Character sheets for Netflix's series The Haunting of Bly Manor.
open/close all folders
Bly Manor Staff
Dani
Danielle "Dani" Clayton
Portrayed by: Victoria Pedretti
A former teacher from America who moved to London and took up the position of au pair for the Wingrave children.
- Adaptational Job Change: Downplayed. In The Turn of the Screw the protagonist is a governess, while here Dani is specifically an au pair (or nanny), which is more fitting for the Setting Update from the 19th century to 1987.
- Adaptational Nationality: The governess in The Turn of the Screw is British, while Dani is American.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In The Turn of the Screw, the governess has feelings for the man who hired her, while Dani is a lesbian.
- Affectionate Nickname: Jamie starts calling her "Poppins", after Mary Poppins.
- Bound and Gagged: For almost the entirety of episode seven, which allows the Evil Plan to be explained.
- But Now I Must Go: She leaves Jamie for Bly and presumably drowns herself rather than risk hurting or killing Jamie, presumably as she knew Jamie would want to come with her.
- Closet Gay: She tried to marry a man (her childhood best friend Eddie), but ultimately couldn't go through with it due to this trope. As he died right after she broke off the engagement, she suppressed her feelings until meeting Jamie and facing her fears about him directly. This led to the season becoming a Coming-Out Story for her.
- Coming-Out Story: Her relationship with the specter that haunts her is an allegory for her being closeted, and coming out helps her exorcise him. Her first attempt to come out of the closet indirectly led to her fiancé, and childhood best friend, dying, causing her to run back into the closet and feel enormous guilt about her sexuality, to the point of literally being haunted by it in the form of the specter, who typically appears behind her in mirrors (when she looks herself in the eyes), and notably Jump Scares her when she
asks a girl she is attracted to to unzip her dress and the first time she kisses a woman she's attracted to. But, once she throws her former fiancé's glasses into the bonfire and confronts the specter head-on, she is finally able to accept her sexuality and start a relationship with Jamie. The morning after sleeping with her for the first time, she is finally able to look herself in a mirror without fear. - Cowardly Lion: She gets scared often, on top of having a degree of anxiety at all times, but she doesn't let that stop her from trying her hardest to protect the people around her, especially the children who are in her care.
- Damsel in Distress: Throughout episode 7 as Peter tries to put his plan into action.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Dani is haunted by a menacing figure appearing in reflections with glowing eyes. Eventually, we learn that he is her Childhood Friend and former fiancé, Edmund, who died seconds after she broke his heart by calling off their wedding.
- Determinator: Despite all the supernatural stuff going on around her, she is still determined to protect Flora and Miles no matter what, even putting herself at risk multiple times.
- Dies Wide Open: When we see her as the new Lady in the Lake, her eyes are open and staring, showing that they have returned to both being blue.
- Dying Alone: She chooses to do so in order to become the Lady of the Lake, because she knows that Jamie would commit suicide if she allowed Jamie to come with her.
- Eye Colour Change: After she accepts Viola into herself, one of her eyes turns brown, and remains that way until she becomes the new Lady in the Lake.
- Fate Worse than Death: Like Viola, she will forever haunt Bly Manor, her beauty decaying, her mind fading, and her soul hollowing out, as the new Lady in the Lake to suppress her curse. Unlike Viola, she will never take a life, or entrap another ghost, meaning she will be alone from now to the end of eternity.
- Possibly averted, as we see Dani's hand resting on Jamie's shoulder in the final shot of the series.
- First Girl Wins: Twice...kind of.
- She was supposed to marry her best friend, Eddie. She told him she couldn't marry him because of her sexuality, though.
- However, she ultimately falls in love with and enters a longterm relationship with her first girlfriend, Jamie.
- Friend to All Children: Dani was a school teacher before she became the Wingraves' governess. When asked by Henry why she would want to be the au pair to his niece and nephew, she answers that she wanted a chance to make a real difference in a child's life, more than she could as just a teacher.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A blonde teacher/au pair who is also kind and quickly grows attached to the Wingraves and the staff at Bly Manor.
- Haunted Heroine: She's haunted both by the very real ghosts of Bly Manor and by the manifestation of her guilt about her former fiancé's death.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Dani gives herself to Viola/The Lady in the Lake to save Flora. In turn, it releases all the ghosts caught in Viola's gravity. Almost a decade later, however, the curse begins to overtakes her, going so far as to give her nightmares of drowning Jamie. Rather than succumb to it, she makes the decision to go back to Bly Manor and drown herself in the lake to keep Viola's curse at bay and ensure that no one else will ever be taken by it.
- Hollywood Old: She and Jamie are together for around 20 years, but when she dies, she looks no different than she did in the first episode.
- Incompatible Orientation: Dani and her fiancé Edmund. While she did love him, she began to realize that it was platonically and not romantically, as her sexuality as a lesbian began to awaken.
- Lipstick Lesbian: She's pretty feminine, and her being a closeted lesbian is a large part of her backstory.
- Living on Borrowed Time: After Dani saves everyone by taking Viola's ghost into herself, she can tell that Viola won't be dormant forever and someday she'll resurface, so she and Jamie decide to take things one day at a time, not knowing how long they'll have before that happens. They end up getting around thirteen years.
- The Lost Lenore: To Jamie, after she becomes the new Lady in the Lake.
- Love at First Sight: She's clearly drawn to Jamie from the moment she lays eyes on her, and the Storyteller's narration notes that Dani felt in that moment like they already knew each other.
- Mama Bear: Given she's their au pair and primary caregiver, Dani is very protective of the children, in particular towards Flora. Even after being viciously attacked and nearly strangled to death by the Lady in the Lake, it doesn't stop her from rushing to Flora's rescue, screaming her name the entire time. In the end to save Flora, Dani selflessly offers herself as a vessel to Viola, freeing all the ghosts trapped at Bly.
- Meaningful Rename: Her flashbacks in the fourth episode show that she used to go by Danielle before she moved to England, but in the present day she exclusively goes by Dani, most likely due to all the baggage of grief and compulsory heterosexuality that are attached to her full name for her.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: After many years of living with Viola's ghost inside her, Dani starts seeing the Lady in the Lake's face instead of her own in reflections, indicating that her time is coming soon.
- Motherly Side Plait: Downplayed in that Dani's plait stays firmly behind her shoulder, but she almost always wears her hair in one while caring for Miles and Flora.
- Named by the Adaptation: The governess in The Turn of the Screw isn't named in the story, while here she's given the name Danielle Clayton.
- Nice Girl: Dani is a very kind and loving person and wins over people very easily.
