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5. The Quadling Glassblower
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
After spending months living as a hermit in Griffon’s Head to deepen his devotion to the Unnamed God, Frex returns home at Nanny’s request, bringing her back to Illswater with him. He’s relieved to be home with Melena and Elphaba—and even this foreign stranger, Turtle Heart—though Elphaba is still wary around him. When she breaks a small toy he carved for her, Frex worries she might also damage the round glass disc Turtle Heart made, but Turtle Heart assures him it can’t be broken. Having only just left the swamps of Ovvels for the first time, Turtle Heart asks Frex to draw him a map of the world. Frex sketches Oz’s four regions: the northern Gillikin, eastern Munchkinland, southern Quadling Country, and western Winkie Country.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Frex is fond of Turtle Heart, and they become friends rather than the romantic rivals the story seemed to be setting up. Ultimately, his presence has a positive influence on the entire Thropp home. The unbreakable looking glass signals that Elphaba’s bond with the prophetic object will endure—something that Turtle Heart seems to grasp intuitively. Yet despite all his wisdom, he remains a product of remote Quadling Country, where literacy and knowledge of the world at large are scarce.
Themes
That night at dinner, the conversation shifts to the Emerald City and its ruler, Ozma, the “ordained Queen of Oz.” Her spirit is believed to pass from one body to another across generations, and the current Ozma is a baby around Elphaba’s age. Her father, Pastorius, acts as Regent until she can rule. Nanny mentions that she personally follows the pagan Lurline—the Fairy Queen who gave birth to the first Ozma—but Frex bristles at this. He sees it as superstitious nonsense, insisting that the Unnamed God is the one true ruler and that most Munchkinlanders and Gillikinese agree with him.
This conversation explores the clashing Ozian cosmologies that shape the novel’s fictional world. Nanny’s faith is grounded largely in continuity, her older age reflecting a commitment to traditional pagan beliefs that younger generations have forgotten. Frex, on the other hand, is more dogmatic, insisting on the exclusivity of the one Unnamed God. By setting Ozma’s infancy alongside Elphaba’s, the novel implicitly pairs them as parallel heirs, both marked by destiny in ways that are yet to be revealed.
Themes
