The Hecate Sisters - Television Tropes & Idioms

Example of the Rule of Three and cousin to The Three Faces of Eve. The three aspects of a triune goddess or trinity of goddesses, especially Hecate, appear as sisters. They are the maiden (often blonde and beautiful, and either a naive ditz or a budding seductress), the mother (often plump and rather eccentric) and the crone (sharp-witted, sharp-tongued, bitter and unsentimental).

Even though they are the same being, they seem to know and think different things, so they bicker. Dates back to ancient mythology and so Older Than Dirt. (Or not: the "Triple Goddess" may be a 20th-century invention of poet Robert Graves. OR, it may be as old as things like The Morrigan of the Irish.)

In fantasy stories, these characters may be exactly what they appear, or they may be a trio of witches or wise women who reflect the aspects of the goddess.

Compare The Three Faces Of Eve

Examples:

Anime and Manga

The goddesses of the anime Ah My Goddess are the Norns — maiden Skuld, motherly Belldandy (the Japanese transliteration of the original Verthandi), and not-at-all crone-like Urd, whose only concessions to her traditional role are her pure white hair and her status as eldest sister.
In the anime movie Kiki's Delivery Service, Kiki the Witch (Hecate is the Goddess of Withches) is befriended by three women - Osono (a pregnant woman - "Mother"), the college-student/artist Ursula (young woman in her late teens/early 20's - "Maiden") and "Madame", a sweet old lady (quite elderly - "Crone"). Whether or not the authors intended it, there it is.
The Magi computers from Neon Genesis Evangelion are built upon these aspects of Ritsuko's mom: the beautiful woman, the caring mother, and the rational scientist.
The Five Star Stories has the three "Fatima Fates", Artificial Human sisters named after the Greek Fates, though otherwise they don't fit the patern very well. They're all only a few years apart in age & personality-wise they're probably closer to The Three Faces Of Eve: Atropos is an angrysad wreck, Lachesis is The Ditz (most of the time) & Clotho is a nervous moeblob. They also have three older sisters named after the Furies, but since those threee were subjected to the same programming (read: brainwashing) as most Fatimas they have little personality to speak of.
Some have argued that the Theatre of Shadows in Revolutionary Girl Utena represents something like this. It features three apparently omniscient girls who impart their mysterious wisdom mixed with nonsense to the viewers in every episode. Alan Harnum's fanfic Jaquemart plays with the idea, as the girls try to impress Anthy by claiming to be Fates, Norns and all the aspects of the Triple Goddess. Then Anthy points out that there's only two of them left. They sheepishly back down and admit that the claim was as nonsensical as much of the rest of their ramblings.

Comic Books

In The Sandman universe they exist in a variety of overlapping forms, as the fates (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos), as the faces of Hecate, as three witches, the Furies and three normal women. They seem also to acknowledge that they are in some way The Three Faces of Eve and will not harm Eve, even in their aspect as the Furies. In some of the issues in which they appear, each of the three seems to shift between the three roles.
- The Sandman Hecateae (or at least one aspect of them) were previously host of a horror comic, The Witching Hour, under the names Mordred (crone), Mildred (mother), and Cynthia (maiden). In their first appearance in The Sandman, Mordred complains that her name doesn't make sense, and Mildred explains she got Mordred and Morguase confused.
- The spin-off series Witchcraft was divided into three parts, Maiden, Mother and Crone, each overseen by a different face of Hecate and each featuring a different incarnation of a martyred witch at a different stage in her life.
- The sequel La Terreur featured three women, one young and beautiful, one middle-aged and plump, one old and wizened, working magic at the time of the French Revolution.
- Eve herself explains that "Adam had three wives": Lilith, who was created as part of the original human being, a hermaphrodite ("Male and female created He them", Genesis 1:27); an unnamed second wife, whom Adam rejected because he saw her during construction and got Squicked, as described in medieval Rabbinic lore; and Eve, who grew old but never died. (Genesis 5:5 says, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died", but Eve doesn't get an obituary.) In order, these are Mother, Maiden and Crone.
- Women in Sandman often fall into sets of three. In the Nightmare Fuel issue in which Dr. Destiny psionically tortures to death the hapless people in a diner, the hostess and two patrons become Crone, Mother and Maiden; when Dr. Destiny has them tell his fortune, they become the Wyrd Sisters. Later, in A Game of You, we meet Foxglove (Maiden), Hazel (Mother, thanks to a drunken one-night stand), and Thessaly (Crone). The climax of the Sandman Myth Arc in The Kindly Ones has Morpheus facing off against the Furies, whom the ancient Greeks tried to placate by calling them "kindly", but the ones who end up doing Morpheus a kindness are Nuala (Maiden), Lyta (Mother) and Thessaly (Crone, again).
  - Lyta was the one who gave the Furies the order to kill him; Thessaly protected her from getting killed by outside interference due to some unknown benefactor; and Nuala called him away at a critical moment, indirectly causing his death. Where exactly is the kindness here?
  - It's kindness because deep down, Morpheus wanted to die.
Done in Fables. Frau Totenkinder is the Crone of course. Snow White serves as the Mother, and Gretel is the Maiden (Beauty and Rose Red could also be considered the Maiden, depending on what point the story's at).
- A more specifically magical trio are the witches of the 13th floor, with Frau Totenkinder (still as Crone), Mother Birdie (the Mother), and Ozma of Oz as the Child.

