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Ellen’s agency and her connection to Count Orlok in “Nosferatu” (2024)

“Someone said to me in a interview the other day, well, isn’t Ellen like this victim? How is it like to play this victimized character? And I was like, well, I don’t think she’s a victim at all. Because she’s kind of calling the shots the entire time […] She has a great deal of agency in this story that I feel we haven’t seen in, you know, iterations of the past.” Lily-Rose Depp

Many are confused as to why Lily-Rose Depp says this, and even accuse her of not understanding her character nor the “complexities of victimhood”. A bit high on ourselves, are we?

The majority of the audience and mainstream media does not understand this film. At all. This is “Jennifer’s Body” (2009) all over again. Including the marketing. This film deals with references the general audience doesn’t recognize, and it will take years or even decades for the mainstream to actually realize what this story is about. And while the fanart coming out of this is beautiful, it should actually be the other way around (Ellen commanding Orlok). This story is also inspired by Serbian horror cult classic “Leptirica” (1973). Robert Eggers already shared his entire list of inspirations (2 books) and 8 movies. That has nothing to do with American Netflix, by the way, and “The Batman Returns” inspiration is merely aesthetic. You are all making comparisons with pop cultures vampires; when Orlok is a strigoi from Romanian folklore, and that’s his lore. He has nothing to do with “Interview with the Vampire” or whatever. Stop “americanizing” other people’s cultures. Robert Eggers subverted everything about 1922 “Nosferatu” and the “Dracula” novel by Bram Stoker. We are entering Balkan territory here, and European Paganism.

The occult themes are rooted on Pagan beliefs (the opposite to Victorian Christian society), and we have a lot of references to Aleister Crowley because he lived during the Victorian era. All the Şolomonari rituals we see in this film (and they are three, and I’ll talk about them here) are Sex Magick rituals based on Crowley and Paganism. The core themes here are sex and death, and female sexuality repression and liberation. Robert Eggers wants “to stay through the lens of the 19th century” because he has no interest in doing “modern films”, and Historical Feminism is his thing. Orlok, himself, is not only a follower of Zalmoxis, owner of the secrets of immortality, he's also a worshipper of the Divine Feminine, the opposite to patriarchal and male pleasure centered Victorian society. But more on that later.

This film starts with Ellen performing Black Magic (necromancy); and this should tell you everything you need to know about her nature. Orlok’s spirit was in a limbo (“darkest pit”) and only by the power of her words (“enchantress”) she makes his soul return to his former body (dead and rotting since the late 16th century) and curses him to be a strigoi (that’s why he calls her “his affliction”, as in “sickness”, “plague”). As Ellen sexuality awakes (15 years old), so does Orlok (resurrection).

Ellen and Orlok Connection

Let’s talk sexual abuse (some of you favorite topic): did Orlok ever had "astral sex" with teenage Ellen? No, he only has sex with her at the end. And the story itself tells us this.

Everyone already decided that he did, including mainstream publications that trap Robert Eggers into calling Orlok a “disgusting abuser” (this is also the only interview where he call Orlok such a thing but he doesn’t even elaborate). This doesn’t validate anything; Eggers just doesn’t want to deal with backlash because mainstream media already made up their minds on what his story is about, and creators can’t afford to lose investment for their next projects.

If we take Herr Knock’s ritual into context, at the prologue, it’s Ellen masturbating. Because when Orlok does touch her (when he reveals himself), she has a seizure (metaphor for orgasm). Eggers established a difference here. In Freudian symbolism, gardens also represent the female sexual domain. And these lilacs are in full bloom; awakening sexuality and fertility. This is Ellen’s realm. Metaphorically being attacked by a demon because of Victorian views of female sexuality.

Ellen tells Orlok (in a very sexual tone) she felt him like a serpent in her body, he says it’s not him, but her nature (her sexuality); this implies Orlok never actually had any astral sex with her (as in penetrating her), and what she has been doing this whole time is masturbation: a huge taboo on Victorian society, and the ultimate sin, as Ellen’s father calls it when he finds her naked, and yes, masturbating.

Orlok was there watching and/or talking with her; as a presence really because he’s a haunting, as that’s how Robert Eggers describes him. Either way she was fantasizing about him (“your passion is bound to me” and she believes he took her as “his lover”). She tells Thomas “you could never please me as he could” because the purpose of masturbation is orgasm (which is what she associates Orlok with) and vaginal orgasms by penetration (alone) can be difficult for most women to achieve.

