Topic Research: The Characters of Oz

"The Wizard of Oz" by Lá  Studio, blue Rain. Web source: Creative Commons. 

So it was really difficult to decide on which story topic to research for my project, but I think I have decided to go with the World of Oz. When I started thinking about the storybook that I wanted to create, I became really inspired thinking about the backstories of the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow.

We think that we know where their story begins when they accompany Dorothy on her journey to Oz, but what if they knew each other long before that? My story idea is to explore these three characters sharing a dorm room in their freshman year of college. I'm thinking that the different stories will take turns being told from character's points of view, and each character will have at least one story that adds to who they become in Baum's telling of the Wizard of Oz.

For now, my three story ideas are as follows:

The Cowardly Lion

Before the word cowardly always came before his name, Lionel was the bravest person, well lion, you had ever met. He was always the first one to sign up for challenges, and was the quarterback of the football team at the University of Oz. His friends and roommates, Crowder (Scarecrow) and Timmy (Tin Man) thought he was crazy, but admired his bravery nonetheless. That all changed one night though at a college party when Lionel couldn't face his one fear: singing karaoke.

Baum never wrote an explicit backstory to the Lion, so this gives me the opportunity to create something completely from scratch. Seeing as the most content about him comes during and after his journey to the Emerald City with Dorothy and the gang, I will try to find some characteristics to incorporate into my prequel version of his original character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Baum.

Web sources:
Cowardly Lion Wikipedia

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter XXI: The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts

The Tin Man

The Tin Man (formerly known as the Tin Woodman in Baum's story) was once just an eager college student called Timmy, ready to learn everything he could at the University of Oz. He was nervous about sharing a room with two other guys for the first time in his life. To Timmy, cleanliness and order were the only ways to live one's life, and he didn't know how living with a lion and scarecrow was going to affect that. While Lionel and Crowder were able to accept Timmy's type A personality, other college students weren't as accepting and one incident at party (yes the same party as Lionel's karaoke debacle) causes them to call him Tin Can instead of Timmy for the rest of undergrad.

Unlike Lion, Baum did give a backstory about Tin Man originally being a human woodsman. For my storybook though, I want all of the characters to have to have some sort of mythical existence, so no one is going to be human. I think that Timmy will just be a species of tin and that will be a normal thing in my story of Oz.

Web sources:

Tin Woodman Wikipedia

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter V: The Rescue of the Tin Woodman

The Scarecrow

Long before he arrives at the University of Oz, Crowder the scarecrow has a dream of becoming the first scarecrow doctor in Oz. There is a horrible stereotype that scarecrows aren't intelligent, and Crowder wants to help change this. He is thankful for his dorm mates, Lionel and Timmy, who help him study almost every night. Crowder gets the semester off to a great start in all of his classes, impressing both his professors and classmates. It's not until the fateful night at a college party (yes, that party), where Crowder loses a trivia game match for his team and never fully lives it down. For the rest of college he is haunted by the idea that he has crow for brains.

This story definitely mirrors the original character created by Baum. Scarecrow, who lacks a brain becomes one of the smartest people in Oz. I'm particularly excited to explore this character and my story idea because the pressure to be perfect academically is something I am constantly reminded of as a college student.

Web sources:
Scarecrow Wikipedia

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter III: How Dorothy saved the Scarecrow.