This Wizard Of Oz Theory Changes Everything About Dorothy's Fate

We all know "The Wizard of Oz" follows the yellow brick trek of Kansas farm girl Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland). The displaced teen just wants to get home after she's swept away to a trippy faraway land during a twister. But the snazzy ruby slippers Dorothy snags from the Wicked Witch of the East make her the target of the terrifying Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). 

Throughout the film, Dorothy's Kansas cohorts appear in Oz as different characters; three hometown farmhand friends turn up as a scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a tinman (Jack Haley), and a cowardly lion (Bert Lahr). Scary neighbor Miss Gulch is the Wicked Witch of the West. So why is it that Dorothy remains just Dorothy? A fan theory suggests that there isn't an Oz version of Dorothy because she kills her alter ego when her house crash-lands in Oz — and they cite the ruby slippers as proof.

Redditor PrimeTime22 first pitched the theory in 2013, speculating that Dorothy travels into a portal to another universe. Noting that viewers never see The Wicked Witch of the East's face, and "the only thing we really know about her appearance is the fact that she and Dorothy have the same shoe size." The user asks, "Is it possible that, in Oz, one copy is drawn to destruction in order to avoid paradoxes?" They note that while Dorothy meets alternate versions of people she knows in Kansas, she never meets an alternate Dorothy: "I propose that Dorothy's copy was the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy simply replaced her in the world when she crushed her at the beginning of the film."

The "Wizard of Oz" house-dropping scene is pivotal because it marks the transition from black and white to Technicolor. But the famous sequence could hold a clue to an underlying theme as it transitions from one "universe" to another. After her house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, Dorothy meets Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke), who asks the pigtailed heroine, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy insists she's "not a witch at all," then adds, "Witches are old and ugly." 

That's when the gorgeous Glinda schools her with: "I am a witch. I'm Glinda, the Witch of the North ... Only bad witches are ugly." Theorists think that exchange helps prove Dorothy was actually the Wicked Witch of the East. "It fits in with how Glinda assumed Dorothy was a witch," user Dragoru3000 noted. "Are you a good witch or a bad witch? That would explain why everyone is hesitant of her at first," PhilosopherKingSigma agreed.

If Garland's character was a witch, she was lucky she never had to dress the part. To play the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton was forced to wear toxic face paint that kept her face tinted for days. She also suffered second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her hand shooting her character's fiery exit from Munchkinland after the Wicked Witch of the West confronts Dorothy.