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| “ | You have to learn to play the game and that means compromise, right up to the line but not over it. | „ |
| ~ Lydia |
Lydia is a major character in the AMC series Into the Badlands.
She is the wife of Baron Quinn, the ruler of the Armadillo Territory in the apocalyptic wasteland known as the Badlands. Despite generally being a kind and protective person, Lydia is shown to have contempt for the Cog slaves that live under Quinn's rule, and enjoys her position of privilege and power as the wife of a tyrant like Quinn.
She was portrayed by Orla Brady, who also played Countess Vera Rosakoff in Agatha Christie's Poirot.
Personality[]
As a Baroness, Lydia was shown to be polite and empathetic to her family members, but very detached from the feelings and suffering of the Cog slaves that live under Quinn's rule. It's clear that she has tunnel vision as to what matters, only protective towards Ryder and Quinn, and being callous to those outside of her family. This is best seen when Quinn decides to take another wife, Jade, who had been a house Cog serving the family for years. While Jade herself was a very manipulative person, Lydia's entire reason for hating her was due to her Cog origins, rather than due to her lying nature. This bigotry was shown even further in her refusal to let Veil treat Ryder's injuries due to her being a Cog doctor, only relenting when there was no other option.
After a great deal of Cogs leave the Armadillo Territory, Lydia, Jade, and several clippers are forced to harvest the poppy fields to prevent the crop from spoiling. This experience shows Lydia how hard the Cogs have to work, and her perspective on them shifts greatly. After Jade tricks Quinn into banishing Lydia, her personality and perspective on the world changes, and she now wishes to live a simpler life as a religious Totemist. After Ryder is murdered by Quinn, Lydia decides to re-join the fight under the Widow. After being put in charge of the Armadillo Territory as a Viceroy, Lydia decides to reform it and turn into the Horse Territory, where the use of Cogs is no longer permitted, showing Lydia's worldview has changed and now aligns with the Widow's.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Lydia was born in a small settlement of Totemists who followed one of the few religions left in the Badlands, and raised by a priest named Penrith. One day, Baron Quinn and his clippers came through the settlement during a hunt for a group of nomad scavengers, and Lydia became immediately enamored at the sight of Quinn, and was attracted to his brutality and raw power. Quinn also took a liking to her, and the she soon left her settlement in order to marry Quinn. Due to her profession as a Totemist, she was not considered lower-class like a Cog slave would be, meaning Quinn's marriage to her was accepted, thus promoting her to the status of Baroness. During her time as Baroness, Lydia met Nathaniel Moon, the most deadly Clipper in the Badlands, whom she took an interest in. It is possible the two had an affair, but regardless of whether they did, the two harbored feelings for each other until Nathaniel retired and left the Badlands. Soon after this, Lydia and Quinn had their first child, Ryder. Around this time, Quinn, Waldo, and Lydia discovered Sunny as a young boy and took him in to train him as a Clipper. One day, Ryder was kidnapped by nomad scavengers, and demanded a ransom to be paid, which Quinn refused to do, resulting in three of Ryder's toes being cut off. Once Quinn and his regent Waldo rescued Ryder, Lydia found that he was traumatized and never the same. At some point, Quinn takes a second wife named Beatrice, who dies suddenly after marrying him. It's speculated Lydia was responsible, but this was never proven due to a lack of evidence. Lydia also took notice of Ryder's relationship to Jade, a house Cog, and unlike Quinn was aware they were sleeping together.
