Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:23:30 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Forbidden Fountain (first half)

Halfway through re-reading "Forbidden Fountain," and it seems like a
reasonable moment to try some comments.

In the Nonestican past, we've commented on the difficulty of using Ozma as a
central character, and on "Forbidden Fountain" as an example of getting
around the difficulty by depriving Ozma of her vast powers. Re-reading, I
notice that the story is also ingenious in keeping the Wizard and Glinda
(whose vast powers are still with them) from locating Ozma straight off,
through the device of turning Ozma temporarily into a purple moth. Using the
titular Forbidden Fountain to take away Ozma's memory (and thus her powers)
is likewise ingenious, although Emerelda and her plan for selling limeade at
the Clover Fair strike me as a bit too cutesy.

The use of Kabumpo as a major character is fun, and the McGraws did a nice
job of capturing his good-heartedness and bad temper and pomposity together.
An enjoyable example is the third-person reportage of his interior monologue
as he heads pettishly ("retire with dignity" is his idea of it) back towards
Pumperdink, undercutting both of his complaints about the injustice done him
with hasty after-thoughting -- the emphatic "they know where I am," followed
with the second-thought of "And I forgive them all," and the emphatic 
insistence that he did so see Gillikin flora and fauna in the Magic Picture
followed by the second-thought of "And you never can tell."

The highwayman Tobias Bridlecull, Jr., otherwise Toby, is an enjoyable
character, much in RPT's tradition of reluctant blackguards, leaning more to
Samuel Salt the pirate than to Realbad the bandit in his reluctance to
swashbuckle. Unlike Realbad, who was forced into it, or Sameul Salt, whose
background isn't explored, he's in his line of work through family
tradition, and the Anglophilic McGraws give him a background that goes back
into British tradition, in setting him on the Border in a Moor, and giving
him a line of British thieves' slang evidently borrowed from Georgette
Heyer's Regency novels. Toby's only bit of Swag, the Suggestion Box, with
its weather-forecaster jargon adapted to more general advisings, is an
amusing variation on the Oracle they had used in "Merry-go-Round."

The Bordermoor itself is an interesting idea. There had been various Oz
books in which characters cross borders back and forth between the regions
of Oz and notice the differences in colors, as the McGraws had done between
the Munchkin and Quadling countries in "Merry," but I think this is the
first time the idea of a region of half-and-half colors had been used.
(Unless you want to count the brown-tinted illos for the region between the
Emerald City and the Quadling Country in "Wizard.") A somewhat related motif
is the use of hostility as to where the line of the border marked by which
color is to run that shows up in the plots of Ray Powell's "Mr. Flint in Oz"
and David Hulan's "Glass Cat."

Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:38:24 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] forbidden fountain continued
 
Are people having trouble getting copies of "The Forbidden Fountain of Oz"?
So far no one else has commented on it. Anyhow, having now completed
re-reading it --

I was amused by the use of the convention of the Impenetrable Disguise. This
is basically a silly convention, almost always more or less unbelievable,
but, as Eloise McGraw commented in a letter to Dick Martin (included in the
issue of the "Baum Bugle" that featured the McGraws and Martin), if Other
people get to use it, then so do other people. And she did, and the reader
just has to grant the possibility that Kabumpo (an elephant never forgets,
you know) doesn't know her as Poppy, and neither do her other old friends -- 
except Jack Pumpkinhead. And he, of course, has a perfect right to recognize
in the guise of a boy, because that's what she looked when he first knew her
anyway. And it makes a touching moment that she finds herself able to
recognize Jack when he calls her Father. (A lot of this story is about
parental affection, in various ways -- Ozma as the lamb Lambert's mother,
both Toby and Kabumpo acting parentally toward the lost child Ozma is for
most of the action.)

This is one of the stories where the characters get their meals mostly off
of magical plants -- tinglemint grass, doughnut-trees, cloudberry bushes
(real in northern US, but in the context of the little meadow full of
"aimlessly drifting clouds," it sounds as if these cloudberries aren't quite
the same as ours), and so on. All ingeniously named and described. (Also in
that line, I enjoyed the rain forest with its mushroom umbrellas.) There's a
carnivorous moment when the frog almost eats Ozma and Lambert when they're
down-changed to hyacinth moth and glitterbug, but otherwise the characters
mostly avoid the question of what omnivores like humans do about eating meat
in Oz where the animals are intelligent. Lambert's fear of wolf and tiger
suggests that (as suggested in "Wizard" and various others) the carnivores,
at least, go ahead and eat.

Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:54:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] the McGraws' Oz

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> mentioned the
> issue of the "Baum Bugle" that featured the McGraws
> and Martin

I don't know how many people are like me in that the
first things I read by Eloise McGraw were these
letters and essays in the Bugle, and not her Oz books.
MERRY GO ROUND was too rare for a kid in the 80s to
obtain and I put off reading FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN until
I had read MERRY.  So for many years I had to satisfy
myself with her articles, trying to imagine what sort
of Oz book she would write until Books of Wonder
reprinted MERRY.  But it seems worth the wait because
I enjoy the McGraws' books just as much as those by
Baum or Thompson.  In fact, it seems to me that what
makes the McGraw books so enjoyable is their ability
to capture the flavor of Oz so well.  If not that, I
think they capture the flavor of what it's like to
read an Oz book: the characters, the wordplay, the
busy action moving from one event to the next.  They
have a great sense of what the landscape of Oz is
like.  For Baum it seemed mostly alternating areas of
field or forest, and Thompson grew a range of
mountains in the north, but the McGraws make those
mountains feel tall, the fields and forests full of
flora and fauna, the Emerald City a recognizable
place.  Because the writing is so evocative in their
books, reading them feels more like a genuine trip to
Oz. 

Alan Wise

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:04:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Forbidden Fountain's Ozma

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:

> In the Nonestican past, we've commented on the
> difficulty of using Ozma as a
> central character

Ozma makes a good appearance in FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN
mostly because she's spared from the cage of being the
all-powerful fairy she became in some of the later
additions to the series.  She's believably lost and
confused after drinking the Waters of Oblivion, and
it's nice to see her being taken care of rather than
always being the one to solve all the problems.  But
what's nice is how she grows more and more into
herself by the end of the book.  She's taken a more
active role in the group, reveals her acuity by being
suspicious of Kabumpo's plans, and, in the climax,
still acts like a queen despite not knowing quite who
she is.  All in all, I think the McGraws use her
character better because she's able to be herself
without all the trappings of majesty that normally
fetter her appearances. 

Alan Wise

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:20:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Forbidden Bit Players

FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN employs bit players very much in
the Baumian tradition.  The deaf Gillikin woman is
friendly and hospitable much like Boq or any of the
friendly Ozites who give food and shelter to
travelers, plus her inability to hear helps add to the
confusion that Poppy experiences because she's unable
to answer any questions (although it does seem odd
that anyone living that close to the Emerald City
wouldn't be able to recognize Ozma immediately).  The
Truth Teller reminds me of the Ferryman from LOST
PRINCESS, a character who encounters the more sinister
side of one of the wonders of Oz.  His symptom of
having his ears turn green if he happens to lie is a
new one, but his condition does allow for a Baumian
moment or reflection about the slipperyness of good
manners versus the importance of honesty. 

Alan Wise

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:56:36 -0500
From: "Joseph Bongiorno" <thesithempire at msn.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Carnivores in Oz

Ruth wrote:
<<There's a carnivorous moment when the frog almost eats Ozma and Lambert when they're
down-changed to hyacinth moth and glitterbug, but otherwise the characters
mostly avoid the question of what omnivores like humans do about eating meat
in Oz where the animals are intelligent. Lambert's fear of wolf and tiger
suggests that (as suggested in "Wizard" and various others) the carnivores,
at least, go ahead and eat.>>

I never liked that idea and still don't.  It doesn't make sense for Ozma
to legally allow sentient creatures to be devoured just because some of
her subjects have carnivorous appetites.  It also doesn't seem to me
that the carnivores would exercise a double-standard (I won't eat YOU
because you're my friend, but I'll eat YOU because we've never been
properly introduced).  As far as sentience is concerned, does a fat baby
(which Hungry Tiger won't touch) differ any from a fat baby chicken
(which he might)?  Not to Bellina I imagine.  Another question is do
sentient animals have the same rights as humans (or creatures that are
not human but exist in human form: Scarecrow, Tin-Man, Wogglebug,
Scraps, etc.,)?  In the Emerald City they appear to, but I'm not sure
about outside that immediate domain...

