From TES issue 45 (May 2007)

Series 2. Level 1/2.
GRETEL.
Gretel was the Dungeon maid in series 2. And that's all there is to say about her, really! Audrey Jenkinson wore the traditional maiden's gown of virginal white and put on that annoyingly high, perky voice in order to bring Gretel to life. We were never given any indication as to what she had done with Hansel, or what she was even doing in the Dungeon in the first place! Gretel's basic role was to give out clues and small spells to dungeoneers, and that was really all she did. I never found her to be a very memorable character, and I don't think my somewhat low opinion of the character is ever likely to change - sorry about that, Gretel fans!

On the other hand, as I have mentioned before, Gretel did set a precedent for having maidens in the Dungeon, which was probably a good thing. She was a predecessor to such popular characters as Mellisandre, Sidriss, Marta and Stiletta, all of whom had their own particular charms. (Well, they all had a lot more character than Gretel did, anyway!)

Gretel's first appearance (in the first episode of series 2) was unbelievably short and incredibly pointless, starting a pattern that did not change much throughout the series. After her very brief appearance with Martin and Folly, Gretel made a quick appearance in the kitchen with winning dungeoneer Mark. Despite the fact that his quest then became to free Gretel from Mogdred's evil clutches, we didn't really see her again during the entire game - Mogdred's capture of her was not seen at all, and all that Mark rescued in the end was a (not very pretty) picture of Gretel's face, which was very disappointing.
Further appearances in the series saw Gretel hanging around with Mildread during a very inconsequential appearance in Tony's quest, dooming Jamie by getting trapped in Ariadne's web and making him use his FREE spell to rescue her and trap himself, popping up several times during Julian's quest to hand out little hints in her typically annoying fashion, and hanging around like a spare part during Karen's quest in the final episode of the series. Having said that, Gretel and Karen's discussion of beauty tips is actually quite an amusing scene, which underlines something Mildread said about Gretel during Tony's quest: "It's not beauty she needs; it's a brain!" - Mildread.

As you can probably tell, I really don't like Gretel. I find her appearances incidental and annoying, and her inane stupidity very trying. However, Audrey Jenkinson has the honour of being the frontrunner for my own personal list of favourite ad-libs on Knightmare, which is something I may well get round to writing one day. After asking Julian whether he thought she was pretty, Gretel was presented with the obviously surprising yet undeniably accurate fact that he didn't know because he couldn't see her through the Helmet of Justice:

Gretel: "Do you think I'm pretty?"

Julian: "I can't see you."

Gretel: "But Julian... you should be able to hear from my voice that I'm terribly pretty, now DO you think I'm pretty?"

This was quick thinking from Audrey Jenkinson, and a nice bit of ad-lib. The foot-stamp at the end of the speech was also a nice touch. There, you see, I can usually think of something nice to say, in the end...

Fear Factor: 2 Had a stormy temper on her.
Killer Instinct: 0 Always dungeoneer-friendly.
Humour Rating: 8 Nearly always laughing (irritatingly) at something.
Oscar Standard: 4 Sorry, but she annoyed me beyond all endurance!

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The Knightmare.com Forum's first new member of 2014 was Gretel. Real name Roz, she took the name of Series 2's maid as the basis for her username. Gretel was introduced to Knightmare and referred to the forum by Ricky/Skarkill.

Also in January 2014, Gretel was added as a character on the Knightmare Roleplay Forum, played by Roz. In May of the same year, Roz attended the Knightmare Convention at Epic Studios in Norwich dressed as Mistress Goody. She also took ownership of the giant spider that had been left at the studios by Knightmare Live following their pre-convention show there. By the end of 2014, Roz had joined the ranks of Knightmare fanfiction writers with 12 stories to her name. Links to these can be found in the Knightmare Fanfic Compendium.

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Gretel is the original dungeon maid who appeared in series 2. Mellisandre replaced Gretel as the dungeon maid for series 3.

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