The Wicked Witch of the West is by far and without a doubt, one of the most iconic characters in the entirety of all fiction. She is a character you love to hate, and hate to love.

The 1939 fipm heavily implies that Dorothy is dreaming Oz and that the Wicked Witch of the West is the nasty old lady that wants to have her dog euthanized.

But in the Land of Oz, she is the biggest and baddest witch of them all. She enters the story when she senses that her younger sister The Wicked Witch of the East had been killed.

And she’s not exactly happy that Dorothy was the “murderer” and somehow magically slipped on her sister’s shoes.

In terms of magical power, she’s actually not as impressive as you would imagine. She can summon a little bit of fire, talk to a bunch of monkeys, and has some green skinned soldiers… but that’s about it.

And she dies when Dorothy pours a bucket of water on her to extinguish the flames that she set on the Scarecrow. Viewers are left to make an educated guess that the mean old nasty lady that the witch is based upon was killed in the tornado.