Line #99 Literature/TheWitches


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TheWitches_9773.jpg]]
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3	->''"For all you know, a witch might be living next door to you right now. Or she might be the woman with the bright eyes who sat opposite you on the bus this morning. She might be the lady with the dazzling smile who offered you a sweet from a white paper bag in the street before lunch. She might even -- and this will make you jump -- she might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment. Look at that teacher. Perhaps she is smiling at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Don't let that put you off. It could be part of her cleverness. I am not, of course, telling you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she '''might''' be one. It is most unlikely. But -- and here comes the big "but" -- ''' it is not impossible'''."''
4
5	''The Witches'' is a 1983 Creator/RoaldDahl book starting with an introductory chapter on the subject of Witches written in third person (presumably narrated by Dahl himself), but switches to first person for the rest of the story as the tale is taken up by an unnamed boy. He tells the story of how, after the death of his parents, he moves in with his Norwegian [[CoolOldLady Grandmother]] who was once a great Witch hunter; she regales him with tales of Witches and their victims and how to tell the difference between a human woman and a Witch. They then are sent, on Doctor's orders, a British seaside holiday, as his Grandmother is too ill to return to Norway.
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7	It is at a seaside hotel that the boy is trapped at the annual British Witch meeting and meets the hideous (but disguised) [[BigBad Grand High Witch]]. It is at this meeting he and another boy (Bruno Jenkins) are turned into talking mice by a magic potion. After escaping and returning to his Grandmother they hatch a plan to kill all the Witches in England and the Grand High Witch. With great courage he manages to spike the soup the Witches are eating (having posed as the phony child protection agency the RSPCC, and getting special treatment from the Hotel) with their own mouse potion which leads to them being killed (in the form of mice, obviously) by the Hotel Staff.
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9	Afterwards, the boy and his grandmother find a possible lead to the locations of every known witch, and decide to use this knowledge (and the formula for the mouse potion) to spend the rest of their lives hunting down as many witches as they can.
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11	The Witches, in a case of OurMonstersAreDifferent, are [[MageSpecies a specific species of demon]] and aren't human at all. They seemingly exist to [[ChildHater hate children]], and plan to destroy all the children in England in one fell swoop. They don't particularly kill adults... but if one dies anyway? "Vell then too bad for ze grown-up."
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13	[[AC:They have certain "tells" which a person can use, if they are eagle eyed and perceptive to spy a Witch:]]
14	* [[OneGenderRace All Witches are female]]. (There are other demonic creatures who are always male, but this book isn't about them.)
15	* All Witches have [[RedRightHand huge cat-like claws]] [[ConspicuousGloves which they hide with gloves]].
16	* [[BaldOfEvil All Witches are bald]] but wear wigs in public, developing wig rash from the coarse underside of their wigs.
17	* All Witches have very large, fluted nostrils and a highly developed sense of smell in order to [[TheNoseKnows sniff out children]]. Children smell like dog's droppings to them; if you don't wash very often, you can block the smell. This smell fades when you get older -- presumably during puberty.
18	* All Witches have strange colour-changing pupils. If you get a chance to look at them long enough, you may see [[BizarreAlienBiology fire and ice dance in the center]].
19	* All Witches have squared-off feet without toes; they squeeze their feet into pumps and high heels to conceal this, even though it causes them great discomfort.
20	* All Witches have blue saliva. If a woman has a faint bluish tint to her teeth, she may be a Witch.
21
22	Adaptations include:
23	* ''Film/TheWitches1990'': A film starring Creator/AnjelicaHuston, directed by Creator/NicolasRoeg and produced by Creator/JimHenson.
24	* ''The Witches'' (2007-2008): A radio dramatisation with Margaret Tyzack as the Grandmother, Toby Jones as the Narrator, Ryan Watson as the Boy, Jordan Clarke as Bruno and Amanda Laurence as the Grand High Witch.
25	* ''The Witches'' (2008): A Norwegian children's opera composed by Marcus Paus.
26	* ''The Witches: The Graphic Novel'' (2020): A ComicBookAdaptation with art by Pénélope Bagieu published by Gallimard with Scholastic publishing the English version.
27	* ''Film/TheWitches2020'': A film directed and co-written by Creator/RobertZemeckis and featuring Creator/AnneHathaway as the Grand High Witch, it premiered on Creator/HBOMax.
28	* ''The Witches'' (2023): A stage musical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Creator/DaveMalloy.
29	----
30	!!Provides examples of:
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32	[[foldercontrol]]
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34	[[folder:The Book]]
35	* AdultsAreUseless:
36	** Grandma mentions that in Norway it's quite normal for parents to lose their children to witches, and they haven't been able to form a countermeasure against it except to warn their boys and girls to stay away from women with gloves and blue spit.
37	** Bruno's father doesn't realize that his son goes missing in a hotel and assumes that the old woman that claimed his son was a mouse was playing a prank on him.
38	** The Grand High Witch's plan relies on the teachers seeing their students turn into mice and not realizing what happened, especially since the kids can still ''talk''. This ends up playing out in the hotel's dining room, when everyone in the hotel is more focused about getting rid of the mice then the fact that nearly a hundred women transformed.
39	* AgonyOfTheFeet: Thanks to their square, toe-less feet, witches are caused constant pain while walking around in heels and similar shoes, which they wear to blend in among normal humans.
