Which witches are bad in oz

She knows the shoes will help her in her task to successfully win her battles and ruthlessly dominate or enslave more of the Ozians who are forced to work for her and obey her every command. When the Winkies fail her, we are told she "beat them well with a strap. Perhaps she was working on a way to defy the Wizard. Some Oz fans also have suggested the idea that she cast an anti-rain spell upon the Winkie Country to stop any water to fall near her territory, as the land of the Winkies was a desolate and dry place with a harsh climate during her reign.

Denslow 's illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz depict her as a gaudy old hag with three braided pigtails and an eye-patch. Frank Baum himself specified that she only had one eye, but that it " was as strong and powerful as a telescope ", enabling her to see what was happening in her kingdom from her castle windows, no matter the distance. Other Oz illustrators, such as Paul Granger, placed her eye in the center of her forehead, as a cyclops.

Usually, she is shown wearing an eye patch, however some illustrations incorrectly show her with two eyes instead of just one. Most of her power resides in the creatures she controls that do her dirty work. She has a pack of hungry, wild wolves, a swarm of black killer bees, a flock of black crows with sharp beaks to peck out the eyes of their targets and an army of male Winkies who are her slaves.

In the book she also possesses the enchanted Golden Cap encrusted with real rubies and diamonds that run across its 24 Karat gold brim. This special cap compelles the creatures called Winged Monkeys of Oz to obey her on three occasions when she speaks the caps incantation. First, the witch commanded the creatures to help her enslave the Winkies and to seize control of the western section of Oz.

Second, she made the winged monkeys drive the Wizard out of the Winkie Country, when he became the dominant ruler and even attempted to overthrow her but was unsuccessful. When Dorothy Gale and her three companions were sent by the Wizard to destroy her, in exchange for their wishes to be granted, the Wicked Witch saw them coming, gradually approaching her castle.

Though they were a long distance off, she was very angry to see trespassers on her territory. So, in defense she immediately attacked the wandering group with her pack of wolves, crows, black bees, and her group of Winkie slaves. Each of these attempts were thwarted, but the protagonists are eventually subdued by the Wicked Witch's third and final permitted use of the Golden Cap.

In the book Baum siad that she "destroyed" anyone who had ever attempted to challenge her other than the Wizard. Yet interestingly, in Baum's book the Wicked Witch could not directly kill Dorothy because the girl was protected by the Good Witch of the North 's magical kiss upon her forehead.

She therefore settles for enslaving Dorothy like the rest of the Winkies and tries to force the Cowardly Lion into submission by starving him, though Baum states that Dorothy sneaks him food in the evening during their captivity. Upon seeing the magical Silver Shoes on the girl's feet, the Wicked Witch of the West decided to formulate a plan to successfully steal them from Dorothy and thereby acquire even more power.

The Wicked Witch of the West did not carry a broom in the novel, but rather an umbrella, which she uses on one occasion to strike Dorothy's dog Toto to install fear within the girl. The Umbrella makes a lot more sense than a broomstick because it was also probably used to protect and shield herself against any water attacks. Though no one knows that she is allergic to water. Her nature is a self entitled one and yet somewhat slightly cowardly.

Despite her immense power, she avoids face-to-face contact with her enemies, and is frightened of Dorothy at first when she sees the girl is wearing the magic Silver Shoes. She is also afraid of the dark in Baum's original story for reasons never revealed. For that reason, the witch never tried to steal the shoes while Dorothy was sleeping in her chamber cell during the dark night. Despite her fear of water and the dark, the Wicked Witch of the West was one of the most powerful witches in all of Oz.

In ensuing Oz books, her power is described as having been so great that even Glinda the Good Witch of the South secretly feared her at one point. When the witch finally does succeed in getting a hold of one of the shoes by making Dorothy trip over an invisible bar she had placed a few inches above the kitchen floor, she immediately puts the shoe on her own foot, telling Dorothy she now has half of the pairs power.

Seeing she had been tricked, Dorothy demanded that the witch give her back the shoe. When the Wicked Witch refused to hand it over, the little girl dashed a bucket of water onto the Wicked Witch in a fit of rage, soaking her from head to foot. To Dorothy's surprise, the water caused the witch to dissolve away like "brown sugar".

