#wizard vs witch

[beedreamscape]

I'm pretty much the worst person to even weigh in on this topic because I've been partial to Suvi since day one, but in my opinion there wasn't ever a need to explain or justify Suvi's choices/reactions.

Not because she's perfect, never wrong (though in my heart I know...) but because I'm very certain that the people that keep on hammering on her mistakes/shortcomings/tendencies are people that already dislike Suvi (or don't like Aabria very much, I wish this wasn't a topic of consideration but even 30+ eps in there's still people like that around) for whatever reason and gather excuses to justify their bias against her and no amount of explanation will turn their hearts in her favour.

It really feels like a parallel to the way Suvi herself tries to be understood by her friends and yet she fails time and time again.

And people insist on forgetting that Suvi is not the Citadel, she's just one young wizard of the Citadel.

And it's gut-wrenching how much I relate to that feeling of alienation before every corner she tries to fit in: amongst her citadel peers she's othered by her position and privilege, and now by her friendship to a witch and a spirit; between her friends she's the odd-one-out because of her Citadel connections and the nature of her power; and now amongst the witches she stands out by being the face of the "enemy".

I don't blame her for clinging to the little corner of the world that has not made her feel foreign despite the very nature of her presence: in Steel's family whom she's not related to by blood, yet completely by heart.

And it'll never be a fair game. The girls especially are very young and with new-found independence, they're given colossal decisions to make, and that before beings older than three generations of them combined and incomprehensively more powerful and less empathic.

As much as Mirara wants there to be a good witch and bad witch, there's no such thing as black and white, there are decisions and consequences, what one does with the power they're given. There is no right or wrong in a fight filled with so much heart, there was never a world where a fight between Ame and Suvi would be clean.

[thespoonisvictory]

back again to say there's something very interesting about the way the way particularly Antivalists talk about the citadel as if they're dirtying or disrespecting the seeming inherent purity of magic. Not the way they are exploiting great spirits, because yeah, that's abhorrent. But specifically the disdain for the magic going from "divine" to "mundane", specifically because they have harnessed the lingua arcana for themselves and their mortal goals.

But like, where is the divinity in Ame's cock ring in episode 1? Where is the divinity in using a Bag of Holding to carry your presentation materials, like Tefmet does? Why is it ok for those of the Spirit world to use magic to harm others and further their goals, but its not alright for mortals to do the same? To reiterate, I'm not talking about trapping great spirits, their relationship to the Empire, or any of the other things the Citadel is responsible for. There's a way that Tefmet talked about the Citadel using magic that sounded a lot less like "stop abusing spirits" and a lot more like "only those Worthy and Divine should be able to use magic". Which is the specific thing a lot of people take up issue with the Citadel for saying to some extent, so what gives?

They keep talking about the Citadel bringing about the end of the world, but my mind keeps going VAGUE, UNSPECIFIC, VAGUE AGAIN. If they trap a great spirit, what's their plan? They were using Naram to create rings of Water Breathing, so we can maybe guess military weapons. But for who? Galthmai/Ruve? Ok, that's not the end of the world. I don't agree with the principal of that, but it feels a little suspicious now that the Man in Black, who is working close with Ruve, would be railing specifically against the Citadel, their enemy.

TL;DR: I'm with the argument that the Citadel has overextended their ambition and done horrific things in the name of the Empire's war. But when witches and Antivalists, who are imperfect magic users that act of their own accord, argue that the way the Citadel has used the lingua arcana for domestic, ordinary use is wrong, I just can't agree. I need more proof that they are actually disrupting the sanctity of magic, or that that is something that actually exists. I also need more proof and specifics on what the Citadel's giant evil plan actually is, lol.

[wizardsvslesbians]

This book is told from the perspective of a witch-woman who is abused by the patriarchy generally and by her terrible husband specifically. Regular listeners know that we are a magic mom-skeptical podcast but this one pulls it off.

[mask131]

Given we are going to fall back into an Ozian time, I wish to say this again: I do believe that the original draft of "Oz the Great and Powerful" was much better, more efficient, and more well-written than what the movie ended up being.

And comparing the original draft with how the movie actually looks like is a good example of what happens when movie-makers take a good idea, interesting characters and cool concepts, and then water them down and limit things until it all becomes superficial, cliche, boring, and with nasty implicits.

The original draft wasn't perfect but damn it, it had heart and soul, understood the original material, and I would pay if it had to be made today. If we had the storyline and the characters from the original draft, with the visuals and special effects of the final movie, we could have had a fascinating piece of alternate Oz.

[luciferianchild]

Imagine us being a witch and a warlock living in a little cottage, collecting herbs and celebrating pagan holidays!

[witchesoz]

Oz the Great and Powerful: Script VS Movie (1)

If you haven’t kept up with my updates: a long time ago, soon after the release of “Oz: The Great and Powerful”, I heard about one of the original script for the project being passed around the Internet. A script that showed how the movie was originally conceived, a script that showed a movie that was originally much closer to the world of Baum’s books than the final movie, a scrip that actually was better and much less flawed than the movie we ended up with.

At the time I had searched for this script, to no avail, but now, after so many years, I finally found it! And… yes, the script I got to read is actually better than the actual movie (mind you, it still has some flaws, because it was still a script-in-progress, but it also lacked a lot of the problems of the movie) and much closer to Baum’s books. In fact, reading this script while looking at the side at the finished movie is a wild experience – not only do they end up feeling like two different movies with the same plot, but also… the actual movie feels almost like a caricature of the original script. As if someone read the script, went “Let’s add as much stereotypes as we could, and twist the characters so that they became annoying instead of interesting, and let’s reinterpret what the script says in the most negative way possible” and we ended up with this movie, that would be someone’s wrong re-interpretation of the script… But anyway, I’ll let you judge by yourself, because I will break down the differences between the script and the movie.

I) In Kansas

Right ahead, the opening scene. In the movie we have this long sequence that starts with Oscar seducing his new assistant, scenes insisting on him being an unfaithful lying womanizer breaking the heart of all girls, and we are shown how his show is just shoddy tricks and fake magic, with an insistence on the “scam” nature of his show with the whole “girl in a wheelchair” thing. In the original script? NONE OF THAT! The script begins actually with Oscar in the middle of his own show – which is actually a pretty decent and impressive magic show. We begin with Oscar choosing someone in the audience to handcuff him solidly, and then asks the man what time it is – the man looks at his wrist, but his watch is gone, and then Oscar hands him his watch, with his magically un-cuffed hands. And then he proceeds to do a series of “transformations” by having an egg appear in his hand, that turns into a rabbit, then into a dove… Standard but impressive magic tricks. And the thing is that the audience, despite the show being good, is left unimpressed by it. Unphased. Oscar even has to use his ventriloquism to invent enthusiastic audience voices in front of the deafening silence (oh yes, because that’s another point the script took from the book – Oscar is a very good ventriloquist). As the script says, the main problem here Is that Oscar is an “unappreciated artist”, whose magic tricks do not impress an imagination-less audience.

