Continuity Begins at Home

One thing I’ve noticed about continuity is how many people don’t really care about it. Another is that people who DO care tend to care a LOT. There was a panel at OzCon, in which I was one of the speakers, about continuity in the Oz books. One topic that came up was that, since L. Frank Baum created such an immersive world, readers want to see it as a place with a consistent history. On the other hand, they’re good enough that we can forgive the occasional mistake. Besides, Baum presented himself as a historian, not all-knowing, even though he wrote in third-person omniscient. If he’s getting these stories from sources in Oz, as he says in his introductory letters, he must be filling in a lot of the gaps himself, because who remembers entire conversations? Then again, in the same letters, he credits certain ideas to his readers, so it’s not entirely consistent even there.

I guess I see him and the Oz authors as a bit more than historians in terms of how accurate their details are, but still fallible. I’m fine with disregarding short contradictory or unlikely statements, but less so with discarding entire episodes.

When a franchise includes multiple media, it’s typical that there isn’t going to be total continuity between them. This is definitely true with Oz, as Baum worked on the scripts for several plays and movies, and they often differed in significant ways from the books. What this sometimes leads to is a sort of lateral borrowing, where a writer will pull elements from one medium into another. When I had seen Ant-Man and the Wasp, I did a little bit of research on the characters, and was interested to learn how many of the characters had the names and certain traits of ones from the comics, but were different in significant ways. TV Tropes has several tropes pertaining to this sort of thing, and I can’t remember which one is which. Sometimes the characters just appear in the other medium with no real explanation, and other times their back stories are changed to fit the different continuity. That happens sometimes with Oz. The stage play of The Wizard of Oz includes a character called Pastoria, the former King of Oz.

Then, when Baum wrote Land, he mentions Pastoria as a former king. He doesn’t appear to reclaim the throne, though, and there’s no indication that he worked as a streetcar conductor in Topeka. When Ruth Plumly Thompson introduces him as a character in Lost King, there still isn’t, but she might have been inspired by the play in giving him a working-class occupation during his exile.

I’ve read part of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (which is to say the ones that I could borrow through Comixology Unlimited), and it does a lot of that sort of thing, drawing in characters and elements from pretty much every previous version of the story, and there were quite a few by that point. I’m mostly familiar with the original cartoon series, and yes, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady are all there. But Krang is specifically tied to the Utroms, who were in the original comic series and not in the cartoon (well, aside from Krang himself, and he was never specifically identified as one).

There’s also an attempt to tie together the two origins for Splinter, that he was Hamato Yoshi and that he was Yoshi’s pet rat, by instead making him a mutated rat who’s the reincarnation of Yoshi. I think the trick is keeping in enough continuity for the fans to appreciate, but also not confusing newcomers by requiring too much prior knowledge. It seems like a lot of comics these days rely too much on prior knowledge, even though they’re going to reboot a lot of that stuff eventually anyway.

With Oz, I make some pretty obscure references, but I try not to make understanding them necessary to enjoy the story. How well I succeed, I couldn’t say.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

The program books at the Winkie Convention/OzCon International, edited by David Maxine, have some pretty good essays and other material. My first contribution appeared in this year’s, which also included Robert Pattrick’s story about the Tin Woodman and Tin Soldier that I hadn’t previously read. It was in one of the Best of the Baum Bugle collections, but I think that’s the only one I don’t have. While I was there, I also picked up one from the 2011 convention, which marked the hundredth anniversary of The Sea Fairies and the eightieth of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Pirates in Oz. I might have to buy more of these if they become available. Anyway, the 2011 one has an article by Eric Shanower about the preponderance of signs and labels in Pirates in particular. His conclusion is that they’re largely to speed the story along, because they provide information that would otherwise have to be included in dialogue. There’s a mention of how Peter Brown learns from signs the names of Mount Up and its settlement of Cascadia, his interaction with the inhabitants being very brief. This got me thinking about how, when I was in high school, I tried to list as many sign captions from the Oz books as I could remember. A lot of them are very simple, just used to identify or point the way to a place. Others are a little more stylized, often including jokes or bits of absurdity.

There are also some signs where it’s not entirely clear how they got there. I’m not going to list all of the signs in the books, or even all the ones I can remember offhand, but I’ll write about some of the most notable ones. In Ozma there’s a message in the sand saying, “Beware the Wheelers,” which one Wheeler admits they wrote themselves, but I’m not sure how they managed it.

A sign on the castle of Ev says, “Please Knock at the Third Door in the Left Wing,” but since Princess Langwidere had the other wings knocked down, the only wing left is on the right, probably a decision she regretted when her ten cousins moved back in. In Road, there’s a sign at the edge of the Deadly Desert warning that it turns living flesh to dust. This makes me wonder how many signs there are at the desert’s edge; the Scarecrow and Sawhorse come across another one on the Ozian side in Shanower’s Forgotten Forest. The one in Road makes a certain amount of sense, as it’s at the end of a road that might once have crossed the sands before they became deadly. A sign at the Forbidden Tube in Tik-Tok identifies it as having been “Burrowed and built by Hiergargo the Magician, In the Year of the World 1962578 For his own exclusive uses.” A sign in Tin Woodman warns travelers not to take the path to Loonville, but the Scarecrow and Nick Chopper ignore it.

One at the entrance to the Illumi Nation in Kabumpo requests, “Knock Before You Fall In,” while one at the Soup Sea says NOT to fall in because it spoils the soup. Gludwig changes a sign in Silver Princess welcoming visitors to Ev to threaten them instead. The same book has a sign pictured but not mentioned in the text of a sign pointing north and holding a starter pistol.

A summer-house that Handy Mandy and Nox come across after leaving Turn Town provides a welcome to Oz and warns against practicing magic, which is weird as it’s nowhere close to the border.

As it shows up right after Mandy expresses contempt for Ozma, there’s kind of a sinister quality to it. Or maybe it’s just enchanted to show up for anyone new to the country, as Mandy is. Interestingly, Captain Salt, the follow-up to Pirates with its many signs, isn’t one I remember as having very many of them, perhaps because it mostly takes place in largely unsettled territory. One from that book I do recall is the one in Seeweegia, which Tandy is able to read, hence adding to the implication that the Captain captures an intelligent being.

