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WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.
This is what the Cute Witch often grows up to be, if she grows up, and if she doesn't lose her powers at a certain age. Whether a member of a Witch Species or an ordinary human, she is a Mysterious Woman with strange, magical, or seemingly magical powers, at least in the eyes of other characters or the audience. She also happens to be sexy or at least elegant. While the Wicked Witch is traditionally ugly on the outside and a Complete Monster on the inside, she's the exact opposite, beautiful and charming. Because Beauty Equals Goodness, she's usually at least somewhat benevolent. If she's less than completely noble in her intentions, she'll be a Loveable Rogue or Affably Evil at worst. She might keep a black cat and a broom, but rarely wears the full witch outfit. Usually, the Hot Witch either dresses in stylish ordinary or modern clothing, or else very revealing attire. In the latter case she's often presumed to be a sexy villain, but often turns out to be a Good Bad Girl instead.
The Hot Witch is not a Cute Witch. The Cute Witch is a Magical Girl who wears the stereotypical (or maybe just traditional) paraphernalia of witches and is cute in the "adorable" or Japanese kawaisa sense. She's also typically not yet out of her teens, or at least looks like it. When you see her, you think "Awwww". In contrast, the Hot Witch is attractive in a Western sexy, elegant, mysterious way. She's invariably in at least her later teens, if not her 20s or older. When fanboys see her, they think " Hello Nurse!".
The Hot Witch is usually not a Vain Sorceress or a Black Magician Girl, either. The Vain Sorceress is obsessed with using magic to maintain her beauty. If the Hot Witch uses magic to stay beautiful, it is not an obsession that clouds her ability to have other concerns. The Black Magician Girl's primary characteristic is the use of magic for offense, and is usually an Action Girl. The Hot Witch's powers and personality are of a more subtle and mysterious nature.
It should be noted that this trope is much Older than They Think, given that the original descriptions of a witch was a young, attractive, and wise woman, before it was changed to the ugly, evil hag much more commonly known today.
Contrast Wicked Witch. Also, don't confuse this trope for another type of Hot Witch.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Every single witch ever in Soul Eater. And they really, really aren't benevolent. Well, OK, maybe not every witch (the leadership is quite old, and the younger ones are just adorable.) It just so happens that the ones that take the more adversarial roles are hotter than anyone who is named after a Gorgon has any right to be.
- Actually, Medusa in Greek Mythology was so hot Aphrodite hated her. The series itself, meanwhile, lampshades this furiously, especially with Medusa and the Chupa Kabra babes and the infamous Girl on Girl Is Hot scene...
- Blair, from Soul Eater, is really a cat with magical powers, but does not make her any less a hot witch.
- Beatrice and Virgilia in Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
- Yuuko from XXX Holic.
- Letty from The Miko's Words and the Witch's Incantations.
- Anti-Villain Kagura from Inu Yasha is hardly benevolent, but as she puts it, her career in villainy "wasn't by choice".
- From Rosario+Vampire, Ruby and Cute Witch Yukari's mother are literal witches. Mizore and Kurumu (and their mothers!) may count as well.
- Dorothy from MÄR, who is a sexy version of the Wicked Witch of the West!
- Schierke's teacher Flora from Berserk was a hot witch back in her day. We do see a glimpse of this when she dies and holds back Grunbeld to allow Guts and his nakama time to escape, as Flora retains her youth for a few pages.
- If you left aside the whole theories about Anthy, from Revolutionary Girl Utena, being a Wicked Witch or a Distressed Damsel (or both), she for sure is magical and attractive.
- Urd from Ah! My Goddess. She's a goddess rather than just a witch, but she fits the trope perfectly otherwise.
- C.C. from Code Geass is one of the more Anti-Heroic examples.
- The title character of Kurohime is incredibly beautiful, however she is also an arrogant bitch. Sort of.
- Ayaka Kagari in Witch Craft Works is one Hot Witch.
- The witches from Strike Witches start out as Cute Witches, and briefly qualify as hot witches before their magic starts to fade. How much they play this up vary from character to character, with the straightest examples being Minna and Shirley. (I bet that's a pothole you didn't see coming.)
