W.I.T.C.H.

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

W.I.T.C.H. is an Italian fantasy comic series created by Alessandro Barbucci, Barbara Canepa, and Elisabetta Gnone and published by Disney Italia. First published in April 2001 the series is ongoing.

The plot follows the story of five teenage girls who are chosen to be the new Guardians of Kandrakar. They serve as protectors of the center of the universe from people and creatures who wish to cause harm to it. For this purpose, powers over the five elements have been given to them. The new guardians are Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay Lin, whose initials form the title acronym W.I.T.C.H.

An animated adaptation of the comic was later aired on Jetix.

Tropes used in W.I.T.C.H. include:
  • A Day in the Limelight: One special followed Elyon in her duties as a queen.
    • And there was a 3 part special detailing Caleb saving Elyon from a curse, and both of them eventually realising that they've fallen in love with each other.
  • Action Girl
  • All Your Colors Combined: The usual method of disposing of a Big Bad. Most blatant use so far was against Dark Mother.
  • All Your Powers Combined: Cornelia accidentally ends up with all five elemental powers early in the second saga, and attempts to use the power boost to restore Caleb to his human form. It doesn't end well.
    • It's also implied to be an ability of the Heart of Kandrakar, but it's never used.
  • Alternate Continuity: The comic and the animation
  • Animesque: Given by the frequent use of emoticon faces, large eyes, and even Sweat Drops.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Lillian to Cornelia and Christopher to Irma. Peter adores Taranee, though.
  • Anticlimax Boss: At the end of the Ragorlang saga, Edward Folkner, the Ragorlang hunter, is forced to fuse himself with the Ragorlangs, when the magical box he had created to capture the Ragorlangs is threatened to be taken away from him. He's going to come back some sagas later as a dangerous foe, right? Wrong! In the next issue, the girls defeat him quite fast at the end of that issue
  • Anti-Villain: Ari in the third saga and Cedric in the fifth saga.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Yan Lin early in the first saga.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: No, Taranee isn't an African name. Hay isn't a Chinese name, either. (though it's possible that the writers got it mixed up with the name "Hui" - not to be confused with the term for Chinese Muslims - which means "intelligent", "bright".)
  • Big Bad: Once a story arc. Some of them even come back!
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Cornelia, Irma and Will.
  • By the Power of Greyskull: Implied to not be necessary, but used anyways, sometimes Will calls every element, sometimes everyone calls her own. In a variation, while "Earth", "Fire", "Air" and "Water" have been always called, in the first issues, Will said whatever was on her mind (Energy, Heart, etc.) one time, she ended up saying just her own name
  • Came Back Wrong: Briefly happens to Caleb when Luba takes away Cornelia's powers before she can fully restore him to his human form. He gets better.
  • Child Mage: Will discovers that her baby brother William has magical powers. Also, many of the magical people the girls have found in the "Teach 2b Witch" storyline are children.
  • Cloning Blues: Early on the girls learn how to make Astral Drops, clones of themselves with their exact personalities and memories, to take their places while going on missions. That is, all of them except of Will who's distracted by Taranee's earlier capture. She ends up with a clone who's basically a blank state. At the beginning this only leads to some Hilarity Ensues... then the clones starts developing their own personalities.
    • When they start using the astral drops for non-guardian things all the astral drops band together and try to live without the originals to varying degrees of success. In the end the oracle grants them their own lives and they get to live independently. This also means WITCH can't use astral drops any more.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Hay Lin: very quirky and artistic, cheerful and absent-minded, constantly writing on her palms and using her own expressions like "spacious" (which in her language means "cool") and "weirdific".
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: comes with the Elemental Powers: Green Earth, Blue (Turquoise) Water, Red/Orange Fire, Silver (Sometimes baby blue) Air and Pink... energy? Willpower? Whatever Will's power is.
  • Dark Magical Girl: Elyon
  • Disney Death: Near the end of the first saga, Caleb is reverted to a flower by Phobos as punishment for his betrayal. Cornelia is later able to restore Caleb to human form in the second saga.
  • Education Mama: Taranee's mother, a lawyer, is this in the comics.
  • Elemental Powers
  • Embarrassing Nickname: please stop calling Cornelia "Corny"
  • Empathic Shapeshifter: During the Teach 2b WITCH saga, Cornelia meets Leah, a girl whose appearance changes depending on what people around her need. Because she had changed so many times, she had forgotten what she originally looked like. The girls eventually brought her to Yan Lin, who helped Leah change back to her real appearance.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Elyon, immediately lampshaded ("I didn't know any princess"). At the end of the first saga she becomes queen.
  • Expanded Universe: There have been some books based on the comics. The Adventure books and the Crystal Birds series. It's one book per girl. These books (at least the adventure series which this troper owns) have images from the magazines inserted.
  • Fallen Hero: Nerissa used to be a Guardian.
