Bewitched, what are the "witches/warlocks"?

Cafe Society
1

Bewitched was my sister’s favorite show so I had to watch an awful lot of it.

Do they ever explain exactly what the witches and warlocks are? Its a strangely inaccurate and loaded term to use for entities which are essentially the Q from Star Trek. They are more like omnipotent gods with endless power to do anything, warp reality, travel instantly anywhere in(and probably out of!) the universe, instantly travel anywhere in time, there is no limit to their power.

Yet they can procreate with humans, and apparently their power is hereditary. OR perhaps Samantha simply willed her pregnancies and children into existence, she certainly would be able to do that.

This show is begging for a reboot that would be a mix of comedy and drama with a more serious tone, the marriage of Samantha and Darrin is like a goldmine of interesting questions and drama. :smiley:

2

How is it inaccurate? It’s not like witches exist in real life, so who’s to say what the extent of their magic is?

3

The historical and pop culture witch or warlock were very different than what is presented on the show where there are no limits really, they seem more like Q than anything else.

4

If I remember correctly, there was one major limit on the witches’/warlocks’ powers: One witch/warlock could not undo another’s spell. (Or maybe I am confusing Bewitched with some other series.) This led to many episodes where one witch would do something unpleasant and Samantha would have to spend the rest of the episode convincing or tricking her into undoing it.

I also have some vague memory of an episode where the witches’ governing body got together and took away Samantha’s powers.

5

Witches/warlocks could undo spells of other witches/warlocks if they were at least equally as powerful.

There was one scene where Endora and Arthur (Paul Lynde) were having an argument, and Endora kept casting a spell (I forget the specifics) and Arthur kept undoing it.

Samantha couldn’t seem to undo others spells because she was relatively weak.

6

Samantha was also pretty much the youngest witch we ever see in the show, at least until Tabitha is born. Serena was probably about Sam’s age, but obviously practiced magic more. They were only about 3 or 4 hundred years old. Sam is weak both due to her youth and not doing magic all that much compared to every witch and warlock we see.

Something that does seem to separate Bewitched magiicfolk from traditional witches is their immortality. I don’t think many other depictions of witches and warlocks referred to run-of-the-mill humans as ‘mortals.’ It does make them seem like minor gods.

7

I watched plenty of Bewitched growing up, and I’m trying to remember if they ever addressed the whole issue of what Sam would do when Derwood was old and dying. Did they?

8

She’d probably replace him with a new Derwood and nobody would notice.

9

I vaguely recall a episode where Sam ages herself and tells Darren that she will grow old with him. Though if you think about it, she should have been able to cast a spell to let Darren live, if not forever, at least a lot longer than normal.

I liked the show as a kid, but when I got a little older, I realized that Darren was a jerk and that Sam must of had some issues to marry a controlling jerk like him. Then again given her immortality, she probably saw Darren as a change of pace. Which may explain why she hasn’t done the above.:smiley:

Also the nosy neighbor and Darren’s demanding boss really put me off the American Dream.:stuck_out_tongue:

BTW: There was a very short lived show based on an adult Tabitha.

10

I can see the studio bigwigs now! A Charmed/Mad Men mix–just the thing!

–not that I care for Charmed, although TNT has been trying to get me hooked. For a period look, we could use the somewhat different Witches & Warlocks seen in Bell, Book & Candle. Actually, that might be interesting… Just how much do we know about the mysterious lady Don proposed to in the last episode? She sure got him to pop the question awfully quickly.

11

I just figure the show was a product of its time. The producers were looking for a way to address women’s lib (taking more responsibility, seeking a greater voice in things), but couldn’t totally abandon the suburban family vein that they’d been mining for years. What we wound up with was a woman who could do damn near anything, and chose to throw dinner parties for advertising agency clients in Connecticut.

I don’t know if it could be updated; certainly it would have to be drastically changed. Characters in TV shows have to have something to do. As powerful as the witches were in the Samanthaverse, she could solve any problem with a nose twitch and every episode would be 30 seconds long. There has to be some limit in order for there to be some challenge; either internal (choosing to forgo the powers, a la the original) or redefining the premise so they aren’t as godlike.

12

Win.

13

I recall Sam explaining that she couldn’t outright create things, just move them around.

14

Sure it could, but you’d need to soften Darrin and make him more likeable. I always hated him, he married a demigod that could transport them any place in time and space and instead he screams at her if she uses her powers and forces her to live as a housewife. As seen on the original show it had to be one of the nastiest looking marriages ever seen in fiction, Darrin hates what she IS.

I’d have a Darrin with a deep fear of his impotence to protect his wife from the various people and things from her world, that has to feel horrible to know that say some crazy warlock comes looking to hurt Samantha and you won’t be able to do one thing to protect her. In addition to the fact she is immortal and will out live him, hell what must she have experienced before meeting him? Can you imagine big screaming marital fights where one partner can literally warp reality :dubious:

For Samantha it would be interesting to explore what exactly would lead her to want to live as a housewife and forgo her powers, this would be way more extreme than a modern New Yorker marrying a woman still living in a native tribe and moving to the Amazon. Plus all the shit and bigotry Samantha catches from her family.

Then there is the kids, Samantha tries to hide Tabitha’s powers from Darrin but come on. I remember an episode where Samantha tells the daughter not to tell daddy about using magic, thats going to cause a lot of problems. Endora was absolutely right though that Darrin was wrong to forbid teaching their daughter how to use her powers, there were even several episodes where Tabitha subconciously manifested stuff that Samantha had to deal with and one has to think it will only get worse until she gets training.
I do think you’d have to give the witches and warlocks some weakness, even Lois Lane could help Clark due to the kryptonite issue.

