YMMV / Tales of the Magic Land

• Adaptation Displacement: Volkov's Magic Land books are more well-known in the Eastern bloc countries than Baum's Oz books, especially in East Germany, Syria, and China.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Villina and Stella are either Neutral Good witches or Bitches in Sheep's Clothing not so different from Gingema and Bastinda.
  • There is the fact that they almost never provide any active help – Villina at least pops up roughly once a book with prophecies and tips on their fulfillment, but Stella, after the first book, does nothing plot-relevant except sending the television set to Strasheela.
  • Stella apparently does not notice the Marrans, who live at the very border of her kingdom, since she never does a single thing to fix their terrible poverty or at least their vale's unfriendly climate – Urfin Jus, pre-redemption, helps them more than she ever does! Maybe Stella is content with the Marrans staying at an almost Frazetta Man level of development, as long as they supply her own subjects with jewels.
  • Semi-justified in the third book, where the arrival of all four witches in Magic Land is described: to avoid conflicts, they all vowed to stay in their respecive domains and not interfer with others, unless provoked. Villina came for Gingema only after the latter turned complete maniac, and started to plot actions outside her territory.
• Broken Base: The sixth book, published in full length posthumously with large changes made by another author or authors, and even without them an Oddball in the Series with aliens and high-tech weapons. Some don't even want to read it, and some acknowledge the deviation from Volkov's style but love the world-building and the characters (see Ensemble Dark Horse below).
• Complete Monster: Gingema is the tyrannical ruler of the Blue Land, delighting in making her subjects miserable just because she can. She gets angry that humans destroy the habitats of frogs, snakes and other creatures she uses for food and potions, so one day, she decides to deal with the matter in the most radical way possible. She conjures the worst hurricane in world history that, had it not been for good witch Villina's intervention, would have killed every living being on the planet save for the few animal species Gingema needs for her own use.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Urfin Jus, with his Evil Virtues and Character Development, has been incredibly popular since his first appearance in the second book of the series. Many have stated to prefer him over the actual heroic team.
  • Judging by the sheer amount of fanfics, the aliens of Rameria (especially Ilsor, the main Arzak character, and Kau-Ruk, the Token Good Teammate Menvit), who only appear in the last book. This might have something to do with the fact that, unlike the Sugar Bowl that is the Magic Land, Rameria provides an excellent setting for conflicts and drama.
  • Stella appears in fanfics way more frequently than she does in actual canon. One reason is that she is probably the fandom's top female candidate for Launcher of a Thousand Ships, being beautiful, kind and eternally young. However, there are also fics devoted to exploring her character outside of shipping.
  • Tim O'Kelly, Annie's love interest from the Volkov books, is popular enough that he is often paired off with Ellie in adaptations.
• Fanon Discontinuity: In Volkov's later books, Ellie's younger sister Annie becomes the new main character. Later authors usually ignore this and keep Ellie the main character.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The fifth book, with sitting at home all the time and always wearing face masks to prevent breathing problems, does tend to look familiar fifty years later.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: With his bushy eyebrows, hooked nose, green clothes, inventive and resourceful mind, unpleasant and grumpy but not completely evil nature, and huge popularity among fans, Urfin Jus is amazingly similar to Severus Snape.
• Older Than They Think: Readers in the USSR at the time didn't know their beloved fairy tale was a product of copyright infringement, even though some editions printed have credited the original.
• Replacement Scrappy: Some people think Annie is a flat and passive character who does almost nothing by herself and gets everything handed to her on a silver platter just for being Ellie’s sister (to be fair, she tends to be of the same opinion).
• Ships That Pass in the Night: There are quite a few fanfics featuring Urfin Jus/Stella, even though the two never interact in canon. They only ever are mentioned in connection with each other twice, in the fourth book: when Stella sends Strasheela the magic TV set, she warns him about Urfin, and later Strasheela belatedly recalls the warning.

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