- No Sparks: It's made painfully obvious in flashbacks that Dani had a case of this towards her fiancé, Edmund. She does care for him as her best and oldest friend, but throughout all the wedding planning she looks awkward and uncomfortable, especially when Edmund tells the story of his proposal to her. Even he starts to pick up on the fact something's not right. Dani looks a great deal more enthusiastic about her seamstress putting her hands on her waist during a dress fitting, which is a big hint as to why she doesn't feel romantic attraction towards Edmund.
- One-Note Cook: Inverted; Dani seems to be fine at most cooking, but apparently cannot make hot drinks, whether tea or coffee, to save her life.
- Parental Neglect: When relating to Miles about growing up without parents, she tells him that, although her mother wasn't dead, she wasn't very present either.
- Tuckerization: Her last name is a homage to Jack Clayton, the director of the 1961 film The Innocents, still regarded as the best adaptation of The Turn of the Screw ever made.
- Unperson: She becomes this over time with Flora and Miles gradually losing all memory of her and Jamie and the events of the summer, not remembering when they are directly repeated back to them.
Hannah
Hannah Grose
Portrayed by: T'Nia Miller
The housekeeper of Bly Manor.
- Cannot Spit It Out: She never manages to tell Owen how she feels about him until after she's dead.
- Dead All Along: A particularly tragic example, as she dies only moments before her first appearance in the present storyline. Given the set-up, she was actually alive for the first few minutes of the first episode, up until we actually see her.
- Duty That Transcends Death: It's through a combination of stubbornness, denial, and the affection she has for the Wingrave family that explains why Hannah is different from the other ghosts of Bly Manor. Even after dying, Hannah simply goes on with her life as if nothing happened. She is able to continue her job as housekeeper, change clothes, and interact with the world more freely than the other ghosts, a fact that Peter Quint deeply resents her for. Peter compares it to Wile E. Coyote running on air after going off a cliff, only falling once he looks down. Peter later punishes her by forcing Hannah to "look down": in this case down at her corpse still laying at the bottom of the manor's well. This forces Hannah to come to grips with her death and become trapped in her own memories like the rest of the spirits.
- Kindly Housekeeper: She doesn't cook since that's Owen's job (although when he's unavailable she does take this role too), but her seniority over the rest of the staff has placed her as their team mom and the person everyone confides in.
- Named by the Adaptation: Mrs. Grose's first name is never mentioned in The Turn of the Screw, while here she is given the name Hannah.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the blue to Jamie's red in the house staff (despite often wearing red herself and Jamie wearing blue work overalls). Even when she's furious at Peter she exhibits a Tranquil Fury and later uses Passive-Aggressive Kombat to force the police officer to look again for Peter after he first refuses, whereas Jamie is far more emotional, and even explodes into a furious rage when she notices Miles has cut some of her flowers (which even Dani points out is a minor offense as they were going to be cut anyway).
- Silk Hiding Steel: Hannah is elegant, poised, proper, and dignified, but that does not mean she is a pushover, as her interactions with Peter (where she intimidates him into giving her back a stolen necklace and furiously shames him for canoodling with Rebecca in Charlotte and Dominic's old room) prove.
- Survival Mantra: "You are Hannah Grose. The year is 1987. You are at Bly. Miles is ten. Flora is eight."
- Team Mom: She is the most senior member of the household and, most importantly, she has strong motherly instincts towards Miles, Flora, and Dani, and a strong dislike of Peter Quint partly motivated by his bad influence on Miles.
- Tempting Fate: She threatens to throw Peter into "that bloody lake". He ends up getting dragged into it by the Lady in the Lake.
- The Lost Lenore: She becomes this for Owen after the events at Bly Manor. He even has a picture of her up on the wall of his new restaurant nine years after she died.
Owen
Owen Sharma
Portrayed by: Rahul Kohli (in 1987) / Kamal Khan (in 2007)
The chef of Bly Manor. His talents far outstrip his station, and he works the job primarily to support his ailing mother, who he lives with to care for.
- Canon Foreigner: There is a brief mention of there being a cook employed at Bly Manor in The Turn of the Screw, but the cook plays no further role, so Owen is essentially an entirely new character.
- Her Heart Will Go On: He never gets over Hannah's death enough to love anyone else, but is still shown to be very professionally successful and have strong platonic relationships with the other surviving characters later in life.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Twice over, no less. His mother dies unexpectedly while he's staying the night at Bly Manor, and Hannah moves on with the rest of the ghosts trapped at Bly Manor before Owen even finds out she's dead.
- Nice Guy: Owen is a humble, sweet-natured man who dotes on the Wingrave children and is nothing less than cordial to the people in his life.
- Mama's Boy: Heavily implied, as he takes care of his ill mother and seems very close to her.
- Oblivious to Love: According to Jamie, all the ladies in Bly have a thing for Owen, yet he barely even acknowledges them.
- Pungeon Master: Has a love for atrocious food related puns.
- Supreme Chef: Goes with it being his job, but his cooking is complimented frequently, and he opens his own successful restaurant after the events at Bly Manor.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's 6'4, dark-haired and good-looking, to the point that all the ladies of Bly have a thing for him.
Jamie
Jamie
Portrayed by: Amelia Eve (in 1987), Carla Gugino (in 2007 as The Storyteller)
The groundskeeper of Bly Manor, a Northern woman with a preference for plants over people.
- '80s Hair: She often wears her hair in a short permed style not uncommon in the 1980's.
- Ambiguous Criminal History: While laying out her Dark and Troubled Past to Dani, Jamie mentions that she spent a few years in prison—which was where she discovered her love for gardening—but never specifies what for.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: It's eventually revealed that the Storyteller is Jamie, discussing her own story as though she was someone else.
- Broken Bird: She has a tough, slightly standoffish attitude, which hides a lifetime of feeling hurt and disappointed by everyone she tried to love and having to fend for herself at a young age.
- Butch Lesbian: Downplayed, but she has a tomboyish style and demeanor, works outdoors, and ends up in a relationship with Dani.
- Canon Character All Along: As the Storyteller, though the storyteller in The Turn of the Screw is a man named Douglas who only had unrequited feelings for the governess and was not present during the events of the story he tells.
- Caring Gardener: Despite her prickly exterior and assertions that she prefers plants to people, deep down she's a very caring person who'd do anything for the people she loves.