Film

Disney's Hocus Pocus has the Sanderson sisters, a coven of three witches along these lines: Sarah is a ditzy young blond, Mary is a fat goofball, and Winifred is the scheming leader of the group who takes herself too seriously.
In the movie Running with Scissors, The Psychiatrist's wife, and two daughters make up this threesome perfectly. The youngest is dressed as a slut, and blonde. The older, Gywneth Paltrow's character, is quirky and unsentimental (though she does dig up her dead cat, but not for sentimental reasons exactly), and the mother is well, not initially motherly, but eventually motherly.

Literature

In Robert Graves' novel Hercules My Shipmate, a/k/a The Golden Fleece, the three persons of the Goddess are not Maid, Mother and Crone but Maid, Nymph and Mother. Differs from the usual formulation in that the Nymph's role is explicitly sexual, the Maid's pre-sexual and virginal. Prepubescent girls are said to come along with hunting parties for luck. Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt, was believed to be eternally virgin.
- The identification of Artemis and Athena as "virgin" have something to do with the fact that Ancient Greece didn't really have a conceptual slot for "unmarried and autonomous" for women.
Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles features a pseudo-Celtic version of the Fates, named Orwen, Orddu and Orgoch. They weave a tapestry rather than spinning a thread. Oddly they all appear either as young beauties (at night) or old crones (in daylight). They do not seem to have a 'Mother' face. However, in The Film Of The Book, they were middle-aged redheads all the time, and clearly marked as ugly. Stranger still, they seem to take turns at being each 'sister' ("No, it's my turn to be Orwen now, you've been her long enough!"). Orgoch appears to be the Atropos of the group. She never shows her face, wearing a deep hood in both beauty and hag forms and she is strongly implied to be a cannibal. However, the sisters seem to enjoy nothing more than to confuse, befuddle and unnerve their mortal visitors, so it is hard to take anything they say or do at face value.
In Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality series, the Anthropomorphic Personification of Fate is like this; three individuals who take on the roles of Clotho (maiden), Lachesis (mother), and Atropos (crone). One character actually gets to be both Clothos and Lachesis at different times. [In the seventh book of the series, And Eternity, Fate needs a new Atropos, and circumstances combine to make a male candidate the best choice. Even the remaining Aspects, Clotho and Lachesis, comment that this is highly unusual.]
- Also, in A Spell For Chameleon, the first book in the Xanth series, he manages to put all three into one woman—the titular Chameleon changes from Wynne [Very pretty, but dumb, either child or whore of the trio] to Dee [average looks an intelligence, mostly fitting the mother category] to Fanchon [ugly and intelligent, highly crone-ish].
Despite its Crystal Dragon Jesus setup, the Faith of the Seven in A Song Of Ice And Fire include the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.
The Dresden Files had one of these — the Mothers roughly corresponding to the Crones, the Queens roughly corresponding to Mothers, and the Ladies very closely corresponding to Maidens—for the Winter and Summer Courts of fairies.
Mercedes Lackey's Heralds Of Valdemar series features a fourfold goddess, who adds the Warrior to the standard trio of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The three sister goddesses Agnetha, Agnira, and Agnoma, as mentioned in By the Sword, may also fit the trope with Agnira as Maiden and Agnetha as Mother, but it's never really made clear whether or not Agnoma fills the Crone slot to complete the trope.
