| Persephone Odair
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| Character Information
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Persephone Odair is an entrepreneur, the owner of the now-defunct LifeBoat, and the ex-wife of Charles Montgomery Burns.
History
When Persephone was young, she had a big dream to change the world. When she was a teenager, Persephone tried to clone Sheryl Sandberg for a school project. Later, Persephone was accepted into Harvard University but dropped out before she even entered the school gates, driving past them instead.
Persephone wanted to save the world, so she tried to start LifeBoat to make devices that could purify salt water into clean drinking water. However, to do so, she needed funding. When she was interviewed by Lisa Simpson, Lisa mentioned that Mr. Burns was the richest person in Springfield, so Persephone decided to try and talk him into funding LifeBoat. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to get him to listen to her proposal, she finally managed to get him to agree to listen to her. After being told that they could take down "big salt water" together, Burns accepted her proposal and went into business with Persephone.
Persephone as a teenager.
Mr. Burns gave Cooling Tower A at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant over to LifeBoat and reassigned everyone from Sector 7-G to LifeBoat. He also brought his wealthiest friends into Persephone's fold and had many of them sign onto the board of directors for the company. Meanwhile, Burns and Persephone continued to get closer with each other until they ended up having a private marriage.
Eventually, LifeBoat was ready to go and the board of directors were shown the finished project, but weren't allowed to drink the water because their urine could be taken by competitors. However, problems started happening with LifeBoat, as people were getting fired, Professor Frink wasn't allowed to see what was inside the device, and Carl ended up going missing after sending an email to Persephone asking what was being hidden. These issues started to turn people against Persephone, with many people on Twitter complaining about her. So, Mr. Burns bought Twitter for her and deleted every negative comment about Persephone.
After Homer received an anonymous message from someone about LifeBoat, he and Lisa went to meet with them at the Power Plant. This turned out to be Carl, who was working on LifeBoat in secret after Persephone blackmailed him. Carl revealed that LifeBoat didn't actually remove the salt from water and just masked it using a chemical called Jab-a-tose from Jab soda that was so sweet that it overpowered the taste of salt in the water. When LifeBoat was about to be put through its first public test at Springfield Elementary School, Homer told Mr. Burns that Persephone had been lying about the device and convinced him to see through her lies. Homer then shut off the valve to the LifeBoat water fountains and Persephone was arrested. Persephone and Burns got a divorce, with Burns somehow getting her school friends in the divorce.
In prison, Persephone had an interview with Christiane Amanpour where she revealed that she thought she was still a good person despite all the problems and that things had never looked better for LifeBoat.
Family
Persephone claimed that her grandfather was a World War II sailor whose ship got torpedoed and was stranded at sea on a lifeboat, with no drinkable water. She claimed that her grandfather gave up before he died of dehydration. It later came out that this was a lie and her grandfather was a certified public accountant whose hobby was fixing British spellings on Wikipedia.
Personality
Persephone is very driven and refuses to take no for an answer, as seen when she continued to chase Mr. Burns to get him to agree to fund LifeBoat. Persephone also seems to be a bit delusional, as she believes that what she was doing was for the good of mankind, even if it was harming people. She also believed that LifeBoat was still successful and things never looked better, despite being bankrupt and her being in prison.
Appearances
