#what we know of oz | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

witchesoz · 1 year

Text

What we know of Oz: The second extravaganza

If you remember what I said a long, long, LONG time ago, the first Oz book was adapted into a stage musical (an “extravaganza” as they were called back then) by Baum in collaboration with other big names of the time, and it was a MASSIVE success, so much that the MGM movie actually borrowed a lot of elements from it. It was the success of this extravaganza that made Baum write the sequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”: “The Marvelous Land of Oz”. The book’s more adult tone, love for puns and jokes, and great focus on the Scarecrow and the Tin Man (the stars and most beloved actors of the Wizard extravaganza) were all intended so that the book would be easier to adapt as a musical. When you think about it, the big reveal of Tip as being Ozma is also actually something Baum wrote with in mind the idea of a stage play: indeed, at the time, young male roles and boy characters were often played by young ladies, and as a result this kind of “gender reveal” where a male turns out to be a woman was very common and very easy to do in those kind of theatric performances. (So yeah, to all of you who hoped Baum was defending transgender rights, he was actually trying to make money out of a future musical. Sorry for your hopes.)

But Baum had a tiny bit of problem… He had already started to write a musical that would follow the first one, a stage adaptation of the second novel titled “The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman”. Hell he started writing it in 1903, so before “The Marvelous Land” (the book) got even published. As you can see he really designed it all to feature the two iconic character of the play. But turned out that the star actors, Fred Stone and David Montgomery, refused to play in it, because the “Wizard of Oz” extravaganza was still playing and they refused to abandon the show for a potential sequel.

As a result, Baum had to rewrite his intended story by removing the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman… so he had no Dorothy, no Cowardly Lion, no Scarecrow, no Tin Woodman… who was going to be the main feature? * looks over to Tip/Ozma* IT’S GOING TO BE THE WOGGLE-BUG of course!

Indeed this secondary character with no relevance to the plot of the actual book, here just for laughs, has become the star of the extravaganza. And thus in 1905 “The Woggle-Bug” was released, the second Oz extravaganza and an adaptation of “The Marvelous Land of Oz”. So what was different?

# When Jack Pumpkinhead comes to life there is a dance where “Harvest Sprites” appear in the pumpkin field surrounding Mombi’s hut and bow down to Jack as if he was their king.

# After Jack is brought to life and Tip leads him away from Mombi’s hut (no mention of petrification potion or Tip fleeing Mombi), we cut to the school of Professor Knowitt (who you might remember from the Woggle-Bug’s story, where he was called Knowittall), where the students are actually here children (in the book itself it was unclear if the school taught to children or older pupils). As with the original story, the Professor magnifies the Woggle-Bug on a screen with a magic magnifying glass, only for the bug to get off the screen and bow down to everyone. The Professor tries to put him back in the screen, to not effect. As in the book, the Woggle-Bug is very fond of puns, making tons of them, but the thinness of his so-called education is much more prominent here due to constantly mistaking or mispronouncing words (for example he calls “patois”, aka regional language, “patties”, like a beef patty).

# Surprise, Mombi appears right in the middle of this scene! As it turns out, the school of professor Knowitt is the school where Tip studies (big departure from the book, where Tip lived with Mombi and never went to school). Mombi is searching for him, as he actually fled her house with Jack, and the Woggle-Bug, eager to be of assistance, puts himself of service to her – he mistakes the story of Tip and Jack running as the one of lovers fleeing their parents to live their love freely. (There is also a little joke about how, if the Powder of Life can bring to life anything it touches, it should be used on the Democratic Party). The Professor actually fights a bit with Mombi because he refuses to let the creature go, claiming it as his property and discovery, but the Woggle-Bug scares the Professor away by saying that if he is held too long at school, his parents will come “bite him”. Again, jokes and jokes and puns.

# The plot of Jinjur’s army also crosses over here, because five peasant women (noticed for their lack of grammar and typical “hillbilly talk”) arrive searching for General Jinjur – who soon arrives, and everyone (including the Professor, Mombi and the rest) bow down to her, as if she had some sort of regional power. The Professor and the Woggle-Bug try to dissuade them from going to war, but the “army of gallant milkmaids and scullery ladies” is determined for war. Mombi refuses to be enlisted in the army (though Jinjur proposes it), but does make the deal of helping her with magic in exchange of capturing Tip and his Powder ; and the Professor also agrees to assist the army. The five peasant girls also want to join the ranks of Jinjur’s fight against the men, but Jinjur is a bit… let’s say she doesn’t knows too much what to do of those five peasant-ladies and is a bit awkward around them, so she precisely names them the “Awkward Squad”.

