So with Halloween just around the corner, I feel that there is a particular candidate that happens to be under the Pure Good category that is worth a much-needed revisiting. That candidate happens to be Allison Watts from Hocus Pocus.
The original proposal was made by Davidtome146 back in July, 2022. Though it was approved, it was however haphazardly written and left out many mitigating factors about her in particular. I have been growing particularly skeptical of her standing as of late, hence why I feel she needs to be brought up for potential removal.
Let's begin.
What is the Work?
Hocus Pocus is a 1993 live-action Halloween film produced by Disney. The film revolves around Max Dennison, his girlfriend Allison, his younger sister Dani Dennison, and a 17th century teenage boy named Thackery Binx (who was turned into a black cat due to a curse placed upon him) trying to stop a trio of witches known as the Sanderson Sisters from stealing the souls of Salem's children so that they can live forever.
The film did not perform well at the box office nor critically upon its initial release (largely in part due to its confusing plotline and July release, as such it quickly fell into obscurity for quite some time afterwards. In the late 2000s and early 2010s however, ABC and ABC Family (now Freeform) began broadcasting the film as part of its 13 Nights of Halloween, this move garnered a revival of interest in the film, and by the time of its 20th anniversary, the film had achieved cult-classic status. A sequel followed in 2022, though like the original it too received mixed reception.
Who is She? What has she done?
Allison Watts is the tritagonist of the film, she is Max's girlfriend who has a fascination in the history about Salem's dark history as well as Halloween. Her mother is the curator of the old Sanderson Sister's house, which was converted into a museum at an undetermined date in the past 300 years.
After she and Max revived the Sanderson Sisters out of an act of mischief, the two of them were forced to team up with Thackery Binx to stop the witches from terrorizing the town and killing all the children to steal their souls, including Max's younger sister Dani, whom the witches had a particular fascination in wanting to steal the soul of.
Why Doesn't She Qualify?
Davidtome failed to list a number of mitigating factors in the original proposal, many of which are in plain site throughout the film.
The first issue about her standing is the fact that she is in possession of a high amount of resources. In the film, she and Max have a resourceful advantage against the Sanderson Sisters thanks to the fact that they possess modern technology (most notably a car), while the sisters do have magic on their side, they are largely naive of modern culture, as such they hesitant to use their magic throughout the film except at pivotal points (such as at the Halloween Adult party) as such throughout the film the three witches are tricked by the two teenagers who are all too familiar with these conveniences, this is most notable during the beginning of the climax when they flash the high beams of their car to trick them into thinking it was the Sun rising (The spell the witches placed on the Black Flame Candle during the prologue states that if they fail to steal the soul of at least one child before sunrise they would perish, hence why they were scared of the high beams initially). Likewise earlier in the film, they used said car to outrun the witches and go into hiding for quite some time.
The next issue is the fact that she possesses some moments where she was incompetent in the film, for starters she willingly let Max and herself break into the museum and light the Black Flame Candle to see if the legend about it was true (which is was), this action ultimately allowed the Sanderson Sisters to be revived as they had cursed the town 300 years earlier, not to mention the fact that they would go on the hex the town's adults into dancing indefinitely to prevent them from rescuing their children. Later on, out of a morbid curiosity, the two of them decided to sneak a peek at Winifred's spell book; this action in particular alerted the witches into discovering their location, and in turn they proceeded to kidnap Dani and nearly killed her (and several dozen children) in the process.
Finally, there's the matter of her failing the admirable standard to her boyfriend Max (and Binx). Much of her heroism in the film is pretty standard and unimpressive. And while one could argue that she assisted in saving Dani's life, that happened to be the only life she saved in the entire film. By contrast, Max saved dozens, if not hundreds of children's lives when he knocked over the cauldron filled with the potion that the sisters planned on using to steal the children's souls, save for one serving's worth which the sisters quite foolishly and hell-bent-ly wanted to use on Dani out of all the children. When Max got his hands on that potion, he cleverly drank it in an act of sacrifice not only to save Dani's life, but also distract Winifred long enough so that she and her sisters would be exposed to the sun as it rose from the horizon, killing them in the process and ending the terror they brought to the town.
Final Verdict
At the end of the day, Allison is just a standard heroine, and as such I feel that she is an easy cut.