Willcommen

This might not be the time or place, but I’ve seen many analyses about Betelgeuse that range in quality. However, I always feel there’s a lack of a good analysis focused on Lydia. Sometimes, it feels like we fall back into seeing Lydia as a passive element in the equation, or we simplify her into a single dimension like “she’s traumatized” or “she was just a kid.” Other times, we outright ignore her experiences and project onto her our own ideas about why she should or shouldn’t feel attracted to or repulsed by Betelgeuse.

Let’s start with the fact that Lydia has infinitely more screen time than Betelgeuse, and yet we ignore all the clues both films give us about her character development. From the first movie, Lydia is a complex character (yes, framed within the melodrama of adolescence) but complex nonetheless. She isn’t an innocent child; that’s not how she’s portrayed at any point. She’s a teenager who feels misunderstood, who doesn’t fit into her family, who feels alone in the world, and who seeks solace in the macabre and the unknown. These things attract her. You just have to look at her expression when she imagines what Barbara and Adam might look like under the sheets. She wanted them to be grotesque specters. It was almost disappointing for her that they turned out to look like normal people. For this reason, Lydia is never truly afraid of Betelgeuse (except for the snake form, but she was also scared of Barbara and Adam in monster form, so it’s fair to say both cases don’t really count).

The first time she sees Betelgeuse, she’s not even surprised to find a tiny corpse-like figure in the model town, she talks to him as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Again, the world of the dead fascinates her, and Betelgeuse is part of that world. That’s why she has no problem turning to him for help the first time, to save Barbara and Adam. At that moment, the marriage is merely a transaction for both of them: she gets to save her friends, and he gets to escape his confinement (and probably whatever spell binds his name). The ones who make the wedding a big deal are Barbara and Adam. They’re the ones who warn Lydia about Betelgeuse and ultimately stop the wedding.

Fast forward 30 years, during which Lydia has likely tried to be “normal” and failed. Let’s assume Barbara and Adam eventually found a way to cross over. This would leave Lydia with a deep sense of abandonment. Her character is heavily marked by loneliness, and that remains true 30 years later. The Maitlands are gone, her marriage to Richard failed and he left, Astrid resents her and distances herself. This is why she clings so desperately to Rory, even though he’s clearly repulsive. Initially, I struggled with this because I couldn’t see how teenage Lydia could become the woman she is now. But it all ties back to her core personality: she will do anything to avoid being alone. She knows Rory won’t leave her, and she hopes that’s enough to sustain their relationship, even if it means compromising her principles by doing things like the TV show.

Meanwhile, Betelgeuse occasionally appears to her. He appears to her, it’s not visions or flashbacks. I’ve seen people interpret these “visions” as signs of PTSD, but Lydia doesn’t have PTSD from Betelgeuse. That’s impossible because he wasn’t an antagonist to her. Even if we consider the wedding a bad experience (which, knowing Lydia’s personality, I’d argue against), it only lasted a few minutes. The rest of Lydia’s interactions with Betelgeuse were, at worst, neutral. Let’s not forget that he literally helped her save the Maitlands. His appearances likely frustrate her because, while everyone important in her life eventually abandons her, this entity, warned against by everyone, remains. What Lydia experiences is cognitive dissonance regarding Betelgeuse. She knows she’s supposed to hate him because others have taught her to, but she has no personal reason to.

That’s why she doesn’t hesitate to ask him for help with Astrid. Lydia is smart; she’s probably read the Handbook a thousand times and knows plenty of ghosts from her ventures into the afterlife. Yet, the first thing she does is go straight to Betelgeuse, because she knows he’s the only one (ghost) who’s never let her down. Not her family, not Richard, not the Maitlands—Betelgeuse is the only constant in her life.

This is why Lydia has “unresolved feelings”, because how do you reconcile the fact that the being everyone says is dangerous, a threat to both the living and the dead, the one you’re warned never to summon, is the only one who’s never abandoned you?

Betelgeuse will never leave her—that’s a fact. He’s tethered to her like a ghost to a house. If you ask me, I’m almost certain the reason Betelgeuse latched onto Lydia in the first place was to end his own loneliness. That’s why he makes so many references to Lydia “getting him.” He’s also alone and hates it. Look at how clingy he got with the Maitlands after two seconds of meeting them, or how he tried to make conversation in the waiting room until he realized they were ignoring him. Yes, he’s intense, a liar, and unpleasant, and his methods are all wrong, but at the end of the day, what Betelgeuse seeks is companionship. Meeting Lydia and realizing she needed the same was enough for him to become stuck on her for years (and probably for eternity).