Joe

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:19:59 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] brewster & forbidden fountain

A few more "Forbidden Fountain" thoughts -- in a way, it's a reprise of
"Lost Princess," except that in this case the Lost Princess is conscious and
active and so able to be the main character in her rescue, with the
activities of Dorothy and the Wizard a minor subplot. They seem to be rather
more organized about their search-party set-up this time around. I suppose
it helps to have done it before, not to mention having all the usual magic
around, so that they can get some clues (set up by the story to be somewhat
misleading, but still helpful) to location! It was fun to have someone pick
up on the claim that for a person who has been in the Truth Pond, telling a
lie turns the ears green. (I forget just now which book makes that claim -- 
I think I remember that someone here suggested there was some reason to
doubt the claim?) In this case, the grumpy truth-teller duly goes green at
the gills when forced by Kabumpo into a lie. I wonder if he was always so
grumpy, or if it was having the fate of extreme truthfulness forced upon him
that did it. (It apparently wasn't a punishment for grumpiness or the like,
for he says he fell in, therefore presumably by accident, unless it was
curiosity. His account is necessarily Truthful, after all.) Odd waters make
up a sort of theme (a running theme, you might say) in the story, what with
the Fountain, the Pond, the rain-forest, the gozzers, the Pristinian
Bathasphere, and the Troll Tollbridge. Some of the earlier books have about
as much water-scenery ("Pirates," "Captain Salt," not to mention "Sea
Fairies"), but in all of those it's a sea-voyage going on. I don't think
there are any other Oz stories with this much in the way of freshwater
oddities?

Ruth Berman

Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:21:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Oz animals

While re-reading Gina Wikwar's generally entertaining
HIDDEN PRINCE OF OZ this weekend, it occured to me
that part of what makes a satisfying Ozian celebrity
animal is that they ALWAYS behave in recognizably
animal ways.  Toto barks and wags his tail; Hank the
mule kicks; the Cowardly Lion crouches and leaps.
Even when the animal characters aren't acting
particularly to type (i.e. the rabbits of Bunnybury)
they still are constrained to the traits of their
species. 

What brought this thought to mind while reading HIDDEN
PRINCE was the number of times Wickwar's animals
perform actions they resonably could not do.  Penny
the teacup poodle carries things no five pound dog
could; the Sawhorse leafs through the Great Book of
Records despite having only gold-shod sticks for arms.
These lapses take me out of the fantasy of the book
and make it difficult for me to read with pleasure.
Of course dogs don't talk or wear magic teacups on
their heads, but if everything else about them is
recognizably canine, I'm willing to believe the more
fantastic stuff.  Penny, however, violates her
"dogginess," rendering her something less than real. 

But all this brings me back to Kabumpo and what a
satisfying animal character he is.  Thompson
recognized something in the lugubrious grace of an
elephant's movements and discovered Kabumpo's
personality in that.  Here's an enormous animal that
somehow moves with a quiet ease and she finds the
pomposity and the tenderness in that to create one of
her best celebrities -- a character who reoccurs with
some frequency and yet his personality remains intact.
He even makes it safely into the hands of the McGraws
and feels just fresh and alive as he ever did.  In
FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, Kabumpo has all the familiar
bluster covering up his affection for his friends, the
same sly bit of mischief that sometimes subverts his
dignity.  But he's always recognizably elephantine
too: his bulk bursting through the gates of the Wyndup
town; the sinuous movements of his trunk; even his
abiity to move silently despite his size.  He's always
very real and very appealing. 

Alan Wise

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:07:56 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] mountains, FF minor characters, carnivores

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I think [the McGraws] capture the flavor of what it's like to read an Oz
> book: the characters, the wordplay, the busy action moving from one event
> to the next.  They have a great sense of what the landscape of Oz is like.
> For Baum it seemed mostly alternating areas of field or forest, and
> Thompson grew a range of mountains in the north, but the McGraws make
> those mountains feel tall, the fields and forests full of flora and fauna, 
> the Emerald City a recognizable place.  Because the writing is so
> evocative in their books, reading them feels more like a genuine trip to
> Oz.   >

Good point. Footnote on RPT's use of the Gillikin Mountains -- she was the
first to call them that and use them notably, but she didn't actually put
them on the map. They're on Baum's "Tik-Tok" map (un-named), and Baum makes
a brief mention of mountains (un-named, but apparently the same) in "Ozma
and the Little Wizard of Oz."

> FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN employs bit players very much in the Baumian tradition.  
> The deaf Gillikin woman is friendly and hospitable much like Boq or any of 
> the friendly Ozites who give food and shelter to travelers, plus her
> inability to hear helps add to the confusion that Poppy experiences
> because she's unable to answer any questions (although it does seem odd
> that anyone living that close to the Emerald City wouldn't be able to
> recognize Ozma immediately).  <

Well, if she didn't get out much, she might not. Of course, there's the
question of whether she might have been expected to recognize her from
photos in the newspaper -- although the "Ozmapolitan" as the Oz newspaper
was only implicit in the occasional R&L ads "reprinting" issues, until Dick
Martin actually put it into the text of his Oz book.

> The Truth Teller reminds me of the Ferryman from LOST PRINCESS, a
> character who encounters the more sinister side of one of the wonders of
> Oz.  His symptom of having his ears turn green if he happens to lie is a
> new one, but his condition does allow for a Baumian moment or reflection
> about the slipperyness of good manners versus the importance of honesty.
>  >

I said I thought I remembered a discussion earlier that referred to the
greening ears as mentioned in a previous Oz book, but now that you mention
it, I think you're right that it was the McGraws' invention, and not
something established before. I was probably mis-remembering what was said
in the earlier discussion.

Speaking of FF minor characters -- I notice that the description at the end
gives Betsy Bobbin red hair. I think that's the first time anyone specified
hair color for any of those three girls? I wonder if the McGraws were
thinking of Dorothy as blonde (as Neill's drawings regularly show her), Trot
as brown-haired, and Betsy as red, so that all can contrast with Ozma the
black-haired (again, as regularly drawn by Neill -- and RPT in turn so
described her). (Baum had initially described Ozma in "Land" as blonde, but
didn't mention her hair color again after that, perhaps figuring when Neill
drew her starting in "Ozma" as black-haired that he might as well go along
with it.)

"Joseph Bongiorno" <thesithempire at msn.com>
> I never liked that idea [that Oz carnivores eat meat] and still don't.  It
> doesn't make sense for Ozma to legally allow sentient creatures to be
> devoured just because some of  her subjects have carnivorous appetites.  <

It's perhaps a question of how much choice there is and how enforceable the
laws can be. With magic, there's the possibility of choice and also the
possibility of full enforcement. On the other hand, the roast-growing trees
and such like don't seem to be *very* common, and there's the possibility
that enforcing the law would involve a kind of tyranny that would be hard on
all. So it's an open question with difficulties both ways. David Hulan's
solution in his story about Eureka's return to Oz, is that some animals
(such as bugs) are considered fair game, but anything that talks is not. I'm
not sure where that leaves carnivores too large to fill up adequately on
bugs and maybe not well able to get to the roast trees, or where it leaves
talking bugs like the ones in "Forbidden Fountain" (and the toad that eats
them), though. Difficulties all round.

Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:08:18 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] kabumpo

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> part of what makes a satisfying Ozian celebrity animal is that they ALWAYS 
> behave in recognizably animal ways.  Toto barks and wags his tail; Hank
> the mule kicks; the Cowardly Lion crouches and leaps.  Even when the
> animal characters aren't acting particularly to type (i.e. the rabbits of
> Bunnybury) they still are constrained to the traits of their species.  ...
> But all this brings me back to Kabumpo and what a satisfying animal
> character he is.  Thompson recognized something in the lugubrious grace of
> an elephant's movements and discovered Kabumpo's personality in that.
> Here's an enormous animal that somehow moves with a quiet ease and she
> finds the pomposity and the tenderness in that to create one of her best
> celebrities -- a character who reoccurs with some frequency and yet his
> personality remains intact. He even makes it safely into the hands of the
> McGraws and feels just fresh and alive as he ever did.  In FORBIDDEN
> FOUNTAIN, Kabumpo has all the familiar bluster covering up his affection
> for his friends, the same sly bit of mischief that sometimes subverts his
> dignity.  But he's always recognizably elephantine too: his bulk bursting
> through the gates of the Wyndup town; the sinuous movements of his trunk;
> even his abiity to move silently despite his size.  He's always very real
> and very appealing.  >

Interesting discussion, I was struck by the effective elephant-ness of
Kabumpo in "Fountain," too, especially the moment when Ozma glimpses a
"large elephant-shaped" shadow, but it is gone when she looks again, so
quickly and quietly that she thinks it can't have been Kabumpo. Lambert's
lambiness is also convincing -- it's amusing to see a white sheep forced, so
far as the rest of the flock is concerned, into the role of a "black sheep."
I wonder, by the way, what became of Lambert's request to be dyed green, and
Ozma's agreement to do it later, hoping he'd forget about it in the
meantime. Children tend not to forget about things their parents hope they
will!

Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 13:23:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Three girls in Oz

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:

> Speaking of FF minor characters -- I notice that the
> description at the end
> gives Betsy Bobbin red hair. I think that's the
> first time anyone specified
> hair color for any of those three girls?

