We all know the Wicked Witch of the West: green, evil, the terror of Oz. Wicked tells what happened before. Elphaba was born with green skin and grew up rejected, feared and humiliated for her appearance. But she was intelligent, idealistic and brave, and when she discovered that the mighty Wizard of Oz was secretly oppressing the talking animals, she rebelled. Her reward: the Wizard and his propaganda rewrote her as "the Wicked Witch," the perfect villain to unite the people against. For the theory of secondary deviance, Elphaba is the villain society manufactured.
// The theoryWhen power needs a villain
Lemert's theory of secondary deviance explains how social reaction turns someone into the role assigned to them. Wicked adds a political layer: it isn't only diffuse society that labels, it is power that actively manufactures the villain because it needs one. The Wizard of Oz, whose authority rests on lies, requires a common enemy to justify his regime and distract from the real evil —his own—. And Elphaba, the dissident who sees the truth and refuses to stay silent, is the perfect candidate: already rejected for her color, already "different." The Wizard's propaganda machine does the rest, transforming an inconvenient heroine into "the Wicked Witch." The theory illuminates it: the villain label doesn't always describe a villain; sometimes power manufactures it for its own ends.
The label as a political weapon
Elphaba reveals the political dimension of secondary deviance: the label of "criminal," "terrorist" or "witch" as a weapon of power against dissent. The Wizard doesn't pursue Elphaba because she is dangerous to the people; he pursues her because she is dangerous to him, because she has seen and denounced his tyranny. And the most effective weapon isn't force, but the story: rewriting her as the villain makes the very people she defends fear and hate her. The theory of secondary deviance, applied to politics, explains a mechanism that recurs in real history: regimes systematically label their opponents as "criminals" or "enemies of the people," and that labeling, repeated by the whole machinery of power, becomes social reality —the dissident becomes, in everyone's eyes, the villain—. Elphaba shows how a public enemy is manufactured: not by discovering their wickedness, but by narrating it until everyone believes it.
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// The subjectThe one who surrenders to her label
Elphaba's most heartbreaking moment is when, exhausted from fighting a label everyone already believes, she surrenders to it: "since they call me wicked, let's be wicked." It is secondary deviance at its decisive instant —the point where the person stops resisting the imposed role and takes it on, because resisting it has become impossible—. Lemert's theory points to it as the central mechanism: when the whole world treats you as a villain, insisting you are not is a lost battle, and embracing the label becomes, at least, a form of agency. Elphaba doesn't really turn evil; she turns into what she was told she was, with all the rage of someone betrayed by the world she defended. Her surrender doesn't absolve her of what she does afterward, but it shows the human cost of a label that power imposes until it becomes true.
Elphaba
// The fault lineNeither "every villain is a misunderstood heroine" nor "the label doesn't matter"
The fault line with Elphaba is overgeneralizing: concluding that every villain is, in reality, a misunderstood heroine whom power defamed. It isn't always so —there are villains who truly are villains, and using Elphaba's case to relativize all evil would be a mistake—. The theory explains how power can manufacture villains out of its dissidents; it doesn't say every villain is one. The opposite fault line is to deny that the label matters: to believe "the truth eventually prevails" and that defaming someone as a villain has no real consequences. Wicked refutes it —the regime's story does turn Elphaba into a villain in the eyes of all Oz, with devastating effects—. The lesson is to learn to ask, of every "public villain," who built that story and whom it benefits: sometimes the witch is a witch, and sometimes she is the only one who saw the truth.
That we keep telling our children the Wizard's tale —Elphaba as the Wicked Witch, the Wizard as the good guy— is the final victory of political secondary deviance: power's label outlived the facts, and the oppressor's story became the official history. Wicked is the attempt to rewind it.
Distrust the story that manufactures villains
Elphaba matters because she teaches us to view with distrust the stories that manufacture villains. The theory of secondary deviance, in its political version, warns that power has a permanent interest in labeling its opponents as criminals, and that this label, repeated by propaganda, becomes social reality. History is full of Elphabas: dissidents, activists and minorities rewritten as "dangerous enemies" by the regimes they denounced. The practical lesson is to develop the habit of asking who built each story of villainy and whom it serves —not to deny that real villains exist, but to keep power from deciding for us who one is—. Elphaba is the reminder that the "bad guy of the story" label is sometimes written, precisely, by the true villain of the story.
Three key takeaways
- Elphaba tells the story before the story: an idealistic young woman whom rejection over her green skin and the Wizard's propaganda turn into "the Wicked Witch of the West." The villain power needed and manufactured.
- She reveals the political dimension of secondary deviance: the villain label as a weapon of power against dissent. The Wizard pursues her not because she is dangerous to the people, but because she is dangerous to him —and the weapon is the story, not force—.
- Neither "every villain is a misunderstood heroine" (sometimes the witch is a witch) nor "the label doesn't matter" (the regime's story does turn her into a villain in everyone's eyes). Her lesson: distrust the story that manufactures villains and ask whom it benefits.
Sources · further reading
- Lemert, E. M. (1951). Social Pathology. McGraw-Hill.
- Maguire, G. (1995). Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. ReganBooks.
- Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. MacGibbon & Kee.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Elphaba?
Elphaba («la Bruja Mala del Oeste») es un villano de Wicked, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. She was born with green skin and the world treated her like a monster.
¿Por qué Elphaba (la Bruja Mala del Oeste) se convierte en villano?
Elphaba and secondary deviance: the story before the story. An idealistic young woman whom rejection and the regime's propaganda turn, step by step, into "the Wicked Witch of the West".
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Elphaba?
El caso de Elphaba se analiza desde la Desviación Primaria y Secundaria. The theory of secondary deviance (Lemert) shows how social reaction and power manufacture the villain's identity. Elphaba, from Wicked, tells the story before the story: an idealistic young woman whom rejection over her green skin and the Wizard's propaganda turn, step by step, into "the Wicked Witch of the West." The villain society needed and ended up creating.