Ruling the Armadillo Territory[]
Quinn and Lydia rule the territory together for over two decades, and train Ryder with the plan to have him eventually take Quinn's place. Lydia does not believe that Ryder is ready, but he is desperate to prove himself to his father, worrying Lydia as it often puts him in harms way. Around this time, Quinn decides to take another wife by the name of Jade. Lydia is resentful of this, as she was when he married Beatrice, and is extremely hostile whenever Lydia tries to interact with her. Quinn and Lydia discuss his marriage to Jade as they find that none of the other Barons will be attending the wedding. Lydia points out that him choosing to marry a Cog girl is not socially accepted among the Barons, nor does she look at it with anything other than contempt. Sunny, now Quinn's Regent and most trusted Clipper, brings a boy named M.K. back to the territory, who is later caught by Ryder trying to steal an object from the Baron's home. Sunny sets M.K. free, an act which Lydia witnesses in secret, but decides to not tell anyone of. Ryder and Sunny later go on a mission during which they are ambushed by the forces of rival Baron the Widow, leading Ryder to be hung by his neck with a chain, causing severe head and neck trauma. Sunny survives and brings Ryder back to the Baron's home, where he is tended to by Lydia and Jade. Lydia is angry that Jade is staying by Ryder's bedside while he recovers, because Lydia is aware that Jade and Ryder have actually still been sleeping with each other in private, and thus Lydia sees Jade as nothing more than a manipulator and not actually in love with Quinn. Jade later brings a Cog doctor named Veil to treat Ryder, which Lydia initially refuses due to her prejudice against Cogs, but relents once she finds out Ryder will die by morning if he is not treated immediately. Veil's treatment is successful, and Ryder recovers. Once Ryder wakes up then next morning, Lydia tells him that she cannot bear to see him die, and that he is not ready to be a Baron. Angry at not having her support, Ryder renounces her and stops speaking with her, determined to prove that he can be a successful leader even without her help.
In the following days, a great deal of Cogs abandon working in Quinn's poppy fields due to being bribed by the Widow with gold, and told that they will not longer be Cog slaves if they live in the Widow's territory. To rectify this, Jade suggests having the Clippers harvest the poppy crop so it doesn't spoil until more Cog shipments come in. Lydia decides to help Jade and the Clippers work in the fields to harvest the poppy crop, and the group is completely successful. After the harvest, Lydia realizes how difficult the life of Cogs must be, and her prejudice against them seemingly changes now that she has worked in the fields with them. Lydia apologizes to Jade for her treatment of her, saying they were pitted against each other by Quinn from the start. Despite this reconciliation, Jade decides to frame Lydia by poisoning herself and placing the poison in Lydia's dresser, convincing Quinn to banish Lydia from the territory. Ryder does not protest this, but he gives his mother a set of totems that once belonged to her father, and bids her farewell. Lydia, having nothing left to turn to, returns to Penrith's Totemist settlement and begs to be let back in, which he allows if she promises to fully convert back to their religion, which she agrees to do. She is then inducted back into their settlement, and lives among them for several months. During this time, Quinn disappears and is presumed dead with Ryder taking his place as Baron. Lydia is very happy during her time as a totemist, and her relationship with her father has seemingly been repaired. However, things take a turn during a wedding between two members of their settlement, which is attacked by a group of nomad scavengers. Lydia saves the married couple from the scavengers by killing them using dining utensils, but due to violence being forbidden in their settlement, she is banished and told to never return to their group. Lydia is later called back to the Armadillo Territory by Ryder who speaks with her about how he proved her wrong that he could not lead without her help. She asks if he could protect the totemists from nomads like Quinn did, but he ultimately refuses to do so and dismisses her.
Ryder calls a Conclave, a meeting between Barons to discuss his conflict with the Widow, but the Conclave is crashed by Quinn and a group of his loyalists, who was actually alive and in hiding the entire time and attacks all of the other Barons and kills Ryder. Jade succeeds him as Baron of the Armadillo Territory and contacts Lydia to tell her out what has happened. Lydia is devastated at the loss of her son, though they had great contempt for one another she never wanted to see him dead. Despite their animosity towards each other, both Lydia and Jade loved Ryder and want Quinn dead for killing him. Lydia remembers a secret bunker that Quinn told her of, and figures him and his loyalists are likely hiding there. She leads a group of Clippers to attack the bunker, but they are killed due to explosives that are set up there and she is captured. Quinn confronts Lydia, taunting her over the fact that he gave Ryder a chance to kill him and he couldn't do it, and he then hands Lydia a blade and gives her the same opportunity. Lydia almost does it, but due to her attraction to Quinn's danger and violence, she cannot bring herself to do it. Despite not being capable of killing Quinn, Lydia still wishes to escape from him and help Veil, who is also being held captive by Quinn alongside her newborn son Henry, to escape. Lydia discovers that Quinn's hideout has been rigged with explosives and tries to tell his Clippers of this information, but they do not care, being fully willing to die for him and his cause. In response to this, Quinn decides to have her executed, ordering her to be brought out into the woods by Declan and forced to dig her own grave. She uses the shovel to kill Declan but is overpowered by another Clipper and nearly killed, only to be saved by the arrival of Sunny. He gives her a blade and tells her to be safe, going after Veil and Henry in order to save them from Quinn. Sunny does manage to defeat Quinn at the cost of Veil's life, and takes Henry to depart to an unknown location. Now that she has completely changed her perspective on the structure of Barons ruling over Cogs, Lydia decides to join a refugee camp to help those who have been hurt due to the current war.
