Inspiration for the Nome King[edit]

Is it possible that Baum's Nome King was based in part on Friedrich de la Motte-Fouque's Alberich? I personally see quite a bit of similarity between these two villains, including a propensity to enslave surface-dwellers and an all-consuming desire to harm the entire human race. What do you think? 67.170.215.166 (talk) 02:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More likely Baum's Nome King was based on Wagner's villain Alberich. Baum was a Wagner-enthusiast, and the plot of Ozma of Oz has a lot in common with the plot of Das Rheingold. Also, the Nome King's magic belt has almost exactly the same magic powers as the Tarnhelm in Das Rheingold. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]


"Analysis" section[edit]

This new section entitled "Analysis" seems very much too long and wordy, contains way too much pointless plot summary of the books in which the Nome King appears, and may contain original research. I recommend shortening it or ditching it! HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is completely sourced, unlike the rest of the article. Original research happens when we do not use sources.

The "plot points" are actually discussed and properly interpreted. Dimadick (talk) 09:54, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess my main complaint about the "Analysis" section is that there is way too much of it. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 03:00, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also, many of the points it makes are so obvious as to be empty of significance. The Nome King appears kinder and nicer than he really is, ok, so what? "It's a lesson to the reader not to take people at their face value" --a totally obvious, to the point of vapidity, non-interpretation. The whole section is full of banal, uninteresting observations. Trim it down, PLEASE! HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:32, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]


I have trimmed the "Analysis" section, which was (and still is) way too long and contains pointless plot summaries which repeat summaries from earlier in the article. Please stop reverting my edit! HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article you are reverting to contains no references, lists books without discussing depictions. More importantly it fails Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction. It contains no real-world perspective, writing on authorial intent, and literary analysis. There are limits to how much plot an article must have, not on sourced analysis. Dimadick (talk) 17:43, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What "article I am reverting to"? I am not reverting to any article. I am trimming your section, which is wordy, poorly-written, and too long. My edit did not add anything--neither sourced nor unsourced, neither analytical nor non-analytical-- my edit only cut some of the extraneous material YOU added.
Besides being sourced, material in a wiki article must be relevant, significant, and notable. Your "analysis" section fails on all three counts. "[So-and-so] sees the Nome King as a slave-owner." Pointless, empty, trivial. OF COURSE he's a slave-owner. So what? Why is it worth taking up space to point out that obvious fact? HandsomeMrToad (talk) 00:37, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Because serious analysis of this point is missing from this article. And because so-and-so is actually a reliable source which the article is lacking. Dimadick (talk) 06:22, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More on the "analysis" section[edit]

SUMMARY: Should the article on the Nome King (Oz character) have an "analysis" section? Is the one here any good? HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Analysis section"[edit]

1. User:Dimadick's edit-summary of the reversion of deleting the "analysis" section said "it is supposed to reflect third-party reliable sources". That is certainly true, but it is not the only criterion. As I understand it, a Wikipedia article is supposed to be FACTUAL, RELEVANT, and BRIEF. An article about, say, a famous actor, is not supposed to include unimportant information like his shirt size, and it is not supposed to include a survey of what all the critics on the internet thought about him. The fact that an essayist named Susan Rahm drew a fanciful analogy between the Nome King and industrialists like Carnegie and Rockefeller and JP Morgan is, as User:Dimadick says, supported by a reliable online source. But why should anyone care about what Susan Rahm thinks? She's a professor of English at Pacific Lutheran University who published an essay in a not-very-notable book. (She seems to have written three books of her own, all obscure.) My understanding of Wikipedia policy regarding articles about books is that generally, a critic's analysis should only be included EITHER if the critic is notable (sufficiently so to merit his own Wikipedia page), OR, if the analysis contributes something significant to the reader's understanding. Wikipedia articles are NOT supposed to be comprehensive surveys of the online critical literature.

