Witches

Witches to me have always seemed like a creature spawned from the negative perspective of women-empowerment, or at least a dramatic caricature of the worst kinds of women. They can be anything from what men fear to what women fear to become. One of the most classic witches is the Wicked Witch of  the West from The Wizard of Oz. The Witch is grotesque, selfish, controlling, and dangerous. She antagonizes Dorothy and is the epitome of everything Dorothy despises.

I read the Redlands comic and found it to be pretty interesting, though rushed. The three witches are the primary focus of the story and they want power. They take over Redlands with force, killing all of the men in charge. The witches are not portrayed as pure evil though. They have a plan in mind and target Redlands because it’s a corrupt and failing town. Instead of leaving it to burn or becoming dictators, they simply work the jobs of the people they killed. These witches fit a morally gray area. They’re undeniably killers, but they weirdly have good intentions.

What’s fascinating is that the witch archetype is being flipped on its head nowadays. With innocent tales of witches in the likes of Kiki’s delivery service and Harry Potter they’re essentially just portrayed as equals to wizards as opposed to lesser, demonic sub-humans. It’s very strange to me that the word witch has a negative connotation unless stated otherwise within a story, whereas wizards are normally considered good. A wizard that meddles in witchcraft becomes a warlock, but a witch that doesn’t use witchcraft is called a…good witch? I believe white witch is the official term.

I’m not necessarily trying to make the witch seem more political than it is, this is just something I’ve noticed. So the witch has its origins as a dark force in fantasy that became a real fear, with hangings occurring in early-America over "witch hunts", and then the witch became a sort of gray area where they could be either evil or good depending on the context.