And so, in front of magic tricks doing poorly, Oscar turns to his second business… basically snake oil selling. Given his magic show doesn’t do anything, he starts promoting and selling a fake elixir called “HOME” – the Homeopathic Ontological Miracle Elixir – and there he gets a TON of money and a huge success. This is another good point of the script – it shows that Oscar/Oz isn’t a scam by default, unlike the greedy jerk we see in the movie. The script establishes well that Oscar needs to do scams because his natural talent and initial projects do not work.

As a nod to the MGM movie there is a “Mr. Gulch” in the audience of Oscar’s show plus oil snake sale, in charge of the local bank, and there is also a couple known as the “Hamilton”, with the wife being called “Margaret”. A not-so-subtle nod to the actress of the Wicked Witch of the West in the MGM movie… But an homage that actually would have been REALLY offensive and of poor taste if it had ever been done. You’ll get why when I describe the character of “Mrs. Hamilton”. For you see, Mrs. Hamilton is a very attractive woman that was the only one who applauded when Oscar did his magic tricks, while Mr. Hamilton is a stern, no-nonsense, unhappy man who spends more time with his friends than his wife and is just as unimpressed by Oscar’s tricks as the rest of the audience. And as Mr. Hamilton leaves Mrs. Hamilton alone, she quickly joins Oscar for a passionate embrace. For you see, Oscar is Mrs. Hamilton’s extra-marital lover. We have still the “philanderer” aspect of Oscar there, but interestingly it is downplayed a lot. We do not see him interacting with any other women, we know of his seducing nature by secondary hints. More importantly, the character of Mrs. Hamilton is basically a mix-up of all the conquests of Oscar in the final movie, from the circus girls to Annie. I’ll explain… Mrs. Hamilton has affairs with Oscar whenever he comes to Kansas with the carnival/circus/fair he is part of, and she apparently truly loves him unlike her husband – but she also is aware that he has other “girls” he has adventures with during his tours, and is quite fine with it, especially since as Oscar puts it, all the other girls are just “bauble” compared to the true “jewel” that is Margaret, the only reason he even comes in Kansas anymore. So, while not a perfect relationship, we still have something much more “balanced” somehow than we have in the movie. In the movie, Oscar is a man unable to commit the woman he truly loves and that loves him in return, and would rather abandon her to another than straighten himself up and stop his scheming, devious ways – plus, a man that literally pushes love aside for his dream of glory and being the “greatest man of them all” AND a man that keeps his true loved one in the complete ignorance of his other sexual relationships with women. But in the script? We have a man that is honest with his true loved one about having meaningless sexual affairs when far away from her, and she understands it because she herself is married and cannot be in a full relationship with him, all the while they keep reassuring each other that they do love each other, but that their life conditions prevent them from being together full time and dooms them to occasional times of secret love. Of course, the fact that the whole “lies and scams girls to sleep with them” part is not in the original script also helps – since in the script, Oscar keeps winning the heart of women due to his natural charm, eccentric charisma and random acts of kindness.

The other main change brought to the character, and a very important one, would be the motivations of Oscar. In the movie, Oscar’s whole goal is, in his own words, to become a great, rich and famous man, the greatest wizard ever known – he pursues ambition. He puts career before anything, he is selfishly acting always and only for himself, and he has hatred for honest work and poorness due to seeing his father dying “his face in the dirt” as he worked to the bone to survive. If used well, this motivation could have created a “lovable rogue” character, but unfortunately in the movie Oscar just comes off as a selfish greedy jerk and there is nothing lovable about him. In the script? Oh boy, that’s night and day! The reason Oscar refuses to stay in Kansas despite Mrs. Hamilton’s insistence, is because he actually searches for a “great land”. He doesn’t care about being a great man, in fact during his explaining sections he rarely uses “me” or “I” (unlike the movie character who is all “me me me me”) – he explains that his hatred of Kansas is due to how dull, grey and empty the land and its people are, and upon seeing his father die “face in the dirt”, he didn’t develop a hatred of an humble life and hard work like in the movie, but he rather developed a hatred of Kansas as the land that “grinded to dust” his good father of a man. Oscar’s only goal, and the reason he keeps travelling and he doesn’t settle anywhere, is because he is looking for a land of “color and light and life”, a land of beauty and marvels. He does dream of fortune and glory yes, but only as a side-effect of finding the “perfect land”. Basically, Oscar’s original character was that of a dreamer trying to escape desperately the dreary and grim world he comes from – he was basically a parallel to Dorothy in the original MGM movie, or even better, he was a depiction of what an escapist dreamer like Dorothy could end up in the “wrong” side, if pushed to a more extreme. A man forced into selling snake oil to fuel his dreams, and who lives so much in his dreams that he cannot settle even for the woman he loves. It isn’t that he thinks of him before anyone else, like in the movie, but rather that he is such an extreme optimist that he literally believes there is some paradise on earth waiting somewhere, and that he can reach it one way or another.

Now, Mr. Hamilton and his friends end up discovering Oscar in an embrace with Mrs. Hamilton, and this leads to the chase scene present in the finished movie, but with a few differences. Mrs. Hamilton herself helps Oscar escape ; the other members of the circus (the “freaks and roundabouts”) also help Oscar in his chase, because apparently they are used to him being hunted down by angry husbands, but still like him enough to come to his help ; and finally, instead of having obstacles everywhere he runs, the original script called for a whole set of cartoony acrobatics, as Oscar would have escaped through the big tent, using trapezes and trampolines, before finding the balloon. You see, there is a real “comedy” aspect to the script. In fact, when reading the original characterization of Oz/Oscar, I couldn’t help but have a “Pirate of the Caribbean” vibe – as in, he seems to have made into a sober and less unhinged version of Captain Jack Sparrow. Another part of the script that shows its flows: as he gets into the balloon, Frank, Oscar’s assistant, throws him his hat – just like in the finished movie. But in this script… this is the first and only apparition of Frank, who isn’t even named by the dialogue, and the only indication of who he is and what his relationship to Oscar is, is found in the notes of the scripts. If shot as indicated, it would just be a random man throwing Oscar his hat. This is something that was definitively corrected in the movie, by having Frank’s character be presented and explored in the previous scenes – but this shows one of the bad habits of this original script, it tends to introduce characters or things very abruptly, without any actual explanation or presentation of who they are supposed to be.

