14: Willy Wonka

And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, "Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids."

--Willy Wonka

Willy Wonka is the gnome-as-industrialist. His candy factory is a glimpse into the world if gnomes had their way. I enjoy the movies as much as the next guy, but they are cautionary fables for anybody wary of the gnomish agenda. The Gene Wilder Wonka is more explicitly gnomish, relative to the gothed-up Johnny Depp Wonka, but the underlying mirthful menace behind gnomish ideology is apparent in both of them. People might be tempted to number the Oompa Loompas themselves as gnomes, but they're really just Wonka's hired muscle; Wonka is the prime mover at Wonka Industries.



It helps that the bad kids who suffer privations at the hands of Wonka and his cadres of Oompa Loompas are all really annoying, seeming deserving targets of gnomish pranking, which disguises the impish and slyly malevolent nature of Wonka's gnomishness.

Willy Wonka. Note the wacky tophat. It's probably edible.