| “ | Ada Cackle: (noticing Agatha taking more of an ingredient than necessary) Hey, we only need two of those!
Agatha Cackle: I'm tripling every ingredient. In fact, I'm times-ing them by ten. |
„ |
| ~ Just so you know, Ada and Agatha were still pupils when this happened. Even as a child, Agatha was a monster. |
Well, this is it. After a month's worth of preparation on a sandbox, and checking for proper set-up, I'm finally capable of posting my villain sandbox on here. Before I begin, I'd like to thank Dual89_Proxima for reviewing my sandbox, making suggestions for how parts of the draft should be arranged, and eventually adding me to the Whitelist after everything was in good shape. I've got plans for a couple more write-ups on the way, so stay tuned. Now, it's time to officially send Agatha Cackle to court for crimes.
What's the Work?[]
The Worst Witch is a British fantasy book series written by Jill Murphy, serving as possibly her most well-known and iconic book series. It centers on an accident-prone, and unskilled, but ultimately kind-hearted young girl who winds up as a student at Miss Cackle's Academy: a secret boarding school for girls to train to become future witches. Fellow students Maud Spellbody and Enid Nightshade would serve as Mildred's closest friends and allies helping her keep up in classes, and she'd even gain her own personal rival in the form of Ethel Hallow, who's family has attended Cackle's for generations, and at least one version portrayed the Hallow family as snobby, cheating elitists who view themselves as superior to others. (Ironically Ethel's one of the least cruel members)
Miss Hardbroom, deputy headmistress, potions teacher and the most powerful witch at the academy, is extremely imposing, in no small part due to her being stern, strict and intimidating, keeping tabs on the students, and mostly being intolerant of Mildred's actions. On the flip side, Miss Cackle, the headmistress of the academy, is usually very reasonable, patient, forgiving and understanding, and her kind-hearted nature is basically the only reason Mildred was never expelled from the academy.
Of course, like most fantasy works, there's a severe recurring threat looming over the characters. Here's it's in the form of Miss Cackle's sinister twin sister Agatha Cackle, who repeatedly attempts to usurp Miss Cackle as headmistress of Cackle's Academy. She's usually very smart about her schemes, which vary depending on the adaptation.
Several adaptations have be made since then starting with a television film premiering on ITV in 1986, and later including an ITV series on CITV between 1998 and 2001 (followed by its two spin-offs in 2001 and 2005), and another in 2017 on CBBC, which is also labelled as a Netflix original in countries outside of the UK. Personalities between the characters tend to change a bit depending on the adaptation, and select traits between the characters always remain consistent.
I'll admit first hand that I've never actually seen any of the film or TV adaptations aside from the 2017 series (which is currently on Netflix, labelled as an original in select countries, including America), so naturally I'm going to be discussing the 2017 version of Agatha Cackle, who comes close to being Pure Evil but has some setbacks and reasons why she doesn't quite make it.
(Also, please refrain from calling this series a rip-off of Harry Potter, especially since The Worst Witch was created in 1974, whereas Harry Potter didn't exist until 1997. Having a magical boarding school in the UK as its main setting, doesn't mean it's a rip-off by default.)
Who Is Agatha Cackle?[]
As previously mentioned, Agatha Cackle is the twin sister of Miss Cackle (who's named Ada Cackle in this version). She's 13 minutes older than Ada, meaning the academy should be hers to inherit and become headmistress of, but it isn't because... well, you'll find out why soon enough.
What Has She Done?[]
Before the Series[]
As a child, Agatha and her twin sister Ada were students at Cackle's Academy, with their mother Alma Cackle as headmistress. Ada wore glasses, but Agatha didn't.
Even as a child, Agatha was a serious troublemaker and rebel (albeit a playful, non-malicious one), in stark contrast to Ada who was far more responsible, and took her studies more seriously. Headmistress Alma hated Agatha's reckless, rebellious nature. It got to the point where Alma lied about Ada being the older twin, and thus, the heir to academy, because she knew Agatha would never run the academy by the rules and do whatever she felt like.
Yet in spite of this, the Cackle twins still cared about and loved each other. At a certain point, Ada herself would become rebellious and troublesome, just like Agatha.
