Princess Ozma

Princess Ozma is a fictional character from the Land of Oz, created by American author L. Frank Baum. She appears in every book of the Oz series except the first, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). She is the rightful ruler of Oz, and Baum indicated that she would reign in the fairyland forever, being immortal. Baum described her physical appearance in detail, in The Marvelous Land of Oz: "Her eyes sparkled as two diamonds, and her lips were tinted like a tourmaline. All adown her back floated tresses of ruddy gold, with a slender jeweled circlet confining them at the brow." As originally illustrated by John R. Neill, she fit this description; however, in most subsequent Oz books, Ozma's hair became darker. The classic books Ozma is the daughter of the former King Pastoria of Oz. As an infant, she was given to the witch Mombi of the North by the Wizard of Oz. Mombi transformed Ozma into a boy and called him "Tip" (short for Tippetarius) in order to prevent the rightful ruler of Oz from ascending to the throne. Ozma spent her entire childhood with Mombi in the form of the boy Tip and had no memory of ever having been a girl. During this time, Tip had managed to create Jack Pumpkinhead who was brought to life by Mombi's Powder of Life. In The Marvelous Land of Oz, Glinda the Good Sorceress discovered what had happened and forced Mombi to turn Tip back into Ozma. Since then, the Princess has possessed the Throne of Oz (although many realms within Oz remained unaware of her authority).