Characters / Wicked

Characters in the musical Wicked. For The Wicked Years books, see here.

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Elphaba

Elphaba Thropp/The Wicked Witch of the West

• Abled in the Adaptation: She has both eyes intact, unlike in the original Oz books. Unlike in the book, she isn't allergic to water. It's just a rumor people spread about her. This allows her to be Spared by the Adaptation when she fakes her own death.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the musical, she's much more beautiful than the ugly, hook-nosed witch that we're used to. She's also less angular and bony than her book version.
• Adaptational Context Change: She's the one that turns Boq into the Tin Man, but only to save his life after Nessarose's spell goes horribly wrong. In the original "The Wizard of Oz", the Wicked Witch of the East was the reason the Tin Man became who he was, after enchanting his Axe to prevent him from marrying the munchkin servant girl he loves, after her disapproving mistress came to the Witch to stop the marriage.
• Adaptational Heroism: The book portrays the Wicked Witch as a more sympathetic character than L. Frank Baum's original, and then the musical in turn portrays her as even more sympathetic than the original Wicked. In the book, she still becomes a heinous, tragically insane Villain Protagonist. The musical drops this characterization and puts her in a much more heroic light, making her a benevolent protagonist that's more misunderstood than she is evil.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: She's based off of her MGM design, not her Land of Oz design. As a result, she's green skinned and has a black color motif.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Many Jewish fans of the show have related to Elphaba's struggles of being unfairly scapegoated and ostracized. Not only that but Elphaba has been played by many Jewish actresses over the years: Idina Menzel, Lindsay Mendez, and Mandy Gonzalez, to name a few. So were musical composer Stephen Schwartz and playbook writer Winnie Holzman.
• Byronic Heroine: Elphaba is antisocial, emotionally sensitive, intelligent, against social norms, usually rude to people but affable with who is close to her.
• Beautiful All Along: Glinda only calls Elphaba pretty after "Popular", after she's Galinda-fied her with a flower and better hairstyling. Fiyero in the book refers to her as being "beautiful in her own way", meaning she's not conventionally attractive, and in the musical he finds her beautiful because he's "looking at things differently", meaning that he knows how to see past her green skin. The makeup designer flat-out states that "Elphaba is not ugly—she's supposed to be beautiful. People just hate her because she's green." Notably, her ensemble changes entirely for the latter part of the play, as she drops the bulky boots, glasses and drab school outfit and switches to an extravagantly crafted black gown instead.
• Better with Non-Human Company: She is very snarky, has a hard time expressing her feelings and seems to get along much better with Animals and animals.
• Betty and Veronica: Fiyero's Veronica.
• Big Sister Instinct: She loves her little sister dearly. One of her early berserk buttons was being separated from Nessa. Later, after a suggestion from a shunned Glinda that her sister is Elphaba's biggest weakness, The Wizard and Madame Morrible plan to use Nessarose in a trap to lure Elphaba out of hiding. Elphaba also used one of the spells in the book to make her sister walk, which works.
• Calling the Old Man Out: "Defying Gravity" in the musical. Her role after the same moment in the book as well. Although, she never actually learns that the Wizard is her biological father.
• Child of Two Worlds: Her father is not an Oz native like her mother is. The fact she was born of parents from "two different worlds" was said to be the reason she was so magically gifted. Also, the tonic the Wizard had in his possession and implied to be his own creation was apparently responsible for her coloring.
• Chocolate Baby: Her green skin is due to her being born of infidelity; the coloration was brought on by an elixir Melena drank prior to conception. Frexspar never suspects anything and simply believes his daughter's skin is due to his failure as the Governor.
• Cradle To Grave Character: The first Wicked book begins just before Elphaba's birth and ends just after her Foregone Conclusion Accidental Murder by Dorothy. Subverted in the musical, where she doesn't really die.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She may wear dark-colored clothes almost exclusively, have black hair, and seem Gothic, but she cares about her sister, Animals, and her anthropomorphic teacher and desperately wants to do good. This eventually leads to her Villainous Breakdown.
• Deadpan Snarker: She gets most of the best lines in the play.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Though it wasn't intended as the good deed that it was seen as (and it ends up backfiring spectacularly when it turns out that Nessa's a total Yandere), Galinda setting up Boq and Nessarose turned out to be the key to unlocking Elphaba's softer side, and the relationship between the two roommates changes almost instantly, at least in the musical version.
• Disney Death: She only fakes being melted, actually falling down a trap door, and escapes Oz with help from Fiyero, although the two can never return.
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: In the Lion cub scene, Elphaba is so bewildered by the situation she starts blabbering frustratedly to Fiyero.
• Evil Laugh: Depending on the actress portraying her, she's had that distinctive cackle from as far back as her schooldays. Nearly all versions have her develop it by the time she's become infamous.
• Flowers of Femininity: Galinda puts one in her hair to show she can be pretty. Elphaba is so shocked by seeing herself as something other than repulsive, she runs off.
• Friendless Background: She grew up shunned and isolated. Glinda becomes her first friend.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She tries to keep it under control, but it really does not take much to get Elphaba sniping and shouting at those around her, and we see her temper ''literally'' explode several times over the course of the story. No doubt she became this way through having to constantly deal with people's stares and jeers.
