# Tik-Tok — The Road to Oz character guide

> Tik-Tok in The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mr. Tik - tok, Tik

**First appearance:** 0015-xiv-tik-tok-and-billina

## Snapshot

A copper machine-man wound up to move, think, and speak, whose reliability is absolute and whose affection is, by design, impossible.

## Who they are

Ozma dispatches Tik-Tok with Billina to welcome Dorothy's party, but his thoughts run down mid-sentence and his speech collapses into nonsense until someone winds the key beneath his arm. He is trustworthy, dependable, and true — he does exactly what he is wound to do — yet the narrator notes that loving him is as impossible as loving a sewing machine. His friendship with the Tin Woodman, one mechanical and one alive, quietly sharpens the book's questions about what makes a person worth caring for.

## In the story

### [Tik-Tok and Billina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_road_to_oz_se/chapters/xiv-tik-tok-and-billina)

A copper mechanical man sent by Ozma to welcome Dorothy; his machinery sometimes runs down, causing his speech or thoughts to become garbled.

### [Visiting the Pumpkin-Field](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_road_to_oz_se/chapters/xvi-visiting-the-pumpkin-field)

Is wound up by Button-Bright and accompanies the group, noted for his reliability and trustworthiness.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_road_to_oz_se/characters/tik_tok
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_road_to_oz_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_road_to_oz_se/characters