Canon Relationships
I decided to write up Elphaba's canon relationships before writing the musical canon. The relationship descriptions have explanations of their history in both the novel and musical, quotes from each, and pictures of the characters. Naturally, there are spoilers.
Galinda/Glinda: Book: A rather self-centered woman with an essentially good heart from a middle-class family, and Elphaba's dearest friend. They started off being a bit standoffish about each other, but over time Galinda realized that the "rich girls" she was hanging around weren't real friends, and she joined Elphaba's group instead. Elphaba loved Glinda dearly, and Glinda loved her very much as well. They didn't spend much time together at all - just a couple of years at Shiz - but Elphaba changed Glinda's life forever. Glinda married an older rich man in a loveless marraige, and slipped back into some of her prissier mannerisms. She is never the same after Elphaba's death and guilt and sadness over losing her best friend weigh on her heavily. Elphaba ended their friendship when she refused to speak to Glinda again after the giving-Dorothy-the-shoes incident. Elphaba was often annoyed with Glinda because she didnt feel she was living up to her potential, or using the brains she knew she had. Glinda is fairly skilled at sorcery.
Elphaba sat with her two elbows on the table, her hands clasped in front of her face, her two forefingers leaning against each other and against her thin, grayish lips. "You know, Boq," she said, "the thing is I have become fond of Galinda myself. Behind her starry-eyed love of herself there is a mind struggling to work. She does think about things. When her mind is really working, she could, if led, think on you - even, I suspect, somewhat fondly. I suspect. I don't know. But when she slides back into herself, I mean into the girl who spends two hours a day curling that beautiful hair, it's as if the thinking Galinda goes into some internal closet and shuts the door. Or as if she's in hysterical retreat from things that are too big for her. I love her both ways, but I find it odd. I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out."
Musical: The two start out hating each other, and accidentally become roommates. Galinda is resentful of Elphaba because she is allowed to take Morrible’s sorcery class while Galinda isn’t. Elphaba hates Galinda because all the rest of the Shiz students are on her side. So, there’s a lot of anger at the beginning. After the dance at the Ozdust, however, the two become very close friends (with Galinda attempting to make her popular, haha!). Their friendship only really hits a rough spot after Fiyero (who was engaged to Glinda) runs off with Elphaba. Other than that, the two love each other dearly and Glinda hates the fact that she has to keep pretending that Elphaba is evil in order to keep the Ozians from turning against her. She does, however, command the Wizard to leave Oz and sentences Madame Morrible to a life of imprisonment.
“When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features,
I remind them on their own behalf to think of
Celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators -
Did they have brains or knowledge?
Don’t make me laugh! They were popular!
Please! It’s all about popular.
It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed,
so it’s very shrewd to be -
very very popular, like me!”
Fiyero: Book: The Prince of the Vinkus, a.k.a. Winkie Country. Fiyero was shy and softspoken, and he and Elphaba barely knew each other at Shiz. His first entrance to the school was exceedingly embarassing, when an enchanted pair of antlers attacked him. He had dark skin tattoed with blue diamonds, which set him even more apart from the other students. He joined Elphaba's group, but they exchanged few words. That changed four years later, in the Emerald City. He had married when he was young for political reasons, and had three children, but fell for Elphaba anyway. He refused to leave her to her life alone, believing she needed help, and eventually she caved. She was in love with him as well, and for her, that's a pretty big deal. He was beautiful and kind, even if he was a bit idealistic and naive (in her opinion). He cared more about her life than about her cause, which outwardly annoyed her but was probably very effective, as she'd never had someone care that much before. One night she made him promise to stay away, and she went on a mission. Worrying after her, he followed. She failed the mission and he lost track of her, and was then slaughtered by the Wizard's men. When he died, it was during the time when they were most in love, so it hit her the hardest. The moment she lost him, she abandoned her life as a terrorist and fled the city. She spends the rest of her life trying to gain forgiveness for causing his death.
"I want to know where you're going to be on Lurlinemas Eve. Just so I can be sure you're not going to get hurt. Tell me."
"You mean we won't be together?"
"It's a work night for me," she said grimly. "I'll see you the next day."
"I'll wait here for you."
"No you won't. I think we've covered our tracks pretty well, but there's still a chance even at this late date that somebody would come here to intercept me. No - you stay in your club and take a bath. Take a nice long cold bath. Got it? Don't even go out. They say it might be snowy by then anyway."
"It's Lurlinemas Eve! I'm not going to spend the holiday in a bathtub all alone."
"Well, hire some company, see if I care."
"As if you don't."
"Just stay away from anything social, I mean theatre or crowds, or even restaurants, please, will you promise me that?"
"If you could be more specific I could be more careful."
"You could be most careful if you left town completely."
"You could be most careful if you told me-"
"Give over with that, cut it out. I don't think I even want to know where you are, come to think of it. I just want you to be safe. Will you be safe? Will you stay inside, away from drunken pagan celebrations?"
"Can I go to chapel and pray for you?"
"No." She looked so fierce that he didn't even tease her about it again.
"Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through the same disputes, herding the same herds, praying the same prayers, as they have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes me life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her, and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful."
