There are a few names that come to mind when we hear the phrase “goth girl icon”: Maila Nurmi’s Vampira, Beetlejuice’s Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), and even Wonderland’s very own Alice, if we take into account the 2000 video game American McGee’s Alice. But it is no stretch to say that the most iconic of all goth girl icons is none other than a young – sometimes 6, sometimes 18-year-old – pigtailed kid that goes by the name of Wednesday Addams. Created in the 1930s by cartoonist Charles Addams as part of his Addams Family comic series, Wednesday grew in popularity over the decades, becoming arguably the most memorable and beloved member of her spooky family. Her status and notoriety are such that she is the first Addams to gain her very own television series, Netflix’s Wednesday, in which she is played by none other than the most recently crowned scream queen Jenna Ortega (X, Scream).

Created by the Smallville duo Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Wednesday presents its titular character as a teenager that is transferred to the monster-filled Nevermore Academy after an incident in her regular school. The trailers show Wednesday in peak sarcastic, gloomy form, just like fans of the character expect her to be. However, like most goth teenage girls, Wednesday Addams wasn’t born all clad in black, with a dark cloud looming over her head. Well, perhaps she was. Who am I to speak of Addams’ birthing rituals? Still, this creepy little…