40	* AloneWithThePsycho:
41	** The boy freaks out when he's working on a treehouse in his backyard and a witch appears below, attempting to lure him down with a snake. He hides in the tree and stays there until it's dark and his grandmother appears, reassuring him that the witch is gone.
42	** It's then taken up to eleven when he realizes he's locked in a room with ''every single witch in England'' at the Hotel Magnificent, and the only way to evade detection is stay quiet and out of sight (he's hiding behind a screen divider) and hope his lack of washing means they won't smell him. They almost don't detect him, but a witch named Mildred smells him out just as the meeting ends and everyone is leaving.
43	** Bruno realizes too late that he's been lured into the meeting to serve as living proof that the mouse-making formula works. Even so, it doesn't hit him what happened until the other boy points out that Bruno now has a tail and fur.
44	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: In this setting, all witches are monstrous, sadistic child haters who essentially devote their entire lives to tormenting and killing children, and while they don't have any particular hatred of adult humans, they consider them utterly expendable. Averted with Miss Irvine in the 1990, who undergoes a HeelFaceTurn.
45	* AmbiguouslyHuman: At one point, a boy sees a woman who he suspects to be a witch, because she wanted to show him her pet snake and was wearing gloves (which all witches wear). Then again, he never sees her again, not even during a meeting of all English witches, and it was winter at the time.
46	* AmbiguousSyntax: When the Grand High Witch proposes her plan to wipe out all the children in England, one witch exclaims, "We can't possibly wipe out ''all'' of them!" Depending on the interpretation of the sentence, she could either be unwilling to kill so many children at once, or just worried that such a plan would be outright impossible. Either way, the Grand High Witch fries her for insubordination.
47	* AndIMustScream:
48	** In the beginning of the book, when the grandmother is telling the narrator stories that she's heard about children abducted by witches, one of the stories is about a girl that appeared [[PhantomZonePicture in a painting in her home.]] According to the grandmother, the painting changed constantly, from the girl being in the farmhouse to feeding ducks in the lake. She even grew up in the painting. [[spoiler:And it's implied that she also died in the painting.]] The fact that her position in the painting changed means that the girl was probably conscious throughout [[spoiler:her lifetime in it.]]
49	** There's also the boy who was turned to stone. His parents used him as an umbrella stand.
50	** And the three toads at the Grand High Witch's hotel room, implied to be cursed children, too. [[spoiler:They are fed to seagulls.]]
51	* AndTheAdventureContinues: Grandma and the boy conclude that they probably have eight or nine years left, and they also got rid of all the witches in England. Having been a witch-hunter in her prime, Grandma uses a lead from the Hotel Magnificent to get the Grand High Witch's address and contact information. Since the boy remembers the mouse-making formula by heart, they decide to go and get rid of the Grand High Witch's replacement, as well as any witches in the castle, using the formula to turn them into mice and cats to eat them. Then they'll use the information in the castle to track down all the witches in the world and wipe them out, one by one.
52	* AndThenWhat:
53	** After the Grand High Witch details her plan and asks if there are questions, a witch asks what happens if a grownup rather than a child eats the cursed chocolate. GHW only says it's too bad for the grownup.
54	** While Grandma and the boy discuss how to get rid of the replacement Grand High Witch and her servants, the boy brings up that a mouse-witch would be more dangerous than a regular witch because they could get anywhere. They decide to fill the castle with cats, keeping the boy-mouse out of harm's way, until all the witches are eaten.
55	* AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, Grandma claims that in Norway, parents and families are used to witches and thus don't raise a fuss when a child disappears or transforms. It's averted when she finds out her grandson has changed into a mouse, however; after she hides him and Bruno, she sits in a chair and cries for a few minutes.
56	* AntagonistTitle: The story itself is named after its main threat, the witches.
57	* ArcNumber: Grandma is revealed near the end of the book to be 86 years old, corresponding to Formula 86, the name of the Grand High Witch's latest potion.
58	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
59	** This is intentional on the plot point of children secreting "stink waves"; supposedly some kind of hormone that smells like raspberries and cream to a human but [[RoadApples dog poop]] to a witch. No such hormone actually exists; this was just added to give the witches a reason for hating human children.
60	** After turning into a mouse, the main character develops [[DoesNotLikeSpam a distaste for sugary foods]]. In real life, mice ''[[SweetTooth love]]'' sugary foods.
61	* AssholeVictim: The Grand High Witch frequently 'fries' her minions (it is suggested that she fries at least one witch at each meeting to remind the others what she is capable of). Given that they're evil, child-killing witches, it's hard to feel sympathy for them.
62	* AsYouKnow: During the Grand High Witch's explanation of her plan to wipe out all the children in England, she tells her audience that "money is not a problem to us witches as you know very well" because [[CounterfeitCash she prints her own money for them]]. This is done to remind the audience that the Grand High Witch has a money-printing machine after it was initially brought up by the protagonist's Grandmama a few chapters earlier.
63	* AttackTheTail: When the hero is turned into a mouse and carries out his mission in the kitchen, a cook slices off the end of his tail when he is using it to move about.
64	* AuthorTract: Dahl hated children's homes that were actually abusive. Hence the witches posing as a children's charity.
65	* BadassLongcoat: The hotel manager Mr Stringer is described as a bristly man in a black tail-coat.
