When the world was first introduced to Wicked on Broadway in 2003, audiences discovered that Oz was not merely a land of whimsical magic, yellow brick roads, and simple moral categories. It was a world full of political tension, fractured loyalties, and perspectives that history had flattened into fairy-tale absolutes. With the recently released film Wicked: For Good, the conclusion to the two-part cinematic adaptation, the Wicked saga reaches its emotional and thematic crescendo. It promises not only to complete the journey of Elphaba and Glinda but to seal Wicked’s legacy as one of the most compelling reinterpretations of a classic myth in contemporary culture.

To understand the impact of Wicked: For Good, it helps to trace the story’s ancestry. The Wicked narrative is rooted in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, a story that reshaped American fantasy and has endured through novels, films, stage adaptations, and cultural folklore. But Baum’s story itself did not emerge from a vacuum. It echoes a deeper, older structure—the heroic journey seen across Western literature. Among its oldest and most influential ancestors stands Homer’s Odyssey, a foundational epic about displacement, adversity, identity, and the long road toward truth and home. The Wizard of Oz draws unmistakably from the same storytelling DNA. In turn, Wicked reframes that classic journey for the modern world, shifting the spotlight from a heroic quest to the more complex landscape of morality, power, and history.

In this way, Wicked: For Good is not merely a sequel. It is the final movement in a mythic symphony whose first notes were sung in ancient Greece. Before you continue reading this article, it might help to read our article from last year that described how The Wizard of Oz drew inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey.

---

Wicked: For Good – The Final Chapter of a Revolutionary Retelling

The first film in the two-part Wicked series introduced movie audiences to the early relationship between Elphaba and Glinda—two young women whose friendship defies social convention and eventually shapes the future of Oz. Elphaba’s intelligence, empathy, and fierce moral compass position her as a visionary in a world terrified of difference. Glinda’s charm, privilege, and ambition offer her a place near the center of power, but at the cost of difficult compromises. Their journey together—and apart—forms the emotional core of Wicked’s story.

Wicked: For Good picks up in the aftermath of those formative events. Although the filmmakers have closely guarded the details, the film is expected to portray Elphaba’s evolution from misunderstood outsider to supposed enemy of the state, as Oz turns her into the infamous Wicked Witch of the West. The title itself nods to the musical’s climactic duet, “For Good,” which serves as both declaration and farewell. It is a phrase that holds multiple meanings: permanence, morality, and transformation. The emotional weight of the title suggests that this final chapter will focus not merely on spectacle or conflict but on the lasting impact the two women have had on one another’s lives.

The Wicked story has always challenged the simple dichotomy of good versus evil presented in many traditional fairy tales—including Baum’s original Oz books and their beloved 1939 film adaptation. In the older narrative, morality appears fixed. There are good witches and wicked witches, a pure-hearted girl and a duplicitous ruler, and a journey that ends with a neat moral triumph. Wicked dismantles that simplicity. It asks whether history’s villains might have been victims of propaganda, whether the celebrated heroes were complicit in injustice, and whether the truth lies somewhere far more complicated.

In Wicked: For Good, these questions reach their climax. The film steps into the space where myths get written—where a real, flawed person becomes a symbol, a warning, a legend. And like all legends, the story of the Wicked Witch is shaped not by truth but by who holds the power to tell it.

---

Oz through the lens of Homer’s Odyssey

To appreciate how radical Wicked is, one must first understand what it is rewriting. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz rose to prominence as a quintessential American fairy tale, a story in which a young girl, Dorothy, is transported far from home and must navigate a series of trials before returning wiser and more grateful for what she once took for granted. It is a sentimental journey about adventure, identity, companionship, and the dream of home.

Yet beneath its innocent tone lies a recognizably ancient structure. Dorothy, like Odysseus, is pulled away from her familiar world by forces beyond her control. Like the Greek hero, she encounters strange and symbolic beings—a scarecrow longing for wisdom, a tin man longing for heart, a lion longing for courage. These external figures reflect her internal growth, just as Odysseus’s encounters with monsters, witches, and gods reflect his own challenges of cunning, loyalty, and resilience. Both stories center on displacement, the longing for home, and the personal transformation that such a journey demands.

