Wicked (Maguire novel)


Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a 1995 dark fantasy novel by American writer Gregory Maguire, with illustrations by Douglas Smith. It is the first novel in The Wicked Years series, and was followed by Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz.
Wicked is a cynical, adult-oriented revision of the characters and setting of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with its sequels and 1939 film adaptation. The novel is presented as a biography of the Wicked Witch of the West, here given the name Elphaba Thropp. The book follows Elphaba from her birth through her social ostracism, school years, radicalization, and final days. Maguire depicts the traditionally villainous character in a sympathetic light, using her journey to explore the problem of evil and nature versus nurture debate, as well as themes of terrorism, propaganda, and existential purpose.
In 2003, the novel was loosely adapted as the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical Wicked, in turn adapted into a two-part feature film, with the first film released in November 2024 and the second film released in November 2025.

Background

Maguire began contemplating the nature of evil while living in London in the early 1990s. He noticed that while the problem of evil had been explored from many different perspectives, those perspectives were seldom synthesized together. He wondered whether calling a person evil might be enough to cause a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If everyone was always calling you a bad name, how much of that would you internalize? How much of that would you say, all right, go ahead, I'll be everything that you call me because I have no capacity to change your minds anyway so why bother. By whose standards should I live?
He was also inspired by the 1993 murder of James Bulger, in which both victim and perpetrators were young children.
Everyone was asking: how could those boys be so villainous? Were they born evil or were there circumstances that pushed them towards behaving like that? It propelled me back to the question of evil that bedevils anybody raised Catholic.
Up to that point strictly a children's author, Maguire had difficulty finding an effective way to write about evil, since in his mind, there were no truly evil characters in children's literature. In what he later described as "the one great revelation of my life," Maguire realized that there were in fact villains in children's books; however, they were usually written as one-dimensional stock characters in order to provoke a quick emotional reaction from young readers. Wondering whom to write about, he envisioned the Wicked Witch of the West, as played by Margaret Hamilton in the MGM film, delivering her iconic line, "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" Maguire had a lifelong fascination with The ''Wizard of Oz'', both Baum's original novel and the film, which he watched every year during its annual broadcast. He decided to tell the Wicked Witch's life story using the same large scale and broad moral messages found in the novels of Charles Dickens.

Plot

In the Land of Oz, a minister's wife, Melena Thropp, gives birth to a daughter, Elphaba. Elphaba has green skin, sharp teeth, a savage demeanor, and a fear of water. The story details Elphaba's difficult childhood before flashing forward to show her at Shiz University with her social climbing roommate Galinda, who is destined to become Glinda.
While at Shiz, the two girls discover that Oz is rife with political tension. Headmistress and Ozian power broker Madame Morrible suggests that Elphaba and Glinda work for her from behind the scenes to help stabilize the political situation in Oz. Preferring more direct action, Elphaba and Glinda travel to the Emerald City, where they meet the Wizard and plead their case. When the Wizard dismisses their concerns, Elphaba takes matters into her own hands. She goes into hiding and joins an underground terrorist group working out of the Emerald City.
Five years later, Elphaba reconnects with former schoolmate Prince Fiyero, now married with three children, and the two begin an illicit affair. While Elphaba makes an attempt at assassinating Madame Morrible, Fiyero is caught in Elphaba's hideout and arrested by the Wizard's secret police force. Blaming herself for his capture, Elphaba takes refuge in a convent. Seven years later, she visits Fiyero's family at their castle, Kiamo Ko, in hopes of gaining their forgiveness. She brings along a boy named Liir, her son by Fiyero. Fiyero's family allow her to stay as their guest, but his wife Sarima refuses to hear her apology. While there, Elphaba finds the Grimmerie, a book of spells and magic, and begins to study sorcery, gaining a reputation as a witch.
Elphaba's father asks for her help with her sister Nessarose, who has also become a witch and has taken Elphaba's hereditary position as ruler of Munchkinland. Tired of being used as a pawn in other people's agendas and having no interest in ruling, Elphaba instead renounces her claim. Nessarose promises to give Elphaba her enchanted silver shoes after she dies. When Elphaba returns to Kiamo Ko, she discovers the Wizard's troops have taken Fiyero's family prisoner.
Seven years later, a storm visits Munchkinland, dropping a farmhouse on Nessarose and killing her. The farmhouse's passengers are a little girl named Dorothy Gale and her little dog, Toto. Elphaba and Glinda reunite for the first time in years shortly after Nessarose's death. Upon learning that Glinda sent Dorothy off with Nessarose's shoes, for fear of their power igniting a civil war in Munchkinland, Elphaba is furious, as the shoes were rightfully hers. She fears the shoes will fall into the hands of the Wizard, who may use them to further advance his power and political agenda.
Elphaba meets with the Wizard to beg for the release of Fiyero's family in exchange for the Grimmerie. The Wizard explains that he has killed them all except for Fiyero's daughter Nor, whom he keeps as a slave. He explains that he comes from a different world, the same world the book comes from, and is not bound by the laws of Oz. Elphaba then seeks out the elderly Madame Morrible to complete the assassination she failed at years earlier, only to discover that she had died, mere minutes before Elphaba arrived. After bludgeoning the old woman's corpse, Elphaba learns from the Clock of the Time Dragon that the Wizard is her biological father, making her the child of two different worlds and thus destined never to truly belong to Oz. She returns to Kiamo Ko, where Liir informs her he has learned from soldiers stationed nearby that the Wizard has sent Dorothy and her companions on a mission to kill Elphaba.
When Dorothy and her friends arrive at Kiamo Ko, she tells Elphaba that while the Wizard sent her with orders to "kill the Wicked Witch of the West," Dorothy came to apologize for inadvertently killing Nessarose. Furious that Dorothy is asking for the forgiveness she herself has been denied, Elphaba waves her burning broom in the air and inadvertently sets her skirt on fire. Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her to save her, unaware that Elphaba is allergic to water. The water melts her away.
Dorothy returns to the Wizard with a green bottle, which he recognizes as the potion he used to drug Melena years earlier. He hastily departs the Emerald City for his own world mere hours before a coup would have overthrown and killed him. The book ends with political chaos reigning over Oz.

