Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame Quiz

The Wicked Witch of the West had no name in L Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', but when Gregory Maguire decided to rework the story to be a reflection on the nature of evil, and the way society deals with otherness, he chose her to be the central figure, so she needed a name. Elphaba was derived from LFB, Baum's initials.

Melana Thropp had an affair with a mysterious stranger (much later revealed to be the Wizard of Oz) while her husband, an itinerant minister, was away on business. Nine months later, Elphaba was born inside the Clock of the Time Dragon. Being born with a green skin and pointy teeth (with a tendency to bite and a deep dread of water) certainly made her different from others, and led to a difficult childhood, during which time she learned to conceal her innermost feelings, and act as if the taunts and cuts didn't affect her. Of course, they did, but when she met new people and carried her emotional shield with her, they saw her as cold and uncaring.

It was not just outsiders who felt repelled by Elphaba's appearance. Her mother never bonded with her, and it didn't help matters when a sister (probably also illegitimately conceived) was born whose skin was perfectly normal. Unfortunately, the potion that ensured that also led to her being born without arms, so Nessarose needs constant care, and becomes the darling of the family, especially when she espoused her father's religious views.

Here Elphaba's life is transformed through the people and Animals she meets. Her roommate is the aristocrat Galinda, later to be known as Glinda the Good when she becomes ruler of the Quadling country. The name change was in honour of Doctor Dillamond, a Goat whose course had inspired both girls with the idea of Animal rights, as it was the way he pronounced her name. The capitalisation of an animal's species designation refers to the animals who can talk. One of those we meet briefly is a young Lion cub named Brrr, who will grow up to the Cowardly Lion.

Other students at Shiz University include Boq, from Elphaba's home town, whose house Dorothy will visit when she arrives in Munchkinland, and Fiyero, a prince whose full-body blue diamond tattoos really made him stand out from the crowd. These friends, along with Nessarose when she arrives, become leading activists in the Animal rights movement following the murder of Doctor Dillamond.

In the years after graduation from Shiz, Elphaba has been deeply involved in the movement to free Animals and remove the Wizard of Oz (who she and Glinda discovered was the prime mover behind their repression) from power. When Fiyero visits the Emerald City, he and Elphaba begin an intense romantic relationship, despite his wife and three children back home in the Vinkus.

It ends in tragedy, when the Wizard's secret police kill Fiyero during a raid on Elphaba's hiding place.

This is not our Glinda, just to be clear. The cloister is a mauntery (the Oz religion's equivalent of a nunnery), where Elphaba is taken by Mother Yackle to recover from the trauma of Fiyero's death. She spends nearly a year in a coma, awaking to find that another resident of the mauntery is a young child named Liir. Only much later will she be clear that he is her child by Fiyero, as she was in a coma for (essentially) the entire pregnancy and birth.

She spends another six years in the cloister, mute and grieving, before deciding to go to the Vinkus.

When Elphaba, accompanied by Liir, leaves to travel to the Vinkus, Yackle gives her a broom (which will become significant). Arriving at Kiamo Ko, the castle where Fiyero's family live, Elphaba tries to explain about herself and Fiyero to his wife, Sarima, who refuses to discuss it - leaving Elphaba unable to apologise for the hurt she has caused. A blended family develops as Sarima's children and Liir learn to get along.

While exploring the castle, Elphaba discovers a Grimmerie, a magical book of spells which only she can read, and she dives deep into its contents. When Liir has a narrow escape from death during a game, Elphaba's intense anger unleashes a spell that causes the death of one of Sarima's sons, and things start, once again, to fall apart.

Those slippers (covered with hand-blown glass beads, so that they shjimmered and took on different colours as the light changed) had been on Elphaba's radar ever since their father sent them to Nessarose as a going-to-Shiz present, a gesture which had not been extended to the older sister. Now their father expects Elphaba to come home and talk some sense into Nessa, who has become a tyrannical ruler of Munchkinland after inheriting the role of Eminent Thropp (which rightfully should have gone to Elphaba) from her great-grandfather. Munchkinland has seceded from Oz, Animals are being persecuted, and her use of witchcraft (sometimes called religious miracles) has earned her the nickname Wicked Witch of the East.

When Elphaba arrives, Nessa invites her to stay and establish a joint rule. She also promises that the slippers will be left to Elphaba when Nessa dies. Elphaba decides to return to Kiamo Ko.

Returning to Kiamo Ko, Elphaba discovers that there is nobody there except her old Nanny, as the Wizard has captured Fiyero's family. It is later clear that they have been killed, but Elphaba, unaware of that fact, vows to find them, and take care of the castle until they can return. Essentially on her own, she immerses herself further in the Grimmerie, and gains a reputation as a witch. It is during this period that Elphaba creates a troop of winged monkeys.

The first winged monkey is Chistery Nikko, a snow monkey who was taken into Elphaba's care on her first trip to the castle, because he had been abandoned as an infant. As part of her research into the links between people and Animals, Elphaba teaches him to speak, with limited success, as he is not a Monkey, and can only imitate others rather than voice his own thoughts. She has more success in sewing a pair of wings onto his back, with a combination of surgery and magic, and applies the technique to more snow monkeys, developing a troop of loyal and obedient monkeys to share her castle.

When Dorothy's house lands on Nessarose, Glinda and Elphaba reunite at the funeral. The reunion starts well, but turns sour when Glinda reveals that she had been afraid that Nessa's magic slippers might have been the cause of a civil war in Munchkinland, so got them safely out of the way by giving them to Dorothy as she went to consult the Wizard. Glinda herself was responsible for having imbued the slippers with magical powers, to help Nessa lead an independent life (remember the lack of arms?) while wearing them. Elphaba becomes rightfully furious.

When Elphaba meets the Wizard to negotiate for the return of Fiyero's family, she learns that they are all dead except for one son, who the Wizard refuses to allow to return home with her. As she is returning to Kiamo Ko, she encounters the Clock of the Time Dragon, that traveling showpiece inside which she had been born. It puts on a special show just for her, in which her parentage is revealed. As the Wizard has just explained that he comes from a different world, and was not constrained by the laws of Oz, she realises that she had always been doomed to otherness, being a child of two different worlds. She returns to the isolated life of Kiamo Ko, where she builds better relationships with the animals there than with people.

When Elphaba learns that Dorothy and her friends are coming to Kiamo Ko, she is at first eager to greet them, because she has convinced herself that the Scarecrow is actually Fiyero in disguise. When they kill the dogs she sends out to show them the way, then the crows, then the bees, the shock of losing so many pets and the final realisation that the Scarecrow is in fact just a scarecrow, and Fiyero is dead, only serve to increase her irrationality.

Dorothy does finally make it to the castle, and explains that she has been sent by the Wizard to kill Elphaba (and eliminate his most powerful rival), but that she does not intend to do that. Rather, she wants to be forgiven for accidentally killing Elphaba's sister.

This echo of her own inability to be forgiven by Sarima seems so unfair that Elphaba waves her burning broom in a rage. It sets her clothes alight, Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her in an attempt to save her by extinguishing the flames, and she melts.