Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked, and the stage and onscreen musical adaptations of it, all take a much deeper look at some characters briefly introduced in the classic film The Wizard of Oz. 

The story offers a nuanced look into how the Wicked Witch of the West became the legendary villain she seems to be when she meets Dorothy, while also raising questions about Galinda’s character and offering origin stories for favorites like The Tin Man and The Cowardly Lion. Which character in Wicked best matches your personality? Take the quiz below to find out!

How Wicked Takes a Closer Look at Beloved Favorite Characters

Frank L. Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved children’s tales of all time. It tells the story of a young girl whose dreams of escaping her dreary life turn to reality when she’s transported into a world called Oz, only to ultimately discover that her home is where she truly belongs. 

The 1939 movie introduced countless viewers to the world of Oz, and helped popularize Technicolor technology along the way. Though the behind-the-scenes conditions for the cast and crew were anything but fairy-tale-esque, the movie told a fairly black-and-white tale of good triumphing over evil. 

Maguire’s Wicked turned that all on its head by giving a whole new backstory to the central villain of The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West. In Maguire’s hands, we learn about the Wicked Witch before she was the notorious villain she is in the original film. By the end, we come to understand what, exactly, made her feared and loathed by almost the entire land of Oz by the time Dorothy came hurtling to town on a storm.

How ‘Wicked’ Came To Be

The Wicked novel is decidedly not for children. However, the story reached a broader audience when it became a hit Broadway musical, elevated by memorable music from lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz.

In 2024 and 2025, the musical was adapted into two smash-hit movies starring Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, who eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

The musical and movie take a fair number of liberties with Maguire’s story, but one thing is the same: the complexity and nuance of the characters. In Wicked, characters are multidimensional and motivated by very relatable things like insecurity, childhood trauma, and a desire to protect oneself by avoiding rocking the boat. 

The book ultimately explores what good and evil really are and investigates how almost everyone has a bit of both within them. “People who claim that they’re evil are usually no worse than the rest of us…It’s people who claim that they’re good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of,” the character Avaric says to Elphaba in the book. While Avaric doesn’t appear in the musical or movie, his words do express one of their core themes: that good and evil aren’t cut-and-dried, and sometimes the seemingly wickedest person may have the biggest heart of them all.

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