Afterwards, Dorothy retrieved her shoe back, as it was the only solid thing left of the woman who had become nothing more than a puddle upon the floor. It is stated in Baum's book that the Wicked Witch of the West was so very old and Wicked that all the blood in her body dried up long before The Wonderful Wizard of Oz takes place. And when she finally comes into contact with water, it burns her skin like acid and she dissolves into a puddle on the floor.

Baum described it as " melting away like brown sugar. The feet of the dead Wicked Witch had disappeared entirely and nothing was left but the Silver Shoes.

The Good Witch of the North explains that "She was so old that she dried up quickly in the sun. But when water touched her skin, her old withered body began to break down due to exposure to the H 2 O moisture, as did exposure to sunlight to the one of the East, each cell soaking up the water like a sponge and pulling away from the rest of her body until there was nothing left to pull away from.

However horrible it was; it was a quick death nonetheless, and everyone in Oz could breathe a sigh of relief when her evil reign came to an end and she was finally gone for good.

When she appears as the Wicked Witch in Oz named as Angela, her portrayal introduces green boogeyman skin to the character. Hamilton's characterization is the most iconic and popular version of Oz's main villain. In both productions Evillene is played by Mabel King. She is an evil, fat, greedy tyrant, similar to the one in the original book. And the enchanting champions of the Harry Potter films and the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina display a cautiously hopeful outlook about the intersection of magic and social justice.

The Potter films and original books can be read as an allegory about the fight against prejudice. Sabrina has plotlines that center black and queer characters, which is especially fitting when one considers that witchcraft has been historically linked to marginalized groups. Such fictional covens reflect not only the diversity of TV audiences, but also the broad range of contemporary witchcraft practitioners who draw from non-European traditions. Slowly but surely, as feminism has evolved and expanded, the pop-culture witch has shape-shifted along with it.

Today many people—including me—proudly describe themselves as witches. But no matter the connotation, Glinda helped pave that yellow brick road for us, amplifying the notion that a witch is someone we can root for or, better yet, be.

Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Meanwhile, at every turn, Theodora is upstaged by her sister Evanora. This is true of Kunis as well, who simply pales in comparison to Rachel Weisz's wicked performance. It doesn't take long to realize that this film has one too many witches, one too many villains, and one too many leading ladies. In the end, the conflict is diluted both by the contrived romance and falling out, and by the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West, in all her bad green make-up, is a really disappointing villain standing awkwardly in the shadow of her big sister.

The witch we've feared since childhood, since for that matter, is transformed into a petty scorned lover with a bad laugh. Her green face is only frightening because of how silly it looks. Her broom is no longer a trapping of her wicked witchiness, it's a one-liner directed at her boyfriend of What could have been a wonderful romp through Oz, pitting our heroes and our not-so-heroic carnival magician against one very evil Evanora, ends up as a soap opera, and not a very good one.

The film's final acta con job that segues brilliantly into The Wizard of Oz can only be enjoyed half as much as we'd like. All that disappointment from Act 2 carries right on over, and I for one was still too annoyed by what came previously to enjoy myself as much as I would have liked.

Perhaps a part of me was simply expecting too much. Some years ago I read the book Wicked , and have since seen its musical adaptation. The musical is fantastic, but the book is much better still.

While Oz tells the origin story of the wizard, Wicked tells the origin story of the wicked witch. It's a much more compelling story with a far more intriguing protagonist in Elphaba the Wicked Witch.

While Wicked is in many ways a subversion of the Oz tales, it still felt truer to the spirit of those books than Oz the Great and Powerful. Maybe it's a little unfair to compare the two, but it's also inevitable, much as it's inevitable that we'll compare this one to the classic. While Oz is a fun movie for the most part, it's not going to stick with me.

It's not a movie I'll likely care to see again, nor a classic filled with classic characters that will stick in my memory like old friends. I'm certainly glad I saw it on the big screen, and I think it's an enjoyable enough film for kids and parents alike. But it has one witch too many, and a script that's arrogant enough to make Oz about love triangles rather than tap into the adventurous spirit of L.

Frank Baum's many books. It does so inexplicably, heedless of how badly this damages one of our most beloved big-screen villains in the process. With all the great source material Raimi and screenwriters Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire had to work with, there's really no excuse.

Sadly, however harsh this review may seem, I probably enjoyed more of the film than not. I had a grin on my face a great deal of the time. It's this realization, that here was a film I could almost really lovebut not quitethat let me down the most.