Gruntilda

"Dingpot, Dingpot by the bench, who is the nicest looking wench?"

- Gruntilda

Gruntilda Winkybunion is the main antagonist of the Banjo-Kazooie series

Banjo-Kazooie
In the first game, Gruntilda played the role of the stereotypical "evil witch". She spoke only in rhymes and was known for being extremely vain, which is odd considering how ugly she appears. She has a bad habit of picking her nose, as seen in the Banjo-Kazooie intro cutscene. Like most witches, she uses a broomstick for transportation.

When Dingpot revealed that Tooty, Banjo's sister, was the "prettiest and fairest in the land", Gruntilda became infuriated and kidnapped Tooty (however, the manual implies that Gruntilda was already planning on snatching a denizen from Spiral Mountain to steal their beauty to one-up her sister, Brentilda. According to the manual, she was actually deep-down glad that Tooty was prettier than her as it gave her an excuse to subject her as her first test specimen). She selfishly plotted to use a "Beauty Transfer Machine" to drain Tooty's youth and beauty and transfer it to her own ugly self, which would result in Grunty becoming pretty and thin and Tooty becoming ugly, fat and green. Banjo and his good friend Kazooie chased the witch through her massive lair, where she had created several worlds filled with her minions and various challenges to stop the duo.

As the pair progressed, Gruntilda shouted rhyming taunts and various insults in an attempt to keep the pair away. But with the help from various sources, including her nicer sister Brentilda who told Banjo and Kazooie interesting secrets regarding Gruntilda, the bear and bird duo were able to complete the worlds and reach Grunty's last challenge before rescuing Tooty: a twisted game show called Grunty's Furnace Fun. After the duo won the game show, Gruntilda ran away and Banjo and Kazooie rescued Tooty. Later, the bear and bird journeyed to the roof of Gruntilda's Lair and faced off in a battle with Grunty.

The Final Battle
Despite her comical nature, Gruntilda proved herself to be Banjo and Kazooie's strongest enemy. She spends most of the fight riding her broomstick. During the first phase, she flies down fast and tries to impale Banjo and Kazooie with the teeth on her broom. However, her broom starts to slow down after a few passes (two the first and second time around, three the third time around, and four the fourth time around), leaving her vulnerable to the Rat-a-tat Rap. After every successful attack from the player, Gruntilda will attack with an easily dodge-able fireball.

After taking enough damage, she uses a homing spell. Kazooie can protect Banjo from this by using the Golden Feathers. After, she starts to hover in place and throw fireballs. In a rare moment, she displays some intelligence when doing this because if the player tries to run away from the fireballs before she fires, Gruntilda will throw them into the player's path. After throwing four fireballs, she will take a short pause (the pause shortens every time she moves from one part of the tower to the next), leaving her vulnerable to three Eggs.

After repeating this process four times, she uses another homing spell which once again will be destroyed if Kazooie uses a Golden Feather. Then, Gruntilda flies high into the air to avoid being shot at, but fortunately Bottles comes to the duo's aid and creates a Flight Pad for them to use. Banjo and Kazooie can hit Gruntilda at any time with the Beak Bomb but it's best to attack her when she's not moving (again, the time she's not moving will shorten every time she's hit). Try not to attack her from above, otherwise you risk falling off the tower to your doom. Every time she's hit, she'll throw fireballs at you (one after the first hit, two after the second, three after the third, and four after the fourth).

After taking another four hits, Gruntilda will create a force field around her that Banjo and Kazooie cannot break through. At this point the Jinjos realize the two of them are in need of their help and intervene by creating four statues around the area. After three eggs are shot into the statues, a Jinjo will fly into the air like a missile and break through Gruntilda's barrier. The witch, however, doesn't remain idle during this time and will continue to attack the pair with fireballs. Unfortunately, Banjo and Kazooie cannot take cover behind the Jinjo statues as Gruntilda's attacks fly through them.

