Line #49 Headscratchers/TheWizardOfOz


1	''The Wizard of Oz'' is ''not'' a very logical story so as you expect, there will be a lot of head scratchers.
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3	[[foldercontrol]]
4
5	[[folder:Flippin' Simple Solution]]
6	* Why doesn't Dorothy [[spoiler: flip the hourglass to buy herself more time before the witch tries to kill her?]]
7	** It looks rather cumbersome, and she probably knew it wouldn't make any difference.
8	** Because that's not how time works? The hourglass was just the countdown to when the witch would return to kill her. Flipping it wouldn't have postponed it or turned back time.
9	** Because the hourglass was a reason for the Witch to delay until she could squash all the annoying bugs at once. Give Dorothy some hope, then wring it from her by killing her friends in front of her, since she didn't turn it until Toto ran off to fetch them.
10	*** I disagree. The Witch didn’t know her friends would reach her at that moment. She explained her rationale before leaving Dorothy alone: getting the magic slippers off Dorothy, even after killing her, was tricky and required extra thought.
11	[[/folder]]
12
13	[[folder:A Robot by Any Other Name]]
14	* Think ''that's'' weird? The Tin Man's a ''robot'', yet no one ever ''calls'' him that!
15	** He isn't a robot. The book explains that he was once an ordinary human being whose skin was replaced by metal. Now, I'm not saying the book's explanation must be taken as canon when it comes to the film. The fact is that the movie never provides any explanation as to the Tin Man's origin beyond the one line "The tinsmith forgot to give me a heart," which could be interpreted multiple ways. In any case, there's no particular reason to see him as a robot. Even if you were to speculate that (contrary to the book's explanation) he's some of kind of artificial creature that was crafted by someone, that wouldn't automatically make him a robot; it would fall more in the category of fantasy creatures that are inanimate objects brought to life by magic, like Pinocchio or indeed some Oz characters like Jack Pumpkinhead. For that matter, it should be noted that the character of Tik-Tok in some of the later Oz books (who also appears in the movie ''Film/ReturnToOz'') is in fact a robot, and is often cited as one of the first robots in literature (more than a decade before the word "robot" was coined in the play ''Theatre/{{RUR}}''). What makes him a robot isn't that he's made of metal but that he's fundamentally a machine, and there's no such implication with the Tin Man.
16	[[/folder]]
17
18	[[folder:Is the Hourglass Magic?]]
19	* Speaking of which, what's the deal with that hourglass? At first it seems to be just a big hourglass, but when the Witch throws it from a height, it explodes.
20	** Because it's MAGIC. That's why (as noted above) Dorothy's flipping it over wouldn't have worked.
21	** The hourglass is likely not magic, however the Witch is, well, a witch. So she likely made it explode for dramatic effect. It the hourglass possesses some kind of mystical ability, it wouldn't make sense for her to destroy it.
22	** On a related note, why does Dorothy (and the movie itself, for that matter) act as if it's critical she be rescued from the room before the sand runs out? If all the hourglass was doing was counting down the time till the Witch returned, why would it matter whether or not she was in the room with it? Indeed, the Witch still appears with it after they've fled down the stairs and are caught by the Winkies, but ''not'' at the exact moment the sand runs out; so even if there were a spell to tell her when that happened, it clearly didn't have an "instant summons" clause, nor did she come immediately on her own. Dorothy is frightened and panicking, and may think the Witch's words about how long she had to live were literal (as she has no idea what kind of magic the Witch has access to), but the constant camera jumps between the chopping axe and the sand running down, plus the increasingly frantic music, certainly seems to imply there is such a life-ending spell on the sand. And sure enough, right as they chop the hole big enough and pull her out, the sand runs out. So...was there such a spell (and that might even be why the hourglass exploded when the Witch threw it), or did the moviemakers want the audience to think there was?
23	[[/folder]]
24
25	[[folder:Can't Tell if Dorothy is Ugly?]]
26	* In the movie, Glinda says that only bad witches are ugly, so why did she have to ask Dorothy if she was a good witch or a bad witch?
27	** Dorothy was obviously so young, she might not have had ''time'' to grow ugly from practicing bad witchcraft.
28	** Maybe that was Glinda's mean way of saying she thinks Dorothy is plain looking.
29	*** But she's a ''good'' witch.
30	*** ''[[DesignatedHero Supposedly]]''. As if we're ''dumb'' enough to take the word of someone who frames a random ''teenager'', then gives that ''same'' teenager someone else's rightful ''inheritance''.
31	*** Perhaps "ugly" is meant to be metaphorical here? Not just in the physically unattractive sense, but "ugly" personality traits like meanness, greed, and other negative qualities that go hand in hand with being "evil". Glinda was questioning Dorothy's character.
