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“"There he is, the fun begins, my tricks and traps will see who wins."” —Gruntilda, initial welcoming quote rhyme to her Lair, Banjo-Kazooie
Gruntilda's Lair is the lair of the evil witch Gruntilda before her first defeat by Banjo and Kazooie. During Banjo-Kazooie, most of the game is set in this massive area. Within the lair itself, there are entrances to nine different worlds:
After Tooty being kidnapped by Gruntilda and taken to a laboratory to have her beauty stolen by a machine, Banjo and Kazooie set out to rescue her. With Bottles' help, the duo learns some basic moves and enters the lair, where they are greeted by Gruntilda's voice, who warns them of the tricks and traps that awaits.
As they progress through the lair, the access to higher areas becomes more difficult, as the note doors require more and more musical notes and the puzzles require more jiggies, but also during their journey, they also meet allies such as Brentilda, Gruntilda's good sister, who can be found at various points; some Warp Cauldrons, which help with fast displacement; and also Cheato, the Spellbook in some secret spots.
The hat on top of the lair is actually a tower, which ultimately leads to the roof where the final battle against Gruntilda takes place in Banjo-Kazooie.
In Banjo-Tooie, after two years, the lair has been severely destroyed. The large portrait of Gruntilda on the wall has a huge hole in it and is slightly zoomed-in, where the duo can jump through to collect eggs and feathers. Two paths are blocked by boulders as a result of severe damage from the previous game; The entrance to the left leading to the first note door to access the room with Gruntilda's face in the center as well as the puzzle pictures for Treasure Trove Cove and Clanker's Cavern and the entrance to the right leading to Mumbo's Mountain. The player's only use of visiting this area is visiting Cheato, specifically in the entrance only, where he will exchange codes for his missing pages.
During Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the lair is inaccessible but visible from the outside in Spiral Mountain.
Design[]
Gruntilda's Lair:"The colossal hag's-head leering out over Banjo's homeland isn't much prittier from the inside, and it's no help that Gruntilda's idea of tasteful decoration is based around big pictures of herself. Still, at least the Lair's a varied sort of place with massy caverns, twisting pipes, great tidal lakes and even the odd burst of woodland all clustered together in a eerie kind of harmony." (Banjo-Kazooie Instruction Booklet, p. 26)[1]
Outside, the Lair consists of a large sculpture of Gruntilda's head embedded in the mountain, with her open-mouthed, a big pointed hat, and with two large green stones in the place of the eyes.
Inside, the Lair can be described as a gigantic cave complex, some areas contain decorative pieces such as paintings, giant statues and busts of Gruntilda, other areas contain lakes and internal pipes, including an internal garden and a volcano pit. In the level areas, each room matches the theme of the level, being a small hill and pasture painted room, a beach-themed room with part of a ship, a plumbing area, a swamp, an Egyptian-themed room with quicksand area, a snowy area with a giant advent thematic calendar, a graveyard, parts of a ship and port and a part of a forest area, reaching the top where Gruntilda's quarters are located. Many areas are blocked by Note Doors, others by vines and other obstacles.
Points of Interest[]
Gruntilda's portrait in the first floor
Fungi Forest Room/Click Clock Wood Puzzle
TTC Room
Bridge Walkway
1/4
Grunty Portrait #1 (Only slightly able to be seen in Banjo-Tooie only with a hole in it and slightly Zoomed-In.)
Into the Urn: Jump inside the gold urn in the room just before Gobi's Valley - use jump pad activated through a room blocked by a breakable brick wall. (Bubblegloop Swamp)
To the Top of the Sign: In alcove high above the entrance to Freezeezy Peak - use flying pad under cobweb in nearby room- activate pad with switch in a lower alcove, and use running shoes to reach pad in time. (Freezeezy Peak)
Coffin it Up: Inside the stone coffin in the room with the gold urn - use jump pad. (Gobi's Valley)
The Agony of De Feet: Break the glass eye in the Gruntilda head - use flying pad under cobweb. (Mad Monster Mansion)
The Long Jump: In alcove leading to the level 3 water switch. (Rusty Bucket Bay)
At the Bubblegloop Swamp entrance room, near the 3 logs, jump to the top of the middle one.