II) Arrival in Oz

The whole “tornado” sequence is also very different in the original script. Already it isn’t a true tornado that sweeps up Oscar’s balloon, but rather a heavy and violent storm. And unlike in the movie, where Oscar is terrified and whimpers for his life, begging whatever God there is to spare him while promising to “change”… the script Oscar’s actually enters into a King Lear-like defiance (the scripts’ words) and starts shouting “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Blow!” while confronting the “deathswirl” of thunder, lightning, violent winds and heavy rains.

No “floating” scene like in the movie, and Oscar doesn’t actually arrive immediately into the beautiful scenery of Oz: in the original script, Oscar first arrives above the Deadly Desert, an endless spread of sun-scorched sand, and in front of this place, Oscar starts panicking when he realizes he has no food or drinks. He actually briefly considers killing himself with his pistol (yeah, it had quite some dark parts), but then ditches the idea way by saying he was in “worst predicaments” before – though he later admits to himself he can’t think of any worst predicament on the top of his head. Overall it is a sort of dark-humor which, as you can see, helped in the feeling of a more “Jack Sparrow-like” Oscar. As his engine starts dying out, Oscar insults it and there he has regrets – but due to the shift of goals from the character, instead of regretting “not having accomplished great things”, this Oscar regrets all the things he will never see “Paris and India” and all the great landmarks of the world.

However Oscar is suddenly save by gusts of hot winds from the desert, which sent him above cold, snowy mountains, and then over a rainbow (heavy MGM nod – I also forgot to say Oscar tells the line “I’ve a feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore” while above the desert) and finally he arrives in a fantastical, marvelous Oz… But here’s the twist. It is a yellowish landscape. And as he falls in a river, like in the movie, he is greeted not by Theodora, but by a bunch of odd people all wearing different shades and hues of yellow, while “looking and sounding a lot like the Winkie Guards from the original movie”. Yep, Oscar is actually greeted by the Winkies themselves, who start shouting and cheering, heralding him as the Great Wizard and their Savior, and telling him he is here to defeat the “Wicked Witch”. Before the shocked Oscar can have more explanations from the bowing Winkies, Theodora actually arrives – and she arrives carried by two winged monkeys. Yep, that’s another change from the original script: instead of the “winged baboons” being depicted as the vicious servants of the Wicked Witch, here the winged monkeys are very clearly associated with the “good witches” Evanora and Theodora. Theodora’s only description is: beautiful, dressed in an open-collared white shirt, black pants, and black high-knee boots. She promptly explains to him the basic situation (she is a witch, the wicked witch has to be defeated, yada yada), but with several key differences. For example, the Wicked Witch is here clearly referenced to as “The Wicked Witch of the South” (clearly it is both playing on the MGM canon where there is no southern witch, and also a nod to book-fans about the real identity of the “wicked witch”), and Evanora is already talked about as the “Queen of Oz”. She isn’t some “royal advisor” or keeper of the throne like in the finished movie – she is introduced as the rightful queen of Oz, that the wicked witch tries to overthrow.

Unlike in the movie, where Theodora is a soft, gentle, almost shy character, the script’s Theodora is depicted as fast (quick eyes, quick movements and a lively mind, which is part of why Oscar likes her) and as very insistent – while the Winkies immediately assume he is a Wizard, she keeps asking “Are you a Wizard?”. And unlike in the movie, where Oscar, as the greedy jerk that he is, only plays in the whole Wizard thing because he hears there’s gold and a crown as a price, in the original script, Oscar goes into the whole Wizard thing without hearing about any riches or powers. He simply adores the appreciation these people have of him and his “magic”, and as the script says, the “showman” in him takes over and he decides to play the role of a great Wizard, going on a boastful rant about being a wizard of pyrotechnics and prestidigitation, and the master of illusions – and to show his magic, he does some traditional magic tricks, which impress the Winkies heavily. Oscar is too happy to have finally found people appreciating his magic for him to let go, and he even calls the Winkies an “audience” at the end. But Theodora… and this is another one of the positive “change” compared to the movie (can you call it “change” when it is retrospective, since the script came before the movie?). Theodora doesn’t care so much about the magic tricks themselves – she is not particularly amazed by them – but she pays a close attention to the way they impress the Winkies, and to how they react to the Wizard’s antics. And as she keeps insisting “Are you a Wizard?”, Oscar, not wanting to lie but not wanting to dispel his newfound glory, answers ambiguously, such as “Seeing is believing” in reference to the tricks he just performs and “I wouldn’t want to contradict a lovely lady such as yourself”.

Somehow satisfied, Theodora then, with a smile… get ready for that… sparks lightning out of her fingers to have Oscar’s balloon explode. In front of his shock, she explains that if he is indeed a great Wizard, she cannot let him go, because her sister the Queen needs too much a Great Wizard to help her defeat the Wicked Witch once and for all. She also adds that her sister, Queen of the Emerald City, is a powerful witch that can offer him anything he dreamed of or desired – to encourage him to go with her see Evanora (again, the script heavily parallels Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, with Evanora replacing the promises of the “wonderful wizard of Oz” in the original narrative. Another bit that show the original character of Oscar in the movie: even when it becomes clear he has no choice but follow Theodora, since she literally had his only mean of escape explode, he still keeps up a bravado and declares “Given your kind offer, I will cancel all planned and prior arrangements, to go speak with your sister and see if we can arrange something”.

Theodora insists on travelling by foot, much to Oscar’s indignation – cut to the broom dialogue of the movie. Theodora came carried by two winged monkeys, one is Nikko (from the MGM movie), that she sends back to Theodora with a letter she quickly wrote, and the other is Kala, who carries Oscar’s luggage – he is the equivalent of the little helpful bellhop winged-monkey from the movie I forgot the name of. Except that in this script, the winged monkeys do not speak.

III) Travel down the Yellow Brick Road

Theodora, Oscar and Kala first go through farmlands with “curious-looking houses almost shaped like faces” (a nod to the original illustrations of the Oz houses, from the Baum books), and as they do Theodora explains the whole story of the wicked witch, and due to the shift of power relationships it is quite different from the one we get in the movie. In the original script, Theodora’s story is that the Wicked Witch of the South was an evil sorceress, daughter of the previous king of Oz, himself a powerful wizard and evil king. Despite Evanora being Queen of Oz, she needs all the help she can to fight the Wicked Witch of the South (and this help is resumed to Theodora herself, and the “good people of Oz”) – and finally we get the little fact that Evanora and the Wicked Witch used to be very good friends, but they had no idea “how wicked wickedness could be, and how friendship could be betrayed”.

