The Wizard of Oz (film)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • 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?
    • Dorothy was obviously so young, she might not have had time to grow ugly from practicing bad witchcraft.
    • Maybe that was Glinda's catty way of saying she thinks Dorothy is plain looking.
    • On a related note, if Glinda is meant to be beautiful, why is she wearing pink when she has red hair?
      • It makes her beautiful, it doesn't make her have a great fashion sense.
    • She didn't say that ALL bad witches are ugly.
  • In the movie, there's a red brick road originating from the same place as the famous yellow one. If Dorothy decided to go Off the Rails and follow the red road, where would she end up?
    • The Sapphire City (based on the color of the road and a guess, as far as I know it doesn't actually exist), 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), or The Desert (Most likely after East Munchkinland Town, considering it surrounds the entirety of Oz, at least in the books).
    • 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.
  • 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.
    • How much of an examination do you exactly need to declare someone that got crushed by a house is dead?
    • There are pulse points in the feet and ankles which he could have felt.
  • Glinda basically sics the Wicked Witch on Dorothy by gluing the ruby slippers to her feet. She's either evil or an asshat.
    • 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 an unnammed Good Witch 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?
    • 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 interveened 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.
    • 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.
  • Isn't Ms. Gulch still going to take Toto away?
    • 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 like hell.
    • A cut line says she was killed in the cyclone.
    • There is also the whole "turned into a witch and a house fell on her" thing...
    • In the stage play that was adapted from the movie, it's said she fell off her bicycle and twisted her ankle during the tornado. Without a way to get around, it seems that everyone assumes she'll be unable to take Toto.
  • Why is it not raining during a tornado? Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I thought tornadoes formed in thunderstorms.
    • 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.
    • Tornados 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.
  • The Munchkin soldiers have rifles. Why don't they just shoot the Wicked Witch of the West instead?
    • You've been watching How It Should Have Ended lately, haven't you?
      • 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.
    • In the original books, people from Oz are immortal. You have to destroy someone really thoroughly to actually kill them, and even then it's not entirely clear. (So yes, the Wicked Witch theoretically might be spending eternity as a stain on the stone floor.) You can still be thoroughly damaged or hurt, but the rifles might not have done anything more than inconvenience the witch. As to why the Munchkin soldiers would have rifles if they couldn't kill anyone, it's because Oz works on the sort of wacky logic that says "Soldiers should have guns, so they have guns".
  • What has the witch got against the Scarecrow? First time she shows up after Munchkinland she immediately attacks the Scarecrow. When the Witche'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.
    • He's the one with the most obvious, exploitable weakness. The only reason the Tin Woodsman's not in a million pieces is because the monkeys couldn't get him apart, and the Cowardly Lion ran away.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(film)/Headscratchers?oldid=1523920"