Cordelia Chopper

"The thing about hearts? Just because a person has one doesn't mean they know how to use it."

- Cora's card-quote Cora Chopper is the daughter of the Tin Woodman, also known as Nick Chopper, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels.

Cora would be more than happy to rule the Winkies and succeed the throne on her own (or alongside her sister, Nikole), just without the whole potential falling-in-love-with-some-random-guy-and-getting-chopped-up-and-going-on-some-pointless-adventure-thing-while-some-Wicked-Witch-takes-over-your-dad's-land bit. Besides: In her opinion, she'd rather there be a story about her, Niki and their dad kicking the behind of the future Wicked Witch of The West as said Witch attempts (and fail) to seize the land.

Personality
Casually assertive and often walks a fine line between being cheeky and indifferent. Cora is something of a heart-filled enigma, as her frank, if not teasing demeanor gives off an air of flippant, lighthearted pride. For obvious reasons, her dabbling in facetiousness alone makes some question her adoptive parent's legitimacy.

Though it may be easy to generalize her ludic nature, this self-assured teen may have more to herself than she lets on. Sure it takes a bit to crack, but those spontaneous moments where she takes a sudden liking to a person --- or when, you know, once jibber-jabber/getting used to her ensues --- happen to pop up? That lucky person (or people --- hey, you never know) will find a bigger heart in her than she'd care to admit. Not that she was ever trying to be an impudent little twerp. Or was she?

Appearance
Being an Ozian, Cora is rather short. If it weren't for her size she might give off a more androgynous appearance, her slender arms both toned and muscular due to years of experience under the art of proper wielding of an ax.

Her scarlet, perhaps less than shoulder-length hair has an interesting tenancy to defy gravity, which she uses a small dosage of harmless hair gel to make the ends slightly curl as through they were snarling flames. Violet eyes dawn Cora's somewhat angular face, with such and the rest of her body being a neutral medium to dark.

Basic Summary
We all know the tale, or at least so it seems: A little girl from Kansas gets swept away to a magical land and goes to seek the titular Wizard, meeting three quirky companions, defeating not one, but two Wicked Witches all by accident. Of course, including plenty of differences between the books and a certain renown film, there is plenty more to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz than Jade Encrusted Bugs cares to describe.

And of course, since the creator has obviously copied her own description from Barley's page, it is time to inform you of something new that those who read the book may be more aware of than those who only have watched MGM's The Wizard of Oz: How Nick Chopper became the Tin Woodman:

Nick Chopper, a woodman of course, was a Munchkin man who fell in love with a lovely lass named Nimmie Amie. Miss Nimm is the servant to an old woman who didn't want her to marry because she (said woman, not Nimm) is a cheap and lazy bastard. So of course, the woman made a deal with the Wicked Witch of The East, said Witch enchanted his ax so that it chopped off all his limbs (which were lovingly replaced with tin joints), and then his torso was severed by said enchanted ax and that, of course, was replaced as well.

How Nick would even plausibly survive is such a scenario were to have happened outside of Oz I will never know, but that's how he lost his heart.

Oh yeah, then he rusted and stayed in his seemingly emotionless, frozen state for a year until a quirky little girl and and a living scarecrow met his acquaintance. And then he became the Emperor of The West after enduring more madness, ruling over the Winkie people. Confused? Well then, it is time for Jade Encrusted Bugs to put this section of Cora's wikia to a halt and give you a nifty link to Wikipedia's article on her kind-hearted father who suffered and sacrificed quite a bit for his love and his friends.

How Cora Ties Into It
Cora and Nikole, unlike their dear father, are neither Munchkinlanders nor made of actual tin, for it is expected that, once either of them graduate, the other is supposed to reenact the heartbreak he went through in order to take the appearance of his metallic form. However, neither of them know just who is destined to take his place, for a certain violet-haired girl defied her destiny before any of them could pledge.

Having been adopted sometime after her sister, it was Nikole, a Winkie girl, whose namesake was based on that of her father's. Cora, as an infant, was discovered one evening wrapped in blankets made of animal skin, presumably abandoned near the Tottenhot village south-east of Winkie and Quadling territory, in front of the mountains separating the West and South of Oz. The Tin Woodman, who had intended to meet with Glinda to discuss trading routes at the time, had stopped by there in search of the unnamed girl's guardians.