# About the Awkward Squad, their “captain” and most prominent member is a girl named Prissy, and she is at the center of a very bizarre humoristic subplot about the Woggle-Bug: the Bug falls in love… with Prissy’s dress. A beautiful checked dress that he loves and wants for himself, constantly trying to snatch away from the girl.

# Another major change: Jinjur isn’t a little girl anymore, oh no. In this play Jinjur is an adult woman (or at least a young woman), and she mentions that she used to attend this very country school house – with Professor Knowitt! Apparently they are of the same age, and there was a strange love triangle where Jinjur was courted by a certain “Tommy Bangs” (that called her “Sweet Matilda”), while Knowitt himself in his youth at the school tried to seduce Jinjur (in fact it is implied he obeys and follow her due to this old infatuation).

# The City of Emeralds has been changed here to “The City of Jewels” (though it is still in the Land of Oz). Interestingly, Tip visibly knows that he used to be Ozma, princess of the City, but was enchanted by Mombi. Tip even has very clear memories of her time as a princess (contrary to the book, where Ozma was enchanted as a baby, this Ozma was visibly enchanted as a young girl). In fact, Tip recalls that as Ozma he had many lovers despite her mother’s “watchful eye”, and one of them almost won his/her heart.

# The Scarecrow has been replaced by the Regent of the City of Jewels, Sir Richard Spud, alongside his faithful sidekick “Lord Stunt”. As with the Scarecrow, the Regent is tired of the complicated and sophisticated life of a king: he wishes to return to simplicity and honesty, and when he learns about Tip he is so joyful to find back the real ruler that he promises to hunt down for Mombi, to have her return Ozma to her true form.

# The subplot of the dress continues as Mombi suddenly appears wearing Prissy’s dress (for… unknown reasons) and the Woggle-Bug, desperate to obtain it, tries to seduce Mombi, to the point they even exchange blowing kisses. Mombi comments that never has anyone fallen in love with her before, and after slipping a few innuendos and “naughty jokes” she resolves herself not to answer the Bug’s seduction, because if she ever got married the “hobgoblins” would stop obeying her (aka, she would lose a part of her magical power).

# Mombi and the Bug, who are in the City of Jewels, meet all the other characters, and the Regent threatens Mombi with a public execution if she does not restore Ozma (and Mombi thinks the Regent is a fool for trying to give up his job, visibly not understanding why someone would not want to be king). Hopefully for the Witch the Army of Revolt marches on the City, with their banner “Give us Victory, or Give us Fudge!”. The Regent tries to talk the girls out of the war, to no avail, and so there is a battle and…

… You remember how in the novel the victory of the Army of Revolt was mostly humoristic? Yeah? In this musical… THE ARMY BURNS DOWN THE CITY OF JEWELS! BURN BABY BURN! And they take as prisonners the Regent, the Woggle-Bug (who decided to abandon the army and thus was deemed a traitor), Tip and Jack.

Note however that they don’t destroy the city, since the rest of the play takes place in the royal palace, like in the book.

# We get to see the spoiled and ridiculous behavior of the Army of Revolt once their conquered the City and it is a bit different than in the book: here they spend their days chewing gum, playing games (which always end up with them fighting for real since they are sore losers and cheaters), they choose whatever house they like in the city to be their own (and if they forget which one they chose, in the case of Prissy, they just get another one randomly), and they also bathe in champagne. As in the book, all the men are forced to do cleaning duties and taking care of babies.

# The Regent, who has been enslaved by the Army, has attracted the eye of Jinjur, who wants to marry him – but the Regent, whose main wish is to live a peaceful retirement in the countryside, refuses to marry Jinjur… unless she becomes a milkmaid. Jinjur of course is not going to do so, so she decides to just lock him up in a room until he agrees to marry her.

# The tensions between Mombi and Jinjur explode as soon as after the victory: Mombi wants Tip and Jack, she claims that Jinjur’s victory was due to her, and she even calls Jinjur her “slave”. Jinjur of course rebels, but Mombi threatens to turn Tip back into Ozma and make Jinjur lose her throne – so Jinjur plays on Mombi’s great vanity (calling her “beautiful” and all sorts of lovely names) to convince her to actually destroy Tip, Jack, and the Woggle-Bug too. Mombi refuses to kill Tip at first, but Jinjur ultimately convinces her to do so. Though her “convincing” isn’t maybe so great – when later Mombi sees Jack, she promises not to destroy him if he becomes her servant and obeys her every orders. Mombi also promises Jinjur to cook for her a love-potion they will give to the Regent.

