The Gandalf Behind the Curtain: the Deus ex Machina in The Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit

The Deus ex Machina, or the God out of the Machine, is a concept that exists in children’s literature. It is the idea of the adult coming to the aid of the hero and has been seen in the forms of the Fairy Godmother of classic fairy tales, and the wise wizards like Merlin in Arthurian Legend. These figures are all knowing, being able to help the protagonist make it to the ball to meet their prince or find a way to defeat their enemy and has been changed and reimagined over the course of generations. Through examining the Wizard in L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz and Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, one can see a change in this literary feature.

1. The Not-Quite-So Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wizard of Oz takes a different approach to the Deus ex Machina. When the reader is first told about the Wizard, it is when Dorothy first lands in Oz. She is told by the Witch of the North to travel to the Emerald City to see the Wizard if she wants to get home (Baum 14).

When Dorothy inquires into whether or not the Wizard is a “good man” (Baum, 14), the Witch of the North replies that the Wizard is good, but does not know what the Wizard looks like as she has never seen him (14). The mystery of the Wizard’s appearance is reinforced when Dorothy and her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion are told by people in the Land of Oz that the Wizard can “take any form he wishes” and that no person knows what the Wizard looks like (75). This is confirmed when the Wizard takes on a different form each time he is met by each character – an enormous floating head for Dorothy (85), a winged woman for the Scarecrow (88), a monstrous beast for the Tin Woodman (90), and a ball of fire for the Cowardly Lion (92) – and orders each one to kill the Witch of the West in order for them to get what they want (85-93). The Wizard’s true form is revealed after Dorothy and her companions return from facing the Witch of the West. At this point, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion are surprised that the Wizard of Oz, as great and terrible as he claims, is in reality a “little old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face” (129).

The Wizard of Oz can clearly be seen as an opposition of the Deus ex Machina. In his article, “If I Ever Go Looking for My Heart’s Desire: ‘Home’ in Baum’s ‘Oz’ Books”, Joel D. Chaston points out that the Wizard is “a prisoner of his own palace” (Chaston 212), closeting “himself in a room so that none of his subjects can discover that he is a humbug” (Chaston 212). In this aspect, the Wizard can do nothing to help Dorothy along her journey except to assign her the mission of defeating the Witch of the West.

In addition, the Wizard, according to Osmond Beckworth’s article “The Oddness of Oz”, takes on a father-figure appearance but “[i]nstead consoling and comforting his daughter, he ridicules her fears” (Beckworth 83). The Wizard sends Dorothy off to face the Witch of the West in the hope that he will not have to fulfill the requests of Dorothy and her friends. The fact that he insists that the Witch of the West is evil and only wants her killed for the threat of what she might do to the Wizard, despite having done nothing to him at all, proves that the he is also a coward himself (Beckworth 83). Beckworth also points out that the Wizard’s actions not only humanize him but also serve to justify him through showing that “fear makes us do anything” (83). Seeing as the Wizard is in fear of his secret of revealed and the fear of the Witch of the West being a threat prompt the Wizard to send Dorothy and her companions to fight a supposed adversary in order to solve two problems at once. When noticing these traits, one can see that the Wizard of Oz is in fact a powerless figure.

2. Reimagining with Gandalf

While the Wizard in the Baum’s Wizard of the Oz is a distortion of the Deus ex Machina, J. R. R. Tolkien’s wizard Gandalf is a return to the motif but with a different approach in the novel The Hobbit. The reader is first introduced to Gandalf when he approaches Bilbo to go on an adventure (14-17). Tolkien has Gandalf take on a similar appearance as the Wizard of Oz as being the wise old man by describing the wizard as “an old man with a staff” and wearing “a pointed hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down past his waist, and immense black boots” (14).

