Who is Verna in The Fall of the House of Usher?
As mentioned, spoilers ahead. There are no characters named Verna in Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher, but if you’re any good at word puzzles, you’ll notice that “Verna” is an anagram for “raven”—which is a direct reference to one of Poe’s most famous works, the poem The Raven.
The character of Verna in Flanagan’s reimagining is often transformed into a raven herself; she’s a supernatural being. Verna said herself that she existed before humans and the physical manifestation of grief, much like the original raven is in Poe’s famous poem.
In the eighth episode of the series (aptly titled “The Raven”), it’s revealed that Verna made a deal with the siblings that traded their bloodline’s lives for success and riches during their lifetime. She first appears to a young Roderick and Madeline on New Year’s Eve 1979 as a bartender and various entities thereafter. It explains the sudden deaths of their children as the price for their fortune was “deferred to the next generation” in the form of the heirs’ actual lives.
At the end of the series, Verna has the final say with a Poe poem. While reading out “Spirits of The Dead,” she places several items on each of the Ushers’ graves: A mask for Perry, a cat’s collar for Leo, a plastic heart for Victorine, a golden scarab for Tamerlane, a bag of cocaine for Frederick , a flower and raven’s feather for Lenore, sapphires for Madeline, and the same glass tumbler that was used for the deal for Roderick.
Actor Carla Gugino—who fans would know well from other Flanagan titles Gerald’s Game, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass—describes her character as the executor of fate and karma. “Often, people with a lot of privilege and a lot of power have an opportunity to do good things or to do bad things,” she told Netflix. “Poe never really believed in God and the devil per se. She’s not even evil.”
She continued to explain why it was important to portray the character as neutral as possible. “Verna is offering each of these people the most honest conversation they will ever have in their lives. She doesn’t really care if they’re good, they’re bad, they’re this, they’re that,” she said. “The amazing thing when you see that kind of shapeshifting is that there’s an embodiment of something that can seem super radical or super intense, but what it comes back to always is this neutrality.”
Gugino also talked about the process of switching between roles. What was really important to me was that there was a through line, so it wasn’t Carla Gugino doing a bunch of roles,” she said of her process. “What I was really interested in is a character who isn’t of this world, but is able to seamlessly be in this world.” She continued, “Once I found their voice and where they sit in my body, I was able to quickly change on set and be able to jump back and forth.”
