Nobody has ever been able to capture in a work of fiction the realism of the evil, the darkness and the cold horror of the human being and of real life like John Logan in this masterpiece.
I wholeheartedly believe that the little girl who is singing this intro is Vanessa who is reflecting upon the state of her mortality as a child and is crying out for her salvation and peace as she feels that she is responsable for her family's suffering and that her intrinsic darkness is what is destroying those she loves, fantasizing about the release of death and in how deep down she knows that she will have a much greater role in the unfolding of the apocalypse. Meaning that it is Vanessa's child voice that is intertwined with her adult conciousness. It is her final exhortation and prayer to her Lord and a last goodbye to Ethan as she pleads with him to not pursue a solution to bring her back from her inevitable death, given how Victor Frankenstein and John Clare both had the means and sufficient knowledge to resurrect her with Ethan's ties to indigenous spirituality and occult beliefs and given that Sir Malcom had his personal experience with Vampires, signaling to the audience that through the death of her current life, she has returned to the state of innocence that she had before discovering Sir Malcom and her mother's relationship, atoning for her indirect contribution to Mina's death and for her guilt for the death of her closest friend and mentor, "Joan Clayton." She has reached Paradise and has finally found a resolution to the various tragic events of her past. It is in many ways a prayerful and soul-cleansing gothic lullaby, a nursery rhyme and the last epitaph to her own life with John Clare becoming her most ideal spiritual succesor. I also believe that this tragic ending was what ultimately cemented Sir Malcom and Ethan's surrogate father-son relationship and that Dorian Gray was the one who made Vanessa's story legend and immortalized it. I also believe that Doctor Florence Seward's life forever changed because of the positive impact that Vanessa had on her life, and just as Dr. Seward had said to Vanessa: "You need to start trusting people, Vanessa. It can surprise you." In many ways, Dr. Seward was reaffirming this to herself, as she had struggled with profound loneliness and judgement because of her decision to kill her husband in self defense, sharing various narrative paralels with Ethan who had also ran away from a deeply troubled past and fled from the United States just as she did and both of their lives were positively changed by Vanessa.
First season of Carnival Row is pretty good. Second season was rushed unfortunately due it being cancelled. Similarly styled. Other than that you may like Taboo. Not as magical as the other two, but also similar in style.