They arrive in front of a large, wild river, and Theodora uses leaves from a strange bush growing nearby – by rubbing them on people’s feet or shoes, it allows one to walk over water. And while Theodora walks “like a queen”, majestic, Oscar is noted to laugh like a child as he tries to walk on water, slipping like a baby giraffe taking its first steps. This is one of the main differences with the movie-Oscar: script-Oscar actually keeps being amazed and having fun in Oz, truly loving all the wonders and magic of the land, like… well like a child, as I said before. It is only after they crossed the large river that they finally arrive at the Yellow Brick Road – and there Oscar is amazed to discover that the road is paved with pure gold. Theodora just replies “Don’t they have roads, where you come from?” (gold apparently being of no real value in Oz), and Oscar promptly takes off one of the bricks from the road, keeping it from his pocket and justifying his actions by “scientific purposes” – he claims he wants to check if it isn’t the “fool’s gold”, this fake gold produced by alchemists to scam people (that’s a real thing, you can check it out). Down the Yellow Brick Road, they arrive at the “Enchanted Apple Orchard”, a nod to the apple tree segment of the MGM movie – Theodora says that if Oscar wants to take an apple, he has to ask politely the trees first, and while he does so dubitatively, the tree then shakes its branch to let apples fall at his feet so he can eat them. We also get a brief line where Theodora reveals that witches do not need to eat to survive.

We then get to the night scene by the campfire, like in the movie, and here the fire was started by lightning shot out of Theodora’s fingers – in the script Theodora’s element clearly isn’t fire but lightning, and there is also no mention of any glowing ring she might have (unlike the movie where witches power come from gems they wear). Now, Oscar does the whole “give her a music box and offers her to dance” thing from the movie, but there are MAJOR differences. Difference on Oscar’s side, as there is no “this was my grandmother” lie, or any lie at all – he just gives her the music box, and when Theodora asks him why, he explains that he just wanted to make her a gift. It is a random act of kindness, nothing more, with no ulterior motif. And there is also a major difference when it comes to Theodora’s character. As I said previously, the original Theodora was far from the shy, quiet, naïve character is in the movie. She is quiet in the script – but because she is calm, majestic and constantly analyzing the situation. It is notably made clear that she keeps observing Oscar through their travels and trying to figure out what his “deal” is. And when he shows her then offers her the music box, it is the first time she actually shows genuine emotion – a childlike wonder and delight that cracks the cold and statuesque mask she put on. This makes the line “No one ever gave me something because they wanted to” line from the movie much more impactful, as we actually see a cold Theodora warming up to a true act of kindness – and during the dance scene, it is made clear that not only has she never danced with a man before, but the script insists she probably has never touched or been in the presence of a man for this much. Which leads her to get so nervous, when the music box stops she goes into the woods to “collect fire fuel”, just to calm herself all alone.

And here we get a whole new scene, that isn’t present in the final movie, and truly puts things in another perspective. As she is alone in the woods, Theodora is caught up by Nikko, returning with a letter from Evanora, asking her sister to make sure the Wizard is a real wizard. And so to test it, Theodora takes a rabbit in the woods… and transforms it into a ferocious lion she then orders to attack the Wizard. Oscar, in front of a wild lion, while all alone, first pushes it back by making a torch out of the fire, then by using his pistol (the one we saw earlier during his consideration of suicide). He merely wounds the animal, which retreats, and Theodora later returns as if she had been away and knew nothing of the situation. Upon hearing the tale of Oscar, she marvels at such a strangely-shaped “wand” (the pistol), and Oscar, in his bravado, explains he is used to fight off lion where he comes from, and that if he could he would have wrestled him with his bare hands… all while hiding his actual hands, trembling with fear, away from Theodora’s eyes. We also learn that the pistol only had one bullet, so now is completely useless, and… oh yeah, and the lion Oscar wounded is actually the Cowardly Lion. This info is dropped in the notes of the script, and this is another flaw of the writing here – in effect, in neither the dialogues nor the visuals, we do not know it is supposed to be the Cowardly Lion, and if the scene was shot it would not be known except for reading the script. Whoever wrote this scenario forgot that sometimes you need to include info in ways that the audience will know, not just the director.

IV) Meeting Evanora

Finally, our team arrives in the central land of Oz – which is said to be “brown-hued” and they see the Emerald City, described as “Sleeping Beauty’s Castle on steroids”. Interestingly, there is a heavy insistence on dreams in this script – from the Wizard claiming roads paved with gold only existed in dreams, to here reacting in front of the City by saying “I saw this before… In one of my dreams.”. As they go down the Yellow Brick Road, they are surprised by boulders in the field nearby suddenly moving and revealing themselves to be the turtle-shell-shaped shields of an army of gnomes, “short, squat, fierce-looking warriors with skin the color and texture of stone and beards so long they tie them around their waist” and armed with all sorts of broadswords, cutlasses and battle-axes… And as they appear, on the surrounding hillside, other creatures appear – Growleywogs, “silent, half-clad, eight-foot-tall Aboriginals armed with knives, bows, arrows and spears” (*cough cough* maybe it’s a good thing this part got lost) and Whimsies “distinguished by their extraordinarily broad shoulders and enormous crazy-colored papier-mache Mardi Gras masks, wearing over their undersized heads. As you can see, this is a true feast for any book fan.

But much to Oz’s surprise, Theodora explains that these savage warriors are actually here merely to escort them to her sister, Evanora – and they form a march around them, chanting “Oh-we-oh, yo ho!”. The interesting thing with this script is that, unlike with the movie, they didn’t try to make us entirely believe that Evanora and Theodora were purely good before their turn to wickedness, and they didn’t try to play the “Oh, the wicked witch of the west is somewhere, but where?”. Instead, the original script approach was to present these two characters, Theodora and Evanora, that appear good to Oz, but clearly are much more morally ambiguous to the viewer, and who are promptly guessed as the Wicked Witches – from Theodora making the balloon burst into flames, to her testing the Wizard magic with a lion that could have killed him… And another early scene that shows the discrepancy between what Oscar as a character knows and what the audience knows: arriving in the magnificent and beautiful city, Oscar and Theodora are cheered on by all the citizens of the City, who play music and throw rose petals and applaud. The script insists that the citizens of Oz are actually formed of inhabitants taken from the four corners of Oz: Winkies and Munchkins, Gillikins and Quadlings, all dressed “in different regional colors, and all enthusiastically waving green and white flags and pennants”. Oscar is said to “eat up” and wave back at the crowd like a “returning war hero or a campaign politician”… but the audience actually get to see what Oscar doesn’t see – the fact that the palace guards of Evanora, “uniformed bully-boys”, keep passing behind the crowd, making sure the citizens are cheering the wizard’s entrance with “enough gusto”, and overall giving the audience a strong sense that all is not what it quite seems in the Merry Old Land of Oz… (Funnily we also get here the line “What, no fireworks?” from Oscar, delivered to a confused Theodora who asks “What are fireworks?”

