So the question that arises is what's up with Blinkie?
Blinkie appears to be a small-time
Wicked Witch who lives in Jinxland and terrorizes the populace with
at least three anonymous witches who can turn into beautiful maidens
when performing witchcraft. Blinkie's three friends can also fly on
broomsticks. Blinkie may act on her own or be hired to do a job.
Blinkie is missing an eye, wearing an
eyepatch. This similarity had caused some fans to think she may be a
revived or reconstituted Wicked Witch of the West. I personally don't
think so as there is little connection aside from that. Perhaps
trading in an eye can get a Witch special powers.
Blinkie is actually based on an
amalgamation of the Wicked Witch of the West and Mombi from Baum's
1914 film His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz. The witch in that film
was named Mombi but looked like Denslow's Wicked Witch of the West.
Like the Wicked Witch, she enslaved Dorothy to do chores for her, and
like Mombi, pursues Dorothy when she runs away. Her fate, however,
is entirely original to the film. The Tin Woodman chops her head off
and the Wizard traps her in a can and shrinks it. At the end, she
appears to be let go after she restores her victims from earlier in
the film.
Blinkie was asked by King Krewl to
freeze the heart of Princess Gloria so she wouldn't love Pon the
gardener's boy. She did so, and also turned Cap'n Bill into a
grasshopper with a wooden leg. For this, the Scarecrow punishes her
by shrinking her to a tiny size and taking away her powers once she
restores her victims.
To be honest, Baum could have replaced
Blinkie with Mombi (having brushed up on witchcraft again) if he had been so inclined. However, he let his
former villain remain the villain of only one book.
This leaves me with a question: why didn't Glinda do something about Blinkie? In The Scarecrow of Oz, it seems clear that Glinda has known about Blinkie's activities for a while and only sends the Scarecrow to take care of her when Blinkie begins to abuse people from the outside world. In books outside the Famous Forty (but generally considered canonical), Glinda seems to have put two Wicked Witches in the Quadling Country into enchanted sleeps in The Wicked Witch of Oz by Rachel Cosgrove Payes and The Enchanted Apples of Oz by Eric Shanower. Why is Glinda vigilant about these witches but not Blinkie? Why doesn't she go to Jinxland herself?
Thinking about this, one idea comes up. Maybe Glinda can't go to Jinxland. Or rather, she's not welcome there. Is King Krewl the first king of Jinxland to value Blinkie's services? Perhaps Glinda did try and was forbidden to go back to Jinxland. She makes it clear that by this, she washes her hands of anything that may happen to the people of Jinxland. As pointed out, she only seems to send the Scarecrow once people from outside Jinxland are involved.
Why do you think?
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