32
33	*** GoodIsNotNice
34	** On a related note, if Glinda is meant to be beautiful, [[WTHCostumingDepartment why is she wearing pink when she has red hair?]]
35	*** It makes her beautiful, it doesn't make her have a great fashion sense.
36	*** And the whole pink-with-red-hair-is-bad thing is YOUR opinion.
37	** She didn't say that ALL bad witches are ugly, just that no good witch is ugly.
38	*** Indeed, Glinda's logic more or less implies that bad witches can be either ugly or beautiful, but that good witches are always beautiful (or at any rate, not ugly). If she had meant that all bad witches are ugly and that all good witches are beautiful, she wouldn't have needed to ask Dorothy whether she was a good or bad witch.
39	*** The logic also breaks down because Dorothy is "not any kind of witch at all".
40	** That was the original meaning of "glamour" - a kind of spell that makes the ugly appear more beautiful than they are.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:How Did the Wizard Know?]]
44	* Upon first meeting the wizard, how did the Wizard know what each of them wanted before they told him? We assume it was by magic at first, but he's later revealed to ''not'' actually be magic, so he could he have known?
45	** He was disguised as the doorkeeper who sent them away, and let them in after Dorothy's misery reduced him to tears. All of them bemoaned what they were sure they would never be able to have.
46	** Alternatively, the doorkeeper told the wizard.
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Half-Hearted Definition]]
50	* Anyone else taken aback by the Wizard's Aesop for the Tin Man? "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." On second glance this aphorism seems counter to classic teachings on love which suggest [[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205%3A42%2D44&version=NIRV the highest measure of love]] is loving those who do ''not'' love you.
51	** In this instance, he's implying that good, kind people (those with metaphorical hearts) are well-loved because they are deserving of that love.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Where Does the Red Brick Road Go?]]
55	* In the movie, there's a red brick road originating from the same place as the famous yellow one. If Dorothy decided to go OffTheRails and follow the red road, where would she end up?
56	** It's been suggested it's where the Good Witch Of The North lives as she flies off there after talking to Dorothy (although she flies in from the other direction). In the books, Glinda's world has a red theme.
57	** Into Munchkin Town? Maybe it was a way to differentiate between the local streets and the one road that led out of town into the rest of Oz.
58	** Possibly:
59	*** The Sapphire City (based on the color of the road and a guess, as far as I know it doesn't actually exist),
60	*** Hell (red road, and there would be the convenient pun of Toto going to hell in a handbasket for bad behavior, East Munchkinland could have just been there for the spiral pattern, and trailed of shortly after leaving the town... square. Circle. whatever)
61	*** The Deadly Desert (Most likely after East Munchkinland Town, considering it surrounds the entirety of Oz, at least in the books).
62	*** The Land of the Quadlings.
63	*** Munchkinland's Red Light District, where some of the most depraved carnal acts that could ever (or only be) executed by beings under three feet tall are commonplace and for sale. WMG, or does this belong under "Fridge Horror"?
64	*** Kansas: Confirmed if you play ''VideoGame/LEGODimensions''.
65	*** The Wicked Witch of the East's castle (the Munchkins, as her slaves, would need to have some way to get there and follow her orders).
66	** One fan theory is that, since Dorothy [[DelusionConclusion is in fact in a coma following a head injury]], there are two possible outcomes. The yellow brick road leads to recovery. Since she does follow it as she has been instructed, she wakes up back home in Kansas. The red brick road would have led instead to her death.
67	** What happens if Dorothy had cut across that spiral pattern at the beginning instead of strictly following it?
68	** One theory for those who read the books as well is that the yellow brick road leads to Winkie country (the West, where the witch rules) whose regional color is yellow. You'd have to cut through the Emerald City to get there from Munchkinland (whose regional color is blue). Therefore, the red brick road would lead south to Quadling Country. There doesn't seem to be a purple brick road, however, which would lead north to Gillikin Country. That may be because Glinda (who rules Quadling Country in the books) was combined with the witch of the north into one character, meaning Gillkin Country may not exist in this universe like it does in the books.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Examining the Squashed Body]]
72	* How could the coroner examine the body of the wicked witch while she was under Dorothy's house? He couldn't have even felt for her heartbeat, much less "thoroughly examined her". Unless he was talking about examining her feet.
73	** How much of an examination do you exactly need to declare someone that got crushed by a house is dead?
74	*** Well, there's a CHANCE it could have been someone else that she crushed...
75	** There are pulse points in the feet and ankles which he could have felt.
76	** Who says the examination process for witches is the same as for humans? The Tin Man proves that not everyone in Oz needs a beating heart to live.