15

I think I remember an episode when they went back to the Salem witch trials. Weren’t real witches being tried? I guess immortality and omnipotence must be a recent development for them. I remember thinking even as a little kid that was lame. How do you burn a witch at the stake who can do practically anything?

16

I think to comparison to the Olympian gods is apt. And of course, the gods dallied with mortals all the time. It’s no stretch to imagine Aphrodite noticing a beautiful shepard boy and going to live with him in his hut for 60 years until he grew old and died.

So in a reboot, we can imagine a sexy young man with a brand new impossibly beautiful wife. He knows she’s not like other people and can do magic and so on, so he calls her and her kind witches, and she figures that’s close enough. He’s kind of dense, despite his hotness, and doesn’t have much ambition beyond living a normal life, and she’s so smitten with him that she agrees. After all, it’s only 70 years maximum that she’s committing to.

17

In retrospect, “The Fair Folk” is probably a better description.

18

That was actually Jeannie who explained it like that. When she gave a Major Nelson power for a day, he got crazy with it. And she told him that he couldn’t create anything really. She told him, if you water the desert, you will take the rain from somewhere and dry that up. And so forth.

19

Well witches are female and warlocks are male, although the term witches applies to the group as a whole.

The rules change somewhat depending on plot needs, but generally it appears the older you get, the more power you have. Then as you get older and older, the power fades and you lose it all. You then become Earthbound.

I don’t recall anything saying Samantha was immortal, just Endorra saying that, with witches the aging processes takes centuries. That said, no one says they die either. But it would seem they do die, it just takes centuries.

Uncle Arthur, Endorra and Maurice are all of equal power. Arthur and Endorra being siblings. Endorra will declare to Maurice, “You may frighten Samantha, but you certainly don’t frighten me.”

Samantha explains when she takes on another witch her own age. “I’d say zap for zap we’re evenly matched, sort of reduces us to the human level. How’d you like a punch in the nose.”

Samantha is often shown to defeat her more powerful witch opponents by using her head. Mercedes Cambridge, played a witch even Endorra wouldn’t tangle with, and Samantha uses her head not her power, which she knows she can’t beat her, and winds up winning.

Endorra does this to, as her and Maurice are evenly matched so she either says she will move back in with him or simply states, “If you don’t do XXX, I’ll make your life miserable and you KNOW I can”

Aunt Clara proves to be stronger than any of them. When Endorra and her hag friends try to force Clara to be Earthbound, Samantha is her defense counsel. Samantha says she can do it only if Darrin isn’t home. When Darrin comes home early, in the middle of the trial, Clara banishes Endorra and the other hags into thin air. Thus they can’t make her Earthbound.

While Samantha thinks it was luck, Clara declares it’s love and she still has it if something is important enough to her.

The writers were clever to use the device that one witch can’t undo another’s spells. Though it appears to be, that one witch CAN undo another’s curse IF they know the exact spell. Since each witch would use a different spell they, in effect, control the situation.

Many times Samantha can undo a spell if she finds out how the spell was cast.

When Samantha puts a spell on another witch, Darrin asks how she can do that, Samantha replies, “It’s tricky but I caught him off guard.”

This seems to be the reason why Endorra can catch Uncle Arthur. Yet it fails to explain if Endorra can limit Arthur and Serina’s power and even Samantha’s power, why can’t Samantha do the same to Tabitha to prevent her witchcraft. Which is a plot hole that creeps in every now and then.

Other supernatural creatures appear like ghosts, crones, elves and such and it seems the witches always outrank them with power.

If you watch the show from season 1 you can see the first two seasons are much different. Darrin doesn’t know Samantha is a witch when he marries her. This is a good move on the writers part.

They also establish that witches have limited powers. This is lost after the color episodes start. Samantha declares to Darrin, she can’t force anyone love anyone else, as witches simply don’t have that power. They also have a couple episodes where a mortal and their charms can stop a witch cold.

The first season especially explains that Samantha can have anything but what she wants is Darrin. What Darrin wants is a simple, suburban stay at home wife.

So Darrin doesn’t hate what she IS, he didn’t know what he was getting into. Samantha WANTS to be what Darrin wants. And the show is about the struggle they both have.

In one of the episodes where Darrin and Endorra are fighting she says, she tries to stay on neutral ground but sometimes you can try so hard to be everything to everyone that you wind up being nothing to no one.

And finally the show is about love. Darrin loves Samantha despite what she is. He just needs time to adjust. Samantha also show Darrin that despite the fact she can have anything it only Darrin that she wants.

When Samantha zaps up a fur coat out of thin air, Darrin’s hurt as he feels he can’t provide for her. And then he realizes he can’t give her anything she cant zap up for herself. Samantha responds by giving away the coat. The lady says “You can’t give away something so valuable.” Samantha says, “It’s easy when you have something that’s worth a lot more than that.” Of course meaning Darrin

20

There’s an established folklore about witches, some of it contradictory, but there’s quite a body of legends and such.

Plus the series should be self-consistent. That is, if witches can and do shapeshift in one episode to solve a problem, then they should be able to shapeshift in episodes which are set later on in the series. Unless, of course, they learn that shapeshifting causes undesired side effects.

In fact, self-consistency is a big problem in most fantasy stories, and in science fiction stories too. Once the writer has defined the limits of what a witch/alien can do, then that witch/alien had better abide by the limits, or figure out a way around them.