Readers-mine, I’m warning you in advance: if you haven’t seen the show at all, this post might contain spoilers for you. Don’t blame me if you learn something you didn’t want to know.

This entry is going to be about the names in the television series, some of which differ from the book. Atticus Turner becomes Atticus Freeman, to match his father and uncle, and Caleb Braithwhite, who doesn’t exist in the show, becomes Christina Braithwhite instead. I assume these changes were made to make the family relationships a little more clear as well as emphasize the racial and gender conflicts in the series. In both the book and the television show, the names are the first things that I noticed. Before we get into the episodic deep dives, this is background information that you should know. If you haven’t read my entry on who H.P. Lovecraft was, you should probably check that out first. He was brilliant and flawed, able to create an amazing world and an entire mythos while having some tightly held prejudices.

Lovecraft Country

The Grim Reaper and compass indicate that those who travel to central Massachusetts should beware of the danger that lies within its borders. In this story, it is as dangerous to travel there as it is for a Lovecraft protagonist to go off on an expedition in the Mountains of Madness.

Lovecraft Country is sometimes called by different names because Lovecraft himself never named the region as a whole, though it is very clear that much of it is Essex County, Massachusetts. This is the home of H.P. Lovecraft’s weird fiction, a genre that reinterprets the monsters and myths that are often featured in speculative fiction. It is home of the Shoggoths, Arkham (and all the horror that goes with it), and characters that do some rather fantastical things. As someone from Providence, Rhode Island, Massachusetts was not so far away that he was unfamiliar with it or couldn’t visit if he needed to, but it also wasn’t home, which meant he could fictionalize to his heart’s content. This is where, in both the book and the television show, you will find Ardham.

Ardham

If you’ve read H.P. Lovecraft, you might have picked up on the reference. Arkham is the fictional city and main setting for many of Lovecraft’s rather dark tales. Originally based on Salem, Massachusetts, it is there that you will find Herbert West, Miskatonic University, and various monsters that will keep you up at night. In the book version of Lovecraft Country, they make it very clear that Ardham is a reference to it, even having Tic misread it as “Arkham” initially. As a result, the provincial town that seems lost to time and the Ardham Lodge, which looks nothing like a lodge and everything like a palace, is somewhere that you can expect dark and terrible things to happen. (And, yes, for those who are wondering, Arkham Asylum of Batman fame is also a reference to Lovecraft and the madness found inside his pages.)

Sons of Adam

If you don’t know much about the Bible, both Genesis stories, or Christianity, you may not really know much about Adam. Yes, I said “both Genesis stories.” For most modern and ancient Christians, this isn’t a conflict because Genesis is considered allegorical, and having one account that is cosmic and another that is focused on Earthly things makes sense. Even though most biblical scholars agree that they were written by two different authors with very different perspectives, modern versions of the Bible put them together in a way that implies that they are one narrative. Genesis is traditionally interpreted as spiritually significant, but not historically and scientifically accurate. The idea of biblical literalism, from what I know, seems to be something that came about in the 18th century. People who are biblical literalists, like Christian Fundamentalists, take everything written within the Bible to be 100% historically and scientifically accurate. To be clear, this means that both versions of creation would have to be 100% historically and scientifically accurate, something that has never made sense to me there are pieces in the stories that conflict. That said, I do think that the language used in Genesis is beautiful and, if you haven’t actually read it before, you should check out Genesis 1-3. (Click on the link to read a version with modern language that should be simple to understand.)

Why, you may wonder, are we talking about literalism versus allegory? Well, readers-mine, Lovecraft Country uses the concept of literalism. What that means is that there really was a Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were real people, and getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden is what resulted in the loss of our innocence and immortality. The Sons of Adam, also known as Adamites, are devoted to finding their way back into the original Garden of Eden. In fact, this is a pursuit that requires great magic, use of the Language of Adam (a.k.a. the language Adam and Eve spoke in the Garden), and a specific bloodline. It also requires sacrifice and has led to death every time one of the Sons of Adam (the highest rank in The Order of the Ancient Dawn) attempt to reach the Garden. More on The Order of the Ancient Dawn and what their secret society actually stands for later on in the series.

Ji-Ah

In Korean, the way the name is written is important. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how her name is written. What I can tell you is what the two syllables mean according to a couple of former students who speak Korean as a first language and the internet. “Ji” means wisdom or intellect. “Ah” means beautiful, bud, sprout, elegant, or graceful. In other words, she is an intelligent and wise character who is beautiful and will change/grow over time.

