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| “ | Hush up or I'll rip your lips open and stuff more shit in there! | „ |
| ~ Delphine LaLaurie threatening one of her victims. |
| “ | Redemption? I know how redemption works in this century. I seen it all on the magic box. Agree to be publically humiliated-- all is forgiven. People have gotten soft, weak, lily-livered. All anybody has to do nowadays is shed some tears, say some words... | „ |
| ~ Delphine LaLaurie rejecting her chance for redemption. |
Madame Delphine LaLaurie is a major antagonist in the American Horror Story: Coven and a minor antagonist in American Horror Story: Apocalypse. She is a wealthy Creole landowner in antebellum New Orleans who takes sadistic pleasure in torturing and murdering her Black slaves. She is a heavily fictionalized version of an actual historical figure who lived in Louisiana and France from 1787 to 1849.
She was portrayed by Kathy Bates, who also portrayed Annie Wilkes in Misery, Sunny Soke in Bad Santa 2, The Squirrel Lady in Rat Race, and two other AHS villains, Tomasyn White in American Horror Story: Roanoke, and Miriam Mead in American Horror Story: Apocalypse.
Biography[]
Delphine LaLaurie is a sadistic, racist aristocrat in 1830s New Orleans who creates a face cream made out of the pancreases of her Black slaves, whom she tortures and murders for fun. She sells the cream to make up for her husband's Louis' profligate spending, and tries to restore her family's fading social prominence by marrying her three daughters, Borquita, Jeanne, and Pauline, off to wealthy landowners. At one point, she kills a baby whom Louis sired with a female slave and drains the child's blood.
American Horror Story: Coven[]
When Pauline sleeps with the family's house slave Bastien, LaLaurie inflicts particularly brutal torture upon him until he dies. Bastien's lover, voodoo queen Marie Laveau, retaliates by poisoning LaLaurie, killing her family, and burying her alive. Just before she closes the coffin lid on LaLaurie, Laveau gloats that the poison she gave her makes a person immortal, meaning that LaLaurie will spend eternity buried under six feet of dirt.
In 2012, Supreme Witch Fiona Goode digs LaLaurie up in order to discover the secret of immortality and use her as leverage in her war with Laveau. Fiona is disgusted by LaLaurie's racism - such as weeping with horror upon discovering that Barack Obama is President - and decides to humiliate her by making her a maid for Queenie, a Black member of the coven.
Feeling nostalgic for the "good old days", Lalaurie kidnaps a Black gardener and tortures him to death. House servant Spalding catches her in the act, but promises he will not tell anyone. He then offers to give her a potion she can use to remove Laveau's immortality and kill her, in return for bringing him an ancient baby doll. LaLaurie spikes Laveau's drink with the potion and stabs her in the chest after she falls asleep, but Laveau survives and remains immortal, the "potion" having been nothing but Benadryl. Nevertheless, LaLaurie tortures Laveau and chops her into pieces, which she also survives.
One day, one of the coven members, Nan, attacks LaLaurie, but Queenie saves her and kills Nan. LaLaurie thanks her and , much to her own surprise, grows to care about Queenie and feel remorse for her past crimes. Regardless, Queenie has nothing but contempt for LaLaurie and betrays her to Laveau, who tries, unsuccessfully, to kill her.
LaLaurie escapes and gets a job as a tour guide for what was once her own house, which is now a historical landmark. One day, Queenie shows up at the tour and confronts her with her many terrible crimes, but LaLaurie is unrepentant. Enraged, Queenie stabs LaLaurie, who unexpectedly dies. She wakes up in Hell, which she sees as her own torture chamber, alongside Laveau. Papa Legba informs them that he has taken away their immortality as punishment for breaking the agreement they made with him centuries before, and that they will now pay for their sins by suffering the tortures of the damned for eternity.
American Horror Story: Apocalypse[]
Years later, LaLaurie remains in Hell, where she is forced to watch Laveau torture her daughters to death over and over again. LaLaurie begs Laveau to stop, and explains that, even though she herself had murdered children, she would never force their mothers to watch. Nan's spirit interrupts them and tells LaLaurie she can leave Hell because Cordelia Goode, Fiona's daughter and successor as Supreme, made a deal with Papa Legba to trade her for Dinah Stevens, who had helped bring about the Apocalypse. By the end of the season, however, Fiona's heir apparent Mallory uses her powers to change the course of history so that the Apocalypse never happened, meaning that Fiona never made a deal with Papa Legba and that LaLaurie remains in Hell.
External Links[]
- Delphine LaLaurie on the American Horror Story Wiki
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 Villains
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Murder House Asylum Coven Freak Show Hotel Roanoke The Butcher | Roanoke Colonists (Ambrose White) | Polk Family | Lee Harris | Agnes Mary Winstead | Dominic Banks | Monet Tumusiime | Miranda and Bridget Jane | Edward Mott | Piggy Man | Chen Family | Scáthach Cult Apocalypse 1984 Double Feature Part 2: Death Valley NYC Delicate American Horror Stories | ||