Wicked Summary

The Wicked Witch of the West spies on Dorothy, a Lion, a Tin Woodman, and a Scarecrow as they travel the Yellow Brick Road. Eavesdropping, she realizes they’re talking about her life and reputation. Dorothy expresses sympathy for the recent death of the Witch’s sister, but the Witch resents this gesture. She notices Dorothy wearing her sister’s shoes, and she’s determined to steal them back.

Years earlier, in rural Munchkinland in Oz, Frex, a Unionist minister, leaves his pregnant wife, Melena, to deliver a sermon against idolatry. Melena goes into labor during his absence. Amid local unrest fueled by the arrival of a magical traveling puppet show, the Clock of the Time Dragon, she is spirited away from their home for safety. Her midwives bring her to the Clock—abandoned in a remote field for the evening—where she gives birth to a baby, Elphaba, with bright green skin, sharp teeth, and a severe allergy to water. After the birth, it is largely Nanny, Melena’s former caretaker, who provides Elphaba with the affection she needs. Rumors about Elphaba’s origins linger, and Melena insinuates that, under the sedative influence of pinlobble leaves, she may have been raped while Frex was away preaching, though she doesn’t fully remember.

A year and a half later, Melena meets Turtle Heart, a kind and gentle glassblower from Quadling Country, and they begin an affair while Frex is away. Turtle Heart blows a looking glass that reveals visions of the future and gives it to Elphaba. Eventually, Frex accepts Turtle Heart as a part of the household and even comes to love him. He warns Frex and Melena that the Emerald City is surveying Quadling land for its ruby deposits, which he believes will lead to Oz’s destruction—at the hands of a “mighty,” mysterious foreign king.

When Melena becomes pregnant again, uncertain if the father is Frex or Turtle Heart, Nanny gives her an herbal treatment from a strange woman named Yackle to prevent the next child from being born green. One night, Elphaba disappears and is found clutching Turtle Heart’s looking glass in the arms of a large animal-like creature. Repeating her first word, “horrors,” she seems to have foreseen the arrival of the aforementioned king.

Many years later, at Shiz University, 17-year-old Galinda from the wealthy Gillikin is assigned Elphaba as a roommate. They clash at first—Galinda is pretty and popular, while Elphaba is more bookish and serious—but they gradually form an uneasy friendship. Elphaba studies under Doctor Dillamond, a Goat professor of natural sciences openly fighting against the Wizard of Oz’s Animal Banns and discrimination. As both Headmistress Madame Morrible and classroom lectures begin to feed Shiz students pro-Wizard and anti-Animal propaganda, Elphaba enlists the help of her peers, Boq, Crope, and Tibbett, to research for Doctor Dillamond and fight against the increasingly corrupt regime.

At the beginning of Elphaba and Galinda’s second year at Shiz, Dillamond is found dead in his lab. Officially, it’s ruled an accident, but most believe he was murdered. Soon after, Ama Clutch, Galinda’s caretaker, is hospitalized for a mental breakdown, and she dies claiming to have seen Grommetik (Madame Morrible’s robot spy) at the scene of Dillamond’s murder. Madame Morrible then summons Elphaba, Galinda—who has called herself Glinda since Dillamond’s death—and Elphaba’s younger sister, Nessarose, to her office and casts a binding spell on them, attempting to recruit them into secret service for the Wizard against their will. Using magic, she clouds their minds so they can’t talk to one another about the meeting afterward. Later that night, Elphaba and Glinda secretly leave for the Emerald City to address the Wizard in person. There, the Wizard appears as a mechanical spectacle and coldly belittles Dillamond’s evidence for Animal equality. After, as Glinda boards a carriage for Shiz, Elphaba confesses that she isn’t going back with her. She’s decided to stay in the Emerald City and fight the Wizard’s regime.

Five years later, one of Elphaba’s former schoolmates, a prince from the Vinkus named Fiyero, spots her in a chapel in the Emerald City. Though she tries to evade him, she reluctantly explains she’s been living underground for years as part of a resistance against the Wizard. The pair continues seeing each other, and their meetings quickly evolve into an affair. While Elphaba remains more guarded, committed to a secret radical mission she can’t fully divulge, Fiyero idealizes and falls in love with her—despite the fact that he has a wife and three children.

Before Lurlinemas—a pagan holiday celebrated across Oz, named for the Fairy Queen Lurline—Elphaba warns Fiyero to leave town for his safety. But he instead secretly follows her to a theater. There, he watches her nearly kill Madame Morrible, whom Elphaba still blames for the death of Doctor Dillamond. It is only when a group of school children huddle around Morrible that Elphaba abandons her plan, not wanting the innocent to get caught in the middle. Fiyero then returns to Elphaba’s apartment, where the Wizard’s officers ambush and murder him. Afterward, Elphaba seeks refuge in a convent run by a nun named Mother Yackle.

