Dorothy throws water on the Witch

Dorothy throws water on the Witch is the climactic event in which Dorothy Gale, cornered on the parapet of Kiamo Ko, hurls a bucket of rainwater at Elphaba, causing the Wicked Witch of the West to melt away. The act is simultaneously an accident, a mercy killing, and a baptismal paradox: water, which has always been physically agonizing to Elphaba, becomes the agent of her dissolution, and the moment crystallizes the novel's central themes of forgiveness, guilt, and the nature of evil.

Causes and Background

Elphaba's vulnerability to water is established from her infancy. Born during a storm, the infant Elphaba glistened a scandalous shade of pale emerald, and from her earliest days she recoiled from water with a panic that seemed instinctive. As a toddler she would not go near the lake, and her mother Melena, in a moment of bitter humor, taunted her by suggesting they take a boat out and tip over. Throughout her childhood in Quadling Country, Elphaba avoided the wet, and at Shiz University her roommate Glinda noted that she was "allergic to water," keeping herself clean with oil instead. During her years as a maunt, she washed terra-cotta floors without dipping her hands in the bucket, and when a novice tried to rinse blood from her wrists, Elphaba recoiled from the sight of water. Her lover Fiyero observed that she used oil for cleansing, and when she wept, tears burned her skin like fire. This lifelong aversion is not merely a physical quirk but a symbol of her alienation from the ordinary elements of life, and it makes the final confrontation with water a deeply ironic culmination.

What Happens

On the night Dorothy arrives at Kiamo Ko, Elphaba, driven by sleeplessness and rage, corners the girl on the parapet. She has already sent her winged monkeys to capture Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, and her bees and crows have been defeated by the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. Now, with a burning broom in hand, she demands the Silver Shoes, which she believes are rightfully hers. Dorothy, terrified and weeping, confesses that she came not to murder the Witch but to beg forgiveness for the accidental death of Nessarose. Elphaba, stunned by this plea for the mercy that has always been denied her, is caught in a moment of moral paralysis. A fragment of the burning broom falls onto her skirt, and flames begin to eat the dry fabric. Dorothy, seeing the fire, grabs a bucket of rainwater that has been left on the parapet and hurls it at the Witch, crying, "I will save you!" The water strikes Elphaba, and she begins to melt away, experiencing an instant of sharp pain before numbness. In her final moments, she sees a procession of faces from her life—her mother Melena, her sister Nessarose, her father Frex, Nanny, Ama Clutch, Boq, Crope and Tibbett, Avaric, Glinda, and most of all Fiyero—and she feels the body apologizing to the soul for its errors, and the soul asking forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.

Consequences and Aftermath

Dorothy's account of what happened is dismissed as self-delusion or a lie, but the death of the Wicked Witch of the West becomes a celebrated event, hailed as political assassination or a juicy murder. In an indirect way, it helps rid the country of its dictator. Dorothy, more stunned than ever, makes her way back to the Emerald City with the Lion, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Liir. There she presents the Wizard with the green glass bottle that says MIRACLE ELI- on the label, and when he sees it, he gasps and clutches his heart. Shortly thereafter, the Wizard absconds from the Palace in a hot-air balloon, just hours before seditious ministers were to lead a revolt and hold an execution without trial. The Silver Shoes, which Dorothy could not remove, become legendary, and imitations crop up at public ceremonies. Liir disappears into the sea of humanity in the Emerald City to hunt for his half-sister Nor. The novel ends with the traditional back-and-forth: "And there the wicked old Witch stayed for a good long time." "And did she ever come out?" "Not yet."