The Voodoo Lady is a well-known traveling mambo (Voodoo Priestess) and self-proclaimed fashion consultant. She has provided invaluable advice to Guybrush Threepwood throughout the series, thanks to her extensive knowledge with voodoo curses, magic and the occult. She claimed to have clairvoyance, able to predict Guybrush's fate and actions a number of times throughout the series. She was also attuned with the Force and could sense events happening away.
She was a fairly large woman with a dark complexion. She liked to speak in a dramatic fashion, particularly when it had something to do with Guybrush's quest. She often spoke in riddles and obscure phrases, never quite giving the answers Guybrush needed to fully comprehend his situation. She clearly knew what's good for Guybrush, which has helped him out more times than he could remember.
Her stores were often similarly themed, with large draperies to the sides and a large pot of voodoo potions or soup at arm's length. She has never been known to stay put in one island for very long, and likes to move her operations around the Caribbean when she felt like it.
Interaction
Mêlée Island
Guybrush first meets the Voodoo Lady on Mêlée Island. He finds her store House of Mojo, a voodoo emporium situated in the town center. It specialised in all things Voodoo, with had a number of trinkets could be seen for sale. Guybrush sought her out for her knowledge on how to defeat the evil ghost pirate LeChuck. When the first two speak, she hushes Guybrush, able to guess his name, and whatever it was he was going to ask her. Guybrush was impressed, though thought it had been a trick. The Voodoo Lady remarked that it was no trick, and that she only dealt with the truth. She foresaw that his adventure would lead to the legendary Monkey Island, towards the deep chasms beneath the Giant Monkey Head. She allowed him to take a Rubber Chicken.
Scabb Island
Guybrush meeting the Voodoo Lady
When Guybrush traveled to Scabb Island, the Voodoo Lady also happened to move her store there as well. She relocated in the swamp and was only accessible by paddling a coffin across the bog, straight into the jaws of a skull. A specially designed lift would carry the rider inside.
Along with the rest of the residents of the island, the Voodoo Lady was oppressed by Largo LaGrande's embargo. She paid a large sum of her dwindling profits towards this abominable taxation, which he came for regularly even though she told Largo that it was her who killed LeChuck. She had hoped that someone on the island would collect ingredients for a voodoo doll for her, but no one had been brave enough. When Guybrush visited her, she told him of her idea. Threepwood agreed to help so she gave him a "shopping list" detailing the types of items he would need.
When she received the items she made a doll. She explained that they were not the optimum materials so it would only work at close range. Threepwood returned after confronting Largo, and told her that he had accidentally given Largo a live piece of LeChuck. She told him it was true that he could now be restored and instructed him to continue searching for the treasure of Big Whoop. She gave him a book, Big Whoop: Unclaimed Bonanza or Myth? which she had taken out from Phatt City Library under his name to help him get started.
She also helped Guybrush by making a revitalization potion known as Ash 2 Life, where he used it on the ashes of Rapp Scallion. This allowed Guybrush to learn more about the secrets of Big Whoop. Wally B. Feed had ordered a Love Bomb from the Voodoo Lady and sent Guybrush to fetch it for him, but in the meantime he was captured by LeChuck and the Lady sensed a disturbance in the Force.
Plunder Island
Guybrush and the Voodoo Lady, reminiscing in CoMI
After realising that Scabb Island wasn't the most ideal of locations, the Voodoo Lady relocated once more to the swamp on Plunder Island. Her store had a number of amenities, including a special alligator statue, and a bubblegum machine. She was regularly visited by some Voodoo Kids, who enjoyed making harmless paper voodoo dolls in her store's premises. She greatly feared El Pollo Diablo, the demon chicken, and warned those that failed to take his legend seriously.
She offered a great deal of help to Guybrush to help him find the cure for the curse he had inadvertently placed on Elaine Marley.
Aliases
As Deep Gut
Deep Gut was the name used by the Voodoo Lady whilst on Flotsam Island. She acted as a mysterious informant for the local news, supplying the Keelhauler Gazette with much coveted information in the forsaken Flotsam Island.
In his exploits on Flotsam, Guybrush had to provide some raw material for the Keelhauler (in the form of bar brawls, finding of buried Porcelain Power Pirate figurines and a ship capture), to spice up the dwindling local news scenario. Only then did Davey Nipperkin give him a map with directions and a password to meet Deep Gut.
Fabricating Conflict Between Threepwood and LeChuck
It was revealed in Tales of Monkey Island that over the years, the Voodoo Lady had apparently been at the center of the rivalry between Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck, forcing them against each other for her own mysterious motives.
There are some clues to this throughout the series.
- If Threepwood has forgotten who she is, she will always lie to him and say she did more to help than she actually did.
- She foresees Threepwoods adventures concerning LeChuck, but perhaps the real trick is that she manipulates her prophecies to happen.
- After Wally is captured, there is a Universal Pirate Shipping crate for LeChuck's Fortress in the Scabb Island Swamp, which Guybrush uses to infiltrate the fortress. It can be suggested that the Voodoo Lady secretly (?) supplies LeChuck with voodoo materials. Perhaps she had supplied LeChuck's Voodoo Priest with the necessary ingredients for LeChuck's ressurrection or the voodoo doll he was making.
- In MI2 she encourages Guybrush to find Big Whoop as a means to escape LeChuck. In CoMI (where Gilbert's scenario has been retconned) she admits that Big Whoop is a place of pure evil.
- In CoMI she led Threepwood to find a diamond ring, closely related to LeChucks past. It is not unreasonable to believe other such rings may have existed elsewhere and she chose this one on purpose.
- She readily chooses to resurrect LeChuck at the end of ToMI.
Trivia
- In the original demo of Monkey Island, the Voodoo Lady is simply known as "fortune teller". In exchange for the red herring, she will tell Guybrush about the Three Trials and other things he will do and see in the full game. Asked about a magic phrase, she will tell the last words of her dying grandmother: "Dear, maybe you should get a new faculty advisor" (referencing a dialogue line from the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade adventure game). This is one of the two "magic phrases" required to pass the Troll.
- It is possible to complete The Secret of Monkey Island without ever meeting her. There is no requirement to speak to her for any quest or puzzle. Players can simply enter the shop, take the chicken and leave.
- A sign across the street read "Ye Olde Rubber-Chicken-with-a-pulley-in-the-middle-shoppe", but this was for a different business that Guybrush never entered.
- In MI2, when she is met Threepwood can ask 'Do I know you?'. She will then claim to be the one who told him where to get the voodoo root and how to brew the ghost killing mixture. This is not true even if Threepwood had met her before.
- As happens in MI2, if Threepwood acts as though he does not know who she is in CoMI, she claims to have both prepared the voodoo anti-root to destroy the Ghost LeChuck and helped prepare the voodoo doll to use against the zombie LeChuck, which is also false.
- In EMI, the Voodoo Lady hints that she has an unbreakable five-game contract with LucasArts. For many years another Monkey Island game seemed unlikely due to some hardcore fans' lukewarm response to EMI, LucasArts' cancellation of sequels to Sam & Max Hit the Road and Full Throttle, and the harsh decline in adventure games in general. However, this all changed on June 1, 2009 when the development of Tales of Monkey Island was announced.
- The name Deep Gut is probably a reference to Deep Throat, the pseudonym used by a mysterious informant in the Watergate Scandal. It probably also refers to her ample stomach.
Gallery