To start with some of the weirder or funnier signs, Emerald City has Dorothy come across signs pointing to Bunbury and Bunnybury, only each one says to take “the other road,” which doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than whimsy.

While signs on the path to Mr. Yoop’s cave simply says “Look Out for Yoop” and “Beware the Captive Yoop,” the one on the cave itself is full of vaudeville-style puns: “Height 21 Feet.–(And yet he has but 2 feet.) Weight, 1640 Pounds.–(But he waits all the time.)” John R. Neill’s picture of Dorothy looking at the “Look Out for Yoop” sign is reused in Little Wizard Stories of Oz with Crinklink, even though his name barely fits.

A series of demanding signs in a forest in Royal Book lead to the Kingdom of Pokes, and in the city itself is a placard warning not to run, sing, or whistle. Cowardly Lion has talking signs, but they’re very unhelpful. One reads “North Road to D” and the other “North Road to U.” These turn out to stand for Doorways and Un, but the signs themselves give no indication of this, instead preferring to insult travelers. I guess there’s a certain irony to objects designed to give information being adverse to doing so, but it’s never really explored why these particular two signs are self-aware. It seems like a bit of a precursor to Neill’s Oz books, where just about anything can be alive with no explanation. The Kingdom of Doorways has a sign advising anyone entering to use the right door, and the seven doors have placards on them, but most of them are vague and none give any indication as to whether they’re the right one. One of the doors can also talk, but it’s similarly unhelpful and insulting. Gorba’s subterranean garden in Grampa is full of notices and warnings, including some spelled out in the flowers. In Down Town, an odd sign says, “Down Town belongs to the Daddies. No aunts, mothers or sisters allowed.” There apparently are cash girls working there, though, so I’m not sure how accurate that is. Maybe they’re all only children. There was a Baum Bugle article by Patrick Maund about how Down Town seems to be based on a very young child’s view of downtown based on what their parents say. Another sign in the same town indicates a subway to Up Town, but it actually ends at the Cave Inn, and that in turn is just an entrance to the Lost Labyrinth in the Nome Kingdom rather than a real inn.

Whether the signs are purposely misleading or just out of date, I couldn’t say. A trio of signs in Purple Prince read, “This way to the river,” “That way to the river,” and “The other way to the river,” sort of akin to the Bunbury and Bunnybury roads. This same book has the Post Man, who is deaf but can direct or take you to a place if you write it on a note.

He’s not exactly a sign, but he’s kind of based on one. A sign at the entrance to the Nome Kingdom in Wishing Horse warns, “No dogs, babies or chickens allowed. No gold fish wanted. No peddlers or snailsmen need apply.” A similar sign in Lucky Bucky reads, “NO PLACE FOR FISH, CHICKENS, Children or Ex-Kings.” We know why the Nomes hate chickens, and children and one particular ex-king have caused them trouble in several books, but I’m not sure why they’re against dogs or fish. Another sign along the Stiff River in Lucky Bucky forbids swimming, fishing, bathing, or boating; and allows drowning only on alternate Thursdays (or maybe some other day of the week; I don’t currently have the book handy to check). Jenny Jump‘s sign advertising her style shop in Wonder City is said to be the biggest in Oz, but I strongly suspect an unreliable narrator here, as with much of the rest of that book. Dwindlebury in Enchanted Island has a sign where the letters dwindle, causing Humpty Bumpty to wonder if they ran out of paint, but it’s probably just to fit the theme of the town.

There’s a place in Merry Go Round completely dedicated to signs, Sign-Here in the Munchkin Country. Signs grow on trees and bushes here for distribution to other places, and some of them have a level of sentience, although they can’t verbalize like the ones in Cowardly Lion. The unripe ones have indistinct lettering, and the overripe ones worn with cracked edges. The leaves are handbills and small posters, and the flowers cardboard. I believe Eloise Jarvis McGraw said she was inspired by the magic mirror in Kabumpo that prints words accompanying someone’s reflection. The proprietor of Sign-Here is a lazy man named Bill Bored, who only communicates with smoke writing from his pipe.

The place also has a lake of ink, or Link, where the crystal ball known as the Oracle resides in a coracle, and sometimes displays verses. There’s a lot of printed and written material in the series aside from the signs, including magic items and characters communicating through writing. That goes beyond the scope of this particular post, but it’s something I might well address in the future.

Nibbles of Nibelungs

Although I’ve been interested in classical mythology for most of my life, it was really Final Fantasy VI that made me want to check out the Teutonic hero Siegfried, a mysterious character in the game possibly intended to be the equivalent of Gilgamesh in FF5, in that they’re both named after legendary epic heroes (albeit from very different times and places), and both played as somewhat comic characters. But anyway, the first source I came across was a book in my junior high school library, basically a retelling of the Nibelungenlied. The original poem dates back to around the beginning of the thirteenth century, and came to be seen as a national epic for Germany, being used in a lot of nationalist propaganda. It’s a shame how much Norse mythology has been tainted by the Nazis, but really, they ruined a lot of things. The story can be traced back to sources including rock carvings and fragments of poems, but the earliest complete versions appeared in the thirteenth century, notably the Nibelungenlied, part of Snorri Sturluson‘s Prose Edda, and the Volsunga Saga. Translations of both the latter two were included in a collection of sagas I recently finished reading, which is one reason I’m talking about them now. Over time, the story appears to have been mixed with other myths, probably at least partially as historical propaganda (royal families always wanted to be linked to gods and heroes), as well as a way of tying seemingly unrelated tales together. The most famous version now is probably Richard Wagner’s four-part opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, but I’ve never seen a performance of that, or even of just one of the parts. In college, my Listening Appreciation professor played a video of Anna Russell doing a humorous summary of the opera, which I understand to be generally accurate.

