Bluebeard and Josephine from the episode Bluebeard, known as Ao-hige in Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, aka Grimm Masterpiece Theater, or グリム名作劇場 Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō in Japan. You want the prompts, just skip to the bottom. Oh, and this site builder is confusing, I didn't see where to put my keywords, but they're below.

This is my tenth Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics lora by the by!

As always, it'll take me a bit to learn the loras limits and get a decent gallery, I'll update/post when I can.

Another never aired in the US episode, you’ll see why in the writeup, its not so much a fairy tale as horror, though that doesn’t mean friends round the world didn’t see it.  Look, lemme tell you a bit about my childhood in the US, and date myself too.  Whenever Freddy Krueger slashed up some teenagers, that was fine, but if there was ever a bare , I was required to cover my eyes.  And this, as we celebrate our 250th year, is the most complete encapsulation of America I can share!

This one is a bit different from others in a few ways:

1.       I am making the utmost effort for this to succeed as both a Bluebeard AND a Josephine lora (or the other way) around.  Usually the guy is kind of an afterthought, but as the episode is called Bluebeard (and I KNOW some of you favor the guys), the emphasis is natural.

2.      It’s clearly the most horror based of GFTT, but especially if you were there for the era, so you can really appreciate how similar it is both in vibe and execution to a lot of anthology horror like Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Dark Side and Creepshow and such.

3.      Our heroine starts off as one of those disgustingly cute Minmay-esque GFTT girls, becomes a completely unsympathetic snob, then wheels around at the end to final girl.  So we can kind of run the gamut between wanting her to get away and get what’s coming, which is again, something that really reminds me anthology horror, I’ll get into all that. 

I always enjoy these breakdowns.  Josephine is, as mentioned, is one of these cutesy doe-eyed peasant girl GFTT girls I’m not really into, where she lives with her poor woodcutter brothers in the woods.  She likes to go on and on about how she dreams a prince will carry her away and marry her and her brothers tease her about this.  We get the sense that Josephine is a bit of an airhead, and frankly, I end the episode with that assessment too, but you can’t have rocket scientists in your horror or nobody’d ever go down to the basement (literally!).  Well, lo and behold, a well-dressed servant in a carriage rolls up and tells them his master wants to marry Josephine.  Josephine is all on board with this, her brothers sensibly leery about just going off to marry some guy she hasn’t even met yet.  The servant says its an immediate take it or leave it offer and gives the brothers a bag of gold they badly need to sweeten the pot.  They’re still leery, but Josephine blows them off, saying this is all just exactly like her dreams, and goes off with the servant.

Well Josephine goes to Bluebeard's castle by a lake and surrounded by forest, which is really a huge chateau I suppose since the fairy tale is French, it’s also got a suitably foreboding and moody character you don’t see in most GFTT castles.  Josephine ditches her peasant garb for a nice white enhancing dress (this is important later, the dress, not the , although it is to ME), and we’re introduced to new husband Bluebeard.  Josephine is shocked to see her husband is a middle-aged beardo (she was expecting one of those young bishonen stock GFTT princes), and can’t stop looking at his beard which is, you guessed it, blue.  Now, this doesn’t really stand out, to me, seeing as how its anime, but we have to apply a bit of real-life roleplaying here.  Josephine resolves that outside of that as long as he loves her and he’s filthy rich, who really cares.  They pass a dark foreboding staircase going down and Bluebeard really lays it on that she should stay away from the door at the bottom.  Hint, hint.

They have dinner, an impressively ridiculous spread, and Josephine’s doing the whole wide eyed humble upbeat GFTT peasant girl eating a rich girl spread and Blue Beard thinks she’s charming.