77	** He reassures them that she is "really most sincerely dead", suggesting that his primary goal was to ensure that she was not [[FakingTheDead faking or feigning her death]].
78	[[/folder]]
79
80	[[folder:Glinda Secretly Evil?]]
81	* Glinda basically sics the Wicked Witch on Dorothy by gluing the ruby slippers to her feet. She's either evil or a troll.
82	** That's a plot hole introduced by the film, in multiple different regards -- first off, Glinda doesn't appear until the very end of the story, and it's the unnamed Good Witch of the North that first meets Dorothy. Second, in the book, she chooses to wear the Silver Shoes because her own shoes are too worn for the journey to the Emerald City and silver shoes would not wear out. The most anyone knows at that point is that the Wicked Witch of the East was proud of them, and they had some sort of charm attached to them. No-one knows what they do, exactly, or that anyone else might be after them. Third, the Wicked Witch of the West doesn't figure directly into the story until much later, so merely having the shoes clearly didn't make her a target. Now... as for why this was the case in the ''film''... I have no idea. Can anyone else help out?
83	*** [[SadistTeacher In the case of the film, probably because of what the first guy said.]]
84	** Think of it this way, the shoes needed to go on somebody to keep them away from the Witch. Dorothy is an outsider who's only desire is to go home, she has no interest in the shoes or their potential powers so there's little chance of her becoming corrupted by whatever powers they possessed. Also, the one time Dorothy and her friends failed to fix a problem put forth by the witch (the poppies) Glinda intervened and undid it herself. Dorothy was never in any real danger, the Witch even engineered her own death. Everyone wins, nobody was seriously hurt and Dorothy went home like she wanted.
85	** The Wicked Witch of the West already had a beef against Dorothy for the death of her sister (either not believing it was an accident or not caring that it was). However, as long as Dorothy has the Ruby Slippers on her feet, the Witch has to kill her "delicately" if she wants to preserve their enchantment for her own use, giving Dorothy somewhat better chances of survival. Though that raises the question of how the Ruby Slippers' magic was still working after the Wicked Witch of the East died; having a house dropped on you is hardly delicate.
86	** Well, she didn't seem to care at all that her sister was dead and more concerned that Dorothy may be a threat if she was powerful enough to kill her sister. But Glinda called her attention ''away'' from that by bringing up the slippers...only to put them on Dorothy, so the Witch has a new reason to go against the girl.
87	*** Honestly I think people are too hard on Glinda, when I watch her I don't see a SadistTeacher. When I watch her guile in action I see someone like [[Franchise/StarWars Master Yoda]], and nobody ever calls ''him'' sadistic.
88	*** Perhaps if the Witch just outright kills Dorothy, she can't be certain she'll get the shoes. When the Witch of the East died, the shoes went to Dorothy rather than the two powerful Witches with her. The Witch of the West wants them for herself so she needs to make sure she can get the shoes off Dorothy without them going to someone else.
89	** I always assumed she gave Dorothy the slippers for her protection. The witch will be gunning for her anyway for killing her sister and the slippers have some sort of protective enchantment on them, they zap the witch pretty good when she tries to take them even with Dorothy's permission. I assume this is the reason the witch doesn't try any direct magic on Dorothy, the slippers are protecting her.
90	** Who says Glinda gave Dorothy the slippers at all? I've always assumed they wait for [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt the new owner to claim them from the former owner]], and if the new owner doesn't after a certain amount of time, transfer automatically.
91	** For the film, I had always assumed the reason was that only someone as innocent as Dorothy could wear the slippers without harm and without making them vulnerable to the Wicked Witch.
92	** One point of order: nothing tells us that Glinda "glued the slippers to Dorothy's feet." In fact when the Wicked Witch of the West starts threatening Dorothy to get them, Glinda specifically tells her "keep those slippers on your feet" or some such verbiage, which she would not have had to do if they were magically held in place--or at least if they were, Glinda must not have known it or she would not have said that. And since we don't learn they can't come off (or at least that the Wicked Witch can't remove them) until Dorothy is in the witch's castle, we had no reason to think at the time that this was the case, whether due to Glinda or their own magic. It should also be noted that in the book Dorothy can remove them just fine, and in fact the Wicked Witch is able to get one by making Dorothy trip so it falls off (though this does still show ''she'' couldn't just take it off, it had to be removed by Dorothy or some indirect action). Heck, even in the movie we don't know for sure Dorothy can't remove them; she just seems to assume she can't after they shock the witch, since she doesn't try to do so, only asking naively if she can still have Toto back. Anyway, so the worst we can assume of Glinda is that she ''may'' have conjured the shoes onto Dorothy's feet without knowing doing so would leave them magically bonded--and since it's possible, as theorized above, that they teleported themselves, she would have had nothing to do with it. But either way, she would not be responsible for Dorothy being unable to save herself from the witch by removing them.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:The Happy Ending Went to the Dogs]]
96	* Isn't Miss Gulch still going to take Toto away?
