For Good And The Book

Contains spoilers for “Wicked: For Good”

Every time a story gets retold, some parts of it change. When Gregory Maguire published his novel “Wicked” in 1995, he was reimagining the world of Frank L. Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz.” Nearly a decade later the Broadway musical “Wicked” transformed Maguire’s novel and put it in front of a brand new audience.

Jon Chu’s two-part “Wicked” screen adaptation sticks close to the Broadway musical’s version of the story, meaning it strays from the original novel. The second half, “Wicked: For Good,” blew everyone away at the box office and finishes Chu’s adaptation in style, but fans of the movie have to be wondering how different from the book it really is. Maguire has made his feelings about the adaptation known, but taking a closer look at the differences helps make each version feel even more unique and special. Each takes the same characters and the same basic plot, but the book and the movie use all those elements to achieve wildly different effects.

Whether or not the ending of Chu’s movie lives up to the book is entirely up to you, but check out our review of “Wicked: For Good” to see what we made of this musical finale. After you’ve sung your heart out to every song in the musical, it’s worth taking a look at how events play out in Maguire’s novel to see what “Wicked: For Good” does well, and what brilliant storytelling flourishes it leaves by the wayside.

Before sitting down to watch Jon Chu’s sequel, you might need a quick recap of what happened in “Wicked” because “For Good” picks up some time after the ending of the first movie. The sequel stretches the musical’s plot out over several years, but this version of the story doesn’t include nearly as many time skips as Gregory Maguire’s novel. The book’s subtitle is “The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” and it really does follow Elphaba’s entire life.

In the novel there’s a five-year time jump that happens at about the same point as “Defying Gravity” in the musical. During that time, the Wizard turns Oz against Elphaba, and she begins working as a resistance fighter against the Wizard’s regime. An even longer time skip happens right after Madame Morrible’s death. Seven years later we catch up with Elphaba as she’s traveling to Fiyero’s homeland of Vinkus, and that’s where the book introduces the Grimmerie to the story.

That’s not the end, though. There’s another seven-year time jump later in the novel, which puts Elphaba in her late 30s or early 40s by the time the story ends. The original “Wicked” musical compressed the plot’s timeline, and Jon Chu’s films keep that faster pacing.

The magic slippers have always been an iconic part of “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Wicked: For Good” gives them a tragic backstory. In the movie, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) enchants the slippers to give her sister Nessa (Marissa Bode) the ability to fly. That moment leads into the song “The Wicked Witch of the East,” and it’s the last interaction that Elphaba and Nessa have before Dorothy’s house crashes down on Nessa’s head.

In the “Wicked” novel, Nessa’s magic slippers still play a key role, but Elphaba isn’t the one who enchants them with special abilities. Nessa gets the shoes as a gift from her father, which further reinforces how alienated Elphaba is from her family. When Elphaba comes to see Nessa in Munchkinland years after their time at Shiz, the shoes have already been enchanted by Glinda. 

In the book the shoes just allow Nessa to walk, not fly, but Elphaba still wants them for herself. Elphaba’s desire for the shoes is wrapped up in her complicated feelings about her father, and she ends up going to extreme lengths to get the shoes back. Nessa promises to leave Elphaba the shoes after she dies, but just like in the musical, Dorothy’s unexpected arrival and Glinda’s intervention prevent Elphaba from getting what she truly desires.

One of the biggest changes that “Wicked: For Good” makes from the source material is the way it handles Elphaba’s relationship to the Wizard. The movie’s audience already knows that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is Elphaba’s biological father, thanks to the events of the first “Wicked” film, but for the characters, it’s still a big mystery. Ultimately, Glinda is the one who figures out the truth of Elphaba’s parentage. She confronts the Wizard about it, and in the process he realizes that he’s responsible for Elphaba’s magic and decides to leave Oz forever.

That’s not at all what happens in “Wicked” the book. Instead, Elphaba gets to actually learn the truth about herself, and it’s one of the most tragic and heartbreaking moments of the entire novel. Near the end of the novel Elphaba returns to Shiz as an adult to make a failed assassination attempt on Madame Morrible. While she’s at the school, she encounters the Clock of the Time Dragon, an important magical artifact that the Wizard brought to her hometown the very night she was conceived. The Clock comes to life in Elphaba’s presence and shows her the story of her conception, and Elphaba realizes that she’s been fighting her real father for most of her life.

