Characters / Penny Dreadful

WARNING: Unmarked spoilers from seasons 1 and 2 abound. Venture forth at your own risk.

Main Characters

Vanessa Ives

"We here have been brutalized with loss. It has made us brutal in return."

Played By: Eva Green

Poised, mysterious, and utterly composed, Vanessa is a seductive and formidable beauty full of secrets and danger. She is keenly observant — clairvoyant, even — as well as an expert medium. Her supernatural gifts are powerful and useful to those around her, particularly Sir Malcolm, but they are also a heavy burden. Her inner demons are very real to her and everyone around her, and they threaten to destroy her relationships, her sanity, and her very life.

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• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's framed this way during the first season (especially the first half), but we learn soon enough that she's actually Not So Stoic.
• Animal Motifs: Scorpions. She's wearing them in her character poster, when she was training with the Cut-Wife the older woman referred to Vanessa as "little scorpion", and the magical wards she draws in blood are in the shape of a scorpion. It seems to be a case of Dark Is Not Evil here, as the scorpion seemingly reminds Vanessa of her earlier magical power rather than the more recent demonic influences in her life.
  • Revisited in "The Day Tennyson Died," when her trip to the museum ends with her lingering at Dr. Sweet's scorpion display.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Multiple incidents and conversations — especially the Verbis Diablo passage — suggest that as the reincarnation of Amunet she's this trope in the making, as Lucifer and Dracula are fallen angels competing to make her their "Mother of Evil".
• Badass Pacifist: Until she drops the pacifist part in Season Two.
• Beneath the Mask: Underneath her confidence and seeming casualness, Vanessa is a very damaged woman, tormented by a life of toil and torture, and plagued by guilt and shame.
• Broken Bird: Although usually emotionally stoic, Vanessa's endless troubles, her battle with Lucifer, and Ethan's abandonment in season 2 all push her into this trope in season 3. She begins to get better with Lyle and Dr. Seward's help, only for Dracula to fully break her again.
• Byronic Hero: Troubled past? Check. High intelligence and skill? Check. Doesn't fit in with society? Check. Highly complicated, passionate, and strong-willed, while also remaining sympathetic? Check.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Not that she can't, exactly, but it's more like she's scared of doing so, since every time she has genuinely passionate sex, it makes her weak to the demon and allows him to possess her.
• Cool Big Sis: Even though they aren't blood related, she develops into this for Victor in Season 2, helping him shop for clothes for Lily and teasing him about being in love. He's also the only one she entrusts with her hiding place when she and Ethan leave London, and he trusts her with watching over him whilst he shoots up on morphine.
• Death Glare: She packs a nice arsenal of intimidating stares capable of stopping monsters in their tracks. However it's later revealed this last bit has more to do with her being possessed by a demon.
• Demonic Possession: She has suffered from this her whole life, and more or less accepted it when she seduced Mina's fiancé. The possession comes and goes, but is linked to sexual encounters. It was apparently exorcised by Ethan in "Possession", but it's not completely gone.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: And she gets even paler when she's going through trauma or a possession.
• Entertainingly Wrong: She invokes this trope when she shares her compiled research on Dracula with Catriona. Catriona points out that a lot of what is "known" of Dracula is little more than peasant superstition and myth.
• Evil Matriarch: Both Lucifer and Dracula seek to make Vanessa the Mother of Evil. Dracula succeeds.
• Expy: Interestingly enough, for both Mina Murray-Harker and Lucy Westenra. She replaces Lucy as Mina's best gal pal, but replaces Mina as the true object of Dracula's desire and his reincarnated lost-love. However, both Mina and Lucy actually do appear in show materials, Mina in the show itself and Lucy in the prequel comic.
• Fallen Hero: Tired of running and fighting, Vanessa submits to Dracula and becomes the Mother of Evil in "Ebb Tide."
• Fatal Attractor: Besides Lucifer wanting her as his bride, her love interests are Dorian Gray a depraved, ancient immortal, Ethan Chandler (a werewolf), and Dr. Sweet aka Dracula himself.
• The Hero: For all her doubt and darkness, Vanessa is undeniably the centre of the series.
• The Hero Dies: Ultimately, Ethan has to kill her in order to save the world in "The Blessed Dark," fulfilling his purpose as the Wolf of God.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • She goes through one at the beginning of season two, due to her encounter with the witches. The experience brings to her mind her time with the Cut-Wife of Ballantree Moor, the evil of the Nightcomers, the Cut-Wife's execution, and Vanessa's own branding at the hands of the witches' minions.
  • She undergoes another one at the beginning of season three, due to being abandoned by Victor, Malcolm, and Ethan. This one is significantly more serious of a depressive episode, to the point where Vanessa has neglected the house and her appearance, and is frightened of light itself.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Metaphorically, as the Mother of Evil. Dracula calls his horde of familiars her children.
• Mysterious Woman: Even Dorian considers her "London's greatest mystery."
• Nice Girl: In spite of her traumatic past and stoic appearance, Vanessa is overall kind and compassionate.
• Not So Stoic: She does show a noticeably more cheerful mood when she's around Dorian Gray and when she re-encounters Mina. John Clare also finds a way into Vanessa's warmer moods, due to their shared history together at the asylum, although neither appear to remember it.
• Odd Friendship: Due to her unique nature and turbulent life story, really any friendship she has is like this. Standouts include her endearing closeness with the eccentric Ferdinand Lyle, her snarky relationship with Dr Seward, and her growing fascination with the mysteriously independent Catriona Hartdegen.
• Psychic Powers: She can repel lesser vampires, and can partially tell the future with and without tarot cards. She divines a dark secret from Dr. Seward's past by grasping the psychiatrist's wrist.
• Reincarnation: A great deal of Vanessa's problems in life stem from the fact that she is the modern-day incarnation of the Egyptian goddess Amunet; her divine potential to unleash the apocalypse makes her a target for both Lucifer and Dracula.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: Subverted because it's an un-sexy version of this trope. She is chained to a wall in a Bedlam House in nothing but a white shift and sprayed down with a fire hose.
• Sherlock Scan: She pulls one on Ethan when she first meets him, and is the subject of one from Dorian and Dr. Seward.
• Shipper on Deck: In season 2, she encourages Victor's relationship with Lily — who, as far as she knows, is his cousin.
• Smoking Is Glamorous: It certainly is when it's Vanessa Ives doing it. Due to the nature of the show, though, this trope frequently turns into something else.
• The Stoic: Vanessa frequently stays composed and calm, keeping the same mildly cold expression regardless of the circumstances. Her facade begins to break as the battle with the Nightcomers moves into increasingly personal and private areas of her life, and by season 3, she is completely beaten down and depressed.
• Sweet Tooth: According to Sembene, Vanessa commonly eats dessert foods for breakfast.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: After years of being coveted and tormented by Lucifer and Dracula, Vanessa succumbs to Dracula and becomes the Mother of Evil.
  Vanessa: This is what I am.
• Token Wizard: Vanessa is not the only supernatural member of the main cast (Dorian is immortal, while Ethan is a werewolf), but she is the only one to purposefully make use of her magical abilities and knowledge.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between her and Ethan, Dorian, Lucifer, Dracula, and maybe even Sir Malcolm... It's probably easier to list the male characters she doesn't have it with.
• When She Smiles: She's normally straight-faced and stoic, and often sombre. However, on the rare occasions Vanessa gets to smile, it's really very heartwarming.
• Willing Channeler: She could have rid herself of the demonic force that possesses her if she wanted to, but the allure of power proved too strong, and she allowed it to take hold of her.

Sir Malcolm Murray

"With me, you will behold terrible wonders."

Played By: Timothy Dalton

A hardened explorer and veteran of several surveys into darkest Africa, Sir Malcolm is a hunter on a deeply personal quest. Although he is wealthy and renowned, Sir Malcolm's exploits have taken a deep toll on his family, and although his stately home is filled with marvelous souvenirs of his travels, it is devoid of loved ones. With Vanessa's help, he is determined to right the wrongs of his past, but his toughest journey lies ahead.

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• Anti-Hero: Sir Malcolm's motives are sympathetic, but he's utterly ruthless in his methods. He's more self-aware of this in season 2, telling Vanessa in "Verbis Diablo" that he cannot judge anyone's goodness, and Victor in "Memento Mori" that he knows something is wrong because he no longer feels the guilt of his past.
  Malcolm: I've become alienated from the cruel man who used to look back at me in the mirror. What is this face, Doctor? Is it the one you knew - and promptly feared?
  Victor: I've seen you grow content.
  Malcolm: You've seen me grow into a happy man, but look deeper. That's not who I am.
• Badass Bookworm: He's a noted scholar and author, speaks at least three languages fluently (English, Swahili, and Arabic), and is capable of plotting a nautical and/or land course.
• Badass in Distress: He spends much of season two under Evelyn's power, and upon managing to break out, gets imprisoned by her. The final two episodes of the season are devoted to Vanessa, Ethan, Sembene, Victor, and Lyle coming to his rescue.
• Badass Normal: Of the main cast, he is probably the one furthest removed from anything supernatural, but he is still very much capable of facing inhuman monstrosities in battle and winning.
• Brainwashed: He falls under the spell of Evelyn Poole, not knowing of her true intentions. However, he ends up being broken out of it in "Memento Mori" by a combination of Sembene's help and his memories of his family.
• Bold Explorer: His profession, of sorts, before the events of the series. He's traveled far and wide, climbing mountains and crossing rivers. This is somewhat explored by the series, and deconstructed: Malcolm is the quintessential British adventure hero for Victorian times. He is also a horrible person who raped his way across Africa, abandoned his son, and treats people appallingly.
• Break the Haughty: The events of Season 2 chisel away whatever impressions he had of himself; which culminates in a soul-shaking meeting with the ghosts of his wife and children - who proceed to give him ‘Reason You Suck’ speeches. By Season 3, there is almost nothing left of the ornery man who took himself very seriously at the start of the series.
• Brutal Honesty: He tells Vanessa to her face she means nothing to him in the face of getting Mina back. However, he ultimately ends up shooting the vampire Mina and declaring Vanessa to be his only real daughter.
• The Chosen One: According to Kaetenay, Malcolm cannot die until he has fought in "the great battle between Earth and Sky", and cannot abandon his family (Vanessa and Ethan), as they are all "too important".
• Cool Old Guy: He's in his late-fifties/early-sixties at least (the character, Timothy Dalton himself is a shocking 71), and extremely cool.
• Cultured Badass: Sir Malcolm is an upper-class, well-educated man who keeps a sword in his cane and owns one of the first automatic guns.
• The Determinator: Sir Malcolm is a renowned hunter, and veteran explorer; if there's something he wants, or a quarry that eludes his grasp, he WILL get it sooner or later. No matter how high the odds are stacked against his group, or how many losses they suffer, Sir Malcolm pushes on. At one point, he bluntly states that the heroes can lose every battle they encounter but the last.
• Egomaniac Hunter: Moreso in his younger days; the flashback from "Closer Than Sisters" depicts him this way.
• Expy: Of Allan Quatermain, as a renowned explorer and hunter who gained fame in Darkest Africa.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The lesson that is instilled in him as of the Season 2 finale. The ghosts of his wife and children spell it out to him that as noble as it is for him to acknowledge he is a horrible person and that he might be unable to redeem himself, it’s extremely disingenuous when he uses his self-loathing as a reason to continue being a horrible person and treat those closest to him like trash.
• Good Is Not Nice: Especially not in Malcolm's case. Subverted after the events of Season 2, where he leans more into the former than the latter.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: As the battle from the pilot shows, Malcolm may carry a sword cane and come off as a gentleman, but at heart, he's a brawler.
• Great White Hunter: He spent several years in Africa as an explorer and big game hunter.
• Heel Realization: Downplayed. By the time the series begins, he already knows that he is a horrible person, but doesn’t believe that he can be better. It’s not until the Season 2 finale, that this trope is played straight with him; where the ghosts of his wife and children lambaste him on the account that by deliberately continuing to be a horrible person, he’s not as repentant as he believes he is.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In his quest to eliminate the vampire threat and rescue his daughter, Malcolm's allowed the most ruthless and vicious aspects of his personality to surface. This trope is eventually deconstructed; the crusade against the forces of darkness takes their toll, and losing his family and Sembene in fact only leaves him morose and directionless in Africa.
  • The change in Malcolm's drive for vengeance is highlighted in his interactions with Jared Talbot, another alpha male of the wilderness who lost his family and went to extremes to avenge them. Sir Malcolm has a new family to guide and balance him. Jared Talbot does not.
• He's Back!: Following several episodes under Evelyn's control causing him to change and act very differently, he finally breaks out of it in "Memento Mori." Once he is, he returns to his old self.
• Hidden Depths: For all his faults, he works in a shelter for people who suffer from cholera whenever he can and provides them with funds. He describes it as the closest he can come to feeling at peace.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Sir Malcolm ends up killing Jared Talbot, so as to stop Ethan from falling further into darkness.
• Important Haircut: To symbolize Evelyn's hold over his mind, he goes clean-shaven in order to look more attractive to her.
• It's All About Me: Malcolm was incredibly self-centered for a very long time. We're talking about a man who abandoned his dying son to traipse over Africa. When Malcolm found a mountain his dying son had begged him to name after him, Malcolm in his grief named it after himself. In the present, he regrets some of his selfish actions in the past, but has long since stopped believing he can make up for them, or change the way he is.
• The Leader: In between Type 1 and Type 3. Of the group, Sir Malcolm normally leads the exploits, employs Ethan and Victor, and formulates most of the decisions. However, he defers to Vanessa on certain occasions, when he knows her supernatural abilities are needed.
• Like a Son to Me:
  • Malcolm tells Victor he cares about him because Victor reminds him of Peter, his son. Unfortunately, this extends to ignoring Victor when he isn't useful to him — just like he once did with Peter.
  • In a less heartwarming fashion, he tells Vanessa that she is the daughter he deserves (implying that Mina is far better than both of them). His declaration to the vampiric Mina in "Grand Guignol" that "I have a daughter" can be taken as either metaphorically or literally true, given that he was conducting an affair of an unknown starting point with Vanessa's mother.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's not at all above using emotional connections, guilt, and insecurities to get even people he cares about to do what he wants. At least Ethan and Vanessa prove somewhat resistant, though.
• Manly Tears: Quite a few times, but nearly always in regards to his daughter Mina or son Peter.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: He's pretty depressed in season three after taking Sembene's body back to Africa, and realizing the thrilling land he knew has completely changed.
• Papa Wolf: See the quote above regarding his daughter, Mina. Averted with regards to his son, and subverted with Mina, when he chooses Vanessa over her in the first season finale.
  • He plays it straight when it comes to Vanessa, though.
• Parental Substitute: See Team Dad. Malcolm is one for all the younger members of the "family". He was closer to Vanessa than her actual father, and calls her "the daughter [he] deserves"; he likewise bonds with Victor (who is somewhat of a Replacement Goldfish for his son Peter) and Ethan (who is very much I Hate You, Vampire Dad and has father issues of his own).
  • Ethan as Malcolm's son-of-choice also makes an appearance in "The Day Tennyson Died". Kaetenay refers to Ethan as "our son" while speaking with Malcolm.
• Sadistic Choice: He is forced to make one in "Grand Guignol", choosing to save Vanessa over the vampiric Mina.
• Slasher Smile: He sports a rather intimidating smile on occasion.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Mina's parents are deceased in the original novel.
• Survivor Guilt: An explorer and hunter of great violence and brutality in his past, Sir Malcolm has survived all he has seen, but his family has paid the price dearly for his conquests and absences. Sir Malcolm doesn't display it very often, but the guilt is a tremendous weight upon him.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He has a lot in common with the literary Van Helsing after Season 1. He shares deceased offspring and a wife he could not divorce because of various reasons.
  • He also shares the African explorer past and love affair with an immortal woman with H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain.
• Sword Cane: Malcolm's weapon of choice.
• Team Dad: He serves as an interesting example, as he's closer to an abusive dad. Still, Vanessa, Victor, and finally even Ethan all acknowledge him as a father figure. His relationship with Vanessa is a dark and sometimes abusive one for much of the series, but he acknowledges her as a daughter of sorts until embracing it in the first season finale.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Courtesy of Evelyn's bewitchment. Everyone around him is severely thrown off by his angst-free characterisation, but it thankfully doesn't last very long.
  • A more natural version of this occurs between seasons 2 and 3. Sembene's death, the ghostly torment of his children's ghosts, and a meeting with Jared Talbot all help Sir Malcolm recognise what a terrible human being he is, and how he can do better to protect the family he has left.
• Vampire Hunter: He becomes this in the quest to save his daughter, although it takes him most of the season to fully understand what he is up against.