But then, one day, when the academy was placed on lockdown due to time-travelling mists, the Cackle twins -- alongside Mona Spellbody (Maud's future grandmother) -- would get caught sneaking into Alma's office, and trying to steal her spell book. Alma strictly told them that being her heirs didn't mean they'd be the next headmistress if they kept disobeying the rules. She threatened to expel Mona and the twins, if any of them went in her office again. Meaning neither of the twins would get to be headmistress.
Later that day, during a class picture, Ada plotted to use an extraction spell to give the three of them some of Alma's power, claiming it would make her finally start respecting them as witches. Agatha and Mona were completely on board with this. But since the twins and Mona couldn't go in her office to grab the spell book, they decide to get someone else to grab it for them, They find the spell book, Mona gets caught and nearly expelled, and the Cackle twins prepared to craft the spell. However Agatha collected far more of each ingredient than necessary, declaring that she wanted to steal all of her mother's power, rather than some of it, like Ada wanted to, and she and Ada would run a school without rules where the pupils were in charge. When Ada refuses to get on board with this, and betray her mother, Agatha turns on her, claiming she'd run the academy herself. But Agatha was unable to handle her mother's power, and the potion explodes on her. She'd then be sent to the correctional facility known as Wormwood's Academy, where she'd be permanently labelled as a "bad girl", while Ada went on to be head girl.
Some time afterwards, the Cackles tried running the academy together. Not much is known about this attempt, other than the fact that it was a "disaster", and that the Cackle twins would part their separate ways for five years until reuniting in the pilot episode.
Season 1[]
She's first properly introduced in the two-part series premiere, "Selection Day", where she catches Mildred and Maud in the kitchen with a lost cat, and pretends to be Miss Cackle. Then, when the real Miss Cackle shows up shortly afterwards, Mildred and Maud were shocked to learn there were two of them, and Agatha claims that she was writing a piece about the school. She seemingly wants to make amends, and learn from her mistakes, and Miss Cackle allows her to interview Miss Hardbroom. ...However, when Mildred fails her entrance exam and has to be sent home, Agatha (while impersonating Ada) takes advantage of Mildred's sadness, and makes her feel worse to get her tears. Then magically locks the chef inside a room, and alters the celebration meal for Selection Day, by placing a spell on it (one of the ingredients was Mildred's tears). Mildred secretly notices Agatha's tampering, and tries to warn everyone in the dining hall about the soup being spelled, only for Hardbroom to refuse to listen, and magic her out of castle, before the former can get very far. However, Mildred (with help from a professor-turned-frog) is able to craft a levitation spell, and just as Ada's about drink her bowl of soup, Mildred flies in through the window and grabs the soup from her. At this point, Agatha reveals herself and challenges Ada to a witches' duel, where the loser forfeits their powers. Agatha wins the duel, and when Mildred tries to protest and apologize for meddling, Agatha holds her hostage and threatens to turn her into a snail unless Ada forfeited the school. Ada obliges, and so Agatha lets Mildred go and turns Ada into a snail. Cackle's Academy was Agatha's. ...But since Mildred wasn't a pupil at the academy yet, she was allowed to disobey the Witches' Code (which Hardbroom subtly tips Mildred off on) and tip the duel outcome in Ada's favor, which she does by using Agatha's obedience soup against her, and forcing Agatha to lose the duel and change Ada back to normal. Agatha's powers are later confiscated by Ada, and she's taken home by her mother.
In "The Great Wizard's Visit", Agatha visited Ada claiming she wanted to apologize, but when things went south, Ada tries to put Agatha into an enchanted sleep, only for Agatha to use a pocket mirror against her, putting Miss Cackle herself into the sleep. Then Agatha (with help from Miss Gullet) writes an anonymous letter to the Great Wizard about a series of incidents that happened over the past couple days to have the wizard arrive at Cackle's, pretends to be Miss Cackle again during his visit and has Mildred prove she belonged at the academy, purposely getting Mildred to screw up and embarrass herself, in an attempt to cause Ada to lose her position as headmistress, allowing Agatha to take her place. Her plan almost succeeds, but she accidentally reveals she didn't have her magic, allowing Mildred to connect the dots and foil Agatha's scheme again (with help from Maud). This time Agatha's banished to Darkwood Cottage.
