Aunt Maria

When you look at a villain of a story majority of those villains are brooding males. The idea of a male alcoholic or murderer is automatically accepted as an interesting, in-depth character. The same cannot be said for female villains. The stereotype for women is that they’re either innocent naïve women or a cruel man-hating lunatic. Depending on the writer you can have well-written female villains, such as Harry Potter’s Professor Umbridge for example. Umbridge’s character is written to progress the story and give our protagonist challenges to overcome. Aunt Maria is another example of a well-written female villain. The author doesn’t rely on magic as an explanation of Maria and her clan’s power over the town. Aunt Maria kept the concept of magic vague and instead emphasized on the witches power and control rather than explaining the spells and how they cast them.

While Aunt Maria does fall into the elder stereotype, where the elder generation is portrayed as cruel, manipulative villains, Aunt Maria handled her elder character quite well. Each of Maria’s clan members had their own ambitions, views and personalities. Another stereotype of female villains that Aunt Maria was able to avoid was the stereotypical sexist views on the gender war. Usually when a female villain talks about men it’s usually how they hate men and how they were hurt by a man they loved and that all men are the same. With Aunt Maria there isn’t that. Maria and others just believe men are below them. The acknowledgement of an unlikable female character without the typical stereotypical views is important in breaking the stereotype of women either being naïve or crazy. With the common stereotype of women gone, it would allow readers to see that female villains are complex humans and that their reasoning’s aren’t always clear.