Persephone/Proserpina

**Persephone** is the Greek goddess of the springtime and vegetation. She is the niece and wife of Hades, therefore being the Queen of the Underworld. Her Roman counterpart is **Proserpina**. Her Etruscan counterpart is **Persipnei**.

## Basic Info

### Alias

Daughter of Zeus, Goddess of Springtime and Vegetation, Queen of the Underworld, Mom (By her children)

### Symbols

Pomegranate, seeds of grain, torch, flowers, and deer

## Family Info

### Siblings

* Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Dionysus Perseus, Minos, Hercules, Tantalus, Aeacus, Megaros, Lacadaemon, Tityus, Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon, Amphion, Zethus, Dardanos, Iason, Eetion, Epaphus, Demetrius, Akheilos, Caerus, Isaac Reynoso, (paternal half-brothers)
* Athena, The Horai, the Moirai, the Muses, the Charites, Hebe, Enyo, Eileithyia, Artemis, Britomartis, Angelos, Aletheia, Pandeia, Herse, Agdistis, Herophile, Zamaya Reynoso, Tempest Leos, (paternal half-sisters)
* Arion, Ploutos, Eubouleus, Lityerses, Carlos Rodriguez (maternal half-brothers)
* Despoina, Talia Prevost, and Echo Flores (maternal half-sisters)

### Offspring

Zagreus, Melinoe, Makaria (By Hades)Aurora Spades (By Maxwell)

### Extended Family

* Harper Samuel, Helen Gonzales, Evan Gonzales, and Adelaide Basset (Step-children)
* Poseidon (uncle)
* Hestia and Kelene (aunts)
* Hera (aunt/step-mother)
* Hades (uncle/husband)

## History

### Early Life

Persephone was born to Zeus, king of the gods, and Demeter, goddess of the harvest. As she wasn't one of her father's favorite children, she had no position at Olympus and used to live far away with her mother's closest nymphs. She mostly passed her days planting seeds and nurturing the flora. When she reached marriageable age, several gods tried to woo Persephone, but Demeter, who suffered many horrible courtships, rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of other deities.

### Her Abduction

Persephone's uncle, Hades, was very lonely and wanted a wife. One day, he spotted her in the fields and became entranced by her beauty. He asked for help from Zeus, despite his estrangement with his brother. One day, Persephone was picking flowers with some of her nymphs in a field in Enna when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. Life came to a standstill as the devastated Demeter searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Hecate, goddess of magic, told Demeter she had heard Persephone scream when she was being kidnapped. Angered and heartbroken, Demeter stopped caring for the Earth, so the land didn't flourish anymore and people began to starve and die. Hades was determined to make Persephone love him and gave her many gifts and riches. She hated him for snatching her away from her mother until he asked the dead gardeners of the Underworld to make a field of her favorite plants.

Pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who heard their anguish, Zeus finally forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother. However, it was a rule of the Fates that whoever consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Before Persephone was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, a servant of Hades tricked Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds. In order to calm both Demeter and Hades, Zeus ordered Persephone to return to the Underworld for six months each year. When Demeter and Persephone are together, the Earth flourishes with vegetation in Demeter's happiness. When Persephone is with her husband in the Underworld, the Earth once again becomes barren as Demeter is too depressed to work properly. That is how the seasons came to be.

### The Stories of Leuke and Minthe

Though he was mostly faithful compared to other gods, Hades was quite lonely during the time Persphone spent with Demeter. This is when he would have some affairs, but they usually ended badly. When Hades kidnapped the beautiful Oceanid Leuke, a jealous Persephone asked her husband to kill Leuke, but he transformed her into a poplar tree. When the beautiful Naiad Minthe bragged about Hades' love for her and claimed to be more beautiful than Persephone, the infuriated goddess instantly appeared before her and transformed her into the plant mint.

### Affair with Adonis

After a beautiful child was born from a tree, Aphrodite chose Persephone to help her raise him in the Underworld so no one could desire his beauty besides herself. Both goddesses taking turns raising the boy, shuffling him back and forth between Aphrodite's palace on Cyprus and Hades' Palace. The child would eventually grow up into the most handsome man in the world. By this time, the two goddesses fell in love with Adonis and began fighting over him.

