| NOTE: This version of the Wizard of Oz is only about the original Book Version. For his Film and Musical Versions, check here on Wizard of Oz (Wicked). |
Oscar Zoroaster Diggs (otherwise known as the Wizard of Oz) is the main antagonist of the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. He is a retelling of the original character from Frank L. Baum's series, where, unlike the good-hearted conman he was in the original, he is a monstrous tyrant willing to do whatever it takes to cling to power.
Biography[]
Like his original incarnation, the Wizard first arrived in Oz in a hot air balloon. However, he came for a reason, and that reason was to locate a magical text from his world called the Grimmerie that had been taken to Oz and left there by another wizard. This leads to him travelling across the different areas of Oz and encountering different people in his search.
In one of these encounters, he meets Melena Thropp, the daughter of the Grand Eminent Thropp who leads Munchkinland, and the wife of religious preacher Frexispar Togue. They have a conversation, but the said interaction soon turns ugly when the Wizard gives Melena a green elixir that causes her to lose her senses and effectively be under the Wizard's control. He then takes the opportunity to date-rape Melena, leaving her pregnant with Elphaba Thropp and without any memory of the events that transpired.
While searching for the Grimmerie, he soon begins to amass a wave of support from the locals, unhappy with the existing Ozma Regent, and with the help of his charisma and Earthly trickery, he convinces the citizens that he is a great and powerful Wizard with supernatural abilities beyond their understanding. With this newfound influence, he succeeds in overthrowing the Ozma regent, assassinating Oz's current ruler, and kidnapping his daughter, whom he sends to slavery for the cruel witch La Mombey Impeccata.
Whilst ruler of Oz, he slowly brainwashes his citizens into serving him unquestionably, and rules Oz with an iron fist. One of the earliest victims of his wrath was the Quadling country, one of the renowned four areas of Oz outside of the Emerald City. As a means of mining rubies, he went to war with the Quadling settlers, and those he didn't kill, he starved in camps for their supposed protection. This drove Elphaba's family out of the Quadling country, the place her father had been preaching in to oppose the Wizard's horrendous acts.
During his time as ruler of Oz, he appointed the teacher Madame Morrible to be his insight into the education of the renowned Oz students at Shiz University, for her to act in any way that might assist him. It is there that Madame Morrible comes to know Elphaba, Galinda Arduenna, and Nessarose Thropp and sees them as potential pawns in the Wizard's plot. After murdering a fellow teacher, Doctor Dillamond, who was a goat and an avid supporter of Animal rights (potentially on the Wizard's orders), she attempts to recruit the three. It is there she reveals the horrifying extent of the Wizard's plot. He intends to cement his rule in Gillikin, Munchkinland, and Quadling country, and Madame Morrible believes the three girls would excel in the roles of his puppet rulers. There is no one for the fourth province of the Vinkus, as the Wizard intends to exterminate the entire population there. He also intends to commit another genocide against the Animals of Oz, like Doctor Dillamond, by having them rounded up and sent to farms across Oz to be slaughtered and served to Oz's citizens, essentially cannibalising the entire race.
Elphaba and Galinda (now going by Glinda) were so horrified by this that they made their way to meet the Wizard themselves. When he appeared to them, he used his illusory knowledge to create a theatrical body for himself, which was a giant mass of bones resembling a monster. While there, he refuses to back down on any of his plots and is completely unfazed by Elphaba's intentions to see him assassinated. This becomes the breaking point for Elphaba, and she leaves Glinda behind to join the rebellion against the Wizard.
The Wizard continues to plunge Oz into an authoritarian state and goes along with his plans for the Animal populace, having them either slaughtered or sent to be food on farms. It gets to a point where Animals fear speaking anymore and pretend to be their insentient cousins, animals, to avoid persecution. While this happens, the Wizard officially takes the title of the previous Ozma Regent ruler and shuts himself away from any public encounters. As the years go on, he eventually discovers that his guards captured the Tigelaar family, the family of the late Fiyero, heir to the title of ruler of the Vinkus. While most of them were likely killed independently of his orders by the soldiers holding them, the two children Irji and Nor Tigelaar make it to him alive. Seeing Irji as a potential threat to his rule due to him being the new heir of the Vinkus monarchy, he has him executed in a brutal method known as the Paraffin Necklace. However, he makes the decision to keep Nor alive as his personal servant, seeing her as potential leverage against Elphaba.
Following the death of Nessarose Thropp, the Wizard makes an in-person visit to Munchkinland to meet Elphaba and negotiate. He reveals to her his intentions of acquiring the Grimmerie, an item he knows to be in Elphaba's possession through the Tigelaar household. In return for the Grimmerie, he promises to release Nor unharmed. However, Elphaba gives him a counteroffer of receiving the Grimmerie, and in return, leaving Oz forever. The Wizard rejects her offer, wishing to hold onto the power he attained, even if it wasn't his original plan. This ends the encounter.
Concerned about the threat Elphaba posed and also concerned about a new threat that approached through a girl called Dorothy Gail, whom the people of Oz started to look to as a deity-type figure after she accidentally killed Nessarose Thropp and took her shoes, the Wizard attempts to kill two birds with one stone. First, he tries removing the shoes as they would serve as a useful political item over Munchkinland. However, they are enchanted not to come off Dorothy. He then gives Dorothy a task: kill Elphaba Thropp, return her broom, and he will send her back home.
Dorothy then causes Elphaba's death by throwing a bucket of water over her in an attempt to put out a fire, not knowing she was weak to water. While this happens, the Wizard begins to see the walls closing in on him. Due to a mix of the political uproar Dorothy caused, alongside the general dislike of how he was ruling Oz, coming to a boiling point, the Wizard's own inner circle started to turn on him. As if that wasn't enough reason for him to leave, his shock at being shown the green elixir bottle he had used to conceive Elphaba all those years ago by Dorothy was the final nail in the coffin. Under the guise of returning Dorothy home, he leaves Oz as he arrived, in a hot air balloon, barely escaping a coup ready to execute him immediately.Having lost everything, it's heavily implied that the Wizard commits suicide once arriving back in Kansas.
Personality[]
This version of the Wizard of Oz is a cold-blooded, ruthless individual with seemingly no limits to the level of depravity he is willing to sink to. While he puts on a facade of a caring and polite ruler to characters like Dorothy, it is all an act, and practically no one matters to him but himself and his own power. His power seemingly means so much to him that, once he begins to lose it, he becomes depressed and suicidal. Outside of one comment he makes about hoping Dorothy makes it back to the Emerald City unharmed, he shows absolutely no care for anyone else, and is overall a monster.
External Links[]
- The Wizard of Oz on the Wicked Wiki.
