Week 5 Witches

I missed class this week so I looked up stereotype and archetype. This is a bit of what I found…Stereotype characters are stock and could be interchanged from one story to another without any major impact on plot. Archetypes will use the template as a starting place, and stereotype uses it as the end point.

This week I read the third book in the Discovery of Witches trilogy, Book of Life. I had read the others as they came out, but missed notification of this release this summer. The main character, Diana Bishop, is a witch in a modern world with vampires and daemons, as well. The other witches she is in contact with are her aunt, a coven of female witches in London, two female witches on the “congregation” (the non-human governing council), and a male witch who killed her other aunt in the second book and her parents when she was a child.

The books aren’t about a cohesive group of women like most witch books. They are more about bringing together the species. Her husband, Matthew Clermont, is a vampire and the three non-human species are forbidden by the Congregation to associate with one another even in non-romantic relationships. Even among the witches Diana is by large an outsider for her association with Matthew and his family. However, she has incredible magical power and changes the Congregation’s laws.

Unfortunately, she does seem to be a bit a of a stereotype she is a strong woman loyal to family and friends. Her uniqueness is in her gifts not her personality, and the gifts are always increasing. As a reader, each time she gains a new ability it seems more of a deus ex machina than something justified. Yes, its fantasy magic, but when her constantly increasing gifts solve each problem as it appears, it is too convenient. When both her weaver’s cords and the book of life are separately, spontaneously absorbed in her body, it was too much. I think I liked the first and second books better.

This week I also watched the first season of Witches of East End. It was fun when the family matriarch, Joanna Beauchamps, encounters a shifter in her likeness she gets to experience that moment of the uncanny we discussed in class.

I really enjoy the series. Each of the characters has their surface stereotype, but are actually more, and quickly you see that each character is deeper and simply follows an archetype.

Joanna is the matriarch, single mom who loves her two girls more than anything in the world. However, she keeps a lot of secrets from them that come back to haunt her, including the fact that the girls are genetic witches.

Her sister, Wendy, comes to live with them because she read the tarot cards and saw severe dark trouble heading for them. Wendy seems like a typical flighty, wild party girl grown older, but she has been hurt by love and fights fiercely for her family, even if it means going behind her sister’s back.

The older daughter, Ingrid, even fights the stereotypes her family gives her. They say she is the anchor. She is a very intelligent young librarian, who learns quick and can create her own spells. She also has a dark past and even in this life is often willing to break the rules for those she loves.

As the stereotype Freya would be the gold digging selfish popular girl, but she is actually quite grounded. She struggles to develop her gifts and her heart is divided by complicated love.