I mean I’m on classics Twitter and book Twitter and the retelling of story with rape at the center of it has already been a bad take machine several times, and the most popular writer in the myth retelling space is probably going to make certain corners of the internet implode

ETA: and once upon the time I was a part-time professional classicist who was paid to write about sex in the ancient world and I am extremely hesitant to use the word “rape” because they don’t have an equivalent term. The Latin “raptus” does mean rape, but it most generally means “seizure” wherein forced sexual congress could be implied there. Women in the ancient world didn’t have agency over their bodies and it was their captors exercising their authority over them rather their husbands or fathers (unless the captors became their husbands and then it was legally ok). The wants of the woman rarely figured into the story, one way or another. There was actual material loss in illicit sex and that is why stories, like Terence’s the Eunuch, feature women marrying their rapists as a happy ending. Conversely, wanted sex could be a bad thing as it could ruin a woman’s chances for a husband and thus financial stability.

(Also it’s easy to dismiss an obsession over social prospects, but that is all women had. For a modern equivalent, remember a time in your life where everything was going your way and you were excited for your future, and then imagine if you were raped that you would lose whatever it is that made you excited and you would still have to deal with a fallout from rape. Some of your tears will be for the rape, others for the future you wanted that you weren’t getting anymore.)

Anyway, the story of Persephone, in every telling, is what we would describe as rape. Girl, field, mother, tears. Even if Miller handles it deftly, loud corners of the internet will not.