Different and Wicked
Photo by Becca Lavin on Unsplash
She was born into nobility and privilege. Born a child who should have every possible advantage in a world in which status and power define much of one’s existence. Born with skin of a different color. Rejected in childhood, even by her own family; everyone who met her either derided her, or shrank away in disgust or fear. Born with an innate sense of seeing the good in those around her whose abilities and value were questioned, and also protecting them. Born with “powers” of righteous anger – not of her own choosing – triggered when she saw the vulnerable around her being cast aside or mistreated. Misunderstood by everyone – especially by the power-brokers of her world who sought to destroy her when they realized they couldn’t corrupt her “powers” for their own purposes. Labelled by her adversaries as “wicked” – ensuring that she would be hated by everyone around her.
This is the story of Elphaba Thropp, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West.
“No one mourns the wicked...No one lays a lily on their grave.”
The opening of the musical, Wicked, and its 2024 film adaptation, celebrate the death of “the enemy of all of [the people of] Oz,” that Wicked Witch of the West to whom many have been introduced in Frank Baum’s classic tale, The Wizard of Oz. In Baum’s tale, the Wicked Witch is on a mission to destroy a child named Dorothy, after a tornado has brought Dorothy’s house down on the Wicked Witch’s sister and killed her.
What Wicked the musical and film gives us is the backstory – how the one who would come to be known as the Wicked Witch of the West was given such an insidious label.
Before she was the Wicked Witch of the West, we learn that the Elphaba Thropp of Wicked stage and cinema had a mother, a father, and friends – even if those friends aren’t so certain about standing by her in the end.
Elphaba was the daughter of nobility, a child born with green skin. We learn that Elphaba’s mother ingested a green elixir before Elphaba was conceived (yet another part of Elphaba’s story…), and baby Elphaba, “like a froggy, ferny cabbage…is unnaturally green.”
Elphaba was different.
Her father rejected her at birth. At an early age, Elphaba innocently absorbed her father’s misplaced blame that she was responsible for the premature birth of her wheelchair-reliant younger sister, Nessarose, whose early birth had resulted from their mother having ingested large quantities of milk flower during her second pregnancy to ensure that this younger child wouldn’t be born green, too.
The child Elphaba was ridiculed and tormented because she was different. Her matter-of-fact explanation of her green-ness sounds indeed as if she has uttered the words all of her life: “No, I’m not seasick. No, I didn’t eat grass as a child. Yes, I’ve always been green.”
Audiences quickly discover that Elphaba is at heart an empath, protector and justice-seeker – perhaps because she knows too well what it means to be different. When she sees the vulnerable around her suffering, her “powers” are seemingly unleashed through no intentional act on her part to set things right.
She instinctively protects Nessarose from those who would minimize her and stifle her abilities. [Elphaba’s strong sense of protecting her sister help set us up for Baum’s tale, in which the Wicked Witch of the West is determined to avenge her sister’s death by bringing to justice that child, Dorothy, whose house has fallen on Nessarose and who has left the scene with the jeweled slippers that belonged to their mother.]
And, Elphaba instinctively protects the animals of Oz: Having been raised by the family’s nanny, a bear named Dulcibear, after her father rejects her, she has a heart for the animals. Wicked’s audiences learn that in the world of Oz, animals can speak, have been known for their intellect, are educated, and contribute to their community as physicians, teachers and professors, lawyers, ministers and caregivers. But as Elphaba matures, she finds herself in a world that is increasingly less accepting of the animals as intellectual equals. At university, she comes face-to-face with the reality that the animals are being removed from their intellectual roles – and, unsurprisingly, lose their abilities to speak and function like humans, as the humans subjugate them.
Elphaba’s righteous outrage each time she is faced with the minimizing of the vulnerable around her – whether her sister or the animals – results in involuntary displays of her “powers” that further alienate her from her father and her sister, and alienate her from others as well.
Elphaba’s “powers” come to the attention of a professor of sorcery, Madame Morrible, who plans to take Elphaba under her wing so that she can use Elphaba to accomplish her own evil (Dare we say, wicked?) plot. She stages a meeting with Elphaba and the so-called great and powerful Oz himself.
Given her opportunity to ask the Wizard for anything, Elphaba asks for his help for the animals, only to learn that the subjugation and marginalization of the animals is all part of the Wizard’s plan. Elphaba’s “powers” are again unleashed as she is confronted with injustice around her. Morrible and the truly powerless Wizard of Oz discover that Elphaba’s moral compass is not set as theirs; she can’t be controlled so easily. Instead of being granted her heart’s desire upon meeting the Wizard, Elphaba is labeled a wicked witch. “Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature,” Morrible tells the people of Oz.
“No one mourns the wicked...The wicked die alone.”
Wicked’s appearance on the big screen for audience members still unfamiliar with its stage version is timely: In a world in which too much history is avoided or untold, and too many stories of our past never enter into conversation, all of us could take a lesson in asking ourselves what part of the story we don’t know about our diverse neighbors when we too quickly label, judge or condemn.
All of us could take a lesson from Elphaba in valuing the lives of neighbors who are too quickly pushed into the background – by prejudice, ableism or our human desire for success or power – or minimized and subjugated by those occupying roles of privilege and authority.
All of us could take a lesson from Elphaba in leaning into our own righteous anger when we see vulnerable neighbors being shoved further and further into the margins – and allow our passions to ignite our response for justice.
How much different the world might be if – rather than labeling, judging or condemning our diverse neighbors – humankind worked harder to understand our neighbors and learn their stories.
How much different the world might be if God’s people strove to see one another as God sees us all – made in the Creator’s image, endowed with the Creator’s gifts, and dearly loved by the Creator.
How much different the world might be if humankind recognized privilege and authority as tools to help us become allies and advocates seeking justice for the most vulnerable among us.
Perhaps we all could benefit from a day (or two) of being different.
