What Is Nevermore Academy Based on?

June 2024 · 4 minute read

What is Nevermore Academy based on? Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ pulls inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe in its modern-day Addams family adaptation.

Jamie Lerner - Author

In Netflix’s up to date adaptation of the Addams family, we observe Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) as she attends Nevermore Academy. Wednesday is a fairly modern take on the classic family of kook and spook, and Nevermore Academy fits into their global completely. Throughout the series, Wednesday uncovers secrets and techniques about her circle of relatives historical past, in addition to Nevermore’s history.

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Many folks are wondering what the foundation at the back of Nevermore Academy is and if it’s ever seemed in a prior Addams family iteration. Some people might recognize its identify, “Nevermore,” from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven.” But what else may Nevermore Academy be based on?

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Nevermore Academy isn’t based on anyone supply of inspiration, but on many.

Tim Burton’s affect on Nevermore Academy (and on Wednesday in general) is obvious during the college’s manufacturing design and general gothically quirky essence. The faculty itself serves as the principle atmosphere of the series, but it surely additionally has a protracted history. According to the school’s official website, it was once founded in 1791 as “an educational establishment that nurtures outcasts, freaks and monsters.”

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Those who really feel like outcasts can follow to the college throughout the web site, even supposing we should remind everyone that the website is simply a facet of Wednesday’s implausible world-building. In reality, it boasts some actually “well-known” alumni, equivalent to Morticia and Gomez Addams, Ignatius Itt (known to many people as Cousin Itt), and of course, Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Like any college, Nevermore hosts events similar to Parent’s Day, during which scholars’ families come to talk over with, and Outreach Day, by which the scholars cross into the outer group of “normies” in Jericho to foster Normie/Outcast relations despite their fractured historical past. And of course, we will’t put out of your mind the Poe Cup, as well as school dances. In truth, Nevermore is similar to another highschool!

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It follows within the footsteps of iconic magical prime colleges, so naturally, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts comes to thoughts. And whilst there aren’t Houses like at Hogwarts, there are indubitably cliques based on the students’ other characteristics, that are reflected of their costumes. Netflix shared how costume clothier Colleen Atwood constructed this international of the highschool hierarchy and clique tradition.

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“All of the different teams at Nevermore have costume-specific main points that signify their cliques — for example, the Furs (werewolves) have bushy textures or animal prints, and the Stoners (gorgons) have looser-fitting, more pajama-like costuming.”

As far because the design of Nevermore Academy itself, production dressmaker Mark Scruton had some very particular ideas.

“[He] sought after Nevermore to look like a New England gothic mansion, but used to be also impressed by way of the architecture in Bucharest, which he describes as ‘this large, eclectic pile of structure, with Renaissance and Ottoman influences coming up via Transylvania.’” But after all, one of the crucial main references all the way through Wednesday is Edgar Allan Poe and his ties to both the Addams family and Nevermore Academy itself.

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Nevermore Academy was once named after Edgar Allan Poe, who used to be also a big influence on Addams family cartoonist Charles Addams.

Before Wednesday, there were countless other Addams circle of relatives projects. But all of it started with a comic strip within the New Yorker from the 1930s by means of cartoonist Charles Addams. While he’s most famous for his Addams family cartoons, he also drew no less than two cartoons referencing macabre author Edgar Allan Poe.

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Edgar was once well-known not just for his gothic literature and morbid perspective on existence but in addition for his riddles, which come into play in Wednesday’s mysterious plot. Like Wednesday director and manufacturer Tim Burton, Edgar combined the whimsical with the darkness, so it’s best fitting to pay homage to him thru this collection.

Plus, one of Tim’s primary film influences is Roger Corman, who created a series of films tailored from Edgar’s works in the Sixties starring horror icon Vincent Price. Tim later labored with Vincent on Edward Scissorhands and a still-unfinished documentary about Vincent’s lifestyles wherein he interviewed Roger. But that’s now not the only connection between the spooky family and the horror writer.

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John Astin, who portrayed Gomez Addams in the authentic Addams Family 1960s tv collection, had a deep fascination with Edgar, such a lot so that he portrayed him in a biographical one-man play. "Today, Poe has been stereotyped as Mr. Gothic-Horror," Astin said to the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2004. "The characters are really opposite sides of the coin. Gomez Addams was continually happy, where Poe saw the darker side. Yet each was fascinated by the nature of life itself."

What facet does Wednesday see? We’ll must song in to Wednesday, Nov. 23 on Netflix to determine.

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