Talk:Wicked Witch of the West

Persecution

This sort of stereotyping is typical of the religious intolerance of a Christian or Culturally-Christian society, aimed at witches and other non-Christians. Another good example is the Jews, who in the past were labelled greedy and untrustworthy by the same people. --[nickdate]

Ummmm.... huh? Autiger 17:56, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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I want to ignore this and it'll go away, but THAT'S THE NAME OF THE CHARACTER IN THE BOOK! The Wicked Witch of the West! I doubt when The Wonderful Wizard of Oz appeared in 1900 that L. Frank Baum was targeting witches or anyone else. DavidA 04:10, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's technically not her actual NAME (which is never given)- it's the term that's used to refer to her, her "title", so to speak. And "Wicked" or "Good" isn't always used, it's just a adjective used (like Ivan the Terrible or Richard the Lion-Hearted). All four of the witches (with the exception of Glinda) and the Wizard are referred to only by these titles in the first several books. So, technically, the original poster has a point, but the problem lies with the original source (Baum), not with the article as it seems by the phrasing. And it's really not an issue even with Baum, since he has 50% of his witches being "Good". And the Jewish reference is just irrelevent to this discussion. CFLeon 05:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that witches have been cruelly stereotyped, but not in Baum's works. Two of the witches of the cardinal points are good. There is stereotyping in the movie, where they mention that only bad witches are ugly (and we all know that there are attractive bad people and homely good people), but in the original novels, the Good Witch of the North is not glamorous or young like Glinda, who in the novels is the good sorceress of the South. The Wicked Witch of the East is never described in the novels, so we don't know if she was ugly like the one in the West. And let's not forget that the rightful ruler of Oz, Ozma, is a fairy, not exactly something out of the Bible either. Noneofyourbusiness 18:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if "Wicked Witch" is offensive, the fact remains that she was called by that title, and thus she should be called by that title in the article. Even if Baum meant to slur witches, we have to accurately report that. I see no way that neutrality would be aided by removing the word wicked.— 67.85.254.111 (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

LOL I thought the POV tag was because I mentioned how conveniently out-of-place the bucket is is the MGM movie. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 15:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Major revisions

I have made extensive revisions to this article as part of an effort of mine to upgrade and improve the articles for Oz characters. The old article was basically only about the character as she appears in the classic books. I have added information about the subsequent movie as well as the modern revisionist works --MatthewUND 06:05, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure which edits may be yours, but I've just recently edited the Recent works section to retain only revisionist works. Some of the things mentioned there (i.e. appeared in episode X of some show Y when character Z dressed up as the wicked witch) just seemed to take away from the article. Whoever added those references might do better to create a "Notable appearances" section to list such non-revisionist appearances (although I personally dislike lists such as those - they tend to accumulate junk and end up reading like an IMDB entry). Anthiety (talk) 03:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The section on the 1939 movie reads like a 12 year old wrote it. I went back through the section and capitalized the proper nouns. Some were capitalized, some were not (e.g. the writer could not decide if it should be "dorothy" or "Dorothy", as both examples appear within the same paragraph.) Perhaps some of the sentences should be shortened and the whole section broken into more paragraphs.

JW (talk) 18:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Denslow image

Why was the Denslow image removed? Published in 1900, it is in the public domain.--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 22:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Volkov's books

I wonder which picture fits the witch better. [1] Omeganian (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Was it every explained how she died given "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" says no one dies in Oz?

This is a curious hiccup in the Bram canon and seems to be contradicted by first of the Thompson canon "The Royal Book of Oz" where the Scarecrow is the reincarnation of a dead king. Was it ever explained how the two witches died in a land where supposedly no one dies?--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

In the Royal Book of Oz, the Scarecrow is shown as the reincarnation of a dead emperor, but that emperor did not live in Oz. From The Emerald City of Oz: "No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one ever died unless he met with an accident that prevented him from living." No one got sick or aged, but it was possible for them to be "destroyed". Usually it takes something severe to destroy someone in Oz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RLent (talk • contribs) 19:41, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

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A Place to Call Home. ---Dagme (talk) 17:33, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

This article needs significant revision

Perhaps it is due to the inactivity of WikiProject Oz, but this article is not in a good state. Many character articles tend to accumulate cruft and excessive detail by overly enthusiastic fans, but this one in particular stands out in a bad way. To anyone who comes across this message, I could definitely use some help in attempting to restore this page to properly discuss this iconic character at the standard expected for the rest of the encyclopedia, starting with the inclusion of sources and the removal of unsourced material. TNstingray (talk) 16:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)