Talk:Wicked Witch of the West

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)