• Hated by All: Was outcasted at Shiz University because of her green skin and utterly loathed by all the people in Oz due to lies spread about her by The Wizard and Madame Morrible. Exceptions to this trope are Glinda and Fiyero after the "Dancing Through Life" sequence, Doctor Dillamond, and Chistery.
• Heroic BSoD: The musical gives her a truly epic breakdown.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Without a doubt—it's basically the premise of the show.
• The Hero: Well the Anti-hero, anyway. She is more conventially good (albeit flawed) in the musical.
• I Am a Monster: After all that she's been through and all that she has lost, not to mention the fact that the Wizard has turned the entire Land of Oz against her, she finally gives in and names herself "The Wicked Witch of the West".
• In-Series Nickname: Glinda calls Elphaba "Elphie".
• Knight in Sour Armor: In the musical. She keeps fighting for what she believes is right even though she doesn't think it makes much difference.
• Loners Are Freaks: The attitude towards her in college. With more than a little not-so-Fantastic Racism on the side.
• Magic Misfire: Elphaba causes these far more often than she'd like. Most notably, her messing up an invulnerability spell in her panic and desperation to save Fiyero from being beaten to death, which ultimately turns him into a scarecrow.
• Motor Mouth: If riled up, Elphaba can get into passionate rants where no one can get a word in edgewise. Fiyero points this out to her once.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: In the musical, this is definitely the case.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Her dress in the second half of the musical is meant to look like rags, but is pretty fancy, as the patchwork look required lots of beaded detail. An early version also had some ruffles and netting.
• Power Incontinence: Elphaba is powerful for sure, but she... doesn't have the best command over her magic abilities. She can make things happen that many can only dream of doing, but aside from enchanting her broom to fly, we never see her cast a spell that exactly has the outcome she desires. This may have something to do with how her magic often reacts to her emotional outbursts. Even the broom wasn't intentional. She and Glinda expected her to grow wings like the monkeys.
• Reality Warper: Implied, discussed and exhibited on one occasion. She seems to be able to make things happen unconsciously, without even thinking them.
• Rebellious Spirit: In the musical, she becomes this once she meets the Wizard and realizes the depth of his corruption, declaring "I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game." and "I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so / Some things I cannot change, but till I try I'll never know!" She then begins her "campaign of terror."
• Sanity Slippage: In the musical, she becomes unhinged and decidedly irrational in her actions but eventually recovers when a visit from Glinda, and news that Fiyero managed to survive as the Scarecrow, helps bring her back down to earth.
• Seers: Seems to have this power in the musical; When she's envisioning in her head what her life would be like working with the Wizard, she predicts the fact that there will be a celebration all to do with her (though she doesn't predict that said celebration will be her funeral). She also senses her sister is in trouble upon seeing Dorothy's flying house.
• The Snark Knight: She's sarcastic and introverted from the start, but at first, she has a distinctly idealistic streak ("The Wizard and I") — after "Defying Gravity", she evolves into a genuine, cynical Snark Knight.
• Spared by the Adaptation: She dies in the novel, but survives in the musical. See Disney Death.
• Straight Man: When Glinda is being goofy in the play, Elphaba is the straight man.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's outwardly snarky and standoffish, but she shows her warmer, compassionate side towards Animals, her sister, and people show grows fond of like Glinda and Fiyero.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: In "No Good Deed", she decides to stop trying to be good and instead be the Wicked Witch that everyone believes her to be.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy half. Elphaba is strong-headed, pragmatic, and has no interest whatsoever in gushing over things like makeup and clothes. She's also not afraid to get her hands dirty for her cause.
• Tragic Villain: The entire musical shows how an ostracized girl slowly became evil because of how society treated her. What's even worse is the fact that she never really did anything to deserve this treatment other than have an odd skin color, reject someone's ideologies based on her moral principles, and unintentionally cause damage to those she tries to help. When she turns Fiyero into a scarecrow, she finally snaps and fully embraces her evil nature. Subverted eventually as she is never a villain in the end.
• Trauma Conga Line: Not even counting what went down in the first act, Elphaba has to deal with her beloved little sister not wanting to have anything to do with her anymore, saving the life of Boq by turning him into a tin-man who forever resents her for it thereafter, her favorite teacher losing his ability to speak human language, her sister getting murdered, getting into a nasty spat with Glinda that puts them at odds with each other, and finally, watching Fiyero be dragged off to be killed because of her, all the while being collectively despised and hunted for by the populace. Can anyone really blame her for going off the deep end by the time Dorothy came around?
• Tsundere: Has traits of one in the musical. She's very vitriolic to almost everyone upon first meeting, but she gets awkward and sweet around people who she hopes to impress or who show her kindness. She even gets this textbook tsundere line:
  Elphaba: Where is [Fiyero] anyway? N-not that I expected him to say goodbye to me...
• The Unfavorite: Her father heavily prefers Nessarose.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West was once a friendly, sensitive young girl. She's less villainous in the musical, though.
• Witch Classic: Her getup and powers fit the bill.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Temporarily. No matter how hard she tries to do good in the world, it ends up blowing up in her face spectacularly, especially when her magical powers get involved. Eventually she hits her breaking point when Fiyero seems to die. She gets better when she finds out he's alive.