While I’d obviously heard of Wagner’s work before college, it wasn’t until then that I learned it was basically the same story I’d read previously, with additional mythological references mixed in. I don’t think the Nibelungenlied, set in courtly Europe, even mentions the gods, and Brunhilda is simply an Icelandic princess rather than a Valkyrie. That doesn’t mean it’s free from supernatural elements, however; as with other German versions, it connects Siegfried to Achilles by making him invincible in all but one small spot, a result of his bathing in Fafnir’s blood. And while Brunhilda is partially responsible for Siegfried’s death in every version I know, the Volsunga Saga might be the first that indicates they had a history together and he broke his engagement to her by marrying another woman while under the influence of a magic potion. Other takes suggest that Brunhilda is pissed off because Siegfried used trickery to get her to marry King Gunther, and due to an ongoing court rivalry with Siegfried’s wife Kriemhild (or Gudrun, depending on the source).

The Volsunga Saga goes back a few generations to Sigurd’s great-great-grandfather Sigi, whose grandson Volsung provides the name of the clan. Sigurd is tutored by the dwarf blacksmith Regin, who explains that his brother Otr was killed by Loki while in the form of (appropriately enough) an otter, and Loki had to pay back the family with the treasure he steals from another dwarf, Andvari.

Andvari’s treasure is cursed, however, and Regin’s brother Fafnir kills their father in order to keep it for himself. It’s apparently his greed in keeping the treasure that leads to his becoming a dragon, which answers one of Russell’s questions.

Wagner apparently combines this story with that of the giant who builds the walls of Valhalla, which is why Fafnir is a giant instead of a dwarf, and why Siegfried’s mentor is Alberich’s brother instead of Fafnir’s, with Alberich taking the place of Andvari, but with a name that’s the German equivalent of the Fairy King Oberon.

Wagner also makes Freyja and Idun into the same character. Imagine how long the Ring Cycle would have been if he hadn’t done this character-melding. Also, while Sigmund in the Volsunga Saga does have an affair with his sister, the product of the incestuous union isn’t Sigurd himself, but his half-brother Sinfljoti, who apparently serves no other purpose in the story than to avenge his grandfather’s death, which I guess was a thing in Norse mythology.

I’ve previously written a bit about Marvel Comics’ adaptation of the Ring Cycle, in which their version of Thor incarnates as both Siegmund and Siegfried.

Thor (well, Donner, since it’s in German) does appear in the opera, but in a minor role.

I believe Marvel’s character Valkyrie is Brunhilda herself, at least sometimes.

And I understand that J.R.R. Tolkien’s version of the Sigurd legend was published about ten years ago. From what I’ve seen, he wasn’t satisfied with previous attempts to tie together early versions of the myth, and there are indications that he didn’t like Wagner’s version at all, dismissing comparisons between the opera and The Lord of the Rings. Certain elements of the Middle-Earth stories do seem to have been heavily inspired by the Sigurd legend, including a cursed ring that pretty much everybody wants, a broken and reforged sword, and a dragon being vulnerable on its underbelly. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was influenced by Wagner in particular, although the opera was likely the first to specifically identify the ring with power, rather than simply wealth.

There seem to be two different stories of Siegfried’s youth, one that has him raised as a prince and another as a wanderer fostered by a dwarf who works as a smith. Some sources make both true. In the Nibelugenlied, Siegmund is the King of Xanten in North Rhine-Westphalia. Gunther and Gudrun are generally linked to the Burgundians, a tribe that ruled the Rhineland in the fifth and sixth centuries.

While eventually conquered by the Franks, the historical King Gunther’s capital at Worms was sacked by a combined army of Romans and Huns, which figures into some versions of the Siegfried story. Some years after Siegfried’s death, Gudrun marries Attila the Hun, called Atli or Etzel, and is sometimes identified as Brunhilda’s brother. Attila kills her brothers for their money, and Gudrun gets her revenge by killing his sons, feeding their hearts to Attila, and eventually killing him as well. Priscus’ account of Attila’s death says that it was caused by internal bleeding at the marriage feast to his last wife, Ildico, which then led to rumors that she assassinated him.

The Burgundian royal family has been called both the Gibichungs and the Nibelungs, although the latter apparently came to be more closely associated with treasure than with the family, and was identified with dwarves instead. Gunther and Gudrun’s brother Hagen was Alberich’s son in Wagner’s version, which meant he would have been both a Gibichung and a Nibelung. There was also an association of the word Nibelung with Niflheim, the Norse underworld. And that brings us back to Final Fantasy, as Cloud and Tifa in FF7 are from a town called Nibelheim. Brunhilda was likely named after a real-life Queen of Austrasia in the sixth and early seventh centuries (some time after Gunther and Attila), who was regarded as a strong and efficient leader, and was killed by being pulled apart by wild horses. Strengthening the connection is that her husband’s name was Sigebert, and that he was killed by his brother. Siegfried being so closely tied with the Burgundians and the Huns might have been a later development in the legend.

Sidhe Bop

I’ve been reading a lot recently, but a bit sporadically. There are some library books I want to finish before starting on anything I own. I’m pretty anxious to read more of The Lost Tales of Oz, but I kind of like having something to look forward to. Is that a dilemma for anyone else? Beth says she prefers being in the middle of a good book, and I can understand that, but I find I often have a preference for having done something over being in the process of doing it. It’s not like I’m likely to run out of stuff to read, but maybe of Oz stuff. That said, I did find an Oz book I hadn’t heard of before, which I review later on in this post.

Late Eclipses, by Seanan McGuire – In October Daye’s fourth adventure, she investigates the poisoning of Lily, the Undine of the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park. (A lot of this series takes place in San Francisco, and I can’t say I know a lot about that city.) The Queen of the Mists has Toby herself arrested for the poisoning, along with the killing of Blind Michael in the previous book, which she actually did do. During the course of the story, she learns more about herself and her mother Amandine, who finally puts in an appearance in this one.

The Rainbow Daughter in Oz, by Cliff Robertson – I first learned about this book from the Royal Timeline of Oz. The title seems a little weird (I would have used “Rainbow’s” instead of just “Rainbow”), but it’s always nice to find new Oz books consistent with the original series. The characters, including Polychrome and Button-Bright as well as some other familiar faces, all maintain their original personalities; and one of Billina‘s chicks takes a significant role. Robertson even delves a bit into the mythology of Oz, explaining why the weather is usually so mild. It’s attributed to a magic necklace that Button-Bright accidentally finds and takes, causing severe storms to arise in the land. Several characters are called in to rescue the Cuttenclips, whose village is normally protected from such weather by Glinda’s magic, but this has been neutralized. Some original ideas of the author’s are promising, but appear so briefly that they might have been better either expanded upon or left out entirely. Then again, I guess this kind of thing is common in Oz books.