Ethan Chandler / Ethan Lawrence Talbot

"We've all done things to survive. I've such sins at my back it would kill me to turn around."

Played By: Josh Hartnett

A charming American who finds himself trapped in the darkest corners of Victorian London, Ethan's charm and brash ways are catnip to the ladies, but behind Ethan's bright eyes lurk dark secrets. He is running from something, and his troubling past threatens to overtake him at every turn.

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• Big Brother Instinct: For Victor and (to some extent, in addition to more romantic feelings he may be harbouring) Vanessa.
• Byronic Hero: Although seemingly a straightforward sharpshooter and hired gun at first glance, he soon reveals a tragic and dark past with possibly violent secrets who is estranged from his domineering father. He's also a mass-murdering werewolf.
• Canon Character All Along: "Chandler" is a pseudonym. His real surname is Talbot, meaning he at least has the same name as the Wolf Man of the silver screen.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Ethan has sex with at least three near or complete strangers in the first season alone, but he's perfectly honest about the fact that his "peripatetic" lifestyle keeps him from settling down, and he goes out of his way to be nice to women who need help.
• The Chosen One: He appears to be this, in keeping with Vanessa as an Apocalypse Maiden, as he is the "Lupus Dei", a.k.a. the "Wolf of God", a divine protector that even Satan himself appears to be afraid of. Unfortunately, It Sucks to Be the Chosen One, as Sembene, his new friend, opts to Face Death with Dignity rather than give him a Mercy Kill due to Ethan being too important to die. Kaetenay even turned him specifically so he would become the Lupus Dei and save the world.
• Con Man: When he's introduced, Ethan is pretending to be the only survivor of General Custer's last stand as part of his performance in a Western show. As Vanessa points out, he would've been a child when that happened and there famously were no survivors of that battle. He's not truly a con artist though; his shooting skills, which is what the audience really came to see, are genuine, and he happily admits the story is not true and is simply to embellish his performance.
• Cruel Mercy: He was subjected to this in this backstory. Ethan is responsible for the deaths of Kaetenay's family, and when he begged Kaetenay to kill him, the old warrior left him alive to suffer with his guilt and self-loathing instead of killing him outright.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hoo boy. During his time with the Army, Ethan butchered numerous Apaches, including Kaetenay's family. Racked with guilt, Ethan gave his life to Kaetenay, who instead spared him and made him a spiritual Apache. Together, they raided settler homes in retribution for the Army's brutality, which culminated in their murdering of Ethan's entire family except for his father.
• Dashingly Dapper Derby: Despite his American cowboy origins, Ethan only wears a cowboy hat as part of his Wild West show costume, electing to don a more locally fashionable bowler at all other times. (He might even have brought it with him from America; a derby was the headgear of choice at the time, particularly in the West, while the cowboy hat we know today didn't really exist.)
• Decoy Protagonist: You'd be forgiven from the first episode for thinking Ethan is the hero and the central character. In fact, Ethan is more of a secondary protagonist. The closest thing the show has to a true hero is Vanessa.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After everything they've been through, the comic series ends with Ethan and Lily moving to New York to raise the twin girls Ethan fathered with Vanessa's Lucifer-possessed dead body. Sometimes a happy family is a werewolf, a revenant, and their half-demon daughters.
• Emotional Bruiser: See The Heart; for all his position as hired muscle and skills in a fight, Ethan is probably most emotionally open of the cast.
• Foreshadowing: His blackouts will tip off any genre savvy fan that he's not all that he appears to be.
• Genius Bruiser: Ethan's knack for bar fighting and sharpshooting leads Malcolm to initially regard him as nothing but "a finger on the trigger", comparing him unfavorably to Dr Frankenstein. It turns out that he is classically educated, and has some knowledge of, among other things, Latin, Catholic saints, colognes, and, in Dorian's estimation, opera.
• Guns Akimbo: A pair of revolvers, naturally.
• The Gunslinger: He is introduced showcasing his skills as part of a travelling Wild West show.
• The Heart: Despite being essentially hired muscle, Ethan is the one who objects to Fenton's captivity, and the one who pushes for Malcolm to trust in Vanessa. He likewise gets on best with the entire group.
  • This quality also explains why he gets along so well with Mr Lyle, the team's other great communicator.
• The Hedonist: He pretends to be one to avoid attachments. Vanessa immediately sees through the act.
• Hidden Depths: As Vanessa rightly sees, Ethan is a much more deep and complicated man than he likes to appear.
• Important Haircut: At the end of season 2 after being arrested by Rusk. His long hair is no more, and he now has a buzz cut. It eventually grows out by season 3 into a modern-looking short hairstyle.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: To the extent that attention is drawn to it, and it's the reason he gets hired by Vanessa and Sir Malcolm. He gets headshots with ease and can hit a target with his back to it.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Hilariously so in the first season. It's nearly a running gag that nobody tells Ethan anything about what he might need to know. Logical questions like "what are these horrible blood-drinking demons we are now fighting?" tend to go unanswered.
  • Ethan is also guilty of this as well, keeping his werewolf problems a secret from everyone except Sembene and eventually Vanessa.
• Meaningful Name: His real name, Ethan Lawrence Talbot, is a shout-out to Universal Studios' very first Wolf Man, Lawrence Stewart "Larry" Talbot.
• Mighty Whitey: Subverted with his backstory. He's accepted into the ranks of the Apache, and, according to Kaetenay, took to their fight against the US Cavalry with much gusto. Ultimately, his involvement doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the cause.
• Nice Guy: Undoubtedly the most moral member of the group, Ethan is a genuinely caring, compassionate and friendly man, who is always there to call the others out when they go too far.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He bears several similarities to Quincy Morris, an American who courted Lucy Westenra in Dracula.
  • Interestingly, his love interest Vanessa replaces the character of Lucy Westenra as Mina Murray-Harker's best friend.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: In "This World is Our Hell", due to Hecate's corruption, his hatred toward his father and Kaetenay, and his own dwindling faith that he's good for anything but killing, he declares this.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Vanessa. It's finally resolved in season 2, when they go out to Ballantree Moor, and the two have their Big Damn Kiss.
• Wolf Man: Revealed in the Season 1 finale, to the regret of the bounty hunters sent to apprehend him.

Victor Frankenstein

"If you seek to threaten me, threaten me with life."

Played By: Harry Treadaway

More Romantic poet than surgeon, Dr. Frankenstein is a tender, gentle soul who is fascinated by the mysteries of life and death. He has dedicated himself to researching what makes something live, and has sacrificed everything for his scientific pursuit. But he is playing with fire, and his research pays off in shocking ways with devastating consequences.

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• Abusive Parents: His father was neglectful, and made no secret of preferring Victor's more athletic brothers over him. It's due to this he sees Sir Malcolm as a Parental Substitute. Ironically, he sometimes shows similar behaviour himself towards Caliban.
• Action Survivor: What he grows into. Compared to the other members of the group, Victor isn't the adventurous or physical sort, and prefers to avoid fighting. However, when his life or those of his friends is in danger, he'll rush forward and help out as much as he can.
• Adaptational Nationality: He's English in the show, but in the novel he's from French-speaking Switzerland.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite dealing with the supernatural on a regular basis, Victor is always and quite openly skeptical of new possible supernatural events (such as witches and the devil) until absolute evidence of things presents itself. Over time, while still remaining suspicious, Victor admits the mounting evidence is eroding his skepticism.
• Art Evolution: Of an in-universe sort; his first creation, the Creature, is a hideous mess of craggy scars and pale skin. His second effort, Proteus, is a more normal-looking fellow, but the back of his head is scored with scars from where Victor presumably cut his skull open. His third, Lily, is entirely normal in appearance with the exception of light, if obvious, scars on her chest.
• Badass Bookworm: What he grows into after taking several levels in badass. An intellectual by nature, Frankenstein is a reasonably thin and unimposing man who has the soul of a poet. However, he proves to be a fast learner and not a bad shot (being a surgeon, he naturally has great dexterity and steady hands), growing to the point he joins the group in facing down the vampires in "Grand Guignol."
• Byronic Hero: Victor is a man of great intelligence with endless passion for science, progress, and discovery. He is also a man haunted by great tragedies in his life, making him somewhat anti-social and very isolated. He is also a classic narcissist whose mistakes have resulted in a vengeful resurrected corpse with about five hundred issues walking the streets of London.
• Cannot Spit It Out: His life would be so much easier if he only told someone about his creations.
• Deadpan Snarker: He is very sharp-witted, even in the more serious moments.
• Determinator: He is determined to realize his scientific goals, and gives an impassioned speech to Sir Malcolm about it. (Of course, later developments make it likely he was simply high.)
• Dr. Frankenstein: Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his vengeful Creature are both regular characters in all three seasons. Frankenstein is depicted quite in Shelley's style as a well-intentioned, but dangerously irresponsible and neurotic obsessive with necrophiliac tendencies.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Victor Frankenstein and Henry Jekyll went to the same medical school, at least, and were apparently each other's only friends.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Despite vampires, malevolent demonic forces, and immortal reanimated humans being part of his everyday routine, Frankenstein doesn't believe in God. He is well-read in theology, however, and he does seem to have spiritual beliefs of some sort.
• For Science!: Defied, which makes this adaption of Frankenstein rather unique. In the very first episode, Victor goes on a tirade mocking this idea.
  I would never chart a river or scale a peak to take its measure or plant a flag, there's no point. It's solipsistic self-aggrandisement. So too those scientists who study the planet seeking astronomical enlightenment for its own sake. The botanists studying the variegation of an Amazonian fern. The zoologist caught up in the endless fascination of an adder's coils. And for what? Knowledge for itself alone? The elation of discovery? Plant your flag on the truth?
• Functional Addict: Due to medicine he was administered as a child, he is addicted to morphine and other narcotics. By the end of season 2, however, he barely qualifies as functional, as his addiction has more or less consumed him.
• Insufferable Genius: He's thoroughly obnoxious to the group when they first try to recruit them, claiming they couldn't possibly appreciate his work, and is only convinced to help when Vanessa shows him the vampire corpse. He also considers his own abilities to be superior to those of Dr. Jekyll, and doesn't recognize that Jekyll's race has been an obstacle for him achieving his goals.
• I Love the Dead: He only became attracted to Brona after she was dead. The way he lovingly caresses her cold and lifeless body is disturbingly close to outright necrophilia.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Victor cuts himself off from everything except his scientific research. He also initially seems disinterested in helping Sir Malcolm and Vanessa until they provide him with something that's scientifically interesting.
• Love Makes You Evil: Definitely played with to the point where it is averted only at the very last second, with Victor recognizing what purposefully erasing Lily's personality would actually mean. Victor becomes obsessed with Lily, and most of his darkest behavior is connected to his love for her.
• Mad Scientist: Victor secretly experiments in the boarding house where he lives, keeping a private laboratory for his work.
• Missing Mom: His mother's early death seems to have robbed Victor of his one ally in the family, and started his fascination with science.
• Nature Abhors a Virgin: In "Possession", the Demon, through Vanessa, mockingly reveals Victor's virginity. The doctor is soon relieved of it in "Above the Vaulted Sky", by Lily.
• Nightmare Fetishist: He's downright excited at the prospect of dissecting a vampire. He's also displayed some disturbingly necrophiliac tendencies.
• Parental Substitute: He seems to view Sir Malcolm as his, which is exacerbated by his reminding Malcolm of his dead son, Peter.
• Secret-Keeper: He's made one in season 2, as when Sir Malcolm's bewitchment and the growing threat of the Nightcomers drives Vanessa and Ethan to the moors, Victor is the only one told of their destination.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He admits in "Glorious Horrors" that Lily is the only person he has ever been attracted to, which may be due to her unique state.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: His obsession with his work has left him isolated and defensive by the start of the series, but he is a passionate and empathetic person to those who get to know him.... most of the time.
• Tender Tears: Well, he is a Romantic. Besides, his creations give him a lot of reasons to cry.
• Took a Level in Badass: A slight example, as he still isn't particularly impressive (at least by comparison to his teammates). However, in "Possession", he asks Ethan to teach him how to shoot, and in "Grand Guignol", he joins the others in fighting the vampire brides, managing to acquit himself fine with just a little help from Ethan and Sembene.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was a lively, artistic child until his mother's death made him obsessed with overcoming mortality.
• The Worm Guy: Victor initially refuses to help Sir Malcolm because of his own important scientific work. Eventually he's convinced to sign on as a member of Sir Malcolm's group because he needs the money.

Sembene

"Where I come from, we know: some people cannot be saved."

Played By: Danny Sapani

Sembene is an African man with ritual face scarring who serves as Sir Malcolm's sentry and confidant. He has an air of mystery about him, and his heroic efforts prove invaluable to Sir Malcolm in his adventures.

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• Battle Butler: For Sir Malcolm — not that the man needs to someone to fight his battles for him. Sembene also takes care of the more trivial tasks around Grandage Place, like the house-cleaning and cooking.
• Black Dude Dies First: Zig-Zagged in Sembene's case. He isn't the first main character who dies, but he is the first to die permanently.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He implies that his own past before meeting Sir Malcolm wasn't very pleasant. When asked about it by Ethan, he admits he was part hunter and part something else he considers private. Later on, he confesses to having been a slave trader, "hated and feared," a fact that he evidently regrets. He's also shown quite a bit of knowledge about the supernatural independent from the group.
• Face Death with Dignity: When trapped together on the night of the full moon, he refuses to let Ethan kill himself. Sembene instead sacrifices himself knowing that Ethan has a greater purpose than him.
• Fantastically Indifferent: It's probably in his job description, but he even one-ups Malcolm when Malcolm and Victor are unsure what to feed their vampire "guest" Fenton, and Sembene nonchalantly walks in with a cat, kills it by breaking its neck, and tosses it to Fenton like it's all routine. It's expounded upon in "Possession".
  Ethan: Do you believe in God?
  Sembene: I believe in everything.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Despite being a main cast member who's been involved in the lives of Malcolm and Vanessa for a very long time, following his death, Sir Malcolm has him buried in a small ceremony, and he's never really mentioned again by anyone. Ethan's lack of reaction is especially jarring considering Sembene allowed Ethan's wolf form to kill him rather than let Ethan die.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Sembene has ritual scars on his face. In Season 2, it's revealed they mark him as a slave trader.
• Honest Advisor: Sembene often seems to be the wisest member of the group. When he speaks, it's usually to give his advice or opinion on matters, and so far he's always been spot on. He takes this role especially towards Sir Malcolm and Ethan, but is willing to share it with the whole group.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Malcolm is possessed due to Evelyn's spell, Sembene manhandles him into a separate room and practically yells him into breaking the enchantment.
• I Owe You My Life: Sembene's service to Sir Malcolm is implied to be a life debt. Or, it could go the other way.
  Ethan: I have a theory. I think Sir Malcolm saved your life, and you owe him. That's why you're here.
  Sembene: Or I saved his, and now he is my responsibility.
• Kukris Are Kool: His weapons of choice.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: After two seasons of giving everyone sound advice and consultation, he ends up dying at the hands of Ethan's werewolf form.
• Nerves of Steel: He faces down all manner of supernatural creatures, including Ethan in his werewolf form, and barely blinks.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally retains his cool, even in the most tense situations. If he loses it, it means something really bad is occurring.

• The Quiet One: It takes until episode 6 of the first season before he actually has more than one or two lines. Normally when he speaks, it's only to say something very important. (Or to announce he's making a buttercream torte.)
• Secret-Keeper: Following "Glorious Horrors," he is the only one to know Ethan is a werewolf.
• The Stoic: It goes without saying. The moments where he loses his cool are few and far between.
• Supreme Chef: Sembene is one hell of a cook and makes some scrumptious desserts.

Dorian Gray

"To be different, to be powerful. Is that not a divine gift?"

Played By: Reeve Carney

Dorian Gray is an immensely wealthy young socialite who is almost unnerving in his beauty. His skin seems to radiate a golden glow of intoxicating youth and promise. A hedonist of reckless abandon, he has a devil-may-care attitude that borders on dangerous. Nothing seems to faze him, nor are any risks too great. In fact, he is unnaturally drawn to them.

