I assume everyone is grateful that Charmed didn’t attempt to follow the model of an earlier show about witches, Bewitched, and simply replace the actress playing Prue with another person. It didn’t work with Darrin and it wouldn’t have worked with Prue. Prue, the character, had simply been too well-written and acted. She was as real a person to those who watch Charmed as if she actually lived down the street, a testament to how well the three-witches formula in Charmed works. Good series concepts help writers create characters who become so genuine that they don’t seem to be fictional characters anymore, but rather actual people.
This isn’t to say that choosing to use three witches automatically guaranteed that Charmed would work well as a series. The decision to use the Power of Three helped the series writers, but it alone didn’t write episodes full of great word-play and clever ideas. The writers did that, taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the set-up. The witches could’ve been written as silly stereotypes instead of as characters who act and talk the way we’d think modern women would if they suddenly found themselves confronting the weird and wonderful things their powers cause them to encounter. The magic of good acting and good writing doesn’t, so far as I know, depend on the number three.
So whatever the reason or reasons for deciding to base Charmed on three sisters who discover they’re witches (and it could’ve been as simple as Aaron Spelling thinking it’d be funny to do a series with three witches to contrast his earlier series with three “angels”), the decision has worked very well. It provides a strong cultural basis for the assumptions underlying the series. It may even benefit from a human predisposition to think three is a really special number. And it gives the writers what I’d say is an ideal number of primary characters to work with.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Aristotle.
John G. Hemry may have been fated to write about a television series dealing with the supernatural because of a very strange coincidence involving high school names. Buffy the Vampire Slayer originally went to Hemry High School. Meanwhile, the Halliwell sisters of Charmed went to Baker High School. Baker is John’s wife’s maiden name. He’s not sure what this double coincidence means and isn’t sure he wants to know. John is the author of several novels, including the first and so far only legal thriller military science fiction series (a.k.a. JAG in space) beginning with A Just Determination and continuing through Burden of Proof, Rule of Evidence and the forthcoming Against All Enemies. He’s also the author of the Stark’s War trilogy (his first series; he knows better than to get caught in the trilogy trap now) and numerous short fiction stories, as well as non-fiction articles on topics like interstellar navigation. A retired U.S. Navy officer, he lives in Maryland with his divine wife “S” and three children.
CHARMED INTO GOODNESS
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ANNE PERRY
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In a world where Good and Evil are so clearly marked—the Good wear white robes, the Evil wear black leather—being moral should be simple. But as Anne Perry points out, with great power comes great responsibility . . . and great temptation.
A FRIEND OF MINE asked me why I, as an adult, would waste my time with what are essentially fairy stories. My mind teemed with answers and I tried to put them into order to explain why the best fairy stories are more than fun, terrific special effects, horror, romance and superb imagination. Stories of magic, supernatural forces of good and evil and the ways in which we deal with them, have been part of our legend and folklore for centuries. In fact, they stretch back for as long as mankind has sat around the fire at night and frightened, entertained and delighted each other, making each other laugh and cry, sharing our terrors, our dreams and trying to understand who we are. We have sought to find the meaning of life and to come to terms with the forces that we cannot govern.
To give these forces names and appearances helps us to face them. We create heroes who can vanquish the demons we fear, magical creatures of good as well as of evil, so there is a balance in the universe, and hope. We are not alone any more, and that is perhaps the greatest help. Then there is not only hope, there is also courage. In time there grows a measure of wisdom.
Charmed is among the best of “fairy stories.” It is set in present-day San Francisco, but it could be anywhere: three sisters in their twenties discover their powers as witches, powers which they have inherited from their mother and grandmother, both now dead.
To begin with these powers were slight, compared with what they later became. Prue, the eldest, could move things with a wave of her hand. Piper, the middle sister, can freeze people and events long enough to effect changes before restarting time. Phoebe, the youngest, has no “active” power, but has flashes of precognition of events, very bad ones. After Prue’s death, half-sister Paige added the ability to orb objects by calling them by name. These gifts give them all the opportunity to prevent evil from happening, and together they use the “Power of Three” to vanquish demons.
But then, maybe we all need help in vanquishing our demons?
Of course with talents come responsibilities. Over and over the stories in Charmed tell us that the gift of power must be honored. You cannot change what you were born to be. Abdication may bring a respite, but ultimately it is destructive. You have given up a part of yourself; you will never be whole after that.
How many people have great skill or talent, but somehow never live up to the expectations we have of them? Is it bad luck? Is it that the big break never came? Or is it that along the way a demon—fear, loneliness, the risk of failure or being laughed at, the inability to move beyond the barrier of despair—was not faced, recognized and vanquished, at whatever the cost might be?
