The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chapters Eleven and Twelve

In which our heroes encounter the many forms of Oz, who hires them to whack the Wicked Witch of the West, and then one of the most iconic villains of American children's literature is introduced, encountered, and dispatched in the space of one chapter; and in which the film audience wonders how we can be done with the Wicked Witch if the book is only half over.



We did a full four chapters last time, so we make up for it this time by only doing two. They're extra-long chapters, though, so we've still got a full twenty-three Denslow illustrations to peruse.

Once again, like with that Wildcat, the Tin Woodman cried over a beetle and stated he would never be able to kill even a Wicked Witch, but apparently has no problem lopping off the heads of forty wolves without shedding a single tear. And unlike the Wildcat, we even know that these can talk and everything! I mean, I know it was self-defense and all, and I'm not saying he shouldn't have done it, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy, that's all. I mean, look at that smug bastard up there.

The Scarecrow, on the other hand, does exactly what he's supposed to, and even more than he originally thought himself capable of. He's a damn Scarecrow, he's gonna get himself rid of some damn crows.

BEES!!!

If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg here without pictures, or here with. Though the illustrated page is where I got our illustrations from, the layout is wonky and can be hard to read, so to see what the text looks like with the illustrations properly integrated, take a look at this facsimile of the original edition up at openlibrary.org. No reading ahead, though!