The spell that summoned the flying monkeys also had three parts, and was performed standing on first one foot, then the other, then both together. I still know the spell.* Pity I don’t have the magical cap required to make it work. Flying monkeys would be cooool. >:-)

*Yes, really; I’m that guy. I can quote incantations from Bewitched, from beloved children’s books, from mid-’80s comic books, Buffy, Charmed, etc. ad nauseum. Most of them are ridiculous, of course (although every so often you run across a phrase or two worth swiping and adapting for actual use), but the rhymes and/or cadences stick in my head. It’s a mildly amusing party trick, if you’re at the right party. If I ever find a man who can compete, I’ll marry him on the spot.

I mean, really, Dorothy, why are you so ignorant? Isn’t it so totally obvious witches would come in both good and bad varieties?

(Maybe the fundamentalists were right. XD Soon, your dreams are filled with good magic and forces in the world, and next…)

The Witch gave Dorothy a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little Toto, who barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been afraid even to growl while she stood by. But Dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear in just that way, and was not surprised in the least.

Of course, in the books, it was the Witch of the South who was young and beautiful and named Glinda. They conflated the two characters and left out the journey to the Quadlings entirely. . . which is fine, but I still like the grandmotherly figure better.

(And that ridiculous crown always irritated the crap out of me. >:-)

And, I momentarily forgot about the fact that video games of the late 80s, even the story driven role playing games, were usually not very heavy on story, anyway, or at least a clear narrative. So how spooked could you be, really, even if you did see an obvious religious symbol or reference in your game?
On the other hand, those story driven role playing games didn’t do well in the US until the late 90s. But, then again, on the other hand, Nintendo of America did have a much stricter policy of obscuring religious references and other things American parents might not want wholesome kids to see in their games back then (They couldn’t change the Manji Labyrinth, though!). I wonder if this changed because the audience grew up literally, or figuratively… or because you can’t hide anything in an internet age.

Which brings us to the previously mentioned game that not only talks explicitly about its gods, but has a ceremony in which a character stands in for their patron Goddess to complete a student’s graduation into knighthood, and a later revelation that the titular princess and the hero in all the past games in the series have been varying incarnations of a specific Goddess-and-Knight pair. Would that fly in the late 80s and early 90s, even if Nintendo of America let it go through? Maybe with certain other fantasy crowds. Not so sure about the video game crowd (or, rather, the parents paying as much as $50 a game).

-Andrew Lore
paganinsider.com