Freeman Family

If you are not from America or don’t know much about the American Civil War and the end of slavery, you may not be aware that Freeman is one of the most common Black last names because it literally indicates that they were once slaves and are now free. This is important because Atticus is the descendant of slaves on both his father and his mother’s side, something that is common in the Black community in this country if a person’s ancestors were brought to our shores before the abolition of slavery. I will get into why this is a particularly important fact in the episodic deep dives.

Atticus Freeman

Atticus is a Latin name for someone from the city of Athens. Back in the days of imperial Rome, it was a name that was given to the aristocratic men in addition to their personal and family names. It gave those men a sense of distinction, education, and sophistication because the Romans were increasingly in contact with the Greeks and had a particular affinity for Athenian society. If you don’t believe me, look at the Roman pantheon of gods. Yep, those are primarily the Greek Gods given Latin names. (Romans had a bit of a habit of renaming things that already existed in order to fit it into their view, and the Greek gods were not immune to this treatment.) If you want to read about a bunch of different famous Attici, the plural form of Atticus, check out this article. I found it to be an interesting read, but I am super nerdy about knowledge and names.

If you know you’ve heard the name Atticus and can’t place it, you’re probably thinking of Atticus Finch, the fictional character from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. That Atticus is intelligent, calm, wise, and respected by everyone because of his sympathetic and kind behavior. He is the moral backbone of Maycomb, the town where he lives, and this is also the reason he has more than a bit of a falling out with the folks in his town. He agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, when Maybomb is a place of deeply ingrained racial prejudice. Remember that color line that I wrote about in this entry? The whole of To Kill a Mockingbird is based around the concept of what happens when someone transgresses the color line and how standing your ground can impact the people around you. Atticus Finch believes that all people have both good and bad qualities. He admires the good and forgives the bad while standing up for a man that prejudice would say should be treated as a second class citizen, not defended by the most respected man in the community. Atticus Finch stands up against racial injustice and does it despite the difficulties he and his family face as a result.

Our Atticus, the one in this book and series, shares a name with these various Attici and, while he is intelligent, worldly, and rather book-focused, he has previously followed orders to the point of cruelty and can be a bit of a hot-head. You’ll learn more about him as we go, but know that he is a character that embodies the idea of having both good and bad within him. He is a far from perfect man, but he is a very human man.

Montrose Freeman

Montrose is an interesting one. As a surname, it’s Scottish by way of France. Literally a combination of “mountain” and “rose” according to this. If you think about what that means for this character’s personality, it’s something that describes him to a T. Like a mountain, he is implacable, strong, hard to truly know, full of secrets and hidden paths, sometimes cruel in how he treats people, and formed by opposing forces coming together. He is also delicate, fragile inside, easily bruised from a life of trauma, and full of thorns that are meant to protect and, instead, cause people who want to appreciate him to bleed.

George Freeman

George is originally the Greek name Georgios. While the original name means literally means farmer (earth or soil + work) and was meant to honor Zeus, who sometimes went by the name Zeus the Farmer, it gained popularity in Christian households because of St. George the Dragon Slayer.

The basic story is this:

George was a brave and strong noble of what is currently Cappadocia, Turkey. He was born into a Christian family back in the third century, a time when Christians were often persecuted. As a soldier and officer in the Roman army, he was supposed to take part in this persecution, but he refused to give up his faith. This lead to his martyrdom in 303 AD. Before his death, as part of his many adventures as a soldier in Libya, legend has it that George showed up at a village that was being terrorized by a dragon. The people of the village, not surprisingly, wanted to appease the dragon and were sacrificing sheep to feed it each day. When they started to run low on sheep and became worried that they wouldn’t have enough meat to survive, the king of the village took a rather strange tact and decreed that the villagers needed to feed it their children. (Makes you wonder what was going to happen after they finished feeding the dragon all the children.)

A daily lottery was held until, shocker, the king’s daughter was chosen in the lottery. The king offered people gold and silver in order to get them to give up one of their children. The people said no and told him that they would burn Silene to the ground if his daughter didn’t go to the dragon like their children had. It took eight days of mayhem, but the king gave in. As she was being led to the dragon, George just happened to ride by. Horrified initially by the possible princess sacrifice and then learning the whole story, George offered to slay the dragon.