97	** Presumably after her adventure, Dorothy has gained the brains to outsmart her, the heart to make her see reason, or failing that, the courage to kick her in the shins and run for the hills.
98	** What do you mean "the heart to make her see reason?" It was heart that made her want to protect Toto in the first place.
99	** A cut line says she was killed in the cyclone.
100	** There is also the whole "turned into a witch and a house fell on her" theory, stating she was the Wicked Witch of the East...
101	** In the stage musical that was adapted from the movie, it's implied that a telegraph pole fell on her during the tornado. Without a way to get around, it seems that everyone assumes she'll be unable to take Toto. By the time she healed, she probably realized it wasn't worth it.
102	** Dorothy could also say that Toto got lost in the cyclone and just keep him out of sight for a few weeks before saying she got a new dog or something.
103	** Before, Miss Gulch was going to take away a "mad dog" that had bitten her; now, she would have to take away the faithful animal companion of a local little girl who was almost killed by a tornado and had the entire town worried (notice that no one is surprised that Mr. Marvel had heard about her injury?), a much harder sell on the townspeople regardless of her level of wealth.
104	** I've always liked the theory that Miss Gulch was killed by the tornado, because it would create a symbolic parallel with the Wicked Witch of the East having the house fall on her and the Wicked Witch of the West being destroyed by water.
105	*** Or maybe that falling pole damaged her house and forced her to move. Either way, she won't be missed. Hope Dorothy's next neighbor is a nicer person and a dog lover.
106	[[/folder]]
107
108	[[folder:No Rain]]
109	* Why is it not raining during a tornado? Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I thought tornadoes formed in thunderstorms.
110	** Most of them do. But most tornadoes occur on the southwest side of a rotating thunderstorm, and typically this southwest portion is free of rain. After the tornado, it usually starts pouring.
111	** Not always. There's several ways that a tornado can form. The type known as a "landspout" is created as a storm cloud forms, before the storm itself, and is quite common in Kansas.
112	** Tornadoes form through a variety of ways, such as two wind masses of opposing temperatures collide, and the winds are sufficiently strong to maintain them for a time without collapsing. Storms usually create that strong of a wind, but any wind can reach that strength through other factors.
113	** Possibly the lack of rain is one reason the tornado caught everyone by surprise, leaving no time for anyone to search for Dorothy.
114	[[/folder]]
115
116	[[folder:Just Shoot the Witch]]
117	* The Munchkin soldiers have rifles. [[{{WhyDontYouJustShootHim}} Why don't they just shoot the Wicked Witch of the West instead?]]
118	** You've been watching ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'' lately, haven't you?
119	*** It's not implausible that, being a witch, bullets have no effect on her, or she can at least defend against them. Water may be the Witch's only weakness.
120	*** And houses.
121	*** Notice that even Glinda the Good seems a little surprised that anything could kill the witch. Also, despite seeing her body clearly crushed by the house, the munchkins still insist on having a coroner doublecheck that she is "really most sincerely dead" after all.
122	** And there's also the fact that the witch is pretty powerful. They don't know if she can be shot. And if they try it and it ''doesn't'' work, then the witch would be all too happy to return the favor considerably.
123	** Maybe the Munchkins want to avoid shooting if they can.
124	** Maybe the rifles aren't loaded and are just used for ceremonial purposes.
125	** They probably tried it. No doubt there's a little plaque at the charred crater where the riflemunchkins were standing when they did.
126	[[/folder]]
127
128	[[folder:Scorning the Scarecrow... but Why?]]
129	* What has the witch got against the Scarecrow? First time she shows up after Munchkinland she immediately attacks the Scarecrow. When the Witches's flying monkeys attack Dorothy and Toto are taken away and The Tin Man and Lion are unharmed... and the Scarecrow's in a million pieces on the ground. When they come to rescue her she chooses the Scarecrow as her first victim after she catches them escaping. And then there's the repeated threats of stuffing a mattress with him. She almost completely ignores the Cowardly Lion, despite being the easiest to scare, and does the same to the Tin Man after the first remark of turning him into a beehive. I mean really, the poor guy doesn't do anything worse than the other two and he gets all the punishment.
