The actual Sabrina storyline itself is ripe for a dark re-imagining, and so we take a look at the Netflix adaptation ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ and how exploring the darker side of witchcraft has created an intriguing series.
If you are old like me, you will remember that Sabrina the Teenage Witch was staple watching back in the late 90s, early 00s. Based on a comic book series published by Archie Comics that first appeared in 1971 (although the character of Sabrina herself initially appeared in a 1962 issue of Archie’s Madhouse), Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a great, if at times goofy, series about a 16-year-old half-mortal half-witch, following her trying to navigate everyday life with the additional challenges that come with being a witch.
In 2014, Archie Horror, an imprint of Archie Comics, published The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a dark re-imagining of the Sabrina storyline, as a spin-off from its Archie in the Afterlife series. Confused? Yeah, so am I. Comic books are pretty nebulous beasts, spawning re-imaginings, spin-offs, reboots…
What’s important to take away from all of the above is that last year, we were gifted with The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which premiered in October on Netflix.
Rather than the bubbly bouncy world of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is set in a very (literally and metaphorically) dark world in which Sabrina struggles to balance her mortal and witch selves while also facing the forces of evil which threaten not only her family if she fails to sign her soul over to Satan, but those of her mortal friends as well.
While the show undoubtedly has its flaws, the actual Sabrina storyline itself is ripe for a dark re-imagining, and dare I say, it does a far better job of looking at the original storyline and contemplating how the more sinister elements of human (or I suppose witch)kind lurk beneath cheery facades. One could argue that this trend is in fact a different way of deconstructing the American Dream which wholesome storylines promulgate, but that’s an investigation for another article. What I’m going to talk about today is how well Sabrina the Teenage Witch is suited for a dark retelling.
The first and most obvious reason for this is the fact that the subject of witches and witchcraft is often aligned to a sinister intent. Indeed, the witch hunts which ran across Europe and North America from approximately 1580 until 1700 were performed under the claim that witches were involved in a compact with Satan and malevolently affected the surrounding townspeople, making them responsible for basically any misfortune.
While there has been a counternarrative in recent decades in which witches are beings who simply happen to be magical, the association with the occult and the sinister remains. Sabrina explores this and gives us glimpses into the conventions of witchcraft and the way in which witches who are aligned with Lucifer may interpret the Judeo-Christian faith. The fifth episode, Dreams in a Witch House, contained a scene in which Zelda is reading to children about the story of genesis in the garden of Eden. Her explanation is that the serpent offered Eve knowledge which God was keeping hidden from humans so He could control them, thus liberating Adam and Eve from being all but slaves. Of course, this interpretation is undercut by the manner in which Satan seems to be very specific about how he wants his chosen people to behave and the fact that he gets real testy when Sabrina refuses to literally sign her soul over to him. Nevertheless, the inextricable link between witchcraft and a rich history of mythology was glossed over by the original iteration of Sabrina, and one of the things which Chilling Adventures does laudably is to at the very least insinuate the links between the existence and history of witches and various pieces and figures from occult mythology: Lilith, Batibat, literally every women they invoke in An Exorcism in Greendale, Gryla, the list goes on.
This leads me nicely in to the fact that Chilling Adventures also challenges many of the practices in which the Church of Night engages (episode seven, Witch Thanksgiving, anyone?). While also serving to make a point about the merit of not blindly following tradition, the show makes some very interesting points about the perversion of religion by a few. While it’s unclear for to what end exactly he’s working (although one of the final scenes of part 1 did infer he wanted to see the rise of warlocks who are a minority within the Church of the Night), Father Faustus Blackwood is obviously interpreting the teachings and practices of the Church to satisfy his own agenda, even going so far as to claim he has received revelations from the Dark Lord himself to suit his own purpose.
In turn, this lends itself to a discussion on the nature of faith. The discussion between Prudence and Sabrina in Feast of Feasts is one that’s done before (see Star Trek Voyager: s3e7 Sacred Ground), but this was done really well thanks to a sterling performance by Tati Gabrielle. It’s not strictly related to the plot points one may expect to find in a show about witches, but if you pause for a moment, it makes sense: witchcraft throughout history has been tied with the capacity to have knowledge of the afterlife, but it’s by no means guaranteed that witches themselves have the answers to the bigger questions.
Moreover, the show makes clever use of the fact that throughout history, witches have been predominantly women. One of my favourite lines of the all part one was from one of the first episodes during an exchange between Sabrina and Prudence when Sabrina is told that Satan is afraid of the witches’ power. When Sabrina asks why, is simply given the response “well he’s a man, isn’t he?”. Certainly, it’s not uncontroversial to claim that the term ‘witch’ has been used to perpetuate women’s subjugation. Famously, most women who were unusual or powerful in some way (for example, those who used herblore to provide medicine and in so doing, challenge the authority of the Church and associated patriarchal doctors – such as they were) were accused of witchcraft. I wouldn’t have said that the show is particularly overt in its engagement with this, but the strong unity among the female witches in conjunction with the not infrequent asides, gives the show an added depth.
Finally, the background of Sabrina herself is one which the original show explores, but in a way that arguably didn’t have quite the level of emotional angst that we have come to expect from our TV shows. As a result of her mixed heritage Sabrina is on the receiving end of a fair amount of sneering disdain from many of the other members of the Church of Night (for the first half of part one, at least). Yet that’s arguably not the most difficult trial Sabrina endures because of being a “half breed””. The show’s very premise is that of someone whose parentage has her straddling two very different worlds and struggling to find a way to compromise between them with the fundamental incompatibilities of those worlds. Of course, this also serves as an analogue for questions of race, but is done in a way that doesn’t preach or press the point.
At the end of the day, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina isn’t the most brilliant show around. But it’s clearly had a lot of thought put into its development and writing, and it’s a pretty interesting story. If you’re looking for something to watch, I’d certainly recommend it.