Before I move on, an aside.  It’s easy to think Josephine is diminutive, but she’s actually taller than the ladies in waiting and almost as tall as her brothers.  Bluebeard is just HUGE, he’s gotta have a foot and a half on her just height wise I think, which means he’s probably got a head on her tallest brother.  It’s also tough to tell how he’s built beyond the fact he’s very large because he stays in the same outfit the whole episode.  He’s clearly based on Henry the 8th, but are the puffy clothes hiding a tubby tub, a dad bod, 90’s Joe Piscopo?  He can be like a Choose Your Own Adventure, pick your fav!

Back to this, a few things have happened in the intervening weeks (months?).  Her brothers have found where Josephine lives now and resolve to cut their wood near the castle (chateau?) to keep an eye on her.  And Josephine has become a stock GFTT villain!

She gets a very, very nice spoiled rich girl maturing glowup and hairstyle, if you’re into art (unlikely I know!), you can appreciate how much just the boredom lines on the upper eyelids change a wide-eyed upbeat peasant girl into a spoiled cliché.  Josephine is discarding some high end gowns and berating staff, because now they’re not good enough for her and she’s too cool for school.  She and Bluebeard are having dinner again with another spread, and she sends the food back and tells the servant to get on the chef for its poor quality.  Bluebeard replies there’s nothing wrong with the food, but she keeps on, and we get the sense she’s been this way for awhile and he’s tired of it.  Knowing what we know happens next, you can look at this as him giving her her walking papers.

Bluebeard entrusts her with the care of the mansion (castle?), and gives her a set of keys and tells her she can explore as she likes and the rooms are full of treasures that he’s sure will delight her.  He ALSO gives her a special key to a room that must never be opened with a suitably gallows look, and we see the setup coming a mile away.

Now, another aside.  The 80s and early 90s were the hey-day of anthology horror, and knowing this and this episode especially, you appreciate how many parallels there are to fairy tales.  They both follow a certain kind of logic.  If someone tells you to do or not do something, you better do or not do it, or you only got yourself to blame (Lover’s Vow from Tales from the Darkside is a perfect example, though there’s countless).  Usually the protagonist (or character being made example of) is either a scumbag or someone like Josephine who we have limited sympathy with because we the viewer or reader know they’re not that bright, and they have something coming when they fail the inevitable character/intelligence test, just not the overkill they usually get, which is, you’ll excuse me, the HORROR of the situation.  On the one hand, if Josephine didn’t open the room, she’d never know what kind of man she’d married, and its clear he’s rigging this, I don’t think it’s a straight test.  On the other hand, if she hadn’t, theoretically she could have ended the episode being obscenely wealthy.  But again, if nobody ever did these things, you’d have no story!  Moving along.

We get an extended sequence with Josephine exploring and yukking it up with all the treasure, and the chateau/mansion/castle whatever is awesome, if billionaires were actually cool and not dead inside headcases, they might do something fun and impressive like this with their money.  Rooms and rooms of treasure, Josephine does what any of us might do and slathers on the diamonds and jewelry and an Anne Boleyn dress, hey, I might have even done that with that much loot.  Bluebeards got rooms dedicated to treasure from whole countries and continents, I see a Japanese room with a giant Buddha statue, African, Greek, pretty sure an Egyptian or even Babylonian room too. 

Finally, she’s down to only the forbidden door.  The episode kind of narrates that she feels compelled to open it by magic, but I prefer to think it’s a metaphor and like most of these characters, she just can’t help herself.  Well she opens it, and its full of Bluebeard’s dead wives.  There’s quite a few of them.  Now, this is exactly why they couldn’t air this episode, even the semi fresh ones are pretty graphic, to say nothing of the ones who’ve been there for awhile.  The white roses (I forgot to mention Bluebeard really has a thing for white roses and well as the white dress), turn red, the key starts bleeding, and Josephine is horrified by what seems like a river of blood.

She rushes upstairs, and tries for hours to clean the key but it still keeps bleeding.  The roses outside in the garden have also turned red, as well as those in the house.  If you remember what it was like to be a kid, this is effective horror too, how many times did you break something or make a mess and try to cover it up and there was just know getting out of it?