The villagers had stopped their leisurely activities upon the site of the peculiar Emperor with the parentless newborn. However, none of them once claimed her as their child, let alone knew where she came from, an odd case as the village was not all that big. Even their leader and ambassador didn't know of her existence. When no one else had shown a strong interest in fostering the baby, the Tin Woodman didn't have the heart to leave the little one without a family, and so decided to raise her as her own.

Since the girl appeared in their likeness, the leader approved for the Tin Woodman's adoption on one condition: Maintain good ties between her, his father and the village, and don't push aside where she comes from just because of who she might become.

Nick, being a fair ruler and father both, kept this promise ever since.

Family
The Choppers are a small yet tight-knit family, living comfortably in the Tin Palace. Of course, the girls being made of flesh and not being likely to easily adjust to sleeping on metal mattresses, both siblings' bedrooms are exceptions when it comes to their father's all-tin-all-the-time house decor. Although Cora's bio template somewhat pokes fun at her sister, in reality they are as close as any two sisters can be.

Friends
First and foremost: The children of the villagers from a certain part of Oz. A well established relationship between her father and the Tottenhots has well benefited Cora, being respected among them as equals and vise-versa. Along with her semi-frequent visits (which have understandingly decreased ever since attending a certain boarding school), she keeps well in touch with students near her her place of discovery that attend Ever After High.

As for Barley, the next Scarecrow of Oz, they met when he literally crashed into her while arriving as school using the mirror portal, a heirloom owned by the family of one of the Munchkin farmers who made him. The odd duo have been friends ever since, Cora being amused by his quirky mannerisms and Barley, well, honestly he's just a people person and his sometimes literal mindedness makes him immune to her snark.

Ever since a certain happening during Legacy Day, however, an elephant in the room has appeared in their relationship: While Barley is looking forward to getting brains and meeting a strew of interesting people through the retelling of Baum's books, Cora doesn't see the point in in it. At all. Her dad being dethroned only for either she or Niki to get it back through the help of some random Kansas girl (or boy)? Losing her heart and every other organic limb on her body? Not very appealing.

Romance
Other than bearing the occasional, though fading crush on many a passing lass, Cora isn't a hopeless romantic nor one to throw herself whatever random student that comes her way. Nor is necessarily closed off to the idea of being in a relationship, but she's nonetheless not a hit-and-run kind of girl.

Opon the possibility of having to fall in love with the offspring of Nimmie Amee and Chopfyt --- the latter being a man who was, by no exaggeration, constructed by a tinsmith using the leftover body parts of Nick Chopper and the former Munchkin soldier Captain Fyter --- Cora would preferably not. Even with the potential that their child might be female rather than male (as she would rather not pretend that she doesn't root for the other team, thank you very much), she's rather follow her heart, as cheesy as it sounds, than be forced to fall spell-over-heels over whoever is destined to have a fetish for Frankenstein-esque persons.

Basic
Cora's ensemble consists of some rather interesting acessories worn over (and compliment thensome with) her orange and yellow striped tanktop and baggy, leather-belted yellow pants. Over her shoulders are a pair of layered, homemade pieces of tin armor that is plated in nickel, with the smaller left portion overlapped by the strap of a stylized, tan, and studded leather chest binder secured and wrapped around her chest with belt loops. A golden, starlike or diamond-shaped design is embeded on the chest binder above where her heart is.

On her lower knees and feet are a pair of knee-length, sock-like legwear with open heels and toes that slip over her red and steal-tinted high heeled shoes, which are held up by tin and gold-bolted armor strapped around her calves.

Remaining accessories include the following: A tin armlet with a golden trim, a tin-engraved bracelet on the same arm, (once again) tin, funnel-shaped earrings, a pair of metalic goggles molded from various metals that wrap around her head and hairline, and over her left wrist is a wide bangle with gold, tin and copper strips that surround another bracelet made of  mousey brown fur.

Disclaimer
The Tottenhots first appear in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, the seventh Oz book my L. Frank Baum. With the name alone unfortunately being an obvious pun to a certain outdated slur, Jade Encrusted Bugs very much ensure the public that she is doing her best to pull off having Cora being associated with a controversial grouping in the books while dealing with them accordingly and appropriately as to make her a well developed character rather than that of a stereotype as they were formerly written. If only Baum was ahead of his time when it came to writing race and women/gender expression, but it is what it is and Cora's creator is willing to learn from his mistakes.