130	** He probably makes the easiest target, bring literally made of straw and all that. The Tin Man is effectively armored, and carries an axe. The Lion may be a coward, but he's still a freaking ''lion''. The Scarecrow, however, is basically even less tough than a normal person (though the ability to be reassembled helps him out). The witch is a bully, so naturally she torments someone she sees as weak and vulnerable.
131	*** The Witch also guesses he seems to be Dorothy's first and best friend, so of course she'd go after him first.
132	** He's also a little more mouthy in the Witch's presence than the others. More importantly, he's the only one of Dorothy's three companions who's unarmed, having neither ax nor claws: a much better target for the flying monkeys, who are probably afraid of lions and unable to damage a metal body, in any case.
133	** The Wicked Witch in the film is something of a [[PlayingWithFire Fire Elementalist]]: she first appears in a roiling ball of flame, then later she attacks them with a fireball from atop a house, and in the end she is killed by fire's elemental nemesis, water, in much the same way that fire is doused by water, leaving behind only steam and smoke. So it makes sense that she would first attack whoever is most vulnerable to fire.
134	*** This probably goes hand-in-hand with "why does she keep water around her castle" but why does the Wicked Witch set the scarecrow on fire? She has to know that the one obvious reaction by his companions would be to try to put it out with...water.
135	*** She got caught up in her sadism and didn't realize there was a bucket of water right there.
136	[[/folder]]
137
138	[[folder:Where Do the Other Roads Go?]]
139	* When the yellow brick road splits into like two roads (when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow), where do the others go? Surely Glinda would know that the road splits and would tell Dorothy? Or do they eventually merge back together somewhere down the way?
140	** I think that's probably the explanation, but maybe she assumed Dorothy would ask the Scarecrow? After all, he seemed to know which way to go. Of course, that begs the question of how he knew which path went where...
141	** All five of them lead to the same place. [[AlienGeometries Don't question how.]]
142	** The other branches are from other cities in the middle of nowhere meeting at this crossroads, all except the one that heads towards the Emerald City.
143	* For what it's worth, in the (presumably) non-canon crossover with ''Tom and Jerry'', they take one of the other roads, and discover that although they are meant to merge back into the main road, they have fallen into disrepair and are thus extremely dangerous.
144	*** The Scarecrow has been hanging there for a VERY long time. Most likely, he's made conversation with other travelers, asking where they were going, where they were coming from, etc.
145	*** Would he remember it, though? And if other travelers chatted with him at length before as you suggest, how come no one untied him before Dorothy arrived? -(Because he's a scarecrow, and being up on a pole in a field is where scarecrows belong. Oz natives are used to scarecrows that can talk; Dorothy isn't.)
146	** It would be rather unlikely that they would all merge considering that they are footpaths, not automobile roads, so the main purpose of merging them would not exist (even in roads, the vast majority don't merge), that would just cover less ground and therefore less useful for the general purpose of footpaths. If they needed to be connected they would presumably all connect to a separate path going perpendicular.
147	*** Still, the other four roads may have merged into two, with ends that suggested an alternate route to the Emerald City, via Glinda's magic, for example. Or one (or more) may have ended up at the Witch's Castle, she and her sister were rather important figures in Oz.
148	** Not everyone who takes a certain road goes all the way to the end. It's plausible that all yellow brick roads lead to the Emerald City, but that there may be additional stops along the way that someone might want to go to.
149	*** Of course, some people do go both ways...
150	** If Glinda is TheChessmaster orchestrating Dorothy finding all her companions so she'll have the power to get back home, telling her which road to take just means she'll go down that road. If she doesn't know which road, she'll be forced to ask the Scarecrow and thus have her first companion.
151	[[/folder]]
152
153	[[folder:"Hurt the Spell"... but What Spell?]]
154	* When the Wicked Witch is troubled by how to kill Dorothy so that she can take the shoes, she says: "This things must be done delicately, or you hurt the spell." What spell is she referring to?
155	** Possibly she has to make sure she gets the shoes after Dorothy is dead. When the Witch of the East died, the shoes went to Dorothy rather than her or Glinda. The Witch is working on trial and error, and has to make sure that the shoes don't go to someone else when Dorothy is dead.
156	** The shoes also protect Dorothy from her magic. So if she becomes too aggressive in trying to get them off, she might destroy them and thus be unable to use them at all.
157	[[/folder]]
158
159	[[folder:Vulnerable to Own Bodily Substance?]]
160	* Ok, if the Wicked Witch of the West dissolves in water, how come she hasn't melted already? [[BizarreAlienBiology Unless she's an alien]], she's mostly made of water, like most humans.
161	** Actually, the witch isn't made of water at all. The original book clearly states that she was so evil that her body had completely dried up many years ago.