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• Adaptational Badass: Not only is he considerably older than his book counterpart, this version of Dorian is seemingly indestructible to the point where he doesn't even react to being shot in the chest (he still bleeds, but it doesn't impair him in the slightest), while in the book he was simply immune to age and the effects his lifestyle would have on his appearance. He's also a very talented fighter, killing armed men without trouble.
  • Well, in the books we don't actually find out how exactly indestructible he is, but there's certainly no evidence that he is immune to bullets or stabbing.
• The Ageless: He's considerably older than his book counterpart, having apparently lived long enough to see "civilisations fall" and describing himself as "ancient."
• Badass Boast: Gives one to Justine in "Ebb Tide".
  Justine: Will you dance with me?
  Dorian: You're otherwise engaged, I think.
  Justine: Ever so charming, aren't you? All charm and nothing but. Might come a day, my lad, when that ain't enough.
  Dorian: And are you to choose that day?
  Justine: You wanted a killer. You got her. Can't go back now.
  Dorian: Listen, child. I can toss you out like the baggage you are whenever it pleases me. And don't think for one moment your tiresome sapphic escapades shock me. You think you're bold? You think you know sin? You're still learning the language. I wrote the bloody book. You want to play with me, kitten? Then show me your claws.
• Beauty Is Bad: "Memento Mori" shows that under all his charm and beauty, Dorian is a monster.
• Berserk Button: Dorian is a very friendly and soft-spoken man, who is almost always even-tempered. However, if you try and bully his love, he'll noticeably change.
  • Discovering his secrets is another one, as Angelique discovered, though this one is Tranquil Fury.
• Birds of a Feather: He finds a match in Lily, a psychotic, and possibly also soulless, immortal.
• The Charmer: In "Grand Guignol", when Vanessa suggests her leaving is the first time he's ever been rejected. He doesn't deny it.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Being a hedonist, Dorian is always on the look out for new pleasures; he has no problems with seducing and sleeping with multiple people, and will always take advantage of any opportunity to present itself. However, when in a relationship with someone, he is always a perfect gentleman, and seems to genuinely care for Vanessa and Angelique. Likewise, even with people he simply sleeps with, he is always polite and respectful, and always make sure he has consent before pursuing anything further than flirting.
• Deathless and Debauched: Dorian Gray is ageless and virtually indestructible. As with the original novel, he is also a hedonist and constantly on the lookout for new experiences. Plus, being almost unnaturally beautiful, he has no problems with seducing both women and men. Ultimately, his decadence is a sign of his buried depression: Dorian is trapped a hollow, empty life that gives him no joy regardless of what he experiences, hence why his apparent Karma Houdini is no victory at all.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Even Ethan isn't immune to his charms, and the two have a one-night stand.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Reeve Carney describes his character as being 'omnisexual' and open to everyone and everything.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Sex with Lily can lead to grave injuries, so his healing powers are rather appealing to her.
  • Being used as a practice dummy for Lily's knife-use lessons isn't much better, especially when Justine is the one practicing.
• The Gunslinger: Dorian is a surprisingly talented gunfighter, being able to kill, with perfect headshots, multiple men in a matter of seconds.
• Healing Factor: He appears to be able to heal from his wounds when in the presence of his infamous painting.
• The Hedonist: He's always looking for new and exciting experiences.

• Immortality Promiscuity: Much like his literary counterpart, though the bisexuality is explicit here.
• Karma Houdini: Subverted. Though he isn't killed or imprisoned for his crimes, Lily realizes that immortality is his curse. He lives a hollow, empty life that gives him no joy, no matter what hedonism he undertakes. She leaves him alive, knowing he'll be truly alone forever.
• Kick the Morality Pet: He ends up murdering Angelique when she discovers his secret, even after she promised to still love him.
• Lack of Empathy: Dorian rarely gets attached to people, and is easily able to discard them if they inconvenience them, even if he acts like he cared for them before. In the finale, he explains that empathy atrophies like a muscle when it's not used often, and he's stopped forming connections with others because he knows he'll outlive anyone he grows to love.
• Mr. Fanservice: Dorian's an attractive man who gets a lot of sex scenes (going with his hedonism).
• Narcissist: Well it is Dorian Gray!
• Nice Guy: Hedonism aside, Dorian is legitimately quite a friendly and cheerful man. He's even able to cheer Vanessa up. This is completely an act. Dorian is revealed as a selfish and heartless man who disposes of those close to him when they inconvenience him without even batting an eyelid.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Having Brona cough up blood while the two are having sex doesn't even faze him. More than that, he's actually turned on by the prospect of "fucking a dying creature", likely because it's a new experience for him. During an erotic encounter with Brona's "successor" Lily, he also seems to really enjoy her escalating violence, which culminates in her biting off his ear.
• Pretty Boy: Dorian is a beautiful man. Lampshaded when possessed!Vanessa calls him "the beautiful boy."
• Secret-Keeper: For Lily/Brona — he seems to believe she's pulling off an elaborate con as her new Lily self, but doesn't divulge his observations to anyone.
• Sherlock Scan: Dorian has a knack for reading and accurately sizing people up based upon minute clues, such as quite accurately assessing Vanessa based on the fact she wasn't wearing gloves at a do. He generally uses this to help him seduce others.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: While he sure does love his immortality, he seems to have become somewhat bored of it, as he confides in Vanessa, stating that he has learned a lot of things, and yet he wants to learn more. In the series finale, he goes into further detail about it with Lily. Friends, lovers, children — all die while an immortal lives. You don't want their losses to hurt you, so you avoid connections with others and your empathy fades. You become "a perfect, unchanging portrait of yourself."

Brona Croft / Lily Frankenstein

"Me lungs are buggered. I'd like to say it was from the dire working conditions of the factory; but it's more likely God being a right playful fucker."

Played By: Billie Piper

Brona is a poor Irish immigrant who came to Victorian London in order to try and escape a dark and sordid past. The Gaelic meaning of her name is "sadness," yet she remains lovely, spirited, and erotically alive. She forms a bond with Ethan Chandler, who will do anything for her.

In Season 2, she is reanimated as the Creature's intended bride and renamed Lily. Lily is seemingly innocent and naive, but at the same time curious and possesses great intellectual capacity. She dotes on her "cousin" Victor, but shies away from the odd John Clare. Later, she strikes up an acquaintance with Dorian Gray. Her naivety is shown to be an act in "Memento Mori", where it is revealed that she not only remembers Brona's life, but harbours quite a bit of inner fury.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In one of the most heartrending scenes in all of Penny Dreadful, Lily reveals her past to Victor, who believes he'd be doing her a favor by stealing her memories and making her into his obedient lover. Lily, sobbing, reveals the death of her daughter, and pleads with Victor not to take the memory of her beloved child from her. Moved to tears and realizing what he was about to do, Victor shows her mercy and releases her.
• Birds of a Feather: As Lily, she finds an equal in Dorian, who shares her immortality as well as her newfound megalomania and bloodlust.
• Came Back Wrong: Brona was probably the most "heroic"/good member of the cast in Season One. Lily, on the other hand, has plans for world domination.
• Clark Kenting: Played with, as it doesn't seem to be deliberate on her part (at least initially), but as Lily, her hair color, makeup, hairstyle, and accent are so different, Vanessa fails to recognize her. Dorian, however, does.
• Composite Character: She's obviously the equivalent of the cinematic Bride of Frankenstein, and also calls to mind Victor Frankenstein's cousin and fiancée from the novel, Elizabeth Lavenza.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As is standard for this show, she fled an abusive relationship and became a sex worker to survive. Then her baby daughter froze to death after an angry john beat her rather than pay her.
• Depraved Bisexual: Lily's Motive Rant We Can Rule Together speech to Caliban indicates that she doesn't much care about gender. Then again, she also absolutely hates societal misogyny.
• Does Not Like Men: Due to the abuse Brona suffered both as a lower class immigrant and a prostitute, Lily isn't very fond of men; due to her immortal strength and heightened anger, this leads her to brutally murdering a couple of them both deserving and undeserving of that fate. She does have some feelings for Dorian, though, and seems to possess soft spots for both John Clare and Victor. In a conversation with Justine, she also reveals that she remembers Ethan with genuine fondness.
• Domestic Abuse: Admittedly, they weren't yet married, but the man she was engaged to back in Ireland liked rough sex, didn't want to wait until the wedding, and Brona wasn't exactly a willing participant. She doesn't go into details, only that one night 'there was blood.' She fled back home, but her mother told her she still had to marry the man; as a result she ran away and came to England.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After everything they've been through, the comic series ends with Ethan and Lily moving to New York to raise the twin girls Ethan fathered with Vanessa's Lucifer-possessed dead body. Sometimes a happy family is a werewolf, a revenant, and their half-demon daughters.
• Face–Heel Turn: While Brona was doubtlessly a good person, Lily is an accomplished liar, manipulator, and murderer.
• Faking Amnesia: As revealed in "Memento Mori", she does remember her life as Brona, and claims she always has. And she is pissed.
• First Girl Wins: Brona/Lily is the first person we see Ethan in a romantic relationship with and they end up together at the conclusion of the comic continuation, assuming it's canonical.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Subverted. Victor attempts to Invoke this when he dyes Lily's hair blonde shortly after resurrecting her, saying that he always thought blonde women looked angelic, but she turns out to take more morally ambiguous actions than when she was brunette Brona.
• Heel–Face Turn: At the end Lily abandons her desire for revolution and bloodshed and decides to live as a human, having accepted her pain is a part of who she is.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: In the first season.
• Important Haircut: Victor cuts and dyes her hair to make her look less like her former self.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Brona is slowly dying of consumption when Ethan meets her.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Played with. While she doesn't hate all men, she definitely despises most of them, with two exceptions. She sees Dorian as an equal immortal (or claims to), and loves Ethan because he truly loved her.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Played straight, and combined with The One That Got Away, this is the reason she doesn't seek out Ethan after her resurrection. She claims that while she did really love Ethan, and that he was different than all other men, she believes herself to be too different now from the woman he loved for a relationship to work. In the comic that continues the story after Season 3, however, she finally does make herself known to him.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Inverted. Victor tells her that she's his cousin Lily who had a horrific accident and lost all her memories. He also introduces the Creature as her betrothed, but clarifies that it's up to her if she has feelings for him. "Memento Mori" later shows that she does, in fact, remember her past life and is aware Victor's been lying to her from day one, but has been going along with it.
• Mercy Kill: Brona receives one from Dr. Frankenstein, being suffocated with a pillow so she would die without going through the pain of succumbing to consumption. However, the trope is somewhat twisted, in that he also kills her to be able to turn her into the companion Caliban wished for.
• Meaningful Name: Brona means "sadness" in Irish.
• Meaningful Rename: Lily is the flower of death and rebirth, which is why Victor gives her this name. It is also very close to Lilith, which turns out to be quite apt later on.
• Morality Pet: In season 3, Justine becomes this for her in a unique way. Despite becoming her and Dorian's murderous accomplice, she reawakens Lily's human instincts, reminding Lily of her younger self, and more tragically, of her deceased daughter.
• Nightmare Fetishist: She's really into erotic asphyxiation and ripping off body parts, but is somewhat frustrated with the fragility of human partners. Dorian proves to be a better partner for her, due to his immortality.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She truly does know what both she and the Creature are, as well as remembering who she was before — the sweet, naive Lily was merely a facade.
• Outliving One's Offspring: She reveals in season 3 that she had a daughter who died of cold when she was a baby.
• The Pollyanna: Played with. Brona's certainly not happy about the fact that she's dying, but she mostly just gets on with (what's left of) her life without angsting about it too much, and manages to keep a smile on her face most of the time.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Lily is constantly cheerful and almost childlike in nature, spends a lot of her time simply playing or dancing, shows many traits of entitlement and immaturity, and is also psychotic, murderous and cruel. From the way she acts, it seems like she sees a lot of the horrible things she does to people as a big joke.
• Runaway Fiancé: The reason Brona's in London in the first place is because she fled from the prospect of having to marry her abusive fiancé, who had already hurt her more than once.
• Super-Strength: Apparently this comes with reanimation. She can even best Caliban/John.
• The Vamp: Lily plays to Victor's and Caliban's needs, appearing to each as the perfect woman, with varying degrees of innocence, while appearing more mysterious and seductive in Dorian's presence. When she picks up a man in a pub, she initially seems to go for a simple hookup, but then strangles him while in the act.

The Creature / Caliban / John Clare / the orderly

"Do not test me, Frankenstein. You have not known horror until I have shown it to you."

