What happened to meryl streep???

Just like in the play, it's open for interpretation. She could have died. Her mother could have dragged her down to hell. She could have just simply made herself disappear to get away from the group.

You can't really tell. Is her final note a scream, or is she still singing? Who knows?



Can't pin me down
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.

The witch's disappearance/"death" has been interpreted in quite a few different ways on the stage. In the original Broadway production, she gets lowered under the stage in a plume of smoke, while the revival had her fly in the air off the stage (and also had some important lyric changes.)

The movie is different in that she melts into the tar that the remaining characters use to trap the giantess. In the original production, they presumably get pitch leftover from when the prince trapped Cinderella on the stairs.

The way I've always liked to interpret it is that her mother's spell (which takes effect whenever she loses the magic beans) transforms her into something ugly. She sings to this effect, egging her mother on after she's thrown the beans, asking her to give her "claws or a hunch." However, she has no idea that her mother is upping the ante and turning her into something much more ugly. In the movie, I think it's apparent because Meryl Streep acts that part quite surprised as she melts, and the final note turns into a scream.

In the stage production, I've always liked to believe that she turns to dust, or even nothing at all. (What's uglier than something that doesn't exist?)

Of course, the revival suggested that throwing away the beans gave her back her powers, which is why she flies away, but I've never really liked that interpretation.

The thing is that the Witch has no purpose to live. She tries to convince the group to feed Jack to the Giantess, for that may keep Rapunzel safe, but when they refuse, she gets tired of their *beep* and loses it, conforming that she never belonged to the world and it's people and that she has no salvation. Her mother would curse her everytime she'd lose one of her magic beans, she then tosses them all on purpose so she'll 1) be cursed with age and ugliness and get her powers back, since she had lost them when she turned beautiful again, and flee the group and the Giantess, or 2) be punished with death or banishment by her mother's spirit for defying her orders once again. Which of these are the Witch's real intentions, and which of these actually happen to the Witch, is left to interpretation. The thing is that she wanted to get away from the people blaming her and from the Giantess, so she reenacted her mother's curse. When she sings "Alright, Mother, when?/Lost the beans again!/Punish me the way you did then!", it might mean she's actually asking for her later punishment (ugliness) but it could also be that she's just teasing her mother's spirit to level up her punishment to death.