# When Jinjur brings in her prisoners, we finally have back the “petrification” episode of the book: to prevent Tip from ever becoming back Ozma, she will turn him into a marble statue ; she also says she plans to kill Jack to make a pumpkin pie out of him the whole Army of Revolt will eat. As for the Bug… WARNING RACISM ARRIVES, but for the Bug Mombi calls “Aunt Dinah” (a mammy character, on top of that played by a man) and asks her (as she is the cook of the army) to prepare the Bug on toasts, “Newberg style”. Fun fact – the dress subplot continues! Because this time, it is Aunt Dinah who wears the checkered dress (how come the same dress is worn by three different people? I DON’T KNOW) and so the Woggle-Bug tries to seduce her ; but the Aunt, thinking he is a lobster, rejects him (because she is… lobster-phobe apparently).

# This fun subplot also mixes with another subplot: Professor Knowitt and Prissy (the captain of the Awkard Squad) fell in love, and want to marry. One of their lovey-dovey scenes is interrupted by the Woggle-Bug, who is lamenting the fact he is heartbroken and will never be able to be with the love of his life – and he tells them his story. Prissy wants the Professor to squash the Bug, but he refuses. The Professor proposes to save the Bug’s life from the cook’s kitchen by shrinking him back, but the Bug refuses. Ultimately Prissy, to have the Bug leave them alone, suggests that he cuts a piece of the dress and wears it close to his heart, so that like that he might be with his “beloved” at all times.

# Here we have the Gump episode – that Tip, Jack and the Bug build to escape. Mombi sees that and tries to order those around her to hunt them down, but neither Jinjur nor Prissy nor the Professor follow her orders. So she decides to take matters in her own hands… she does incantations around a cauldron, she invokes a bunch of other witches for a dance, and there is also another dance of black cats this time. This whole thing casts a spell, which at first breaks a storm upon the group, then creates a field of gigantic chrysanthemums with the faces of the Army of Revolt, a field that moves to block the way wherever the heroes go (a clear re-invention of the sunflower field episode from the book). And, strangely, this time it is the Woggle-Bug that saves the day by… revealing that his father was a wizard and invoking a flood to wash the flowers away.

… Yeah.

This play is bonkers I tell you. Completely crazy.

# Now, there is no Glinda here in this play. Rather we have another witch of Baum’s works, “Maetta the Sorceress”. (Maetta is a Glinda equivalent Baum wrote for his book “The Magical Monarchy of Mo”, and he already used Maetta as a replacement for Glinda in some versions of the first extravaganza). Interestingly, Maetta’s palace seems to have electricity to light it up? Maetta welcomes the travelers (her talismans warned her beforehand that strangers were about to arrive). After hearing all of that she has her favorite page, a boy named Athos, send a group of fairies to summon here Jinjur, Mombi, Prissy and Knowitt. There, Maetta plays “the Wizard of Oz”, as in she asks everyone what they want: Tip wants to become Ozma again, Jack wants his head not to rot, and the Woggle-Bug wants the dress he is in love with. Suddenly the Regent barges in the palace: he escaped the City of Jewels by riding on the Sawhorse (which then tried to kill him when he offended it, it is a long story).

Mombi is punished by Maetta by being cast in a dungeon, and she is dragged away as she throws insults at everyone. Jinjur appears before Maetta dressed as a simple milkmaid, because this is what Maetta condemns her to be as she dismantles her armies. The Regent, seeing Jinjur as a milkmaid, falls in love with her, and the two former rulers agree to get married. Interestingly, here it is Maetta herself that turns back Tip into Ozma by singing a magic song while he rests on her lap – and Ozma proceeds to name Jack Pumpkinhead her Prime Minister (yeah, nominates the idiot who can’t understand simple things as a Prime Minister… it makes sense). Prissy is also here, wearing the famous dress, but also a coat covered in military medals (it was a running joke that Jinjur gave medals to her girls for nothing and everything). Maetta takes away those medals and orders Prissy to return to being a simple milkmaid, and when the Professor and Prissy reveal they are about to get married, Maetta sets them free because apparently they are a punishment enough for each other.

