Witches

Aunt Maria  or Black Maria was a witch story I definitely didn't expect going in. The stereotype of witches is a lot different from that of other classic horror characters in that the stereotype can go one of two ways, cute or ugly. There is almost a spectrum between the two that we can place a witch on, and in this case, I would say Aunt Maria herself falls somewhere in the middle. She seems, for all intensive purposes, to be a typical, if not adorable, old lady in the beginning of the novel. Her pushy personality aside, she seems pretty standard. It is only as the novel progresses that we realize how truly horrific she is. This makes the novel much more of a psychological horror than anything else.

We all know the stereotypical witch, but this type of character is easily shifted around,  and I believe that Diana Wynne Jones did a nice job creating a compellingly creepy witch that fit the tropes in a way I didn't expect as a reader.