Shelley Godfrey

"The river, The old cemetery looks over it, I used to go there after school, to sit, to read. It was the only place I could be alone. It's beautiful. It's perfect."

- Shelley to Johann

Shelley Godfrey   is a reanimated child of    and  . She is a ressurected half Upir that maintains many demonic features much as her mother had in her youth. Shelley is completely devoted to her brother,  , as he is to her. Though she is mute in the first  , the voice in her mind with which she would often speak sounded like a smart, sophisticated woman. She also has strong intelligence shown through conversations with her  . However, Shelley does find her voice in the second season, which by the tone indicates that she is truly a child at heart. In Season 3 Shelly makes the biggest transition of her life during the most stressful. After being put into her mothers supervised care and forced to take drugs that she doesn't want, she escapes her Mother's clutches and takes refuge with a community of Hemlock Grove's homeless. In this community she discovers things about herself that she never thought she could experience, especially love.

Early life
When Shelley was only a year old, she died of unexplained causes (possibly at the hands of Olivia). After J.R. found out that Pryce could reanimate people using one of his projects J.R, took Shelley's body to Pryce. Pryce's work was successful, however, not without some unforeseen consequences; Shelley became deformed and was given the ability of luminescence. One year later, J.R. emotionally disowned Shelley, calling her an abomination. On the night of J.R.'s death, with gun in hand, J.R. watched Shelley sleep in her crib, as she glowed and wheezed. Later that night, J.R. committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Throughout The Series
Shelley Godfrey/Season 1|Season 1 Shelley Godfrey/Season 2|Season 2

Personal
Shelley is best described as a gentle giant and is never seen in an immoral light. She is a seven foot seven inches tall girl who is simply hard to miss. She dresses in dark colors and always hides a misshapen portion of her face from others. Though she is teased and treated somewhat cruelly by her mother, Shelley remains a very loving person who is quick to warm up to kindness. Her talking tablet is often hanging around her neck though she needs little help in the intelligence department. Her writing is incredibly profound despite the difficulty doing personality. She can also be quite aggressive and violent when she loses emotional control and her temper, and is even quick to kill, at least to protect herself and others. She killed Christina without a second thought, mostly due to her anger about her wolf killing a girl that she knew and who was her only friend other than the Godfreys, Pryce and Peter. She is somewhat animalistic in the way she confronts those that will do her harm and those who will harm people she cares for, and will defend them with all her might and may even sacrifice herself for others. She became tougher each season after being confronted with the death of her friends Jenny and Prycilla. She now stands up for herself much more and will even resort to intimidation and physical assault to make people leave her and others alone. She has also been prone to rage when she saw the corruption of her mother, first when she learned of her mother's affair and then of her mother murdering Norman, which lead her to nearly choke her mother to death, though she relented, as she viewed her mother as a real monster instead of herself. She even stood against her brothers corruption, as he called her ugly and acted just as cruel as their mother was. At that point the only person she trusted was Johann Pryce.

Physical Appearance
When she is frightened or touched, usually by her loving brother, her skin will give off an iridescent glow. This went away after she was shot by Sheriff Sworn. Her height and name are, as some fans might have suspected, a nod to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel. Shelley's resemblance to Frankenstein's Monster "Adam" is intentional. In the second season, however, she has changed drastically, becoming much shorter and more human in appearance. She is growing hair and she might even change into looking like a human. Her arms and hands are revealed to be charred, blistered and unnatural. She once suffered pain from her hands but that seems to have gone away as she could even snap off her finger as if it were a twig without any feeling anything whatsoever. It is unknown if her hands and arms will change though.