- Cool Big Sis: Whereas Hannah and Owen function more as the nurturing and loving Team Mom and Team Dad to the young orphans, Jamie is much more playful with them, light-heartedly teasing Miles and Flora as her form of affection for them.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Jamie's parents married quite young and became parents soon afterwards. However, with her husband constantly in a coal mine for his job, Jamie's mother became lonely at having to raise several children alone when she herself was essentially still a child, and started to sleep around with the men in town — resulting in the birth of Jamie's younger brother. Her mother then acquired a reputation of being the town whore, which then extended to a young Jamie, who was mocked for her mother's promiscuity by her classmates and even her own older brother (to avoid getting scorned for his mother's reputation). Then, Jamie's mother left the family, leaving Jamie quite cynical of the world around her.
- Deadpan Snarker: Oh yeah.Dani: Where are we going? Are you taking me out here to kill me?
Jamie: Keep talking and I just might. - Foster Kid: After she and her siblings were taken away from her father, Jamie grew up in various foster homes. She has nothing good to say about any of them, describing the foster mothers as only caring about money and some of the foster fathers as perverted.
- Gender-Blender Name: The fact that Jamie is a woman could even be regarded as a minor reveal, since the character is mentioned a few times without pronouns before her first on-screen appearance. Could be regarded as a bit of foreshadowing that she and Dani will end up in a relationship, as Jamie is introduced with every trope setting her up as the main character's love interest, even though Dani's sexuality won't be made clear for another two or three episodes.
- Her Heart Will Go On: After Dani's death. She is clearly still very much in love with and misses Dani, but is shown to be a well-adjusted and contented person otherwise. She even gives Flora some advice on how to find peace after the death of a spouse without forgetting them.
- Irony: After Owen's mother dies of dementia and there's a bit of talk about how she became a shadow of her former self. Jamie declares that she'd rather have someone just shoot her if she ever ends up with the same illness saying that it's not fair to her or the people around her to let the illness eat her away. Despite that declaration Jamie willingly stays with Dani and watches Viola's curse slowly consume her until Dani drowns herself in the lake.
- Lethal Chef: She is, by her own description, a terrible chef.
- Narrator All Along: An older Jamie is revealed to have been the Storyteller at the wedding.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: When Dani finally goes back to Bly Manor to face her fate, she leaves in the night without waking Jamie, and just leaves a note behind.
- No Name Given: Her last name is never revealed.
- Oop North: Has a strong Northern accent.
- Overalls and Gingham: Jamie doesn't wear gingham, but she does almost always wear a pair of faded overalls to reflect her rural upbringing and gardener role.
- Promoted to Love Interest: The narrator of The Turn of the Screw was in love with the governess, but it was never reciprocated. The Storyteller in this version, Jamie, was her wife and the love of Dani's life.
- Promotion to Parent: After her mother took off, she had to care for her younger siblings because her father was always working in the mines. It's deconstructed; Jamie herself notes she was a child looking after other children and children make mistakes. On one occasion she accidentally let a pot boil over, which apparently burned her and her siblings, resulting in them being taken into care.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Jamie's usually more of an Unkempt Beauty, but when she shows up for Owen's mother's funeral in a nice dress, with her hair done and wearing accessories, Dani is quite impressed.
- Silver Vixen: Her hair has gone almost totally grey by the present but she is still very attractive.
- Tomboyish Name: Jamie is traditionally a male name and she's fairly butch and rough around the edges.
Peter
Peter Quint
Portrayed by: Oliver Jackson-Cohen
Henry's former valet, who embezzled from his company and fled to parts unknown a year before the start of the series.
- Ambiguous Situation: The exact nature of how his father abused him is left unclear. Ironically, this actually makes it more clear that the abuse was likely sexual in nature, as it probably wouldn't have been so ambiguous if it had "just" been physical, mental, or emotional abuse.
- Anti-Villain: Peter, while a thief and murderer, is treated as a sympathetic and complex character. His death and lingering existence as a ghost trapped in Bly Manor are shown as deeply unlucky and tragic circumstances. Likewise, his desperation to not be alone and escaping his spectral prison are what drive his more heinous actions, such as tricking Rebecca into drowning herself, killing Hannah in Miles' body and convincing Miles and Flora to allow him and Rebecca to possess them permanently so they can leave the manor grounds. We're also shown that while other ghosts are moving backwards and forward through time they experience both happy and sad memories, but he's stuck reliving the same heartbreaking memory of his mother blackmailing him over and over.
- Big Bad: He is the most actively antagonistic figure in the show, though the Lady in the Lake can be considered a bigger threat.
- Crazy Jealous Guy:
- He gets jealous and berates Rebecca after he interprets her tasting the cake batter Owen was making as her flirting with him, even though Owen had also gotten everyone else in the room to taste it beforehand and neither he nor Rebecca ever showed any particular interest in each other.
- Dead All Along: We learn Peter didn't run away with the embezzled money like Henry Wingrave and the staff at Bly Manor first believed, but that he was killed by Viola and his ghost has been haunting Rebecca, which she learns when he attempts to hold her hand... and it passes right through.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Peter's attempts as a ghost to possess young Miles read a lot like sexual abuse. He's a trusted authority figure who is lying to Miles about what he's really doing by framing it as wanting to play a game with him, a game that Miles finds upsetting and uncomfortable, and which drives him to behave in troubling, unchildlike ways. Made even worse by the hints that Peter himself was sexually abused by his own father.
- Driven to Suicide: When he possesses Rebecca permanently, he finds to his horror that it's not the Sharing a Body situation they'd hoped for, instead putting one in control and the other "tucked away" in memories, leaving them unable to directly interact. Unable to handle being alone, he decides to use his control to drown her body so they could be Together in Death, though he manages to jump ship before the death itself and abandons her to suffer it alone.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played with. Peter loves Rebecca, or at least repeatedly says that he does. However, it's not a case of Love Redeems because he uses the excuse of love to do whatever he wants, including taking advantage of Rebecca's trust to kill her so he wouldn't be alone in death.
- Evil Is Petty: He goes out of his way to show Hannah her corpse and force her to realize she's dead, breaking her ability to act out a normal life and sending her spiraling into despair. Why? Because it annoyed him that she didn't realize she was dead.
- For the Evulz: While possessed as Miles, he shows Hannah her dead body for no other reason than he's pissed off that she can't remember her death. At that point, he even thinks he's gotten what he wanted, so he does it just because he wants to.
- Freudian Excuse: He grew up being abused by his father and his mother completely turned a blind eye to it all. When he finally got old enough to get out of that situation, he found himself as Henry Wingrave's valet, strung along on promises of promotion that he knows are empty. And after all that, he finds himself blackmailed by his own mother and threatened by his father into stealing from his boss, forcing him back into a position of powerlessness to his parents despite supposedly having escaped their grasp. In short, he's spent his whole life abused or neglected by everyone with power over him and has developed a hatred for anyone he sees as holding such a position.
