The Widow

**The Widow** is a main character of Into The Badlands. She is portrayed by Emily Beecham.

**Minerva**, more commonly known as The Widow, is one of the 7 Barons of The Badlands. She is the Baron of Oil, and leads an army of Clipper's she calls Butterflies. The Widow succeeded her Baron – her husband – by murdering him, due to the physical and sexual abuse he inflicted on Tilda, her personal attendant at the time.

## Biography

### Early life

At the age of twelve Minerva was brought to the Abbot Monastery locked in a trunk. It took three Abbots to bring her in, something that was quite unheard of. Due to her small stature she was given the nickname Flea by Bajie, the Abbot who was in charge of training her to use her gift.

When Minerva was first brought to the Monastery, Bajie found the Azran book she had in her possession, given to her by her father. Bajie tells her that the book stays a secret between the two of them.

During a tracking mission of a Dark One, Minerva accompanied Bajie and Cyan. When they found the Dark One, he had been tied up and caged by some nomads. Before Bajie and Cyan could do anything, Minerva marched into the center of the nomad camp and demanded that they release their captives.

The nomads just laugh at her, so Minerva cut her arm and activated her Gift. She created a bloodbath, slaughtering everyone in the camp, even the ones she was trying to help.

Due to her breaking the rules of the Monastery, her gift was cleansed. Bajie was able to free her from the needle room by using a spiritual loophole, but in doing so he sacrificed his own gift. Minerva couldn't stay, so she ran – right then and there, back to the Badlands. Bajie promised that'd he'd find her again.

By the age of thirteen, she had been captured by the Chaus of the Fox Territory and forced into the life of a cog. Still, Minerva was angry and defiant. She was put into a cold store with the intention of breaking her. After 220 days in the cold dark, she relented and begged for freedom, emerging emaciated and lice-ridden. In the cog pens, she endured years of sexual and physical abuse and watched other cog children suffer the same, which undoubtedly helped shape her protective, revolutionary nature.

In her teenage years, she is revealed to have served as a house-cog for Baron Alexander Chau, the father of Gaius, and the present Baron of his old territories, Juliet. She and Gaius appeared to share a mutual teenage puppy love for one another, which his family seemed to resent, resulting in Minerva being abused. — At Gaius’ birthday party, Minerva enters the room to serve drinks to the family, when she trips and drops her tray. Gaius immediately gets up to help her but cuts his hand on the broken glass. His father is furious, and hands Gaius his cane, ordering him to whip her, and states that a true Baron shows no mercy. Gaius refuses, and his sister Juliet gleefully undertakes the task in his place. Afterwards, the Baron orders her to be locked in the dark, filthy pig’s pen, from which Gaius helps her escape.

Minerva’s difficult life did not get easier with time; sometime after her days as a cog, she married a Baron, but he ended up being extremely abusive, and boastful about his treatment of her. After suffering for some time under his thumb, and after discovering he sexually abused her [then] personal attendant, Tilda, she stepped up and assassinated him, assuming control over his Barony and deeming Tilda her adoptive daughter and later, Regent.

#### Becoming a Baron

Like most Barons in the Badlands, the Widow rose to power the traditional way: By killing the former ruler of her territory; in this case her husband. It is presently unknown how she came to be the baron's wife, but similar to Baroness Jade, she ascended from a life of exploitation and poverty and managed to seize power. She killed her husband due to his physical and sexual abuse; specifically, that done to her and her adopted daughter Tilda. This jump-started her crusade to fight for those who could not fight for themselves, primarily women. It is unknown what her husband's baronial crest was, but upon her ascension, she chose a blue butterfly, to symbolize change and beauty.

Although she sees her regent, Tilda as a symbolically adopted daughter, it is speculated whether or not the Widow has other children; while M.K. was in her mansion, she tells him of her missing son, Percival. He has not been mentioned since, though she is shown gazing at the locket-enclosed photo of a young boy.

Many people in the Badlands, from cogs to clippers, and even barons, seem somewhat torn on what to make of the Widow; some see her liberation cause as a noble endeavor, while others, primarily those who benefit from the slaveholding system of the Badlands, are fearful that her building the Cogs' confidence and belief in self-awareness will tear their establishment apart from within.