In Gregory Maguire’s version of “Wicked,” Madame Morrible is certainly an antagonist, but more than anything she represents the world order that Elphaba hates. The book’s version of Morrible is a cruel school headmistress, and she does her best to funnel Shiz’s best students into the Wizard’s service. At the same time, Morrible in the book isn’t really that close with the Wizard, and though she orders the execution of Doctor Dillamond, she never gets her hands dirty.

By contrast, the Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) we get in “Wicked: For Good” is a much bigger villain. The movie ties Morrible and the Wizard much closer together, making her a direct contributor to his brutal rule over Oz. In the movie, Morrible is also the one who summons the tornado that brings Dorothy (Bethany Weaver) to Oz and kills Nessa in the process. There’s not much gray area in “Wicked: For Good”: Morrible is evil, plain and simple, which makes her imprisonment by Glinda (Ariana Grande) at the movie’s end all the more satisfying.

Depending on how you interpret the story, “Wicked: For Good” is more directly tied to “The Wizard of Oz” than the original “Wicked” novel. In the movie, we get to see the origin of all the key elements in “The Wizard of Oz.” We learn exactly what brought Dorothy to Oz, and we learn where the Scarecrow and the Tin Man come from. In the movie Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and Boq (Ethan Slater), the love interests of both Elphaba and Nessa, tragically get transformed by magic before encountering Dorothy and joining her party.

The book doesn’t make such neat connections between itself and “The Wizard of Oz.” In the novel we do meet the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, but they don’t have secret identities. Elphaba briefly believes that the Scarecrow is Fiyero in disguise, but that turns out to have more to do with her grief over Fiyero’s death than any shred of real evidence. 

Similarly, the novel’s Tin Man is just a standalone character. After her time at Shiz, Elphaba only encounters Boq one other time, and that doesn’t happen until after Nessa’s death. The book’s version of the story really emphasizes Elphaba’s loneliness, and the fact that she has almost no one to rely on in her fight against the Wizard.

Almost every part of the story in “Wicked” the novel is darker than the version in “Wicked: For Good.” Characters in the book tend to meet tragic ends, and there are no glorious musical numbers to get people out of trouble or reignite abandoned relationships. Oddly enough, Madame Morrible is one of the few characters who arguably gets a darker ending in the movie than in the book.

In the movie Madame Morrible gets punished for her crimes. Glinda locks her up, and the implication is that Morrible will spend a long time behind bars for the work she did on the Wizard’s behalf. In the book Morrible dies, but she passes peacefully in her sleep. Morrible’s death is somewhat tragic for Elphaba because it completely disrupts her assassination plan and puts her on the path to her meeting with the Clock of the Time Dragon. For Morrible herself, though, the book’s version of events is probably preferable. She gets to live a long, full life, and she dies on her own terms without anyone ever being able to question the work she did for the Wizard or her record of cruelty at Shiz.

The Wizard’s bottle of mystical green liquid comes up at the beginning and end of every version of “Wicked.” The green liquid is presumably the real reason Elphaba’s skin is green. When it reappears decades later, the green bottle is what makes the Wizard realize that his mortal nemesis is also his biological daughter. The Wizard’s shocking realization leads him to abandon Oz in every version of the story as well, but the way that realization comes to him changes dramatically.

In the book it’s Dorothy who delivers the green bottle to the Wizard. After Dorothy’s final confrontation with Elphaba, she takes the green bottle from Elphaba’s belongings and carries it back to the Emerald City. Dorothy doesn’t really know what she’s giving to the Wizard, so she doesn’t pick up on the massive impact the bottle has on him.

The movie has the story play out pretty differently. In “Wicked: For Good,” Glinda brings the bottle to the Wizard, and she knows exactly what its implications are. Just like in the book, the Wizard is floored by this sudden revelation, but he doesn’t decide to leave Oz entirely on his own. Instead Glinda pushes the Wizard to leave, which helps set up her control over Oz at the end of the movie.

