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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/y648.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350: Not a bad man, just a bad wizard.]]
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4''Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz'' is the fourth book set in the Land of Oz written by Creator/LFrankBaum and illustrated by John R. Neill. It was published on June 18, 1908 and reunites Dorothy with the humbug Wizard from ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' (1900). Baum, having resigned himself to writing a series of Oz books, set up elements of this book in the prior ''Literature/OzmaOfOz'' (1907). He was not entirely pleased with this, as the introduction opens with the protest that he knows many tales of many lands, and hoped that children would permit him to tell them those tales.
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6The plot of the book begins with Dorothy visiting her cousin Zeb in San Francisco when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake an earthquake]] hits and she, her kitten Eureka, and Zeb's horse and buggy fall into a crack in the Earth and slowly descend into a city populated by the vegetable-like Mangaboo people. They are soon joined by the Wizard himself, who coincidentally falls into the same crack via his hot air balloon, and the group must escape the wrath of the Mangaboos, and later, the various other perils and hostile creatures that live under the Earth's surface, while coping with the [[GravityScrew bizarre way the laws of physics apply]] the further to the center of the Earth one gets. Very little of the book takes place in Oz until the later chapters.
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8Not to be confused with ''WesternAnimation/DorothyAndTheWizardOfOz'', the 2017 animated series.
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10----
11!!Tropes:
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13* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Mangaboos are highly xenophobic and willing to execute outsiders for petty reasons. In Chapter 6, Dorothy states she doesn't like them, the Wizard then mentions they're cold-blooded, and Zeb says [[TheSociopath they have no hearts]], and thus, [[EvilCannotComprehendGood cannot feel love]]. And when they ask the Princess how they can leave, the Mangaboos turn violent. Even the Valley of Voe view them as dreadful creatures.
14* ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare: Dorothy travels with her kitten in a bird cage. That could be deadly to a cat.
15* BearsAreBadNews: The bears of the Valley of Voe are man-eaters and invisible. The residents have to keep eating Dama Fruit just to remain alive.
16* BeautyIsBad: All of the Mangaboos are described as being beautiful. It's just too bad all of them are vain, xenophobic, and outright evil.
17* BeneathTheEarth: Where the majority of the novel takes place.
18* BigBad: [[VillainousPrincess The Princess of the Mangaboos]]
19* BloodlessCarnage: The Wizard slices the Mangaboo sorcerer in half with a sword, but his two halves just fall to the floor bloodlessly, and need to be "re-planted" in order to grow two sorcerers. Other Mangaboos end up burned alive or kicked by Jim the Cab-horse.
20* CatsHaveNineLives: Mentioned when Eureka is put on trial for eating Ozma's pet piglet; the penalty if found guilty was death, even if she had to be killed nine times.
21* ChasedByAngryNatives: The group end up having to flee for their lives when the Mangaboos decide to execute them all for being outsiders.
22* ContrivedCoincidence: The Wizard just so happened to also be in San Francisco during the Great 1906 Earthquake and fall into the same crack that Dorothy and Zeb fall into. For some reason. Even though he was in a hot air balloon at the time. One gets the feeling Baum was completely giving in to the demands of his fans at this point, whether it made sense or followed continuity or not (he all but confirms as much in his introduction).
23* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: Dorothy and her friends are immediately blamed for rocks falling from the sky and damaging buildings in the Mangaboo city, which were a byproduct of the earthquake. They're sentenced to death right away despite trying to plead that they're innocent.
24* DarkerAndEdgier: The first third of the book has Dorothy end up stranded in a HollowWorld where the [[PlantPeople plant residents]] are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and ends with her and her friends being chased out. The second location, while much ''much'' friendlier, is overrun with invisible man-eating bears. And, finally, to reach the surface, they have to get through a land filled with wooden gargoyles who prey on outsiders.
25* EasilyForgiven: The people of Oz, and Princess Ozma in particular, bear no grudge against the Wizard, despite his being thoroughly debunked as a "humbug" at best, and a tyrant at worst; this having been common enough knowledge by the time of the second book that Tip, the uneducated orphan protagonist, is even aware of it when explaining the events of the first book to Jack Pumpkinhead. Part of this is due to Baum's {{Retcon}} of Ozma's backstory absolving the Wizard of guilt in kidnapping Ozma as a baby.
26* TheEvilPrince: The Prince of the Mangaboos. The Wizard straight-up calls him heartless[[note]]Being one of the PlantPeople, it's demonstrably true in a literal sense as much as in a [[TheSociopath psychological]] sense[[/note]], so they opt to overthrow him with the Princess growing in a garden. [[GoneHorriblyRight She provided to be]] ''[[VillainousPrincess even more evil]]''.
27* FreeRangeChildren: Dorothy is around 6 to 10 yet is allowed to travel to California by herself.
