Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
In the movie, Dorothy was told to bring back the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, knowing full well that doing so could have spelled Dorothy's doom ("But to do that, we'd have to kill her."). The original book is even more explicit. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy and her three companions were all told in separate audiences that if they wanted their requests fulfilled they must kill the witch.
A bad wizard but a good man? I don't think so. In both the original book and the movie, a charlatan and huckster who played loose and fast with people's lives. Wicked was an improvement in that respect; for while he could still make a public pretense of goodness, you weren't expected to believe it.
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I think we're saying the same thing. In both book and movie, once Dorothy and her friends return, mission accomplished, the wizard makes his claim of being a good man, just a bad wizard. He convinces Dorothy's friends that he's endowing them with the qualities that they've had all along and they seem willing to accept him at his estimation. Everyone makes nice and prepares for Dorothy to leave with him.
In
Wicked, it's made explicit. There's no way he can be seen as a good man albeit a weak one--his wickedness extends back to well before his arrival in Oz. A case where evil is absolute, intead of relative as is argued about Elphaba.