Wicked

The Grimmerie is a mysterious book that symbolizes dangerous, forbidden knowledge and the lure of power across entire worlds. Elphaba first discovers the book at Kiamo Ko, where Sarima tells her it was left for safekeeping by an old man. It comes from a world outside of Oz, and the Wizard later admits that a sorcerer more powerful than himself brought it there—this is the reason why the Wizard came to Oz, intending to return the Grimmerie back to his own world. The book’s shifting, self-rearranging text makes it impossible for most to read, but Elphaba, as the Wizard’s biological daughter and thus partly from the same world, is able to read it. Elphaba initially turns to the Grimmerie in pursuit of noble aims: to overthrow the Wizard’s regime and to teach Chistery how to speak. But the book ultimately fuels her darker experiments, culminating in the creation of her flock of flying monkeys—creatures whose altered nature mirrors the moral ambiguity of the magic that helped make them. The Grimmerie binds Elphaba to a lineage she resents and a power she cannot fully reject or control. She plans to destroy it along with Nessa’s shoes to keep both items out of the Wizard’s hands, but her death leaves the book’s fate and the danger it represents unresolved, its presence lingering as an open question about who might next wield, or become corrupted by, its power.