I felt that my project was lacking some first hand input; some information that i actively searched for, instead of just stuff from online. I found it hard to come up with ways in which i could get primary research for such a fictional plot and setting, but i eventually came up with something; i’d interview some real witches so that i could understand my characters better.
There is a religion called Wicca, and it’s followers refer to themselves as witches. In some ways, they’re similar to the witches in fiction; they cast spells and make potions, but there are also some elements of being a witch that were new to me, and i found out information that helped me to flesh out Arnika as a character.
I interviewed 2 witches through my Instagram DMs, and i’ll document the interviews here. (i messed up the numberings, so they aren’t accurate)
There are a few things that came to mind for me after this first interview. Firstly, how the portrayal of witches in the media kind of affects these people in real life; depicting Arnika as purely evil adds to the stereotype of witches being malicious and evil beings. This witch also wasn’t able to openly speak about his craft due to religious stigma, which is reinforced by stereo typically evil portrayals. I want to make Arnika a little more complex than just someone who is evil for the sake of being evil, and i’ll work on that.
I also learned about the 13 goals of a witch, which are;
- to know yourself
- to know your craft
- to learn and grow
- to apply knowledge and wisdom
- to achieve balance
- to keep words in good order
- to keep thoughts in good order
- to celebrate life
- to attune with the cycles of the earth
- to breathe and eat correctly
- to exercise the body
- to meditate
- to honor the goddess and god (in wiccan faith there’s a moon goddess and a horned god)
I won’t be taking this project into production, but as the ultimate goal is for Arnika to grow and improve as both a person and a witch, i think these 13 fundamentals would be good things for her to learn on her journey looking for the crystal of undoing (that’s what i’m calling it).
I also learned a lot from my second magical interview;
it got cut off but my last question was, ‘what would you do if a spell went wrong? how would you fix it?’
From this interview, i learned that there aren’t really ‘good’ or ‘bad’ witches; every witch has their own unique relationship with their craft, and they cast spells as they see fit, not necessarily to contribute to the balance of good or bad in the word.
After doing these interviews, i decided to kind of re write Arnika’s personality. here it is;
Arnika Grimoire is a young girl who looks up to a lot of great and powerful witches in history. She aims to be like them, but she tends to jump the gun; desperate to present herself as great and all powerful, she often rushes her spells and gets too ahead of herself, resulting in disaster. Arnika’s somewhat desperate, headstrong and unique personality has caused her to be somewhat of an outcast amongst other kids her age, but she doens’t seem to notice; she lives in her own bubble, constantly trying out new spells and ideas, with her magical hat mitsuba (the result of a spell gone wrong) as her company.
One day, Arnika intends to create a cloud that will rain chocolate, causing people to praise and admire her for doing something so spectacular and pleasant. She doesn’t put enough planning into her craft however, and ends up summoning a dangerous storm that turns her world upside down; the civilians, who are all usually almost uncharacteristically nice and happy, have their personalities flipped completely flipped upside down (the ‘topsy turvy’ element), becoming mean and horrible when exposed to the evil and ongoing storm, which sends the world into chaos. Arnika finds out that the only way to undo her spell is to locate the crystal of undoing, a magical and legendary crystal located on a far away mountain, and use it to restore peace to her world and get rid of the storm cloud she summoned.
Along the way, Arnika learns more about her connection to magic and her view of herself; she learns that everyone she looks up to has been able to become great not because they set out to please others, but because they worked on doing meaningful things and improving themselves. Arnika learns to go at her own pace, to perfect her skills and to not try so hard to make people impressed with her all the time.
I replaced the evil elements of Arnika’s personality with overflowing ambition; she’s so desperate to be seen as a powerful witch that she comes across as delusional and a bit unapproachable. She’s still loud, reckless and over the top, but not just for the sake of it; she wants to be valued as a witch, and she thinks at first that the only way she’ll achieve that is through pulling massive stunts like chocolate rain. In the end, she just wants people to take her seriously and to look at her favorably, desperate to prove that she’s not just a clumsy and out casted witch.