Seven years later, Elphaba leaves the convent, heading west to the Vinkus on the Grasstrail Train with a young boy named Liir as her page. On the journey, she encounters the Scrow tribe and their Princess Nastoya, an Elephant posing as a human for protection. She warns Elphaba to control her powers. As the caravan nears Kiamo Ko—Fiyero’s former home and Elphaba’s destination—Elphaba rescues a baby snow monkey and names him Chistery. At Kiamo Ko, Elphaba tries to tell Sarima, Fiyero’s widow, how he died and confess her role in his murder. But Sarima won’t let her fully explain, not wanting to confront the pain of her late husband’s love affair. Still, she allows Elphaba to remain at the castle indefinitely. There, Elphaba finds a strange book of magic, the Grimmerie, that she can only partly decipher, and she begins teaching Chistery speech to test Dillamond’s theory that Animals and animals aren’t essentially different.

One day, Nanny arrives at Kiamo Ko, reuniting with Elphaba after years apart. She says the Wizard now calls himself Emperor and his Gale Force troops are everywhere. As the winter passes, Sarima’s adolescent boys, Manek and Irji, torment the more soft-hearted Liir. Tension within the household escalates and, in a private moment of anger, Elphaba magically dislodges an icicle that falls and kills Manek.

In the spring, Nanny informs Elphaba that Nessarose has inherited the Eminent Thropp title and now rules Munchkinland. Elphaba reveals she thinks Liir may be her and Fiyero’s son, but she’s unsure due to the year-long sleep Mother Yackle placed her in after arriving at the convent. One day, Sarima’s youngest child and only daughter, Nor, happens upon a group of Gale Force soldiers in the countryside and naively brings them back to Kiamo Ko. Elphaba openly distrusts the soldiers and warns Sarima to beware, but Sarima, ignoring Elphaba, warmly invites them to stay.

Elphaba receives a letter from Frex explaining Nessarose’s increasing instability and her decision to secede Munchkinland from Oz. He urges Elphaba to return to the family home at Colwen Grounds. At the estate, Elphaba reunites with Nessa, who now governs with strict religious zeal, uses magic to enforce order, and treats Animals as property. Elphaba worries about the binding spell Madame Morrible cast over them years before, wondering whether Nessa has become so radical as a result of magical coercion or if this is simply who she is. Born without arms, Nessa wears a pair of sparkling shoes—gifted to her by Frex and later enchanted by Glinda to give her freedom and mobility—which she tells Elphaba she’ll one day leave for her in her will. After refusing Nessa’s offer to stay as her second-in-command, Elphaba returns to Kiamo Ko to find that Sarima’s family has been captured by Gale Force soldiers.

Seven years later, an unexpected tornado touches down in Munchkinland, killing Nessarose, the “Wicked Witch of the East.” Elphaba learns of Nessa’s death but is largely detached, absorbed in her work sewing wings on to snow monkeys and teaching them to fly. Liir, now 14, wants to attend the funeral but must stay at Kiamo Ko to care for Nanny. Elphaba flies to Munchkinland on her broomstick alone, and at the funeral, Glinda and Elphaba reunite for the first time since Shiz. Their happy reunion is spoiled, however, when Glinda reveals that she’s given Nessa’s sparkling, enchanted shoes to Dorothy, the foreign girl who arrived in Oz with the tornado. Elphaba is furious and insists the shoes were meant to be hers when Nessa died.

The Wizard insists on a meeting with Elphaba. He demands both Nessa’s shoes and the Grimmerie, and he reveals that Sarima and Irji were killed shortly after their capture. Nor, though imprisoned, is still alive, and he uses her as leverage to get what he wants from Elphaba. He also confirms Madame Morrible was behind Fiyero’s death. Elphaba dishonestly promises to give him the items he wants if he frees Nor, and he says he’ll think over her offer. Before returning to Kiamo Ko, Elphaba stops in Shiz to finally kill Madame Morrible, only to discover that the former Headmistress died moments before Elphaba arrived. She violently smashes in Morrible’s skull—with one of Morrible’s own plaques—to express the rage she’s long harbored. After a late-night encounter with the Clock of the Time Dragon, Elphaba also learns the Wizard is her biological father.

Back at Kiamo Ko, Elphaba dreams of the Wizard’s past, and the visions disturb her. She then learns that Dorothy and her companions are on their way to kill her, per the Wizard’s request. Sleep-deprived and perturbed, she sends her monkeys to fetch Dorothy, intending to merely ask for Nessa’s shoes and send the girl on her way. But when Dorothy arrives and Elphaba demands the shoes, Dorothy says they’re stuck on her feet. She also says she isn’t here to kill Elphaba. While accusing Dorothy of being a pawn for the Wizard, Elphaba accidentally sets herself on fire and dies as Dorothy tries to save her with a bucket of rainwater (which she is allergic to). As Elphaba, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” dies, the Wizard senses his control weakening in Oz. Dorothy’s visit has signaled the end of his reign.