Talk:List of fictional witches

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 3/1/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Witches, by definition, would be women. Just for future reference.

Why isn't this a Category, BTW? Most of the listed witches seem to have articles of their own Torquebomb 15:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Erm... Who exactly is "Aggie?", and why is she being presented on this page? Is she a player character or an NPC? If she is a PC, then she really doesn't belong here...

Don't think Galadriel or Arwen belong here. It's true that Galadriel has great power, but in the book she says something like (don't have the exact quote to hand), "why do you use 'magic' to describe both elfin craft and the deceits of the Enemy?" Lee M 00:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, Gandalf used magic that wasn't "of the enemy", in fact- Gandalf was an agent of Eru Illuvatar (God), so one who used magic in the book could describe their magic in any way (I guess the qualifying aspect of magic is that it allows an individual to blatantly warp the laws of physics without any regards toward the 1st law of thermodynamics) and thus; any person who followed this definition of magic could be considered a "magic-user". This title, of course, has different gender usages (Sorcerer and Wizard to Sorceress and Witch) insofar that anyone who used magic (described above) should be adressed with the correct gender title- Galadriel and Arwen use magic (they warp the laws of physics and pay no regard to the first law of thermodynamics) and are women, so they must be adressed as witches to avoid grammatical mistakes.

I changed the "religious or historical" categorisation to "mythological or legendary" which seemed a more appropriate description. I'd also suggest moving that category to the top of the page and expanding it. I also don't think it's necessary to list every witch in Sabrina, for example. I'd concentrate on protagonists of shows or primary characters from non-witch shows, for example Willow from Buffy. I'll put a watch on this page and maybe make some more changes later. user:RhiannonLassiter

Mrs. Which from A Wrinkle in Time should absolutely not be included in this list of witches, per the author's statement that Mrs. Which "is not a witch at all but a wise old woman." Source, NewsWeek article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4926262/ Thusly, I'm removing her. user:NoLightofMyOwn

Should all the Harry Potter witches be listed in their own sub-category under Literary? There are an awful lot of them so a sub-category might make the list easier to read. Web Warlock 15:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I think this list has far too many minor characters. I'd be in favour of stripping out all but the protagonists of the books and TV series and adding (and others) after their name. So just Sabrina from Sabrina, just Hermione from HP.--Rhi 16:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
To be honest all lists of anything on wikipedia are fundamentally stupid, since they aren't articles, will always be incomplete, and aren't used to provide illustration of a type of thing. They're just holding bins for people to populate their favourite topics with factoids without actually contributing to real articles. That said, where is the list of non-fictional witches? JoshuaRodman 04:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Content moved from Witchcraft

I'm placing this here in case it is useful for this article. It was cut from Witchcraft. Jkelly 19:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous Characters in Witchcraft