- Hates Being Alone: Directly stated by the narrator as his reason for drowning Rebecca.
- Hypocrite:
- Peter goes berserk at Rebecca so much as talking to another man. He, meanwhile, has no problem with spying on Dani while she undresses.
- He gets angry and accuses Dani of taking advantage of the kids' good intentions by convincing them to free her after he gets pulled into memories in the attic, while he's in the middle of taking advantage of them to a much greater degree, even possessing Miles without consent or warning just a moment prior.
- It's All About Me: Along with being The Resenter, he specifically is only concerned with what he feels the world owes him, looking at life through the lens of "keys" and "locks" and caring nothing for the people he uses and damages along the way. He not only kills his own girlfriend so he wouldn't be alone in death, but fully intends to steal Miles' and Flora's lives so he and the girlfriend he murdered can live and remorselessly murders Hannah for inconveniencing him and his plans.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Played with again. He constantly says that he's doing everything he does for Rebecca, but it's clear that it's the fear that Rebecca might move on or leave him that really motivates him.
- Manipulative Bastard: He is analytical, able to pick up on people's weaknesses, and he'll use both to get what he wants.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: It's heavily implied that his father sexually abused him and left him with psychological scars...which he then takes out on Rebecca, Dani, Miles, and Flora. Though it's downplayed when he realizes that his worst memory isn't his father's abuse but rather a memory from years later of his mother blackmailing him into embezzeling his employer, due to the fact that as an adult he realized she knew what her husband was doing to him and did nothing to stop him. That's what truly broke him.
- The Resenter: Peter resents his mother for letting him be abused by his father, resents Henry for depriving him of what he sees as true advancement, eventually reveals that he resents Miles for having loving parents, and resents Hannah because she can't remember her death.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Peter is immaculate in his personal grooming and dress, ensuring his physical presentation is no less than perfect. Given that having a personal valet is seen as a status symbol, Henry most likely pays him to remain as handsome as he can be.
- Slut-Shaming: This is one of his favorite techniques of berating Rebecca (who is, incidentally, only interested in him).
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's 6'3, dark-haired and dashingly handsome.
- Token Evil Teammate: Out of the ghosts that haunt Bly Manor, Peter is the most malicious and actively goes out of his way to hurt and make others miserable, with his murder of Hannah and subsequent sentencing of her to a Fate Worse than Death being him at his most cruel. While other ghosts still harm and scare the people at Bly, at least they have the excuse that their identities have eroded away and any ill intent they once had is long gone. Peter, on the other hand, is very much aware of his actions, and still goes through with them despite knowing how damaging they are.
- Troubled Abuser: Peter was emotionally abusive to Rebecca, but it is treated in a sympathetic light due to having been abused himself.
- Would Hurt a Child: Peter tricks Miles into letting him take over his body, so his soul can escape from Bly. He does show regret later, giving Miles a tearful apology before passing over with Rebecca.
- Violent Glaswegian: According to
Word of Saint Paul, he is from Glasgow
where he had an extremely abusive upbringing. While he appears to be well dressed and can fit in with the upper classes, he's also an extremely violent, jealous, possessive person and an abusive partner. - Yandere: Peter is an especially violent version: he is very sweet and loving to Rebecca...until he sees her joking (platonically) with Owen, and then he aggressively slut-shames her and leaves Bly.
- Your Worst Memory: Peter's constantly made to relive the moment his mother returned to his life and he gave in to her blackmail. He refers to this memory as "Hell."
Rebecca
Rebecca Jessel
Portrayed by: Tahirah Sharif
The former au pair of the Wingrave children, who left the position under tragic circumstances after the departure of Peter Quint.
- Adaptational Heroism: Miss Jessel appears to be a malevolent ghost in The Turn of the Screw, and while it seems like Rebecca will end up that way for a while, she ultimately goes against Peter's plan to possess the kids in order to save Flora and Dani, and is even willing to relive the trauma of her own death by drowning to spare Flora having to experience that when the Lady in the Lake takes her.
- Adaptational Job Change: Like Dani, she was a governess in The Turn of the Screw, while here she's specifically an au pair. Her intended career as a lawyer is also new.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: On top of Adaptational Heroism, one of the few things we hear about for definite in The Turn of the Screw is that Miss Jessel wasn't the nicest person, as it's heavily implied that she abused Miles and Flora. None of that is present here.
- Affectionate Nickname: Peter calls her "Becs".
- Driven to Suicide: She drowned herself in the lake after Peter Quint stole from the Wingraves and abandoned her. Except this isn't the truth. Peter drowned her while possessing her.
- High-Heel–Face Turn: Peter possesses Miles, but she has a Heel–Face Turn moments before possessing Flora and decides not to do it.
- Love Martyr: She was one, constantly making excuses and defending Peter to Hannah. After his death, she woke up but it wasn't enough to stop him from gaining control over her.
- Named by the Adaptation: Miss Jessel's first name is never mentioned in The Turn of the Screw, while here she is given the name Rebecca.
- Parental Favoritism: More like Au Pair favoritism, and very subtly implied. While Rebecca never expresses any negative feelings towards Miles, she's almost exclusively shown bonding with Flora, and while she does her best to protect Flora at the end, she's not shown to have done anything to counteract Peter's influence on Miles, even though all it would have taken is her explaining to Miles what Peter was up to during one of Peter's absences just as she clearly did with Flora, since Peter can't possess Miles permanently without consent. If not for Dani's choice freeing Viola, Rebecca's selective protection towards one child and not the other would have cost Miles his life as Peter intended to take it over entirely.
- Posthumous Character: She died prior to the start of the series, but is still a major character in flashbacks and as a ghost.
- Red Herring: Viewers, especially those who've read The Turn of the Screw, might assume early on that she is the Lady in the Lake, due to the manner and location of her death, but it's actually Viola Lloyd, the former Lady of Bly Manor, taken from an entirely different Henry James story.
- What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Every death at Bly is tragic, but most people remark that her death was particularly so because she was young (only 25), beautiful, intelligent, well-educated, and had her whole life ahead of her and the world at her fingertips, only to drown because of some guy who wasn't even good enough for her.
- What Does She See in Him?: Most people at Bly agree that Rebecca was way too good for Peter Quint (not because he wasn't handsome, but because he was a smarmy Mr. Vice Guy), and couldn't understand why she was so smitten with him.
