I like Wicked, but if you compare it to The Wizard of Oz, there is one plot hole. In The Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow stays in the Emerald City to rule when the wizard leaves. However, in Wicked, the scarecrow is Fierro and Fierro leaves Oz with Elphaba in the end never to return. Has anyone else noticed that? Can anyone come up with a good explanation to cover that plot hole?

Where does it say that the scarecrow stays in Oz to rule? In the novel?

In the actual L. Frank Baum novel, which has little or nothing to do with Wicked.

Dear moviemaniac,

The Broadway show Wicked was based on Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked which also is loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, but really owes nothing to following the original novel and it's twenty something sequels.

...it's sort of in the movie too, though.

The Wizard keeps a speech as he leaves, leaving the Scarecrow to rule ("by virtue of his brain"), along with the Tin Man ("by virtue of his heart") and the Lion ("by virtue of his courage"). But who's to say that all three actually stay in rule? Although the Scarecrow does in the books, the movie could be different.

But again, Wicked owes nothing to the movie of The Wizard of Oz either. The only thing it claims as source is Maguire's novel, and it doesn't do that great a job of following it either.

No, this isn't true. I went to an event where Winnie Holtzman, Stephen Schwartz and one of the producers all talked about the show, and told its creation story. Both Schwartz and Holtzman said, 'We treated "The Wizard of Oz" as though it was pure fact, almost as though it were a documentary of some sorts. After all, we had to, because the vast majority of our audiences were going to come in knowing the movie fairly well"

Holtzman also admitted, shamefully too, that she, to this day, hasn't read an "Oz" book by Baum. Funny, huh?

But yes, the musical "Wicked" owes homage to BOTH the novel and the WoO movie.

Then perhaps they should have studied their source material?

I'm an Ozian. It's one of the reasons I am not a big Wicked fan. I even like the novel better than the musical.

But seriously, if they actually said that, it would be nice if they knew their primary source a little bit more thoroughly than the average ten year old girl.

One thing that always confused me is this. If Fierro is the scarecrow. In the movie (I don't know if it's in the books) the Wicked Witch is always picking on him. Never explains why.


But if Fierro is the scarecrow wel.. That leaves alot of plot holes...

It could have been part of the "act". Like the melting was.

But Elphaba didn't know Fiyero was the Scarecrow until later, so I always thought she harassed him because it scared Dorothy, whom she was trying to get the shoes from. Or, like Peritombry said, she put on an act to detour any suspicion.

I think it was more on the lines of not knowing that Fiyero was the Scarecrow because he was on fire from one of Elphaba's spells, which lead to her "melting" from Dorothy tossing a bucket of water to save him.

Wow...that was just one sentence...

well one explanation is that he stayed till the wizard left then went to find elphaba. this does make sense with both plots as glinda demands the wizard leaves and then fiyero goes and finds elphaba. it also seems that elphaba has been waiting a while for him to arrive as she goes "i never thought you'd get here"