In "The Mists of Time", the titular mists would arrive --which send anyone caught in them back/forward in time-- and Ada would seal all the doors, so nobody could go outside while the mists where around. But Ethel had accidently left her cat Nightstar outside and she greatly concerned for her safety, so Mildred helped Ethel sneak out via giant airvent, and aids her in searching for her cat, only for both to found out they accidently traveled to the past -- more specifically, they traveled to when the mists arrived during the Cackle twins' time as students. When Mildred and Ethel ask Mona for help in getting Nightstar back, the latter agrees on the condition that the Mildred and Ethel do something for her. Mona lets Mildred writes a message for help in her desk, which Maud sees in the present, tipping everyone off that Mildred and Ethel were trapped in the past. Then, Mildred and Ethel had to get Alma's spellbook for the trio. When Ethel finds the spell book, young Agatha steals it and goes back on her promise, refusing to help them find Nightstar, and trying to steal some of her mother's power. Thanks to present-day Ada Cackle arriving in the past, Mildred and Ethel are able to return to the present before the mists clear. Present-day Ada tries to set things right with her younger self -- plus a young Agatha -- by warning them about the potion's risk, Agatha going to Wormwood, and an attempt to co-running the academy being a total failure. Long story short, young Agatha goes through with the plan anyway, only for the potion to explode on her...again. And for her to be sent to Wormwood's Academy...again.
Mildred learns about Agatha being the older Cackle twin but she agrees not to tell anyone else about this for the safety of the academy -- not even her closest friends or Ethel. However, the season's penultimate episode, "Out of Bounds" has things take a turn for the worse.
In this episode, Ada would head over to Darkwood Cottage as a means to talk with Agatha only to learn the latter had somehow escaped her enchanted imprisonment, thanks to a friend of hers. As a result, Miss Hardbroom placed some protective spells on the academy, warned the students to take extra precautions, and threatened to instantly expel any student that leaves school grounds. However, Mildred suspected that Agatha had somehow taken Ada's place again (due to Ada having a unusual moment of strictness toward Mildred), and after flying over to Darkwood Cottage, Mildred learned that wasn't the case as she's nearly tricked into giving Agatha her magic, and Gullet destroys Mildred's broom before she can escape, forcing Mildred to flee and return to the academy on foot (using a spell to escape). However, Agatha and Gullet arrived at the academy --Agatha impersonating Ada again, and "Ada" claimed her powers were stolen, with Gullet helping her-- and thanks to Esmerelda and Ethel's invite, they're let inside the academy. Ethel offers to give up her magic for "Miss Cackle", but Esmerelda insists on doing it. Esmerelda realizes Agatha's trick too late, but Ethel knew the truth, and having learned about Agatha being older, Ethel shows Agatha the birth scroll revealing this, making Agatha the heir of the academy by default. She takes over the academy, seals Ada away in a painting, and Mildred's expelled and sent home for being caught off school grounds, leading up to the season finale, appropriately titled, "The Worst Headmistress".
Under Agatha's command, Miss Gullet places alarm spells all over the school, with Agatha claiming they were protecting the students from danger, but really it was to prevent the students, and even the staff, from calling for help or trying to rebel against Agatha with any kind of magic. Agatha declared that students would get three extra break times per week, and be issued remembering powder, to which Esmerelda points out the flaws in said method, and Ethel's made the new head girl. Agatha and Gullet brought Maud to the office, demanding to know where Mildred was (she had been expelled), but Hardbroom arrives assuring Agatha that Maud wouldn't be a problem --while subtlety gesturing Maud about Ada's imprisonment-- and Maud's allowed to leave. Agatha had an annihilation spell planned to destroy the academy if the Great Wizard tries to take it away from her, claiming "if I can't have this place, no one can". The Great Wizard destroys Agatha's birth scroll, rewrites the Witches' Code, and planned on punishing Agatha for her crimes... to which Agatha retaliates by getting Gullet and Hardbroom (Hardbroom doing it against her will) to help her turn the Great Wizard into a balloon. During the end-of-term feast, Agatha and Gullet catch Hardbroom trying to rescue Ada from the painting, and they use their combined magic to seal Hardbroom away with her, only for Maud to expose Agatha and Gullet's crimes to which Agatha insists that her being the rightful headmistress meant she was allowed to do that stuff. Then finally, when all the students plan to walk out so Agatha would have no one to be headmistress off, she uses the annihilation spell in an attempt to destroy the academy with everyone still inside. Miss Drill uses a counter-spell to contain Agatha's spell for as long as she could, long enough to give everyone time to evacuate the castle before it collapsed. When outside, Mildred encourages all the pupils to form a circle and take part a chant, with all of them using their combined magic to reverse Agatha and Gullet's spells, including the annihilation spell. The Great Wizard seals Agatha and Miss Gullet away in a painting, enabling her to remain within the academy without having to leave.
