Hey guys, having watched Wicked: For Good recently, I've decided to take it upon myself to propose its main antagonist. This will only be on the movie version of the character, as the musical version is already approved, and, unless there's something from the sequels I'm unaware of, the book version of the Wizard is absolutely not inconsistent like I believe this version is.
What is the Work?[]
Wicked is a two-part film series based on the musical series of the same name, which is kind of based on the book of the same name (except not really with how different things are there). It is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz story from the perspective of its supposed main villain, the Wicked Witch of the West (named Elphaba here), who is actually a tragic and misunderstood hero fighting against a regime controlled by a fraud who is willing to do whatever it takes to cling to power.
Who is the Character and What Has He Done?[]
Oscar Diggs, better known as the Wizard of Oz, originally came to Oz from Kansas (presumably in a hot-air balloon), and lets just say he got... errm... quite comfortable spending time with Elphaba's mother, Melena, and presumably a few other women in Oz, who he would give a green Elixa and spend a passionate night with. At some point either before or after this, he was able to take over Oz based on a lie that he was some all-powerful Wizard, when in reality, he was a human with a few tricks and gizmos on his side.
Concerned about losing favor with Oz's citizens, he decided that the best way to rally them all together is to give them a good enemy. And who better than an entire population of sentient animals? Leading up to Elphaba's introduction at Shiz Academy, he starts a propaganda campaign against the animals to turn Oz against them, and in some instances, locks them up in cages to the point that they lose the ability to speak. In the first movie, we see the cowardly lion and Elphaba's teacher Dr. Dillamond become victims to this horrible treatment.
Hearing of Elphaba's great power, he requests an audience with her and tries to get her on his side (alongside Glinda who tags along). At first, he pretends he had nothing to do with the animals' mistreatment and claims to go against it, but Elphaba susses him out and also realizes he has no power of his own. However, before this happens, he tricks Elphaba into giving a group of monkeys in his servitude wings, a process shown to be incredibly painful and agonizing for them. Disgusted by the Wizard's actions, Elphaba leaves him to start a revolution against him, causing Madame Morrible (now working for the Wizard) to turn the propaganda campaign against her, branding her a "Wicked Witch".
Moving on to the second movie, the Wizard's mistreatment of Oz's animals continues, where we even see some enslaved in creating his yellow brick road. Elphaba tries her best to oppose him, but she is unable to get the animals on her side due to her poor reputation and many leave Oz. Eventually, she confronts the Wizard directly, where he makes an attempt to reason with her, promising they'd call her "Wonderful" (which Glinda helps with), and he comes very close to getting Elphaba on his side (under the condition he releases the winged monkeys, which he agrees). However, Elphaba then finds a secret room filled with caged animals unable to speak, including her former teacher. This turns her against the Wizard, and the royal guards come after her, but she is saved by Fiero.
Following this, he goes along with Madame Morrible's plan to use Elphaba's sister Nessarose as a distraction by dropping Dorothy's house on her. It works, and Elphaba is yet again saved by Fiero (who dies for his betrayal via his former soldiers but is revived as the scarecrow by Elphaba). The Wizard then demands Dorothy's crew bring him the broom of the Elphaba as a means of proving her dead, something Elphaba responds to by kidnapping Dorothy to get her sister's shoes back. However, after a conversation with Glinda, Elphaba agrees to release the girl and fakes her own death, leaving Oz to use her as a scapegoat to reunite the people.
Glinda goes back to visit the wizard, retrieving a green elixir bottle she found on Elphaba. Seeing this, the Wizard discovers the truth, Elphaba was his daughter all along via his fling with Melena Thropp. We get a classic "what have I done" line from him, and Glinda calls him out for all the destruction he caused in Oz and demanding he take a permanent leave of absence, leaving him on his own, seemingly about to break down crying. Then his role moves into what he did in the original Wizard of Oz movie, where he tries to take Dorothy with him back to Kansas in his hot air balloon.
Heinous Standards[]
This version of the Wizard actually manages to be even worse than his Broadway counterpart. With that version, while he know about the animals being caged and having their speech taken away, we don't actually see it outside of scenes with Dr. Dillamond and the cowardly lion. This version takes a different approach.
