- “Never conjure where you carve. Very important.”
- ―the Witch to Merida
The Witch is a supporting character in the 2012 Disney/Pixar animated film, Brave. She introduces herself as a humble woodcarver who Merida encounters on a quest to change her fate.
Background[]
This mysterious elderly lady lives deep in the overgrown Highland forest where she lives in a cottage with her talking pet crow. After coming across many visitors who were unsatisfied with her ways of magic, she now lives the life of a humble woodcarver.
Personality[]
The Witch comes off as an eccentric and seemingly harmless old lady who wishes to sell her products. Although she lives a rather recluse life, she expresses interest in whoever visits her cottage as a potential customer.
She tries, albeit poorly, to hide her identity as a witch because of how many were unsatisfied with whatever magic she sold them. When her guise is seen through, she's not above showing off her powers in order to threaten someone to leave her cottage if they're not interested in buying anything.
She is willing to comply, although slightly begrudgingly, to a person's demands if they tempt her with an offer that she sees appealing and highly profitable. While her magic has come with great consequences, she gives a fair warning and advice, although indirectly, on how the matter can lead to a more prosperous solution. This demonstrates the witch possessing both wisdom and a good-will behind her actions, but she leaves the choice to the individual if they can learn the lesson behind her spell.
Despite how the Will O' the Wisps has lead people to her cottage, she shows disinterests in their actions and reasons.
Powers and abilities[]
As a witch, she possesses various abilities related to magic. She possesses telekinesis and was able to move her broom without touching it and levitated all the sharp objects in her shop. She was able to change the appearance of her shop to where she uses her magic and is skilled in brewing potions.
Appearances[]
Brave[]
The Witch lives the life of a woodcarver and uses her knowledge in magic to help her in her work. The Will O' the Wisps lead Princess Merida to her hut, and the woman insists on presenting herself as a simple woodcarver. But Merida rapidly realizes her real nature, after seeing a broom moving by itself, a speaking crow, and other abnormal sightings. The witch tells her that she's not a witch due to too many unsatisfied customers and tries get rid of Merida with floating knives until Merida offers to buy all of her carvings with her sliver necklace as payment. In exchange for buying her entire stock, Merida convinces the witch to give her a spell in the form of a cake, to change her mother Queen Elinor. Just as Merida leaves with the cake, the witch tells Merida to expect the delivery of her wood carvings in two weeks and then realizes she forgot something very critical about the spell but is too late to tell Merida.
When Merida comes back to the witch's hut with her mother turned into a bear, hoping to find a remedy to the spell, she finds, instead the witch has gone for the Wicker Man Festival in Stornoway, a potion-powered automated message through which the witch reveals the spell will become permanent by the second sunrise. The witch also leaves Merida a riddle: "Fate be changed, look inside, mend the bond torn by pride," which contains the way to revert the spell. The message repeats the phrase once more before disappearing. Merida begins to panic, as she doesn't understand the message, and tries to get the witch to appear again by pouring other vials of potions into the automated message, which causes it to become jumbled until the message explodes, completely destroying the witch's cottage. She isn't seen again afterward.
However, in a post-credits scene, the wood carvings she sold Merida are delivered to Castle DunBroch by her crow.
The Legend of Mor'du[]
The Witch tells the legend of the eldest prince of the forgotten kingdom who sought her out to give a spell that will give him the strength of ten men and that would change his fate in exchange for his ring. So she does so and he became Mor'du and the kingdom crumbled into darkness and endlessly wandered. It was revealed the Witch was telling the story to Wee Dingwall who came to the witch. She offered him a spell to challenge his fate, but he frighteningly claimed that he just wanted a drink of water and tries to run out the door. The Witch kindly tells him to pull the door and then Wee Dingwall runs away screaming after thanking her politely. She says goodbye and closes the door to return to woodcarving.
Once Upon a Time[]
Sometime after the events of Brave, King Fergus visits the Witch and asks for a magic object to help his army win the battle against the southern invaders. She gives him a magic helmet that will take away the fear of the soldiers. He tells her to collect the payment when the war is over. Later, Red Riding Hood comes to the witch, wanting to find people to be with, and the witch forces her to take her wolf form permanently and live with her as a guard dog. Later, she interrupts the coronation of Merida as queen of DunBroch to demand the payment that Fergus owed her before he died. She requests she gets either the enchanted helmet she gave him or a gigantic amount of gold, neither of with the people of DunBroch has. The witch demands the payment by the second sunset, and if it is not paid by then, she will cast the spell of Mor'du on the entire kingdom, prompting Merida to go on a quest to retrieve the helmet from the man who killed her father. Later, King Arthur and Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, enter her cottage. Her guard dog tries to attack them, but Zelena throws a temporary sleeping curse onto it. They tell the witch they want the helmet to make Arthur's army obey every command without question. She tries to bargain with them, but Zelena teleports behind her and grabs her, threatening to dunk her head in her own cauldron unless she tells them where it is. She quickly complies, telling them it is in the sea beside the forest. Later, Mulan goes to the witch to try to get a way to make Merida stand up for her kingdom, but the guard dog attacks her. Mulan spills a potion on the dog and turns it back into Ruby. They find Merida and the three defeat Arthur and Zelena. The witch tells Merida that she does not want the helmet, but was merely testing her to see if she would do what it took to rule the kingdom. She gives Merida an enchanted ale that will let her talk to her father's spirit.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the original script of Brave, the witch was not present.
- To the frustration of her customers, her magic is never direct, though she defends this by having customers satisfied with the results.
- When developing the film, the writers repeatedly asked why the Witch's magic would specifically turn both Mor'du and Elinor into bears. Eventually, they decided to justify the transformation by making her a woodcarver who only carved bears because she was obsessed with them, "and just left it at that".[1]
- The Witch's real name is never given.
- She is a woodcarver by profession, although she doesn't appear to be very good at keeping her secret, she very nearly gave it away to Merida thrice (the broom, the crow, and her near slip-of-the-tongue) before Merida realized it for herself.
- There is an Easter egg inside her cottage which is a picture of Sulley.
- This lead to much speculation that the witch is Boo from Monsters Inc, but Disney has yet to confirm or deny this, making the accusation unclear.
- The Witch forgetting to disenchant her broom is the same mistake Merryweather made in Sleeping Beauty but the latter prevented hers from being seen by the princess of the movie.
- She is referred to as the Witch Carver by some fans to distinguish her from other witches and because of her carving occupation.
- The Witch's "barter system" of items for magic and her more neutral nature is similar to the nature of the Morva Witches from The Black Cauldron.
References[]
- ↑ Mark Andrews: "We had these questions come up of 'why a bear, why does the spell always turn people into bears?', and finally just made her this woodcarver and all she carves was bears because she's just obsessed and just left it at that." (Brave Blu-Ray DVD commentary)
External links[]
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