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| “ | Citizens of Oz! There is an enemy who must be found and captured. Believe nothing she says. She has stolen our Grimmerie. She is evil, responsible for the mutilation of these poor innocent monkeys! Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature. This distortion! This repulsion! This wicked witch! | „ |
| ~ Morrible spreading the rumor of Elphaba being evil. |
| “ | Wicked Witch. | „ |
| ~ Morrible’s insult to Elphaba. |
Madame Morrible is the secondary antagonist of the 1995 fantasy novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the 2003 Broadway musical adaptation Wicked, and the 2024 film adaptation.
She is the headmistress and dean of sorcery at Shiz University who takes Elphaba Thropp under her wing. Although she appears kind and helpful towards Elphaba at first, she is later revealed to be in cahoots with the Wizard as they plotted to use Elphaba to continue his reign of power in Oz.
She is portrayed by Michelle Yeoh in the film adaptation of Wicked, who also played Joyce Reynolds in A Haunting in Venice, Ms. Loo in The Tiger's Apprentice, Tso Ngan Kwan in Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy and Philippa Grorgiou in Star Trek: Discovery.
Biography[]
Novel[]
Madame Morrible is a Gilkinese witch and the headmistress of Crage Hall at Shiz University, where she uses the girls enrolled in Crage Hall to be spies/soldiers for the Wizard of Oz. Madame Morrible believes has a Tik-Tok robot called Grommetik to do her bidding, and later commands this creature to kill the Goat scientist Doctor Dillamond as she believes animals should not talk. Following the murder, Ama Clutch, who witnesses Dillamond's murder, begins to talk to inanimate objects as though they are people, a condition which gradually leads to her death. Glinda (later Glinda the Good Witch of the North) lies to Madame Morrible by telling her that Ama Clutch was prone to delirium.
It is strongly implied that the condition was a spell Morrible placed on Ama to prevent her from revealing who killed Doctor Dillamond. At the funeral of Ama Clutch, Madame Morrible suggests to Nessarose (later the Wicked Witch of the East), Elphaba (later the Wicked Witch of the West), and Glinda that the three become "Adepts" of Quadling Country, Munchkinland and Gillikin. This would grant them political dominion over these regions in a way of maintaining the Wizard's authority in the quadrants of Oz which Elphaba rejects. Nessarose and Glinda do eventually rule over a quadrant of Oz as Nessarose rules over the eastern quadrant of Munchkinland as The Wicked Witch of the East and Glinda rules over the northern quadrant of Gilikin as the Good Witch of the North which Elphaba specualtes was the result of a spell Morrible cast.
While involved in a resistance movement against the Wizard, Elphaba is assigned to assassinate Madame Morrible, who is staying in the Emerald City. Morrible surrounds herself with children, and Elphaba is forced to abandon her plan to avoid harming any of the children. Towards the end of the novel, Elphaba travels to Shiz to kill Madame Morrible by bashing her head in with a marble trophy, only to discover that Morrible had already died of an unknown cause.
Musical[]
Since the musical is intended for younger viewers in contrast to the novel's adult audience, Madame Morrible does not kill Dr. Dillamond, nor does she die. Madame Morrible tricks Elphaba into using her sorcery to create winged monkeys for the Wizard. When Elphaba realizes her mistake and flees, Madame Morrible spreads the rumor that she's evil in order to prevent the Wizard's true intentions from being revealed. She also possesses the ability to control the weather and by use of this ability, she creates a cyclone which indirectly kills Nessarose and brings Dorothy Gale into Oz. She is sent to prison for life at the end of the musical by Glinda for involuntary manslaughter.
A Lion Among Men[]
Madame Morrible briefly appears in one of Brrr's flashbacks in A Lion Among Men, where she is seen teaching a lesson on the benefit of having non-talking animals as they pertained to a higher education at Shiz University.
Film[]
Wicked: Part 1 (2024)[]
To be added
Wicked: Part 2 (2025)[]
Upcoming...
Personality[]
While Morrible presents herself as a wise and reasonable instructor of magic at Shiz Academy, she is in reality a cold-hearted, manipulative, and opportunistic human supremacist. Although, even before revealing her true self, she makes no effort to hide her negative emotions; for students she deemed as untalented or unworthy of magical tutelage, she addresses them with a dismissive attitude that swiftly becomes passive aggression and insults.
With a gifted student like Elphaba, however, she feigns kindness and even admiration as to endear the girl to her, and is even willing to allow "unworthy" students to join them to placate her pupil, however, it is all ultimately planned to later exploit Elphaba's magical talent at the behest of the Wizard, whom she serves with religious devotion. Even knowing he is a fraud, she still obeys him due to believing in his persecution of the talking animal populace of Oz, as well as enjoying the power being his right-hand allowed her.
Her supposed compassion and encouragement for Elphaba was proven as completely hollow as once the Witch refused to abet their tyranny, she immediately turned on her and enthusiastically condemned her as "wicked," to all of Oz, since if she wouldn't serve, she is a threat to be eliminated. Morrible could commence this witch hunt without any sense of guilt or even pity for her former pupil.
Gallery[]
_02.jpg "Madame Morrible (film) 02.jpg (2.16 MB)")
Trivia[]
- Madame Morrible's name rhymes with horrible which exactly describes her character in the book and its adaptations.
- Many fans debate that Madame Morrible is Mombi the Wicked Witch of the North from L. Frank Baum's original book series, as both Mombi and Madame Morrible are close associates of the wizard, have knowledge in witchcraft and sorcery and that Shiz University in Maguire's Oz is on the exact location of Shiz, the school that Morrible runs in Maguire's novel. However, Mombi exists as her own character in The Wicked Years book series, where she is known as La Mombey Impeccata.
