Adepts

The Adepts are a secret, elite corps of young women that Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Crage Hall at Shiz University, attempts to create as a tool for the Wizard of Oz's internal security and political control. The proposal, made in a private meeting, is a pivotal moment that raises the central question of whether the characters' subsequent lives are the result of their own choices or of a coercive spell. The concept of the Adepts becomes a recurring, unresolved mystery that haunts the protagonists into their adulthood, symbolizing the insidious nature of political manipulation and the struggle for personal autonomy.

The Proposal

In a private parlor at Crage Hall, Madame Morrible summons Elphaba, Glinda, and Nessarose after the funeral of Ama Clutch. She tells them that she has been charged with a crucial task essential to the internal security of Oz by an authority too high to be named. She claims the Wizard, while strong, needs agents and generals to manage popular uprisings, and that she has singled out the three girls for this purpose. She proposes to name them as a trio of Adepts, assigning them behind-the-scenes ministerial duties in different parts of the country, where they would act as secret partners of the highest level of government and anonymous ambassadors of peace. She specifically proposes Glinda as the Adept of Gillikin, Elphaba as the Adept of Munchkinland, and Nessarose as the Adept of Quadling Country, noting that the Vinkus is not considered worth bothering about. To ensure their silence, she claims to have wrapped each of them in a binding cocoon regarding this sensitive material, warning them that they will not be able to discuss it with each other.

The Binding Spell and Its Aftermath

Immediately after the meeting, the binding spell takes effect. The girls find themselves unable to discuss the proposal with one another, and Glinda, in particular, begins to lose the words for it, her memory of the interview becoming hazy and dreamlike. She experiences a disorienting mix of desire and revulsion, imagining a man's tongue between her legs and a spoonful of saffron cream, before fainting. Elphaba, who resists the spell more strongly, helps Glinda recover, urging her to resist. The spell's effect is profound and lasting, creating a barrier of silence and confusion around the event. Years later, when Elphaba and Nessarose meet again at Colwen Grounds, they finally discuss the proposal. Nessarose dismisses it as mere manipulation by a woman with no real power, but Elphaba remains suspicious, noting that they have indeed become, in a manner of speaking, two Witches, while Glinda has become a sorceress for the public good. This unresolved ambiguity—whether they are acting on their own will or as pawns of a higher power—torments Elphaba.

The Adepts and the Question of Agency

The concept of the Adepts is revisited throughout the novel as a lens through which to examine the characters' agency. Elphaba, in particular, is haunted by the possibility that her life has been pulled by the strings of some malign magic. During her visit to Colwen Grounds, she confronts Nessarose about the proposal, asking if she thinks they are living their entire adult lives under someone's spell. Nessarose dismisses the idea, but Elphaba cannot let it go. Later, when she meets the Wizard, he confirms that Madame Morrible was his collaborator, and that she was the one who warned him about Elphaba and advised him to have her watched, leading to the discovery of her affair with Fiyero. This revelation suggests that the Adepts proposal was not an isolated incident but part of a larger, ongoing system of surveillance and control. The question of whether the Adepts were ever truly activated, or if the spell was merely a tool of manipulation, remains unanswered, underscoring the novel's theme of the difficulty of knowing whether one's destiny is self-determined or imposed by unseen forces.