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9. Galinda
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wicked, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Evil
Power and Oppression
Identity and Otherness
Destiny vs. Free Will
Guilt, Blame, and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Boq’s friends try to convince him to go out drinking one night, but he stays behind to study for final exams. His friend Avaric senses something else is bothering him, but Boq insists he’s fine. After they leave, Boq, unable to focus, decides to sneak over to Crage Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of Galinda, with whom he is smitten. Climbing onto a rooftop for a better view, he’s startled by Elphaba and loses his balance, falling. She teases him before admitting she knows about his crush and offers to arrange a secret meeting with Galinda. Overjoyed, Boq thanks her, calling her “Elphie,” and they plan to meet back here in three days.
Boq chooses not to go out with Avaric not merely because he’s studying, but because he can’t stop thinking about Galinda. When he encounters Elphaba while trying to spy on Galinda, rather than reporting him to school authorities, Elphaba decides to help him—though it isn’t yet clear whether she’s being entirely sincere. Still, the nickname Boq gives her softens her in ways that complicate her outsider, loner image. This scene reiterates that Boq, unlike so many others, isn’t at all afraid of Elphaba’s appearance.
Themes
Boq dresses up and eagerly arrives to meet Galinda, only to find that Elphaba has come along. Galinda wastes no time explaining that nothing romantic could ever happen between them—the gap in their social class and even their height makes it impossible, she says—and she only came to turn him down in person. Throughout, Elphaba teases them relentlessly, mostly at Boq’s expense. But Boq calmly explains he is only asking for friendship, though he admits Galinda is nearly perfect. Just as Galinda seems she is about to accept, Ama Clutch storms in, dragging the girls away and scolding them for secretly meeting with a boy.
Galinda’s blunt rejection of Boq reiterates that her relationships are dictated first and foremost by social status, which she’s already made clear in her treatment of Elphaba. Elphaba’s teasing in this scene, meanwhile, speaks to how she views romance: as naïve, laughable, and pathetic. Unfamiliar with school crushes and youthful love—since her peers tend to fear her before they can know her—a part of her resents Boq’s boldness, which strikes her as foolish. Galinda’s near-acceptance of his offer for friendship suggests she may be fonder of him than she admits, but Ama Clutch interrupts before the moment can play itself out.
Themes
During the summer holiday, Boq stays behind at Shiz in Briscoe Hall while most of his classmates go home. He takes a job in the Three Queens library maintaining old manuscripts and befriends two students named Crope and Tibbett. Just a few weeks after his encounter with Galinda and Elphaba, he runs into Galinda again. She tells him she’ll soon be heading off to Pfannee’s summer house with Shenshen, while Elphaba will remain on campus to work for Doctor Dillamond. Boq is pleasantly surprised—he admires Dillamond’s work and has always hoped to meet him.
Boq’s choice to remain at Shiz, working in the library while his friends depart, signals his position as an outsider among his peers. But it also creates a direct parallel with Elphaba, who stays behind to pursue serious research with Doctor Dillamond. Boq’s admiration for Dillamond is something readers should keep in mind for later.
Themes
One afternoon off campus, Boq spots Elphaba and invites her to join him for tea. She tells him she’s been shopping for gifts for her sister, Nessarose, who will attend Shiz in a few years. As they talk, Elphaba shares that her mother died in childbirth and explains the research she’s helping Dillamond with: he’s working to prove that there’s no scientific difference between Animal and human tissue, hoping that undeniable evidence will force the Wizard to reverse the Banns. Elphaba mentions that some of the books they need are off-limits to both her, as a woman, and Dillamond, as an Animal. Boq offers to use his access to the Three Queens library to get the books for them.
Elphaba is more vulnerable than usual in this scene because her work with Dillamond is not abstract—it is a personal, moral mission against oppression. Though this section of the novel is filtered through Boq’s limited perspective, it’s clear that Elphaba’s passion stems from her own experiences of marginalization and being othered. Meanwhile, the restricted library access highlights the intersection of gender and species discrimination, where both Elphaba and Dillamond are intentionally excluded from systems of sharing knowledge. Still, Boq’s offer to help demonstrates how even those with limited power can contribute to resistance.
