Fiyero’s death is the last straw, rather than the first offense. However, unlike with Theodora, this surrender is a culmination of Elphaba’s suffering. “Sure, I meant well, well look at what well-meant did” Since I could not succeed, Fiyero, in saving you, I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again.” Believing him dead, Elphaba sings “ No Good Deed,” a ballad in which she declares, “Let all of Oz be agreed: I am wicked through and through. In Act II, her boyfriend, Fiyero, is captured and tortured by the Wizard’s men. In all fairness, Elphaba, too, takes a dark turn because of a lover. When she is wrongfully informed that the wizard has been disloyal to her, she willingly undergoes a magical transformation to become evil, and thus forsake the people of Oz, because she can’t stand the pain of rejection. Like Elphaba, Theodora expresses concern for the welfare of Oz at the beginning of the film, but this proves secondary to her desire for the Wizard’s love. While men do play a large role in her life, they do not define her. Elphaba’s characterization is built on her unyielding commitment to justice, even when it costs her, her dreams as a politician, her friends and her family. Theodora hates the Wizard because she believes he did not return her affections. Elphaba fights against him because he persecutes Animals (the capital “A” distinguishes them as animals that can talk). The fundamental difference between Theodora and Elphaba can be extracted from their motivations for opposing the Wizard.
The issue is that Theodora’s motivation to turn evil is so simplistic and offensive when compared to the progressiveness and complexity of Elphaba’s characterization. The issue is not that Theodora becomes genuinely wicked, whereas Elphaba is only ever perceived as such. Granted, Oz: The Great and Powerful and Wicked are two, separate works but they are both prequels to The Wizard of Oz and, therefore, subject to comparison. However, the contrivance and sexism of her character arc might not be as intolerable if the Wicked Witch of the West hadn’t already been given a well-developed backstory as Elphaba in Wicked, the musical loosely based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. Theodora’s transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West is easily the weakest plot point in Oz: The Great and Powerful.
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