Witches

Witches were probably my least favorite of the kinds of horror figures found in literature. In a lot of movies they always just seem to have a hint of omnipotence and can do anything they want, usually for malicious purposes. For example, they can injure or kill anyone at will in Dario Argento's Suspiria. Suspiria had the kind of witch I usually think of, the evil kind that usually wants revenge or power and seems to live forever. The movie itself was really a ton of fun to watch. The scenes were really nicely designed with how they handled lighting, the music was creepy and gave a really ominous and frantic vibe and the deaths were blood splatteringly good. Compared to Hiyao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service, it's a much different kind of witch. Both have the independent, strong female witch, just in different ways. Suspiria's witch is independent and strong in a brutal, rogueish kind of way, while Kiki's is closer to the coming of age independence, youth into adulthood and strong in that she can just go out into the world on her own and not be the property of anyone. I thought that was interesting how witches are earthly and have a closer connection to earth, where it's not about the witch, but the power that flows through the witch. It's easy to see why the Christians didn't like that as they saw the body as the source of all sin. It was also mentioned that having a child is the closest thing to coming close to nature and how women are associated with being more in tune with the world. The women part led into talking about women's sovereignty and power and intimate relationship struggles and how typically in society men are a bit engrained to try and own the women. People trying to own each other in relationships, men or women, is where the power struggles of a relationship can stem from and it was mentioned it is better to try and nurture a more intimate relationship and have a fair distribution of power and good communication.