Show synopsis: In a limited Netflix series, the characters and parts of this mythological plot will be based on the Homeric Hymn, To-Demeter, where we will see Persephone, Demeter tackle one of Earth’s greatest enemies, Hades, and the curse of Global warming!
INTRO. PAPYRUS - Day
CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON PAPYRUS, VOICE OVER BEGINS
NARRATOR
Long ago, a cursed flower fell upon the village where Persephone and Demeter resided. Once a tiny black seed, it grew into a gush of gold embers. In nine days time, on the tenth morning, its blossom signs the return of Hades, echoing waves of global warming.
CAMERA SHIFT TOWARDS HADES. HIS FLAMES DANCE AROUND THE CROWN, AS HE PLANTS THE CURSED SEED. DEMETER FLIES INTO THE MEADOW.
DEMETER
(Anger) Hades.
HADES
(Sarcastically) Nice to see you too!
DEMETER
Leave before I send you back down myself.
HADES
(Calmly) Alright, I'm merely gazing at the roses. See you soon Demeter, and tell Persephone I said hello.
Hades vanishes through a cloud of darkness.
INT. MEADOW - 10th morning - DAY
CAMERA PANS TO THE VILLAGE ERUPTING IN FLAMES.
PERSEPHONE NARRATES
Well, you must wonder what-happened. I was enjoying the weather I created in the flower field. All was going well until...
CAMERA PANS TO THE BLACK FLAMING FLOWER
PERSEPHONE CONTINUES
Intrigued, I picked it up. Mesmerized by its’ blue flames, until my mother intruded.
SCENE SHOWS PERSEPHONE PICKING UP THE FLOWER AS DEMETER ENTERS.
DEMETER
(Yelling) PERSEPHONE! DON’T!
PERSEPHONE CON’T
But it was too late.
SCENE THEN PANS TO HUGE CRACK SHAKING THE FIELD APART, A BLUE FIGURE RISES THROUGH!
HADES
(yells) WHO PICKED MY FLOWER!!!
Screen flashes to Persephone & Demeter panicking.
PERSEPHONE NARRATING
And here comes the real trouble… my problematic uncle
PERSEPHONE
Uncle Hades. Always a pleasure.
DEMETER
Hades, leave. Now.
HADES
Leave? (laughs maniacally)When I’m finally summoned to Earth?
DEMETER
From a flower?
HADES
Not just any flower, a cursed one. Surely Apollo must have told you, long ago prophesied of my revengeful return to Mount Olympus.
CAMERA PANS OVER TO THE TOWN ON FIRE WITH-SCREAMS-RIPPLING THROUGHOUT
PERSEPHONE
Hades, there are other solutions.
HADES
IF ONLY...
THE BATTLE COMMENCES. HADES TRANSFORMS INTO A LARGE FIRE PIT, BURNING THE FOREST AND ECOSYSTEM, DESTROYING THE OZONE.
PERSEPHONE
MOM! GO AFTER HADES, I’ll HANDLE THIS!
The camera shows Persephone summoning raindrops to anguish the flames as she closes the holes in the Ozone.
DEMETER FOLLOWS HADES INTO THE FOREST.
DEMETER
HADES!! STOP. Unless you want Zeus involved.
HADES
Let’s battle this out like real Olympians. I win, I’ll rule Earth. With Persephone away in the Underworld, and you...dead.
DEMETER
(confidently) Deal.
Hades begins to attack Demeter with fire.
DEMETER
(YELLS) I SUMMON THE SPIRITS OF THE FOUR SEASONS TO FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT.
Hades’ flames struggle-to-breath-through-Persephone's heavy pouring. Demeter’s plants begin to drag Hades into the ground, as the spirits of the four seasons snuffle out his strength.
PERSEPHONE
What’s next?
HADES
(Plants strangle his neck) I’ll find a way.
PERSEPHONE
Global warming? How has this Earth hurt you?
DEMETER
(Smugly) A deal is a deal Hades, now leave!
PERSEPHONE
Goodbye Uncle.
The plants drag him back down, as villagers and spirits of nature all rejoice for peace.
PERSEPHONE
(relieved) Earth will always be safe in our hands.
END OF STORY.
ANALYSIS:
This screenplay was a modern adaptation and retelling of the Homeric Hymn To Demeter, with a modern twist that incorporates the pressing theme of global warming. The original hymn is a classic demonstration of a “rediscover(y) of mother and daughter” (Dowden, 2011) relationship where we see Demeter travel to the ends of the world (literally) to find her daughter. From the hymn, To Demeter, I loved the relationship between Demeter and Persephone and appreciated how even with love, vulnerability, and feelings in the air, they were still depicted as strong beings. I felt that it was important to maintain the mother-daughter duo dynamic in my narrative, as I believe it is important to show female empowerment and what the strength of love can do. I decided to omit the part where Persephone gets kidnapped and any parts that I felt were too dark. Nevertheless, I tried to maintain some details in my adaptation so that readers could tie in some connections between the original aetiological myth and my version of it. The Homeric Hymns are one the oldest dated creations of Ancient Civilization, in which they were found written on papyri.
In my adaptation, one of the themes of my script was global warming.
