The Architect
One of the most exciting things I discovered while typing the Witch is that she’s the exact opposite of Dorothy. Her letters—INTP—contrast with Dorothy’s—ESFJ—and both women share the same four cognitive functions, but in reverse order. I think it makes a fascinating metaphor for Dorothy dealing with the most mysterious, and thus frightening, parts of herself.
Not that INTPs are frightening, of course. It all depends on your perspective, and this story is told from Dorothy’s perspective. Other certain re-tellings of the story that will go unnamed probably use an INTJ version of the Witch. However, I think the INTP is appropriate here, because this type is most often used in movies as a classic mad scientist type—Dr. Frankenstein, Walter Bishop, that duck-billed thing in The Nightmare Before Christmas—and the Wicked Witch of the West is basically a magical version of the mad scientist.
Dominant Function – Introverted Thinking/Ti, “Why It Is”
Whereas Dorothy leads with her Extraverted Feeling function, addressing everyone with kind consideration and politeness, the Witch is always blunt and to the point. She has no time for messing around. Her focus remains intently on the Ruby Slippers, and she will have them.
We don’t get to see her analytical powers in action much, but when she’s exhausted all her options in trying to get the shoes off of Dorothy, the Witch thinks carefully. “These things must be done delicately,” she says, “or you hurt the spell.” She’ll figure it out eventually. She enjoys being smart and clever and gloats over cornering Dorothy and her friends in the castle: “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of spears…thought you were pretty foxy, didn’t you?”
She never tells Dorothy exactly what she’s thinking, though—partly because she’s an Introverted Thinker and tends to keep her thoughts to herself; but also, I suspect, because this is the function Dorothy least understands, so her dreaming mind doesn’t play it out for her.
Auxiliary Function – Extraverted Intuition/Ne, “What Could Be”
The Witch shows endless creativity in summoning spells to cast against her enemies. Dorothy’s own imagination is running wild at the story’s start, so it’s only natural she’d be subjected to crazy obstacles by her dreamworld nemesis. The Witch’s spells rarely work out quite right—Scarecrow outsmarts her grumpy apple trees, and Glinda counteracts her poppy field—but she always has another idea to hatch.
Tertiary Function – Introverted Sensing/Si, “What Was”
The Witch believes that the Ruby Slippers belong to her as the sister of the previous owner (and, she’s right, isn’t she? C’mon, Glinda, be a sport). In fact, the only hint of real feeling we get from the Witch is the shock and anger at the death of her sister. It makes her obsession with the shoes that much stronger, and reflects Dorothy’s Si-driven anxiety over being separated from her own family.
Inferior Function – Extraverted Feeling/Fe, “What We Need”
The Witch focuses only on her own needs, goals, and obsessions, and doesn’t seem to care much how her quest affects others. She’s quite proud of her “beautiful wickedness” in fact. Her only awareness of others’ emotions seems to show up when the direct approach has failed, and she resorts to terrorizing and manipulating them—skywriting “Surrender, Dorothy,” ordering Toto drowned, or threatening the Scarecrow with fire, and such. It’s kind of a letdown that she’s dispatched by an unexplained hypersensitivity to water rather than something that taps into her weakness.
In the original book version of the aforementioned gravity-defying INTJ Witch, Dorothy’s Fe-dom leads to her to apologize and ask forgiveness of the Witch for killing her sister. This moment of authentic Feeling takes the obsessed, paranoid woman by so much surprise that she accidentally lights herself on fire. Dorothy runs to help her with a bucket of water, and…well, you know. It’s super emotional and heart-breaking, and I wish the final showdown in the movie could have found a similarly satisfying resolution. I’m not really sure what it says that Dorothy simply melts away the part of her she doesn’t understand.
On a lighter note, can we just have a moment to love on Margaret Hamilton?
Oftentimes, the dumbest characters are played by the smartest actors, and the meanest characters are played by the absolute nicest people. Somehow, being smart or nice seems to give a person the perspective they need to play exactly the opposite. If you see or hear any interview with Margaret Hamilton, you know that she was one of the warmest, funniest, most down-to-earth ladies to ever live, and yet she brought to life one of movie history’s most powerful, frightening, and wicked icons.
Next we turn to everyone’s favorite good witch—Glinda, the Witch of the North, an ENFJ.
Heroes & Villains of MBTI 