What is the very first thing Dorothy does upon arriving in Oz? No, it's not talk to some overly cheery small people. She kills the Wicked Witch of the East, on whom her house conveniently lands. The witch's body isn't even cold before Glinda "the Good" floats in and gets the Munchkins all excited about being "free." (You'll understand the motivation behind these quotes in a second.) The big party is brought to a screeching halt by the arrival of the Wicked Witch of the West (WWW), who is understandably upset that someone has iced her sister. Glinda responds by zapping the shoes right off the corpse and onto Dorothy's feet, then telling Dorothy "you've made a bad enemy." Seems to me it was Glinda who made Dorothy that enemy.
After WWW motors, Glinda packs Dorothy off to the Emerald City, ostensibly to beg the Wizard for help getting back to Kansas. The Wizard, no fool, recognizes a dupe when he sees one and aims her directly at the WWW, never suspecting that Dorothy has already wasted one witch and is perfectly capable of killing a second. She goes further than he expected, though, exposing him as a fraud and forcing him to flee Emerald City before the indictments come rolling out.
So let's review the story so far. The Wicked Witch of the East is crushed under Dorothy's house. The Wicked Witch of the West is melted into a puddle of goo thanks for a bucket of water thrown by Our Gal from Kansas. The Wizard of Oz is completely discredited, also courtesy of Dorothy. So who's left? Oh, yeah...Glinda.
Now the truth comes out. This story is not about Kansas, or Dorothy, or the power of friendship; it's about Glinda's bloody rise to power.
The tornado that swept up Dorothy's house now seems a bit too convenient, doesn't it? We know Glinda can turn herself into a pink bubble...can she also take the form of a twister? Even if we call that storm a coincidence, it was no coincidence that put those ruby slippers on Dorothy's feet and set her on a collision course with not only the WWW but also the Wizard himself. In a single stroke, Glinda gave Dorothy reason to leave Munchkinland (where Glinda will no doubt replace the Wicked Witch of the East), and set her up to take out not one but two of the only remaining magic-users in Oz. Well played, Glinda. Well played.
But it doesn't stop there. Once the Wizard has fled and his administration has been irredeemably tarnished, Glinda pops in with the news that Dorothy could have gone back to Kansas any time she wanted, courtesy of those ruby slippers Glinda stole from the witch's still-twitching corpse. The Scarecrow, no Nobel Prize winner, still has the wit to ask:
"Why didn't you tell her before?"
Glinda Butter-Wouldn't-Melt-In-Her-Mouth the Good, without missing a beat, replies:
"Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself."
Dorothy swallows this easily enough, although any rational person would say, "Wait a minute...you teleported these shoes on my feet, showed me a solid gold highway and then floated away as a giant pink balloon. At that point, I'd have believed anything you told me." Dorothy is not a rational person, so she allows herself to be whisked away by Glinda, who no longer needs her. In fact, getting Dorothy out of Oz is in Glinda's best interests; after all, the chick has already taken out three magic users. Who can say Glinda might not be her next target?
Emerald City is now without a leader, so Glinda naturally moves in to fill the power vacuum. Not that she does the day-to-day work; she has Dorothy's Three Stooges to do that for her. The Scarecrow is left in the Wizard's place, which makes sense for Glinda because the guy has no brain and is therefore easily manipulated. I imagine that Glinda put the Lion in charge of Emerald City's army; he's too cowardly to ever gainsay her. And the Tin Man? Who better to lead Glinda's secret police than a guy with no heart? The three of them will make a muck of ruling, but the citizens of Emerald City will resent them and not Glinda, who will float above it all while consolidating her power in Munchkinland.
And you thought "The Wizard of Oz" was about home or friends or whatever? Feh. It's a naked power grab, baby. Dig on it.
Kirkus Reviews calls The Duchess of the Shallows "a fresh, compelling twist on fantasy."
2 comments:
Did you ever see Wicked? I'm not sure how it differs from the book, but a lot of this is alluded to in the play. Some of the plot threads I remember involve Galinda (sic) being shallow and always having everything handed to her on a silver platter, and how that starts to change at magic university. Also there was something about a conspiracy to suppress the different animal-people races and remove them from places of power. The girl who becomes the WWW is the heroine of the story, naturally.
I am blown away. And not in some crap balloon run by some geezer who doesn't know how it works, either. Love this!
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