  • Baba Yaga - A old wild woman of the forests in Russain folklore. She is said to live in a house, perched on a pair of fowl's legs. She is said to eat children. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky wrote a section of his suite, Pictures at an Exhibition(originally a piano movement), based on a painting of Baba Yaga and her odd home as it hunted down a victim.
  • Fairytales - The Brother's Grimm wrote some pretty grusome children's stories, some of which featured a witch as the antagonist. The tale foremost in many people's minds is Hansel and Gretel, in which two abbandoned siblings happen across a house, completely made out of gingerbread. They are taken in by an old crone who becomes intent on fattening up Hansel and eating him. Gretel manages to outwit the witch and pushes her head-first into the oven, where she is burnt alive. Other notable fairytales including witchcraft include Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, written by Charles Perrault.
  • King Arthur Mythology - The legends of king Arthur are remembered particularly because of the great wizard Merlin, whose enemy was Arthur's half-sister and sorceress, Morgan Le Fay, Margain or Morgana.
  • The Children of Lir - The irish legend of the children of Lir tells the story of four royal children whose step-mother, Aoife, turns out to be a wicked sorceress intent on having the king all to herself. She casts a malicious spell upon the children, who are trapped in the bodies of beautiful swans for hundreds of years. When the king learns what his new wife has done to his beloved children, he turns her into what is described as "a demon of the air", usually interpretted as a fly or bluebottle.
  • Shakespeare - The famous playwrite makes numerous references to witchcraft and magic in many of his plays. The three witches in the hugely famous William Shakespeare stage play have no names. Their role in the play is to appear to Macbeth as he returns home from battle, and fortell his future as Thane of Cordor and, afterwards, replacing Duncan as King of Scotland. Thus, the three witches plant seeds of ambition in Macbeth's mind. The witches perform and reference many aspects of witchcraft a Jacobean audience would have recognised from the Malleus Maleficarum, such as Lady Macbeth's "damned spot", familiars ("Grey Malkim") and potions made of out fittingly horrid items (dragon's skin; bone powder from a mummy; tounge of a Jew, considered blasphemous at the time, etc.) Magic is also a fundamental theme in The Tempest, where an all-powerful magician and usurped Duke of Milan named Prospero rules over the enchanted isle he was wrongfully banished to. There is a dramatic contrast between the main character and the mention of Sycorax, a foul witch who previously ruled the island with dark magic and who, according to Prospero, had sexual intercourse with Satan to conceive a mishapen and wicked son, Caliban.
  • The Witches by Roald Dahl - The antagonists of the much loved children's book. Roald Dahl dismisses much of previous mythology about witches, in exchange for his own. Dahl claims that real witches dress, look and act very much like ordinary women. The benign grandmother in the novel provides her grandchild with a long list of ways to recognise a witch. For example, real witches always wear gloves to hide large cat-like claws and a wig to disguise their ugly bald scalps. The grandmother explains to the little boy as best she can: "You don't seem to understand that witches are not women at all...they are demon in human shape!" The purpose of a witch is to assassinate all the children in the area she lives. According to Dahl, witches abhor children, particularly because a child, no matter how clean, reeks of a stench that witch's are very sensitive to. Groups of witches meet once a year to formulate new plans to destroy the children of the world. The head of all witches is a fearsome and terrifyingly powerful "woman" known as The Grand High Witch.
  • The Blair Witch - A terrifying entity which haunts the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland. it became rather popular due to the movie - The Blair Witch Project - was presented as true events, despite the two directors completely fictionalising the witch and the lore surrounding the forests, to great effect in the film's publicity. No real information is given about the witch as a person, except perhaps the name Elly Kedword. However, an interview with a crazy old woman claims that she was once confronted by a strange cloaked woman with a body covered in animal-like hair, raising the question as to what the witch actually looks like. Viewers assume that all the horrific events in the film and mentioned in the film (the legend of Rustin Parr, event at Coffin Rock, the forest which seems beyond both time and space) are created by the witch or, possibly, a more fundamental evil.
  • Harry Potter - Now the most famous magical characters created by author J. K. Rowling. Rowling has created a huge and in-depth mythology surrounding witchcraft and a large enchanted universe that has captured the imaginations of many people, young and old alike. Harry Potter is a young boy who is suddenly contacted by a benign half-giant to tell him that he possesses magical powers like other young girls and boys and has been enrolled in one of the most famous (fictional) schools in the world called Hogwarts. Even in a world of such wonderful possibilities, Rowling makes it clear that the problems of the muggle world, such as terrorism, race hate crimes, murder and evil in general, are still present but in the form of Lord Voldemort and his "death-eaters".


you people know nothing about real witchcraft. i am a real witch so ill tell you.witchcraft revolves around nature. witches worship god and goddess.spells, are prayers, they are not use to control ppl or animals,potions are natural herbal remedies. witches do not have magical powers nor do they claim to, they cant make things move, they cant turn ppl into animals, they do no associate with evil, withes do not belive in the devil or hell. male witches are not called warlocks, warlock is atearm meaning oath breaker, and its an insult to call a male witch a warlock.witches do not do human or animal sacrifices, witches follow a law of doing harm to nothing and respecting all life. witches are spiritual ppl.witches do not participate in orgys, or have sex at meetings, thats a private thing.

Rubygothix----

Wholly irrelevant, Rubygothix. This page was designed to list characters from fiction who have been termed 'witch' by their creators.

User:AngryZionist

"You people know nothing of real witchcraft"... what part of "fictional" didn't he understand? JIP | Talk 19:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Witches but no Warlocks?

As long as there's a list of fictional witches, there should be a list of fictional warlocks as well. Where else could Thulsa Doom and his ilk be placed? ChrisWinter 21:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] De strigis vero que non sunt nula questio fiat

De strigis vero que non sunt nula questio fiat = As witches do not exist, there should be investigation about them.
The article is incorrectly named, a list of "fictional witches" alleges that there are non-fictional, real word witches, which is an utter lie. The article should be renamed to "List of witches in fiction (literature and arts)" in order to remove any ambiguity about wikipedia endorsing superstition! 195.70.32.136 11:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
There are many people who claim to be witches as a religious choice. Silver RavenWolf, I believe, would argue with your classification of all witches as fictional.

User:AngryZionist In the section on list of "fictional witches what about adding the witches from ‘Buffy the vampire slayer’ two come to mind ‘willow Rosenberg’ and ‘Tarra McClay’ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.19.42.233 (talk) 22:36, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional Witches?

As opposed to real witches? Leo (talk) 15:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)