While it makes me a bit sad to think of Betsy as
merely a minor character, yes, I think it is the first
time anyone mentions what her hair color is.  I always
imagined her as having slightly darker hair than
Dorothy, and Trot's hair being the darkest, almost
black, but my suppositions came mostly from the
pan-and-ink drawings from LOST PRINCESS since few of
the Oz books I read as a kid had color plates.
(Although the color plates seem not to always have
been the best indicator because Betsy and Trot both
seemed to cycle through varying shades with some
frequency.)  As for Dorothy, Rachel Cosgrove described
her as blonde in HIDDEN VALLEY, and Nathan, I think,
pointed out that Thompson said she had blue eyes in
WISHING HORSE.  And isn't there a moment when the
McGraws desribe Dorothy with gray eyes in MERRY GO
ROUND?  Regardless, I think it's difficult to say
exactly what Dorothy, Trot, and Betsy look like with
any difinitude because they're usually described in
opposition to one another, saying where they are
dissimilar rather than how any one of them actually
looks.  I did notice, in my recent rereading of HIDDEN
PRINCE that Anna Cool gave Betsy that odd frilly cap
she wears in some of the portraits of her in TIK TOK
(perhaps the reason why some have suggested that Betsy
was once a maid). 

Alan Wise

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:54:38 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] Forbidden Fountain (first half)

Ruth:
>In the Nonestican past, we've commented on the difficulty of using Ozma as
>a central character, and on "Forbidden Fountain" as an example of getting
>around the difficulty by depriving Ozma of her vast powers. Re-reading, I
>notice that the story is also ingenious in keeping the Wizard and Glinda
>(whose vast powers are still with them) from locating Ozma straight off,
>through the device of turning Ozma temporarily into a purple moth.

Ozma also has the Magic Belt with her, making it impossible for the people
in the Emerald City to use that to retrieve her.  Of course, there's plenty
of other magic left in the capital.  Couldn't the Wizard use his Searchlight
to locate Ozma, or enlist the help of the Elf of the Silver Hammer?  I think
the book might actually take a better approach in just ignoring these other
magic items, but the careless way in which earlier authors (especially
Thompson) gave Ozma and the Wizard all of this powerful magic can make it
somewhat difficult for later writers to come up with a viable plot.  The
McGraws did an excellent job overall, though.

The McGraws seem to have a consistent view throughout FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN as
to how the Magic Belt works, but it doesn't entirely fit with what we read
in other books.  Ozma's wishes are granted when she puts her hands on the
Belt, which is something I seem to recall happening in other books as well. 
On the other hand, I seem to recall both Roquat and Dorothy waving their
arms when commanding the Belt in OZMA.  Also, LOST PRINCESS suggests that
wishes can only be granted once a day, and then only through the method
Dorothy uses in that story.  Perhaps none of Ozma's wishes are powerful
enough to count as the daily wish, though.

>Using the titular Forbidden Fountain to take away Ozma's memory (and thus
>her powers) is likewise ingenious, although Emerelda and her plan for
>selling limeade at the Clover Fair strike me as a bit too cutesy.

I had actually come up with the idea of Ozma drinking the Water of Oblivion
before being aware of FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN (but after it had been written).  I
was thinking of a story along those lines, and I had even come up with the
title THE FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN OF OZ for it, but it never actually got
anywhere.  When I heard about the McGraws' book, I was surprised that they 
had come up with a similar idea.

>The highwayman Tobias Bridlecull, Jr., otherwise Toby, is an enjoyable
>character

According to a talk Eloise McGraw gave at a few Oz Conventions (which was
later reprinted in the BUGLE, but I forget which issue), "high toby" and
"bridlecull" are both slang terms for a highwayman.  I understand that Toby
was also the original name of Rolly from RUNDELSTONE (which was largely a
salvaged version of an early draft of FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN), though, so maybe
she came up with the name before making a pun out of it.

>Unlike Realbad, who was forced into it, or Sameul Salt, whose background
>isn't explored, he's in his line of work through family tradition, and the
>Anglophilic McGraws give him a background that goes back into British
>tradition, in setting him on the Border in a Moor, and giving him a line of 
>British thieves' slang evidently borrowed from Georgette Heyer's Regency
>novels.

I find Toby's dialogue to be quite fun to read.  I feel the same way about 
some other Oz characters who speak in dialect, too.  (Cap'n Bill comes to
mind.)

>Toby's only bit of Swag, the Suggestion Box, with its weather-forecaster
>jargon adapted to more general advisings, is an amusing variation on the
>Oracle they had used in "Merry-go-Round."

A story by list member Randy Hoffman (well, he was a member at one point,
anyway) made the Suggestion Box an invention of Glegg, which seems
appropriate.

>The Bordermoor itself is an interesting idea. There had been various Oz
>books in which characters cross borders back and forth between the regions
>of Oz and notice the differences in colors, as the McGraws had done between 
>the Munchkin and Quadling countries in "Merry," but I think this is the
>first time the idea of a region of half-and-half colors had been used.

The Purple Wolf actually seems to be a bit of an oddity on the moor, since
he's apparently only one color.  Maybe he wandered in from Gillikin Country
proper before establishing his reign over the Bordermoor.

Nathan

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:31:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] Forbidden Fountain (first half)

--- Nathan Mulac DeHoff <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I understand that Toby
> was also the original name of Rolly from RUNDELSTONE
> (which was largely a
> salvaged version of an early draft of FORBIDDEN
> FOUNTAIN)

Does anyone know how RUNDELSTONE fit into the original
plot of FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN?  To me, they both seem too
tighly plotted to have room for the other.  I suppose
the gypsy wagon that Toby suggests they follow could
have been the that of the traveling puppets, and that
the dual climaxes of Ozma regaining her memory and the
puppets being resotred to themselves would have made
dramatic sense, but otherwise it seems hard to
imagine. 

Alan Wise

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:05:08 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] redheads

Intrigued by the mention of Betsy in "Fountain" as a redhead, I thought I'd
look at the covers and color plates to see if Neill might have been an
influence here. (The covers have been on pretty much all the editions.
Eloise might easily have seen the color plates as a child, although
color-plate editions were not easily available in the years when she and
Lauren were writing "Merry-go-Round" and "Fountain.") I didn't look at all
the books, but the main Betsy stories, "Tik-Tok" and "Hungry Tiger" (also
some others, as I'll note below.)

The color of "Hungry Tiger," and the color plate of Betsy greeting Ozma both
show her with red hair -- as red as Prince Reddy's. So, yes, the McGraws
could have been following Neill in describing Betsy as a redhead. Neill
wasn't consistent, though. (Pause for everyone to gasp in surprise.) In
other cps in "Tiger" and in the cover and cps of "Tik-Tok," he made Betsy
basically a blonde. That's to say, the effect is of a slightly darker yellow
than the flat yellow color he assigned in most of the books to Dorothy -- 
yellow ink overlaid with a sprinkling of red dots. You have to look closely,
though, to see the red dots as a red tint -- the immediate impression (at
least for me) is of a slightly darker yellow. This combination was something
of a favorite. Neill also gave this red-dotted yellow hair to Trot in
"Scarecrow" and to Dorothy in "Ozma" (and occasionally in other books, such
as "Lost Princess," although usually he went with the light yellow look of
plain yellow ink for her). But Neill showed Trot as brown-haired in "Sea
Fairies" and "Sky Island." In "Giant Horse," he gave her a rather
odd-looking dark grey hair color. In "Lost Princess," where the 3 girls
together appear in a lot of the scenes, I don't think Neill drew a color
plate of them (at least, I didn't find one paging through), but did one of
his b&w portrait pages -- very attractive, as was typical of his
portraits -- of the three together, showing Dorothy and Betsy as
light-haired, and Trot as dark-haired. So he wasn't exactly consistent with
any of the three, but the series as a whole would leave the impression that
Dorothy and Betsy were lighter-haired than Trot, who was lighter than Ozma,
and "Hungry Tiger" makes Betsy specifically a red-head (on the cover and one
cp). I don't think any of this is in any of Baum's texts, and only the black
hair for Ozma is in the post-Baum texts, until this FF mention of Betsy's
red hair. But I think that Betsy's red hair, like Ozma's black, results from
Neill's influence on the authors.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:20:43 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Fountain details

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> As for Dorothy, Rachel Cosgrove described her as blonde in HIDDEN VALLEY,
> and Nathan, I think, pointed out that Thompson said she had blue eyes in
> WISHING HORSE.  And isn't there a moment when the McGraws desribe Dorothy
> with gray eyes in MERRY GO ROUND? <

Yes, I'd forgotten the Cosgrove mention. I don't think any of Neill's color
portraits zoom in so close as to indicate eye-color, although either blue or
grey is likely with blonde hair. (And depending on lighting and surrounding
colors, almost anyone with blue or grey eyes can appear either blue-eyed or
grey-eyed.)

> I did notice, in my recent rereading of HIDDEN PRINCE that Anna Cool gave
> Betsy that odd frilly cap she wears in some of the portraits of her in TIK 
> TOK (perhaps the reason why some have suggested that Betsy was once a
> maid).  >

Probably one of the reasons. Also that she's off on an ocean cruise
apparently with no kith or kin, and the two likely ways for that to happen
are poor-little-rich-girl sent off on a cruise or just-plain-poor-girl there
as someone's attendant (and the apparent lack of attendants sounds a trifle
more like the latter).

