Gruntilda

Gruntilda Winkybunion, more commonly known as Grunty, is an evil witch and the main antagonist of the Banjo-Kazooie series. She has appeared in every game in the series yet, causing trouble for her nemeses, Banjo and Kazooie.

She is one of four sisters; the others being Brentilda, Mingella, and Blobbelda.

Banjo-Kazooie
In the first game, Gruntilda played the the role of "evil witch" quite nicely. She spoke only in rhyme, and was known for her extreme vanity; strange, considering how ugly she appears. She had a bad habit of picking her nose, as seen in the Banjo-Kazooie intro cutscene. Like most witches, she used a broomstick for transportation. When Dingpot revealed that Tooty, the sister of Banjo, was the "fairest in the land", Gruntilda became incensed and kidnapped the child. She selfishly plotted to use a "Beauty Transfer Machine" to drain Tooty's youth and beauty and transfer it to herself. Banjo and his pal Kazooie chased the witch through her massive lair, where she had created various worlds filled with her minions and challenges. As the pair progressed, Gruntilda shouted rhyming taunts and various insults to keep the pair away. With help from various sources-including her sister Brentilda, who told Banjo and Kazooie answers to some of the questions on her gameshow, the bird and bear duo were able to go through the worlds and reach the last challenge before rescuing Tooty, a twisted gameshow created by Gruntilda called Grunty's Furnace Fun. After the duo cleared the game, Gruntilda ran away and left them to rescue Tooty. Later, the two journeyed to the roof and battled Grunty, with aid from the Jinjos that she had imprisoned throughout the worlds. She was defeated by the Jinjonator and trapped beneath an enormous rock, which her minion Klungo spent two years attempting to remove. Oddly enough, she remained alive, and vowed revenge upon the pair.

Battle
Despite her comical nature and stupidity, Gruntilda proved herself to be Banjo and Kazooie's strongest enemy when first faced. 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. Her broom starts to slow down after a few passes, leaving her vulnerable to the Rat-a-Tat Rap. After every successful attack from the player, Gruntilda will use an easily dodged fireball.

After taking enough damage, 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, she will take a short breather, leaving her open to eggs.

After repeating the process four times, Gruntilda flies high into the air to avoid being shot at, but Bottles fortunately creates a flight pad to use. You can hit Gruntilda anytime with the Beak Bomb, but it's best to attack her when she's not moving. Try not to attack her from above.

After taking enough damage Gruntilda will create a force field around that Banjo and Kazooie can't break through. At this point the Jinjos realize the two of the them need their help and intervene by creating four statues around the area. After a number of eggs are shot into the statues, a Jinjo will fly away like a missile and hit through Gruntilda's barrier. The witch, however, doesn't remain idle during this and will continue to attack with fireballs. While Banjo and Kazooie can't move the statues, they won't provide any cover 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 Jinjonator appears. This statue has four holes that the player must shoot eggs into. 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, and partly because you're most likely drained from the previous phases. After each homing shot, she will take a short breather, which is your cue to shoot eggs like a maniac into the holes. After the Jinjonator is activated, he will defeat Gruntilda and knock her off the tower.