Careful of us both, he thought.
Musical: Fiyero is very different in the musical. He pretends to be shallow and self-absorbed, and is extremely popular. He enters the scene at Shiz and almost immediately begins dating Galinda. However, as he gets to know Elphaba, she begins to change him. She can see through his façade and makes him think. Elphaba begins to fall for Fiyero early on, while at Shiz, but doesn’t say anything about it because she doesn’t want to hurt Galinda (and more because she doesn’t think she has a chance with him, anyway.) They only have a short time to be in love together after they are reunited later on, and then she loses him when he fights for a chance to let her escape. This, like in the book, is really the biggest step towards her undoing as she blames herself completely for his fate.
Elphaba: You could have walked away back there.
Fiyero: Yeah, so?
Elphaba: So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be-
Fiyero: Excuse me, there is no pretense here! I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.
Elphaba: ….No you’re not. Or you wouldn’t be so unhappy.
Nessarose: Book: Elphaba’s younger sister, born without arms. She loves Nessie, and helped to raise her. She can’t help but be resentful of her beautiful crippled sister, however, as she is their father’s clear favorite. Nessarose is infuriating and self-righteous, and yet Elphaba lets her get away with it. Later on, when Nessa is the Governor of Munchkinland, Elphaba is shocked by her casual cruelty. It’s actually due to Nessa’s title, the Wicked Witch of the East, that Elphaba received her own “Wicked” title by default. Nessarose promised that when she died, Elphaba could have her jeweled shoes - the symbol of their father’s love.
A while later he said, “But Elphie-Fabala-Fae - are you really not worried about your father and Nessarose, and little himmy-who?”
“My father chases hopeless causes. It gives his failure at life some legitimacy. For a while he proclaimed himself the prophet of the return of the last, lost tadpole of the Ozma line. That’s over now. And my brother Shell - he’s probably fifteen by now. Look, Fiyero, how can I be worried about them and be worried about the campaign of the season, too? I can’t course around us - on that broomstick there, like a storybook witch! - I’ve chosen to go underground so that I can’t worry. Besides, I know what will happen to Nessarose at least. Sooner or later.”
“What?”
“When my great-grandfather finally pops off, she’ll be the next Eminent Thropp.”
“You’re in line, I thought. Aren’t you older?”
"I’m gone, dearie, I’m magicked away in a puff of smoke. Forget it. And you know, that’ll be good for Nessarose. She’ll be sort of a local queen out there in Nest Hardings.”
“She apparently did a course in sorcery, did you know? In Shiz?”
“No, I didn’t. Well, bully for her. If she ever comes down off that plinth - the one that has words written on it along the edges in gold, reading MOST SUPERIOR IN MORAL RECTITUDE - if she ever allows herself to be the bitch she really is, she’ll be the Bitch of the East. Nanny and the devoted staff at Colwen Grounds will prop her up.”
“I thought you were fond of her!”
“Don’t you know affection when you see it?” scoffed Elphaba. “I love Nessie. She’s a pain in the neck, she’s intolerably righteous, she’s a nasty piece of work. I’m devoted to her.”
“She’ll be the Eminent Thropp.”
“Better she than I,” said Elphaba dryly. “For one thing, she has great taste in shoes.”
Musical: Nessarose is kinder in the musical. Instead of being armless, she cannot walk. She falls for Boq, who doesn’t love her in return, and it’s really that which makes her so terrible later. Elphaba still takes care of her in the beginning, and the two are close. Nessa, however, does resent the fact that she’s depended on Elphaba for most of her life. Her worst turn comes when she attempts to steal Boq’s heart and make him fall in love with her, but she botches the spell and makes him literally lose his heart instead. Elphaba turns him into tin and saves him, but Nessa tells him it’s all Elphaba’s fault. Nessa is killed when Morrible conjures up a tornado which brings Dorothy’s house crashing down on her, and Elphaba blames herself for this.
“All of my life I’ve depended on you,
How do you think that feels?
All of my life I’ve depended on you -
and this hideous chair with wheels!
Scrounging for scraps of pity to pick up,
and longing to kick up my heels…”
Boq: Book: Boq and Elphaba knew each other when they were children, and become friends at Shiz. A Munchkinlander, Boq is really her first friend. He’s very kind and honest, and worries about Elphaba later on. In the beginning he develops a huge crush on Galinda (which amuses Elphaba to no end) but that fades out after she changes her name. He helped Elphaba with her research for Dr. Dillamond along with Tibbet and Crope, and after he settles down and has a family, continuously welcomes her when she comes to visit. Their last meeting was tense, when she was claiming that she killed Morrible, because Boq’s family was wary of her and felt like they needed to defend themselves. Boq worried that the stress had affected her mind and tried to get her to calm down. Disgusted that Boq, of all people, would feel threatened by her presence, Elphaba leaves.
"That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention."
"You're not wicked," said Boq.
"How do you know? It's been so long," said the Witch, but she smiled at him.
Boq returned the smile, warmly. "Glinda used her glitter beads, and you used your exotic looks and background, but weren't you just doing the same thing, trying to maximize what you had in order to get what you wanted? People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us." He sighed. "It's people who claim they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of."