Played By: Rory Kinnear

Dr. Frankenstein's original creation, the Creature is a hideous, humanoid monster who nevertheless has a deep and anguished soul. His horrible appearance and unusual "birth" have left him a lonely, misunderstood outcast, and he is furious at his creator over his unfortunate fate.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the original book, the creature's appearance is monstrous, causing panic and terror to all who look at him and preventing him from even showing himself to the pubic. Caliban, however, is perfectly able to go about town and get employment, passing himself off as a rather unfortunate-looking man. Although, ironically, his appearance is very close to Shelley's description, with scars, corpse-white skin, long black hair, black lips, and yellow eyes. He thinks it's much worse than it actually is, though.
• Adaptational Villainy: Compared to the original novel. The Creature has considerably more Kick the Dog moments in the show towards Frankenstein than Shelley's monster did. In the original novel, the monster only starts deliberately going after Frankenstein's loved ones after Frankenstein goes back on his promise to make him a bride, but in the show, he kills Van Helsing to motivate Frankenstein even though Frankenstein had already agreed.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Creature in the book is a lot more self-assured, a capable manipulator, and even able to control fire.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Despite being a very capable stage technician, he is disliked by the actors due to his ghoulish appearance.
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a high-collared black greatcoat whenever he goes out in public, mostly in an attempt to hide his deformities.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT call the Creature a freak. Doing so ends badly, as the Putneys find out at the end of Season 2.
• Butt-Monkey: He gets put through the wringer perhaps more than anyone in the story, except Vanessa. He's perceived as a hideous monster by practically everyone who sees him, he's rejected by his creator, nearly everyone who befriends him turns against him eventually or even turns out to have just been using him, and his love of poetry is scorned by other people almost as much as his looks.
• Character Development: In season 1, he is shy and withdrawn with everyone but Victor, whom he treats with angry disdain. He also spectacularly fails at communicating with women, being awkward at best but a stalkerish creep at worst. In season 2, while still shy, he manages to hold complete conversations and is less prone to hide his facial scars. He is also shown as more capable around women, as his interactions with his new employer's daughter Lavinia, the newly resurrected Lily, and Vanessa show. In season 3, the Creature starts to remember pieces of his original life, like Proteus did before he died. The reawakening of his humanity spurs the Creature out of his apathy and home to England, Victor, and the hope of answers. He then assumes his old identity as a father and husband, and reaches a new level of self-awareness and understanding.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In life, he was originally an orderly at a upper-class Bedlam House, and hated every minute of the torture he witnessed there. Later, after death, he was rejected at (re-)birth by his creator/father Victor, then shunned by society for looking like a walking corpse.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He's perhaps more sympathetic than most examples, given his frightful appearance. He misinterprets an actress's kindness towards him as attraction, and is angry when she turns down his advances.
• Emotional Bruiser: Being Super Strong and wearing his emotions on his sleeve qualify him.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: He even quotes Blake to underline it.
• Flawed Prototype: He is far more visibly deformed, scarred, and corpse-like than either of Frankenstein's subsequent creations, likely due in part to his donor parts being longer dead. For a while, he also lacks the memories of his previous life as the orderly. He's also physically weaker, although still super strong, than Victor's final creation, Lily.
• Freudian Excuse: He may commit the occasional murder, but he was abandoned by his creator, which naturally makes him a bit angry.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has prominent jagged scars down the side of his face, which along with his deathly pallor are the primary source of peoples' fear and revulsion.
• I Am Who?: Inverted; after always believing himself unique and devoid of humanity, a flashback in the season 3 premiere sets him on the path of investigating the normal human life he'd led before his death and reanimation.
• I Have Many Names: He is variously known as the Creature, Caliban, and John Clare — the latter taken from the name of a classic poet. Interestingly, his nature as Caliban is considerably monstrous and cruel, whereas his softer qualities shine through when he's Mr Clare. Finally, he had a normal name when he was alive, but it is never spoken, even when meeting his wife.
• Heel–Face Turn: Subtle, but present. He spends most of the first two seasons as a selfish Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, who never really cares about anything other than his own pain. Come season 3, he has formed an honest friendship with Vanessa and rekindled a familial relationship with his wife and son from his previous life. Even his decision to not revive his son after he dies comes from a place of love, and he does so knowing full well that his wife will leave him if he refuses to resurrect him.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: He shows signs of this, as at times, he will outright boast his supremacy above all, while still holding misery and insecurity about being unable to fit in and be normal. Really, Caliban isn't even that hideous. It's his serious problems with people that lead to them isolating him.
• Informed Deformity: He really isn't as hideous as he seems to think, with his oddities basically being confined to his pale skin, yellow irises, and moderate facial scars. Justified due to his psychological problems and consequent maladaptive behaviour affecting the way people respond to him — in the final season, in which he's got over some of his self-loathing and is more generally stable, he interacts with ordinary people much more frequently, without causing exaggerated reactions.
• Kick the Dog: His rather brutal murder of Van Helsing, which pretty much happened because Caliban had just been rejected and saw someone be nice to Victor. His introductory scene also counts.
• Meaningful Rename: The Creature is given the name "Caliban" by the theater owner. Like Proteus, this name comes from Shakespeare: in The Tempest, Caliban is the grotesquely deformed son of a sorceress that despises his master, Prospero.
  • In season 2, he adopts the name John Clare, presumably because that was one of the poets whose works Victor left behind in his first laboratory. It's also a way of distancing himself from his monster identity, as he is trying to become more human for Lily.
• Mercy Kill: And pragmatic about it, too. It's how he views killing Proteus, to an extent, although hurting Victor was his primary motivation. Later, he euthanizes a dying boy in the Arctic to keep him from dying in agony and the sailors from murdering him to eat him. Also, in a way, refusing to allow his son to be resurrected.
• Never Given a Name: Victor abandoned him immediately after restoring him to life, and so never named him. (Victor does name Proteus and Lily when they're created later on.) The Creature picks several names for himself in the course of the series, but all of them are treated as placeholders. He eventually learns the name from his former life as a human, but the audience never does, and he doesn't start using it.
• Nice Guy: In his past life as the orderly, he was a genuinely kind man who forged a bond with Vanessa and tried to alleviate the pain of the "treatments" (really torture) she was forced to undergo at the asylum.
• Rich Language, Poor Language: Played with, since the Creature is hardly rich himself, but from what we see of his life as the orderly, the Creature lived on relatively meager means, and he had a somewhat lower-class accent. After his resurrection (and thus for most of the show), he speaks in Rory Kinnear's crisp RP accent and is Wicked Cultured.
• Riddle for the Ages: His true name in his first life, even when he finally remembers it, is never made known to the audience.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He sure does like to talk, a habit he no doubt picked up from the theater director who took him in and the poetry volumes he used to teach himself to read. This is a marked contrast to his previous life as the orderly, who spoke simply and admitted to being Book Dumb.
• Stalker with a Crush: In season 1, he acts like this to actress Maud Gunnerson, mistaking her friendliness for love.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Vanessa calls them beautiful in a touching scene.
• Super-Strength: It wouldn't be a Frankenstein yarn without this being a main factor. He rarely uses it, but when he does, expect a bloodbath to come. Oscar Putney learns this the hard way when the Creature tears iron bars out of the wall with ease and uses said strength to Neck Snap his overconfident captor.
• Social Darwinist: He outright states he holds a version of this belief, comparing himself to the rise of industry. In practice, though, it mostly serves to mask his insecurities and loneliness.
• Tortured Monster: After his misguided attempt to force a love connection with his crush Maude gets him fired from the theatre, he realizes that his outer ugliness mirrors his soul, and he urges Frankenstein to shoot him as a Mercy Kill. Moved to tears, Victor naturally doesn't.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Vanessa compliments him using almost these exact words, deeply moving him and likely adding to his seven thousand issues.
• Wicked Cultured: While not always wicked, he nevertheless shares his creator's great love for poetry, and claims to especially love Wordsworth, having learned much of what he knows from Victor's books. He later quotes Blake while talking to Vanessa on his opinion of religion.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He's very set on making Victor pay for leaving him alone, even if that means killing innocent bystanders.

Recurring Characters

Murray Family Members

Mina Murray

Played By: Olivia Llewellyn

Sir Malcolm's daughter. The hunt for her after she has been apparently abducted by something not of this world drives the plot of the first season.

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• Abusive Parents: According to Vanessa in "Demimonde", Sir Malcolm paid her little attention (making his zeal in his hunt for her possibly a form of atonement).
• Adaptational Ugliness: Although she's not ugly by any means, compared with other depictions of the character, this version of Mina is rather plain.
• Daddy's Girl: In contrast with his callous attitude toward Peter, and Vanessa's assertions in "Demimonde", Mina is shown to be adored by her father in "Closer Than Sisters".
• Damsel in Distress: As mentioned above, Mina's abduction and the search for her is Sir Malcolm's primary motive (and accordingly that of his company).
• Girly Girl: To Vanessa's Tomboy.
• Transhuman Treachery: In the fourth episode, Vanessa and Sir Malcolm begin to suspect that Mina is acting to serve the interests of the thing that abducted her — specifically, to lure Vanessa into a trap. This is further confirmed by the season finale that the Mina they knew was long gone, and had used her past with her father and Vanessa to exploit them.
• Villains Want Mercy: After revealing her true colors, capturing Vanessa, and gloating about how she's going to deliver her once dearest friend to her 'Master', she's shocked when Malcolm shoots her in the shoulder and begs for mercy, saying 'I'm your daughter!' Malcolm is not impressed and promptly dispatches her.

Peter Murray

Played By: Graham Butler

Sir Malcolm's son, who died during an expedition in Africa prior to the series.

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• Ambiguously Gay: He's rather freaked out when Vanessa tries to kiss him, and doesn't seem to be overly interested in sexual contact with women. Abroad in Africa, Sir Malcolm tries some pretty horrid things to "cure" Peter, according to the Demon.
• Foil: To Victor. Malcolm remarks on their similarities, but Peter is clearly softer, friendlier, and less high-strung than Victor, not to mention he's also dead.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: He was rather bookish and frail compared to the adventurous Sir Malcolm. He's not a totally straight example, as Malcolm himself is a highly intelligent scholar who values book learning, but his standard is that of a Gentleman Adventurer with brains and brawn, and Peter could only be said to have the former.
• Last Request: When dying, he begged his father to find and name a mountain after him. Malcolm found the mountain...and named it after himself.
• Nice Guy: Peter seems like a genuinely sweet kid, and a very gentle, friendly adult.
• Parental Neglect: He was largely ignored by Malcolm, who wished for a stronger, more daring son.
• Posthumous Character: His death and the circumstances leading up to it greatly influence both Vanessa's and Sir Malcolm's behaviour in the present setting.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He was desperate to prove himself to his emotionally distant father.

Gladys Murray

Played by: Noni Stapleton

Malcolm's estranged wife and the mother of Mina and Peter.

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• Amicable Exes: As amicable as possible and as "ex" as possible, considering this is Victorian London. She and Malcolm are separated, not divorced, and she insists upon remaining married to him for "decency's sake". Neither of them truly love each other.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: She is bewitched by Evelyn, causing her continuous agonizing pain in her head for several days, and then hallucinates her children rising from their graves and coming to her, after which she is Driven to Suicide.
• Driven to Suicide: To escape Evelyn's spell and tormentous illusions of her children haunting her.
• Grande Dame: She is very much the Victorian mother, and as we see in "Fresh Hell", has enough of a spine to finally stand up to Malcolm.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She seemed mousy and dull in Vanessa's flashback, but she turns out to have quite the spine when she returns at the start of season two to scathingly give Malcolm a piece of her mind.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She gives Malcolm one of these when he tries to reconcile with her at Mina's grave. It is clear that she blames him for the misfortune that has befallen her family — and certainly she's not completely wrong.

Acquaintances and Loved Ones

Angelique

Played By: Jonny Beauchamp

Angelique is a glamorous and upbeat young lady who is intrigued by Dorian Gray and intrigues him in return. She works in an upscale brothel and seems to have exclusive clients with "special" interests. It’s eventually revealed that Angelique is transgender.

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• Beneath the Mask: After episodes of put-on joie de vivre, Angelique breaks after being spit on in the fifth episode of season two and reveals insecurity and self-loathing at her circumstances.
• Birds of a Feather: She and Dorian seem made for each other from the start — both are glamorous and hedonistic and relish in the discomfort of others.
• Gayngst: Unsurprisingly, as a trans woman in Victorian London, Angelique has had an incredibly difficult life with a lot of turmoil.
• High-Class Call Girl: The fifth episode of the second season reveals that her price for an engagement is usually forty pounds, which was a killing in Victorian times.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Being charming is doubtlessly part of her job, but Angelique seems genuinely friendly and open, and is obviously interested in Dorian beyond his purse. In a way, this ultimately works against her since Dorian doesn't think she'll be able to accept him once she knows how corrupt he truly is (as visible via his portrait), and poisons her.
• Morality Pet: Dorian may be an immortal Nightmare Fetishist, but she expresses true affection and compassion for Angelique, and their relationship is quite loving. At least until he kills her for discovering his secret, despite her assurances that she'll love him even knowing what he is.

Mr. Ferdinand Lyle

Played By: Simon Russell Beale

A noted Egyptologist, he is consulted by Malcolm and Vanessa in regards to the hieroglyphs found on the vampire corpse.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He may be flighty and camp, but Lyle definitely knows what he's talking about when it comes to Ancient Egypt. Even if his decor is tacky.
• Camp Gay: The campiest and gayest, who flirts incessantly with Malcolm and later Ethan. Despite this, he is married to a woman. Evelyn Poole later blackmails him with photographs which supposedly show him in a compromising situation with another man.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's seemingly a weak, fretful little man...who in fact knows more about the threat of the Nightcomers than the other cast, and assists the heroes in taking them down, even killing one of the witches himself.
  Lyle: Never underestimate a queen with lovely hair, my dear.
• Dark Secret: Lyle has one, but it's not his homosexuality, as one might expect — it's his Judaism.
• The Heart: He seems to be a confidante for everyone in the group, dispensing advice to Ethan and Victor, being a supportive ear for Malcolm, and caring very deeply about Vanessa.
  • In season 3, Lyle is the only one of the group in London to keep in contact with Vanessa. He writes her letters, and sends her cards, and when she does not respond for a number of months he doggedly visits her and single-handedly begins to pull her out of her depression.
• Heel–Face Turn: As soon as he realizes the heroes have a chance of stopping Evelyn and her coven, Lyle gladly does all he can to inform Vanessa and co. and undermine the witches' efforts. He honestly barely needed to turn, but come "And Hell Itself My Only Foe" he comes clean to the heroes about working for Evelyn and sides with them completely.
• Non-Action Guy: While a brilliant scholar and intellectual, Lyle lacks any physical skills and is useless in a fight for the most part. However, the season two finale gives him a badass moment when he unexpectedly kills one of Evelyn's minions with a well-placed gunshot.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In season 2, Lyle is in cahoots with Evelyn Poole and her coven. According to Evelyn, though, Lyle fell into the world of occultism and devilry through sheer curiosity, and so he lacks any real malice or hunger for power; he is resigned to Evelyn's machinations only through the threat of his personal indiscretions coming to light.
• Put on a Bus: Lyle leaves London midway through season 3, being assigned to an archeological survey of the temple of Imhotep somewhere in Egypt.
• Sixth Ranger: After a season of the odd consultation or two, and several moments of casual treachery under duress at the hands of Evelyn Poole, Lyle finally joins the heroes proper in their final assault upon the witches' coven at the end of season 2.
• Trapped in Villainy: Lyle would like nothing better than to not hurt anyone, and is truthfully at heart a friendly man. However, Evelyn keeps him working for her as an informant among the heroes, compelling him with the aid of blackmail.
• The Unseen: His wife, who according to him is a Lady Drunk. It is later revealed that he married her for her family's money.

Dr. Florence Seward

Played By: Patti LuPone

Dr. Seward is a practitioner of the relatively new science of psychology (or "alienism", as it was called then), to whom Vanessa is sent by Ferdinand Lyle to help her break out of her ennui and depression.

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• Adaptational Heroism: The original Dr. John Seward was the head of an insane asylum, but in Penny Dreadful she has the more modern and palatable profession of being a psychiatrist, or alienist.
• Brooklyn Rage: In the series finale, right before they throw down against Dracula's forces, Sir Malcolm tells Dr. Seward that they may not be able to protect her. Her reply is to pull out a pistol and say she's from New York.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Using her powers, Vanessa learns that Dr. Seward once killed a man in self-defense. In "No Beast So Fierce", it's revealed that that man was her husband.
• Gender Flip: Dr. Seward is male in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
• Good Is Not Nice: She is determined to help her patients get better. She also has no time for small talk or politeness, insisting to Vanessa in their first meeting that she is not her friend. She warms up a little, though, after helping Vanessa through her experiences.
• Identical Granddaughter: She's the Cut-Wife's descendant; her family came from Devon, and she's the near spitting image of Joan.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: When Vanessa finally comes out of her fugue in "A Blade Of Grass", Seward immediately pours drinks for both herself and her patient.
• Not So Stoic: After Vanessa tells her her life story, Dr. Seward calmly stops recording, gets up, and gets a cigarette. After advising Vanessa to do something that will make her happy, she watches Vanessa leave before putting a hand over her mouth and tearing up, clearly affected by what she's heard.
• Old Soldier: She shows herself more than capable of fighting off a superpowered Renfield, carrying and using a pistol (and being quite put out that Malcolm questions her shooting prowess), and telling Dracula himself to fuck off. She ultimately survives the final battle as well.
• Sherlock Scan: She's able to understand all of Vanessa's problems and psychological difficulties based entirely on her mannerisms and a brief conversation.

Dr. Henry Jekyll

Played By: Shazad Latif

A childhood friend of Victor, who comes to his aid in his darkest hour.

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• Admiring the Abomination: While Victor wants nothing more than to atone for what he's done and 'correct' his mistakes, Jekyll is delighted by his friend's success and doesn't understand why he would want to destroy Lily.
• Bedlam House: Jekyll works at Bethlem Royal Hospital, using its lunatics as test subjects for his experimental serum.
• Best Served Cold: According to Victor, Henry kept a list of all the people who had been cruel to him at school for the purposes of killing them someday. One wonders if he's actually begun scratching people off yet.
• The Corrupter: He convinces Victor that neurologically altering Lily's brain to return her to what she once was would be far more rewarding than destroying her, playing on Victor's still present infatuation/desire for her.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Victor and Henry did, where they were each other's only friend.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Jekyll was bullied and tormented at school for his Indian ancestry, which naturally caused him to build up a whole lot of anger and hatred. He claims to have it under control.
• Mad Scientist: Less physically and more mentally invasive than Victor's approach, his specialty is neurology, serums, and injecting unwilling test subjects with suspicious substances. He also has a lab, though it's rather bigger than Victor's.
• Meaningful Rename: Upon learning of the death of his father in "The Blessed Dark," Jekyll decides to take the birthright of his noble title: Lord Hyde.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Any other person, were they let in on Victor's little hobby, would be varying levels of shocked, appalled and terrified. Jekyll's reaction is basically "So it worked? Sweet."
• Psycho Serum: Currently an inverted trope; Jekyll's transformative elixir currently exists in large amounts in his laboratory at Bedlam, but due to the nature of his work it is used to transform murderous inmates into exemplars of mental health.
• Race Lift: Jekyll in the original novella was white, while this version of the character is half-English and half-Indian.

Kaetenay

Played By: Wes Studi

An Apache from New Mexico, he tracks Malcolm down in Zanzibar to ask for his help in retrieving Ethan Chandler from the clutches of his father.