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Glinda

Lady Galinda Upland/Glinda the Good

• Adaptation Dye-Job: She's redheaded in Oz canon but is a blonde in Wicked canon.
• Adaptational Expansion: While her role in the novel is very hefty, here she is the Co-Lead alongside Elphaba.
• Adaptational Jerkass: She's still a hero in Wicked, but is portrayed as a lot more flawed than her counterpart from The Wizard of Oz, having quite the ego on her and initially being an Alpha Bitch towards Elphaba (before mellowing out), and temporarily plays an antagonistic role in Act II with aiding Morrible in capturing Elphaba and accidentally causing the death of Nessarose, although she does have a My God, What Have I Done? moment afterwards.
• Alpha Bitch: At first. She's more of a Lovable Alpha Bitch afterwards, eventually dropping the Bitch part altogether.
• Ambiguously Bi: She's infatuated with Fiyero but her relationship with Elphaba is heavy on Homoerotic Subtext. Several of the OBC think she loved Elphaba, or could have if things happened differently.
• Betty and Veronica: Fiyero's Betty.
• Beware the Nice Ones: It takes until the end of the play, but Galinda eventually decides she's had enough of the Wizard and Morrible. She is directly responsible for ridding Oz of both of them in short order. She effectively banishes the Wizard from Oz, who easily complies after being broken from the news that he played a part in the death of his daughter, and has Morrible arrested and thrown into prison, who isn't as willing to along with Glinda's demands.
• Big Good: By the end of the musical, and the departure of the Wizard, she has become the loving and kind protector of Oz, "Glinda the Good", as she promised Elphaba she would.
• Book Dumb: At least, compared to Elphaba. More so in the musical than in the books.
• Brainless Beauty: She's not dumb, pretty good at manipulation indeed. But she only uses it to easily get her way in order to move through life without much thought or work. She comes to realize that her ambitions of being a Witch will require more intelligence and integrity than that.
• Brutal Honesty: In both versions, she's prone to speaking her mind even when she knows that she could potentially hurt someone's feelings in doing so. "Popular" from the musical, for example, is loaded with examples.
  Glinda: And even in your case... though it's the toughest case I've yet to face...
  And with an assist from me, to be who you'll be, instead of dreary who you were (well, are)...
• Character Exaggeration: While not truly (or fully) a Dumb Blonde, the musical milks this quality of her more than the books do. She's also more energetic.
• Cheery Pink: Glinda wears a frilly pink dress during the apogee of her genkiness, the song “Popular”.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Fiyero suddenly running off with Elphaba causes Glinda to feel a dark enough jealousy that she gives Morrible information to lure out Elphaba that culminates in the death of Elphaba's sister. This naturally leads to a My God, What Have I Done? reaction from her.
• Comically Missing the Point: At the start of "Popular", when Glinda declares that Elphaba will be "her new project", the girls have this exchange.
  Elphaba: You really don't need to do that.
  Glinda: I know, that's what makes me so nice.
• Cool Crown: In the play, she gets a couple tiaras with her outfits.
• Delusions of Eloquence: A little bit in the play, though not nearly as severely as Madame Morrible.
• The Ditz: In her days at Shiz in Act I, she asks the history teacher Doctor Dillamond why he keeps talking about the past. She's much wiser in Act II.
• Dumb Blonde: Played With. She's not stupid so much as spoiled and sheltered. Especially in the musical, she outright seems to take pride on the fact that she can get anything she wants without a lot of work. She gets better.
• Genki Girl: In the musical, especially during the "Popular" and "One Short Day" scenes.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Her "Good Witch" persona invokes this trope, although her real personality is more of a subversion of it.
• Heel Realization: In the musical, at the Ozdust Ballroom. She has an even bigger one later, after inadvertently contributing to Nessarose's death.
• Incoming Ham: Her first appearance in the flashback is her gliding onto the stage (thanks to sitting on a luggage cart), while singing several high notes.
• An Ice Person: Freezing water is one of the first spells she learns from the Grimmerie.
• Inept Mage: This gets shown in the musical when during the "Popular" number, she tries to do Gorgeous Garment Generation for Elphaba, and nothing happens. She just tosses the wand away.
• Innocently Insensitive: Glinda lacks tact and humility about her status in life (exemplified in her "Popular" number), but she never means to flaunt it maliciously in other people's faces, it's just how she is.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She starts off seeing Fiyero as the perfect prince who would marry her and give her her 'happy ever after'. She realizes that true love is loving someone with their flaws and being willing to let them go when he falls for Elphaba.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Beautifully parodied when Glinda and Elphaba start slapping each other just before the Catfight. After the second slap, Glinda, wearing her bubble dress and tiara, starts flipping her wand around like a kung fu staff, in a display that falls under What the Fu Are You Doing?.
