Witches
“Akata Witch” by Nnendi Okorafor, is a young adult novel set in Nigeria, that follows the story of a young girl named Sunny. One day, Sunny discovers that she belongs to a group of people known as “Leopard People”, people with supernatural abilities and powers. Through the course of the novel, she works to discover her true heritage and powers, while fighting against an evil that threatens the fate of the world.
As the novel progresses, the reader is able to see different archetypes of the “Witch” character and how they affect the life of the main character. Immediately, we see that Sunny is othered by her community for being a black albino woman. Her classmates sneer, belittle, and bully her for no other reason than the fact that she is different. Before even learning of her magical abilities, it is already widely rumored that because of the way she was born she must possess a type of great power, a fact backed up by the fact that when her friend ChiChi first begins to sprinkle into the conversation that she feels Sunny may be “different” and possess power, Sunny shrugs the remarks off as ChiChi falling victim to rumors. While not a direct 1:1 correlation, one could liken this mob of bullies that relentlessly seek out Sunny to that of a witch hunt, hunting down those they feel are different and harmful society with no basis to their claim other than their own fears and superstitions about what it means to be a “witch”.
On the subject of Chichi, she struck me as someone who takes power from manipulating people’s preconceived ideas about her. She knows what people think of her, and sometimes purposefully plays into these notions to strike nerves within people. In this way, she gets a sense of agency that speaks to the core of what the archetype of “Witches” truly means. Women in fantasy are very seldom granted positions of power, often having to be relegated to the role of “wicked witch” to get any meaningful interactions with the plot and the story around them. In the same way that aspects of modern society are starting to reclaim the term “witch” and re-contextualize it to put the characters in a positive position of power, Chichi turns people’s thoughts of her into a source of pride, rarely accepting negative input from those around her.
I can see how ChiChi fits the "wicked witch" type of role due to her personality, though I'm not sure if she fits the Witch archetype. Witches are commonly seen as evil beings and may fall more as a subcategory of a Villain archetype, which doesn't fit ChiChi's character. She is definitely antagonistic, but she is not evil or villainous, like how most Witches are depicted. As for Sunny, I don't believe she fits the Witch archetype at all, though I do see your point about people placing her in that role due to her physical differences. Sunny seems to fit various different archetypes, in my personal opinion, but the Witch archetype is not one of them. She vaguely fits the Hero archetype, as she is put into that hero role through circumstantial events that could place her and her friends in harms way. All in all, I find your response very informative and fascinating; very well written and thought out.
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