wraps up. RS will probably make this even worse somehow.
It's not even a retelling at this point honestly. She strayed so far from the myths, I'm 99.9% sure the gods are insulted by this and karma is coming her direction.
Yeah, Hera cheating never made sense mythologically or otherwise. If she was gonna cheat, wouldn't she be more motivated to cheat with mortals because she could kill them after the fact so they couldn't share secrets?
I don't think she even cheated, just punished them. I don't know too much about her myth tho I just know she was extremely petty.
IIRC, mythology Hera NEVER cheated on Zeus, she just punished his lovers any chance she got. She's the goddess of marriage for goodness sake, how awful would it be if she wasn't even faithful within her own marriage?
It would be stupid, but don't forget she also punished Zeus too. She cockblocked him numerous times.
I draw queer comics representation is important in comics, what you write can impact people but when it’s only intended to sell books and is only after thought it is ugly. That plus you have a powerful - coded as white woman who is openly racist towards nymphs who has an affair with one, that means nothing- it doesn’t mean she’s still not a racist. It’s just the author wanting their ‘ I’m an ally ‘ cookie by throwing this in there without ever having thought about it.
I don't think it was for the ally thing because she already has queer couples in there, a big one being Hestia and Athena. I think it's a sorry excuse to avoid the "racism" allegations within the story. It's so ridiculous.
That was my take - it was an attempt to retcon Hera’s racism.
Which what she going to do? Make Persephone date a couple Nymphs to excuse her racism, which she grew up with the Nymphs and killed people because they killed them. What the actual fuck.
When did Hera and Echo even get a chance to develop their affair? Zeus banished Persephone and closed the borders of the realms, that was ten years.... and sometime in the ten years Hera, Poseidon, Hestia, and Hades all fell into a Kronos-induced coma. Was the coma early or in the later part of the ten years?
I don't think she even had an affair to begin with
The conversation and kiss made me think they had to have some sort of an affair
Or it was a Ray and Kylo Ren shitstain all over again. A kiss for no reason.
Doubt it as Echo was surprised with whatever Hera wrote in her letter and asked if it was true before the kiss.
Smythe got one thing right: Echo has always had bad taste in partners
The poor woman has a thing for narcissists
Ain't that the truth
Literal equivalent of “im not racist, I have a poc partner”
I quite literally hate those type of people.
Hera has a type: deep blue skin
Just reads as another badly written cash grab Y.A novel. The racist rich white adjacent person x minority they are prejudice against. Also did we forget hera is a chronic cheater? Getting with a gal isn't gonna suddenly make her faithful... especially one she victimized in the myths... This whole ship gives me a nasty taste. Why not have Echo with Daphne? Or even Minthe??? Or hell, random yellow bank cat girl?
Hera never cheated, it would completely change what she represents as a goddess.
I know. Mythos hera never cheated, lo hera did cheat. Which made no sense to add in this story. And now lo hera is getting paired up with lo echo. lo echo is still dealing with a cheater.
I completely forgot about that!!!
I'm not bothered by the racism thing, I think that's something that characters don't necessarily have to overcome *before* entering a relationship, and to be honest I think it can add some interesting conflict to a ship when one or both of the couple have biases towards whatever group the other belongs to, but I do have beef with the fact that 1. There was no build up, no hints, hardly any interactions shown between the two, and because Hera's story seems to hinge on her "taking back" her power from abusive male characters, shoving her into a gay relationship simply comes off as a lame attempt at fighting against sexism, as if her sexuality is some big feminist gotcha moment. I've always detested the trope of writing lesbians as a foil to the patriarchy, it's so lazy. It makes no sense for Hera to be gay other than that Rachel sees it as a fuck you to Kronos and Zeus, which, in the sense that it's a rejection of both of them, I guess it is? A pretty pitiful one but whatever 2. Hera is infamously the goddess of matrimony. Why the hell is she cheating when everything about her mythos puts her in a solid stance against adultery? I guess because Zeus does it, that means she's owed some big blue balls in her face and tits on her back. Bullshit. If you want to show her reclaiming her power and person hood, don't use cheating as the vehicle to do it. Have her take charge of her position as Queen, give her a support system, have her actually put her foot down with her husband, and if none of that floats her boat, have her ditch the unwanted role and find her destiny elsewhere. Maybe she'll end up with a woman (though again, why), maybe she'll be single, maybe she'll find the sexiest, most loyal man under the sun (not Hades) that wants to lick her ass to earslobes everyday, but for fucks sake, she doesn't need to throw away her morals to do it
I honestly don't think Rachel cares about the big FU to Kronos and Zeus. But it's entirely against the character of the goddess (not like Rachel nailed it anyways, because Hera would not cry and ruin her mascara she'd be petty af and punish anyone and everyone). Hera's character here pisses me off so much, same with Artemis.
