...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Haunted Heroine
- 170 statements
- 32 feature instances
- 45 referencing feature instances
| Haunted Heroine | type |
FeatureClass | |
| Haunted Heroine | label |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine | page |
HauntedHeroine | |
| Haunted Heroine | comment |
A heroine haunted equally by her own past and the uncanny events around her. This character continually pops up in films involving ghosts or supernatural characters. She moves into Haunted Headquarters without any idea of what's in store for her. She seems attractive, capable, and altogether normal until...the strange noises from the attic keep waking her up. Or that Creepy Housekeeper keeps making cryptic comments. Or her kid starts going on about some Imaginary Friend who might not be so imaginary after all. The Haunted Heroine typically comes equipped with a kid (or younger sibling) that is inevitably the first one to notice the supernatural goings-on, possibly because kids are supposed to have more imagination. It won't take long however before the woman realizes she's being haunted. Now the fun begins as the Haunted Heroine sheds her well-groomed exterior to reveal the barely-concealed neuroses and phobias hidden underneath. This character tends to have a Mysterious Past and hinted-at childhood trauma. She might be sexually repressed or traumatized too. Whatever her problems, there's always the subtle suggestion that she herself might be imagining the whole thing because of her messed-up psyche. Freud would have loved the Haunted Heroine. It doesn't help that nobody ever seems to believe her story. As the story continues, expect to see hints of Mama Bear in her as well when her kid or kids are threatened. The originator of this trope is Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, in which a governess becomes convinced that her dead predecessor and her lover have somehow come back from beyond the grave to mess with the kids. This famous and influential story set the tone for a slew of Supernatural Fiction ever since that tries to imply it might be All in Their Minds. All this while still having a lot of fun with the ghosts. A staple of Gothic Horror. Compare and contrast with Supernatural-Proof Father. See also Haunted House Historian, who typically warns the Haunted Heroine and gets ignored for their trouble. Also see Final Girl. |
|
| Haunted Heroine | fetched |
2023-11-24T06:00:45Z | |
| Haunted Heroine | parsed |
2023-11-24T06:00:45Z | |
| Haunted Heroine | processingComment |
Dropped link to Gaslighting: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
| Haunted Heroine | processingComment |
Dropped link to TheRing: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
| Haunted Heroine | processingUnknown |
TheRing | |
| Haunted Heroine | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_21a6127c | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_21a6127c | comment |
The Haunting (1963) is a classic example, with Eleanor, a deeply neurotic young woman who is brought to a Haunted House as part of a ghost-hunting study. She becomes so fascinated by the house and the idea of belonging somewhere that she decides to stay forever and become a ghost. Nell's own backstory is mostly only hinted at, but she seems to have been the victim of a lot of emotional abuse by her overbearing mother, whose death she feels responsible for. The history of the house also has a few uncanny parallels to her own experience. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_21a6127c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_21a6127c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Haunting (1963) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_21a6127c | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_2fee6cdf | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_2fee6cdf | comment |
The title character in Let's Scare Jessica to Death begins the film having just returned from a stint in a mental institution and is in constant fear of relapsing. Her ordeal with Emily is what finally sends her over the edge. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_2fee6cdf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_2fee6cdf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Let's Scare Jessica to Death | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_2fee6cdf | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_343ad13c | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_343ad13c | comment |
The Babadook's heroine, Amelia, is haunted by the trauma of her husband's death and her complicated relationship with their son Samuel - a sort of gender-flipped case of Maternal Death? Blame the Child!. The Babadook itself is a manifestation of that trauma - whether it's an actual demon or just her mental illness doesn't ultimately matter - that is trying to force her to kill her son. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_343ad13c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_343ad13c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Babadook | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_343ad13c | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_34cb463e | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_34cb463e | comment |
Stars (Canadian Band): The female singer and implicit heroine of "Dead Hearts" describes what seems to be a ghostly encounter of "kids that [she] once knew", alluding to past pain they bring up. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_34cb463e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_34cb463e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Stars (Canadian Band) (Music) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_34cb463e | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3740c00a | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3740c00a | comment |
The unnamed narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper keeps seeing movement in the wallpaper — and this is supposed to be the result of her medical treatment. There is also a baby in the house (the narrator's own; it's implied she may suffer from post-partum depression) but the narrator isn't allowed to have anything to do with her care or raising; that wouldn't be "restful." | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3740c00a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3740c00a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Yellow Wallpaper | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_3740c00a | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3802ca35 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3802ca35 | comment |
Rule of Rose is essentially a Haunted Heroine's Battle in the Center of the Mind to resolve her issues and trauma-induced amnesia. Unusually for the trope, she obviously and unequivocally wins, because you don't survive an airship crash and kidnapping and an Orphanage of Fear without having some degree of integrity. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3802ca35 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3802ca35 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Rule of Rose (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_3802ca35 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3b99b87f | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3b99b87f | comment |
Kel, the protagonist of Clover: Love, Hope, Faith & Luck, wakes up one day to find herself haunted by three spirits. In an unusual twist, the ghosts are explicitly trying to help her rather than terrorize her. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3b99b87f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_3b99b87f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Clover: Love, Hope, Faith & Luck (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_3b99b87f | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_46009ec4 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_46009ec4 | comment |
In Mulholland Dr., Naomi Watts' character is either being stalked by a sinister and possibly supernatural conspiracy, losing her mind, or both. It's hard to say. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_46009ec4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_46009ec4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mulholland Dr. | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_46009ec4 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_58e3de63 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_58e3de63 | comment |