### Season one

#### The Fort

Through unknown sources, The Widow sent nomads to capture M.K., as his unique abilities are of interest to her plans. While the nomads are successful in capturing M.K., they fail to deliver him to her, due to intervention by Sunny. Upon hearing of this, and knowing that Sunny must have delivered M.K. to The Fort, in Quinn's territory, The Widow and several of her clippers rode out to intercept Sunny. Minerva, remaining seated in her car as they encountered Sunny on Wall Street. After a brief staredown, Minerva's clippers surrounded Sunny. She watched from the car as swords are drawn and a battle ensued. Sunny proceeded to kill The Widows clippers. Despite this, and even with Sunny's sword having gone through the side of her car, dripping blood onto her hand, The Widow remained entirely unphased. With her clippers dead, an exhausted Sunny watched as Minerva stepped out of her car, and approach him. Sunny threatened to kill her, but she simply reminds him that he could not do that due to her title as Baron. Having gotten his attention, she asked Sunny to bring M.K. to her, showing him a book bearing the symbol of Azra. Minerva subtly noted that she questioned Sunny's loyalty to Quinn, and knew of his ulterior motives. Sunny, deep in thought, remained silent as Minerva reentered her car, lastly asking him to let her know if he changes his mind. She was driven off, leaving Sunny alone in the rain.

## Skills/Abilities

* **Hand-to-hand combat/Martial arts**: The Widow may arguably be one of the top, if not the best, fighters in all of The Badlands. She has been able to successfully kill her opponents in most of her battles or at least subduing them. Only Sunny, Quinn, Nathaniel Moon, and Juliet Chau gave her the most trouble or were able to keep up with her too for an extended period of time, seen on screen.
* **Swordsmanship/weaponry**: The Widow has displayed on many occasions that she is more than proficient with a sword in hand, even often dual-wielding swords. Minerva outfought most of her opponents throughout the entire series when it came to weapons. She was able to fend off many of Gaius Chau's assassins during their attack on Pilgrims fort, she was able to fight Nathaniel Moon for a long time before saving his life from falling off a building and turned him into her regent, she also did exceptionally well against Sunny and Quinn. All of her other fights throughout the series were all basically one-sided against everyone else she fought, the only exception being Juliet Chau. Minerva also uses her heels as weapons in many of her fights such as her fights against Ryder's clipper during her ambush, and against people during the fight at the conclave.
* **Maneuverability**: Minerva has shown great acrobatics throughout the series. She was able to front flip over a table pushed at her by Quinn, periodically wall walk in her fight against Sunny, able to backflip twice evading Tilda's attacks, she also shows many different flips and evasive attacks during many of her fights.
* **Military/War preparations/Expert tactician**: Minerva has shown that she is very good at causing different people of power to fight each other through manipulation. She almost started a war between Quinn and Jacobee, and she was able to get the other barons to gain a dislike for Quinn. Minerva and her butterflies also killed many of Quinn's and Jacobee's clippers by having Tilda pretending to be a distressed helpless girl and kill the clippers from afar with shurikens when their guard was down. She also was able to plan well-advised strategies against Juliet Chau and her clippers during the war in season 3.
* **The Gift:**A mystical forces that grants the user enhanced powers, making them incredibly powerful opponents.
	+ **Enhanced Agility:** The Gift grants the user agility, coordination, balance, equilibrium, and dexterity. This grants the user the ability to perform feats such as flips and attack combos that normal humans could not.
	+ **Enhanced Durability:** The Gift grants the user enhanced durability. This greatly increases their bodily resilience levels, allowing the users to punch through solid concrete without hurting themselves.
	+ **Enhanced Reflexes:** The Gift grants the user reflexes that are enhanced to inhuman levels. This allows them to react instantly to almost anything, including fast-moving projectiles such as flying daggers or arrows and catch mid-air.
	+ **Enhanced Stamina:** The Gift grants the user the ability to take on numerous groups of enemies without getting tired.
	+ **Enhanced Strength:** The Gift grants the user enhanced strength, making them strong enough to throw around enemies twice their size or punch through solid brick walls.
	+ **Enhanced Jumping:** The Gift grants the user the ability to jump several stories in a single bound.
	+ **Levitation/Telekinesis:** The Widow is capable of creating air currents or waves of force strong enough to lift and move objects or people. This was seen in the season 3 finale when she "force pulls" M.K. through the air without touching him using her Gift.
* **People killed by The Widow**:
	+ Unnamed husband
	+ Baron Hassan
	+ Lars
	+ Jair
	+ Kristo
	+ Ulrich
	+ M.K.
	+ Juliet Chau
	+ Numerous unnamed clippers, assassins, nomads, and loyalists.
	+ Innocent cogs, women, and children (indirectly, caused by wars)

