The Island Witch

I found it intriguing to learn that Prospero's speech renouncing his magic was almost directly copied from a similar monologue by Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Although Medea would at first appear closer to Sycorax than Prospero in origin and intention, her drive for revenge informs her witchery  much in the way that Prospero's thirst for vengeance leads him to create the tempest. It's also interesting to go back to the Odyssey and think of Circe, who actually happens to be Medea's aunt. Sycorax, Medea and Circe all seem to be part of an ancient travel archetype of the island sorceress. While a direct correlation to such an archetype doesn't exist today, in thinking of the evolution of Circe and Medea to Prospero and Sycorax, I found parallels between these castaway practitioners of magic and certain modern-day Bond villains. It is now essentially a stereotype for the evil villain of a given movie to have a gigantic island filled with all sorts of wondrous creations, although in our own era these are usually of a technological rather than magical nature. The Incredibles spoofed these archetypes to great effect. Unlike their antecedents, however, these modern-day island wizards do not engage themselves with visiting travelers with such keen interest, preferring instead to take them directly to the shark tank/volcano/other means of horrible death. This perhaps speaks to the death of  xenia over time; while Circe cannot be called truly hospitable, she did feed and clothe her visitors before turning them into pigs. Prospero recalls a Bond villain in his masterful manipulation of everyone on his island, but in the end he reveals himself to be a basically good man. I wonder where all the witches went?