Major characters

  • Elphaba Thropp: The protagonist of the book, Elphaba is a green-skinned girl who later becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the West. Later in the book, it is revealed that she is the daughter of the Wizard. The Wicked Witch of the West is not given a name in Baum's novels; Maguire derived the name Elphaba from Baum's initials, LFB.
  • Galinda Arduenna Upland : Elphaba's roommate at Shiz University, who eventually becomes the Good Witch of the North. She hates Elphaba at first, but they later become close friends.
  • Nessarose Thropp: Elphaba's younger sister, who eventually becomes known as the Wicked Witch of the East. Nessarose was born without arms. She is extremely beautiful and is better liked than Elphaba, causing Elphaba to resent her.
  • Fiyero Tigelaar: The prince of the Arjiki tribe in the Vinkus. He meets Elphaba at Shiz and later has an affair with her while she is involved in the resistance movement against the Wizard of Oz.
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The book's main antagonist. The Wizard is a human who came to Oz from Earth in a hot air balloon. He was originally seeking the Grimmerie, but discovered he could orchestrate a coup d'état and take power for himself.
  • Madame Morrible: The headmistress of Shiz University's Crage Hall, which Elphaba and Galinda attend, and a behind-the-scenes power broker in Ozian politics.
  • Boq: A kind-hearted Munchkin who befriends Elphaba and Galinda at Shiz.
  • Dr. Dillamond: Elphaba's mentor and favorite professor at Shiz. He is a Goat who is later assassinated as part of the Wizard's campaign against Animals.
  • Melena Thropp: The mother of Elphaba, Nessarose, and their brother Shell.
  • Frexspar the Godly: Melena's husband, a traveling minister.
  • Shell Thropp: Elphaba and Nessarose's younger brother.

    Themes

Nature of evil

According to author Maguire, Wicked is primarily about identifying with someone who is ostracized. The Gazette called Wicked "a cautionary tale...about what happens when we as a society decide to label anyone who differs from the norm as evil."
Prior to writing Wicked, Maguire became interested in examining the nature of evil from the perspective of someone considered evil. He noted that while Baum had deliberately avoided using traditional fairy tale characters in writing the original novel, the Wicked Witch of the West was the sole exception, being depicted as the stereotypical "witch in her castle" figure, with wickedness her single defining character trait. The novel raises the question of whether evil is inborn or acquired. Elphaba is a social outcast despite being of noble birth, which makes her question how much power she truly has over her own life.