Season 2[]
In spite of her being absent during Season 2, she still had a lingering influence over the season's events considering Marigold Mould, the school's new art teacher, is revealed to be a member of Agatha's coven, and tried to release her from the painting where she was trapped.
Season 4[]
Season 3's the only season to not involve Agatha and her coven at all. However, she makes one hell of a return during season 4, the final season of the show. More specifically in the two-part grand finale, "The Witching Hour".
For brief context, season 4 has Mildred competing against Ethel to become head girl. The final challenge had the two girls creating their own spells from scratch. Mildred's spell involved her magically fixing any item that got broken or damaged, and she used Miss Cackle's glasses as a test object. The spell seemingly works and Mildred became the new head girl... however, when Mildred gives Miss Cackle her fixed glasses back for the latter to put back on, Miss Cackle turns into a crystal statue that shatters into pieces, and not only do Mildred's attempts to magically repair her do nothing, Hardbroom magic's fail to be effective as well. Mildred's sent to Wormwood's due to causing irreversible damage to Miss Cackle, and when Maud finds video evidence of Mildred being framed for the spell, Hardbroom refuses to listen to her and eventually sends Maud to Wormwood's too. While there, Maud helps Mildred escape (with help from another student). It's later revealed that Ethel and Felicity -- but mostly the former -- were responsible for the incident with Miss Cackle, which wasn't even intentional on their part. Ethel simply wanted to be head girl, but she was ultimately a pawn of Agatha Cackle, who planned the whole thing, She's tricked into freeing Agatha from the painting, as the latter claimed things would be fine.
Agatha impersonates Miss Cackle yet again, claiming she had a protective spell in place. She gets everyone to go to the hall for a special assembly where Ethel's to become the new head girl, and when she learns Mr. Daisy had a machine that could bring someone back even after they were shattered, she instantly disposes of Mr. Daisy. She gives Hardbroom a brooch to wear before the assembly, during which she has Ethel lead a reading of the Witches' Promise. However, Agatha had altered the promise to have it send nearly all of the students and staff members into Vanishment, endangering nearly everyone, and breaking her promise to Ethel. Also, the brooch she gave Hardbroom was actually a monitor so any magic from Hardbroom would lead to Agatha's necklace --made of the crystal remains of Miss Cackle-- getting a signal, which would permanently destroy it. Everything -- and everyone-- in Vanishment was set to be magically recycled at midnight. Meanwhile, Agatha talked with the Great Wizard, threatening to leave the students to die in Vanishment, unless he handed his title over to her. Mildred helps the others craft a reversal spell by stalling Agatha, and when the latter eventually recognized Mildred in spite of her different appearance, she held a strong hatred of Mildred for her last defeat and had a long chase after her. Thanks to Julie Hubble, nearly everyone's able to escape their imprisonment at Vanishment. With a scroll reading from Ethel, the Great Wizard had seemingly surrendered his position, but Agatha goes back on her promise to release everyone from Vanishment. Then Ethel reveals the retirement scroll was actually fake and quickly retrieves the crystals from Agatha's neck and Mr. Daisy uses magic to turn the stones back into Ada. Ada tries to reseal Agatha inside the painting, claiming it was "the safest place for [her]". And yet, Agatha hated being in the painting, and solemnly chants the spell sending her to Vanishment. In spite of Ada and Hardbroom trying to talk Agatha out of this, she still goes through with the chant, and she's instantly caught within Vanishment, as it's recycling, which instantly kills her.
What Makes Her Close to Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
She's an expert at putting on a facade of friendliness and hospitality when it suits her needs, or if it benefits in her plan. But when it ultimately comes down to it, her veneer of being Affably Evil is just that: a veneer. Her true personality is a ruthless, evil witch who will stop at almost nothing to achieve her goals, and doesn't care who gets harmed, or potentially killed in the process. She may have a genuine affability with Miss Gullet, but this is overweighted by her faux affability with nearly everyone else, including her own sister. Agatha Cackle is Faux Affably Evil, because nearly any acts of her being reasonable or friendly are ingenuine.