After all four Jinjo missiles fire, Gruntilda's broomstick will break and she will fall to the edge of the tower. She is still standing, however, and her force field still renders her immune to any of Banjo and Kazooie's attacks. At this point a larger statue containing The Mighty Jinjonator appears. This statue has four holes that the player must shoot four eggs into each side. Like the smaller Jinjo statues, the statue provides no cover and Gruntilda's attacks will still pass through it. She is quite possibly at her most dangerous in this phase, partly because she will attack with several consecutive fireballs followed by a homing shot. After each homing shot she will take a short breather, allowing Banjo and Kazooie to shoot eggs into the holes. Once the Mighty Jinjonator is activated, he will attack Gruntilda and knock her off the tower.

Gruntilda falls off the tower and crashes into the ground. Seconds later, a large falling rock traps her beneath, sealing her first defeat. Banjo, Kazooie and Tooty take a vacation to celebrate, during which Gruntilda's minion Klungo spends two years attempting to remove the enormous boulder and save Gruntilda. Unfortunately, she remained alive and vowed her revenge upon the pair one day.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge
"Although you've smashed my mecha-suit, don't think you've given me the boot. Now I've trapped you on my tower, I'll crush you with my ghostly power!"

- Mecha-Grunty

Two months have passed since Grunty was knocked off her tower in Banjo-Kazooie and she has been perfecting her plan for revenge ever since. Klungo builds her a mechanical body, aptly called Mecha-Grunty, for her ghost to inhabit. Rather than fighting the duo as the main antagonist in a body of her own, she operates Mecha Grunty and causes chaos by going back in time and kidnapping Kazooie.

She is beaten once more and returns to her body, setting the events of Banjo-Tooie in motion.

Banjo-Tooie
After two years had passed, Gruntilda was suddenly freed from her prison by the sudden appearance of her sisters Mingella and Blobbelda. Their evil spells levitate and destroy the rock that trapped Grunty and they discover that she had been degenerated into a skeleton. Furious at her new bony body, Gruntilda asked her sisters for help in restoring her. "Mingy" and "Blobby" had already planned for such an event, and the three prepared to leave Spiral Mountain.

Before they did, when Mumbo had wandered out of Banjo's house to find the source of the ruckus caused when Mingella and Bloddelda entered with the Hag 1 digging machine, Grunty chased him and tried to kill him with magic spells. Seeing him enter Banjo's house, she prepares a bigger spell to destroy it and while Banjo, Kazooie and Mumbo escaped, Bottles stayed behind assuming Mumbo was lying and trying to win at their poker game, resulting in him being killed by the blast, which also ruined Banjo's house.

After destroying Banjo's house, the trio of witches used the Hag 1 to reach Cauldron Keep on Isle o' Hags, where Mingella and Blobbelda revealed their B.O.B. machine. It was designed to suck the life out of anything captured in its beam; Gruntilda practiced this on King Jingaling for giving Banjo and Kazooie a Jiggy, reducing him to a zombie. It is also interesting to note that Gruntilda stopped speaking in rhyme at this point (her sisters found it "annoying"). Gruntilda then wanted to use B.O.B. on the whole island, but is informed that it will take time for it to charge up before that can happen.

For the rest of the game, she stays in Cauldron Keep but will usually talk to Banjo and Kazooie whenever they enter a mini-game. They eventually meet her again in Cauldron Keep where she makes an attempt to destroy Banjo and Kazooie with another game show called Tower of Tragedy, this time competing against her two sisters in which the loser would have a 1-ton weight dropped on them. Her plan failed and she ended up killing her two sisters, but because of her temper, declares Banjo and Kazooie's win "invalid due to the faulty scoring equipment".

Not sure of what to do next, Gruntilda takes Kazooie's advice to "escape in a cowardly fashion like in Banjo-Kazooie", and she tells the duo she'll be at the top of the tower, though she of course boasts she will win this time. Sure enough, Banjo and Kazooie found Gruntilda in the Hag 1 waiting for them at the top of Cauldron Keep. Although she had more success the last time she attacked Banjo and Kazooie (she killed two of his allies, but were brought back by reversing the B.O.B.), Gruntilda's revenge plans failed and was defeated yet again, reduced to nothing more than a talking skull. Later, Banjo, Kazooie, Humba Wumba and Jamjars use her head as a ball in a game of "Kick Around" and she loses one of her eyes (again) in the process. She swore that she would get her revenge in Banjo-Threeie.

