Wicked Witch - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Evil Witch

"And in the cottage in the clearing there lived a wicked witch."

This quote, or one very much like it, can be found in hundreds of places. A lot of those places are Fairy Tales. When confronting a fairy tale witch you can, via the magic of Beauty Equals Goodness often tell the good from the bad. The Wicked Witch check list is as follows (have more than about four of these and you have yourself a bad one):

Very old, verging on the ancient.
Widowed.
Wrinkled skin.
Warts.
Unhealthily colored skin, sometimes going past a sickly greenish tinge to a biologically impossible straight-out green.
Missing teeth.
Dresses in black.
Wears a pointed black hat.
Speaks to animals, often her cat.
Flies around on a broom (bit of a give away on its own really).
Lives in a strange or simply just isolated cottage.
Makes potions.
Cackles.

Which is odd really seeing as, apart from 10 and 12, these may just as well describe someone's granny in a pre-industrial society. Actually, 12 could work too, if you interpret preparing folk remedies the right way. (This sadly contributed to the large number of lonely old women burnt as witches over the centuries.) Good witches tend to be young and pretty (step forward, Willow Rosenberg) or at least have aged gracefully. If your subject is nice to look at but evil you may well have a Vain Sorceress instead.

Perhaps because most bards were male back then, wizards get better press, seeming to get more "good" and sage-like with age.

An "earthy" version of the Evil Sorcerer, but obviously not Closer To Earth.

May overlap with the Wicked Stepmother and the Evil Matriarch; however, royalty tends to be beautiful.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Being anime, it's much prettier but in Revolutionary Girl Utena Anthy is stuck either being a Wicked Witch or a Princess, because that's what women have to be in fairy tales.
One of the villain groups in Soul Eater. Most of them appear young and attractive, but then, most characters in anime are. Those with witch outfits are more Cute Witch and the older ones are (probably) more like an Old Master. The real villains seem to be of the Vain Sorceress variety.
Yubaba from Spirited Away, but not her sister
Averted in Kiki's Delivery Service where the witches seen are fairly young and not-hideous.
Sailor Moon had Beryl, Zoisite, Emerald, Nehellenia, Badiane, Kaguya... just to name a few.
- Not to mention the Witches 5...
- Wiseman is sort of a Wicked Warlock, more in the manga than anime.

Comic Books

Frau Totenkinder in Fables is any unnamed Wicked Witch in fairy tales. She's been shown specifically to have been the Wicked Witch in "Rapunzel," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Frog Prince," and "Hansel and Gretel," but she got better after the oven incident.
- Totenkinder is actually a bit of a subversion because shes not actually evil just self-servingly neutral and only looks the way she does by choice.
Another partial monkeywrench is the Prarie Witch, a forties-era villain created by James Robinson in Starman. She's leggy and sexy and doesn't actually practice magic, but she's got the green skin, hat, and flying broom.

Fairy Tales

Baba Yaga.
In The Wonderful Birch, a Wicked Witch turns the heroine's mother into a sheep and by shapeshifting takes her place; she has the sheep killed and feeds it to the woman's husband, although the daughter does not eat and manages to buried the bones. Then she does everything in Cinderella and then, after the wedding, enchants her stepdaughter into the form of a reindeer after the wedding and puts her own daughter in her place.
In Brother and Sister the Wicked Stepmother not only drives off the title characters with her cruelty, but, being a witch, tries to enchant them into animal forms (and succeeds with Brother). She also murders Sister after her marriage and replace her with her own daughter.
In The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, the stepmother, out of jealousy at her beauty, turns her stepdaughter into a dragon; she is disenchanted by her brother. Similarly in the Child ballads Kemp Owyne, where the title character must kiss the dragon to restore her.
In the Child ballad The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea, the stepmother transforms both her stepchildren.
In Katie Crackernuts, the envious Wicked Stepmother has a Wicked Witch turn her stepdaughter's head turned into a sheep's head.
In Esben and the Witch, when Esben and his brothers stay at the witch's, she tries to murder them in their sleep. Fortunately, Esben shifted around the nightcaps so she murdered her own daughters instead; then, when they go to the king, he proceeds to rob her of her treasures one by one.
Rapunzel is held captive by a witch, who demanded her in return for her father's life, because he had stolen rampion from her for his pregnant wife. As are Petrosinella and The Fair Angiola, whose mothers had robbed the witch and had to pay the same price.
In The Old Witch, the two girls go into service for the old witch; one, by being friendly to things she meets on the way, succeeds in tricking her out of gold, but the other fails.
A witch kidnaps Buttercup in order to eat him.
In The Witch, the Wicked Stepmother intentionally sends her children to a Wicked Witch, who tries to set them Impossible Tasks; through the advice of their grandmother and kindness to the objects about her house, they escape.
The Witch In The Stone Boat kidnapped a princess, taking her form and place, and sending her to her brother as a bride, but the princess's son knew she was not his mother, and the true princess came back three times, and the third time, the prince managed to free her.
In The White Dove, a Wicked Witch gets two brothers to promise her their younger brother for their safety; then she kidnaps the younger brother and tries to destroy him with Impossible Tasks.
In Puddocky, when the girl steals parsley from the witch, the witch has her come work for her, and eat all the parsley she likes, but when young men start to quarrel because of her beauty, she turns the girl into a toad.
In The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, a witch prevents the prince and his love from meeting a second time.
In Prunella, Prunella is a Wicked Witch's prisoner, because she had taken fruit from the witch's tree, and she assigns Impossible Tasks; only with the help of the witch's son does she survive.