In Gregory Maguire's Wizard Of Oz prequel novel Wicked, the birth of Elphaba (who will become the Wicked Witch of the West) is attended by a maiden, a mother, and a crone. To add to the "Fates" theme (remember, Elphaba is Doomed By Canon), she's born inside a puppet theater.
The witch families in Anne Bishop's 'Tir Alian' trilogy appear as this. Usually a grandmother, mother and daughter living together. None ever seem to be able to keep the men around. Well, at least not at the start of the story anyway.
Pamela L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books, describes Mary Poppins herself this way, as a mixture of a vain young lady, a wise mother, and a sharp-tongued old lady. This was probably conscious.
It's stated repeatedly in the Discworld novels that it's "only right" for a coven to have three witches — "the maiden, the mother, and the... other one." The coven begins as Magrat Garlick (maiden), Nanny Ogg (mother), and Granny Weatherwax ("other one"). When Magrat gets married and takes up being a queen, Agnes Nitt joins up as the maiden. When Granny gets incapacitated by a vampire attack, Magrat rejoins the coven temporarily, making the order Agnes (maiden), Magrat (mother of Princess Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre), and Nanny (who's not too happy about being the "other one").
- It is also noted that Granny qualifies as all three. Technically a maiden, as protective as any mother and... well, very croneish.
  "Oh, you can have more than three witches in a coven. Anywhere up to five or six, really." "What happens after that?" "Great bloody row, usually."
- Also of note is Nanny Ogg once mentioning a witch who is still the "maiden" of her own trio, despite being a mother of four.
- Pratchett has commented that people ask him where he got the idea. He's not sure how to answer, except by providing a reading list.
The three Webster sisters of the Wyrd Museum are this—but then, they are the Nornir.
Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time.
The Wheel Of Time: Aviendha (Maiden, in a uniquely literal fashion at first), Elayne (Mother), and Min (Crone, older than most of the main characters, including her lover, and with a darker view of the world to match).
In the book series Night World, witches' rank is described as mother, maiden, or crone. The heads of the witch clan are also split up into this, with each being described as head of their third of the group.

Live Action TV

Intentional or not, the Opera House visions in Battlestar Galactica are experienced by Caprica-Six (maiden), Athena (mother), and Laura Roslin (crone).
- They are also experienced by Athena's daughter Hera, who runs from Athena to Caprica in them. Since the visions coincide when the return of Roslin's terminal breast cancer, this can be seen as the cycle moving forward to become Hera (the maiden), Caprica (the mother), and Athena (the crone).
In Babylon 5's "Hour of the Wolf", Ivanova (maiden, literally), Delenn (mother), and Lyta (crone), standing above the Shadow world, Z'ha'dum.
- How is Ivanova a "literal maiden"? She's unmarried, but she's also had a string of bad relationships (apparently with both men and women). The other two don't fit either: Delenn's personality is serene in a way that could be considered maternal but is definitely not "eccentric" (and incidentally is not yet an actual mother at this point), and Lyta sort of fits the personality traits but is only about the same age as Ivanova. In fact, Ivanova is more of a "crone" than Lyta personality-wise.

Music

The Sword song "Maiden, Mother and Crone" has the narrator seeking out the Fates to learn his future. The Maiden (found by a reflecting pool) and Mother (working in a field) both refuse to help him ("Walk on down that road, I cannot tell you where it goes/Ask me no more questions, some things you aren't meant to know"), but the Crone (found in a forest) tells him to swear himself to the goddess of which they are facets, with the promise that if he is worthy he'll learn what he seeks.

