<P> When she succeeds in acquiring one silver shoe by making Dorothy trip over an invisible bar, the little girl angrily throws a bucket of water onto the Wicked Witch . This causes the old witch to melt away . The Wicked Witch's dryness was enumerated in some clues before this . Furthermore, when Toto had bitten her, she had not bled; her wickedness had dried her up long ago . Unfortunately, L. Frank Baum did not explain precisely why water had this effect on her, nor did he ever imply that all evil witches could be likewise destroyed . However, the wicked witch Mombi is similarly disposed of in The Lost King of Oz and the wicked witch Singra is clearly afraid of the same fate in the early chapters of The Wicked Witch of Oz . The most likely explanation of Baum making water the Achilles' heel of these witches is the long held belief amongst major religions that water is effective for purifying the soul and combating evil . </P> <P> The Witch did not carry a broom in the novel, but rather an umbrella, which she uses on one occasion to strike Dorothy's dog Toto . Her nature is a volatile and yet somewhat cowardly one . Despite her immense power, she avoids face - to - face contact with her enemies, and is frightened of Dorothy at first when she sees the girl wearing the Silver Shoes . She is also afraid of the dark in Baum's original story for reasons never revealed . For that reason, the Witch never tried to steal the Silver Shoes while Dorothy was sleeping . Despite her fear of water and the dark, the Wicked Witch of the West was one of the most powerful witches in all of Oz . In ensuing Oz books, her power is described as having been so great that even Glinda the Good Witch of the South feared her . </P> <Ul> <Li> In Alexander Melentyevich Volkov's 1939 novel The Wizard of the Emerald City, her given name is Bastinda . March Laumer uses this name for the witch in his novel Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Oz . Like in the 1939 movie, she is the sister of the Wicked Witch of the East . Sherwood Smith uses this name for a new Wicked Witch of the West in her 2005 book The Emerald Wand of Oz . </Li> <Li> Gregory Maguire's September 1996 revisionist novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West takes the familiar Oz story and inverts it, with the Wicked Witch (given the name Elphaba in homage to L. Frank Baum) as the novel's protagonist and Dorothy as a hapless child . The name is retained in the musical Wicked . </Li> <Li> In the novel The Unknown Witches of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is named Old Snarl - Spats . </Li> <Li> In the comic book series Grimm Fairy Tales presents Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is named Lynessa . </Li> </Ul> <Li> In Alexander Melentyevich Volkov's 1939 novel The Wizard of the Emerald City, her given name is Bastinda . March Laumer uses this name for the witch in his novel Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Oz . Like in the 1939 movie, she is the sister of the Wicked Witch of the East . Sherwood Smith uses this name for a new Wicked Witch of the West in her 2005 book The Emerald Wand of Oz . </Li>

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