The Audience with the Lovely Lady

The Audience with the Lovely Lady is the second of four distinct forms the Wizard Oz takes when meeting Dorothy's companions individually, and the first to reveal that Oz's appearance is not fixed. The Scarecrow, expecting the giant Head Dorothy described, instead finds a beautiful, winged Lady seated on the emerald throne, who reveals herself as Oz and demands that he kill the Wicked Witch of the West before she will grant him brains. This audience deepens the mystery of Oz's true nature and establishes the same impossible condition—the Witch's death—that Oz had already set for Dorothy, binding the fates of all four travelers to a single task.

The Summons and the Transformation

The morning after Dorothy's audience with the giant Head, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers came to the Scarecrow and said, "Come with me, for Oz has sent for you." The Scarecrow followed him into the great Throne Room, where he did not find the enormous Head Dorothy had described. Instead, sitting in the emerald throne, he saw a most lovely Lady, dressed in green silk gauze, wearing upon her flowing green locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest breath of air reached them. The Scarecrow bowed as prettily as his straw stuffing would let him before this beautiful creature.

The Lady's Demand

The Lady looked upon him sweetly and said, "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?" The Scarecrow, though much astonished at not finding the Head, answered bravely that he was only a Scarecrow stuffed with straw, with no brains, and that he had come praying that Oz would put brains in his head instead of straw so that he might become as much a man as any other in Oz's dominions. The Lady asked why she should do this for him, and the Scarecrow replied, "Because you are wise and powerful, and no one else can help me." Oz then declared, "I never grant favors without some return; but this much I will promise. If you will kill for me the Wicked Witch of the West, I will bestow upon you a great many brains, and such good brains that you will be the wisest man in all the Land of Oz." The Scarecrow, surprised, said, "I thought you asked Dorothy to kill the Witch." Oz replied, "So I did. I don't care who kills her. But until she is dead I will not grant your wish. Now go, and do not seek me again until you have earned the brains you so greatly desire."

The Scarecrow's Report and the Pattern Revealed

The Scarecrow went sorrowfully back to his friends and told them what Oz had said. Dorothy was surprised to find that the Great Wizard was not a Head, as she had seen him, but a lovely Lady. The Scarecrow remarked, "All the same, she needs a heart as much as the Tin Woodman." This audience established the pattern that each of the four travelers would be given the same impossible task—the destruction of the Wicked Witch of the West—as the price for their wishes, and that Oz would appear to each in a different form, deepening the mystery of his true identity.