#i am unsure if i should tag this as 'hades and persephone' given that myth only plays a small role in this post

[maaruin]

There is a story idea I have been thinking about for some time and unlike many others of my story ideas it is one I would feel capable of writing with my current skill level.

But I am afraid that this story will be too weird to be accepted and will brand me as weird. Because the story would handle a pretty thorny theme without treating it in the way that is socially accepted. More about that under the cut.

The story would be loosely inspired by the myth of Hades and Perspehone - but I'm not sure if it has more similarities to that myth than to other bride kidnapping stories; CN for forced marriage/bride kidnapping and threat of rape.

Summary

Soft Sci-Fi setting. A Skilled Warrior wins a great victory for his empire. Is rewarded by the emperor with gifts, but he would prefer to be given the Emperor's Daughter in marriage. Emperor rejects this because social norms have changed in favor of free marriage choice, Emperor's Daughter rejects this because she isn't interested. Skilled Warrior kidnaps her with the intention of forcing her into marriage and brings her to a location beyond the reach of the emperor. The Emperor's Daughter has a limited time window to convince the Skilled Warrior to change his mind.

Much of the first half of the book would be taken up by the debate between the two. And here is the problem: To have this be a debate, rape cannot be treated as axiomatically wrong. Instead, a potential rape victim would need to convince a potential rapists that it isn't in his best interest to rape her. This is far from how the issue is normally discussed in the present, where some crimes (rape among them) are treated as so evil as to be beyond discussion.

She then succeeds in convincing him to release her, by arguing convincingly that the joys of a consensual marriage are greater than the joys of a forced marriage and that a consensual marriage is more conductive to achieving his religious and societal goals. Which is different to how "redemption" is normally handled in media - there is no emotional "oh no, what have I done!"-moment, instead the "redemption" goes like "I see now that my actions were based on faulty reasoning, so now that I know this I will change my actions".

And then, some time after the Emperor's Daughter is released, she would contact the Skilled Warrior with the offer: "Visit me and present your argument why I should marry you." The second half of the book would largely be that debate, in which he ultimately convinces her of marrying him. There are two aspects of this that people might consider problematic: that she ends up marrying her attempted rapist, and that this is explicitly framed as a rational argument instead of, for lack of a better word, vibes-based (as love generally is in modern stories).

The point (or at least a point) of the story would be to analyze how the selfish aspects and the selfless aspects of love relate to each other. A possible title I came up with would be "A Dispute of Desire and Affection".

My worries about the story

I get the feeling that the story would feel pretty weird to many people and if it ever gets some amount of prominance would get much criticism. Presenting immorality as understandable, only misguided and open to logical argument is quite different from the more vibes based morality that I get the impression is common; but that is something I think public discourse is on the wrong path. I think loosing the ability to rationally argue against evils like rape, slavery, and genocide is actually quite dangerous. So writing a story like that should be good, shouldn't it?

But what I fear most is people using the story to psychoanalyze me...

(I have wondered if I could tell the story more explicitly as a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persphone, that way I could just say "all the problematic elements are from the original text, I am just engaging with them". However, I don't think it would work because a) there is not really place for Demeter in this story idea while in the original it is her action that gets Persephone back, and b) rape is probably too normalized in Greek mythology for the way it is treated in this story. So I am doubtful this could work. - But maybe I should take a closer look on what changes would be required and what advantages and disadvantages would come with that.)

I wonder if my worries on this are rational, or if the perspective of public rejection just scares me on an emotional level.