History Literature / Wicked

''Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'' (not to be confused with a creepy Australian kids' book series), a 1995 novel by Creator/GregoryMaguire, is the story of Elphaba, who will one day become ''[[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz that ]]''[[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz Wicked Witch of the West]]. It was [[Theatre/{{Wicked}} adapted into a hugely popular musical]]. The original novel was expanded into a four book series entitled the Wicked Years. ''Son of a Witch'' revolves around Elphaba's possible son Liir, ''A Lion Among Men'' around the the Cowardly Lion, and the fourth and final book ''Out of Oz'' around Liir's daughter Rain.

!!''Wicked'' and its sequels contain examples of the following tropes:

* AlternateUniverse: The book is set in an alternate universe of both the ''Wizard of Oz'' [[Film/TheWizardOfOz movie]] and [[Literature/LandOfOz books series]], which in themselves are alternate universes of each other. The musical for ''Wicked'' is also an alternate universe of the ''Wicked'' books.
** Oz itself is implied to be an alternate universe version of the United States.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Several, Glinda and Elphaba to some extent (see LesYay)

** 3 Books later in ''Out of Oz'' Glinda and Rain use the Grimmerie to freeze a group of dragons that are being used to attack Munchkinland.

** The Cowardly Lion is married to [[spoiler: Ilianora]] but their marriage is a chaste one (for [[BodyHorror obvious reasons]].)
* BiTheWay: Liir, Elphaba's father, and Turtleheart are the most obvious, but you can say that everyone is open for interpretation.

* BreatherEpisode: The third book staunchly refuses to move the plot at all, and presumably covers all the loose plot holes that aren't important to the ending of the next book.
* CantGetInTroubleForNuthin: Elphaba [[spoiler:murders Madame Morrible]] and then goes to a dinner party and talks about it. The guests refuse to judge or call the police--they're too entertained by the novelty of the situation and the opportunity to debate the meaning of good and evil.
** Slightly subverted; the reason nobody calls the authorities is because they think it ''is'' a novelty; none of them believe she really killed her

** In the last book [[spoiler: the Ozma supporters get their wish granted, as Ozma does return and is still a child, therefore playing this trope straight]]
* ChastityCouple: Brrr and [[spoiler: Ilianora]]. For [[BestialityIsDepraved obvious]] [[BodyHorror reasons]].

* CloudCuckoolander: Rain. Up to 11.

* DeathByCameo: Jack Pumpkin head with his head rotted due mice nesting in his brain and a broken Tik-Tok appear in a junk shop.
* DecompositeCharacter;
** Ozma is now a title passed down from mother to daughter instead of being an immortal fairy goddess, though some Lurline worshippers believe she passed her soul with her title.
** Tiktok is the name for robots in general rather than just one character.
* DownerEnding: Just for starters, [[spoiler: Elphaba and Fiyero die.]]

* DeconstructionFic. Of The Wizard of Oz.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Glinda. Elpahaba even refers to her as "Miss Galinda the Ice Queen" at one point.

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether

* FantasticRacism: Both against Elphaba and the sapient Animals.

** Fiyero, and the people of the Vinkus, seem to be victims of racism as well. One of the first things one of the characters mention about Fiyero is that he has skin "the color of shit." Fiyero's ethnicity is never actually mentioned, he is simply referred to being dark, or ochre in colour, which could mean yellow-brown (Olive) skin, right through to reddish-brown skin.
** It's clear that Gregory Maguire had racist character portrayals, all of the POC in his books either die (Fiyero, Sarima, Manek, Irji, Sarima's Sisters, Nor, Nastotya) or end up having extremely difficult lives, like Nor who was turned into a sex slave and was abused so much that she sewed her vagina shut.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: One particular example [[spoiler:said by Trism to Liir]] in the second book: [[spoiler: "Are you just slow, or are you falling in love with me?"]]

* FriendToAllLivingThings: Rain has shades of this.

* LanguageOfMagic: The Grimmerie is full of this.
** Elphaba can somehow [[PossessionImpliesMastery read it without trying]], but others find it trickier.
** She does have to look hard to understand, as the words seem to move about the pages. It is implied that the book is simply a standard (though magical) book to [[spoiler: people from Earth]]. To Ozians, it is not just reading in a different language, but in a different dimension, which Elphaba's [[spoiler:real father aided her in.]]

* {{The Lost Lenore}}: [[spoiler:Undoubtedly Fiyero, for Elphaba, for a good chunk of the first book. Arguably Elphaba for Glinda in later books, depending on interpretation]]
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Elphaba and the Wizard.]][[spoiler: Liir to Elphaba, but much less of a surprise, since it's a main theme of the second book.]]
* MagicCarpet: The Bear working ''Broken Things Of No Use To Anyone But You'' tells Rain and Tip that they're standing on a flying carpet and explains that it's full of flies.

** Some magical elements from the original Oz books are now legends which may or may not be true.

** Tipp isn't sure if [[spoiler:he didn't notice that his childhood lasted over a century because he was stupid or Mombey charmed him]].
* MeaningfulName: Elphaba's name is a tribute to '''L'''. '''F'''rank '''B'''aum.

