History Theatre / Wicked

** The Wicked Witch of the West's portrayal as a well-meaning but ineffective rebel against the speciesist policies of the Wizard [[spoiler:who is her illegitimate father]] stands in stark contrast to the version in [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz]], who was unrepentantly evil and outright conquered "The West" years before the start of the story. Also, she didn't have green skin; that was made up for [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the movie]] and carried over to [[Literature/{{Wicked}} Maguires novel on which the musical based on]].

* LoveDodecahedron: Nessarose loves Boq who loves Glinda who loves Fiyero who loves Elphaba who loves him back. To put it in perspective: [[spoiler: The Wicked Witch of the East loves The Tin Man who loves Glinda who loves The Scarecrow who loves The Wicked Witch of the West.]] Made ever so slightly more complicated by the fact that Elphaba and Fiyero both also platonically care about Glinda, and Elphaba and Nessarose are sisters.

-->'''Glinda''': Let us rejoicify that goodness could subdue / The wicked workings of you-know-who / Isn't it nice to know? / That good will conquer evil? / The truth we all believe'll by and by / Outlive a lie / For you and...

-->A man's called a traitor\\

Is able to persist

* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler:Nessarose decides that if Boq won't give her his heart, he might as well not have a heart to give, and reads a spell from the Grimmerie to do just that.]] Say "hi" to our Tin Man.

-->'''Villager 1''': No one mourns the Wicked!
-->'''Villager 2''': No one cries: "They won't return!"

* TakeUpMySword: [[spoiler:Elphaba passes the Grimmorie on to Glinda, and begs her to do what she couldn't: change the world for the better. And she does.]]

* ThatThingIsNotMyChild: Elphaba's father undisguisedly loathes her with a passion and dotes on her younger sister Nessa merely because Elphaba is green. The moment she's born he screams [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "TAKE! IT! AWAY!"]] at the nurse before angrily storming off. Although, [[spoiler:he isn't Elphaba's real father anyway]].

* TokenMinority: The [[CivilizedAnimal Goat]] professor Doctor Dillamond is clearly this in-universe; it's even [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by him when he tells his class he's the "only Animal on the (Shiz U) faculty...the [[ConversationalTroping "token goat".]]

** Subverted by Fiyero's incredulous, [[spoiler:"Did you hear that? Water will melt her? People are so empty-headed they'll believe anything."]] The audience thinks this is DramaticIrony and that he's wrong, but at the end it turns out [[spoiler:it really is just nonsense; if anything, it's the existence of the rumor that leads to Elphaba using it to fake her death, hence its apparent fulfillment.]] (Morrible's [[spoiler:earlier line "Don't get caught in the rain, dear!" to a lone Elphaba in the rain doesn't help matters.]])

* DyingAlone: [[DiscussedTrope Said as much]] in the opening ("And goodness knows, the wicked die alone...") about Elphaba.

* HeroicBastard: [[spoiler: Elphaba's birth was the result of an affair between the Wizard (her biological father) and her mother- her green skin came from the green elixir the Wizard used to seduce her mother]].

** At one point, the Wizard offers Glinda a swig of elixir. [[spoiler:It's the same elixir that he enticed Elphaba's mother with before the two conceived her]].

* HypocriticalHumor: there's some irony in "March Of the Witch Hunters" when the Tin Man accuses of Elphaba of making the Cowardly Lion cowardly because she didn't let him fight his own battles - the Cowardly Lion is [[TheVoice only heard from offstage]] and the Tin Man has to explain his vendetta to the audience for him.

** "Ev'ryone deserves a chance to fly!"

** The beginning of Act II. The people are singing about the terror spread by the Wicked Witch... and then Glinda distracts them with news of her (very public) engagement. It's a stellar propaganda job. Still, conversation keeps turning back to the Witch and Glinda is starting to have her own doubts, which creep into the song.

'''Elphaba:''' Well ... there's no place like home.