Gruntilda is also a playable character in the multiplayer games Targitzan's Temple Shootout, Ordnance Storage Shootout and Clinker's Cavern Shootout. In these games, Gruntilda is the tank character with her health at a whopping 16 honeycombs, enabling her to endure four Grenade Eggs; however, it comes at the cost of being the largest target and moving the slowest.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Grunty continues her role as an antagonist in this game as well, and has taken up her annoying rhyming once more. She makes her way back to Spiral Mountain, even though she is still a skull (probably why it took her eight years to get there). A now fattened Banjo and Kazooie challenge her to another showdown, but the Lord of Games pauses the battle and states they shall fight in true Banjo-Kazooie style, by collecting random useless objects. A fat Banjo and bodiless Grunty start to collect the thousands of badges L.O.G. put in front of them, but soon grows impatient of a skull and a fat bear with a fat bird in his backpack running around. He restores Banjo and Kazooie to fighting fit shape and gives them a Magical Wrench, while giving Grunty a robotic form of her original body with a jar for her head and a cat named Piddles. The three characters go to Showdown Town, where Gruntilda tries to stop Banjo and Kazooie from earning Jiggies and returning to Spiral Mountain and fight her once more. She appears in all the levels of the game. In Showdown Town, she treats the time off she has from attempting to beat the heroes as a vacation.

Nutty Acres
She appears in Act 3 and she is trying to steal the island's Loco Coco. She carries it away and Banjo must knock it out of her vehicle. This is not a difficult challenge as the coconut is not secured. Beating the challenge earns the bear and bird high grip wheels for the trolley in Showdown Town. Use the fulgore fist!

LOGBOX 720
Grunty attempts to send Piddles to contaminate the glubber tank (forcing Bottles to shut down the LOGBOX 720) but first offers a race in Act 3. When Banjo wins, Grunty must stop her plan. Grunty races in the water and Banjo on land and the race is several laps long. The prize for this victory are the floaters and a small propeller. After she is defeated, go down the pink pool to find two passages, one containing notes and the other nothing.

Banjoland
The witch tries to cause a ruckus in the museum with her new bouncing vehicle in Act 4. Banjo must destroy it before she gets away. Freezing her is a good strategy because she is hard to hit. The part earned here is the spring so the trolley can jump.Most of the trapdoor towers  can be reached!

Jiggoseum
Grunty appears in two acts in this world. In Act 4, she flooded the stadium and Banjo must beat her challenge of knocking beach balls into the goal. Then he gets the scuba seat in Showdown Town. In Act 5, she tries to destroy the billiard balls with a laser, so Banjo must keep them safe. He gets a laser for his trolley if he wins.

Terrarium of Terror
Grunty attempts to destroy the foliage in Act 5 with her invisible flying vehicle. Banjo destroys the UFO and earns a horn. If the invisibility device is destroyed first, the challenge is easier.The device is a chameleon. It is easy to defeat her if you purchase the Clockwork Kazooie part from Humba's Shop

Spiral Mountain
Grunty's plan for Spiral Mountain is revealed. She plans to industrialize Spiral Mountain, turning it into Grunty Acres. Grunty unleashes her five strongest vehicles in her final challenge. The first is a monster truck that is very fast. Then she drives a boat in the lake. After that, she pilots another invisible vehicle, fortunately however, it cannot fly. Then she uses an immobile impenetrable fortress to attack. Finally, she pilots a very fast airborne broomstick. After this is defeated, Grunty tries to assault the heroes, but L.O.G. intervenes again and tells her she lost the challenge, Spiral Mountain and her freedom. As such, the witch is sent to work in the videogame factory, she is shown busily working in the factory while Piddles bosses her around, however, right before the game cuts to credits, she cackles and states it was a mistake to bring her here, plotting to create her own video game (implying that she intended to lose in order to gain access to LOG's factory).