Relationships

 * -|Roman Godfrey =
 * Roman Godfrey: Roman is Shelley's extremely protective brother. He loves her dearly, and selflessly protects her from school bullies, adults, and even his mother. He tends to her affectionately, but also respects her and considers her to be powerfully insightful. In the labyrinth he sees in his coma, Shelley appears in a beautiful glowing form, and tells Roman this is how he makes her see herself. After Shelley had disappeared, Roman was devastated, and mourned ceaselessly. Roman searched for her, and even tried to get Destiny Rumancek to help him with her psychic abilities, however, she was unable to find her. When Shelley was found and they were reunited. Roman was delighted to see that his sister is alive, and deliriously happy to discover that she can now talk. When Shelley was clinging to Prycilla's dead body, Roman was right next to her to comfort her.


 * -|Dr. Johann Pryce =
 * Dr. Johann Pryce: Shelley had died 16 years ago and Johann was the one that reanimated her, which is one of the reasons of her current appearances and her luminescence, Shelley was Pryce's greatest experiment. Pryce had stated himself that nobody else means anything more in this world to him than Shelley. Pryce and Shelley were extremely close to the point where Shelley would call him "Uncle Johann" and Pryce would call her "glow-worm". After Shelley went missing and was found by Norman, Pryce decided to give Shelley a better life without persecution by putting her in a host body. Pryce killed his life project, Prycilla, to put Shelley's consciousnesses into Prycilla. The process worked and resulted in a "new" Shelley so that old Shelley had to be euthanized; however, Olivia killed Prycilla in an effort to save herself from cancer. Shelly had already died but was brought back just in time by Norman, much to Pryce's relief. When Shelley found out what had happened to Prycilla, she went berserk and Pryce had guards take her down to the behavioral unit.


 * -|Prycilla =
 * Prycilla: Prycilla was Shelley's other half. After Johann had copied Shelley's brain patterns into Prycilla's body, Shelley and Prycilla knew everything about each other, including what each of them was thinking, what they were going to say, and each other's emotions. Prycilla tried to convince Shelley not to go through with dying, telling Shelley that she is beautiful in her own way, but Shelley was determined to live a normal life, free of her deformed body. When Shelley was killed, Prycilla could not bear to watch and while walking into a room Prycilla found Olivia waiting for her and killed her. Shelley, however, was revived and, after finding out about Prycilla's death, became hysterical and went on a rampage until she was taken away.


 * -|Olivia Godfrey =
 * Olivia Godfrey: Shelley is Olivia's daughter and possibly the reanimated body of Olivia's other daughter Juliet, who died after Olivia snapped her neck in her crib. After Shelley's possible first reanimation, she died and was reanimated once more by Dr. Pryce. Being reanimated twice, Shelley reverted to a monstrous form. Olivia kept her in the attic, which later became her room. Olivia always treated Shelley like a freak and controlled everything she did. After Shelley disappeared and resurfaced, Olivia seemed to try to be a better mother to Shelley, but Roman, now distrusting of Olivia, kept her away. Shelley had a chance to look normal and be happy, thanks to Pryce transferring her mind into the humanoid body of Prycilla. Olivia learned that she had cancer and fed on Prycilla, trying to cure herself, taking away Shelley's shot of happiness and being accepted by others.


 * -|Jenny Fredericks =
 * Jenny Fredericks: Jenny was Shelley's only friend outside of her family. Jenny was always sweet and kind to Shelley and for some reason that made Olivia upset. When Olivia got Jenny fired from a restaurant job, Shelley visited her at the mall where Jenny was glad to see her and showed her a pair of earrings that would look great on Shelley. Roman told Shelley not to get them, to avoid upsetting Olivia. Later, Shelley went back to the store without Roman and bought the pair of earrings that Jenny had kept for her. After Roman fell into a coma, Jenny came to visit Shelley at the Godfrey Mansion, where she comforted Shelley. It was the last meeting they had. Shelley was devastated when Norman delivered the news that Jenny was killed by the vargulf. When the vargulf was about to kill Roman, Letha and Peter, Shelley fought and killed the vargulf, saving their lives and avenging Jenny.