Musical: In the musical, Boq and Elphaba's relationship is nowhere near so nice. He takes Galinda's side against her immediately, and never becomes her friend. After Nessarose literally "steals" his heart, Elphaba frantically casts a spell to turn him into tin and thus save his life. When he awoke as the Tin Man, all Nessa would tell him is that it was all Elphaba's fault, so now he hates her and wants revenge.
"And this is not just as a service to the Wizard! I have a personal score to settle with Elph.... with the Witch!
It's due to her I'm made of tin -
her spell made this occur.
So for once I'm glad I'm heartless,
I'll be heartless killing her!"
The Wizard: Book: Elphaba never quite believes in the supposed goodness of the Wizard, but she doesn't have a real problem with him until she actually meets him and begs him to end the oppression of the Animals. After he refuses (and reveals his stance on the matter) she joins a terrorist organization against him. The Wizard is really the man who messes up Elphaba's life. She leaves Shiz and her friends so that she can oppose him, and he arranges for the death of her lover and, later on, the death or enslavement of all of Fiyero's family, whom Elphaba had been living with. The Wizard fears Elphaba. He knows that she can decipher the Grimmerie, but he doesn't know why. So, he does all he can to tear her down and make it so that she's unable to take any action against him. Later it is revealed to Elphaba that the Wizard is, in fact, her biological father. He doesn't find this out until after her death.
"What kind of sacrifices?" she said. "You do not stint from murder here."
"Murder is a word used by the sanctimonious," he said. "It is an expedient expression with which they condemn any courageous action beyond their ken. What I did, what I do, cannot be murder. For, coming from another world, I cannot be held accountable to the silly conventions of a naive civilization. I am beyond that lisping childish recital of wrongs and rights." His eyes did not burn as he spoke; they were sunk behind veils of cold blue detachment.
"If I give the Grimmerie to you, will you go?" she said. "Give me Nor and take your brand of evil and leave us alone at last?"
"I am too old to travel now," he said, "and why should I give up what I have worked for all these years?"
"Because I will use this book and destroy you with it if you don't," she said.
"You cannot read it," he said. "You are of Oz and you cannot do such a thing."
"I can read more of it than you suspect," she said. "I do not know what it all means. I have seen pages about unleashing the hidden energies of matter. I have seen pages about tampering with the orderly flow of time. I have seen disquisitions about weapons too vile to use, about how to poison water, about how to breed a more docile population. There are diagrams of weapons of torture. Though the drawings and the words seem misty to my eyes, I can continue to learn. I am not too old."
"Those are ideas of great interest to our times," he said, though he seemed surprised that she had taken in as much as she had.
"Not to me," she said. "You have done enough already. If I give it to you, will you surrender Nor to me?"
"You should not trust my promise," he said, sighing. "Really, my child." But he continued to stare at the page she had handed over to him. "One might learn how to subjugate a dragon to one's own purposes," he mused, and flipped the page over to read what was on the back.
"Please," she said. "I think I have never begged for anything before in my life. But I beg of you. It is not right that you should be here. Assuming for a moment you can sometimes tell the truth - go back to that other world, go anywhere, just leave the throne. Leave us alone. Take the book with you, do with it what you will. Let me accomplish at least this in my life."
Musical: In the musical, the Wizard is not as cruel. He's still a tyrant, but more because he's fairly weak minded and takes the easy way out - oppressing those who might speak against him. He has no qualms with having Morrible send a tornado to kill Nessarose in order to bring Elphaba out of hiding, for instance. He offers her a place beside him, casting the spells he cannot, but when she realizes what he intends to do to the Animals she swears to oppose him. He tricks her into casting a spell on the monkeys that makes them sprout wings. Basically, he was lured in by a chance at glory and is unwilling to give that up. At the end, he realizes that Elphaba was in fact his daughter, and he is so pained at knowing that he caused her fate that he does not put up any fight when a grieving Glinda orders him to leave Oz.
Morrible: Won't they make perfect spies?
Elphaba: Spies?!
Wizard: You're right, that's a harsh word... how about scouts? That's what they'll be really. They'll fly around Oz! Report any subversive Animal activity.
Elphaba: You can't read this book at all, can you? That's why you need enemies, and cages, and spies. You have no real power.
Wizard: Exactly... that's why I need you. Don't you see? The world is your oyster, now! You have so many...opportunities. You both do.
Glinda: Thank you, your Ozness.
Wizard:
Since once I had my own day in the sky,
I know everyone deserves the chance to-
Elphaba: No!
Morrible: Elphaba!
Glinda: Elphie! I am so sorry, your Wizardship. I'll fetch her back! Elphie wait!
Wizard: We must get her back. She knows too much!
Madame Morrible: Book: The Headmistress of Shiz University. Elphaba hates her and has always hated her. She's cold, conniving, and tries to manipulate her students. A strange meeting with her leaves Elphaba paranoid for life about whether or not the actions she's taking are of her own will, or someone else's. It's heavily implied that she arranged for Dr. Dillamond's murder. Elphaba goes to kill her later in life, after she finds out Morrible also arranged for the murder of Fiyero, but she's already died. She bashes her head in anyway, with a trophy that says "In Appreciation for All That You Have Done."
