They’re chaotic evil in the truest way, and they’re bloated off of their own power. Paraphrased, Banquo is warning his friend: Yo, sometimes these ladies who have access to the future will tell you a little bit of truth so that you believe them, and then they’ll tell you shit just to fuck with you.
He says, in some of my favorite lines, “But ’tis strange: / And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s / In deepest consequence” (Act I, scene iii). In fact, all prophecy is pretty dicey in origin…īanquo even cautions Macbeth against the idea of prophecy in the Scottish play. The Graeae had information, but nothing so wild as a foretelling, and the Fates, they’re a little different, too, since it’s debatable whether they decide stuff or if it simply is, and they’re the ones who tell it. The information that the Weird Sisters have, of course, is that of prophecy. In her edited anthology Medusa’s Daughters, Theodora Goss also points out that the Gorgons, and Medusa in particular, were an obsession among ladies at the fin de siecle, too.īut why? Why was this weird sisters trope present in ancient times, and why does it persist through retellings today? I think the Weird Sisters are reminiscent of the Graeae AND the Fates AND the Gorgons if only for the reason that they are all sets of three sisters who have more information than they should have, and that makes them scary. Long story short, in order to get information from them to kill Medusa (who is also, by the way, one of three Gorgons, each cursed for her beauty), Perseus held their lone eyeball ransom.
The second set of three women from Greek mythology is The Graeae, the elderly threesome who shared an eye and a tooth among them. The Disney film Hercules conflates the Fates with the Graeae, having them share an eyeball AND spool the thread of life. (Plus, traditionally, both the Weird Sisters and the Fates are depicted as women of three generations: the Maiden, the Matron, and the Crone. There was one who spun the thread of life, one who measured it, and one who cut it, and even the gods had to submit to this predetermination.
YIKES, dude.īut moving on, in case you need a refresher on the Fates, they were the goddesses who determined the course of everyone’s life. Case in point, the Weird Sisters giving unpopular and trickstery prophecies? Them’s the Fates, y’all.Īnd by the way, in my personal opinion, there is no scarier retelling/representation of the Weird Sisters than in Justin Kurzel’s film adaptation of Macbeth, pictured above-I mean, he nailed their spookiness-in-the-fog in a way that really resonates with contemporary viewers. Shakespeare borrowed and rebranded archetypes (along with a LOT of his plot devices) from his favorite ancient societies, namely the Greeks. Boiled down, Macbeth itself IS a retelling. IDK if y’all know this, but Shakespeare didn’t invent the triad of creepy women. The cultures that he idolized also blamed women for most of their problems. It wasn’t all Shakespeare’s misogyny *cough* I mean fault. Not really…I mean, how many people do you know who are much quicker to blame the witches, or even poor, instrumental Lady Macbeth, for all of Macbeth’s rashness? Technically, Macbeth should be held responsible for his own actions, but he isn’t. I mean, sure, some of the events that their presence led to were much worse, but all the wrongdoings can be traced back to them. Let’s talk about the Weird Sisters…Is there anything freakier than three unrelated women of staggered generational ages all giving you attention at the same time? According to Shakespeare, nah. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes. And she and her coven have the perfect way in: a boy named Mack, whose ambition could turn deadly. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one.
Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of-until the night of Jade’s sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Jade, Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. This post about weird sisters retellings is sponsored by Wednesday Books.
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