You know, I was thinking about this the other day, just sort of mulling it over. Why did the Wicked Witch of the West turn evil? It’s one of those things, right? Everyone just accepts it. She’s green, she cackles, she’s bad. End of story.
My Little Deep Dive
But I decided to actually spend some time on this, really dig into it myself. I didn’t just want the surface-level stuff. So, I sat down and thought back to the movie, the old one, you know? I tried to piece things together from her perspective, not just Dorothy’s.
First off, I replayed scenes in my head, then actually went and rewatched parts of the movie. I was looking for clues, those little things you miss when you’re just casually watching. What really made her tick?
What I Started to See
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Okay, so her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, gets a house dropped on her. A whole house! That’s a pretty traumatic way for your sibling to go. And then, almost immediately, this kid from Kansas, Dorothy, is parading around in her dead sister’s shoes. I mean, come on. Who wouldn’t be a bit upset?
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And those ruby slippers! They weren’t just any old shoes. They were powerful, and they belonged to her sister. It felt like she was trying to reclaim a family heirloom, something important. It wasn’t just random greed, from what I could tell. She kept yelling, “Give me back my slippers!” That was her main demand, really.
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Then there’s the whole being green thing. We don’t get a lot of backstory in the movie, but you can bet she was probably an outcast, treated differently her whole life because of her appearance. That kind of thing can make a person bitter, can’t it? It could build up a lot of resentment.
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And everyone in Oz, especially Glinda, seems to be against her from the get-go. Glinda puts the slippers on Dorothy, knowing full well they belonged to the dead witch’s sister. Talk about stirring the pot! It felt like the Wicked Witch of the West was constantly being provoked or backed into a corner.
Putting it Together in My Head
So, I started to connect these dots. It wasn’t like she woke up one morning and decided, “Today, I’m going to be the epitome of evil!” It seemed more like a series of unfortunate events, grief, injustice, and maybe being pushed too far.
I thought about it – if someone took something precious from my family right after a tragedy, and then everyone acted like I was the bad guy for wanting it back, I’d probably be pretty furious too. I’m not saying setting scarecrows on fire is the way to go, but her anger didn’t just come from nowhere.
It’s like, people just see the “wicked” part and stop there. They don’t look at the path that got her to that point. My whole process was just trying to walk that path in my mind, using what the movie shows us.
So yeah, that’s what I came away with after spending some time on it. It’s a bit more complicated than just “she’s evil.” There’s a story there, a pretty rough one, if you ask me. She felt wronged, and honestly, from what I gathered, she kind of was.