66	* BadBoss: The Grand High Witch kills so many witches that speak up for the smallest argument that it makes one wonder why that there are any left [[note]]although it is stated that she only 'fries' one witch each meeting to make sure they remember what she is capable of[[/note]].
67	* BaldOfEvil: Every witch is completely bald, and must wear itchy wigs that give them serious scalp rashes. Apparently they've never heard of skullcaps or moisturizing creams.
68	* BaldMystic: Baldness is one of the tells of the titular evil witches, who wear wigs to pass as human. The narrator is disgusted when his grandmother tells him this because there's "something indecent" about a bald woman.
69	* BigBad: The Grand High Witch, the bona fide leader of the witches who hatches a deadly plot to wipe out the children of England.
70	* BigEater: Bruno Jenkins, who is described as always eating something. Even as a mouse, he's always more interested in whatever food is present.
71	* BitchInSheepsClothing: The Witches typically disguise themselves so that they can trick children into their clutches. The boy at first mistakes them for being part of the Royal Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children and initially hopes they can talk at his school.
72	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The main protagonist must remain a mouse for the rest of his life, since there is no cure for the Grand High Witch's potion. The protagonist's grandmother predicts that, since he is a magical-enhanced mouse-person, his lifespan may be longer than that of an ordinary mouse--perhaps as long as nine years. However, they are comforted that this means they have roughly the same amount of time to live, meaning that they will never be without each other. They also decide to use their remaining years to get rid of all the witches in the world.]]
73	* BlackComedy: One of the stories of the protagonist's grandmother tells him involves a boy who was turned to stone. His parents subsequently use him as an umbrella stand.
74	* {{Blackmail}}: When the hotel manager forbids the hero from keeping mice in his room, the grandmother tells BlatantLies about having seen rats in the hotel, and threatens to report this to health authorities, to blackmail the manager into allowing the pet mice to stay.
75	--> '''Grandmother:''' No wonder my breakfast toast was all nibbled round the edges this morning. No wonder it had a nasty ratty taste. Are you or are you not going to allow my grandson to keep his pet mice in his room?
76	* BodyHorror:
77	** Bruno's transformation.
78	** The Grand High Witch's face.
79	* BondVillainStupidity: The Grand High Witch releases Bruno and the hero after [[spoiler:she polymorphs him. Justified in that the hotel staff are mortally afraid of mice, and the Grand High Witch assumed the boys-turned-mice would be killed on sight by the first adult they saw]].
80	* BookedFullOfMooks: While staying at a hotel with his grandmother, the protagonist stumbles upon a convention for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He realizes after becoming trapped in the convention hall that the RSPCC is a [[MilkmanConspiracy cover story for the witches of England]], who are having their yearly meeting hosted by the Grand High Witch.
81	* ChekhovsGun:
82	** The boy's obsession with training his mice for the circus. It allows him to navigate the restaurant kitchen and pour potion into the witches' soup when he is changed into a mouse.
83	** The bottles of prepared mouse-making formula that the Grand High Witch whipped up for the elderly witches. The boy manages to steal one from her bedroom to put into their soup.
84	* ChekhovsLecture: The stories that Grandma tells the boy about witches, as well as how to identify them, keep him alive if not human by the end of the book.
85	* ChildHater:
86	** As usual, Roald Dahl applies his favorite trope to the villains. And they're an EXTREME example.
87	** And as usual for a Dahl book, the majority of adults come off this way to at least a mild degree (see: the examples of parents who just sort of go "oh well" when the witches do horrible things to their offspring).
88	* ClothespinNosePlug: At the end of their annual meeting, the Grand High Witch reminds the witches to put cotton plugs up their noses before having their dinner, because the dining room will be full of children, who smell like dogs' droppings to witches.
89	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: An endearing example in the taxi driver near the end of the story, who sees the hero in mouse form in his grandmother's hand, and is not phased at all that the mouse is her grandson.
90	-->'''Taxi driver:''' Blimey! What's that?\
91	'''Grandmother:''' It's my grandson. Drive us to the station, please.\
92	'''Taxi driver:''' I always liked mice. I used to keep 'undreds of 'em when I was a boy. Mice are the fastest breeders in the world, so if he's your grandson, you'll be having some ''great''-grandsons soon.\
93	'''Grandmother:''' (looking prim) Drive us to the station, please.\
94	'''Taxi driver:''' Yes, ma'am, right away.
95	* ComplexityAddiction: The Grand High Witch outlines a detailed plan where all the witches of England will resign from their jobs to open sweet shops, and host grand opening galas where each child who attends will receive a chocolate bar infused with potion. The potion itself requires rare ingredients and an alarm clock set to a particular time, ideally to the time when school starts. This plan requires that the teachers would be stupid enough to not see their students turning into mice (although the Grand High Witch states that the transformation should happen at the exact moment when the teacher delivers the class attendance roll to the school office, as though she expects every single teacher in the entire country to be exactly identical in their precision), especially when the transformed kids will be able to ''talk'', or that the new mice would fall for mouse traps, something the boy lampshades. The boy manages to change her and the other witches into mice by simply emptying a bottle of one of her prepared formulas into soup for all the witches at dinner.
96	* CoolOldLady: The grandmother is an awesome and wise former Witch Hunter who [[CigarChomper smokes cigars]].