Saga Six-Pack – This was one of several collections of public domain material that was offered for cheap in a Kindle edition, and I thought it had some stuff I should read, which I did in between other things. As such, it took me a long time to finish it. It starts with Beowulf, which I’ve seen summarized many times, but this was the first time I read a complete translation. And, really, I can’t say my understanding of it was increased by the original context, as a lot of it was just people hanging out in halls and arguing. The Prose Edda is a collection of Norse myths compiled by Snorri Sturluson, who including a background for the gods that made them just regular (if heroic) people, and presents some of the stories as an attempt to trick some guy. That’s the problem with retellings of old religious materials by a follower of a different religion, I suppose. The saga of Erik the Red was short, but I found it kind of amusing that it involved Erik discovering Greenland and then basically tricking other people into settling there even though it was a whole lot crappier than Iceland. The Volsung Saga is partially another take on the saga of Sigurd (AKA Siegfried), another version of which was in the Prose Edda, but this one has more information on the hero’s ancestry.

The Oathbound Wizard, by Christopher Stasheff – The follow-up to Her Majesty’s Wizard sees Matthew and Princess Alisande still constantly arguing, leading to his swearing to kick the evil King of Ibile (an alternate version of Spain, as Alisande’s Merovence is the equivalent of France) off the throne, temporarily forgetting how seriously oaths are taken in this world. So he ends up having to do it, but he’s fortunately assisted by his old friends, as well as a few new ones including a dracogriff (the offspring of a dragon and a griffin) and a cyclops. He also summons Puck and Robin Hood to help out, the latter said to have lived in many different versions of England. Stasheff ties together a few different versions of the Robin Hood legend by explaining what happened after King Richard came back to England, and how he and the Merry Men were eventually made immortal. It doesn’t really explore the world where it takes place much beyond what the first one had already established, but it’s a pretty good sequel.

Crimes Against Magic, by Steve McHugh – I’d previously read McHugh’s A Glimmer of Hope, and for some reason didn’t feel like writing a review at the time. I found out it was a spin-off of the Hellequin Chronicles, so I decided to check out the first book in that series. The world featured here is one that mixes mythologies, positing that most of the classical myths were basically true, but not always accurate in the details. It’s also one with magic, monsters, and demons. The protagonist of this book, Nathan Garrett, is a thousand-year-old sorcerer who’s lost most of his memories, and works as a thief and assassin, creating a rather gritty tone. He protects a psychic girl from a plot by Mordred, King Arthur’s illegitimate son and killer, who’s still alive and scheming in the modern day. The Fates and the story of the Trojan War are also significant to the plot, and there are flashbacks to fifteenth-century France. All the jumping around in time is a little confusing, but also what keeps the story interesting.

Gated Communities

As if Gamergate wasn’t bad enough, now there’s Comicsgate as well, because people suck. And both of these supposed movements have people using these terms to refer to themselves, despite the fact that using “gate” in the names of scandals derives from Watergate, and no one involved in that bragged about it. One guy in a Twitter thread on the subject said they were trying to put a positive spin on it, but if that’s the case he wasn’t doing a very good job. From what I’ve heard, Gamergate started with accusations that Zoe Quinn had sex with someone to get a good review on a video game she made. Even if this really HAD been true (which it wasn’t), how is that even something worth making a stink about? Sure, it’s wrong, but things I don’t like get good reviews all the time, and I don’t threaten woman over it. The official line was that it was about “ethics in gaming journalism,” because…apparently that’s a thing? Maybe I’m showing my age, because I grew up with Nintendo Power, and we didn’t expect unbiased writing when it was published by Nintendo. So, yes, a bunch of people obsessively concerned with ethics were making death and rape threats. Okay. Comicsgate is about people thinking diversity in comics is a bad thing that’s causing a drop in sales. Yeah, people will say it’s not really about that, that it’s only about FORCED diversity and changing characters to meet a specific agenda. I’m not sure how that squares with the retailers’ panel at ComicCon 2017 where the sellers used slurs, and at least one complained that potential customers left his store “when they see that Thor is a woman and Captain America is a black man.” Yeah, because there aren’t anywhere NEAR enough comics featuring white male protagonists. The Marvel Vice President of Sales even blamed declining sales on diversity, despite how well Black Panther did at the box office. Of course, pretty much every long-standing comics character has been replaced or rebooted at some point, not to mention all the alternate-universe versions, child versions, and animal versions. I mean, a frog and an alien with a horse’s head have been granted the powers of Thor in the past.

But I guess those are all right because they don’t represent any ACTUAL minorities. And there were a lot of negative comments about a picture of female Marvel employees drinking milkshakes, because…they’re women?

One of the main supporters of the anti-diversity movement (such as it is) who’s actually worked in the entry is a guy called Ethan Van Sciver, and how does that not sound like the name of a comic book villain?

Diversity doesn’t automatically make something good, and lack of diversity doesn’t necessarily make it bad, but it seems ridiculous not to even try. I mean, diversity of characters is always a good goal in fiction, because you don’t want all the characters to be the same. That’s not necessarily diversity in gender and ethnicity, but isn’t that another way to make your characters distinct? It’s not like you can’t identify with someone who’s a different sex or race than you, and on the other hand, readers are often glad to find characters similar to themselves. And it’s not like the original versions of these characters have disappeared; even the ones who have been replaced are generally still around in the background. I’ve seen people complaining that Marvel has said Captain Marvel would become a major part of the Cinematic Universe, and that this is some sort of SJW conspiracy. (To me, the fact that they even use that abbreviation without irony is probably enough reason not to take them seriously.) Never mind that she’s the first woman to headline a movie in that continuity, which hardly constitutes a trend. It’s still mostly white men! Can’t they give at least a little leeway? Besides, I like Carol Danvers.