Escorted by Theodora, still “grand and glorious”, Oscar finally meets Evanora, Queen of Oz, sitting on the Emerald Throne – older than Theodora, but no less attractive, with a “powerful presence” and “penetrating gaze”. Evanora, curious and amused at the sight of the Wizard, notes that he does not kneel in front of her, and Oz answers that he is American “and Americans kneel to no one”. Evanora, delighted by the Wizard’s character, has him escorted by Munchkin maids to his chambers, and once she is alone with Theodora, she reveals that she saw everything that happened since the Wizard’s arrival in his crystal ball (just like in the movie – and Theodora is also clearly aware of her sister’s surveillance, since earlier she seemed to spoke to her sister despite her not being there, and now it is revealed that it was because she knew she was watching their every move). Evanora also has a “big sister” moment with Theodora, as she points out she noticed how Theodora grew to like the Wizard, and how he “likes” her in return. Theodora is almost blushing and can’t look at her sister in the eyes… And then we are dropped the frightening lines of Evanora: “And who can blame you? You’re still so young… and you still have feelings, don’t you?”. After this ominous line implying that Evanora doesn’t have any feelings anymore herself, she reassures Theodora that she did the right thing by bringing the Wizard here.

After Oscar enjoyed his private chambers and a large meal, he has a private chat with Evanora who, just like in the movie, goes to show her the “Room of Resplendence”, the Crown Jewels of Oz, enormous piles of gemstones and jewels. And just like in the movie, Evanora is trying to play on Oscar’s greed, as she heard from her sister that he liked “shiny things” (a nod to the Yellow Brick incident). But there are some differences here and there in the scene… Such as how Evanora actually slips word about how “pretty” her sister is and how she is fond of the Wizard (clearly trying to put them together), and also how the treasury is actually guarded by both guards AND a curtain of fire that Evanora needs to make disappear by magic (plus a stout wooden door with iron bands and multiple locks that Evanora also opens by magic, with just a wave of her hand).

But then… Things take a dark turn and we go away from the movie’s chronology. Evanora presents to Oz an artefact known as the “Diamond Dagger” – a six inches blade of razor-sharp steel, with a cross guard of filigreed gold, and a hilt encrusted in glittering diamonds. And Evanora says that he will inherit the treasury of Oz if he kills the “Wicked Witches”. Oscar is confused, as he only knew of one Wicked Witch. And Evanora reveals to him that her own sister, Theodora, is actually a Wicked Witch herself, secretly conspiring with the Wicked Witch of the South. Evanora insists that Oscar must use the Diamond Dagger to kill Theodora, and that Theodora only brought him to the city in hope of tricking him into killing her and become the new Queen. She seems convinced that Theodora offered the Wizard to share the crown in exchange for this murder, but Evanora warns him that after obtaining what she wanted, the seducing Theodora will “eat you like a spider”. And as Evanora dematerialize, fading into nothing, she declares “Prove to me you’re the Wizard you say you are, the Wizard we’ve all been waiting for. Kill my sister, then together you and I will defeat the Witch of the South once and for all. Kill my sister, Wizard – and you’ll be King.”

Now, Oz is deeply confused, and he tried to explain to Evanora she was wrong, to no avail. So, hiding the Dagger in his belt and understanding the danger Theodora is in, he promptly goes to her home and tries to convince her to leave the City… But before he can anything else, Evanora promptly appears in Theodora’s room – forming herself out of a moving shadow that was sliding along the wall. Using her magic, Evanora pushes Oscar against the wall and uses some telekinesis to choke him so he can’t speak, and she plays a Reverse Uno card on him. She pretends she is saving Theodora’s life, that Oscar was sent by the Witch of the South to murder her, and she uses the Diamond Dagger he has on him as a proof. Theodora, shocked but unable to truly believe her sister’s accusations, is flabbergasted – and it doesn’t help that Oscar has been knocked out cold by Evanora’s magic. However, playing the card of the subtlety, Evanora agrees that maybe she is wrong – maybe he wasn’t sent by the Witch of the South, but by another, or maybe he wanted to act on his own… and to make sure she isn’t acting “unfairly” here, she promises she will interrogate the Wizard tomorrow and get the truth out of him. But upon seeing Theodora’s horrified face, we understand that for Evanora “interrogating” means something truly awful.

[stardivingsea]

listening to wwwo and waiting to hear about Eursulon and his date/not-date as he's getting absolutely sloshed but got a gruesome murder instead :/

[masterkeynobi]

sinking my TEETH into the idea of wizardry itself being an act of hubris and the political-mechanical-magical differences between that and witchcraft. making demands rather than connections / relying on the sharpness of language & ritual vs the natural flow of magic through the spirit world / a blindingly magnificent imperial institution vs a cottage at the edge of the forest... i'm eating well tyvm

[ID: four screenshots from transcripts of episodes 2, 3, 7, and 8 of the children's adventure, respectively.

1.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: And I think Ame in that moment, you also do see that. Because all you've known of Suvi thus far is that Suvi is another little girl. But you see Suvi has a hunger for magic in that moment. And that's news to you as well. So whatever bonding you guys share over the fact that you know magic stuff is going on. Erika Ishii: We know that they're hiding something. Aabria Iyengar: Why are they hiding, is the thing. Magic just happens, you don't have to be weird about it. Not that she's weird. Grandmother Wren is so nice and can see through my eyes probably. Erika Ishii: I think it's because we're not ready for it. It's that magic is like, yeah, it just happens, but it's also a big responsibility, you know? It's not something you can always really control. And so the- Aabria Iyengar: That's not true. Erika Ishii: What? Aabria Iyengar: No, magic is super controllable. That's the whole thing about it. Erika Ishii: Oh.

2.

Lou Wilson: Yeah, I did magic. Aabria Iyengar: You talked to the bees but you didn't use words to do the magic, and then earlier you … I smelled it. Lou Wilson: Hmm? Erika Ishii: Yeah. It's the kind of thing that him and his family can do, right? Aabria Iyengar: Yeah, but Erika Ishii: Just like talk to bees and Aabria Iyengar: No, but magic takes … you have to learn it and you have to do spells and you have to write it down, and it takes so much to learn. How do you just do it? You can't just do it. Lou Wilson: They are friends. Friends of the forest and of the Great Bear. Erika Ishii: Magic is just there. It's not like you make it happen, it just is there. No? No. Well, we'll revisit this later maybe.