* VillainSong: "Wonderful" for [[spoiler:The Wizard]], and "No Good Deed" for Elphaba. Not on the soundtrack [[spoiler:"Wicked Witch of the East" for Nessarose]]. As detailed on the trope page, none of them are straight examples.

TheMusical adaptation of [[Literature/{{Wicked}} Gregory Maguire's novel]], based on ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' and it's 1939 Metro Goldwin Mayor ''Film/TheWizardOfOzfilm adaptation".

** Fiyero tries to remain aloof and entirely self-centered and succeeds for a little while, but ultimately when the chips are down he fails. Fiyero is also the first person we see in the musical who doesn’t scream/flinch/run away/etc when he first sees Elphaba. He is utterly unfazed. Already we start seeing that her being green doesn’t matter in the slightest to him. Even his joke about her being green is one of the tamest in the show. He doesn’t call her an artichoke like Glinda does or any other sort of rude name meant to demean her for being green. He just says “Maybe the driver saw green and thought it meant go”. Even if he doesn’t see anything WRONG with her being green, being green is still unusual. We INTERPRET that moment as a joke because that’s the expectation, but all we all know his INTENT is simply “Avaric was surprised, give the guy a break”. After that point he doesn’t mention her being green again.

TheMusical adaptation of [[Literature/{{Wicked}} Gregory Maguire's novel]], based on ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'' and it's 1939 Metro Goldwin Mayor ''Film/TheWizardOfOz film adaptation".

TheMusical adaptation of [[Literature/{{Wicked}} Gregory Maguire's novel]], based on ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz''.

Things change, however, when Doctor Dillamond, their TalkingAnimal teacher, is suddenly dismissed from his profession. Trying to discover where the nation's sudden bouts of racism stem from, Elphaba and Galinda -- now going by Glinda -- make the trip to Emerald City, to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, thanks to a LoveDodecahedron involving Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Nessarose, and a timid young munchkin man named Boq, things become a lot more complicated than they had counted on. And as the two girls find themselves sucked into the plot of ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', it becomes inevitable that one becomes Glinda the Good -- and the other, the Wicked Witch of the West.

''Wicked'' is the story of Elphaba, a girl who was born with green skin after her mother had an encounter with a traveling stranger. Soon after, her mother [[DeathByChildbirth died giving birth]] to Elphaba's wheelchair-bound sister, Nessarose, and Elphaba grows up as TheUnfavorite and full of SurvivorGuilt.

* DotingParent: Frex to Nessarose and [[TheUnfavorite definitely not to Elphaba]]. It's hinted that Galinda's parents are this to her.

* TheUnfavorite: The only reason Elphaba was brought to Shiz in the musical was so that she can care for Nessarose.

* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: In the musical. Mother dies giving birth to Nessarose. Father blames ''Elphaba'', because if she hadn't been green, [[InsaneTrollLogic he wouldn't have had his wife consume a ton of stuff he superstitiously thought would make Nessarose white, but in reality it caused childbirth complications that left Nessa disabled as well as killing the mother]].
* MeaningfulEcho: "It's not lying, it's... looking at things another way."

* MoralityKitchenSink: Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) is a WellIntentionedExtremist and TragicHero who is trying to destroy the Wizard's apartheid regime; the Wizard himself is a sad and lonely old man and WindmillPolitical who desperately wants to be loved and uses Oz's talking animal population as an "other" to unite the Ozians against an enemy and in adoration of him; while Glinda is a StepfordSmiler and AttentionWhore who becomes the Wizard's propaganda tool, which she rationalises as giving people hope and someone to look up to. All of them are fairly sympathetic and none of them are evil, but they all make bad choices and all have their regrets.

** The Wicked Witch of the West's portrayal as a well-meaning but ineffective rebel against the speciesist policies of the Wizard [[spoiler:who is her illegitimate father]] stands in stark contrast to the version in [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz the book]], who was unrepentantly evil and outright conquered "The West" before the start of the story. Also, she didn't have green skin; that was made up for [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the movie]] and carried over to [[Literature/Wicked Maguires novel on which the musical based on]].