* MythologyGag: Elphaba sings a song about [[Film/TheWizardOfOz an imaginary land where there are no hardships]], reducing her college friends nearly to tears.

* PatchworkFic: For copyright reasons, ''Wicked'' is supposed to be based on the original Oz books, but both the book and musical draw heavily from the MGM ''Wizard of Oz'' film.
** Most glaring example? In the original book, the Wicked Witch of the West is ''not green''.
** In the fourth book, Mombey gains the appearance-changing abilities of [[CompositeCharacter Mombi]] in Film/ReturnToOz.
* PerspectiveFlip

* ProgressivelyPrettier: In the book, Elphaba's described as having a long nose, gangly limbs, a mannishly strong jaw, and if it weren't for her being green, she wouldn't be much to look at. But in the musical, along with most book illustrations, and fan art, she's a generically cute girl whose only flaw is being green. Though to be fair, Elphaba is also compared to her mother a few times, as far as appearance; and Glinda at least at one point does describe her as beautiful (hat, dormitory).
** That's probably in part because [[spoiler: Fiyero]] says she's [[BeautifulAllAlong beautiful in her own way]], both in the musical and the book. But still, she's not written as conventionally beautiful...

* ShipTease: At the end of Son of a Witch, Liir is separated from both of his love interests, [[spoiler: Trism and Candle]], but only due to circumstances - he's open to a relationship with either. The third book is entirely silent on the matter, as they don't appear, though the family tree at the beginning shows relationships out of wedlock to both of them. The fourth book would appear to finally resolve the matter, with [[spoiler: Liir married to Candle, and Trism assumed to have betrayed the both of them]]. But by the end of the book, [[spoiler: Candle has left Liir indefinitely, and while his reunion with Trism was fraught with argument, it was also heavy in UnresolvedSexualTension, revealing that their attraction hasn't faded. The book ends with Liir alone, stating that his door is open to either of them should they choose to come back.]] Since this leaves open any option a fan prefers, including a OneTrueThreesome, it can come off as fanfic baiting.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler: The book ending. Every single sympathetic character is dead or no longer sympathetic, and the Wizard leaves for reasons mostly unrelated to their struggle. Elphaba fails at every single major initiative she attempts during her lifetime.]]
* ShoutOut from ''A Lion Among Men'':
---> '''Yackle''': [[IWasQuiteALooker I was quite a looker in my time]].
---> '''Brrr''': [[DeadpanSnarker Oh, had they invented time as long ago as that?]]
---> '''Yackle''': A comedian. [[UnexplainedRecovery I come back from the very gates of death]] to be interviewed by a vaudeville wannabe. ''[[spoiler:Bert Lahr got his start in vaudeville.]]''
** From ''Out of Oz'':
---> '''Rain''': "Don't wish, don't start. Wishing only... ''[[spoiler: The same words are sung by Elphaba in the musical.]]''
** Other examples from ''Out of Oz'', though they may be a stretch, might include Dorothy singing about rainbows, a section entitled "Somewhere" (as in 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'), and Brr [[spoiler: being called King of the Forest]]. Even more of a stretch might be Dorothy repeating in sing-song 'Maybe this time...', which could be looked at as a shout out to Kristin Chenoweth who sang that song on "Glee" and who played Glinda in the musical.
*** To say nothing of Liza Minelli, Judy Garland's daughter, who sang that song a long time before Cheno introduced it to the tweens of the world.
** There's a shout out to Charlotte's Web in "Out of Oz". Rain asks if the spiders could write words in their webs for her to read. Mr. Boss says that would be "some spider". The first words Charlotte wrote in her web were "some pig".
** There are plenty of shout outs to the movie and the original book, as well - like when Nessa gets the slippers.

* StartOfDarkness: For the Wicked Witch of the West
* SweetPollyOliver: Tip, in Out of Oz, is eventually revealed to be [[spoiler: Ozma Tippetarius.]]
** This is in canon with ''[[{{Literature/LandOfOz}} The Marvelous Land of Oz]]''. Though there it was an actual GenderBender.
* TimeSkip: Multiple throughout the series. ''Wicked'' alone has ''four'', jumping from Elphaba's birth and infancy straight to Elphaba's time at university, through to the university crowd in their mid-to-late twenties, and finally to Elphaba in her mid-thirties. ''Son of a Witch'' starts out with Liir still a child only a little older than he was in Wicked, but quickly skips to his early-to-mid twenties. ''A Lion Among Men'' focuses on a different set of characters and actually goes back and forth compared to the main continuity, but has a lot of internal skips of its own as Brrr's life story is told in disjointed order from birth to middle-age. Finally, ''Out Of Oz'' skips again to Rain (born at the end of the second book) as a child of seven or so, and proceeds to follow her more or less continuously until the age of sixteen.
* TooMuchInformation: Dorothy explains to Elphaba that she's been trying to remove Nessarose's slippers for days. Fair enough. But did she ''really'' have to mention how sweaty her socks had gotten from wearing the slippers for so long?