- Widow's Weeds: She wears a black dress as a ghost, which is appropriate both because she was mourning Peter when she died and because she is now mourning herself due to Peter murdering her.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: Her love for Flora makes it so that she cannot bring herself to take possession of the girl's body, even if she herself will wither and decay into a shell of her former self like the rest of the ghosts at Bly Manor. In order to trick Peter, she has Flora pretend that she has been successfully possessed, then begs Dani to take Flora away from the manor and its curse when Miles/Peter is distracted.
The Wingrave Family
Flora & Miles
Shared Tropes
- Creepy Child: While Miles and Flora are both really sweet and lovely children, Dani begins to find there is something rather off about them. Subverted in that the children are charming and lovely, even going so far as to attempt to protect Dani, but the spirits possessing them...
- Demonic Possession: The two of them spend a large part of the series (as well as before the start of the story) being possessed on and off by Rebecca and Peter, respectively.
- Easily Forgiven: Even before she figures out their possession, Dani is extremely forgiving of their creepiness. She's also very forgiving of them for tying her up and nearly killing her.
- I See Dead People: For much of the series, Miles and Flora are the only ones who can see the various ghosts haunting Bly Manor.
- Karma Houdini: Of a sort. Dani sacrificed her life for them and her and Jamie's happiness but they have not only no memory of her sacrifice but no memory of her, period.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: According to Owen, Flora and Miles have no memory of the supernatural events that happened at Bly Manor and have only a vague memory of Hannah. This is confirmed when the bride is revealed to be an older Flora who doesn't seem to recognize the story being told.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Both Miles and Flora engage in this, but especially Miles, who among other things is caught smoking, drinking, swearing, and leering at the female house staff. This is one of the earliest signs that he's possessed by professional Jerkass Peter Quint.
Flora Wingrave
Portrayed by: Amelie Bea Smith (in 1987) / Christie Burke (in 2007 as The Bride)
The eight year old daughter of the Wingrave family, who has a love for dolls, games, and the phrase "perfectly splendid."
- Catchphrase: She loves using the phrase "perfectly splendid," though she occasionally changes it as needed, such as calling the basement "perfectly dreadful." It's later revealed that she picked up the phrase from Rebecca, her former au pair and that some of these uses of the phrase might have been her being possessed by that very same woman.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When the Lady in the Lake has Dani and is dragging her through the house, Flora gets on the bed at the endpoint of the Lady's walk, knowing that Viola will mistake her for her daughter like she did the Doll-Face Child, and lets herself be carried back toward the lake. She ultimately survives due to Dani's reciprocal Heroic Sacrifice, though.
- I Am Very British: Has a very prim, upper class accent. She's lost it completely by adulthood and sounds fully American.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: The fact that Flora was apparently supposed to be a premature baby, yet was perfectly healthy and properly sized upon arrival, tips Dominic off that she must have been conceived while he was out of the country. This, combined with Charlotte and Henry's closeness, helps Dominic put two and two together to realize that Henry is almost certainly Flora's true blood father. Dominic however doesn't hold this against Flora, and pointedly tells Henry that no matter what blood says, Flora is his daughter, not Henry's.
- The Load: Although it's hard to blame her given the circumstances, and she is a child, her first instinct when Dani is trying to save her life is to start screaming for Miles (who is possessed by Peter), which nearly voids Rebecca's whole attempt to save her.
- Sleepwalking: As the story goes on, she starts waking up in unusual places with no memory of how she got there, to Dani's growing concern. It turns out that it's actually that Rebecca has been walking around while possessing her.
Miles Wingrave
Portrayed by: Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (in 1987) / Thomas Nicholson (in 2007)
The ten year old son of the Wingrave family.
- Big Brother Instinct: Miles performs some horrible, downright horrifying actions, to get himself expelled from boarding school, after receiving Flora's note about her missing him.
- Dirty Kid: Miles makes several sexually-charged comments, and spies on Dani undressing when she first arrives in the manor. This is because he's possessed by the adult Peter Quint.
- Eye Color Change: After he lets Peter possess him permanently, one of his eyes turns brown. It reverts after Peter leaves him.
- Grand Theft Me: Peter possesses him many times throughout the series, both forcibly and through manipulation, culminating in him taking control permanently just before the climax. He does release Miles when Dani frees the ghosts of Bly Manor, however.
- People Puppets: Peter briefly succeeds in turning him into one.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Miles survives in this adaptation, instead of mysteriously dying, and goes on to live a long, happy life.
Henry
Henry Wingrave
Portrayed by: Henry Thomas (in 1987) / Duncan Fraser (in 2007)
The uncle of the Wingrave children and brother of their father, now their legal guardian following the death of their parents.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Possibly. It's heavily implied in "Owen Wingrave" that Owen is haunted by the soldier's ghost at night as a replacement for his own repressed homosexuality, which led to him breaking up with his fiancée. Henry is attracted to women, as evidenced by his relationship with Charlotte.
- The Alcoholic: Started hitting the bottle hard after the death of his brother and his sister-in-law.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Although he gets throttled or neck snapped by the Lady of the Lake, Owen is able to revive him pretty easily in the final episode.
- Her Heart Will Go On: He seemingly never fully moves on from Charlotte's death (or that of his brother, for that matter), but is shown to have beaten his addictions and become a good father figure to Miles and Flora.
- Near-Death Experience: He briefly becomes a ghost after being attacked by the Lady of the Lake, even seeing his own dead body, but is resuscitated by Owen.
- Parental Neglect: He is Flora's biological father, but at least in the beginning, he's an extremely neglectful guardian to a point that neither Flora or Miles believe he has any interest in them whatsoever.
- Papa Wolf: Henry rushes to Flora's rescue after hearing her screams for help, and is effortlessly killed by the Lady in the Lake in the process. Owen does manage to revive him, however.
- Tuckerization: The character of Owen Wingrave, who bears the most resemblance to him, is given as a name to the cook (who is not named). Henry, who is closest to the short story version of Owen, is named after the author of the series, Henry James.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As his doppelganger loves to tell him, if it wasn't for his affair with Charlotte behind Dominic's back, they never would have gone on a second honeymoon trip to try to repair their marriage, as said trip ended with their deaths and left Flora and Miles orphans.
Dominic & Charlotte
Dominic & Charlotte Wingrave
Portrayed by: Matthew Holness (Dominic), Alex Essoe (Charlotte)
The Wingrave children's parents, who died two years earlier.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: They died two years before the start of the series, and Flora and Miles miss them terribly.
- A Family Affair: Charlotte had been cheating on her husband with his brother.