97	* CounterfeitCash: The Grand High Witch has a machine for printing bank notes in all currencies, which she dishes out to all the witches of the world.
98	-->'''Grand High Witch:''' I have six trunks of English bank notes, all new and crisp. And all of them home-made.
99	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: After one witch exclaims her astonishment at the scale of the Grand High Witch's plan, she burns her alive with her eye beams...and threatens to do the same with her other followers if they don't fall in line.
100	* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:The Grand High Witch and the British witches, child-haters extraordinaire, meet their end at the hands (paws?) of a child they turned into a mouse by being turned into mice and then being killed by adults, the very fate they planned for the children of Britain]].
101	* DidntThinkThisThrough: The Grand High Witch's plan in spades, to get rid of all the children in England. The boy even lampshades this; after he's changed into a mouse, he can still talk and communicate like a human. GHW assumes that the transformed children will be stupid enough to not cry for help or to go to mousetraps for the cheese, and that the adults wouldn't figure out that the children had turned into mice. In fact, he's able to undo her plan because not only can he still talk to his grandmother, and they form a plan of counterattack, but also because he still is smart enough to avoid mousetraps.
102	* DoorSlamOfRage: When the grandmother is talking to the Grand High Witch who is on her balcony, she casually asks the Grand High Witch if she has children. The Grand High Witch replies furiously "I do not!", before storming out of the balcony, slamming the door behind her, unknowingly trapping the hero in the bedroom.
103	* DramaticSitDown: The hero tells his grandmother to sit down just after she sees that he has been turned into a mouse; she duly collapses into her chair. Later, when the grandmother is about to tell Mr and Mrs Jenkins that their son has become a mouse, she tries to persuade them to go somewhere more private, and to sit down there, before she breaks this news.
104	* DramaticallyDelayedDrug:
105	** This is the premise of the [[BigBad Grand High Witch]]'s plan to [[WouldHurtAChild wipe out all the children of England in one stroke]]: chocolates will be spiked with her Formula 86 Delayed Action [[ForcedTransformation Mouse-Maker]], and then sold to kids who will eat it one day but won't feel the effects until nine o' clock the following morning, when they arrive at school - where they'll be killed as ordinary household pests by oblivious adults. As such, nobody will suspect that the chocolate was the cause, and no suspicion will fall on the witches running the sweet shops.
106	** The same applies to [[FatBastard Bruno Jenkins]], the [[AssholeVictim first victim]] of the potion: the Grand High Witch gave him chocolate spiked with Formula 86 the previous day and invites him to the meeting of the witches the following afternoon so they can witness him transform on stage. It's timed so perfectly that Bruno arrives just as the Grand High Witch explains this and barely has enough time to demand to know what's going on before the transformation kicks off.
107	** Subverted in the case of the protagonist; overdoses of Formula 86 result in the delay mechanism failing and the potion working immediately, as our hero discovers when he's caught eavesdropping, captured, and forced to swallow an entire bottle of the stuff, causing him to begin transforming in a matter of seconds. In the climax, [[spoiler: the witches [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard end up on the receiving end of the same treatment]] when the protagonist spikes their soup with Formula 86, causing them to transform within seconds of eating it.]]
108	* TheDreaded: The Grand High Witch is feared by all. Even the other witches are terrified of her.
109	* DrowningUnwantedPets: This fate is used as a threat when a hotel maid discovers the hero boy's pet mice. The manager orders him to keep the mice in the cage, and the maid keeps trying to catch him with the mice out, telling him that the first mouse to break the rule will be drowned. Later, when Bruno is turned into a mouse, and is given back to his horrified parents, the hero and his grandmother wonder sadly whether Bruno suffered this fate.
110	* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: The hero wonders why all the witches of England are gazing at a tiny young lady, with a mixture of awe, reverence and fear. It does not occur to him that she is the Grand High Witch, until she literally unmasks herself.
111	* EyeBeams: The Grand High Witch has this power, which she uses to disintegrate (or, as the witches put it, "fry") people. She makes a point of frying at least one witch during every Annual Meeting, to make sure the others don't slack off.
112	* FailedASpotCheck: Bruno fails to notice he's turned into a mouse until the protagonist points it out to him.
113	* FaintInShock: The boy (quite understandably) collapses when he realises he's trapped in a room full of women who would gladly do horrible things to him if they find him. He's not wrong.
114	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: That one witch who got "fried" by the Grand High Witch's EyeBeams. Not to mention the witch who gets turned into a mouse and is ''stepped on'' by the Grand High Witch herself.
115	* FantasyGunControl: The witches don't use guns or knives. Not because they ''can't'', but because their magical methods can't be tracked by the police.
116	* FatBastard: Bruno is the requisite mean gluttonous child found so often in Dahl's works. He's not nearly as bad as the Witches themselves, but he does seem to enjoy frying ants with a magnifying glass.
117	* FateWorseThanDeath: The witches have no qualms about just outright killing children, but they take sadistic pleasure in transforming them into animals or objects as a way to prolong their suffering. If said transformation leads to the children being accidentally murdered by their own parents, that just makes it even better!
118	* FauxAffablyEvil: The witches. Especially in the way they lure and catch children, as the Grand High Witch demonstrates with luring Bruno into the ballroom with the promise of six bars of chocolate.
