Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Solitary Sorceress

Go To

Basic Trope: A practitioner of magic lives in a remote area, usually alone.

  • Straight: Hecate lives in a small house in the woods with her cat, where she works on her potions and spells.
  • Exaggerated: Hecate lives on "Far Side" Island by herself, with no phone, no Internet, etc.
  • Downplayed:
    • Hecate lives on a dead-end street.
    • Hecate lives in a rural part of Hawaii or the Deep South.
    • Hecate lives alone but will make occasional appearances in town to buy supplies and sell potions.
  • Justified:
    • Hecate is antisocial or doesn't have time to socialize.
    • Hecate may not be antisocial by nature, but she's autistic or has a similar diagnosis and just finds it easier to keep to herself.
    • Hecate is a Wicked Witch, and Loners Are Freaks, after all. She may also be Weakened by the Light.
    • Hecate doesn't believe in modern technology, and really has no need for it anyway.
    • Preparing potions requires a lot of space, and it's probably best (from a chemical-safety standpoint; no matter whether those chemicals are sulfuric acid or Eye of Newt) if there aren't a lot of people around anyway.
    • Hecate needs to keep her craft a secret or risk persecution.
    • Hecate is a Widow Witch, and she is still grieving the loss of her husband.
    • Hecate is a Barrier Maiden or something along those lines, guarding over a magical MacGuffin.
    • Hecate lives in an environment that's not very hospitable, such as a desert or the high mountains.
    • Many of the ingredients for Hecate's potions are only found in the woods, so it's easier for Hecate to do her work by living close to it.
  • Inverted: Hecate lives with her family (and of course her Right-Hand Cat) in the city.
  • Gender Inverted: Hector is a Solitary Sorcerer.
  • Subverted:
    • Hecate lives in an apartment building.
    • Hecate lives with a spouse or significant other, a family, and/or roommates.
    • Hecate is not a witch as most people would think of it, but rather a Wiccan.
    • Hecate owns a little magic shop in town and interacts with many people every day, giving them potions and spells for all sorts of problems.
    • Hecate has children.
    • Hecate isn't a witch, just a manufacturer of certain illegal drugs.
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied: Hecate lives in Antarctica with penguins.
  • Zig-Zagged: Sometimes Hecate is shown living with people, other times, alone.
  • Averted:
    • Hecate lives among other people, whether fellow magicians or Muggles, or both.
    • There are no mages of any kind In-Universe.
    • Hecate isn't a witch, or is only one in the religious sense.
  • Lampshaded: "Over the river and through the woods, to Hecate's house we go!"
  • Invoked: Hecate decides she wants to live by herself so she can study and work in peace.
  • Exploited:
  • Defied: Hecate uses her magic to help people, and as such, decides it would make more sense to live where people are.
  • Discussed: "I'm a witch, so where would I operate but at a remove from the many who disapprove of me and assume I'll harm them?"
  • Conversed: "Why do almost all witches live in some faraway place anyway? Do they have something to hide?" "Well yes, their magic obviously. The Church is not fond of them."
  • Deconstructed:
    • The solitude makes Hecate eventually Go Mad from the Isolation, turning her from a cute or Hot Witch into a crazy Wicked Witch.
    • Townspeople get suspicious of Hecate living all by herself, and, whether they know she is a witch or not, start bothering her because "Why would anyone want to live alone like that?"
  • Reconstructed:
    • Hecate tells the townspeople who came to bother her that she prefers the quiet of nature, as she is fond of reading alone, and the townspeople see the point, so they leave her alone.
    • Hecate still lives alone for the most part, but starts visiting people occasionally, and may even make a friend or two.
  • Implied: Hecate gives some vague clues that she at least used to live alone, or maybe still does, even if now she might go outside occasionally.
  • Played for Laughs: On the few occasions that someone visits her, Hecate displays a hilarious social ineptitude due to being unused to having other people around her.
  • Played for Drama: Hecate would like nothing more than for somebody to visit her, or to visit somebody, but neither of those can happen for whatever reason. She's despondent about it.

Back to Solitary Sorceress

Top