Wait, what happens to Melantho in The Odyssey? Her original fate is utterly barbaric

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Odyssey*

If you were confused by Melantho’s (Mia Goth) fate in The Odyssey, you’re not alone. Christopher Nolan leaves the character’s death ambiguous, but Homer’s original poem delivers a far more brutal ending for Penelope’s maidservants.

Nolan’s adaptation makes a number of changes to Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic, but the mechanics of the story are still there, as are many of the characters. That includes Melantho, one of Penelope’s maidservants in both Nolan’s The Odyssey and Homer’s original poem. 

Although she was raised by Penelope and treated kindly, she betrays her mistress by siding with the suitors who have overrun Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) palace during his 20-year absence. 

She also becomes the lover of Eurymachus, one of the leading suitors, in the original, whereas in Nolan’s version she strikes up a relationship with Antinous (Robert Pattinson).

Melantho secretly feeds information to Antinous, who conspires with other suitors to kill Penelope and Odysseus’ son, Telemachus (Tom Holland). Of course, Odysseus returns home before the treacherous plan can be carried out. 

In the final battle whereby Odysseus kills the suitors at his Ithaca palace, Melantho tries to flee and, well, leave them to it. But just as she’s about to exit, Penelope closes the door on her, saying, “Your place is down there.”

What happens to Melantho at the end of The Odyssey?

Since we don’t see her death on screen, her fate is left up in the air. But it’s presumed that she’s killed in the blood bath of the final confrontation. 

Mia Goth says her ‘The Odyssey’ character, Melantho, has this “quite manipulative and surprising element to her” and that working with Christopher Nolan was an honour. pic.twitter.com/W68VTOyxjN

— Mia Goth Crave (@miagothcrave) July 6, 2026

Scholar of classics, Dr Emily Hauser, wrote for The Guardian that Nolan “shies away from including the Odyssey’s nastiest scene” (more on this shortly). 

“But Nolan invents a detail along the same lines when he shows one of those treacherous women, Melantho, effectively condemned to death by Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, who shoves her into the carnage while the suitors are being slaughtered,” said Hauser. 

Still, the fact that we don’t see it on screen has caused confusion, with one Redditor saying that the omission meant her comeuppance “kind of felt anticlimactic.”

Another agreed, “I wonder if a scene got cut, I would have liked to see a conclusion to her too. Maybe she kneeled? I’ve only seen once so far.”

However, for the most part, viewers agree that she was likely killed and we just didn’t see it. “I just presumed she died,” said one, while another wrote, “Penelope decided her fate. If she didn’t die in the locked room, she would die after the massacre.”

As one person pointed out, “You guys are not ready for the film adaptation of what Odysseus does to the disloyal servant girls at the end.” 

Homer’s Odyssey punishes the maidservants in grisly fashion

Homer’s version is far more explicit and considerably more brutal. After Odysseus kills the suitors and retakes his palace, he orders the 12 disloyal maidservants to drag the bodies into the courtyard and scrub the blood and gore from the hall where the massacre took place.

Once they’ve finished clearing body parts up, it’s time for their real punishment. Telemachus decides they have brought disgrace on the household by insulting Odysseus, betraying Penelope and siding with the suitors. 

Rather than being granted a quick death, Telemachus has them hanged together in the palace courtyard, with Homer describing them dying slowly as they kick and struggle at the end of the rope. 

It’s worth noting that even in the original there is some ambiguity – Melantho is never singled out by name during this sequence.

But because she’s one of the most prominent maidservants shown siding with the suitors throughout the poem, scholars have generally interpreted her as being among the executed women.

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Featured image credit: Universal Pictures