162	*** And she isn't a human, she's a [[MageSpecies witch]], which is another species according to both the film and the books.
163	** How does she still function if she doesn't have water?
164	*** Ahem, AWizardDidIt. Literally. (Well, a witch.)
165	*** The same way the Scarecrow does it without a brain? Or the Tin Man without a heart?
166	*** Of course, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking...
167	*** Some people without water do an awful lot of functioning.
168	** How can a Lion talk? How can a man made of straw live? How can a man be made of tin? It's a fantasy world and has fantasy rules. Oz has stranger things than a witch with no bodily fluids. However, other mediums have attempted to explain this. In Wicked, for example, the witch does have bodily fluids, but pure water is what can hurt or kill her. She can eat and drink and touch anything so long as it isn't pure water. So assuming that were the case, the witch would be fine.
169	*** It wasn't in the original book, the pure water thing was in the Wicked book, and even then her own tears burned against her skin when she cried. In terms of the original book, as was stated, the witch is completely dried out, is more than likely very old and sustained on magic, and being bombarded with a rush of water/liquid just did her in and washed her away. Are we really thinking very hard about a story where monkeys can talk and fly?
170	*** And it was pure water that killed her in the original book. Dorothy was made to wash the floors of her castle, so it was her bucket of water that she threw on the Witch.
171	[[/folder]]
172
173	[[folder:The Journey was Pointless]]
174	* This may be the biggest question ever for this page, but if the Good Witch knew that the ruby slippers Dorothy was wearing had the ability to teleport her home, '''[[SuddenlyShouting WHY IN THE HOLY HELL COULDN'T SHE TELL HER SOONER, RATHER THAN AFTER DOROTHY BELIEVED THAT SHE COULDN'T GO HOME DUE TO THE WIZARD FLYING AWAY IN HIS HOT AIR BALLOON?!]]'''
175	** Glinda: '''[[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords "Because she had to find out for herself"]]'''
176	** Well, 1) This is a movie only issue, as in the original book Glinda did know about the shoes and is the one to tell Dorothy. It was another witch who Dorothy initially meets at the start who doesn't know what powers the shoes have. Anyway, in context of the film, it could be magical logic. Dorothy has to believe in herself and in the power of the magic. When she first arrived, she was still struggling with the fact she wasn't at home anymore, let alone with the fact that witches and magic and a different dimension were real. If Glinda had told Dorothy, it may very well have been useless as Dorothy would simply be performing the action (click heels, think about home) as opposed to truly feeling it with her heart as she more than likely does after her entire ordeal in Oz. As with most fantasy stories, magic is more than saying a few words. In essence, Dorothy had to become more open to the magical world she was in before she could use the magic.
177	** She would only have been running away again if she had known it from the start. Remember, the Dorothy who first entered Oz was a little girl who constantly needed help, and she would have remained that way if she had teleported back home immediately after accidentally killing a witch. However, by the time she realizes she can click her heels, she has rescued the Scarecrow from the pole and helped him realize his own wisdom, rescued the Tin Man from his [[AndIMustScream rusted stasis]], helped the Cowardly Lion discover his courage, freed the Winkies from the tyranny of the Wicked Witch, and helped the Wizard acknowledge his humbuggery and motivated him to return to his own home -- and it is this stronger, wiser, most heroic Dorothy -- a Dorothy who knows better than to run away from her troubles now -- who is able to use the magic of the slippers to return to home.
178	** Glinda may have had an ulterior motive in wanting Dorothy to be sent home some other way: she wants the girl to ''take the slippers back to Kansas with her'', where they will become non-magical and harmless. (In the novel, the slippers disappear from Dorothy's feet in transit, suggesting they can only transport their wearer, ''not'' themselves.) So long as the slippers remain in Oz and the Wicked Witch is alive, the latter will keep on searching for them, as possessing them would vastly increase her evil power. If Dorothy had wished her way home at the beginning of the story, the slippers could easily have fallen off her feet and straight into the BigBad's clutches, but if the Wizard sends her home, they stay with the girl and become just a tacky pair of shoes. Once the Witch of the West is dead, getting rid of the slippers is no longer necessary and heel-clicking becomes a perfectly acceptable solution.
179	** I feel like many people forget that this iteration of Oz is just a dream when it comes to this plot point. I do agree that it doesn’t make much sense, logically, but how many dreams have any of you had that adhered entirely to strictly logical principles?
180	** There's a very simple reason: Because the spell needs her to really want it and ,in the beginning, Dorothy didn't actually want to go home. The whole first act is dedicated to showing Dorothy is miserable where she is and that she wants to get away, somewhere exciting. She was even in the middle of running away from home when the tornado hit, she only headed back because the Fortune Teller got her worried about her Auntie Em. So even if Glinda had told her how the slippers could get her home they still wouldn't have worked until she really, genuinely wanted to be home again.
