How does the Grand High Witch get away with destroying first the podium, then the entire stage during the meeting? I'll let the noise this creates slide; she can probably charm the whole room to be inaudible from the outside. But the aforementioned objects get shattered to smithereens. Logically one might think that she could either make them reconstitute themselves after the meeting, or else make them disappear and generate new ones. But we see Grandma go there in the evening to send the Boy on his way to the kitchen and the objects do not appear to have been repaired or replaced. What if Mr Stringer or any of his staff wandered into the room after the meeting and thought "what on earth happened to our valuable events venue, and I had better speak to those wantonly destructive ladies and give them what for!".
Most likely she simply pays so well that replacing destroyed items still leaves the owners with a huge profit, so they let it slide. Alternatively, maybe she just kills complainers.
But the witches are meant to be known for their sense of discretion. If they kill a staff member, then they'll have to deal with another, then another, or even worse, contend with police and journalistic attention. No matter what their power advantage, they seem to fear being exposed and complications which would arise from that, as the answer to the next headscratcher explains. So random and egregious destruction of equipment and property seems incongruous with that goal. She's also shown some potential red flags to Stringer: explicitly congratulating that he would exterminate mice (even if he doesn't know they're children), and aggressively refusing the luxury option for dinner (which kinda goes beyond regular snooty, rude guest behaviour, given her overall demeanour). Whether Stringer witnesses that refusal before or after his staff discover the mess, either way, the mess is going to be a cause for concern. I guess the GHW is simply suffering some Sanity Slippage what with all of the children she's seen at the resort.
I should clarify after having watched the scene again after asking the question: when Grandma takes the Boy to the vent, we see that the room has been entirely cleared from the debris. So that means either a) the witches made the mess disappear magically or b) Stringer and his staff cleared it out, but either way there's still the same headscratcher lingering there.
The most likely answer is simply paying for the damages and using a different hotel (and possibly a new alias) next year. It might become a funny story about the charity that did more damage than the Shriners, but that's as far as it goes.
Since the witches have magic, why don't they use it to outright destroy all the world's children instead of hiding? The witches clearly have the power advantage over regular humans, even the adults, so what's stopping them?
This is a holdover from the book. All the witches are powerful but focus on Pragmatic Villainy, with GHW being the exception. They don't want to be "caught" because of possible Villain Forgot to Level Grind. If parents find out en masse that their kids are being targeted, you'd have an army of Mama Bear and Papa Wolf and human governments interested in finding ways to stop the witches. With one child a week, however, a government organization has no proof, just individuals' suspicions. GHW's plan is also shortsighted because kids are being born every day and not every child likes chocolate. Plus, people aren't stupid; they could take the cursed candy bars and analyze them. The witches don't question GHW because one wrong move and she'll fry you to ash.
It bears mentioning that in the original novel and 1990 film, it was suggested that unlike real world poisons Formula 86 would be chemically undetectable inside the candies, which would help protect the witches from a police investigation into their sweet shops. One would assume that this also applies to other potions they make.
The novel has it where one of the witches points out that they, quote, "can't possibly wipe out all the children". Of course, that one got vaporized, it was an Ambiguous Syntax, and that was specifically in England but we can guess they tried or had that plan at one point and it didn't work for some reason, after all, there's always going to be kids around for the Witches to hate (so it'd be impossible anyhow) and magic (or using it overtly) probably attracts too much attention, though, in the book, we only see the GHW use magic, none of her underlings do besides potions, so maybe their magic isn't as powerful as hers (just powerful enough to cover their tracks).
Well, we don't directly see it, but if we trust Grandmamma (and she assures us she speaks the Gospel truth) then we know the ordinary witches are capable of several dark magic acts. These include transfiguration into animals, stone statues or hotdogs, locking them into paintings, and some presumably unconventional means of removing a thumb, among several other vague allusions to scary sorcery.
Good point, though, we could also take those instances to mean they did do magic more overtly, however, a common witch isn't as powerful as the Grand High Witch (there has to be a reason she is the Grand High, after all, besides vaporizing her underlings once a year). In terms of them getting rid of ALL the kids (in the world), we could take it that they tried it at different points in history and it didn't work, so they took a more systematic approach.
It's definitely possible to infer she's the leader because of her magic powers (we don't see any other witch with disintegration powers) but it's likely also because she's so ancient, has many more children's heads to her name than any other and has been groomed by prior Grand High Witches into the role, granting her resources such as the infinite money machine and the planning capability afforded by her headquarters. Perhaps the seniority also grants her the ability to learn more powerful, deadly spells and dark magic, rather than the magic granting her seniority.
Returning to the question, however, all of the witches' magic seems to be single-target, limiting the amount of damage that a single witch can actually do. This, in effect, is why the mouse-maker potion is created: To "mass-produce" a curse, rather than having to hand them out one at a time.
When the Boy figures maybe he should stop taking baths if that will make him unable to be smelled out by witches, Grandma has a sassy retort: "Child, don't test me!". Right... but I mean, if it helps protect him, then what's her issue? Grandmamma in the original novel said that a bathing frequency of once a week should be sufficient to keep him both clean (not really, but given the alternative...) and safe.