"Miss Elphaba," said Madame Morrible, "full of the teenage scorn of inherited position, you are nonetheless the Third Thropp Descending, and your great-grandfather, the Eminent Thropp, is in his dotage. One day you will inherit what is left of Colwen Grounds, that pretentious pile in Nest Hardings, and you could manage to be the Adept of Munchkinland. Your unfortunate skin condition notwithstanding - indeed, perhaps because of it - you have developed a feistiness and an iconoclasm that is just faintly appealing when it doesn't nauseate. It will come in service. Believe me.
"And Miss Nessarose," she went on, "having grown up in Quadling Country, you will want to return there with Nanny. The social situation in Quadling Country is such a mess, what with the decimation of the squelchy froglet population, but it may come back, in small measure, and there should be someone to oversee the ruby mines. We need someone to look after things in the South. Once you recover from your religious mania, it'll be a perfect setting. You don't expect a life of high society anyway, not without arms. After all, how can one dance without arms?"
Here the Head paused and looked around. "Oh, girls. I know you are young. I know this grieves you. You musn't think of it as a prison sentence, though, but an opportunity. You ask yourselves: How will I grow in a position, albeit a silent one, of prominence and responsibility? How may my talents flourish? How, my dears, how may I help my Oz?"
Elphaba's foot twisted, caught the edge of a side table, and a cup and saucer fell to the floor and smashed.
"You're so predictable," said Madame Morrible, sighing. "That's what makes my job so easy. Now girls, bound as you are to an oath of silence, I bid you to go away and think on what I have said. Please don't even try to discuss it together as it'll just give you a headache and cramps. You won't be able to manage it. Sometime in the next semester I will call each of you in here and you can give me your answer. And if you choose not to help your country in its hour of need..." She clasped her hands in a parody of despair. "Well, you are not the only fish in the sea, are you?"
Musical: At first, Morrible seems quite kind, if a bit eccentric. She takes Elphaba as her only student of sorcery and arranges for her to meet the Wizard. As time goes on, it is revealed that Morrible is power hungry and merciless in her attempts to stay in high standing. She has weather magic, and she uses it to conjure up a tornado to kill Nessarose (the same tornado that brings Dorothy) and bring Elphaba out of hiding. She works alongside the Wizard. At the end, Glinda throws her in jail.
Morrible: Citizens of Oz, there is an enemy that must be found and captured! Believe nothing she says. She's evil! She is responsible for the mutilation of these poor, innocent monkeys! Her green skin is but an outward manifestation of her twisted nature. This distortion... this repulsion... this... Wicked Witch!
Dr. Dillamond: Since the only real difference between book!Dillamond and musical!Dillamond is the fact that book!Dillamond was murdered, I'm not going to do seperate sections for him. He was the Goat professor of Life Sciences at Shiz University. He fought against the loss of Animal rights and did research to prove that there was little or no difference between the human mind and that of an Animal. Elphaba respected him very highly, and it is from him that she learned much of her knowledge of Animals and animals. In the novel, Dillamond was murdered while Elphaba was at Shiz because they wanted to keep him from speaking against the Wizard. In the musical, he was merely removed from his job, and later lost his ability to speak and became an animal.
"What do you think Madame Morrible was saying when she ended that Quell with the epigram Animals should be seen and not heard?" asked the Goat tersely.
"Well, anyone would be upset," said Galinda. "I mean, any Animal. But it's not as if your job is threatened, is it? Here you are, still teaching us."
"What about my children? What about my kids?"
"Do you have kids? I didn't know you were married."
The Goat closed his eyes. "I am not married, Miss Galinda. But I might be. Or I may. Or perhaps I have nieces and nephews. They have already been banned effectively from studying at Shiz because they can't hold a pencil to write an essay with. How many Animals have you ever seen in this paradise of education?" Well, it was true; there were none.
"Well, I do think it's pretty dreadful," said Galinda. "Why would the Wizard of Oz do such a thing?"
"Why indeed," said the Goat.
"No, really, why. It's a real question. I don't know."
"I don't know either." The Goat turned to his rostrum and shoved some papers this way and that, and was then seen pawing a handkerchief from a lower shelf, and blowing his nose. "My grandmothers were milking-Goats at a farm in Gillikin. Through their lifelong sacrifices and labors they purchased the help of a local schoolteacher to educate me and to take dictation when I went for my exams. Their efforts are about to go to waste."
"But you can still teach!" said Pfannee petulantly.
"The thin edge of the wedge, my dear," said the Goat, and dismissed the class early. Galinda found herself glancing over toward Elphaba, who had a strange, focused look. As Galinda fled the classroom, Elphaba approached the front of the room, where Doctor Dillamond stood shaking in uncontrolled spasms, his horned head bowed.
These are just some of the main people that Elphaba interacted with by her age in CFUD. Since I keep the book facts (with some musical ones, such as Boq turning into the Tin Man) while adhering to the musical timeline, she has already lost Nessa and Fiyero. I'll write up an explanation of exactly how I'm playing her later.
