#dylan piper

Halloweentown (1998)

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WILL 8.5 Boiling Pig Faces 🐷

Something I never see mentioned when talking about Halloweentown is the one character who had more influence on these films' plots than anyone, outside Aggie, Gwen, Marnie, and the antagonists, but who we barely know anything about:

William Piper. The kids' father. The man Gwen left Halloweentown for.

We hear about this man a handful of times across four films. The most we know is:

He was human,

He met Gwen at a Halloween party and liked her witch "costume",

He died sometime before the first film (relatively recently, too, considering the age of the kids in the photo).

Being with him taught Gwen that nothing's worth anything if you can get it just by wishing.

And... that's it.

We don't know what he was like as a father or husband, we don't even know if Gwen ever told him about magic or how he felt about it (I assume she had to at some point when Marnie started having magical accidents as a kid, but maybe he was just that oblivious...).

I mean, maybe it's better we don't know. Maybe it would just muddy up the film canon with unfortunate implications, which are already rampant, and take away precious plot time to look back at a character who is no longer in the picture.

After all, if he knew about magic, he also agreed to Gwen's plan to let Marnie and Sophie's magic wither on the vine. Which, even if he just went along with it just to make her happy, is not great. And if he didn't know, or if he found out only after the kids were born, that casts a huge shadow on Gwen's relationship with him.

But... still, I can't help but think about the unspoken influence this man must have had on Gwen and the kids that is never discussed in canon.

The way Dylan is such a goody two shoes because he's trying to protect his mother's feelings in the wake of their dad's death. The way Gwen brings up wanting Marnie to be human, "like their father". The way Marnie brings up that Gwen met their dad on Halloween, which may be part of why Marnie's drawn to it and why she can't understand Gwen's fear of it. The way Aggie is baffled why Gwen stays in the mortal realm when William is gone (and Aggie must have met the man at some point, yet she treats his passing with little sensitivity. Aggie, I love you, but...). The fact that there Halloweentown Council brings up Marnie's "wretched human" father in Halloweentown High as the reason why Marnie is fighting so hard to prove humans have changed.

The Piper kids are the bridge between two worlds. We hear a lot about their Cromwell heritage, but rarely do we talk about the Piper side of the equation, their attachment to the mortal world - yes, even Marnie's. Part of that is down to Gwen choosing to leave Halloweentown, but the other part is down to William and how much Gwen must have loved him to give up everything she knew.