Line #4 Literature/Bluebeard


1	[[quoteright:277:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bluebeard-1862_1725.jpg]]
2
3	->''"At first she saw nothing, for the windows were closed, but after a few moments she perceived dimly that the floor was entirely covered with clotted blood, and that in this there were reflected the dead bodies of several women that hung along the walls. These were all the wives of Bluebeard, whose throats he had cut, one after the other."''
4	-->-- '''"Bluebeard"'''
5
6	An old French Folktale ([[https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault03.html online version here]]) written as ''La Barbe Bleue'' ("The Blue Beard") by Creator/CharlesPerrault in 1697, which later found its way into [[Creator/TheBrothersGrimm the Grimms']] first edition of 1812 as ''König Blaubart'' or "King Bluebeard" (Online version [[https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0312.html#germany 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.
7
8	Then he leaves the house on business, sometimes for days at a time, and the woman gets bored and eaten up with curiosity about [[ForbiddenFruit 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.
9
10	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.
11
12	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 ''Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing'', makes a reference to the recurrent rhyme in this version:
13	-->''For it is not so, and it was not so,\
14	And God forbid that it should be so!''
15
16	This story has [[TropeNamers given name]] to a specific kind of SerialKiller, "TheBluebeard," who kills a succession of wives.
17
18	Despite what [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Bart Simpson]] may tell you, the titular character is not [[CaptainColorbeard a pirate]].
19
20	----
21	!!''Bluebeard'' and variations contain the following tropes:
22	%%
23	%% Zero Context examples have been commented out. Please write up a full example before uncommenting.
24	%%
25	* AnAesop: Perrault leaves comments at the end of the tale about the moral within.
26	** ''Mr. Fox'' has a recurring rhyme which acts as the Aesop of that version:
27	--->''"Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,\
28	Lest your heart’s blood should run cold."''
29	* BeardOfEvil: The title character.
30	* BigBad: The [[AntagonistTitle titular]] [[TheBluebeard Bluebeard]] turns out to be a serial wife murderer and intends on making the protagonist his next victim.
31	* BigDamnHeroes: The relatives, if they arrive in the nick of time.
32	* TheBluebeard: {{Trope Namer\|s}}, about the man who is discovered to have killed his previous wives for money and stuffed their bodies in his secret room.
33	* {{Bowdlerize}}: One version of the tale from the Indian comic "Tinkle Digest" changes Bluebeard's wives to his maids, and instead of being killed they are changed into statues. The main characters are sisters who are worried that their sister Elsa went missing after going to work for Bluebeard for a month; they decide to take the job to find out what happened to Elsa. Their older brother goes to get help from the army, and will arrive back in a month. He arrives just in time to save his little sisters, and when Bluebeard dies all of his statues turn back into normal women.
34	* BrokenAesop: 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.
35	** The text itself also makes it clear that the lady has a {{gut feeling}} that something is ''off'' about Bluebeard, but allows [[TheSociopath 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.
36	** 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 SerialKiller and probably would've been killed, so in this case the wife not being obedient to her husband was a very good thing.
37	* TheCavalry: The wife's brothers in Perrault's version. They arrive right in time to save her and kill Bluebeard.
38	* DamselInDistress: The wife, as she stalls for time as her relatives approach.
39	* DeusExMachina:
40	** The woman's relatives seem to show up out of nowhere, to kill Bluebeard at the very last minute.
41	** In the Georges Méliès film version, a good fairy brings the dead brides back to life.
42	** 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.
43	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In one regional variant, the girl escapes, a furious Bluebeard goes in search of her for three months... [[ExitPursuedByABear and then gets killed]] by ''a werewolf,'' which was in no way set up beforehand.
44	* EggSitting: 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 [[CruelAndUnusualDeath the women getting dismembered]].
45	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: A lot of versions have some awfully graphic descriptions of the murdered women when the heroine finds them.
46	* FauxAffablyEvil: The title character seems nice enough at first... then we learn he's a SerialKiller.
47	* ForbiddenFruit: The forbidden chamber.
48	* IdiotBall: Good grief, why would the murderer give his wife a ''key to the room that he's desperate to keep a secret?''
49	** In many versions, the key is a SecretTestOfCharacter that the wife inevitably fails. This gives Bluebeard the thin excuse of killing them because he can't trust them.
50	** 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?
51	* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: 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 DeusExMachina 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 ''[[FaceDeathWithDignity honor]]''; which he decides to allow because he's rather WickedCultured that way.
52	* [[OffWithHisHead Off With Her Head!]]: In some versions of the story, the wife doesn't find the ''bodies'' of her predecessors, but only their [[DecapitationPresentation severed heads]], all lined up in the cupboard.
53	* PeekABooCorpse: Several of them. This ''is'' the story of Bluebeard and the corpses of his many murdered wives in the closet.
54	* RedRightHand: The antagonist's color of his facial hair is blue.
