‘The Gifted’ Showrunner Confirms Whether Polaris Is Magneto’s Daughter In The Series

Lorna Dane, the mistress of magnetism known as Polaris, is coming to The Gifted on Fox and yes, her powers are hereditary.

The Gifted creator Matt Nix has confirmed that Lorna, played by Emma Dumont, is indeed the daughter of the mutant master of magnetism

“Our version of Lorna rolls back the clock to when she didn’t know everything,” Nix told CBR. “She’s unstable. The thing that is going to play out very gradually over the course of the series is an exploration of her past. As you know from the comics, it’s a little murky. It’s not like she’s living at home with Magneto and eating cereal.”

In addition to being the daughter of a known mutant terrorist, Polaris will also have to grapple with her own mental illness.

“When we think of it, the baggage of mental illness – and there is some awareness she is Magneto’s daughter – I mean, her powers certainly are like Magneto’s,” Nix continued. “That’s something we will be exploring as time goes on, but more towards the end of the season, when some of these ideas and suspicions come to the fore. She has to confront, ‘OK, if that’s the case, what does it mean?’ The idea is there are challenges and opportunities with that. In some ways, it might divide her from her friends. In other ways, does she accept the mantle of her birthright? Is it her job to be Magneto in his absence?”

This news should come as something of a surprise to Dumont, who said during a press visit to the set of The Gifted in Atlanta that she wasn’t sure if Polaris would end up being Magneto’s daughter on the show. However, to her, the show isn’t really about blood relations.

“Our show is about family, but it’s not so much about your birth family, but your chosen family,” Dumont told ComicBook.com. “I like to say that friendship is thicker than blood.”

This all stays pretty closet to how Polaris is written in the Marvel Comics Universe. There, she has a sordid history with Magneto and, for a long time, did not know if he was her father. She’s also struggled with mental illness in the comics and a found a new family with the X-Men and X-Factor.

The Gifted premiers October 2nd at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.