Mavi Sakal

Mavi Sakal is one of the villains (or rather anti-heroes) during the first two seasons of the Turkish TV Series: Arka Sıradakiler.

History
Mavi Sakal, literally means "Blue Beard" in Turkish. Having the real name Barış Göksu, he chooses the nickname of a well known fairytale figure who marries women and kills them if they open the door of a secret room. Because in there he hides the dead bodies of his previous wives.

But Barış wasn't a lustful man, he only loved Gamze, the main girl of the series, and wanted to dedicate a book to her. Because she'd left him for Oktay, the main boy. He wanted to write a realistic book, so he wanted to kidnap Gamze and rape her. But he was afraid of that the police might track him easily, so he chose Eda, another girl from his class. So he didn't rape her, he just watched her, through security cameras, lose her mind.

One day, Eda acted as if she fainted, and Barış, in his Mavi Sakal costume -including a green sweatshirt and a black mask- had to check her. She attacked him and tried to uncover his mask. But he held her hand and the girl, after being mentally tortured for 2 months in a cell, ran away. Meanwhile, Mavi Sakal, in his Barış self, was casually driving on the way where she was running. He pretended to have found her, instead of taking her back to her cell, and she started to treat him like a knight after that.

Eda was falling in love with Barış, without knowing that he was her arch-enemy: Mavi Sakal. Eda's real lover, Ali was disturbed by Eda's relationship with Barış. One day, he grabbed the cup in Barış's hand, and casually drank from it. Barış was annoyed and chose his victim. He was gonna put the blame on Ali. So he played Strauss one day, the classical music composer whom Eda knew very well. She had a hysteria and kept saying, "Mavi Sakal's here, he's one of my schoolmates!"

The CD of Strauss was found in Ali's bag, and Eda believed he was Mavi Sakal. But Ali's teacher Kemal believed this proof wasn't enough. An unconvinced Eda, went back to her cell, with the help of her boyfriend, Barış. She found Ali's lip piercing in the cell, and then she confronted Ali. Ali was soon surrounded by Eda's schoolmates; and with the help of his own friends, he escaped from school.

The police finally caught Ali and questioned him. His words were enough to prove that he wasn't Mavi Sakal, so he returned to his high school. But Eda still didn't believe him. She, alongside with her schoolmates, continued to bully Ali. Ali was bitter and the police had to warn his schoolmates. As he knew Mavi Sakal was among them and was just trying to put the blame on Ali, he bluffed: "We have clues other than a Strauss CD and a lip piercing," leading Barış to sweat.

Ali knew the only way to be freed from his schoolmates' bullyings was to track Mavi Sakal himself. His own only suspect was Barış, whom he'd been stalking for time as he was jealous of him, and he was acting weird, such as he sweated a lot, and was bothered by the cars' alarms. Also he never let go of his black notebook. Ali discovered he was hiding a secret in this notebook, that might be related to Mavi Sakal. In other words, Barış might be Mavi Sakal's man or something. One day, in the library, Barış was writing in his notebook -aka his novel- as he was running out of inspirations, he cancelled one page and tore it up and put the pieces in the bin casually. Ali, carefully, took out the pieces of the paper and managed to read what was written on it. It seemed like a story, featuring 3 characters named Necla, Orhan and Gonca. Necla was in love with Orhan, but as Orhan still loved Gonca, he couldn't return the feelings of Necla. Ali tracked that Necla was Eda, Orhan was Barış, and Gonca was Gamze. So he ran after the black notebook of Barış. He sneaked into his house and stole it. He read the parts of the novel but didn't go to the police directly. He called Barış and wanted him to confess to be Mavi Sakal. Barış said, "Yes, I'm writing a realistic book."

Ali answered, "But writing a realistic book and writing a book, based on true events are different. Yours belongs to the second category and the people will track that easily."

Barış said, "No. They'll think I've used my own imagination."

Ali answered, "Doesn't matter. Eda will know that they were real."

Barış said, "Don't you understand that the book will end with Eda's death?"

Ali answered, "No, I won't let you."

Barış said, "You won't let me if you manage to survive," and using his knife, fought with Ali; but his notebook, dropped into a fire from Ali's hands. A frantic Barış, tried to save his novel from the flames but he burned his own face. Ali left the scene, afraid of that his previous days as a runaway were coming back.

Barış was disfigured, and he blamed Ali. The police were searching for Ali, they needed his words too. As a part of their investigation, they researched Barış's room. The teacher, Kemal found a CD on which Eda's name was written, and he hid this from the police. He decided to watch it at home, as Barış was one of his most hardworking and lovable students. The CD seemed like a love confession to Eda, so Kemal decided to give this to Eda. Eda watched it and was tearful at the old beautiful face of Barış.

As Barış recovered, he found the motivation of writing his book again, and he asked questions to Eda about Mavi Sakal. Eda, disturbed by these questions, for the first time suspected Barış. But these inspirations weren't enough for Barış. He had to make Ali make his move. He went to the place where he thought he was hiding -which is Ali's best friend Saffet's mother's luxurious house- and told Saffet's mother loudly, "I'm writing my book again from the ending."

Ali, hearing this, knew that Barış meant he was gonna start his renewed novel with Eda's death; and sneaked into Eda's school and talked to her by force. He said, "If I'm Mavi Sakal, why didn't I rape you in that cell, Eda? Don't you see that Mavi Sakal's Barış, and he's still in love with Gamze, and he's trying to impress her with his book?!"