On paper, Agatha had a sympathetic past: As a child she was sent to Wormwood's Academy, due to being labelled as a "wicked witch", and would be permanently known as a "bad girl". Not to mention we actually get to see what Wormwood's like late in Season 4: A total nightmare. Any young witch who commits a dire offence --even by accident-- gets sent here. Young girls are regularly forced to work hard labor, under very poor conditions, with a very demeaning matron.
However... this doesn't make Agatha tragic or sympathetic in the slightest. As shown in the present day, Agatha never seemed to be heavily traumatized or even affected by her time at Wormwood's. She never even mentions this place during dialogue between other characters. Not to mention, all of her heinous actions and everyone she's harmed don't seem to have anything to do with Wormwood. Also, setting up an accident and framing Mildred for it, to get her sent to Wormwood's isn't helping her case. And let's not forget that even before being sent Wormwood's, Agatha was already a troublemaker and a very naughty girl. In fact, the whole reason she was sent there in the first place was because she tried to steal her mother's power and usurp her as headmistress in Cackle's. The explosion my have been an accident, but trying to steal her mother's power, was absolutely NOT an accident. She deserved to go to Wormwood's. Heck, even if she wasn't sent there, she probably still would have became evil. Her so-called "tragedy" is completely invalidated.
I think it's safe to say that Agatha doesn't have any genuine love for her mother, the headmistress. Leaving out the fact that Agatha was a serious troublemaker and rebel, and constantly disobeyed her mother's rules. She was also on board with Ada's plan to use an extraction spell to give her, Ada and Mona some of Alma's power. Except, Ada mostly did it because she wanted Alma to respect them as witches. Agatha, on the other hand, simply wanted to be headmistress. Also, while crafting the spell, Agatha collected far more of each ingredient than necessary, declaring that she wanted to steal all of her mother's power, rather than some of it, like Ada wanted to. Even Ada was against this. There's no way Agatha could go this far and still love her mother.
Her so-called "friendship" with Mona Spellbody during her pupil years is complete ingenuine. This is shown as when she manages to find her (Agatha's) mother's spell book and steals it, Mona would get caught in Alma's office and nearly expelled, unbeknownst to the Cackle twins. And when Ada wonders what happened to Mona, what's Agatha's response? A simple, "Who cares?" If Agatha was really Mona's friend, she would have shown concern over her disappearance/expulsion. Mona was like a tool to Agatha.
In spite of everything she done, Ada Cackle -- her twin sister -- is extremely forgiving towards Agatha. While Ada's willing to fight and/or discipline Agatha when the latter endangers her girls, she still tries to see the good in her twin sister, believing she can have be a better person, and yet every single time Agatha continually rejects any chance she's given to turn over a leaf, or get a fresh start.
She's a good example of a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, as despite her supposedly having good intentions for wanting to take Cackle's from her sister -- running a school without rules where the pupils had more freedom -- it's eventually made clear that this is mostly a justification for her real goal: Wanting to have ultimate authority. She doesn't actually care about the academy's students, or their safety --in spite of them being children-- as shown numerous times throughout the show.
Leaving out all of those times she endangers and threatens Mildred, she's also willing to endanger the entire student body. After taking over Cackle's in the season 1 finale, Agatha declared that students would get three extra break times per week, and be issued remembering powder, not caring that end-of-term exams were coming up in a few days, or that the students would forget everything after the remembering powder wears off. She made Ethel head girl in the Season 1 finale, but it was mostly as a means to have her basically become her minion, and make sure everyone followed Agatha's standards. Plus, she didn't have any issue with Gullet turning three of the pupils into mini-cakes or having the other students nearly eat them at the end-of-school feast. Not to mention trying to destroy the academy with an annihilation spell with the students still inside. That settles it: Agatha doesn't give a (bleep) about the students, their safety, or even their lives.
Don't even get me STARTED on Vanishment and how she nearly had all of the students recycled on the Witching Hour, just so she could became the Grand High Witch.
