Beldam

The Beldam is a former faerie member of the Court of Oberon, was one of the original Dark Spawn Lords during the first Cartoonian War, and is the main villain from Coraline. Beldam is a word referring to an old woman, especially one considered ugly and/or evil.

The Beginning of the Film

She is first seen in the very beginning of the film, (her hands only) editing a doll that resembles the Sweet Ghost Girl and making it look like Coraline.

First form (Mel Jones form)

She resembles Mel Jones exept with button eyes. It's revealed that she's a great cook and definitely more fun than the real mother. When Coraline visits the neighbors, The Beldam makes more entertaining versions of them. After Coraline vists the third time, She begs Coraline to sew buttons into her eyes, she refuses. When Coraline enters the living room, she finds the Beldam expecting her and when she forces Coraline to accept her love, Coraline refuses.

Second form

After Coraline refuses, The Beldam turns into a taller, thinner and scarier form of Mel, then throws her into the mirror prison and says she won't let Coraline come out until she accepts to be a "loving daughter". When Coraline escapes with the help from the Other Wybie. The Beldam destroys him (then places his clothes above the Other Mr. Bobinsky house) and turns the Other Father into a grass-haired pumkin monster and the neighbors Miss Spink and Miss Forcible into into a two headed stale taffy monster Mr. Bobinsky and into a plethora of rats. When Coraline challenges her to the game of finding the ghost kid eyes and her parents, The Beldam accepts.

Third form (Real form)

Once Coraline has found the eyes, she turns into a spider-like, face patterned with dark crack-like markings, creature that has fingers like sewing needles (which is what the viewers saw at the beginning) and now looks nothing like Mel Jones (apart from the voice). Coraline tricks her in opening the door that leads to the real world, when her real parents are really in a snowglobe. Meanwhile, the Other World is collapsing leaving only a web. When Coraline and the Cat escape, they realease the ghost children who warn them about the Beldam's severed hand getting through (severed when Coraline shut the door on her hand). The hand tries to get the key back, but is defeated by Coraline and Wybie as the key and the crushed hand is thrown (along with the key) down into the well.

The Beldam's final words were that she would die without Coraline, which based on the Cat's words, either means that she died of loneliness for not having someone else to love, or that she died of starvation for not having a child's life to eat, or both.

Role in the series
Originally, the Beldam was a fair folk member of the Court of Oberon. But like Anansi, Raven, and Banshee, the Beldam hated serving under Oberon and planned a Coup D' tat alongside the 3 other evil faeries to take over Avalon. The coup failed, and the Beldam was banished from Avalon forever, while her 3 cohorts were sent into rehab, until their banishement in 996 AD. Meanwhile, the Beldam was furious at being exiled to the mortal realms, and was just about to plan a way to get back when Chernabog approached her. He was looking for demon gods and warlords to try and recruit to his growing council of the Dark Spawn Lords. If Beldam joined his council of Dark Spawn, he would be able to help her get back to Avalon and be able to overthrow Avalon for herself. The Beldam agreed, and was quickly dubbed the Dark Spawn of spiders, needles, and trickery. The Beldam joined her fellow Dark Spawn in their efforts to try and take over the universe, but after a very long war, they failed and were all banished to Hell's Banished realms for all eternity. The Beldam was furious that not even Chernabog could keep her promise, and quickly sided with the dissidents who escaped the Banished Realms with their own magic powers. Currently, the now escaped Beldam has not appeared yet in the Spongebob series or Spyro series.