#map of oz

II) The Land of Oz

Now, what is truly fascinating is that for the release of the movie, Disney published an official map of Oz as it appears in the movie – in fact it is the same map that appears several times in the movie.

However before that, let’s tackle the biggest issue with this movie: is Oz a dream or not?

The movie tries to mix together two conflict canon, the books where Oz is real, and the MGM movie where Oz is a dreamland. As a result… on one side Oz is visibly real, since the Wizard is not knocked on the head in any way, is rather carried there by a magical tornado, and later appears in Dorothy’s story. But on the other side, Dorothy’s story per the MGM movie was a dream, and the Wizard, just like Dorothy, sees in Oz beings and creatures reflecting his reality – the lions, the monkeys, the circus music in the plants, Glinda being a reflection of Wanda, the Little China Girl being the wheelchair girl… too many coincidences for it not to mean something. The result is extremely confusing. But that’s the main trouble with this movie: in terms of Ozian lore, it is infuriating by its desire to take from both canons without fully indulging in any.

Now, to get on to Oz itself…

They kept the idea of Oz being split into several distinct sections, which is nice. The Emerald City is at the center of Oz and has its own, green-colored region. The official map mentions a “Green Lake” nearby, which is not appearing in the movie but is actually a nod to the mysterious lake Baum added on his Oz maps without ever using it in a story. The most interesting twist is that in this version, there are actually four yellow brick roads, each linking the City to a different part of Oz.

In the north, you have the purple-colored Gillikin Country, which appears on the officla map, but is absolutely forgotten in the movie. It is never mentioned, does not appear and doesn’t play any role – the official map doesn’t even has landmarks for it. Since Glinda in this movie is the witch of the South, there is no witchy presence in the North – and even more, on the official map, the Northern Yellow Brick Road is the only one that is not tied or crosses over with the other Yellow roads (ALL the other Yellow Brick Roads are tied together in one big system).

In the South, you have the Quadling Country. It seems to be red-colored, in theory. You see, the thing is that on the official map the colors of the countries are very pale – and the one of the South is so pale it doesn’t seem like it has any color at all. It looks to be the same beige as the paper of the map, until you look really close and note some faded red/pink colors on the borders. The only real noticeable landmark is “Glinda’s Castle”, which is the small bubble-protected kingdom Glinda built in the South during her exile. Because yes, she visibly had enough time to build there a castle – unless it was always there and she merely took over. In the movie, this is where Glinda united her “forces” by gathering people who were oppressed/wronged by the Wicked Witch and knew the truth. Three groups are here: the Quadlings (the simple, rural folks living in the South. Look like humans with strange mustaches/hairdos/outfits – mostly farmers, though others also have jobs such as iron-smiths, sewers, bakers or scarecrow-makers) ; the Tinkerers (old, bearded and bald men with pointy ears, most walking with canes or in wheelchairs, and who are able to build anything – probably a mix of elves makers and the Winkies from the novel) and the Munchkins (who are just like in the MGM movie – interestingly not all the Munchkins joined Glinda’s side, one actually works as the Herald of the Emerald City, but ultimately turns out to be a double agent for Glinda – but it leads the question, if Evanora can spy in Glinda’s protected kingdom, how come she did not realize her own city herald was a spy?).

At one point we also see a bunch of wild mountains located at the border between the South and… the Munchkin realm, let’s call that. The mountains there are shaped like giant animals (one is a stone lion, another a titanic elephant) and they have on them strange sights such as flowers made of crystals/gems.

And then… the East and the West. Oh boy. That’s the mess.

You see, they inverted the East and the West. Which isn’t wrong in itself, because this is a nod to the real Oz maps: the first Oz maps in the books had confused the directions, putting East on the left and West on the right, resulting in an ongoing debate over whether the directions are inverted in Oz or not. HOWEVER… the mistake the movie And this precise map made is that they did not invert the directions on the map, East is still on the right as in our world’s maps. Not, they inverted the directions when it comes to the people. The Winkies are put in the East and the Munchkins in the West. Which doesn’t make any sense since for example Evanora goes to rule over the Munchkins and become the Wicked Witch of the East… in the West, according to the official map (which is the same map used in the movie).

Anyway.

The Yellow Land of the Winkies (normally in the West, but on the map and the movie in the East) is actually where the Wizard begins his journey. His balloon falls in “The Winkie Peaks”, in the North-East, right next to Ugabu (another book nod). The Winkie Peaks is a set of twisted canyons and weird mountains – they are covered in snow in their highest and most northern parts, which then melt into waterfalls, rivers and lakes. This area is filled with strange sights: butterfly looking like flowers ; giants plants ; reeds making music ; and “water fairies”, small mischievous sprites who love to bite people. This is also where the Wizard meets Theodora – and this actually is never explained. Why is she so far away from Oz? And why is she in an area FILLED WITH WATER?

