History Headscratchers / LandOfOz

* Why does Ozma keep the Sawhorse at her palace in the Emerald City, but Jack Pumpkinhead has to stay outside the walls on his own? Isn't he supposed to be like her son, in a certain sense?

* In the first book, it's mentioned that only things like houses and clothes bear the primary color of each country. In the second, Tip tells Jack Pumpkinhead that ''everything'' in the Land of the Gillikins is purple - houses, clothes, fences, grass, even the dirt in the road. Is the North Country just different from the others in this regard, or was it supposed to be a retcon?

** In the first book, it's mentioned that only things like houses and clothes bear the primary color of each country. In the second, Tip tells Jack Pumpkinhead that ''everything'' in the Land of the Gillikins is purple - houses, clothes, fences, grass, even the dirt in the road. Is the North Country just different from the others in this regard, or was it supposed to be a retcon?

** She appears in two non-canonical Oz books; ''The Wicked Witch of Oz'' by Rachel Cosgrove Payes, and the comic ''The Enchanted Apples of Oz'' by Eric Shanower. Both these books depict her a having been put into an enchanted sleep after her defeat.

** Another possible explanation, if one is willing to apply the LiteraryAgentHypothesis, is that Tip wasn't actually as happy as Baum suggested -- she was essentially living as a pre-op {{transsexual}} the entire length of her boyhood. Certainly, beyond her initial objections about "not wanting to be a girl", she seems perfectly content as Ozma. ... Of course, now I'm half-expecting someone to write a {{Fanfic}} exploring this, since I put it out there.

*** Tip can be considered the ''animus'' to Ozma, what the young ruler would have become had fate decried Pastoria's child to be a boy.

* Why did Ozma go to all that trouble to rescue the royal family of Ev. And wasn't Oz supposed to be isolated.

*** In OneOverZero strip 660 ([[http://www.undefined.net/1/0/?strip=660]]) they decide that Zadok's personality isn't chained to any particular body part, it remains there if at least half of his body is intact. This makes a lots of sense if you think how in the real world a human can keep his personality even if many cells of his brain die every day.

* Has anyone seen or heard from the Wicked Witch of the South since Glinda got done with her?

** That's the later books. Glinda may not have been as powerful back in the first book; she could have learned more and gained more magic later on. Granted, even in the first book she is named as the most powerful Witch in Oz, but it's not said ''how'' much more powerful she is than the other three. The two Wicked Witches together might have been too much for her, so she may have simply focused on keeping her domain in the South safe rather than risking a confrontation with an uncertain outcome.

* Why didn't Glinda overthrow the Wicked Witches all by herself, even before Dorothy arrived? Judging by the stuff she pulls off in the later books, she's more powerful than both of them combined.

** I think one of the Oz book after Baum's death explained that the Scarecrow's soul came from a monarch from another kingdom. Still, this being Oz, "AWizardDidIt" is the perhaps the best explanation.
*** If you check his origin story, he came "alive" just as they were painting his face. I suppose the farmers unwittingly used magic paint.

* Why didn't Glinda overthrow the Wicked Witches all by herself, even before Dorothy arrived? Judging by the stuff she pulls off in the latter books, she's more powerful than both of them combined.

** Let's see now. After the Wizard had left, there was something of a power vacuum. At the time, Glinda did not have know the whereabouts of young Ozma or whether she was even alive, but she would have recognized the importance of giving the Ozites a leader they could trust. The Scarecrow had proven himself useful, and wise enough to run things for the time being, so it would make sense for him to be in charge, at least temporarily. No doubt she would have explained it to the Scarecrow later on; Jinjur's invasion simply sped things up.

** Baum and his fellow Royal Historians of Oz were not, as the above Troper remarked, known for their strong dedication to consistency and continuity, but the general gist of the story, as patched together from several books, seems to be as follows: Around the time the Wizard arrived in Oz and took power, Mombi used her magic to dispose of King Pastoria, but for some reason did not get Princess Ozma. The Wizard, coming to a country without a king, and mistaken for a great wizard by the Ozzians since he arrived in a balloon, had little problem taking over. However, he was afraid that the Princess would grow up and take his throne from him, or possibly expose him as a fraud, and so he delivered her to Mombi (whether he knew Mombi's role in the King's disappearance is never stated). So the Wizard was guilty of fraud and probably kidnap, but not of murder. (And, as it turns out, Mombi did not kill the king either; she transformed him into a tailor and made him forget he had ever been king.) And Ozzians are all about forgiveness and reformation; they don't punish unless they have to, they don't seek revenge and they don't, in general, hold grudges for very long. Since the Wizard was a reformed character -- and during his rule ''had'' done a lot of good things for the country as well -- he was welcomed back to the Emerald City.

** Baum and his fellow Royal Historians of Oz were not, as the above Troper remarked, known for their strong dedication to consistency and continuity, but the general gist of the story, as patched together from several books, seems to be as follows: Around the time the Wizard arrived in Oz and took power, Mombi used her magic to dispose of King Pastoria, but for some reason did not get Princess Ozma. The Wizard, coming to a country without a king, and mistaken for a great wizard by the Ozzians since he arrived in a balloon, had little problem taking over. However, he was afraid that the Princess would grow up and take his throne from him, or possibly expose him as a fraud, and so he delivered her to Mombi (whether he knew Mombi's role in the King's disappearance is never stated). So the Wizard was guilty of fraud and probably kidnap, but not of murder. (And, as it turns out, Mombi did not kill the king either; she transformed him into a tailor and made him forget he had ever been king.) And Ozzians are all about forgiveness and reformation; they don't punish, they don't seek revenge and they don't, in general, hold grudges for very long. Since the Wizard was a reformed character -- and during his rule ''had'' done a lot of good things for the country as well -- he was welcomed back to the Emerald City.