Depending on which stories you read, there are two ways the dragon is killed. Way 1: During his battle with the dragon, George found a vulnerable bit of skin under one of it’s legs and killed the beast. This resulted in the baptisms of the people of Silene. Way 2: The dragon took a run at George and the princess, so George made the sign of the cross and charged at the dragon sword in hand. When that didn’t work, he used his spear, threw the dragon to the ground, and then used the princess’s girdle to bind it. The princess led the dragon back to Silene on a leash of sorts and he followed. The people were, not surprisingly, a little freaked out to see the princess and the dragon, so George told them not to worry, he’d kill the dragon if they got baptized. After 15,000 people were baptized, he cut off the dragon’s head.

Either way, the people were super happy, a church was founded there, and the waters of the fountain are supposed to heal the sick. When the king offered George money, George was such a good guy that he told the king to give it to the poor. He was a humble man and a true hero. If you want more details on St. George, click here, here, or here.

George Freeman is far more than many people realize and the combination of farmer, being a salt-of-the-Earth sort of person, and being a man of myths and legends is the best possible description of George.

Hippolyta Freeman

I first learned this name from DC Comics. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, I mean the mother of Wonder Woman, Diana Prince. Noticing a similarity in the mother-daughter naming? I sure did, so I was looking forward to how this book and TV show would show the strength of both mother and daughter. If you are unaware of the mythological origins of Hippolyta, you should know that she is the queen of the Amazons, the warrior women of Greek mythology. As I got older, I looked into her mythology. So, here’s some background:

Hippolyta is the daughter of Ares, the god of war. She is also the granddaughter of Eurus, the god of the west wind, on her mother’s side. This makes her a descendant of the gods on both sides of her family and gave her strength and beauty that normal mortals simply didn’t have. Her father, Ares, gave her a magic girdle to show her authority as queen of the Amazons. That girdle is featured in the ninth labor of Heracles (who you might know by his Roman name, Hercules). By all accounts, Hippolyta was beautiful, held her own power, and ruled her people fairly. Not surprisingly, men found her attractive and were often trying to court her, get something from her, or cause trouble. Men were not allowed to hold positions in Amazonian society as it was an extremely matriarchal society. If you want to look into their rather scandalous way of procreating, go for it, but for the purposes of this entry, there are two main stories about Hippolyta you should know.

Hippolyta and Theseus: Theseus was the king of Athens and Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazons, a nation of warrior women who lived on an island by themselves. Theseus showed up on the island of the women and was greeted kindly. The Amazons gave him wine and food. There was music and dancing. It was a proper party. At dinner, decided to pop the question and asked if she would like to be his queen. Hippolyta thought about it and then about her people and told him no. Theseus didn’t like being turned down, pouted through the rest of the party, and plotted on how he could change her mind.

The obvious way for a man to change a woman’s mind according to Theseus, was to kidnap her. He and his friend decided that the Amazons couldn’t fight back if she was officially the queen of Athens and not allowed to leave. (Methinks they missed the whole daughter of Ares and queen of warriors part of her description). So, after a few days of partying, when everyone is sleeping, Theseus sneaks into Hippolyta’s tent, carries her off to his ship, and sails for Athens.

Not surprisingly, when the Amazons wake up, they notice that the queen and Theseus are missing. They do some simple logical thinking and set sail to Athens. The Amazons arrive in the darkness of night, attack the palace, take out all the guards, and rescue their queen. Theseus wakes up in the morning, finds out that his almost-queen has left him, and sets his eyes on Helen of Troy. (Obviously, Ares’s daughter was too much for him, so he should start the whole Trojan War over the beautiful and young daughter of Zeus, who he also kidnaps because he’s a class act like that.)

Heracles and Hippolyta: In the most popular version of the myth, Hippolyta, a strong woman who can take care of herself and any adversaries, finds Heracles to be a rather attractive person and gladly gives him the girdle of her own free will. Hera, Zeus’s wife who spends a lot of time trying to get Heracles (her husband’s illegitimate son) killed, disguises herself as an Amazon and tells Hippolyta’s people that Heracles actually intends to abduct their warrior queen. As a result, the Amazons, an entire tribe of warrior women who lived in a purely matriarchal society, attack his ship. After all, readers-mine, they are not going to let that happen for a second time. When Heracles responds to the attack by hurting and killing her people, Hippolyta fights back, no longer enamored with Zeus’s son, and ends up dead in battle. Heracles then takes the girdle and sails away, leaving the Amazons to bury their queen.