I’ve gotten a few of her comics on Comixology, and I appreciate how she’s both a nerd AND a bad-ass tough lady. She’s a Star Wars fan and is obsessed with flying and punching. If Marvel is supposed to be about superheroes with real-life personalities and problems, she definitely qualifies. So why wouldn’t I want to see her in the movies? Because I’m a dude and she’s not? I also recently read the Patsy Walker series from a few years ago. The character has an interesting history, having been the star of a teen romantic comedy comic from 1944 through 1967 who was then brought into the main Marvel Universe as a superhero in 1976. This series makes the old comics an in-universe thing, with Patsy trying to get back the rights to the books from her old frenemy and co-star Hedy Wolfe. She was also married to both a guy who was turned into a dog-like mutant mercenary and another who was literally the spawn of Satan, and those both figure in the stories.

I guess there is sometimes some valid criticism mixed in with the whining about SJWs. Like, when the Ghostbusters remake with women as the main characters came out, the majority of objections were from misogynists, but there were a few to the effect of why they needed to reboot Ghostbusters at all. I saw and enjoyed the reboot, and I still think that’s a good point. And it’s that weird kind of reboot where the creators ignore established continuity, but put in so many references to the original that you pretty much need to be familiar with it to understand anything, like with the most recent Star Trek films. And I have no problem with a female Thor, but it’s bizarre that she apparently actually IS Thor, rather than just having his powers. I mean, Thor is the guy’s name, right? That’s less like a new Captain America than a new Steve Rogers.

When the original Thor DOES appear, he tends to just be called “Odinson,” because not being worthy of Mjolnir means giving up your first name, I guess. To be fair, though, I’ve read some of the early Thor stories, and it seems like the writers could ever really decide whether Donald Blake WAS the Thor from the Norse myths or they just somehow shared the same consciousness, so I guess some other person becoming Thor makes as much sense as that does.

A Dictionary of Ozian Marriage

There was a discussion on marriages in Oz at this year’s OzCon International, partially inspired by how The Tin Woodman of Oz includes two seemingly bad marriages. Mrs. Yoop is glad her brutal, uncouth husband, who used to kick her on the shins, has been captured and locked away.

Chopfyt is a lazy, surly man married to Nimmie Amee, who yells at her and hits her with a broomstick in order to get him to do what she wants. And Jinjur, who is said in Ozma to have given her husband a black eye for milking the wrong cow, shows no sign of living with anyone else in this book. The Swynes seem to be a happy couple, however, which also shows that at least some animals have adopted the institution of marriage.

We see examples of both sorts throughout the series. There is a common trend of the women having the upper hand in relationships. In Patchwork Girl, the lazy Quadling has a wife who’s rather angry, although it’s understandable as she has to do all the work.

Jo Cone in Tik-Tok claims that his wife is a much better fighter than he is. The other characters in Scarecrow aren’t sure what Princess Gloria sees in the rather weak, weepy Pon, but she remains devoted to him (well, except when her heart is frozen).

Queen Cor of Coregos is more clever than her husband, King Gos of Regos. (And yes, they don’t technically live in Oz, but they fit the pattern.) They normally live apart, and Cor doesn’t seem too happy to see him when he moves in with her after Prince Inga conquers his island, but that could be because he brought his warriors with him. They do work together and are generally on the same page, however.

The same is true of another villainous couple, the Supreme Dictator of the Flatheads and his wife Rora. While there’s the general trend of women abusing men being played for comedy that sometimes shows up in Oz, that’s not always the case just because the woman has the upper hand, which sounds like it was the case in L. Frank Baum’s own household. King Evoldo of Ev is portrayed as abusive and unsympathetic, and while I don’t think it’s specifically stated that he physically attacked his wife and kids the way he did his servants, he ultimately sold them to the Nome King in exchange for a long life, which suggests he didn’t have much love for them.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry (not originally from Oz, of course, but they relocate there) and Dr. Pipt and Margolotte are both older couples who don’t come across as particularly romantic, but are affectionate and supportive of each other. I thought it was weird that, when Em and Henry are given their new room in the palace in Emerald City, they have separate bedrooms, although maybe that kind of thing was more common back in those days. I assume Pipt isn’t sleeping in the same bed as his wife either when he’s constantly tending his kettles.

Ruth Plumly Thompson shows us more young, romantic couples then Baum does, often princes and princesses. These stories often end with a marriage, and we don’t see a whole lot of them as married couples after that, except an occasional cameo. The same is true of couples who are involuntarily separated for a long time, like King Cheeriobed and Queen Orin or Realbad and Isomere. There are several less pleasant couples as well, often with the husband being subservient to the wife: the mild-mannered, easily confused King Theodore III and his overbearing wife Queen Adora; the kindly but rather distant and thoughtless King Fumbo and Mrs. Sew-and-Sew, who does all the work to keep the kingdom running and frequently boxes her husband’s ears; the furious Queen Fi Nance who runs Down Town with King Dad having very little say. Queen Kabebe of Stratovania is generally meaner than her husband, but we don’t see much of the two of them together, and Strut has no issue with taking other wives.

There was some discussion during the panel on how we never really see who’s officiating at weddings, which Thompson does address a few times in an offhand manner that doesn’t necessarily reveal whether they’re standard arrangements. I’ve mentioned before how marriage is often based on economics and mortality, neither of which would likely be major concerns in a nation that doesn’t use money and where death is very rare. That said, we don’t know how new these developments are, and the economic system isn’t always consistently portrayed anyway. Even when the communal system is in use, people are expected to share their surplus with others, but that doesn’t mean you can just move into someone else’s house. So even if private property technically doesn’t exist, the basic concept hasn’t totally died out. It’s also not clear what the legal ramifications are of marriage in Oz, or whether it’s just a traditional thing. We’re told that Gayelette gave an expensive wedding present to Quelala, but not whether this was a typical marriage ritual.

Does anyone ever marry for citizenship? The only case I can think of where an Ozite marries a foreigner is Randy and Planetty, and that wasn’t the reason they married.

