Observations Upon Rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

            I recently finished rereading L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now I’ve read this book a handful of times throughout my life, going back to my childhood, but this was my first time rereading it since I binged all the sequels I could get ahold of; which I had not read before. And once you’ve read into the rest of the Oz series, you start to look at the first book in a different way. You may be familiar with the feeling of watching a long-running television series to the end and then later returning to season 1, only to find things odd and disorienting because of how different the series became later. A good example would be something like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Another might be The Simpsons or South Park. You can get that same feeling with the Oz books.

During this reread I noticed a few things I didn’t before, and the ways in which the first book contradicted later installments became more apparent. I felt like just going through some observations I made. I don’t really feel up to the task of actually reviewing and critiquing such a timeless classic, so I’m doing this instead. I’m aware that 120 years has been quite enough time for everything that can be said about the story to be said, for the most part, so I’m probably not saying anything new, but, that said, maybe I can offer a unique perspective on the story.

Oz was Definitely Originally Supposed to be on Earth

The International Wizard of Oz Club's map of Nonestica

Dorothy gets to Oz via a cyclone (and it is never actually referred to as a tornado; I thought cyclones were basically hurricanes?), and she gets back by crossing the Deadly Desert with the Silver Slippers. Oz is supposedly someplace you could actually physically travel to if you knew where to go, and probably somewhere in North America. (And no, it’s NOT all just a dream Dorothy had either). This is still true to varying degrees in the second book, but it definitely evolves. Later we find out Oz is at the center of a fantasy continent known now as Nonestica, which also contains every other fantasy country Baum wrote about, but Dorothy does get to this continent after being washed overboard on a boat in the third book, so it’s still presumably on Earth somewhere, just undiscovered. There was also a newspaper comic around this time called Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz (yes, the early 1900’s were a different time) that had Oz characters touring the United States, but I’d rather think of that as non-canon. The 4^th and 5^th books have Dorothy getting to Oz through more magical means, so it’s almost like being teleported to another dimension or parallel universe. By the sixth book, the Wizard is worried about Oz being discovered by newly-invented airplanes, so Glinda magically cut Oz off from the rest of the world. After this point Oz arguably becomes like a separate fantasy land, similar to Wonderland, Neverland and Narnia (luckily without any kind of age limit for getting there, unlike the ageists in Neverland and Narnia who ban you when you hit puberty). Whenever someone from the outside world gets to Oz it tends to be via some kind of magic, rather than by a physical journey.  The magical barrier separating Oz from the outside world proves progressively flimsier as the series goes on, but it still seems more like a parallel world of some sort. Modern Oz authors who aren’t looking to stick to canon often make Oz some kind of parallel universe. In my own little headcanon, which I’m not saying is better than actual canon or anyone else’s interpretation of that canon, Oz is part of a hidden continent that may have once been a part of our world, perhaps somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but shifted into a higher plane of existence when the Fairy Queen Lurline enchanted it, no longer existing in the physical, material world. Almost like a part of the astral realm. It’s wherever the fairies exist; having it be in a shared universe with Neverland, another fairyland but one which follows different rules, would make sense. Maybe it’s in some kind of pocket universe too, or something similar to that. Wherever it is, I sure wish I knew how to get there. 

Munchkin Height Issues

Thanks to the 1939 film everyone thinks of the Munchkins as dwarves. It might surprise you to learn that this isn’t universally the case in the books! The lone member of Oz’s army, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers (aka Omby Amby aka Wantowin Battles…it’s complicated) is a pretty tall man, and he was born in Munchkin Country. Even the Tin Woodman was originally a Munchkin (something you wouldn’t know watching the movie), and he’s about the height of a normal adult. After Dorothy’s house crushes the Wicked Witch of the East, she meets four Munchkins, three men and one woman (not a whole village of singing Munchkins, you’re thinking of the movie). Baum describes them thusly: “They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although they were, so far as looks go, many years older.”