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ozma also has the Magic Belt with her, making it impossible for the people 
> in the Emerald City to use that to retrieve her.  Of course, there's
> plenty of other magic left in the capital.  Couldn't the Wizard use his
> Searchlight to locate Ozma, or enlist the help of the Elf of the Silver
> Hammer?  I think the book might actually take a better approach in just
> ignoring these other magic items <

Perhaps we should assume a scene present, although not mentioned in the
narrative, before the Wizard hurries away to consult Glinda's Book of
Records, in which the Wizard tries a bunch of those other magic tools, and
they fail to locate Ozma in the moth-form? (Of course, the Searchlight found
people who had been transformed into clocks in "Ojo," but perhaps the 
Change-me-down magic might be assumed to be a more complete disguise.)

> The McGraws seem to have a consistent view throughout FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN
> as to how the Magic Belt works, but it doesn't entirely fit with what we
> read in other books.  Ozma's wishes are granted when she puts her hands on
> the Belt, which is something I seem to recall happening in other books as
> well.  On the other hand, I seem to recall both Roquat and Dorothy waving
> their arms when commanding the Belt in OZMA.  Also, LOST PRINCESS suggests
> that wishes can only be granted once a day, and then only through the
> method Dorothy uses in that story.  Perhaps none of Ozma's wishes are 
> powerful enough to count as the daily wish, though. >

I recall an article in the "Bugle" some years back about how the Magic Belt
worked, trying to find a way to let the different descriptions all in sync,
but don't remember if it discussed "Fountain." If I can locate it, I'll
check.

> A story by list member Randy Hoffman (well, he was a member at one point,
> anyway) made the Suggestion Box an invention of Glegg, which seems
> appropriate. >

Yes, that does sound plausible -- although on the whole it's a friendlier
sort of gadget than was typical of him. Maybe association with Toby could
have had something to do with that.

> The Purple Wolf actually seems to be a bit of an oddity on the moor, since 
> he's apparently only one color.  Maybe he wandered in from Gillikin
> Country proper before establishing his reign over the Bordermoor. >

I got the impression that the Bordermoor includes a lot of entities of each
color as well as a lot of them of both -- for instance, the mention of
"golden broom and low purple heather" along with."one of the big, bi-colored
birds" (near start of chapter 6). And the Purple Wolf isn't entirely
Purple -- he has golden teeth.

I like Dick Martin's artwork for the story a lot A particularly ingenious
drawing is the one near the end of Ozma uncapped but still in her boy's
clothes by a statue of the Scarecrow as King of Oz. The parenthetical
identification of the statue -- which Ozma herself doesn't recognize at that
point -- is a subtle reminder that Ozma-dressed-as-a-boy is similar in
appearance to Ozma-when-she-was-Tip,  in "Land of Oz," and helps prepare the
way for Jack Pumpkinhead to recognize her as herself (her Tip-self, that is)
at a glance. And following up on that hint, the illo shows the statue as
looking just like the Scarecrow as Neill drew him in :Land" (and the
signature on the illo is "DM/JRN"). The 1904 Neill Scarecrow is noticeably
different from the usual Martin Scarecrow (as in the picture near the front
of the Scarecrow conducting an Oz Octette of birds at the Clover Fair).

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:39:02 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] brewster & forbidden fountain

Ruth:
>Are people having trouble getting copies of "The Forbidden Fountain of Oz"?
>So far no one else has commented on it.

I have a copy, but it took me a while to get around to finishing a re-read
of it.  I finished yesterday, though, so expect several comments from me in
the near future.

>I was amused by the use of the convention of the Impenetrable Disguise.
>This is basically a silly convention, almost always more or less
>unbelievable, but, as Eloise McGraw commented in a letter to Dick Martin
>(included in the issue of the "Baum Bugle" that featured the McGraws and
>Martin), if Other people get to use it, then so do other people. And she
>did, and the reader just has to grant the possibility that Kabumpo (an
>elephant never forgets, you know) doesn't know her as Poppy, and neither do 
>her other old friends --  except Jack Pumpkinhead.

Kabumpo only recognizes her when she lets her hair out from under the cap. 
While Ozma has the cap on, no one even realizes she's a girl, which does
seem rather unbelievable.  Also somewhat difficult to believe was Kabumpo's
ability to trick his passengers into thinking they're going north instead of
south.  The McGraws resort to a few odd coincidences to make this
possible--the sky being overcast until noon, Toby and Lambert being too
captivated by the view to look at the map in the Passportal.  Still, the
McGraws do address these issues, and Ozma is suspicious of Kabumpo's excuses
and actions, so I wouldn't call it bad writing, despite the Ozzy reliance on
coincidences.

Another unlikely coincidence occurs when Kabumpo stamps his foot on the
Overpass, and happens to fall down a chute to the Underpass.

>This is one of the stories where the characters get their meals mostly off
>of magical plants -- tinglemint grass, doughnut-trees, cloudberry bushes
>(real in northern US, but in the context of the little meadow full of
>"aimlessly drifting clouds," it sounds as if these cloudberries aren't
>quite the same as ours), and so on. All ingeniously named and described.

While such plants are common throughout the Oz series, I thought the McGraws
did a particularly good job with them in this book, with clever and often
pun-driven details to the plants.  Doughnuts grow in shells that have to be
cracked, milk grows on milkweed, and marshmallows grow in marshes.  Thompson
actually made a marsh/marshmallow pun in YELLOW KNIGHT, in which Queen
Marcia of Marshland was eating them, but I don't think she went so far as to
say that they grew there.

Speaking of Marshland, the map in FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN suggests that the Great
Winkie Marsh might be the location of this kingdom.

>It was fun to have someone pick up on the claim that for a person who has
>been in the Truth Pond, telling a lie turns the ears green. (I forget just
>now which book makes that claim --  I think I remember that someone here
>suggested there was some reason to doubt the claim?)

FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN is the first and only book to mention this, but it could
possibly help to explain how some other characters who have bathed in the
pond (Button-Bright in SKY ISLAND and the Shaggy Man in his own book come to
mind) manage to lie.  Perhaps no one noticed their glowing ears in these
situations.  On the other hand, the Frogman seems to be totally unable to
hold back the truth (which fits in with the Truth Teller's statement on p.
64 that he "can't keep [his] mouth shut").  Since frogs don't have outer
ears, perhaps the green glow rule doesn't apply to him, and he has no choice
but to tell the truth.

>Odd waters make up a sort of theme (a running theme, you might say) in the
>story, what with the Fountain, the Pond, the rain-forest, the gozzers, the
>Pristinian Bathasphere, and the Troll Tollbridge.

Is the bridge-keeper the first troll in the Oz series?  I know there's a
kingdom of trolls in FORGOTTEN FOREST, but they don't act much like the
honey-loving creature in FOUNTAIN.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:56:23 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND and FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN echoes

J. L. Bell:
>* Mrs. Sew and Sew makes an appearance--from GRAMPA? [70] (There's also a
>seamstress in GNOME KING, and I sometimes mix them up.)

There are also a few mentions of characters from previous books in FORBIDDEN
FOUNTAIN.  Kabumpo recalls the Hungry Tiger's encounter with Ippty on p.  54.
  The excerpt from Glinda's Record Book refers to the Hoppers and Horners, 
as well as the "Prince of Regalia."  There's no real indication as to who
this prince actually is, though.  Randy is now King, and the Book would
presumably refer to him as such.  Is it possible that the Prince is Randy
and Planetty's son?  I don't think it's that unlikely that the two of them 
would have chosen to have children in the time between SILVER PRINCESS and
FOUNTAIN.  Regardless, there's also a clear reference to Randy himself on p.
63.

Incidentally, the water in Pumperdink's Dipping Well is referred to as being
navy blue in FOUNTAIN, which is consistent with KABUMPO.  PURPLE PRINCE, on
the other hand, made the water purple.  I actually prefer it blue, because I
would imagine a Gillikin would be more ashamed by being dyed in the color of
a different quadrant.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Eloise Jarvis McGraw & Lauren Lynn McGraw, Dick Martin

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:27:10 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] Forbidden Fountain animals, and hair and eye colors

Alan:
>Even when the animal characters aren't acting
>particularly to type (i.e. the rabbits of Bunnybury)
>they still are constrained to the traits of their
>species.

Ozian rabbits DO seem to have the unusual ability to use their paws as
hands, though.

>What brought this thought to mind while reading HIDDEN
>PRINCE was the number of times Wickwar's animals
>perform actions they resonably could not do.  Penny
>the teacup poodle carries things no five pound dog
>could; the Sawhorse leafs through the Great Book of
>Records despite having only gold-shod sticks for arms.

It's been a while since I've read HIDDEN PRINCE.  Is Penny's weight ever
specifically mentioned?  I believe a real teacup poodle would be around five
pounds, but I got the impression that Penny was bigger than this.  If Ozian
buttercups can produce real butter, I don't see why an Ozian teacup poodle
couldn't be somewhat larger in size than the Outside World breed of the same
name.  It's quite possible I'm forgetting some relevant information in
HIDDEN PRINCE, though.