Hippolyta was one of the strongest women in Greek mythology. She was strong enough to stand up to men and beloved enough to be rescued by her people. She protected women and their rights to live as they wished outside of marriage to a man. She was beautiful and generous without putting up with people’s foolishness. She was also, in many stories, the object that men chased and a side character. Like the Hippolyta of mythology, where we know little about her exploits except for as related to men, Hippolyta of Lovecraft Country, feels like a secondary character until we get to her episode. Just wait until episode eight, readers-mine. It is a beautiful gift celebrating the strength of women and I can’t wait to tell you all about my thoughts on it.

Diana Freeman

Diana is a name that comes from Roman mythology. (In Greek mythology, she was known as Artemis.) Diana is the goddess of animals and the hunt. In her later stories, she’s identified with the moon and Hecate, the original goddess of magic and spells. She is powerful, levelheaded, and practical as a goddess. An interesting fact about her particular worshipers is that the head priest traditionally was a runaway slave who had to slay his predecessor in combat. Her festival was typically a holiday for slaves and her temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

In Lovecraft Country, Diana, more commonly called “D,” is young. The older characters protect her as much as they can, but when she comes into her own in the last episode, we see how much she resembles her namesake. More on that in episode ten’s deep dive.

The Half-Sisters

Ruby and Leti have the same mother, but different fathers. Their mother was a difficult personality and both girls grew up with some issues as a result. Leti left home when she was younger and seems to be the good time gal who’s always up to something. Beware, readers-mine, of thinking of Letitia Lewis as anything less than an incredible character who will come into her own over the course of the show. There is more there than meets the eye in episode one. Ruby, on the other hand, stuck by their mother until her death regardless of the toxicity. Ruby, a jazz singer who shines on stage and feels abandoned by her sister, is a tough cookie and a practical woman. Like many a jazz singer before her, Ruby is both more than what she seems and less conventional than she appears, readers-mine. They may have very different outlooks on life, but it is clear that they matter to each other despite it all.

Letitia “Leti” Lewis

Both of Leti’s names are important here, so I’m going to break it down for you.

Letitia: Her first name is a modernization of “Laetitia.” If comes from Laeta, a word meaning “happy,” “glad,” “lucky,” “successful,” “prosperous,” “luxurious,” “lush,” or “abounding.” These are all things Leti seems to be on the surface. Laetitia was a minor goddess in the Roman pantheon, but she was the goddess of gaiety, a.k.a. happy, prosperous abundance and good times. Check out this to learn about how she was depicted on Roman coins.

Lewis: Lewis is an old family name that has several possible origins. While we don’t know which one it is for Leti, the different versions translate to “lion-like,” “leader,” and “loud battle.” Leti is nothing if not a fighter. She and Tic are the leaders of this adventure and she will protect those she loves with a strength and fierceness rivaled only by Hippolyta. Go here if you want to see more information on the Lewis family origins.

Ruby Baptiste

Ruby: Her first name, not surprisingly, is that of a precious gemstone. Rubies are deep red, but they shine and catch the light in a way that garnet, another deep red stone, does not. Ruby is one of those stones that we, as a human race, have valued throughout time and across cultures. The color being so close to blood means that many cultures have thought of it as representing vitality and passion. Like her namesake, Ruby Baptiste is hard on the outside, passionate on the inside, and full of a desire to live life. Blood also becomes quite the thing with this character, but we’ll get into that at a later date.

Baptiste: This is literally the French spelling of Baptist and comes from Jean-Baptiste, a.k.a. John the Baptist. In the bible, John is Jesus’s cousin (though only one out of the four gospels mentions it). He is born just a few months before Jesus and clears the way for his cousin by preaching about the messiah to come and baptizing people. He is known as John the Baptist because he literally baptized Jesus and “John the Forerunner” because he is the messenger who comes before Jesus. He was generally seen as a righteous man and a prophet. He even told a king off for divorcing his wife and then unlawfully marrying his own brother’s ex-wife. Not surprisingly, this is the bit that got him beheaded. Basically, the king refused his new wife’s request for John’s execution because he liked the guy and thought of him as a righteous person, but then the daughter dances for him, and Herod is so happy he offers her anything she wants. She goes, asks her mother to give her ideas, and comes back to Herod with the demand that John’s head be cut off and delivered to her on a silver platter. Yep, that’s where that phrase comes from, an actual execution.

