| “ | And as the Plague Doctor died, so he was immediately forgotten, and a strange phenomenon occurred. Her gravity, it seemed her invented gravity that held her to the grounds, that kept her in Purgatory, it would hold others too. | „ |
| ~ An older Jamie describing Viola's curse. |
Viola Lloyd, also known as The Lady of the Lake, is the overarching antagonist of the gothic romance horror show The Haunting of Bly Manor.
In life, she was the original lady of Bly Manor, alongside her sister Perdita, who grew gravelly ill during her time as lady, making her cruel and resentful. Eventually, Perdita strangled her to death, leading to Viola's ghost becoming stuck in a chest containing all of her dresses. When Perdita opens the chest to sell the dresses for money, Viola strangles her to death, leading to her husband and daughter leaving the manor.
Over time, Viola's ghost loses her memory and becomes consumed by rage, creating a spiritual gravity that prevented the ghosts of those who died at Bly Manor from entering the afterlife.
She was portrayed by Kate Siegel, who also played Camille L'Espanaye in The Fall of House Usher.
Biography[]
Viola once was the daughter of a rich land lord, who owned Bly Manor, during the Seventeenth century. When he died, she found herself alone with her younger sister Perdita, well aware that, as a woman, she could not keep the manor endlessly, and thus decided to marry her distant cousin, Arthur Lloyd. Once she married him, making him know that she was the true master here, she started to fall in love with him, and had a daughter with him, Isabel. But shortly after her daughter was born, Viola became sick, and could not approach her family. According to doctors, she would only live on for some months, but she kept herself alive for several years, becoming a burden to her family. Shortly before dying, she made her husband promise to give all of her dresses to their daughter, when she would be old enough. To do so, she put all of them in a chest, locked by keys given to Arthur. However, her sister Perdita killed her some days later, because she had enough of what her sister has become because of her illness. Viola's soul then lived on inside the chest, waiting for her daughter to open it. However, after her death, Arthur married Perdita, and the family started to have money issues. Perdita wanted to sell her sister's dresses to keep them safe, but Arthur refused, because of his oath. Perdita then decided to open it herself, only to be murdered by Viola's ghost. Arthur and Isabel then moved somewhere else, leaving the chest inside the lake near the manor, because of superstitions. Viola was imprisoned inside the land, sleeping inside the lake. Sometimes, she woke up and walked to her old room, hoping to find her husband and her daughter in their bed. Slowly, her old self begun to fade away; she would turn into a monster, killing everyone on her way to the room, starting with a Plague Doctor. She then only remembered that she searched for a child, thus taking a little boy she found on the bed with her in the lake. Because of her, a strange curse occurred upon Bly Manor : she would make everyone who died on the lands staying here when they died, thus making of her the cause of the Haunting of Bly Manor.
Many centuries later, during the year 1986, she is the only ghost feared by Flora and Miles Wingrave. She stills walk almost every night to her old room, being the cause of the footprints found by Hannah. However she lost her face during her years as a ghost, emphasizing her loss of identity. One night, a night during which Peter Quint decided to run away with Rebecca Jessel, she found him on her way, killed him, and drove his corpse to the lake, right in front of the children. On 1987, she is still here, being the reason why Miles and Flora forbid Dani to come out of her room during the night. However, the au-pair girl eventually came out of her room, but fortunately, the children succeed in saving her, distracting her while the ghost is seeing walking behind Dani. Viola ends up trying to kill Dani Clayton the same way she killed Peter, when she d. She is stopped by Flora when she finds her on her old bed; Viola remembers about her daughter, and take Flora in her arms to lead her to the lake. On her way, she struggles Henry Wingrave, who is saved by Owen. When she is about to drown Flora in the lake, while the ghost of Rebecca proposes the little girl to take possession of her body while she dies so that she would not feel it, Dani screams the words "It's me, it's you, it's us" to Viola, the words which allow a ghost to take possession of a body. Viola accepts the invitation, going inside Dani's body, thus breaking the curse of Bly Manor. She then lived for some years inside of Dani, making her right eye turning brown. Eventually, Dani started to feel her presence stronger than before, making her fearing for her life. Some time later, the personalities of Viola and Dani combine, and they came back to Bly Manor as Viola drowns Dani. Dani soon becomes the new Lady in the Lake but unlike Viola, she refuses to kill anyone and harmlessly roams about Bly Manor.