Persephone (The Matrix)
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In the movies The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Persephone (played by Monica Bellucci) is the wife of The Merovingian. She seems bored with her existence in the Matrix, and is disaffected from her husband (possibly because of his dalliances).
She is attracted to Neo and offers to help him if he kisses her with the same passion with which he has kissed Trinity. Reluctantly, he complies, and she helps him free The Keymaker.
Persephone uses a distinctive four-barreled handgun, loaded with silver bullets, to shoot a werewolf who is in her husband's employ. The gun is a COP .357; the same gun was used by replicant Leon Kowalski in Blade Runner.
Persephone also encounters and takes a kiss from both Niobe and Ghost (depending on whose story you follow) in the video game Enter The Matrix. She seems to be able to deduce the feelings and emotions of those she kisses, noting Niobe's love for Morpheus, and Ghost's unrequited love for Trinity. She apparently takes deep pleasure in sampling the emotions of others.
In The Matrix Revolutions, Persephone is seen briefly and warns The Merovingian that Trinity would indeed kill everyone in Club Hel to free Neo from the Train Station, simply because she is in love. This leads viewers to believe that Persephone perceives and understands love, and may be disheartened by the cynicism of her husband, who seems to be driven solely by greed and lust.
The character takes her name from the Persephone in Greek mythology, who is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and whom Hades took to the underworld to be his queen. There are allusions throughout the movie that The Merovingian works in the Matrix as an analogue to Hades, including his presence in Club Hel, his unhappy marriage to Persephone and his existence as one of the oldest beings in the Matrix universe, and specifically the one in charge of "lost souls."
[edit] Uncertain Fate
There is no clear indication as to what became of Persephone and her cohorts in the Matrix Revolutions. However, they were recently revealed alive in the MMORPG the The Matrix Online. Persephone gave the location of the Assassin's hide-out to Zion operatives in a critical mission relating to the Death Of A Destroyer event.