So, going by this description, these Munchkins, at least the ones Dorothy first met, were about her size, and she was a well-grown child. So probably between four and five feet high. Short, but hardly dwarves or Hobbit-sized people. Besides that, Munchkin Country is a pretty big place as revealed in later books; we can’t judge an entire nationality on these four people. Dorothy meets more Munchkins that night at the residence of the wealthy Munchkin Boq, but heights aren’t mentioned. The original illustrations by W.W. Denslow show them as being about Dorothy’s height, but the text doesn’t say anything to that effect, so it depends how much stock you want to put into the canonicity of the illustrations. When you've got characters randomly changing hair color throughout the series and looking older in one illustration and younger in another, the illustrations might not be all that reliable. As far as I’m aware, Munchkins are never mentioned to be especially short in later books.

Maybe this assumption that all Munchkins are short just annoys me because I’m 5’2.

The Scarecrow’s Origin Story in Ruth Plumly Thompson’s The Royal Book of Oz Can’t Possibly Be Right

The 15^th Oz book was the first to be written by Ruth Plumly Thompson after L. Frank Baum’s death. What her first book sets out to do is explain why the Scarecrow came to life, which Baum never explained. Later on in the series various non-living objects are brought to life via a magical Powder of Life, but this was never mentioned to be the case for the Scarecrow. According to Thompson, the Scarecrow came to life as soon as he was placed on a pole in a cornfield. This pole extended down through the Earth to the opposite side, in a kingdom known as the Silver Islands, a politically incorrect parody of China. When the emperor of the Silver Islands died decades prior, his soul traveled up the pole, and entered the first thing that was placed on the pole, that being the Scarecrow, who is this emperor’s reincarnation.

But there’s a problem when you go back and read the first book. The Scarecrow clearly describes to Dorothy having witnessed the Munchkin farmers painting his face and clothing him before he was placed on the pole. So, he was already alive before being placed on the pole. The reincarnation story can’t explain why the Scarecrow is alive. Now I don’t think the events of The Royal Book of Oz really prove that the Scarecrow was a reincarnation of the emperor anyway, even taking the book on it’s own, because for all we know the entire story could be bogus superstition and the locals just end up convincing the Scarecrow that it’s true, because even with his placebo brain from the Wizard he can be a bit gullible. The Scarecrow has no memories of this supposed past life, after all. This is the explanation I’m personally settling on. Maybe the paint on the Scarecrow’s face has Powder of Life mixed in, I don’t know. An opportunity was wasted with The Royal Book of Oz. No one can write a worthy origin story for the Scarecrow and have it universally considered canon now. I don’t blame people who don’t consider her books canon.

Retcons in The Tin Woodman’s Backstory

This is kind of a minor one. The Tin Woodman’s origin story may be one of the most twisted aspects of the Oz books, as he was once a flesh and blood woodman who raised the ire of the Wicked Witch of the East, and she enchanted his axe to cut off one limb at a time, which he had replaced by tin ones, until he was purely tin. In the first book it’s stated that he was in love with a beautiful Munchkin woman, who lived with an old lady that hired the Wicked Witch to get rid of him. However, in The Tin Woodman of Oz, in which the Tin Woodman’s origin is retold, the old lady is retconned out, and instead the Tin Woodman’s lover, Nimmie Amee, was a servant of the witch herself. This works better in my opinion, as the Wicked Witch was supposed to be more of a ruthless dictator, not an assassin for hire. This time it was Baum himself changing up the plot, which he did quite often. I didn't really notice the change until I went back and read the first book again though.

The Micro-Kingdoms in Oz Thing Started in the Very First Book

Oz gets divided into infinitely more city states and micronations as the series go on. We have Jinxland, Oogaboo, Bunnybury, the Skeezers, and a slew of others. Thompson did it all the time to pad out her stories. But the first book has the Queen of the Field Mice, who rescues the Cowardly Lion from the Poppy Field. The first independent monarch mentioned to be in Oz. Her Queendom seems to be somewhat nomadic, although later maps place it in Winkie Country (not all that close to the Poppy Field, strangely). So, all those added kingdoms to Oz were being true to the original version of Oz all along.