Galinda/Glinda: Book: A rather self-centered woman with an essentially good heart from a middle-class family, and Elphaba's dearest friend. They started off being a bit standoffish about each other, but over time Galinda realized that the "rich girls" she was hanging around weren't real friends, and she joined Elphaba's group instead. Elphaba loved Glinda dearly, and Glinda loved her very much as well. They didn't spend much time together at all - just a couple of years at Shiz - but Elphaba changed Glinda's life forever. Glinda married an older rich man in a loveless marraige, and slipped back into some of her prissier mannerisms. She is never the same after Elphaba's death and guilt and sadness over losing her best friend weigh on her heavily. Elphaba ended their friendship when she refused to speak to Glinda again after the giving-Dorothy-the-shoes incident. Elphaba was often annoyed with Glinda because she didnt feel she was living up to her potential, or using the brains she knew she had. Glinda is fairly skilled at sorcery.
Elphaba sat with her two elbows on the table, her hands clasped in front of her face, her two forefingers leaning against each other and against her thin, grayish lips. "You know, Boq," she said, "the thing is I have become fond of Galinda myself. Behind her starry-eyed love of herself there is a mind struggling to work. She does think about things. When her mind is really working, she could, if led, think on you - even, I suspect, somewhat fondly. I suspect. I don't know. But when she slides back into herself, I mean into the girl who spends two hours a day curling that beautiful hair, it's as if the thinking Galinda goes into some internal closet and shuts the door. Or as if she's in hysterical retreat from things that are too big for her. I love her both ways, but I find it odd. I wouldn't mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don't know the way out."
Musical: The two start out hating each other, and accidentally become roommates. Galinda is resentful of Elphaba because she is allowed to take Morrible’s sorcery class while Galinda isn’t. Elphaba hates Galinda because all the rest of the Shiz students are on her side. So, there’s a lot of anger at the beginning. After the dance at the Ozdust, however, the two become very close friends (with Galinda attempting to make her popular, haha!). Their friendship only really hits a rough spot after Fiyero (who was engaged to Glinda) runs off with Elphaba. Other than that, the two love each other dearly and Glinda hates the fact that she has to keep pretending that Elphaba is evil in order to keep the Ozians from turning against her. She does, however, command the Wizard to leave Oz and sentences Madame Morrible to a life of imprisonment.
“When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features,
I remind them on their own behalf to think of
Celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators -
Did they have brains or knowledge?
Don’t make me laugh! They were popular!
Please! It’s all about popular.
It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed,
so it’s very shrewd to be -
very very popular, like me!”
Fiyero: Book: The Prince of the Vinkus, a.k.a. Winkie Country. Fiyero was shy and softspoken, and he and Elphaba barely knew each other at Shiz. His first entrance to the school was exceedingly embarassing, when an enchanted pair of antlers attacked him. He had dark skin tattoed with blue diamonds, which set him even more apart from the other students. He joined Elphaba's group, but they exchanged few words. That changed four years later, in the Emerald City. He had married when he was young for political reasons, and had three children, but fell for Elphaba anyway. He refused to leave her to her life alone, believing she needed help, and eventually she caved. She was in love with him as well, and for her, that's a pretty big deal. He was beautiful and kind, even if he was a bit idealistic and naive (in her opinion). He cared more about her life than about her cause, which outwardly annoyed her but was probably very effective, as she'd never had someone care that much before. One night she made him promise to stay away, and she went on a mission. Worrying after her, he followed. She failed the mission and he lost track of her, and was then slaughtered by the Wizard's men. When he died, it was during the time when they were most in love, so it hit her the hardest. The moment she lost him, she abandoned her life as a terrorist and fled the city. She spends the rest of her life trying to gain forgiveness for causing his death.
"I want to know where you're going to be on Lurlinemas Eve. Just so I can be sure you're not going to get hurt. Tell me."
"You mean we won't be together?"
"It's a work night for me," she said grimly. "I'll see you the next day."
"I'll wait here for you."
"No you won't. I think we've covered our tracks pretty well, but there's still a chance even at this late date that somebody would come here to intercept me. No - you stay in your club and take a bath. Take a nice long cold bath. Got it? Don't even go out. They say it might be snowy by then anyway."
"It's Lurlinemas Eve! I'm not going to spend the holiday in a bathtub all alone."
"Well, hire some company, see if I care."
"As if you don't."
"Just stay away from anything social, I mean theatre or crowds, or even restaurants, please, will you promise me that?"
"If you could be more specific I could be more careful."
"You could be most careful if you left town completely."
"You could be most careful if you told me-"
"Give over with that, cut it out. I don't think I even want to know where you are, come to think of it. I just want you to be safe. Will you be safe? Will you stay inside, away from drunken pagan celebrations?"
"Can I go to chapel and pray for you?"
"No." She looked so fierce that he didn't even tease her about it again.
"Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through the same disputes, herding the same herds, praying the same prayers, as they have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes me life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her, and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful."
Careful of us both, he thought.