119	* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: The witches despise all human children, to the point that the Grand High Witch intends to cause a genocide against them. The only explanation given is that children smell horrible to witches, but it's implied to go deeper than a mere repulsive odor.
120	* FemmeFatalons: All witches have long sharp nails.
121	* FinalSolution:
122	** The Grand High Witch plots the genocide of the children in England.
123	** And then, of course, the boy and his grandmother plan the same to the witches themselves. (PayEvilUntoEvil?)
124	* ForcedTransformation:
125	** Both the protagonist and Bruno are turned into mice by the witches.
126	** The Grandmother tells the boy about a child who a witch turned into a porpoise. He did seem to enjoy his new form and gave his family rides in the water while they were on vacation, [[DownerEnding but they never saw him again after they went home...]]
127	** The Grandmother also tells stories about children who get turned into fleas, slugs, hot dogs, pheasants, and (in one case) a chicken.
128	* ForegoneConclusion: From the beginning, we already know that the narrator will A.) encounter witches, B.) survive, but C.) end up looking peculiar (though it's not revealed ''how'' specifically he changes until later on).
129	* {{Foreshadowing}}: One of the witches asks the Grand High Witch what would happen if a ''grownup'' were to swallow Formula 86; the latter simply scoffs, "Then that's just too bad for the grownup!" At the end, we actually do see a group of grownups fall victim to the potion: [[spoiler:the witches themselves]].
130	* ForTheEvulz: We don't know much why all the witches want to kill all children outside the fact that [[DisproportionateRetribution they smell like dog droppings.]]
131	* FunetikAksent: It's not said where the Grand High Witch is from but it is implied she's from Norway. She [[VampireVords replaces her Ts with Zs and Ws with Vs]]. It doesn't in any way resemble a Norwegian accent, which is recognizable by more pronounced Rs and replacing Zs with Ss. Her accent resembles German more than anything else.
132	* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: The Grand High Witch points "a gloved finger as sharp as a needle at the witch who had spoken", before "frying" her to death with white-hot sparks from her eyes.
133	* HandGagging: The hero is yelling for help when the witches have discovered him. Four of them carry him by his arms and legs, and a fifth covers his mouth with her gloved hand to stop him yelling.
134	* HandInTheHole: This happens accidentally to the hotel maid. When the hero is turned into a mouse, he hides in a shoe when he sees the maid coming. The maid picks the shoe up, and puts her hand inside; and the hero instinctively bites her, causing the maid to scream and drop the shoe.
135	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:The witches are done in by Formula 86, the same magic potion they'd planned to wipe out Britain's children with, when the boy slips it into their soup.]]
136	* HumanoidAbomination: The titular witches, with their bald rashed heads, nasty claws, and square toeless feet being only hints on the outside at whatever makes them tick on the inside.
137	* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: There are witch hunters in the world, who seek to root out and destroy witches wherever they find them, and the narrator's grandmother in her younger years [[CoolOldLady was one of the very best]].
138	* InfiniteSupplies: Grandmamma mentions rumors that the Grand High Witch has a machine that can produce any type of existing currency in the world. It turns out to be true.
139	* InhumanEyeConcealers: Witches may wear glasses to conceal their unique eye colors.
140	* InvincibleVillain: In-universe, the hero's grandmother sees the witches this way, mainly due to their leader. Fortunately, they are not, as the Grand High Witch kills them regularly, which makes one wonder why are any left, [[spoiler:and especially when they fall for their scheme]].
141	* KaleidoscopeEyes: The strange color-changing eyes of the Witches are described as "like fire and ice dancing together".
142	* KarmaHoudini: According to the narrator, witches never get caught because they use magic to cover their tracks, so they can get away with killing children in disturbing ways. [[spoiler:By the books' end, it looks like they'll all get what's coming to them, via mouse transformation soup]].
143	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:The Grand High Witch is turned into a mouse and is then killed by the hotel staff, something she intended for all adults to do to their children.]]
144	* KickTheDog:
145	** The incineration scene, which happened because the Grand High Witch took lethal exception to one poor witch's reservations about getting rid of ''all'' of the children. BadBoss indeed.
146	** Also the hotel maid who is frightened by the hero's pet mice. When an arrangement is made that he is allowed to keep his mice in the hotel as long as they stay in the cage, she keeps on trying to catch him with the mice out of the cage, telling him that the first mouse to break this rule will be drowned in a bucket of water.
147	* KidHero: The young protagonist, [[spoiler:who eventually wipes out all the witches in England in one fell swoop]].
148	* LatexPerfection: This is how the Grand High Witch disguises her true form. Justified in that it's rather implied that her mask is magical.
149	* LiceEpisode: While watching the witches (before he realises they are witches) scratching the backs of their necks, the narrator believes they have lice, and describes in passing a boy at school who was made to dip his whole head in turpentine, causing half his skin to come away from his scalp.
150	* MageSpecies: They're specifically called a group of all female demons.
151	* MagicPants: Oddly inverted, as the mouse formula causes the clothes of its victim to disappear early on in the transformation.
