How It All Goes Down
- The Wizard comes to Nessa's memorial service and requests a meeting with Elphaba.
- Showdown time! Elphaba gives the Wizard's servant a page from the Grimmerie as a way to ensure that he'll speak to her.
- The Wizard has come to feel Elphaba out and see if she's going to lead another Munchkinland revolt.
- He also wants Dorothy's shoes and the Grimmerie. He's rather demanding.
- Elphaba learns that the Wizard has been wary of her for years, considering her a potential threat.
- The Wizard then brings out a prisoner as a means of blackmail:
[I]t was a young woman crouching. Chains sewn into the collar of her tunic ran through her clothes to her ankles, keeping her bent over; the chains were only two or three feet long. The Witch had to peer to see for sure that it was Nor. (5.4.34) - Elphaba is horrified.
- The Wizard then tells her that he believes everyone else is dead:
"Perhaps some underling who had no authority in the matter had an appetite for a bloodbath. It's so hard to get reliable help in the armed forces." (5.4.42) - Irji was definitely executed publicly, though, since the Wizard needed to teach the Arjiki tribe a lesson.
- The Wizard is a total nutcase sociopath, seemingly without any sort of conscience.
- Historical Side Note: The fate of Sarima's family bears some resemblance to that of the Russian Romanovs, who were all shot by a firing squad during the Russian Revolution in 1918. Interestingly, there were long-running rumors that one of the Romanovs (Anastasia) survived, like Nor. If you want to read more about the fate of the Romanovs, check out this article.
- The Wizard then tells the story of how he followed the Grimmerie here from another world.
- Elphaba offers to give him the Grimmerie in exchange for Nor, but the Wizard demands the book first.
- Elphaba is totally horrified by him and begs him to leave Oz.
- He still refuses to cooperate.
- She asks about Madame Morrible and we learn this bombshell from the chatty Wizard:
It was [Morrible] who warned me about you. She told me you had betrayed her, you had rejected her offers. She was the one who advised me to have you watched. It is because of her that we found out about your little romance with the diamond-skinned prince. (5.4.73) - Talk about evil shenanigans.
- The Wizard says his people will call Elphaba's people and leaves.
- Elphaba leaves a few days later, still in a daze. Glinda calls out to her but she refuses to look back. It's the last time the friends will see each other.