Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman or the Tin Man, is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He first appeared in his 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappeared in many other subsequent Oz books in the series. In late 19th-century America, men made out of various tin pieces were used in advertising and political cartoons. Baum, who was editing a magazine on decorating shop windows when he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was inspired to create the Tin Woodman by a figure he had built out of metal parts for a shop display.
Character In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale befriends the Tin Woodman after she finds him rusted in the forest, as he was caught in rain, and uses his oil can to release him. His name was Nick Chopper and he used to be an ordinary woodman, working in the woods of Oz. He was in love with Nimmie Amee, a servant of the Wicked Witch of the East. The witch did not want them to marry, so she enchanted Nick's axe to cut off his limbs. Each limb had been replaced with a tin equivalent and in the end only tin remained. He follows Dorothy to the Emerald City to get a heart from The Wizard. They are joined on their adventure by the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. The Wizard sends Dorothy and her friends to the Winkie Country to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. The Tin Woodman's axe proves useful in this journey, both for chopping wood to create a bridge or raft as needed, and for chopping the heads off animals that threaten the party. When the Wicked Witch of the West sends the Winged Monkeys after the group, they throw the Tin Woodman from a great height, damaging him badly. Winkie Tinsmiths repair him after the death of the Witch.
His desire for a heart notably contrasts with the Scarecrow's desire for brains, reflecting a common debate between the relative importance of the mind and the emotions. This occasions philosophical debate between the two friends as to why their own choices are superior; neither convinces the other, and Dorothy, listening, is unable to decide which one is right. Symbolically, because they remain with Dorothy throughout her quest, she is provided with both and does not need to select.L. Frank Baum, Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Wizard of Oz, p 141, The Tin Woodman states unequivocally that he has neither heart nor brain, but cares nothing for the loss of his brain. Near the end of the novel, Glinda the Good Witch praises his brain as not quite that of the Scarecrow's.
The Wizard turns out to be a "humbug" and can only provide a placebo heart made of silk and filled with sawdust. This is enough to please the Tin Woodman, who, with or without a heart, is the most tender and emotional of Dorothy's companions (just as the Scarecrow is the wisest and the Cowardly Lion the bravest). When he accidentally crushes an insect, he is grief-stricken and, ironically, claims that he must be careful about such things, while those with hearts do not need such care. This tenderness remains with him throughout the series, as in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, where he refuses to let a butterfly be maimed for the casting of a spell.L. Frank Baum, Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Wizard of Oz, p 152,
When Dorothy returns home to her farm in Kansas, the Tin Woodman returns to the Winkie Country to rule as emperor. Later, he has his subjects construct a palace made entirely of tin — from the architecture all the way down to the flowers in the garden.
A recurring problem for the Tin Woodman in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and afterward was his tendency to rust when exposed to rain, tears, or other moisture. For this reason, in The Marvelous Land of Oz, the character has himself nickel-plated before helping his friend the Scarecrow fight to regain his throne in the Emerald City. Even so, the Tin Woodman continues to worry about rusting throughout the Oz series.
The Tin Woodman appeared in most of the Oz books that followed. He is a major character in the comic page Baum wrote with Walt McDougall in 1904-05, Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz. In Ozma of Oz, he commands Princess Ozma's army, and is briefly turned into a tin whistle. In Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, he serves as defense counsel in the trial of Eureka. He affects the plot of a book most notably in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in which he forbids the young hero from collecting the wing of a butterfly needed for a magical potion because his heart requires him to protect insects from cruelty. Baum also wrote a short book titled The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, part of the Little Wizard Stories of Oz series for younger readers.
In The Tin Woodman of Oz, Nick Chopper finally sets out to find his lost love, Nimmie Amee, but discovers that she has already married Chopfyt, a man constructed partly out of his own dismembered and discarded limbs. For the Tin Woodman, this encounter with his former fiancée is almost as jarring as his experiences being transformed into a tin owl, meeting another tin man named Captain Fyter, and conversing with his ill-tempered original head.
Baum's successors in writing the series tended to use the Tin Woodman as a minor character, still ruling the Winkie Country but not governing the stories' outcome. Two exceptions to this pattern are Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz, by Ruth Plumly Thompson, and Lucky Bucky in Oz, by John R. Neill. The biggest exception is in Rachel Cosgrove's The Hidden Valley of Oz, in which the Tin Woodman leads the forces in the defeat of Terp the Terrible and cuts down the Magic Muffin Tree that gives Terp his great size.
The fact that Nick includes the natural deaths of his parents in the story of how he came to be made of tin has been a major element of debate. In The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918), he proclaims that no one in Oz ever died as far back as Lurline's enchantment of the country, which occurred long before the arrival of any outsiders such as the Wizard. Although the living creatures of Oz do not die of age or disease, they may die of accidents or be killed by others.
The Tin Woodman in later fiction Novels In the 1998 novel The Tin Man, by Dale Brown, the eponymous protagonist is a power-armored vigilante whom the media and police have dubbed "The Tin Man" for his physical resemblance to the Wizard of Oz character.
