Scarlett Van Helsing, known as Scarlett Harker was initially a recurring character in the second season of Syfy's Van Helsing. She has since been promoted to a series regular for the third season onward. She is portrayed by Missy Peregrym.
She was a lone-wolf survivor of The Rising, who thrives within their post-apocalyptic world due to the fact that her parents trained her for the world's end, and what would surely follow.[1] Scarlett stabbed herself, killing her, to cause the dark in Vanessa's heart to go away so that Vanessa would have the motivation to kill the last elder, Sam.
Character Description[]
"A woman with a interesting past who might help turn the tide against the vampires."[2]
Physical Appearance[]
Initially showed as a rogue ninja assailant.
Scarlett has light olive skin, hazel brown eyes, and chestnut brown hair. Her hair is shoulder length and is usually worn loose, though sometimes is pulled up in a ponytail. She is tall with an athletic but slim build. Scarlett has high cheek bones much like her sister Vanessa. Dark eye liner is the only prominent piece of makeup primarily seen on her.
Biography[]
Scarlett and her twin sister, Vanessa, were born to Abigail Van Helsing under unknown circumstances. Both twins were separated from their mother at birth and from each other at age five. Scarlett was raised by Charles and Ella Harker, her adoptive parents, on a farm in a small town. The Harkers were among the few humans who were aware of the existence of vampires, and they also knew the significance of their adoptive daughter's ancestry. From girlhood, Charles trained Scarlett in the art of combat, preparing her for the dark days he knew were coming.
At first, Scarlett refused to believe in the vampire threat and came to resent ostracized lifestyle she was made to endure. It wasn't until a vampire finally tracked her to the Harker farm that she finally saw the truth. This encounter marked the beginning of her long and bloody crusade against the creatures.
Throughout the Series[]
Scarlett is shown to be an excellent combatant, highly skilled with her katana, and is fiercely independent-minded. She is Vanessa's younger twin, with whom she had been separated at age 5. She is the first to come in contact with her mother which allows her to understand her heritage.
Season Two[]
In Redemption, she helped Mohamad by killing Antonasia.
Scarlett at first remains a mysterious stranger only showing up briefly in two of the first five episodes. Afterwards (when Kelly Overton exits the show due to her pregnancy) Scarlett becomes the temporary main character until the finale when Vanessa returns to the show and is turned into a "different kind of hybrid".
Scarlett is properly introduced in Veritas Vincit when she showed up Vanessa is investigating the underground lab of the Farm for the red door. Vanessa and Scarlett are suspicious of each other but does not fight each other because they seem harmless. She then unhesitantly attacks Axel when he charges at her and Vanessa steps in to protect him. Scarlet is confused because Axel is one of them - vampires, but Vanessa says that he protected her for three years and she's not going to let her hurt him. They back off for a bit and get to know each other as they go through the red door together and they find a nursery with a computer that Vanessa's fingerprint can unlock. Continuing, they then find a vaguely familiar room, and gets flashbacks of their childhood and they realize that they are sisters and there is a secret key behind the mural of the mountains. Continue Reading Here...
In Everything Changes, Scarlett and Vanessa faces off with and his goons in the underground lab of the Farm where Dmitri reveals some surprising information - that they are twins. The two starts to fight the vampires but they are overpowering them so they duck into a nearby storage room. As they hold the door, Vanessa passes the key to her and then proceeds to bite her and drink her blood. But she has a different blood composition (Human/Vampire Hybrid) than normal humans and it gives Vanessa a huge power boost. They then fight the vampires again and are winning but this time Dmitri catch her by the throat and Scarlett slices off his hand and escapes with Vanessa. Later after they buried Axel thinking that he is dead, Vanessa hears his heartbeat from afar and Scarlett gains this new ability and hears it as well when she is closer to the grave, hinting that she has enhanced hearing. Continue Reading Here...
