Wicked and the Heroine’s Journey

Wicked the musical wowed audiences by flipping the story everyone knew—presenting Elphaba as a hopeful student stigmatized and outcast for her green skin. The 2024-2025 movies expanded this story much further, with a dazzling spectacle of costume and color. Now heroine's journey and villain's journey scholar Valerie Estelle Frankel explores how these two paths coalesce. Does Elphaba achieve wickedness or true resistance to authority? And what of Glinda, who's on her own heroine's journey? And how do their double journeys change them for good?