Wicked (Maguire)
Short summary
The Land of Oz. A minister's wife gave birth to a daughter with green skin and sharp teeth. The midwives fled in horror. The minister named the baby Elphaba after a saint.
The family tried various remedies to change her color, including exorcism, but nothing worked. A second daughter was born beautiful but without arms. Their mother died giving birth to a son.
Years later, Elphaba enrolled at Shiz University and was assigned to room with a beautiful, vain girl. They initially despised each other but gradually became friends. Elphaba worked as an assistant to a Goat professor researching Animal rights. He was found murdered, and authorities claimed it was an accident.
Elphaba traveled to the Emerald City to confront the Wizard about the persecution of Animals. He dismissed her concerns. She disappeared underground to join a resistance movement and began an affair with a Vinkus prince. After a failed assassination attempt, she spent seven years in a mauntery.
Elphaba then traveled to the Vinkus and settled at the prince's family castle. She studied magic, created flying monkeys, and became known as the Wicked Witch of the West. A tornado dropped a house on her sister, killing her. A girl from another world named Dorothy received the dead sister's magical shoes. The Wizard sent Dorothy to kill Elphaba.
Dorothy arrived at the castle with companions. Elphaba confronted her, demanding the shoes. Dorothy insisted she came only to ask forgiveness:
I would say to you: Would you ever forgive me for that accident, for the death of your sister; would you ever ever forgive me, for I could never forgive myself!
Elphaba's broom caught fire. Dorothy threw water on her, but water caused excruciating pain. Elphaba melted and died. The Wizard fled Oz, and the Witch's death became celebrated, though the truth remained disputed.
Detailed summary by books
Prologue. On the Yellow Brick Road
A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind, observing companions trudging along the Yellow Brick Road below. She descended on her broom to a black willow tree and watched them rest: a Lion, a Tin Woodman, a Scarecrow, and a girl hidden behind willow fronds. The Witch listened as they gossiped about her, calling her psychologically warped, possessed by demons, and insane.
Book 1. Munchkinlanders
In Munchkinland, a minister's wife named Melena told her husband that she was going into labor. Her husband was a unionist minister who was more concerned about confronting a traveling entertainment called the Clock of the Time Dragon that was corrupting his flock. Despite Melena's condition, he left to preach against the clock. The clock told scandalous stories about local people, causing public humiliation and violence. The minister was beaten by his own congregation.
Melena gave birth to a daughter with green skin and sharp teeth. The midwives were horrified and debated killing the infant, but the baby bit off one midwife's finger. They left the child with her mother and fled. Melena couldn't bear to look at her green daughter and sent for her old nursemaid. The minister named the baby after Saint Aelphaba of the Waterfall. The family tried various remedies to change the child's color, including exorcism, but nothing worked.
A Quadling glassblower named Turtle Heart arrived at their home and became close to both parents. He created beautiful glass pieces and seemed to bring peace to the troubled household. When Melena became pregnant again, there was uncertainty about the child's paternity. The second daughter, Nessarose, was born beautiful but without arms. Shortly after, Turtle Heart was killed by a mob during a pagan ritual. The family became missionaries to Quadling Country, where they lived in poverty for years. Melena died giving birth to a third child, a son named Shell.
Book 2. Gillikin
Years later, a beautiful young woman from the Pertha Hills traveled by train to Shiz University. She shared a compartment with a Goat professor who discussed the Wizard's new Banns on Animal Mobility, which restricted Animals' rights to travel and work. At Crage Hall, the Headmistress assigned her to room with a green-skinned Munchkinlander girl.
The roommates initially despised each other. The vain girl was mortified to room with someone so different, while the green girl kept to herself, reading constantly. Their relationship began to thaw when the green girl tried on one of her roommate's hats and looked unexpectedly beautiful. They started talking about philosophy and religion. The green girl revealed her father was a unionist minister, and she was trying to understand concepts of good and evil through reading old sermons.
At a poetry evening, the Headmistress recited verses that seemed to mock Animals. A Goat professor named Doctor Dillamond stormed out in protest. The green girl publicly challenged the Headmistress about the offensive content. The two girls gradually became friends, joined by other students including a short Munchkinlander boy who had known the green girl as a child, and a Vinkus prince with blue diamond tattoos on his face.
Doctor Dillamond was conducting groundbreaking research into the biological differences between Animals and animals, hoping to prove there was no fundamental distinction and thus challenge the discriminatory laws. The green girl worked as his assistant, taking dictation and conducting research. The short boy and his friends helped gather historical documents. Doctor Dillamond made significant discoveries using magnifying lenses to examine tissue samples. However, he was found murdered in his laboratory, his throat slit. The authorities claimed it was an accident.
After the murder, the beautiful girl's chaperone went mad, talking to inanimate objects. The green girl and the beautiful one traveled to the Emerald City to confront the Wizard about Doctor Dillamond's death and the persecution of Animals. The Wizard appeared as a skeleton of dancing lights in a storm and dismissed their concerns. The green girl tried to present Doctor Dillamond's research, but the Wizard called it garbage. Afterward, the green girl disappeared, leaving her roommate to return to Shiz alone. The beautiful girl later changed her name from the formal version to a simpler one, and specialized in sorcery.