55	* RememberTheNewGuy: The wife's sister, Anne, [[DeusExMachina 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.
56	* RuleOfThree: In "Fitcher's Bird", the heroine is preceded by her two sisters, both of whom are caught peeking and killed.
57	* SchmuckBait: "You can open any door in the castle, but not ''that'' one." Right. Now, guess what she does next....
58	* SerialKiller: Bluebeard has murdered all his previous wives for disobeying him.
59	* TheSociopath: 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.
60	* SpiritAdvisor: In one version, the ghosts of Bluebeard's previous wives help the girl escape with the same instruments that Bluebeard used to kill them.
61	* UglyGuyHotWife: Bluebeard's blue beard puts people off. But his wealth and apparent generosity keeps getting him young, beautiful wives from time to time.
62	* VillainHasAPoint: 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. [[DisproportionateRetribution Not that it justifies murdering them]] or makes him any less of a monster.
63	* WealthyEverAfter: The wife is Bluebeard's only heir, so his discovery as a SerialKiller and subsequent execution leaves the wife very wealthy..
64	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: 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.
65
66	----
67	!! Adaptations of the tale or appearances of the character in other works:
68
69	[[foldercontrol]]
70
71	[[folder:Anime]]
72	* Appears as episode 16 of the anime ''Anime/GrimmsFairyTaleClassics''. Based on the Brothers Grimm's retelling. It also expands the story a little: Bluebeard is redesigned to look like the aforementioned Henry VIII, the girl is named Josephine and her origins are shown (she's a humble peasant girl, implied to have been raised ''and'' very sheltered by [[PromotionToParent her three]] [[BigBrotherInstinct big brothers]]), her first days at the manse is shown, etc. It's also infamous for its ''very'' creepy imagery including the wives' corpses [[DeadGuyOnDisplay mounted as trophies]] in the forbidden room, white roses that turn red when Josephine gets inside, etc.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Comic Books]]
76	* Much like many other fairy tale/fable characters, Bluebeard was a prominent character in the comic book series ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' for several story arcs.
77	* ''ComicBook/GrimFairyTales'' has a version of the fairy tale where Bluebeard's forbidden chamber had a different reason for being restricted than initially believed by his bride.
78	* ''ComicBook/SuskeEnWiske'': Tante Sidonia unknowingly gets engaged with him in ''De Briesende Bruid'', yet Lambik and Jerom manage to arrive in the nick of time to defeat him.
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Film]]
82	* ''Film/BlueBeard'', a 1901 French silent film based on the fairy tale by George Méliès.
83	* ''Film/Bluebeard1944'', a film noir based on the fairy tale featuring a murderous artist played by Creator/JohnCarradine.
84	* ''Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons'', a 1960 British thriller movie directed by W. Lee Wilder and starring Creator/GeorgeSanders.
85	* ''Film/Bluebeard1972'' is loosely based on the tale, its setting changed to 1930s Austria and the titular character being a World War 1 veteran pilot.
86	* ''Film/BarbeBleue'', a 2009 {{Euroshlock}} fantasy film directed by Creator/CatherineBreillat.
87	* ''Film/ElizabethHarvest'' a 2018 sci-fi horror film directed by Sebastian Guiterrez that takes a modern approach to the tale.
88	[[/folder]]
89
90	[[folder:Literature]]
91	* Creator/KurtVonnegut's 1987 novel ''Bluebeard'' takes the fairy tale as inspiration.
92	* The story ''Literature/TheBloodyChamber'' in British author Creator/AngelaCarter's fairy tale anthology of the same name is based on the story of Bluebeard, with the heroine's rescue coming at the hands of her [[MamaBear formidable mother]].
93	* In the horror novel ''{{Literature/Dove Keeper}}'', the villain, UsefulNotes/GillesDeRais, is constantly compared to Bluebeard because of his crimes.
94	* Creator/UrsulaVernon's short story "Bluebeard's Wife" (in which Bluebeard marries a woman who grew up in a nosy family and consequently determines that if he wants his own private space she's not going to intrude) and novel ''The Seventh Bride'' (in which the Bluebeard character is a sorcerer and the price for failing his tests is not so simple as death).
95	* "The White Road" by Creator/NeilGaiman is a version of the "Mr. Fox" variant, with a twist - [[spoiler: Mr. Fox may be innocent, having been framed by a kitsune.]] (That said, it's very ambiguous if you read the story closely.)
96	[[/folder]]
97
98	[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
99	* 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, [[HealingSpring resurrect the dead]] or heal wounds but kill the patient). He also ends up storing the corpses next to kegs. [[spoiler:The third girl resurrects her sisters, tricks the bear into carrying them all home and arranges the accident that kills him.]]