Hillary Davenport

Hillary: This name comes from Greek through Latin. Both Latin forms (hilarius and hilaris) come out to mean somewhere along the lines of “cheerful” or “merry.” The latest Greek form ἱλαρός (hilaros) follows the same meaning. The word that hilaros comes from, ἵλαος (hilaos), is actually a little different and means “propitious” or “gracious.” Propitious, as a word is an interesting one because the OED has it listed like this:

adjective

1. Giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable.‘the timing for such a meeting seemed propitious’

Synonyms: favourable, auspicious, promising, providential, advantageous, fortunate, lucky, optimistic, bright, happy, rosy, full of promise, heaven-sent, hopeful, beneficial

1.1 archaic: Favorably disposed toward someone.

Click here to see it on the Lexico page.

I can’t tell you how Hillary comes into being or who Hillary is without giving away the twists, so let’s just say that while she seems gracious, cheerful, and merry, her existence is also advantageous, beneficial, and full of promise. More on that in a future deep dive.

Davenport: This is a name that is tied with old money in the U.S., and has been since day one. The founder of the New Haven Colony, now known as the state of Connecticut, was John Davenport. His family name is old and rather knightly. I mean, they’re such a well-known family that they have their own DNA project. If you want to know more about them, click here. If you want to read some of John Davenport’s writings, click here, here, here, or here. There are multiple famous historical people in this family; a fancy couch and several places are also named after them.

Beyond the famous American family tree that comes from the famous British family tree, there’s also a famous fraudster from the 1980s whose nickname is “Fast Eddie.” With a friend, he created Gatecrasher Ball, Ltd. where the big idea was to get rich kids from single-sex boarding schools together to meet, drink, party, and do the horizontal tango. Fast Eddie and friend made megabucks doing this when he was only twenty. He got in trouble for breaking the law and jumped into the club scene to recoup his losses. To say that there are many scandals in this guy’s background is an understatement. Click here, here, here, here, here, or here to learn more about his shenanigans.

Between the two sides of this name, you get the concept of wealth, privilege, partying, and things being not quite on the up and up. Hillary Davenport holds power and deception in her seemingly wealthy hands.

The Braithwhite Family & Friends/Henchmen

The Braithwhites are a powerful family with the bloodline to open the door to Eden. When you look up the meaning of Braith, which is either Germanic or Gaelic in origin, you find “speckled” and “black and white” as options. Either way would work for these characters because they see things in black-and-white terms, in both senses: finite right or wrong (where right is anything tht benefits them) and as a world divided into black and white people. They are also a family that has both black and white members in their bloodline, whether they want to admit it or not. “Speckled” makes me think of their white clothes speckled in blood, which, if you know anything about this family, makes complete sense. Their supposed purity is truly evil dressed up in wealth and privilege.

The white half of the name references their idea of purity: patriarchal white supremacy. It is no mistake that these characters look deliberately like the Hitler’s idea of perfection. They are a Nazi’s wet dream. Then men do everything, the women are supposed to be pretty, make babies, and run the home. The men, in their supposed greatness, are the way into Eden. If you’re not sure based on this description alone, they are the villains of the piece, the monsters who control the monsters.

Samuel Braithwhite

Samuel means “Name of God” and you will be hard put to find a character who thinks more highly of himself. Samuel is originally a Hebrew name from the Old Testament. The biblical Samuel led the Jews and anointed both Saul and David as kings of Israel. That guy King David is particularly important because he is in the earthy bloodline of Jesus Christ. Yep, he is literally named for a kingmaker who dubbed Jesus’s ancestor a king. If you look at it that way, he is, not surprisingly, a man who is rather sure of himself. The name became popular with Christians after the Protestant Revolution, which started in, you guessed it, Germany.

Christina Braithwhite

Christina means either “follower of Christ” or “Christ-bearer.” It is the name of a martyr who was tortured by her Pagan father and a Swedish queen who gave up he crown to become Roman Catholic. All of this makes sense as Christina is neglected and emotionally abused by her father, Samuel, who wanted nothing more than a son. Christina gives up everything in hopes of finding power in another way. She finds love and power by becoming someone completely different during the course of the show. She is rather different from her father and would be killed several times over by him if he knew what his daughter got up to throughout Lovecraft Country. Unlike Samuel, who is a bit one-dimensionally evil, Christina is multilayered.

