Peg Aloi has been a practicing witch for a decade and a half. She often rants about film and TV for The Witches’ Voice Web site. She is also a film critic for The Boston Phoenix and a professor of film studies. Her favorite on-screen depiction of The Old Religion is the 1973 film The Wicker Man.
THEIR MORAL AND
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GOOD AND EVIL AND BLOWING STUFF UP
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MAGICAL WORLD
The Halliwells’ world is pretty simple most of the time: The Good are innocent, the Evil are vile and magic cures all. Except when the sisters go Evil, or when Good screws up, or when the magic goes away. . . .
THREE IS A MAGIC NUMBER
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JOHN G. HEMRY
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The Power of Three doesn’t just apply to the three Halliwell sisters, John G. Hemry says. It goes back through time and across cultures, and it makes magic everywhere it shows up.
THE POWER OF THREE. Three witches, in the television series Charmed, to be exact. The phrase “Power of Three” sounds both mystical and impressive. The idea behind it has made for a lot of good stories.
But why three? Why not the power of two? Was three just an arbitrary decision made by the creators of Charmed because they had enough money to hire three actresses? Or by Aaron Spelling because he wanted to invoke the ratings magic of Charlie’s Angels in his new series about witches? (Though that argument just bumps the question back one series—why three angels?)
As it turns out, there are some very good reasons why three is important and why three makes very good sense as a number of witches. Some of those reasons are rooted in ancient (and current) beliefs. Some are just part of the process of telling interesting stories. Taken together, they give Charmed a lot of its charm.
People actually do think three is a particularly important number. The idea that the number three is special shows up repeatedly in history and across cultures. Ancient belief systems from places as diverse as Wales, Greece and Indonesia placed extra emphasis on the importance of the number three.
Start listing examples and you end up crisscrossing through human mythology, religion, literature and culture. Three weird sisters in Macbeth. Three Fates. Three Muses (originally, until expanded to “three times three,” or nine). Three caballeros. Three strikes and you’re out. Three Musketeers. Three blind mice. Three wise men. Three Stooges.
Folklore holds that good things come in threes, but also that famous people die in threes. Lighting three cigarettes from one match (“three on a match”) is supposed to cause bad luck as well as creating risk of burnt fingers.
It’s been believed in many cultures that the soul resides in the body for three days after death. (As Miracle Max from The Princess Bride would say, for the first three days they’re only mostly dead. On the fourth day, they’re completely dead.)
Speaking of which, the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.
Names (especially true names) were regarded as very important in many ancient beliefs. Speaking a true name three times would variously invoke or give power over the one named, so repeating a name three times was a chancy thing to do. The belief that saying a name once or twice was safe but that saying it a third time would have a magical effect gave rise to an expression that’s still common—third time’s the charm. (People today are most likely to remember this from the movie Beetlejuice, in which saying his name three times either summons or vanquishes that sleazy spirit and his love for old Harry Belafonte tunes.)
Trinities show up in many belief systems, and even those with many gods usually declare three of the gods to be the leaders (as in the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon and Hades). Today, the Christian Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and that of Hinduism (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) are widely revered.
Three pops up a lot in the Christian Bible, as a matter of fact, both as the number itself and in concepts grouped in threes. The famous passage from I Corinthians reduces those things that abide to “faith, hope and love,” which is as nice a threesome as anyone could hope for.
Three, it turns out, can be a special number even to those who are trying to understand the universe as philosophers or scientists. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher whose thinking heavily influenced the development of Western science (and who tutored the young Alexander the Great), declared that there were three kinds of motion, three kinds of friendship, three reasons for being attracted to something and three forms of government. But wait, there’s more! In his treatise On the Heavens, Aristotle flatly states that “the world and all that is in it is determined by the number three.” (If you happened to have been Aristotle’s pupil and couldn’t remember the answer to a question he tossed your way, “three” probably would’ve served as a good guess.)
Modern witchcraft also finds special meaning in the number three. One prominent example is the Law of Return, also known as the Law of Three or the Threefold Law. The law is basically a motivational tool and states that anything a witch does, good or bad, comes back multiplied three times over. Do good and get three times greater good in return; do bad and get hammered three times as hard back. If you do the math, it seems pretty clear that crime (and evil-doing in general) wouldn’t be a paying proposition for a witch.
Charmed usually seems to reflect this particular rule in spirit if not to the letter. The early episodes dealt with the witches not only learning to use their powers but also learning not to misuse their powers for personal gain or other selfish purposes. A typical example of following the rule can be found in the season two episode “Morality Bites,” where the three used magic to punish a thoughtless neighbor. This small malicious act had serious consequences (including the future execution of Phoebe for murder), so when given the chance to relive events the witches chose not to use their powers against the neighbor. Sometimes, however, there’s more than just the Threefold Law at work. In season five’s “A Witch in Time,” Phoebe kept saving Miles from being killed only to learn that his death was required by the Angel of Death. If Phoebe kept saving Miles, she herself would have to die, which isn’t exactly a reward for what should have been a good deed. In the end, Phoebe had to let Miles die.
