15. The Good Witch of the North is a metaphorical representation of an imperial American foreign policy
The Good Witch of the North, sometimes called Locasta, reigns as ruler of Gillikin Country having freed its people from the clutches of the Wicked Witch of the North. She encounters Dorothy after the latter crushes the Wicked Witch of the East by accident with her farmhouse and welcomes her to the Land of Oz. Claiming to be inferior in power to the Wicked Witches, hence her inaction to save the Munchkins before Dorothy’s arrival, she suggests Dorothy travels to the Emerald City to seek help from the Wizard of Oz.
Despite her seemingly pleasant demeanor, granting Dorothy with a protective kiss to aid her on her journey, it has been suggested that the Good Witch of the North is, in fact, evil and representative of an imperialist foreign policy. At the time of Baum’s writing, the United States had just begun the acquisition of imperial possessions, notably the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and the colonial products of the Spanish-American War, with a number of political movements contextually opposing the United States seeking to build an empire akin to European powers. Proponents of this interpretation suggest Locasta, like Glinda the Good Witch of the South, was aware of the powers of Dorothy’s slippers – that they could take her home to Kansas – and instead sent Dorothy to eliminate her territorial rivals on her behalf; this theory is somewhat explored in the 2013 cinematic prequel “Oz, The Great and Powerful”, in which the Wicked Witch of the East feigns goodness to persuade Oz to attack Glinda. According to W. Geoffrey Seeley, the Good Witch “used an innocent, ignorant patsy to overthrow both her own sister witch and the Wizard of Oz, leaving herself as the undisputed master”