• Large Ham: The role practically calls out for this, especially compared to the more dour and sarcastic Elphaba. The song "Popular" is often the benchmark for any actress playing G(a)linda, as it involves a lot of hopping around, dancing, yodelling, and often bits of improvised comedy unique to that actress. Most later actresses took Kristin Chenoweth's performance and built on it, creating a series of zanier Glindas.
• Light Is Not Good: Played with. She may be pretty and popular, but she is vain and too dumb to realize what the Wizard had done. She redeems herself in the end.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In the musical. She isn't told that Elphaba and Fiyero are alive. Although Kristin Chenoweth's final performance as Glinda has her mention to Elphaba that she needs to "shower" (in her top ten book of ways to improve Elphaba)... this, in turn, implies that she knows Elphaba hasn't been destroyed and is acting to remove Morrible and the Witch from power as a sort of poetic justice for Elphaba, who is currently in hiding.
• Loved by All: Was beloved by all the students in her days at Shiz University and became even more popular as she grew older, being christened Glinda the Good by The Wizard and loved by all of Oz. The only exceptions to this are Elphaba at certain points of the musical and Madame Morrible from the get-go.
• Mystical High Collar: Her "bubble dress", which is after she finally learns magic, has a high collar.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has this realization, after remembering that Madame Morrible's specialty in magic is weather, and that Nessarose was crushed by Dorothy's house after falling out of a twister, all of this happening shortly after a scorned Glinda suggested using Nessa as bait to lure Elphaba out of hiding.
• Named by the Adaptation: She's given the surname "Upland". This was canonized in the second book.
• The Paragon: Glinda is accutely aware that Oz sees her as an arbiter of peace and goodness
• Pimped-Out Dress: She gets the most Costume Porn in the musical, with loads of very fancy dresses:
  • Her "bubble dress" (at the beginning and end) and her engagement party dress have lots of beading and sequins, and a skirt with the layers cut to give a flower petal effect.
  • A Denmark production has different, but no less fancy, costumes. Her bubble dress has a bodice covered with beading to look like pearls, white High-Class Gloves, and a white feather skirt.
  • Even in the book, she's described as wearing all sorts of extravagant dresses after becoming Lady Chuffrey.
• Pink Means Feminine: Wears a short pink dress during the party at the Ozdust Ballroom and during the song “Popular”.
• Plucky Comic Relief: In the play, the majority of the comic relief comes from her, and she's certainly plucky.
• The Pollyanna: She plays this trope straight at first, but then it becomes a facade later on.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Had no romance with Fiyero in the book.
• Puppet King: Glinda's "Good Witch" title doesn't actually give her any power, as Madame Morrible explains to her during "March Of The Witch Hunters".
• Shipper with an Agenda: To be free to pursue Fiyero, Glinda needs to get rid of her stalker Boq. She does this by lamenting how Nessarose will be alone at the party, and Boq, eager to impress Glinda, offers to be Nessa's date.
• Stepford Smiler: The musical makes her a Stepford Smiler at the behest of the state for the sake of keeping the populace blissfully unaware.
• That Woman Is Dead: Borderline parody when she changes her name from Galinda to Glinda in the play. Played much more sympathetically in the book.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The show chronicles her journey from a spoiled and shallow school girl, to the beloved and kind protector of Oz, "Glinda, The Good".
  Glinda: Fellow Ozians... Friends. We have been through a frightening time. And there will be others times and other things that frighten us. But if you let me, I would like to try to help. I would like to try to be "Glinda the Good".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl half. Glinda is the epitome of stereotypical girly girl, being obsessed with pink, boys, clothes, makeup and parties.
• True Blue Femininity: Glinda is heavily associated with bubbles and wears a sparkling blue gown at the beginning and end of the musical.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: All Glinda wanted was to trick Boq into leaving her alone. She never imagined Nessarose was so starved for affection that she would go so far as to become a tyrant to the Munchkins just to keep Boq at her side. Even when Glinda does try to amend her mistake, Nessa's already fallen into Stalker with a Crush territory.
• Valley Girl: Some actresses give her moments like this, particularly during "Popular".
• Vanity Is Feminine: Galinda is vain for a majority of the time, but mainly in ways it's funniest.

