'OUAT' Has a Lot in Store For This Young Lady

Well, I'm not so sure Once Upon A Time fans were expecting this: After widely publicizing the castings of both Rebecca Mader as the Wicked Witch and Sunny Mabry as Glinda, fans were likely shocked to see that Dorothy Gale would make an appearance during the final two episodes of Season 3. And even more shocked when they learned from the promo for Sunday night's penultimate episode that she's going to take down Zelena — not Emma or Henry, like everyone thought during last Sunday's episode. So who is OUAT 's Dorothy Gale?

Matreya Scarrwener, a young actress whose top-billing role thus far has been on The Killing , that's who. Scarrwener has appeared in a handful of short films and on R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour in 2013. And on Sunday night's episode of OUAT, the actress will step into Dorothy's iconic ruby slippers and — according to the promo — she's going to take the Wicked Witch down like she was born to do it. (Which she more or less is, right?)

Here's the thing, though: How did none of us see this coming? It's likely because of the Internet and the theories floating around that either Emma with her red leather jacket being an allusion to Dorothy's ruby slippers or Snow and Charming's new baby would function as a Dorothy-figure to the Wicked Witch's storyline. (I honestly believed a lot of them, myself.) Well, we were all wrong (props to ABC for keeping this casting a secret) and it appears that the answer to everyone's Wicked Witch-problem is simpler than they thought. So how is Dorothy going to do it?

First, let's watch the promo:

Now, Zelena threatens that she's going to make sure that Dorothy can't hurt her before conjuring up flames that look like she intends to burn her to death. Sigh, typical Zelena, always with the brutality. But Dorothy has to do next to nothing to A) prevent herself from being hurt and B) melt Zelena's face off. What type of magic is this?

We've seen a lot evil magic (Zelena, Rumpel, Pan, Regina) but we've only seen a few instances of good magic (Emma, the fairies, Glinda) and none of it seemed as powerful as this. So we've got a few theories about what exactly Dorothy's situation is here:

• She has a Protection Spell on her courtesy of Glinda and Regina, that managed to reflect Zelena's curse back onto her.
• Dorothy possesses her own magic, along the same vein as Emma, and it's at its absolute purest. Which would give her significant strength over Zelena, whether she knows how to use it or not. (Because good always prevails and all that jazz.)
• She's another one of Cora's daughters, perhaps the most powerful of all three. (Anything's possible on OUAT.)
• Dorothy can manipulate the elements. Therefore, when Zelena tried to attack her with fire, she was easily able to redirect it so it would hit Zelena instead. (This is an ambitious theory, I know.)
• She is another Savior. Meaning there's a savior for every villain on OUAT: Emma to Regina, Henry to Pan, and Dorothy to Zelena. (It'd actually make a lot of sense.)

Whatever the reason, get ready to sing Ding-Dong, The Witch Is Dead, people.

Image: ABC