While on his way to Wisburg, Orlok says to Ellen: “Soon I will be no more a shadow to you. Your spirit was never enough. Soon our flesh shall embrace and we shall be as one”; which, again, implies he never had sex with her (“and we shall be as one” = finally, at last). He has only been a shadow (haunting) to her, until now; they have not yet been as “one” (sex). He also tells her, after she gives him her soul; “as our spirits are one, so too shall be our flesh”, which indicates he hasn’t touch her in that way (penetration) before. Which also explains why he is hyperventilating before actually having sex with her at the end; and he stands there, waiting for her consent.

His entire demeanor with the locket also indicates a profound longing and yearning. You all are taking Orlok saying he’s an “appetite” too literally, because he’s talking about his consumption of blood after Ellen accuses him of being a “villain to speak so” in answer to “you are not of human kind”. She’s pretty much saying: “you are one to talk, you are a evil vampire”. And he denies being evil, he’s “an appetite, more nothing”.

"And I shall taste of you" [he doesn't mean her blood, alone]

And Robert Eggers gave us a parallel with Thomas, where Orlok does behave like a sexual predator, and Thomas is his prey, completely at his mercy. With Ellen, he awaits her command, she’s in full control. These two scenes are meant to show the difference in Orlok’s behavior.

He also uses Thomas as his masturbation assistant (sexually assaults him) and as part of his Şolomonari Sex Magick ritual to annul his marriage to Ellen, spiritually. Thomas, being her husband and fresh out of their honeymoon, has her sexual signature on him: “your husband is lost to you” = “you are single now”.

"Your husband has signed his name, and covenanted you to my person for but a sack of gold. For gold he did absolve his nuptial bond."

With Ellen, at the end, it’s also a Şolomonari Sex Magick ritual to consummate their own wedding and to break Nosferatu curse, with her full consent: “and so the maiden fair did offer up her love unto the beast, and with him lay in close embrace until first cock crow, her willing sacrifice thus broke the curse and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu”.

And this is all according to her will because that’s how Magick works; they are both manifesting the breaking of his curse, and harvesting sexual power to do it, and the ritual ends with her orgasm, as it’s suppose to in Sex Magick devoted to the Divine Feminine. And in this scene, Orlok does have penetrative sex with Ellen because we can hear the penetration in the sound design. Thank you, Robert Eggers, for that detail. He really wants his audience to know penetrative sex is happening here. And this is connected with sexual energy, not only him drinking her blood: that's the willing sacrifice part, she's allowing him to kill her, as the dawn will kill him (setting their spirits free to be reunited in the spiritual realm as their covenant says).

When Orlok tells Ellen "we shall be as one”, she doesn’t have any seizure nor “hysteric spell”. She’s at the window. Waiting. Robert Eggers is giving us a lot of visual information about Ellen and Orlok’s connection.

Besides, Orlok is a strigoi, not a incubus (nor has Robert Eggers ever described him as such); strigoi have to be physically present in order to do things. And his scene with Thomas proves this. He made Knock drag him all the way to Transylvania to perform a Şolomonari Sex Magick ritual to divorce him from Ellen. Which indicates he can’t astral projecting himself to do this kind of stuff.

Robert Eggers also said that Ellen, unlike Anna, doesn’t conceal her sexual desires, which I find really interesting, because Ellen spends the entire story repressing her sexuality and nature (until she fully embraces it at the end); this implies all the moaning in on Ellen herself, and not Orlok actually doing things to her body (but more on that later). Because the prologue established that, when he touches her, she has a seizure (and this is the only time we see this happening). Von Franz exorcism doesn’t count because he was compelling her to speak what Orlok says to her.

Him asking her “remember how once we were? A moment. Remember?” is probably connected with the reincarnation themes in this story; and Romanian strigoi myths in general. This is a Gothic Folk Horror story.

Ellen also has premonitions (she knew Thomas would be sent away and later she confirms to Von Franz she has this gift). Orlok is a monster of her own creation (and she confirms this twice, to Von Franz and to Thomas). Her being an enchantress parallels Orlok himself who, according to the Nuns, was a “black enchanter” in life. These are their archetypes in the narrative: Ellen is the great Pagan priestess, and Orlok is the Pagan priest-shaman follower of Zalmoxis, the Dacian God of life and death.