** The argument can also be made for the Wizard. After being portrayed as misguided but with ultimately noble intentions for bulk of the second act, his moment comes when Elphaba is melted, [[spoiler:or so everyone thinks,]] presumably on either his orders or orders he allowed Madame Morrible to make.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: The moment the Wizard feels remorse for [[spoiler:helping to (allegedly) kill his daughter Elphaba]], Glinda [[spoiler:uses this to push him out of office and overtake Oz, as well as send Madam Morrible to jail.]]

* MeaningfulName: Blur the pronunciation a bit, and there's not much difference between "Madam Morrible" and "Madam Horrible".

** The ''absolutely idiotic'' idea that a person would melt if splashed with water. They use the joke a few times. [[ChekhovsGun Good thing, too.]]

** The Wicked Witch of the West's portrayal as a well-meaning but ineffective rebel against the speciesist policies of the Wizard [[spoiler:who is her illegitimate father]] stands in stark contrast to the version in [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz the book]], who was unrepentantly evil and outright conquered "The West" before the start of the story. Also, she didn't have green skin; that was made up for [[Film/TheWizardOfOz the movie]] and carried over to the play.

** In Act 2, when the Wizard agrees to free the winged monkeys from his servitude, Elphaba gleefully shouts, "Fly, monkeys, fly!"

** Glinda once asks someone else to "wait just a tick-tock"; Tik-Tok is a clockwork character who first appeared in ''Ozma of Oz'' (and can be seen in ''Film/ReturnToOz'').
** The Wizard at one point tells Elphaba, "Where I'm from we believe all sorts of things that aren't true... we call it history." The Wizard made similar comments to the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion in the MGM movie.

* EatingLunchAlone: Discussed. Elphaba offers to share her lunch with her teacher, Dr. Dillamond, ostracized for being a Goat. She eats her sandwich; he eats the paper bag it came in. And the wrapper.

** She saves Boq in time, but he automatically hates her for giving him his tin form.

-->'''Fiyero:''' ''[watching Elphaba dance]'' Well, I'll say this is good for her. She certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks.\\

** [[ForegoneConclusion In-story, anyway.]] Elphaba sees that everyone in Oz will have a celebration "that's all to do...with me!" Everyone celebrates that the Wicked Witch is ''gone''.

'''Both:''' So, while I can't imagine how, I hope you're happy right now.

* HairFlip: "And this is how you toss your hair!" ({{Beat}}) "[[ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud Toss-toss.]]"

* AffablyEvil: The Wizard. He never once directly says a single harsh word to either Elphaba or Glinda. Some performances of "Wonderful" even have him and Elphaba share a dance before it all goes to hell. All he ever wanted was [[spoiler:to give people what they wanted and keep them happy.

* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance;

* AdaptedOut: Liir (Elphaba's son with [[spoiler:Fiyero]]), Sarima, Nor (and the rest of the family), Nanny, and Yackle (and the rest of the nuns), as well as less important characters like Sir Chuffrey (Glinda's husband) and Shell (Elphaba's brother), were removed in the musical. The play also removes the Unnamed God and Lurline elements of the [[Literature/{Wicked} book]], leading to a huge change in Nessarose's characterization.

* AffablyEvil: The Wizard. He never once directly says a single harsh word to either Elphaba or Glinda. Some performances of "Wonderful" even have him and Elphaba share a dance before it all goes to hell. All he ever wanted was [[spoiler:to give people what they wanted and keep them happy.]]

* AdaptedOut: Since this is based more upon the movie, Glinda gets to be a composite of both the Good Witches of the North and the South.

After going through a long period of DevelopmentHell including multiple dropped release dates, a [[MovieMultipack two-part]] film adaptation is in the works. Due to the importance of most songs to the narrative, it was decided to not cut anything, with AdaptationExpansion expected with book elements involved. It is set to be directed by Creator/JonMChu, with Creator/CynthiaErivo as Elphaba, Music/ArianaGrande as Glinda, Creator/JonathanBailey as Fiyero, Creator/MichelleYeoh as Mme. Morrible, and Creator/JeffGoldblum as the Wizard. The films will be released on Thanksgiving 2024 and Christmas 2025.

