In Akata Witch, most
of the main characters we are introduced to are witches, or as they are known
in Nigeria, ekpe—Leopard societies/people. I noticed that women with lighter
skin are treated much more cruelly than women with darker skin; as explained by
Sunny’s encounter during her class in Chapter 1. Her white-skinned teacher,
Miss Tate, attempted to force Sunny to punish her classmates with a wooden
switch to their hands. When Sunny refused, her classmates jumped and beat her
after the school day ended. In this case, Miss Tate’s power as a teacher was highlighted
when she punished her students for their poorly written essays, and her attempt
to make Sunny punish them instead. Simply because Sunny’s essay excelled over
her classmates. However, Sunny’s classmates saw this as Miss Tate favoring her
(Sunny) for being light-skinned and allowing Miss Tate to brutally punish them
instead of Sunny pretending to. In my personal opinion, I believe they just
used this as an excuse to ‘justly’ beat Sunny out of hatred. Another thing to
mention is how there are misconceptions of albino people having evil magical
powers. As seen when Chichi suspects Sunny is a Leopard person and is debating
with Orlu on whether they let her in their world. Sunny worries over what
Chichi’s perception of her maybe. Sunny was taught that all juju is evil, and Orlu
and Chichi try to explain that there is “some good, some bad, some just is…”
(page 24). This highlights how some people are ignorant of different cultures
and their history. For example, when Sunny assumed Juju was all evil and how
people believe witches are evil.
In this story, some characters are more complex than others,
as some fit multiple of the three main archetypes. The three main archetypes
being Character, Situational and Symbolic with many subcategories. For Sunny,
she fits the Character archetype later on in the book, but I personally believe
she is more of a Symbolic archetype. Her being albino insinuates that she
should have the ability to disappear at will, as well as travel between this
world and the spirit world. She is often called a Ghost, or half ghost-half
human. We later learn Sunny’s abilities as a free agent Leopard person. Once
Sunny discovers her spirit face, her albino skin no longer burns painfully
under the sun. “Her spirit face was the sun, all shiny gold and glowing with
pointy rays.” (page 93). She is put into the Hero archetype when forced to move
to Nigeria and then later discovering her true identity.
Narratively this story and her character, have many similarities
to Harry Potter. Sunny, like Harry Potter, is placed in an unknown world and
must save it from an evil that threatens it. For Sunny, this evil is the Black Hat
Otokoto, a serial killer who murders Nigerian children in order to summon the
most-formidable of spirits. Black Hat Otokoto fits the Villain Archetype with his
main goal of gaining more power by summoning greater evil; a motivation that
many villain archetypes in literature are often depicted with. He is also a very
powerful Leopard person who was mentored by Sunny’s Leopard grandmother
Ozoemena. This is how they are essentially connected to each other, much like
Voldemort and Harry are magically linked. One character that appears in the story,
Sugar Cream fits the Mentor archetype. In the Leopard world, they value
knowledge and learning above everything. She is the Librarian of the Obi
Library in Leopard Knocks, making Sugar Cream one of the most powerful and well-known
ekpe within West Africa. Her condition of scoliosis in indicative to her
shape-shifting ability; mainly her ability to turn into a snake at will. She
considers becoming Sunny’s mentor, much like how Dumbledore is a mentor to
Harry Potter, but is unsure due to Sunny’s questionable behavior. The more you
go in-depth with each character, the more subcategories they will fit into. In
the same way Sunny, our protagonist, fits many Archetypes.