The Tin Woodman is a minor character in author Gregory Maguire's 1995 revisionist novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and its 2005 sequel Son of a Witch. In the book, the Wicked Witch of the East – the alias of Nessarose Thropp – is seen enchanting the axe to swing around and chop off Nick Chopper's limbs. She does this for a peasant woman who wishes to stop her servant (presumably Nimmie Amee) from marrying Nick Chopper. This seems to be close to the Tin Man's origin in the original books, but from the Witch's perspective.
In Oz Squad, Nick was shown in a sexual relationship with "Rebecca Eastwitch" in order to get closer to Nimmie Amee and attempt to elope with her.
A darker twist to the Tin Woodman is made by author James A. Owen in The Shadow Dragons, the fourth installment of his series The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, when his identity is revealed to be Roger Bacon.
The Tin Woodman appears as a major antagonist in Danielle Paige's Dorothy Must Die novel series. In this series, Dorothy and her friends have been corrupted by Dorothy's use of magic and the 'magic' in the gifts they received from the Wizard, with the Tin Woodman now driven by a twisted 'love' for Dorothy that is nevertheless unrequited. He is described as possessing a more twisted appearance, with his legs compared to horses' legs and his hands possessing knives for fingers. At the conclusion of the first novel, series protagonist Amy Gumm cuts out his heart, having been informed by the Wizard that she must take the gifts of Dorothy's companions to kill Dorothy herself.
Television In the 1961 animated TV series, Tales of the Wizard of Oz and its sequel, the 1964 NBC animated television special Return to Oz, the Tin Man (here named Rusty) was voiced by Larry D. Mann.
In the 1970s, the Tin Woodman appeared in a series of short animated educational films about heart health from Joleron Productions.
In an episode of The World's Greatest Super Friends, Superman temporarily became the Tin Man after a tornado took him, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman to Mister Mxyzptlk's planet of Oz.
In a 1981 episode of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Scrappy is dressed as the Tin Man after a tornado took him, Shaggy, and Scooby to "Ahz", a direct spoof of Oz with a different spelling by its enunciation.
The Tin Woodman appears in the Once Upon a Time episode "Where Bluebirds Fly", portrayed by Austin Obiajunwa as a teenager and by Alex Désert as an adult. In this version, he goes by the name Stanum (derived from the Latin word "stannum", which means "tin"). Since youth, Stanum has been a woodcutter and one day when he first met Zelena, the daughter of another woodsman, he finds out that Zelena has magic and befriends her, regardless of whatever the children say about Zelena, who they see as a freak. Many years later, Stanum, now a man, is punished by the Wicked Witch of the North for chopping down a tree in her domain, and his body slowly begins to transform into tin. To prevent himself from completely becoming tin, Stanum seeks out help from Zelena (now the Wicked Witch of the West) at the Emerald City of Oz. Zelena agrees to help him seek out the Crimson Heart, which can save him. During their quest, Stanum tells Zelena that she does not have to be lonely but she is doing her best to deny his advice. Suddenly, a lion comes of nowhere to attack Stanum, and Zelena uses her magic to make the lion go away (at this point the lion has become as Zelena would put it, cowardly). When they finally arrived to the location of the Crimson Heart, the two learned that the only way to make it work is through the absorption of another person's magic. Unfortunately Zelena's actions and selfish greed for magic causes her to betray Stanum, whom she suspect was aligned with Dorothy by keeping the Crimson Heart for herself, leaving Stanum to transform into the Tin Man permanently. Some time later, when Robin Hood arrives in Oz in the episode "Heart of Gold", the Tin Man is seen on the side of the Yellow Brick Road, torn apart.
In 1996, they made a cartoon animated The Oz Kids. The Tin Man rules the Winkie Country, west of Emerald City and has a son named Tin Boy. Like his father, he can cut wood with his axe and he has to be careful with water and snow or he'll rust. He is voiced by Steve Stoliar.
James Kall portrayed the Tin Man in the 2001 ABC miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.
Hiroki Tsujiai from Ultra Maniac dresses as the Tin Man in the costume party.
In the TV series Emerald City, the Tin Woodman equivalent is Jack (Gerran Howell), a friend of the enigmatic Tip, who helps 'him' escape from his imprisonment by a witch. When it is revealed that Tip is actually a girl whose true identity was suppressed by a potion, her strained emotional state causes her to push Jack over a balcony after he kisses her. Jack is subsequently found and rebuilt by scientists in a cyborg-like state; his head and right arm are still organic, but his heart and the rest of his body has been replaced or covered by mechanical armour.
Although not a direct adaptation to the literature itself, the 2013 Super Sentai series, Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger features the Deboth Army's members being themed after the characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Sorrowful Knight Aigallon is designed with the motif of the Tin Man, whose crush on Canderrilla in the series is based on his source of inspiration's desire for a heart. In Power Rangers Dino Charge, he was adapted as Wrench.
Tin Man appears in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, voiced by J. P. Karliak.
Stage and screen