Consider the audacity of that. Locasta, from her northern tower, projects a mark of sovereignty across the entire country of Oz, telling every bandit, beast, and wicked witch: This child is mine. The Wicked Witch of the West spends the entire middle of the novel unable to touch Dorothy, only resorting to tripping her or summoning wolves and crows. Why? Because of Locasta’s kiss. That is the mark of a true political operator. Locasta’s true character emerges in the subtext of Oz’s recent history. Before Dorothy’s arrival, Oz was a fractured state. The Wizard, a humbug from Omaha, ruled the Emerald City through illusion. The four quadrants were each governed by a witch: two wicked (East and West), two good (North and South). This was not a coincidence. It was a cold war.
Unlike Glinda, who is beautiful, young-seeming, and aloof, Locasta is grandmotherly, wrinkled, and deeply engaged in the daily governance of her people. She knows the name of every Gillikin farmer. She adjudicates disputes between the talking animals of the northern forests. She once personally marched into the Nome King’s tunnels to negotiate a mining treaty. She is not a fairy-tale princess; she is a bureaucrat with a wand . locasta tattypoo
Long live Locasta Tattypoo. The forgotten witch. The first guardian. The best of the North. Consider the audacity of that
Locasta’s power is genuine but limited. Baum’s magic system delineates between Witches (born with innate power), Sorcerers (those who learn magic), and Wizards (pretenders with tricks). Locasta is a Sorceress —her power comes from study, ancient pacts, and a deep understanding of Oz’s elemental forces. She cannot create something from nothing (as Glinda later does with her Great Book of Records), but she can protect, guide, and charm. Locasta’s true character emerges in the subtext of
And that is precisely why later Oz authors marginalized her. The post-Baum Oz canon (especially the Thompson and Neill books) favored glamour and spectacle. A elderly, pragmatic sorceress who does paperwork? Give us Glinda, with her chariot of rubies and army of maidens. Locasta faded into footnotes, appearing only in adaptations that respect Baum’s original text, like the 1985 film Return to Oz (where she appears briefly in the background of Mombi’s hall) or the 2007 comic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young. Locasta’s most revealing scene occurs not in the first book, but in Baum’s The Marvelous Land of Oz (the second novel). When the young boy Tip flees the wicked witch Mombi, he seeks refuge in the North. Locasta receives him not as a supplicant, but as a queen receiving a political refugee. She listens to his story, then delivers a chilling line:
“I knew Mombi long ago. She was the nurse of the royal family of the North, before the Nome King’s magic overthrew the old dynasty. She was never trustworthy. You did well to flee.”
When Dorothy’s house killed the Wicked Witch of the East, Locasta was the first on the scene. She didn’t weep for the dead tyrant. She immediately assessed the political opportunity. She took the Witch’s silver shoes (their power intact) and, when Dorothy asked to return to Kansas, Locasta admitted a stunning weakness: she didn’t know how.