Land of Oz
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The authors of Oz books are titled "Royal Historians of Oz", and it is their duty to report to the children of our world on the goings-on in the Land of Oz. Any confusion or contradiction between the different versions of their histories is utterly their own fault.
Geography
Oz is roughly rectangular in shape, and divided along the diagonals into four countries: Munchkin Country in the East, Winkie Country in the West, Gillikin Country in the North, and Quadling Country in the South. In the center of Oz, where the diagonals cross, is the fabled Emerald City, capital of the land of Oz and seat to the monarch of Oz, Princess Ozma. Unfortunately, numerous pockets throughout the land of Oz are cut off from the mainland, for geographic or cultural reasons, and have never heard of Ozma, making it impossible for them to acknowledge her as their rightful queen. It is necessary therefore to send occasional delegations to these remote places in order to enlighten their inhabitants.
Oz is completely surrounded on all four sides by a Deadly Desert, which insulates the citizens of Oz from discovery and invasion. The desert has nonetheless been breached numerous times, both by children from our world (mostly harmless), and by more sinister characters, such as the Wizard of Oz and the Nome King, who occasionally gets the urge to conquer Oz. It was therefore necessary for Glinda to create a Barrier of invisibility around the Land of Oz, for further protection; however this barrier has merely slowed, not stopped, the flow of visitors to Oz.
Perceptive cartographers will notice that on some maps of Oz, the west is drawn on the right-hand side of the map, and the east is drawn on the left-hand side, though north is still at the top and south at the bottom of the map. The compass rose on these maps is adjusted accordingly. There are some that hold that this is the result of an error on behalf of on early Oz cartographer, who copied the map from a glass slide, without noticing he was holding the slide backwards. However, the true reason for this feature of Oz maps is that it simply reflects the nature of Oz at the time (perhaps as a result of Glinda's spell, which has the effect of confusing most standard compasses).
Oz is the largest country on the continent of Nonestica, which also includes the countries of Ev, Ix, Mo and Phunniland. Nonestica is an island in the Nonestic Ocean. Researchers attempting to locate the land of Oz have deduced that Nonestica must be somewhere in the Pacific, however, due to the aformentioned barrier of invisibility, this is impossible to confirm.
History
The documentation of Ozian history began with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, but Oz had existed for hundreds if not thousands of years prior to the events related in that book. Early Ozian history must therefore be reconstructed from the fragments scattered between later historical documents. These fragments contain many inconsistencies, and sometimes flatly contradict each other, leading to endless contention between Oz historians over what is fact and what is myth about the founding of the modern land of Oz.
The following chronology is based on information gleaned from the Oz books, but not necessarily accepted as true by all Oz historians.
Originally Oz was an ordinary place like any other land, until the fairy queen, Queen Lurline, enchanted it and left one of her fairies there as ruler. According to some versions, the fairy left behind was Ozma herself, Lurline's own daughter. These versions of Ozian history tell that every female ruler of Oz was named Ozma and male rulers were named Oz. Other versions mention a line of ancestors who ruled Oz before Ozma.
At some point Oz was ruled by a king, Pastoria, the father of the most recent Ozma. This king was overthrown by four wicked witches. They subdivided the land into the four countries and enslaved the inhabitants. Two of the wicked witches were later overthrown by good witches: Glinda the good overthrew Singra (wicked witch of the south) and ruled the land of the Quadlings, and the good witch of the north, Locasta, overthrew Mombi (wicked witch of the north) and ruled the land of the Gillikins.
Later on, Oscar Diggs, a hack stage magician from Omaha, blew into Oz in his hot air balloon. He convinced the inhabitants that he was a great Wizard, and they asked him to become their new leader. Diggs reunited the four countries under one name, "Oz", his first two initials, and became The Wizard of Oz. He had the people build a great Emerald City in the center of the land of Oz, which he used as his capital. The Wizard locked himself in a room in the city and never took audience with anyone because of his fear of being discovered. The witches were allowed to continue to rule over their respective countries because the Wizard had no real magic to stop them.
This version of Ozian history is problematic in that the Wizard named the country after himself even though it had been known as Oz and its rulers had been named Ozma for perhaps millennia. It is more likely that the story of the Wizard naming the land after himself is a type of retroactive continuity or revisionist history that attempted to explain the etymology of the name without a complete previous knowledge.
