Bluebeard Series: Deranged Serial Killer or Betrayed Husband? Part 2.

Did Bluebeard set his wife up to disobey him so that he could justify killing her?

My opinion on that has always been a resounding yes. Of course he did. Bluebeard was playing a twisted game with his wife, as, one assumes, he did with all of his wives. He lured them in with money, used their own curiosity against them, and then butchered them for his own amusement. He was a serial killer.

Had Bluebeard not wanted his wife to find the bodies of his past wives he would not have given her the key and forbade her to use it. As we've discussed before, the belief at the time viewed all women as Pandora: if you give her a box and tell her not to open it, her very nature will not allow her to keep it closed.

Knowing this, Bluebeard could not have expected any other result when he left his wife in charge of the manor. Thus, one must assume that Bluebeard wanted her to betray him because he wanted to kill her. The simple fact that he kept the bodies of his dead wives, collected them as trophies, gives him something in common with the modern serial killer. Trophies allow the killer to remember and, to an extent, relive the glory of the murder.

Now, every serial killer's victims have something in common, and it isn't difficult to see what these women had in common, though we don't get any information on the women who all already dead. Each was likely very beautiful. They were also all greedy and foolish. They ignored the warning sign that their husband was evil (his beard) and were taken in by his wealth. And all, except perhaps the first, betrayed him by using the key and finding his previous victims.

I don't doubt for an instant that when Bluebeard was young enough to be called Bluepeachfuzz, he was setting up animals to betray him so that he could justify killing them. He probably also wet the bed into his teens and had a domineering mother.