There is a battle brewing on the airwaves and it isn’t between wrestlers in the WWF or part of a new reality show. The last few years has seen a growing supremacy of anything that smacks of the supernatural. They call it paranormal these days, and it can be anything from witches on TV  to a strange creature in the case files of the X-Files to a bunch of high school kids who seem to have the power to make things disappear and more. And it all began really with a couple of books, books about witches and vampires and not a television show at all.

Vampire Books and Southern Culture

Long before the arrival of Sookie and company in True Blood, another set of vampire books arrived on the scene set in the Deep South. Although superseded by Marilyn Ross’s Barnabus Collins as a modern interpretation of the sympathetic vampire, Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, the first of her Vampire Chronicles series of vampire books, was the real beginning of the current wave of supernatural beings that walk amongst us. When it came out the reaction was anything from pure love of this new storytelling to outrage. It was dark; it was sensuous and just reading them felt dangerous. You couldn’t ignore the books, their impact was too big. For many of us the biggest disappointment was when you came up for air and realized that Lestat and company weren’t real and you would just have to live in a world without the undead until the next installment of the series of popular vampire books came out.

That particular series went on to spawn a whole genre of popular vampire books. Of course, most of us are familiar with The Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, but there are plenty of other stories that play in the vampire books playground. Another one of the popular vampire books in that genre that also went on to be a hit on TV is Stephanie Meyers Twilight series. It has more vampires, more undead and lots of teenage girls getting into trouble with the undead. Seems to be a pattern here. But vampires weren’t the only thing happening in the land of books when it comes to supernatural stories. There were more than a few books about witches. Witches have their following too.

Books About Witches Thrive Also

But even with these, popular vampire books are not alone. There have long been books whose main characters were witches; it has always been a popular field to play in for many fantasy writers.  I remember reading Andre Norton’s books about witches called the WitchWorld series when I was a teenager, it has stayed with me ever since. If you haven’t read it, you should check it out because it has become a classic of the genre. But books about witches have been in and out of fashion for years, and the definition of witches in fantasy writing has moved around over time.

Just this past year we have seen a resurrection in books about witches starting with the immensely popular book by Deborah Harkness called A Discovery of Witches. More than a dramatic mystery and certainly far from your run of the mill fantasy, this is the story of a witch who wants to walk away from the world of magic, but somehow cannot. It is delightful, imaginative and completely compelling.

Witches of East End is a witch story of a different sort. Author Melissa De La Cruz calls it a witch story for adults. A story with murders, mystery and plenty of magical spells, it will fascinate readers of all ages for the wonderful women characters who happen to have some very special talents.

And for books about witches let’s not leave out Smith’s The Secret Circle, which is responsible for the show of the same name. The book took the genre by storm and it was no real surprise when this cadre of teenage witches who are seeking to recreate the powerful circle that once almost destroyed their families was rumored last year to be in development for TV. Vampires were doing well, fantasy had never been stronger and television had finally developed the technology to have witches do more impressive things then wiggle their noses. Witches on TV returns and the season of the witch had come at last.

The Arrival of Vampires on TV

When Charlaine Harris started her Southern Vampire books series in 2001, the shift began to take place of creating a creature that was sexy in a more traditional mode for a romance tale. The horror aspects were still there, but the sexual nature of the vampire began to really emerge. These popular vampire books were tales that gripped young girls hearts, with vampires that made you swoon. It was only natural that someone realized that vampires, at least the kind that Sookie hung out with, were the perfect creature for television. We began to see that these vampires on TV could work. There was plenty of soap opera drama, a bit of horror but not too much and with the violence never feeling real, and plenty of titillation. With these vampires on TV, young women flocked to the show in droves, filled websites with discussions everything from plot twists to who looks best without a shirt and introduced a whole new kind of television show. Then we knew that vampires on TV, these new kinds of vampires, would work and successfully.

With the success of the show came more vampires and other supernatural beings until it feels as if today’s television shows are either reality shows or stories with some kind of supernatural or paranormal element in them. For a fantasy fan like me, all the better! Then with the fourth season of True Blood, witches began to appear. Of course, they were in the book the season is based on, Dead to the World, and the author does say that to her the witches represent life as opposed to the vampires who are dead. But it is uncanny how witches show up on True Blood and now we see them everywhere!

Welcome to Witches on TV

Of course, we have had witches on TV before, but there is something different about these witches. In True Blood the witches are there to do battle with the vampires. Well, we are of course going to want our favorite vampires to succeed, so the witches become the evil ones who must be killed. Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that, but let’s leave that for another blog. Suffice to say that the witches in True Blood are not like the ones in say, Charmed. These are witches on TV of a different sort.

Enter The Secret Circle, a new show that is based on a set of novels by Vampire Diaries creator L.J. Smith. When teen Cassie Blake is orphaned and sent to a strange new town, she discovers she is a witch, descended from witches, and that the town is filled with other witches. Some of whom become her friends, because otherwise how could they form a coven err I mean the secret circle? Well, that last part is from me, but the idea is pretty basic, and I can see why teenage girls would love the idea of it. Much like with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the teen queens are here to fight evil, and of course to command power because what teenage girl doesn’t wish she had that? But there is plenty of mystery and dark happenings and the show is intense but never over the top. In fact, in many ways it is just a continuation of the wish fulfillment fantasy type show that started with True Blood: Teens with power hanging out with dangerous folks.

Of course, there are more witches in the wings – the Evil Queen in Once Upon A Time could be called a wicked witch. But she isn’t you know, she is the Evil Queen we all know from Snow White. But she is so close to a witch, and she does wield some wicked power when she gets all evil and mad. So it would be fair to put her in the camp of witches on TV at this point. She is deliciously evil, the way an Evil Queen should be, and I hope we get to see plenty of her in the show.

And then there is Grimm, a detective show that also plays in the world of fairy tales, but with a far darker viewpoint. So far I have not seen anything about TV witches on this show, but with the retelling of many of the tales from the Brothers Grimm, we are bound to run into one sooner or later. It will be interesting to see how they would portray, let’s say Hansel and Gretel’s witch in this show. It takes a far more imaginative spin on the concept of good and evil than they do with Once Upon A Time, and a far darker one.

More Supernatural Witches and Vampires to Come?

It does seem safe to say that instead of thinking of witches as being the new vampires, I would say that witches, vampires, werewolves and all manner of paranormal characters may be here on television and in our books for a good while to come. We will continue to have popular vampire books and plenty of tales about witches.

There has always been a place in the literary world for both witches and vampires; they are mythical creatures that stand in for the unattainable power we yearn for in our lives. For many, there will always be a pull towards these characters, demons of the night that are drawn to our light but can never be a part of it.

True- some of what is bringing the supernatural along with similar elements such as the flood of comic book based stories, science fiction shows and others like this is that we finally have the technology to show on film what we can imagine in our minds. Because we will always be able to imagine having the elemental power of a witch or can dream of a lover who is so dangerous that one bite would damn us forever, we will probably always have some kind of paranormal storyline in our entertainment. Whether we connect with our vampires and witches in books, on film or at home watching our television, it is still ultimately our own dreams that bring them to life.