Marriages for power and status apparently do occur, but they’re generally not portrayed positively. Prince Tatters specifically sets out to find a princess with a fortune, but he ends up with someone he loves AND whose father has access to a lot of gold bricks, although I’m not entirely sure why those would be so valuable in Oz. Lord Googly-Goo, Glegg, Abrog, Baron Mogodore all try to marry princesses against their will, and they never stop to think that, even if the marriage goes through, it won’t be viewed as legal. But then, they all seem to think they can make the woman in question love them. Is divorce possible? Grand Duke Hoochafoo of Regalia is said to have once been married, but we don’t know what happened to his wife. You’d think divorce might be more common when people don’t die, but maybe attitudes are different in Oz.

Finally, while practically immortal people likely don’t feel as much of a need to reproduce, some of them do anyway. The very first Oz book has a couple with children living outside the Emerald City. The Swynes have piglets who don’t live with them. Prince Pompadore and Princess Peg Amy are specifically said to give birth to Princess Pajonia between the events of Kabumpo and Purple Prince. There’s a farm couple in the John R. Neill books with fourteen children, which is probably not all that common in Oz, but I can see that they might want to have kids to help them on the farm.

Interestingly, the Thompson books have several parents with no partners mentioned at all: Peer Haps, Pastoria (although, according to Jack Snow, he’s an adoptive father), Asha of Rash, Wumbo, Randy’s father, and Sizzeroo. But it does appear that nuclear families are pretty common in Oz, even if the books tend to focus more on the families people (and animals) choose.

This Matrimony Is Full of Holes!

I seem to recall reading that the phrase “sanctity of marriage” wasn’t used until fairly recently, and was pretty much just a response to how marriage is changing in our society. That must not be entirely true, because a quick search yielded something from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that used it back in 1978, but it is true that it suddenly became much more common after gay marriage became a thing. But hasn’t marriage always been a mostly legal and economic arrangement? Traditionally, marriage quite often favored the man, with the wife being essentially property. Gifts were often given from the groom to the bride’s family, and sometimes vice versa.

And marriage organized the household in determining that children were legally those of both parents, hence avoiding disputes on the matter. It could be used as a way to combine the wealth of different families, and having heirs kept property in the family, as well as providing new people to learn the family business. And there are still a lot of economic factors involved. While my wife and I did and still do love and want to support each other, it was when she had a job with health insurance that we actually married. (She doesn’t have that job anymore, by the way, and we’re on separate health plans, but that’s beside the point.) You can have joint bank accounts, file taxes together, etc. That doesn’t mean it can’t be about other things too, but the financial aspect seems to be what really separates a married couple from an unmarried one.

The thing I have to ask about people who want to use the Biblical definition of marriage is whether there really even is one. The Bible discusses marriage and lays down rules for things you can’t do (e.g., commit adultery or marry your sister), but does it ever define it? The impression I get is that marriage was already a standard part of Hebrew society, so Moses or whoever didn’t feel the need to explain how it worked; everyone already knew that. Genesis suggests Adam and Eve as a model of marriage, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when they were, according to the text, the only two humans on Earth, and hence had no real need to make a social contract.

They wanted to make sure Eve wasn’t going to have an affair with that unicorn.
Besides, rich men frequently had multiple wives and concubines in the society described. It’s also a culture that favored having lots of children, probably because you needed extra hands to work on the farm, and because kids frequently died young. The Book of Exodus begins with the Pharaoh being concerned that the Hebrews would overwhelm the Egyptians in sheer numbers. Maybe that’s because the Egyptians had birth control. But anyway, the prohibitions against homosexuality (which might not have even existed in earlier versions of Leviticus) were likely because that kind of sex couldn’t produce heirs, and nobody knew enough about reproduction to realize that the men would still have plenty of sperm left over for baby-making.

(So maybe Adam and Steve were just for pleasure, and Adam and Eve to make kids who wanted to murder each other.) I’ve seen it suggested that the prohibition was in response to temple prostitution, and while maybe there’s something in that, surely there was HETEROSEXUAL prostitution in such temples as well? It also says in Deuteronomy that a rapist has to marry his victim, paying off her family in the process, which only makes any kind of sense if you place financial concerns above even the most basic ethical ones. In ancient Greece, erotic love between men was common, but most of those men presumably also married in order to have children. In a world that’s both overpopulated and with known ways for a couple to have children beyond the traditional, these don’t really seem like significant concerns anymore. Do people who are against gay marriage also object to childless straight couples? And if it’s really about sanctity, is a married straight couple that wasn’t married in a church technically living in sin? They’re not arguments I’ve really heard, although opposition to birth control is disturbingly common. But really, if marriage is primarily a legal and economic matter, how do religious beliefs even come into it? Apparently the churches didn’t even view marriage as a sacrament until the twelfth century, so it’s hardly something they can say goes back to the Bible. That’s not to say ancient marriages didn’t involve gods, but most legal agreements did in those days. When a society has freedom of religion, that becomes less significant on a larger scale, although individuals can certainly dedicate their marriage to whatever deity they want. I’ve frequently come across mentions by the religious faithful on how God should be at the center of a marriage, which as an non-believer I can’t help but imagine as thinking of Jesus during sex. That’s probably not what Christians mean, but they DO have a tendency of portraying Jesus as attractive.

But isn’t an omniscient, omnipresent God already at the center of everything? Why is He more integral to marriage than to grocery shopping, tooth-brushing, or using the bathroom? Even the god Hymen is really only significant once.

You can keep God at the center of your marriage if you want, but to me that seems to take away from the spouse.

Marriage for love only became the norm in the twentieth century, and even now there are plenty of people who love and support each other but aren’t married, or who are in loveless marriages. It’s a significant aspect of modern marriage, but it’s not necessarily an integral part. It’s even kind of strange that failure to consummate can still be used as grounds for a legal annulment; why should whether you can file a tax return together depend on whether you’ve had sex? Yes, that makes sense for many people, but there’s nothing I can see that necessitates that connection. I wouldn’t cheat on my wife, but that’s because I respect HER, not the institution of marriage.

Moving to a Magical Monarchy

Happy birthday, Ozma! It seems common among Oz fans to consider Ozma to be, in a way, our monarch, and Oz as a place we’d like to escape to someday if it were at all possible. C. Warren Hollister’s essay “Oz and the Fifth Criterion” stated that a major part of the appeal of the Oz books was that they draw the reader in. It has been pointed out before, however, that Ozma isn’t always as kind or as intelligent as we’re constantly told. She’s also an absolute monarch who controls most of the magical power in Oz both by stockpiling it and outlawing its use by others. Well, I guess Glinda is more powerful and free to use magic however she wants, and is often the power behind the throne. Ozma has the Magic Picture and Glinda the Great Book of Records, both of which can be used to find spy on others and find out private information.

