Alan Dundes

The number three has incredible significance, um, psychologically.

And now the exact reasons aren't known, um, uh, but Alan Dundes, um, a psychoanalytic folklorist, said that the reason why the number three appears so much in our culture, uh, in just our numerical laws and just mathematical formula, the reason why the number three appears so much is because it represents, uh, the mother, the father, and the child.

So when you see, um, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, when you see mother goddess, father god, and divine child, when you see, um, maiden, mother, crone as, uh, you know, the, uh, the triple goddess, uh, waxing, full, and waning moon, uh, the list goes on.

You know, even our whole world is structured by the number three.

But I totally agree that we lose the plot.

I read another great article by Dundes.

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Dundes goes on to talk about how at the end she is breaking down.

She says, "I need you, Mommy." Like she's crying, and, and Dundes makes the point that like can you imagine a prince doing something similar?

Other scholars focus on the psychological dynamics of the ritual.

In Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics, folklorist Alan Dundes linked the game to anxiety surrounding puberty and the onset of menstruation in young women.

The core ritualistic element, the bathroom, the mirror, blood, and the female phantom mirror the bodily self-consciousness and physical transformations of adolescence.

Some rules even dictate flushing the toilet to safely banish the ghost.