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• Badass Native: He's a Chiricahua Apache, with some serious skills in knife-throwing and fighting. If his name and origin is any clue, he may be even more badass than he appears (the historical Kaetenay was one of the warriors who rode with Geronimo).
• Bash Brothers: He becomes this with Sir Malcolm.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Subverted, Kaetenay wears Western-style clothing and has his hair cropped short.
• Convenient Replacement Character: He serves as one for Sembene, being a knife-wielding warrior with a dark past from a foreign land who aids Sir Malcolm in his journeys.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Kaetenay has a dark history with Ethan, where the young man was responsible for the murder of his family. When Kaetenay reaches out to Ethan in his dreams, Ethan is considerably displeased to see the old warrior, with good reason: Kaetenay led a group of Apache in raiding the Talbot ranch, massacring everyone inside save for Jared Talbot, killing Ethan's mother, older brother, and baby sister. Oh, and if that's not enough? Kaetenay is a werewolf, and the one who turned Ethan to begin with.
• Flaying Alive: He kindly waits until after he and Sir Malcolm have killed all of the gang to scalp one of them, then makes a quip about old habits dying hard.
• Lampshade Hanging: Asked by Malcolm if all of his people speak enigmatically, a standard trait for the Noble Savage or Magical Native American, Kaetenay straightforwardly replies "yes".
• Last of His Kind: Of a sort; ongoing conflict with the US Cavalry has all but decimated the Apache population, and herded them into reservations, but Kaetenay is still proudly fighting the battles. Ethan at one point even derisively calls him 'the Last Apache'.
• Magical Native American: While he dresses in modern clothing, he displays certain magical powers such as receiving visions or projecting visions of himself across vast distances, whether in dreams or in person.
• Native Guide: He proposes he and Sir Malcolm travel to New Mexico, where he will lead them in rescuing Ethan.
• Noble Savage: Subverted; in the Penny Dreadful world, both Apaches and white Americans are just as capable of brutality and bloodshed as each other, and Kaetenay is certainly no saint.
• Parental Substitute: According to him, Ethan is "almost my son", and he refers to him while speaking to Sir Malcolm as "our son".
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Took revenge on Jared Talbot for massacring Apache families by massacring Jared's own.
• Revenge by Proxy: Had most of Jared Talbot's family killed, including his innocent young daughter Mary, and left Jared himself alive to stew. This is what caused Ethan Talbot to become disillusioned with Kaetenay after previously supporting his campaign of revenge against Ethan's horrible father. If he had simply killed Jared, it would have been a different story.
• The Stoic: Kaetenay is deadly serious, always quiet, and rarely emotional; it's no wonder he gets on so well with Sir Malcolm.
• Tonto Talk: Averted completely. Kaetenay is just as well-spoken in English as everyone else.
• Wolf Man: Of a very different sort than Ethan. We're shown in "Perpetual Night" that Kaetenay, besides being the wolf that turned Ethan, has effectively found a way to weaponize his condition.

Catriona Hartdegen

Played By: Perdita Weeks

A fiery, mysterious, independent woman currently working in London as a thanatologist, recommended to Vanessa by their mutual friend Mr Lyle.

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• Action Girl: She seems to be one, based on what we've seen of her so far.
• Brave Scot: She mentions she's from an old Scottish clan, and she's definitely fearless.
• Convenient Replacement Character: As a somewhat-offbeat thanatologist and historian, she is the one who informs Vanessa about the true nature of Dracula and his vampires — thus filling the spot Van Helsing would occupy, if the Creature hadn't murdered him in Season One.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: She's introduced very late in the game, only three episodes before the show's Grand Finale.
• Fiery Redhead: Catriona fits the bill: she's vivacious, outspoken, assertive, and passionate about the things she loves.
• Mr. Exposition: She serves as one for the ongoing battle against the forces of darkness in the absence of Mr Lyle.
• Mythology Gag: Catriona shares her surname with the Time Traveller from John Logan's version of The Time Machine.
• Nightmare Fetishist: As a student of death and all its associated trappings, Catriona comes off as this trope.
• Odd Friendship: Vanessa, an outsider with intimate supernatural experience, immediately bonds with Catriona, an outsider with an extensive knowledge of supernatural history.
  Catriona: I'm a thanatologist, you see. I study death. Its every ritual, every guise. The great hereafter. If there is such a thing. Usually folks have run a mile by now. Most people find that rather off-putting.
  Vanessa: I'm not most people.
• Sword Fight: She's introduced in the middle of one — a fencing competition against a male competitor.
• Wanted a Son Instead: Invoked. She mentions that her skill with swords comes from her father training her to be the son he'd wanted.

Justine

Played By: Jessica Barden

A teenage girl Lily and Dorian save from getting tortured to death in a live snuff show. She currently lives in the Gray estate as their acolyte and foster child.

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• Composite Character: Combined with Public Domain Character. While she is inspired by Marquis de Sade's "Justine", she also shares a name with a victim from the original Frankenstein novel.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her experiences with men make even Lily's former life seem benign: where Brona fled an abusive relationship, Justine was an out-and-out sex slave from the age of 12.
• Does Not Like Men: Her traumatic upbringing sure has left its traces. Unlike Lily, who still has a soft spot for men like Dorian and Victor, Justine shows nothing but contempt for anything male. However, she is still perfectly willing to use them as objects, and is happy enough to have a threesome with Dorian and Lily.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Despite (or maybe because of) her beauty, there is something definitely off about her.
• Happily Adopted: She's immediately impressed by her glamorous new home and its inhabitants. After she hears Lily's life story, she promptly accepts her as her guardian.
• I Die Free: When Dorian turns all the women out of his home and tells Justine that Lily has been "tamed" by Frankenstein and will never return, Justine knows that she'll be helpless on the streets of London, and will have to return to the degrading sex work that we first met her doing. She informs Dorian she'd "rather die on my feet than live on my knees", and he grants her request.
• Neck Snap: How Dorian dispatches her — at her own request.
• Public Domain Character: She's heavily inspired by the titular character of the Marquis de Sade's infamous novel Justine, who was also subjected to an onslaught of sexual abuse after she left home at the age of 12.
• Raised by Orcs: She has no apparent supernatural affliction, but now lives in the foster care of two murderous immortals.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's shaping up into this. After the rescue from her terrible previous life, she quickly adjusts into her foster parents' murderous lifestyle a little too well, to the extent that even Dorian is visibly disturbed.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: She seems to think she is The Lancer to Lily in a coming female revolution. Dorian sets her straight. She's actually just another victim in a Gothic Horror Story.

Antagonists

Inspector Bartholomew Rusk

Played By: Douglas Hodge

"More and more, I think this is all some... sort of phantom limb. Something is going on here which is not an actual arm or leg. Something not quite real... but completely true."

An inspector from Scotland Yard bent on apprehending the man responsible for the Mariner's Inn Massacre. His path crosses with Ethan's often, eventually becoming the American's hunter and nemesis.

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• Artificial Limbs: His right arm is a wooden prosthetic, as he lost the real limb in battle in the Transvaal. Notably, this is not revealed until "Above the Vaulted Sky", but close attention to his previous appearances is rewarded with plenty of hints.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: As a member of Scotland Yard, he doesn't carry a gun — not even in America, to the surprise and disdain of his allies there. But after most of the trackers are murdered, he takes a gun from one of the victims and declares that from this point on, he'll do anything to stop Ethan.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: In his office interview with Ethan Chandler, his prime suspect, he intensely smokes a cigarette in spite of the difficulty of doing so with only his left hand and blows the smoke everywhere. This might actually be to induce anxiety in the suspect, though.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Downplayed — while he always wears a black glove over his prosthetic right hand, in public he keeps both of his hands gloved, and he's not seen in a private setting until "Above the Vaulted Sky".
• The Determinator: He took over the investigation of the rash of murders across London from another detective, and is hellbent on figuring out and stopping the killings for the sake of law and order. When the sole survivor of the Mariner's Inn massacre is unwilling to share what he knows in "Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places", Rusk — while remaining soft-spoken — declares "You will help me, or by God I will grind you to bone." He turns out to be capable of doing this, in a psychological sense, to Ethan Chandler. Also, in "Glorious Horrors" he reveals that when he lost his arm, as soon as he was able, he took the time to hunt through a pile of lost limbs for it...and once he found it, he tossed it back. Knowing what became of the limb was closure for that loss, which goes back to his need for order.
  • Seen again in Season 3 — when Ethan is freed from Rusk's captivity by his father's men, and Rusk is left empty-handed in the barren desert... his only response is a hardened, resolute glare.
  • According to Rusk, his lost his arm whilst tracking a Boer assassin; the hunt became an ambush, and all but four of Rusk's squad were killed. Rusk cut his crippled arm off, cauterized the wound, and with only one arm brought his would-be killer to Cape Town in chains.
• Due to the Dead: After the crime scene photos are taken, he closes the eyes of the mother killed in the London Underground, who died with them open. He does this again for one of the victims of the massacre of his fellow trackers.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Rusk finally perishes in "No Beast So Fierce", being fatally shot by Ethan at the Talbot ranch, but not before he manages to kill the exceedingly dangerous Hecate in her Nightcomer form.
• Genre Savvy: When the Putney Waxworks' model of the Mariner's Inn Massacre is opened to the public, Rusk suspects Ethan Chandler will be there in a variation on Returning to the Scene, a trope he apparently knows well (to the point that he uses the word "trope"). He's correct, and uses their next meeting to further tighten the screws on the culprit, psychologically.
  • He continues it with his interrogation of Malcolm in "Memento Mori". It's very suspicious that Malcolm consulted Scotland Yard right when the murders began, refused to file a death report on Mina and buried her privately, and keeps a house in London with no servants, guns on display, and a steel door that would look at home in a fortress, not a London townhouse. Rusk has so many of the pieces, but will he be able to put together the puzzle? He wants to, very badly. In the following episode, he has the place surrounded by policemen. In 2x10, he reveals he had the extradition notice for Ethan for weeks, but couldn't just arrest him, because that wouldn't have given him the closure he wanted.
  • In Season 3, Rusk states that he doesn't need to track a fugitive Ethan — he knows Ethan is headed to the Talbot Range. Rusk realises that the only man who'd go against US Marshals to free a convict like Ethan would be Ethan's father.
• Gentleman Snarker: His interrogations of suspects, witnesses, and otherwise, all of whom do their best to be unhelpful, drip with sarcasm on his side, as he knows all of them have something to hide. The notable exception is the majority of his interrogation of Malcolm, as he is speaking to a peer of the realm, someone quite out of his own social circles, but once Malcolm proves extremely confrontational and secretive, Rusk drops the politesse and starts snarking again. He's even snarkier once he makes it to the United States, as the American authorities constantly underestimate his intelligence and tenacity.
• Good Is Not Soft: He is an affable, gentle person, mild-mannered and soft-spoken, firmly on the side of justice and working only within the confines of the law. He will remind his quarry, however, that he will not rest until he's stopped their atrocities by any means within his moral code. Once most of his fellow trackers are murdered, he decides to become The Unfettered.
• Great Detective: Downplayed — he fits the "logic, intellect, and imagination" requirements when confronted with the Locked Room Mystery of the London Underground murders, realizing that there's no logical explanation for it...so there may be a magical one. Over the course of his subsequent appearances, it is also suggested that beyond just figuring out who the serial killer is through basic detective/police work, he at least suspects he's dealing with a werewolf, but that it's only part of a much bigger supernatural mystery.
• Hero Antagonist: Rusk is just trying to catch the people responsible for the murders and put a stop to the killing. Going into season 3, the closest thing he's done to an outright evil deed is not immediately extraditing Ethan, simply because he needed the closure of a confession, and as it turns out, this allowed Ethan to finish off Evelyn Poole, though Sembene's life was also lost in the process.
• Meaningful Name: His is very similar to that of George Aken Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The Real Life Lusk led this neighborhood-watch group during Jack the Ripper's murder spree; it was to him that the infamous "From hell" letter was addressed.
• Mercy Kill: While he leaves it to his fellow lawmen to proclaim and carry a sentence out, he seems to see himself as offering this to his quarry if they will give themself up. As he reminds them, a quick execution will be less painful than a life of ever-mounting guilt.
• Shout-Out: His wooden arm is inspired by that of Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein, the third of the Universal Frankenstein films, though thanks to Parody Displacement the concept may be more familiar to modern viewers via the parody Young Frankenstein (via Inspector Kemp). The difference is that Rusk lost his arm fighting in the Transvaal, rather than to a monster. (Though the viewer only has Rusk's word to go on...)
• Smug Snake: This Gentleman Snarker Determinator is extremely confident that he will find the proof he needs to close in on and capture his prime suspect, though he's not an outright villain as is usually standard for the trope. He's Good Is Not Soft, and in a show where the bulk of the regulars are antiheroes at best, it would be awfully hard to keep the audience on the regulars' side if he didn't have a flaw like this. Ultimately, Ethan is extradited, but he holds back on the information so Ethan will confess his crimes to him.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: To Ethan Chandler, the culprit of most of the killings he's investigating. (The exception is the London Underground murders, which are the work of Hecate Poole.) Even when he decides to become The Unfettered, he still has this trope going for him, because although the situation has become that bad, it can only get worse, and he doesn't realize that Ethan must stay alive to serve as the Wolf of God. And even then, Ethan's ready to play for Lucifer's team anyway.
• To Be Lawful or Good: He holds to the Lawful side most of the time, until the massacre of the trackers, whereupon he decides he'll be Good and stop this madness...no matter what it takes.
• The Unfettered: he decides to become this in the wake of the massacre of the trackers, hence his Batman Grabs a Gun moment.

Jared Talbot

Played By: Brian Cox

"You brought the Devil to my doorstep, son, and you gave him the key."

Ethan's father, a powerful rancher in New Mexico.

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• Abusive Parents: Jared sadly remembers how Ethan's older brother used to shield Ethan from their father whenever Jared tried to give Ethan the lash.
• Affably Evil: He's had Apaches massacred to claim their land, and had his men murder a train car's worth of people to reclaim his son, but when he's finally shown onscreen, he comes across as very charming and human. He talks amicably with Malcolm, and gives him his sincere sympathies when he finds out Malcolm's daughter died. Then it turns out the reason he went to so much trouble to reclaim Ethan is because Ethan's Apache allies butchered their family, and Jared wants to imprison Ethan on his land to force him to atone for their deaths. Jared sadly says he knows he's already going to Hell, but he wants to spare Ethan from that fate.
• Archnemesis Dad: Ethan despises his father, mainly because Jared pushed Ethan into joining the army where Ethan was made to massacre Apache people. Ethan eventually ended up ridden with guilt from the experience, murdered his commanding officer for his glee at what they did, and defected to the Apaches. Jared eventually sends bounty hunters after Ethan throughout the first two seasons to bring his son back home, though it turns out his motives for doing so aren't completely sinister.
• Arc Villain: Jared is the major antagonist in Ethan's character arc, and the single biggest threat to Ethan, Malcolm, Kaetenay and Rusk in season 3's New Mexico storyline.
• Beard of Evil: He's a corrupt, murderous ranch owner with a thick beard.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he dies in "No Beast So Fierce", courtesy of Sir Malcolm.
• The Determinator: Before the audience ever meets him, Jared is very much this trope. Even when his family is decimated and his last remaining son flees across the Atlantic, Jared stops at nothing to have Ethan returned to him; he pays off officials, sends bounty hunters to England, and even kills US Marshals to get his son back. Jared also invokes this trope in his final moments, threatening to send endless scores of hunters after Ethan when the man attempts to flee a second time. Jared even goes so far as to promise Ethan that he will haunt him well into the afterlife.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Jared's all-consuming thirst for vengeance is motivated by his love for his murdered wife, son, and daughter. He loves Ethan, his last surviving son as well, even if he can't forgive Ethan for inadvertently causing the deaths of their family. It turns out the entire reason he had bounty hunters try to bring him home was so that he could force Ethan to repent for his sins.
• Evil Counterpart: To Malcolm. Ethan says in the first season how much Malcolm, the "vainglorious, high-handed son of a bitch", reminds him of his father. When the two come face-to-face in season three, both Malcolm and Jared remark how much it's like "looking in a mirror", particularly when Jared muses how he "has mountains named after him", and Malcolm, whom we have watched move away from being that kind of man over three seasons, responds "at what cost?"
• Fat Bastard: He's an overweight man who's responsible for a lot of bloodshed.
• Forced to Watch: When Kaetenay and the other Apache massacred everyone at the Talbot ranch, Jared was kept alive whilst they stabbed his eldest son to death, scalped his wife, and finally tore out his baby daughter's tongue and eyes before killing her.
• The Fundamentalist: He's very, very Christian, and quotes the parable of the prodigal son in response to Ethan's homecoming.
• The Ghost: He's never seen in the first two seasons, despite the fact that Ethan's arcs involve dealing with his father's influence and the bounty hunters he sends after him. He finally appears in person in season three.
• Heel Realization: When they reunite, he tells Ethan that he knows he's going to Hell, but he also believes it's too late for him to redeem himself.
• Hypocrite: He is very big on religion and tries to force Ethan to atone, but despite his Heel Realization, he refuses to change his views on anything or attempt to atone himself.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: While Talbot is going on a tirade about how he'll kill Ethan, Sir Malcolm just shoots him midway through.
• Papa Wolf: He'll do anything to reclaim his son Ethan and save his soul from hell, and he'll kill anyone who gets in his way.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: His plans for Kaetenay.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's very racist towards Apaches, and stole land from them for his ranch. His racism has only gotten worse after Apaches murdered his family in revenge and forced him to watch.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Jared angrily tries to invoke this in Ethan during their showdown after Ethan makes it clear he won't be redeeming himself anytime soon. Fortunately, Sir Malcolm takes a third option.