3.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: "No. No, he's not like Eursulon, Eursulon is one of our honored friends and there is magic everywhere, all throughout the world. But there are many trees in the forest that have nuts. But you still must find a way to crack them open. And many different people find different ways of availing themselves to and from and of magic. Myself and young Ame are of a similar tradition. We are witches and we attempt as best we can to help the magic of the world of spirits find its home here in the mortal world in that the bridges between the two might be kept healthy and safe and whole. That a balance between this world and the world beyond might be maintained that all things might exist in harmony with each other." Aabria Iyengar: Will I be a witch too since I've been here? Brennan Lee Mulligan: Well, if you wanted to be a witch, I would certainly be happy to teach you. Your mother and father are wizards, and they crack the nut a little differently. Long ago, but not so long I suppose in terms of the ages of the world, the very first, very clever wizards found a way to speak and write, but more importantly think in a language of magic itself. And it marked the first time that the powers of the unseen world could be wielded through cleverness itself as opposed to broaching some kind of relationship, I suppose you could say, with the world of spirits. Eursulon can disappear and put on other forms in the same way that he can breathe and run. It is a part of him. And Ame and I, we can sometimes speak on or act on behalf of the unseen world. Your mother and father speak and think in a language that means they don't have to ask for help.

4.

Brennan Lee Mulligan Describe to me what this fumbling attempt at magic looks like. Erika Ishii Okay. I would know things for healing, I've studied a lot, and for all of the things that the villagers come in, none of them have this kind of malignant, bad, powerful magic in them for curing. But I know about curing, and a lot of it is about understanding the body and the intuitiveness of knowing what bleeding to stop or what words to say to the spirits. So I think that all of my healing abilities for it have to do with the breathing and the coaxing of the poison out of her. Aabria Iyengar I think Suvi's is very, very much the opposite of that. She has so few points of data and the only spell she's ever cast, she didn't know she was casting protection from good and evil. But from the few conversations she's had, and the way she sees witches interact with magic, it's a conversation and balance. So she knows that the magic that her parents do that she's going to inherit does not ask permission. It is willful. So every intention that she's putting out, every bit of energy she's putting forth, is to wall it off and make it do what she wants, which is leave her alone.

/end ID]

[cicadacalling]

In the realm of utterly stupid things I've encountered on tiktok, I saw two people arguing about whether wizards or witches were superior, and naturally one was claiming wizard status and the other was representing for the witches. Wizard boy said that wizards are about understanding the mysteries of the universe while witches just make homemade cough syrup out of herbs. I inserted myself into this saying that at least cough syrup helps other people and the only thing wizards do for anyone outside of the wizards community is pose to have their portraits airbrushed onto the sides of vans. He accused me of being deaf to the music of the cosmos, and I told him to go ponder his orb.

He said that as a witch I was being a huge hypocrite to bring up orbs since the moon ain't nothing but an orb, and then he blocked me and now I can't access any of those videos anymore, and I feel vaguely more stupid than I did before the whole conversation occured

I am completely genuine when I say this: thank you so much for sharing.

[travelbasscase]

Imo there is a DIFFERENCE between witch and wizard. Witches use more potions and herbs and complicated rituals and spell components that can be found in a component pouch and all that. Wizards use books and drawing stuff in the air and sciencey-magic and fancy robes and scepters and hats. If they have spellcasting components, it's probably stuff that a component pouch can't help with (ie money and expensive gems), and they're more likely to be hired by royals for jobs, whereas witches would curse the royals and go chill in a forest with some newts.

Sorcerers don't bother with any of that stuff. They don't need to study, it comes naturally. They're just exploding with magic, no tools required. Warlocks borrowed their magic from the local branch library, and they can keep it so long as they do the library's bidding.

Druids are witches who hate people and metal and just love nature too much, and also like drawing in the dirt and chanting with other people. Bards are sorcerers who like to sing. Clerics are wizards but religious.

Rangers are druids who chose violence. Paladins are clerics who chose violence. Artificers are wizards who looked at gnomes and went "cool beans".

And then there are eldritch knights (wizards who chose violence) and arcane tricksters (sorcerers who broke the law) and such.

[thaddeuspole]

Time for some head-canon:

Magicians/Magus/Mage deal primarily in the art of incantation (that is to say speaking words, or the waving of hands or implements to invoke magical effects), while witches deal closer in alchemy by infusing ingredients with magical properties and thereby creating potions/tinctures etc. It is not uncommon for one or the other profession (because that is what they are. Jobs.) To dabble in the other because they both fall under the umbrella of "Wizard". A magician is one who imposes their will upon latent forces of chaos to produce an effect that otherwise had no reason to happen (setting a hex, or producing fire). This is why attaining the title of "Supreme Wizard" is so difficult, because it implies mastery of both crafts.

I think its also important to distinguish alchemists from what witches perform. While an alchemist uses the natural properties of elements to produce a natural result (enhanced strength, explosions, mutagens, etc); a witch infuses magic into her ingredients. Theoretically an experienced witch could use any ingredients to create a brew but some ingredients tend to retain certain facets of magical imbuement better (e.g. eye of newt will manipulate light magic more readily than say frogs legs, or wormwort).

Its also important to distinguish these abilities from sorcery, and patron based magic such as warlock, and clergy. The magics of the Wizard profession are exclusively attained by diligent study and practice, where as sorcerers, warlocks, clerics and the like deliver chaos from outer planar sources, like deities, cosmic radiation, and dense chaos anomalies. I won't be getting into those in this post though.

[wizardsvslesbians]

This is the first of three books we’re covering which are very political (on purpose or not) and very funny (on purpose or not.)  Our consensus on this one is that it doesn’t mean to be political and does mean to be funny, but all the best jokes in it are completely unintentional.  Maybe we’re wrong!

Anyway this made Alexis entirely re-evaluate chick lit as a genre, so check it out.

[incorrectquoteslooneytuneslatino]

Lucas el Hechicero: Oye, Hazel, debes abrir portales, voy a destruir la magia.

Hazel: Claro, hazla volar.

Porky: E-Espera, Hazel, tú e-estás hecha de ma-magia.

Hazel: Mira, para serte sincera… Siempre creí que traía más caos que beneficios.

Fuente: Star vs. las Fuerzas del Mal (2015 ~ 2019)

[anistarrose]

[Plain text: "Real Magic". End PT.]