If you want the prize, you pay the price. We all have moments when it seems we have made a bad bargain. We had not realized how much it was going to cost, how much the payment would hurt, and we cry out, “Stop the world! I want to get off! This wasn’t what I meant—I’ve changed my mind!” But there is nowhere to “get off” to. We are here for the ride—win, lose or draw. Some things are meant to be—have to be. But the fact that it is your destiny does not make it any less frightening, or less painful! Over and over again this advice is given to a novice forced to accept new powers.
Have we not all made bargains with fate and then found the price higher than we were prepared for?
The powers of the sisters were small to begin with, but with use, like all talents, they increased, and learning how to use power wisely is one of the most difficult challenges one can face. The history of the world, from individuals to nations, is marred with examples of how power can corrupt; even with those we had thought the wisest and noblest. It does not take long for us to imagine ourselves invincible, or believe that because we can do something it is all right that we do it.
As the sisters’ powers increased—the power to be in two places at once, to throw fire, to cast even stronger spells, to read the thoughts of others—it became harder to use them judiciously. The temptations for abuse magnified, as did the dangers and the costs. We watched each sister struggle to control her new abilities like a driver trying to manage a car whose engine capacity has suddenly tripled—it is very hard to keep it on the road. How many wrecks come from a mixture of arrogance and inexperience?
There has been more than one Charmed episode where a character has stolen a power that was not meant for him only to find that he cannot control it. In the end it often destroyed him. There have also been very graphic examples of the burdens of power and responsibilities. It is far from an easy thing or an unmixed blessing. We are shown the loneliness, and occasionally the regret and self-doubt, that come with greater understanding and responsibility. If you are capable of love, and the Charmed Ones very definitely are, then you are also capable of pain, of jealousy, of fear for the safety of others, conflicting loyalties, the temptation to take your own happiness at too great a cost to others: all the excitement, the confusion and the pain of being human.
How many times are our own vengeances wrong? In outrage we punish, and it is the wrong person, or we know only half the story. There is much in that principle of the use of power alone.
Over and over again the sisters are warned by circumstance not to take their powers for granted. “If you abuse them,” they are told, “they can be taken from you!” And they were, for a space. Arrogance brings its own downfall. Their calling is not a choice—it is a fact. It also makes them a target for evil, and sometimes being a victim is part of their job. It puts their gifts into perspective. Magic is far from an easy answer.
But then is it not salutary to have the gifts of power put into perspective? Would we not all like to do that for a few politicians, from local government level up to dictators and despots? However, the ones who matter most, and for whom we are accountable, are ourselves.
The sisters’ powers are based in their emotions. We see it in the stories again and again. Prue’s anger triggered her powers, and it was anger she used to show Phoebe how to wield them when a spell gone awry switched their gifts. And, as Piper learned early on when she took on Leo’s to save his life, the source of even Whitelighter powers lies in emotion—specifically, love. Is this a general truth? Perhaps powers of body can develop physically, and of the mind intellectually, but is it not emotion which drives them all? Good emotions such as love, compassion, the desire to heal and to right injustice—they impel us to acts that indifference would never achieve. Even less specifically moral desires, like the hunger for knowledge or to see the world as we would like it to be, can drive us beyond our normal strengths. And the reverse of such passions are equally powerful: hatred, rage, terror and appetite also push us far beyond our ordinary limits. Though these are not our thoughts, or our feelings, they are still ones it is healthy to be reminded of. To be told in words means little. See it in images, played out in a story about people you identify with, see the demon roaring into violent and destructive life, and it stays in the mind.
All the sisters’ powers are severed by hate or fury, especially if it is directed against forces of good and most particularly when directed at each other. Lose your temper, harbor anger and nourish it, and it allows the demonic to enter into you. Usually the surrender to evil is slow and invisible to the observer. Nobody said demons are stupid, and evil is very good at covering its tracks. It is possible to be clever, but unwise. Be careful to whom you give power, what you buy and at what price!
It requires wisdom and humility to know whom to trust, and sometimes mistakes can cost dearly. It takes great courage simply to be alive, to face the unknown with the possibility of danger around the next corner. We don’t face dramatic demons who suck the life out of us by siphoning our thoughts with fingers like talons, or who drive us to unnatural, uncontrollable rage; our demons are not hollow-eyed and all-devouring, consumed in fire or cold as death. We only face failure, loneliness, disease, weakness, pain, loss of those we love, hunger of the mind or body, confusion, perhaps despair—the dark and bitter sides of human life. But the same courage is needed for us to fight them and bear both victory and defeat with dignity. Stories help; they tell us that we are not alone.
