That’s a pretty funny excerpt. But Dorothy could have said “at least in Kansas, we aren’t terrorized by witches and flying monkeys”!
That is my thought. If she were blown up by the tornado, she was toast.
A digression; I watched the film for the first time at a neighbor’s house, and when I saw Almira riding her bicycle in the tornado, I ran screaming in fear, home to my Mother.
Picking this thread up, whirling it around, and setting it down in Cafe Society, on top of the Wicked Witch of the East.
In one of the later books, Dorothy does move to Oz permanently, with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.
And Billina the chicken.
I think the smell of sulfur would be specifically associated with the underworld/Hell. It’s in the song the Munchikins sing.
She’s gone where the goblins go
Below, below below!
No, the brimstone smell associated with the devil is not hydrogen sulfide, stinky though that is, but sulfur dioxide, which has a quite different, but also very unpleasant (and choking) smell. It is produced when sulfur burns in air, and so was the smell of the ancient chemical weapon, Greek Fire. It is also commonly vented by active volcanoes, and thus was thought to come from the mouths of hell, and from hell’s lakes of fire.
What happened to Miss Gulch? She and her bicycle got caught up in the twister, and incredible as it may seem, they were set down in front of her house TOTALLY UNHARMED.
Not only that, when she got up off her knees after thanking the Lord for her deliverance, she resolved that Toto would at least have a last meal before she took him to be destroyed. She looked in her basket on the back fender, and what did she see?
Of course, having this new responsibility for another life caused her to soften her heart, and call off Toto’s execution.
Either that, or she assumed that Toto was already dead from the fall out of the basket, and figured: Welp, better not waste this death warrant! Let’s you and me go off and see the Sheriff!
Of course you know it wasn’t about Toto. It was all about coercion and sapphic lust
She was melted when the tornado dumped a large tank of sulphuric acid on her.
I’m pretty sure that the entire idea of the real world story came from the movie, as I remember reading that taking so long to get to Oz was considered a big deal back then.
The Wiki article on the play seems to confirm this, saying that the story starts with the storm.
Paperwork? Lost in the storm!
For the book version, I’d REALLY agree with you. The Gales’ farm in the book is described as being totally isolated, with nothing but miles of gray prairie all around, the house made gray itself from the wind and sun, and Uncle Henry and Aunt Em turned gray and careworn. In short, “gray” (a word that’s repeated several times within the first few paragraphs).
Aunt Em is described as having been a pretty young woman when she first married Uncle Henry, but the environment and the constant hardship have turned her somber and unsmiling. In fact, when little Dorothy first came to live with them, she is unsettled by the sound of the child’s laughter since she can’t understand what there is in all this to laugh at.
Toto’s a godsend for Dorothy (and, as is mentioned above, there’s no Miss Gulch in the novel), since he provides her with something to laugh at and be playful with.
By contrast, the movie’s Kansas is a more pleasant place, even if it IS sepia-toned. There’s apparently a community outside the farm, it’s implied that Dorothy goes to school so she has other kids around, and there are the farmhands who act as sort of unofficial uncles and have a lot of affection for her. Henry is a hard worker, but not above humor (“Oh, you mean she bit her dog, eh?”) and Em may be no-nonsense but clearly loves Dorothy and is the kind who’ll give her farmhands just-fried doughnuts even after she’s just scolded them. So movie!Kansas may be humdrum compared to Oz, but it’s not unpleasant. Not like the dreary, isolated, gray, cold place Baum described.
As for what will become of Toto…apparently in earlier drafts, the Wizard counterpart was some sort of doctor or influential figure who assured Dorothy, when she woke up, that he’d speak up for Toto and the sheriff wouldn’t take him.
Otherwise, I like to think that either Miss Gulch got killed in the tornado, or that she brought the sheriff over, he took one look at this tiny hairball wagging his tail and said, “THAT’S your ‘menace to the community’? Lady, I’m trying to help this county rebuild after that twister. There are people around here who’ve lost their homes. I’ve got bigger problems than a dog I’ve had Easter hams bigger than. You don’t want that dog to bite you, quit hitting him with your umbrella!” and tears up the warrant.
You know, that makes so much sense, I’m ashamed it didn’t occur to me! Especially after the twister, no one is going to have patience with a crabby old lady looking to punish a little girl who was injured and barely survived. In fact, if she has even a tiny shred of either humanity or common sense and a desire not to be driven out the community, Miss Gulch will drop the issue herself and find something else to gripe about. (“That new barn the Potters are putting up to replace the one the twister blew down blocks my view of the plain. I don’t care if there’s nothing to look at there, it still blocks it! And why does it have to be red? Why can’t it be brown or gray like everything else around here? A twister is no excuse to assault my eyes with heathen colors like that. If’n the good Lord had intended this place to pretty, He’d a’ made it pretty Hisself!”)
Different books, though. Billina ends up in Oz with Dorothy in “Ozma of Oz”, and Dorothy gets Ozma to bring Henry and Em to Oz after their farm is foreclosed on in “The Emerald City of Oz”.
I just finished rereading all of the Baum Oz books on Kindle a couple of weeks ago.
Scratching my head why this zombie was revived when there is a newer one started yesterday that is basically identical.
I just like that there’s a moderator edit in the OP warning that it’s a zombie. From the previous revival.