Changing course[]
The Widow is currently the only Baron left behind other than Baron Chau, who is the Baron of Cogs and the main opposition to the Widow in her vision of a better world. However, due to the Widow's brutal methods The Widow's adoptive daughter Tilda has abandoned her and became a vigilante known as "The Iron Rabbit" who works against both the Widow and Chau. Tilda resides in the refugee camp with Lydia, stealing supplies from the Widow and Chau in order to give them to Lydia's refugees. Around this time, Penrith has passed away, and the totemists now reside in Lydia's refugee camp in order to be kept safe from both nomads and the war. One day, Tilda comes back to the camp with a shipment she stole from the Widow's forces, which harbored a prisoner named Bajie, and old ally of both Tilda and Sunny who has not been seen in months. He initially plans to leave now that he is free, but this changes due to the sudden arrival of Sunny, who has resurfaced after months of being a scavenger, seeking help for his son Henry. After Sunny takes his son Henry to the camp's healer, she draws some blood to do a basic health test, causing Henry's eyes to turn black. They all then learn that Henry is a Dark One, meaning he has the Gift, dark chi powers that activate whenever his skin is cut. Bajie, who was once a Dark One, states that the Gift is never meant to manifest at such a young age. Sunny asks Bajie and Lydia what he can do, as the Gift often kills those who have it due to being extremely unstable, and he is desperate to cure Henry of it. Lydia states that her father used to work with members of the Abbot Monastery, a place where a woman named the Master kidnaps and trains people to control their Gift, in order to locate Dark Ones. Bajie immediately refuses this idea, stating that the Master will take Henry and Sunny will never see him again if they go to her. Lydia brings up another Dark One by the name of Ankara, also known as "The Mad Witch" who lives in solitude but is considered a master of the Gift. Despite Bajie initially being against it, he eventually relents and goes with Sunny to take Henry to her in the hopes of curing his Gift.
Not long after this, Nathaniel, who has returned to the Badlands to work as the Widow's Regent, visits Lydia's refugee camp. He inquires about the location of the Iron Rabbit, but Lydia claims to not know anything about them. Nathaniel takes Lydia to visit the Widow, where the two argue over what is the best way to minimize the loss of lives in the conflict against Chau. The Widow offers to make Lydia her Viceroy, and put her in charge of the Armadillo Territory, effectively making her its Baron while still being loyal to the Widow and her mission to take down Chau and the Cog slave trade. Lydia agrees to this knowing that it will help her to protect the refugees more efficiently. Lydia decides to rename the Armadillo Territory to the Horse Territory, and change the practices to no longer include forced labor. When Lydia learns that Nathaniel will be attacking one of the refugee camps in search for the Iron Rabbit, she sends a warning note to them allowing Tilda to escape. Nathaniel confronts Lydia on this, recognizing her handwriting on the note. Lydia admits to it, but Nathaniel does not inform the Widow of her treachery, as he still harbors feelings for her. Lydia later discusses a new issue with the Widow, the fact that a false messiah named Pilgrim has arrived to the Badlands and is recruiting people to join him in his mission to build a new Azra, a mythical city where Dark Ones will rule. Lydia is brought with the Widow to meet with Pilgrim, where Lydia speaks to Cressida, a blood witch who serves as Pilgrim's right-hand. Lydia does not believe in their mission to bring back Azra, having been raised by a religious fanatic herself. The meeting is interrupted by assassins who have been sent by Chau to kill Pilgrim, but they are overpowered and killed by Castor, one of Pilgrim's Dark One warriors. The meeting concludes with Pilgrim agreeing to stop recruiting on her land for the time being, but he makes it clear he will eventually take his crusade to her territory. Among the assassins are Chau's brother Gaius, who the Widow takes as a hostage, but is unsure of what to do with him due to the fact that he was forced to attack Pilgrim by his sister, as well as once having a romance with her. Lydia ultimately advises the Widow to trust him despite her previous hostility towards men.