Film

Madam Mim from Disney's The Sword In The Stone.

Literature

In John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory, witches, with the rarest of exceptions, fully look the part.
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, where the witches are actually named "Wicked Witch" (of the East and West).
- Countless reviews and analysis' of The Film Of The Book have said that, pound-for-pound, The Wicked Witch of the West is overall the hands-down most evil character to have ever been portrayed in film.
- Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked is a revisionist look at the characters and the land of Oz. The story centers on a girl named Elphaba who grows up to be the Wicked Witch of the West. Over the course of the book, Elphaba gradually acquires the stereotypical attributes of this trope.
The Beldam in Coraline.
Stephen King's The Dark Tower offers us Rhea, in Wizard And Glass
Discworld witches are a monkeywrench, they deliberately look the part but are generally benevolent acting as doctor, judge, defence against supernatural threats and generally keeping the community in order. However, that doesn't always mean they're nice.
- In fact, Granny Weatherwax is rather disappointed that she has perfect teeth and an unblemished, rosy complexion. However, she refuses to admit that she ever cackles.
- We also get the occasion played straight (Black Allis, a frequently mentioned example of what happens when witches go bad) and inverted (Lilly Weatherwax, an evil fairy godmother)
Completely averted by Morwen in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. She is a witch, and still practices magic, owns a dozen or so cats, and wears black robes, but is also very practical, sensible, friendly, and attractive in a motherly way.
- Also parodied with her colleague Archaniz, who looks and acts the part down to the poisonous garden... because she's the Chairwitch of the Deadly Nightshade Gardening Club. She also grows ordinary daisies in the garden and worries about witches getting a reputation for being too kind and helpful and thus getting swamped by people asking for assistance.

Live Action TV

The fact that old spinster Doña Cleotilde presents almost all the characteristics listed above except the obvious magic powers becomes a Running Gag in El Chavo Del Ocho.
Bandora from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, as well as her American counterpart, Rita Repulsa from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
There were about six of these in Are You Afraid Of The Dark.
Witchiepoo from HR Pufnstuf.
- Another Krofft example (as well as a male example) is Hoodoo from Lids Ville, who is an evil magician who rides a flying hat.

Newspaper Comics

Broom Hilda

Theater

The Witch in Into The Woods.
Elphaba, the witch in Wicked, is...well, exactly what you'd expect. Except not.

Video Games

Gruntilda from Banjo Kazooie.
- Plus her sisters in the sequel.
Partially monkeywrenched in newer Castlevania games. Some of the most annoying generic enemies are witches, but they're all rather attractive and young looking. They still dress the part though, and fly around on brooms. Subverted entirely by the Belnades family, a clan of witches who have assisted the Belmont clan in destroying Dracula many times.
- The closest example to a Wicked Witch in the series is Actrise from Castlevania 64, and even she retains her youthful beauty. Of course, she had to slaughter her children in exchange for it...
The Legend Of Zelda has Koume and Kotake. Their combined form, Twinrova, is young and pretty, though.
Probably Cackletta in Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga.
All witches in Aveyond. Except once where two feuding witches repeatedly curse each other and one "curses" the other with unending beauty. She's still quite evil, though.

Web Comics

Both Red and Clare are called witches in No Rest For the Wicked. There is a real witch as well, but she's as tragic as she is scary.

Western Animation

A Wicked Witch called Witch Hazel appeared in the Classic Disney Short Trick or Treat where she helps Huey, Dewey and Louie get candy from Donald. She later appeared in a variety of Disney Comics.
A different Witch Hazel appears in a number of Looney Tunes shorts, starting with Bewitched Bunny.
Marge and her sisters appear as Wicked Witches in The Simpsons in the "Easy-Bake Coven" segment of "Treehuse of Horror VIII".