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 levitated the rock that trapped Grunty, and they discovered 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 the Banjo's house to find the source of the ruckus caused when Mingella and Bloddelda entered with Hag 1, Grunty chased him and tried to kill him. Seeing him enter Banjo's house, she prepared 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 him being killed by the blast, which also ruined Banjo's house. The trio of witches then used the Hag 1 digging machine 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, 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 minigame. They eventually meet her again in Cauldron Keep, where she makes an attempt to destroy Banjo-Kazooie with another gameshow, this competing against her two sisters, called Tower of Tragedy, 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 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 than the last time she attacked Banjo and Kazooie (she killed two of his allies), Gruntilda's revenge plans failed and was defeated yet again, and reduced to nothing more than a talking skull. She swore that she would get her revenge in Banjo-Threeie.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge
Mecha-Grunty is the main antagonist from Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge on Game Boy Advance. Two months after being crushed under a rock in the ending of Banjo-Kazooie, Grunty's spirit was able to escape, and she was able to live once more, using a mechanical version of herself as a body. Klungo built the robot, then Grunty's soul left the rock and got into the machine. You fight with Grunty many times through the game, and there is nothing "new" in the final battle related to the other battles in the game. After being defeated, Grunty returns to the hole her original body lay in, and tells Klungo to fetch her sisters, thus setting up the events of Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Grunty continues her role as an antagonist in this game as well. She makes her way back to Spiral Mountain, even though she is still a skull. 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 Grunty start to collect the thousands of badges L.O.G. put in front of them, but soon grows impatient of a head and a fat bear running around. He restores Banjo and Kazooie to fighting fit shape and gives Grunty a robotic form of her original body with a jar for her head and a cat named Piddles. The two go to Showdown Town, where she tries to stop Banjo and Kazooie from earning Jiggies and return to Spiral Mountain and fight her once more. She appears in all levels of the game. In Nuts and Bolts her voice has changed.

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.

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.

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.

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 destory the foliage in Act 5 with her invisible flying vehicle. Banjo destroys the UFO and earns a horn. If the invisblity device is destroyed first, the challenge is easier.

Spiral Mountain
Grunty's plan for Spiral Mountain is revealed. She plans to turn Spiral Mountain into Grunty Towers. 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.

Personality
Like the rest of the characters in the series, Gruntilda has a very comical personality, and often breaks the 4th wall. She isn't very smart. In Banjo-Kazooie, after kidnapping Tooty, she won't activate her machine unless the player gets a gameover for no explained reason. She also lets Banjo and Kazooie actually have a chance in her Grunty Furnace Fun game as opposed to just immediately activating a trap in the game that will kill them. However, even though she's extremely comical, she is none the less very evil. Aside from the plan she had to take Tooty's beauty away in the first game, her evil nature is also shown with how she abuses her minions throughout the game, and everyone else. In the first game Gruntilda has a fairly typical witch personality with her goal of being the best looking and trying to kill Banjo and Kazooie when they try to stop her.

During the second game, Gruntilda is overall more evil, 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 she actually tries to kill someone. 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. Finally, she didn't have any problem with crushing her sisters (this could also be partially because rhyming is Gruntilda's thing), Mingella and Blobbelda, when they lost at her Tower of Tragedy game. Because of 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. Her lack of intelligence is also seen in her Tower of Tragedy game where she doesn't think of dropping the weight over Banjo and Kazooie when the game doesn't go the way she expected (Though, considering the fact that their weight fell down just as they were about to leave, narrowly missing them, as well as the fact that the podium she escaped in also controls the weights, she most likely was trying to crush them.). It is shown she is rather sensitive about her last name.

gruntilda

Other sisters

 * Mingella
 * Blobbelda
 * Brentilda

Gruntilda's Broomstick

Gruntilda Quotes

Trivia

 * All of Gruntilda's sisters have only appeared in one game so far: Brentilda has so far only appeared in Banjo-Kazooie, and Mingella and Blobbelda have only appeared in Banjo-Tooie.
 * Gruntilda's personality and actions resemble those of fictional witches and other evil characters. Her reason for kidnapping Tooty for her beauty is similar to the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. She resembles the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its adaptations. Also, considering her cauldron and her two sisters, the Winkybunion sisters (excluding Brentilda) resemble the witches from William Shakespeare's Macbeth (those witches and Grunty tend to rhyme as well).
 * Gruntilda does not rhyme in Banjo-Tooie as a condition to enlisting her sister's help. Even after she kills them in the Tower of Tragedy.
 * Gruntilda seems very fond of game shows, as she hosts three of them at the end of Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Grunty's Revenge. L.O.G. replaced her as the quiz host in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
 * A common joke in Banjo-Tooie is that one of Grunty's eyes comes out on occasions.
 * Her appearance in Nuts and Bolts bears some similarity to Dr. Weil from the Mega Man Zero Series

Voice actress
She is voiced by Lucy Elliot.