Ozma of Oz is the third book in the Land of Oz series by L. Frank Baum.
This one brings back Dorothy Gale, who did not appear in the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. In this story, Dorothy and her Uncle Henry have taken a ship to Australia to visit some relations. Dorothy wanders on deck when she shouldn't and winds up being blown overboard in a storm—luckily for her, along with a chicken coop that was tied to the deck. Dorothy is adrift at sea in her chicken coop, along with a chicken, who starts to talk. Dorothy and Billina the chicken eventually drift to land, where they find themselves not in Oz, but in the similarly strange and wonderful Land of Ev. After being hounded by the Wheelers, a people with wheels instead of hands and feet, Dorothy discovers the clockwork robot Tik-Tok, who helps clear away the Wheelers. Dorothy seeks assistance at the castle of Princess Langwidere, a narcissist who collects heads and switches them with her own at will. After Dorothy refuses to trade her head for one of the princess's, she imprisons Dorothy. And as the title indicates, before long Dorothy has a rendezvous with Princess Ozma, the heroine of The Marvelous Land of Oz, who travels to Ev on a mission to free their royal family from the clutches of the Nome King. Ozma frees Dorothy and she accompanies them to the Nome King's dominions. The Nome King has transformed the royal family of Ev into inanimate objects, and challenges the Oz citizens to guess which of his objects are the royal family; at the risk of being transformed themselves if they guess incorrectly.
The novel marks the beginning of Baum's intent to make the Oz books an ongoing series; something he was not always fond of having to continue. Here he brings Dorothy back by popular demand, and backtracks on some of the elements which his fans disliked in the second book. The Nome King goes on to be a recurring villain in the series. The movie Return to Oz is mainly an adaptation of this book, with some elements from the previous book added.
This novel provides examples of:
- And I Must Scream: The Nome King inflicts this on his prisoners, transforming them into lifeless trinkets to add to his collection.
- Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: The Wheelers, quadrupedal humanoids that have round wheels instead of hands and feet at the ends of their limbs.
- As You Know: The conversation Billina overhears while hiding under the Nome King's throne is full of this trope, as it spells out the trick to the object-transformation spell (namely, that people turn into objects that match the dominant color of their kingdom) in explicit terms...and is held by two people who already know everything that is being said.
- Beauty Is Best: Princess Langwidere of Ev is so narcissistic that she has a collection of 30 heads she can swap at will. Each of the heads is beautiful, with flawless skin and perfect hair, and Langwidere is so vain she spends hours on hours sitting in a mirrored chamber and admiring whatever head is on her shoulders at the moment - to the detriment of her duties as the default regent of Ev. After initially dismissing Dorothy as "boring and stupid," she offered to trade Dorothy's head for one of her own, and has the little girl imprisoned when she refuses."Princess Langwidere looked at Dorothy and said, as if talking to herself: You are rather attractive, not at all beautiful you understand...but, you have a certain style of prettiness, that is different from that of any of my thirty heads. I believe I'll take your head, and give you number twenty-six for it!"
- Carnivore Confusion: Discussed Trope. The Hungry Tiger is hungry all the time because his conscience won't let him eat all the delicious people and animals that surround him.
- Chekhov's Gun: Billina lays two eggs, which the Scarecrow picks up and keeps in his pocket. This seems unimportant, until the Nome King freaks out and tries to imprison the whole party. The Scarecrow then wings his eggs at the Nome King, hitting him in both eyes and temporarily blinding him, allowing Dorothy to grab the magic belt.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Played for Laughs, Toward the end, Dorothy and Ozma meet Jinjur, who is married to a man and she claimed to have physically abused him because he didn't milk the cow she wanted him to milk.
- Clockwork Creature: Tiktok the Machine Man. You have to wind him up every few days or he'll run down. One of the first examples of such in literature.
- Evil Hand: As a minor example, princess Langwidere's temper tends to change depending on the head she is wearing.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Billina decides to go under the Nome King's throne in order to lay her egg. This allows her to hear a very convenient conversation in which the Nome King not only explains to his steward what ornaments all his victims were turned into, but also explains that the source of his power is his magic belt.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Nome King, who is jolly and polite and cheerful, but essentially tricks everyone in Ozma's party into getting turned into ornaments. He turns to rage when Billina frees all his victims from enchantment.
- Gender-Blender Name: Bill the hen. She would like to go by that name but Dorothy insists on re-naming her Billina.
- Honorary Princess: Dorothy is offered by Ozma the chance to stay in Oz as a princess. She chooses to go home instead, but that doesn't stop her from holding the title whenever she visits in later books."What!" cried Polly, looking at Dorothy curiously. "Do you belong to the nobility?"