- Chihiro from Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin.
- Demon Witch Serin from Immortal Regis was this as well as Cute Witch and Perky Goth, grew up to be a fine woman in the sequel Cavalier Of The Abyss.
- Li Yelan from Card Captor Sakura. Even in a universe populated by The Beautiful People, she stands out.
Comic Books
- Desire's story in The Sandman: Endless Nights features a witch who is naked all the time. Payment for her services is a sausage.
- Pretty much the entire point of Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose.
- Zatanna in The DCU.
- The magic team "The Witches" in the Marvel Universe.
- One of the members, Satana, is now the magical support for the Thunderbolts.
- Witchfire from Power Company, another DCU character.
- The Prairie Witch, foe of Starman in The DCU.
- Winnowill from ElfQuest isn't a witch per se, but she probably qualifies as an evil sorceress, especially in her human disguise as Lady Venovel.
- X-Men ally Amanda "Daytripper" Sefton
- Flare's ally Lady Arcane.
- Sistah Spooky from Empowered. Both the "hot" and "witch" parts resulted from a Deal with the Devil, the latter by accident.
- Nico of Runaways
- Jennifer Morgan from The Warlord.
- Mantra from The Ultraverse.
- Magica Despell from Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics and Ducktales is young, evil, and would probably be count as hot if she was a human and not an anthropomorphic duck.
- Morgan Le Fay from the Marvel Comics. Even Doctor Doom thinks she's hot.
- The Scarlet Witch from The Avengers, even though technically her "magic" is a mutant ability.
- Amora, the Enchantress from The Mighty Thor. Learned magic in the first place by seducing more experienced wizards.
- Her younger sister Lorelei too. And like her big sis, she too has designs on poor Thor.
Film
- Lady Crane , who is also Ichabod's Hot Mom from Sleepy Hollow. Her death via iron maiden was pure Nightmare Fuel Unleaded crossed with Tear Jerker.
- Also from the same movie, Katrina Van Tassel. The patterns she was drawing on the floor were protection runes.
- All the witches from Practical Magic.
- Luster in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is
supposed to be hot (17 Charisma), but the fact that she's played by her male player's actor half the time (it makes sense in context) sometimes ruins the effect. She's a bit of a Heroic Sociopath, though.
- Lyranna from Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time.
- The title character of The Good Witch.
- Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
- Karaba from Kirikou and the Sorceress. Okay, she's a sorceress, but it's all the same.
- The Sorceress (Kelly Hu) from The Scorpion King.
- Initially the Witch from Conan the Barbarian seems to be a Hot Witch but, after a bit of hot barbarian sex, reveals her True Colors.
- And, after she turned ugly, he throws her in the fire, making her literally a hot witch.
- The Witches of Eastwick. The title characters are played by Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer.
- In early casting for The Wizard of Oz Gale Sondergaard was going to be a Wicked Hot Witch of the West,◊ but when the studio decided to go with a conventionally ugly witch she bowed out, not wanting to put up with long hours in the makeup chair.
- Tia Dalma from Pirates of the Caribbean although it's hard to see it through the makeup.
- Maleficent◊ from the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, is an evil variety of this in earlier scenes. (She is less attractive in later ones.)
- Other Mother from Coraline.
- Jennifer (Veronica Lake) in I Married a Witch.
- Gillian (Kim Novak) in Bell, Book and Candle.
- Arianne from Centurion was accused of witchcraft, and deliberately creates the impression that she is a necromancer to protect herself, but she doesn't really have any magical powers, although she is an expert on woodcraft and herblore. She's definitely hot though.
- Esmeralda from The Hunchbackof Notre Dame, or at least from Frollo's point of view.
Literature
- Alicia in Night Watch and Daywatch
- All female Others use spells that create the illusion of makeup. It can be assumed that making themselves attractive is the first thing new witches try to learn. Interestingly, the Dark Others's version of the spell is called Burqa, which makes about as much sense as wearing an actual burqa to avoid wearing makeup.
- Older Than Feudalism: Medea from the tale of Jason and the Argonauts in Classical Mythology.