But before Prissy leaves the “romantic dress” subplot is solved by… the Bug tried to rip the dress away, the annoyed girl ripping the skirt herself and throwing it at the Bug’s face, and then the bug wearing the skirt as a vast under his coat.

Oh yes, and to solve Jack’s wish, a servant of Maetta puts a big tin can over his head and labels it “Canned Pumpkin”. So it can’t rot. Get it?

- - - - -

And here is "The Woggle-Bug", the 1905 play following "The Wizard of Oz" extravaganza. This play, contrary to the first musical, was a disaster. Critics did not like it, audiences did not like it... a disaster. A failure. It basically killed all dreams and projects of future Oz plays. Mind you, Baum did another musical adaptation of his Oz work on stage... but it was also a failure. More on that later. On top of the already convoluted and crazy plot (oh yeah I forgot another element of the "Woggle-Bug is actually a wizard" subplot is that at one point he conjures up Sawhorses for all the main characters in the play to dance with... yeah) ; critics of the time mentionned that the play felt too "simple", as in it was truly a children story, in the sense adult audiences would not (and did not) enjoy it. It was too childish. Plus the special effects weren't apparently really great? Notably at one point there is a literal "rain of cats and dogs", and one critic remembered this moment as looking like animal corpses were thrown down... So yeah, big failure. BUT the whole subplot of the Woggle-Bug falling in love with a dress has stayed pretty well known in the Baum "fandom", and is now often mentionned in modern Oz adaptations as an inside joke or clever reference ("the incident with the dress" as Oz fans call it).

#what we know of oz #extravaganza #l. frank baum #the marvelous land of oz #the woggle-bug #the wogglebug

14 notes · View notes

witchesoz · 1 year

Text

The Nome King: Ozma of Oz

Many people think of the Wicked Witch of the West as the iconic villain of the Oz franchise. Except that... in the books, she is not. She is merely the villain of the first book of the series, and there are many others that are as important as her: of course the other witches of Oz (Wicked Witch of the East, Mombi, Wicked Witch of the South, Blinkie), but also the Yoop couple, Ugu the Shoemaker, the Su-Dic and Coo-ee-oh... However the most major of those villains was without a doubt the recurring enemy of Oz: the Nome King, the true "big bad" of the Oz novel franchise.

The Nome King's first apparition is in the novel "Ozma of Oz", the third book of the series. After two entire novels set in Oz, Baum wanted to explore a bit outside the country, and so introduced to us Ev, a country beyond the Deadly Desert. (In this precise book, Ev is located beyond the Munchkin part of the Desert).

Dorothy is the first to arrive in Ev and to hear about its relationship with the Nome King: indeed the previous king of Ev, named Evoldo, was a cruel and wicked man. In a fit of anger, he sold his wife and his ten children to the Nome King as slaves. However he later regretted this action - but the Nome King would not set the family free, a deal being deal, and the king killed himself by jumping in the sea and drowning. Thus the country was left with no ruler and in a state of chaos (of which the Wheelers and Princess Langwidere are but two symptoms). Later, Ozma and the Oz army arrives to Ev but they recount a different story: indeed, Ozma heard that the wicked Nome King had enslaved the royal family, with no mention of King Evoldo, and so had decided to save the kingdom of Ev from the Nome King's threat.

As it turns out, Dorothy's version is the correct one - in fact, the local inhabitants of Ev claim that there is nothing wrong or wicked in the Nome King's behavior, Tik-Tok even calling him "honest and good natured". Langwidere even reveals that the Nome King made a bargain with Evoldo - offering him a long life in exchange of his family. Ozma still decides to go ask the Nome King to release the royal family, mentionning that Evoldo did not had a long life since he killed himself - making the bargain null and void - and that anyway, keeping slaves is wrong and something Oz stands against. (It is true that both wicked witches were renowned for "enslaving" their people, and Mombi also had kept Tip as a sort of slave, so there's a solid ground for this). [And yes this is also a strong political message for the United-States at this time]

However, it is also mentionned that the Nome King is a "powerful" ruler and that no one in Ev would dare go against him, because they know he is much too strong - Ozma's attempt is seen as a folly.