Deliberate Values Dissonance because movie Grandmamma is a little sterner in the deep south than Norwegian Grandmamma is. Grandmamma still believes the boy is safe in the hotel. Her plan was to have a nice vacation and wait for the witch with the snake to leave. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out.
Right, but in the novel she recognised that the encounter meant that there is a resident witch in their district (I always took the witches shown in the novel and the 1990 movie to be operating in the whole UK, not just in England, even if a 100-odd witches would therefore have to each be covering rather large geographical areas per "district", but whatever). Does she actually say in this movie that she thinks the witch will get bored and leave the district for good after some vacation time? It seems more plausible that a witch will stay in one district and patrol it from town to town to city etc rather than randomly roaming the whole country or whatever, just like in earlier versions of the story. Also, given the ending shows the protagonists travelling to other regions of the USA, it seems pretty clear that the witches present in the meeting represent and operate districts within the Deep South, rather than the whole country. But if as I suspect the witch remains resident in her one district, then merely vacationing away from that district isn't really enough to throw her off the Boy's scent (unless she was in attendance at the meeting).
If I remember the novel correctly, Grandmama said the witches only met once a year, so an explanation in this film would be that Grandmamma didn't know that yearly meeting coincided with their hotel stay.
How many witches are at the meeting? You can count rows and columns in the seats making up about 40, then add 2 for the GHW and the one who locks the door, ending up with 42. But the credits cite nearly twice that number for the actresses portraying them.
According to the book, it was about 84 that got turned into mice, so, in this case, we can guess, it was 84 and we just saw 42.
But then, why didn't the film makers double the number of seats?
They probably did. More seats means a wider shot, however, making the witches look smaller in proportion. Trade-offs were made.
What's up with the Grand High Witch requesting the cheapest menu option (split pea soup)? It's played as if she's genuinely strapped for cash and worrying about spending too much money yet in the shot prior, we see she easily has over several millions of dollars in a suitcase. I'd understand if the other option was something that was fatal to witches (garlic?) and she was avoiding it but her concern is over which is the cheapest.
She probably wants Stringer to believe that it's a question of being economical rather than a health risk to the (unbeknownst to him) witches.
GHW is also a repeated Jerkass to Mr. Stringer, and laments how humans need you to pay everything with money. She's petty as fuck.
How is it that the kids can still talk when transformed into mice? Alice couldn’t when she transformed into a chicken, and this would seem to be important if you don’t want anyone to believe that this is a transformed child.
It's all down to magic, but it may be that just the closer mammalian link of mice to humans than chickens to humans is what allows it; their ability to vocalise is closer. This is supported by the fact that the frog-children in the original could not speak, either. It was noted as a major backfire on behalf of the GHW, who had not accounted for the fact that this form of transfiguration left a child a) still able to vocalise b) still able to think (and therefore plot) with human intelligence c) highly agile and mobile. And ultimately this was the witches' undoing. Also, indeed as you say, if it had came down to masses of children transfiguring in the classroom, the fact that they could talk may be sufficient to keep many of their teachers (assuming they had a good degree of self control) from swatting them with brooms.
Even if they weren't able to talk people wouldn't swat them anyway. If children turn into mice in class the teacher isn't going to think "Ew mice, shoo." they will think "HOLY FUCK! my students are turning into mice! Someone call the police!"
The witches may have been counting on the teachers being coincidentally distracted from seeing the transformation, e.g. writing something on the blackboard, or the transformation happening during recess when the kids are largely unsupervised; and moreover the squeamish instincts of certain teachers to overwhelm all logic and self-restraint. What they weren't counting on, though, was as mentioned the fact that the mice can talk being a clear indicator that they are transformed children, or perhaps the mice escaping from the school grounds due to being outside and free during recess. Witches are very shortsighted in this universe.
When the witches are being transformed in the Dining Room, there is one witch who doesn't seem that bothered, collects a plate of soup from the position next to them and in the last shot of the scene is... continuing to eat it?
Will have to rewatch the scene to analyse it. But, maybe she was a) just depressed and suicidal or b) being pragmatic, thinking she might have more power (or freedom) as a mouse-witch than a humanoid-witch (recognising that the mouse-children had this too) and wanted to see if she could get away from the exterminators in time?
On the entry for But for Me, It Was Tuesday, it's said that the only reason the GHW doesn't punish Grandma in the dining room when she recognises her as "an old adversary" is because her underlings start turning into mice. But wait. What would she have been able to do against Grandma in full view of numerous, human guests and staff who would be witnesses? If her transfiguration is only based on potions as a delivery mechanism, then it's not like she could have force-fed Grandma whatever she happens to be carrying on her at the time. And it's not shown that she can do a delayed-effect hex which could affect her after she leaves the dining room.
I wrote that entry. The scary thing is we don't know what GHW was planning. She could have just been taunting Grandmamma about Alice Blue and the strange cough. Or, she wanted to finish the job after Grandmamma ran as a child and didn't care about the lack of discretion. Thank goodness the potion kicked in before we found out.
