A bit of a harder tack I want to take when I get to “The Windup War of Oz.” This is the Cruelly Lovely Lady Dweena, who left her throne in self-exile from her own fairyland to come & hide in a small cave castle in a dim & little-known corner of the Land of Oz. .... .... Dweena ran afoul of an awful witch in her own land, who resented the Lady’s kindness to any who came to her for help. So she cursed Dweena: for any act of kindness, Dweena would suffer some pain & gradually greater disfigurement. If she persisted, the curse would not only cause her more agony, it would eventually make her so hideous her own people wouldn’t be able to look at her. Dweena, despite the pain, continued in her kindness yet her own subjects insisted she stop for her own sake. The Witch declared that the only way the curse could be broken was for someone completely aware of the risk & pain still sincerely & needfully ask for Dweena’s help, & for her to give it. But none in the kingdom had the heart to knowingly ask her to injure herself. The kingdom began to tear itself apart in a civil war of escalating petty cruelties as the people sought to save their ruler by giving her no opportunity to show kindness. To save her people, Dweena fled. Eventually finding herself in Oz, she made her home where she hoped no one would ever find her and so there’d be no risk of her either being kind or evoking disgust in others again. ... Dweena is a different figure I want to introduce in Oz in the next book. She is not simply some fairy-tale beautiful person, inside or out. Some of her years of loneliness have embittered her. The wounds she has do not heal, yet despite all that she still had a good heart. I want a character that challenges the notion of physical & spiritual beauty while still being inherently lovely & kind. Someone whose curse is not merely an evil person punishing a good one, but punishing by twisting their own virtue. #landofoz #johnrneill #johnrneillfanart #lfrankbaum #ronhorsley #windupwarofoz https://www.instagram.com/p/BwhPXsyge4I/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=88g41kxys0km