Themes
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Boq brings Crope and Tibbett into his arrangement with Elphaba, and the four spend the summer researching together, meeting secretly to share what they’ve learned about the history of Animals in Oz and how they differ from ordinary animals. They trade theories from different origin myths—the Lurlinians’, the unionists’, and the pfaithers’ (pleasure faithers)—though none can be proven. Elphaba admits that the pfaithers’ story unsettles her most: it claims Animals are the result of the Kumbric Witch’s spell that never wore off—and spells can be reversed. As they talk one afternoon, Elphaba suddenly goes quiet, spotting a “tiktok creature”—Grommetik, Madame Morrible’s mechanical assistant-slash-spy—buying coffee beans nearby. She warns the others not to trust it.
The summer study group marks the first time Elphaba throws herself into a cause alongside like-minded peers. At this point in her life, she still believes that hard work and scientific proof can change the world, and that Dillamond’s research can overturn the Wizard’s Animal Banns. The pfaithers’ myth unsettles her because it treats Animal identity as reversible, and therefore erasable. Elphaba identifies with Animals as fellow “others,” and she, too, fears the erasure they face. Her distrust of Grommetik, meanwhile, reflects her instinctive suspicion of surveillance, state machinery, and, above all, Madame Morrible.
Themes
Toward the end of summer, Elphaba receives a letter from Galinda inviting her to Pfannee’s lake house. Though hesitant, Boq convinces her to accept, offering to come along with Avaric as chaperones. Madame Morrible also sends Grommetik with them as a minder, in lieu of an Ama. But when Elphaba arrives, Galinda is confused—she never sent a letter. Laughing, Pfannee admits she wrote the letter as a joke. Elphaba thanks Pfannee for the “invitation” before retreating to her room. That night, Galinda confides in Boq that Pfannee’s cruelty has tempted her to leave early. The conversation turns unexpectedly intimate, and the two share a kiss. The next morning, Galinda, Elphaba, and Boq head back to Shiz, while Avaric stays behind with Pfannee and Shenshen.
The cruel prank Pfannee plays on Elphaba highlights the insensitivity and condescension of Galinda’s social circle. But for once, Galinda does not join her friends in making Elphaba the butt of a joke—instead, she defends her. Ironically, Galinda turns Pfannee’s prank into an opportunity to be a better friend to Elphaba, revealing a softer, kinder side of herself. In her exchange with Boq, Galinda indicates that she’s capable of pulling away from her shallow circle, and the kiss they share suggests that she might actually mean what she says.
Themes
While going through a codex in the library, Boq notices an illustration of a Kumbric Witch holding a “beast of unrecognizable species,” surrounded by floodwaters—a mix of several different Animal origin myths in one image. He shows it to Elphaba, who decides to take it to Doctor Dillamond, excited by his recent “breakthroughs” on the similarities between Animals and humans. She also tells Boq he’s too good for Galinda—though she admits that Galinda is “lovely”—which Boq interprets as a hint that Elphaba secretly likes him.
The Kumbric Witch illustration is a fascinating inversion of the ending of the first section of Wicked, which saw Elphaba cradled in the arms of an unidentifiable beast. Throughout the novel, Elphaba will be compared to the Kumbric Witch, both explicitly and implicitly, and this scene is just one example. The presence of multiple Animal origin myths in the image, meanwhile, speaks to the instability of “truth” in Oz, where history and theology are often blurred. Elphaba’s remark that Galinda is “lovely” reflects a growing warmth toward her roommate, but her claim that Boq is “too good” for Galinda makes clear that, at this stage, she still considers Boq a closer friend.
Themes
One day, Boq and Avaric encounter Elphaba, Galinda, and a group of distraught girls outside Crage Hall, all of them crying except Elphaba (who’s always felt incredible pain when exposed to water). When Boq asks what happened, they explain that Doctor Dillamond was found dead in his lab, his throat slit. The night before, Ama Clutch had noticed something “funny” outside of Dillamond’s lab while closing the girls’ curtains and went to investigate. She never returned. When the girls went to Madame Morrible for help, she claimed Ama Clutch had “relapsed” and was in the hospital. Visiting her there, they found her speaking to the rusty nail she’d stepped on the year before, as if it were alive.
Doctor Dillamond’s murder signals a turning point, shattering the already fragile sense of safety at Shiz. Though presented as accidental, too many strange details surround his death for that to be believable—especially where Madame Morrible is concerned. It seems like more than coincidence, for example, that Ama Clutch, the supposed sole witness, suddenly “falls ill” with the very fictitious condition Galinda invented to trick Morrible on her first day at Shiz. Elphaba resists public mourning, her physical aversion to water perhaps symbolic of her inability to process grief in more conventional ways.
Themes