The palace

The Nome King's underground palace is actually located in, or rather under, the Ev territory - hence why the Nome King has a strong connection to Ev. North-end of Ev, there is a valley between two great mountains - a valley closed up by a third, enormous mountain. The King's palace is under this third mountain. The entrance of the palace (which can only be opened in the rocks by the Nome King's magic) is kept by the Iron Giant, a mechanical construct that pounds the way to the mountain with a hammer, with the regularity of a clock. In fact, it is a clockwork machine, built by Smith and Tinker (the makers of Tik-Tok) per request/command of the Nome King (we do not know how or when they did it, but they built the Iron Giant for the King - he is the one who owns the key that controls the mechanism). And once the Iron Giant was passed (if you did not get crushed by his hammer) you have to get the Nome King to open the door - not by commanding, since he won't obey any of the "surface-dwellers", and not by request, but by pleading. Because the Nome King loves begging.

The palace is a splendid thing, lighted by lamps and decorated with numerous jewels in the walls. The throne room of the Nome King is a domed cavern, with at the center a rugged throne carved out of a boulder, and despite its rough appearance covered in emeralds, rubies and diamonds.

The palace in itself seems to have no door - all the entries and exits are shaped or created by the Nome King's magic. However it has balconies - from which the Nome King can admire the "Underground World" over which he rules.

The throne room is said to be filled with beautiful and wealthy furniture, but it is nothing compared to the Nome King's personal collection. It is located in a set of rooms adjacent to the throne room, great arched halls made of several types of marble, with thick velvet carpets and heavy silken draperies, and furniture made of rare old wood "richly carved", covered in delicate satins. This part of the palace is lighted by a "mysterious rosy glow" that comes from nowhere in particular but makes "each apartment" soft and pleasing. And this is where the King keeps his huge collection of ornaments: on the shelves and brackets, on the tables and mantels, all sorts of vase, figures of men and animals, graven platters and bowls, mosaics, pictures, made of gems, of metal, of glass, of china, of stone or of marble. It is said to look like a museum collecting all sorts of "rare, curious and costly objects".

The Nomes

It should be pointed out that the Nomes and the Nome King are pretty famous - not just in Ev, where apparently everyone knows them, but also in Oz, because Ozma knew everything (or almost) about them.

The Nomes are said to be " sprites" or "rock-fairies", living in the "Underground World". They are "queerly shaped" but "powerful". The Nomes spend their time working in furnaces and forges for their king, making gold, silver, metals, diamonds, rubies and emeralds. They then hide these riches under the ground, in the rocks and in other underground places difficult to reach - indeed all those materials are considered treasures of the king and should not be touched by anyone else. In fact, this is why the Nome King is not "fond" of those living on the surface on the earth - he believes them to "steal" his treasures, and thus refuses to appear at the surface of the Earth. If you want something from him, you'll need to go to him.

The Nomes usually do not harm humans unless their king orders them to, but they visibly like to mock humans - some are at the door of the mountain, laughing at the Ozites envoyee as they fail to open the entrance. These nomes at the door are described as moving shadows at the surface of the rock, clinging to it like flies to a window, strange forms gliding "up and down the cliff" in an irregular and confusing way, never still, the color of the rock and with shapes "rough and rugged" as if they were pieces of the mountain coming out of the surface, and with a "weird and disheartening" laugh.

Later, the Nome King shows to Ozma more of his kingdom, to prove to her that she will not be able to best him or conquer him. From the balcony of his palace, you can see the "Underground World", which is an extremly vast cavern (miles and miles under the mountain), filled with forges and furnaces where the Nomes work constantly to create and shape metals and jewels. The walls of the cave are covered in thousands of doors made of silver and gold - and when the Nome King "utters a shrill whistle", the gold and silver doors open to reveal the Nome army, so big that just a fragment of it fills the already enormous cave . Like all the other Nomes in the cavern, they are described as "squat, fat and the color of the rock" - and their army outfit consist of a polished steel armor, inlaid with gems, sharp spears and swords and battle-axes of bronze as weapons, and more surprisingly, "electric lights" on their brows (yes, the Nomes apparently mastered electricity). The army is noted to be highly trained soldiers, perfectly organized and undyingly loyal to their king. In fact, the Nome King explains that a reason why the surface-rulers never attacked him is because his army is too powerful to oppose.

The Nome food is based on the earth - for example their coffee is made out of clay (apparently they take the clay, richly flavored, they brown it in their furnaces, then ground it fine, before turning it into a beverage. They also have cakes, though it is unknown with what they are made. Interestingly, the Nome food is edible by humans - Dorothy quite enjoys the clay coffee and Nome cakes, and does not suffer any side-effect or illness.