Ozma plays favorites and makes legal decisions to suit herself, and there are no obvious checks on her power. And with the disturbing anti-immigration trend in the United States, it’s probably worth noting that Ozma pretty much argues against accepting refugees into Oz in Tik-Tok of Oz. On the other hand, she rarely kicks out anyone who gets there on their own, and the few occasions when she does seem out of character. And Oz is nowhere near as big as the United States, and already pretty ethnically diverse. But since we’re repeatedly told Ozma and Glinda are good and do the right things, I guess that makes it okay. Has anyone ever used the term “theozdicy”? Since these are fictional characters, they can be defined in ways that real people can’t, but even with that in mind, they both seem to make mistakes occasionally. But then, maybe not being perfect makes them more identifiable. And really, I think a large part of Ozma’s appeal is that we, as readers, want to be her friend. She’s very charismatic and well-meaning, so even when she messes up, we like to think she’ll do the right thing in the end. And while her role as ruler means she can theoretically do whatever she wants, she does listen to the advice of her counselors and at least sometimes has juries for her trials.

They’re generally very informal, but still present. And she generally leaves smaller countries within Oz to govern themselves as they see fit, unless she knows they’re causing harm to others like with the Skeezers and Flatheads.

There was a discussion during OzCon about marriage in Oz, and that might be a topic I’ll expand upon in more detail in a later post, but for now I’d like to concentrate on a mention that there aren’t too many mentions of who’s officiating at these marriages. L. Frank Baum doesn’t address the topic at all as far as I can remember, but there are a few mentions in the Ruth Plumly Thompson books. Grampa has Prince Tatters and Princess Pretty Good married by a court official in Perhaps City called (rather unfortunately by modern standards) the Lord High Humpus. And in Jack Pumpkinhead, Belfaygor and Shirley Sunshine’s marriage is confirmed by “the highest judge at Ozma’s court,” who presumably isn’t Ozma herself but is otherwise not characterized at all.

It’s interesting that Thompson, who tossed around terms like “Christendom” and “christening” and mentions of churches in her Oz books in a way Baum didn’t, still seems to view Ozian marriage as a civil matter. So there presumably are such officials in Oz, but we don’t hear much at all about them. Religion is generally glossed over in the Oz series, but something I’ve been thinking of recently is religion-adjacent rituals. When I hear about people insisting you should get in legal trouble for not standing during the national anthem at a football game, I don’t understand how that ISN’T mandatory state religion, even though there’s not necessarily a deity involved. I get that the ritual is important to many people, but that doesn’t mean others should be forced into it. Oz seems to be a very patriotic place, big on national rituals both for the land in general and its sub-kingdoms. The books are full of pageants and parades.

People pretty much always dress in their national colors, and sometimes add “Oz” into various words.

Whether Ozites are forced into this or just enjoy it is never really addressed, but we do know Ozma’s court is pretty informal, so she likely wouldn’t have anyone arrested for refusing to bow or whatever. This isn’t necessarily the case in the sub-kingdoms, but it often seems like the reason some of the tiny countries even exist is that the people like having royal families to admire, even if their power is rather limited. But we also see plenty of Ozites living out in the country and not showing any direct loyalty to minor monarchs. Yes, they’re still subjects of Ozma and their quadrant rulers, but they probably don’t run into them very often. I suppose the informality can be a potential liability at times, however. Tin Woodman tells us that there’s only one law in Oz, and that’s “behave yourself,” which is pretty vague (and perhaps contradictory to specific laws mentioned in previous books; people aren’t necessarily misbehaving when they use magic). But really, I guess there’s a lot about everyday life in Oz we still don’t know.

Kirby and the Dreamstalk

I like Kirby, but I haven’t actually played that many Kirby games. I remember seeing my brother play Kirby’s Adventure for the NES some years ago. I got Kirby: Triple Deluxe for the 3DS for Christmas, and started playing it about two weeks or so ago. It’s pretty easy to get into, with Kirby games being made so they can be enjoyed for inexperienced players. I’m experienced in that I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid, but I’ve never been that good at them, so it’s kind of a relief to play something where I don’t die pretty much immediately. I am having some trouble in Level 5, but I don’t know that it’s insurmountable. You’re able to float over many (but not all) obstacles, you can take several hits before dying, health-restoring items are pretty common, you start with a good number of lives, and there isn’t much of a penalty for a game over. It seems like a lot of games are heading in that basic direction; I understand Super Mario Odyssey doesn’t even have a lives mechanic. As is typical of Kirby games (except the first one), Kirby is able to obtain various powers by inhaling enemies. I understand the Beetle ability, which lets you fly and sting adversaries, is new in this game.

There’s also Hypernova, obtained from fruits in certain levels, which lets you inhale much larger objects and creatures. It’s pretty fun to use.

Sabin can Suplex a train, but Kirby can suck it up.
The style of the game is what I’ve seen called 2.5D, in that it’s a side-scroller, but there are still elements in the background and foreground that can affect you.

You can also switch between them at certain points by riding floating Warpstars. There’s a bit of puzzle-solving involved with this, but generally nothing all that difficult. On some occasions, you have to tilt the 3DS itself in order to move things. Some of the bosses are pretty annoying, though, especially Coily Rattler, the snake who’s only vulnerable on his head.

Boss fights are often preceded by a room where you can choose from a few different abilities, although you can lose these by getting hit.

The plot of this one has a giant Dreamstalk growing in Dream Land and lifting buildings and inhabitants into the air, and a spider monster kidnapping King Dedede.

Kirby has to chase the monster through several stages in the clouds. In order to reach the final boss of a level, you need to collect a certain number of Sun Stones, some of which are obvious and others hidden. For every final boss battle, Dedede’s captor, Taranza, will work some kind of magic to either create or enhance an enemy, in much the same manner as Kamek in some of the Mario games.