In Hereditary, Annie goes hard into spiritualism and seances after the death of her daughter, Charlie, and becomes convinced that something supernatural is going on, as opposed to her more rational husband, Steve. Ultimately, though, it's their teenage son Peter who is the focus of all the supernatural things going on, and Annie does not get the heroic Mama Bear moment that normally comes with this trope. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_58e3de63 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_58e3de63 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hereditary | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_58e3de63 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_6edac0a4 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_6edac0a4 | comment |
Crimson Peak plays this pretty straight with Edith, an American heiress who grew up haunted by the ghost of her dead mother. After a whirlwind romance and the sudden death of her father, she marries an English baronet who takes her off to his family home, where she becomes increasingly isolated and lonely, beginning to question her own sanity as she's apparently the only person able to see the ghosts that haunt the place. The movie is a very straight-faced and loving homage to older Gothic narratives set in haunted houses, like The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House, which featured classic examples of this trope. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_6edac0a4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_6edac0a4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Crimson Peak | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_6edac0a4 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_75f48566 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_75f48566 | comment |
Played straight with Alex, the main character in Ninth House. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_75f48566 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_75f48566 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ninth House | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_75f48566 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_7f4baf39 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_7f4baf39 | comment |
Julia from Full Circle, who tries to escape her overbearing husband and the trauma of her daughter's tragic death, which she may have caused, by moving into a house that turns out to be (apparently) haunted. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_7f4baf39 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_7f4baf39 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Full Circle | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_7f4baf39 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9153ccb1 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9153ccb1 | comment |
Downplayed in The Shining, where Wendy is much less impacted by the Overlook Hotel than her husband and son, both of whom seem to be losing their minds. Only in the film's finale does Wendy start to see a few of the ghosts that may or may not be haunting the hotel. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9153ccb1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9153ccb1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Shining | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_9153ccb1 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9854aa26 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9854aa26 | comment |
Northanger Abbey: Lovingly parodied and subverted. When Catherine, a Gothic Horror fangirl, arrives at the old and gothic Northanger Abbey, she hopes to be this trope. But not only does she come from a perfectly normal and loving upbringing, but every instance where she thinks she is being haunted turns out to be her imagination running away with her. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9854aa26 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9854aa26 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Northanger Abbey | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_9854aa26 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9db2066f | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9db2066f | comment |
In The Haunting of Bly Manor, a more contemporary take on The Turn of the Screw, has the new au pair Dani being tormented by the ghosts of household staff Rebecca Jessel, Peter Quint, and Hannah Grose, as well as the Lady of the Lake, the original owner of the manor. Dani is also haunted by a totally unrelated ghost, that of her ex-fiance Eddie, who died in a freak hit-and-run the night she broke up with him. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9db2066f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_9db2066f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Haunting of Bly Manor | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_9db2066f | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_a4efd5fd | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_a4efd5fd | comment |
Mary from Carnival of Souls. The movie opens with her as the only person to walk away from a deadly drag-racing accident, and she's then stalked across Utah by a sinister Implacable Man that nobody else can see. The film takes on an increasing tone of Surreal Horror as she begins to doubt her own sanity, becoming strangely drawn to an old abandoned carnival pavilion on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. The movie doesn't really delve into her backstory before the car wreck, though, the trauma of which she doesn't seem to recognize, and she seems so isolated from everyone around her that she comes across as a Protagonist Without a Past at times. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_a4efd5fd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_a4efd5fd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Carnival of Souls | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_a4efd5fd | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_abe2e836 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_abe2e836 | comment |
Former governess, apparently a normal, sweet young woman, whose neuroses bubble up to the surface as uncanny events pop up — Vera Claythorne from And Then There Were None fits this trope to a T, but subverted in that she did deliberately cause the death of her charge, and she ends up snapping completely in the end. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_abe2e836 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_abe2e836 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| And Then There Were None | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_abe2e836 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b0eb2e80 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b0eb2e80 | comment |
Laura from The Orphanage. She grew up in the eponymous orphanage and must figure out what happened there when she was a kid in order to rescue her missing son, whose imaginary friend might be real after all. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b0eb2e80 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b0eb2e80 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Orphanage | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_b0eb2e80 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b4398732 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b4398732 | comment |
Sara Crowe in The Red Tree takes a lot of emotional baggage (and a seizure-inducing neurological disorder) with her when she moves into a farmhouse near the eponymous tree. How much this affects the goings on in the book is left for the reader to divine. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b4398732 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b4398732 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Red Tree (2009) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_b4398732 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b8b43ba | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b8b43ba | comment |