"Just in Oz I do," said the child, "'cause Ozma made me a Princess, you know. But when I'm home in Kansas I'm only a country girl, and have to help with the churning and wipe the dishes while Aunt Em washes 'em. Do you have to help wash dishes on the rainbow, Polly?" - Human Head on the Wall: Despite her display cabinet of thirty interchangeable heads, Langwidere isn't considered an actual villain; though it's never explained where the heads came from, but each one affects her personality, implying that they came from living women. For example, Head no 17, considered the most beautiful head, has 'a terrible temper hidden somewhere underneath the black hair'.
- Humongous Mecha: The Iron Giant (no relation) guarding the path to the Nome Kingdom.
- I Choose to Stay: Billina decides to stay in Oz, where she is much better off. Dorothy isn't ready to stay just yet though.
- Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: When she was a chick, her owner, thinking she would grow up to be a rooster, named her Bill. Dorothy adds the '-ina' when she finds out, mentioning that adding -ina makes it a girl's name.
- Made a Slave: The Nome King justifies turning the queen of Ev and her children to ornaments because they had been sold to him as slaves, and it was more humane than slaving in the mines.
- Magic Carpet: An unusual variant. This magic carpet protects users from dangers below. It unrolls itself on the front end and rolls itself up on the back end forever, allowing Ozma and her party to cross the Shifting Sands that separate the Land of Ev from the Land of Oz. It also can function as a bridge, allowing Ozma and company to cross a gully that is too wide to leap.
- Morphic Resonance: While the object that people turn into during the ornament game is completely random, the color reflects their country of origin: the Royal Family of Ev become purple, and Ozians are green.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Billina almost eats Ozma as a grasshopper ornament. Fortunately, she doesn't find the gemstone edible.
- In the backstory, King Evoldo comes to regret selling his family, and commits Suicide by Sea.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: The narration notes that the Nome King's ornament chambers are absolutely jam-packed with countless knickknacks and whatnots of various shapes and sizes. Since the heroes are trying to find transformed people (which, initially, consist of only eleven choices—the Queen of Ev and her ten children) among them, the sheer number of things to sort through makes it nearly impossible. Even after Billina learns the trick to the magic—choosing ornaments of certain colors—it's said that it still takes her a long while to find everything by virtue of just how big the chambers are.
- Objectshifting: After the Royal Family of Ev is sold to the Nome King, he uses his magic to turn them into ornaments. When Ozma and her friends come to his underground kingdom to free them, the Nome King gives them a challenge: identify which ornaments are the Royal Family to free them or be changed into ornaments themselves. Ozma and almost all of her friends fail the test and are changed into ornaments as well.
- Off with His Head!: Princess Langwidere offers a unique non-fatal example. She collects heads to swap with her own on certain days to suit her mood which come with different personalities, and she attempts to force Dorothy to trade her head for one she doesn't mind letting go from her collection (which is a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, as the Princess thinks it is a perfectly fair and equitable deal—even generous, and simply can't understand why Dorothy objects).
- Pardon My Klingon: In a fit of anger at losing the Nome King exclaims "Hippikaloric!", which must be a dreadful word because we don't know what it means.
- Portal Picture: A minor example — one of Tiktok's inventors is said to have painted a picture of a river that was so natural, he fell in and drowned.
- Princesses Rule: Princess Langwidere of Ev is a justified example, as she's (just barely) acting as ruler until the return of the Royal Family.
- Rightful King Returns: At the end of the book, the Queen of Ev and her children return to their kingdom and begin ruling again.
- Robo Speak: Tik-Tok's way of speaking and one of the earliest examples of this trope.
- Royal Brat: Princess Langwidere is a grown-up version; she's far more interested in wearing beautiful heads and admiring her own reflection than actually taking care of the kingdom she's inherited. She lets Dorothy go and rescue the Royal Family because that pesky "ruling the people" is getting in the way of her daily vanity boost.
- Secondary Character Title: Dorothy is the main character, and Ozma finally appears a few chapters in.
- Sore Loser: The Nome King. To be fair though Billina cheated. But he's still sore three books later.
- Suicide by Sea: Long before the events of the main narrative, King Evoldo sold his wife and kids to the Nome King in exchange for a longer life. He didn't realize until after the fact how horrible what he did was, and since he couldn't do anything to get them back, he threw himself into the ocean, wasting the very thing he'd sold his family for.
- Unexplained Accent: Starting in this book Dorothy is given a childish accent; for example, pronouncing automobile as “auto’bile”. This is a carry-over from the popular stage play of the first book, but can be jarring to modern readers who have no way of knowing about the play.
- Weaksauce Weakness: All Nomes are vulnerable to eggs.
- Who's on First?: Ozma and her party are instructed to visit the "left wing" of the palace, but there is no left wing — the right wing is the only one that is left.