## Appearances

Season 1
* 101 "The Fort"
* 102 "Fist Like a Bullet"
* 103 "White Stork Spreads Wings"
* 104 "Two Tigers Subdue Dragons"
* 105 "Snake Creeps Down"
* 106 "Hand of Five Poisons"

Season 2
* 201 "Tiger Pushes Mountain"
* 202 "Force of Eagle's Claw"
* 203 "Red Sun, Silver Moon"
* 204 "Palm of the Iron Fox"
* 205 "Monkey Leaps Through Mist"
* 206 "Leopard Stalks in Snow"
* 207 "Black Heart, White Mountain"
* 208 "Sting of the Scorpion's Tail"
* 209 "Nightingale Sings No More"
* 210 "Wolf's Breath, Dragon Fire"

Season 3
* 301 "Enter the Phoenix"
* 302 "Moon Rises, Raven Seeks"
* 303 "Leopard Snares Rabbit"
* 304 "Blind Cannibal Assassins"
* 305 "Carry Tiger to Mountain"
* 306 "Black Wind Howls"
* 307 "Dragonfly’s Last Dance"
* 308 "Leopard Catches Cloud"
* 309 "Chamber of the Scorpion"
* 310 "Raven’s Feather, Phoenix Blood"
* 311 "The Boar and the Butterfly"
* 312 "Cobra Fang, Panther Claw"
* 313 "Black Lotus, White Rose"
* 314 "Curse of the Red Rain"
* 315 "Requiem for the Fallen"
* 316 "Seven Strike as One"

## Trivia

* Despite killing the former baron of her territory, Minerva is not recognized as a true Baron by all of the others.
* She is one of three barons that used to be cogs but eventually rose to power. The others being Quinn and Jade.
* She is the only character to fight against 3 different Barons (Quinn, Hassan, and Chau) on-screen.
* She is also the only baron seen to invade the territories of 4 other barons' territories. She has invaded the Peacock Territory to kill Hassan, invaded the Armadillo Territory to rescue Tilda from Quinn's prison, invaded the Fox Territory during her war with Chau, and invaded the Pickaxe Territory during her scheming endeavors with Zypher and Ryder against Jacobee.
* Minerva is the only baron that is shown to be considerate about the livelihood of cogs and dolls (or even women as a whole) more than any other baron.
* During the events of the war in season 3, The Widow had control over 4 territories and Chau only had control of 3. With the exception of Chau's original territory's geography, the Widow had control of only small pieces of 2 territories that Chau eventually inherited. Though out of all of the territories The Widow had, Chau had control over no piece of any of them.
* Minerva's Clipper force was originally made up mostly of elite female Butterflies during Season 1. But from the middle of Season 2 and forward she had recruited many more male Clippers called Bowler Hats.
* She is the second character (after Veil) to get pregnant during the series.
* After killing Juliet Chau, Baron Minerva was briefly the sole Baron of the Badlands, with no other Barons surviving. This was no longer the cases shortly thereafter when Gaius Chau assumed control of his deceased sister's barony. However as Gaius has previously pledged personal allegiance to Minerva, effectively if not officially making him a vassal Baron, Baron Minerva remains in effective control over all of the territories of the Badlands, either directly or indirectly, as of the end of Season three.
* The butterfly symbol of her territory is based on a design found on the knife sheath she possessed when she was twelve.
* Her number while in the Cog pens was 4843.
* On their wedding night, Minerva's husband gifted her with a crossbow, telling her that "sometimes a Baron's wife has to pay the price for her husband's actions."

## References

1. ↑ https://intothebadlands.wikia.com/wiki/Black\_Heart,\_White\_Mountain
2. ↑ Cobra Fang, Panther Claw
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Palm of the Iron Fox
4. ↑ Blind Cannibal Assassins
5. ↑ "Fist Like a Bullet"
6. ↑ "Tiger Pushes Mountain"
7. ↑ "The Fort (episode)"
8. ↑ Nightingale Sings No More
9. ↑ Leopard Catches Cloud