Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • How come Sabrina can use her powers to change the laws of alchemy and allow base metal to become gold, but couldn't clean soda off her homework?
    • One of the few consistent rules of magic on the show is that witches can't magic their way out of Life's Lessons. Be careful with your work and actions have consequences might have been Life Lessons there.
  • Did they ever explain why Sabrina keeps trying to utilize magic to solve mundane problems? I mean sure the meta reason is we need her to be dumb for the show, but is there an in-show explanation?
    • Based on the way other witches act (Cloud 10, any number of Sabrina's relatives), Hilda and Zelda are something of an oddity in that they deal with mortal problems in mortal ways most of the time. I think the show inadvertently shows that the witch race is, as a whole, as irresponsible and feckless as Sabrina is, training program and witches' licenses nonwithstanding.
    • When your choices are either do things the slow and hard way, or to just use your magical powers to make a problem disappear instantly, which would you choose? Also, you have to take into account that Sabrina is a teenager, and considering how reckless most teenagers are with mundane things, imagine how much more reckless they'd get if you let them magical powers to use in any way they see fit?
    • I agree with the above two, but do find it odd especially since she only got those powers as a teen and was perfectly fine until then without them.
    • But Sabrina is shown as being quite lazy through-out the series. At least one episode focuses on her procrastination and in general she seems quite willing to take short-cuts over anything.
  • In one episode we get the hamfisted Aesop that Sabrina is such a perfect person that she excels in everything except fulfilling her "girlfriend duties" (It's Not What It Sounds Like, it's stuff like making posters and cookies for Harvey). Her aunts suggest that she breaks up with Harvey to concentrate on other stuff, and she reluctantly agrees. Cue a few episodes of Harvey dating other girls in front of a jealous Sabrina, and they get back together. Um, did she suddenly get less busy? Or was all that other stuff just piled on in a totally arbitrary manner to pull off a "they break up and get back together because the writers have run out of ideas" plotline? Probably.
    • She did become less busy, she stepped down as editor of the paper and other things. And they didn't really break up so much as she had to see less of him. She just got things under control and ended up with more spare time for him.
  • Seriously, what the hell happened to Jenny and Dreama? They were Sabrina's best friends, and then they just vanished. Did we even get any kind of explanation for either of their disappearances?
    • Odds are Dreama fixed her magic problem and just went home, she was there for tutoring, not school or anything, so once her problem was fixed there was nothing keeping her there.
    • As NightmareFuely as it sounds, this is one of the few series were it's safe to say "A Wizard did it"... or a Witch...
    • Let's not forget Valerie either! I was a little sad to not see any of these at the end.
      • Valerie at least got an explanation - her family moved to Alaska, and though she'd planned to stay with Sabrina, she decided to stay with her family. Though they could have at least namechecked her in the finale...
  • Sabrina graduating from college after two years. I didn't get the feeling that she was nearing any sort of graduation or program completion at the end of Season Six. It actually feels like the creators saying "we need to change half the cast, so we're changing the premise; screw continuity." It bugs me.
    • That was actually explained as there being a time jump. Don't know how, but it was there.
    • I'm afraid not. I read the transcripts for the last two episodes of the sixth season, no mention of any graduation or the like. The seventh season literally starts the minute the sixth season ended. Here and only here does Sabrina explain that she's graduating soon. Yes, there's probably a time jump covering the aunts moving out and Sabrina moving back in to the old house, but it can't be more than a month or so. Nope, the writers just pulled a graduation out of Hammerspace.
      • You just have to assume the couple of seasons that show her at college are actually covering more time than first appears.
  • Why did Hilda and Zelda never warn Sabrina about any of the dangerous magical problems and loopholes until after she'd already caused them? At the very least the pancake addiction should have been addressed as soon as it became clear she was a witch
  • I know Libby comes from this show and I was certainly tortured by enough girls like her in high-school, but I could never feel any satisfaction whenever Sabrina defeated her with magic. To me, bullying comes from an imbalance of power and since Sabrina is a pretty much an omnipotent goddess, it was her that came off as the bully when she used this advantage against a mortal high-school girl. On The Secret World of Alex Mack, Alex, too, had magical powers but she refused on principle to use them for petty revenge against her Alpha Bitch (The decent thing to do.) You know, in general, it just bugs me that on this show (following Bewitched) witches have god-like powers like time travel and without the need for spells or potions or anything like that. Not only is it not like that in folklore, it's really boring dramatically.
    • This is probably why they brought in Mr. Kraft and made him so unfairly biased towards Libby. With the legitimate authority against her Sabrina's magical payback seems more acceptable as she really doesn't have any other avenues to deal with it. I think as the series goes on Sabrina uses her magic on Libby less and less for mere petty revenge. It was mostly in the first season, which was also the season that had Hilda ready to chop Libby up and eat her when Sabrina accidentally turned her into a pineapple.
      • No, Mr. Kraft was obviously brought in because they really wanted to annoy the audience without end. How else can you explain that Mr. Kraft dated BOTH AUNTS ? They soon felt this wasnt enough, so they started making more stupid changes about the show.
