Freeing of the Animals

Elphaba, the self-styled Witch of the West, had not come to Colwen Grounds to challenge her sister Nessarose's authority, but the sight of Animals held as chattel forced her hand. During an audience Nessarose granted to an old woman from the Corn Basket, Elphaba learned that the woman had offered two Sheep and a Cow in exchange for a spell to maim a woodcutter who wanted to marry the woman's maid. Nessarose, now the Eminent Thropp and political head of the secessionist Free State of Munchkinland, accepted the bargain without hesitation, kneeling to enchant the woodcutter's axe so that it would slip and cut off his arm. Elphaba, horrified, interrupted the proceedings and declared, "You are a witch," a label Nessarose did not reject. The old woman left with her enchanted axe, promising to deliver the Animals to the barn at Colwen Grounds.

The Condition of the Animals

Elphaba found the Cow and the two Sheep penned in clean straw, each facing a different corner, chewing in abstraction. When she addressed them, the Cow responded with bitter sarcasm, asking, "What's your beef?" The Sheep, she learned, had gone mute—not become ordinary sheep, but lost the power of speech while remaining sentient. The Cow explained that she had given up using her name in public, as it afforded her no individual rights. She described being milked morning and night, her children fattened and slaughtered for veal within earshot, and the general degradation of Animals in Munchkinland. "We don't exactly blend in with those creepy little Munchkinlander humans," she said. The Cow also voiced a theory that the rise of tiktokism had eroded traditional Animal labor, making them socially redundant, and that the Wizard's example of evil had led society to follow suit.

The Confrontation and Liberation

Elphaba threw open the gate of the pen and declared the Animals free. The Cow was skeptical, pointing out that a Witch who would charm an axe to dismember a human being would not hesitate to harm them. She predicted that her rump would be served up on fine porcelain before the year was out. Nevertheless, she and the Sheep followed Elphaba out. As they left, the Cow mooed a final remark—"I hope you choke"—before meandering away, tail swishing at flies. Elphaba then confronted Nessarose, who shrugged off the liberation, saying, "You have some rights in Colwen Grounds. I'm not going to walk around prohibiting your little pet missions." The exchange deepened the sisters' estrangement, with Elphaba realizing that Nessarose's religious tyranny extended to the treatment of sentient beings.

Thematic Significance

The freeing of the Animals is a direct enactment of the principles Elphaba had absorbed from her mentor Doctor Dillamond, whose murder she had witnessed years earlier. It also underscores the moral decay of Nessarose, who, despite her professed piety, treats Animals as currency and tools. The episode reveals that the oppression of Animals is not confined to the Wizard's Emerald City but has become embedded in Munchkinland's new order under Nessarose's rule. Elphaba's act of liberation is both a personal stand against her sister's tyranny and a continuation of the resistance she began in her youth, even as she recognizes the limits of her power to change the broader system.