They then go into what the map calls the “Enchanted Forest”, which looks mostly like a regular forest. Except that it is filled with lions. This is also where they meet Finley, a small winged monkey with a bellhop outfit, who just escaped after his master’s house was destroyed by the Wicked Witch winged baboons. Here is something else that never got explained: what exactly is Finley? He looks a lot like the winged monkeys the Wicked Witch uses in the MGM movie. But in this continuity, the Wicked Witches use flying baboons. And while Finley has similarities to them (a winged ape with human clothes), he also doesn’t look like them AT ALL – he can speak where they cannot, he is gentle and kind where they are brutal and cruel, and he has feathered wings where they have bat wings.

Finally, in the movie they leave the Winkie Country by using the Yellow Brick Road, which leads them through a patch of blue flowers. And here is actually another interesting confusion: in the movie, it is implied that each gate of Oz has in front of it a patch of flowers tied to the land it faces. The eastern gate has blue flowers; the western gate has yellow flowers, and the southern gate has red flowers – the deadly poppies. Which would make sense… if they hadn’t switched the two countries. So, while the blue flowers face the East, according to the map they face the yellow Winkie Country. Same with the yellow flowers in front of the blue Munchkin Country. In fact, it seems that in the movie the East with the Peaks and the Enchanted Forest, was supposed to be the Munchkin Land of the MGM movie – after all the Enchanted Forest is the one of the MGM movie where they meet the Lion, the Tin Man and the talking apple trees. But the official map put them in the Winkie section.

And the deadly poppy fields are even more confusing – while they are supposed to face South, because they are red and are not near the Eastern Yellow Brick Road, the movie and the map explain that the field is actually East, and borders the Enchanted Forest. It is also confusing because in the MGM movie it is implied that the poppy field is a spell cast by the Wicked Witch, but here they are an already existing area everyone in Oz avoids because “one sniff” of the flowers and you fall into an eternal sleep.

As for the Winkies themselves, just like in the MGM movie they are represented as tall soldiers with hooked noses and chins – they are the personal guards of the Wicked Witches. However, contrary to the MGM movie, they do not have green skin, they rather have yellow skins (a nod to how their color is yellow).

And then you have the Eastern – I mean, Western part of Oz, the blue-colored Munchkin country. Only three areas are visited here: the China Country, a nod to the book, a city made of giant china cups and teapots, inhabited by living china figures. The town got entirely destroyed by the flying baboons, because they celebrated the arrival of the Wizard which angered the Wicked Witch, leading to the genocide of the China people, with only the Little China girl surviving (in this canon, glue does not exist in Oz, and thus the China people, once broken, cannot be repaired – until the Wizard arrived, with glue). Later another area of the Munchkin Country is the “Dark Forest” also called the “Haunted Forest”. Where the Enchanted Forest was a green, vibrant, beautiful area, the Haunted Forest is a dark and gloomy place filled with black dead trees, enormous thorns, and also man-eating plants with glowing eyes. In fact, to travel safely there you either have to run very fast, or be a witch whose magic can force the plants and obstacles to push away (such as Glinda does with her wand). The Haunted Forest borders “The Cemetery”, where Glinda’s father was buried. And according to the map, it is basically the only cemetery of all Oz, where the Ozites are all buried.

As you might remember, the haunted forest was originally (MGM canon) in the West of Oz, near the Wicked Witch castle. And here it is in the Munchkin Country, except that the Munchkin is in the West… the same way the Enchanted Forest, in the East-Munchkin land of MGM becomes here part of the East-Winkie land. It is just… so confusing.

This little tour being made, here are a few additional thoughts about this take on Oz:

# The technological level of Oz is… extremely confusing. The Quadlings are shown to own sewing machines, for example, hinting at a somewhat modern Oz. Yet, the Ozites are also confused by things such as glue and music boxes, and ignore what canon powder is.

# The size of Oz is… also confusing, but overall damn is this country small! On one side it takes roughly a full day (one afternoon and one morning) for the Wizard and Theodora to go from the Winkie Peaks, at the Ozian border, to the Emerald City, at the heart of Oz. Yet, the Wizard tells the China Girl her city is “one or two hours” of walk from the Emerald City. Except that, according to the map, the distance China Town-Emerald City is half the length of the distance Theodora and the Wizard crossed to get to the Emerald City…

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So yeah, in one word: confusing. Here is the map if you ever want to check it, and how... confusing it is:

The Glass Moasic Process ~ The Map of OZ

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