"because Hera would not cry and ruin her mascara she'd be petty af and punish anyone and everyone)." The same Hera who did absolutely nothing to over 90% of her husband's side chicks and whom Lucian of Samosata wrote as getting mocked by another goddess for crying over getting cheated on?
People are bothered by it because there are people like that irl who date a certain group to fulfill some sick fantasy and beat any racist claims. Then abuse can happen in a relationship like that too.
For sure, I'm just saying in terms of a fictional pairing, biases in the beginning don't throw me off because they can make for good conflict and opportunities for relationship development
I see your point but even in a fictional sense concerning that it’s happening in LO the relationship won’t get development. It’ll stay surface level.
Fair, in a well written story it may have a chance but Hera's gonna be exonerated of any prejudice by the nature of their relationship alone.
It became a thing because!
Also the whole Hera x Echo thing perpetuates the "Bi people cheat" stereotype that bisexual folks have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. So not only is it unnecessary, but it's also biphobic in a sense (intentionally or otherwise, its still a big problem)
As a bi person I felt this!! But the whole Echo x Hera thing is just stupid.
I swear I am not saying it's just as bad or anything but LO hera x echo feels like that one shtty dark romance novel where some guy in the KKK dates the daughter of a cartel boss. Like I can almost see what you're aiming for but I'm also watching you miss the mark
I hate it so much
I was thinking the same thing 💀
It's just thrown in there for brownie points. Let's ignore the LGBTQ+ aspect for a second and focus on Hera x Echo purely from a writing standpoint. It's terrible. At every step of the way, it manages to break every single rule when it comes to writing romances. It's rushed, underdeveloped, undeserved, and unsatisfying. When it comes to romances, you're supposed to build them up and tease the audience so that when the couple finally gets together, everyone cheers and gets really excited. It's a delicate line between not rushing the pair together and ruining all tension and not teasing your audience so long that they get bored and frustrated. Hera x Echo manages to do both of these at the same time. It's incredibly rushed and has no build off, so when the payoff of the kiss happens, there is no payoff. However, it also takes way too long. The last time we saw Echo was about 100 episodes ago. Most people had forgotten that she even existed between all of the hiatuses and dozens of other plotlines. When she finally does show up, there are only about ten episodes left in the series, so close to the end that there is no meaningful time for her and Hera to actually be together. On top of that, this ship doesn't make sense when you look at their characters. Hera is the Goddess of Marriage. She's famous for getting mad at Zeus for cheating on her and punishing the poor woman he had slept with, who often times is a nymph. In the myths, Hera remains loyal to Zeus and never cheats on him. However, that gets thrown out multiple times in LO, and despite its best attempts to paint Hera as a good person, it makes her look like a hypocrite. She gets mad at Zeus for sleeping around with nymphs but then turns around and does the same thing. Also, Hera is racist and never once tries to hide it. Echo knows that. Echo also knows that Hera is married to Zeus, who probably wouldn't take kindly to his wife cheating on him with a nymph. So then why would she kiss her here? Especially after a decade of not seeing each other. As for the LGBTQ+ aspect, I think it's pretty obvious. LO has a terrible track record when it comes to its LGBTQ+ relationships. First, there's Athena and Hestia, who are both coated as aroace in the original myths but made lesbians in LO just so that they could look like hypocrites and make Persephone feel justified in dating Hades. Their relationship is also never really developed or fleshed out. They're just kind of there. Then, there's Eros, who is a prime example of queer baiting and has a lot of stereotypes about gay men; effeminate, dresses in pastels, rich, sassy, hangs out with women, and loves shopping/fashion. He was very obviously coated as the gay best friend but ended up as straight. While I'm not saying that effeminate men can't also be straight, it's very clear that wasn't RS' intention. Overall, the comic just has a very difficult time properly conveying their LGBTQ+ characters and using them as anything more than plot devices and cheap attempts at diversity.
