In L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), the Emerald City is the capital of Oz, which was built early on in the reign of the Wizard to be the seat of his power. It is believed by the common folk that everything within the city is green, and they are all made to wear green eyeglasses, supposedly to protect their eyes from damage caused by the brilliance of the city.
By the end of the novel, though, it is revealed that only the outer walls are truly uniformly green, while everything within is “no more green than any other city.” The eyeglasses created the illusion of greeness.
However, partway through the first of the sequels, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), the glasses disappear, the city seems to genuinely be green, and, to my knowledge, the false-greenness plot point/factoid is never brought up again. The Emerald City is also retconned to have existed before the time of the Wizard, when Pastoria was king.
I get why Baum would have wanted The Emerald City—the capital of Oz, the main color of which is green—to be genuinely emerald-colored. But there was a solution to this that would have avoided retconning this particular charade of the Wizard.
He could have had Ozma magic the city into being green.
The final chapter of The Marvelous Land of Oz makes a point of Ozma’s superiority to the Wizard.
“The Wonderful Wizard was never so wonderful as Queen Ozma,” the people said to one another, in whispers; “for he claimed to do many things he could not do; whereas our new Queen does many things no one would ever expect her to accomplish.”
-L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz
Ending the tale with a transformation of the Emerald City would have vindicated this idea very nicely. It would have drawn an excellent contrast between Ozma and the Wizard, and it would have set up an amazing parallel between this novel and the first one. The city of emeralds, which was once revealed to be plain, is now transformed into something truly verdant and glorious- though maybe not so glorious that its denizens have to don protective eyewear. This transformation at the hands of Ozma would have been strong evidence to the people of Oz that her claim to power is “legitimate.”
Pastoria could have just ruled from some other, less urban capital.
It occurs to me, though, that at this point, the idea of Ozma as the daughter of the fairy queen Lurline had not yet been introduced. She was but a human princess, and there was no implication that she had any special latent magical power. Maybe Glinda could have made the transformation- but, then, she believes that transformations are “dishonest.” And it would have undermined the singular glory of Ozma’s ascension.
Someone needs to use this idea (the version where Ozma makes the city green) in some sort of adaption or transformative work. I would say that I’ll do that it if I ever create my own interpretation of Oz, but I highly doubt I ever will make my own interpretation.
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