181	** Dorothy at the start still doesn't believe in magic or at least isn't used to it - or how Oz works. So if Glinda told her to click her heels and want to go home, she might not have been able to do it. She isn't used to Oz and how things are done there; she'd think "this is silly, can't I just find someone who can help in a sensible way?" - and it isn't until after she's encountered a talking scarecrow, tin man and lion, and done battle with a wicked witch that she is used to magic. By the time Glinda tells her the shoes can take her home, she believes her immediately and is able to get herself there.
182	** Maybe the shoes also need time to bond with their new owner before they can use the magic.
183	** And maybe Dorothy didn't really want to go home at the start, but thought she ought to because Auntie Em was apparently ill. It's only after she's had her fill of Oz and its adventures that she truly wants to go home.
184	[[/folder]]
185
186	[[folder:Why Doesn't Miss Gulch Have a Car?]]
187	* This question is from assuming the movie takes place in the same time period as it was made (late 1930s). If Miss Gulch owns half the county, that would make her extremely wealthy so why would she choose to ride a bicycle everywhere instead of drive around or be chauffeured in a car? She doesn't appear to be too old to drive a car and even if she was, she could easily be chauffeured around. It can't be because she may have not wanted to get it dirty because wealthy people at the time usually lived in or near a city and if they had to visit a farm for any reason, they would still get there by car, one reason to flaunt their wealth. So why would a wealthy middle-aged woman like Ms. Gulch go around on a bicycle rather than an automobile?
188	** Take a look at those roads we see in the film! A bicycle could go where a car couldn't go, allows her to avoid paying for gasoline (her clothing suggests she is quite thrifty, perhaps even miserly), and provides her exercise at the same time. Dorothy also mentions that Ms. Gulch's home is one that Dorothy passes by every day on the way to school, so it can't be that far away. Even today, it's not uncommon for wealthy people in small rural communities to ride a bicycle (or a horse) when visiting nearby areas with poor road systems.
189	** The book was published in 1900, Return to Oz taking place a year earlier. If that is true, Miss Gulch riding a bicycle is easily justified.
190	** Mrs. Gulch definitely had that miserly kind of vibe about her. Not a stretch to consider that she hoards her wealth obsessively and rarely spends it on anything substantial.
191	** [[MundaneSolution She enjoys the exercise]]
192	** It's an open question when the movie takes place. It could easily be around 1900 when the book was first published, though you could also assume it takes place later and we simply never see the more advanced technology within a short period of time in a rustic area. There is one 1930s reference in the movie--when Dorothy uses the phrase "thumbing for a hitch" in her song to the munchkins (and makes a thumbs-up gesture with her hand)--but you can choose to write that off as a minor anachronism and still assume the film is meant to be set turn-of-the-century.
193	[[/folder]]
194
195	[[folder:Vocab]]
196	* What are a "dingaderry" and a "kizzard"? The Scarecrow uses both these words while singing and nobody even asks him what they mean.
197	** He doesn't say Kizzard, he says "Gizzard" the organ hens and other birds use to grind up food for digestion.
198	** He says "clever as a gizzard"? what's so clever about gizzards? And that still doesn't explain "dingaderry".
199	** From how he sings that line, 'dingaderry' probably means that life would be lots of fun if he had a brain.
200	** He probably thinks that gizzards are clever evolutionary inventions because they help birds grind and digest their food, in place of teeth that birds don't have.
201	** A quick Google search suggests 'dingaderry' doesn't mean anything, it's just a whimsical nonsense word the lyricist made up for the sake of the rhyme. If you want to try and ascribe a meaning to it, Derry is a very common town name in both Ireland and New England, and it comes from an old Irish word meaning "oak-wood/oak-grove". So the word could possibly refer to ringing a town bell or even a celebration in the woods, either of which could vaguely fit the Scarecrow's excitement at having a brain. (Also, one person amusingly suggested it was meant to be the brainless Scarecrow mispronouncing the word "dignitary".)
202	[[/folder]]
203
204	[[folder:Why the Wizard?]]
205	* Regarding the short-lived 90's animated sequel series - why is the Wizard the only one who can face off against the resurrected Wicked Witch of the West? From the perspective of the majority of Oz's population, it kind of makes sense - they still believe that he is an all powerful sorcerer, and has merely been visiting a fellow wizard in a distant land, so naturally they see him as the first line of defense against the Witch's attacks. However, Dorothy and company (along with Glinda, very probably) know full well that he is a charlatan who, for all his kindly bluster, won't do a bit of good against the Witch. Yet they constantly state that the Wizard is their only hope to defeat the Wicked Witch. What is convincing them of this? Has the Wizard learned some secret that will help the heroes, or is it merely that they need to learn (again) that they never needed his help? Alas, with the 13 episode run having ended well over 20 years ago, we shall never know.
