History YMMV / LandofOz

** Glinda is often interpreted as less benevolent (or at minimum, more creepy) than she initially seems. Though there is a Good Witch of the North, Glinda takes all the spotlight and is treated as the second ruler of Oz after Ozma. Glinda herself is an IncorruptiblePurePureness but she has shades of a TricksterMentor. Some have even called into question whether or not she knew about Dorothy's arrival in Oz or even had a hand in causing it, and if she really did know how the silver slippers worked and refrained from telling Dorothy sooner in order for her to first assassinate Glinda's political rivals (as infamously happens in the film, due to combining Glinda with The Good Witch of the North); but this would depend on whether or not she had the Book of Records yet, which was never mentioned until book 6. This, combined with her [[TheWatcher ability to see anything in Oz]], makes her an [[AmbiguousInnocence Ambiguously Innocent]] figure. It doesn't help that [[TheFairFolk fairies]] are known for being ambiguous.

* ValuesDissonance: Baum's books are actually pretty good about avoiding this (the CannibalTribe in ''Literature/TheRoadToOz'' notwithstanding), but Ruth Plumly Thompson...not so much. Her first book, ''The Royal Book of Oz'', contains a kingdom of offensive Asian stereotypes; ''Literature/OjoInOz'' involves the title character being kidnapped by gypsies (why Romani were even in Oz is never addressed), and perhaps worst of all ''The Silver Princess in Oz'' has the main characters put down a slave rebellion, turning several of the slaves to stone with Princess Planetty's magical powers, which the slave owner, DesignatedHero the Red Jinn, elects to display in his throne room in order to discourage any future rebellions. This coupled with some very uncomfortable racist illustrations of the slaves by John R. Neill, make it a book not a lot of Oz fans like to talk about.

** Glinda is often interpreted as less benevolent (or at minimum, more creepy) than she initially seems. Though there is a Good Witch of the North, Glinda takes all the spotlight and is treated as the second ruler of Oz after Ozma. Glinda herself is an IncorruptiblePurePureness but she has shades of a TricksterMentor. Some have even called into question whether or not she knew about Dorothy's arrival in Oz or even had a hand in causing it, and refrained from telling Dorothy how the silver shoes worked sooner in order for her to first assassinate Glinda's political rivals; but this would depend on whether or not she had the Book of Records yet, which was never mentioned until book 6. This, combined with her [[TheWatcher ability to see anything in Oz]], makes her an [[AmbiguousInnocence Ambiguously Innocent]] figure. It doesn't help that [[TheFairFolk fairies are known for being ambiguous]].

* FandomEnragingMisconception: Confusing elements from the 1939 film as canon is a quick way to get under the skin of most fans (especially calling Dorothy’s silver shoes “ruby slippers”, and saying Oz was all just a dream).

** As of the 2020's, the name of the character Tik-Tok is likely to make people think of something completely different...

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: A more modern audience spoiled by high and low fantasy (or even Tolkien's works) might find these books to be rather shallowly-written and the WorldBuilding to be rather clunky or sound like it was flat out made-up to suit the plot. Except, it's sometimes easy to forget that Baum's books were written within 19''00'' and 19''20'' - these predate [[TropeCodifier Codifiers]] and [[TropeMaker Makers]] by as little as either two years or as much as ''decades''. (''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', ''Literature/TheHobbit'', ''Literature/TheWormOuroboros'', and ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' weren't even written yet, and wouldn't be for at least another decade at the earliest).

** PatchworkFic which tries to combine the canon of [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the 1939 MGM film]] with the books. Even authors writing modern Oz books based on the Famous Forty have to write sort of a patchwork fic to reconcile all the continuity errors between all the different authors that worked on the series.

** PatchworkFic which tries to combine the canon of [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the 1939 MGM film]] with the books.

