LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow/Characters/Moloch's Followers

Moloch & Moloch's Avatar
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Michael Langdon
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Melancholia / Plaisir
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Christine Van Bilj / Evil Christine
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Lady Van Tassel
"Dear stepdaughter... You looked as if you'd seen a ghost."

Lady Mary Van Tassel is the main villainess of The Cranes Arc. Born Mary Archer Preston, one of two daughters of a benevolent white witch, and a witch herself. When Mary was still a little girl, her father unexpectedly died, and the family's landlord, Sir Van Garrett, evicted them and sold their home to the Van Tassel family. Due to Mary's mother's reputation as a witch, no one in the town was willing to help the Archers. Her mother died within a year afterward, forcing Mary and her sister to scrounge for themselves in the woods. One day, while out gathering firewood, Mary ran into Solomon Kent hiding. Despite the warlock's order to be quiet, Mary gave him away for his pursuers. While watching Kent's execution, Mary made a pact with the Devil: in return for her soul, she would be allowed her to raise the Hessian from the grave to assist her in taking revenge on the Van Garretts and Van Tassels.

Years later, Mary poisoned the first Lady Van Tassel while posing as a nursem then seduced her widower, Baltus. Her crimes included killing the servent girl to fake her own death. She killed her sister because the latter helped Katrina, and she had Sir Van Garrett, her husband Baltus, and the Killians killed to resume her legacy. Toward the end, she plans on killing Katrina Van Tassel, her stepdaughter, so she can inherit her money that her father had. She also allows the Horseman of kill Ichabod, chains Katrina into Purgatory, and buried Jeremy Crane alive. However, due to acting against Moloch's will, Lady Van Tassel was later trapped by her own master inside Purgatory for eternity.