There are other ways in which Wicca and witchcraft place a special significance in the number three, such as the Triple Goddess (also known as the Threefold Goddess), who has three aspects but is one being.
While the divine being with three aspects, which together make up one, has been and is a common theme in belief systems, it’s also a big part of Charmed. Together the three witches command a great power (the Power of Three), even though they’re not divine in the literal sense of being heavenly goddesses. (Though ten out of ten warlocks doubtless wouldn’t agree, most men would probably describe the Charmed Ones as being divine in the figurative sense: they’re all women with smarts, courage and pretty darn good looks.)
A couple of other overt mystical references to the number three in Charmed are the Triquetra on the cover of the Book of Shadows and the description of magic as having three essential elements (timing, feeling and the phases of the moon).
In short, Schoolhouse Rock had it right. Three is a magic number. Exactly why the number three has been held up as special by humans for as far back as we can tell isn’t known. It’s not impossible that there’s some natural quality which influences humans to subconsciously see three as special, in the same way the Golden Mean (the ratio of 1 to l.618 . . . ) is found throughout nature in things like the curve of a nautilus shell and repeated by humans in things like the proportions of playing cards because it just feels good when we look at things proportioned that way. (As a matter of fact, humans are proportioned that way, too.)
There’s certainly any number of things that from the human perspective very naturally divide into threes: past, present, future; left, right, center; above, below, even; tall, medium, short; birth, life, death; hot, cold, tepid; blue, yellow, red (the three primary colors). Goldilocks, dealing with three bears, keeps
finding things divided into three states (too big, too small, just right) in a fairy tale which seems designed specifically to emphasize the way in which many aspects of the universe seem to fall easily into threes.
Then there are the ways people choose to define things that gives a special significance to three. Such as the fact that two people, married or not, make a couple. It takes a third (a child) to make them a family.
When it comes to literature, people thinking of multi-volume book series usually think of trilogies, and trilogies remain the default form of book series (the first book series I wrote was a trilogy). Non-writers may assume that’s because trilogies are easy to write compared to other lengths. They’re not. Writers will tell you that, on the contrary, it’s actually harder to do a trilogy well. The basic problem is that middle book, which neither starts the story nor ends the story but just carries it along. Anyone who’s read the first book wants to get to the end of the story, so making the middle book as powerful and interesting as the beginning books is not a simple task. Even in the great Lord of the Rings trilogy the second novel (The Two Towers) is usually regarded as the least of the three books.
Making that middle book a great read can be done, of course, and the most well-written trilogies are those in which the author has been able to generate enough new characters, story lines and plot developments to keep the middle book from suffering by comparison (as in The Subtle Knife, the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman1). But it ain’t easy.
So there really isn’t any reason why trilogies should be the common rule for multi-book series. In fact, they ought to be the exception. In addition to the extra difficulty inherent in that middle book, publishers are notoriously reluctant (unless you happen to be a best-selling author) to shell out for multi-book contracts if they can get by with only committing to buy one or two books until they see if the public really wants to buy what an author is writing. Somehow, though, the threebook series continues to reign as the norm while two-book series often feel too short and four-book series can feel somehow awkwardly long.
It’s reasonable to suggest that we’re hardwired inside to see things in threes, or else that the universe is put together in a way that favors dividing things into threes. If you believe the universe was put together the way it is for a reason, that could be taken as evidence that the number three matters in some fundamental way—though whether it matters because of some arbitrary principle of physics, or because of the wish of a divine creator is another question. Whatever the reason, people do seem predisposed to see three as a special number.
From a human cultural perspective, then, using three witches as the lead characters in Charmed makes a lot of sense. But Charmed isn’t a documentary television series. It’s entertainment. Charmed tells stories in every episode, with all the events in each episode contributing to a slowly developing overall story. If Charmed didn’t do a good job of telling those stories every week, if it didn’t build a compelling and interesting larger narrative to frame all those episodes, then it would fail no matter how culturally relevant and mystical its underpinnings were.
Anyone reading this probably thinks Charmed does a good job of telling stories. This is where the number three has another special significance. When it comes to telling stories, three is a big help. No, not the dreaded trilogies. Characters.
Because when it comes to characters, just as in culture, three once again is a magic number.
You get a clue to this in the career of the Three Stooges. A total of six men played Stooges, but when the slap hit the stick there were always just three in front of the camera. While Moe and Larry stayed constant, Shep was replaced by Curly who was replaced by Joe who was replaced by Curly Joe. Meanwhile, the Marx Brothers are remembered as another threesome (Groucho, Harpo and Chico) even though a fourth brother (Zeppo) was part of the group during many of their movies.
Why? Because it worked. Three nuts interacting made for sustained, long-term comedy success. There have been successful comedy teams made of two people, but try to think of one as well-known and en-during as the Stooges. And even two-person comedy teams recognized the need for a third person in their movies, where there’s invariably another major character added for the two comedians to bounce off of (think of Dorothy Lamour in the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Road movies). The three Ghostbusters added a fourth late in the movie, but that fourth character remained a minor player compared to the original three (played by actors named Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis—which, as the animated Ghostbusters series pointed out in one episode, sounds a lot like a law firm).
