Basic Tropes: Witches are closely associated with cats.
- Straight: Alice is a witch and keeps a black cat as her familiar.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice, Betty etc. down to Zelda are witches who have cats.
- You can’t be a witch without a cat, and/or vice versa.
- Alice is a very powerful witch who owns a whole clowder of cats.
- Alice has the ability to turn into a cat.
- Alice is a Cat Girl who knows a lot of magic.
- Downplayed:
- Alice used to own a cat, but it has died. She has to finish mourning this cat before she can consider a new one.
- Alice doesn't own a cat but she clearly likes/spends a lot of time with cats.
- Alice has a catlike Cartoon Creature.
- Alice is only a witch-in-training and really wants a kitten from the cat belonging to her witchcraft teacher for when she graduates.
- Justified:
- Cats Are Magic.
- Cats are treated as a nuisance and witches are outcasts, so they get together easily.
- Alice is a Kindhearted Cat Lover.
- All witches are female cats who found a way to transform into humans, but because this transformation consumes a lot of their power, they stay in binomes and switch roles constantly.
- Inverted: A talent in witchcraft automatically includes allergy to cats.
- Subverted:
- Alice keeps a black cat which is very close to her and at times it seems like she's doing magic, but it turns out that she can’t do magic.
- Alice is looking for a familiar and looks at a cat for a few moments, before picking a puppy instead.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice is a cat turned into a human, and the cat is the real witch Betty in disguise.
- Either she changes her mind, she decides to adopt the cat and have two familiars, or another witch called Betty takes the cat.
- Parodied: If you buy a cat, you get a flying broom and a Witchcraft for Beginners manual free of charge.
- Zigzagged:
- Alice is seen with a cat and appears to be doing magic, but then it turns out she can't do magic, but that's just because she's lost her powers. Then the cat appears to die, but it is resurrected or didn't really die, then a witch appears named Betty who doesn't have a cat, but that's only because her cat got stolen...
- Some witches have cats, some don't.
- Averted: There are no witches, no cats, or witches and cats are not associated.
- Enforced: "The director says 'Qualifications for being a witch requires having a cat familiar' so get a cat in there."
- Lampshaded:
- "She can't be a witch, Bob-no cat!"
- "Why do all the witches have cats?"
- Invoked: Alice's witchcraft mentor Charlie gives her a cat.
- Exploited:
- Alice's cat can help her with her magic.
- While not everyone with a cat is a witch, since all witches have cats, people can rule out cat-less people as witches.
- Wanting to frame Alice as a witch, Diane plants a cat in her room as proof to an angry mob.
- Defied:
- Alice the witch, for whatever reason, refuses to own a cat.
- The story follows Middle Eastern or Islamic tropes and norms where cats are almost holy and revered, and therefore wicked witches want nothing to do with cats.
- Discussed: "If I'm going to become a witch, should I get a cat?"
- Conversed: "So when did the whole 'witches-have-cats' thing start?"
- Implied:
- Alice owns a cat and sometimes appears to be doing magic.
- Alice is a witch and in scenes that take place at her house, meowing can be heard in the background.
- Deconstructed:
- Cats get a bad rap for being associated with witches and start getting mistreated by non-magic folk.
- Cats are given to rookie witches who have no idea how to look after them.
- If witches are trying to stay hidden, their insistence on owning cats keeps ratting them out.
- Reconstructed:
- Not all witches are bad, and the general public is made aware of this after Alice saves a lot of lives.
- Witches have to earn their cats by knowing many things, including how to properly care for a cat.
- If witches are trying to stay hidden, playing up the appeal of the Kind Hearted Cat Lover deflects suspension (or at least hostility).
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice's cat isn't black and the other witches tease her about it.
- Alice's cat likes to curl up on her spellbooks when she's trying to use them, knock potion bottles off the table, and generally get underfoot at comedically-appropriate moments.
- Played for Drama:
- The plot revolves around the cat being in danger.
- Diane, a non-magical woman, is falsely accused of being a witch and people want to execute her because she owns a cat.
Back to All Witches Have Cats.
