| “ | Leave me alone or I'll make you sorry! I'll make all of you sorry! | „ |
| ~ Aggie Prenderghast to her persecutors. |
| “ | I don't want to go to sleep. And you can't make me. | „ |
| ~ Aggie to Norman when he tried to calm her. |
Agatha "Aggie" Prenderghast is the true main antagonist in ParaNorman. She was not really evil or cruel, but she did seek revenge on the town of Blithe Hollow, and Judge Hopkins. She does not even know that she is doing the wrong thing, but she never wanted to hurt Norman Babcock so much, not even when she was in her witch form or an evil ghost.
She is voiced by Jodelle Ferland, who also portrayed Alessa Gillespie in the first live action Silent Hill film.
History
As a Human
Aggie was an eleven year old girl who lived with her mother in Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts. Similar to her distant relative Norman Babcock, Agatha had the ability to speak to the dead. Agatha's abilities caused fear among the superstitious townsfolk, who began to believe she was practicing witchcraft. It was reasonable that during that times, Blithe Hollow fear the strange, non-understandable, and difference of other beings, including at this Pilgrim age, the supernatural: A fact which made the Blithe Hollow citizens except Aggie's mother believed that how she can speak to the dead was due to demonic forces inside her body. Eventually, Agatha was brought on trial and testified against by six witnesses. The town judge, Hopkins, found Agatha guilty and sentenced her to execution. During the trial as what Aggie herself shown to Norman as well as disturbing visions that Norman had in the middle of rehearsal of his school play, it was implied that Agatha is also usually said to be playing in the woods, alone physically. Before she was hanged, Agatha threatened vengeance upon her accusers. It is unknown if her mother knew of her daughter being held in court, what more unknown if her mother knew of Agatha's death, since she is buried in an unmarked grave under an old tree, where Aggie states, during her resolution is the tree where her mother used to tell her happy stories when she was alive.
After her execution, Agatha's ghost cursed her accusers to rise from the grave as the living dead so as to experience the same prejudice they had put her through. After death, her accusers felt remorse over their actions.
As a Ghost
After her execution, a person bearing the same powers as hers, visits her grave before sunset and tells a storybook so that the curse will delay into another year. Mr. Prenderghast, Norman's uncle, before the events of the movie, met Aggie and is forced to continue putting her to sleep to prevent the curse, while others think that he is crazy.
Years pass by and on the 300th anniversary, Mr. Prenderghast confronts his nephew, only needed him to be his successor. After Norman fails to visit her grave before sunset, Aggie starts the curse and brought back from the dead the people who have offended her. Norman then tries to stop her by trying to tell the story atop the town hall but she just electrocutes him to see her backstory. After Norman told that the zombies are not evil people, Aggie went berserk and madly destroys Blithe Hollow, especially the statue about her as a witch. Norman then visits her grave and tries to talk her by telling the story of Sleeping Beauty.
She then grew tired of the story and says she wanted to destroy Blithe Hollow. Norman continues to confront her by telling a new story which is none other than her backstory that portrays her negatively (truth behind her myth), which drove her angrier and tries to get Norman away from her but then realizes that he is right. He told her that although they did something awful, it does not mean that she should, too. And she has to remember. Not just the bad people, but also the good ones that she'd forgotten.
Aggie reminiscence to Norman that, before she died, her mother took her to a tree, the same one that she was buried under. There, her mother told her stories that always had happy endings. Aggie was able to find peace that allowed her to finally lift the curse and move on to the afterlife, along with the seven who had wrongfully accused her of witchcraft.
Personality
At the start of the film, her personality depicted as a stereotypical witch's. However, those depictions are wrong, as in truth, she is a timid and sweet, as well as sensitive due to her powers. After her death at hands of Judge Hopkins and other judges, she became a violent, temper tantrumatic girl whose powers became destructive due to her rage. However, she didn't lose her humanity yet, as when Norman calmed her down and she reveals her former nature, as she regain her composure.
