Consent in Rachel Smythe’s “Lore Olympus”

In her 2025 article for Feminist Formations, titled “When Consent Fails,” scholar Corinne Matthews makes the case that the sexual assault of Persephone in Lore Olympus offers an important staging ground for exploring the limits of verbal consent. #LoreOlympus 1/9

*CONTENT WARNING* The thread that follows contains imagery and discussion of sexual violence against women. Please exercise all necessary caution in reading the following threads.

Matthews argues that “when it comes to sexual consent, context matters, and the context for Persephone’s experience is no exception. The narrative, visual, and dialogic context from the comic demonstrate that her experience still qualifies as rape….” 2/9

“Taken as a whole, this narrative brings the tensions at the intersection of acquaintance rape and affirmative consent into focus. Given its medium, content, and widespread popularity, Lore Olympus has the potential to challenge and expand perceptions of engagement with consent in popular culture….” 3/9

“On a conceptual level, Smythe intervenes in the “stranger in a dark alley” conception of rape with her nuanced depiction of acquaintance rape, highlighting challenges specific to people sexually assaulted by someone they already know…” 4/9

“That depiction illuminates some of the damaging repercussions of making verbal, affirmative consent the gold standard of ethical sexual interactions, particularly in cases of acquaintance rape. The use of a multimodal medium further complicates perceptions of consent,…” 5/9

“since the visual medium emphasizes how verbal communication and body language can work together to communicate consent—or, as in this case, the lack thereof. Finally, since Webtoon published Lore Olympus episodes weekly,…” 6/9

“the comments section on each episode allows a unique opportunity to see how readers perceive and engage with the ideas about consent presented in the text. These comments indicate that readers use Smythe’s Webtoon to work through their own understandings of consent…” 7/9

“to make connections both individually and as a community, thus demonstrating the potential of pop culture texts to engage with and even intervene in the cultural understanding of how consent can and should work.” 8/9

Matthews’ paper highlights the deft touch of LO with its treatment of sexual assault and its capacity to generate important conversations on the subject with the potential to expand our cultural dialogue on a deeply important subject. 9/9