70 pages • 2 hours read
Danielle PaigeDorothy Must Die
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 14-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
Amy tries to run but crashes into an invisible wall. When she accepted Mombi’s help, a spell bound her to the witches. The third woman is Glamora, Glinda’s twin sister, and the three formerly wicked witches are now good to balance out Dorothy’s wickedness. They show Amy a map that details the changes in Oz. Once, the entire land was vibrant with magic spread equally. Now, the land is mostly dead and gray, except for the Emerald City, which glows blindingly bright. Dorothy steals the magic from the land, and the witches need Amy’s help because “Dorothy must die” (135).
Chapter 15 Summary
Amy can’t believe the witches think she’s capable of killing anyone. Mombi argues that Amy held her own in the fight in her cell, but Amy’s still convinced most of that was magic, not her. She argues that she isn’t even from Oz, but the witches point out all the similarities between her and Dorothy. Amy can’t deny that the stories match, and after what’s happened since she arrived, she feels like she “was linked to Oz somehow” (139). Nox, the boy, makes it clear he doesn’t believe she can help, which angers Amy into agreeing.
Chapter 16 Summary
The cave’s training room is full of weapons and strange machines that look like a cross between torture devices and exercise equipment. Nox tells Amy to attack him, but she can’t land a single blow. She realizes he’s using magic, and while he explains that Dorothy will use all her resources, Amy punches him, catching him off guard. It’s another hour before Amy hits him again, and when she does, she feels a “strange, warm energy pulsing through [her] body” (151).
Nox teleports them to the top of a mountain overlooking the pristine landscape outside the cave network. The rebel headquarters is in a part of Oz sequestered behind a moving mountain range Dorothy hasn’t yet found a way through. Seeing the unblemished land makes Amy hope Dorothy won’t take its magic, but Nox knows Dorothy will because “the more she gets, the more she wants” (154).
Chapter 17 Summary
Later, Gert gives Amy a magic lesson. Try as she might, Amy can’t harness magic to light candles because she fears using magic will make her like Dorothy. Gert reassures her that she’ll “make sure you never become her” (159), but Amy’s not sure if that’s within Gert’s control.
Gert urges Amy to find who she truly is. Doing so will let her find the magic within her. Amy thinks about her life back in Kansas and the possibility she could be powerful, but by the end of the lesson, she still hasn’t lit the candles. Amy goes to her chamber and falls into bed, her last thoughts about why she doesn’t know who she is.
The next day, an etiquette lesson with Glamora feels like an hour of useless information. Glamora warns Amy not to trust her or any of the other witches. While they might seem nice, everything they do is for their mission. Amy leaves sure that Glamora is “trying to shake [her] faith in Gert” (166).
Chapter 18 Summary
At dinner with the witches that night, Nox argues that Amy can’t learn everything she’ll need to know in time. Their discussion is interrupted by the appearance of two girls, one of whom is bloodied from a fight with the Lion. Mombi disappears to deal with the Lion while Nox rushes to get the girl to the healing pool. Amy is left alone with Glamora to silently fume about “how much more Nox cared about helping this other girl” (172).
At her next lesson with Glamora, Amy is still annoyed about Nox helping the other girls when she’s going on the assassination mission. She fiddles with Glamora’s things until Glamora uses her power to reveal a scar on her face that she hides with magic. Glinda gave her the scar so people could tell them apart. Glamora refuses to heal it because she wants it to be the last thing Glinda sees before she kills her.
Glamora sits Amy down in front of a vanity, forcing her to really look at herself. Using magic, Glamora turns Amy’s hair a vibrant shade of pink, makes her eyelashes thicker, and applies makeup until Amy barely recognizes herself. Nox arrives to tell them the wounded girl will recover fine, and when he sees Amy’s new look, he just stares.
Nox walks Amy to her room, explaining how he and the girls came to be with the witches. When Dorothy takes over towns, she puts the adults to work, leaves behind young children, and gives the rest to the Scarecrow to experiment on. The witches collect the children who are left behind. Amy asks if that’s any better than Dorothy collecting people, and Nox says it is because, where Dorothy destroys people, the witches “taught me to be a person again” (180). Nox liked Amy’s face better before Glamora changed it because it was more honest, something that’s become rare in Oz.
Chapters 14-18 Analysis
These chapters call more to the Oz books than to the movie. In the film, Glinda was the Good Witch of the North, but here, Gert is the witch of the north, suggesting the Oz books are a more accurate account of Oz’s history. The most common names of the witch of the north in the books are Locasta and Tattypoo, and Gert’s nod to having many names suggests that Gert is one of her lesser-known names. In the books, white, rather than the signature black dress worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie, is the color of witches, and Gert’s outfit follows the book.
Mombi is not present in the Wizard of Oz movie but is a major antagonist of the north in the books. She aided in the hiding of Ozma and other elements hinted at in Dorothy Must Die, suggesting that her character will play an important role in the sequels. Glamora is not mentioned in either the original books or the 1939 movie, and neither indicates that Glinda has a sister. Glamora’s change from evil to good and Glinda’s shift toward wickedness exemplify the book’s major theme of Balance Equals Stability, which is explored through the rest of the book and hinted at being furthered in the sequel.
Amy feeling connected to Oz in Chapter 15 calls back to Dorothy’s fury at the similarities between her and Amy. Dorothy fumed that there could only be one, and the reader is left to imply that the “one” refers to special girls from Kansas. Dorothy’s fear of Amy’s presence suggests Dorothy knows something about her power and its fragility that she is not letting on. The importance the witches place on the similarities between Amy and Dorothy support the idea that Amy is the greatest threat to Dorothy’s power, and the connection Amy feels will likely be explored more in the rest of the series. Nox is the only character who doesn’t initially believe Amy’s similarities to Dorothy are a good thing, which may foreshadow Amy’s struggle to not be like Dorothy. Amy echoes Nox’s feelings with her own concerns that she’s destined to fall victim to whatever magic has made Dorothy so wicked, and this uncertainty contributes to Amy taking so long to learn who she is and understand that making her own choices will let her choose not to be like Dorothy.
The transformation Amy undergoes at Glamora’s hands in Chapter 18 foreshadows Amy finding who she is. The version of Amy that Glamora’s magic brings out is only different on the outside. Brighter pink hair and makeup that make Amy’s eyes pop don’t change who Amy is on the inside. Rather, they let Amy see her own potential so she can do the work needed to become the person Glamora lets her see. Nox’s reaction to the change in Amy’s appearance suggests that Oz has a tradition of showing one thing that hides something different underneath. Amy’s original appearance was more honest, and her new appearance is more vibrant, and the two taken together suggest there is more than one person we can choose to become.
Nox’s attitude toward Amy in these chapters kickstarts Amy’s character transformation. Until now, Amy has gone along, hoping for the best and believing there’s nothing she can do to stop the cruelty Dorothy levies upon Oz’s people. Amy’s previous experience with bullies and people not believing in her makes her susceptible to people doubting her, and Nox’s blatant disregard for her skills makes Amy want to do better and prove him wrong. Nox’s complicated personality and emotions make it unclear if he intentionally acted this way to provoke Amy or if he truly didn’t believe she was of any use in the battle against Dorothy. The conversation at the end of Chapter 18 foreshadows a possible romantic subplot between Amy and Nox.
