Continuity
Baum made it clear that continuity was not high on his list when it came to importance, these books being written solely to delight children. This led to several facts throughout the series that do not match up across the entire canon.
- At the end of Ozma of Oz, before Ozma sends Dorothy to Australia by using the magic power of the Nome King's Belt, Ozma agrees to check on Dorothy each Saturday morning to see if she wishes to return to Oz. However, when trapped in the cave, Dorothy states that the agreement is "every day at four o'clock Ozma has promised to look at me in that picture," even though the events happen only months after the events at the end of the previous book occur, and Dorothy does not visit Oz during this time.
- As events unfold in The Marvelous Land of Oz we find that when the Wizard of Oz first came to Oz, he had Mombi the Witch hide Ozma, the true heir to the Land of Oz, so that he could rule. In Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz however, not only does the Wizard not know who Ozma is, but he has to be told the entire story as if he wasn't involved and is never questioned about his actions. This change is due to the fact that Baum got complaints from children on how they didn't like the mention of the wizard assisting Mombi, so Baum left this out of later books.
Read more about this topic: Dorothy And The Wizard In Oz
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Continuous eloquence wearies.... Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)