28* GardenOfEvil: The Land of the Mangaboos. While the scenery is beautiful, the entire plant race is rotten to the core.
29* GravityScrew: Dorothy and her friends float down into Mangaboo, and are able to walk through the air after they land.
30* HollowWorld: The Land of the Mangaboos underneath Oz is one, with six artificial suns of different colors, and the population of talking vegetables live in glass houses. It also counts as a VillainWorld, as the Mangaboos are AlwaysChaoticEvil.
31* IFellForHours: The fall into the land of the Mangaboos. Their descent is slowed thanks to it being close to the center of the Earth, apparently.
32* {{Invisibility}}: In the Valley of Voe, there is a fruit that makes one invisible when ingested. The people who live there are all invisible, because it helps them hide from the large bears in the valley, who are also invisible due to eating the fruit.
33* KillItWithFire: The Wizard does this to the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Mangaboos]] using kerosene from a lantern. The Wizard later uses fire to escape the wooden gargoyles as well.
34* MadeOfBologna: When The Wizard cleaves a Mangaboo vertically in two, it's akin to slicing an apple -- there's no internal organs, just plant matter.
35* MaliciousMisnaming: Sensing that the Mangaboos are [[{{Understatement}} unfriendly]], the Wizard calls them "Gabazoos" as a insult.
36* OurDragonsAreDifferent: While escaping from the Underworld, the party run into baby Dragons called Dragonettes, who are over 60 years old and waiting for their mother to return. Since the Dragonettes eat humans, they leave them be, having dealt with the evil Mangaboos, the invisible bears, and the territorial wooden gargoyles earlier.
37* OurGargoylesRock: Gargoyles are creatures from the Land of Naught. They are made entirely of wood and stand at less than three feet. They communicate entirely by hand signals and are nocturnal, removing their wings while they sleep. Different indeed.
38* OverlyLongName: The Wizard's full name is revealed to be Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. And as he glumly points out, it's also a case of EmbarrassingInitials.
39* PlantPeople: The Mangaboo, a race of intelligent humanoid plants that grow on bushes, and are very hostile toward outsiders to the point of being AlwaysChaoticEvil.
40* PortableHole: How the Braided Man came to live under the earth in the first place.
41* RandomEventsPlot: Dorothy and company escape an evil WackyWaysideTribe, has a few random encounters that have no bearing on the plot, and then has a good time in Oz at the end.
42* ReleasedToElsewhere: In Chapter 6, the [[VillainousPrincess Mangaboo Princess]] confirms that Dorothy and her friends are not welcomed in their world. When asked for a way out, the Princess states they'll not be exiled, but executed. The Wizard uses a lantern to burn them all, and when [[MoralEventHorizon they try to kill Zeb and the animals]], they make their escape.
43* {{Retcon}}: Due to reader complaints, Baum retconned the Wizard's complicity in kidnapping Ozma as a child and handing her over to Mombi, along with a few other details on how he came to rule Oz. Instead the Wizard (allegedly) has no idea who Ozma is when introduced to her, and Ozma was apparently born in Mombi's clutches, since Mombi had imprisoned her family beforehand.
44* TheScapegoat: The evil Mangaboos are willing to blame Dorothy for the earthquake that damaged their city, and order her execution. She's only saved by Wizard, but he can only postpone the execution, forcing them to escape.
45* TheSociopath: The Mangaboos are a ''[[PlanetOfHats whole race]]'' of sociopaths who make even [[Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz Mombi]] appear benevolent and empathic.
46* SoreLoser: Jim does not take losing a race to the wooden Sawhorse well, bucking him and injuring him in a fit of rage upon losing.
47* UndergroundCity: The glass city of the Mangaboos, and the wooden city of the gargoyles.
48* TalkingAnimal: Jim the Cab-horse, Eureka the kitten and the Wizard's nine piglets gain the ability to talk when in the underground realm. Another of the strange turns the laws of physics take on Dorothy's journey.
49* TookALevelInBadass: The Wizard here is far more of an ActionHero than his first appearance, even wielding a sword.
50* TouchedByVorlons: The inhabitants of the Valley of Voe who eat the dama-fruit become invisible. However, it doesn't grant invulnerability -- there are really nasty predators in the Valley of Voe that also eat the fruit, and are also invisible...
51* UngratefulBitch: Oz has the EvilPrince of the Mangaboos overthrown in favor of a Princess. [[VillainousPrincess Her]] [[TheFarmerAndTheViper response]] to this is to have the whole group murdered out of pettiness.
52* WalkOnWater: Dorothy and her friends are able to do this in the Valley of Voe by rubbing a certain plant on their feet, which aids them in escaping the invisible bears.
53* WouldHurtAChild: The Mangaboos have no problems with having a 12-year-old girl sentenced to death for a natural disaster she's also a victim of, solidifying their AlwaysChaoticEvil nature.

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