Haunting Ground centers around Fiona Belli, the 18-year-old heiress of Belli Castle... who has never heard of it and wants no part of it. And with good reason: as the title implies, it's haunted. On top of this, the Malevolent Architecture and its inhabitants are all either trying to kill her or rape her, because of her Azoth. All Fiona wants is to go home. But to do so, she and Hewie must survive the castle's dangers long enough to unravel its secrets and learn the unsettling truth about her family. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b8b43ba | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_b8b43ba | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Haunting Ground (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_b8b43ba | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ba0507e6 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ba0507e6 | comment |
House is a comedy-horror movie with William Katt as a male version of this trope, trying to rescue his son who disappeared in the house of the title. There is some implication that it may all be in in his head (although it turned out that it isn't), and it all centres around trauma in his past (specifically, The Vietnam War). | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ba0507e6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ba0507e6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| House | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_ba0507e6 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_bdfe3804 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_bdfe3804 | comment |
Eleanor Vance of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, both the book and the 1963 movie. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_bdfe3804 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_bdfe3804 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Haunting of Hill House | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_bdfe3804 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_c5eaa1a9 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_c5eaa1a9 | comment |
Lydia Deetz on Beetlejuice subverts this as she loves spooky things and the Ghost With the Most is her friend. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_c5eaa1a9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_c5eaa1a9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Beetlejuice | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_c5eaa1a9 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cb6dff30 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cb6dff30 | comment |
Rose Da Silva in Silent Hill. Notably, in the game that the film was based on, the parent of an adopted Creepy Child who goes missing in the titular Eldritch Location was a man named Harry Mason, but the filmmakers made the character a woman due to this trope and the expectations surrounding men and women in horror movies. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cb6dff30 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cb6dff30 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Silent Hill | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_cb6dff30 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cceb25de | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cceb25de | comment |
In The Locked Tomb Harrow has a lot of this. In the first book, she's troubled by the circumstances of her birth, having committed a potentially apocalyptic blasphemy against her religion as a child, and causing of her parents' suicide, while exploring a haunted ruin as her companions are murdered. When she becomes the main character in the second book she adds hallucinations, repressed memories, the spirit of her cavalier dwelling inside her, a separate ghost trying to possess her, and a third spirit that's been haunting her since childhood, on an ancient space station where the corpse of a dead enemy seems curiously ambulatory. Her necromancy is focused on manipulating bone rather than spirits, so it's of less use than might be expected resolving this. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cceb25de | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_cceb25de | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Locked Tomb | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_cceb25de | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d47a0cb9 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d47a0cb9 | comment |
Grace from The Others (2001): Subverted with a twist: the haunted heroine and her children are the ghosts. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d47a0cb9 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d47a0cb9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Others (2001) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_d47a0cb9 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d4e0fe22 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d4e0fe22 | comment |
Beloved by Toni Morrison: Sethe is haunted by the ghost of Beloved (the child she killed) and her tragic past, which is full of slavery, cruelty, murder, and rape. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d4e0fe22 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d4e0fe22 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Beloved | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_d4e0fe22 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d98c0a73 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d98c0a73 | comment |
Lydia on Teen Wolf. Initially it seems that she is only being influenced by Peter Hale. But it becomes apparent that she can hear other ghosts as well, and that it is not a voluntary ability. Lydia is actually a banshee, one who senses and heralds the death of others, whose latent heritage was triggered by a werewolf bite. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d98c0a73 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_d98c0a73 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Teen Wolf | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_d98c0a73 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_da90986c | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_da90986c | comment |
Beetlejuice: Zig-Zagged. Compared to the film, the musical adaptation centers more on Lydia Deetz, whose new house is haunted by Adam and Barbara (with appearances from Beetlejuice). While she is grieving the death of her mother and this drives a lot of her actions, she is also a goth who loves the strange and unusual, whose ghosts are more friendly and zany than spooky. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_da90986c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_da90986c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Beetlejuice (Theatre) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_da90986c | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ea5aebc0 | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ea5aebc0 | comment |
Subverted in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, where the heroine is a young widowed mother who might just be imagining the hearty sea captain's ghost out of romantic yearning, but the ghost himself is utterly benign and the heroine can matter-of-factly tell him not to reveal himself to her daughter as she's much too young for ghosts. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ea5aebc0 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_ea5aebc0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Ghost and Mrs. Muir | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_ea5aebc0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_eddb285b | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_eddb285b | comment |
Ghost Girl (2021): Zee is haunted by the ghost of a murdered woman seeking help and is targeted for Demonic Possession by an evil spirit and his hounds. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_eddb285b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_eddb285b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ghost Girl (2021) | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_eddb285b | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_f6c25e1b | type |
Haunted Heroine | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_f6c25e1b | comment |
The Turn of the Screw, of course. As well as The Innocents, the 1961 film version with Deborah Kerr. | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_f6c25e1b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Haunted Heroine / int_f6c25e1b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Turn of the Screw | hasFeature |
Haunted Heroine / int_f6c25e1b |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.