[Image description: digital art of two versions of Luz from The Owl House. One Luz is in her Season 1 design and kneeling on the ground, wearing her Azura hat and clutching her fake staff from Witches Before Wizards. She's looking at her Titan form in awe, as Titan Luz holds Stringbean's staff and conjures a swirl of magic around herself. She smiles at her younger self. End ID.]

Real Magic

[jinhogwarts]

watched a bootleg recording of wicked because i wanna write a seminar about it and there's no official recordings of it and truly i love this musical so much, i hope the movie will live up to it 💖

[witchesoz]

Oz the Great and Powerful: Script vs Movie (3)

VIII)  The Great Battle

Right as they leave the Quadling Country and pass the shimmering wall, Glinda summons an enormous snowstorm to cover the entirety of Central Oz – covering and hiding the location of Glinda’s army, while Glinda’s forces themselves are located in a zone right in the middle of the storm where the perfect is perfectly calm, the very “eye” of the storm that moves with them as they walk towards the City.

As the Wicked Sister see Oz, Glinda and the forces approaching, Evanora lashes out one more time at Theodora, pulling on her hair while giving her the orders to embrace the hate inside of her, reminding her that she has nothing more to hold onto and that he beloved Wizard is here to kill her… and finally Theodora gives in, and accepts to sacrifice her heart to join Evanora in full wickedness. We then have the “apple” scene from the movie, but again slightly different. Evanora does use an apple on her sister, but the apple is shining red and Theodora watches as Evanora places drops of poison onto it. Evanora also tells her sister that it will “fleetingly” hurt, but after that she will be delivered of things such as pain or love, in exchange for even more power. Of course, since the script Theodora already knows what is going on and made this decision (partially) on her own, there is none of the “it’s you the wicked witch!” and shocked surprise from the movie. Like in the movie, as her heart withers away, the appearance of Theodora changes – her chin lengthens, her nose grows into a hooked one, her skin becomes green, and she turns into the Wicked Witch of the West from the MGM movie. Like in the movie, Evanora offers an enchantment to have her look exactly the way she did before – but unlike in the movie, Evanora doesn’t say anything about Theodora looking “hideous”, and insists that she will only give her the enchantment if she wants to. And Theodora replies that no, she will keep this form, because it her now – there is nothing of this “I want him to see what he turned me into” nonsense. And as Theodora jumps at the window to order the Sisters’ generals to exterminate Oz army, wicked-Theodora has a … really corny and cheesy set of lines, that I’ll leave here:

THEODORA Hurry, Wizard -- I want to dance with you again -- a different dance this time -- a wedding dance... I got married, you see -- to Wickedness -- and from now on: The bride will wear only black!

Yeah… a good thing it was cut. So the “savage army” runs on the South… only for them to be completely blocked and defeated by the shrieking winds and slashing ice of Glinda’s snowstorm. Evanora doesn’t mind this huge problem, because she explains that a storm of such a magnitude needs a lot of magic, and the longer the storm is up, the weaker Glinda will get – they just need to wait until the storm dies out, and then all they’ll have to worry about is the Wizard – and while Evanora is not sure he is actually a true Wizard, she still says she doesn’t remove the possibility that maybe he does have some magic in him…

Now, Glinda is indeed weakened by the storm, and when it is dispelled we are revealed that Glinda’s forces weren’t marching towards the Emerald City, but to a pyramid of boulders near it – the entry to caves leading to inside the City. Glinda uses the last of her magic to create a miniature tornado that lifts the big, heavy boulders blocking the entrance, and then she passes out. As the “savage army” camps outside the city in the now snow-filled fields, Glinda’s forces enter what is described as a “subterranean wonderland” of vast caverns and underground rivers. Oh, and remember how I said the fact the “savages not being from Oz” was just dropped like that with no explanation? Well, the script corrected me! The writer clearly knew what he was doing – as Kala explains to the wizard that this set of tunnels actually passes under the Impassable Desert surrounding Oz, and into the Savage Lands, and it is through them that the Wicked Sisters could summon their army. While I still don’t like the use of “savage” to describe these creatures, I have to say I was too quick to jump to the conclusion before, this script seems to know what it is doing. We also get more backstory: it was Evanora who summed the Savages from their far-away land, to help her in her fight against Glinda’s father – and in fact these huge boulders were placed here by Glinda’s father to block the tunnels, right before he died, killed by Evanora as he was protecting Glinda from her. We also get the whole “friendship” story Theodora told earlier, but reversed: Evanora and Glinda were indeed friends, and Evanora used that friendship and Glinda’s goodness to trap her. Why? Because she knew that Glinda’s father, the actual King of Oz, would do everything in his power to save his daughter, and this allowed Evanora to “strike like a snake”. We also get an interesting line from Kala: as Oscar wonders what to do with the passed-out Glinda, and Kala says he shouldn’t try to wake her up in a kiss, adding “we need you Wizard”. This line seems weird, but I read a bit further away and it is explained later.

As they wait under the cavern, they are helped by the “inside men” of Glinda, who turn out to be the Munchkin citizens of Emerald City – they arrive to help load all the Elves’ machines inside the city, and one of the Munchkins point out he was expecting the Wizard to be bigger (which was something the Dainty China girl also said to him before and acts as a sort of running gag, since both were small characters). Now, once Glinda is awake they get to the next part of their plan. Glinda, Oscar and Kala climb in one of Glinda’s magic bubbles, with all the living Utensils climbing onto their bodies (to travel in the bubble without piercing it) – and arrive in the camp of the asleep “Savage Armies”. Silently, the Utensils then proceed to destroyed the Gnomes’ beard and Whimsies masks. And once this is done, they return into the caves. The Cuttenclips, being paper soldiers, just fold themselves into hay carts – being 2D you can pile lots of them into one cart – which are then drawn by the Munchkins into the city. The Elves got their own secret way into the City (and Glinda knows they are in because of some telepathic connection to them apparently – similar to how she knew Oscar and Kala were arriving at Quadling Country) – basically everybody slowly prepares their place for the plan.

