What Does Lib Drink in The Wonder? Blood Ritual Explained

**Warning – Spoilers ahead for The Wonder**

If you fancy a break from superheroes and Christmas-themed content, Netflix is offering a quiet, Irish mystery starring Florence Pugh and we answer: What does Lib drink in The Wonder?

The film arrives on the streaming platform a few weeks after it received an exclusive run in limited theatres across the United Kingdom.

Directed by Sebastián Lelio, the period drama The Wonder follows Nurse Lib Wright, who is asked to tend to a girl who has not eaten for months within a rural village in 1862 Ireland, starring Pugh, Tom Burke, Elaine Cassidy, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Niamh Algar, Toby Jones, and Ciarán Hinds.

**WARNING: Content of a sensitive nature ahead**

• MORE: Where was The Wonder Filmed? Netflix Filming Locations Explored

What Does Lib Drink in The Wonder?

Lib drinks liquid opioids every night, or laudanum, which is a mixture of opium and high-proof alcohol.

The character clearly uses the mixture as a sleeping aid, including it in her nighttime ritual.

We first see Lib, or Elizabeth as she is called earlier on, in her bedroom during her first night away from England before the first day of Anna’s watch.

While she’s getting ready to sleep, she lays out a white cloth on the bed which contained a pair of knitted shoes for a baby and a brown bottle.

Using a spoon, she pours the liquid opioids onto the spoon and ingests it while looking intently at the shoes. Within a matter of minutes, we can clearly see the effects of the drug sending her into an altered state. 

Blood Ritual Explained

Also kept within the white cloth is a needle, which Lib uses to prick her index finger after ingesting the opium. This explains why we see little spots of blood on the cloth.

The character’s blood ritual is likely a form of self-harm that she routinely endures every night as a way of coping with the grief of losing her child and husband, as well as the horrors she would have seen during the war.

She perhaps feels somewhat numb after the ordeals she has been through and pricking her finger, combined with taking the opium, is a way for her to still feel alive. It’s also why she welcomes intimacy with Will Byrne.

The mission to save a starving Anna soon becomes her main objective, which causes her to cease this nightly ritual.

• MORE: Is Netflix’s The Wonder Based on a True Story?

The Wonder Ending Explained

The big reveal of The Wonder comes from Anna herself when she admits that her mother was feeding her chewed-up food while giving her her nighttime kiss – essentially feeding her like a bird which she was told was “manna from heaven.”

Anna also revealed to Lib that she was in an incestuous relationship with her brother before he passed and her fast was a way to safeguard his place in heaven.

With Anna now on the brink of death, her family refuses to feed her and considers her death to be a “salvation” because those who die young become God’s chosen angels.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Lib decides to take matters into her own hands to save Anna, convincing her to let Anna “die”, so that her new persona, Nan, can be born free of Anna’s previous hardships.

Leaving Anna by the side of the river, Lib returns to set the O’Donnell residence on fire, staging Anna’s death, and soon leaves her post to return to England to be with Anna and Will. 

By Jo Craig – [email protected]

The Wonder is now streaming on Netflix.