Myth And Legend

Real Life example (sort of): the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.
- In Real Life, while there has been several triple-goddesses, the idea of Maiden, Mother and Crone is quite modern, born in the 20th century. Originally all three were usually depicted as old.
Other mythological example: the Norns, the main three of which were Urd, Skuld, and Verthandi.
The Norns appear in the videogame Too Human, which uses a sci-fi reworking of Norse mythology as it's basic plot.
It's worth nothing that although the concept of a Triple Goddess is thousands of years old, the idea of splitting her into Maiden, Mother and Crone comes from the 19th century at earliest - originally these threefold deities have been presented as being the same age, usually old.

Theater

Of course, Shakespeare's Macbeth features three witches referred to as the Weird (or Wyrd) Sisters, a name given to the Norns (the Norse version of the Fates) and who worship Hecate. Usually, however, they are all represented as crones.
- This troper recalls one film adaptation in which there was a maiden witch. (There was also a lot of nudity, including a scene with a bunch of witches in a sauna and Lady Macbeth doing her sleepwalking scene in the buff. If anyone remembers which adaptation it was, it would be most helpful.)
  - That would be Roman Polanski's version.
  - That version also gave the witches an extended role, in the form of a Twist Ending where Malcolm is seen to visit them, implying that he will go down the same path as Macbeth.

Video Games

The Shadow Sirens from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Vivian is the "maiden" except when it comes to gender (but only in the Japanese version), Marilyn roughly fits the "mother" archetype as an extremely obese physical powerhouse who rarely says anything but the word "Guh", and Beldam epitomizes the "crone" to such an extent that she's named after it. Really. Go look up "Beldam" in the dictionary.
The Fates in God Of War 2: Inasmuch as you can call a six-foot tall warrior valkyrie with one breast visible, a giant, grotesquely fat woman with many arms and breasts and a stick-thin woman that seems to be partially made of darkness a mother, maiden, and crone respectively.
- Being that they're The Fates, their identity is based less on their positions as stages in a woman's life and more on their function - the bloated, spider-like Clotho weaves/spins the threads of fate, the warrior Lachesis measures the thread with her staff, and the taloned Atropos cuts the thread when the life is finished. Also, was it just me or did Clotho seem more like a crone and Atropos more maidenly? It was like the usual progression was reversed so the Crone was the start and the Maiden was the end.
The Shin Megami Tensei games include the Fates - Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos - as separate demons that can be recruited. In some games, the three can be fused together in a special process to produce Norn, which is depicted as three goddesses united around a clock. Hecate is also present in several games as a triple headed goddess.
In Mass Effect, some asari (including squad member Liara T'Soni) worship the goddess Athame, who cycles between maiden, matron, and matriarch stages. This was once the most popular religion among asari, but it has been supplanted by ~~Buddhism~~ siari.
In a coincidence similar to the Kikis Delivery Service example above, in The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the Stock Pot Inn contains three women in its drama - Anju, the young lady whose fiance is missing, her stern and overpowering mother, and the doddering grandmother who tells Link stories (who may be Obfuscating Stupidity...)
In The Witcher, The Godess Melitele is represented as a young maiden, a pregnant mother and an old woman.

Western Animation

The Wyrd Sisters of Gargoyles also all take the same form at the same time, appearing as a trio of little girls, old crones, aged female gargoyles, or voluptuous young 20-somethings as befits who they are speaking to at the time.
- Though this is an interesting example as it is made clear in one story arc that different people see them differently. The little girls are seen by the Manhattan clan, the old crones are seen by Macbeth, The old gargoyles are seen by Demona, and the 20 somethings are their default form, seen by the viewer and other fey as well as any characters not implied to see them differently (although humans will see them in period/job appropriate attire). Word Of God has stated that only the Fey and the viewers ever see them for what they truly are.
The Fates appear in Disney's Hercules. In one episode of the TV series, it is revealed that they also fill in as the Norns.

Haunted Heroine

« Always Female »

Hello Nurse

Green Lantern Corps

« Ensembles »

Horsemen Of The Apocalypse

Have You Seen My God

« Religion Tropes »

Jerkass Gods