Musical: Fiyero is very different in the musical. He pretends to be shallow and self-absorbed, and is extremely popular. He enters the scene at Shiz and almost immediately begins dating Galinda. However, as he gets to know Elphaba, she begins to change him. She can see through his façade and makes him think. Elphaba begins to fall for Fiyero early on, while at Shiz, but doesn’t say anything about it because she doesn’t want to hurt Galinda (and more because she doesn’t think she has a chance with him, anyway.) They only have a short time to be in love together after they are reunited later on, and then she loses him when he fights for a chance to let her escape. This, like in the book, is really the biggest step towards her undoing as she blames herself completely for his fate.
Elphaba: You could have walked away back there.
Fiyero: Yeah, so?
Elphaba: So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be-
Fiyero: Excuse me, there is no pretense here! I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.
Elphaba: ….No you’re not. Or you wouldn’t be so unhappy.
Nessarose: Book: Elphaba’s younger sister, born without arms. She loves Nessie, and helped to raise her. She can’t help but be resentful of her beautiful crippled sister, however, as she is their father’s clear favorite. Nessarose is infuriating and self-righteous, and yet Elphaba lets her get away with it. Later on, when Nessa is the Governor of Munchkinland, Elphaba is shocked by her casual cruelty. It’s actually due to Nessa’s title, the Wicked Witch of the East, that Elphaba received her own “Wicked” title by default. Nessarose promised that when she died, Elphaba could have her jeweled shoes - the symbol of their father’s love.
A while later he said, “But Elphie-Fabala-Fae - are you really not worried about your father and Nessarose, and little himmy-who?”
“My father chases hopeless causes. It gives his failure at life some legitimacy. For a while he proclaimed himself the prophet of the return of the last, lost tadpole of the Ozma line. That’s over now. And my brother Shell - he’s probably fifteen by now. Look, Fiyero, how can I be worried about them and be worried about the campaign of the season, too? I can’t course around us - on that broomstick there, like a storybook witch! - I’ve chosen to go underground so that I can’t worry. Besides, I know what will happen to Nessarose at least. Sooner or later.”
“What?”
“When my great-grandfather finally pops off, she’ll be the next Eminent Thropp.”
“You’re in line, I thought. Aren’t you older?”
"I’m gone, dearie, I’m magicked away in a puff of smoke. Forget it. And you know, that’ll be good for Nessarose. She’ll be sort of a local queen out there in Nest Hardings.”
“She apparently did a course in sorcery, did you know? In Shiz?”
“No, I didn’t. Well, bully for her. If she ever comes down off that plinth - the one that has words written on it along the edges in gold, reading MOST SUPERIOR IN MORAL RECTITUDE - if she ever allows herself to be the bitch she really is, she’ll be the Bitch of the East. Nanny and the devoted staff at Colwen Grounds will prop her up.”
“I thought you were fond of her!”
“Don’t you know affection when you see it?” scoffed Elphaba. “I love Nessie. She’s a pain in the neck, she’s intolerably righteous, she’s a nasty piece of work. I’m devoted to her.”
“She’ll be the Eminent Thropp.”
“Better she than I,” said Elphaba dryly. “For one thing, she has great taste in shoes.”
Musical: Nessarose is kinder in the musical. Instead of being armless, she cannot walk. She falls for Boq, who doesn’t love her in return, and it’s really that which makes her so terrible later. Elphaba still takes care of her in the beginning, and the two are close. Nessa, however, does resent the fact that she’s depended on Elphaba for most of her life. Her worst turn comes when she attempts to steal Boq’s heart and make him fall in love with her, but she botches the spell and makes him literally lose his heart instead. Elphaba turns him into tin and saves him, but Nessa tells him it’s all Elphaba’s fault. Nessa is killed when Morrible conjures up a tornado which brings Dorothy’s house crashing down on her, and Elphaba blames herself for this.
“All of my life I’ve depended on you,
How do you think that feels?
All of my life I’ve depended on you -
and this hideous chair with wheels!
Scrounging for scraps of pity to pick up,
and longing to kick up my heels…”
Boq: Book: Boq and Elphaba knew each other when they were children, and become friends at Shiz. A Munchkinlander, Boq is really her first friend. He’s very kind and honest, and worries about Elphaba later on. In the beginning he develops a huge crush on Galinda (which amuses Elphaba to no end) but that fades out after she changes her name. He helped Elphaba with her research for Dr. Dillamond along with Tibbet and Crope, and after he settles down and has a family, continuously welcomes her when she comes to visit. Their last meeting was tense, when she was claiming that she killed Morrible, because Boq’s family was wary of her and felt like they needed to defend themselves. Boq worried that the stress had affected her mind and tried to get her to calm down. Disgusted that Boq, of all people, would feel threatened by her presence, Elphaba leaves.
"That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention."
"You're not wicked," said Boq.
"How do you know? It's been so long," said the Witch, but she smiled at him.
Boq returned the smile, warmly. "Glinda used her glitter beads, and you used your exotic looks and background, but weren't you just doing the same thing, trying to maximize what you had in order to get what you wanted? People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us." He sighed. "It's people who claim they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of."
