Hot Witch

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dorothy: Oh, I beg your pardon. But I've never heard of a beautiful witch before!
Glinda: Only bad witches are ugly.

—The Wizard of Oz

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

This is what the Cute Witch often grows up to be, if she grows up, and if she doesn't lose her powers at a certain age. Whether a member of a Witch Species or an ordinary human, she is a Mysterious Woman with strange, magical, or seemingly magical powers, at least in the eyes of other characters or the audience. She also happens to be sexy or at least elegant. While the Wicked Witch is traditionally ugly on the outside and a Complete Monster on the inside, she's the exact opposite, beautiful and charming. Because Beauty Equals Goodness, she's usually at least somewhat benevolent. If she's less than completely noble in her intentions, she'll be a Loveable Rogue or Affably Evil at worst. She might keep a black cat and a broom, but rarely wears the full witch outfit. Usually, the Hot Witch either dresses in stylish ordinary or modern clothing, or else very revealing attire. In the latter case she's often presumed to be a sexy villain, but often turns out to be a Good Bad Girl instead.

The Hot Witch is not a Cute Witch. The Cute Witch is a Magical Girl who wears the stereotypical (or maybe just traditional) paraphernalia of witches and is cute in the "adorable" or Japanese Kawaisa sense. She's also typically not yet out of her teens, or at least looks like it. When you see her, you think "Awwww". In contrast, the Hot Witch is attractive in a Western sexy, elegant, mysterious way. She's invariably in at least her later teens, if not her 20s or older. When fanboys see her, they think "Hello, Nurse!"

The Hot Witch is usually not a Vain Sorceress or a Black Magician Girl, either. The Vain Sorceress is obsessed with using magic to maintain her beauty. If the Hot Witch uses magic to stay beautiful, it is not an obsession that clouds her ability to have other concerns. The Black Magician Girl's primary characteristic is the use of magic for offense, and is usually an Action Girl. The Hot Witch's powers and personality are of a more subtle and mysterious nature.

It should be noted that this trope is much Older Than They Think, given that the original descriptions of a witch was a young, attractive, and wise woman, before it was changed to the ugly, evil hag much more commonly known today.

Contrast Wicked Witch. Also, don't confuse this trope for another type of Hot Witch.

Examples of Hot Witch include:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Film

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Charmed is made of this trope. 90% cleavage shots!
  • Willow, Tara, Amy and Ms. Calendar from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Samantha Stevens of Bewitched.
    • And her not-so-nice identical cousin, Serena.
      • Interestingly, there were several scenes that hinted that before she met Darrin, Sam was very much like Serena in more than looks, apparently Sam used to get into similar mischief...and the implication is that under the right conditions, Serena might surprise everyone and settle down like Sam.
  • The Sorceress from the BeastMaster series.
  • Shota in Legend of the Seeker, who's noted as using her magic to keep her youth and good looks intact.
  • Most of the witches on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
  • Invoked initially with Lilith in the Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code." Lilith almost always appeared with her attractive, human-looking face, while her "mothers" were always hideous, clearly non-human hags. Subverted later when they are revealed to be aliens instead of witches.
  • Hallmark Channel has done a trilogy of movies called The Good Witch staring Catherine Bell.
  • Both the Evil Queen and Maleficient in Once Upon a Time. The Blind Witch too.
  • All four female members of The Secret Circle.
  • After her Face Heel Turn Morgana of Merlin is a rare outright evil Hot Witch (and not Affably Evil either); she's a Well-Intentioned Extremist who has left dozens of bodies in her wake and while she is beautiful and can be charming her personality is bitter, vengeful and cruel.
    • Morgause fits as well. So's Nimueh, though neither were outright evil per se. Morgause was to a point, but there's a Well-Intentioned Extremist factor too.

Manhwa

Tabletop Games

Theatre

  • Into the Woods, the witch transforms herself from ugly to hot.
    • It is revealed that she was also beautiful in the backstory, and that her ugliness was a side-effect of the curse she fell under after losing the magic beans.
  • Wicked‍'‍s Elphaba is the Hollywood Nerd and Meganekko variety (in the play at least). Even green face paint can't diminish the good looks of the actresses playing her. Stephen Schwartz has explicitly said that she's not supposed to be ugly—she's beautiful, but people are prejudiced against her because of her green skin.
    • Glinda too. Ephasized in the 2024 movie where she's something of a Ms. Fanservice type.

