After a 2 hour conversation my friend and I have reached this conclusion:
It’s all a big joke on Poe. Lenore got sick of his melancholy drama and sent an extra letter to all the other guests. They are all working together to massively prank Poe. Agatha is the master mind behind most of it (see And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express). Think about it. Poe hasn’t pronounced anyone dead, he’s super flustered while everyone else is staying pretty cool, and everyone else is being ridiculously careless about finding the murderer and making accusations. All of the deaths could have been easily faked. Agatha showed up late because she was getting things running. They knew she was going to be late! Then she dies. The police are idiots and probably added by Agatha to further confuse Poe. In the end, they will all be alive and have made what was going to be a dreadfully awful night at Poe’s house much much more fun.
So there’s my theory! Love this show and can’t wait to see how it ends!!
“Help! HG wells is … deeeeeefinitely alive! He is here, and alive, and not dead, it’s weird that you would say that, why-why-why-why’d you bring that up?”
–
Lenore the Lady Ghost, Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party Ch. 8: The Cask of Amontillado (x)
ok but who else is here for the lenore/george eliot (mary ann evans) ship tbh
I confess to a certain shippish inclination toward her and George (based on “Haunt these halls no more”), Fyodor (based on the vodka exchange), and HG (based on the curtsy). I was totally gearing up to ship her with whomever wound up on the receiving end of the look below, too, but for whatever reason Heminore didn’t happen for me.
The identity of Ulalume in the poem is uncertain. Poe scholar and distant relative Harry Lee Poe says it is autobiographical and shows Poe’s grief over the recent death of his wife Virginia.[8] Scholar Scott Peeples notes that “Ulalume” serves as a sequel to “The Raven”.[9] Poetically, the name Ulalume emphasizes the letter L, a frequent device in Poe’s female characters such as “Annabel Lee”, “Eulalie”, and “Lenore”.[10] If it really stands for a deceased love, Poe’s choosing to refer to Ulalume as “the thing” and “the secret” do not seem endearing terms.[11] In one possible view, Ulalume may be representative of death itself.[11]