Musical: In the musical, Boq and Elphaba's relationship is nowhere near so nice. He takes Galinda's side against her immediately, and never becomes her friend. After Nessarose literally "steals" his heart, Elphaba frantically casts a spell to turn him into tin and thus save his life. When he awoke as the Tin Man, all Nessa would tell him is that it was all Elphaba's fault, so now he hates her and wants revenge.
"And this is not just as a service to the Wizard! I have a personal score to settle with Elph.... with the Witch!
It's due to her I'm made of tin -
her spell made this occur.
So for once I'm glad I'm heartless,
I'll be heartless killing her!"
The Wizard: Book: Elphaba never quite believes in the supposed goodness of the Wizard, but she doesn't have a real problem with him until she actually meets him and begs him to end the oppression of the Animals. After he refuses (and reveals his stance on the matter) she joins a terrorist organization against him. The Wizard is really the man who messes up Elphaba's life. She leaves Shiz and her friends so that she can oppose him, and he arranges for the death of her lover and, later on, the death or enslavement of all of Fiyero's family, whom Elphaba had been living with. The Wizard fears Elphaba. He knows that she can decipher the Grimmerie, but he doesn't know why. So, he does all he can to tear her down and make it so that she's unable to take any action against him. Later it is revealed to Elphaba that the Wizard is, in fact, her biological father. He doesn't find this out until after her death.
"What kind of sacrifices?" she said. "You do not stint from murder here."
"Murder is a word used by the sanctimonious," he said. "It is an expedient expression with which they condemn any courageous action beyond their ken. What I did, what I do, cannot be murder. For, coming from another world, I cannot be held accountable to the silly conventions of a naive civilization. I am beyond that lisping childish recital of wrongs and rights." His eyes did not burn as he spoke; they were sunk behind veils of cold blue detachment.
"If I give the Grimmerie to you, will you go?" she said. "Give me Nor and take your brand of evil and leave us alone at last?"
"I am too old to travel now," he said, "and why should I give up what I have worked for all these years?"
"Because I will use this book and destroy you with it if you don't," she said.
"You cannot read it," he said. "You are of Oz and you cannot do such a thing."
"I can read more of it than you suspect," she said. "I do not know what it all means. I have seen pages about unleashing the hidden energies of matter. I have seen pages about tampering with the orderly flow of time. I have seen disquisitions about weapons too vile to use, about how to poison water, about how to breed a more docile population. There are diagrams of weapons of torture. Though the drawings and the words seem misty to my eyes, I can continue to learn. I am not too old."
"Those are ideas of great interest to our times," he said, though he seemed surprised that she had taken in as much as she had.
"Not to me," she said. "You have done enough already. If I give it to you, will you surrender Nor to me?"
"You should not trust my promise," he said, sighing. "Really, my child." But he continued to stare at the page she had handed over to him. "One might learn how to subjugate a dragon to one's own purposes," he mused, and flipped the page over to read what was on the back.
"Please," she said. "I think I have never begged for anything before in my life. But I beg of you. It is not right that you should be here. Assuming for a moment you can sometimes tell the truth - go back to that other world, go anywhere, just leave the throne. Leave us alone. Take the book with you, do with it what you will. Let me accomplish at least this in my life."
Musical: In the musical, the Wizard is not as cruel. He's still a tyrant, but more because he's fairly weak minded and takes the easy way out - oppressing those who might speak against him. He has no qualms with having Morrible send a tornado to kill Nessarose in order to bring Elphaba out of hiding, for instance. He offers her a place beside him, casting the spells he cannot, but when she realizes what he intends to do to the Animals she swears to oppose him. He tricks her into casting a spell on the monkeys that makes them sprout wings. Basically, he was lured in by a chance at glory and is unwilling to give that up. At the end, he realizes that Elphaba was in fact his daughter, and he is so pained at knowing that he caused her fate that he does not put up any fight when a grieving Glinda orders him to leave Oz.
Morrible: Won't they make perfect spies?
Elphaba: Spies?!
Wizard: You're right, that's a harsh word... how about scouts? That's what they'll be really. They'll fly around Oz! Report any subversive Animal activity.
Elphaba: You can't read this book at all, can you? That's why you need enemies, and cages, and spies. You have no real power.
Wizard: Exactly... that's why I need you. Don't you see? The world is your oyster, now! You have so many...opportunities. You both do.
Glinda: Thank you, your Ozness.
Wizard:
Since once I had my own day in the sky,
I know everyone deserves the chance to-
Elphaba: No!
Morrible: Elphaba!
Glinda: Elphie! I am so sorry, your Wizardship. I'll fetch her back! Elphie wait!
Wizard: We must get her back. She knows too much!
Madame Morrible: Book: The Headmistress of Shiz University. Elphaba hates her and has always hated her. She's cold, conniving, and tries to manipulate her students. A strange meeting with her leaves Elphaba paranoid for life about whether or not the actions she's taking are of her own will, or someone else's. It's heavily implied that she arranged for Dr. Dillamond's murder. Elphaba goes to kill her later in life, after she finds out Morrible also arranged for the murder of Fiyero, but she's already died. She bashes her head in anyway, with a trophy that says "In Appreciation for All That You Have Done."
