Includes SPOILERS for Wicked: Part 1!Evil introduces Elphaba as a powerful magic user, and there’s a lot to know about her abilities and where they come from. Cynthia Erivo leads Evil released as Elphaba, the girl who would one day become the Wicked Witch of the Westfollowing her story at Shiz University with Glinda the Good (Arianna Grande). Elphaba stands out in the story as a highly powerful magic user, a rarity in Oz at this point in the story. Evil is based on the musical of the same name and the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, which provides some additional exposition.
The film begins with Glinda, following the events of 1939 The Wizard of Oz story and the death of the Wicked Witch, explaining Elphaba’s story to the Munchkins. Glinda shares the shocking event of Elphaba’s birth and how she was inexplicably green, establishing the would-be villain as a sympathetic outcast who was bullied as a child for being different. This bullying continued during her time at Shiz until she eventually became friends with Glinda, building towards Evil climactic finale in the Emerald City, which saw Elphaba’s magical powers unleashed.
The origin of Elphaba’s magical powers explained
Elphaba has had powers since birth, but the first film doesn’t explain why
In a scene from his childhood, she is shown levitating rocks when local children bully her younger sisterNessa (Marissa Bode), but she doesn’t use her power for any violent outcome. Later, at Shiz University, she is outraged when Miss Coddle for being bossy towards Nessa and accidentally uses her magic to destroy the school’s main hall, creating a scene in front of all her future classmates. Fortunately, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) takes credit for setting an example, saving Elphaba from public scrutiny.
From Wicked: Part 1Elphaba’s magical powers are inexplicable. She was born with abilities that she is not fully able to controland she describes this in the film as a burden to herself that she tried to hide. However, once Madame Morrible takes an interest in her, she becomes hopeful that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) will understand her powers and be wise enough to see them as gifts and not abnormalities. THE Evil the play and novel explain Elphaba’s powers through her ancestry, and involve spoilers for a major twist that Wicked: Part 2 will probably follow.
Madame Morrible trains Elphaba to control her magic
Morrible helps Elphaba control her emotions
Madame Morrible is, at first, a seemingly benevolent professor at Shiz University who seeks to guide Elphaba in training to control her magical abilities. Elphaba is able to activate her powers through anger and moments of great emotionwhat Morrible realizes. After Elphaba fails to lift a coin by controlling her magic, Morrible uses Elphaba’s social situation in Shiz to trigger her feelings, helping her activate her abilities that launch the coin across the room. It doesn’t seem like Morrible actually helped Elphaba use her powers more efficiently.
Evil The biggest lesson is perhaps that anyone whose name rhymes with “horrible” is not to be trusted, as it is later revealed that Morrible is an agent of the Wizard, using her platform as a teacher to recruit spies to his cause. It is she who writes that animals should be”seen and not heard” in Dr. Dillamond’s classroom, and later has him replaced. The Wizard’s agenda is to turn the people of Oz against the animals so that they will unite under him, eventually raising his power status as a deity .
How powerful Elphaba’s magical powers are compared to Wicked’s other magic users
As is revealed in both The Wizard of Oz and Wicked: Part 1the Wizard isn’t actually a magic user. He is a man from the real world who traveled to Oz in a hot air balloon and used his tricks as a conman to convince the inhabitants of the enchanted land that he is a wizard. He possesses advanced technology compared to the rest of Oz, allowing him to feign magical perception. Likewise, theand other Shiz students do not have any innate magical powers, including Glindawho appears in the film with only the abilities of his wand.
It appears that Morrible’s powers are more refined due to years of polishing and practicing her craft, while Elphaba has more significant intangible abilities.
Madame Morrible is the only character in the film so far who has been shown to have authentic magical powers. However, when it comes to reading the Grimmerie, which would fulfill the magical prophecy, she can only read a small part of the mysterious text. Elphaba, on the other hand, is able to absorb information and read spells as soon as she opens the book for the first time. It seems that Morrible’s powers are more refined due to years of polishing and practicing her craft, while Elphaba has more significant intangible abilities, which make her special.
The film only briefly demonstrates Madame Morrible using her own powers, even when training Elphaba. She takes responsibility for the incident at the beginning of the film, but is not able to activate the magic in the same way. For her to train Elphaba, she must know these specific skills somehow, but it is It’s not explicitly clear what Morrible’s powers are outside of controlling the weather at one point.. If they were something significant, she may have used them to stop Elphaba from escaping in the film’s climax.
How Wicked changes Elphaba’s magical powers
Elphaba has visions in the film
Given that it’s a big Hollywood movie with CGI and effects that a stage musical simply couldn’t have, Elphaba’s powers were slightly altered for the film. On the one hand, Elphaba in the film appears to have visions of the futurelike Dr. Dillamond trapped in a cage, foreshadowing the oppression of animals by the Wizard in Oz. It would have been quite challenging to produce visions in a play, so they are a new element introduced by Jon M. Chu’s film, and it will be fascinating to see how they relate to the resolution of the story in Wicked: Part 2.
Furthermore, the stage musical only alludes to Elphaba’s other powers, suggesting that she is a magical being. The idea of ​​her throwing rocks or breaking windows is new to the film and offers a more visceral sense of what she’s capable of. These appear to be highly dangerous powers, which helps contribute to the idea of ​​her being an outcast and essentially a phenomenon in the world of Oz. Evil sets up Elphaba to be an exciting character in the eventual sequel.