Persephone in popular culture

Persephone appears many times in popular culture, both as a goddess character and through symbolic use of her name.

• In the movie Wonder Woman, Persephone is the name of an Amazon from the island of Themyscira. After being charmed by Ares for a century while guarding him in his cell, she betrays her people by freeing him after killing another amazon. She briefly fights Princess Diana of the Amazons. Persephone is killed by Hippolyta for her treachery but tells Hippolyta that the Amazons were denied a life of families and children and that they are women too not just warriors.
• Persephone is the key character in Victoria Golos' Persephone Daybooks.
• The Stephen King book Duma Key features the evil supernatural character "Perse" as the antagonist to the main character. As the novel reaches its conclusion, we learn that "Perse" is actually short for Persephone.
• In the video game: Ogre Battle 64, the Goddess Danika, was seduced by Demunza, the king of the netherworld by eating a cursed fruit, which turned her into the queen of the netherworld. However, when she is summoned by someone pure of heart, she will revert to her goddess form.
• The comic Epicurus the Sage by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth features a fractured version of the abduction of Persephone, adding in the comic twist that Hades and Persephone had staged the entire kidnapping simply to get away from her overbearing mother.
• Persephone also appears as a character in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, played by Monica Bellucci. She is the wife of The Merovingian, a powerful program that handles other programs exiled from the Matrix. In the Matrix Revolutions, they are seen together as being seated in a rave club named Club Hel, possibly a strong reference to Hel, the underworld of Norse Mythology, and Hell, the underworld in Christian Theology.
• In the movie Spike, the title character greets the girl whom he loves by calling her his Persephone. Later, she attempts to convince (or trick) him to let her go by saying, "I'm your Persephone. Persephone stayed with Hades only part of every year. I need to return to my world. I promise I will return to you."
• In the longest running Canadian TV series The Beachcombers the boat of the main character Nick Adonidas is the logging tug Perseohone.
• In the cult TV Show "Firefly" Persephone is the name of one of the border planets where there is both high society and slums. The planet is the first one to be viewed in the series.
• In the BBC Television series Spooks the title of Series 3 Episode 6 is "Persephone", referring to character Zoe Reynold's code name during an undercover operation. The storyline parallels that of Greek mythology.
• In Douglas Adams' book Mostly Harmless the fictional, newly discovered 10th planet is named Persephone. However it gets given the nickname Rupert after "some astronomer's parrot".
• When a 10th 'planet' was discovered in July 2005, a poll in New Scientist magazine picked Persephone as the public's favourite name.^[1] Its status as a planet was later downgraded to dwarf planet together with Pluto and was given the name Eris.
• Persephone (the gathering of flowers) is the final track of the Dead Can Dance album Within the Realm of a Dying Sun. The song's musical narrative traces a path of death and rebirth.
• Persephone is the final boss and the overall antagonist of the 2008 video game God of War: Chains of Olympus. Her remains in a tree casket are seen and used in the 2010 video game God of War III.
• Persephone is the title of a single by the alternative rock band Third Eye Blind.
• Some consider that the Statue of Freedom, atop the United States Capitol, to be a representation of Persephone.^[2][3][4][5]
• In the novels Don't Kill the Messenger, The Messenger Adrift, and Messenger in a Battle, by Joel Pierson, the character of Rebecca Traeger was born with the name Persephone, foreshadowing abilities she displays in the trilogy.
• Persephone is the name of a German darkwave band, with Sonja Kraushofer from L'Âme Immortelle as the lead singer. Persephone have lyrics in both English and German.
• Persephone is the title of a song by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, from the album Turbo Ocho
• Persephone is a normal enemy among most Castlevania games. She is always depicted as a maid equipped with a demonic vacuum cleaner which she uses in most of her attacks. What makes her unique is that, should her vacuum cleaner attack fail, she will actually use martial arts as a last resort. When she dies, her body disappears along with petals appearing beside her.
• In the videogame Bioshock 2, the underwater city of Rapture contains a prison complex named Persephone.
• Persephone appears as a character in the books The Demigod Files, as well as The Last Olympian of the Percy Jackson series, the latter in which she has gained love for Hades over the years. However, in the movie version of The Lightning Thief, Persephone is shown to hate Hades, and strikes him with Zeus' stolen lightning bolt. In the film adaption, she is portrayed by Rosario Dawson.
• The progressive death metal band Persefone have released an album called "Core", which is based on the myth of Persephone.
• Don't Look Back, a track on Indie band She & Him's second album, Volume Two, opens with the lyric "Orpheus melted the heart of Persephone, but I never had yours."
• In the racist dystopia Noughts and Crosses series by critically acclaimed author Malorie Blackman one of the protagonists is named Persephone.
• Persephone is depicted as goddess of Life in Sacrifice.
• In the album "Sirius B" from Swedish symphonic metal band Therion, appears a theme named "Dark Venus Persephone".
• Persephone appears a choice for a Scions Divine Parent from the Second Book: Scion Demigod onwards.
• Persephone (played by Andrea Croton) appears in two episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
• In the long-running British radio soap opera The Archers one of Lynda Snell's goats is named Persephone. The other is named Demeter.
• In John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos, "the Maiden", a title of Persephone's, is a candidate for the throne of Olympus after Zeus's death.^[6]
• Roberta Gellis's Dazzling Brightness retells the story of Hades and Persephone.
• Zelda C. Wang^[7]'s manga-styled graphic novel MYth: My Seasons^[8] shows the reader an original take on the story of Hades and Persephone, and on their relation with the other gods.
• The Bodice Rippers retell the story of Persephone on their EP II.
• In Richelle Mead's Dark Swan Series, Persephone is the main character's goddess and goddess of the Underworld.
• Singer/songwriter Natasha Luna has a song called "Persephatta", a variant name for Persephone. ^[9]
• In Eva Ibbotson's young adult novel A Company of Swans the heroine Harriet Morton eats pomegranate seeds in the hope that will mean she has to remain in Brazil rather than go back to her family home in Cambridge.
• In the Tori Amos song Pandora's Aquarium, from her album From the Choirgirl Hotel, she sings: "I'm not asking you to believe in me/boy, I think you're confused, I'm not Persephone".
• The myth of Persephone and Hades inspired the series, Underworld by Meg Cabot.
• Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth is a paranormal romance novel based on the myth of Persephone and Hades.

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