- Ray Bradbury has Cecy, a character in several stories about The Family, which was part of the inspiration for The Addams Family.
- From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.
- Anita, the title character of Keith Roberts's short story collection.
- Polgara from Belgariad.
- Redheaded Hero Rachel Morgan from The Hollows series.
- Technically, any attractive female character in Harry Potter.
- Subverted in Snow White as the Vain Sorceress goes from hot to ugly deliberately.
- In Oscar Wilde's The Fisherman and his Soul, the one who tells the Fisherman how to get rid of his soul is a beautiful red-headed witch.
- Senna Wales from Everworld. And she knows it.
- Anathema Device in Good Omens.
- Gytha "Nanny" Ogg when she was young, in Discworld.
- Serafina Pekkala in His Dark Materials and the other witches.
- Salome in Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "A Witch Shall Be Born." The Caligula, but definitely good looking, and interested in sex.
- The Lady of the Green Kirtle from The Chronicles of Narnia. The White Witch might also count, but her beauty isn't emphasized as much.
- Played with in the Books Of Swords: Dame Yoldi is described as a good-looking woman of middle years, who looks as though she must have been gorgeous in her youth.
- James Cobb wrote a short story techno-thriller "Cav" where one of the soldiers is a former model turned Wiccan Action Girl.
Live Action TV
- Charmed is made of this trope. 90% cleavage shots!
- Amy and Ms. Calendar from Buffy.
- Samantha Stevens (pictured above) of Bewitched.
- And her not-so-nice identical cousin, Serena.
- Interestingly, there were several scenes that hinted that before she met Darrin, Sam was very much like Serena in more than looks, apparently Sam used to get into similar mischief...and the implication is that under the right conditions, Serena might surprise everyone and settle down like Sam.
- The Sorceress from the Beastmaster series.
- Shota in Legend of the Seeker, who's noted as using her magic to keep her youth and good looks intact.
- Most of the witches on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
- Invoked initially with Lilith in the Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code." Lilith almost always appeared with her attractive, human-looking face, while her "mothers" were always hideous, clearly non-human hags. Subverted later when they are revealed to be aliens instead of witches.
- Hallmark Channel has done a trilogy of movies called The Good Witch staring Catherine Bell.
- Both the Evil Queen and Maleficient in Once Upon A Time. The Blind Witch too.
- All four female members of The Secret Circle.
- After her Face Heel Turn Morgana of Merlin is a rare outright evil Hot Witch (and not Affably Evil either); she's a Well-Intentioned Extremist who has left of bodies in her wake and while she is beautiful and can be charming her personality is bitter, vengeful and cruel.
- Morgause fits as well. So's Nimueh, though neither were outright evil per se. Morgause was to a point, but there's a Well-Intentioned Extremist factor too.
Manhwa
Tabletop Games
Theatre
- Into the Woods, the witch transforms herself from ugly to hot.
- It is revealed that she was also beautiful in the backstory, and that her ugliness was a side-effect of the curse she fell under after losing the magic beans.
- Wicked's Elphaba is the Hollywood Nerd variety (in the play at least). Even green face paint can't diminish the good looks of the actresses playing her. Stephen Schwartz has explicitly said that she's not supposed to be ugly — she's beautiful, but people are prejudiced against her because of her green skin.
Video Games
- Velvet in Odin Sphere.
- Just about any witch or sorceress character in Vanillaware's games, on that note. Especially the absoute Titty Monster that is the Sorceress from their latest game, Dragon's Crown.
- Banjo-Kazooie. If you fail, Gruntilda becomes a hot mama. Humba Wumba too, for liberal enough definitions of "witch".
- Most of the witches in Luminous Arc.
- At least two members of the witch coven in The Bastard of Kosigan. Yannia and Laura are both very attractive (and you have an Optional Sexual Encounter with both...), while Gertrude is apparently rather nondescript, Willie's general stereotypical evilness is described as rather offputting, and Karen is dead and never has a description anyway.
- Black Magician Girl Lulu from Final Fantasy X.
- Ultimecia and Edea from Final Fantasy VIII.
- Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII.
