| Zerelda P. Spellman | |
|---|---|
| Sabrina, the Teenage Witch character | |
| Portrayed by | Jane Webb (Filmation series) Beth Broderick (as Zelda) (sitcom) Melissa Joan Hart (DIC series) |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Zeldy, mostly called Zelda |
| Aliases | Zerelda P. Spellman (full name) |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Witch, teacher |
| Spouse(s) | Benevolio(Divorced, married only for a brief time in the middle ages.) |
| Relatives | Sabrina Spellman (niece) Lydia Spellman (mother) Vesta Spellman (sister) Sophia Spellman (sister) Edward "Ted" Spellman (brother) Hilda Spellman (sister) Great-Granny (grandmother) Boyd, Racine and Maw Maw (country cousins) |
Zelda Spellman is a fictional character featured in the classic Archie comic book Sabrina the Teenage Witch. She is a full witch (as opposed to half or fully mortal) and lives in the fictional town of Greendale ("Westbridge, Massachusetts" in the sitcom). She lives with her sister Hilda Spellman and their niece Sabrina and the family cat Salem, who (in the sitcom) is serving time as an animal as a punishment for his attempt at world domination. In the live-action TV series, she is portrayed by Beth Broderick.[1]
(The following two sections pertain only to the sitcom. In the original comics, and in other portrayals, other than being over 500 years old, their background is otherwise unexplored.)
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Zelda P. Spellman was born in 1346. Zelda grew up during the 14th century in Europe, with at least four other siblings: Vesta, being the oldest; and Edward, and Hilda, Sophia being the youngest.
Vesta was terribly jealous of all the attention that Hilda and Zelda got when they were little. So, she turned their parents into pigs. The Witches Council decided that people with pigs feet could not raise children and so when Vesta refused to turn them back Hilda and Zelda were adopted out to a family in the country.
While the children were living in the farm house the parents stayed in the barn. Their father was "getting very good at working an instamatic with his snout". When their mother headbutted Vesta about a month later, they were turned back into humans. In order to legally get Hilda and Zelda back, they had to adopt them.
Their overbearing mother, Grandma Lydia, spent 200 years of violin lessons on Hilda, while Zelda won trophies, "Winner of the Other Realm Science Fair", "Outstanding Student of the Decade" and "Best of the Best".
As Zelda reached adulthood she went off to college. Zelda attended Harvard.
Zelda, during the Renaissance, lived in Florence and met a man named Benvolio. Though her father disliked Benvolio, Zelda married Benvolio anyways, though their marriage only lasted three days. At some point, Zelda woke her Aunt Dorma up and was turned into a porch swing.
Both sisters bounced from one job to another over the centuries while trying to find what they wanted to do. Zelda worked as a coal miner when she lived in Wales, rating this as her worst job. During the early 19th century, Hilda and Zelda worked together at a saloon. They were run out of town, but fortunately found a way to maintain some financial security: junk. In the early 1990s, before Sabrina came to live with Hilda and Zelda, they had manservants, spent late nights on the town, weekends in Tuscany, took part in Formula One racing, and originally had a disco on the second floor of their house.
Aunt Zelda first appeared in Archie's Mad House #65 (December 1968). In the original comics, Zelda was short and stout with green hair. Zelda acted as a good-natured and somewhat gullible. She was less prominent in the comic than her sister Hilda, and didn't appear in as many stories.
In the newer comic books, Zelda has her respective green hair, but appear to be only a few years older than Sabrina.
She was generally the same as in the comics, with a typical "witch" appearance and attire. Additionally, she and Hilda disapproved of Sabrina doing good deeds, and thus (as ordered by Della the head witch) were always trying to get her to do bad deeds (like all the other witches); they even force her hand a couple of times.
Zelda was blonde and a down-to-earth scientist who tries to keep Sabrina and Hilda out of trouble. As a stark contrast to early portrayals, she insists that Sabrina only use her magic for good. As a witch, her magical abilities often manifested as a stream of violet magical particles (similar to Sabrina's golden red magical sparkles) whenever she would transfigure an object or being, conjure an object or teleport herself from one place to another.
Zelda appears as a character in both Sabrina: The Animated Series and Sabrina's Secret Life, appearing radically different from her comic book appearances; Zelda had strawberry blonde hair. She had the same basic personality as on the live-action sitcom. Zelda along with Hilda are depicted as teenagers (instead of the usual middle-aged adults), despite being the same age as in other media (hundreds of years old). It is mentioned in passing that they have temporally been changed into teenagers by head witch Enchantra as punishment for minor crimes, but the situation is never fully explained. In Sabrina, the Animated Series both attend high school and are not considered legal adults on the mortal world, which is why Uncle Quigly lives with them. In Sabrina's Secret Life (set two years later) they are out of school and able to run the household (and Uncle Quigly is no longer in the cast).
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