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Bluebeard
- 203 statements
- 34 feature instances
- 21 referencing feature instances
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An old French Folktale (online version here) written as La Barbe Bleue ("The Blue Beard") by Charles Perrault in 1697, which later found its way into the Grimms' first edition of 1812 as König Blaubart or "King Bluebeard" (Online version here). (In various versions of the fairy tale the eponymous man is a king, sometimes a knight or other rich person.) The story starts with a rich gentleman, who is a widower, asking for the hand of a fair young maiden in marriage. After the wedding, he gives her a key-ring with the keys to all the doors of his mansion (or palace), with the request that if she loves him she must never, ever, ever use the golden key to open a certain door in the house.Then he leaves the house on business, sometimes for days at a time, and the woman gets bored and eaten up with curiosity about the door she is not supposed to open, so finally she goes and opens it. (In some versions Bluebeard merely points out the key as forbidden, and the woman tries the key in all the doors of the house until she finds the right chamber.) When she opens the door, she finds the blood-spattered dead bodies of all the former wives of Bluebeard who he murdered for their money. She flees in horror and tries to act as if nothing happened, but when Bluebeard returns he invariably finds out what she has done, one way or the other (sometimes by finding traces of blood on her shoes or the key she dropped in fright), and threatens to kill her, too, for betraying his trust. Depending on the version of the tale, she is saved by the arrival of her relatives who kill Bluebeard, or, after having been locked up, manages to flee and alert the authorities.A second Grimm variant, "Fitcher's Bird", indicates that the woman was only wrong insofar as she got caught. The heroine in "Fitcher's Bird" also "betrays his trust" to find the bodies of her sisters, but does so in a manner that he cannot detect, and therefore ultimately comes out on top.An English version of the story, "Mr. Fox", has the heroine witness the villain murdering a previous bride, and confronting him at the wedding breakfast with the severed hand of the unfortunate lady. Shakespeare, in Much Ado About Nothing, makes a reference to the recurrent rhyme in this version:This story has given name to a specific kind of Serial Killer, "The Bluebeard," who kills a succession of wives.Despite what Bart Simpson may tell you, the titular character is not a pirate. | |
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Dropped link to AnAesop: Not a Feature - IGNORE | |
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Bluebeard / int_19851b86 | type |
The Sociopath | |
Bluebeard / int_19851b86 | comment |
The Sociopath: Implied. Bluebard is superficially charming in public (known for his generosity and courtly graces), but behind closed doors he rather coldly and casually murders his many wives over the smallest disobediences or missteps, then stuffs their rotting corpses in a single room in the main manor in front of his next wife. | |
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Bluebeard / int_2110d8ac | type |
Egg Sitting | |
Bluebeard / int_2110d8ac | comment |
Egg Sitting: In "Fitcher's Bird", the sorcerer Fitze Fitcher carries young women and gives them an egg, then tells them to carry it everywhere except the sorcerer's room and to be very careful with it for a few days before he can marry them. Failure to pass the test results in the women getting dismembered. | |
Bluebeard / int_2110d8ac | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_23cd71be | type |
TabletopGame | |
Bluebeard / int_23cd71be | comment |
The Tabletop Game Bluebeard's Bride casts the players in the roles of the Bride's fragmented personalities as she explores the castle's rooms and decides whether what she finds in them (which is typically horrific) increases or decreases her suspicions about her husband, which influences her ultimate fate when she reaches the room he forbade her to enter. | |
Bluebeard / int_23cd71be | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_25b7257f | type |
Red Right Hand | |
Bluebeard / int_25b7257f | comment |
Red Right Hand: The antagonist's color of his facial hair is blue. | |
Bluebeard / int_25b7257f | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_2bfb1856 | type |
Beard of Evil | |
Bluebeard / int_2bfb1856 | comment |
Beard of Evil: The title character. | |
Bluebeard / int_2bfb1856 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_3f7a958b | type |
Secret Test of Character | |
Bluebeard / int_3f7a958b | comment |
In many versions, the key is a Secret Test of Character that the wife inevitably fails. This gives Bluebeard the thin excuse of killing them because he can't trust them. | |
Bluebeard / int_3f7a958b | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_3fca462c | type |
Deus ex Machina | |
Bluebeard / int_3fca462c | comment |
Deus ex Machina: The woman's relatives seem to show up out of nowhere, to kill Bluebeard at the very last minute. In the Georges Méliès film version, a good fairy brings the dead brides back to life. Averted in the "Mr. Fox" variation, where it makes sense that her relatives are there to save her. She waits to expose Mr. Fox until she, he, and the rest of her family and suitors are at her pre-wedding breakfast. | |
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Bluebeard / int_401d4116 | type |
Broken Aesop | |
Bluebeard / int_401d4116 | comment |
