"elphaba the most complex female character ever written" ok, now you've got my interest. i'd like to hear your reasons, as an Elphaba stan with an interest in media analysis.
Oh, where do I start. Buckle up, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Book-only canon, of course.
So the first thing to know about Elphaba’s character is her family issues. Her father Frex thought her skin color was punishment for his failing to save his congregation from the Clock of the Time Dragon. Her mother Melena is an unhappy royal-turned-housewife who doesn’t remember how Elphaba got conceived (because it was certainly not by Frex) and got saddled with a green kid. Nanny bought white pills to ensure Melena’s next kid wouldn’t turn out green, but of course that caused birth defects and thus Nessarose was born.
So Elphaba grew up a) knowing she was a disappointment to her parents, b) either frightening or being bullied by other children, c) taking care of her disabled younger sister, whom her father and mother liked best, and d) believing she is inherently evil and thus must be extra good to make up for this deficiency. That is the fount of Elphaba’s motivations, no joke.
But anyway, Frex dragged his whole family to Quadling Country to convert the Quadlings to his own religion, unionism (Christianity, pretty much). So Elphaba grew up as a missionary kid, forced to proselytize to the natives and sing hymns, all the while the Quadlings were being dispossessed by first the Yellow Brick Road construction and exploited by greedy ruby speculators. Oh, and her mother dies giving birth to her brother, Shell. Oh, and Quadling Country is mostly swamp, and Elphaba is allergic to water. 🫠
But Elphaba is also super smart, so she passes Shiz’s entrance exams. She is also the heir of the Eminence to Munchkinland on her mother’s side, so yeah, she gets into Shiz. Thank goodness.
By the time Elphaba arrives at Shiz, she is an atheist, reads unionist tracts about the nature of evil for fun, and identifies as mostly Quadling even though she was born in Munchkinland. She is super prickly, sensitive, hates people noticing her skin color but has quick rejoinders for the racists, and very much a political creature. She is also a STEM girlie and not at all interested in magic. She and Madame Morrible despise each other from the word go.
With regards to the latter, she immediately gets involved with the fascist laws stripping the Animals of their rights. She goes to work for the Goat (and GOAT) Dr. Dillamond, who is working on an experiment that proves Animals and humans aren’t different at the DNA level. While Elphaba does try to help Boq woo Glinda, she actually manages to rope him into helping her with the work because, as it turns out, Elphaba is super charismatic.
When Dr. Dillamond is ~mysteriously killed, she sets out for the Emerald City with Glinda in tow to confront the Wizard. When the Wizard, however, proves to be a despotic asshole, Elphaba decides to strike off on her own, leaving Glinda and dropping out of Shiz. Like the principled badass she is.
In the Emerald City, Elphaba goes underground and becomes a freedom fighter. Or terrorist. Whatever your political persuasion. But yeah, the goal is to save the Animals and remove the Wizard by all means necessary. Elphaba does this for five years, going no contact with both her family and friends. Lonely asf, but determined to be No One and Nothing in the name of the Cause(tm).
The one who actually does find her and break through her isolation? Fiyero. Fiyero follows her halfway across town, demands to know if she is safe, and just…remind her she is Elphaba. Elphie. Not Fae, her code name. She resists, of course, because if she gets too close to Fiyero, she could put him in danger. They laugh, they reminisce about college, and they argue about her cause, with Elphaba insisting some collateral damage is inevitable in the name of a good cause and Fiyero believing there are still some lines you shouldn’t cross.
(They also fuck, and it’s glorious. Blue diamonds on a green field.)
But unfortunately, Elphaba still believes she is evil (see No Good Childhood), so she is prepared to do fulfill her latest mission: Kill Madame Morrible. But then a group of rich children swarm Morrible, and Elphaba cannot do it. It turns out Elphaba is a big talker, not a huge doer (*cough*Hamlet*cough*).
And then the Wizard strikes, and Fiyero is murdered in her aerie. The body is never found.
Elphaba, traumatized, collapses before a unionist chapel, sinking into oblivion. Her love is gone, and it’s all her fault, she thinks. She begged him to go out of town or at least stay in. But Fiyero had wanted to make sure she was safe.
When she resurfaces, Elphaba is not the same as she was. Little matters now. She is broken.
The Wicked Witch of the West
When she finally recovers, Elphaba decides to travel to the Vinkus and visit Fiyero’s family. There she plans to ask his widow Sarima for forgiveness and then become a hermit in some mountain.
But Sarima does not comply, mostly because she doesn’t want to be burdened by Elphaba’s guilt. But also Elphaba brought along this random kid Liir, and the dates kind of add up. Elphaba doesn’t remember giving birth, but she knows she lost a lot of memory due to her trauma. She sweatdrops. Sarima doesn’t talk to her about Fiyero.
Infidelity aside, they get along fine, though Sarima’s kids are bratty and Liir is neglected by, well, everyone. Elphaba feels some pricklings of maternal feeling, but unfortunately Elphaba is too traumatized and too ~Elphaba to make for a good mother, so whatevs.
But then the Wizard is back with his shenanigans, sending troops to be stationed at Kiamo Ko. To keep an eye on Elphaba, she later learns. But when Elphaba goes to Munchkinland to visit Nessarose, they kidnap Sarima, her sisters, and children. Elphaba nearly loses Liir too, but fortunately he returns.
The Wicked Witch of the West Part 2
So Elphaba spends years trying to find the Tigelaars. She takes over Kiamo Ko and experiments with monkeys, sewing wings on them. She keeps bees and dogs. She grows increasingly paranoid.
When she learns her sister is dead in a freak accident involving one Dorothy Gale, she goes to Munchkinland. She refuses the throne, however, uninterested in actual power. She reunites with Boq, but that ends with disaster when she finds him complacent and liking Dorothy. She reunites with Glinda, but that ends in disaster when she learns her former roommate sent Dorothy to the Wizard.
Elphaba is now very firmly known as the Witch, and honestly she acts like it. She tries to kill Madame Morrible again, but arrives too late and finds her dead of old age. The Clock of the Time Dragon tells her her real father was the Wizard of Oz himself. Elphaba then learns Dorothy and co. have met the Wizard and are coming to Kiamo Ko to kill her.
So obviously, Dorothy does not endear herself to Elphaba. How could she, when she is obviously everything Elphaba was? That naïveté, that trust. That goodness. Asking forgiveness for accidentally killing her sister.
Forgiveness. Something denied to Elphaba, over and over. Sarima. Her own parents. Her sister, resentful of her desertion. Nobody forgave her for her being born the way she was, green and disabled. The Wizard and Madame Morrible persecuted her. Glinda and Boq failed her. Fiyero, who loved her regardless, who was good in a way she never would be, she lost forever. Why would this girl be so kind to her? It made no sense.
Elphaba recoils. She trips. She lights her skirts on fire, and Dorothy, in trying to save her, finally puts her out of her misery.
How do I describe Elphaba Thropp, Third Thropp Descending of Munchkinland, Animal Rights Activist, Eventual Keeper of Kiamo Ko? An idealist activist. A misunderstood genius. An anti heroine with daddy issues. A STEM tomboy. A grumpy hermit. A good mother (to monkeys). A bad mother (to Liir). Daughter of a dictator and raised by a minister. A homewrecker. A murderer. A girl who likes scarves, bakes vegetable pies, and worries whether her lover ever hooked up with her roommate bestie.
She is good. She is bad. She is wicked.
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