Personality
Like the rest of the characters in the series, Gruntilda has a very comical personality and often breaks the 4th wall. While possessing high intelligence and a sarcastic wit, Gruntilda is very arrogant and overconfident, never expecting Banjo and Kazooie to overcome all the trials and challenges placed before them. However, even though she's comical, she is nonetheless very evil and has never shown any form of kindness or concern for anybody or anything, even her own sisters. She is very power hungry and sadistic, hurting others for simply having a carefree and kind nature. Aside from the plan she had to take Tooty's beauty away in the first game, her evil nature is also shown in her abuse of her minions throughout the game as well as her abductions of the Jinjos. In the first game, Gruntilda had a fairly typical witch personality with her goal of being the best looking and trying to stop Banjo and Kazooie from interfering with her evil plans. She is also shown to be responsible for the numerous misfortunes of the countless lands she seized control of and has spread much chaos and suffering with her army of monsters.

During the second game, Gruntilda is overall much more evil and sadistic, though she is still just as comical. She is forced to stop rhyming (because her sisters won't help her get her body back if she doesn't stop) and actually murders several characters, including an entire family of ten Jinjos and her own two sisters. Even after she killed her sisters for losing Tower of Tragedy, she still did not rhyme, probably to honor their deaths. Her aim is also more fiendish in that she wanted to use B.O.B. to suck the life from all of Isle O' Hags to restore her body. Due to Banjo and Kazooie foiling her plans and burying her under a rock, she holds a strong grudge against them. Despite that, she takes them just as lightly as she did in the first game, leading to yet another defeat.

In Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, her rise to power prior to Banjo-Kazooie is explained and is shown to display a considerably more evil and intelligent demeanor. Her plans include abducting Kazooie and going back in time to alter history to erase her defeat and gain control of the island. The game shows that prior to Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda abducted the Jinjos, seized control of their home to construct her lair, enslaved others and stole the Jiggies from Master Jiggywiggy to exert her control over the lands she took over. She attempts to round up all bears and birds and eradicate them entirely to insure Banjo and Kazooie never exist; this is to change history to her never being defeated and her rise to power remaining unopposed. Gruntilda's plans in this game took a much more strategic approach as her operations were laid out more carefully and she craved to have pure power and control. In addition, she also wanted to continue her original plans of obtaining beauty once Banjo and Kazooie were taken care of.

In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, she displays a high level of intelligence, as she built the Gruntbots who assist her and the vehicles she uses. Unlike previous games, Gruntilda does not value upgrading her personal appearance, but to have Spiral Mountain once again in her grasp and be its ruler.

Quotes from Tower of Tragedy

 * Thank you, thank you... I'm Grunty, your host, and may I welcome you to my Tower of Tragedy quiz! Let me run the rules for you all. There are three rounds of general knowledge questions, and the person with the lowest score at the end of each round will be eliminated! Correct answers score 2 points, with 1 point being awarded if it was a second guess following the incorrect answer from another contestant. Get one wrong and I'll take 2 points off you! Press B to buzz in and then A to answer if you can. Now let's meet tonight's victims, err...I mean contestants, shall we?
 * Introducing on the left...It's my gorgeous, slim sister, Mingella!
 * On the right we have...my lovely, err...shapely sister, Blobbelda!
 * And in the middle...just some loser bear called Banjo.


 * Welcome. it's my Tower of Tragedy "Just for Fun" quiz round 1. Do you need the rules?
 * Fair enough.
 * Not bad.
 * You know-it-all.
 * A lucky guess.
 * Hmm...okay.
 * I'll accept that.
 * Well, it was 50/50...
 * About time too.
 * Scavenger!
 * Missed your chance...
 * Buzzer broken, huh?
 * You fool! Anyone else?
 * Dunce! Anyone else?
 * You half-wit! Anyone else?
 * Thicko! Anyone else?
 * Numbskull! Anyone else?
 * You plank! Anyone else?
 * No, no, no, you idiot.
 * That was easy...
 * Yippee! Wrong again!
 * No, no, no, you idiots!
 * I'm surrounded by morons...


