Content Warning: This section includes discussion of parent illness and death.

Twelve-and-a-half-year-old Alfie is a protagonist who enters the story already facing adversity. His mother died giving birth to him; he lives in conditions that reflect his family’s poverty; his teeth are in terrible shape; his father has a chronic illness; and, due to Dad’s deteriorating health, Alfie contends with their dilapidated house and the daily chores. Alfie’s love for Dad supersedes any concern for himself and sometimes causes him to break the rules, such as when he skips school to travel to the next town for a new wheelchair wheel for his father. New problems along his journey compound both his inner conflicts (e.g., Winnie’s arrival forces Alfie to face the fact that Dad will never heal) and his external ones (the tooth snatcher’s evil deeds are traumatizing the town’s children).

Alfie experiences great change between the inciting incidents and the climactic events of the story when the witch suffers defeat, making him a complex, dynamic character. Walliams most clearly depicts this in the difference between Alfie’s reactions to dangerous situations at the start of the story and his reactions at the end. After years of avoiding the dentist by hiding the office notifications from his father, Alfie tries his best to run away from Winnie and his scheduled dentist appointment, with the entire school and some of the community hot on his heels.