a fundamentalist within the witch community, perhaps even the core member of a movement rejecting the easy going lifestyle of witchcraft in order to live a more grounded existence. This would not be unlike the Amish and other similar religious communities which reject various aspects of contemporary human life.
shareI don't think she ever rejected witchcraft, she promises Derwood that she won't practice it but always breaks her promise. I think she likes being a witch.
shareAnd yet she was even discouraging her own children from using their natural gifts, which seemed to suggest to me that there was more going on here.
shareCan't recall much of that but she always seemed conflicted by it. Probably wanting to please Derwood but knowing she was denying herself a part of who she really is.
shareI can't recall a single episode where Tabitha was encouraged by her mother to use her natural gift. Endora was the direct opposite.
shareTo some degree I get it and I know it's just a show but anyway, Tabitha was living in a mortal world and would have to learn that she was different to others and would need to resist and control her magic. The whole show was really about mixed marriages and it's interesting to see the bigotry and resentment on both sides. Samantha was in the middle and also the one who caused the situation by marrying a mortal in the first place.
Watching the re-runs as a kid I always thought Derwood was nuts. I would have let Sam go nuts and conjure us up a castle and anything we wanted.
Exactly. If Samantha had mated with a male witch they would have simply lived within their realm along with any offspring they had together and those children's upbringing would have been very different from what was imposed on Tabitha and her younger brother. And I would argue that Darwin's atypical reaction was because he was of a fundamentalist bent of his own, encouraging her to suppress her ungodly talents after the reveal. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why Samantha was attracted to him.
shareSam seems conflicted throughout the series thinking about it. She never really makes a commitment to not use magic. She just kind of goes along with it and given the mayhem Endora causes I think at some point the wife (or whoever's mother it happened to be) would have to draw a line and just stop her coming around for the sake of the marriage.
I always thought Darren's problem was that he was stuck in the thought that as a man he provided and gave the family what they needed. But he never got his head out of arse long enough to see that Sam could provide better, on a grander scale and without any brow sweat needed.
Endora is a radical who doesn't want to see her daughter lose herself and also sees mortals as lesser beings.
Your perspective on Darwin does have some merit. He definitely preferred that Samantha stayed at home and he headed off to the rat race. I doubt most people would pass up the opportunity to an easier existence, hence my conclusions about the two of them. I don't think Endora had issues with most mortals, only the ones who drew her daughter and grandchildren away from her. She seemed to actually admire accomplished mortals and enjoyed lavish fashion and good food in the mortal realm.
shareGiving this even more thought. Why did Darwin even marry Sam? In that respect it seems the reversal of the typical woman marries man, then proceeds to try and change him. You can change some things about people but when it comes to something that is an intrinsic part of them like their culture then you will always have problems.
Samantha is a witch, her family are all witches. He wants her to live in the mortal world, he wants her to give up her magic, he hasn't thought for a second about the consequences of reproducing with this woman.
Endora is probably what could be considered a "Casual racist" a term that gets thrown about by the snowflakes down here. She likes some aspects of mortal culture, she may like fashion and food, the music etc but that doesn't mean she wants to live next to one or have one marry her daughter! lol.
I recall seeing the first ep a while back and there were problems before they even married. In a nutshell Derwood should have walked away considering his attitude to the whole witch thing.
Why did he marry her? She was HAWT!!!!
And taking into account that she was willing to conceive children with him, he probably just decided, "Maybe this witch stuff isn't so bad after all!"
during the Sargeant years 'Darrin' became noticeably more tolerant. "Interesting things' happened but he no longer out and out tried to prohibit it--or got exasperated.
I like them a lot better compared to York. It also helps that Montgomery and Sargeant were friends off camera.
She was blonde and beautiful- so why did she want to marry a mortal?
shareMe too !!
shareNo, I think she was kind of a rebel. She said what she had to, to appease everyone around her, but then did whatever she wanted - which was usually the opposite of what others wanted, including her husband and mother. She knew she had to play within the rules of both societies, but she was forever bending them on both sides.
shareThis raises all sorts of questions about how much we would give up if we met a perfect soulmate who lived a restricted or isolated lifestyle? Remember all of the amazing things that witches could do in this series.
shareI don't see it that way. Whatever Samantha might say, she goes against her own word so often and is mostly unpunished for it, so I've never thought of her as someone who sacrificed anything. The only reason, as far as I can tell, that she didn't do more with her powers is because of the constraints of the era the show was produced in. As far as who Samantha is, I would assume it's well within her character to do more, and that she would have done more, if the era had permitted it.
shareShe probably would have had a much better track record of adopting mortal ways if she had been able to physically distance herself from her fellow witches. This was, of course, basically impossible.
shareI agree. She always figured she could make promises then go against them without consequence. Throughout the show she is the one character who is never really a victim of anyone else's actions. Because basically she is the cause of most of them just by marrying a mortal and then not living up to her end of the deal.
shareyou have it backwards--Fundamentalists think their way of practicing a specific faith is the one true way and they cannot compromise for their own needs/life. So endora would be the witch fundamentalist.
Samantha straddled both the witch and mortal communities. She's the 'cafeteria witch' who still considers her self a part of the faith she had been raised in but now picks and chooses what she believes, and how she personally practices that belief. She does not follow it verbatim unlike her mother who would be the fundamentalist of the witch faith.
Her mother is the fundamentalist bc she is always going around lecturing about how Samantha has to keep up her practicing witchcraft exactly as she had been brought up instead of just finally accepting she is practicing it as she personally wants.
Endora is 'countercultural' yes but she is also intolerant of Samantha who has chosen to marry and live in the suburbs with a husband and kids vs traveling through dimensions...etc and having multiple partners....like she and others in the family do. Samantha found this inflexible for what she wanted to do and how she wanted to live her life.
She loves her husband so much , she is willing to “ negate” her own person to please him! Of course, she did what she could to live up to her witchy self.
In today’s world , she’d say “ later pal” to anyone who would stifle her true self.
I never got Darrin's obsession with Samantha not using her power, and it's not some feminist thing. If my husband turned out to be a djin (sp?) I'd be thrilled and demand he use his power to make our lives easier, or at least his job easier if nothing else.
shareDarrin simply wanted to live a relatively "normal" life. He realized early on that Samantha using her powers indiscriminately would give them an undue advantage over everybody else. Of course, there were times when her powers could bail them out of trouble, but his admirable sense of fairness led him to ask her to restrain herself. He wasn't asking her to deny her "true self", he just had a strong moral sense about treating un-empowered others with respect.
shareI get his explanation, I just don't agree with it. Face it, it's a ridiculous demand to ask someone not to do what is natural for them. I mean, she can't even blink her house clean? Give me that power!!! This is clearly a plot device.
shareSargeant-era Darrin gradually becomes more accepting/not as worked up. He realizes as long as he can come up with explanations to make Larry and the client happy, the company gets respected. So he learns to chill.
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