The Nomes need to sleep, even if there is no day or night in their kingdom - in fact, they still keep track of time (the King knowing that it is nearly midnight, despite there being no sun underground).

You can note that no female Nome is ever seen.

There is only one other individual Nome we meet outside of the King, and it is the Chief Steward of the Nome King. He is said to look like all the other Nomes, the only difference being that he wears a "heavy gold chain" around his neck and has an "air of much importance". The Steward acts as a counterpart to the King - he seems to be his personal servant (bringing him food) and advisor (giving him counsel). He is the one who reminds the King to be tempered (for example reminding him to not eat too much cake, else he will be ill), and does notfear to openly question or criticize the decisions of his king when they seem too foolish - he does not fear the King's wrath, because he "likes to say the truth". To the point that he directly says that he would make a better and wiser king - to Roquat's face!

The Nome King

The Nome King's name is here said to be Roquat of the Rocks.

He is the ruler of the "Ungergroudn World", which means he gives order, commands and owns the rocks and everything under the Earth. Or at least he says so. Later, Baum hshows us numerous other underground realms and kingdoms that visibly do not belong or obey in any way the Nome King. And him claiming all riches of the Earth belongs to him might simply be a lie part of his greed - though visibly the Nomes do produce all gems and metals of Earth.

The Nome King physical appearance is the one of a man both small and fat, with a skin the color of "rock" (a gray-brown color according to the narration). is bushy hair and flowing beard are of the same color, and so are his garnments. When he first appears, he is described as kind and good-humored, with merry eyes, a jolly face, a pleasant voice and a belly "shaking like jelly" when he laughs. In fact, Dorothy says that the Nome King looks like "Santa Claus", only with the color wrongs. We know that the skin color of the Nome King can change with his emotions - his face grows red with laughing too much and with rage ; and later white with fear. The Nome King has an habit of smoking a pipe, which he usually lits with red-hot coals he keeps in his pocket.

The Nome King first appears as a kind, gentle, understanding entity. He welcomes the Ozite envoyees, he laughs and jokes with them, he listens to their request and he proves them that he owned slaves fair and square - he did gave Evoldo a long life, but the king chose to waste it away with suicide. The King goes as far as to offer the Ozites to free the slaves themselves - but here comes another part of his behavior. His love for games and fun. The saving of the Ev royal family is a dangerous game of guessing.

You see, the Nome King says that he does not want to be cruel towards his slave. So, to keep them and use them without being cruel, he turns them into ornaments and trinkets to add to his "bric-a-brac" collection. The Nome King is obsessed with his ornaments collection. He offers the Ozite a guessing game - if they cannot guess which objects are the transformed Ev royal family, then they lose and turn into ornaments themselves. But if they guess right, they can leave with whoever they found, returned to their normal shape.

It is not a fair game however, because the King is greedy and does not want his precious ornaments or slaves taken away. In fact, he hopes that all the Ozites will be turned into ornaments themselves. The Steward wonders, if this was his intention, why did he not just turned them all at once into trinkets, to be done with it. To which the King answers that he wants to be amused and have fun - and indeed, every time an Ozite fails he bursts out laughing.

Because, as you realized by now, his jolly appearance as mostly a facade, a trick. Deep down, the Nome King is not kind at all. In fact, when Billina saves all the Ozites and Ev prisoners of the King, he is so enraged his face becomes frightening, distorted by rage until it becomes nightmarish. [He also shouts some Nome insults/swear words, which by rank of importance are: Rocketty-rickets! / Smudge and blazes! / Hippikaloric!] Hopping up and down like a mad jumping jack, he promises to punish the Ozites by throwing them in his dungeons, "where volcanic fires glow and molten lava flows, and the air is hot enough to burn people's flesh". He even plays around the terms of his agreements: yes, he did promise the Ozites they could leave his palace. He said nothing about them leaving his dominions.

The magic belt

It is mentionned, when the Nome King appears, that he does not wear a crown but rather a belt - broad and jewel-studded. It opens and closes in the back. At first it is implied to merely be the Nomes' equivalent of a crown, a symbol of royalty.