 * 0% Approval Rating: Even the colleagues of Lady Van Tassel showed disdain and disgust towards her own selfish tendency.
 * Adaptational Displacement: In the original series, it was Henry Parrish who summoned Mary Wells in the past, and it was a corrupted Katrina who allied with the Horseman to kill Ichabod (after travelling back to the past), murdering several soldiers and Colonel Sutton in the process, both happened in the second season. Due to the Adpatational Heroism on both Henry and Katrina, the second season finale was merged and altered from an alternate timeline to a canoncial event. The conspiracy to kill Ichabod was done by Lady Van Tassel instead, in an alternate senario that Ichabod wasn't killed by the Horseman on the battlefield, while Katrina - while trying to search her husband desperately - was out of genuiue concern.
 * Adaptational Villainy: This version of Lady Van Tassel, in spite of her Adaptational Disllision due to the immature state of The Cranes Arc, actually acts much more insidious and manipulative than the original version like how she summoned Mary Wells back to life and cause Ichabod's distrust towards Katrina. In the original story, her mother died of sickness, while in this storyline, she murdered her mother.
 * Adaptation Expansion: Lady Van Tassel's further fate was explored in Conquest Arc, showing her to be one of the many who escaped Purgatory. Like most of the other Purgatory escapees, Lady Van Tassel became an unwilling pawn for Dark Arzonia and later her organ farm subject.
 * Arc Villain: The main antagonist of The Cranes Arc.
 * Arch-Enemy: She is the main adversary to Crow Faux and Katrina, since she killed their parents.
 * Ascended Extra: Though nowhere as an extra in the original 1999 film, Lady Van Tassel in this storyline, starting from Purgatory Arc, actually has much more appearances as an illusion haunting Katrina's mind whenever she channeled Ichabod or Abbie in their own mind.
 * Asshole Victim: Considering she killed Katrina's mother to take her place, before instigating the Horseman's massacre that killed so many, it's hard to feel sympathy for her after her Humiliation Conga ensued. First, she was first trapped by Moloch in his prison. Then, she escaped but was captured by Dark Arzonia for the latter's malevolent deeds. Then, her fate seemly sealed in Harvest Saga, and it's such a punishment to her for being used as Blaze Banana's Monster League Organ farm, as well as her current insane state.
 * Bitch in the Sheep's Clothing: She only acts nice in public.
 * The Bus Came Back: Her imprisonment was revealed in Blaze Banana Arc, and later Kristen Kiwifruit held Lady Van Tassel as a captive.
 * Composite Character: She is a composite character to Lady Van Tassel from 1999 Sleepy Hollow film (no actual relations to the TV Series) and the corrupted Katrina appeared in original series' Season 2 finale.
 * Devoted to You: Hubert Zodiak, her adoptive brother of some sort, claims to have done everything for her, having been obsessed with her since childhood.
 * Disproportionated Retribution: Her so-called revenge against Van Garret Family and their relatives, Van Tassel Family, became nothing tragic due to her Pact with Moloch. She used the Horseman to achieve her goal, started a serial murder upon innoncent people, and even killed the Cranes bloodline (or so she believed). In the end, her greedy nature killed her sympathetic quality. Her murder upon her own sister, simply because she was against her, made her eventually a selfish hypocrite.
 * Dragged Off to Hell: After the final defeat of Moloch in Star Spangled Crown, Lady Van Tassel was splited out from the fragments of Tribulation Tower, before the Horseman of Death dragged her into Hell with him through the Tree of Dead, and she made her pay for what she did. It's a call-back to the final battle in 1999 film adaptation.
 * Evil is Petty: She killed her servant girl while simply thinking she was useless - aside from her "posthumous usage" in faking Lady Van Tassel's demise.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: All she gets for her elimination of the Cranes is an eternal imprisonment and torture inside Pugatory, instigated by Moloch who actually wanted to keep Jeremy alive.
 * Flashback: Most of her story that The Cranes Arc failed to tell was recollected by Katrina in Conquest Arc, when she warned Abbie about her evil stepmother.
 * Greed: Her motivation for committing murder is her own household and the legacy of Balthus Van Tassel. To acheive her goal, she killed anyone in her way, even including her sister.
 * Hate Sink: People can hate Lady Van Tassel for many reasons, like her elimination against her sworn enemy were all about her own greed. She also enslaved the Horseman of Death and decided to ruin the Crane Family bloodline out of nothing but sheer spite. She has absolutely no likable quality on her and is considered as the most despicable villainess in the story so far.
 * How the Mighty Have Fallen: From a deadly dark witch to Blaze Banana's own organ farm, so that he'll create the Lunar Coven and make them defeat Cordelia Foxx three years later.
 * It's All About Me: She's incredibly selfish and doesn't care about how her actions affect others.
 * Lack of Empathy: Blows off any and all pain and anguish she causes, caring only for her own personal amusement.
 * Late-Arrival Spoiler: It was not until Conquest Arc that Katrina recollected every single event that Lady Van Tassel planned to eliminate the Sisterhood in the dark.
 * Mad Woman In The Attic: After being rescued from Blaze's chamber, Kristen keeps her tied up and hidden in her makeshift home. She admits that she only feeds Lady Van Tassel enough to survive, but not enough to regain her strength.
 * Not Quite Dead: Initially it seemed like Dark Arzonia eliminated her, with Matt's doctor even telling him that her funeral was quietly taken care of; but she is later revealed to be in Blaze's lab, half-starved and with most of her limbs chopped off. After Kristen snatched her out, she's barely even a shell of the person she used to be, restrained and reduced to crawling on the ground and crying and desperate for food, and unable to even recognize Katrina or Jenny.
 * Posthumous Character: She dies fairly early in the series, but is referenced to by several characters. It also seems that she was specifically "killed" so that her body could be used to turn Shines into warlocks and witches, leaving her as a living dead.
 * You've Outlived Your Usefulness: Her seemly allies, like Notary James Hardenbrook, Magistrate Samuel Philipse, Reverend Steerwyk and Dr. Lancaster all perished during the Horseman of Death's mass murder in Van Tassel Mansion, comfirmed by Katrina when she told her story to Abbie in Conquest Arc.