You had one job
I’ve written before about how the basic structure of myths is cyclical and not linear, as with Campbell’s monomyth. In what I call the “Deed / Deed Undone” approach, characters strive to fulfill a desire by accomplishing a deed, only to then spark a sequel where that deed must be undone (…and then redone, and so forth). Nothing exemplifies this better than the #ForbiddenDoor trope, wherein great efforts are made to conceal something in a chamber, only to have the story’s protagonist reveal it.
“Branwen Daughter of Llŷr”
The Mabinogion (c. 11th/12th century)
The seven surviving companions of Brân’s court ―on their way to London to bury the #TalkingHead of their deceased king after their war against the Irish― come across a magical lodge in Penvro. The hall has three doors: two are open and the third is meant to remain closed. They find solace in this #PalaceOfDelights, where they feast in suspended time, blissfully unaware of the sufferings they had just undergone. Eighty years go by (allegedly trying to solve the Monty Hall problem) before they open the third #ForbiddenDoor, breaking the spell. The party members regain the memory of all they had suffered, of every friend and relative lost, of every ill befallen, and they hurry out to London to bury the rotting head of their dead king.
#TalkingHead #PalaceOfDelights #ForbiddenDoor
“Bluebeard”
Contes de ma mère l'Oye (1697) by Charles Perrault
Bluebeard sets out in one of his travels and leaves his young wife ―the seventh he has married― with the keys to every chamber of his countryside manor. The whole #PalaceOfDelights is hers to explore, with the exception of one room which she is forbidden to enter. Naturally, the wife opens the #ForbiddenDoor to find the dead bodies of the previous wives. In shock, she drops the key on the bloody corpses, leaving an #IndelibleMark that evidences her trespassing. Bluebeard ―now revealed as a #CriminalHusband― returns and is about to kill her too when her brothers come to her rescue and kill the fiend.
#PalaceOfDelights #ForbiddenDoor #CriminalHusband #IndelibleMark
“Fitcher’s Bird”
Children's and Household Tales (1812) by the brothers Grimm
A magician’s #AbductedBride ―the eldest of three sisters― receives the keys to his house, with the sole condition of never opening a #ForbiddenDoor. First chance she gets, she does exactly that and finds the corpses of the previous wives, prompting her to drop an egg she is meant to carry at all times. Seeing the #IndelibleMark of her trespassing, the magician murders her. The #CriminalHusband now abducts the middle sister, who meets the same demise.
The cycle repeats with the third and youngest sister, except she puts the egg down before opening the door (slow clap), prompting the magician to trust her and proceed with their wedding. The payback is brutal: she reanimates her dead sisters and locks her captor and all his wedding guests in the house, which she and her family set on fire.
#AbductedBride #ForbiddenDoor #CriminalHusband #IndelibleMark
“The Story of the Third Dervish”
The Arabian Nights (c.14th century – Syrian manuscript)
Ajib ibn Khasib is a prince with very little impulse control. After invoking the name of God in the one situation he was told not to do so, and accidentally killing the one person he meant to keep alive, he reaches a palace where he is lodged by ten one-eyed men who lament their lives every day. A victim of his own curiosity, he insists on knowing the subject of their grief.
After being told that the answer will make him equally miserable, he doggedly insists on following their same path. #SpiritedAway by a mythical Roc, he reaches a #PalaceOfDelights where he meets forty beautiful princesses who put themselves at his service and fulfill his every desire (yes. sex). The day comes where the women in his harem need to return to their homes for forty days and leave him in the palace with access to its one hundred rooms of riches and wonders, of which only one must not be entered. To no one’s surprise at this point, he opens the #ForbiddenDoor where he finds a flying horse which he ―sigh― decides to mount, and which spirits him back to where he started, kicking one of his eyes out in the process and leaving him behind to live the rest of his life in misery at the thought of everything he had lost.
#SpiritedAway #PalaceOfDelights #ForbiddenDoor
These stories are all variations of the Expulsion from Eden trope mixed with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Once the protagonist’s basic necessities are met, the only driver they have left is self-actualization; or the crossing of forbidden boundaries into the unknown.
Yet their stories cover a wide range of moral messaging. While “Bluebeard” and “Fitcher’s Bird” vindicate the trespassers by making their actions necessary steps towards the punishment of evil, “Branwen Daughter of Llŷr” is morally ambiguous, making the eighty year time-out that Brân’s companions spend in their otherworldly lodge almost like an experience of purgatory. “The Story of the Third Dervish”, on the other hand, is exasperating, like seeing a child scarf down his marshmallow before the Stanford doctor could even finish explaining the rules of the experiment.
Ultimately, the protagonists are all worthy because curiosity leads to the existence of the story in the first place. Brân’s party will get to bury his head in London, Perrault and Grimm’s damsels will defeat their wicked husbands, and Ajib ibn Khasib will become a dervish, a holy man. Be advised: going “nope” may be the prudent thing to do in real life, but it is a self-defeating path in mythology.
Coming up next. Cupid and Psyche. Another story of trespasses.
And a fun fact. John Payne’s translation of The Arabian Nights has a story in Volume 5 called “The Man Who Never Laughed Again”. This is a variation of the “The Story of the Third Dervish” where the protagonist opens a #ForbiddenDoor and is whisked away to a rich and powerful kingdom run by women who submit to him, with the sole condition that he not open another #ForbiddenDoor. Emboldened by the success of his first trespass, he eventually opens it and is taken back to his reality, which he regrets for the rest of his miserable life.