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Fiyero

Fiyero Tiggular/The Scarecrow

"Life is fraught-less when you're thoughtless. Those who don't try never look foolish.'"

• Adaptational Personality Change: He was a mix of The Stoic, Proud Warrior Race Guy and Shrinking Violet in the book, whereas in the musical he's a showboating Big Jerk on Campus with a Hidden Heart of Gold, and also a bit of a ditz.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Fiyero's justifications for his hedonistic lifestyle ("Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters!") fly very close to the concept of existential nihilism, wherein nothing matters because life is meaningless. Although he initially comes off as a negative influence who preaches that making an effort is futile because "dust is what we come to", he is later shown to value positive traits like compassion, altruism and love. He shares Elphaba's sense of justice enough to follow her into a difficult future in exile, thus giving up everything that made his life comfortable.
• Big Damn Heroes: He saves Elphaba from the Wizard and they run off together. He does this a second time (coming in swinging on a vine no less!) but with mixed results; Elphaba escapes, but he gets captured.
• Big Jerk on Campus: He starts out as this in the beginning of Act One, as he appears to be completely frivolous, shallow, and conceited, convincing the students to party rather than study, and dates the equally frivolous, shallow and conceited Galinda. However, it’s ultimately subverted as he shows to have a Hidden Heart of Gold underneath his pomp and pride, and is even willing to give up his popularity and reputation to be with Elphaba, who he truly loves.
• Brainless Beauty/The Ditz: Self-stated. He perpetuates this image so much that people actually become worried when he starts "thinking".
• The Casanova: Apparently this was the general perception of him. To quote Galinda, "his reputation is scandalacious"
• Composite Character: In the musical he's a mix of Book!Fiyero (with his name, position of Prince, and role as Elphaba's love interest), while his personality is more along the lines of Avaric (and possibly Crope and Tibbett) taken up to eleven. Also he actually is the Scarecrow in the musical, whereas in the book, Elphaba entertains the possibility that he never died and was hiding in that Scarecrow suit only to learn that the Scarecrow is nothing more than a Scarecrow.
• Comical Nap Drool: Aaron Tveit plays Fiyero in the musical as someone who drools in his sleep, it's fitting with his affable social butterfly, intelligent, loveable and at times naive personality.
• Cool Shades: In his first appearance in the musical.
• Crash-Into Hello: Sort of, in the musical. He was asleep at the time, but his first meeting with Elphaba is instigated by his carriage nearly running her over.
• Crucified Hero Shot: In the musical, him getting hoisted onto a pole with his arms stretched out and being carried into a cornfield to be tortured is the last we see of him. Or so we think.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's no match for her, but Fiyero does have his share of witty remarks that will occasionally catch even Elphaba off guard.
• Delinquent: He brags about how he's been kicked out of several different schools at the beginning of "Dancing through Life".
• Disney Death: In the musical, he fakes his death and helps Elphaba to escape while at the same time Faking the Dead.
• Emergency Transformation: He's the musical's version of the Scarecrow through this, through Elphaba's slightly botched invulnerability spell she tries to cast to save him from being beaten to death (she doesn't find out it actually worked until much later).
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: He starts tripping over his sentences when he finds himself taking notice of Elphaba.
• Expelled from Every Other School: Fiyero has been expelled from multiple different universities for being lazy and irresponsible. During his song "Dancing Through Life", he casually says he's been kicked out of a lot of schools.
• Foreshadowing: His ultimate fate is alluded to many times up until The Reveal. He references being "brainless" in both of his songs, and a perceptive eye will notice in "Dancing Through Life" that his choreography is based on the movement of a scarecrow on a pole.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: The tight, white pants that Fiyero wears in his introduction are considered infamous by his actors and the show-goers alike.
• Friend to All Living Things: Fiyero is shown to be friendly and kind to pretty much everyone he meets and the reveal that he's the Scarecrow shows that he's great with children as well.
• The Hedonist: Initially, his life motto is to live life however the hell he pleases. He eventually outgrows it.
• Hidden Depths: So hidden that Fiyero himself was convinced of his shallowness. Elphaba calls him out on it.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Turns out he's not so self-absorbed after all.
• Ironic Echo: When they get together, Fiyero has to convince Elphaba that he thinks she's beautiful. At the end of the musical when Fiyero has been turned into a scarecrow, it's Elphaba who has to convince him that she still thinks he's beautiful.
• I Will Find You: His motivation for joining the witch-hunting Gale Force is to find Elphaba before anyone else does.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Fiyero tries to remain aloof and entirely self-centered and succeeds for a little while, but ultimately when the chips are down he fails. Fiyero is also the first person we see in the musical who doesn’t scream/flinch/run away/etc when he first sees Elphaba. He is utterly unfazed. Already we start seeing that her being green doesn’t matter in the slightest to him. Even his joke about her being green is one of the tamest in the show. He doesn’t call her an artichoke like Glinda does or any other sort of rude name meant to demean her for being green. He just says “Maybe the driver saw green and thought it meant go”. Even if he doesn’t see anything WRONG with her being green, being green is still unusual. We INTERPRET that moment as a joke because that’s the expectation, but all we all know his INTENT is simply “Avaric was surprised, give the guy a break”. After that point he doesn’t mention her being green again.
• Ladykiller in Love: Despite showing any real signs of being a 'ladykiller', in the musical, he still gets the entire female population of Shiz University pining after him within hours of arriving on campus and instantly hooks up with G(a)linda. Then he falls in love with Elphaba so hard that his life thereafter is spent trying to find her after she disappears from the public eye.
• The Lost Lenore: For Elphaba, as it is his death that triggers her descent into wickedness. Later subverted when, at the end, he turns up alive as the Scarecrow.
• Love at First Sight: How he ends up in a relationship with Glinda in the first place, because they mutually deemed themselves to be "perfect together" upon first meeting. Of course, it doesn't end up lasting...
• Love Interest: To Elphaba (and also Glinda in the musical).
• Promoted to Love Interest: Glinda never fancied Fiyero in the books. In fact, there's a scene there she specifically says how she doesn't fancy him!
• Safety in Indifference: His reason for having such a lackadaisical approach to life. Just look at the lyrics to "Dancing Through Life":
  Fiyero: Life is painless, for the brainless
• Non-Action Guy: Compared to Elphaba and Glinda, he comes off as this.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: When the musical was in its concept stages they considered keeping the blue tribal paint, but then decided it would be too much of a hassle to deal with.
• Race Lift: Fiyero's ethnicity is never actually mentioned, he is simply referred to being dark or ochre in color, and having skin “the color of shit.” In the musical, he has no determined physical features and his appearance relies on the person who's acting him. There have been Fiyeros of all colors and races on stage.
• Rebel Prince: He takes advantage of his royal privileges without showing any particular enthusiasm for his role as the heir to a throne that constitutes 20% of Oz's population. As he falls deeper in love with Elphaba, he ends up abandoning that role completely.
• Satellite Love Interest: Subverted. A lot of Fiyero's character does revolve around his relationships with Elphaba and Glinda, but unlike most examples he plays an important role in the plot, and goes through his own Character Development arc.
• Silly Walk: After becoming the Scarecrow in the musical, actors playing Fiyero tend to imitate Ray Bolger and his distinct style of walking in the the 1939 film.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He and Elphaba die in the book.
• Stepford Smiler: In the beginning of Act II, he, like Glinda, puts on a facade that he's enjoying his life and being against the Wicked Witch of the West, when the truth couldn't be further in the opposite direction. Even in Act I when they're in school, it's heavily implied Fiyero's devil-may-care attitude is a coverup for the fact he's unhappy.
• Unexpected Virgin: His peers expect him to be more sexually experienced considering his attitude. Like the song itself being a reference to Fiyero and Elphaba consummating their relationship, the deleted lyrics in ALAYM subliminally make it very clear that in the musical verse, Fiyero was still a virgin when he ran away and became a fugitive with Elphaba.
  Replaced solo in As Long As You're Mine (First 4 lines lack audio recording):
  What am I doing?
  What’s this I feel?
  The boy who was certain
  Love isn’t real
  Tell me it’s hopeless,
  Tell me it’s wrong.
  There’s still no denying,
  Desire so strong
  Shrouded in secret
  Meeting the night
  We know our chances
  Don’t live in the light
  Recklessly racing
  Too fast and too far
  We know as long as we are

