Land of Oz/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

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* Am I the only one who was bugged by the fact that Ozma retained none of her personality she had as Tip, I mean she turned into an unrecognizable character.

*** Great, now whenever I think about that book I'll be thinking of how a kid's soul was written over like tape!

**** Aw, I don't think you have to worry about that. Consider Ozma's direct words, the first thing she says as a girl:

"Only you're different!" said the Pumpkinhead; and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he had ever made. }}

**** Certainly sounds to me like a confirmation that she is still the same person underneath all the changes. If her behavior is different... well, it might, like the earlier troper suggested, be an act (based on how Ozma thinks princesses are supposed to behave), or she simply changed over time. It's been known to happen.

*** I think one of the non-canon books takes a crack at it: that in fact Tip and Ozma are two distinct people. The boy was born at the same time as the girl; when Mombi enchanted the infant Ozma she kept her soul but swapped her ''body'' with Tip's, rather like switching a can of Coke for one of Pepsi, but still keeping the Coke inside. For all intents and purposes Ozma really was Tip (and vice versa), her soul had had to adapt to the wrong body. She was used to being a boy, but ultimately glad to get back into her proper form.

 

* Where does Princess Langwidere the head-changer keep her brain? If each of her heads has one, how come she stays the same person upon changing them -- and how would her plan to exchange heads with Dorothy work?

** The same question applies when Jack Pumpkinhead changes his head for a fresh one. Also, in ''The Tin Woodman of Oz,'' when they found Nick Chopper's disembodied head in the cupboard of the tinsmith, was he the real Nick Chopper? Was the Tin Woodman just a new creation with memories somehow downloaded into his head?

*** Well, Jack Pumpkinhead isn't human -- Tip sprinkled him whole with the Powder of Life, so presumably his "life-essence" is distributed through his entire body, with no single part containing his identity. Same for the Tin Woodman's artificial body, even if he was human once.

 

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[[Category:Literature/Headscratchers]]

[[Category:Headscratchers]]