This article “Who is the Lady in The Lake in The Haunting of Bly Manor” contains major spoilers.
We recapped the whole Netflix series — check out the archive.
There are many spooky hauntings in the Netflix series — some are characters we are aware of and others are unexplained, ready to be answered in the latter end of the series — one figure, in particular, is the lady in the lake who Flora is markedly afraid of and in one of the chapters, wants to keep Dani away from in the middle of the night. The Lady in the Lake is also faceless which offers further question marks. So who is the Lady in The Lake in The Haunting of Bly Manor?
A ghost story…
In the final chapters of the series, it gives the viewers a unique flashback into the seventeenth century — it follows two women who inherited Bly Manor, Perdita and Viola (played by Kate Siegel — Episode 8 is the actor’s special guest chapter).
A marriage of convenience but also love
Owning land and manors was important during this time and it centered on your business dealings. Viola was not interested in men that were in it to take her wealth and instead opted for a distant cousin, Arthur Lloyd. She held the power in the marriage and they did fall in love — the couple also had a child named Isabel.
An unfortunate lung
Despite her success, Viola ended up with “the lung” and in the seventeenth century, that usually means dying a long, painful death. Viola was asked to stay away from her sister, husband, and child to avoid passing anything on. She outlived the predictions while she was dying which caused her to be bitter and paranoid while the rest of her family enjoyed the safer side of the house.
Leaving behind a trunk
With her death impending, Viola decides to leave behind riches for her daughter Isabel in a trunk in the attic. She wants to leave her daughter behind knowing her mother loved her and with an estate and a wealthy life to lead.
The sister’s betrayal
While Viola and her sister Perdita had a strong relationship at the start of this story, “the lung” had made Viola nasty — her sister had to endure the nastiness while also looking after her. The sister had missed out on loving relationships and Viola had control of the estate. Perdita wanted the slow death to end, so one night, she kills her sister.
She also takes Viola’s life by marrying her widowed husband and attempting to take over the estate and business.
The curse begins
With the business failing, Perdita decides to open the trunk and greed overcomes her, not knowing that her sister’s spirit was trapped inside waiting for her daughter to open it and share a moment of love. When Viola sees her sister open the trunk, she kills her.
Arthur believes the trunk is cursed and decides to leave Bly Manor with Isabel — before he leaves the manor, he throws the trunk in the lake, with Viola’s spirit trapped inside.
Viola is the Lady in the Lake in The Haunting of Bly Manor.
How come she ends up faceless?
Due to the curse created by Viola and her sister, spirits are unable to leave the estate — they are trapped there forever. Over time, the spirits forget their purpose and memories and become faceless. Viola was full of rage and revenge but also wanted to see her daughter. She spent days walking from the lake to the manor to see if her daughter was there but she never was — the more times she did it, the more her memory faded; she has become an empty void full of rage.
This ghost story is what encapsulates the hauntings at Bly Manor — it is the curse.
