Merry Melody

Spoiler Alert: This article/section contains details about future plotlines of LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow described. Do not proceed unless you want to be spoiled.

Merry Melody Circus
Kanji	旋律快乐（メリーメロディ）
Rōmaji	Merīmerodi
Master	Helene Hawthorn
S-Class Mages	Sponsor A - Harold Honeydew (The Persian) Sponsor B - Selina Strawberry Ms. Bubble - Bubbly Begonia Beastly Beauty - Beatrice Bergamot Baccarat Blueberry - joined after Harvest Saga Pandora - joined after Harvest Saga Penelope & Phoebe Plum Alfonso Aloe
Type	Circus, Magical Clowns, Art Fanatics

"They're all vagrants, orphans and poor people that were either ignored or been marginalized by the social pyramid of this country. They can't do things out there without my help, and I won't leave them alone to do my business. If I don't give them food or something to wear, they'll never make it alive! Do you understand me?" — Helene Hawthorn, the Ringmistress

Merry Melody (Full name: Merry Melody's Circus) is a circus ring owned secretly by a mysterious young woman known as the Ringmistress (later revealed to be Helene Hawthorn) and served as a sub faction of the Order of Flourish. They serves as a major heroic faction in LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow - Harvest Saga. They will make their first appearance in The Resurrection of the Remains episode (based on a two-part Halloween crossover of Bones and Sleepy Hollow) as cameo characters as they start celebrating Halloween.

It was revealed that Abbie Mills and Nick Hawley are both fans of the circus' show from a young age, but they were somehow disturbed by the circus' eerie design when they were kids in Sleepy Hollow. The art design are primarily Gothic, and its main color theme are red, black and white. Ichabod Crane, on the other hands, never liked clowns and would seldom pay visit to the circus until it was involved in a series of children murder case, which were actually pinned by Pedro Pineapple by disguising into one of their clowns.

Overview

The clowns and physically abnormal members of the circus are composed by orphans, disabled people and marginalized vagrants that had been shunned by the society. Helene took care of them, and they all sympathized each other because of their dark pasts and/or physical abnormality. In spite of their physical ugliness, they're all kind and reasonable. All of them risked their lives to assist Ichabod Crane when Selina Strawberry turned against Team Witness out of misunderstanding. Many of them are fans to Selina and even developed a fan club, and they believed that Selina was under mind control when she gone rogue. They intended to bring the kind Selina back and still have faith in her, even when Abbie believed Selina gone mad.

The members of the circus The circus' true affiliation was foreshadowed by its alliterative name, Merry Melody, meaning that it was affiliated to the Order of Flourish.

Clowns - Pierrot

"Les Pierrot sont tous des amis pleines de surprise. (French: The Clowns are all friends full of surprise.)" — Alfonso Aloe

Helene's disguise as the Ringmistress

Les Pierrot (French: The Clowns) is an aptly named group of clowns and serves as the eerie but cheerful crew of the circus, giving laugh, magic and warmth to the Sleepy Hollow and its citizens to make them relieve from the pressure.

The Clowns are not like other members, groups or sub-visions from the Order. They acts more cheerful rather than stern, and they didn't support the Order's idea to remove t . Therefore, they act as a rival to the Star Spangled Secrecy led by Gregory Grape, who supported the idea of removing emotions as well as instigate the Feast of Apollo again in order to revive Hestia, heal Sleepy Hollow citizens from their apathy and despair, and killing any other chance to make a Zodiac Demon take form.

The Clowns, however, believed that not all emotions are bad things. They believed that at least some positive emotions, like happiness and optimism, should be kept so that people can still gain hope while enduring despair. The Merry Melody's Ringmistress, Helene Hawthorn, acted as the clown group's leader under the codename of Ringmistress and the Pierrot Queen, but she herself was greatly upset by people's prejudice upon clowns merely due to coulrophobia (fear of clowns), fictional works with evil clowns, or trauma caused by some criminals and pranksters dressed up as clowns.

Helene felt upset about the future of her circus and the Art Museum and

After the Feast of Apollo, Helene built her clown troupe out of deformed people, vagrants and orphans, whom she adopted and befriended. They acted as her loyal minions and would be ruthless towards intruders that went into the Art Museum Basement, where Helene lived, without permission. Helene lacked of friends after her childhood, and she believed only clowns would bring her happiness since they're always smiling, making her smiled to face her solitude.