In Big Mama, Scarlett wakes up the next morning after Vanessa is kidnapped by trained people in a helicopter who gassed them to pass out. The group decides to get Vanessa back and Scarlett overrides Axel saying that the men went south. They are on the road and gets pulled over by cops who invites them to follow back to their place and the group gets suspicious when the cops takes their weapons (except for Scarlett's hidden knife because she's smart). The group gets shown an arsenal of guns but not allowed to take any, they are offered to shower and Axel flirts with Scarlett a little bit in the washroom. After one hot shower Scarlett's ready to leave because she doesn't trust the cops and they took their weapons but Axels assures her that they'll be leaving with some of their weapons. They find out that the cops are eating vampires and they decides it's time to leave but they got caught when Julius kills Big Mama. They reveal that they were once vampires (except Scarlett) and the cops decides to hang them but they are interrupted when Scarlett is able to see the Sisterhood show up in the dark and they conclude that she is also a vampire because of this ability. Continue Reading Here...
Scarlett's backstory is shown in Wakey, Wakey, the episode jumps back and forth between the present and Scarlett's past. They group splits up into two and Scarlett hurts herself and blood drips to the ground to draw the Sisterhood vampires to follow them instead of the other. Then flashback, she is shown as a teenage girl tired being being an outcast because of her father's idea that she needs to be a vampire hunter but she doesn't believe that they are real. In the present, Scarlett and Axel are trying to stay alive in the woods with the Sisterhood vampires close on their tails and they decide to rest in an armoured van when they lose the vampires in the cemetery. In the past, young Scarlett is practicing her knife throwing skills in the barn when a creepy vampire shows up, she is scared and backs up from it. Then suddenly, Charles Harker shows up and shoots it and it falls off the window and he comments that Scarlett hesitated. She is confused why he shot it and he replies that is a vampire and she is going to kill it and she finally realizes that they are real. It cuts to her father teaching and encouraging her how to kill the vampire and things the vampire says is ominous and it terrifies her. But she kills it anyway and cries in her father's arms afterward. Axel and Scarlett talk in the armoured van and feel vulnerable from the talk and they start to make out. Continue Reading Here...
In Crooked Falls. The night her mother dies, Ella Harker is laying on a hospital bed sick, wanting to tell young Scarlett the truth but is unsuccessful. And things get weird, young Scarlett is now adult Scarlett, her father voice changes and starts to blame her mother's death on her. But Scarlett knows it is the Elder talking to her not her father and he is saying that she doesn't understand or know the truth, he is manipulating her, creating terrifying visions, scaring her. And she startles awake, turns out it is only a dream. Continue Reading Here...
After Scarlett finds out that the Boss is her mother, they keep hiking to the crypt of the Elder in Black Days. Abigail tells her about her necklace is the Dark One's blood as a way to bond with Scarlett and wants her to have it but Scarlett denies and tells her to give it to Vanessa when they find her. They continue on and finds the key in the door of the crypt which mean Dmitri had successfully beat them to it and opened the gateway. They venture into the cave towards the crypt, Abigail says it's going to be torturous, Scarlett asks how and she replies depends on your mind and soul or Dmitri's lack of and as they keep going they are forced to watch hallucinations of the past. They finally get to the crypt but Dmitri also gets there at the same time and they fight the vampires. But Dimitri caught hold of Scarlett by the throat and demands Abigail to open the crypt in exchange for her daughter's life because only a Van Helsing's blood can do it. Abigail sacrifices herself and open the crypt. The Elder is then awoken and recognizes that they are Van Helsing and that Scarlett has the blood of the first. Dmitri tells the Elder to kill them but Scarlett demands he stop and ... he does because he was given a choice - to protect or die. The Elder had chosen to serve the Van Helsings and Scarlett tells him to kill Dmitri to test him. Continue Reading Here...
Season Three[]
In Fresh Tendrils, Scarlett and Abigail appear in the Elders hallucination, informing Vanessa about all the things she learned in the crypt and how the Elder is under their command. Scarlett then returns back to the weather station and kills Dr. Harrison and his 'soldiers', while doing so she gets hit by a bullet in the neck but her rapid cellular regeneration powers allow her to heal immediately and spit the bullet back up. Afterwards, she goes and finds Vanessa in the facility she was being held in and they hug and catch up and make plans for the next step. Continue Reading Here...
In Super Unknown, the Van Helsing twins and Axel continue their journey and follow the Elder's lead to find its totem. They get to an asylum and find vampires with psychic abilities, they kill them, but one overpowers Scarlett and catches her, she then bites the vampire and it turns back into a human. They find out that there used to be a Van Helsing legend in the asylum and they try to find the truth and the totem. When the group finds the original psychic vampire in the monument, its psychic powers slightly affects Scarlett, unlike Axel who clutches his head and falls to the ground. Vanessa then commands her to get Axel out of there and bring her the Elder. Continue Reading Here...