The younger sister arrived at Shiz with an elderly nursemaid. She was beautiful but armless, and deeply religious. The beautiful girl's father made special jeweled shoes for the younger sister. Years later, after graduation, the beautiful girl enchanted these shoes to allow the younger sister to stand and walk independently. The group of friends drifted apart after university. The short boy married another student and became a farmer. The beautiful girl married a wealthy baronet. The prince returned to his wife and children in the Vinkus.
Book 3. City of Emeralds
Three years after graduating, the prince encountered the green woman in the Emerald City. She was living underground, working with a resistance movement against the Wizard. Despite her attempts to avoid him, he tracked her to her hidden apartment. They began a passionate affair. She told him about her work trying to continue Doctor Dillamond's research and her involvement in planning an action against the Wizard's regime. She revealed her code name and her commitment to fighting the oppression of Animals and other marginalized groups.
I never use the words humanist or humanitarian, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature... I went underground, and I am still underground.
The green woman planned to assassinate the Headmistress from Crage Hall, believing her complicit in Doctor Dillamond's murder and the Wizard's oppressive policies. However, on the night of the planned attack, a group of schoolchildren unexpectedly appeared, and she couldn't bring herself to act with innocents present. She failed in her mission. Shortly after, she was found by the prince in a mauntery, where an old woman named Mother Yackle took her in. The green woman spent seven years in the mauntery, living in silence and working with the sick and dying.
Book 4. In the Vinkus
The green woman left the mauntery and joined a caravan heading west to the Vinkus. She traveled with a boy who seemed to be her servant, along with crows, bees, and a dog. During the journey, she met Princess Nastoya, an Elephant who had enchanted herself into human form to protect herself from hunters. The Princess gave the green woman three crows as familiars and told her she was hiding as a witch. The Princess warned her that no one controls destiny and urged her to complete her mission.
Her trunk went back and forth... Then the great nose-hand came forward... 'Listen to me, sister... Remember this: Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny.'
The green woman arrived at Kiamo Ko, a mountain castle that had been the prince's family home. She met his widow and her five sisters, who lived there with the prince's three children. The widow refused to discuss the prince's death, which had occurred mysteriously in the Emerald City years earlier. The green woman had come to confess her role in his death and seek forgiveness, but the widow would not allow the conversation. The widow offered her shelter for the winter in a tower room.
The green woman settled into life at Kiamo Ko, studying an ancient book of magic called the Grimmerie and conducting experiments on animals. She successfully taught a monkey named Chistery to speak simple words and began attaching wings to monkeys, creating flying creatures. The widow's middle son, a cruel boy, tormented the servant boy and eventually caused his near-drowning in the castle's fishwell. The green woman saved the boy's life. Shortly after, an icicle fell and killed the cruel son.
A reconnaissance team from the Wizard's army arrived and occupied the castle. The green woman protested their presence. When she left to visit her sister in Munchkinland, the soldiers took the widow, her sisters, and the children away as prisoners. Only the old nursemaid and the servant boy remained. The green woman spent seven years trying to locate the missing family, but failed. She became known as the Wicked Witch of the West and lived in isolation at Kiamo Ko with the boy, the nursemaid, and her animal companions.
Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.
During a visit to her sister in Munchkinland, the green woman discovered that her sister had become a powerful ruler who used religious authority to control the population. The sister had become known as the Wicked Witch of the East. The green woman tried to warn her sister about the dangers of her position, but the sister refused to listen. Their father, now elderly and nearly blind, asked the green woman to stay and help govern, but she refused and returned to the Vinkus.
Book 5. The Murder and Its Afterlife
A tornado struck Munchkinland and dropped a house on the sister, killing her instantly. The green woman learned that a girl from another world had been in the house and survived. This girl had been given the magical shoes that the green woman's father had made for her sister. The green woman's old university friend, now a wealthy sorceress, had given the shoes to the girl and sent her to the Emerald City to see the Wizard.
The green woman traveled to her sister's memorial service and met with the Wizard secretly. He revealed that the widow and most of her family had been killed, but he held one of the children as a prisoner. He demanded the Grimmerie in exchange for the child's freedom. The green woman refused to surrender the book. She also met her old university friend, who had become a society lady. They argued bitterly about the shoes and parted as enemies.
The green woman attempted to kill the old Headmistress from Crage Hall, but found her already dead. She then pursued the girl from the other world, hoping to reclaim the shoes. The Wizard had sent the girl to kill the green woman in exchange for sending her home. The girl arrived at Kiamo Ko with her companions: a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman, and a Cowardly Lion. The green woman sent her animal familiars to attack them, but they all failed.
The green woman confronted the girl in her tower room, demanding the shoes and accusing her of being an agent of the Wizard. The girl insisted she had come only to ask forgiveness for accidentally killing the green woman's sister. In her agitation, the green woman's broom caught fire. The girl threw a bucket of water on her to save her. The water caused the green woman excruciating pain, and she melted away, dying. The girl was horrified, having never intended to kill anyone.
In the life of a Witch, there is no after... in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story... there is—alas, or perhaps thank mercy—no telling.
The girl returned to the Emerald City with proof of the Witch's death. The Wizard, confronted with evidence from his own past world, fled Oz in a hot-air balloon just before a palace revolt. The girl eventually found her way home. The servant boy disappeared into the city to search for the imprisoned child. The Witch's death became a celebrated event, though the true nature of what happened remained disputed. Of the Witch herself, all that remained was her reputation for wickedness.