With them unable to reach a compromise, the two took Adonis to Mount Olympus, where Zeus decided that it would be best for Adonis to spend a third of each year with each respective goddess, and have the final third to himself. During the time he spent with her, Adonis would have to hide in closets and under Persephone's bed every time Hades entered her chambers, since the god didn't know about his wife's lover. After Adonis decided to spend his third time of the year with Aphrodite, he was stabbed to death by a wild boar of Ares, Aphrodite's immortal lover.

### Trials of Psyche

Persephone was visited by Psyche, who had been sent by Aphrodite to retrieve some of Persephone's beauty cream. Still furious at Aphrodite's involvement in her past affair with Adonis, Persephone instead filled Psyche's rosewood box with Stygian sleep, the very essence of the Underworld. She warned Psyche to not open the box, but the tired woman decided she needed the beauty cream and passed out after opening the box.

### The Tail of Orpheus and Eurydice

Devastated by the death of his wife, the nymph Eurydice, the demigod musician Orpheus created a new entrance to the Underworld with his beautiful music. He made his way all the way to Hades' palace, with ghosts, Charon, Cerberus, and even the Furies themselves being brought to tears. Impressed by the man's love, bravery and skill, the rulers of the dead allowed Orpheus to take Eurydice back on the condition that he would walk in front and not look behind him as he led her back to the upper world. However, Orpheus couldn't resist the temptation the moment he crossed the border and looked back just before Eurydice left the Underworld, losing his wife forever.

## Personality

Persephone is graceful and considerate. Although seemingly innocent, she is not one to be toyed with as she holds the capability to stand up for herself and do what is right. Persephone is a sweet and bubbly young goddess. At the start of her story, she hadn't experienced much of the world itself due to her overprotective mother, Demeter. Due to her naivety, she is often prone to trouble because other Gods and Goddesses take advantage of her. At times, she can lack confidence in herself, not knowing if the path her mother has chosen for her is the right one. Persephone loves animals, baking, nature and is extremely friendly and outgoing. She can be best described as an optimist, always seeing things for what they could be. Despite her inexperience with much of the world, Persephone demonstrates intelligence by showing a great deal of academic prowess and proficiency in different activities, including chess and competitive swimming. Despite her innocent aura, there is a particularly darker side to Persephone's personality. She is capable of expressing rightful hatred towards someone who has done her wrong.

## Appearance

Persephone was described to be an exceedingly gorgeous, alluring and beautiful tall young woman with a beautiful but deathly pale face. Her hair was dark and long, floating and curling as if it were weightless. Her eyes were multicolored but washed out, as if the Underworld had sapped her life force. Caspian had the impression that in the world above, she would be more beautiful and even brilliant. Persephone wore a dress that billowed around her like smoke which made Caspian to initially think it was white, but he later realized that it was made of all sorts of changing colors - red, blue, and yellow flowers blooming in the fabric - but it was strangely faded. In the 5th Story, Persephone was said to look totally different from the last time Caspian had seen her, due to it being summer: She had warm brown eyes and lustrous brown hair. Persephone wore a dress that shimmered with colors and flower patterns which changed and bloomed - roses, tulips, and honeysuckle. In *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths*, Persephone was described to be an incredibly beautiful young goddess with tender expression. Before the seasons began, her eyes were sky blue like her father's and her hair was blond like her mother's. Her beauty was enough to attract the attention of Hades, who hardly ever left the Underworld. Even Adonis had trouble choosing between her and Aphrodite. When Psyche visited the Underworld during the winter in *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths (Hero Edition)*, Persephone had watery gold eyes. She wore a pale gray and green dress, "the color of frost on grass". When Orpheus visited the Underworld, she wore a yellow and grey gown, akin to the sun behind winter clouds. The differences in Persephone's physical description throughout the stories could be attributed to the fact that her appearance changes just like the seasons. Furthermore, she has the ability to assume any shape she desires as a goddess, though it must be noted that she retains her stunning beauty no matter what physical manifestation she adopts.

## Powers and Abilities

### Goddess Powers

As the daughter of two Elder Olympians (one of them from the Big Three) and Queen of the Underworld, Persephone is extremely powerful, more so than a demigod though less so compared to an Olympian. She is considered a minor goddess.