Unlike the musical, where Elphaba only finds Dr. Dillamond non-verbal, she finds at least two dozen cages full of other animals in the same situation as well. Then, another thing the movie adds to musical is focusing on the fact that the flying monkeys also lack the ability to speak, meaning they were put in the same conditions too. Oh, and if mass FWTD crimes isn't enough, to top it off, we see animals are actually enslaved by the Wizard's men to build things like the yellow brick road. It gets so bad that a huge chunk of the animals straight up just leave Oz, meaning his ethnic cleansing plot was at least partially successful.
This puts him far past the baseline to be IH, and there really isn't much competition for him in universe either as pretty much any other slightly heinous character (ie Madame Morrible) is working for him, towards his cause.
Debatable/Invalid Mitigating Factors[]
Sympathy[]
Unlike the musical version of the Wizard, whose desire to form a family and reaction to Elphaba's death is given some sympathy, this version doesn't really have that. His song "Wonderful" doesn't even have him try pretending he's sympathetic, with it being changed into a smoke-and-mirrors manipulation tactic, unlike its past incarnation, where he's being at least somewhat genuine. And while he has a similar reaction to discovering Elphaba is his daughter as the musical, the movie leaves out his second rendition of "Sentimental Man", instead just focusing on how much he screwed things up for both himself and Oz, making his fate somewhat deserved.
Care for Oz/Extremism[]
I had this as a prevention in the musical version, and even know I'm kind of unsure of it. The main thing there was that the Wizard's claims of seeing Oz as his family at least held some merit, as we see through his second rendition of Sentimental Man that his intentions of having a family were genuine. But the point still stands that he actively made Oz a worse place and is in no way a well-intentioned extremist. Honestly, despite it being even weaker in this version, I could maybe see it since his stuff on saying he wants a family are still there, and even if the connection is less explicit than the Musical, I think his horror at realizing he killed his own daughter is enough for it to hold up. I don't know for sure though. I'll leave it up to you.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
Ultimately, he's too remorseful to be Near Pure Evil. While the whole scene of him finding out Elphaba was his daughter isn't sympathetic in the same way as the musical, having his final scene be him about to break down crying over remorse for killing her is too major for him to be considered close to Pure Evil. Sure, it's only remorse relating to one of his crimes, but that really doesn't matter in the context of his scene since it's such a major and narratively prevalent show of remorse. Also, while he's not as accepting of Glinda's suggestion that he retire as Oz's ruler compared to the musical, the implication is definitely still that he's too broken by his remorse of presumably killing his daughter to fight back and just went along with his banishment without making any effort to combat it. Like, he even with Glinda having the flying monkey's, he could have easily still held his own against her with his influence in Emerald City (he even says that he's so well-liked by Oz that they wouldn't believe him even if he told them he was a fraud himself), but instead he chose to leave without a fight and made up the story of leaving for Kansas with Dorothy. Retiring from villainy (yes, even if Glinda ultimately pushed him there, this is still a case of retiring from villainy since he still went away without a fight) over remorse, even just for one crime, is too much to be Near Pure Evil.
Also, this kind of ties into his remorse, but I'll mention it separately anyway since it was something the movie added that the musical didn't have. The Wizard was actually remorseful even before he discovered Elphaba was his daughter. There's a couple of scenes where he is shown looking somewhat somber about his fight against Elphaba, most notably where he asks Dorothy to bring him her broom, and he hesitates for a second before saying it, and then also just before Glinda reveals the truth, where he has a sad expression on his face when asking if Elphaba was dead. This is nowhere near as preventing as his remorse at the end, but it's worth mentioning.
One other prevention would be his affability. While it is toned down quite a bit compared to his musical version, he's still pretty friendly to both Elphaba and Glinda throughout. This is most notable in Sentimental Man, where he opens up about his desire to start a family, something that actually might have more weight, given we know he cared about Elphaba even before learning she was his daughter (as we see from his sadness at ordering her death). He also comforted Glinda after Fiero left her to be with Elphaba, offering her a drink of his green elixir to dull the pain, which, unlike his musical version, was treated as more of a genuine show of goodwill as opposed to any attempt at seduction.
Verdict[]
We're off to vote the Wizard, the horrible Wizard of Oz... yes.