History WMG / TheWizardOfOz

[[WMG: The Wicked Witch's is a fire elemental, and this is the reason why water melts her.]]

When the shoes brought Dorothy back to the real world, she fell asleep, leading to the apparent AllJustADream ending. A side effect of the magic is that not only does Dorothy come home, but her family and friends' memory of her having been missing is erased, and they think they just found Dorothy unconscious after the cyclone passed. Yet if this is true, then how to explain the dream-like moment in the cyclone when Miss Gulch turns into a wicked witch? It's simple. "Almira Gulch" was just a pseudonym used by the Wicked Witch of the East, who liked to fly out of Oz now and then, disguise herself as a normal woman, and cause trouble for unsuspecting people ForTheEvulz. When the cyclone blows Dorothy toward Oz, Gulch follows her but is crushed by the house. This also explains how ''Film/ReturnToOz'' could work and why Toto was never in any danger again.

Gulch follows Dorothy but is crushed by the house. When the shoes brought Dorothy back to the real world, she fell asleep, leading to the apparent AllJustADream ending. This also explains how ''Film/ReturnToOz'' could work and why Toto was never in any danger again.

* Oz is at a "higher level of reality," as theorized by Timothy Leary, and Dorothy is there in a lucid dream from a very precise head injury. The Oz characters look like people she knows not because they're part of the dream, but because each of them is the Higher Truth or Realer Self of that Kansan. This is what kills Miss Gulch -- the Witch is Gulch's shriveled soul, and destroying it destroys her. (This is true of Toto, too. It's the hyper-real Toto that accompanies her in Oz while the real Toto remains on Earth. A domesticated dog is enough of a person to have a soul, and a dog is honest about itself so its soul and body look the same.)

Yes, this does mean one could perform very efficient assassinations by traveling to Oz and murdering the Ozite corresponding to your target. Perhaps this is what Professor Marvel is working on; if he's a government agent it would explain both his behavior, oddly responsible and compassionate for a criminal, and the prominence of his soul-self in Oz.

The is [=WMG=] of [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the movie]]; see WMG/LandOfOz and WMG/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz for theories about the original books by Frank Baum.

Glinda, the so-called "Good Witch of the North," clearly has weather-control powers. She summons Dorothy's house from Kansas with a tornado and drops it on the Witch of the East, killing her. Glinda then gives the Ruby Slippers to Dorothy; these slippers can teleport the wearer anywhere she wants. Naturally, Glinda refuses to disclose this information to Dorothy until the end.

The Witch of the West shows up and demands to know who murdered her sister and tries to claim her sister's slippers as her rightful property. Glinda coldly rebuffs her and threatens to kill her with another dropped house. She then sends Dorothy on an unnecessary errand to the Wizard of Oz.

The Wizard figures that Dorothy is a tool of Glinda and sends her to fight and kill a far superior opponent, hoping the Witch of the West will do her in. This fails when Dorothy's companions break into the Witch's home and murder her by accident. Glinda then causes the Wizard's balloon to go out of control and blow away, getting him out of the picture. Since we never hear from the Witch of the South, we can only assume that Glinda got rid of her some other way. This leaves Glinda as the only remaining powerful entity in all of Oz. She installs the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion as puppet rulers and sends Dorothy home. Glinda now has control over all of Oz, including the Emerald City's lucrative opium (poppy) trade. JustAsPlanned.

* The Witch of the West was still clearly willing to kill Dorothy to get her hands on the shoes. Even if they were rightfully hers, that's a bit excessive.
** But Glinda still knowingly set Dorothy up as her fall-girl. Whether the Witch of the West was willing to kill Dorothy or not, Dorothy wouldn't be in danger without Glinda putting her there.

* Also, where is the Witch of the South?

* Just one little thing: Dorothy murdered neither witch, accidentally or otherwise. "Accidental murder" can only come under specific circumstances, such as "felony murder" and intending to cause severe injury, doing something clearly dangerous, and inadvertently killing a person. Dorothy was inside the house being carried by the tornado, and had no control over it. (The [=WWoE=] was TooDumbToLive, flying on her broomstick next to a tornado, cackling for all she was worth.) Dorothy's killing of the [=WWoW=] was unpredictable from a person in Dorothy's position: water caused the [=WWoW=] to melt???

[[WMG: Witches are not weak to water, but to houses]]
Forget the WeaksauceWeakness. The Witch of the East died from being hit by a house. In the land of Oz, water is made up of tiny houses, which combined to slowly churn the Witch of the West into a liquid state.

