Published in “After the Credits” | Written by Caviar & Co.
There’s something irresistibly magnetic about women who dwell in the dark. Wednesday Addams, played by Jenna Ortega in Netflix’s gothic revival Wednesday, embodies this quiet rebellion. She doesn’t smile to be liked. She doesn’t mould herself to be understood. She is an unapologetic reflection of the aspects of femininity that rarely see the light of day.
In a culture that still applauds “approachable” women, Wednesday is the antithesis of that: sharp-tongued, deliberate, disinterested in validation. And that, precisely, is what makes her so captivating. The dark feminine archetype—unflinching, independent, sometimes ruthless—isn’t a rejection of softness; it’s the reclamation of agency. She wears black not to disappear, but to be seen on her own terms. She feels, but she doesn’t perform those feelings for anyone’s comfort.
And yet, what makes Wednesday so unexpectedly layered is that even someone who knows herself so well can still evolve. Her relationship with her roommate, Enid Sinclair, a pastel-loving werewolf with a heart of gold, challenges everything Wednesday believes about strength. Enid, despite her warmth and optimism, is a predator by nature—an apex creature of light who isn’t afraid to show vulnerability.
Through Enid, Wednesday learns that softness isn’t weakness, and that independence doesn’t mean isolation. There’s a quiet beauty in that contradiction: two girls who could not be more different, teaching each other how to live authentically without losing themselves.
Wednesday’s darkness doesn’t need to be fixed; it just needs to be understood. And that is the brilliance of the show—it reminds us that women are not one-dimensional archetypes. We are dynamic, layered, and sometimes contradictory. We can be both the storm and the calm after it.
The fascination with characters like Wednesday isn’t new. We’ve long admired literary heroines who carry their own storms—Jane Eyre’s quiet defiance, Lisbeth Salander’s ferocity, even Belladonna’s bewitching solitude. But Wednesday gives that defiance a Gen Z edge: gothic with glitter, mischief with mascara, melancholy dressed in platform boots.
Maybe that’s what makes her feel so modern. She reflects a generation of women tired of being palatable—women who would rather be complicated than convenient, mysterious than moulded.
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Explore More from Our World
Head over to The Reading Room for our Autumn TBR — a collection of moody, magnetic reads that mirror Wednesday’s energy. Think dark academia, women on the edge of transformation, and heroines who embrace the parts of themselves the world fears most.
Discover the sensory side of the season in Scent & Scene, where we curate perfumes that capture that same intoxicating, book-lined, candle-lit world — heady with ink, mystery, and desire.
