Blue Beard appears to be a stern and intimidating man. He was courting Amalie, but she did not take a liking to him. It turns out that Blue Beard had been married several times before, with all his previous wives mysteriously vanishing.
By some strange coincidence, Ludwig bears an uncanny resemblance to Blue Beard's first wife. Unaware that Ludwig is male, Blue Beard takes him back to his castle. There, Ludwig discovers that Blue Beard's beard is fake. The beard allowed Blue Beard to assume another persona because without it, he was a weakling prone to crying easily. Ludwig also learns that Blue Beard had murdered all of his previous wives. He gave each of them keys to every room in the castle, but forbade them from entering one specific room. His first wife, Annie, disobeyed him and entered the forbidden room, uncovering the truth about the beard. Annie believed it wasn't the beard that magically transformed him into someone strong, but rather himself. She wanted Blue Beard to embrace his true self, but he felt she intended to humiliate him—so he killed her. Each subsequent wife met the same tragic fate.
After discovering Ludwig's secret, Blue Beard attempted to kill him too, but met a freak accident when he was impaled by a weather vane. In his final breath, he regretted ever killing Annie, as she was the only woman who had truly loved and accepted him for who he was.