* WhamLine: At the end of ''Son of a Witch'': [[spoiler: "He took her to the doorway and held her up in the warm rain. She cleaned up green."]]
** Notably (and frustratingly), this is ''the very last line in the book.''
** This may or may not count. [[spoiler:It had already been confirmed to the readers that Liir was Elphaba's son. By showing us his infant daughter was green, it confirms it to himself.]]
*** It still counts, since [[spoiler:he himself isn't green despite being Elphaba's son; there was no reason to think that his daughter would be.]]

* YaoiGuys: Crope and Tibbet in the first book. In the second book [[spoiler: Liir and Trism.]]

* Tipp isn't sure if [[spoiler:he didn't notice that his childhood lasted over a century because he was stupid or Mombey charmed him]].

* MobileSuitHuman: when Nanny asks how the clockwork robot Grommetik works, Elphaba says she likes to pretend he has a dwarf inside him or a family of elves with each working a limb.

* KillItWithWater

* KryptoniteFactor

* LittlePeopleAreSurreal: Dorothy strongly suspects that the short people working in the Chinese restaurant in San Francisco are munchkins in disguise.

** The Ozites handwaves the NarniaTime as themselves measuring time differently and keeping shorter years than Kansas residents.

* SantaClausmas: Lurlinemas comes from an old pagan religion. The Unionist government if the Emerald City only celebrates it because it brings on money.

* SantaClausmass: Lurlinemas comes from an old pagan religion. The Unionist government if the Emerald City only celebrates it because it brings on money.

* ButtMonkey: Toto seems to be universally hated by everyone except Dorothy.

* KingInTheMointain: Sarima heard rumors that The Wizard couldn't bring himself to kill Ozma and sealed her in stasis in a cave somewhere, implying that she could come back and rule Oz again someday.

* AlternateUniverse: The book is set in an alternate universe of both the Wizard of Oz [[Film/TheWizardOfOz movie]] and [[Literature/LandOfOz books series]], which in themselves are alternate universes of each other. The musical for Wicked is also an alternate universe of the Wicked books.

** Similarly, the Cowardly Lion's name, Brr, seems to a tribute to the actor who portrayed the character in the 1939 film: Bert Lahrr.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The culture surrounding the inhabitants of the Vinkus is a mix-and-match of Native American, Middle Eastern, Indian and possibly African influences. The Arjiki tribe are mentioned as have [[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0c/a6/9f/0ca69fc22d75f3aa4580a3fd9596d906--sexy-men-hot-men.jpg ochre]] [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/42/34/53/423453c2d703f91a503370fe1b34f9a6.jpg skin]] and wear blue tattoos, possibly henna, on [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/b8/a6/33b8a6bb6165875bde883a5afcea7f0d.jpg their faces]] [[https://www.instagram.com/p/BFO891hqf9F/ and bodies]] (Middle Eastern). The Vinkuns, more notably the Scrow are mentioned to worship animals (Native American), in fact the Scrow Princess Nastotya is mentioned to be an Elephant Goddess (Indian). The nomadic lifestyles of the Vinkuns link to Native American and Middle Eastern influences, as well as the prejudice that comes with it.

* TokenMinority: The culture surrounding the inhabitants of the Vinkus is a mix-and-match of Native American, Middle Eastern, Indian and possibly African influences. However the POC are “uncivilised” in these books (even if said Savages have a society that seems more palatable than the cruelty of the Emerald City). Fiyero's ethnicity is never actually mentioned, he is simply referred to being dark, or ochre in colour, which could mean [[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2f/c6/aa/2fc6aac0a547fa59faf0b0515a11acae--middle-eastern-makeup-middle-eastern-models.jpg yellow-brown]] (Olive) skin, right through to [[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ae/0f/42/ae0f4215509d014cb38a6620eedcccfc--native-american-indians-native-americans.jpg reddish]] [[http://cdn2.stylecraze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dark-Skin-Beauties1.jpg brown skin]]. The problem is that most of them end up dead (Fiyero, Sarima, Manek, Irji, Sarima's Sisters, Nor, Nastotya) or end up having extremely difficult lives, like Nor who was turned into a sex slave and was abused so much that she sewed her vagina shut; and while they are alive they are viewed as savages and barbarians – and prejudice against them is regarded mildly as “snobbery.” The flip side is that, in a book full of rather unpleasant characters, the POC tend to be some of the very few that are genuinely decent people.

*** Glinda turned yellow-pink. "My dear," she said, "I was fond of Fiyero and he was a good man and a fine statesman. But among other things, you will remember he was [[http://sanslimitesn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/sa-beaute-est-une-menace-pour-les-dames-il-est-expulse-darabie-saoudite6.jpg dark-skinned]]. Even if I took up dalliances-an inclination I believe rarely benefits anyone-you are once again being suspicious and cranky to suspect me and Fiyero! The idea!”\\