* AccidentalMisnaming: Galinda can't remember Boq's name, so she calls him "Biq."

-->'''Galinda''': Oh, Biq, really, you would do that for me?

** Galinda tries to teach Elphaba that "it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed". Ironically, she has a point; in politics especially, your aptitude isn't worth anything if you can't get things done, and unfortunately, getting things done often means needing to be -- guess what? -- popular.

* LoveDodecahedron: Nessarose loves Boq who loves Galinda who loves Fiyero who loves Elphaba who loves him back. To put it in perspective: [[spoiler: The Wicked Witch of the East loves The Tin Man who loves Glinda who loves The Scarecrow who loves The Wicked Witch of the West.]] Made ever so slightly more complicated by the fact that Elphaba and Fiyero both also platonically care about Glinda, and Elphaba and Nessarose are sisters.

->'''Oz Citizen:''' Glinda, why does wickedness happen?\\
'''Glinda:''' That's a good question, one that many find confusifying. Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?

Things change, however, when Doctor Dillamond, their TalkingAnimal teacher, is suddenly dismissed from his profession. Trying to discover where the nation's sudden bouts of racism stem from, Elphaba and Galinda -- now going by Glinda -- make the trip to Emerald City, to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, thanks to a LoveDodecahedron involving Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Nessarose, and a timid young munchkin man named Boq, things become a lot more complicated than they had counted on. And as the two girls find themselves sucked into the plot of ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', it becomes inevitable that one becomes the Good Witch of the South -- and the other, the Wicked Witch of the West.

** Replete with them. "I'm/We're/You're (un)limited" stands out. "You/We deserve each other" is also used quite frequently. "A celebration throughout Oz, that's all to do with Me/You".

* BreadAndCircuses: At the beginning of the second act, the population of Oz is in terror of attacks from Elphaba, whom they know as the Wicked Witch. So, what else to do... but have a party to celebrate the engagement of Glinda and Fiyero. "Fellow Ozians, as terrifying as terror is, let us put aside our panic for this one day, and celebrate!" In addition to this, the folks of the Emerald City are regularly distracted by productions such as ''Wizomania'' and various other things to hide the trickery of the Wizard and his corrupt government. He himself says that he's ruling because the people of Oz need someone to believe in and that he is wonderful because they call him wonderful.

-->'''Dr. Dillamond:''' Miss Elphaba, don't worry about me, go along and enjoy your friends.

-->'''Tin Man''': Come on! We need you out here! (pulls tail) We went to school together! (pulls again)
-->'''Lion''': (off stage) [[BigNever Never]]!!

--> "See that tragically beautiful girl? The one... in the chair? It seems so unfair, we should go on a spree, and not she..."

** "Everyone deserves a chance to fly!"
** "You deserve each other!" used maaany times:

-->'''Fiyero:''' ''[watching Elphaba dance]'' Well, she certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks.\\

** Another nod to the original Baum novels: during "One Short Day", at one point, a street peddler gives Elphaba and Glinda glasses with green tinted lenses, which they wear briefly during the remainder of the number. In Baum's ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz'', the Wizard made everyone in the Emerald City (which wasn't actually all that green) wear green-tinted glasses so that everything would appear to be green.

* [[spoiler:Dr. Dillamond]] also lives, [[spoiler:but is [[DrivenToMadness driven to insanity]] from the Wizard's experiments]].

--->Nessa - Uh Nessa\\

After going through a long period of DevelopmentHell including multiple dropped release dates, a [[MovieMultipack two-part]] film adaptation is in the works. Due to the importance of most songs to the narrative, it was decided to not cut anything out, with AdaptationExpansion expected. It is set to be directed by Creator/JonMChu, with Creator/CynthiaErivo as Elphaba, Music/ArianaGrande as Glinda, and Creator/JonathanBailey as Fiyero. The movies will be released on the Christmas Days of 2024 and 2025.