>But all this brings me back to Kabumpo and what a
>satisfying animal character he is.  Thompson
>recognized something in the lugubrious grace of an
>elephant's movements and discovered Kabumpo's
>personality in that.  Here's an enormous animal that
>somehow moves with a quiet ease and she finds the
>pomposity and the tenderness in that to create one of
>her best celebrities -- a character who reoccurs with
>some frequency and yet his personality remains intact.

Yes, Kabumpo is also one of my favorites, and I've always found him to be
quite believable.  I did notice, however, that, like Thompson, the McGraws 
refer to him as a "two-ton elephant."  Doesn't an elephant actually weigh
considerably more than that?

>As for Dorothy, Rachel Cosgrove described
>her as blonde in HIDDEN VALLEY, and Nathan, I think,
>pointed out that Thompson said she had blue eyes in
>WISHING HORSE.  And isn't there a moment when the
>McGraws desribe Dorothy with gray eyes in MERRY GO
>ROUND?

I believe this reference is actually in Martin's OZMAPOLITAN, and they're
described as gray in contrast to Tim's deep blue eyes.  I think the best
solution would be to say that Dorothy has grayish-blue eyes.

The American visitor to Oz who is given the most detailed physical
description is probably Jenny Jump, who is described by Uncle Henry as
having red hair and green eyes.  Considering that she also has a leprechaun
godfather, I wouldn't be too surprised if Neill had intended her to be of
Irish ancestry.

>Does anyone know how RUNDELSTONE fit into the original
>plot of FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN?  To me, they both seem too
>tighly plotted to have room for the other.  I suppose
>the gypsy wagon that Toby suggests they follow could
>have been the that of the traveling puppets, and that
>the dual climaxes of Ozma regaining her memory and the
>puppets being resotred to themselves would have made
>dramatic sense, but otherwise it seems hard to
>imagine.

>From what I've heard, Eloise McGraw's original conception for FOUNTAIN had
both Ozma AND Dorothy lose their memories, and then somehow end up at
Whitheraway, where they help Poco with his search for his enchanted friends.
  I have no idea how this would have been resolved, or, indeed, if Eloise
had ever come up with a resolution.  As it is, while I do enjoy RUNDELSTONE,
I think it's good that a different plot was worked out for FOUNTAIN. 
(Besides, we get two whole Oz books that way!)

Ruth:
>Of course, there's the question of whether she might have been expected to
>recognize her from photos in the newspaper -- although the "Ozmapolitan" as
>the Oz newspaper was only implicit in the occasional R&L ads "reprinting"
>issues, until Dick Martin actually put it into the text of his Oz book.

The Scarecrow is described as "reading the paper" in HANDY MANDY, though, so
we can assume that Oz did have one at that point.  The impression in
OZMAPOLITAN seems to be that it's been around for some time, but the
circulation was rather unimpressive until after that story.

>I wonder if the McGraws were thinking of Dorothy as blonde (as Neill's
>drawings regularly show her), Trot as brown-haired, and Betsy as red, so
>that all can contrast with Ozma the black-haired (again, as regularly drawn 
>by Neill -- and RPT in turn so described her).

I think Thompson actually says that Ozma has BROWN hair in SPEEDY.  I can't
recall her ever mentioning Ozma having black hair, but it's quite possible
I'm forgetting a reference.  The McGraws, on the other hand, refer to the
Queen of Oz as black-haired in both MERRY GO ROUND and FOUNTAIN.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:12:07 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN general view of Oz

One thing I particularly like about the McGraw books is how real they make
Oz seem.  They appear to have a detailed and rather sensible approach to the
geography of Oz.  There's a mention on p. 85 of Kabumpo looking down from
the Overpass and seeing "rolling sheep lands, leveling into the flat South 
Gillikin plain," which suggests that the McGraws have the terrain of Oz
pretty well thought out, in contrast to Thompson's more haphazard approach. 
(By the way, isn't "Passepartout" a character from AROUND THE WORLD IN 80
DAYS?  I've never actually read that book.)  I also enjoyed the
parenthetical aside on p. 25 about Gillikin wood, and the idea of Lambert
being the "blank sheep," rather than the "black sheep."  (Apparently the
reference in ENCHANTED ISLAND to Kapurta having the only purple sheep in the
world is incorrect.)

There are also apparently different styles throughout the Gillikin Country,
as the Truth Teller is referred to as "wearing the two-pointed beard and
three-pointed hat distinctive of the region."  I know other Gillikins have
been described as wearing the typical Ozian pointed cap with bells.  Perhaps
that was a Munchkin fashion that spread into parts of the Gillikin Country,
while other parts preferred the three-cornered hats.

I also like that FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN starts out with a description of an
Ozian holiday, and a mention of the tradition of nuffet.  The former is said
to have become "a full-fledged Fair" during the Scarecrow's reign, which
means that there was at least one Clover Fair in between WIZARD and LAND. 

In what time of year is clover typically "in its prime," anyway?  This could
give some indication as to when the story takes place.

"Nuffet" is described as an "old Ozzish word."  I believe Thompson always
referred to the language as "Ozish."  Why the McGraws added an extra Z is
beyond me, since the country isn't called "Ozz."  There's also a reference
on p. 82 to "Oztory," rather than the more typical and Thompsonian
"hoztory."

There's a mention of "ozball courts" on p. 87.  Is this the first reference
to such a game?  It might be fun to work out some rules for the sport of
ozball.

The Maze is said to have been used "in the early days of the reign of
[Ozma's] father King Pastoria."  This is the same king who was said to have
been too absent-minded and kind-hearted to punish anybody.  Perhaps he
changed over the course of his reign.  Regardless, the Maze, like the
Forbidden Fountain itself, must predate the Emerald City as we know it.

One possibly controversial aspect to the McGraws' Oz is that money seems to
be in common use there.  There are several references to ozzos and piozters,
and an unused footnote worked out the entire Ozian monetary system, even
working in the quants and quingles referred to by Didjer Not in ENCHANTED
ISLAND.  While money is used in several situations after the Tin Woodman's 
blanket statement about Oz having no money in ROAD, it usually seems to be
rather uncommon, and used primarily in outlying communities.  In FOUNTAIN, 
however, money is apparently in widespread use within the Emerald City
itself.  I don't really have a problem with this, but it's a bit difficult 
to reconcile with the anti-money statements in the Baum books.  My preferred
explanation is that Ozma's redistribution system (as described in EMERALD
CITY) became less practical as progressively more outlying kingdoms began to
trade with the capital, and Ozma decided to reinstitute the use of money, on
a limited basis.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:31:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Gardner <hermiemunster at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Fountain details

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> The parenthetical
> identification of the statue -- which Ozma herself
> doesn't recognize at that
> point -- is a subtle reminder that
> Ozma-dressed-as-a-boy is similar in
> appearance to Ozma-when-she-was-Tip,  in "Land of
> Oz," and helps prepare the
> way for Jack Pumpkinhead to recognize her as herself
> (her Tip-self, that is)
> at a glance.

This made me wonder how similar to each other Tip and
Ozma actually look. I think I've always assumed they
didn't necessarily look the same or anything, in the
face or overall. In my mind I tend to picture Tip as a
little boy, but I think I usually don't see Ozma as a
little girl, even though she's described as that so
often.

I just finished FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN yesterday (after
initially starting it last May, I think). Because I
read it over such a long period of time in spurts, and
because of its odd shape, I can't really tell how it
compares to other Oz books lengthwise. Overall, it
does feel like it's a "quick" story, but I suppose
that makes sense considering it takes place over two
days (or three?).

Joe G.

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:00:53 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Fountain details

Joe Gardner:
>--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> > The parenthetical
> > identification of the statue -- which Ozma herself
> > doesn't recognize at that
> > point -- is a subtle reminder that
> > Ozma-dressed-as-a-boy is similar in
> > appearance to Ozma-when-she-was-Tip,  in "Land of
> > Oz," and helps prepare the
> > way for Jack Pumpkinhead to recognize her as herself
> > (her Tip-self, that is)
> > at a glance.
>
>This made me wonder how similar to each other Tip and
>Ozma actually look. I think I've always assumed they
>didn't necessarily look the same or anything, in the
>face or overall. In my mind I tend to picture Tip as a
>little boy, but I think I usually don't see Ozma as a
>little girl, even though she's described as that so
>often.

Well, since OZMA describes its title character as "neither older nor larger
than Dorothy herself," while TIN WOODMAN says that "Dorothy appeared much
younger than Ozma," I get the impression that Ozma allowed herself to age a
little bit during the first few years of her reign.  As for whether Ozma and
Tip look alike, I don't think there's really any indication one way or the
other.  It's possible that Mombi would have made sure that Tip looked
nothing like a member of the Ozian royal family, so as not to arouse
suspicion.  On the other hand, it's unlikely that Ozma would have looked
enough like previous rulers to make a totally different appearance
necessary.  Of course, if you accept Melody Grandy's explanation of the
matter, Tip would look nothing like Ozma, because that form was originally
that of a Prince of Lostland.

>I just finished FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN yesterday (after
>initially starting it last May, I think). Because I
>read it over such a long period of time in spurts, and
>because of its odd shape, I can't really tell how it
>compares to other Oz books lengthwise. Overall, it
>does feel like it's a "quick" story, but I suppose
>that makes sense considering it takes place over two
>days (or three?).

