Episode III: The Crawling Chaos of Oz
Once past the poppies, our heroes finally reach the Emerald City. Despite the fact that Oz is a peaceful fairyland, the capital is a heavily-fortified walled city. It's not clear what the wall is supposed to keep out, as the Army of Oz consists of one soldier and one civil-service Guardian of the Gate, and the regime's most dangerous enemy is a witch with an army of winged monkeys. Evidently the Wonderful Wizard, like M. Maginot, has an exaggerated idea of the effectiveness of fixed defenses.
And then comes one of my favorite bits of total weirdness: the Guardian of the Gates informs our heroes that because of the sheer blinding beauty of the Emerald City, everyone must wear protective glasses. And to make sure nobody forgets, these goggles are LOCKED ONTO YOUR HEAD. Dorothy et al are completely unfazed by this bit of insanity, and blithely submit. It's a shame this particular bit didn't make it into the movie, because nowadays it would provide a ready-made metaphor for all sorts of nanny-state intrusiveness, from child-seat regulations to the proposed ban on salt in New York City. But I digress.
It's commonly repeated that Baum's description of the Emerald City is based on the "White City" of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. I confess I just don't see it. The description of the city sounds more like an Upstate New York small town like the ones Baum knew from childhood. Dorothy and co. pass by houses and shops rather than monumental Beaux-Arts buildings, canals, and fountains. The only building of any great size mentioned is the palace of the ruler of Oz in the center of the city. Again, the beloved ruler of a peaceful fairyland lives in a palace surrounded by high walls. Hmm.
Our Heroes spend quite a bit of time in the Emerald City. Out of a desire for drama, or just to delay things, the Wizard sees them individually, one per day for three days. The Wizard is a profoundly weird presence throughout their visit to the Emerald City. Dorothy heard from no less a person than the Good Witch of the North that the Wizard is as powerful as all the witches, Good and Wicked, combined. He hasn't been seen by any of his subjects in the Emerald City for decades. When Dorothy and the others finally get in to see him, he appears to each in a different form. He's like Nyarlathotep or something.
Dorothy sees a gigantic Head (gotta love Baum's use of Capitalization -- it's not a head, it's a Head), which the moviemakers adapted to great effect. The Scarecrow sees a lovely woman. The Tin Woodman is confronted with a hideous beast. And the Cowardly Lion meets a ball of fire. With the exception of the ball of fire, I'm not sure if there's any connection between the form the Wizard takes and the person he's appearing to. Surely the soft-hearted Woodman would be a better mark for the lovely lady, and the gigantic Head would be thematically appropriate for the brain-hungry Scarecrow. It is necessary for the Lion to meet the ball of fire, since he's perfectly ready to threaten the Wizard physically to get his way.
Despite the differences in how the Wizard manifests himself, the interviews are all basically the same: the Wizard's price for helping any of them is the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. No filmic euphemisms here, no "bring me her broom" or anything. The Wizard is outright putting a contract out on the Wicked Witch, and Dorothy's party are his chosen assassins.
In both film and book this makes the Wizard remarkably ruthless. Given that his own forces were driven from the West by the Wicked Witch, it's hard to read this as anything but him knowingly sending a little girl and her companions to slavery or death at the hands of the Witch.
The only thing that keeps the Wizard from being an absolute bastard in this is that he probably knows Dorothy has already taken out one Wicked Witch on her own. But that simply raises a new problem: if he expects them to succeed, the Wizard is intending to defraud them, since (no spoilers, I hope) he can't actually grant any of their wishes. Is it wise to defraud someone who can casually destroy powerful witches, when you yourself have nothing but vaudeville patter and a few stage properties?
The best outcome for the Wizard would be for Dorothy and the Wicked Witch to annihilate each other, leaving him as the most powerful ruler in Oz and only the two Good Witches as his rivals. Maybe he doesn't have a plan, just trusting to luck and trying to postpone the reckoning as long as possible. That seems like something he would do.
Continued in Part 4!
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