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Ballads]]
103	* The ballad "Bridegroom" by Creator/AlexanderPushkin is similar to the "Mr. Fox" version. A merchant's daughter got lost in the woods and came back 3 days later after experiencing something horrible, which she refuses to tell. Later she is [[ArrangedMarriage forced to marry]] some man she is afraid of. At the wedding she retells a nightmare, where she stumbles upon a strange house, hides and watches a wedding of a bandit leader that ends with the bride's murder and chopping her hand off. Then she asks her groom if he recognizes the ring from that hand. The groom is promptly arrested, tried and executed.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Poetry]]
107	* ''Bluebeard'' is the subject of a poem by Creator/SylviaPlath.
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
111	* The ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' episode ''Lonelyhearts'' builds its main plot around a (very loose) interpretation of the Bluebeard story.
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Music]]
115	* Music/SoundHorizon's song "Aoki Hakushaku no Shiro" on their ''Marchen'' album is based around this story. In a small twist, the story is told from the perspective of the ghost of his first wife.
116	[[/folder]]
117
118	[[folder:Theatre]]
119	* Hungarian opera ''Theatre/DukeBluebeardsCastle'' by Music/BelaBartok and its TV and cinema adaptations stray rather far from the original into symbolism bordering on MindScrew. Bluebeard shows his fourth wife the rooms of his castle, one by one, uncovering depths of his psyche. The doors may just as well be [[TeleportersAndTransporters portals]] to someplace else and from the last room emerge Bluebeard's three previous wives as living effigies who take the new one with them, completing his collection.
120	* 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 [[ArabianNightsDays 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 [[InterchangeableAsianCultures India and Japan]]. The characters had [[StockForeignName 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.
121	[[/folder]]
122
123	[[folder:Theme Parks]]
124	* A memorial outside the exit to ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion'' (at least the Orlando version) is dedicated to Bluebeard and his "Loving Wives":
125	--> Seven winsome wives
126	--> Some fat some thin
127	--> Six of them were faithful
128	--> The seventh did him in
129	[[/folder]]
130
131	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
132	* Bluebeard is a darklord in the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and featured in the first anthology. Mr. Fox also appears as a bogeyman in the ''Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends'' supplement.
133	* The TabletopGame ''TabletopGame/BluebeardsBride'' casts the players in the roles of the Bride's [[SplitPersonality 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.
134	[[/folder]]
135
136	[[folder:Video Games]]
137	* ''VideoGame/BluebeardsCastle'' is a hidden object game based on the fairy tale, where the heroine saves her sister from becoming the next victim. Its sequel, ''Son of the Heartless'', follows the villain's son who seeks to end the curse his father's bargain brought on him.
138	* ''VideoGame/DarkParables'' has a bonus game in ''Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide'' where Bluebeard is the antagonist of the story. However, the reason for murdering his wives is far different from his literary counterpart.
139	* ''VideoGame/DarkRomance'': ''Curse of Bluebeard'' is based on the tale, where a young couple under threat of being separated by the titular villain have to uncover the truth behind Bluebeard's crimes and the circumstances behind his monstrous children.
140	* ''VideoGame/LivingLegends'': ''The Blue Chamber'', is based on the fairy tale. Ironically, it isn't Bluebeard that is the main antagonist - [[spoiler:but rather, it's his daughter]].
141	* A younger Saber version of Gilles appears in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' and, being a [[SanitySlippage mostly]] moral man, is offended by the "Bluebeard" moniker.
142	* Bluebeard also appears in ''VideoGame/TheWolfAmongUs'', with it being based on the comics.
143	[[/folder]]
144
145	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
146	* The Caster class of Servant in ''Literature/FateZero'' is UsefulNotes/GillesDeRais and refers to himself as Bluebeard.
147	[[/folder]]
148
149	[[folder:Western Animation]]
150	* A villain named Bluebeard appeared in the 1949 WesternAnimation/PorkyPig short "Bye Bye Bluebeard", where he was wolf-like and did, indeed, have a blue beard. (He was [[VileVillainSaccharineShow far eviler]] than most ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' villains, tying poor Porky up and building a guillotine to use on him. Fortunately for Porky, this version is a VillainousGlutton, and he's saved when a mouse tricks Bluebeard into eating bombs disguised as popovers.)
151	[[/folder]]
152
153	[[folder:Other]]
154	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmrldwPVng A Russian cartoon]] exists that toys with the story: Bluebeard tells everything to a modern detective. His first wife was a dopey party girl, whom he accidentally set on fire, stepping on her pet dragon's tail. The second wife was a snobbish health nut, who starved Bluebeard and accidentally poisoned herself by eating a toadstool that Bluebeard was going to eat (believing it to be edible). The third (and final) bride was an adulteress, who had her lover kill Bluebeard when he accidentally walked in on them (Bluebeard seems to have survived, however, as he is telling this). Presumably, she made up the fairy tale to save face. The weird thing was: before each death Bluebeard quickly grew an elbow-long blue beard. Then the detective's wife throws a jealous fit and ''the detective'' grows a blue beard bigger than his car.
155	-->Sorry, Love, it was an accident.
156	[[/folder]]
157

Context Literature / Bluebeard