Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 2

Episode Two: Operation Ev Freedom

Dorothy, Tiktok, and Billina make their way to the royal palace of Ev, where they meet the current ruler, Princess Langwidere.

Langwidere is extremely vain, and takes fashion obsession to a new level. Instead of changing outfits or hats, Langwidere has a collection of thirty heads and wears a different one every day. All are quite beautiful, but some of them are bad-tempered, like her Number Seventeen head, which she selects to greet her strange visitors.

Personal identity in Oz (and environs) is very odd. Langwidere can change heads -- change personalities -- but still remains Langwidere. Much the same is true of Jack Pumpkinhead, who replaces his heads every few months as they spoil. I suppose L. Frank Baum takes it as a given that the true seat of personal identity isn't the body or the mind, but the soul. Your body can be replaced with tin, you can switch heads or replace your brains with bran, but your soul remains.

The meeting between Dorothy and Langwidere does not go well. The Princess is vain and rude to her guests, and isn't charmed by Dorothy's good-natured chatter. However, she does think Dorothy is pretty in an exotic prairie way, so she offers to swap her Number Twenty-Six head for Dorothy's.

The reply is worthy of General McAuliffe: "Well, I b'lieve you won't!" says Dorothy.

Since Dorothy won't accept the trade, Langwidere orders her locked in the tower. At first, Tik-Tok holds off the Army of Ev, but then his action runs down and is left standing helpless. Dorothy is carried off to the tower and Billina to the chicken house.

From her tower room Dorothy has a good view of Ev, from the eastern coastline to the west, where it borders the Deadly Desert. As Dorothy watches, she becomes aware that something is crossing the desert. It's a magical carpet which unrolls in front and rolls up in back to protect its passengers from the lethal sand of the desert.

And marching upon that carpet is . . . the Oz Expeditionary Force! Ozma, riding a chariot drawn by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungery Tiger; the Scarecrow riding the Saw-Horse; the Tin Woodman; and all twenty-seven officers and men of the Army of Oz.

Dorothy thinks they've come to rescue her, but they didn't even know she was in Ev. No, Ozma's evidently got things sorted out back home and has decided to start throwing her weight around geopolitically. With the whole Royal Family of Ev either dead or enslaved by the Nome King, and the throne in the hands of a head-collecting lunatic, the situation is definitely ripe for intervention.

We get a sense of how Oz stacks up against its neighboring kingdoms when Langwidere tries a little bluff and bluster on the new arrivals. Ozma very sweetly points out that she is powerful enough to destroy all Ev if she chooses. Langwidere gets the hint and agrees to pack up her heads and retire gracefully.

While the two Princesses have their pissing contest, the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman meet Tiktok. Their conversation is wildly surreal, as the man made of tin and the man stuffed with straw brag about how much better it is to be living beings than to be an unliving machine. Tiktok has no vanity, however, and humbly agrees with them. He is under no illusions about having free will, either: "When I am wound up I do my du-ty by go-ing just as my ma-chin-er-y is made to go."

We also get introduced to another highly entertaining character, who quickly becomes a fixture in Oz: the Hungry Tiger. He's a tiger as big as the Cowardly Lion -- which is to say, Real Big -- and he freely admits he's a savage beast who hungers for fat babies. However, he has a very strong conscience and so he doesn't eat them, which means he's always very very Hungry.

As he points out, that means he's a very good beast, but a "disgracefully bad" tiger, since it is the nature of tigers to be fierce predators and he refuses to do so. Alert readers may see an echo here of the Wizard of Oz, who was a perfectly good man, just a very bad wizard.

Ozma's mission in Ev is to rescue the wife and ten children of the late King Evoldo from the clutches of the Nome King. Tiktok points out, logically, that the Nome King has done nothing wrong, as he bought them fair and square from the King of Ev. This doesn't change Ozma's mind. She will go to the Nome King's realm and demand he release the captives.

It's a dangerous job, but Ozma is determined. Dorothy is willing to go for the sake of the prisoners. The Tin Woodman is willing to risk underground heat that can melt tin. The Scarecrow is willing to risk sparks that could ignite straw. Langwidere . . . will stay home and wish them all good luck on their journey.

Before they set out, the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman fill Dorothy in on recent events in Oz. And for the first time we notice the Royal Historian is starting to contradict himself. In Land of Oz it's clear that the Wizard of Oz stole Princess Ozma and had Mombi disguise her as Tip. But now the Wizard is entirely absent from the story, and all the blame falls on the "wicked old witch." The process of "rehabilitation" has begun.

With Dorothy, Tiktok, and Billina now added to the ranks, the Oz Expeditionary Force heads north from Ev to the mountain which marks the entrance to the Nome King's dominions. We'll pick up there next time.