Specific Actions[]
As a child, she was already a troublemaker and rebel, in stark contrast to Ada who was far more responsible, and took her studies more seriously. The twins' mother -- the headmistress of the time-- even lied about Ada being the older twin, and thus, the heir to academy, as she knew Agatha would never run the academy by the rules and do whatever she felt like.
She and Ada once tried to steal some of her mother's power hoping to become better witches, only for Agatha to go the extra mile and try stealing all of her mother's power so she could take over the Academy, and run a school without rules where the pupils were in charge. And while Ada backed out of this plan and eventually grew up to become responsible, loving and nurturing, that never happened with Agatha who remained evil.
In the pilot episode, she nearly places Ada under an obedience spell to have her forfeit the academy to her, and when that backfires, she challenges her a witches' duel (the loser has to forfeit their powers). Agatha wins, and when Mildred gets too close, Agatha holds her hostage and threatens to turn her into a snail unless Ada forfeited the school. Ada give in, and thus Cackle's was hers. If it weren't for Mildred's resourcefulness, and Hardbroom's guile and subtle wording, the academy would have suffered under her power.
She wrote an anonymous letter to the Great Wizard to have him arrive at Cackle's and nearly got him to kick Ada off her job, and let Agatha become the new headmistress, mostly by embarrassing Mildred, impersonating Miss Cackle and making her look incompetent. If it wasn't for a brief slip-up, Agatha would have succeeded.
With help from Miss Gullet, she was able to escape her imprisonment at Darkwood's Cottage, and nearly tricks Mildred into giving up her magic to Agatha, by pretending to be a helpless Ada Cackle. The trick nearly works. And she'd use a similar method with Esmeralda and Ethel Hallow, but this time her plan worked, as she tricked Esmeralda into draining her magic. Then, after learning she was rightful heir on account of her being the older twin, she wastes absolutely no time in disposing of Ada and takes over Cackle's Academy in one fell swoop.
After taking over the academy, she had protection spells put in place so that nobody else --students or staff member -- could call for help or trying to rebel against Agatha with any kind of magic. She's also not afraid to use transformation threats against people -- including the students -- had plans for an annihilation spell should she lose the academy, turned the Great Wizard into a balloon (with help from Gullet and Hardbroom) then placed him in a room alone. She also had no issues with any of Gullet's transformations she did on people. And finally, she tried to destroy the academy with the students and staff still inside, which could have led to dozens of deaths -- with most of them being children!
Season 4 has her use Ethel as an unwitting pawn to "accidently" get Miss Cackle transformed into a crystal statue that's shattered to pieces, and framed Mildred for it, claiming she'd help Ethel become head girl and fix the her damage. But in reality, she committed what may just be her worst crime yet: tricking nearly all of the students (plus most of the staff members) into transporting themselves to Vanishment, where they were nearly recycled (read: killed) on the Witching Hour aka the final day of the school year at midnight. For context, everyone and everything in Vanishment would become part of a cauldron, spell book or potion bottle. Not only does this make Agatha Cackle a would be mass-murderer, she's also guilty of attempted mass-mutilation, which is a(n) FWTD if there ever was one. And for what? All so the Great Wizard would step down and make her the Grand High Witch, in exchange for everyone being freed. Not to mention, even if she DID get the position, she still would have left everyone to die in Vanishment.
Heinous Standard[]
Not a problem. Agatha Cackle passes the Heinous Standards of the series with flying colors. She's the most influential and heinous villain in the entire series, bar none. (Well, almost none.) In fact, I already gave her a page on the Ultimate Evil Wiki. She more than deserves it. Here are some candidates for competition:
Miss Gullet: A professor from Season 1 and the main antagonist of the episode "Pond Life". She was the professor for Spell Science, who turned Professor Rowan-Webb --the first wizard to teach at Cackle's-- into a frog 30 years prior to the series, as a means to take his job and not lose out to him. Then she's caught and forced to turn Rowan-Webb back (with Ethel changing Mildred back), and is subsequently fired from her job. At first glance, she seems like a non-serious/incompetent villain, but she'd then become Agatha's partner in later episodes. And then in the season finale, she became Agatha's right-hand woman during the former's reign as headmistress. She also played a pivotal role in Agatha's tyranny being possible, by placing alarm spells all over the school claiming they were protecting the students from danger, but really it was to prevent the students, and even the staff, from calling for help or trying to rebel against Agatha with any kind of magic.
