If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (2021) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

The film is set in a dark medieval world centered on a royal castle that serves as the seat of Queen Lila's power and the site of her eventual downfall. Beyond the castle walls lies a mysterious, almost enchanted forest that leads to a witch's cabin, a place that represents hidden knowledge and the supernatural. Together, these three locations, castle, forest, and witch's cabin, form the core geography of the story and mirror Lila's journey from royal authority to desperate transformation.

• setting
• castle
• forest
• witch's cabin
• medieval
• location

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is set in a fictional medieval era defined by monarchies, rigid social hierarchies, and widespread superstition. The world operates under the weight of royal lineage and tradition, with witchcraft and the supernatural treated as real and dangerous forces. This period framing allows the story to explore how power, gender, and motherhood intersected in pre-modern societies ruled by birthright and force.

• medieval
• time period
• era
• monarchy
• hierarchy
• superstition

Queen Lila is the central figure of the film, a young and pregnant ruler played by Halsey who is caught between her personal desires and the brutal demands of her position. She is defined by a traumatic past with the king and by the political hostility of the court around her, which forces her into erratic and desperate choices. Her arc reflects the vulnerability of women in power when love is weaponized against them and when motherhood becomes a political liability.

• queen lila
• halsey
• pregnant ruler
• central character
• protagonist

Lilith is Lila's alter ego, the embodiment of her suppressed rage, fear, and darker impulses. Where Lila navigates the external world of court politics and public judgment, Lilith represents the chaotic interior life that the throne cannot contain. The two figures function as a symbolic duality, with Lilith ultimately acting out the violence and liberation that Lila cannot openly pursue while wearing the crown.

• lilith
• alter ego
• duality
• suppressed rage
• dark side

The Witch functions as both a guide and a symbol of forbidden knowledge, living at the edge of the kingdom in her secluded cabin deep in the forest. She represents the seductive promise of personal power and self-acceptance, but also the fear and danger that come with embracing a hidden identity. Her presence in the film frames witchcraft as a metaphor for the cost of claiming autonomy in a world that punishes women for stepping outside their assigned role.

• the witch
• witchcraft
• symbolism
• forbidden knowledge
• autonomy

At its core, the film is about how love, power, and identity collide inside a system designed to deny women both. It examines how patriarchal control and domestic abuse distort romantic relationships, and how the pursuit of power can become both a survival mechanism and a destructive force. The narrative also interrogates motherhood under duress, justice in a morally corrupt court, and the idea that true liberation may only be possible through darkness rather than hope.

• themes
• meaning
• power
• control
• motherhood
• patriarchy

The film is built around three major thematic pillars: power and betrayal, love and despair, and justice and retribution. Power and betrayal drive Lila's conflict as she confronts the violent truths of her marriage and the court's attempts to strip her of authority. Love and despair explore her vulnerability as a mother-to-be without genuine affection or safety. Justice and retribution question whether punishment in a corrupt royal society can ever be fair, especially when those judging her are complicit in her suffering.

• power
• betrayal
• love
• despair
• justice
• retribution
• themes

The Aristocrat serves as the voice of traditional, patriarchal authority and functions as one of Lila's primary antagonists. He openly challenges her competence and legitimacy as a ruler, embodying the rigid expectations of royal lineage and the court's hostility toward a young queen. His disdain and political maneuvering create much of the external pressure that pushes Lila toward her most desperate choices, framing him as a representative of the system that works against her.

• the aristocrat
• antagonist
• patriarchy
• royal court
• traditional power

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is best understood as a visual album experience that accompanies Halsey's fourth studio album of the same name. The project was produced with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose industrial, operatic score shapes the film as much as the visuals do. Rather than a traditional narrative movie, it functions as an immersive, music-driven piece of storytelling that prioritizes mood, symbolism, and thematic imagery over conventional plot structure.

• visual album
• halsey
• trent reznor
• atticus ross
• music film

The tone is gothic, operatic, and deliberately dark, with no humor to offset the heavy subject matter. Visually, it leans into striking, painterly imagery, from quiet, atmospheric moments in bathhouses and forest clearings to sudden eruptions of violence and emotional confrontation. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's industrial score reinforces this intensity, creating an experience that feels more like a tragedy set to music than a conventional drama.

• tone
• gothic
• dark
• operatic
• industrial score
• visual style

The forest functions as a threshold space between the structured world of the castle and the unpredictable realm of the supernatural. It is enchanting yet dangerous, offering Lila a path toward the witch's cabin and, symbolically, toward a version of herself that exists outside royal duty. The forest represents both refuge and threat, embodying the seductive danger of stepping away from prescribed roles in a society that punishes deviation.

• forest
• symbolism
• threshold
• supernatural
• escape
• danger

Motherhood in the film is framed as a condition under siege, shaped by trauma, political threat, and the absence of genuine love. Lila's pregnancy is not celebrated but weaponized, by the court that judges her, by the memories of abuse that haunt her, and by the looming threat of execution that puts both her and her child at risk. The narrative uses this pressure to ask what motherhood means when it is born from violence rather than consent, and when the state treats it as a liability rather than a bond.

• motherhood
• pregnancy
• trauma
• execution
• maternal bond