Oscar Diggs, better known as the Wizard of Oz, is the main antagonist of the Wicked film duology based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
He is a much darker take on the original character from the Frank L. Baum novels and the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie. While the original was a deceitful yet good-hearted conman, this version is a cunning and power-hungry dictator willing to do anything necessary to hold control over Oz. He is also the illegitimate father of Elphaba Thropp.
He was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum while an uncredited James Davies-Williams plays the younger Wizard in the "No One Mourns the Wicked" sequence, with Goldblum's younger visage superimposed over him in For Good.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He lied to Oz's citizens about his own magical abilities as a means of becoming their ruler.
- It's implied he was a serial womanizer in his younger years, as we see him seduce and sleep with Melena Thropp, conceiving Elphaba in the process.
- Fearing the instability of his own regime, he used Oz's Animals as scapegoats to rally its citizens behind him in opposing them, leading to the racism against the Animals slowly getting normalized. This caused Dr. Dillamond to lose his position as a teacher and be captured by the Wizard's guards.
- He started a motion to have Animals locked in cages from a young age, so they wouldn't learn to speak growing up, essentially attempting a cultural genocide against them. This would make him indirectly responsible for the cowardly lion growing up traumatized from his experiences caged before being saved by Elphaba.
- What's worse, it's implied that even as early as the first film, he had been rounding up some Animals and conditioning them to lose their ability to speak, as we see in rumors Dr. Dillamond heard.
- He tricked Elphaba into believing he was on her side and that he had nothing to do with the mistreatment of Oz's animals, all the while having her perform a spell that would painfully transmute the monkeys in his command to give them wings, all so he could have spies to strengthen his grip over Oz.
- He went along with Madame Morrible's propaganda campaign to turn Elphaba into the public enemy of Oz, labelling her as a Wicked Witch.
- His facilitation of the mistreatment of Oz's Animals would only get worse, as we see several Animals forced to slave away to build his Yellow-brick Road, and many of the other Animals left Oz to escape the amount of misery they were put through as a result of the Wizard's actions.
- He almost succeeded in manipulating Elphaba into joining his side, even using Glinda as an unwilling pawn to do so, only failing because Elphaba saw the horrible truth of what he was doing to some of Oz's Animals. We see dozens of cages filled with Animals traumatized and stripped of their ability to speak, most notably Dr. Dillamond.
- What's more, we can assume he put the flying monkeys through the same trauma as they similarly were unable to speak despite appearing to have the biological ability to do so.
- He goes along with Madame Morrible's plan to draw out Elphaba by killing her sister Nessarose by dropping Dorothy's house on her, indirectly also causing Fiyero's death.
- He tasks Dorothy and her group with killing Elphaba and bringing him her broom.
- Although he retires as Oz's ruler without putting up a fight, he never shows any remorse for what he did to the Animals, making it a faux redemption.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- Even before he learned the truth about her birth, he genuinely cared about Elphaba, doing everything he could to turn her over to his side. Even after he resorts to killing her, it's clear he took no pleasure in doing so, hesitating before asking Dorothy to bring him her broom, and later having a sad expression when asking Glinda if she was dead.
- He is genuinely affable, opening up to Elphaba and Glinda about his desire to have a family, and later attempting to console Glinda after Fiyero leaves her, offering her some of his Miracle Elixir to dull the pain. He was also presumably affable to Dorothy's group after they returned with Elphaba's broom, given that his interactions with them would have been the same as in the original movie, with him doing his best to meet all of their requests, even outside of his own reasons for offering Dorothy transport back to Kansas.
- He is ultimately too remorseful to be Near Pure Evil, as, after Glinda reveals Elphaba was actually his daughter, he becomes distraught over believing he had caused her death, breaking down crying as a result. Then, when Glinda demands that he permanently leave Oz, he does so without putting up a fight, despite still having a great amount of power and influence, presumably because his remorse over believing he killed his own daughter left him too broken to continue villainy.
Trivia[]
- In the original novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the wizard is far worse than his film counterpart, as, while the film version conceived Elphaba through a secret affair with her mother, his novel counterpart drugged Elphaba's mother and conceived her through rape. He also only left Oz out of concern for his own safety after a coup attempted to overthrow and kill him, feeling no remorse for his crimes.
External Links[]
- The Wizard of Oz on the Villains Wiki.
- The Wizard of Oz on the Wicked Wiki.
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
| ||
|
Films Theatre See Also | ||