However it is later revealed that this belt is "the magic belt" and the source of the Nome King's magical powers. Without it, the King is as weak and powerless as a regular Nome, and whoever wears the belt inherits of all its powers. They include:

# Transformation: It is thanks to the Belt that the Nome King could transform his slaves into ornaments. He also threatens to turn his victims into scorpions. And later Dorothy uses to belt to undo the King's transformations, and turn other Nomes into eggs.

# Passageways: The Nome King (and later Dorothy) use the belt to open and close doors in the rock of the mountain/palace.

# Protection: The Lion tries to attack the Nome King, but he cannot get close to him - every time he jumps, he doesn't move forward, stays on the same spot. The same way, the Nome King mentions he can enchant the jaws of the wild animals to prevent them from biting. The Belt also stops the Iron Giant to let the Ozites pass underneath.

The belt, despite its grand abilities, has limits. Though in future books these limits would be forgotten, retconned or reinvented - as the magic belt itself would become all-too forgotten or on the contrary a deus ex machina.

The book presents us two limitations of the belt:

# The transformations of the belt are limited. While the Nome King is the one that causes the transformations, he does not seem responsible for the specific details of them - ending up surprised at the shape of the ornaments. It is also quite interesting to see that for most of the novel the belt is on an "automatic" mode to so speak - the transformations or un-transformations into ornaments are done without the Nome King doing anything. He set the rules of the game, and the belt goes by it. In fact, when the Nome King wants to turn the ozites into a specific creature (scorpios) he needs to wave his hands and pronounce magic words.

The transformations are also bound by thematic rule: for example, the royal family of Ev are turned into purple-colored ornaments, while the Ozites are turned into emerald-colored objects. It is unknown if this was done on purpose by the Nome King or is something he could not control.

# The magic belt cannot work on wood. This is something that is a small plot point in this novel but is then forgotten in later works. The Nome King for example cannot put any spell or enchantment over the Sawhorse because it is made entirely of wood.

# The belt only works in "fairy countries". This is explained by Glinda at the end of the novel: the Magic Belt (and presumably all other magic items) only have powers when in a "fairy country", such as Oz or Ev. But it would lose all powers in a non-fairy country, such as Australia or the United-States. Or more precisely... You see, Dorothy wants to tie the belt around her waist to go back to Australia, but Glinda mentions that such an action would cause the belt to be lost forever - since it would not be on Dorothy anymore when she arrives to Australia. It would disappear "like the silver shoes" did when Dorothy returned to Kansas, and be lost forever, "the magic destroyed".

The eggs

The Nomes in this novel have only one weakness (outside of the magic belt). Eggs.

Nomes are terrified of eggs - their sight is enough to plunge the perfectly organized Nome army into a frenzied chaos. According to the Nome King, it is because "eggs belong only to the outside world, to the world on the earth's surface". As a result, in the Underground World, eggs are considered poison, and is the only (or at least one of the only) things the Nomes fear.

However, the exact rationality and truth behind this fear has been questionned. Indeed, the Nomes do not know anything about eggs - for example they didn't know that chicken could lay eggs. And, despite being thrown two eggs in the face, the Nome King does not die or is not poisoned, he merely screams around and is scared for his life - afterward you could say maybe the eggs are poison to ingest, just like in the movie adaptation, but at least we know they are not toxic to the touch, or "contact poisons".

- - - - -

The magic belt is, as I explained above, one of the big... disension points in the Oz fandom. The magic belt is really badly handled by Baum - not only by removing its limitations did it became a deus ex machina solving all the problems of Oz, but on top of that Baum forgot it existed half of the time resulting in the reader asking why in such dire situations would Ozma not use this deus ex machina? As for the Nome King's behavior you actually have a perfect example of how fairies and the "fair folk" used to be perceived in the old days, before the Victorian times. Making deals, manipulating words and terms in bargains to scam and trick people. Greedy, obsessive and selfish. With a wild, mercurial temper. Great magical powers for a great rage and a great ego. Many interpreted the Nome King as an embodiment of extreme and tyranical capitalism - a greedy power trying to own everything, forcing its people to work day and night, obsessed with rocks, metals, gems and other materials, relying on bargains and making slaves... The fact the Nomes are terrified of eggs is also strongly symbolic. Egg is a life, the life of flesh and blood, not of the rock and metal such as the Nomes, and egg is also a distinctively female and motherly symbol - opposing an all-male Nome universe.

#what we know of oz #the nome king #nomes #land of oz #magic belt #land of ev #ozma of oz

11 notes · View notes