206	** Cartoon sequels are rarely 100% accurate to their source material. It's possible that in the animated universe the wizard really did have magic that could help.
207	[[/folder]]
208
209	[[folder:No Spite 'Til the Bite]]
210	* If Toto has such a bad track record for chasing Ms. Gulch's cat every time he and Dorothy walk past her house, why did Ms. Gulch wait until she was ''actually bitten'' to demand something be done to prevent it? Like, y'know, ask Em and Henry to insist their niece keep the dog on a leash when she's walking home with him?
211	** You can make a better case for legal action if someone's dog assaults you as opposed to simply chasing a cat, something that all dogs naturally do. If the dog actually bites her, she can make the case its a danger to everyone and thus needs to be put down.
212	** And maybe Miss Gulch at least respects that [[AnimalJingoism a dog is going to chase a cat most of the time]]. But when Toto actually bites her, it's a different matter entirely.
213	** We're ''also'' never told if he bites her ''before'' of ''after'' being hit by her rake.
214	[[/folder]]
215
216	[[folder:The Missing Doppelgangers]]
217	* Where were Uncle Henry, and Auntie Em's Oz doubles? The three farm hands got analogues, as did the guy she met for 5 minutes in a ditch, but not the two folks who raised her. and on that note, where was Glinda's Kansas double?
218	** Glinda could represent Aunt Em. This is taking the book's canon into the equation but it's said that Em was [[IWasQuiteALooker very beautiful in her youth]] - so maybe Glinda is a representation of what Aunt Em looked like years ago.
219	** And if Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have counterparts in Oz, what reason would Dorothy have to return home? Or would she be as motivated to return home if she found people who were like her aunt and uncle? If we delve into the psychology here - assuming Oz is really just a dream - then Dorothy knows something is wrong because her aunt and uncle aren't there. And her whole quest is to get back to them. Once she does, the dream ends.
220	[[/folder]]
221
222	[[folder:Why Make Glinda the Good Witch?]]
223	* What was the reason for them cutting the Good Witch of the North out of the story and giving her role to Glinda? All they needed was an old woman dressed in white to tell Dorothy to go to the Emerald City -- what made the producers think the story would still work without her in it? Maybe it would've made Glinda appear a little out of nowhere in the end, but that's still a smaller plot hole than her knowing how Dorothy could've gotten home from the beginning and just not telling her.
224	** To cut down on the number of paid speaking-part actors?
225	** To give Billie Burke more screen time possibly - she was one of the bigger names in the cast, as Dorothy and friends were played by actors who were better known for vaudeville at the time. Glinda's role is expanded to save the protagonists from the poppies; in the book, they just carry Dorothy and the lion out of the field with help from the mice. That'd be very complicated to film, so it's more convenient to have Glinda save them. It also seems like a reasonable enough compromise to merge Glinda with the Witch of the North who doesn't appear past the beginning.
226	** You also have to remember that this was an extremely hectic production - with director changes, cast members getting ill and the special effects being highly complex for the 1930s. So the change may have been made hurriedly thinking 'yeah, that'll work' when under a lot of stress.
227	[[/folder]]
228
229	[[folder:Pointless Pipe Wrench]]
230	* Let's grant that Scarecrow somehow picked up that revolver while in the Emerald City because he knew they were expecting trouble; same with Lion toting a net and huge can of bug spray. But why would Tin Man need a pipe wrench as a weapon when he still has a perfectly good ''axe''?
231	** 1) Axe is good for cutting and slashing, wrench might be good for blunt force. 2) When you're a man made out of metal tubes riveted together, a wrench is probably something like a first aid kit.
232	*** Axes are good for ''chopping'', and there's also a flat butt end on his felling axe that can function as a hammer. Plus, rivets are pounded into place and not threaded, so a wrench wouldn't be of any use for re-tightening them. The original question stands.
233	[[/folder]]
234
235	[[folder: How does Dorothy get the shoes?]]
236	* Once the Wicked Witch of the West shows up, Glinda turns her attention to the ruby slippers, and when they disappear, Glinda reveals they are now on Dorothy's feet. Does this imply that the shoes, rather than going to the person who killed their previous owner, were intentionally put on Dorothy's feet by Glinda? And if so, if Glinda's power is so renown, why didn't she just take the shoes herself?
237	[[/folder]]

Context Headscratchers / TheWizardOfOz