William

William comes from Willehelm, an Old High German name composed of wil, meaning “will, determination, desire,” and helm, meaning “helmet or protection.” When you combine the two, it is commonly translated as “resolute protector.” In this case, it is an accurate description in that he is Christina’s protection. The most famous William is William the Conquerer, who was the first Norman king of England. A strong warrior, a leader of men, and someone who reigned for just over twenty years. We aren’t too sure what happened at his death because there are actually two accounts of it. Learn more about him here. The fact that there are two accounts of his death is important for our William, but if I tell you too much more, you’ll know a major plot point that I can’t reveal yet. More in the deep dives.

Captain Seamus Lancaster

Seamus means “supplanter,” which is perfect for this character as he tries to take over a lodge that should belong to William. Seamus is the Gaelic version of James, which ultimately comes from Jacob. The biblical story of Jacob and Esau is where the idea of supplanting comes from for this name. In summary, the story goes like this:

Isaac and Rebekah had been married for about twenty years, but they had no children. Isaac prayed and God answers his plea. Rebekah ended up giving birth to twins. God told her that each child would become the leader of a separate nation, that one nation would be stronger than the other, and that the older boy would serve the younger. This was a pretty strange statement as typically, the older boy is the one with all the power at this time in history.

The two boys were pretty different. Esau was reddish and super hairy. The younger one, Jacob, was smooth-skinned. Esau was a clever hunter and Jacob worked by the tents, often doing things like cooking. One day, Esau came back from hunting and was famished, so he told Jacob to serve him the soup he was making. Jacob said that he would if Esau gave up his birthright. Esau was so hungry that he actually made that promise, which meant he gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. He also made some other poor choices, which left him unworthy in God’s eyes.

Years passed, Isaac became an old man, and was on his deathbed when he told Esau to go out and hunt, butcher the animal he killed, and make him some good meat to eat before he died. Rebekah overheard this and God had told her that Jacob was the receive the birthright, so she had to do something. She told Jacob to go to their flock of goats and bring two back. She killed the animals and made some awesome goat meat for Isaac. She told Jacob to bring the meat to his father and thought he would get the birthright blessing at that time. Jacob pointed out that Esau was a pretty hairy dude and she made coverings for him out of the goatskins and put him in Esau’s clothes.

Isaac was pretty blind at that point, so when Jacob served the food, he felt his son’s hairy hands and had his son kiss him so he could smell Esau’s clothes in order to make sure he had the right boy. Once he felt sure, he gave the blessing of the birthright to Jacob. He was to inherit a promised land and have many descendants.

When Esau came home, he prepared the meat, brought it to his father (who panicked a bit before realizing it was God’s will), and was blessed to live by the sword and serve his brother. Esau, not so surprisingly, was pretty angry about the whole thing and decided he was going to kill his brother after their father died. Rebekah overheard the plan and sent Jacob to live with her cousin. He stayed there, married one of the cousin’s daughters, had a son, and then returned home with his wife, Rachel, their people, and his flocks. You would think there would be a big confrontation, but Esau forgave his brother and welcomed him home instead. Rachel then had Benjamin and died while giving birth.

Jacob’s name was later changed to Israel and he had twelve sons, each heading up one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. That same birthright was passed down to each and their descendants make Jacob the father of a great nation.

Seamus is tricky, powerful, and blessed enough that he seems to get away with a lot. He has Esau’s coloring, storyline, and temper, even down to the fact that he is meant to serve, but he takes steps to take the reigns of their “social club.” Somehow, even though he’s not officially a member, he gets involved in an awful lot of the drama. Because he’s evil, his “blessing” is actually a curse that causes poor Diana to face the darkness and kicks off what I think is the creepiest episode of the season. An actual blessing with goat’s blood is what prevents his entry into Leti’s home. As you can see, the story elements are mixed up, but they can mostly be pulled from the biblical story when he’s involved.

Lancaster: This name was brought to England by the Normans. The Normans are where “Normandy” comes from. They were originally Scandinavian Vikings that settled in Normandy, France. Go here and here to learn more about them. One of the first records of the family is as Constables of Lancaster Castle. As you can see from the picture, Seamus Lancaster is a police officer in the television show. You are probably not surprised to learn that he is also a corrupt, dirty cop and white supremacist as he is a Braithwhite henchman who ultimately grows a bit big for his britches. He also follows Samuel’s mysoginistic ways, which doesn’t sit real well with Christina or William. This is where we end up with problems, but more on those in the deep dives.