As Barış's questions about Mavi Sakal'd bothered Eda, she kind of believed Ali this time and decided to watch Barış's CD over and over again. As she was suspectful this time, she was distracted from Barış's beautiful face. She realized the green sweatshirt behind him. She showed it to Kemal, Kemal showed it to the police, the police showed it to Ali, of whose whereabouts they knew - of course they could guess it as Barış could. They just needed actual proofs that might suggest the real identity of Mavi Sakal, which they got now.

So they, Kemal, Eda and Ali played a game to make Barış confess. Eda told Barış, "Ali's caught by the police, my father and I'll kidnap him and I'll take my own revenge on him." Mavi Sakal tried to make her give up, because things weren't going according to his novel. He stalked her to the hospital in which Ali was being checked, and witnessed Eda's father trying to kidnap Ali. The police -as part of the game- realized this and shot Eda's father. Eda's uncle managed to kidnap Ali and then Eda called Barış. She said, "I'm gonna burn Ali, and you should witness this, as he hurt you too," and told him to come to the certain cell. As Barış knew the way very well, he went to the room in which there were a lot of TVs. He used to watch the whole place in this room. But now Eda's certain cell wasn't her prison, in it she ruled and Barış couldn't do anything. He just begged Eda to stop, the reason why he was so helpless was that this whole place was actually the factory in which his dad worked some time. And he'd lost his life by being burned due to an accident here. And this was also why Barış didn't want Eda to burn Ali. Eda said, "You're not full of hatred for Mavi Sakal, so you don't deserve to watch him burn directly," and changed the position of the camera. Ali -as part of the game- screamed like a burning person and Barış, tearfully confessed to be Mavi Sakal. The police got out of the shadows and took Barış to court.

Since it was understood that Barış was out of his mind, he was put in an asylum. Actually the audience debated that Barış wasn't mentally ill, he became one because of Eda's game. Having to witness his own victim, Ali burn like his own father was the reason why Barış went mad was suggested by Mavi Sakal's fans. But this question was answered later. During the confrontation with Eda, he said, "I'm in love with Gamze and I didn't choose to kidnap her because of certain reasons, and the reason why I chose you is that your father[1] disturbed my process of writing my novel with the alarms of his car." So he was mentally unwell even before he kidnapped Eda, being disturbed by small noises like car alarms.

Barış, having lost the only aim in his life, writing a realistic book for Gamze, planned a great detailed revenge on his high school, during the days in the asylum. He befriended another madman who was about to be released from the asylum. This man, Can, stalked Gamze's best friend, Sanem, giving her roses as Mavi Sakal did for Eda. Sanem couldn't link this to Mavi Sakal. One day, Can, arrived at the asylum and changed clothes with Barış. He got out of the asylum as Can and Can remained in Barış's cell.

Barış first checked his old room in his house. While doing this, he saw his mother was paralyzed. He was really sorry for her and arrived at his old high school. In the library was there his hidden gun. He took it and waited. The students started to arrive. In Barış's old class, a fight began. So all the students but Eda went inside, so in the corridor, Barış was alone with Eda just like in the past. He pointed his gun at Eda, saying, "How're you my dear? How're you my love?" Eda screamed but due to the fight going on in her class, no one heard her. Mavi Sakal, having hurt her so much in the past, decided to spare her this time and only shot her in the arm. The fighters in the class got out and saw Eda was bleeding. They circled her but Mavi Sakal's gun was still pointing at them, so they couldn't move. Mavi Sakal said, "You, take this poor girl to hospital and you, come with me." He took hostages in the class, who included Gamze. He told Gamze to select the first victim to be killed, but Gamze couldn't make a choice, as she loved all of her friends. Instead she begged to be killed by Mavi Sakal. Mavi Sakal said, "Right answer," and made long speeches about philosophy, as he was a nice, hardworking student. He mainly talked about his paralyzed mother. As the hours were passing, Mavi Sakal and the hostages were hungry and he sent Gamze to receive food from the police that were trying to make Barış let go of the hostages. Gamze's currently boyfriend, Oktay stepped inside the class and everyone started to scream. Barış was disturbed by the noise and casually chose one of Gamze's friends to kill, but he had a lover, who sacrificed herself for him. Mavi Sakal, seeing the greatness of her love, decided to spare the others, and he pointed the gun at his own head.

Trivia
* [1] Eda's father's still alive as he pretended to be dead according to the game of the police.

* [2] The madness of Mavi Sakal is debated as stated above, but he must've been really mad because he chose to write a novel in a black notebook, he didn't use a computer as normal authors, so he lost all of it when the notebook was burned.

** Also he was really careless when he just tore the cancelled paper of this notebook up, instead of burning it.

** His carelessness goes as far as forgetting the green sweatshirt behind him, in a fake love confession CD.

** Also, he wants to dedicate a book to Gamze and at first he thinks of kidnapping her but what'd happen once she reads it? Would he really think she'd be impressed by reading her own being kidnapped and raped?

* [3] Mavi Sakal's idol was The Joker, he even painted his disfigured face like him, but in his manners, he resembled Light Yagami. When he wrote his novel in his notebook, he seemed frantic like Light Yagami. Also he had two selves like Light Yagami. One is a hardworking student that despises Mavi Sakal's deeds, one is Mavi Sakal himself whom was grabbed by Barış as his real self in the scene before the accident or in the scene where he talked to his hostages; just like Light Yagami who struggles to be between a hardworking high school student and Kira who punishes the criminals.