Cardinal Witch

In the 925th Universe, the four witches associated with the Land of Oz's four quadrants (North, South, East and West) were known as the cardinal witches, (PROSE: A Series of Queer Events) sometimes capitalised as Cardinal Witches (PROSE: Lovie Dovie Stuff, Annals of the Jen: One Year of Jenny Over-There: Tetra-None Hepta-Oct and Doctor Know-It-All Talk it Out, PROSE: A Series of Queer Events (2024 reedit)) or indeed simply called Cardinals. (PROSE: Annals of the Jen: One Year of Jenny Over-There: Tetra-None Hepta-Oct and Doctor Know-It-All Talk it Out, PROSE: A Series of Queer Events (2024 reedit))

History

Over a century before the 2020s, when Land of Oz was still ruled by Monarch Pastoria, Gayelette was the “Northern Cardinal”. (PROSE: Annals of the Jen: One Year of Jenny Over-There: Tetra-None Hepta-Oct and Doctor Know-It-All Talk it Out)

According to Professor Wogglebug, their rulership somehow caused an “entire generation of Ozians” to become unable to tell East from West. (PROSE: Lovie Dovie Stuff) Indeed, at some point during the reign of Monarch Pastoria, in the decades which followed Professor Know-It-All's decision to create Professor Wogglebug but preceded the latter's actual public unveiling, “a couple of the Cardinal Witches [were] swapped out”. (PROSE: Annals of the Jen: One Year of Jenny Over- There: Tetra-None Hepta-Oct and Doctor Know-It-All Talk it Out)

At the 2022 Pride party at Professor Helvetius's Convenient Pride Decorations Shop, Jenny Over-There spotted Dorothy Gale, Ozma and Doctor Know speaking to “a couple of women” whom Jenny assumed to be Cardinal Witches based on what she'd read of “the book on Ozian politics [she] had found in a bin outside [the Man in Grey</nowiki>]</nowiki>'s office” at some prior point. She also took note of the way Oscar Diggs's drag outfit at that same party seemed to be going for a campier take-off on the style of the Cardinal Witches' outfits. (PROSE: A Series of Queer Events (2024 reedit))

Behind the scenes

In October 2023, Callum Phillpott elaborated on the Jenny Everywhere Discord server on the intent behind the joke about the Cardinal Witches having ruined people's ability to distinguish East from West:

(…) basically the Witches of the East and West swapped places at one point and either actively bullied a cartographer so they didn't have to change their titles, or the Ozians just made some incorrect assumptions.

—Callum Phillpott

This is meant to account for the notorious East-West error in the original official Map of Oz.