Broken Aesop: Perrault tries to explain that the curiosity is a flaw... but in almost every version the lady survives, finds out her husband is a serial murderer, escapes him and ends up marrying a better guy. The text itself also makes it clear that the lady has a gut feeling that something is off about Bluebeard, but allows his courtly graces to convince her she should discard these instincts and marry him anyway. And when he first gives her the key, she has another gut feeling that something is wrong, and she has to open the door to find out what it is. Doing so saves her life in the long run. The obvious moral seems to be, "Trust your instincts," yet the stated moral at the end seems to take the opposite view. The moral of the story is that Bluebeard's wife should have been obedient to her husband and she would've been okay. Except that had she been obedient and not looked in the room she would never have discovered that her husband was a Serial Killer and probably would've been killed, so in this case the wife not being obedient to her husband was a very good thing. | |
Bluebeard / int_401d4116 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_4160410d | type |
Damsel in Distress | |
Bluebeard / int_4160410d | comment |
Damsel in Distress: The wife, as she stalls for time as her relatives approach. | |
Bluebeard / int_4160410d | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_43a045de | type |
Dropped a Bridge on Him | |
Bluebeard / int_43a045de | comment |
Dropped a Bridge on Him: In one regional variant, the girl escapes, a furious Bluebeard goes in search of her for three months... and then gets killed by a werewolf, which was in no way set up beforehand. | |
Bluebeard / int_43a045de | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_43a045de | featureConfidence |
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Bluebeard / int_6492f4ca | type |
Spirit Advisor | |
Bluebeard / int_6492f4ca | comment |
Spirit Advisor: In one version, the ghosts of Bluebeard's previous wives help the girl escape with the same instruments that Bluebeard used to kill them. | |
Bluebeard / int_6492f4ca | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_6492f4ca | |
Bluebeard / int_723be11b | type |
Villain Has a Point | |
Bluebeard / int_723be11b | comment |
Villain Has a Point: The story does point out that it was wrong of Bluebeard's wives to break their promise to him, which is even treated as an aesop in some tellings. Not that it justifies murdering them or makes him any less of a monster. | |
Bluebeard / int_723be11b | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_723be11b | featureConfidence |
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Bluebeard / int_7286e96d | type |
Idiot Ball | |
Bluebeard / int_7286e96d | comment |
Idiot Ball: Good grief, why would the murderer give his wife a key to the room that he's desperate to keep a secret? In many versions, the key is a Secret Test of Character that the wife inevitably fails. This gives Bluebeard the thin excuse of killing them because he can't trust them. In some versions, the wife discovers the secret room while throwing a party. So why doesn't she leave with her friends when they depart or at the very least tell them what she saw so they can send for help? | |
Bluebeard / int_7286e96d | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_7286e96d | featureConfidence |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_7286e96d | |
Bluebeard / int_7301ae04 | type |
Serial Killer | |
Bluebeard / int_7301ae04 | comment |
Serial Killer: Bluebeard has murdered all his previous wives for disobeying him. | |
Bluebeard / int_7301ae04 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_76dc4f31 | type |
"Arabian Nights" Days | |
Bluebeard / int_76dc4f31 | comment |
The musical being staged on the night of the 1903 Iroquois theater fire in Chicago was a very loose adaptation of the folk tale which turned it into a musical comedy. Entitled Mr Bluebeard, it moved the action to a heavily exoticized version of Baghdad, not that this stopped the show including Irish charmers, a number about Hamlet and a platoon of singing Hussars, or paying a whistle-stop tour of India and Japan. The characters had stock foreign names like Fatima, Abulim, Beco, Zoli and, most bafflingly of all, Anne. Even by the standards of the time it wasn't considered a very good show, and the fire is probably the only reason anyone remembers Mr Bluebeard at all. A play based on the events of the fire as told by a group of singed ghostly performers, Burning Bluebeard, has been staged annually in Chicago since 2011. | |
Bluebeard / int_76dc4f31 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_77b03c0a | type |
Remember the New Guy? | |
Bluebeard / int_77b03c0a | comment |
Remember the New Guy?: The wife's sister, Anne, randomly shows up at the castle during the climax to call for their brothers to comes rescue them despite the fact she was never mentioned previously in the story. | |
Bluebeard / int_77b03c0a | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_7e6c0522 | type |
Off with His Head! | |
Bluebeard / int_7e6c0522 | comment |
Off With Her Head!: In some versions of the story, the wife doesn't find the bodies of her predecessors, but only their severed heads, all lined up in the cupboard. | |
Bluebeard / int_7e6c0522 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
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Bluebeard / int_863fa679 | type |
What Happened to the Mouse? | |
Bluebeard / int_863fa679 | comment |
What Happened to the Mouse?: Some versions of the text mention that the wife invites friends over and is having a party when she goes down to the cellar and discovers Bluebeard's secret. During the climax the friends inexplicably disappear from the castle and don't appear in the story again despite the fact they were there when the wife went downstairs. | |
Bluebeard / int_863fa679 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_863fa679 | |
Bluebeard / int_9059bd5d | type |
Peek-a-Boo Corpse | |
Bluebeard / int_9059bd5d | comment |
Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Several of them. This is the story of Bluebeard and the corpses of his many murdered wives in the closet. | |
