Why does saying "Swiper, no swiping!" three times prevent Swiper from swiping?

Question

In Dora the Explorer, Swiper often tries to swipe an object that Dora and Boots need to reach their destination. If they confront him and say "Swiper, no swiping!" three times before he reaches it, he'll say "Oh, man!" and leave. However, I've seen in some episodes they only manage to say it once and he grabs the item.

Is there any in-universe explanation for why they need to say this three times, or for how it prevents him from then taking the item? Clearly, simply being seen doing it is not sufficient to prevent him.

I've only seen most of seasons 1 and 3 of Dora the Explorer. I have not seen the full seven seasons or any other related canon material for Dora the Explorer, so I'm wondering if the answer appears there.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about Dora the Explorer. Questions regarding children's programs where the fantasy elements primarily consist of anthropomorphic talking animals have been deemed off topic in the past. — TGnat, Oct 27 '14 at 15:33
Please take tangential discussion on on-topicness to chat or Meta. Keep the comments related to improving this post. — , Oct 27 '14 at 17:47
I found an example of the meta discussion that TGnat mentioned. — numaroth, Oct 27 '14 at 18:21
@numaroth Dora goes beyond simply having talking animals (there are trolls with their own realm under the bridge, a magical forest where Unicornio is king, etc), so I think the question it links, Are children's literature and cartoon's for children on-topic?, seems more appropriate. — Doge The Explorer, Oct 27 '14 at 18:53
@Sterno - "Would a serious fan of the science fiction or fantasy genres consider spending any amount of effort digging into the details of a children's cartoon?". Yes, I would. — Valorum, Oct 27 '14 at 18:53
@Sterno Fair enough, I decided to link to the more recent question since, without knowledge of Dora, it seemed relevant and it contained a link to the children's cartoon question. — numaroth, Oct 27 '14 at 19:02
After reading that meta, I think it could use a clearer answer, as I'm not sure if any of the current answers justify this question being closed. — Doge The Explorer, Oct 27 '14 at 19:15
My deleted comment said that the work the question is about should have enough development for it to be considered on topic. I don't think Dora has such (it has trolls and unicorns, but only as the setting seems fit, not as part of a more complex environment) — Arturo Torres Sánchez, Oct 27 '14 at 19:29
probably works in the same way as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — user13267, Oct 28 '14 at 15:18
Defending the existence of SciFi/Fantasy elements in the series: the show technically takes place inside of a computer game (as evidenced by the frequently-appearing mouse cursor), which makes Dora, Boots, Swiper, etc. artificial life and potentially AI. — Scott Odle, Oct 28 '14 at 21:53
I love the fact that this is actually a question that people are interested in hahaha, i mean i searched it too but why? — hopsinat, Jan 08 '19 at 07:15

Valorum · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-19T22:06:42.970

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This is discussed at some considerable length in this article from howstuffworks. In short, his swiping is to be viewed less as a character flaw and more of a character trait:

Show co-creator Valerie Walsh gives us some further insight:

Swiper is a one-dimensional character. You don’t know why he steals, and we did that on purpose. Kids this age are learning about more complex thinking. The emotional and psychological reasons behind someone being bad have to be explained so thoroughly that we didn’t want the back-story…. We’ve had this discussion with advisors who wanted us to get into the motivation behind Swiper’s bad behavior. We decided that it’s cleaner without it. Similar to villains in fairy tales, we don’t get into the why.

By extension, his motivation for not swiping after being confronted by Dora ("no swiping!") is also intentionally unexplained.

Out of universe, the show's other co-creator Chris Gifford has described the phrase as a simple strategy to empower children in dealing with the threat posed by Swiper:

And what about Swiper, the villain?

That was pretty controversial actually at the time. There were a lot of people who asked us not to put Swiper into the show. As a matter of fact, because they kept going through how to reduce or adjust Swiper’s teeth, “Round them out!”