 * That's the end of round 1. Looks like my sister Blobbelda is as thick as her waist, and her score of (any low score number) is as low as her IQ. Here's your consolation prize, Blobby...
 * That's the end of round 1. It seems that my sister Mingella has set a new standard of dumbness, with a hopeless score of (any low score number). Time to say goodbye, Mingy...


 * That's the end of round 2. It seems that my sister Mingella has also been beaten by that useless bear. Time to say goodbye, Mingy...
 * That's the end of round 2. Looks like my sister Blobbelda has also failed to beat that dumb bear. Here's your consolation prize, Blobby...


 * [in the event of a tie in Round 1] Oh goody. Round 1's ended in a draw. So I'll just unfairly select a loser at random. I choose... [random name]!
 * [If Banjo loses in Round 1] That's the end of round 1. As expected, it's the dunce bear who's last, with a loser's score of (any low score number).

Grunty's Nicknames
Kazooie has also called Gruntilda by several nicknames:
 * Wart Brain
 * Winky
 * Grunty

Additionally, Brentilda indicates her nickname in Witch School was one of the following:
 * Cauldron Butt
 * Jelly Belly
 * Hog Breath

Similarities to other witches
Gruntilda's personality and actions resemble those of evil witches and other characters in fictional works. Her reason for kidnapping Tooty for her beauty is similar to the Evil Queen's motives in the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Ironically, in the Walt Disney adaptation, the Witch falls to her doom and gets crushed by a boulder as does Gruntilda at the climax of the final battle from the first game. She also bears resemblance to the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its adaptations. Finally, her use of a cauldron and her two wicked sisters, Mingella and Blobbelda, resemble the wicked witches from William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Trivia

 * All of Gruntilda's sisters have appeared in only one game so far: Brentilda has appeared in only Banjo-Kazooie while Mingella and Blobbelda have appeared in only Banjo-Tooie.
 * Gruntilda does not rhyme in Banjo-Tooie as a condition to enlisting her sisters' help, even after she kills them in her Tower of Tragedy quiz. She starts the game rhyming until the point where the three witches start to steal King Jingaling's life-force.
 * Gruntilda seems very fond of game shows as she hosts three of them at the end of Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie and Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge. However, L.O.G. replaces her as the game show host in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
 * In Project Dream, Gruntilda was intended to be a giant instead of an evil witch. (This may be referenced on the box art of Banjo-Kazooie as her size has been increased dramatically from the game itself).
 * Gruntilda has been relying more and more on technology and less and less on magic as time went by, as proven in Banjo-Tooie where she needed B.O.B. to suck the life force out of the island and where she used the Hag-1 for most of her battle with Banjo and Kazooie. This is also proven in Nuts and Bolts where she claims to have created the Gruntbot minions on her own and uses vehicles like Banjo and Kazooie to fight them in her challenges. Though she has a robot body, this was provided by L.O.G. so she had a fighting change against Banjo and Kazooie. She also uses a life transfer machine in Banjo-Kazooie and, although built by Klungo, she needs a Mecha-Grunty suit in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge.
 * Gruntilda's last spell before being knocked over by the Jinjonator was originally supposed to hit Banjo and Kazooie and turn them into a frog, resulting in Tooty trying to restore them to normal. It was cut out of the final version due to time constraints.
 * The curse she uses to kill Bottles seems to be similar to the Killing Curse (Avada Kedavra) from the Harry Potter book and film series as Grunty's spell seems to be green in color and seems to have instantly killed Bottles. The only difference between the Killing Curse and Gruntilda's curse is the fact that the Killing Curse kills the target immediately after being hit by it and Grunty's curse didn't seem to fully kill Bottles until the morning.

Other sisters

 * Mingella Winkybunion
 * Blobbelda Winkybunion
 * Brentilda

Gallery
Gruntilda