The Road to Oz

Dorothy

Dorothy has become a personage in Oz — Princess Ozma's friend, known to every fox and donkey king she meets — yet she still measures the world by Aunt Em's farm and Uncle Henry's ten-acre lot. When the shaggy man asks directions and she steps out to point the way, she loses the road home in fifteen minutes and takes the detour with more curiosity than alarm. Her easy trust and her habit of treating talking beasts as ordinary neighbors make her the hinge of the whole wandering party.

Button-Bright

Button-Bright attaches himself to the shaggy man at once — partly because of the Love Magnet, partly because he has nowhere else to be. He asks the fox-captain what a prisoner is, then what a captive is, and keeps asking until the captain admits that questions are how anyone learns anything. His blank incuriosity is comic, but it also makes him fearless in a way the older travelers are not, and it quietly earns him a place among Ozma's birthday guests.

Princess Ozma

Ozma sits on a malachite throne in the Emerald City, radiating a charm that historians of Oz have given up trying to describe. She is the one who tangled the roads so Dorothy would wander toward her, and she has already invited the fox and donkey kings because she knew Dorothy would ask. Twice she nearly used the Magic Belt to rescue the travelers, holding back only because the shaggy man managed it — a ruler whose power is matched by her patience.

Toto

Toto is Dorothy's constant companion, tucked into pockets and carried under arms, and the first to bristle at fox-soldiers before the Love Magnet calms them. When Dorothy is lost, she asks him to find the farm; he dashes up one road, then another, then another, and finally sits down panting beside the shaggy man in defeat. His failed attempt to lead them home is what turns a wrong turn into an adventure.

Polychrome

Polychrome drops into the journey almost by accident, a fairy girl whose element is the sky and whose food is dewdrops and mist-cakes. She dances to the Tin Woodman's tin orchestra until her rainbow robes swirl around her like a cloud, delighting even a host who cannot eat. Light, graceful, and slightly out of place on the ground, she gives the party a shimmer of the fairy world they are walking toward.

Tin Woodman

Nick Chopper rules the Winkies from a tin castle where dishes, instruments, and even the waltz are made of tin, and where no one wants more than he can use. He loves the shaggy man on sight — not yet knowing about the Love Magnet — and tells him that honesty and worth could earn him a home in Oz forever. Unable to taste his own banquet, he sits patiently through it, watching that everyone else is well and plentifully served.