Yellowjackets Theory: Lottie Is The Antler Queen (All The Evidence)

Warning: Contains spoilers for Yellowjackets season 1.

One of the biggest mysteries in Yellowjacketsseason 1 is the identity of the leader of the cannibals, dubbed the Antler Queen by fans, but a lot of evidence suggests that the Antler Queen is Lottie Matthews. The Yellowjackets season 1 finale provides some answers to mysteries established in the show, but most of those answers only create more complex follow-up questions. Fortunately, Yellowjackets was renewed for season 2 and the showrunners have a 5-season plan in place for the full story.

The Antler Queen is introduced in Yellowjackets episode 1, in which flashbacks show a group of masked survivors kill one of their own with a spike trap. The group then string the body up and slice the persons throat, draining the body of blood. Once the meat is prepared, the survivors sit at a campfire, and the meat is placed in front of the Antler Queen and the cannibals wait for her command to begin to eat.

While some identities of the group can be worked out from their costuming, reading too much into the identity of anyone figure from their appearance in Yellowjackets episode 1 flashbacks can only go so far. The cast have revealed that doubles were used for those original scenes as it was shot as a pilot, so some variation in appearances might occur. Regardless, the Antler Queen is clearly in a position of power within the group of survivors and has a hand in their eventual turn to cannibalism and murdering their own. Here’s all the evidence that supports the idea that Lottie is the Antler Queen in Yellowjackets.

The Yellowjackets Finale Ritual Points To Lottie As The Antler Queen

In the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, the group have their food problem at least temporarily solved by the arrival of a bear that they are able to kill and eat. The happiness that comes from this situation is tempered by events between Jackie (Ella Purnell) and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) coming to a head, Jackie sleeping outside, and eventually freezing to death. In the final moments of the Yellowjackets finale, Lottie (Courtney Eaton), Van (Liv Hewson), and Misty (Samantha Hanratty) perform a simple ritual in the wilderness where Lottie offers the bear’s heart in thanks to the forest.

This scene clearly demonstrates that Lottie, Van, and Misty are the new spiritual heart of the survivors, with Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) gone and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) playing the role of fierce skeptic. It makes sense that the ritualistic nature of the Antler Queen and her cannibalistic practices would have been born out of simple rituals and offerings such as this one, and the way that the heart is presented to the forest mirrors the way the meat is placed in front of the Antler Queen. While Van or Misty might be thought to have taken over the role of leader further down the line, this is not possible. In Yellowjackets episode 1, Misty is the only member of the masked group that has her identity revealed and she is not the Antler Queen. Van, meanwhile, can be identified by her more distinctive fashion and can be seen sitting to the far right of the Antler Queen in Yellowjackets episode 1.

Yellowjackets Visions And Set Support Lottie As The Antler Queen

Throughout Yellowjackets, the TV show walks a delicate line between confirming supernatural occurrences and implying that people are reading too much into things. While a lot of strange things happen, there is always a real-world explanation, but sometimes that seems too far-fetched. Lottie appears to have some precognitive powers which were dismissed by her family as a mental illness that she was heavily medicated for. However, both Lottie’s visions and the way that the showrunners have built the set imply that Lottie is the Antler Queen.

One of the first premonitions that Lottie has in Yellowjackets is of a deer that is shedding its antlers (while this looks like a gruesome process, as Ben mentions later, it is a natural process). Again, when Laura Lee baptizes Lottie in the lake, Lottie has an extended vision where she sees a deer with huge antlers standing in an underground tunnel and follows it as it turns away. After these experiences, Lottie, for reasons she can’t explains, gifts Van a piece of the deer that was killed as a talisman to keep her safe. These strong ties between Lottie and the imagery of antlers and deer heavily telegraph Lottie being revealed as the Antler Queen. In addition, even some shot layouts support the theory, with one scene seeing Lottie carefully positioned under antlers mounted on the cabin wall so that they appear to come from her.

The Other Survivors Have Faith In Lottie’s Abilities

At the beginning of Yellowjackets season 1, the idea of faith is lightly mocked as the team are not supportive of Laura Lee’s spirituality. However, as the season progresses and the group of survivors begins to witness stranger and stranger things, it becomes harder for them to ignore the possibility of something supernatural. When Lottie becomes the focal point for a séance, she appears to develop the ability to speak in French and unexplained phenomena begin to happen.

By the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, the show is heavily implying that Lottie has some psychic and precognitive abilities. She is able to foretell the arrival of a food source and seems able to calm a bear and then kill it with a single strike. While it is not clear whether Lottie truly has some form of power of merely believes she does, it ultimately does not matter to her role as the Antler Queen. With the exception of a minority in the form of Jackie and Taissa, most of the group are at least open to the possibility that Lottie has some form of power and can protect them by guiding them in the forest. This alone is enough to give Lottie the role of leader and of Antler Queen in Yellowjackets.

Lottie Is Still In Control In The Present Day

In Yellowjackets season 1, Natalie (Juliette Lewis) has been looking into Travis’ death. In the season 1 finale, Suzie leaves Natalie a voicemail implying that Lottie Matthews was responsible for clearing out Travis’ accounts after his death but before Natalie can hear that message she is kidnapped by a mysterious group. This group is completely unknown to the audience, but one member is wearing a pendant with the symbol from the wilderness on it and they appear as the viewer hears the voicemail implicating Lottie.

All of this suggests that in the present day of Yellowjackets Lottie is the leader of some form of cult that were likely responsible for the ritual killing of Travis. Lottie’s family were exceedingly rich in the 1990s so it is likely that Lottie has attained access to these funds and now has a lot of resources. It would make sense that, after establishing herself as the Antler Queen in the wilderness, when they were rescued Lottie did not fully assimilate back into a society that had insisted on medicating her and has instead formed a new group of devotees who will support her and do her bidding.

Doomcoming Suggests Lottie Is The Antler Queen

One of the other leading contenders for the role of Antler Queen has been Shauna. The matriarchal nature of the group’s society structure could put extra weight behind her being pregnant, and the show’s name alludes to Yellowjackets which are a species where only the queen gives birth. However, Shauna’s role in the group has more traditionally been to wield the blade.

When the survivors first bring back a deer from their hunt in Yellowjackets, Shauna is the one that steps up and cuts its throat to drain it of blood. During Doomcoming when the group has been drugged, the survivors chase down and almost kill Travis. Lottie hands Shauna the knife and tells her to do it, leaving her in a subservient role to Lottie who has herself fashioned a headdress that bears a striking resemblance to the Antler Queen attire. With all of this, it seems extremely likely that Shauna is the one that cuts the girl’s throat in Yellowjackets episode 1, whereas Lottie is the Antler Queen.

About The Author

Faefyx Collington
(487 Articles Published)

Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

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