First, I chose to compose my narrative as a screenplay because myths were typically performed in Ancient Greece to convey critical lessons, as each myth encompasses an essential group of ideas. In an effort to modernize this adaptation, I thought it would be best delivered through a medium of mass media prevalent in many households: Netflix. Just like in superhero films, I chose to give the characters unique powers: Persephone as the Goddess of vegetation and weather; Demeter as the Goddess of harvest, plants, and the seasons; and Hades with the power of fire and emitting damaging gases. For the beginning, I thought it would be prudent to keep the line “Wondrously bloomed the flower”, as the flower entrapped Persephone in the original myth (Hom. Hymn Dem, 7-8). Indeed, the picking of the flower was when the first complication occurred, “Then the maiden (Persephone) marveled and stretched forth both her hands to seize the fair plaything” (Hom. Hymn Dem, 10-11). This set off the domino effect from which other problems quickly arose, such as Persephone getting kidnapped by Hades. I decided to omit the kidnapping as I felt that there were already too many stories depicting violent relationships between men and women. In addition, such a depiction “establishes a model of marriage that unites sexuality and violence” (Dougherty, 2001). I didn't particularly appreciate how Persephone and Hades’ relationship began, so I altered it so that Persephone and Demeter could have their moment. Thus, the only violation that would occur in my narrative was towards Earth in the form of Hades causing Global Warming. Indeed, in my adaptation, I chose to have a cursed flower planted by Hades that, when picked, caused the King of the Underworld to return. This flower created some foreshadowing for the viewers which you can see in the beginning of my narrative with the conversation that occurred between Demeter and Hades. This can also be seen near the beginning of the original myth. In this case, Hades’ return would be analogous to global warming, with my decision being inspired by the fire river Phlegethon, one of the five rivers in the realm of Hades. I was conjuring imagery when describing Hades as I tried to create the visual of the Darvaza gas crater in Asia to dramatize the meadow. I made it clear that the cursed flower would take nine days to fully bloom, just like in the original myth in which Demeter searches for her kidnapped daughter for nine days. I thought since Demeter saw Hades plant it, she would wonder how long or what and why he would plant it. As she was anxious for nine days searching for her daughter, she would be anxious for nine days in my adaptation searching for an answer to this unusual flower and finally on the “tenth morning” it came (Hom. Hymn Dem, 34). While in the original, it was Zeus who planted it to trick Persephone into picking it, I decided to omit Zeus from my version so that Demeter and Persephone could receive more focus and recognition. A lot of people have heard of Zeus, whether it's in songs, television shows, and in books while for Demeter and Persephone, I did not know who they were until this course. As for Hades, I decided to keep him as the antagonist of the story, as he is not only depicted that way in the original, but in other myths. In addition, Hades’ evilness as he is "the most feared of all gods" and how people would "people were even afraid to speak his name" (Richardson, 2003 ) would be consistent between the original myth and my adaptation. Continuing with the plot, I included the line “wide-wayed earth gaped in the Nysian plain, and up rushed the prince” (Hom. Hymn Dem, 12), as I felt it was important to keep this to symbolize the erupting chaos in both the original and the adaptation. When Hades shows up after Persephone picks the flower, the Earth begins to heat up, causing fires in forests and villages and rapidly melting the polar ice caps. Furthermore, I omitted the whole kidnapping of Persephone as I felt it would be irrelevant to the global warming plot, as well, I utilized an allegory between Demeter and Persephone to use the strength in the love they had for each other and the Earth to defeat Hades. I wanted to convey the love and devastation that Demeter had for Persephone in the original myth but to portray on to the Earth as if it were her own daughter. During the fight scene when Hades was wreaking havoc, I adjusted Persephone’s powers so that she could also control the weather as I felt that ties in with the whole vegetation gift of hers. This would then allow her to help put out the fires to counteract all the damage that was caused to her and her mother’s work on the land. As well, in the original myth, Demeter’s character is the one who “bring the seasons” (Hom. Hymn Dem, 36) and the one who “holy grain to grow thick and full (Hes. 523) so in my adaptation I decided to use anthropomorphism to separate the four seasons into spirits to personify and add character to them allowing them to be able to defeat Hades in the end by encircling him. As well, in my version I made Hades make a reference to Apollo, as we know from the Hymn to Apollo that is where “Apollo’s oracular seat” (hymn 2) is first mentioned which introduces one of his many talents, are prophecies as I felt it would be cool to mention. This was not included in The Rape of Persephone. While Global Warming has been happening for many years, with each year progressively getting worse, in my version, it escalated rapidly for nine days since the picking of the cursed flower. My version was exaggerated for the purpose of storytelling, however, that does not take away from the fact that Global Warming is a real thing that is damaging our planet. My goal for this script is to shed light on a very serious situation and to convey a lesson that if we all work together - like Demeter and Persephone - we can solve this and heal the planet together. Indeed, the combined efforts of Demeter and Persephone in taking down Hades should be symbolic of the collective action that humanity needs if it is to ever solve global warming. Just as Hades is the prime antagonist in the Greek World, the widespread and ingrained use of fossil fuels around the world is a common enemy facing humanity as a species.
REFERENCES:
Dougherty, Carol. (2001). Phaeacians and Cyclopes: Overseas Settlement. In The raft of Odysseus: The ethnographic imagination of Homer's Odyssey (pp. 133-153). New York city, New York: Oxford University Press.
Dowden, K. (Trans.). (2011). The Semiotics and Pragmatics of Myth. In Claude Calame. Blackwell Publishing.
Hesiod. Theogony ; And, Works and Days. Robert Lamberton and Stanley Lombardo: Hackett Pub. Co, 1993.
Homer Hymns. Translated by Stephen Trzaskoma, Scott R. Smith, Stephen Brunet, and Thomas G. Palaima. Hackett Publishing Co, 2004. Lines 10-15
Richardson, A. D. (2003). World Mythology: Hades. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press.
Lines 10-15 were used from the Hymn to Demeter and the Hymn to Apollo
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