Gruntilda

"Come to me my little pretty. You'll soon be ugly, what a pity."

- Gruntilda Winkybunion

Gruntilda Winkybunion, more commonly known as Grunty or Gruntilda, is an evil witch and the primary antagonist of the Banjo-Kazooie series. She has appeared in every game in the series yet, causing trouble for her arch-enemies, Banjo and Kazooie. She is one of four sisters; her other sisters are Brentilda, Mingella, and Blobbelda.

Banjo-Kazooie
In the first game, Gruntilda played the 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 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, Banjo's sister, was the "prettiest and fairest in the land", Gruntilda became infuriated and kidnapped Tooty. She selfishly plotted to use a "Beauty Transfer Machine" to drain Tooty's youth and beauty and transfer it to her own ugly self. Banjo and his pal 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.

Despite her comical nature, Gruntilda proved herself to be Banjo and Kazooie's strongest enemy when they first battled each other. 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, leaving her vulnerable to the Rat-a-Tat Rap. After every successful attack from the player, Gruntilda will attack with 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 fireballs, she will take a short pause, leaving her vulnerable to Eggs.

After repeating this process four times, 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. Try not to attack her from above, otherwise you risk falling off the tower to your doom...

After taking another four hits, Gruntilda will create a force field around that Banjo and Kazooie cannot 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 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 ram into the witch, 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 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. 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 below. Seconds later, a large falling rock lands in the same spot where she crashed, trapping her beneath the surface. Banjo, Kazooie, and Tooty take a vacation to celebrate Grunty's defeat, during which Gruntilda's minion Klungo spends two years attempting to move the enormous boulder and save Gruntilda. Unfortunately, she remained alive and vowed her revenge upon the pair one day.

Banjo-Kazooie Grunty's Revenge
Mecha-Grunty is the main antagonist from Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge for the 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 by using a mechanical version of herself as a body. This mechanical suit was built by Klungo and allowed Grunty's soul to leave from under the rock and get into the machine. You fight with Grunty many times through the game, and during the final battle, the Mecha-Grunty suit is destroyed, leaving only her ghost to fight. After being defeated, the spell Grunty used to eject her spirit from her original body wore off, forcing Grunty's ghost to return into her original body that was still laying underneath the rock. Afterwards, Grunty's tells Klungo to send a message to her sisters, thus setting up the events of Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Tooie
"Stupid bear and dumb Kazooie, I'll be back for Banjo-Tooie!"

- Gruntilda during the end cut scene of Banjo Kazooie

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 in 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 rhymes 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-Kazooie with another game show, 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.

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, her health at a whopping 16 honeycombs, enabling her to endure four Grenade Eggs, but at the cost of being the largest target and moving the slowest.

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and 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 many badges L.O.G. put in front of them, but soon grows impatient of a skull and a fat bear 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. After that fails, she fights the duo in a final showdown, but is defeated yet again. Banjo & Kazooie try to finish her off, but they're stopped by the Lord Of Games who instead sends Grunty & Piddles to his video game factory, where they will work at for all eternity.

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 intellegence 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 with how she abuses her minions throughout the game and 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 had seized control of and had spread much chaos and suffering with her army of monsters.

In Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, her rise to power prior to Banjo-Kazooie is explained and is shown to display a considerable 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 in order 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 to going to back to her original plans to obtain beauty once Banjo and Kazooie were taken care of.

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. 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, Mingella and Blobbelda, when they lost at her Tower of Tragedy game. 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: 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.

However, as evil as she is, she holds an honorable side. After defeating her game show in the first game, instead of running off with Tooty, she holds her promise to release her. And she willingly uses slow attacks in the final battle of the second game if you answers questions correctly.

Trivia

 * Her appearance in Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts bears a resemblance to the Mega Man Zero villain Dr. Weil.
 * 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 the B.O.B. machine 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 & 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 magic spell before being knocked over by the Jinjonator was originally supposed to hit Banjo and Kazooie and turn them into a frog, resulting in Mumbo Jumbo 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 Gruntilda'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 did not seem to fully kill Bottles until the morning. Also of note, at the time the spell was cast, both spell casters were skeletal.
 * She would put on sunglasses in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
 * Her appearance is identical to that of Witch Hazel from Looney Tunes.
 * She is the only boss to take longer than any other bosses in Banjo-Kazooie.
 * During one of her taunts throughout her lair in the first game, she says "When I'm nice and slim once more, burgers, fries, and chips galore!". In actuality, under British terms, fries and chips are actually the same thing (Chips being the British equivalent of fries), with potato chips in Britain actually being Potato Crisps, so her line should be "When I'm nice and slim once more, burgers, chips, and crisps galore!".
 * In the Japanese versions of the first game, instead of showing her to be rhyming in her dialogue, she is instead given a stereotypical (and exaggerated) old woman's drone.
 * She is so powerful that she can erase an entire save file. In the original Banjo-Kazooie, if the player typed cheat chodes considered "illegal" by Gruntilda, she would erase the save file that they were cheating in.