152	* ManipulativeBastard: Zigzagged with the grandmother. She dutifully respects the wishes of the hero's dead parents by taking him to England to be educated, and grudgingly obeys the doctor's orders not to travel to Norway, just after her treatment for pneumonia. However, she proves that she is extremely cunning and devious about saying things to people to anger them, or to get what she wants, as follows:
153	** When the hotel manager forbids the hero to keep pet mice in his room, the grandmother relentlessly tells the manager that she has seen rats in his hotel, and that her food tasted ratty, to persuade him to allow it.
154	** When the hero (in mouse form) is searching the Grand High Witch's room, the grandmother chats to the Grand High Witch on her balcony. She casually asks the Grand High Witch if she has any children, which backfires and causes her to storm furiously into the room and slam the door behind her, trapping the hero inside.
155	** After Mr and Mrs Jenkins have refused to believe that Bruno has been turned into a mouse, Mr Jenkins later confronts the grandmother about Bruno being missing. She calmly shows Bruno to poor Mr Jenkins, and then points out the witch who did it, to get Mr Jenkins into trouble.
156	** To find out the location of the Grand High Witch's secret headquarters, she calls the police chief in England, pretending to be the chief of police for the whole of Norway, saying that she can easily imitate a man's voice. It seems to be a forgone conclusion that this would work, saying the one policeman will always help another policeman, and indeed that the police chief was honoured to receive a call from the police chief in Norway.
157	* MenacingMask: An inverted example. The Grand High Witch wears a mask to disguise herself as a pretty young lady and to hide her extremely ugly real face.
158	* MistakenForInsane: Discussed. After the protagonist has [[ForcedTransformation turned into a mouse]], his grandmother says she can't take him to a dentist or the latter would consider her crazy. She also says that when they are in the hotel dining room, she won't be able to talk to him, or people will think she is dotty and talking to herself.
159	* TheNapoleon: The Grand High Witch is described as being shorter than the other witches, even the frail old ones.
160	* NeedleworkIsForOldPeople: Exploited. The grandma knits and uses her knitting to lower the boy in his mouse form down to the balcony.
161	* NiceMice: The little boy gets a pair of mice from his grandmother as a present. Basically {{Foreshadowing}} events to come.
162	* NoAnimalsAllowed: The hero takes his pet mice to the Hotel Magnificent, where they are discovered by a maid. The manager tells the boy and his grandmother that mice are not allowed in the hotel; the grandmother tells the manager that his rotten hotel is full of rats anyway, and threatens to contact the public health authorities. The manager compromises by allowing the mice as long as they stay in their cage. The maid tells the boy that the first mouse to break this rule will be [[DrowningUnwantedPets drowned]] in a bucket of water.
163	* NoNameGiven: The protagonist is nameless and his Grandmother is [[UnnamedParent just Grandmama]].
164	* NoodleIncident: We never learn why Grandma is missing a thumb, though the book implies it involved Witches doing something horribly traumatic to her during her childhood.
165	* NothingIsScarier:
166	** The first story Grandma tells, how a little girl named Ranghild disappeared. As her sister tells their mother, a woman with white gloves took Ranghild by the hand, and no one saw either again.
167	** Part in-universe, part meta-example: We never find out why Grandma is missing a thumb, only that it involved a witch: how else would she know so much about witches? Her grandson's speculation includes such [[NightmareFuel lovely possibilities]] as having it pulled out "like a tooth" or stuck in the spout of a teakettle until it was "steamed away." With this kind of inspiration, the reader's imagination comes up with something far more terrifying than anything that could have been in the story.
168	** The fact that the Grand High Witch doesn't reveal her hands and feet, implying she's got even more to hide, and going by her [[NightmareFace her worm eaten face]], it's probably even worse.
169	** The Witches themselves. We don't know how they came to exist or why they hate kids, besides that kids smell like dog poop to them.
170	* ObliviousTransformation: Bruno does not realise that he has been turned into a mouse, until the narrator points it out to him; and even then he is incredulous, until he sees his own paws.
171	* ObviouslyEvil: Double subverted with the Grand High Witch. When we initially see her, she has a rather pleasant appearance...then she removes her mask.
172	* OffingTheOffspring: The suggested fate of Bruno. When the grandmother wonders aloud what happened to Bruno, the narrator theorizes that Bruno's parents didn't want a mouse for a son and had the Hotel Concierge drown him in the fire bucket. This is never confirmed, but his Grandmother sadly admits that he's probably correct and sympathizes for Bruno.
173	* OhCrap: When the little boy realizes that he is hidden in the back of a room with ''every single witch in Britain.''
174	* OneDoseFitsAll: The hero and his grandmother turn all the witches of England into mice, with five hundred doses of Delayed Action Mouse Maker, which they reason will give all two hundred witches a double dose at least (His grandmother later counts only eighty-four witches, meaning that each witch receives approximately six doses). In spite of knowing that giving more than one dose will make the delayed action unpredictable, the witches all turn into mice immediately and at the same time.
175	* OneGenderRace: Witches are all women; Dahl mentions other all-male monster races (ghouls, barghests) but says none of the races are as evil as Witches. However, in ''Literature/TheBFG'', another race -- evil [[OurGiantsAreBigger Giants]], all male -- make children in particular their victims. It's not explained how any of these species reproduce, especially considering how much witches hate children, the only hint is a line in the book about how witches originated from the forests of Norway.