        • He dated Hilda because Sabrina used magic to make her a puppet and then it was purely about her ego. While it wasn't always handled well This Troper actually liked the idea of Zelda and Willard together, they were both intellectuals, they'd met repeatedly already, he clearly found Hilda atractive so, as her sister, he should have been attracted to her as well. If they'd actually given him soe character growth to go with his relationship with Zelda it could have been a great relationship, but instead he remained the exact same childish, spiteful jerk he'd always been.
    • She always felt remorse afterward though. It's not like She didn't try to take the high road but Libby made this impossible. But when she did use magic, she recoiled, fixed it and just took the lump from Libby.
    • Every series has its own mythology. And the show is a Sitcom, unlike The Secret World of Alex Mack. I also think it'd be unrealistic for someone who has supernatural powers NOT to use them on the bully because of 'principles'. And from Libby's perspective, she still has more power than Sabrina (She's popular, Sabrina isn't). And Libby isn't always the bad guy, and Sabrina has from time to time used her powers to help her. Such as the time that her aunts made her a man out of man dough. She told Chad Corey Dillon that he should dance with Libby, when she didn't have to at all. And that's what makes her victories satisfying.
  • Why was Sabrina living with Hilda and Zelda to begin with? I know the volunteered and loved having her there but why was her dad not dealing with her training at first? I know later on they came up with an excuse for it but at first he was just living in the magic book with no real reason to not be helping or taking care of his daughter.
    • I know she can't see her mother and I think she lived with her while her dad was just ambiguously M.I.A.
    • Her father was off in the Foreign Service. It was just a lot more foreign that she knew.
  • Why didn't Sabrina know about magic? Her dad and aunts were witches and she spent 10 years with him, at least, and spent the last five summers with Hilda and Zelda. They knew there was a good chance she'd become a witch too so why keep her completely in the dark about her, extremely dangerous, powers?
    • Edict by the Witches Council, perhaps? Despite wanting to warn her about what would happen if she failed the first test for her permit, Hilda and Zelda were bound by the rules to keep her in the dark. It's just as likely that they have a rule against telling young witches (or just half-mortals) about their powers.
      • Why would they have any rules about telling people that they have supernatural powers? There's a reason why we tell children about fire, so something stupid and utterly avoidable doesn't happen.
  • "You have magical powers, and when a witch turns sixteen she can use them!" Yea, wow that's funny seeing as flashbacks to Hilda and Zelda as children as well as cousin Amanda and her little sister seem perfectly able to use magic. Is it ever explained that maybe just half-mortals must wait until they are sixteen?
    • It's mostly implied through the simple fact that Hilda and Zelda warn Sabrina about Amanda having stronger magic than Sabrina in her first appearance. So, yeah, it's because Sabrina's half-mortal that she can't use magic until she's sixteen. Likely more of the Witches Council's issues with half-mortals.
    • I have a theory that full witch children are granted powers by their parents, which is why Marigold's children are semmingly powerless after she loses her powers but Amanda appears later on with her full powers, likely ater she reached the age she could us them herself. We have seen instances where Sabrina granted her powers to others before, though usually by accident (both her teacher and Valerie at least).
  • How was Sabrina supposed to solve the rebus about her family without any clues? They were all treating her as if she was lazy (which, granted, she actually was), but there wasn't anything she could have done. It's not like it was just a riddle, and she could ask for another hint. You can't solve a rebus without pictures! And I wasn't under the impression that they would have just given her pictures if she had asked nicely.
  • In one episode Zelda nearly loses her job at school after they contacted Harvard and found out that the only Zelda Spellman to go there was centuries ago. In order to keep her job Zelda goes through a montage of filing reports and making experiments so she can be accredited. Ignoring the oddity of how that would let her keep her job, why doesn't she simply use her powers to go to Harvard and rearrange things so someone from Harvard could just call the school and tell them that it was a simple clerical error. It isn't as though Zelda didn't earn the degree in the first place.

Why are there so many Brady Anderson fans in Massachusetts?

In "Sabrina Through The Looking Glass", both Hilda and Mr. Poole the biology teacher are huge Brady Anderson fans. This isn't so bad until you realize that the series takes place in Massachusetts, home of the Boston Red Sox, a major rival of the Baltimore Orioles, the team Anderson plays for.

Sabrina's mom

In the Season 5 (or 6 maybe) episode "The Whole Ball of Wax", Sabrina looks at her mom by accident and causes her to turn into a ball of wax, supposedly in accordance with the curse she's under. However, the curse is only supposed to last for a two year period and this episode takes place after that amount of time has passed. What gives?

  • Yeah, I thought it was only two years that Sabrina couldn't see her mother. I was wondering why she didn't see her mother in the latter years. The show pretty much lost me during the college years, so I didn't realize that the law was still in effect. As someone who has a very close relationship with her mother, this aspect of the show has always bugged me.
    • It's made especially bad since it's made very clear Sabrina should be able to see her mother without consequence once she earns her Witch's License, a process which took her all of seasons 2 and 3, which means it should have been after the two year period anyway.
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