In the Mad Monster Mansion Puzzle room, after pushing the second water raise switch, go to the surface and you should see an Extra life.
Behind Mumbo's Shack (the house you can only enter if you're a pumpkin inside the graveyard).
Located behind some roots, in the room with the Click Clock Wood Puzzle.
Behind the entrance to Click Clock Wood, walk in the grass until Banjo rises a little out of the grass. Banjo is on top of a Shock Spring Pad! Use it to jump on top the Click Clock Wood entrance and collect an Extra life. You may also use the Bee transformation to get it.
Located on a window ledge near the last yellow Cauldron, after completing Grunty's Furnace Fun.
Gruntilda's Lair hosts a variety of enemies, some exclusive to the lair itself and others which only appear after their native world has been accessed.
Grunty's laughter can still be heard echoing throughout her lair after defeating her in Banjo-Kazooie, even though she's trapped underneath a huge boulder in Spiral Mountain.
After completing the game, however, Gruntilda will no longer taunt Banjo periodically.
In Banjo-Kazooie, the bridge to Grunty's Lair will be broken if Banjo & Kazooie have not yet learned all of the moves that Bottles teaches them in Spiral Mountain. Amusingly, this bridge is in a similar state of disrepair in Banjo-Tooie.
The first few bars of the theme music to Grunty's Lair are inspired by "The Teddy Bears' Picnic", a famous children's song.
A small section of Grunty's Lair appears as a sub-area of Spiral Mountain in Banjo-Tooie. Only the entrance is accessible since the lair has suffered cave-ins, but a small new alcove has also opened up behind the tattered portrait of Gruntilda, allowing the duo to collect eggs and feathers.
Unused text strings within the code of Banjo-Tooie and some modelling differences between Kazooie and Tooie suggest that the "Tower Room" of Gruntilda's Lair was once going to be accessible through the central window above the entrance to Grunty's Lair. This idea was ultimately scrapped since all the levels within the tower have been removed from the game.
Banjo-Tooie's version of the music for Grunty's Lair is abridged, and no longer features Grunty's laughter in the background since she's absent from the area in this game.
In Banjo Tooie, some players have attempted to get past the boulders to seek possible secrets to access other parts of the lair, due to the sole accessible area being labeled "Gruntilda's Lair (Entrance)" to indicate the presence of another room. Through the use of a "go through walls" GameShark code, small parts of the first two paths in the previous game can be seen but the rooms and remainder of the lair cannot be seen on the other side of the boulders.
Still in Banjo-Tooie, the paths leading to the upper levels of Gruntilda's Lair as well as Mumbo's Mountain are cut short and deliberately plunged into darkness. As such, if one successfully passes through the boulders and keeps going, he will be teleported back to Spiral Mountain. This fact confirms that there is nothing left of the lair as it was in Banjo-Kazooie, save for the main entrance.
This is also be explained by the fact that Gruntilda's Lair is no longer the main hub of the game, not to mention that it would not be logical to keep all the levels of the lair since there is virtually nothing else to do there.
It is worth pointing out that although a flying pad allows the player to fly in Spiral Mountain, there is no point in trying to reach the top of Gruntilda's Lair. The first reason is that an invisible wall prevents the player from going too high in the air. The second reason is that the tower itself is purely decorative: if one reaches the top of the tower, he will find out that it isn't even modeled, making it impossible to stand on it without falling within the structure. The tower is simply not meant to be accessible from this perspective.
In Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, a broken rock sculpture of King Jingaling's head can be seen lying in the undergrowth beneath Grunty's Castle. This seems to imply that at one point King Jingaling had settled in Spiral Mountain with his people, but their home was invaded by Grunty. This could explain why there are so many captive Jinjos in Banjo-Kazooie's worlds, and may suggest that the sleeping Jinjonator predates Grunty's Lair.
The position of the Lair entrance's gemstone eyes varies throughout each of the series' games. In Banjo-Kazooie both of her green eyes are present. In Banjo-Tooie, during the intro, her left eye is darkened, and her left eye goes missing after gameplay starts. In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts her right eye is missing, not the left eye, and it is an object that Kazooie can pick up.
Worlds from Banjo-Kazooie 