In Pretty Noose, the Van Helsing twins come across the flippy vampires that were in Vanessa's dream like hallucinations from the Elder. The two Van Helsings fight and were winning but before they kill them all, one of them struck Scarlett with poison. Scarlett then becomes sick and weak and the only way to save her is to feed her the blood of the Ba'h, so Vanessa ventures out to find the Ba'h to kill it. Continue Reading Here...
In Like Suicide, Scarlett is still really sick from the poison and Vanessa and Axel feeds her blood from the Ba'h after they killed her and she heals immediately. The group decides to split up and Axel will bring the survivors to Denver and the Van Helsing twins will continue their mission and kill the other Elders. Axel and Scarlett says their goodbye and kisses again. Vanessa then talls her the plan is to kill the remaining Elders, take their totem and resurrect the Dark One by themselves to end this once and for all. Continue Reading Here...
Personality[]
Scarlett found her purpose in the Rising, in a way that very few do. Unlike most people, who feel cursed by the catastrophic event, and plagued by the vampires, Scarlett feels comfortable in this new world, and wouldn't have it any other way. She's knows precisely what she's doing, and she's good at doing it; that being surviving and hunting vampires.[1]
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
Scarlett at first remained only a dormant hybrid (human dominant while Vanessa is vampire dominant) until her sister bites her which causes her to get all the enhanced vampire abilities her sister has, with the exception of a bloodlust.
- Enhanced Hearing: Scarlett has the ability to hear things humans can't. However this ability seems to be limited as she needed to be near Axel's grave in order to hear his heartbeat unlike her sister Vanessa as shown in Everything Changes.
- Night Vision: Scarlett has the ability to see in the dark as shown in Big Mama, being able to see the Sisterhood vampires while everyone else cannot.
- Rapid cellular regeneration: It allows her to heal from any injury near instantaneously. Examples of this healing is when she is shot in the throat in Fresh Tendrils. The wound healed instantly but she had to spit the bullet back up. Also as shown in Wakey, Wakey the bite mark from one of the sisters heal immediately.
- Reversion (Vampire-to-Human): Scarlett's bite and blood are capable of reverting vampires back into humans as shown in Wakey, Wakey she was bitten by a vampire in the Sisterhood and in Super Unknown she bit a vampire.
Abilities[]
- Expert Martial Artist/Combatant: After receiving extensive training under the Harkers, during her childhood to teenhood, Scarlett has grown to be an accomplished highly proficient close combatant being able to fight vampires with a complete ace. Scarlett is skilled enough to go up against a member of The Sisterhood and won.
- Expert Markswoman: After receiving extensive training under the Harkers, Scarlett is an expert in the use of many types of firearms.
- Skilled Swordswoman: From her extensive training growing up with the Harkers, Scarlett is quite skilled in using swords particularly .
Arsenal[]
- Dual Katana Swords
- Firearms
- Explosives
- Knives
Trivia[]
- Scarlett told Axel before Vanessa bit her to drink from her that she did not have any of her abilities
- Scarlett's enhanced hearing seams to be limited unlike her sister Vanessa who was able to hear Axel's heartbeat miles away while Scarlett was near his grave when she heard it.
- According to Dmitri who was there at their birth Scarlett is less vampire than her sister Vanessa.
- Her last name "Harker" is likely a nod to Bram Stoker's Dracula and the character Mina Harker a friend of Abraham Van Helsing
- Scarlett and Axel seem to have a romantic/flirtatious relationship replacing Vanessa and Axel's relationship, despite Vanessa kissing Axel shortly before exiting the show in the fifth episode of the second season.
- Vanessa's bite seems to have awakened Scarlet's abilities however her abilities seem to be limited and she doesn't have the bloodlust like her sister has. This could because as Dmitri said Scarlet is more human than Vanessa who is more Vampire.
- Scarlet does not have the ability to resurrect herself like her sister as she died with a fatal stab wound.
Appearances[]
Season Two[]
Season Three[] |
Season Five[]
- The Doorway (archive footage)
Gallery[]