Elphaba’s fate at the end of the story is where “Wicked” the book and “Wicked: For Good” diverge completely. Jon Chu’s movie, like the Broadway musical it’s based on, is meant to be a dramatic, but ultimately uplifting story about the power of friendship, love, and perseverance in the face of adversity. Because of that, the movie cheats its way out of the ending of “The Wizard of Oz.” In “Wicked: For Good,” Dorothy does throw water on the Wicked Witch of the West, but Elphaba actually escapes via a trap door. She and Fiyero, now magically transformed into the Scarecrow, get to run off together toward a presumably happy and peaceful life now that the Wizard is gone from Oz.

Gregory Maguire’s novel takes a very different approach to its ending. The book doesn’t avoid what happened in “The Wizard of Oz” at all. Dorothy really does kill Elphaba by throwing water on her, though the Kansas girl is just trying to save the Witch’s life after her robes catch on fire. All of Elphaba’s efforts to resist the Wizard still lead to the end of his control over Oz, but Elphaba herself isn’t there to see the completion of her work. The book does lightly hint that Elphaba may be able to come back from death, but that’s a far cry from her unambiguously happy ending in “Wicked: For Good.”

Some of the differences between “Wicked: For Good” and the book that the musical is based on have their roots in the first movie. “Wicked” shows us over and over again that Glinda doesn’t really possess magic. Elphaba is a naturally talented witch, but Glinda is essentially a fraud. Her jealousy over Elphaba’s magic is a point of conflict early in the movie, but in the end Glinda’s heated feelings make her eventual friendship with Elphaba all the more touching. Glinda’s lack of magic in the movie sets up her role as a figurehead for the Wizard, and it leads to the movie’s teaser ending, where the magical spellbook called the Grimmerie comes to life for Glinda.

The movie only ever hints at Glinda becoming magical at some point in the future. By contrast, throughout the entire novel, Glinda is shown to have magic powers. Remember, Glinda is the person who actually enchants Nessa’s shoes in the book. She doesn’t have the same natural aptitude for magic as Elphaba, but there’s no doubt that Glinda is rightfully a witch in “Wicked” the novel. That said, the book’s version of Glinda never gets a mysterious encounter with the Grimmerie, so there’s a chance that Glinda in “Wicked: For Good” some day becomes the more powerful witch. 

There are some tragic moments in “Wicked: For Good,” but for the most part, all the heroes come out of the movie much better off than they were at the beginning. Elphaba topples the Wizard’s regime and gets to run away with the love of her life, but Glinda might make out even better. By the end of the movie, Glinda is the ruler of Oz and — judging by the Grimmerie’s sudden signs of life — she might even be on the verge of becoming a proper witch.

Things don’t work out nearly as well for the book’s version of Glinda. “Wicked” actually gives her story a somewhat ambiguous ending. Glinda senses Elphaba’s death, but the novel doesn’t tell us what she does after her childhood friend dies or how she handles the Wizard’s disappearance. Gregory Maguire’s sequel, titled “Son of a Witch,” does explore more of Glinda’s story. In that book, we learn that Glinda serves as the leader of Oz for six months after the Wizard’s disappearance. Unfortunately, Glinda doesn’t accomplish much in her brief tenure as ruler, and Oz is soon thrown into political chaos.

Unfortunately for people who thought that the “Wicked” movies should embrace the weirdness of the novel, Jon Chu’s two-part film adaptation hews closely to the Broadway musical. The stage version of “Wicked” makes some significant changes to the book’s plot, but all those changes boil down to one major difference: the tone. The “Wicked” musical is an emotional roller coaster, but the story leaves its audiences feeling happy and hopeful about the future of Oz and the characters they’ve come to love. “Wicked” the novel also takes its readers on a wildly emotional ride, but the book is more concerned with presenting a realistic political situation in the fantasy land of Oz than with making readers feel happy.

The ending of the “Wicked” book asks what would realistically happen after a freedom fighter helps bring about the collapse of a tyrannical government. The Wicked Witch of the West dies just like she did in “The Wizard of Oz,” but the end result isn’t peace for the entire land. Elphaba helps save the animals of Oz from the evil Wizard, but Oz itself is thrown into political chaos by her actions. The book is happy to end on that note, with the fate of Oz very much up in the air, and Gregory Maguire’s sequels further explore the political conflicts rocking the land. There’s no tidy “happily ever after,” but the complicated ending is what fans of the novel truly appreciate.