There are two other modes accessible from the beginning, which I guess is why it’s Triple Deluxe, but I really only took a cursory glance at them. Kirby Fighters is a fighting game similar to Super Smash Bros., pitting Kirby against one or more enemies in a variety of battlefields. You choose one ability to use, and there are items in the stages that both you and your opponents can use.

Dedede’s Drum Dash is a side-scrolling game where Dedede bounces on drums, with timing and combinations being crucial to making the jumps properly. I tried it once, but I was terrible at it.

Tin Hands Are Ku-Klip’s Workshop

So, I’m back from OzCon International, which was pretty Oz-some. It’s kind of disappointing that it’s over, but nice to get home again. When I first started going to Oz conventions, it was often one of the few chances I got to socialize with anyone outside my immediate family, so I was kind of depressed at the end. That’s less common now, probably mitigated somewhat by: 1) being married, and 2) having the Internet, and even keeping in touch with other Oz fans. Still, I feel like I probably talked some people’s ears off (I wonder if that ever literally happens in Oz), both as a panelist and otherwise, so I apologize if that’s the case. I’m really shy, but once I start talking I tend to monopolize the conversation. Anyway, this year’s convention was in Pomona, California, a state to which I’d never been before. I tried to count, and it’s the nineteenth state I’ve been in, which averages out to less than one state for every two years of my life. If I keep this up, I’ll have to live past one hundred to visit all of them. I hate travel, but I like to have been places, if that makes any sense. The little I saw of California was pretty fascinating, and I wouldn’t mind going back there sometime when I’m not as busy and it isn’t one hundred degrees outside. The hotel was on the Cal Poly Pomona campus, on a hill that was confusing to get down from. Fortunately, I didn’t often need to, but when I was really hungry and there was nothing available at the hotel, it took me forever just to find a place that sold muffins (the campus bookstore).

Anyway, I got in Thursday evening, and the programs started at 11 AM on Friday. There were often two programs going on at the same time, and this meant there were a few I was interested in that I had to miss, but I’m mostly satisfied. J.L. Bell discussed what he saw as the main themes of The Tin Woodman of Oz, the main focus for this convention. Then I saw Raymond Wohl do a shortened version of his one-man show as L. Frank Baum. It seemed basically accurate to what I knew of Baum’s life, although he did stick in quite a few jokey references, many to the MGM film. He’s a very engaging performer.

Judy Bieber did a talk on the strong women of Oz and how some of them were…not necessarily weakened, but had their strengths de-emphasized over time. I’ve written before about how there are occasions when Baum DID reinforce traditional gender roles in his Oz books (not in a prescriptive manner, just in making the male characters more active and forthright), with Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz being particularly notable in that respect. The first panel I was on was about The Lost Tales of Oz, a new anthology of Oz stories to which I contributed. After that, the contributors who were there signed some copies, so that was the first time I’ve ever autographed anything. The official release date is the twenty-first, but there were advance copies there. The evening program had Andy Mangels discussing Filmation’s Journey Back to Oz, which had some big-name voice actors but wasn’t ultimately that successful.

Dina Schiff Massachi, with whom I shared a shuttle from the airport, previewed her talk on the Tin Woodman and emotional intelligence. Then Eric Shanower and David Maxine interviewed Robert Payes about his mother, Rachel Cosgrove Payes, in a session that became very emotional in spots.

James Ortiz talked about the puppetry in his work The Woodsman (which was performed twice at the convention, but not at times convenient for me; I believe it’s on Amazon Prime, however), and demonstrated how complicated the process of working puppets can be.

The last bit of the night was “Ku-Klip’s Workshop,” a skit based on that episode of Tin Woodman with added jokes, in which I played Woot the Wanderer. I hope someone has pictures of that.

Saturday’s program opened with the costume contest. I used to dress up pretty much every year back in the day, usually getting my mom to help me make the outfits, but I haven’t been in recent years. I should probably get something together for next year, but I say that every year. There were some great costumes this year, including Susan Hall as Tommy Kwikstep being gradually disenchanted by Polychrome, Colin Ayres as a clumsy Scarecrow, Caitlin Masters as Mrs. Yoop complete with birdcage and stuffed bear, Erica Olivera as Jellia Jamb, and people whose names I can’t remember (you can help me out if you know them) as Til Loon, a gender-bent Dorian Gale, and an original character from Loonville. After that came the quizzes, and I did not win this time, although I think I did get a few answers no one else did. I DID, however, win second place in the fiction contest for a story I submitted. Opposite the auction, Dina did her full talk.

Eric Shanower later discussed how different artists drew Nick Chopper, including how John R. Neill’s take was less realistic than W.W. Denslow’s, but became more iconic.

The evening program ran a bit late, but we did get to see an interview with Ray Bolger’s niece and Jack Haley’s grandson and an exploration of Hollywood as it looked when Baum lived there.

I participated in a game where contestants had to guess the names of Oz-related characters from hints, and some of those names were incredibly obscure. I think Prissy Pingle might have been from the stage play The Woggle-Bug; and the audience was particularly amused by Lesba, who’s apparently a Brazilian character in Baum’s The Fate of a Crown. I don’t know that this was ever a real name; and while I get that “gay” and “queer” (both words Baum used a lot) have changed in common meaning over time, but “lesbian” (to mean a gay woman rather than a resident of Lesbos) appears to date back to 1870. There was a karaoke session after that, and I joined in on performances of “The Jitterbug” and the Munchkin segment from the MGM movie.

On Sunday morning, Angelica Carpenter and a few others did a panel discussion of marriages in Oz, a pretty interesting topic, and one that post-Baum authors sometimes treated a bit differently. Robin Hess did a talk on resolving contradictions in the Oz series.

After lunch, I was on a panel responding to that and talking about other continuity issues, along with J.L. Bell, Anil Tambwekar, and Judy Bieber. I had to leave soon after that. They’re actually doing an unofficial Disney Day at Disneyland today, but while I’d like to go there, I didn’t think I could swing the cost, and didn’t want to go alone. (Yeah, I know I’d know other people there, but I mean in terms of having someone to ride the rides with. If Beth had gone, I might well have attended this.) I hope to make it again next year, but it’s too soon to tell.