In his book Tolkien: A look behind “The Lord of the Rings”, Lin Carter points out that Gandalf’s appearance is more than just an archetypical form of the “hero’s wise companion who can work a bit of hocus-pocus to get the hero out of a query” but is also a recreation of the Norse God Odin, who passes as “a magician among men” (Carter 192-194). This argument can be supported through scenes such as when the protagonist Bilbo and his dwarf companions are captured by the Great Goblin and his hoard for trespassing on their mountain (Tolkien 81-84). At this point Gandalf has disappeared from the group, conveniently before the goblins attack (81). Gandalf returns quite suddenly with the wizard’s sword appearing and cutting down the Great Goblin before casting the cavern into black (86). Before leading Bilbo and the dwarves through the Goblin caves, Gandalf uses his sword to cut through the “goblin-chains and setting all the prisoners free as quickly as possible” (87). Though he is able to save his companions from their captors, Bilbo falls behind and is lost as the end of the chapter (88). In this scene one sees that Gandalf does have to use his magic to distract the goblins and release the Bilbo and dwarves. He is more than a magician using magic to distract the goblins, Gandalf uses his skills as a fighter to protect himself and the others from the goblins and lead them out of the mountain. This does not make him a reuse of the Deus ex Machina, in losing Bilbo, Tolkien shows that Gandalf is not the all-knowing and fully capable figure associated with the motif. 

Though Gandalf can use magic, as discussed previously, he is able to use his mind to find a solution to a situation. In an earlier scene of The Hobbit, Bilbo and the dwarves are captured by trolls (Tolkien 53-57). With the hobbit and dwarves captured, the trolls begin to argue how to cook them, with suggestions ranging from mincing, turning their captives into jelly, to roasting or boiling (Tolkien 57-58). At the same time, Gandalf alters his voice to make the trolls continue their argument as the sun rises (Tolkien 58). As dawn breaks, a voice cries: “Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!” (Tolkien 58). The trolls, who only just become aware of the rising sun, are turned into stone, holding the positions they were in while feuding and remain in this state forever (Tolkien 58-59). Clyde B. Northrup discusses this in his article, “The Qualities of a Tolkenian Fairy-Story” by stating:

Tolkien recognizes that the touch of faërie can be overpowering, so once we have been “brushed” by its power, we are quickly returned to the “ordinary”; thus the wizard uses his superior intellect to outwit the trolls, causing them to forget, their constant arguing, their need to be underground before dawn – a thoroughly mundane and ordinary solution to the problem. (Northup 821)

In this excerpt, Northrup argues that Tolkien’s use of an ordinary solution to the conflict that Bilbo and the dwarves are facing is to control the amount of the supernatural. This proves well for Gandalf by showing that he not only uses neither magic nor fighting abilities to solve the situation, but also can use his mind.

By taking these points into account, Gandalf is more of a modified form of the Deus ex Machina than the Wizard of Oz. One can see that Gandalf, unlike Oz, is not contained in one place and is able to provide aid to the protagonists in the story. While the Wizard of Oz is limited to his mind, Gandalf is capable of using not only superior intellect, but also magic and his ability as a fighter. The use of these traits makes Gandalf a reliable aid to Bilbo and the dwarves by being able to not only outwit his opponents, but can also use magic and pugnacious force when the situation calls force it.

Closing
In conclusion, the Baum’s The Wizard of Oz and Tolkien’s The Hobbit have a unique approach to the Deus ex Machina. Oz’s wizard is confined to his room in the Emerald City and is has no real power. His cowardly character is seen in how he sends Dorothy and her companions to defeat the Witch of the West, a person who the Wizard fears of and has no real reason to have disposed of in the first place. Gandalf is much freer in The Hobbit. His mental superiority and his abilities in both magic and combat make him better able to help Bilbo and the dwarves in situations where the protagonists are unable to overcome. Though this is the case, Gandalf is still prone to failure and is still not fully able to protect the protagonists from dangers, such as the case of losing Bilbo when escaping the goblin’s caves. In examining The Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit one can see these characters take a different approach to the Deus ex Machina.