‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’: Why Weren’t Dominic and Charlotte Wingraves’ Deaths Explained?

Netflix’s original series, The Haunting of Bly Manor, follows the terrifying tale of a troubled family and the spirits that roam their country home. Flora and Miles Wingrave, two orphaned siblings, take center stage in the story. While fans are made aware that their parents have died, the cause of their deaths is kept ambiguous. The lack of detail has bothered some fans. There is a good reason for the lack of information, though.

Was the cause of Dominic and Charlotte’s death ever revealed?

When fans meet Miles and Flora, they find out that their parents had been killed under mysterious circumstances while traveling in India. The deaths have left Miles and Flora in need of a guardian, and while their uncle, Henry Wingrave, is granted legal custody of them, he doesn’t exactly want it.

Henry spends as much of his time away from the children as possible, leaving them in the care of a nanny instead. Henry’s reluctance to parent the children is connected to the affair he was having with Charlotte Wingrave before her death. The backstory, while riveting, never actually reveals how Charlotte and Dominic died.

Fans have a theory about their cause of death, though

While the cause of death is never explained in The Haunting of Bly Manor, fans do have some theories about what happened. Reddit users believe that the pair died in a plane crash or a car accident, based on how Henry is informed of the event and the language used. When Henry is informed of the deaths, he firsts asks the person he’s speaking to if the couple is OK. That has led fans to assume that Henry was led to believe there was some hope that they were alive.

While some of the language used when speaking about Dominic and Charlotte hint at a more nefarious ending to their lives, it doesn’t seem likely. At the end, the cause of their demise does not matter as much as the fact that their trip, which was taken only after Henry and Charlotte’s affair was revealed, was the catalyst to their deaths.

Why was the cause of their deaths never mentioned in The Haunting of Bly Manor?

In the long run, the cause of Charlotte and Dominic’s deaths don’t really matter to the plotline of the story. There may be another reason why the actual cause of their death is never spoken; the series’s inspiration doesn’t explain what happened, either.

According to Bustle, The Haunting of Bly Manor used The Turn of the Screw by Henry James as inspiration. In the novella, a man hires a governess to take care of his niece and nephew, who have been orphaned. The cause of their parents’ death is never revealed in the novella. It was first published in 1898 in a weekly magazine, and several months later in book format.