176	* OnOneCondition: After the death of the hero's parents, the grandmother promises him that they will live in Norway. However, the parents' will stipulates that he must return to England and be educated there, and so they do. [[spoiler: They do, however, return to Norway when he has been transformed into a mouse.]]
177	* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They're described more like succubus, only more hideous, with the casual mention of the all male ghouls race. The fact [[spoiler:that they can't detect, let alone reverse the formula of their mouse changing soup]] proves that they aren't nearly as powerful as the narrator's grandmother makes them out to be.
178	* OurMonstersAreDifferent: The Witches have more in common with mythological creatures like succubi or sirens, rather than traditional witches, who start out as normal humans until they make a DealWithTheDevil for magical powers.
179	* ParentalAbandonment: The boy's parents die by car crash.
180	* PhantomZonePicture: A Witch traps a girl, Solveg, in one. Also counts as a CreepyChangingPainting, as the painting ages when no one is looking.
181	* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged:
182	** Grandmamma implies that witchophiles are official government agents that rid of witches. While she failed in her prime to find GHW, she apparently hunted down a lot of them and traveled the world.
183	** Notably subverted. When one witch excitedly shouts that she's going to poison the children that buy sweets from her candy store, the Grand High Witch berates her for her stupidity, telling her that it wouldn't take long for the authorities to catch onto them if she did so.
184	** After the pair return to Norway, Grandmamma revealed that she posed as the chief of police in Norway when calling the hotel to investigate the witches who transformed into mice. The boy is incredulous that the investigator would believe a random person on the phone; Grandmamma handwaves it by saying she can imitate a man's voice well and flattered the investigator.
185	* RankScalesWithAsskicking: The Grand High Witch incinerates a witch who dares to question her orders.
186	* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: The first witch the narrator meets tries to give him a snake as a present. He's smart enough not to take it.
187	* ResizedVocals: Averted and commented on. When the hero and Bruno are turned into mice, the author comments that you would expect them to have squeaky voices; but actually, they talk exactly as they did before.
188	* ResourcefulRodent: The main character is turned into a mouse by witches and he has to outsmart them so he can turn back into a human.
189	* RiddleForTheAges: The origin of the witches is never explained. Neither are their methods of reproduction, but it can be assumed they are replenishing their numbers somehow since the Grand High Witch fries at least one every meeting. The fact that they're all different ages, with some of them appearing to be quite young, also supports this.
190	* RobeAndWizardHat: Subverted in the very first line of the book: "In fairy tales, witches always wear silly black hats and cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks." This is before it goes on to say, "but this this is not a fairy tale: this is about REAL witches."
191	* ShortLivedOrganism: When the hero is turned into a mouse, he asks his grandmother how long a mouse lives. She reluctantly tells him that an ordinary mouse only lives about three years, but that, as he is a human transformed into a mouse, he will live about nine years. To his grandmother's surprise, he is delighted by this news, as he does not want to outlive her.
192	* ShoutOut:
193	** A reference to a NurseryRhyme:
194	--->'''Grandma:''' You angel. You're bleeding.\
195	'''Boy:''' A cook tried to [[NurseryRhyme cut off my tail with a carving knife]].
196	** When describing how English witches often turn children into creatures that grown-ups hate, such as slugs and fleas, so that the grown-ups will dispose of their own children, she tells of how some children have been turned into pheasants to be shot, in a reference to Dahl's earlier book ''Literature/DannyTheChampionOfTheWorld''.
197	* SmugSnake: The Grand High Witch. She is powerful and rightly feared by her enemies and minions alike, but her plan to kill all the children in England is not a good plan ''at all'' (see DidntThinkThisThrough). Also, considering her supposed talent for potions and such, one would think that she would be careful enough to ensure that said potions wouldn't work on her.
198	* SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass: Using a magnifying glass to kill ants is listed as one [[SpoiledBrat Bruno]]'s misdeeds.
199	* SpaceWhaleAesop:
200	** Witches usually kill children by feeding them potions that slowly give them a FateWorseThanDeath. Most examples of witch killings show a kid accepting a gift from a nice old lady. The lesson seems to be "Don't accept stuff from strangers, it might kill you".
201	** Witches detect children by scent and dirt and grime covers up the smell. So don't shower or wash because witches will get you.
202	* SpitefulSpit:
203	** When a hotel guest complains about tough meat, the chef dishes up a replacement, and says "come on boys, give her some gravy!", before passing the plate around the kitchen, to be spat on by all the cooks and kitchen boys. Later the guest reports that the defiled meat was really tasty.
204	** Witches have blue spit, which they use to write with; but for all their cruelty to children, they never spit, as this would give them away.
205	* SweetsOfTemptation:
206	** In the prologue, the narrator warns the reader that any random woman they meet could turn out to be a witch, such as "the lady with the dazzling smile who offered you a sweet from a white paper bag in the street before lunch."
207	** The Grand High Witch's big plan to wipe out all the children in England involves all the witches opening candy shops and holding openings promising free candy to every child. The candies are dosed with a potion known as Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker that will transform them into mice when they're at school, causing all the teachers to panic and kill them en masse.
208	* TakenForGranite: A boy named Harald was turned to stone by a witch.
209	* TakeThat: The witches' front organization is the fictional Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Dahl was extremely annoyed at foundations that claimed to prevent cruelty to children but effectively did nothing to stop it, namely the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
210	* TalksLikeASimile: Several characters react "as if spikes/skewers/a hatpin had been stuck deep into their bottoms".