I think it's only two days, with one night spent in the Nightingarden.  Is 
that the shortest length of time over which a full-length Oz book takes
place?

FOUNTAIN is definitely a quick read, but I'm unsure how it compares to the
canonical Oz books.  It's clearly shorter than MERRY GO ROUND, though.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:46:17 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] straight from Eloise's mouth

Still catching up to FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, but here are some contributions
to the discussion.

Hungry Tiger Press's website has the transcript of a speech the McGraws
delivered at the Winkie Convention in 1983, after this book was
published. Here's the total text:

For those who like MP3's, here are their comments on money in Oz:

This speech was delivered well before Eloise McGraw went back to
complete RUNDELSTONE. Yet we can see she and her daughter had already
started imagining Slyddwyn, the villain in that book. As I recall, he
and the marionette troupe originally encountered Ozma in FORBIDDEN
FOUNTAIN, but their history grew big enough that they had to have their
own book. The BUGLEs published around the time of RUNDELSTONE have a bit
more to say, and include Lauren McGraw's character sketches.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:48:44 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Oz animals

Alan Wise wrote:
> While re-reading Gina Wikwar's generally entertaining
> HIDDEN PRINCE OF OZ this weekend, it occured to me
> that part of what makes a satisfying Ozian celebrity
> animal is that they ALWAYS behave in recognizably
> animal ways.  Toto barks and wags his tail; Hank the
> mule kicks; the Cowardly Lion crouches and leaps.
> Even when the animal characters aren't acting
> particularly to type (i.e. the rabbits of Bunnybury)
> they still are constrained to the traits of their
> species. 

There are some animals who seem to have left their ancestry behind,
particularly those who've expanded: Prof Wogglebug, the Frogman. (Percy
is an exception in that pattern.) But Baum also describes them as
dressing flashily, like parvenu social climbers, so that attitude toward
their less civilized roots makes sense.

One mental element of each animal's animal-ness, particularly in LOST
PRINCESS, is that each one feels sure his or her species is the equal
of, if not superior to, all others.

I was a bit disappointed that Imogene the cow in Eric Shanower's GIANT
GARDEN wasn't more bovine. Not that she did things that a cow can't
physically do, but her speech and attitudes struck me as what Dorothy
would hear from a middle-aged female human companion. Contrast that with
Billina in OZMA, who challenges Dorothy on diet and other matters,
coming from her chicken perspective.

> What brought this thought to mind while reading HIDDEN
> PRINCE was the number of times Wickwar's animals
> perform actions they resonably could not do.  Penny
> the teacup poodle carries things no five pound dog
> could; the Sawhorse leafs through the Great Book of
> Records despite having only gold-shod sticks for arms.
>  These lapses take me out of the fantasy of the book
> and make it difficult for me to read with pleasure.

I did wonder about Penny the poodle. Is she a teacup poodle because
she's so small, or simply because she has a teacup? The teacup can
expand and contract, so perhaps some of her other burdens can, too.

My favorite animal character in HIDDEN PRINCE is the feathered boa, who
may not act like a boa constrictor but acts just the way a *feathered*
boa should. I even bought one of Cool's illustrations of her. But she
doesn't get to do much once she joins the greatly expanding search party.

In RUNDELSTONE, there's another difficulty with depicting Ozian animals,
which I discussed in my BUGLE review. The whole plot depends on
enchanted animals not being able to tell anyone about their
enchantments. So they end up staying mute or barking, like their
equivalents in the Great Outside World. And other characters aren't
supposed to notice the oddity of these animals acting that way while no
other animals in the series do.

Eloise McGraw had done some very nice work with animal characters in
MERRY-GO-ROUND and FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN: Flitter, Fred, the Unicorn,
Lambert. I think she felt hemmed in by the demands of her plot, and
decided to solve the problem with the explanation that animals in rural
areas don't talk so much. Yet animals in the Ozian wild, starting with
the Cowardly Lion, certainly do.

Baum used shame as the reason Bilbil doesn't reveal his enchantment in
RINKITINK. Thompson let Pajuka talk about being a prime minister in LOST
KING, but not do anything else about it under threat of (as I recall)
disappearing. In HANDY MANDY, Nox is suffering from amnesia. Any other
examples of alternative ways to deal with the enchanted animal problem?

> But all this brings me back to Kabumpo and what a
> satisfying animal character he is.  Thompson
> recognized something in the lugubrious grace of an
> elephant's movements and discovered Kabumpo's
> personality in that.  Here's an enormous animal that
> somehow moves with a quiet ease and she finds the
> pomposity and the tenderness in that to create one of
> her best celebrities -- a character who reoccurs with
> some frequency and yet his personality remains intact.
>  He even makes it safely into the hands of the McGraws
> and feels just fresh and alive as he ever did.  In
> FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, Kabumpo has all the familiar
> bluster covering up his affection for his friends, the
> same sly bit of mischief that sometimes subverts his
> dignity.  But he's always recognizably elephantine
> too: his bulk bursting through the gates of the Wyndup
> town; the sinuous movements of his trunk; even his
> abiity to move silently despite his size.  He's always
> very real and very appealing. 

The McGraws' use of Kabumpo as a major character in FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN
strikes me as a rare, perhaps unique, example of Oz authors not only
picking up a character from one of Baum's other successors, but doing
well by that character: maintaining the essential personality over an
extended time.

Neill picked up a few Thompson characters--Kabumpo, Sir Hokus, Wantowin
Battles--but changed their circumstances greatly. And what he did to
Scraps, Jack Pumpkinhead, etc., sometimes makes me wonder how closely
he'd read Baum's manuscripts. Ironically, the only other possible
example of picking up a character I can think of is how Jinx the Mifket
in OZMAPOLITAN is fairly consistent with Neill's hot-tempered but
eager-to-please Mifkit in SCALAWAGONS.

Baum's successors managed with varying success to replicate most of his
characters. Copyright concerns no doubt made some of Thompson's and
Neill's off-limits to others, but it feels like Kabumpo was the only
personality big enough to demand a return appearance.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:06:23 -0600
From: David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com>
Subject: [Regalia] The High Toby

Nathan:
> According to a talk Eloise McGraw gave at a few Oz Conventions (which
> was
> later reprinted in the BUGLE, but I forget which issue), "high toby"
> and
> "bridlecull" are both slang terms for a highwayman.

At least in Georgette Heyer's version of Regency criminal cant (which
is pretty much all I know of it), "the high toby" is the occupation of
being a highwayman as opposed to the highwayman himself - so a
bridlecull is someone who's on the high toby, in the same manner as a
parson is someone who's in the church, or a sailor is one who's on the
high seas.

David Hulan

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:47:57 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] Re: Oz animals

J. L. Bell:
>In RUNDELSTONE, there's another difficulty with depicting Ozian animals,
>which I discussed in my BUGLE review. The whole plot depends on enchanted
>animals not being able to tell anyone about their enchantments. So they end 
>up staying mute or barking, like their equivalents in the Great Outside
>World. And other characters aren't supposed to notice the oddity of these
>animals acting that way while no other animals in the series do.

Yes, I also thought that was rather problematic.

>Baum used shame as the reason Bilbil doesn't reveal his enchantment in
>RINKITINK. Thompson let Pajuka talk about being a prime minister in LOST
>KING, but not do anything else about it under threat of (as I recall)
>disappearing. In HANDY MANDY, Nox is suffering from amnesia. Any other
>examples of alternative ways to deal with the enchanted animal problem?

The most common method seems to be a transformation accompanied by amnesia. 
While it's true that Nox has lost his memory of his life before becoming
Royal Ox of Keretaria, there's no indication that he was transformed.  A
more relevant example would be Agnes from GIANT HORSE.  There are also
several examples of this happening to people who are turned into things
OTHER than animals: Peg Amy, Pastoria, Pretty Good/Urtha, etc.  This seems 
to have been a device primarily employed by Thompson.

>Neill picked up a few Thompson characters--Kabumpo, Sir Hokus, Wantowin
>Battles--but changed their circumstances greatly.

I wouldn't really call Wantowin a Thompson character.  Thompson just came up
with that name for a Baum character, and one who already had a name, at
that.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:07:42 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Fountain details

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> While such plants are common throughout the Oz series, I thought the
> McGraws did a particularly good job with them in this book, with clever
> and often pun-driven details to the plants.  Doughnuts grow in shells that
> have to be cracked, milk grows on milkweed, and marshmallows grow in
> marshes.  Thompson actually made a marsh/marshmallow pun in YELLOW KNIGHT,
> in which Queen Marcia of Marshland was eating them, but I don't think she
> went so far as to say that they grew there. >

Actually, marshmallows do grow in marshes -- although the roots don't come
in the shape of small white rounds in their natural state in our world. You
have to grind them up and combine them with a lot of sugar and stuff to get
that kind of marshmallow hereabouts.

> Is the bridge-keeper the first troll in the Oz series? <

Yes, I think so.