Oscar Putney

Played By: David Haig

The owner of a waxworks museum that hires the Creature, Putney is a man who's a lot darker than he first appears, and possesses ambitions greater than simple grotesqueries rendered in wax.

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• Asshole Victim: He becomes one when John Clare frees himself from his cage, brutally killing Putney and his wife with very little difficulty or hesitation.
• Bald of Evil: He's a bald man who imprisons the Creature for the sole motivation of making money off of exhibiting him like an animal at the zoo.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sure, he'll put on the guise of a cheerful friendly showman, but underneath it lies a greedy amoral man.
• Genre Blind: Putney thinks it's a good idea to not only lock up John, but taunt him also. It ultimately comes as a surprise to him when the hulking man with the ghoulish looks and the Supernatural Gold Eyes also possesses the Super-Strength to effortlessly rip through his cage and the temper to kill Putney and his wife on the spot. Even if the Creature had been of normal strength, the cage door was far too lightly built to trap an adult man; if you watch closely, the Creature doesn't so much break his cell door as he simply takes it apart. It's implied Putney used animal cages and didn't bother to upgrade for humans.
• Greed: Putney's only true motivation is money.
• Neck Snap: And it sure isn't ''pretty''.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Putney is fond of rather large, unnecessarily flowery language, as befitting his role as a showman. The way he flaunts his ludicrous vocabulary is also likely his way of compensating for his lowly station and near-impoverished means.
• Smug Snake: Putney really overestimates himself, his security, and his success. His gloating is what leads to his death.

Lavinia Putney

Played By: Tamsin Topolski

Lavinia is the daughter of Oscar Putney, the man who hires John Clare as a custodian. Despite her blindness, Lavinia is a skillful artisan, crafting wax faces after the likeness of famous people, such as Prime Minister William Gladstone. In contrast to her devious parents, she is friendly and caring, and strikes up a tender friendship with John... until her true colours are revealed.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: "And Hell Itself My Only Foe" shows she's nowhere near as nice as she first appears.
• Blind and the Beast: Played with. Lavinia cannot visually perceive the Creature's destroyed face, but she feels it and isn't shocked, and even when he describes his eyes as yellow, she just remarks that that's rare and she hopes it's not lemon yellow.
• Cruel Mercy: The Creature brutally kills her parents for their treachery, but Lavinia, for her part in the deception, is left alive, blind and doomed to suffer without familial support or financial prospects. The Creature leaves her to find the mangled bodies of her parents down in the basement as a way of repaying her for her manipulations.
• Disabled Means Helpless: Played with, but ultimately averted. At first, Lavinia seems withdrawn and completely under the thumb of her parents, but it quickly turns out that she's a capable craftswoman and a very intelligent and observant person who draws people in by the sheer force of her charming personality. This takes a darker turn when it turns out she uses her charms to gain the Creature's trust, only to trap him for one of her father's schemes.
• Face–Heel Turn: From out of nowhere in "And Hell Itself My Only Foe", she uses their friendship and his trust to lure the Creature into a cage.

Warren Roper

Played By: Stephen Lord

Warren Roper is a Pinkerton Detective hired by Jared Talbot to bring Ethan back to America. Barely surviving an encounter with Ethan's wolf form, Roper doggedly continues his mission with a thirst for revenge.

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• The Determinator: Most people would give up after being mauled by a werewolf; it just makes Roper more dedicated.
• Disk-One Final Boss: Roper is dispatched at the beginning of "All Hell Itself My Only Foe" by Ethan and Vanessa, leaving them free to face the witches.
• Facial Horror: Ethan's attack on Roper leaves half of his face torn to shreds, with one of his eyes clawed out. The reconstruction effort isn't particularly skilled either, giving Roper a face that makes the Creature's scars look relatively normal.
• Faux Affably Evil: While a coarse and unpleasant man, Roper at least tries to be nice on the occasions he thinks it will benefit him. But he also never leaves it unclear exactly what he will do if Ethan is uncooperative.
• Genre Blind: He chooses to confront Ethan, a dangerous man he knows is capable of great savagery, on the night of a full moon. He learns from this, though, leading to—
• Genre Savvy: In "All Hell Itself My Only Foe", he comes for Ethan on a normal moonless night. He surveys the building Ethan is in, disarms him stealthily, and makes sure Vanessa is within sight for the confrontation. Roper then makes sure Ethan is handcuffed behind his back before they go any further. It still doesn't do any good though.
• Gratuitous Rape: He threatens, completely out of nowhere, to rape and kill Vanessa at the Cut-Wife's cottage, seemingly just to make the audience feel better about Vanessa and Ethan killing him.
• Rasputinian Death: He gets bludgeoned, slashed, bitten, kicked in the face repeatedly, and stabbed multiple times before he finally breathes his last. The whole time, he's giving almost as good as he's getting.
• Revenge: While still intending to bring Ethan back to America, he is partially motivated out of revenge for what Ethan did to his face while in his wolf form.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: He always manages to find Ethan, even when he goes with Vanessa into hiding on the Devon moors.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He almost always speaks in a soft and calm tone, which coupled with his strong Southern accent, makes nearly everything he says sounds unsettling, even when he's not threatening.
• Two-Faced: Following his encounter with Ethan's wolf form, the left side of his face is badly scarred and clawed out. He covers his gruesome injuries with a leather mask for much of his time onscreen.

Supernatural Antagonists

The Master / Dracula / Amun-Ra

Played By: Christian Camargo

"Give me your flesh. Give me your blood. Be my bride. And then all light will end, and the world will live in darkness. The very air will be pestilence to mankind. And then our brethren, the night creatures, will emerge and feed. Such is our power. Such is our kingdom. Such is my kiss."

The most evil and powerful vampire of all, Dracula is one of the two fallen angels that are seeking Vanessa to be the "Mother of Evil" — the other being Lucifer.

