Hades tricked Persphone

The argument

What truly sealed Persephone's fate was her choice to eat the pomegranate seeds. However, she did not know that this choice would not permit her to leave the home of her kidnapper. She chose to eat the seeds in order to appeal to Hades, and in order to seal and fix her hunger. She was so close to leaving, but Hades took advantage of her. One source states that, "By eating a few pomegranate seeds, Persephone tied herself to Hades—the pomegranate being a symbol of the indissolubility of marriage". How could she have known that? She couldn't have. She was forced, she was kidnapped.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Many sources state that Persephone willingly ate the pomegranate seeds. In fact, this is the more common version of the story. She defiantly ate them out of her love for Hades, due to her conflicting between her mother, Demeter, and her lover. She knew what she was doing.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise concedes the difficulty in its own wording: what "sealed her fate" was a choice she made. Whether she knew what the seeds signified is disputed across the sources, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter — the earliest full account — has Hades give her the seed secretly, which supports the trickery reading while showing that the argument rests on one text and presents the matter as settled. [Rejecting P2] Deception and abduction are different claims and the argument runs them together. If Persephone had to be tricked into staying, the trick is evidence about how she was kept rather than about how she came to be there. The conclusion also does not need this premise, since the abduction is narrated directly in the same hymn — so the argument has chosen its weakest available ground. As the counter-argument notes, other tellings have her eat the seeds knowingly, and no reason is given for preferring one version.