“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - L. Frank Baum

🌪️Having just seen “Wicked: For Good” (ah-mazing!), I thought now would be a great time to recap the OG. I read TWWO with Sanjay and Avi last December. Maguire’s Wicked series is a reimagining of Baum’s Oz books (esp this one) and the 1939 MGM film “The Wizard of Oz”.

🌪️TWWO is a quintessential American fairy tale. Dorothy is an adventurous orphan who is deeply connected to her home. Written at the turn of the 20th century, the story celebrates self-reliance, courage, and the belief that ordinary people can shape their own destiny.

🌪️ The main theme is inward focused. Intelligence, courage, and love are all intrinsically within us. Sometimes friends (or missing our friends/homesickness) and challenges can bring out the best in us.

🌪️ I had forgotten what a long and circuitous journey Dorothy and Co. undertake. After defeating the Wicked Witch of the West, and exposing the Wizard of Oz’s fraud, they have an entire journey (Fighting Trees, China Country, Hammer-Heads) to see Glinda the Good Witch of the North.

🌪️Color plays a major role in TWWO.

• Kansas is grey 
• Munckins (Oz) 💙
• Winkies💚
• Gillikins💜
• You’ve got poppy fields, and ofc the Emerald City (which you need special glasses to see).

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 Well-known spoiler alert 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨

🌪️ The silver slippers were always magical. Glinda eventually instructs Dorothy on how to use them … at the end. Why didn’t she tell Dorothy to click her heels together 3 times at the beginning when Dorothy’s house landed on the Wicked Witch of the East? Why make Dorothy walk to Oz, walk to the land of the Winkies, and then walk to the land of the Gillikins when there was a faster mode of transport available?

If the slippers had the power to return Dorothy and Toto to Kansas the whole time, and Glinda knew it, why doesn’t Dorothy call her out for this deception?!

She obviously wanted Dorothy and Co. to go on a quest and take care of the Wicked Witch of the East (nip that problem for her). She’s as much of a “humbug” as Oz as far as shifting problems onto others goes.

🌪️ Here are a few possible reasons. Option 2 seems most plausible to my mind.

• Personal growth. She must undertake the journey to meet and befriend the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow.  She had to have these experiences and overcome challenges to gain maturity and appreciate her family and home in Kansas. 

• Timing. Dorothy had to feel in her heart that “there’s no place like home” for the slippers to work. Possibly, this is the explanation that makes most sense to me. Glinda knows that on landing, Dorothy’s curiosity is piqued and her sense of adventure will overpower her desire to return home, thus negating the power of the shoes. Maybe.

🩷💚🩷💚 🩷💚🩷💚 🩷💚🩷💚 🩷💚🩷💚 🩷💚🩷💚 🩷💚🩷💚 🩷

A “Wicked” novels NB: Maguire’s moment of inspiration for writing his subversive series came when he was watching the 1939 film and the Wicked Witch of the West confronts Glinda with “I might have known you’d be behind this, Glinda.” He says he was struck that she was on a first-name basis with Glinda suggesting they must have known each other for years. He got to thinking “what if they went to college together?”. Cue: Shiz University, and the rest as we know, is history!