Romanian folklore: strigoi showing up at their loved ones window, asking for entrance

Herr Knock had to set a whole room and perform a Şolomonari Sex Magick ritual (masturbation) just to talk to Orlok, Ellen doesn’t need any of that; her spiritual power is insane in this film.

And this scene tells the audience that Orlok has to be summoned for these communications to happen. He’s haunting Ellen because she wants him to haunt her. He’s exactly where she wants him to be. She controls their entire connection; she’s the one who calls out to him, always (not only at the prologue and at the end, which is what Lily-Rose Depp says in this interview). It was her spiritual power that put an end to their communication when she met Thomas (her socially acceptable sexuality). She has full control over everything that’s happening in this story.

Ellen’s communications with Orlok are very sexual in nature because it’s sexual energy that conjures him (like we see with Herr Knock). So, when she’s moaning she’s channeling her sexual energy to summon him to come to her. “He’s coming to him”, it’s her yearning for Orlok.

The maiden’s token was meant for Orlok; she knew Thomas would be sent to him, her hair smells like lilacs, and the next scene after Ellen makes the token is Knock’s ritual (Eggers is not even being subtle here).

Orlok knows what this means, and to him it’s confirmation of her yearning for him. He also remembers lilacs from when he was alive, which further strengthens the reincarnation theme at play here. And that’s why he accuses her being “false” when she claims to hate him; she has been calling out to him this whole time.

Ellen and Orlok’s connection runs deep and it’s spiritual at its core. Orlok has the divine feminine heptagram (seven-pointed star) on his sigil (not an alchemist heptagram), connected to Isis and Babalon. That’s why Robert Eggers calls their marriage sacred. Orlok magic isn’t only about the secrets of immortality, life and death; but also divine feminine, the worship of female energy. Which is the opposite of Christian Victorian society; patriarchal, male dominated and male centered, including sexually (sex for male pleasure alone). Which is why Eggers gave us the parallel of Thomas (Victorian society) vs. Orlok: Victorian men see sex as male-centered, while Orlok, the worshipper of the Divine Feminine, focus on female sexual pleasure, as Ellen finally experiences a vaginal orgasm with him.

Orlok has to be invited into places, like your regular vampire (and the film establish this with all the windows; the Nuns saying he can’t enter that house of God, it has nothing to do with God, but with him not being giving entrance; and Dr. Sievers saying they should go home because Orlok has certainly risen from his grave at that time, implying they aren’t safe in the streets). And it’s Ellen that gives him entrance into Wisburg, into the Hardings household and into her own home, at the end. He can only attack those in the street at night, and he threatened to kill Thomas knowing full well he couldn’t if he stays indoors and isn’t invited in.

But doesn’t Ellen suffers because of this haunting? She does and she doesn’t. She wants to interact with Orlok, but Victorian views of female sexuality tell her she shouldn’t want this (married heterosexual sex was the only social acceptable sexual expression and everything else was seen as “deviant”, “sinful” and “evil”; sex was a marital duty and for male pleasure alone; women’s sexuality was owned by their husbands; motherhood was a woman’s destiny). She’s conflicted. She also pretends to be innocent and naive because that’s what socially expected of her, and we see this with Anna Harding, as she infantilizes herself before her several times (“everything I say sounds so childish”).

And things get even darker because she gave Orlok entrance into the Harding household but then is enraged because Friedrich Harding sends her and Thomas home. The place where Thomas is actually safe from Orlok. And she pulls off her "possession scene". And during the carriage scene (when everyone is talking about destroying Orlok), she gets restless and intervenes: at first she plays it innocent by saying to Thomas "let me come with you", which he, obviously, refuses. Then she tells Professor Von Franz: "Professor, allow me to walk you to your door" but her voice sounds different here. We can't forget she's an enchantress, after all.

And, Professor Von Franz, the man who “saw things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back to his mother’s womb”, actually looks scared of Ellen here:

Ellen is not letting anyone put a stake of cold iron on her lover demon, sending him somewhere she cannot reach him, and she finally accepts his covenant of being one with him, ever-eternally. Driving home the point: everything that happens in this story is according to Ellen's will. She's the one calling the shots, like Lily-Rose Depp tells us.

And she wins at the end because she gets exactly what she wants, as does Orlok himself, but he's scared of what will happen next because he probably knows there will be horrible pain in his physical death, and Ellen comforts him, as makes him look at her, instead of the sun.

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