2. Almost all of the "analysis" section consists of plot summary, with occasional observations of what some essayists have written thrown in, and most of those are very obvious points, not really worth mentioning. (Examples: "Zipes believes that Baum was essentially a fairy tale writer." Well, of course. Has anyone ever called him anything else??? And, "Suzanne Rahn has argued that the misleading description of the King serves as a lesson to child readers about the danger of taking people at face value." Do we really need Wikipedia, or Susanne Rahn, to tell us that? And, "In the return of the Nome King in The Emerald City of Oz (1910), the Bells see him once again as a slave owner." Again, this is not surprising or thought-provoking information. OF COURSE he's a slave-owner; in Ozma of Oz he states bluntly that the royal family of Ev are "...not my prisoners, but my slaves, whom I purchased from the King of Ev" and in The Emerald City of Oz, the narrator states "... he had resolved ... to enslave Princess Ozma and little Dorothy and all the Oz people,...") The whole section is like this: a tissue of plot summary studded with a few very obvious descriptive points from obscure essayists.

3. In fact, I only see ONE point in the entire section which is at all interesting or worth keeping: Gore Vidal's published opinion. Now THAT is a notable opinion.

I'm not gonna get into an edit-war, so I'll wait and see if other editors chime in and a consensus emerges. But I really think this whole section (with the possible exception of the reference to Vidal) is a waste of space. I'd like to see what other editors think.

Best wishes, HandsomeMrToad (talk) 09:28, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. FRS sent the note about this discussion. For the most part, you are right, but in a few critical areas, you are misapprehending the policy and underlying purpose of its use within the article.
"My understanding of Wikipedia policy regarding articles about books is that generally, a critic's analysis should only be included EITHER if the critic is notable (sufficiently so to merit his own Wikipedia page), OR, if the analysis contributes something significant to the reader's understanding. Wikipedia articles are NOT supposed to be comprehensive surveys of the online critical literature."
This is incorrect. There are untold millions of cited references in out articles wherein the people being quoted do not have their own Wiki articles. Does this make their viewpoint invalid? Of course not.
We include references for a very simple reason: neither you, I nor any other Wikipedian acting as an editor are citable as sources. Just because something seems obvious to you is not as obvious to others. If no one else has mentioned squat about King Nome, but we have a source who says something interesting about that character. we include it, and cite the source. It doesn't matter if that person hasn't been on the NYT Bestseller's List; this isn't a popularity contest. That said, if one minor reviewer said that House is actually a grown up Doogie Houser, you'd need a boatload of back-up references in support of that statement. However, no one else has said jack shit about King Nome except for this single author. I say leave it be.
Secondly, it needs reiterating that Wikipedia is written by everybody, for everybody. This doesn't meana necessary dumbing-down of material, but it coversely doesn't mean that we toney up the material to an extent that we presume that every reader has a PhD. in the subject matter. Just because you've already figured out something in the article doesn't mean another person has, either. The bet part of Wikipedia is that - because of citations and external reading, even a novice in a subject can expand their knowledge base by following the reserences.
Lastly, if you feel that the article needs work, work on it. If you get reverted, take them to the discussion page and sort it out, either by proof or by compromise. That is how consensus editing works in Wikipedia. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 05:47, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The section overall is very bloated and can use some trimming. It reads more like a Plot Summary. This section seems very out of place when reading through, as it seems more of a commentary on the USA rather than the character its referring to.. "Gore Vidal argued that Oz represents a "pastoral dream" deriving from the ideals of Thomas Jefferson, though here the slaves have been replaced by magic and good will. The Nome King and his black magic represent a technological civilization, driven by machines and industrialization. Vidal concluded that "the Nome King has governed the United States for more than a century; and he shows no sign of wanting to abdicate."" DrkBlueXG (talk) 15:28, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with DrkBlueXG. The analysis section is bonkers. The "Themes" section in the Of Mice And Men article is a half dozen paragraphs. The analysis section clocks in at 25. It's longer than the entire article on Kafka's Metamorphosis. It's longer than the entire article on the political interpretations of the Wizard of Oz book itself. And, not to trash anyone in particular, it reads like a bad college term paper. There is plot analysis sprinkled randomly with references to literary analysis. There is no logical structure or flow beyond roughly following the plot. Jbmcb (talk) 02:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Really, there's just too much pointless summarizing of the plots of books in the "analysis" section. What purpose does it serve to recount what happens in the first few books which feature the Nome King? That is not analysis. Undergraduate students get points deducted from their papers and reports if they waste space recounting plots of the works they are supposed to be analyzing, instead of analyzing them.

And if you're gonna summarize the plots of these books, why not include all of them? Why not summarize The Magic of Oz, and Kabumpo in Oz, and The Gnome King of Oz, and Pirates in Oz, and Handy Mandy in Oz too?

HandsomeMrToad (talk) 07:13, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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