Murder of Madame Morrible

The murder of Madame Morrible is the culmination of Elphaba's fifteen-year campaign of vengeance against the woman who orchestrated the death of her mentor Doctor Dillamond, attempted to conscript her into the Wizard's secret service, and set in motion the chain of events that led to the death of her lover Fiyero. The act, committed in the retirement wing of Crage Hall, transforms Elphaba from a fugitive into a self-proclaimed assassin, a reputation that will later be used by the Wizard to send Dorothy to destroy her.

Background and Motivation

Elphaba's hatred of Madame Morrible had been forged in her student years at Crage Hall. Morrible had presided over the poetry soiree where her Quells, ending with the epigram "Animals should be seen and not heard," had mocked the Animals whose rights were being stripped away by the Wizard's Banns on Animal Mobility. When Doctor Dillamond protested, Morrible dismissed him as a Goat who could not understand irony. Elphaba had confronted Morrible in class about the Quells, demanding to know whether the line was meant ironically, and Morrible had sneered at her "modest acumen." More damningly, Elphaba had learned from the dying Ama Clutch that it was Grommetik, Morrible's tiktok servant, who had slit Doctor Dillamond's throat. Morrible herself had later admitted to sending Grommetik to the lab with a pot of tea, where it found the Goat "slumped over a broken lens." In the same interview, Morrible had wrapped Elphaba, Glinda, and Nessarose in a binding spell and proposed they become Adepts—secret agents of the highest level of government, to be placed in different parts of the country. Elphaba had rejected the offer, but the spell had left her unable to discuss it, and she had fled Shiz for the Emerald City, beginning her life underground.

The Journey to Shiz

After the death of her sister Nessarose, killed when a tornado dropped a house on her, Elphaba attended the memorial service at Colwen Grounds. There she met the Wizard, who revealed that Madame Morrible had been his collaborator all along. "She was the one who advised me to have you watched," the Wizard told Elphaba. "It is because of her that we found out about your little romance with the diamond-skinned prince." This confirmation that Morrible had been responsible for Fiyero's death—that she had set the Gale Force on him—ignited a cold fury in Elphaba. She left Colwen Grounds and, instead of pursuing Dorothy for the silver shoes, turned north toward Shiz. She had a more urgent task.

The Murder

Elphaba found Madame Morrible in the Doddery, a retirement tower adjacent to the chapel where Doctor Dillamond had been eulogized. The old woman was propped up in a huge bed shaped like a pfenix, her hands folded on her belly, her eyes open and shallow, without motion. She was already near death. Elphaba pulled at her broom, but Morrible made only a sluggish, indifferent corpse. Striking her with the flat of the broom left no mark. Then Elphaba searched the mantelpiece for a testimonial trophy with the biggest marble base, and she bashed in Madame Morrible's skull with it, making a sound like the splitting of firewood. She left the trophy in the old woman's arms. Its inscription read: "IN APPRECIATION OF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE DONE."

Aftermath and Confession

Elphaba immediately sought someone to confess to, someone who would be believed. She flew to the town house of Avaric, the Margreave of Tenmeadows, an old acquaintance from Shiz. Over dinner with Avaric and his guests, she announced, "I killed Madame Morrible today." The dinner guests debated the nature of evil throughout the meal, treating her confession as an entertainment. Avaric's wife objected, "Didn't she have a mother too? Didn't she have a soul?" Elphaba shrugged and replied, "For fun? Maybe evil is an art form." But as she left, she said, "The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret." The next morning, there was nothing in the papers about the death. Elphaba decided she could wait no longer and returned to Munchkinland, where she told Boq what she had done. Boq did not look pleased. "You took against that old woman? Surely she was beyond the point of hurting anyone now?" Elphaba replied, "You've made the mistake that everyone makes. Don't you know there is no such point?" She added, "I have fought fire with fire, and I ought to have done it sooner!" The news of her attack eventually reached the Wizard, who used it to send Dorothy and her companions to kill her, telling them she was an assassin.