A Favorable Opinion on Miss Vanessa Ives
Netflix’s Penny Dreadful has become my latest binge-watch subject. I’ve quite the soft-spot for dark Victorian horror, and Penny Dreadful is literally an amalgamation of ALL good British Gothic literature. Though I’m not quite through season 2 yet, the show’s excellent dialogue and beautifully flawed characters have kicked it out of the park for me already.
Not the least of which is dear Miss Vanessa Ives.
Dear, troubled, amazing Vanessa Ives has become my favorite protagonist on streaming-television. Daenerys should have tea with her sometime. So, slight spoiler alert - I shan’t go too heavy - but the complexity of her character demands some reveals in order to discuss it at all.
Our heroine is indeed a heroine. She devotes herself and her occult wisdom to saving her childhood friend Mina in season 1, and her strong will keeps her going during her battle with the Nightcomers in season 2. Her confident and kind heart forges the trust she has with her friends, and it keeps it hot too. But, on the flip side, she’s deeply haunted by demons, perhaps THE demon, and pays for an awful adulterous sin every day of her life.
Like, truly, horrifically awful. Possession and a deep-rooted fetish for infidelity was involved. I don’t believe I’ve seen a protagonist with such an emotionally tortured backstory, at least not one dealing with such dark sexual themes, in anything I’ve seen recently.
The Victorians really loved their sex, didn’t they?
Well, they tabooed the hell out of it, but loved whispering about and doing it incessantly behind closed doors. Which ultimately roots Vanessa firmly in our story’s era and strengthens the themes her character plays with.
It is no coincidence that Vanessa’s episodic possessions are triggered by intercourse. What the demon represents, and what the Victorians feared the most, is the corruption of all things good; “healthy” sex is flipped on its head with psychological torment, promises of power, and Exorcist-style horror sequences.
What brings Vanessa out of all this perversion is her determination not to destroy or control what haunts her, but to understand it. Her deck of tarot, her charms and protective symbols; all things most Victorian folk would condemn for witchcraft but Vanessa embraces and respects. And unlike the bestial vampires and sadistic witches she comes up against, she uses her knowledge for moral and compassionate reasons.
Thus, at the core of her very character, Vanessa represents a balance of sorts between both sides of the occult coin. It is a fragile balance, one that Lucifer, Dracula and others try to tear apart, but an important one that must be kept. To what end, I’m not sure - I haven’t seen season 3 - but I’ll assuredly still be watching when the moment finally comes.
And that, long story short, is why Miss Ives has stood out to me as Penny Dreadful’s best heroine.
If you wanted to know, I was just sayin’.
