WMG / The VVitch

The twins were Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves.

Ok, we know that Black Phillip was possessed by the devil, so the odds of the twins doing Witchcraft seem pretty good. However, we don't see them in the coven at the end. The obvious conclusion is that they were killed. But why would the witches kill two of their own, while accepting Thomasin? Simple: Thomasin only killed her mother in self-defense, and then joined the coven when she had no one else. The twins, on the other hand, summoned the coven that killed their family. The witches have no intention of waiting for the next time the twins get bored and do something incredibly stupid.

• Or maybe they were turned into the flying ointment used for the final scene
  • The fat of an unbaptised baby was the specific requirement for witches' flying ointment, which would rule the twins out.
    • Given that the family is considered heretics by the locals, it's possible that none of the children were baptized.
    • Possible, but given the mother's belief in baptism it seems likely she would have pushed for it in the past.

The goal all along...

Was to turn Thomasin into a witch. The entire goal of the witches and Black Phillip (or the devil or whatever demon was possessing Black Phillip) was to get Thomasin to become a witch. She was already an outcast, the daughter of a perceived heretic and who was banished from most of society along with him. She could more easily be manipulated and pushed to be completely isolated and left with nothing else but the witches. They took her baby brother first both as an ingredient for the flying ointment and as a catalyst to separate Thomasin from her family while also removing a member of said family. They moved on to Caleb while Black Phillip talked to the twins, all the while taking out the crops (unless the dad was just a spectacularly bad farmer, entirely possible) and driving the family to a degree of tension where almost anything would have set them off. Every move was done to isolate Thomasin from her family both physically and psychologically so that by the end she was left with barely any choice but to become a witch.

Thomasin was absolutely bonkers (right from the start)

Writing off certain supernatural imagery (which can be blamed on Through the Eyes of Madness.) Then Thomasin killed the baby or abandoned it in the forest, got her brother alone and seduced him which naturally would have driven a repressed Puritan right over the edge, killed the twins and the goats in the shack, broke out and killed her father, killed her mother, and then wandered naked into the forest in the grip of another hallucination/fantasy. With all that repression and isolation, one's sanity must be on a very thin string, and there is no one to go to for help if your daughter starts losing it. The whole movie might be chalked up to a truly vicious case of cabin fever. A real colonial nightmare.

The film is a cautionary tale about the dangers of a broken family.

It's clear that if the family had a stronger bond and not neglecting their personal issues with blind faith, the influence of the witches and Satan would have never happened. William and his pride of not seeing how his family fell apart by choosing to be exiled. Katherine taking out her frustrations on her oldest daughter Thomasin, even suggesting to sell her to another family. Caleb and his lustful thoughts of Thomasin, his older sister. And the twins who are lying, spoiled brats who needed punishment, but never got it. Then there is Thomasin whose rebellious nature against authority is right up with Satan's origin story, making it no surprise that she would make the Faustian bargain in the end.

The parents became Puritans after Thomasin's birth

Thomasin is the female version of Thomas, which comes from the New Testament and was a common name in Medieval England (just like William and Katherine). All the other children names come from the Old Testament, which gained more importance with the Reformation. Since converts are always more strict believers than people born into the faith, this would explain why the Commonwealth got sick of, and later expelled William. He did nothing illegal but he became too insufferable to have around.

The original plan was to corrupt Katherine

Katherine fits into the gender and age group of the witches seen at the end, and breaking the faith of someone who had so much faith in God for so long and turning her into a damned soul and servile witch would be a tantalizing prospect. With her children dying and being accused of witches, Katherine's sanity began disintegrating and Satan took advantage of her grief to appear to her as Caleb and Samuel, convince her to sign her name in his book, and either he or the Witch fed from her breast in the form of the crow (and if you want to get even squickier about it, considering how witches are supposed to have sex with the Devil and how she had incest on the mind when confronting Thomasin, he may have even seduced her in Caleb's form and contributed further to her snapping). After killing William, he may have then egged her on to attack Thomasin. Katherine was supposed to murder Thomasin to finish off the rest of her family, but then Thomasin killed her and upset all the whole scheme. That's why Black Phillip didn't initially respond to Thomasin - she wasn't supposed to be the one who lived, but after he realized he already had Katherine's soul anyway and now could corrupt another one, he started talking to Thomasin.

Satan wants Thomasin because she is sinless.

Thomasin is the only main character whom we do not see disobey at least one of the Ten Commandments. The twins, in taking orders from Black Phillip, place him above God. William steals Katherine's cup to trade it, and then falsely claims ignorant when Katherine accuses Thomasin. Katherine covets the more fanciful cups of her former neighbors. Caleb lusts after Thomasin, who, being his sister, cannot become his wife and would in theory have married another man one day, and as such he covets his neighbor's wife. Thomasin obeys all the orders of her parents, does not covet, is faithful and regular in prayer, and does every chore asked of her. The devil finds her virtue appealing and seeks to corrupt it.

Black Phillip was not the family goat, but an infiltrator.

It's odd that the family would keep a male goat, but no females - it's also odd for such an extremely religious family to keep a creature so symbolic of the devil. Even when facing starvation, selling him or eating him is never considered. Thus, it isn't hard to imagine that Black Phillip was not owned by the family until moving to the witch-haunted woods. He slipped in and acted like he was always there, as the family's goat, and they were probably bewitched into thinking the same and overall keeping him beneath suspicion. It's worth noting that he is never seen before the family's move to the woods.

• The family does keep female goats, though. You can see them in the scene where Thomasin is cleaning the stable while Mercy & Jonas prance around singing their song about Black Phillip.

The twins were never witches at all.

The common theory seems to be that the twins were witches. However it's also possible that they were simply pretending in order to get back at Thomasin. Mercy mentions not being able to leave the farm alone since Samuel's disappearance, which she blames Thomasin for. If they were angry at Thomasin for the increased restrictions, they may have carried on their ruse to get her into trouble. This may have been done with a little suggestion from Black Phillip, or they were accidentally correct about there being a witch.

• If Mercy had been a witch, she probably would not have been afraid of Thomasin.

The twins are alive...

They just aren't at the witches' party at the end for whatever reason (and real-life issues regarding children and nudity in film.) They had already signed Black Phillip's book, and the witches in the area spirited them away in order to drive Thomasin's parents off the edge, thereby persuading Thomasin to join the witches as well.

Each family member corresponds to one of the Seven Deadly Sins

There are seven members of the family- William, Katherine, Thomasin, Caleb, Jonas, Mercy, and Samuel. There are also seven deadly sins- pride, envy, greed, lust, wrath, sloth, and gluttony.

• William is Pride, as he himself admits when begging God to save his family.
• Katherine is Envy, jealous of Thomasin becoming a woman.
• Thomasin is Greed, being easily turned to a Witch by the offer of 'living deliciously'.
• Caleb is Lust, staring at his own sister's breasts, and is seduced by a witch who is either a beautiful woman or in the guise of one.
• Jonas and Mercy, as twins, each share Wrath and Sloth, refusing to ever really listen to anyone who asks them to help with chores, and both furious with Thomasin.
• Samuel would thusly be Gluttony, though being that he's a baby, he isn't really capable of anything more than wanting to be fed.