Bluebeard / int_9059bd5d | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_9059bd5d | |
Bluebeard / int_95b7c400 | type |
Faux Affably Evil | |
Bluebeard / int_95b7c400 | comment |
Faux Affably Evil: The title character seems nice enough at first... then we learn he's a Serial Killer. | |
Bluebeard / int_95b7c400 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_95b7c400 | |
Bluebeard / int_970c790a | type |
Big Bad | |
Bluebeard / int_970c790a | comment |
Big Bad: The titular Bluebeard turns out to be a serial wife murderer and intends on making the protagonist his next victim. | |
Bluebeard / int_970c790a | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_9afa05c7 | type |
Family-Unfriendly Death | |
Bluebeard / int_9afa05c7 | comment |
Family-Unfriendly Death: A lot of versions have some awfully graphic descriptions of the murdered women when the heroine finds them. | |
Bluebeard / int_9afa05c7 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_9afa05c7 | |
Bluebeard / int_a6cda066 | type |
Rule of Three | |
Bluebeard / int_a6cda066 | comment |
Rule of Three: In "Fitcher's Bird", the heroine is preceded by her two sisters, both of whom are caught peeking and killed. | |
Bluebeard / int_a6cda066 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_a6cda066 | |
Bluebeard / int_b475abfb | type |
Gut Feeling | |
Bluebeard / int_b475abfb | comment |
The text itself also makes it clear that the lady has a gut feeling that something is off about Bluebeard, but allows his courtly graces to convince her she should discard these instincts and marry him anyway. And when he first gives her the key, she has another gut feeling that something is wrong, and she has to open the door to find out what it is. Doing so saves her life in the long run. The obvious moral seems to be, "Trust your instincts," yet the stated moral at the end seems to take the opposite view. | |
Bluebeard / int_b475abfb | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_b475abfb | featureConfidence |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_b475abfb | |
Bluebeard / int_b9f6cc0a | type |
The Bluebeard | |
Bluebeard / int_b9f6cc0a | comment |
The Bluebeard: Trope Namer, about the man who is discovered to have killed his previous wives for money and stuffed their bodies in his secret room. | |
Bluebeard / int_b9f6cc0a | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_b9f6cc0a | |
Bluebeard / int_bd0415e2 | type |
Healing Spring | |
Bluebeard / int_bd0415e2 | comment |
Russian folktale "The Cat with the Golden Tail" replaces Bluebeard with a bear, who kidnaps girls and forces them to live in his house as his wife and housekeeper. He murders them for entering a forbidden storehouse with kegs of magic liquids (that can turn anything to gold, to silver, resurrect the dead or heal wounds but kill the patient). He also ends up storing the corpses next to kegs. The third girl resurrects her sisters, tricks the bear into carrying them all home and arranges the accident that kills him. | |
Bluebeard / int_bd0415e2 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_bd0415e2 | |
Bluebeard / int_bf74d357 | type |
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife | |
Bluebeard / int_bf74d357 | comment |
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Bluebeard's blue beard puts people off. But his wealth and apparent generosity keeps getting him young, beautiful wives from time to time. | |
Bluebeard / int_bf74d357 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_c8ba12ee | type |
Interplay of Sex and Violence | |
Bluebeard / int_c8ba12ee | comment |
Interplay of Sex and Violence: In some versions, instead of the wife's making increasingly feeble pleas for Bluebeard to hold off murdering her a little longer (and his inexplicably granting her a respite each time long enough for the Deus ex Machina to occur), the tale has the more clever device of having her ask him to wait while she puts on various parts of her wedding dress. Due to an ancient version of this trope, this tricks Bluebeard into thinking that she's preparing for an imminent marriage to Death, i.e. that she's resigned to dying and just insists on doing it with honor; which he decides to allow because he's rather Wicked Cultured that way. | |
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Bluebeard / int_d2c0e2ed | type |
Schmuck Bait | |
Bluebeard / int_d2c0e2ed | comment |
Schmuck Bait: "You can open any door in the castle, but not that one." Right. Now, guess what she does next.... | |
Bluebeard / int_d2c0e2ed | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_d2c0e2ed | |
Bluebeard / int_d2cd18c0 | type |
Forbidden Fruit | |
Bluebeard / int_d2cd18c0 | comment |
Forbidden Fruit: The forbidden chamber. | |
Bluebeard / int_d2cd18c0 | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard / int_d9e9ad7e | type |
The Cavalry | |
Bluebeard / int_d9e9ad7e | comment |
The Cavalry: The wife's brothers in Perrault's version. They arrive right in time to save her and kill Bluebeard. | |
Bluebeard / int_d9e9ad7e | featureApplicability |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_d9e9ad7e | |
Bluebeard / int_eb252637 | type |
Wealthy Ever After | |
Bluebeard / int_eb252637 | comment |
Wealthy Ever After: The wife is Bluebeard's only heir, so his discovery as a Serial Killer and subsequent execution leaves the wife very wealthy.. | |
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Bluebeard / int_eb252637 | featureConfidence |
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Bluebeard | hasFeature |
Bluebeard / int_eb252637 | |
Bluebeard / int_eb81c601 | type |
Big Damn Heroes | |
Bluebeard / int_eb81c601 | comment |
Big Damn Heroes: The relatives, if they arrive in the nick of time. | |
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Bluebeard |
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