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• Absent-Minded Professor: His disguise as the amiable Dr. Sweet has him as something of a Cloudcuckoolander. His first meeting with Vanessa is peppered with amused mumblings, tangential anecdotes, and an admitted fascination with sheep... and he "forgets" Vanessa's name multiple times on top of it all.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Dracula in the books is described as a brutish looking old-man with hairy palms, an unflattering walrus style moustache and massive eyebrows. Here, he's played by the very handsome, dashing and well-groomed Christian Camargo and uses his good looks along with his charisma to seduce Vanessa.
• Adaptational Badass: Dracula in the book is impressive enough in his own right; he's implied to be the reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler, to have turned himself into a vampire using black magic learned in the Scholomance School of Necromancy, and to have powers from the Devil Himself; here he's a fallen angel who is the elder and more powerful brother of the Devil!
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Dracula's "refined gentleman" persona in the novel and most subsequent adaptations was just that, a persona to cover his true evil nature and manipulate others and one that wasn't even particularly convincing. Here, he's genuinely charismatic and well-mannered, even after his true nature has been revealed and his love for Vanessa is sincere, even giving her friends the chance to simply leave rather than kill them.
• Affably Evil: Dracula is unfailingly polite to his equals, and treats Vanessa in the manner of a true gentleman. When he confronts Ethan — his immediate rival for Vanessa's affections, and his predestined enemy — Dracula is quite reasonable. He only starts tossing him around after Ethan points a gun at his head. Later, he even gives the True Companions a chance to walk away with their lives, simply because Vanessa cares about them.
• Animal Motif: Bats, naturally. When he and Lucifer confront each other, both in the form of the orderly, their shadows are represented by a bat and an adder, respectively.
  • In the same scene, he compares himself to a wolf and a dragon.
• Badass Boast: "I am the demon. I am the dragon. My name is Dracula."
  Dracula: Child, you have no sense of the terrors I will bring unto you. [...] No step you take will be safe. [...] Who are you to defy ME?
• Bad Boss: He regularly abuses his familiars, including feeding disobedient familiars to the others. However, he is quite affable in his human guise of Dr. Sweet.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In "Ebb Tide," Dracula succeeds where Lucifer fails: he manages to make Vanessa submit to his will purely through the strength of his charisma and charm.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Dr. Sweet is nothing but kind to Vanessa, albeit forgetful. He's actually Dracula.
• Big Bad: He's very much this for season 3, as befitting his position as The Dreaded.
• Blood Knight: As close to literal as you can get; Catriona credits Dracula with provoking a long and bloody war between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire with the intent of making the world wet with blood to feast upon.
• Cain and Abel: Both Dracula and Lucifer are fallen angels, banished from Heaven in ancient times: one to dwell on Earth and feast upon the blood of men, the other to live in Hell and consume their souls. Both, however, are competing against the other to claim Vanessa for their own dark purposes. Their hatred for each other is made clear in "A Blade of Grass," when Dracula wastes no time in mocking Lucifer for his diminished state when they meet.
  • The contrast between their personalities makes this even more blatant. Lucifer is the more subtle and cunning of the two, while Dracula is more belligerent and temperamental. During their exchange in "A Blade of Grass," Dracula is the one verbally attacking Lucifer; Dracula even moves in to touch Lucifer's head like a bullying big brother and Lucifer irritatedly shakes him off.
• Canon Character All Along: The undead threat in season 1 is carried out by a series of Elite Mook vampires, all of whom the heroes hunt and kill, culminating in Mina herself being the Master's representative in London. When Mina is killed by her father Sir Malcolm, the threat dies down... only for Dracula himself to take charge of the situation in Season 3.
  • The viewers who didn't immediately suspect him of being Dracula pinned Dr. Sweet as more of a Dr. Moreau type. Either way, Dr. Sweet did indeed turn out to be an alias for a canon character.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Many viewers suspected that Dracula was someone they'd already been introduced to in the season three premiere episode. They were right.
• Chekhov's Skill: At first glance, it doesn't really make sense that Dracula would pose as a zoologist. However, on top of a suitable fascination with death, the literary Dracula is able to change into and control many animals himself.
  • The taxidermy aspect of Dr. Sweet's museum work is quite possibly part of what endears him to Vanessa in the first place.
• The Chessmaster: He first takes advantage of Mina's proximity to and hatred of Vanessa in order to gain information about Vanessa, then tricks Vanessa into believing that Mina needs saving, thus manipulating Vanessa's own guilt for her betrayal of Mina and leading Vanessa directly to him. When this doesn't work, he waits until all of Vanessa's friends abandon her, creates a persona who exudes normalcy in order to draw Vanessa in, turns Dr. Seward's secretary into his slave in order to gain even more personal information about Vanessa, and convinces Vanessa that he is the only one who will ever love her for who she truly is. This time it works, and Vanessa falls for him and starts the apocalypse.
  • He has an army of mindless familiars, feral blonde vampires, and tall Egyptian vampires to boot.
• Cold Ham: Melodramatic, maniacal dialogue; calm, aloof delivery (unless you piss him off).
• Combo Platter Powers: Just like in the novel. He has already displayed his Super-Strength, but he may also have some form of Mind Manipulation. Catriona Hartdegen confirms that Dracula can shapeshift, altering his appearance and identity every century in order to blend in. During his confrontation with Vanessa and Lucifer, he is able to move objects telekinetically, though this happened entirely in Vanessa's mind, so it's not confirmed if he can do this in person. Later, it's shown that he's fast enough to dodge bullets.
  • When he seduces Mina in the prequel comic (shown in flashbacks in the second issue), he exhibits his canonical ability to turn into green mist. In the first issue, he mind controls a pack of wolves to attack the carriage Vanessa, Sir Malcolm, and Sembene are riding in. He has also "bewitched" Jonathan Harker by wiping Jonathan's memory of his face and name, all but confirming that he has psychic powers.
• The Corrupter: According to Catriona, ancient Ottoman records paint Dracula as a powerful seducer, able to lead lesser men astray.
  • He even seduces Vanessa to the darkness, thus causing the (temporary) apocalypse.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He utterly trounces the Back-to-Back Badasses in the finale. The only reason any of them survive is because he lets them.
• Dark Is Evil: He's always wearing dark grays and blacks. He also has dark brown hair and a dark brown beard.
• Dark Messiah: His familiars see him as this, being the one who can free them from the shadows.
• Daywalking Vampire: Many viewers are confused by Dracula's ability to walk freely in the sunlight, but Dracula has been able to do this since the original novel.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Even with her clairvoyance, Vanessa was entirely fooled by Dracula's act for almost seven episodes.
• Dramatic Deadpan: Especially when dealing with his familiars.
• The Dreaded: All of his minions, even the Elite Mooks from the first season, flee at his appearance, and when Renfield sees his face, he looks as if he'll die of fright. He's this for the audience as well, being the cruelest, most cunning, and most infamous vampire in the world of literature.
  • In "A Blade of Grass," even Lucifer flinches away from Dracula's arrival.
• Eldritch Abomination: Presumably, Dracula's unseen true form. We have no definite description of it besides the fact that he's nigh-invulnerable, can manipulate minds, drinks blood, and has been alive since the dawn of time. Ultimately, the Alexander Sweet character is just a façade to seduce Vanessa.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Dracula mentions to Vanessa on one of their outings that he is still adjusting from the death of his wife a year earlier, perhaps subtly hinting at the death of Mina Murray.
  • Dr. Sweet's dead wife might be a partial lie, but if Dracula's confession in "Ebb Tide" (and Word of Saint Paul) is to be believed, he actually falls in love with Vanessa during his pursuit of her.
• Eviler than Thou: In the living world, Dracula as a physical monster has considerably more power and influence than his brother Lucifer, ably demonstrated by Lucifer's fear and revulsion when in Dracula's presence. This is because, while Lucifer is a case of Gods Need Prayer Badly, Dracula feeds on human bodies directly, and they are only multiplying with the centuries.
• Evil Gloating: So many times. He's powerful enough that his cockiness is entirely justified.
  • Right before he takes care of the familiar who drove Vanessa away from him in "Good and Evil Braided Be."
  Dracula: When the time is right, my flesh... when she is abject, when she is helpless, when she begs for me... THEN, we will have her.
  • His entire confrontation with Lucifer in "A Blade of Grass."
  Dracula: And so I am made strong and potent by the spoils of my domain, while you, anemic, feed on dust and superstition. The abject supplication of the weak and the ignorant. If they cease to believe in you, do you even exist?
  • Inverted in "Ebb Tide," when Dracula rants to Vanessa about how miserable his life has been.
  Dracula: What has my life been? A series of shabby identities in vulgar worlds, from one tragic age to another, always in search of that one thing I cannot attain! Have mercy, please!
  • In "The Blessed Dark," after Sir Malcolm asks him if he is, in fact, the creature that bit Mina.
  Dracula: [Mina] was meant to bring Vanessa to me.
  Malcolm: My daughter's life meant no more than that?
  Dracula: No more than that. Although... her flesh was sweet, and I enjoyed her.
• Evil Laugh: He gives a particularly bone-chilling one in "A Blade of Grass" while he's off screen.
• Evil Overlord: He has hundreds of familiars and vampires at his beck and call.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is deep and demonic when he's out of frame.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: He speaks in a quiet, thundering voice, almost like a booming whisper.
• The Faceless: In the season 3 premiere, the audience only hears his deep, dissonant voice.
  • Eventually, the great evil's face is revealed: he is Dr. Alexander Sweet, the charming zoologist currently wooing Vanessa.
• Fallen Angel: He and Lucifer were cleaved apart by God and expelled from Heaven after the war for the Heavenly Throne. Lucifer was sent down to Hell and Dracula to Earth.
• Father of a Thousand Young: The Father to Vanessa's Mother of Evil. He's the progenitor and master of all vampires, dubbed by Lucifer the "Father of Beasts."
• Fight Dracula: In "Perpetual Night" and "The Blessed Dark," Dracula fights two wolfmen, Dr. Frankenstein, and Dr. Seward, among others.
• Foreshadowing: Essentially all of Dr. Sweet's first conversation with Vanessa is hinting at various aspects of Dracula's cultural legacy. From his comment that pale, smaller scorpions are deadlier than the bigger ones with claws, to his fondness for sheep, to his remarks about impossible things in nature like deep sea creatures surviving off volcanic gases and octopuses squeezing through holes as small as coins, and his love for "all the broken and shunned creatures" of the world.
  Dr. Sweet: Noah in his ark.
  Vanessa: But Noah's animals were living?
  Dr. Sweet: Oh, I think of these ones as alive... just quiet.
• Genius Bruiser: He's extremely intelligent, effortlessly manipulating numerous characters and setting things up to his advantage and possessing an immense knowledge of magic and sorcery as well as science, and an incredibly formidable combatant who easily defeats the whole gang in combat.
• Genre Savvy: He's probably the most savvy character in the series. Just to name a few instances:
  • He doesn't even approach Vanessa until all of her friends have left the country, and does it in such a roundabout way that she is completely convinced he's an academic only looking to share his knowledge.
  • He seems to have taken a considerable amount of time building the Dr. Sweet identity, complete with teaching zoology classes to the upper class.
  • He is indirect enough to make Vanessa think she is the one pursuing him, a key trait of master seducers. He even plays hard to get.
  • He promises to bring horrors to Vanessa as the Master Vampire, then does absolutely nothing to terrorize her after Season 1. In fact, the only reason she realizes anything is amiss is because one of his mooks is Too Dumb to Live and goes off script.
  • He throws Ethan around like a rag doll, then immediately flees when it's clear Ethan is about to transform, as he is fully aware that the Wolf of God is an actual physical threat to him.
  • He waits until the heroes have been exhausted by fighting his army of familiars, then gives them a fresh Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Glass Cannon: Downplayed. Catriona confirms that, while his true form is completely invulnerable, his human form is as vulnerable as any mortal's. However, while he takes the threat of gunshots and mortal wounds seriously and deliberately avoids a confrontation with the Wolfman, the fact that he has super strength and can dodge bullets renders the point (almost) moot.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He takes this role in season 1, using Mina and the lesser vampires to entrap Vanessa whilst he stays hidden.
• Heartbroken Badass: In the comic continuation, he has withdrawn from the world after Vanessa's death and isn't interested in enacting an Evil Plan anymore. He blames both himself and Ethan for tearing Vanessa apart between them.
• Hidden Villain: There are only hints that the vampire master who seduced Mina is Dracula in season 1, and then he is outright absent from season 2, only for him to return to do his own dirty work in season 3. The audience finally receives full confirmation of his name and appearance at the end of "Predators Far and Near."
• I Have Many Names: But he seems to prefer Dracula.
  Dracula: They are many, my names... like the carrion circling Golgotha.
• Ironic Name: Dracula means "son of the dragon/devil," but he's the rival/brother of the actual Devil, and seems to be the more powerful of the two. Additionally, the fake name that he picked for himself (Sweet) is the exact opposite of his real personality.
• Karma Houdini: Played with. Though he escapes in the end, Dracula has lost the woman he loves, his plans for global conquest are dashed, and he might have to wait centuries to find the next reincarnation of Amunet.
• Kiss of the Vampire: At the end of "Ebb Tide," Vanessa allows Dracula to turn her into a vampire.
• Leitmotif: The melody in "The Master" is interwoven throughout the season 3 score to indicate Dracula's looming, unwavering presence.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's fast enough to dodge bullets and strong enough to send grown men flying with one hand.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: He's initially described as a nobleman who seduced Mina Murray. Dr. Sweet's clothes, attitude, and position in society indicate such wealth.
• Meaningful Name: Catriona tells Vanessa that the earliest records of Dracula relate to the Dracul warrior clan, their namesake being the Romanian word for "dragon."
  Vanessa: It suits him.
• Monster Progenitor: He is the originator of all vampire-kind, a fact confirmed by Lucifer.
  • Due to this status, it seems that most vampires naturally accept him as their king. His group of semi-human familiars in particular display a manic devotion to him.
• Noble Demon: Although he gets in his fair share of taunting and brutal beatdowns, Dracula respects Vanessa's wishes and doesn't kill her friends.
• Orcus on His Throne: Throughout the first season. He gets off his throne to do his own dirty work in season 3, but he still lets his minions do the fighting for him (for the most part) once he triggers the apocalypse.
• Our Vampires Are Different: From both the source material and the rest of the show. Unlike his literary counterpart, Dracula here is lacking an ancient, withered form and the reptilian look Stoker describes him with. He also has a shadow and a reflection and can move in sunlight with no issue at all. In-universe, as befitting his status as the earliest and purest vampire, he possesses a perfectly normal appearance, unlike the lesser vampires or the anemic familiars. In "Ebb Tide," Catriona Hartdegen brings up the fact that the most supernatural elements are mere superstition, and make no logical sense.
  Catriona: As you see, I've been doing my own research on Dracula. Sadly, almost every assumption you have is wrong.
  Vanessa: But I, I've been—
  Catriona: Superstition, myth, and unfounded prejudice informs every page here. These are small-minded peasants and poets and theologians trying to make sense of something utterly inexplicable to them. So they invent any assumptions to fit their fears. Dracula can't walk by day, he doesn't cast a reflection, he can only be slain by a stake of consecrated ash wood. There's no sense to any of that. You may as well read the Bible for its history, which, it goes without saying, is a fool's errand fit only for idiot children.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: He tends to wear a lot of black and red.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes shift from a normal white and green to black and red whenever he reveals his true self.
• The Renfield: Season 1's Fenton was a Renfield stand-in who was equally erratic and loved to eat small animals. Come Season 3, the real Renfield has been introduced as Dr. Seward's unassuming secretary, now addicted to Dracula's blood and thus forced to serve him for more.
• Shout-Out:
  • The scene between Dracula and Vanessa at the cinema emulates a similar scene from Bram Stoker's Dracula.
  • "You will be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood" evokes the Bible, the original novel, and the 1979 Dracula film.
  • Most incarnations of Dracula have said "S/he is mine!" in some capacity. This one is no exception.
  • His minions, children and street urchins, recall the Baker Street Irregulars.
  • During a confrontation with Ethan, Dracula almost directly quotes one of Dracula's most famous lines.
  Dracula: The creatures of the night. What music they make.
  • Dracula also takes on the human alias "Alexander" in the NBC's 2013 Dracula TV series, although this is probably just coincidence.
  • In another reference to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula professes himself to be Vanessa's servant.
  Dracula: No. I don't want you to serve me, Vanessa. I want to serve you.
• Stalker with a Crush: He is one toward Vanessa, beyond any other character in the show.
• Super-Strength: Like many earlier versions of the character, Dracula is able to effortlessly send a grown man flying across the room with a swing of his backhand.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's Dracula, after all.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Whilst his minions stand out in a crowd for their Undeathly Pallor and dead eyes, Dracula himself — the greatest of all the vampires, a creature of unspeakable horror and power — looks and behaves like a charming, well-groomed and respectable member of the London academia.
• Tragic Villain: Dracula seems to believe this of himself, if his words to Vanessa in "No Beast So Fierce" are sincere.
  Dracula: [The vampire bat] feeds entirely off the blood of other living animals. [...] There are creatures that God has cast into darkness and cursed to the night. This animal feeds off blood because it must; because it has been afforded no other food source; because if it does not... it will die.
  Vanessa: Am I to feel sympathy for this monster that hunts me?
  Dracula: I have come to love all the night creatures you see around us. They're so... shunned. And alone.
• Villainous Breakdown: He has an understated but memorable one when Vanessa breaks up their brief relationship out of concern for his safety. He silently watches her leave... and then effortlessly crushes a teacup in his grip.
  • Later on in "Good and Evil Braided Be," he has another one when confronting the minion who caused Vanessa to break up with him.
  Dracula: You approached her. You spoke to her. SHE IS MINE!
  • This is later played straight in "A Blade of Glass," when Vanessa rebuffs both Dracula and Lucifer, with Dracula threatening to assault her with every horror he can muster.
  • In "The Blessed Dark," he has another short outburst when Sir Malcolm demands that Dracula tell him where Vanessa is.
  Dracula: She's not yours, she's MINE!
• Villainous Crush: It goes without saying, given the account of the fallen angels and their endless pursuit of the Mother of Evil, but Dracula in the present is quite singularly obsessed with Vanessa, at one point stating that he strongly lacks sympathy for any creature that would do her harm.
• Villains Out Shopping: Between plotting his evil schemes and receiving intel from Renfield, Dracula is quite happy to go and see a performance of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Vanessa. Whether his enthusiasm for primitive cinema and zoology is genuine is yet to be seen.
  • For what it's worth, it does seem like he enjoys taxidermy, as Vanessa encounters him doing it in his spare time when he's not pretending for her.
• Villain World: This is Dracula's ultimate goal. With Vanessa's untapped power, he can overthrow humanity and make vampires (and other "night children") the dominant species on Earth.
  • The apocalypse begins at the end of "Ebb Tide," but is aborted by Vanessa's assisted suicide in "The Blessed Dark."
• Walking the Earth: Dracula has wandered the world for millennia in search of the Mother of Evil, taking on countless identities in the process. He doesn't look on his days of wandering fondly, however; in fact, he resents the alienation and frustration his eternal journey has caused him.
• We Can Rule Together: This makes up at least part of his final seduction of Vanessa, the other part being his offer to love her forever and never let her feel alone and unloved again.
• Wham Line: "My name... is Dracula."
• Wham Shot: As Renfield sucks on Dracula's wrist, the camera pans up to reveal that Dr. Sweet is Dracula.
• You Have Failed Me: Dracula indifferently commands his offspring to eat a minion who traumatized Vanessa without his permission, an act which inadvertently brings Dracula's burgeoning relationship with Vanessa to an end.
  • Based on the way the vampires creep out of the shadows before Dracula makes it clear that he wants them to eat the minion in question, he's done this before.

The Demon / Lucifer / Satan / Set

A shadowy presence that has plagued Vanessa for years, who is eventually revealed to be the original fallen angel: Lucifer, aka Satan. No matter which name he goes by, the Demon desires to join with Vanessa and bring about the End of Days.

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• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Every time Lucifer has reached out to Vanessa, it has been in the form of someone she trusts dearly — he has variously masqueraded as Sir Malcolm, Ethan, and the orderly.
• Bed Trick: In the comics, he possesses Vanessa's corpse and pretends to be Vanessa herself resurrected, to trick Ethan into sleeping with "her" and fathering an Antichrist.
• Black Eyes of Evil: This trope is invariably how he reveals his true self when masquerading in human form.
• Cain and Abel: Both the Demon and the Master are fallen angels, banished from Heaven in antiquity, one who would dwell on Earth and feast upon the blood of men, and the other who would live in Hell and consume their souls. Both, however, are competing against the other to claim Vanessa for their own dark purposes. When they finally share a scene together, Lucifer flat out despises his brother, whom he calls the "father of beasts."
• Demonic Possession: Lucifer performs this several times on Vanessa throughout her life, before finally being driven off by Ethan's exorcism at the end of season 1.
  • He also uses Evelyn's fetish of Vanessa as a temporary shell, but this time Vanessa herself drives him out.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Lucifer will not take Vanessa's soul by force; he instead insists that Vanessa give her soul to him wholly and willingly.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's very good at pretending to be likable.
• God Needs Prayers Badly: Lucifer, unlike his corporeal brother Dracula, needs souls; as human belief in the supernatural is waning, Lucifer's power has faded enormously compared to what he once possessed.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Demon is responsible for Vanessa's demonic possession in season 1 and the Nightcomers in season 2.
• Fallen Angel: He was banished from Heaven by God after his failed rebellion.
• Karma Houdini: While the Nightcomers are defeated, Lucifer is only temporarily driven off. He's still in Hell, plotting. Of course, it's revealed that as belief in the supernatural dwindles, Lucifer diminishes without human belief to sustain him. He's only a shadow of his former majesty, and will continue to fade as long as humans stop fearing him.
• Omnicidal Maniac: As opposed to Dracula, who wants him and his progeny to thrive on Earth by overthrowing humanity, Lucifer would like to destroy all life on Earth until he and Vanessa are the only two left.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: One is delivered to Satan by none other than his brother Dracula.
  Dracula: I am made strong and potent by the spoils of my domain — while you, anemic, feed on dust and superstition, the abject supplication of the weak and the ignorant — if they cease to believe in you, do you even exist? But they won't believe forever, brother. We live in a mighty age of science and faithlessness... You fade into insignificance even as I look at you now.
• Satan: The Demon is confirmed in season 2 to be the fallen angel Lucifer, who was cast into Hell by God to feed on the souls of the damned.
• Wicked Cultured: While seducing Vanessa into letting him into her body, he outright quotes Keats to her.

Madame Kali / Evelyn Poole

Played By: Helen McCrory

"My beloved Lucifer, I have found her for you and she shall be yours. I shall assault her days and her nights, her dreams and her prayers. No corner of her soul shall be safe. Every beat of her heart, she shall know only suffering... I will not fail you."

A mysterious widow-turned-spiritualist who first appears in season one and becomes the Big Bad of season two, leading a coven of witches known as the Nightcomers.

