How Lore Olympus Lost the Plot
Please, we promise we’re not haters, we still love it (season 1), but season 3 was shite
Tag: #LoreOlympus #Persephone #Hades #Spoilers
*Major spoilers for Lore Olympus ahead*
First published as a Webtoon Original in 2018, Lore Olympus has been a 6 year saga that loosely followed the Greek myths surrounding Hades and Persephone. We’ve written a few articles on the subject, links here, here, and here, but the official ending was released 1st of June 2024 so we thought we’d revisit LO. We’re taking a look at the third and final season and what exactly happened.
Season three starts off immediately following the reunion of Hades and Persephone after their 10 year long forced estrangement. Having fought off Kronos, Persephone is now the queen of the Underworld, but Apollo is still loose and plotting to overthrow Zeus. Now, Zeus is not a good guy, but Apollo is not an improvement. Demeter is upset that Hades has stolen her daughter. Hera is being haunted by Kronos and on the brink of a (mental health) crisis. And Hades has to figure out how to propose to Persephone. And stop his father from taking over his body again and destroying everyone. Unfortunately, season three stuffed all this and more into less than 80 episodes. In comparison, we got over 100 episodes of delicious goodness from season one; season two was decent too, coming in at just under 100.
Season three reads like the Sparknotes version of what it should have been; plot points arise and are never spoken of again, characters appear and then are gone, Greek myths are sprinkled in between scenes as plot points but have no real connection to the rest of the story. Everything feels rushed, especially the last three chapters that wrap up about 8 plots without any dialogue. We jump from one crisis to the next, feeling like a soap opera, but bad(1). There is no build up of the new issues and little development once we get there. Solutions are discovered in the same chapter without question or issue and the team moves on to the next crisis. The pacing is off and the whole season feels like a storyboard draft.
The issues started back in season two. We get to episode 190 and discover that we are at the mid-season finale. Season one ended with 115 episodes, so pacing wise, this seemed to be gearing up for a longer and juicer season two. However, 16 episodes later, at episode 206, we’re hit with the season two finale. Season three had an unofficial mid-season break with a 6 month hiatus before ending the whole series at episode 280. This means that season three is only a fourth of the entire series.
We appreciate that webtoon creators, like manga artists, are under extreme time pressures and that the job is very demanding physically as well. Health issues arise and the body needs time and rest to recover before being able to continue producing art at such a strenuous pace. We cannot confirm if the rush to the series finale was the author's choice or influenced by external pressures. It does come back to the issue of quantity over quality, though. Those that are genuinely interested in the series would have waited through longer breaks than having underdeveloped, weaker chapters on time every week.
We appreciate that the author did give us an ending, instead of abandoning the series altogether. Having some ending, even a rushed one, is better than being left with cliffhangers. Nevertheless, it was bad.
There were moments that were nice to see as a fan, but they often didn’t go anywhere or felt forced to wrap up plot lines from previous seasons, instead of trying to find a solution with genuine depth. We did get the Hades and Persephone wedding, thrown together in a single chapter, and then they are both immediately back at work to help clean up after Kronos. The Kronos crisis has been going on for ten years at this point, and yes, they do need to work on a solution, but the characters deserved a moment of peace. We did not need to jump back into the main story arc in the same episode.
Because of the time jump at the end of season two, 10 years, there were several episodes that required flashbacks to catch up on important (and less important) details that occurred during the missing decade. Instead of all these flashbacks, having smaller side stories during a longer break between season two and three would have been nice: a short story arc here about Minthe, a quick 10 episode catch up on Aphrodite there, 3 or 4 episodes covering Eros and his wedding to Psyche. We could have gotten more info on Morpheus and Hypnos with a couple episodes on their whole deal. All the characters could have gotten little side quests to keep the readers entertained while surreptitiously dropping important plot details for the upcoming season. This would have supported a longer hiatus to fully work out what was going to happen, while releasing a few episodes here and there. But we didn’t get that. We got season three and a recap and a catch up and new information on all the characters all at the same time, while introducing new characters and plot points and resolving previous issues and trying to jam it all in with some decent emotional arcs.
The last five or six chapters are particularly rushed, but it is the last three that turn into a montage of events that wrap up most of the remaining plot threads into a nice little bow. There is no explanation or denouement, there is a full stop into a brick wall. But don’t worry because every character we care about is happy at the end. There’s no real discussion between Zeus and Hera about their awful relationship, Apollo is punished, somehow, Ouranos is suddenly there and then immediately defeated by (presumably) Gaia who is there and then also gone again, along with the other fertility goddess, which includes Hera, which is never mentioned again. Demeter is suddenly ok with Hades and Persephone, and doesn’t care about the trauma we discovered (also in season three) between her and her own mother, Metis. Persephone gets her spring powers back.
We never get an answer to 100 percent explain anything. Just a general idea that everything is ok and good again. Some stories do have open endings that are intentional and meant to have the reader questioning and thinking about the characters long after they put the book down. This was not that. This was the end without the middle part that leads up to it (and maybe missing part of the ending as well).
And it really is a shame, because the first season of the series was so good and promising. We obviously loved it, links again here, here, and here, but the quality and detail of season one and what we got in terms of season three are miles and leagues apart. There is some talk of a show, but who knows what or if that will be. Perhaps the author will revisit Lore Olympus in the future and rework season three, perhaps not. Digital media is blessed with the ability to be deleted and re-uploaded and edited in a way that print cannot.
Ultimately, season one and most of season two is still a really good adaptation of the Hades and Persephone myths, while also being truthful depictions of intimate partner abuse. While our hopes for the rest of the series may not have panned out, we do still highly recommend the first 150 episodes or so. After that, Hades and Persephone is a popular subject, maybe look into some fanfiction r other adaptations instead.
(1) We take a neutral stance on soap operas.
Image Credit:
Smythe, Rachel [@usedbandaid] (2024a). "Preview day! Sorry I’m late!" 19 April, https://www.instagram.com/p/C593FyfxTcZ/?igsh=empjd2lhM2hkcmI2&img_index=4
Smythe, Rachel [@usedbandaid] (2024b). "There are very few preview days remaining, and I am emotional." 12 April, https://www.instagram.com/p/C5rSE9rSV50/?igsh=MW5iM2pxZjJ3MHk5eg%3D%3D&img_index=3