However, this was eventually shattered after losing support from Harold due to him being revoked from the Art Museum Manager's position, making Helene feeling empty and sad again. Not only fearing that she would fully be plunged into a colorless emptiness due to the circus faced its disbandment, Helene was also worried at how her clowns would live without her support, since she considered them as family and cared about them very much, knowing they'll become nothing but lost souls without her. This was later changed after Helene met Baccarat Blueberry and later Pandora, who later joined her troupe to find their place.

Baccarat playing puppet tricks with Helene

In a way, Les Pierrot is like La Nueva Familia de Arzonia, where people and members treated each other not as mere colleagues, but as family members, forming a familial bond between themselves. In spite of this, while Arzonia Family acts as a much more serious organization that battles against tyranny and crime, Les Pierrot is much more peaceful and comical since they're clowns from Merry Melody Circus and were supposed to be funny.

Even with their comedic tricks, Les Pierrot would be serious when their Ringmistress' life as well as her facial privacy was compromised. They were fervent to Helene and would do whatever she asked them to do. When Helene died for the first time, the clowns as well as the sewer rats Helene petted all gathered towards her, sadly watched as Helene slipped away in Baccarat's arms. Some even passed out in sheer sadness. This showed how loyal they were to their ring-mistress and they all love her out of genuine feelings.

After Helene's return and her escape from Gladius Grapefruit, they were also grateful to Ichabod Crane and Abbie Mills for saving Helene. When Selina Strawberry lost control in her dark side and tried to capture Ichabod and Team Witness for their alleged treason, Les Pierrot and other members from the Merry Melody Circus rushed out to rescue them, risking their lives under the exposure of Selina's Croatoan Virus attack range. They also strongly against Gregory's plan to bring back the witches from the Sisterhood of Radiant Heart, since they knew that the fake Liberation Bell's curse would cause the power of magic out of control and could only made things worse.

Overall, those clowns, in spite of their fearsome appearance and skills, are the foremost group of ally in Team Witness and acts as a catalyst to make Selina found herself again.

Members - "Melodies"

First-String Pierrots

The first-string members are regarded as the main cast of the Circus's sundry acts and performances. They are given private, individual tents. Additionally, they are not obliged to help with the preparations, and consequently do not have to fight for their meals, unlike the second-string members.

• The Ringmistress - Helene Hawthorn (leader)
• Sponsor A - Harold Honeydew (The Persian)
• Sponsor B - Selina Strawberry
• Ms. Bubble - Bubbly Begonia
• Beastly Beauty - Beatrice Bergamot

Second-String Pierrots

• Baccarat Blueberry - joined after Harvest Saga
• Pandora - joined after Harvest Saga
• Penelope & Phoebe Plum
• Alfonso Aloe

Trivia

• The First-String members from the Merry Melody's Circus use sewer rats and pigeons of their as their vital messengers, making them the second group of characters that uses animals as messengers, after Golden Hive that use bees as messengers. Since she lives with them in a young age, Helene knows what her rats are speaking.
• The Merry Melody has plenty of references to the adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera as well as the original novels, just as Helene was inspired by the Phantom himself.
  • The Merry Melody itself is inspired by the circus in Phantasma of Coney Island, New York, where the main setting of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies (a sequel to Webber's The Phantom of the Opera musical) was set. Phantasma was an amusement part Coney Island's former "City of Wonders" owned by the Phantom after he escaped Paris Opera House and went to Manhattan. It was implied at the beginning of the play that this park was utterly abandoned by the Phantom, who was devastated after Christine Daae died in his arms.
  • Helene, her tramp messengers and the circus members live happily with sewer rats. It's a reference to Il fantasma dell'opera, a 1989 Italian film adaptation of the novel directed by Dario Argento. In Argento's film, the Phantom isn't disfigured but was adopted by rats.
  • The tramp acolytes are a reference to Yeston's musical Phantom, especially its Japanese version adapted by Takarazuka Revue, where the Phantom had numerous tramps as his minions.
• The Merry Melody is also based on the Court of Miracles from Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which was really a French term which referred to slum districts of Paris, where the unemployed migrants from rural areas resided. The graveyard where the Court is located does exist in the 20th arrondissement (administrative district) of Paris, known as Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Coincidentally, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Jean Valjean, was given an honorary grave at Père-Lachaise.