* {{Fanon}}: Publisher Reilly and Lee came up with “The Famous Forty” to describe the 40 official books published by their company, and this is considered the baseline for what is canon. However there are further books that could still arguably be considered as canon, including Baum’s Trot and Cap’n Bill series and other fantasies he wrote (which crossover with Oz), a book of short Oz stories also by Baum, and Oz books by later authors in the series that did not get published by Reilly and Lee for various reasons, some of which would eventually be published by Books of Wonder (who rereleased the Oz books in the 1980s and '90s) and the International Wizard of Oz Club. With the addition of these arguably canon works, Oz publisher Joe Bongiorno coined two terms for this complete Oz series on his website, "The Soverign Sixty" or "The Supreme Seventy-Five".

* HilariousInHindsight: The first book came out in 1900 but the way Kansas is described brings to mind TheGreatDepression and especially the Dust Bowl.

* TearJerker: The introductory note to the reader of ''Glinda of Oz'', signed by "The Publishers", telling the reader how L. Frank Baum left the physical world and brought Oz to those who lived too early to experience the Oz books in this world.

** Ozma's personality is completely different from Tips. To explain this, a common interpretation is that she's [[ToughLeaderFacade hiding her personality]] because that's what others expect from her. Alternatives are that either ''Tip'''s personality was [[BeneathTheMask the fake persona]] because she felt the need to act like a boy "should" be or that the spell Mombi put on Ozma changed her personality. Some adaptations even make Tip a separate person, who [[DeathOfPersonality may have ceased to exist when the spell was broken]].

** Ozma's personality is completely different from Tips. To explain this, a common interpretation is that she's [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask hiding her personality]] because that's what others expect from her. Alternatives are that either ''Tip'''s personality was [[BeneathTheMask the fake persona]] because she felt the need to act like a boy "should" be or that the spell Mombi put on Ozma changed her personality. Some adaptations even make Tip a separate person, who [[DeathOfPersonality may have ceased to exist when the spell was broken]].

* AcceptableTargets:
** The Woggle-Bug in ''Marvelous Land'' is supposed to be an obnoxious character, so when he makes puns, it's offensive and the others reproach him for it. When a sympathetic character like the Scarecrow or the post-redemption Wizard does the same, nobody complains.
** Baum had a ''serious'' hate-on for recorded music. The Musicker in ''Road to Oz'' has lungs that work like an organ, so he makes music by breathing; he's the only person who asks for an invitation to Ozma's birthday party and doesn't get one, as Ozma cheerfully points out he would annoy everyone there. And a living phonograph in ''Patchwork Girl'' gets routinely yelled at, threatened with dismantlement and told to go away when he tries to join the heroes' party, despite the fact that he has as little life experience as a newborn infant (having just been brought to life with a magical powder), and doesn’t know or even conceptualize that he might be loud and annoying.

* FranchiseZombie: Baum had only meant to write one or two ''Oz'' sequels (if any) and then move on to other projects[[note]]He even wrote a definitive ending with the sixth book[[/note]], but the popularity of the books, coupled with his own financial issues and the fact that all of his non-Oz books (apart from ''Father Goose'', which he wrote before the first Oz novel and which was his first success) were flops, forced him to keep writing Oz books for the rest of his life, long after he had lost interest in them. And after he died, publisher Reily & Lee weren't about to let that stop the series, and was continued by different writers until the 1960's. From there, once the books began to fall into the public domain, anyone could write their own Oz book (and just like with any fan fiction, the results have varied widely).

** The chronic ProtagonistTitleFallacy issues of the series go back to the very first book, since the Wizard, the namesake of the book, is a relatively minor character compared to Dorothy and her friends. To be fair it wasn’t Baum’s first choice for a title (the WorkingTitle was ''The Emerald City'', which Baum eventually would use in a later sequel), and publisher Reilly & Lee had a large say on book titles, often going for marketability over reflecting who the actual story was about.

** Tin Woodman/Scarecrow shippers have something of a rivalry with Scraps/Scarecrow shippers. Some resolve this by shipping all three of them with each other.