Arya and Murtagh each embody different halves of the Persephone myth.
Arya represents the classical structure of the Persephone story. Like Persephone, she is abducted by a dark and unnatural figure in Durza, a Shade who functions almost like a lord of death. Her imprisonment in Gil’ead creates consequences far beyond herself. Queen Islanzadí’s grief mirrors Demeter’s mourning so strongly that it alters the political climate of Alagaësia itself. The elves withdraw from the war effort, communication fractures, and the conflict stagnates for months. Just as Demeter’s sorrow causes winter and famine, Arya’s disappearance causes the “spring” of resistance to wither.
Arya also carries the symbolic “seed” of the future through Saphira’s egg. Persephone is tied to fertility, rebirth, and cyclical renewal, and Arya literally transports the last hope for the rebirth of the Riders. Her return from captivity eventually culminates in her ascending to queenship herself, similar to Persephone’s transformation from maiden to Queen of the Underworld. The transition from ambassador and daughter to Dröttning mirrors Persephone’s evolution into a sovereign figure transformed by suffering and descent.
Murtagh, however, represents the darker psychological core of the myth. His story is more about irreversible binding to the underworld.
The closest equivalent to Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds is Galbatorix discovering Murtagh’s True Name. Once that happened, Murtagh became metaphysically chained to the King through oaths in the ancient language. Like Persephone after consuming the fruit of the dead, Murtagh could never fully return unchanged. Even outside Urû’baen, part of him remained trapped there.
This is reinforced through vorgethan, the drug used by both Galbatorix and later Bachel. In Urû’baen, it suppresses Murtagh’s will and helps force his submission to Galbatorix. It functions almost exactly like the food of the underworld. Once consumed, it binds him to a realm of death and servitude. The horror of Murtagh’s captivity is not only physical imprisonment but in the violent unraveling and reshaping of his identity.
The violation of his mind deepens the parallel further. Galbatorix ravages Murtagh’s thoughts and memories to uncover his True Name, reducing his inner self into something that can be possessed and controlled. Persephone’s myth has always carried undertones of forced transition, loss of innocence, and violation, and Murtagh’s arc pushes those themes into something deeply existential. He is literally remade by darkness.
His later captivity under Bachel in Nal Gorgoth develops the Persephone parallels in a different way. Bachel casts herself in the role of a twisted maternal figure, constantly calling him “son” and insisting the Draumar are his true family. The Persephone and Demeter dynamic becomes inverted and corrupted because the “mother” figure is now the captor keeping him underground.
At the same time, Bachel repeatedly frames Murtagh as a prince and chosen ruler, calling him “princeling,” “king of kings,” and “faultless champion.” This resembles Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld: elevated in status but trapped inside a gilded cage. Oth Orum and the Well of Dreams feel even more overtly chthonic than Urû’baen, especially with the Breath of Azlagûr functioning like a hallucinatory fruit of the earth that clouds thought, dissolves time, and pulls Murtagh into dreamlike submission.
So Arya represents the external consequences of abduction: the grieving mother, the frozen world, and the eventual rise to queenship after surviving darkness.
Murtagh represents the internal horror of the myth: the consumption of the underworld’s fruit, the irreversible transformation of identity, and the tragedy of returning alive while never truly being free of what claimed you below ground.
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