The Wizard, too, calls back to ancient archetypes. As a powerful authority figure revealed to be an illusionist and manipulator, he resembles the trickster gods and deceitful rulers of Greek myth—figures who wield influence less through strength than through psychological control. His greatest power is not magic but narrative. He knows how to shape perception, and therefore how to shape reality. Homer’s world, like Baum’s, is one in which truth and power are deeply entangled.

Dorothy’s journey ends with a return to Kansas, completing the full arc of what ancient Greeks called nostos, the journey home. She is changed, but she returns to a world eager to accept her. Wicked, however, is interested in a different question: what happens when there is no going back? What happens when the truth learned on the journey cannot be reconciled with the world left behind?

The timing of the Wicked movies are a great intro to Christopher Nolan’s new movie coming in 2026: The Odyssey, as you can see in the trailer below.

---

Elphaba’s Odyssey

In many ways, Elphaba’s story reflects the darker side of Homeric tradition. Like Odysseus, she gains knowledge that isolates her from others. She sees the corruption at the heart of Oz—the propaganda, the silencing of dissent, the persecution of marginalized voices—and chooses to stand against it. Her resistance turns her into an outcast. Her reputation becomes a weapon. She is hunted not because she is wicked but because she is inconvenient.

Odysseus, too, eventually becomes a stranger in his own land, unrecognized and unwanted. He must fight to reclaim his identity and truth. But while Odysseus is allowed a heroic resurgence, Elphaba is denied that luxury. The narrative of Oz brands her a villain. Her name becomes synonymous with fear. The world she fights to save becomes the world that condemns her.

This is the tragedy that Wicked: For Good must confront: the moment when a human life calcifies into myth, when nuance is obliterated by legend. It is a moment that echoes across history and literature. Ancient epics understood that heroes are not always celebrated; sometimes they are misunderstood, erased, or rewritten. Wicked brings that ancient truth into the modern age.

The cinematic medium allows this transformation to be rendered visually and emotionally, revealing how public opinion is shaped, how symbols are weaponized, and how the distinction between “good” and “wicked” is too often a matter of perspective rather than truth.

---

A Story Rooted in Relationship

For all its political and mythic scope, Wicked remains at heart a story about two people whose lives change each other. The friendship between Elphaba and Glinda is the emotional foundation on which the entire narrative rests. Their bond, complex and often painful, mirrors one of the Odyssey’s deepest values: xenia, the sacred connection between individuals that transcends circumstance.

In both stories, relationships are the compass by which moral truth is measured. Battles matter less than bonds. Success matters less than loyalty. The iconic song “For Good” captures this theme with devastating clarity. It reveals that the true legacy of a life is not fame or infamy, but influence—how we shape others and how they shape us. The film’s title elevates that idea into the thematic centerpiece of the finale.

Even as Elphaba’s public identity is destroyed, her private truth remains intact in the connection she shares with Glinda. Wicked suggests that history may get the facts wrong, but memory—the personal, emotional truth between people—can endure.

---

Wicked: For Good – The Birth of a Modern Myth

As Wicked: For Good approaches, it is becoming clear that the Wicked saga has transcended its origins. It is no longer merely a retelling of Oz, just as Oz was never merely a fairy tale. Each adaptation has reinterpreted the journey through the lens of its own era. Homer’s Odyssey gave voice to an ancient world grappling with war, loyalty, and identity. Baum’s Oz reframed that journey for a young American nation dreaming of possibility and home. Wicked reframes it once more for a world wrestling with propaganda, perspective, and the moral complexity of power.

In doing so, Wicked completes a cultural journey thousands of years in the making. It stands at the intersection of ancient myth and modern storytelling, reminding us that the questions Homer asked are still the questions we ask today. Who decides which stories are told? Who becomes a hero? Who becomes a villain? And how does the journey change the traveler?

Wicked: For Good suggests that truth is rarely absolute. History is rarely fair. But change—real, human change—can echo across a lifetime. It can shape who we become. It can reshape the world.

And that change, like the legacy of Wicked itself, can endure long after the final note.

It can endure for good. Visit the official website of the movie for more.