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Nessarose

Nessarose Thropp/The Wicked Witch of the East

• Abled in the Adaptation: Played with. Due to the pragmatic issues of depicting an armless woman on stage using able-bodied actresses, her disability was edited for the musical. Nessa is a paralyzed wheelchair user, instead of lacking arms like in the book.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Starts school the same year as Elphaba instead of the year after.
• Adaptational Heroism: Zigzagged. Nessa isn't as bad as the Wicked Witch of the East in L. Frank Baum's original. She possesses sympathetic and admirable qualities, but these are ultimately overshadowed by her increasingly uncompromising and self-righteous nature.
• Adaptational Personality Change: The Unnamed God and Lurline were both Adapted Out, stripping Nessarose of her religious element. The musical instead emphasises her clinginess.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While it is easy to sympathize with her on some level, underneath her sweet, naive, innocent facade, lies a selfish, possessive, jealous and vindictive streak.
• Body Horror: It's not dwelled on, but according to Elphaba, Nessa is in a wheelchair because she was born with her legs "all twisted/tangled up", which doesn't sound pleasant at all. This is likely in reference to how the Witch of the East's legs shrivel up and disappear after she dies and her slippers are accidentally taken by Dorothy.
• Clingy Jealous Girl/Yandere: She is willing to strip the Munchkins of their rights and keep any of them from leaving the country just to keep Boq with her and then curse away his heart when he expresses the desire to leave.
  Nessarose: You're going to lose your heart to me, I tell you! If I have to... I have to... magic spell you!
• Dirty Coward: When Boq begins freaking out over being turned to the Tin Man, Nessa immediately throws the blame on Elphaba and foregoes all responsibility, just for the chance of Boq staying with her.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Well, house. Though it was kind of necessary, since it's a Foregone Conclusion from the original story. The musical spared several characters from the book, but Nessa's death was too vital to remove.
• Hot Witch: She's described as being tragically beautiful, and unknown to everyone quite powerful, if not adept at magic like her sister.
  Elphaba: Well, it seems the beautiful get more beautiful, while the green just get greener.
• I Am a Monster: She mournfully declares herself the "Wicked Witch of The East" after her attempts at magic goes horribly, horribly wrong.
• Inept Mage: A truly tragic example in the musical, when she gets her hands on the Grimmerie.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: As the Governor of Munchkinland.
• Love Makes You Crazy: She'll gladly force Boq to love her if it means he'll never leave her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She expresses horror when she realizes that her attempt on casting a spell on Boq ends up shrinking his heart rather than making him be hers.
• Never My Fault: She quickly places the blame on Elphaba, first for showing her the Grimmerie in the first place, and for what becomes of Boq after losing his heart. Her final lines in the musical reflect this...
  Nessarose: It wasn't me... It was her. I tried to stop her! Boq, please, I still... It was Elphaba, Boq! IT WAS ELPHABA!!!
• Not Good with Rejection: Boq turning into the Tin Man? Well, he proclaimed his love for Glinda and was happy thinking that Nessa didn't need him anymore. Nessa attempted to cast a spell on him to make him love her, but it went horribly wrong.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Her last words to Elphaba, right after insulting her no less, were pleading with her to stay.
• Race Lift: In the 2006-08 national tour, as she was played by Deedee Magno (yes, THAT Deedee Magno). She even lampshades this in the second act.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She's talkative and sociable, quite unlike her quiet, allusive older sister. In the books, they also have vastly contrasting religious beliefs (with Elphaba being an atheist and Nessa being devoted to the Unnamed God).
• Super Wheelchair: In the musical she eventually ends up with a fancy wheelchair that resembles a throne.
• Throwing Off the Disability: Thanks to the magic slippers (that Dorothy later obtains).
• Unskilled, but Strong: She too appears to have been born with magic within her like Elphaba, and she does appear to be quite powerful, as she is able to use the Grimmerie, however her inability to pronounce the words correctly causes Boq's heart to shrink out of existence.
• Wheelchair Woobie: Invoked in "Dancing Through Life", where Glinda describes her as "tragically beautiful" in her wheelchair, and Nessa herself thinks that Boq only asked her to dance because he felt sorry for her.
• You Don't Look Like You: In the books, Nessarose was born without arms. She wears long dresses and shawls to hide her disability. The musical changes her so she was instead born paralyzed from the waist down, meaning she's a wheelchair user. She also wears sweaters and dresses in a "school girl" manner.

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Boq

Boq/The Tin Man

• Accidental Misnaming: Glinda keeps calling him "Bick".
• Adaptation Distillation: He has a whole portion of the book devoted to him, yet is at-best a side character in the musical — he doesn't even get a whole song to himself, just small bits of other people's songs.
• Adaptational Villainy: Okay, that's harsh, but his Only Friend status with Elphaba from the book is removed, and he views her as wicked like the rest of Oz. And later leads the mob to kill her, after being turned into the Tin Man. For that matter, the kind, sentimental Tin Man from the original Oz books and movie is never psychotic and bloodthirsty like this one becomes.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Musical only. He loves Galinda, who won't give him the time of day. Nessarose is absolutely smitten with him, but he doesn't feel much more than sympathy for her, which decreases rapidly as time goes on.
• Character Exaggeration: His crush on Galinda he has for a summer or two in college becomes the defining character trait of his whole life in the musical.
• Composite Character: In the musical, he is transformed into the Tin Man after Elphaba casts a spell on him. In both the novel and the original L. Frank Baum story, the two are separate characters, as The Tin Woodman was previously named Nick Chopper.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He's smittened with Glinda from the very beginning and tries to be as chivalrous and considerate as he can be whenever the two interact, but does not end up with a relationship with her in the end.
• Emergency Transformation: He's the musical's version of the Tin Man through this, after Nessa magically curses away his heart in a fit of jealousy and Elphaba in panic tries to save him.
  Nessa: What about his heart?
  Elphaba: (somewhat sadly) It's okay, he won't need one now...
• Forced Transformation: Elphaba turns him into the Tin Man, to counteract Nessarose's spell that shrunk his heart out of existence. He is horrified by this.
• Hero Antagonist: He essentially becomes one after turning into the Tin Man in the musical. During "March of the Witch Hunters", he becomes utterly hostile towards Elphaba, calling her out for casting a spell on him and turning him into tin (even though she only did it to save his life).
• Jerkass Has a Point: Sure he's doing it out of revenge first, but a part of him must be leading the Mob in hopes of rescuing Dorothy, of whom Elphaba was clearly ready to kill.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Nessa was never in love with him in the book.
• Stalker with a Crush: Glinda's clearly not interested, and he still wants to break up her engagement years after they leave school.