 * -|Jason =
 * Jason: While Shelley on the run, she took shelter in the abandoned home right next to the house of a young boy, Jason. He helped Shelley survive by bringing her food and Shelley helped Jason learn how to read. Shelley had even given Jason one of her rotted fingers, which Jason found cool. On the night of Shelley's leaving, she heard Jason's father beating him. Shelley rushed in and killed his father and accidentally killed his mother. She fled, saying "Jason, I'm sorry".  Before Shelley was euthanized to start living in Prycilla’s body, she Pryce told her he was with a good foster family.

Powers & Abilities

 * Enhanced Strength: Shelley has been shown to have incredible strength, possibly due to her half- demon side.  She could overpower, shove, lift and throw fully grown men without much effort.  She has been shown to be so strong that she can lift both Roman and Johann. She also used her strength to overpower and break the neck of the  vargulf  and also to rip the vargulf in half. Even after Shelley's immune system was wiped out she was still able to fend off against five security guards at The  White Tower, sending people flying at speeds that would make impact with any object lethal, and tearing flesh with enough effort, much like an upir. She overpowered Olivia without difficulty or restrain and could have choked her to death if she wanted.


 * Enhanced Resilience: Despite being a half-demon, Shelley does not possess enhanced healing and can be mortally injured. However, she has a greater tolerance to any form of damage as she can be stabbed or shot and still have the energy to move and fight for longer periods of time that a human can. She was shot three times with a shotgun and still ran into the forest and survived her injury without medical help. She was also stabbed in the back with a huge butcher knife near her heart and could still send people flying into the air with her strikes, though she was weak after and still experienced pain from her injuries. Shelley has experienced, malnourishment, dehydration, a gunshot wound that had not healed properly, infection that wiped out her immune system and phosphorescence, as well a lacerations on her back from a large butcher knife. It required medical attention to heal her completely but, even then, she could survive with all of this for months or more.


 * Luminescence: Due to one of Johann's experiments on her when she was a child, when Shelley is feeling strong emotions her face or body begins to glow. Her face would also glow when someone would touch a certain part of her face. However Shelley's power of luminescence has been deactivated due to her immune system being wiped out after she was shot twice by the Sheriff.

Weaknesses

 * Mortality: It is unknown if Shelley possesses the power to rapidly heal. However even after she was shot twice by the Sheriff she was still able to run away and even after months had passed she did not die due to gunshot wounds; however, it did take away her immune system making her vulnerable to any fatal physical trauma and can be killed like a normal human.

Name

 * Shelley is a unisex name that comes from the origins of Hebrew, Germanic and Old English language, from Old English roots, its meaning is "meadow on a slope".


 * Godfrey, Shelley's surname is of Anglo-Saxon or Irish origin along with being from the Germanic name Godafrid, which meant "Peace of God" from the Germanic elements God and frid "Peace".

Quotes

 * "Astonishing how much of the worlds troubles can be erased by the simplest smile." (season 1, episode 4)
 * "I cannot tell how it mounts on the winds, "through the clouds, and flies through heaven. (season 1, episode 4)
 * You promised you'd always be here for me, but you're a liar! You're selfish and and you know how much I love you, but I hate you for making me see it. I have always defended you, but I cannot defend this. You are not allowed to remove yourself from my life." (season 1,episode 8)
 * "Everyone thinks I'm a killer; tthis would make me one." (season 2, episode 7)
 * "You found love and, in this world, that's a good thing." (season 2, episode 8

Trivia

 * Shelley's name is in reference to Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein" because of her Frankenstein's creature-like features.
 * Shelley's email address is "shelley@hemacres.com".
 * Shelley has been nicknamed "glow-worm" by Pryce due to her glowing power.
 * Even though Shelley and Johann are not related by blood or any other way she still calls him "Uncle Johann".
 * Throughout Season 1 before Shelley discovered her voice she would use her phone to talk to others using an unknown app.
 * Both Shelley and Prycilla share the same voice in season 2.