Thropp Eminence

The Thropp Eminence is the hereditary title of the ruling female head of the Thropp family, the most powerful aristocratic line in Munchkinland. The title passes through the female line, and its holder wields immense political, social, and economic authority over the region. The narrative traces the title's fraught inheritance from the elderly Eminent Thropp, through his granddaughter Melena (who fled the responsibility), to his great-granddaughters Elphaba and Nessarose, whose competing claims and radically different relationships to power become a central axis of the story's political and personal drama.

Identity and Inheritance

The Thropp Eminence is a hereditary title that descends through the female line of the Thropp family, one of the most prominent aristocratic houses in Munchkinland. The title is tied to the family seat at Colwen Grounds in Nest Hardings. The Eminent Thropp is the political and social leader of the region, a position of immense authority. The inheritance is strictly matrilineal: the title passes from the Eminent Thropp to his eldest daughter, and then to her eldest daughter, and so on. This system is explicitly designed to keep the title and its attendant responsibilities within the female line, unless there are no daughters. The elderly Eminent Thropp, the great-grandfather of Elphaba and Nessarose, held the title for many decades, and his granddaughter Melena was the next in line. Melena, however, hated the life of wealth and responsibility at Colwen Grounds and deliberately sought to escape it by marrying Frex, a unionist minister, and moving to the remote hinterland of Rush Margins. She hoped to have only sons, thereby preventing any daughter of hers from being trapped by the inheritance. This plan failed when she gave birth to Elphaba, her first daughter, who became the Thropp Third Descending and the heir presumptive.

The Claimants: Elphaba and Nessarose

Elphaba, as the firstborn daughter of Melena, is the rightful heir to the Thropp Eminence. However, she actively rejects the title and its associated power. After her disappearance from Shiz University and her years of underground activism and later life as a recluse in the Vinkus, she is presumed dead by her family. When her great-grandfather finally dies, the mantle of Eminence falls to her younger sister, Nessarose. Nessarose, who is armless and was raised in the shadow of her sister's more forceful personality, embraces the title with a ferocious sense of purpose. She becomes the political head of the Free State of Munchkinland after orchestrating its secession from Oz. Elphaba, upon visiting Colwen Grounds, is told by her father Frex that she would make a smarter Eminence than Nessarose, but she refuses the position, stating that an inherited position is of no interest to her and that she has long ago abdicated her place in the family in that respect. She insists that Nessarose has every right to the title, or that the foolish custom should be abolished altogether.

Power, Tyranny, and the Shoes

Nessarose's rule as the Eminent Thropp, or the "Wicked Witch of the East" as she is later called, becomes increasingly tyrannical and theocratic. She uses her position to impose her own restrictive interpretation of unionism on Munchkinland, and she is willing to use sorcery to maintain control. A key symbol of her power is the pair of silver shoes given to her by her father, which were later enchanted by Glinda to allow Nessarose to stand and walk without support. These shoes become totemic objects, representing her authority and her unnatural balance. Elphaba, who was overlooked by their father when the shoes were given, later develops a desperate desire to possess them after Nessarose's death, seeing them as a tool for her own vengeance against the Wizard. The shoes' significance is so great that Glinda sends them out of Munchkinland with Dorothy to prevent them from falling into the hands of either the Wizard or the superstitious Munchkinlanders, a decision that causes a bitter rift between Glinda and Elphaba. Nessarose's death, when a tornado drops a house on her, is seen by many as a liberation from her particular brand of fundamentalist bondage, and her title is abolished by the new Munchkinlander government. The narrative ultimately presents the Thropp Eminence as a burden and a curse, a source of family conflict and political oppression, rather than a legitimate or desirable form of leadership.