Even witches do not always succeed. There are episodes of Charmed in which the sisters have to accept failure and learn to overcome their guilt because they did not save the innocent. Sometimes it is our reaction to failure that defines us more than our successes. It helps to see our heroes’ human fallibility as well. Most of us can win with grace; losing with grace is very much harder. It is an unpleasantly familiar “demon” to face.
One episode, season six’s “Soul Survivor,” raised the age-old question of Faustian bargains. If pacts with the powers of good exist, then surely similar pacts within the powers of evil must also? But evil lies and betrays, so when it does, do we have to keep our side of the bargain? Can evil which has tricked us still collect its payment? Is the question a legal one, a moral one or both? Marlowe’s Faust suggests it is legal, Goethe’s that it is moral. Charmed says it is legal, with a moral redemption possible through the intervention of an advocate with not only the skill but the willingness to fight, risk and sacrifice. There is also the implication that one who can advocate has the obligation to do so. Can anyone afford to waste a chance to do good? Some things are not offered more than once.
In this instance Paige did succeed in saving the man, not perhaps entirely an “innocent.” He did knowingly make a bargain with a demon, even if part of his intention was good. But is that not the nature of rationalization? The end justifies the means? But Paige was reminded by her sisters that she could not save everyone. None of us is promised success all the time. We cannot blame ourselves for the actions and decisions of other people in which we had no part. They had a choice, which was their own. We should not overrate our own power or importance, or imagine that we are responsible and could or should control the decisions of others. But it is not easy to let go.
There are many demons in Charmed, all imaginative portrayals of an evil, a weakness or a temptation. The special effects are superb, enough to give nightmares to those with a sensitive disposition. More relevantly, they give face and form to aspects of our nature that we all recognize. Each demon preys upon a certain vulnerability, but all have qualities in common.
Evil has a genius regarding seduction; over and over again it is shown to know our vulnerabilities and our dreams. We are all cut from the same cloth, whether we aspire toward God or descend until we become devils. Evil is the passion and the intellect of the good which has been twisted by sin. Its power to mislead and enchant rests on its resemblance to what can as easily be right. There is nothing corrupt in the love of beauty, knowledge, laughter, excitement and, above all, in the hunger to live and be loved. It is only what we will do to gain these things and keep them that can be wrong. Demons know this and use it!
As Prue told Phoebe in season two’s “Pardon My Past,” when Phoebe flashed back to a past existence in which she was utterly selfish and used the power of her beauty to gain money, manipulate people and live a self-indulgent and manipulative lifestyle, it’s as much a part of human nature to be bad as it is to be good. The key is how we tell the difference, and that we choose the good.
Several times the show touched on the concept of possible different futures. Which one comes to pass will depend upon their choices, some of which need all the courage the sisters can muster, and may require considerable sacrifice. There is no such thing as a path that is without cost or pain.
You cannot win by retreating from the fight. Love can hurt, but hate is a choice of weakness, not of strength—of fear, not of courage. That can be a hard lesson to learn. Like all of us, each of the sisters experience days when all she wants is a normal life, with time for herself, a job she enjoys and can be good at and the freedom to do the normal, everyday happy things that other people do, especially find someone to love. They have all the usual frailties as those without magic have. They can suffer headaches, be so tired they hardly know what they are saying or doing, be embarrassed, self-conscious, nervous on a date, bad-tempered, frightened, clumsy—anything the rest of us feel, even just ordinarily lonely and unhappy. Magic, like any other power, is a gift to be used, not an answer to the needs of mortality. It does not make you wise or good. It makes you admired sometimes, but not necessarily loved. It sets you apart, and that can be one of the most difficult things to bear.
If the gift must be honored, then it must also be protected, and that means kept secret. The few who have it are often unable to deal with its burdens.
They choose ordinariness instead. Watching the stories we side with the sisters, but in life would we really have that courage? To ask that is difficult. To answer it with honesty is even more so.
To engage the enemy you must first know who he is, and what it is he wants: your destruction, certainly! But in what sense? What weakness of yours will he test? What strength might he pervert? Some in particular can read your greatest terror and make you live in it. How much easier would it be to go by a different route and avoid confrontation?
Evil believes that personal ties and loyalties are a weakness that it can exploit. Good knows that they can be vulnerabilities or weaknesses if they are corrupted, but also the greatest of strengths if they are refined by honor and the willingness to sacrifice should sacrifice be necessary. Many of the episodes have focused on that theme.
One of the strongest involved the return of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, demons with the power, at certain special times in history, when the world is ripe, to bring about the world’s final destruction: season two’s “Apocalypse Not.” At the beginning the sisters were asked one of those questions that people think of at parties: If you were in a burning theater and could save either one sibling or five strangers, which would you choose? All answered one sibling.
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