God is a witch

The use of god in Gambling Hansel displays a variation of god that has very little autonomy and is tied to the actions solely of other characters, this god also possesses magic, is a catalyst, is outcast from society, and has a variety of servants. All of these elements align with elements of a witch. God called “The Lord” only takes action after Saint Peter asks him to reveal a lack of autonomy. The action that god took on their own accord acted as the inciting incident of the story leading to Hansel causing chaos in the world controlling half of it and stopping people from dying for 7 years. God is also seen as Hansel’s antagonist, and Hansel makes an attempt to destroy heaven, which is related to the idea of killing the witch, a popular theme and arguably necessary part of Grimm stories (Cashdan, 1999). It is also unclear if God actually gives the three wishes of their own accord, obligation, or of some third party’s manipulation. This lack of autonomy is also clearly aligned with many witches who have. God is also outcast in this story, having to rely on Hansel for housing and only ever being present around 1 character, Saint Peter. Peter is also a servant of God, which is another common theme amongst witches like Baba Yaga, who has a variety of male servants (Tartar, 2017). One of the main deviations from the witch stereotype is that God does not end up dead at the end of the story, and the general framing of God is more neutral than the portrayal of witches. Some of this framing is also based on the readers preconceptions of God as a figure that is the most good person readers are psychologically predetermined to think that God will do no action in the story that is wrong. God also does not explicitly have some of the other witch qualities that are typical of witches, like being feminine but ugly or having clairvoyance. These are not said outright, but nothing is done to contradict these qualities as well. There are a variety of implications for treating god as a witch, not the least of which is the accidental rejection of god as a worshipable figure. The brothers Grimm most likely did not intend to make God seem so closely related to a witch which layers this use of God. A likely possibility for how God was placed into this story is as a replacement for some sort of fae or witch creature that was in an earlier version of the tale and readapted either by the brothers Grimm or even earlier, when the tale was still within oral tradition.
  Cashdan, S. (2000). The witch must die : How fairy tales shape our lives. Basic books; Plymouth Tartar, M. (2017). The classic fairy tales : Texts, criticisms (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton & Company