It works in drama, too. Think of the romantic triangle. Two happy people who are happy with each other make for happy endings but also short, dull television series. Throw in another man or woman, and sparks start flying.
Or consider the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series. Yes, it’s about Harry, but Harry doesn’t wander through Hogwarts alone. In one way or another, his friends Hermione and Ron are almost always there, too. The trio support each other, help each other, argue with each other, hang out together and so on. It’s hard to imagine Harry without his posse, and Hermione and Ron play important roles in the outcome of each book.
Three works for stories because three people is a small enough group that you can really get to know everyone, but also large enough not to become stale and predictable. If you only have two primary characters, their relationship ends up pretty much set in stone after a little while. Every situation produces the same reactions because they’re the same two people pinging off each other.
Three characters expand the possibilities a great deal. Arnold and Brittany gang up on Carmen this week, then next week it’s Brittany and Carmen bonding while Arnold insists he needs time to himself, then the week after that Arnold and Carmen team up to help Brittany with a problem. The relationships are both solid (within the trio) and constantly shifting.
So, if three is better than two, why not use four characters? Or five? You can, but it gets a lot more complicated if you’re really working on relationships, because four or more characters have, potentially, a lot more and different ways of interacting. You start to need line diagrams to keep track of who’s doing what with who and why. That’s soap opera territory, and for the dedicated fan it’s fun, but when characters are in constantly altering relationships with several other people it limits how much time you can spend exploring those characters. If you’re also trying to tell compelling stories about events those characters are caught in, then the burden of trying to follow a lot of characters can easily detract from the story. Instead of following the action involving three characters, you have to hare off in different directions to find out what the others are doing.
One of the best examples of the allure of threesomes in storytelling is found in The Lord of the Rings. At this point, someone’s objecting that there were nine in the Fellowship, and many more characters wandering in and out constantly. Yes, but (even without going into the “three times three” business, which makes nine important to people who think three is important), Tolkien kept breaking his larger groups down into threes, the most prominent of which was Frodo, Sam and Gollum. Meanwhile, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas keep ending up together, while Merry and Pippin form a group with Treebeard for a while, then in Minas Tirith it’s up to Gandalf, Pippin and Denethor to form another character triangle. Merry, left behind in Rohan, partners with the characters of Eowyn and Theoden. Even though the main conflict, between Sauron and the West, is a two-sided affair, Tolkien keeps rendering it into three-character events. Rohan versus Mordor and Saruman. The armies of Mordor versus Gondor and Rohan at Minas Tirith. Sam versus two groups of orcs (who obligingly wipe each other out) at Cirith Ungol.
Why did Tolkien keep doing that? Because it makes a great story. Writing of a war between only two players is like writing about a hammer beating on an anvil. The first stroke can be dramatic but by the third or fourth the glow is gone. Throw in a third party and the fun b
egins. Deceit, betrayal, faith, honor and politics are all in play.
Another famous character threesome, one revered among science fiction fans, is the original Star Trek trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. No matter what alien species or worlds were encountered, the interactions between those three usually formed the heart of each episode. And like the concept of divine beings with three aspects, the three starfarers were seen as each epitomizing a different quality (Kirk action, Spock brains and McCoy emotions). Together, they made great stories. Subsequent Star Trek series have lacked such a leading trio, and none of those series hold up well by comparison to the original.
Which brings us back to Charmed, which in its own way very much follows the model the original Star Trek had such success with (not to mention Charlie’s Angels). The three witches are each distinct personalities. They’re all strong in their own ways. Each has unique powers. Each has her own individual hopes, fears and dreams. They don’t always get along. They’re real.
The core of Charmed is the relationship formed by the three witches. Every story is anchored somehow in that triangle, in the interactions of the three as they face challenges both mundane and magical. One may marry a Whitelighter or a half-demon, boyfriends come and go, children arrive, an endless array of warlocks, demons and other malign spirits attack them, but every story is grounded in how the three witches relate to each other. That’s the great strength of the series. That’s what makes Charmed both fun and compelling to watch.
Indeed, this strength was great enough to overcome a huge inconsistency as a result of Shannen Doherty leaving the series. From the first episode, Charmed’s storylines had been built on the overarching concept that the three Halliwell sisters (Prue, Piper and Phoebe, also known as the Charmed Ones), working as one to harness the Power of Three, were fated to become the most powerful witches of all time. Having one of those sisters die (because the actress playing Prue was leaving) created a bit of a hole in that concept. A really big hole. The writers of Charmed solved the problem in what was likely the best way they could, by retaining the basic concept but discovering a fourth sister (Paige). That meant there were still three Halliwell sisters left to become the most powerful witches of all time, and still three sisters to form the core of the stories. (And why shouldn’t destiny have ensured the existence of a spare Halliwell sister to guarantee the prophecy even if something happened to one of the original three? Stranger things have happened.)
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