- Good Parents: They were by all acounts wonderful parents, despite their marital problems. Dominic berates his brother and warns him away from Flora, reminding him that while he may have fathered her, she is his daughter alone.
- Nice to the Waiter: They treated the staff at Bly Manor more like family than employees. Hannah in particular had a close friendship with Charlotte.
- Posthumous Character: They died prior to the start of the series, but are talked about often and appear in flashbacks.
Ghosts
May contain some unmarked spoilers, such as the ghosts' identities in life. In General
The various ghosts that dwell within Bly Manor and on its grounds.
- And I Must Scream: If you die on the grounds of Bly Manor, you become a ghost with no way to leave, either to elsewhere in the world or to the next one. Worse, the longer a ghost remains, the more the constant looping of their own memories wears at them, gradually eroding their minds into nothing even as they must continue to exist. Not a fate anyone would want, and not one any of them sought.
- Barred from the Afterlife: Viola's gravity forces everyone who dies at Bly Manor to remain there as ghosts and prevents them from moving on.
- The Blank: The few ghosts properly seen have faces Flora would describe as "unfinished." Most are missing all facial features save a lipless, toothless slit of a mouth. The Doll-Face Child is the only one we see with more than that, and they still have distorted, half-formed features that leave only the shape of things like eyes.
- Empty Shell: The oldest ghosts lose so much of themselves that they become nothing more than patterns and habits without minds. They may sing along to a song they hear, but they barely do anything more than simply exist.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Barring the Lady in the Lake, they all make appearances throughout the show hidden in the background. The Plague Doctor is the one most likely to be spotted by casual viewers due to the distinctive shape of his hat and mask being easier to spot in silhouette. The freeze frame part comes in when they appear and disappear between shots, which turns out to be a plot point; not only can ghosts choose whether or not to be visible, they flicker in and out of existence as they fall back into their own memories.
- Ghostly Wail: The older ghosts who have forgotten themselves, like the Woman in the Attic or the Lady in the Lake, seem unable to speak (or sing, as the case may be), and when they try it just comes out as a horrible moaning wail.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: They are one to themselves; most of them constantly relive their own happy memories, making them not only unable but unwilling to keep track of the present. They're also one to anyone they possess, as they tuck their host's mind away in a memory (usually a happy one) while the ghost takes over.
- Non-Malicious Monster: Barring the Lady in the Lake, none of them are dangerous, and, even including her, none of them are malicious. Most are just victims, and the oldest have lost too much of themselves to do anything more that walk around and repeat a few habitual actions.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend:
- Uncle Henry and Charlotte assume that the Doll-Face Child is a made-up friend of Flora's, as they disappeared suddenly and couldn't speak.
- Uncle Henry mentioned to Flora that he had his own imaginary friend as a child: a soldier. The friend may not have been imaginary though, as a soldier ghost appears in the background in multiple episodes.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The souls of the dead are perpetually thrown back through their own memories, and sometimes those of others, unable to truly change such things even as it makes it harder for them to keep track of the present. They cease to exist while in memories, vanishing entirely until it's over and they return some time later. And as time goes on, these loops of memories wear away at them, until identity is lost and the only thing they can do anymore is exist. They can make themselves seen with effort, though it's an all or nothing thing, where not even other ghosts can see them if invisible, but children can sometime see them when adults can't. They can touch things, though it takes concentration, but they can't touch people. Before their minds go, and possibly after (though they no longer have the wits about them to make use of it), they can temporarily possess people through contact while sending the host's mind back into their own memories. And if a host willingly lets in a ghost, the possession lasts forever and can't be ended by either the host or the ghost.
- Stronger with Age: The Lady in the Lake is by far the oldest and physically strongest ghost, capable of snapping necks with one hand, and easily dragging and lifting fully grown adults. By contrast, new ghosts struggle to be corporate enough to pick up items.
The Man with the Shiny Glasses
The Man with the Shiny Glasses
Portrayed by: Roby Attal
A specter that haunts Dani. He was known in life as Edmund O'Mara.
- Ambiguous Situation: Is he a proper ghost or something else? He is one of only two supernatural entities that didn't die at Bly Manor, and he disappears from the show after Dani chooses to confront him, meaning he was likely less an actual ghost and more just a representation of Dani's guilt over her fiancé's death.
- Dogged Nice Guy: He first proposed to Dani when they were children, and then kept asking over the years until she finally said yes, because she thought that was how it was supposed to go.
- Look Both Ways: He angrily got out of his car into the street after Dani told him she couldn't marry him, and immediately got hit by a truck.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's left unclear whether he's actually a ghost or just a hallucinatory manifestation of Dani's guilt.
- Mirror Monster: He initially only appears in reflections, standing behind Dani.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: His most distinguishing feature. It's actually from the headlights of the truck that ran him over.
The Doppelgänger
The Doppelgänger
Portrayed by: Henry Thomas
A specter that haunts Henry. He looks identical to him, but with an eternally mocking, eerie smile.
- Allegorical Character: It is implied that he is not so much a literal ghost as much as he's the personification of Henry's alcoholism and self-loathing.
- Doppelgänger: After Dominic and Charlotte died, Henry began being visited by a figure looking exactly like him but always smiling smugly and who constantly berates him. It's left unclear whether it's actually physically present or all in his head, though it does disappear once he finally confronts and accepts the fact that Dominic and Charlotte are really gone.
- My Greatest Failure: He loves to torture Henry by reminding him of all his past mistakes and failures.
- Slasher Smile: He is always grinning in a sinister way, showing his teeth.
The Plague Doctor
The Plague Doctor
Portrayed by: Liam Raymond Dib
A figure in a plague doctor's garb, and the first ghost to be properly seen by the audience.
- Deathly Unmasking: Having found Viola Lloyd intruding, he took his mask off to get a better look at her - only for Viola to snap his neck.
- Malevolent Masked Man: He wears a mask and is an eerie specter from beyond the grave. However, he isn't actively malevolent, being the third oldest of the manor's ghosts and having lost almost all of his personality as a result.
- Plague Doctor: He is, or at least was, one from a period where Bly Manor was used to house the victims of a plague. He also averts the trend of plague doctors in sleek bird-like masks and stylish clothes, instead wearing a historically accurate mask and clothes of appropriate raggedness◊.
The Doll-Face Child
The Doll-Face Child
Portrayed by: Calix Fraser
A child with a doll-like face.
- Ambiguous Gender: They have no face or voice, and their clothing and hair are gender neutral, making it impossible to tell their gender. Flora called them "he," but the Lady in the Lake mistook them for her daughter, and even various real-world articles about the show differ on whether they call them a girl or a boy.