Lydia ultimately decides to rekindle her romance with Nathaniel, who originally returned to the Badlands to get even with Sunny, but after the two worked out their issue with one another, he now believes that Lydia gives him a reason to stay. When the Widow and her forces are temporarily overthrown by two of her former Clippers Arthur and Wren, they demand an immediate end to the war, saying only the Widow can do this. Lydia convinces them to let her deliver the message to Chau so that it will be believed, but instead enlists the help of Tilda and Nathaniel to attack the treasonous Clippers, saving the Widow. Around this time Bajie arrives with Henry, saying he doesn't know is Sunny is alive but that he was sent to give Henry to Lydia so she would be safe, a task she happily accepts. Nathaniel and Lydia then help the Widow lead the final assault against Chau, facing her directly on the battlefield for control of the Badlands. When Nathaniel almost is overwhelmed and killed by Chau's Clippers, Lydia decides to go into battle herself and save him, but is shot in the stomach by a crossbow in the process. She survives but is left bedridden for several days. When she recovers, Nathaniel informs her that Baron Chau was defeated, and now their last enemy to deal with is Pilgrim. Cressida arrives in the Widow's territory to discuss a potential agreement between Pilgrim and the Widow's forces, but is instead captured by them. When Cressida uses her blood magic to sense that the Widow is pregnant by Gaius, this shakes her belief over being a leader, and she informs Lydia that after Pilgrim is dead that she wants to hand over control of the Badlands to her. Lydia tells Nathaniel this news, saying they are close to getting everything they ever wanted. However, Pilgrim launches an assault on the Widow's compound to save Cressida, prompting Lydia to enter her cell so she can execute her. Cressida then uses her blood magic to see seconds into the future and attack Lydia, able to predict every single one of her attacks, eventually overpowering and killing her before escaping. Nathaniel finds Lydia dying and says he will get a healer, but Lydia knows it is too late and instead uses her last moments to tell Nathaniel she loves him, before finally dying in his arms.
Powers & Abilities[]
- Leadership: As a Baroness, Lydia was shown capable of stepping in as Baron whenever Quinn was absent. After her worldview on the usage of Cogs changes, Lydia is shown to be an extremely effective leader in ruling the Horse Territory, being the Widow's most vital ally in the war against Chau. She and Nathaniel successfully lead the final invasion on Chau's territory, enabling the Widow to break through and defeat Chau.
- Martial Arts/Swordsmanship: While mostly a leader and not an active fighter, Lydia was shown to be proficient in combat to a certain degree, as seen when she killed the nomads attacking the Totemists, or during the invasion against Chau's territory where she saved Nathaniel Moon from Chau's Clipper force, albeit becoming severely hurt in the process.
- Medicine: While far from the skill of actual doctors like Veil, Lydia is shown to have knowledge in medicine while taking care of Ryder after he was injured, keeping him alive for several days despite the severity of his injuries.
Quotes[]
| “ | I’d rather have you hate me for the rest of your life than stand over your grave. | „ |
| ~ Lydia severing her relationship with Ryder. |
| “ | It's hard when you build your life with someone and then one day they decide you're not enough anymore. | „ |
| ~ Lydia on Quinn's marriage to Jade. |
| “ | If you wanna change the world, you have to find a way to live in it first. | „ |
| ~ Lydia's philosophy as a Viceroy. |
| “ | Don’t let the past stop you from doing what you need to do. | „ |
| ~ Lydia's reflection on her past as Baroness. |
| “ | It’s frightening, isn’t it? To realize you’ve more to lose than you thought. | „ |
| ~ Lydia comforting Nathaniel Moon during their war against Pilgrim. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Lydia alludes to the character of Princess Iron Fan from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, of which Into the Badlands is loosely based on.
- It is never revealed whether or not Lydia actually poisoned Beatrice, as the event is never mentioned again after Lydia is exiled from the Armadillo Territory.
External Links[]
- Lydia on the Heroes Wiki
- Lydia on the Into the Badlands Wiki
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 Villains
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Armadillo Territory Butterfly Territory Fox Territory Pickaxe Territory Other Territories Dark Ones The Black Lotus Other | ||