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The Wizard

The Wizard

• Adaptational Nice Guy: Than his incredibly dark and cruel book characterization, harkening back to Baum's original take as a "good man, but a bad wizard."
• Adaptational Sympathy: In the book, he was a cruel bastard with no redeeming qualities, whereas here he's a lonely man who got so swept up in becoming leader of Oz because it allowed him to be the fatherly patriarch he always wanted to be.
• Affably Evil: In the musical at least. He is pretty fun and friendly and even 'sentimental' if you're not on his bad side.
• Anti-Villain: Type ll. His goal in the musical is to be loved in the way he couldn't in the Human World.
• Bad Boss: To Chistery and the Flying Monkeys. He orchestrates a plan that mutilates them, sends them to spy on their own kind (Talking Animals) and cages them. Given that Chistery can't speak he took away their voices as well.
• Broken Pedestal: Elphaba idolizes him in the musical until she learns the truth.
• Demythification: The only "magic" he knows is how human nature works and how to lean on it to get what he wants.
• The Faceless: In his appearances as the object of Elphaba's mother's affair.
• Freudian Excuse: He couldn't have his own family due to travelin a lot. Also he was mediocre and unsuccessful in the Human World being a 'corn-fed hick'! So he is trying to get the empty love of the Ozians and power as a substitute. He doesn't realize this won't bring him happiness until the ending.
• Heel Realization: In the musical. After Elphaba's apparent death, he leaves Oz of his own accord, grieving for his lost daughter.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Although Elphaba never finds out. The Wizard goes into something of a quiet Villainous Breakdown upon realizing that he's actually Elphaba's biological father, and thus sentenced his own daughter to death. Afterwards Glinda tells him to leave Oz and he goes willingly.
• Obliviously Evil: Depending on the actor portraying him in the musical, he can either be a despicable tyrant, or a misguided leader who genuinely believes that his actions are making things better in Oz.
• The Man Behind the Man: He and Madame Morrible are behind 'Glinda the Good'.
• Simpleton Voice: He speaks with a southern-sounding accent that's likely to make people think him a bit dumb and calls himself a "corn fed hick." Of course, there's more to it than that...
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the musical, he claims to be doing bad things for the greater good and to be subjugating Animals to pacify Oz. But it becomes clear throughout the play that what he wants is to stay in power by manipulating the citizens.
• Related in the Adaptation: He is Elphaba's father.
• Truer to the Text: His depiction is much closer to the Wizard in Baum's text and the MGM film, than Maguire's nastier version.
• Villain with Good Publicity: The so called "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is no more than an amoral con man that rules over the land like a dictator.
• Would Harm a Child: Some of his officials showcase a familiar lion cub inside a cage as part of their propaganda. Given that he probably send them...
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In a way, as his trying to apply real-world logic to Oz is part of the reason everything ends up going wrong.

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Madame Morrible

Madame Morrible

• Adaptational Superpower Change: She didn't specialize in weather magic in the book.
• Alliterative Name: If you count Madame as her first name.
• Chekhov's Skill: Her Weather Manipulation magic is mentioned early on and becomes significant later.
• Delusions of Eloquence: Prone to speaking this way.
• The Dragon: The Wizard's right hand woman, and she proves to be much worse than him.
• Evil Mentor: Elphaba was the sole student in her seminar during Act I. The two became enemies in Act II after Morrible smeared her reputation for protesting the Wizard's crusade against the Animals of Oz, giving Elphaba the longlasting title of the Wicked Witch of the West.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards Animals.
• Faux Affably Evil: She treats those she respects with kindness, but it's all a facade.
• Hate Sink: In a musical dedicated to exploring the delicate balance of good and evil and asks the question of whether people are born wicked or simply have wickedness thrust upon them, Madame Morrible stands out as the only character with no redeeming or tragic qualities at all. She's bigoted, greedy, duplicitous, cold and perfectly willing to commit murder in order to get what she wants, all while lacking a Freudian Excuse like the Wizard or Nessarose's and any positive qualities to balance out her negative ones, like those of Glinda or Elphaba. Out of all the characters in the musical, she's the only one who's truly and unambiguously evil.
• Jerkass to One: A variant, as Morrible is awful to everybody, but she usually hides that beneath a facade of friendliness. Not so for Glinda, whom she constantly displays nothing but pure disdain for. Fittingly, the only time she's ever unironically nice to Glinda is when Glinda suddenly ranks above her in the social ladder, at which point Morrible promptly starts trying to suck up to her in the hopes of keeping her position. It doesn't work.
  Morrible: (regarding Glinda's magic schooling) Personally, I don't think you have what it takes. I hope you prove me wrong! I doubt you will.
• Large Ham: In a World of Ham, she stands out the most. There's a reason she's been played by the likes of Carol Kane, Miriam Margolyes, and Rue McClanahan.
  Morrible: This distortion, this repulsion, this... WICKED WIIIIIITCH!
• The Man Behind the Man: Her and the Wizard are behind 'Glinda the Good' in the musical.
• Meaningful Name: Her name rhymes with "horrible" for a reason.
• More Despicable Minion: Though there are hints that she would at least try for a The Man Behind the Man position, she never quite rises above the status of the Wizard's Dragon. That said, she's still far more evil than he is.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: It's hinted that Morrible does a lot of schmoozing towards people in power for her own benefit. When Glinda takes over for the Wizard, Madame Morrible tries to brown nose her into keeping her position and fails.
• Race Lift: Is played by a black actress occasionally, such as Sheryl Lee Ralph.
• Sadist Teacher: To Galinda, and anyone else she deems as unworthy.
• Smug Snake: Unlike the Wizard, she's mostly just an arrogant schemer who occasionally comes up with a good plan. When Glinda takes up the Wizard's position, Morrible is quick to try and suck up to her, only to be harshly reminded that Glinda has no plans on letting her off the hook for her crimes.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the book, she's killed by Elphaba. In the musical, she survives, but Glinda orders for her to be thrown in prison.
• Summon Everyman Hero: Accidental example. Creates a tornado to kill Nessarose to bring Elphaba out of hiding and accidentally brings Dorothy to Oz. Later forms an angry mob to set off to Kiamo Ko Castle to kill Elphaba.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Toward Elphaba in both versions.
• Weather Manipulation: Her specialty in the musical (not in the book). Becomes a plot point when she murders Nessarose by summoning the infamous cyclone that brings Dorothy to Oz.

