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2018 books
32) "The Land of Oz" - Baum
In which we learn that the self-described "good" man, the Wizard, who forced a child to kill someone in the first book, also 'stole' the throne of Oz and had the child who should inherit, Ozma, hidden by a witch. And yet he'll come back in later books and still be called 'good'.
In 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' he told Dorothy that when he came down from the sky in the lost balloon the people in the land of Oz spontaneously made him their ruler, so possibly they rose up and rebelled because Ozma's father (Pastoria) wasn't very nice, I guess. And we might be able to argue that hiding Ozma actually saved her from retribution from the rebels. Yeah, let's go with that, for now. But it's hard to justify forcing a child to kill someone. They changed that in the movie, didn't they? Isn't it something like 'Bring me her broom and then she'll be defeated," but then she's accidentally killed?
Glinda threatens to kill someone in "The Land of Oz," and the Tin Woodman gets upset, until she says it's only a threat, because the witch will cooperate and then she won't have to do it. He doesn't seem to notice that he effectively threatened to kill people earlier on by whirling his ax at them, but they ran away so he didn't have to hit them. But if I start listing all the contradictions and holes I'll be here all day. There's tons of times people know stuff they shouldn't know, and when Jack Pumpkinhead suggests that the Saw-Horse needs ears in order to hear it made me laugh because we never had any indication that Jack had ears.
There are actually a lot of funny lines in this book, and a good deal of satire. Yes, this is the book in which General Jinjur takes over, ostensibly in order to steal all the money in the treasury and use it to buy lovely gowns for her army. Meanwhile she forces all the men in the capital city to do women's work during the course of the book, and they are exhausted in just a couple of days. The Scarecrow comments to one guy that it's odd that the women had been handling all this work on their own and were okay with it. And then at the end all the women spontaneously rush to the kitchen and make their husbands a great feast to celebrate the return of Ozma and the 'natural' order of things, because they are tired of their husbands' awful cooking.
And yes, this is also the book in which a boy is forced to become a girl, and rule, when what he'd prefer to do is tramp around with his buddies and have adventures. His friends reassure him that girls are just as nice as boys, and just as good students. There's been a lot of great discussion about this in many other forums, I have very little to add. It seems like a hard lot to be forced into, it's a shame. Is this about princesses having duties, regardless of personal wishes? I don't know.
A surprising number of times I felt people were mean and rude with no cause, but sometimes they do get called on it. When Tip calls the Saw-Horse a fool because he put them all in the river the Saw-Horse gives it right back at him, saying Tip is a fool for reproaching him because he didn't put that river there, nor did he purposely fall into it. The Tin Woodman insists that none of us are perfect, therefore we must bear with each other's faults.
I'm curious about the name 'Tip/Tippetarius'. When it searched it I found out that there is a whole lot more written about Ozma's father than I ever realized. (wiki about Pastoria)
In which we learn that the self-described "good" man, the Wizard, who forced a child to kill someone in the first book, also 'stole' the throne of Oz and had the child who should inherit, Ozma, hidden by a witch. And yet he'll come back in later books and still be called 'good'.
In 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' he told Dorothy that when he came down from the sky in the lost balloon the people in the land of Oz spontaneously made him their ruler, so possibly they rose up and rebelled because Ozma's father (Pastoria) wasn't very nice, I guess. And we might be able to argue that hiding Ozma actually saved her from retribution from the rebels. Yeah, let's go with that, for now. But it's hard to justify forcing a child to kill someone. They changed that in the movie, didn't they? Isn't it something like 'Bring me her broom and then she'll be defeated," but then she's accidentally killed?
Glinda threatens to kill someone in "The Land of Oz," and the Tin Woodman gets upset, until she says it's only a threat, because the witch will cooperate and then she won't have to do it. He doesn't seem to notice that he effectively threatened to kill people earlier on by whirling his ax at them, but they ran away so he didn't have to hit them. But if I start listing all the contradictions and holes I'll be here all day. There's tons of times people know stuff they shouldn't know, and when Jack Pumpkinhead suggests that the Saw-Horse needs ears in order to hear it made me laugh because we never had any indication that Jack had ears.
There are actually a lot of funny lines in this book, and a good deal of satire. Yes, this is the book in which General Jinjur takes over, ostensibly in order to steal all the money in the treasury and use it to buy lovely gowns for her army. Meanwhile she forces all the men in the capital city to do women's work during the course of the book, and they are exhausted in just a couple of days. The Scarecrow comments to one guy that it's odd that the women had been handling all this work on their own and were okay with it. And then at the end all the women spontaneously rush to the kitchen and make their husbands a great feast to celebrate the return of Ozma and the 'natural' order of things, because they are tired of their husbands' awful cooking.
And yes, this is also the book in which a boy is forced to become a girl, and rule, when what he'd prefer to do is tramp around with his buddies and have adventures. His friends reassure him that girls are just as nice as boys, and just as good students. There's been a lot of great discussion about this in many other forums, I have very little to add. It seems like a hard lot to be forced into, it's a shame. Is this about princesses having duties, regardless of personal wishes? I don't know.
A surprising number of times I felt people were mean and rude with no cause, but sometimes they do get called on it. When Tip calls the Saw-Horse a fool because he put them all in the river the Saw-Horse gives it right back at him, saying Tip is a fool for reproaching him because he didn't put that river there, nor did he purposely fall into it. The Tin Woodman insists that none of us are perfect, therefore we must bear with each other's faults.
I'm curious about the name 'Tip/Tippetarius'. When it searched it I found out that there is a whole lot more written about Ozma's father than I ever realized. (wiki about Pastoria)