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• Abusive Parents: According to Hecate, when she was just five years old, Evelyn handed her over to Lucifer and condemned her to a life as his slave. From the way Hecate phrases it, it's implied Evelyn allowed Lucifer to rape her.
• The Ageless: She's at least two hundred years old, having gotten eternal youth as part of her deal with Lucifer.
• Bad Boss: She casually murders a loyal follower for failing her and asking for another chance, then orders the rest of her followers to drag "that bitch out of here."
• Becoming the Mask: She originally set out to seduce Sir Malcolm as part of a plan to get Vanessa. She eventually falls for him, and even offers to let him share her immortality and be together forever. It doesn't cause her to become a better person, though.
  • That's only if you believe her speech to Malcolm, that is. It's possible she's partly or completely lying about her feelings for him. It's implied she is exhausted with her life.
• Big Bad: She serves as one for season two, tasked by the Master to bring Vanessa into their infernal fold.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Evelyn gets a lot of things done by fooling others into thinking she's a loving, interesting, and friendly woman.
• Blackmail: Her weapon of choice to ensure Lyle's loyalty.
• Blood Bath: "Fresh Hell" reveals her soaking in one, which may have Elizabeth Bathory-related implications.
• Blood Countess: She used to be a member of the nobility, owns a big, scary, Gothic castle, serves the Devil, uses magic, and loves to bathe in the fresh blood of her victims.
• Cain and Abel: She framed her sister Joan for her own crimes, leading to Joan being lynched by angry villagers.
• Chekhov's Gunman: We first see her at the titular "Seance", where she's posing as a spiritualist, and later in "Grand Guignol" as she flirts with Malcolm at the armorer's. It's not until season two that the audience learns of her true nature as the leader of the Nightcomers and her willing submission to Lucifer.
• Compelling Voice: She certainly has some powers to influence others' actions, as shown by her almost entrancing her sister Joan back, but due to it ending up failing and her common use of manipulation, it's safe to say it has its limitations. Perhaps that may be the reason for her supplementing her manipulation of Malcolm with Black Magic.
• Deal with the Devil: Where Evelyn got her powers and her looks from. The deal seems to have its perks; the Cut-Wife claims Evelyn hasn't aged since the mid-1600s.
• Depraved Bisexual: She has had relationships with men and women, and to both she's equally abusive.
• Dominatrix: She wields a riding crop on Sir Geoffrey in "The Nightcomers", and is very clearly in charge.
• The Dragon: To Lucifer in Season Two. She's his most visible and powerful agent, and the one that drives the plot of the season.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She's a witch and Satan worshipper with dark brown curls and white skin.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. Evelyn appears to have functional relationships with Malcolm and Hecate. However, Evelyn is viciously abusive to Hecate, and turned her into the monster she became by giving her to Lucifer at age five in a process that is implied to have involved allowing Hecate's rape at Lucifer's hands. Under their current relationship, Evelyn's only care for her is as a lackey and extension of herself. While she claims to love Malcolm, it is revealed she only cares about the idea of a lover to share her immortality with and has no care whatsoever for Malcolm as a person. When he rejects her, she inflicts a horrible Mind Rape on him and leaves him to be tortured by the ghosts of his past without a care.
• Faux Affably Evil: She maintains the facade of being a friendly, good-humoured woman and great company. In reality she is callous, cruel, and uncaring.
• Femme Fatale: She gets her claws into Malcolm with relative ease.
• Fountain of Expies: Madam Satan in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Countess Marburg in Salem are both very similar to her.
• Hate Sink: For all of her intelligence, charm, and power, she's an ancient sexual pervert who abuses her daughter and was willing to offer her up as a sacrifice to the Devil himself just to preserve her own youth.
• The Heavy: Of season two. Though Lucifer is her master, Evelyn's the one actually moving the plot forward.
• Hidden Depths: Underneath it all, Evelyn's actually quite lonely, and ends up offering Sir Malcolm a chance to share the immortality promised by the devil, so she'll have someone to be with for the rest of her eternal, or at least very long, life.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: She is a very good shot, easily besting Malcolm, and has enough skill to master his heavy, novel, vampire-killing Mauser at first try.
• Lady of Black Magic: A sophisticated woman with charisma, and a powerful Satan-worshipping witch wielding dark magic.
• Living Doll Collector: She keeps a room of her victims, represented by dolls with the hearts of babies/children stitched into them.
• Manipulative Bitch: Evelyn knows how to play people, and is very good at using charm, seduction, and emotional manipulation to get them to do what she wants.
• Off with Her Head!: Ethan effortlessly slashes apart a sizeable chunk of Evelyn's throat in his wolf form. Gravity — and this trope — soon follows.
• Older Than They Look: She appears to be along the lines of a gracefully aged woman in her forties; however, she's actually around two hundred and fifty years old, eternal youth being part of her pact with Lucifer.
• Out-Gambitted: A contributor to her downfall; Evelyn throughout season 2 is aware that her daughter Hecate is positioning herself for leadership within the Nightcomer coven, by force if necessary. Evelyn knows she is the favorite of their master Lucifer, and is backed by his powerful black magic. Hecate, on the other hand, has no loyalties and a willingness to use the heroes for her own ambitions. Evelyn doesn't quite appreciate her daughter's ruthlessness, and ends up being overthrown by Hecate in the final skirmish of season 2.
• Parent–Child Incest: Strongly implied with her daughter, Hecate.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: She keeps Lyle under her thumb by threatening to release photos of him and another man, even calling him a "sodomite" (to be fair to her for that last one, the word/concept of "homosexual" wasn't in common use yet).
• Rapid Aging: Her youthful glamor quickly fades away when Vanessa defeats her and Lucifer in the second season finale "And They Were Enemies".
• The Sociopath: A textbook example. She has no empathy for anyone besides herself, is able to sound sincere when she's lying through her teeth, and hides behind a mask of charm and trustworthiness.
• Squishy Wizard: Evelyn is a long-serving minion of Lucifer, a powerful practitioner of black magic, and the leader of a well-hidden coven of witches in the very middle of London. Even without the supernatural connections, Evelyn is a gifted manipulator, a ruthless schemer, and a social chameleon. However, her strength is in her spells and her incantations, and both are tied to the generosity of her master, Lucifer. When he withdraws said powers from Evelyn at the finale of season 2, along with her immortality, she is very quickly dispatched by were-Ethan.
• Underestimating Badassery: She didn't fully expect for Vanessa to send Lucifer away through the sheer force of her own Black Magic, thus undoing Evelyn's agelessness, which in turn gives Ethan the perfect window to kill her.
• Vain Sorceress: She leads a coven of them, with herself as the queen bee, and her penchant for Blood Baths seems to play into this.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: She seduces Malcolm to get to Vanessa, but seems to actually fall for him to some degree.
• Villainous Incest: She seems to be very intimate with Hecate, and was the same with her sister Joan.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Evelyn admits to Malcolm in "Memento Mori" that she's become exhausted with immortality and desperately wants someone to share it with.
• Wicked Cultured: She's classically educated, has a fondness for ancient history, carries a constant air of sophistication, and has a taste for the finer things in life.
• Willing Channeler: It's unknown whether she was using her black magic abilities in her appearance as Madame Kali, or was simply playing the role as a day job.
• Would Hurt a Child: Hecate may be the one who kills it, but Evelyn is perfectly willing to cut the heart out of a dead baby in order to use in a sinister effigy.

Hecate Poole

Played By: Sarah Greene

The daughter of Evelyn Poole and a fellow witch in the coven.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite how unrepentantly evil she is, the third season shows off some of her Hidden Depths, a tragic background, and makes it clear she genuinely cares for Ethan. She ends up dying in his arms, and tries to comfort him by telling him that they'll be in hell together eventually.
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed, as she's normally in control and calm, but she really does take a lot of pleasure in killing.
• The Corrupter: She serves as this for Ethan; their first proper meeting is her encouraging him to give into his more primal desires and follow her away from his divine destiny as the Wolf of God.
• Depraved Bisexual: Clearly disturbed in the head, she's attracted to Ethan while also having an incestuous relationship with her mother.
• The Dragon: To Evelyn.
• Dragon with an Agenda: She makes no secret to Lyle of plotting to overthrow her mother.
• Driven to Villainy: She reveals to Ethan in season three that she was only five when her mother gave her to Lucifer, possibly allowing him to rape her in the process. She was basically condemned to a lifetime of servitude for Lucifer before she had any real choice in the matter. Lucifer and her mother doomed her since childhood.
• Fake American: In-universe, she poses as this in "Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places" to get closer to Ethan. Surprisingly — to her, at least — it doesn't work.
• Fan Disservice: Hecate is a lithe, supple, beautiful young lady, and her Nightcomer form, like all her brethren, is completely naked and hairless. That alone would not be so terrifying, if the Nightcomer look wasn't complete with heavy ritualistic scarring, demonic eyes, and noticeable fangs.
• Femme Fatale: She's assigned to seduce Ethan for Evelyn's plans. However, he sees right through her act. Later, when she joins up with Ethan in America, she actually manages to sway Ethan over to the side of Lucifer for a time.
• Freudian Excuse: She claims that she was never given a choice in serving Lucifer; her mother gave her to the Master when she was five years old.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Hecate tells Ethan that she loves all the honest animals of the world, but strongly hates humans.
• Parent–Child Incest: She kisses her mother on the mouth in ecstasy, and seems generally very aroused when Evelyn talks about Lucifer.
• Perky Female Minion: She's Evelyn's right-hand amongst the Nightcomers, and disturbingly cheerful and peppy in her work.
• Pet the Dog: Ethan's surprised to learn she has a genuine affinity for animals. She's a bitter, sadistic misanthrope, but she likes animals because she views them as innocent.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She doesn't mind much when the heroes destroy the Nightcomer coven and kill her mother. After the carnage, she burns the mansion to the ground and leaves.
• See You in Hell: Hecate pulls a notably non-aggressive version of this on Ethan before she dies in "No Beast So Fierce".
  Hecate: Hell awaits us both.
• Squishy Wizard: A fatal weakness shared by all the Nightcomers; Hecate is by far the most dangerous of her mother's coven, but she is no more or less immune to gunfire than a normal human. This proves to be her undoing, when Inspector Rusk fatally shoots her at point blank range in "No Beast So Fierce".
• Stalker with a Crush: She wants Ethan for herself, and is willing to conspire with Lyle to betray Evelyn to get him.
  • In season three, it's revealed she's stalked him all the way to New Mexico.
• The Starscream: She implies several times that she's not as happy playing second fiddle to her mother as she sometimes appears. In "Glorious Horrors", she tells Mr Lyle that she has plans of her own, ones which don't run alongside her mother's, and seems to instigate a psychic attack against Vanessa without her mother's knowledge. In "Memento Mori", she outright calls Evelyn "old", comparing her to a dinosaur, which in turn goads Evelyn into throwing her across a room.
  • In "All Hell Itself My Only Foe", she outright offers to betray her mother and pledge her allegiance to Ethan, as he has the potential to stand beside Lucifer, if he allies with evil.
  • In the season finale, she makes good on this trope, allowing Ethan to maul her mother.
• Villainous Crush: She has a rather one-sided crush on Ethan. It's not so one-sided in season three, where Ethan's forced to cooperate with her and ends up forming a connection with her.
• Would Hurt a Child: Hecate has no qualms procuring a dead baby for her mother's ritual.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: She tries one to ensnare Ethan by setting up a scenario where he saves her from a runaway coach. The first part of the plan works, but the second half fails miserably, as Ethan easily sees through her disguise as an American ingenue traveling abroad after talking to her for only a few minutes.

Renfield

Portrayed By: Sam Barnett

The young secretary of Dr. Seward, he seems an unassuming man, but he quickly finds himself under the sway of a far darker power in need of his services.

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• Covert Pervert: He seems respectable on the surface, but Dracula has him snatched up while Renfield was looking for prostitutes.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He's a dark-haired man whose skin and eyes only grow paler after becoming Dracula's familiar. The creepy change in his appearance goes along with his growing lack of sanity.
• Friendless Background: During Seward's questioning, Renfield laments that he was never friends with her, saying he never had friends, and indeed never had anyone who cared about him or loved him, and that maybe if he did have someone, he wouldn't have ended up as a monster.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Renfield and the rest of Dracula's familiars don't just drink blood, they eat living flesh, both that of normal humans as well as their own kind.
• The Mole: Dracula brings him to his side because his boss is Vanessa's psychiatrist. He uses Renfield to gather information on her sessions so he can use to help him seduce her.
• The Renfield: It goes without saying, since he's based on the original Trope Namer. Dracula makes him a familiar, a person gifted with a small portion of a vampire's power, addicted to their blood and enslaved to their master's will.
• Sanity Slippage: After he becomes addicted to Dracula's blood, he grows increasingly unstable until he reaches total levels of Ax-Crazy.
• Tragic Monster: Dr. Seward is able to use a form of hypnosis to interrogate him, and as she asks her questions, he gains a level of awareness and becomes horrified at what he's done and what he's become.

Other Characters

Proteus

Portrayed by: Alex Price

Victor, what am I?

The creature created by Dr. Frankenstein at the end of episode one, Proteus is a sweetly naive man who is thrilled to learn more about the world he's been born into.

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• Decoy Protagonist: He's teased as this version's Frankenstein's creature, a subversion of the original story. Then he's killed by the real creature, who is a main character.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: How Caliban kills him. First Caliban's hands are shoved through his chest from behind, and then he's ripped open.
• Meaningful Name: Proteus was the name of an early sea-god in ancient Greek Mythology. Since he apparently used to be a sailor on a whaling ship, it's appropriate.
• Mythology Gag: While deciding on a name for him, Frankenstein suggests "Adam." In the Frankenstein novel, the Creature refers to himself as "the Adam of your labours." Several adaptations have gone on to use Adam as a proper name for the creature.
• Nice Guy: In sharp contrast to Frankenstein's first creation, Proteus is kind-hearted and excited to make friends.
• Non-Indicative Name: His name literally means "the First", but he's Victor Frankenstein's second creation... not that Victor would admit it.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Out of nowhere, Caliban murders him.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: In episode two, we find out that he was a sailor and had a wife. However, he is brutally killed by his older "brother" shortly thereafter, as we learn he was in fact the second creature created by the doctor.

Vincent Brand

Played By: Alun Armstrong

Show business. All bitches.

The impresario of the Grand Guignol Theatre, he takes pity on a homeless Caliban and offers him a job as a stagehand.

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• The Alcoholic: He's never seen without a flask or bottle.
• Large Ham: He's one both on stage and in real life.
• Nice Guy: He's genuinely good person who brings Caliban to the theater and gives him a job, being one of the first people ever to show him kindness. He even admits he'd rather fire the actress who complained about Caliban than Caliban himself, but the public demands the actress stay.
• Parental Substitute: To Caliban. He's one of the few people who look beyond Caliban's scary exterior to see a timid and lonely soul.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He's never met a dramatic declaration he didn't like.

Maude Gunnerson

Played By: Hannah Tointon

A young actress at the Grand Guignol who is the secret object of Caliban's affection.

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• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's a friendly blonde who tries to befriend Caliban because he reminds her of her disfigured brother. He, of course, misinterprets her intentions. Maude only stops being friendly when Caliban assaults her after coming on too strong and being rejected.
• The Ingenue: Her role in the plays, according to Vincent.
• Nice Girl: One of the few characters who is genuinely sweet.
• Screaming Woman: A large part of her job, being an actress in blood-soaked cheap horror plays.
• Women Are Wiser: She is much kinder than her jerkass boyfriend, Simon. Unfortunately, Caliban doesn't really know how to distinguish between types of affection.

Dr. Van Helsing

Played By: David Warner

A renowned haemotologist that Malcolm arranges for Victor to consult with on the potential cure for vampirism.

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• Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time that David Warner has played a vampire hunter.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His wife's death was by his own hand after she had been turned into a vampire.
  Van Helsing: She did not succumb to a disease, precisely.
  Frankenstein: Of what did she succumb?
  Van Helsing: I drove a stake through her heart, and cut off her head.
• Death by Adaptation: He doesn't die in Bram Stoker's original text.
• Hero of Another Story: His vampire-hunting days are long over by the time Frankenstein meets him. His exploits, like those in Dracula, are hinted at, but never in great detail.
  Van Helsing: Sir Malcolm is looking for a cure for something he doesn’t understand.
  Frankenstein: Do you?
  Van Helsing: Intimately.
• Humble Hero: When Frankenstein meets him in Season 1, Van Helsing is an old, kindly man who has seen, done, and survived great horrors in his personal quest to defeat vampirism. He suggests through his conversations with Frankenstein that he was much like the good doctor in his younger days, but through age and loss has abandoned his ego and ambition. His humility extends to him even gently calling himself out for naming Hannah's Wink 'immodestly' after his own wife.
• The Mentor: To Victor, whom he gently tries to convince that there is more to life than work. He's the only guy who seems to actually like Victor as a person. And then Caliban kills him, precisely because he and Victor were close.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He's murdered by Caliban.
• Neck Snap: At the hands of Caliban.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: A brilliant scientist with a wealth of vampiric knowledge who was, in his younger days, a devoted husband and a veteran vampire hunter... and he's killed off only a few scenes after his first appearance.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Van Helsing, although helpful, is quick to stop Frankenstein from sharing his vampiric discoveries with Sir Malcolm.
  Van Helsing: Of what I am about to tell you, we cannot enlighten him.
  Frankenstein: Why not?
  Van Helsing: Because the truth is unendurable.

The Cut-Wife / Joan Clayton

Played By: Patti LuPone

A hedge-witch living on the remote moors of Devon, Vanessa sought her out before the events of the show to learn witchcraft.

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• Burn the Witch!: Evelyn Poole manipulates the people of Devon to ensure the Cut-Wife's demise via this trope. Unlike most examples, they don't burn Vanessa's mentor at the stake, but suspend her from chains and drench her in tar or oil before setting her alight.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Evelyn's Cain.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was previously a member of Evelyn Poole's coven, long ago, before it turned to darkness. They branded her a traitor, and she has been estranged ever since.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Coarse and morbid, and feared by the local villagers, the Cut-Wife is nevertheless well-intentioned and benevolent, though she is gruff and cynical.
• Does Not Like Men: Due to bad experiences in the past, she's somewhat wary of men — not that she's particularly fond of women either, frequently chastising them for running off with men and acting unpleasant towards them when they come to beg for her help.
• The Mentor: To Vanessa, whom she teaches arcane lore, including tarot reading and the Verbis Diablo.
• Meaningful Name: Her title and her real name — she's called the Cut-Wife because she administers abortions, and her real name is Joan in a possible reference to Joan of Arc, another woman who is put to death by immolation.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: She's burned alive by Sir Geoffrey and the local peasants.
• Older Than They Look: She appears to be fifty or sixty. In reality, she was already an adult in 1644, when she sheltered Oliver Cromwell and was granted a perpetual lease to her land for it.
• Red Baron: She's primarily known as the Cut-Wife, and she only tells Vanessa her full and proper name as she's headed to her death at the hands of Sir Geoffrey. Every scene before this has her known only as the Cut-Wife of Ballantree Moor.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She dies in her first appearance, but her teachings greatly inform the woman Vanessa becomes.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The first hint we get of her existence is in the flashback episode where she's introduced, and that same episode ends with her death at the hands of the people of Devon for being a witch.