We get a mood setting thunderstorm, Bluebeard has returned and sees the roses are red, and the brothers are water logged and decide to see if they can seek shelter at Josephine’s.  This, as we say in writing, is a serious of coincidences just entertaining enough to get our audience to suspend their disbelief! 

Josephine has changed back into the white dress she knows Bluebeard likes (we’ll get to this), tries to act dutiful again and return the keys like nothings nothing.  Bluebeard plays along, and tells Josephine that he favors white because it’s the color of innocence and the only thing that can stain it is lies.  He takes out a white handkerchief which the key stains red (and starts bleeding again).  Well, Bluebeard reveals this was a test, she failed, he’s gonna whack her, and pulls a sword.

Now, this moment nearly redeems Josephine to me because its such a good move and something I might not have even thought of.  She throws the heavy ring of metal keys right in Bluebeards blue beard and takes off.

Bluebeard goes after her, Josephine is making good time, we’re getting a lot of good horror shots and build up.  Lightning from the storm starts a big dramatic fire, preventing Josephine’s escape and giving us a cool final showdown ambience.  Brothers see this and rush to the castle (entertaining coincidences!)

Bluebeard’s got her cornered, talks about his magic sword, how he’ll make it quick, and if the viewer hasn’t twigged on yet, some suitable facial expressions that yes, he’s insane.

That’s when Josephine’s brothers break through a stained-glass window like Batman!

Now, the question becomes, can a huge crazy middle aged rich guy with a magic sword who may or may not be fat take three fit and ticked brothers with axes who also have the element of surprise?  Nope!

Bluebeard’s castle burns to the ground, money and all, but hey, at least Josephine gets to keep a moderately used white dress!

So’s this is 80 samples, 22 of Bluebeard by himself, 11 with Josephine, 45 of Josephine and 2 together with her brothers.

Key word: Blu3B3ard

Bluebeard’s look is consistent the episode:

1boy, tall, broad-shouldered, imposing older nobleman. He has a dark, sharp beard and mustache with a distinctly unnatural navy blue tint. He has thick eyebrows, a prominent nose, and a stern expression. He wears Tudor-style nobility clothing. He wears a dark purple doublet with puffed upper sleeves, a white lace ruff collar, and a long white fur-lined mantle draping over his shoulders. A flat, wide purple Tudor-style hat with a small jewel emblem, a heavy golden chain necklace across his .

Josephine has several looks in this episode:

Basically before she gets her hair done, use Key word: Jos3phin3Poor, this is more likely to get you the right face, expressions and hair, you can still throw her in a nice dress

 -A simple red dress with long purple sleeves, long loose dark blonde hair, pink head veil, bright blue eyes, bare feet, warm features.

-A white rococo or baroque dress with puffy sleeves and ribbons, long dark blonde hair brushed in a middle part, , bright blue eyes, warm features.

Key word: Jos3phin3Rich, this is for her wealthy look, not just clothes but I think its noticeable in her face too.

-Dark blue eyes, haughty features, dark blonde hair in an updo, with rolled curls framing side of face.  Thin elegant eyebrows, eyelashes, red lipstick.  Rococo or baroque pink gown with white bodice insert, white trim and collar line.  Fabric choker necklace with a red gemstone.

-Dark blue eyes, haughty features, dark blonde hair in an updo, with rolled curls framing side of face.  Thin elegant eyebrows, eyelashes, red lipstick.  A white rococo or baroque dress with puffy sleeves and ribbons.

-There's only a few frames, but a golden dress with a queen collar, jewelry and a crown

NOTES:

So far, the big things are you need to get descriptive with Josephine's dress, no need to lay on size (unless you're into that) and neg out cheekbones for Bluebeard. If you want him with cheekbones thats fine, but thats a thing really bugs me, how AI has to give everybody razor sharp cheekbones