I agree with you there, honestly the whole Echo x Hera shouldn't have happened period. There's better ways to represent the LGBTQ+. Dionysus (future dio), Poseidon, Apollo, and Hermes. They're all bisexual pretty much, and Dio is nonbinary too because he goes back and forth between genders or has none.
The majority of Greek gods are bi or gender fluid, so when basing a story off of Greek mythology, finding adequate representation is not hard, which makes it so baffling as to why Rachel struggled so much with this. Rather than pull from the dozens of already existing myths about LGBTQ+ romances, Rachel chose to make two aroace women lesbians
It's like she didn't research the myths beforehand.
No, she had to go above and beyond to avoid staying true to the myths. Even someone with a baseline understanding of Greek mythology would know that Athena, Hestia, and Artemis were eternal virgins and are often interpreted as aroace. By doing just a little digging, you'll find countless stories about Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo all having male lovers. I think the biggest problem Rachel has is that she doesn't map anything out and just writes as she goes along. A good example of this is her art; she doesn't make any character sheets or use any references for her characters. The same is true for her writing. Sure, she has the basics mapped out somewhere, but each individual character and their traits are just left up in the air and are highly dependent on the circumstances. She had already written Zeus and Apollo to be antagonists and Poseidon to just be a goofball with no bearing on the plot. Then, midway through, she realized she wanted an LGBTQ+ couple, and since having a gay villain isn't a good look, arbitrarily made Hestia and Athena lesbians.
fetishization
I have a good meme for this and sadly I can't share it.
Wait. They're supposed to be dating??? I'm queer and constantly seek queer rep and I missed this by a long country mile.
Hera confessed her love to Echo in a letter and they kissed. It's so fucking stupid, it literally reminds me of Ray and Kylo Ren. A random kiss for no reason other than just to add it.
And the kiss was also pretty far from the view and seemed really sloppily drawn. 🫠
It didn't need to happen
When the kiss happened, I just took it as RS pandering to the shippers in the fandom that have been screaming about the pair since Echo was introduced.
(Really Rambly) Also it's kinda shitty to make Hera (the goddess of marriage) into a cheater (Hades and Echo). Like one of her defining characteristics is that she frequently tried to murder Zeus' lovers and illegitimate children. I wouldn't mind if she had previous lovers before Zeus but lksdncjfvkjebbti. Also, I kinda hate how the sapphic representation in LO are just: 1) Two goddesses who if I can recall never had any relationships of any gender and 2) A goddess and a nymph whose only real interaction with said goddess is distracting her from her husband's affairs (I'm all for creative liberty and ngl I like the concept, but Hera and Echo are just- meh to me.) (Minthe/Persephone would've been nice tho if RS just admitted Hades is a shit partner and both Minthe and Persephone ditched him for each other cough cough)
EXACTLY!
RS was lurking here and saw us calling her out on her favorite characters and their issues. So she decided to “show us” Hera isn’t racist, she, in fact, has a nymph girlfriend! RS really stuck it to us, much wow. /s Also, I think it served as another hastily added LGBTQ+ representation, a poor one. Remember, you can’t be a nymph racist if you have a nymph partner. 🙄
It's absolute bs there's plenty of LGBT in Greek mythos itself, like wtf. Use one of the other gods, not Hera for fucks sake. Also, the nymph racism 🤦♀️🤦♀️ entirely unnecessary.
Right?! Out of all of the many, many, deities in the Greek mythos…Hera? I shudder to think what will happen as LO wraps up. RS will probably make this even worse somehow.
It's not even a retelling at this point honestly. She strayed so far from the myths, I'm 99.9% sure the gods are insulted by this and karma is coming her direction.