“Lurline is the Fairy Queen who flew over the sandy wastes, and spotted the green and lovely land of Oz below. She left her daughter Ozma to rule the country in her absence and she promised to return to Oz in its darkest hour.”
Among the multiple problems that come with knowing Wicked only from the musical rather than reading the book is that the truly epic scope of the interplaying themes constantly at work gets lost in a story that narrows things down to basically a story of two witches, good versus wicked. To wit: there is a whole world going on here beyond Elphaba’s defying gravity and Glinda’s search of popularity. The broader backdrop to this story of Oz is one in which the arrival of a man in a balloon who will call himself the Wizard and take over the rule of all the various lands and peoples who call it home is one in which a longstanding matriarchal society is for the first time introduced to a patriarchy. And, as is usual in these cases, things do not go well.
"Gillikinese are sharp as knives,
Munchkinlanders lead corny lives,
Glikkuns beat their ugly wives,
Winkies swarm in sticky hives.
But the Quadlings, Oh the Quadlings,
Slimy stupid curse-at-godlings,
Eat their young and bury their old
A day before their bodies get cold."
Elphaba’s nanny, to be precise and here she is quoting in full a somewhat longer nursery rhyme that is excerpted here. But for the purpose at hand, this is the real meat of the matter. This quote is particularly useful because it efficiently and economically introduces the reader—it occurs fairly early on—to a fact known by readers of Baum’s original Oz books but not so much by most Americans who really only know about the strange land courtesy of a movie made in 1939. The vast vista that is Oz is limited in that film to basically Munchkinland and Emerald City. Baum’s books and Maguire’s reinvention extend the landscape to the four winds to remind readers of what they may not know: there is more to Oz to than the Yellow Brick Road. Also of note: the little people who call it their home prefer to be known as Munchkinlanders rather than the somewhat offensive shortened version more familiarly used by most.
Boq noted the variety: the pagan, the authoritarian, and the old-fashioned unionist impulses. But nothing directly sympathetic to the royalists, who had gone underground in the sixteen harsh years since the Wizard had first wrested power from the Ozma Regent. The Ozma line had been Gillikinese originally, and surely there were active pockets of resistance to the Wizard? But Gillikin had, in fact, thrived under the Wizard, so the royalists kept mum. Besides, everyone had heard the rumors of strict court action against turncoats and peristrophists.
Boq is Elphaba’s lover and comrade-of-sorts during her freedom fighters/terrorist period. For many readers, this is the most exciting section of the novel; for others, it is too much allegory. But allegory Wicked ultimately is and there is no use in trying to run from it. Animals are not animals but don’t look like humans so the Wizard’s fascist rules reduces them to mere animals. If Elphaba is wicked then so was Patrick Henry and anyone who has ever fought for equality. This Wizard is not the trickster of the celebrated film; he is a con man, surely, but of a much more dangerous kind than is generally thought of when considering the Wizard of Oz. The novel bears a title that promises two things: it will be an examination of wickedness and it will tell the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West, but that does not mean the two things are necessarily interchangeable. Wickedness exists in ample supply in this Oz, but it is not the witch who is out to get you, my pretty. Or your little dog, either.