> There are also a few mentions of characters from previous books in
> FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN.  Kabumpo recalls the Hungry Tiger's encounter with
> Ippty on p. 54. The excerpt from Glinda's Record Book refers to the
> Hoppers and Horners, as well as the "Prince of Regalia." There's no real
> indication as to who this prince actually is, though.  Randy is now King,
> and the Book would presumably refer to him as such.  Is it possible that
> the Prince is Randy and Planetty's son? <

Certainly possible, but I think it's more likely that the prince is Randy,
in the same way that Ozma is a princess. In terms of root meanings, "prince"
and "princess" imply "ruler" ("first-taking"), and "monarch, king" is still
among its meanings in English.

> Incidentally, the water in Pumperdink's Dipping Well is referred to as
> being navy blue in FOUNTAIN, which is consistent with KABUMPO.  PURPLE
> PRINCE, on the other hand, made the water purple.  I actually prefer it
> blue, because I would imagine a Gillikin would be more ashamed by being
> dyed in the color of a different quadrant. >

Sounds plausible. But navy blue and a dark purple are pretty close in color.
I wonder if the wellwater's color might be perceived as either depending on
surroundings and lighting?

> I think Thompson actually says that Ozma has BROWN hair in SPEEDY.  I 
> can't recall her ever mentioning Ozma having black hair, but it's quite
> possible I'm forgetting a reference.  The McGraws, on the other hand, 
> refer to the Queen of Oz as black-haired in both MERRY GO ROUND and
> FOUNTAIN. <

Maybe I'm mis-remembering which books made such references. I'll try to
check to see if I find some RPT examples.

> (By the way, isn't "Passepartout" a character from AROUND THE WORLD IN 80
> DAYS?  I've never actually read that book.)  <

Yes, but it's a nickname. A "passepartout" ("go through everywhere") is a
master key (not the same sort of mastery as in Baum's, of course). Rather to
my surprise, I see the dictionary also lists as meanings of the word a type
of picture-framing in which the assemblage of glass, picture, & backing is
held together by strips of paper or cloth pasted round the edges., and a
type of paper gummed on one side for mounting pictures.

> In what time of year is clover typically "in its prime," anyway?  This
> could give some indication as to when the story takes place. >

Comes into bloom in the spring and stays in bloom all summer long, I think.
Maybe May for the story? The Clover Fair has a kind of
Mayday-flower-festival sound. (Mayday in Minnesota is always a bit of a
disappointment, as violets are about the only flowers in bloom by then. The
daffodils and such are a bit later here.)

> "Nuffet" is described as an "old Ozzish word."  I believe Thompson always
> referred to the language as "Ozish."  Why the McGraws added an extra Z is
> beyond me, since the country isn't called "Ozz."  <

Probably wanting to stress that they're pronouncing Oz as in "ahs," not as
in "ohs."

Joe Gardner <hermiemunster at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This [Jack's recognition of Ozma in boy's outfit] made me wonder how
> similar to each other Tip and Ozma actually look. I think I've always
> assumed they didn't necessarily look the same or anything, in the face or
> overall. <

They wouldn't have to, and if you assume (as Melody Grandy and Dave
Hardenbrook did for their fiction) that there was an actual Tippetarius
whose form was switched with Ozma's (like Jellia Jamb and Mombi when Mombi
disguises herself in "Land"), they probably wouldn't. But if you assume that
the spell worked by changing Ozma's form, rather than by switching forms
with someone else, it's could well be that the changes would leave the face
and figure pretty much the same. Baum's description of Tip as slight and
delicate suggests that he was thinking of the boy and girl versions of
Tip/Ozma as similar in appearance. Presumably that's also the thinking in
those stage adaptations in which the same woman (or boy, as in the
Minneapolis Children's Theater Company's production) plays both.

Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:08:32 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] mcgraws & enchantments

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hungry Tiger Press's website has the transcript of a speech the McGraws
> delivered at the Winkie Convention in 1983, after this book was published.  
> <

Thanks for the reminder.

> There are some animals who seem to have left their ancestry behind,
> particularly those who've expanded: Prof Wogglebug, the Frogman. (Percy is 
> an exception in that pattern.) But Baum also describes them as dressing
> flashily, like parvenu social climbers, so that attitude toward their less 
> civilized roots makes sense. >

The Frogman is still willing to do some spectacular jumping, at need, but
would prefer not to.

David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> At least in Georgette Heyer's version of Regency criminal cant (which is
> pretty much all I know of it), "the high toby" is the occupation of being
> a highwayman as opposed to the highwayman himself - so a bridlecull is
> someone who's on the high toby, in the same manner as a parson is someone
> who's in the church, or a sailor is one who's on the high seas. >

I think Heyer's research is pretty reliable. The only caveat I've seen
offered is that her slang is gathered from documents ranging over a long
period (from mid 18th-century to mid-19th, I think), so that it's unlikely
that all of it would be getting used all together by Regency speakers.

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> The most common method [of preventing the enchanted from asking for
> disenchantment] seems to be a transformation accompanied by amnesia.
> While it's true that Nox has lost his memory of his life before becoming
> Royal Ox of Keretaria, there's no indication that he was transformed.  A
> more relevant example would be Agnes from GIANT HORSE.  <

Likewise the enchantment that leaves a human a human but with changed
appearance and memory-loss, as with Agnes' mistress Tattypoo. A lot of
enchantments seem to come in layers, with amnesia the second layer, but a
first layer in which the main defense is to turn the person into something
that cannot even speak, as with Peg Amy as tree, Urtha as garden-flowers,
Marygolden as statue, Flummox and her brothers as doorknobs. (Although I
think I recall that J.L. Bell suggested that they might really be gabooches,
and the human shapes at the end of "Lucky Bucky" a turnstyle enchantment?)
If I'm recalling correctly, there's nothing to stop Notta and Bob from
revealing the enchantment (or, rather, the threat of an enchantment) that
will stop them from running away from their errand of capturing the Cowardly
Lion, except that they don't run into anyone who seems likely to be able to
break the spell. In Jack Snow's short story "Murder in Oz," it's never
explained what form of existence Tip still had after he'd been turned into
Ozma, or how murdering Ozma would restore his existence, or how he could
murder her while he was still a nonentity -- those are all just givens to
set the story up.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:43:49 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] ps on colors

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I can't recall [Thompson's] ever mentioning Ozma having black hair, but
>> it's quite possible I'm forgetting a reference.  The McGraws, on the
>> other hand, refer to the Queen of Oz as black-haired in both MERRY GO
>> ROUND and FOUNTAIN. <
and I said I'd try to find the examples I thought I remembered.

Turned out the examples were there, but they don't say "black" as such -- 
there are references to Ozma as having "dark curls" (emerald crown resting
on,) in "Lost King" and "Handy Mandy," and as being a "dark-haired fairy"
("Ozoplaning"). So RPT could have been thinking black or could have been
thinking dark brown, but either way she's clearly following Neill's lead in
her coloration.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:30:53 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] Fountain details

Ruth:
>"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>While such plants are common throughout the Oz series, I thought the
>>McGraws did a particularly good job with them in this book, with clever 
>>and often pun-driven details to the plants.  Doughnuts grow in shells that
>>have to be cracked, milk grows on milkweed, and marshmallows grow in
>>marshes.  Thompson actually made a marsh/marshmallow pun in YELLOW KNIGHT,
>>in which Queen Marcia of Marshland was eating them, but I don't think she
>>went so far as to say that they grew there. >
>
>Actually, marshmallows do grow in marshes -- although the roots don't come
>in the shape of small white rounds in their natural state in our world. You 
>have to grind them up and combine them with a lot of sugar and stuff to get 
>that kind of marshmallow hereabouts.

I think I knew that at one point, actually.  I assume Ozian marshmallows
grow in the form of white, sugary pillows, however.

>>There are also a few mentions of characters from previous books in
>>FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN.  Kabumpo recalls the Hungry Tiger's encounter with
>>Ippty on p. 54. The excerpt from Glinda's Record Book refers to the
>>Hoppers and Horners, as well as the "Prince of Regalia."  There's no real
>>indication as to who this prince actually is, though.  Randy is now King,
>>and the Book would presumably refer to him as such.  Is it possible that
>>the Prince is Randy and Planetty's son? <
>
>Certainly possible, but I think it's more likely that the prince is Randy,
>in the same way that Ozma is a princess. In terms of root meanings,
>"prince" and "princess" imply "ruler" ("first-taking"), and "monarch, king"
>is still among its meanings in English.

That's true.  I find it interesting that, on p. 80, Kabumpo refers to Ozma 
as both "Princess" and "Queen" in the same sentence.

If it IS Randy who had a birthday party, then his birthday is presumably
around the time of the Clover Fair.  Birthday parties, especially those for
monarchs, aren't necessarily on the same day as the person's actual
birthday, though.

>>Incidentally, the water in Pumperdink's Dipping Well is referred to as
>>being navy blue in FOUNTAIN, which is consistent with KABUMPO.  PURPLE
>>PRINCE, on the other hand, made the water purple.  I actually prefer it
>>blue, because I would imagine a Gillikin would be more ashamed by being 
>>dyed in the color of a different quadrant. >
>
>Sounds plausible. But navy blue and a dark purple are pretty close in
>color. I wonder if the wellwater's color might be perceived as either
>depending on surroundings and lighting?