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Doctor Dillamond

Doctor Dillamond

• Alliterative Name: If you consider Doctor to be his first name.
• Cool Teacher: Well, Elphaba thinks so anyway...
• Funny Animal: Is now now upright and wears clothes.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He is the favorite teacher of both Elphaba and Boq. He is changed into a normal animal.
• Satellite Character: Despite mattering heavily to the plots of both book and musical (indeed; most of either story would have never happened without him), he actually doesn't appear a whole lot. Characters spend more time talking about him in absentia in the book, and he's only in one song in the play, and three scenes altogether.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: In the book he is a Civilized Animal while in the play, he's more a Funny Animal.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He isn't killed in the musical; instead, he loses his profession at Shiz University and eventually loses his ability to speak.
• Talking Animal: Which is the reason he ends up being the target of prejudice and the Wizard, as the Wizard doesn't like that animals in Oz can act like humans and wants to make them like normal animals in the "real" world.
• Verbal Tic: A truly disturbing instance in the musical, as he loses the ability to speak human language and starts reverting to animal noises.

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Dorothy

Dorothy Gale

• Accidental Murder: She's inadvertently used to kill Nessarose and based off her silhouette's body language, she didn't intend to melt Elphaba.
• Ambiguous Situation: Given her close friendship with the Scarecrow/Fiyero, she might have been part of the plot to help him and Elphaba disappear from Oz.
• All-Loving Hero: Her sincere kindness charms pretty much everyone she meets including Glinda, the Scarecrow/Fiyero, the Tin Man/Boq and the Lion, the former two form a lynch mob in hopes of saving her. Everyone, that is, except Elphaba.
• Damsel in Distress: Dorothy is captured by Elphaba and confined in her castle tower. Elphaba expressly states that she will not be released until she surrenders Nessa’s shoes.
• Demoted to Extra: Dorothy is the main protagonist of most adaptations of the story of Oz, but she doesn't even show up until Act II, and even then we never properly see her. This also applies to Dorothy in comparison to her role in Maguire's novel that the musical based on, as Dorothy at least gets to speak in the book instead of only being heard crying like in the stage play.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Dorothy's name is never said in the musical. She's called a "wretched little farm-girl" and "squealy little brat" by Elphaba and "a female child" and "the little girl" by Glinda.
• The Faceless: In the musical, we only ever see her silhouette. Averted in the 2010-11 Helsinki production, and subsequent non replicate productions there after, where she appears in several key scenes, her appearance based on Judy Garland's famous look in the MGM film.
• Girlish Pigtails: Dorothy’s iconic pigtails are visible in her silhouette during the melting sequence.
• Hero Antagonist: In the novel, Elphaba's dress caught fire prior to the fateful bucket of water and Dorothy had just been trying to help put it out. In the musical, she is an antagonist due to lack of knowledge rather than malice.
• Hero of Another Story: Dorothy is given as little stagetime and reference as possible because she's the main protagonist of the Oz books and arguably the most memorable character in the MGM film. As such, how she managed to gain her allies and her journey to the Emerald City is left out.
• Naïve Everygirl: Dorothy doesn't really understand the complicated politics of Oz.
• Unwitting Pawn: Unbeknownst to her, Dorothy's house was brought to Oz in a twister to kill the Wicked Witch of the East, in an attemp to capture her sister. Later, she's used by the Witch hunters as the murderer in the apparent melting of the Wicked Witch of the West.
• The Voice: We never actually see Dorothy in the musical, but we do hear her whimpering offstage after being captured by Elphaba.

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Melena

Melena Thropp

• Adaptational Consent: In the books, Elphaba was a Child by Rape. The musical makes it seem like she was the result of an intentional affair.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: In the musical, Elphaba seems to remember her fondly. Her post-childbirth action is spent reaching out toward the infant Elphaba, not caring how Elphaba came out.
• Demoted to Extra: She only appears in one part in the first song completely unnamed.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Her death is the same either way, but who she gives birth to is not: In the book, she dies giving birth to her third child and only son Shell, while in the musical Shell is Adapted Out and Melena dies gives birth to her second daughter Nessarose.
• Death by Childbirth: She dies giving birth to Nessa.
• Missing Mom: She died in childbirth.
• Unnamed Parent: She isn't referred to by her book name.

Frexspar

Frexspar Thropp

• Abusive Parents: In the musical, he makes it clear that he hates Elphaba and basically only keeps her around to take care of her sister. He was so disgusted by her green skin that he refused to even look at her the day she was born.
• Adaptational Job Change: Given the musical does away with the religious aspects of the novel, he goes from a preacher of the Unnamed God, to the Governor of Munchkinland.
• Adaptational Villainy: He still favored Nessarose in the book but he still had some fondness towards Elphaba. His work as a minister, however, ruined their relationship when he tries using her "condition" and singing ability to promote himself.
• Demoted to Extra: He's an unnamed bit character in the musical.
• Death by Adaptation: In the book, he lives to see Nessarose's death and is only reported dead by the sequel. In the musical, he dies between the first and second acts (after Elphaba becomes the Wicked Witch) out of shame for her ruining their families reputation.
• Jerkass: Treats his daughter Elphaba like dirt because he believes her to be culpable for his wife's death and Nessa's disability.
• Never My Fault: He blames Elphaba for him forcing his pregnant wife to eat white lilies, which resulted in her mothers death and sisters disability, since if she hadnt been born green then he wouldnt have done such a thing.
• Parental Favoritism: When dropping his two daughters off at Shiz, he gives Nessarose a beautiful pair of silver slippers. He gives Elphaba a cold demand to take care of Nessa and only allowed Elphaba to go to Shiz so she could take care of her sister.
• Unnamed Parent: He isn't referred to by his book name.

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