In the morning, the Savage army explodes in a mass panic and flees into every direction, while an ungodly shriek can be heard everywhere through the city – the shriek of Evanora in front of her crystal ball. (I don’t know if I said it before, but Evanora keeps watching everything that happens in Oz with her crystal ball). Evanora, terribly angry at her army being destroyed, keeps searching with the crystal for the hidden armies of Glinda, while Theodora, remembering the “broom” line of Oscar, takes a broom from a Munchkin maid of the palace and flies on it through the sky to also partake in the research. Meanwhile, Evanora finds the location of a part of the army: the Fuddles and Hammerheads arrive at the Enchanted Orchard, and Evanora transmits the info telepathically to her sister. Theodora takes charge of the two “savage species” left, the Growleywogs (asked to form a defense of the City) and the Winged Monkeys, sent on the orchard to kill everyone. At first the winged monkeys only see the Fuddles, the Hammerheads being hidden, and as they arrive, the Fuddles fall into a pile of puzzle pieces. This confuses greatly the winged monkeys, who stop to assess the situation – only for the Hammerheads to jump out, beating up the monkeys with their heads, and sending them crashing into the enchanted apple trees which, angry at seeing their branches broken, quickly also start knocking off the winged monkeys. Once the beasts are defeated, Glinda knows and informs the Wizard (again, thanks to her telepathic witch senses).

The second part of the plan has the Munchkins carry on the Cuttenclips with their hay carts near the Poppy Fields outside of the city, and then have the paper-army place themselves in front of the City, marching towards them. When you look at them upfront, you can’t know they are paper people, due to how impressive and human they look – and when Theodora notices this army marching near them, she sends all the Growleywogs against them.

Meanwhile, Glinda uses her magic to stop all wind, to prevent the paper army being flown away or revealed as… well, paper. The Growleywogs use their arrow on the army of soldiers, only to see that they pass right through them – which surprises greatly both the Growleywogs and Theodora. Then, the paper army starts retreating, and the Growleywogs encouraged to fight are sent after them to kill them – and suddenly Glinda releases all the winds, making them blow over the area… Theodora finally understand what is going on, but too late: the paper army retreats into the Poppy Fields, and the Growleywogs hunting them down follow them there, and the winds of Glinda help this whole “pushing them into the soporific” flowers thing – and just like in the movie, they are put to sleep forever. (To be fair, while this scene does make some more sense than the poppy fields scene in the movie, it also has some problems that the movie scene did try to cover up – such as for example hiding the poppies with mist in the movie to help the villains forget where they were heading).

Now that all of the armies outside of the city have been defeated, the Wicked Sisters await with their own personal guards inside the city. At nightfall, the Wizard, Kala and Glinda enter in the city secretly, and before they part, Oscar half-confesses that he kind of fells something for Glinda (he notes that he didn’t do all of this for destiny so much as he did it for her). Glinda, on her own, goes through the dark streets of the city, and then goes into the royal palace by literally walking through the walls (what’s the use of having a witch if you can’t show her magic?), and she arrives in the throne room, where Evanora awaits her. They have a chat, with Evanora mocking Glinda for believing in what she is sure is a false Wizard, and being foolish enough to have been tricked by Evanora, while Glinda replies that Oz is a Great and Powerful Wizard, and she warns her that he will sit into the throne that was her father’s as the king of Oz. Theodora arrives and tries to kill Glinda with some more of her lightning, but the Witch of the South just vanishes into the air. Theodora has some doubts about whether or not the Wizard is real, but now Evanora is sure of it, he is a fraud.

Meanwhile Oscar gets arrested by WInkie Guards, who identify him as the Wizard. Oscar confuses them by saying he is not the Wizard, because the wizard is a ten-feet tall giant spitting fire (and they have heard of such rumors), but ultimately it is Glinda who saves Oscar by turning all the Winkie Guards into rats. Kala manages to ring one of the alarm bells of the city, so all the citizens would gather on the main place of the city – and then we have the whole “giant fiery hologram” trick scene from the movie. Interestingly, while in the movie Glinda is unable to do anything, a prisoner to the Wicked Witches, in the script she helps participate in Oscar’s grand illusion: for example, when the guards send their spears and arrows through the hologram, Glinda works her magic so that the weapons turn into snake as they go through the light and smoke. Interestingly, in the scene Theodora shows the use of both lightning and fireballs with her magic attempts at destroying the hologram (so in the original script she had the lightning powers of Evanora, who in the script actually seems helpless when it comes to offensive magic, and even begs Theodora to “do something” in front of the Wizard making the “stars explode”).

Interestingly, the whole “weakening Witch” thing with Glinda is reused here, as the holograph-Wizard points out the “weakness” of the Wicked Witches – since Theodora keeps throwing lightning and fireballs at the holograph to no avail, weakening more and more as she does it. Evanora is the one who suggests fleeing, like in the movie, while Theodora wants to stay and fight – but here Evanora doesn’t just flee out of cowardice. She points out “The night is his… But if we flee, there will be other nights.” Clearly she just sees they are in a bad position and wants to survive to prepare another attack. The two sisters eventually fly away together out of the city – Theodora on her broomstick, while Evanora’s long sleeves actually starts flapping around her like wings.

As everybody is happy with the victory and the Wicked Sisters fleeing, Oscar jumps into Glinda’s arms and tries to kiss her… only for her to stop and reveal what Kala meant earlier: Oscar cannot kiss Glinda… because she is a Witch. And a kiss from a Witch would kill him.

We cut to a great parade the next day as everyone is happy – and we see all the spells of the Wicked Witches dispelled, such as the Hammerheads having their arms back, but also the Dainty China people being restored to flesh-and-blood people (now I didn’t see this one coming). Oscar gets ready with his treasure to leave Oz, as per his deal with Glinda… but hearing the cheers and seeing the happy people, he decides he can’t go – because if he goes away, the Wicked Sisters will attack the City again, and the Good People of Oz need a Wizard… It was what Glinda was always expecting and she points out “You are a good man, Wizard”, to which Oscar replies “Yeah: who knew?”. And, as per in the movie, Oscar decides he can’t go among the people and let them see him now, because they’ll see he is a common and ordinary man – he needs to keep the myth and the illusion, and asks Glinda for help, to help him maintain the whole trick, to keep faith in the “wizard” figure.  Glinda warns him it will be lonely, he says he knows, and they actually bond over the fact that both of them are very lonely in their respective existences.

The Wicked Witches make one last appearance, flying on broomsticks, writing with black smoke in the sky “Just you wait”, but then the Wizard sends an official decree to declare the Land of Oz free… and we finish with Oscar asking if it isn’t all just a dream, and upon being told by Glinda it isn’t, concluding “There’s no place like Oz”.

- - - - - - - -

And there we go, a full breakdown of the original script! As you can see, it is not refined and there are some stuff left out here and there - like the Diamond Dagger. It was presented as this specific artefact and seemed to be important, and yet... it seems to be just a random dagger? Similarly, Theodora and Evanora are, as I said, called the "wicked witches of the east and the west", despite it making not much sense since they are sisters who visibly came together, and leave together, and they are only seen in the center of Oz? But overall, as you can see, this script actually avoids many of the troubles the movie falls into, and solve almost all of the problem brought forth by the final product