Video Games

  • Velvet in Odin Sphere.
    • Just about any witch or sorceress character in Vanillaware's games, on that note. Especially the absoute Titty Monster that is the Sorceress from their latest game, Dragon's Crown.
  • Banjo-Kazooie. If you fail, Gruntilda becomes a hot mama. Humba Wumba too, for liberal enough definitions of "witch".
  • Most of the witches in Luminous Arc.
  • At least two members of the witch coven in The Bastard Of Kosigan. Yannia and Laura are both very attractive (and you have an Optional Sexual Encounter with both...), while Gertrude is apparently rather nondescript, Willie's general stereotypical evilness is described as rather offputting, and Karen is dead and never has a description anyway.
  • Black Magician Girl Lulu from Final Fantasy X.
  • Ultimecia and Edea from Final Fantasy VIII.
  • Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII.
  • Fumiko from the Shikigami no Shiro series.
  • Bayonetta, who crosses this with Meganekko.
    • Along with just about every other fetish you can think of... the whole game is a fetish critical mass.
    • Her rival Jeanne is also a Hot Witch.
  • Alicia from Bullet Witch could easily be one of Bayonetta's contemporaries, a scantily clad, young witch who uses a broomstick-shaped machine gun and sorcery to fight zombified soldiers.
  • Morrigan from Dragon Age. Also, Flemeth, at least according to the stories.
    • Flemeth is definitely one in Dragon Age 2. Female Mage!Hawke also qualifies, as does little sis Bethany. Merrill is also a strong example, especially considering she actually uses Blood Magic and demon summoning.
    • The elven mage Fiona (also a Grey Warden) in The Calling. She is implied to be Alistair's birth mother.
  • Angela from Seiken Densetsu 3.
  • Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow has the Witch enemies, voluptuous redheads in very slinky, low-cut purple dresses.
  • Deneb from the Ogre Battle series. She's the really hot Series Mascot, appearing in most and possibly every game. (She also created the other mascot, the Pumpkin Head, through horrible magical experiments in the first game. Everyone forgives her because she's hot.)
    • In Knight of Lodis she even gets a special version of the charm spell that has much higher hit rate than normal. She's just that sexy.
  • I-No from Guilty Gear is a hot witch from the future who uses The Power of Rock, given her powers by a computer from Beyond the Fourth Wall to Set Right What Once Was Wrong. Well, sort of...
  • Abigail from The Witcher, a redheaded witch and Optional Sexual Encounter. The novels and television series have many more examples.
  • Morgan, Rachel, and Ursula from Radiata Stories.
  • Caster from Fate/stay night. She is Medea, after all.
  • Jeane from Suikoden series.
  • In City of Heroes, you can fight a coven of Hot Witches in Croatoa. You can even build your own if you wanted.
  • The Big Bad Manah from Drakengard starts off as a cute young mage in the first game, but in the second, she returns as The Atoner, and boy, has she grown into quite a babe!
  • Nine/Konoe A. Mercury from BlazBlue, one of the Six Heroes is a witch that taught magic to all humanity. And even with modest clothes, she still manages to be hot with those huge tracts of lands.
  • Tessa/Tabasa from Red Earth seems to have been designed with this trope in mind. However, her Super-Deformation in Pocket Fighter turns her into a Cute Witch (which she lampshades during her optional quiz of the player).
  • Nippon Ichi games have cute witches pretty often, be they units in Disgaea or otherwise, such as the witch Metallica in the upcoming game The Witch and the Hundred Calvarymen.
  • The Witch from Left 4 Dead can be considered this.
  • Touhou fandom is full of Self Fanservice, but Byakuren Hijiri is indicated to be this in canon, having given up her humanity for eternal youth and body-enhancing spells. (She started out as a Bhuddist nun, so this is a pretty huge fall from grace.)

Web Comics

  • Kel and Krakatoa from Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan; also Atra after her rejuvenation, although she usually hides her young appearance. Of course, they're all good witches, as long as you don't tick them off.
  • Arguably, a third or so of the cast of Drowtales. Ash'waren probably fits the trope most closely especially since she's been fooling the better part of Chel'el'sussoloth with her empathy into thinking she's a drow for the better part of a millennium.
  • Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance is this occasionally, particularly when she's got her evil mojo going.
  • Sal of Emergency Exit, especially when she does her transformation.
  • Tula of The Challenges of Zona
  • Eerie Cuties had the Melissa Hellrune and her friends until they brought a magical gender bending artifact to school. Once Blair got his hands on it, they had ultimately put the school (and in the long run, the world) at risk of being turned into Valley Girls. Even the boys. They've since been shipped off to another school as punishment and can now be followed in their own spin off.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • WITCH skirts the line between Cute Witch and Hot Witch. Cornelia, of course, is well over the line.
  • The Sorceress from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe lives a solitary existence guarding the Castle Greyskull with her magic and gifts of prophesy. All the while wearing a skin-tight feathered outfit with a miniskirt and high-heeled boots.
    • The re-imagined version from the revival series wore less
    • Evil-lin proves that some bad witches are hot.
  • Wuya's human form in Xiaolin Showdown.
  • Charmcaster from Ben 10.
    • Gwen too, now that she's gone back to using magic.
  • Evil version, the Trix from Winx Club are clearly a trio of Shameless Fanservice Girls.
  • On the Netflix version of Carmen Sandiego, Carmen dresses like one to infiltrate a costume party.
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