That's quite possible, I think.  Or maybe there's been more than one color 
of dye in the well at various times.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:50:50 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN Wizard, Kabumpo, and argle-bargle

On p. 30, we learn that the Wizard "did not like telling whoppers even in a
good cause."  Certainly a change from his early days, when he fooled the
entire country into thinking he was a powerful wizard!

I find it a bit odd that Kabumpo would never have seen the Magic Picture
before (as reported on p. 52), but I can't actually recall a situation when
he DID look at it, at least in the FF.  In this book, the picture is in a
greenwood frame, as opposed to the radium one it has in TIK-TOK.  Has the
frame been described as being made of any other materials?

When the Wizard insists that the Picture is "never out of order," he must be
forgetting the events of HANDY MANDY, when the Wizard of Wutz was unable to
get it to work.

Kabumpo seems to have decided on a pretty regular route from Pumperdink to
the Emerald City and back, and is only lost due to the efforts of Dumpling
Dumptruck.  He apparently takes different routes to the capital in KABUMPO,
LOST KING, and PURPLE PRINCE, all of which have him encountering obstacles
he hadn't seen before (Rith Metic, Shadow Mountain, the River Road, etc.).

Is "argle-bargle" a term that Eloise McGraw invented?  I recall a BUGLE
article mentioning how it had turned up in at least one of her non-Oz books.
  I like the term, and I remember casually making a reference to an
"Argle-Bargle Island" in one of my own Oz stories.  Now that I think about
it, this might be a good name for the island to which Tattypoo sent Toby's
relatives.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:24:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN Kabumpo

--- Nathan Mulac DeHoff <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I find it a bit odd that Kabumpo would never have
> seen the Magic Picture
> before (as reported on p. 52), but I can't actually
> recall a situation when
> he DID look at it, at least in the FF. 

I was struck by the idea that Kabumpo could make it
that far into the palace, up the stairs, and into
Ozma's private chambers where the Magic Picture is.  I
mean, of course the grand hallways and the rooms of
state would be large enough to house an elephant, but
wouldn't they have to take the hinges off the doors at
least to get him into the more private (and presumably
smaller) parts of the palace? 

Alan Wise

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:11:01 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] straight from Eloise's mouth

J. L. Bell:
>Hungry Tiger Press's website has the transcript of a speech the McGraws
>delivered at the Winkie Convention in 1983, after this book was published.
>Here's the total text:
><

>
>
>For those who like MP3's, here are their comments on money in Oz:
><

>

The book she was thinking of with a boy paying a toll was, of course,
ENCHANTED ISLAND, rather than GNOME KING.

Very interesting to read and hear, by the way.  I actually seem to recall
discussing the money issue with Eloise when I met her at my first Munchkin
Convention.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:55:36 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] argle-bargle etc.

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Is "argle-bargle" a term that Eloise McGraw invented?  I recall a BUGLE
> article mentioning how it had turned up in at least one of her non-Oz
> books. I like the term, and I remember casually making a reference to an
> "Argle-Bargle Island" in one of my own Oz stories.  Now that I think about
> it, this might be a good name for the island to which Tattypoo sent Toby's 
> relatives. <

I'm sure I've run across it in other contexts, but don't remember where.
It's probably one of the Regency slang terms that Georgette Heyer uses in
her novels (if I'm right in remembering that it's Toby who uses it here),
but it may be wider spread than that. "Webster's Collegiate" doesn't list
it, but has the similar word "argy-bargy," which is British slang from the
late 19th century.

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I was struck by the idea that Kabumpo could make it that far into the
> palace, up the stairs, and into Ozma's private chambers where the Magic
> Picture is.  I mean, of course the grand hallways and the rooms of state
> would be large enough to house an elephant, but wouldn't they have to take 
> the hinges off the doors at least to get him into the more private (and
> presumably smaller) parts of the palace?   >

Interesting question. If the stairways and the halls are big enough for him
to pass, perhaps he could see the picture from the doorway without actually
needing to follow the others into the room? (The narrative says they all
went into the room, but perhaps in the context of a group milling about
standing at the door might count as in?)



Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 15:19:15 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN villainy and mistrust

An interesting thing about FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN is that there are no major
villains.  In a way, it's kind of similar to OJO, in that the hero travels 
with two companions who are basically on the same side, but don't really
trust each other.  On the other hand, OJO has a real villain, and there's
some inner conflict on Realbad's part.  Should he protect Ojo, or trade him
in for sapphires?  And the lack of trust is more one-sided.  Snufferbux
doesn't trust Realbad, but the bandit doesn't have much reason to feel the
same way about the bear.  In FOUNTAIN,  both Toby and Kabumpo are trying to
do what they think is best for Ozma, but, circumstances being what they are,
they end up being at odds.  Kabumpo thinks Toby has kidnapped Ozma, and Toby
finds the elephant's lies to be suspicious.  I think the McGraws did an
excellent job of getting some real conflict out of the story without any
real villains.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 09:03:28 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] villainlessness & wunnerful cars

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> An interesting thing about FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN is that there are no major
> villains.  In a way, it's kind of similar to OJO, in that the hero travels
> with two companions who are basically on the same side, but don't really
> trust each other.  On the other hand, OJO has a real villain, and there's
> some inner conflict on Realbad's part. <

Interesting comparison & contrast. Absence of villains throws the emphasis
on the conflicts of good motives -- which in some ways is more interesting
than just having a bad guy.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:30:22 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN villainy and mistrust

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
> An interesting thing about FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN is that there are no major
> villains.  In a way, it's kind of similar to OJO, in that the hero travels
> with two companions who are basically on the same side, but don't really
> trust each other.  On the other hand, OJO has a real villain, and there's
> some inner conflict on Realbad's part.  Should he protect Ojo, or trade him
> in for sapphires?  And the lack of trust is more one-sided.  Snufferbux
> doesn't trust Realbad, but the bandit doesn't have much reason to feel the 
> same way about the bear.  In FOUNTAIN,  both Toby and Kabumpo are trying to
> do what they think is best for Ozma, but, circumstances being what they are,
> they end up being at odds.

I see what you're saying, but I'd also say that OJO has quite a major
villain in Mooj, and subsidiary ones in the bandits and gypsies. Ozma
does quite a lot of mopping up at the end of that book. Mooj may not be
on stage a lot, but he sets the whole plot in motion by taking over
Seebania and later putting a price on Ojo's head.

FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN indeed has no villains; the problem its characters
are trying to solve starts with an accident, akin to the natural
disasters that set off journeys to Oz in some of Baum's early books and
later. The only person to blame is a well-meaning little girl, and of
course we can't blame her.

You've also put your finger on an important aspect of the McGraws' plot:
the group of companions at the center of the action are at odds with
each other. In WIZARD, ROAD, EMERALD CITY, etc., all the travelers are
united. Occasionally there's friction among them, as when Eureka wants
to eat a piglet or two. But no one's keeping secrets from anyone else.
Even in TIK-TOK and LOST PRINCESS, in which the search parties have
different and potentially competing goals, they make common cause.

Thompson seems to have broadened that model to depict groups of
travelers that are at odds with each other. While KABUMPO doesn't
exactly fit that mold, it does present us with a conflict: Pompa sets
out to marry Ozma, so even though we root for him we also anticipate
that our old friend Ozma won't be interested. In COWARDLY LION Crunch
turns out to be an unhelpful companion. Then there's the distrust
between hero and villain(ess) in LOST KING and GNOME KING. The heroes
actually try to turn villain in PIRATES, and do a lousy job at it, while
the true villains are feuding among themselves. Thompson was much less
forgiving toward (non-royal) villains in her denouements than Baum. But
she also seems to have been alert to the plot possibilities of setting
hero and villain alongside each other for a while, and villains
competing with each other, and heroes suspicious of each other.

The McGraws don't seem to have Thompson's need for a villain and
retribution at the end. They're light-handed toward Sir Greves and
Roundelay in MERRY GO ROUND. In fact, in their published remarks on
RUNDELSTONE they seem to be rather fond of Slydwynn, the villain in that
book, and I can't really see why.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:44:20 -0600
From: David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com>
Subject: [Regalia] McGraws and Heyer

Ruth:
> We talked here earlier about probable influence of Georgette Heyer in
> the
> portrayal of Toby and his highwayman's slang in "Forgotten Fountain,"
> and
> there's certainly a lot of Anglophile attitude in such elements as an
> aristocracy, heraldry, and fox-hunting (although, as was pointed out
> here,
> there are US fox-hunting types, too).

In a talk she gave at a Winkie convention in 1993 or 1994, McGraw
specifically stated that the character of Toby was a tribute she and
Lauren paid to Heyer. I found a Heyerish atmosphere even in the
fox-hunting section of Merry-Go-Round (which I read about the time I
was also reading Heyer for the first time), so I was pleased to know
that the McGraws were Heyer fans.

David Hulan