  • Facial Markings: The oracle (in the short lived manga) and Caleb in the comic both have these.
  • Fiery Redhead: Will.
  • Fish Out of Water: Subverted with Orube. She's sophisticated enough to realize that tv sets are machines, not magic, but she still needed to be explained that romantic melodrama movies aren't Real Life.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Foe Yay: Phobos and Will, anyone?
    • Also, Cedric and Orube.
      • The latter of which becomes canon . . . until Cedric is killed.
  • For Want of a Nail: At the end of the second saga Cornelia and Caleb end their relationship because neither are willing to leave their world. A special explored what would've happened if either of them had followed the other (hint, it's not happy).
  • Friend to All Living Things: Cornelia with plants and Will with animals... and appliances.
  • Fun with Acronyms: W.I.T.C.H
  • Gender Bender: In the Anvilicious football special, Irma and Vicky decide to dress up as boys so that they can join the football try outs.
  • Genre Blindness: the Oracle told them many times that their greatest strength is their unity. Anyway, the girls will often use the Let's Split Up, Gang! move at the worst moment. Will also told Hay Lin that monsters don't exist at the beginning of the Ragorland saga, ie after 60 issues in a All Myths Are True series.
  • Good Witch Versus Bad Witch
  • Grand Theft Me: In the fourth saga, Phobos switches bodies with Endarno in order to take over Kandrakar.
  • Green Aesop: One of the more recent issues, Green Truth.
  • Guardian of the Multiverse: Everyone from Kandrakar, but the Guardians seem to be the ones with the active role.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power
  • Heroic Albino: Kandor
  • Heroic Sacrifice: I believe there has been several of these...
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The Sword of Exile. It doesn't just kill you, it erases your very existence, and everyone's memories of you disappear. Essentially, if it had retroactive erasure as well, it would literally wipe every trace of you out of existene, but thankfully, your deeds themselves are not erased.
  • Ho Yay: Cedric and Phobos. In the last issue of the 5th arc we get... Matt and Ludmoore.
  • Killed Off for Real: let's be clear, the WITCH are nice girls, but if you are the Big Bad and they have to unleash All Your Colors Combined, they don't care whether you will be depowered or killed. The Oracle never forbid them to kill. Expect a lot of Redemption Equals Death, too.
  • Kneel Before Frodo: it is almost a Running Gag: at the end of most sagas, the Oracle orders the assembly to kneel before the guardians. Which they shouldn't, given that it is the guardians duty to protect Kandrakar, but every time the Oracle underlines that they did way beyond their duty, and were smarter than the "wises".
  • Legacy Character: The Guardian Powers, and even the Oracle title
  • Lethal Chef: Will is on the same level of Akane Tendo, having once put powdered soap in place of the flour. Orube can't cook due lack of familiarity with Earth ingredients and cooking implements (the first time she cooked she set the kitchen on fire, but only that once) and clumsiness outside the way of the warrior, but while she's slowly getting better she still has a long way to go (she once set on fire the water for the pasta!).
  • Light Is Not Good: the girls sided with the White Queen, won... And wondered whether they chose the good side.
  • Magical Girl Warrior
  • Mind Rape: Near the end of the fourth saga, Phobos attempted to get Will to give up the Heart of Kandrakar by repeatedly showing her a vision of what he claimed her future would be like if she kept her powers, in which the other girls no longer speak to her and Matt breaks up with her. It almost works, but Will refuses to give up and manages to defeat Phobos. Afterwards, the Oracle reveals that the vision was actually created from Will's deepest fears, and that no one can actually tell what the future will be like.
  • Noodle Incident: We know there were guardians before W.i.t.c.h., including one with Hay Lin's grandmother. But we never find out what they fought against. (The portals open every 1000 years, and Phobos and Elyon are humans, so it's very unlikely they fought against them, or that they are 1000 of years old)
    • Matt being from Kandrakar
      • Parodied when Will asks how important he was, and just then Kandor call him "captain".
  • Older Than They Look: Himerish, Endarno, Yan Lin and everyone else in Kandrakar. Really Seven Hundred Years Old and Time Abyss can also be applied.
  • One Steve Limit: Will's baby brother is named William. During a visit from other members of the family, Will got frustrated when they started calling William "Will" while referring to her by her real name, Wilhelmina.
  • The Psycho Rangers: In Arc IX, the Runici, a group of five villainous boys with elemental powers show up.
  • Put on a Bus: Orube returns to her homeworld after the events of the fifth saga.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: We!
    • And Ew.
  • Remember the New Guy?: At least once a saga.
  • Screwed by the Network: The creators of the series got screwed out of it halfway through the first arc! Disney Italia dismissed them, and thus the rest of the story went in a different direction then what was intended. If one reads Issue 7, this change becomes obvious (Elyon suddenly pulls a Heel Face Turn and is revealed as "The Light of Meridian", she and Cornelia are suddenly said to be best friends, Caleb is introduced out of nowhere as Cornelia's literal dream man, Phobos comes out of the shadows sooner than one would expect, the general story changes it's focus to the Crown of Light, etc, etc.)

