Is Wednesday Addams a witch? Why does she get visions?
Is Wednesday Addams a witch? Why does she get visions? Here's what you need to know about the character's backstory.
Is Wednesday Addams a witch? Since the protagonist of the latest Tim Burton series is considered to be an "outcast" there are a lot of questions surrounding her, as well as the Addams Family history.
Nevermore Academy is home to many students, some of which have magical abilities like sirens, werewolves, and vampires, but Wednesday seems to be her own unique brand of "outcast", leading fans to ask more about her.
Netflix's Wednesday has smashed streaming records recently, with a new generation of Addams Family fans amassing 341.2 million hours and counting after it premiered on the streaming service.
In this feature, we'll explore Wednesday's backstory, her abilities, and some other key features about the character, as well as what exactly makes her the perfect candidate for Nevermore Academy.
Is Wednesday Addams a witch?
No, Wednesday is not a witch and was born to human parents, Morticia and Gomez Addams. While the entire Addams Family embraces the macabre and has supernatural occurrences going on (like Thing, for example!), none of the family are actually witches or wizards.
Morticia is often depicted as witch-like, with her long dark hair and flowing black dress, but she's simply a human that loves gothic things and embracing the supernatural, which is where the misconception may come from.
Having said that, despite not being witches by birth, both Morticia and Wednesday share the same supernatural ability in the Wednesday series, which is clairvoyance, commonly referred to as "having visions".
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This is what leads Wednesday to solve the mystery at the heart of the story, where she's able to learn more about Joseph Crackstone and her ancestor, Goody Addams.
What do we know about Wednesday's visions?
In Wednesday, we learn that there are two types of clairvoyance, with Morticia describing them as "doves" and "ravens", two birds of opposing colors to reflect positive and negative emotion.
Since Morticia is more of an optimist and a romantic, she is a dove, whereas Wednesday's pessimistic nature means she's a raven and has visions about negative things, which led her to learn more about the Hyde creature and Joseph Crackstone's true nature.
While these visions are unpleasant, Wednesday does use them to crack the case, so they can certainly have their advantages even though they often contain death, omens, and other ominous things.
These visions are seemingly triggered at random, if she touches a specific thing or person, it can allow her to see something that has happened or bad omens.
What makes Wednesday an outcast?
She might not be a supernatural creature, but she's certainly an outcast! For Wednesday it's more in the social sense as she was expelled from her past eight schools, most notably for putting piranhas in the swimming pool after a group of bullies beat up her brother, Pugsley.
She is also "allergic to color", has little interest in social media, and prefers being on her own, which is certainly different from most of her peers. Even among the Nevermore students, Wednesday is regarded as a bit weird!
More from Netflix's Wednesday
Lucy joined the WhatToWatch.com team in 2021, where she writes series guides for must-watch programmes, reviews and the latest TV news. Now she works for our sister site TechRadar in the same role. Originally from Northumberland, she graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a degree in Film Studies and moved to London to begin a career writing about entertainment.
She is a Rotten Tomatoes approved film critic and has a huge passion for cinema. She especially loves horror, thriller and anything crime-related. Her favourite TV programmes include Inside No 9, American Horror Story, Stranger Things and Black Mirror but she is also partial to a quiz show or a bit of Say Yes to the Dress!