- Censored Child Death: Unlike the other known victims of the Lady in the Lake, whose deaths are shown on-screen and in varying detail, the child is simply shown being carried toward the lake, with a strong implication of what happened to them.
- Creepy Doll: They have this appearance, as they first show up blending in with a bunch of dolls in the basement. This is because their face is actually that of a doll's, pulled off and given to them by Flora.
The Woman in the Attic
The Woman in the Attic
Portrayed by: Catherine Parker
A ghost who dwells exclusively in the attic of Bly Manor. She was known in life as Perdita Willoughby.
- The Dog Bites Back: After years of being abused and slowly growing jealousy, Perdita smothered Viola while taking care of her.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Averted. She and her sister were very close, until Viola became deathly ill and started abusing her for years.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Perdita towards Viola. So much so that the once loving relationship the sisters had begins to sour as Perdita begins to feel neglected in comparison to her beautiful, strong-willed older sister admired by everyone, coupled with Viola's own bitterness and avarice at being sick leading to her emotionally abusing Perdita, culminating with Perdita smothering Viola to death.
- Though an alternate interpretation might suggest that it was Viola who felt this towards Perdita. One evening, after Viola had taken ill, her husband Arthur asked Perdita to dance. Perdita initially refused but gave in, and Viola witnessed them dancing, then physically abused Perdita and accused her of trying to steal her husband. Viola's continued abuse and jealousy eventually culminated in Perdita having enough and suffocating Viola to death.
- Karmic Death: Perdita is Viola's first victim, as she strangles her to death in retaliation for killing her. Though it might not be for killing her... Viola didn't show signs of flashing back to her own death; rather, she saw Perdita's face and after so long of dreaming of her daughter, only to see her sister instead, strangled her to death out of rage. And possibly thinking Perdita was being greedy with the dress she was holding, which wouldn't go over well with a control freak like Viola.
- Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Watching Viola take and take from Perdita (first all the attention, then the man Perdita was beginning to be attracted to, then full ownership of the manor and finances) followed up by physically abusing her sister for years (out of jealousy and fear that Perdita was "stealing" Arthur — she wasn't) is painful to watch... Perdita finally snapping and killing Viola while thinking "enough" can be somewhat cathartic for anyone who has ever been abused for years.
- Love Martyr: Perdita dutifully stepped aside for her sister to marry Arthur, even though Perdita herself was attracted to him. She stayed to take care of her ailing sister and her niece, being the only one to support Viola when she refused to take her last rites. This Undying Loyalty continued — up to the point when Viola began physically abusing her. Even then, she continued to take care of Viola for another six years, despite constant abuse.
- Meaningful Name: The Storyteller says that Perdita was named in memory of an older sister who had died in infancy, but doesn't explain why. "Perdita" is Latin for "lost."
- Mercy Kill: Perdita initially told herself that "mercy" was why she smothered her sister; in reality, she'd had "enough" of being abused by her sister.
- The Resenter: Perdita was this to Viola, who refused to give in to her illness, to the point Perdita smothered her to death... and in the process, sets in motion Bly Manor's dark and violent history.
- Viola was also this to Perdita: as Viola got sicker, she grew angry and jealous over how Perdita got along with Viola's husband and daughter, to the point where she began physically and verbally abusing Perdita over it.
- Sucksessor: She was viewed as one by her family since her brother-in-law and niece felt she was a poor substitute for Viola.
- It may not have been entirely her fault. Perdita's gravestone reveals that she died in 1686, shortly after the accession of James II and right in the middle of a series of attempted fiscal reforms that severely weakened England's domestic economy. Lots of wealthy gentry families were struggling in that time, not just the Lloyds.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her attempt to sell her sister's dresses and salvage the family wealth caused her sister's ghost to manifest and kill her. In turn, her husband came to fear the chest as the cause of death and refused to risk his daughter to the same fate, throwing it into the lake rather than passing its contents down to their intended recipient, thus causing the Lady in the Lake to come to be. And because the Lady in the Lake is the linchpin for all the other ghosts, Perdita is, by extension, responsible for the fate of every ghost in the manor (including herself).
- Vanity Is Feminine: Her desire to take some of the fine dresses and jewels intended for her niece's dowry to save the manor might have been sincere, but her admiring the dress as she did so caused her sister's ghost to believe she wanted it for herself, and snap her neck.
The Lady in the Lake
The Lady in the Lake
Portrayed by: Kate Siegel
A ghost who rises up from the Bly Manor lake, regarded with fear by all who know of her. She was known in life as Viola Lloyd (née Willoughby).
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the original short story, the Willoughby sisters are simply caught in a love triangle with a handsome family friend, each jealous of his affection for the other, with a living mother and brother to handle the family's affairs. Here, they are orphans living in an era when women could not legally do many of the tasks required to manage a sizable manor, fighting to maintain control over their own property and their own lives, who find themselves in a deadly tuberculosis-induced rivalry just when it looks like they've finally secured their futures and happiness.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Just barely. In the original story, Viola (named Perdita; the sisters' names were reversed for the series) leaves her clothes to her daughter to keep them out of her sister's hands after her death, knowing it's the one part of her life she might be able to keep her sister from seizing from her. Here, the dresses and jewelry were genuinely extremely precious to Viola, and she leaves them to Isobel because she wanted her daughter to have the objects she had dearly loved.
- It's also shown that the sisters were very close and had a loving relationship before Viola's illness and descent into paranoia; in the original story, the two girls had a bitter and intense rivalry.
- Artistic License – Medicine: After coming down with Consumption, she was not allowed to sleep in the same bed as her husband or daughter, which caused her much anguish. Yet, at several points she's shown to breathe directly into her daughter, husband, and sister's faces, with none of them getting sick. Her clinging to life for several years after coughing up blood through sheer willpower alone is also medically unlikely.
- That is, unless her illness wasn't consumption to begin with (see below).
- Asshole Victim: Having a deathly illness? Clearly sympathetic. Repeatedly abusing the sister who stood by her for her whole life? Not even remotely OK. Being murdered by said abused sister? Somewhat cathartic.
- Blood from the Mouth: The first sign of Viola's illness is coughing blood into a handkerchief.
- Break the Haughty: Being ill for years, the possibility of her daughter growing up without her, and her jealousy caused her to become a horrible person.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Despite having a mysterious lung condition that was supposed to kill her in a matter of months, Viola cheated death by holding on for years. Then her sister Perdita got sick of years of abuse and smothered her.