- Fumiko from the Shikigami No Shiro series.
- When some the magician-girls of Gensokyo aren't being portrayed as Cute Witches by fanart, they're being portrayed as Hot Witches.
- Bayonetta, who crosses this with Meganekko.
- Along with just about every other fetish you can think of... the whole game is a fetish critical mass.
- Morrigan from Dragon Age. Also, Flemeth, at least according to the stories.
- Flemeth is definitely one in Dragon Age 2. Female Mage!Hawke also qualifies, as does little sis Bethany. Merrill is also a strong example, especially considering she actually uses Blood Magic and demon summoning.
- The elven mage Fiona (also a Grey Warden) in The Calling. She is implied to be Alistair's birth mother.
- Angela from Seiken Densetsu 3.
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow has the Witch enemies, voluptuous redheads in very slinky, low-cut purple dresses.
- Deneb from the Ogre Battle series. She's the really hot Series Mascot, appearing in most and possibly every game. (She also created the other mascot, the Pumpkin Head, through horrible magical experiments in the first game. Everyone forgives her because she's hot.)
- In Knight of Lodis she even gets a special version of the charm spell that has much higher hit rate than normal. She's just that sexy.
- I-no from the Guilty Gear series.
- Abigail from The Witcher, a redheaded witch and Optional Sexual Encounter. The novels and television series have many more examples.
- Morgan, Rachel, and Ursula from Radiata Stories.
- Caster from Fate/stay night. She is Medea, after all.
- Jeane from Suikoden series.
- In City of Heroes, you can fight a coven of Hot Witches in Croatoa. You can even build your own if you wanted.
- Alicia from Bullet Witch.
- The Big Bad Manah from Drakengard starts off as a cute young mage in the first game, but in the second, she returns as The Atoner, and boy, has she grown into quite a babe!
- Nine/Konoe A. Mercury from BlazBlue, one of the Six Heroes is a witch that taught magic to all humanity. And even with modest clothes, she still manages to be hot with those huge tracts of lands.
- Tessa/Tabasa from Red Earth seems to have been designed with this trope in mind. However, her Super-Deformation in Pocket Fighter turns her into a Cute Witch (which she Lampshades during her optional quiz of the player).
- Nippon Ichi games have cute witches pretty often. Be they units in Disgaea or otherwise, such as the witch Metallica in the upcoming game The Witch and the Hundred Calvarymen.
Web Comics
- Kel and Krakatoa from Rogues Of Clwyd-Rhan; also Atra after her rejuvenation, although she usually hides her young appearance. Of course, they're all good witches, as long as you don't tick them off.
- Arguably, a third or so of the cast of Drowtales. Ash'waren probably fits the trope most closely especially since she's been fooling the better part of Chel'el'sussoloth with her empathy into thinking she's a drow for the better part of a millennium.
- Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance is this occasionally, particularly when she's got her evil mojo going.
- Sal of Emergency Exit, especially when she does her transformation.
- Tula of The Challenges of Zona
- Eerie Cuties had the Melissa Hellrune and her friends until they brought a magical gender bending artifact to school. Once Blair got his hands on it, they had ultimately put the school (and in the long run, the world) at risk of being turned into Valley Girls. Even the boys. They've since been shipped off to another school as punishment and can now be followed in their own spin off.
Web Original
Western Animation
- WITCH skirts the line between Cute Witch and Hot Witch. Cornelia, of course, is well over the line.
- The Sorceress from He-Man lives a solitary existence guarding the Castle Greyskull with her magic and gifts of prophesy. All the while wearing a skin-tight feathered outfit with a miniskirt and high-heeled boots.
- The re-imagined version from the revival series wore less
- Evil-lin proves that some bad witches are hot.
- Wuya's human form in Xiaolin Showdown.
- Charmcaster from Ben 10.
- Gwen too, now that she's gone back to using magic.
Real Life
- Someone had to say it: Christine O'Donnell, Republican Senate candidate from Delaware, says she "dabbled into witchcraft," but denies actually ''being'' a witch.
- Fiona Horne. Actress, model, and out-of-the-broom-closet Wiccan.
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