And I just wanted him to have sharp teeth because the more threatening Swiper was; the more powerful kids felt and be able to stop him. So now they have the strategy to keep saying, “Swiper no swiping”, and then Swiper stops. And that I think, is a big part of the Dora success because you know he is a threat.

edited Nov 19 '14 at 22:06

answered Oct 27 '14 at 17:29

Valorum

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So, quite literally, the answer is because that's just how he works. – KOVIKO Oct 27 '14 at 18:18
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@Koviko - When the writer says "we deliberately left it vague", all you've got is unfounded speculation! To counter that, I've offered an out-of-universe explanation as well. – Valorum Oct 27 '14 at 18:21
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"unintentionally explained" or "intentionally unexplained"? – DLeh Oct 27 '14 at 19:05
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"Unintentionally explained" or "intentionally unexplained"? – Ryan M Oct 27 '14 at 19:05
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@Dleh Wow, that's weird. If I hadn't taken the time to capitalize the U, I might have beaten you. – Ryan M Oct 27 '14 at 19:06
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@RyanM haha yeah, if I hadn't taken the time to bold it, I would've been even faster ^_^ – DLeh Oct 27 '14 at 19:09
@DLeh - Sigh. Everyone's a critic. Don't forget that you can edit answers... – Valorum Oct 27 '14 at 19:18
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@Richard You have way too much rep. We are not worthy to touch it. – KOVIKO Oct 27 '14 at 19:19
@Richard I didn't want to because I wasn't entirely sure of your intentions. And it would have changed the answer significantly, so I didn't feel qualified to do it. Great answer though! – DLeh Oct 27 '14 at 19:23
@Koviko - Note that I've never rolled back an edit. – Valorum Oct 27 '14 at 19:25
@Richard I'd imagine you can take criticism, by now. I was just being tongue-in-cheek. – KOVIKO Oct 27 '14 at 19:25
@RyanM it takes you ten extra seconds to capitalize a letter? ;-) (he posted 9 seconds before you) – Tim S. Oct 28 '14 at 14:17
@TimS. One second to capitalize, 9 seconds for the internal debate whether or not to go back & capitalize it after I pasted it. (Really I just thought it was interesting that our comments were identical apart from that capital letter.) – Ryan M Oct 28 '14 at 15:02
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I'm so old, I remember when HowStuffWorks was an interesting site containing useful knowledge. – David Conrad Oct 28 '14 at 20:30
"No means no!" - – Wayne Werner Oct 29 '14 at 01:31

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '14 at 18:58

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The unofficial wiki states:

It is revealed that Swiper started to steal when he saw another fox stealing a little train from a child. After that Swiper took away a witch's shoes and she punished him with a magical curse and told him "You can now be stopped by anyone who says "Swiper no swiping!" three times".

Unfortunately, the reference is uncited, and I don't believe it comes from an actual episode. In the very first episode, Dora already knows how to stop Swiper. Nor is it explained in flashback episodes like "Dora's First Trip" or Swiper-centric episodes like "Swiper's Big Adventure."

Swiper's IMDB biography also gives an uncited reference to a witch's curse.

answered Oct 27 '14 at 18:58

Karl Bielefeldt

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The only reference I can find to this seems to be a fanfic; http://justliz143.weebly.com/new-character-perspective.html – Valorum Oct 27 '14 at 19:23
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What a world we live in where Swiper the Fox has his own IMDB biography. – Zibbobz Oct 28 '14 at 13:38
@Zibbobz We live in a world where a character with millions of fans and millions of dollars in merchandising are spent on him a year. Who meeting that criteria WOULDN'T have an IMDB biopic? – corsiKa Oct 28 '14 at 20:56

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 28 '14 at 11:09

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Empirical studies seems to indicate that at least the younger kids need the three times to catch the trigger and have time to say it at least once. I guess they feel better knowing they helped stopping Swiper ;-)

answered Oct 28 '14 at 11:09

d4kris

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Whilst this is a good out of universe answer, the question asks for an in-universe answer. – Moogle Oct 28 '14 at 11:26

Why does saying "Swiper, no swiping!" three times prevent Swiper from swiping?

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