* **Chlorokinesis**: As the Goddess of Springtime and Vegetation, Persephone has absolute control and divine authority over plant-life, but not quite as much as her mother.​​​​​​ She can grow healthy plants rather fast, much like Zephyros.
	+ **Plant Creation**: Persephone can create plants with magical properties. She created roses to transport someone from the Underworld to the world of the living and flowers to track a specific person which will lose petals whenever the person is getting farther away.
	+ **Plant Transformation**: Persephone can transform anything into flowers or anything related to flora. In *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths* she turned Minthe into the mint plant. In The 5th Story, she turned silverware into roses and all the Scythian Dracanae's spears into sunflowers.
* **Season Control** (limited to Spring): As the Goddess of Springtime, Persephone has divine authority and absolute control over the season of spring. In *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths*, her presence enhanced the fertility of the earth along with her mother, encouraging orchards to bear fruit and flowers to bloom.
* **Geokinesis**: As an immortal daughter of Demeter and Queen of the Underworld, Persephone can control and manipulate the earth to a certain extent, though to a lesser extent than her mother and husband.
* **Necromancy**: As Queen of the Underworld, Persephone has absolute control and divine authority over the dead, though to a lesser extent than her husband. In *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths (Hero Edition)*, she and Hades resurrected Eurydice with the condition that Orpheus didn't look at his wife until they were in the living world.
	+ **Stygian Sleep Induction**: As shown in *Caspian's Miscellaneous Myths (Hero Edition)*, Persephone can manipulate pure Stygian sleep, the Underworld's essence. She filled Aphrodite's box with Stygian sleep, which made Psyche to pass out when she accidentally inhaled it, with her life beginning to ebb.
* **Umbrakinesis**: As the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone has absolute control and divine authority overshadows, though to a somewhat lesser extent than her husband.
	+ **Shadow Travel**: Much like her husband, Persephone can shadow travel
* **Chronokinesis**: At one point in the first series, Persephone appears to freeze a clueless Evan in time so that she can have a private conversation with Amber Knowles.

## Attributes

* Her sacred plants are the pomegranate, asphodel, narcissus, willow, lily, mint, and sometimes the violet.
* Her sacred animals are black rams, roosters, bats, monkeys, and parrots.

## Relationships

### Romance

#### Hades

Hades greatly loves his wife, but during the time when she is away from him, he does not like to be alone. Hence, Hades seeks out mortal women during this time. Persephone hates hearing of his affairs, and detests his demigod children. Hades is apologetic about his girlfriends with Persephone, but she is still very displeased when they are mentioned. He has the fewest demigod children of the Big Three, not even having any mentioned in the old myths, due to his strong (for a god) devotion to his wife. Hades' marriage to her also means, ironically, that his elder sister Demeter is his mother-in-law, and his youngest brother Zeus is his father-in-law.

## Etymology

Her name is speculated to mean **"destroyer of light"** but is frequently translated as **"the bringer of destruction"** or **"the bringer of death"**.

## Trivia

1. *Kore* is another title for Persephone, meaning **"the maiden"** or **"the girl"**.
	* Additionally, Kore happens to be a moon of Jupiter.
2. In much of ancient Greek literature Persephone is largely portrayed as the venerable queen of the Underworld, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead.
3. At the city of Lokri Epizephyrii in southeastern Italy, established by Dorian Greeks as a colony in around 680 BC, Persephone functioned as a protector of marriage and her union with Hades was regarded as the ideal for married couples.
4. Unlike Hera, Persephone has not attempted to kill the children her husband has sired with other women, though she is unhappy with his affairs and is not above threatening his demigod children.
5. Persephone, Amphitrite, and Hera have all cheated on their husband at one point or another
6. In the version of the myth recounted by the Roman poet Ovid in his *Metamorphoses* (*Book V*), Aphrodite saw Hades riding in his chariot and tasked her son Eros to shoot one of his arrows into Hades' heart to make him fall in love with Persephone.
7. Proserpina, a main belt asteroid 95.1 km in diameter, is named after her Roman counterpart.
8. Her Norse counterpart (in terms of attributes) would be Frey and Idunn.