After \"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz\"
Eventually, Dorothy Gale, and her whole house are blown into Oz from Kansas by a tornado. When the house lands, it crushes the Wicked Witch of the East (in Gregory Maguire's book, , she is given a name, Nessarose), ruler of the Munchkins. In an attempt to get back to her home, she journeys to the Emerald City. Along the way, she meets the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, all of whom accompany her. Once there, they become the first people to gain an audience with the Wizard since he went into seclusion, although he disguises himself because Dorothy now has the Wicked Witch of the East's magic silver slippers, and he is afraid of her. The Wizard sends Dorothy and her party to dispose of the Wicked Witch of the West and in exchange promises to grant her request to be sent home. He believes that the Witch will probably destroy them and his charade won't be found out. Surprisingly, Dorothy destroys the Witch by throwing a pail of water on her. Defeated, the Wizard reveals to the group that he is in fact not a real wizard and has no magical powers, but he promises to grant Dorothy's wish and take her home himself in his balloon. He leaves the Scarecrow in his place to rule Oz and the Winkies ask the Tin Woodman to be their ruler in place of the Wicked Witch.Finally, it is discovered that the wizard had given the daughter of the last king of Oz, Princess Ozma, to the old witch Mombi to have her hidden away. Mombi had turned Ozma into a boy named Tip, whom she raised. When all of this is revealed Tip is turned back into Ozma and takes her rightful place as the benevolent ruler of all of Oz. Ozma successfully wards off several attempts by various armies to overthrow her. To prevent any upheaval of her rule over Oz, she outlaws the practice of all magic in Oz except by the wizard (after he later returns) and by Glinda, and she uses her magic belt to make all of Oz invisible to outsiders. Ozma remains the ruler of Oz for the entirety of the series.
Economy and Politics
Some political analysts have claimed that Oz is a thinly disguised socialist utopia, though most Baum scholars differ strenuously[link]. Advocates of this theory support it using this quotation from The Emerald City of Oz:
- "There were no poor people in the land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money, and all property of every sort belonged to the Ruler. Each person was given freely by his neighbours whatever he required for his use, which is as much as anyone may reasonably desire. Every one worked half the time and played half the time, and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the play, because it is good to be occupied and to have something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch them, and no one to rebuke them or to find fault with them. So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he produced."
One theory which has been presented to explain the money-related inconsistencies in Oz is that prior to the third book, the country was divided and may have needed an economy to give merchants the motivation to travel in and out of lands ruled by Wicked Witches. Once the land was united under Ozma's rule, she saw that money was no longer needed, as there were easily enough goods to go around, and abolished the practice.
In The Wonder City of Oz Princess Ozma (called "Queen Ozma" in this book) is seen running for election ("ozlection") to her office as ruler against Jenny Jump a half-fairy newcomer from New Jersey. However, this book is not part of the original canon.
The rulers of Oz's territories have grander titles than would normally be customary, but this is done mostly for the satisfaction of the incumbents. The ruler of the Winkie Country is the Emperor, the Tin Woodman. The ruler of the Quadling Country is Queen Glinda the Good.
Defense
Oz is mostly a peaceful land and the idea of subversion is largely unknown to its people. Most military positions are only formal. This has caused many problems, such as in the The Marvelous Land of Oz when the Emerald City, which was only guarded by an elderly doorman, the Royal Army of Oz, was easily conquered by the Army of Revolt lead by General Jinjur. Security of Oz is mostly maintained by magic, such as Ozma's use of the Magic Belt to make Oz completely invisible. Oz also has some what of a natural barrier in the four deserts that surround it, anyone who touches them turns to sand. The Nome King has tried to conquer Oz on several occasions.In the movie Return to Oz the mechanical man Tik-Tok is the entire royal army of Oz.