"Miss Elphaba," said Madame Morrible, "full of the teenage scorn of inherited position, you are nonetheless the Third Thropp Descending, and your great-grandfather, the Eminent Thropp, is in his dotage. One day you will inherit what is left of Colwen Grounds, that pretentious pile in Nest Hardings, and you could manage to be the Adept of Munchkinland. Your unfortunate skin condition notwithstanding - indeed, perhaps because of it - you have developed a feistiness and an iconoclasm that is just faintly appealing when it doesn't nauseate. It will come in service. Believe me.
"And Miss Nessarose," she went on, "having grown up in Quadling Country, you will want to return there with Nanny. The social situation in Quadling Country is such a mess, what with the decimation of the squelchy froglet population, but it may come back, in small measure, and there should be someone to oversee the ruby mines. We need someone to look after things in the South. Once you recover from your religious mania, it'll be a perfect setting. You don't expect a life of high society anyway, not without arms. After all, how can one dance without arms?"
Here the Head paused and looked around. "Oh, girls. I know you are young. I know this grieves you. You musn't think of it as a prison sentence, though, but an opportunity. You ask yourselves: How will I grow in a position, albeit a silent one, of prominence and responsibility? How may my talents flourish? How, my dears, how may I help my Oz?"
Elphaba's foot twisted, caught the edge of a side table, and a cup and saucer fell to the floor and smashed.
"You're so predictable," said Madame Morrible, sighing. "That's what makes my job so easy. Now girls, bound as you are to an oath of silence, I bid you to go away and think on what I have said. Please don't even try to discuss it together as it'll just give you a headache and cramps. You won't be able to manage it. Sometime in the next semester I will call each of you in here and you can give me your answer. And if you choose not to help your country in its hour of need..." She clasped her hands in a parody of despair. "Well, you are not the only fish in the sea, are you?"
Musical: At first, Morrible seems quite kind, if a bit eccentric. She takes Elphaba as her only student of sorcery and arranges for her to meet the Wizard. As time goes on, it is revealed that Morrible is power hungry and merciless in her attempts to stay in high standing. She has weather magic, and she uses it to conjure up a tornado to kill Nessarose (the same tornado that brings Dorothy) and bring Elphaba out of hiding. She works alongside the Wizard. At the end, Glinda throws her in jail.
Morrible: Citizens of Oz, there is an enemy that must be found and captured! Believe nothing she says. She's evil! She is responsible for the mutilation of these poor, innocent monkeys! Her green skin is but an outward manifestation of her twisted nature. This distortion... this repulsion... this... Wicked Witch!
Dr. Dillamond: Since the only real difference between book!Dillamond and musical!Dillamond is the fact that book!Dillamond was murdered, I'm not going to do seperate sections for him. He was the Goat professor of Life Sciences at Shiz University. He fought against the loss of Animal rights and did research to prove that there was little or no difference between the human mind and that of an Animal. Elphaba respected him very highly, and it is from him that she learned much of her knowledge of Animals and animals. In the novel, Dillamond was murdered while Elphaba was at Shiz because they wanted to keep him from speaking against the Wizard. In the musical, he was merely removed from his job, and later lost his ability to speak and became an animal.
"What do you think Madame Morrible was saying when she ended that Quell with the epigram Animals should be seen and not heard?" asked the Goat tersely.
"Well, anyone would be upset," said Galinda. "I mean, any Animal. But it's not as if your job is threatened, is it? Here you are, still teaching us."
"What about my children? What about my kids?"
"Do you have kids? I didn't know you were married."
The Goat closed his eyes. "I am not married, Miss Galinda. But I might be. Or I may. Or perhaps I have nieces and nephews. They have already been banned effectively from studying at Shiz because they can't hold a pencil to write an essay with. How many Animals have you ever seen in this paradise of education?" Well, it was true; there were none.
"Well, I do think it's pretty dreadful," said Galinda. "Why would the Wizard of Oz do such a thing?"
"Why indeed," said the Goat.
"No, really, why. It's a real question. I don't know."
"I don't know either." The Goat turned to his rostrum and shoved some papers this way and that, and was then seen pawing a handkerchief from a lower shelf, and blowing his nose. "My grandmothers were milking-Goats at a farm in Gillikin. Through their lifelong sacrifices and labors they purchased the help of a local schoolteacher to educate me and to take dictation when I went for my exams. Their efforts are about to go to waste."
"But you can still teach!" said Pfannee petulantly.
"The thin edge of the wedge, my dear," said the Goat, and dismissed the class early. Galinda found herself glancing over toward Elphaba, who had a strange, focused look. As Galinda fled the classroom, Elphaba approached the front of the room, where Doctor Dillamond stood shaking in uncontrolled spasms, his horned head bowed.
These are just some of the main people that Elphaba interacted with by her age in CFUD. Since I keep the book facts (with some musical ones, such as Boq turning into the Tin Man) while adhering to the musical timeline, she has already lost Nessa and Fiyero. I'll write up an explanation of exactly how I'm playing her later.