Gertrude Hallow: The very first head girl of Cackle, who served as the titular main antagonist of Season 4's "Gertrude the Great". She embodied talent, charisma, resourcefulness and ingenuity. We're led to believe she was a model student at Cackle's, and a respectable girl. In the present, Mildred and Ethel's competition to be head girl involved them creating Gertrude's signature spell: The Familiar Auxiliar, which basically turns the spellcaster into an animal representing their personality. Mildred uses a reanimation potion to bring Gertrude back to life, so the latter would help the former with an ingredient for the spell. However, Gertrude needlessly placed Mildred in a series of life-threatening events, claiming they were to have Mildred face her fears, to give her the courage needed for her spell to work, as the secret ingredient. And THEN, it turns out Gertrude had the moniker "The Great Deceiver", and she never had any intention on helping Mildred. Also the real secret ingredient was juniper berries. She transforms into a giant serpent and tries to attack most of the students in the potions room, forcing Hardbroom and Mildred to hold her back (Mildred turning into a golden eagle). After changing back, Gertrude declared she was the only witch fit to be head girl and tried to keep her title permanently, ruling the academy with an iron fist. She even opened a portal to Vanishment and threatened to toss anyone inside who objected to her rule, only for an invisible Maud to immediately push Gertrude into her own portal, ending her reign before it even started. It's unclear whether Gertrude managed to escape in time.
What Prevents Her From Being Pure Evil?[]
Her main factor that prevents her from being Pure Evil is the fact that her final moments before her death are played for sympathy: Miss Cackle intended on sealing Agatha back inside her painting, but the latter clearly disliked this. And yet, Agatha tearfully decided to accept her defeat, and chants the spell that sends her to Vanishment while it was still recycling. Both Ada and Hardbloom both plead Agatha to stop, and when Agatha's teleported to Vanishment, everyone reacts with sorrow, considering Agatha was basically committing suicide. Miss Cackle felt sad over Agatha's fate, and even Mildred and her mother showed pity for Agatha during this moment.
In addition to that, there's also her partnership with Miss Gullet. Agatha was grateful to Miss Gullet for freeing her from her magic imprisonment. Plus, Agatha promised Gullet that when she (Agatha) became headmistress, she'd reinstate Gullet as spell science mistress. And as shown in the season 1 finale, she actually kept that promise by giving Gullet her job back -- despite not having to -- and letting her assist in her plan, treating her like a partner, rather than an expendable tool. Thus showcasing that she has some honor.
How Severe Is It?[]
I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but Agatha's relationship with her twin sister is very complex. Sure, she constantly tries to take over her academy and occasionally harm her, but a number of conversations between the two of them have shown that their relationship is still quite strong, and that Ada still cares about and loves her.
In the Season 1 premiere, Agatha actually seemed happy to see her again after five years. She seemed to have standards (and a possible caring side left in her), as she typically doesn't actively try to kill Ada with her magic or by other means, even though she definitely has the power to do so. (At least not until the end.) Even when she takes over Cackle's, she simply seals her away in a painting, rather than killing her or severely torturing her or something. This means, she's capable of showing mercy to her enemies, and actually has.
Though, season 4 subverted nearly all of this. Remember, Agatha turned Ada into crystal shards, and gave Hardbroom a brooch that would lead to the crystal shards being permanently destroyed if Hardbroom used any magic. Being trapped inside that painting all that time clearly did a number on her sanity and stability.
Even if Agatha's care for Ada was a major prevention in Season 1, it became a minor, basically non-existent prevention by the time the finale rolled around, as she became far more hostile near the end. She actually tries to kill her this time around!
Also, while her final moments before her death are played for sympathy, the show never tries to sugarcoat the fact that Agatha's an unambiguously evil villain who had to be punished at all costs. Keep in mind that moments ago, Agatha had tricked nearly everyone in the academy into sending themselves to Vanishment, and almost had dozens of people suffering a Fate Worse Than Death: being recycled, and becoming part of a potion bottle, cauldron or spellbook. There's no way possible she be considered a scapegoat after all that. Frankly, if it weren't for Agatha's death being played for sympathy she'd probably be Pure Evil right now.
She's still evil enough to be Near Pure Evil, considering she crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
Final Thoughts[]
She seems like a good keeper for being Near Pure Evil.