The “Wacky Wayside Tribe” Filler Chapters Started in the First Book

If you really love that skippable, filler chapter where Dorothy and her friends visit the Dainty China Country where everyone and everything is made of porcelain, wait until you get to the 5^th Oz book, The Road to Oz, which is an entire book like that! Anyway, I’ve noticed people who often critique the later Oz books for relying on this trope may neglect to mention that this was part of Oz from the very beginning. I think sometimes having the main characters stop in some town with a strange gimmick can be acceptable as a world-building technique, but it shouldn’t be abused or overused, and there’s certainly a right way and a wrong way to do it. One of the things I liked about the later Oz book by Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz, is that most of the strange gimmicky communities the heroes encounter on their journey actually do impact the plot in some way; the villain even later turns out to be a native of one of these communities. And Glinda of Oz, Baum’s final book, has the main focus of the plot be on two of these strange communities of Oz going to war with one another and Princess Ozma trying to stop the war. This leads me to believe Baum was trying to reign in the overuse of filler chapters in the Oz books, signifying his growth as a writer. But Thompson didn’t really ever learn this lesson.

Emerald City Inconsistencies

This will be obvious to anyone who reads into the sequels. In the first book everyone is forced to have spectacles with green lenses locked onto their heads before entering the Emerald City so that everything looks greener than it actually is when you get in. The Emerald City is actually built of white marble. Another illustration of the Wizard’s fakeness, I suppose. But why does it still look shiny and green from a distance, before anyone puts the spectacles on and enters the city? Am I overthinking it? The spectacles are still in use in the second book under the rule of the Scarecrow, but in later books the green spectacles are forgotten; the Emerald City actually is green and covered in emeralds, and no one has to wear the special glasses to see it. Did Princess Ozma have that done later on in the Wizard’s absence? Probably.

Glinda Really Was Behind Everything

           

Glinda the Manipulative

            The short story The Puppet Mistress of Oz by Andrew Heller, which was included in the short story collection The Lost Tales of Oz (which I've reviewed), goes into this theory in great detail, but I had an idea like this before reading that story. Reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz after having read that short story was fun though. Now Glinda the “Good” is a powerful witch and ruler of the southern province of Oz known as Quadling Country. She has a book called The Book of Records which tells her what’s going on anywhere in the world at the moment it happens, and uses this as a surveillance tool in many books. She must have known that Dorothy was coming to Oz. Or, more likely, was the one who brought her to Oz. What were the chances of Dorothy’s house landing right on top of the Wicked Witch of the East? Astronomically small. There had to have been magic involved. Dorothy is first visited by the Good Witch of the North in the book, likely an accomplice of Glinda, who gives Dorothy the Silver Slippers. Glinda could have, at any given time, teleported over to Dorothy and told her how to use the shoes to get home, but no; she needed someone to assassinate her political rivals first so she could have complete rule over Oz! Who really decided that Glinda was “good” and the witches of the east and west were “wicked”, anyway? Objective morality doesn’t exist. She was probably manipulating the Wizard behind the scenes, knowing full well he didn’t have any real powers, and forcing him to send Dorothy on an assassination mission. Why did the Wizard disappear for days on end when Dorothy and her friends arrived at his palace? Probably he was busy meeting with Glinda to plan their strategy, which included freeing Ozma from Mombi and putting her back on the throne. To do that, the Wizard needed to be out of the picture. The Wizard either decided himself to return to Nebraska, or perhaps more likely, Glinda was kicking him out of Oz. He later returns, only after Ozma decides to forgive his past wrongdoings and act as if it never happened. Maybe Dorothy was supposed to go back home with the Wizard in the hot air balloon according to their plan, but anyway, the Silver Shoes were a backup plan in case that went awry. The Silver Shoes never show up again in the sequels, having been lost in the Deadly Desert. Are they truly lost? Or does Glinda still have them stashed somewhere?

            Alternative character interpretations are fun. In all seriousness I think Glinda is mainly benevolent, although undeniably authoritarian, power-hungry and controlling. She did make Oz a near-utopia, after all, got to give her that. You just do not want to be on her bad side. She is a serious master at 4D chess. The puppet mistress.