Assuming everyone is immortal in Oz [[AndIMustScream no matter how dead they seem]], like in the books, he's pretty much never called in. When he ''is'' called in, he either says "yep, they're dead" and that they [[Film/ThePrincessBride were only mostly dead]] in the event of a revival, says "nope, they're not dead" in the case that the body kicks back, and "not are they only merely dead, they're really most sincerely dead" in the rare event that something he knows can't be revived from happens (like a witch getting watered) or he is better off with them DeaderThanDead and doesn't want to risk them being healed ([[FateWorseThanDeath like when a maniacal despot who made his life miserable has a house fall on her, and is incapable of kicking back because of full-body paralysis]]).

[[WMG: The Wicked Witch Is A Winkie Like Her Guards]]

[[WMG: Dorothy is the first incarnation of LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya ]]

* To reword that, Dorothy's exposure to dust, debris, and being hit on the head almost killed her, and Oz was a Near-Death-Experience. The entire thing was her brain creating a hallucination of sorts (like how sometimes people who have Near Death Experiences say they saw a light, heaven, or hell, or at least how they imagine it to be) which was all representative of her brain struggling to get her to wake up. It also showed her what could be her eternal reward, which is colorful and full of adventure, unlike Kansas. She really was dying the whole time, and if she had utterly lost her will to live, and stayed in Oz, and died in the real world.

* Hence her green skin a big hooked nose.

Gulch follows Dorothy but is crushed by the house. When the shoes brought Dorothy back to the real world, she fell asleep, leading to the apparent AllJustADream ending. This also explains how {{Return to Oz}} could work and why Toto was never in any danger again.

* ThePlan certainly isn't perfect. According to {{Return to Oz}}, the Ruby Slippers ended up in the hands of the Nome King, who used their power to take over Oz. Presumably, Glinda was executed when the Emerald City fell. Even after Oz is restored, her secrets are concealed by the new ruler, Ozma, for her own purposes.

* The alleged "secret ending", according to many discussion boards including [[http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=74320 Snopes]], allegedly shows the ruby slippers still on Dorothy's feet as she lies in bed. Another rumor dating from the late '40s has Dorothy saying "There's no place like home", and the camera pans down from her face to show the ruby slippers under the bed. Apparently these rumors are very convincing, to the point that people swear they saw it at least once, similar to the "I saw the baby!" claims made by people who saw ''RosemarysBaby''.

** That's a complex theory, filled with in-depth symbolism. It also depends on the idea that Japan surrendered first in WW2. As it turned out, Germany was defeated earlier.

[[WMG: The entire film is a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic pre-emptive allegory]] of WorldWarTwo and its lasting effects]]

* The Emerald City is the dream of a post-Depression prosperous future, and the Wizard is FDR (who unintentionally abandons Dorothy/America in her time of need). The poppy field represents WorldWarOne, whose status as the "war to end all wars" lulled the major world powers into a false sense of security. (Also note Flanders Fields.)

** [[Literature/{{Wicked}} This theory sounds familiar. I wonder, where have I heard it before?]]

The is [=WMG=] of [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the movie]]; see WMG/LandOfOz entry for theories about the original books by Frank Baum.

* The Emerald City is the dream of a post-Depression prosperous future, and the Wizard is FDR (who unintentionally abandons Dorothy/America in her time of need). The poppy field represents WorldWarOne, whose status as the "war to end all wars" lulled the major world powers into a false sense of security.

* Or, the Wizard got his position by finding out the Wicked Witch of the South's {{Weaksauce Weakness} and killing her. With a powerful 'magician' and an open position, Glinda decided to let the Wizard take the role of the Good Wizard of the South.

[[WMG: Auntie Em was "too good a Christian" to tell Miss Gulch to "go to hell"]
Aunt Em was going to tell Miss Gulch to go to hell after she took Toto. But a good Christian wouldn't wish that on anyone. Miss Gulch realized it, explaining her look of shock.]]

What happened to set her off? Dorothy's dog chases Miss Gulch's cat (a spinster's favourite companion) in Miss Gulch's own yard. Then, Toto bites Miss Gulch. Miss Gulch is legally in the right, and being a none-too-nice woman, decides to avenge herself and her cat. So she visits the Gales, and immune to Dorothy's pleas. Right? Wrong!