were going to list the top five most prominent
(not necessarily most important) characters introduced by Thompson, it might
well be these four plus Jinnicky. On the other hand, all of these
characters (as well as Ojo, who also shows up a few times in the Neill
books) live in places other than the Emerald City by the end of the Thompson
books. It's not that far-fetched that they'd be visiting, certainly, but
Neill seems to have had no interest in writing about the Thompson characters
who came to live in the capital.
Neill's characterizations of the Thompson characters are possibly even worse
than those of the Baum characters. Captain Salt is pretty consistent with
how he is in Thompson, albeit somewhat more playful. Kabumpo is pretty much
just ornamental, a function the Elegant Elephant has in the Thompsonit might
feel to a visitor not intimately linked to the quest but who witnesses all
the celebrities scurrying about.>>
We see an ominous sign of plotlessness in Neill's note to readers: "This
book is the record of less than a week." The author promises not a single,
unified adventure, as in the story of how a particular prince gained his
throne or how Dorothy made her way back to the Emerald City again. Instead,
SCALAWAGONS is everything that happens to the Emerald City crowd in a few
days--actually, only three.
As it turns out, most of the events of SCALAWAGONS go back to the Wizard's
decision to manufacture scalawagons. The other elements in the plot mix are
the Bell-snickle's arbitrary mischief, the arrival of the Nota-bells, and
the drought that sends the forest wandering like Okies. There's the mighty
coincidence