CHARACTER PROFILE: The Other Mother/Beldam

"You know, you could stay forever, if you want to. There's one tiny thing we have to do first..."

-The Beldam

Description:

• The Beldam is a character that creates a doll that looks like a child to attract them through it and then watches the child through the eyes of the doll to find everything supposedly "wrong" with their lives and create a parallel world where everything is "better." This way she can lure the child in and convince them to join her in sewing buttons into their eyes, and then she intends to eat them.

Voice Actor:

• Teri Hatcher also does the voice of the Beldam.

Archetype:

• Antagonist/Shapeshifter: The Beldam is trying to attract Coraline in and eventually eat her, as she has done to many other children over the years, so Coraline must fight back to save her parents, the ghost children, and herself. The Beldam appears to look like a cleaned up happy and pleasant version of Coraline's  old mother, but as time goes on her true identity unfolds.

As time goes by and the Beldam becomes more and more frustrated with Coraline's unwillingness to sew buttons into her eyes, she begins to reshape into her true form slowly over time. As she gets angrier and angrier you see her true form was based on that of an insect or a spider.

THE BELDAM:
The other mother, at one point is called the "Beldam" which comes from the words "Belle dame" which is french and translates literally as for beautiful lady, whereas beldam usually translate into "hag" or "old witch." I think this is the perfect name to give the other mother because in the movie she at first portrays a beautiful and friendly version of her own mother, and slowly with her frustration and anger with Coraline's refusal to cooperate, grows to a rigid, creepy and spider-like hag.