What was with that film scene where the Grand High Witch taps at a figure in a hotel painting, and her secretary repeats the actions - before she's called away- and a close-up of the figure fading away from the landscape? Was she checking on/curious about a possible child trapped in the art piece like Erica/Solveg had been? Or do witches hate human children so much that they even get rid of PAINTED ones?
Yes, the Grand High Witch at least probably realized it was a trapped child. Whether they were deliberately getting rid of said child isn't clear, but it's possible that yes, it was just a random act of additional cruelty on her part. The secretary seems more like she doesn't quite grasp the meaning and is just copying it in hopes of it becoming clear to her since she's neither as powerful nor as cruel. Alternatively, I guess, since we're shown that she's got the potential to be a good witch, maybe it was a Mercy Kill on her part.
I always thought she had released the kid from the painting. Perhaps not all good, but not all bad, either. (And a foreshadowing to her full switch later on.)
If the secretary either "released" (which is a tad ambiguous, to be honest) or mercy killed the child from the painting, then what (else) did the GHW do just before when she made the child fade away?
It seemed to me like Miss Irvine was called away before she had a chance to do anything to the picture. She would unlikely immediately undo her boss's actions right under her nose.
Given the setup and the nature of the GHW, it could also be read as noticing a trapped child and performing the equivalent of tapping on the side of a fish tank. One couldn't blame the trapped child for "running" to another part of the painting...
Here's a question that I only just clocked from YouTube comments, when the Grand High Witch pushes the baby down the cliff only for Luke to save it, why doesn't the mother react to the GHW, also why was she "asleep"? Maybe she's reading or nursing a headache as I question if she's asleep due to her reaction to the runaway carriage.
How did the witches explain away the hotel's trashed ballroom (incinerated chair, broken window, upturned tables)? When Luke and Bruno escape it doesn't look like they cleaned it up.
Same way every rowdy convention does, which is to say they don't. They just say to charge the damages to whatever credit card or account was used to book the room.
There's a witch who works in the hotel, she was clearing away Bruno's clothes, then she smelt Luke, and probably cleared out the trash before anyone noticed.