Alessandro Barbucci & Barbara Canepa: "We conceived of "W.I.T.C.H." together with Elisabetta Gnone, the then director of girls publications for Disney. We worked for three years in secret on it and she then presented the project to the big bosses at Disney. They thought that this project was crazy, a sure-fire bomb, complete waste of time, and that mangas wouldn't have a chance in Europe anyway (!!!). However, we didn't let ourselves be led astray and worked for another year on it anyway, with a tiny budget and without publicity. And then the series became a worldwide hit. The official version from Disney is, of course, that "W.I.T.C.H." is a product of their brilliant, visionary marketing strategy...the end of the series was then taken out of our hands, we actually had something a lot more intelligent planned for it. Now, as you can see, Elisabetta Gnone and the two of us no longer work for Disney...a really sad story."

  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Nerissa was sealed inside a coffin inside a mountain until the aurameres were merged together, breaking the spell that kept her locked away.
    • And now we have Nihila
  • Secret Keeper: Will tells Matt her secret in the fourth saga, and in the seventh saga Irma decides to tell her new boyfriend Stephen about her powers after he questions her about her strange behaviour.
  • Sexier Alter Ego - The titular WITCH are fairly average (albeit skinny) teenagers in their normal form. When transformed however, the are changed to look much more.. adult. Lampshaded on more than one occasion.
    • Breast Expansion is present is the comic book, but not as prevalent as in the series.
  • Shout-Out: Hay Lin has a little Sailor Moon on her monitor, along with a monster that kinda looks like Godzilla. Irma has alots of disney paraphernalia, including a Little Mermaid. In the Dark Mother Saga, they combine their powers to create a powerful being to defeat her
  • Sixth Ranger: This happens in the third saga of the comic when Taranee temporarily leaves and Orube takes her place. When Taranee comes back, Orube becomes a true Sixth Ranger.
  • Sixth Ranger Traitor: even before the WITCH are revealed to be the chosen ones, the Oracle shows a photograph with the five of them, plus Eylon. When his assistant objects they are six, he answers the sixth will betray them. Eylon performs an Heel Face Turn soon.
  • Taking the Bullet: Cedric for Orube in the fifth saga, and Liam for Mariko in the eight saga. There might've been other instances of this, but I can't remember any more right now.
  • The Paragon Always Rebels: Nerissa. Later Phobos will use Will's fear of becoming this against her.
  • Transformation Sequence
  • Transformation Trinket: The Heart Of Kandrakar, although when they got a power-upgrade in the seventh saga, it appears they can now transform without it.
    • Also, unlike other trinkets, there's no risk of losing it, as it's normally dormant inside Will's body, and only appears when needed.
    • The Heart Of Kandrakar is not needed for transformation, the Guardians have transformed before the power-upgrade without using it. Cornelia transformed at least while Will was elsewhere.
    • Irma also transformed once without it to draw some boy's attention (she hid her wings). More than a Transformation Trinket, it just make them more powerful in their Guardian forms. Also, they no longer use it to transform (Yan Lin has it now).
  • Truly Single Parent: Caleb is a Murmurer. The closest thing he has to a father is Phobos.
    • Though technically, his human form was literally created by Elyon, so you could say she is his mother.
  • Unperson: Happens to Cornelia in one comic after Endarno releases some sort of magical butterfly, only the other W.I.T.C.H. girls were able to remember her. The butterfly eventually transforms into a crystal-like clone of Cornelia and shows her visions of her past, and then Cornelia destroys it.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: It sounds like the magical powers of an old lady the girls meet in the "Teach 2b Witch" may fit this trope; she explains that she has the power to turn invisible, but can only do it when it's raining, and the wind has to be blowing from East, and there has to be a full moon, and she has to be wearing red.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: the Oracle tells the girls off for treating their Astral Drops as if they were the Guardians' slaves.
  • Where The Hell Is Heatherfield: Most people seems to agree it's somewhere in Europe... and that's as far as the guessing goes...There's one issue where there is the flag of the USA in either the Principal's office or somewhere within the girls' school, but in another issue they use euros.
    • The confusion continues. In yet another issue, they use dollars.
      • There is almost certain confirmation that the girls are actually supposed English. They believe in the Father Christmas version of "Santa", not the typical american view. They have to fly to get to Rome. The Magical Bus journey more or less pinpointed Britain as the only reasonable choice due to the timeframes it took for it to reach Italy and then America. Some inconsistencies exist, but really, Britain, or possibly Ireland is the only logical possibility.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Liam from the eight saga.
  • Wings Do Nothing: At first, the guardians wings are pretty much useless and Hay Lin is the only one who can actually fly. At one point in the third saga, Orube asks why they even have them if they can't actually use them. However, in the seventh saga, the girls get a power upgrade which include bigger wings that allow them to fly (but Cornelia is afraid to).
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