- Control Freak: In life, Lady Viola was fierce, shrewd, and determined to ensure her family's economic security by any means necessary... but only if she was the one holding the reins. She married her cousin despite her sister's growing fondness for him, she controlled most of her husband's finances, and after she became deathly ill she refused to die or relinquish an ounce of control to her sister Perdita, with disastrous results.
- Determinator: In life, she refused to take death rites and insisted she would remain in the manor. Even when given only a few months to live, she lasted for five years. In death, she ignored the call to the other side and held onto her goal of seeing her daughter — with fatal consequences for others.
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: It's pretty clear that she caught Tuberculosis (or Consumption), but the show doesn't say it outright.
- Or she might have gotten lung cancer misdiagnosed as Tuberculosis. It would explain both her symptoms (hemoptysis, or coughing up blood), as well as her unexpected longevity (which varies wildly from case to case) and why none of her family got sick despite more or less regular contact with her for the following several years. An eventual metastasis to the stomach and brain would also explain symptoms and behavior she showed years later, respectively the vomiting, and the unprovoked violent outbursts followed by moments of being relatively reasonable.
- The Dreaded: To several people, all for good reason. All the other ghosts fear her, because she personally killed several of them. The Wingrave children are terrified of her, because she killed Peter right in front of them. Dani lives in dread of her after their Merger of Souls, because the Lady of the Lake is always in the back of her mind, and eventually begins to stir to murderous wakefulness once more.
- Ethereal White Dress: She wears a white nightgown because she was sick and bedridden when Perdita Mercy Killed her.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Though not exactly evil once her background is revealed, her undying love and longing for her daughter is what kept her spirit alive enough to wander the Manor, looking for the child she lost.
- Ghostly Goals: She used to have one, once. She endured, or rather was trapped, beyond death due to her desire to see her daughter inherit the clothes and jewels she'd left behind. However, this has turned into an eternal trap when circumstances ensured her daughter would never be given these things. She began to rise from the lake where the items had been thrown and venture into the mansion to seek her old room, hoping to see her daughter grown up. Yet as the centuries passed, her mind wore away, until only the pattern was left without the goal.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Peter might be the one actively causing the most trouble, but the Lady in the Lake is the one responsible for all the ghosts being stuck at Bly Manor in the first place, and is the one who ultimately has to be dealt with to resolve things.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She was clearly paranoid that her daughter was beginning to see Perdita as her mother more than Viola herself once she became horribly ill. This turned out to be largely baseless, as after her death, her daughter spurned Perdita's attempts to be her second mother. She also was jealous of her sister's growing closeness with her husband, especially after she witnessed Arthur dancing with Perdita (not realizing that Arthur had asked Perdita to dance, and Perdita had initially refused), for which she abused Perdita for years. Though Perdita never did anything improper with Arthur while Viola was alive, she did marry him after Viola's death.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Twice over. Relentlessly abusing her sister who cared for her when she was deathly ill for years eventually caused her sister to snap and smother her. Then, Viola's spirit killing her sister for opening the chest of treasures intended for her daughter caused Viola's husband to not want to risk whatever killed Perdita killing his daughter too, and he dumped the chest of fine clothes and jewels into the lake, unwittingly trapping Viola in there for eternity (not to mention making sure her daughter never got the dowry she intended for her).
- Incurable Cough of Death: The minute Viola starts coughing, it's curtains for her. (Although she resentfully clings onto life through sheer force of will.)
- The Older Immortal: She is the first and oldest of the manor's ghosts.
- Neck Lift: She carries no weapons, but if any unfortunate soul comes within arms reach she grabs them by the neck, sometimes with enough force to to snap their neck, sometimes just dragging them by the neck for long enough to suffocate them.
- Never Found the Body: When she kills someone, she keeps a firm grip on their neck all the way back to the lake, dragging them down with her to where they'll never be found. The number of skeletons down there shows that quite a few people have suffered this fate.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Viola became paranoid that Perdita was trying to steal her life and she began physically and emotionally abusing Perdita - with directly led to Perdita taking Viola's life when she had "enough" of being abused.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: She's the ghost of woman who roams the grounds, wearing a white dress and having long, stringy black hair.
- Tragic Villain: After being murdered by her abused sister, she has been haunting the house for so long that her soul is just a husk of its former self, doomed to mindlessly repeat the cycle of wandering the halls of the manor, killing all those unfortunate enough to cross her path.
- Undead Abomination: She was so strong willed and attached to Bly Manor that not only did she not move on to the afterlife, her force of will was so great that anyone who died within Bly Manor grounds was bound there as well for eternity, fated to slowly lose all sense of self until they became almost literal shells of their former selves. And not only that, but she was so powerful that when Dani took her into herself, Viola's will slowly started to overtake Dani over the course of years, until the point that Dani chose to drown herself in the lake at Bly so that no one else would suffer the fate that all those spirits had suffered, though she herself would have to stay there for eternity with Viola.
- Undead Barefooter: She doesn't wear shoes, and in fact it's her that's been making the muddy footprints through the house that the kids get blamed for.
- Vanity Is Feminine: In life, she had to have the finest jewels and dresses that money could buy. Her desire to leave them behind for her daughter also fueled her Ghostly Goals.
- Wandering Walk of Madness: Viola was in the habit of obsessively walking about the house in times of stress. Initially only doing this during periods of insomnia, she continued her walking habit during her period of terminal illness, and even after her death: having found herself trapped in a dream of her bedroom, Viola would continuously wake up, walk to the window, and return to bed, slipping further and further into Sanity Slippage with every iteration. After ending up trapped on the manor grounds by her own despair, Viola's ghost would continuously emerge from the lake, wander the grounds, remember that her family and loved ones were all gone, lose a bit more of her mind, then return to the lake to sleep and forget - set to do it all over again another night; worse still, she could end up killing anyone straying into her path on the way. By the end of the series, Viola has been rendered down into the Lady In The Lake, an insane, faceless amnesiac wraith defined exclusively by her meaningless circuit of the grounds.
- Water Is Womanly: She is a ghost dedicated to this idea. She is Viola, who, due to her premature death and her sister's betrayal, continues to drag lovers to their death, including Peter. At the end of the season, Dani sacrifices herself to take over the role of the Lady in the Lake, although she becomes a much more benevolent version.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She became gravely ill and then was murdered by her once loving sister, resulting in her haunting her home for the centuries to come, all the while becoming a husk of her former self and killing anyone unlucky enough to cross paths with her.
- Would Hurt a Child: Viola carries a small child to their death in the lake, believing them to be her daughter Isabel. Later she attempts the same with Flora.