Demographics
Recurring characters in the series include:
- Dorothy Gale, a girl from Kansas
- The Tin Woodman (Nick Chopper), an enchanted man, made entirely out of tin, and Emperor of the Winkies
- The Scarecrow, a living man made of straw and briefly King of the Emerald City
- The Wizard, the former ruler of Oz, originally Oscar Diggs from Omaha, Nebraska and now a skilled wizard
- The Cowardly Lion, the timid King of Beasts
- Jack Pumpkinhead, a man made out of branches with a carved pumpkin for a head
- Tik-Tok, a super-intelligent, clockwork robot (one of the first robots in literature)
- The Patchwork Girl, (a.k.a. "Scraps") a living patchwork doll
- The Shaggy Man, another human from "the real world"
- Glinda, the good witch of the South, or Quadling Country and their benevolent ruler
Miscellaneous
Death in Oz
Death is treated inconsistantly; in some books we are told it is impossible to die, in others, people die. Problematically, the plot often depends on something either dying, or not being killable.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz shows an early example of the problem: although the Tin Woodman does not die when his limbs are severed, the two wicked witches are killed. And when the Tin Woodman rescues the Queen of the Field Mice by chopping off the head of a pursuing wildcat, it seems unlikely the cat's unjoined head and body continue to live independently of each other, although this goes unmentioned.
A possible explanation for the deaths of the witches is they were so old that they crumbled to dust or melted away. While their remains may have still been alive, there wasn't a large enough piece to matter to anyone. This also explains the effects of the Deadly Desert, which transforms to dust anyone who attempts to cross it.
There are many other problems with an Oz where nothing dies. For example, if the people in Oz eat meat, where does it come from? What do animals who are only carnivores eat? Aren't the horses bridled with leather from a dead animal? Could children stay children forever, or would they just continue to look like children? Are some very old people doomed to spend eternity bedridden? If everyone in Oz isn't sterile, then what happens when the population soars? Many of these issues are touched upon, however none handled consistently.
The concept of "continuity editor" used in films would have been foreign to Baum, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed, for example, such great changes in the drawing of Dorothy and Ozma. The answer to the inconsistencies may be that if Baum wasn't overly concerned about them, we readers would be happier focussing on those things that he was concerned about.
Gregory Maguire's revisionist Oz
In his revisionist Oz novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Son of a Witch, Gregory Maguire portrays a very different version of the Land of Oz. Maguire's Oz is not Baum's utopia, but a land troubled by political unrest and economic hardship. One political issue in Maguire's novels is the oppression of the Animals (Maguire distinguishes speaking Animals from non-speaking animals by the use of capital letters). There are many religious traditions in Maguire's Oz, including Lurlinism (which regards the Fairy Lurline as Oz's creator) and Unionism, which worships an Unnamed God.Maguire's presentation of Oz's geography is also politically tinged. A large political prison, Southstairs, exists in caverns below the Emerald City. Gillikin, home of Shiz University, has more industrial development than other parts of Oz. Munchkinland is Oz's breadbasket and at one point declares its independence from the rule of the Emerald City. Quadling Country is largely marshland, inhabited by the artistic and sexually free Quadlings. And the Vinkus (Maguire's name for Winkie Country) is largely open grassland, populated by semi-nomadic tribes.
The musical Wicked, based on Maguire's first Oz novel, portrays an Oz slightly closer to the version seen in Baum's novels and the 1939 film. The oppression of the Animals is still a theme, but the geographical and religious divisions portrayed in Maguire's novel are barely present.
Origin of the name Oz
A legend of uncertain validity is that when relating bedtime stories (the origin of the Oz novels) Baum was asked by one of his listeners the name of the magical land. He glanced at a nearby filing cabinet which was marked O-Z. Thus he named the land Oz. Another story is that Oz is a corruption of Uz, the homeland of Job in the Old Testament. It is also speculated that Oz was named after the abbreviation for ounce (in the theory that Oz is an allegory for the populist struggle against the illusion (the wizard) of the gold standard). "Os" (with an s) is also Old English for God.
In Wicked, Elphaba researches the etymology of Oz and concludes that it comes from either oasis, because it is surrounded by desert on all sides, or ooze, due to the creation legend of a great flood.
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Wicked (Wicked (book series)>The books | The musical)
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Trivia
In a Sabrina the Teenage Witch super novel, one of the chapters involves a displaced L. Frank Baum wandering through the Other Realm which ends up being the basis for the Oz books. The explanation for the name of OZ is given as a change from the inteded original name of OR, for Other Realm.
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