211	* TauntingTheTransformed: While exploring the Grand High Witch's hotel room, the protagonist finds a trio of frogs hiding under the bed, and he remarks that they are almost certainly more [[BewitchedAmphibians transformed children]]. When the Grand High Witch returns to her room and finds them, narrowly overlooking the protagonist in the process, she cooingly addresses them as "my little froggies", taunting them with the knowledge that she's going to throw them out the window to their deaths and let the seagulls have them for breakfast.
212	* TechMarchesOn: Grandma claims that witches use their spit like ink and lick old-fashioned pen nibs. When the boy eavesdrops on the witches in the hotel, GHW orders them to get out pencils and paper.
213	* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The early chapters of the book hammer in that witches are difficult to detect because they are ''very'' good at blending in with the general population; while they do have [[RedRightHand some physical tells]], they're either easily concealed or difficult to spot unless you're close enough to them as to be in danger.
214	-->''REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.''\
215	This is why they are so hard to catch.
216	* ToiletHumour: The witches hate children because, to them, children smell like dog droppings. The witches shout "Poo!" repeatedly during their meeting at the thought of the smell of children.
217	* TooSmartForStrangers: A number of children the witches dispose of certainly weren't, accepting presents from them or going with them to unknown locations, which led to their demises.
218	* TheTransmogrifier: Witches are capable of many magical feats, but their preferred one involves transforming their victims in some way. Part of this is due to the need for secrecy: if they simply killed children, it'd draw too much attention, while transforming them would make it both untraceable and impossible to admit to. Among other things, they have turned children into chickens, statues, porpoises, even characters in a painting, and American witches are supposedly known for turning kids into hot dogs. And of course, the Grand High Witch's EvilPlan is to turn England's children into mice... though she's more than capable of frying people to death with her magic - as one unfortunate witch finds out.
219	* TrrrillingRrrs and VampireVords: The Grand High Witch, supposedly a Norwegian-derived accent, but it comes across as remarkably German.
220	* UnreliableExpositor: Grandma isn't completely accurate about her witch information; it's justified in that witches are secretive and most of Grandma's information is secondhand, and she's in her eighties with her memory fading. The boy calls her out for saying the five children who disappeared were actually four, since Birgit turned into a chicken and lived with her family for years.
221	* UnreliableNarrator: Due to his terror, the boy miscounts the witches as two hundred. When Grandma later counts them at dinner, she says there are eighty-four (with the narrator confirming that it was previously eighty-five).
222	* UnsatisfiableCustomer: In the 1990 film, Bruno's father spends most of his screen time complaining about the hotel's amenities and berating the staff. It doesn't help that he's also a [[ViolentGlaswegian scary Scot]].
223	* VillainBall: The Witches seem married to this. Between killing off their own steadily dwindling species for minor slights to killing kids in highly unusual and public ways, it's surprising that they're still alive.
224	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: The Grand High Witch of All The World is thought by most humans to be a kind woman who gives lots of money to charity. In truth, she's anything but.
225	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Literally! We never find out what happens to Bruno, now in mouse-form, after he is returned to his parents, one of whom is scared of mice, and who keep a pet cat, although the hero speculates that he may have been drowned by the hotel porter. Likewise, after the narrator's pet mice William and Mary are kicked off the Ballroom stage by the Grand High Witch, we don't find out what happens to them as the narrator and his Grandmamma leave the hotel very quickly following the transformation of the witches, without even taking their luggage. The fate of the frogs, assumed to be transformed children, under the Grand High Witch's bed is also unknown.
226	* WickedWitch: For the most part, although they are quite [[OurMonstersAreDifferent different,]] as far as witches go.
227	* WouldHurtAChild: Each witch makes it their personal hobby, to hex a child once every week. The Grand High Witch herself takes it to another level.
228	* YouHaveFailedMe: At every annual meeting of the witches, the Grand High Witch makes a point of subjecting one witch to "getting fried" (being incinerated with eye beams), so that the rest stay on their nonexistent toes. [[Headscratchers/TheWitches Since we're never told how more witches come about, it's amazing any are left.]] ([[LampshadeHanging The main character himself wonders this.]]) Just before this, the Grand High Witch begins the meeting by ranting about how the beach is full of children playing, because the "vitches of Inkland" have failed to get rid of them.
229	[[/folder]]
230
231	[[folder:The Graphic Novel]]
232	* AdaptationalBadass: Unlike Bruno, who just loafed around stuffing his face, Girl-Jenkins takes part in the main character's and his grandmother's mission to rid the world of witches.
233	* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins are portrayed in a far more positive light than most incarnations of the story. Sure, it's implied they have a severe drinking and gambling problem, but they're far more friendly in their encounters with the grandmother and are willing to fully accept their daughter as a mouse now.
234	* GenderFlip: Bruno Jenkins is a girl in this version. Her first name is not revealed, but her last name is still Jenkins.
235	* RaceLift: Instead of being Norwegian-English like in the original book, the main character and Grandmamma are now AmbiguouslyBrown.
236	* ShipTease: The main character and Jenkins have a few moments of this throughout. He even gives her his phone number when he and his grandmother are leaving the hotel at the end.
237	[[/folder]]

Context Literature / TheWitches