Gruntilda Winkybunion, also referred to as Grunty for short, is a fictional witch who serves as the villain of the Banjo-Kazooie video game series. She is a stereotypical witch, with green skin, warts, a witch's hat and a hideous cackle. She considers herself to be beautiful, despite her obvious skin condition, and has a habit of speaking in rhyme (although she didn't do much rhyming in Banjo-Tooie as it annoyed her sisters). However, her attempts to modify her appearance only lead to her having less than what she started off with.

In her first appearance, Gruntilda finds out that her so-called prettiness is usurped by that of Banjo's little sister, Tooty. Angry with this, Grunty kidnaps Tooty and places her in her Beauty Transformation Machine, operated by her hunchback sidekick, Klungo. However, she never actually gets Tooty's beauty transmitted to her (except in the Game Over sequence, and then only if the player hasn't rescued Tooty), and instead hosts a game show titled Grunty's Furnace Fun that Banjo & Kazooie must win in order to set Tooty free. Afterwards, Banjo & Kazooie battle her on top of her castle, resulting in her falling through the ground and being buried under a boulder.

Chronologically, Grunty's second plan of action came in the third game to be released in the series, Grunty's Revenge, which occurs two months after the first game. Here, she has her soul transported into Mecha-Grunty, a robot designed by Klungo. In this new body, she kidnaps Kazooie and goes back in time, hoping to prevent Kazooie from meeting Banjo (and thereby erasing Grunty's first defeat from history). In the end, though, Banjo & Kazooie succeed in dismantling Mecha-Grunty, forcing Grunty's soul to go back into her still-underground body, to wait for her sisters to rescue her.

Finally, in Banjo-Tooie, the second game in the series but the third chronologically, Gruntilda's sisters Mingella and Blobbelda arrive and use their magic to lift the boulder off of Grunty, whose flesh has by now rotted off, reducing her to nothing more than a skeleton. In order for Grunty to have her skin restored, her sisters take her to their own hideout, where they show her the Big Ol' Blaster (or BOB for short), which they use to suck out the life forces of others and transfer them to Grunty's. However, once again, Banjo & Kazooie thwart her plans, and this time, Grunty ends up as just a head with no body, which Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo, Humba Wumba and Jamjars uses to play kickball. It is at this time she mentions getting revenge in Banjo-Threeie, but so far, no news about such a game has been released.

Gruntilda's most recent appearance is as a playable character in the racing game Banjo-Pilot. Confusingly, while the game uses characters and locations from Banjo-Tooie, she manages to show up for the races looking as she did in Banjo-Kazooie, as does Klungo.

Partners

Gruntilda is often assisted by Klungo, her Igor-like lackey. He operated (and possibly built) her famous Beauty Transformation Machine, which took beauty from one person and sent it to another. After Gruntilda was buried in Banjo-Kazooie, Klungo spent two years trying to push the boulder off of her. Klungo has also built Grunty's robotic suit, which her spirit controlled in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge. By the end of Banjo-Tooie, Klungo has left Grunty's side to make "sssstupid games".

Mingella and Blobbelda are Gruntilda's sisters, who rescued her imprisonment from under a rock in Banjo-Tooie and assisted her revenge. They reside on the Isle O' Hags, and are quite skilled at machinery. They built the Hag 1, also known as the Digger, which tunneled its way into Spiral Mountain and was the machine used in the final battle of Banjo-Tooie. They also built the Big O' Blaster or "B.O.B.", a machine that sucks life out of anything it targets, which is sadly so inefficient that it was used only once. The life force sucked out would then be showered on whoever wanted life, in this case, Gruntilda, since after her burial she became nothing but bones and clothes. The two sisters currently reside under a couple of 1-ton weights in Cauldron Keep, the witches' hideout.

Clanker is Gruntilda's trash-compacting cyborg, and resides in Clanker's Cavern. A level in Grunty Industries in Banjo-Tooie is named Clinker's Cavern, and resembles Clanker's place without the water and a more factory look. For this reason, the Industries' unseen talking microphone is often named Clinker.

Cheato is Gruntilda's magical spellbook, who has been labeled as a traitor by Gruntilda for helping Banjo and Kazooie with cheats. As punishment, he had his pages ripped out by Gruntilda and are to be collected in Banjo-Tooie. How he could have his pages ripped out when Gruntilda was either buried under a rock or at Cauldron Keep has yet to be explained, yet she may have ripped them out before her downfall.

An assumption is, after Gruntilda destroyed Banjo's home, she went to her own old lair, sealed it off and ripped Cheato's pages, much to his visceral horror.

Dingpot is Grunty's personal cauldron. Originally, his job was to delude Grunty into thinking that she was actually beautiful. In the beginning of the first game, however, he confesses to Grunty that Tooty is the truly pretty one. In effect, Dingpot unintentionally starts the events of the entire series.

Gruntilda also had a broomstick that she used to get around, but it was broken mid-fight in the final battle of Banjo-Kazooie.

Areas

Many areas in Banjo-Kazooie and its sequels seemed to be for Gruntilda's own use. This includes Witchyworld, Grunty Industries, Clanker's Cavern, Rusty Bucket Bay, and the entirety of Gruntilda's Lair and Cauldron Keep.

Gruntilda's Lair is adorned with multiple sculptures of Gruntilda's visage, an artistic endeavor that is anything but appealing. It also has two doors in the Transformation room which lead to unknown places. The entrance to her lair itself is a giant stone facsimile of her head and hat, the top of which is where the final battle of Banjo-Kazooie takes place.

It's also a possibility that the stage Mad Monster Mansion (Banjo-Kazooie) may be Gruntilda's real home, for the dining room of the mansion has portraits of Gruntilda, Brentilda, Klungo, Dingpot, Mumbo Jumbo (in a darker and creepier form) and Gruntilda's broomstick hanging from the walls.

Banjo-Kazooie characters | Computer and video game villains | Fictional witches | Fictional narcissists