Appearance
Human Form
While still human, Aggie is obviously a little girl no older than Norman, with long blackish brown hair, pale blue eyes, pale skin, quite thick eyebrows (traits which inherited by her descendant Norman), and wears a dark grey dress with a white collar and red shoes. Sadly, in her myth, she was depicted as stereotypical old witch with a pointy hat, a long nose (with a noticeable wart on it) and a long chin. Her so-called witch statue was depicted with that appearance, which she later destroyed due to being an insult for her tragic past.
Ghost Form
Aggie has two forms as a ghost:
- Witch Form: This form depicted as a mass of dark cloud with green lightning that centered on a colossal tornado that stood on the remains of the tree where she was buried at. The mass of dark clouds repeatedly taking form of a giant witch face with jagged teeth and eyes and mouth that glows in green. In this form, she can projected arm tendrils out of fog.
- Ghost Form: Her ghost form is literally a wraith whom appearance resembles her human form, but her whole body, includes her clothing are completely glows in green and her hair straightened up with lightning.
Powers and Abilities
As seen in the film, Aggie possesses vast supernatural powers which whether she possessed them all when still alive and retained it or gained more as ghost (with exception of mediumship which confirmed to possessed when still alive) is unclear, albeit having them either empowered or gained after become a ghost is much more likely:
- Mediumship: Much like her descendant Norman, Aggie can speak and see ghosts and spirits around her.
- Reality Warping: Aggie can bend and twist reality at will, ranging from causing roots sprout from the ground to the most extreme level, shift entire world into spirit dimension.
- Atmokinesis: Aggie can manipulate storm clouds and winds, where she used to create warped image of a stereotypical witch's face with glowing eyes and mouth.
- Electrokinesis: Aggie can manipulate electrical blasts at will.
- Replication: As a wraith, Aggie can split into multiple Aggies at once.
- Possession: Aggie can also possessed anyone or anything, though the only times she did so was when she possessed what was left of the tree where she spent her time with her mother to torture Norman
- Intangiability: Since she is a ghost, she can pass through solid object as she please.
- Pyrokinesis: Aggie can caused any object bursts into flames by thought. The extent of this ability is unknown, as she only displayed it once when expressed her anger about circumstances of her death to Norman where she unintentionally set a butterfly ablaze.
Gallery
Concept Arts
Paranorman
Trivia
- It's possible that aside unfortunate victims of witch trials, Aggie also inspired by film incarnation of Alessa Gillespie, as both Aggie and Alessa having a similar backstory and both having the ability to warp reality into a nightmarish state, and wrongly accused as a witch. Coincidentally, they are both portrayed by the same actress Jodelle Ferland and they both bore a similar striking resemblance and similar clothing (though compared to Alessa's Aggie's clothings were actually Puritan style instead of school uniform).
- Both Aggie and Alma Wade are shown having multiple similarities: Like the ability to warp reality (though in Alma's case was at first limited into only nightmarish illusions in her debut) and both using their powers to take their vengeance on those who have offended her. But the difference is motivation of their tormentors: Aggie was mistreated out of fear by those around her whom believed that she has performed witchcraft, while Alma's suffering was attempts to weaponize her powers due to her powers proved more deadly than conventional military weapons, even surpassing the nuclear weapons.
- It is possible that Carrie White was an inspiration for Aggie: both were mistreated, both being outcasts, both having parents that didn't appear in the story (Carrie had no father while Aggie had a mother whom is mentioned but her father is not) and both using their powers to take their vengeance on those who have offended them, though in terms of the result of the damage that they caused, Aggie is inferior than Carrie's.
- During her rampage, Aggie destroyed her supposed witch statue and other witch-related props since all of them were insult for her tragic past. Ironically in her witch form, Aggie's face in the cloud were looked like mock-up storybook witch's face and if one looked closely when she screamed in anger in her true ghost form, her distorting face would sometimes morphed into more witch-like. This likely done to use Blithe Hollow inhabitants' delusion and fearing her as witch against them.