How Wicked’s Fiyero Tigelaar Becomes The Scarecrow From The Wizard Of Oz

If you’re not familiar with the full story of “Wicked” — as in, anything past the events of the film “Wicked: Part One” — do not keep going down the yellow brick road! Major spoilers lie ahead!

If you’re even a little bit familiar with “The Wizard of Oz” — the 1939 adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” — you probably know the movie’s four main players. You’ve got Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), a girl transported from Kansas to Oz thanks to a magical tornado, who ends up meeting the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) in the fantastical land. (Because the movie presents Oz as the location of a magical dream Dorothy’s having, Lahr, Haley, and Bolger also play farmhands who work on the Gale family property in “real life.”) Nearly a century later, audiences returned to Oz thanks to Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the hit Broadway musical “Wicked,” itself adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 Oz-centric prequel novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” but the Scarecrow only appears briefly in the opening. Those in the know, though, know that we’ve already met the Scarecrow — because in Stephen Schwartz’s musical, one of the main characters becomes the Scarecrow in Act 2.

So who’s doomed to become the brainless Scarecrow who ends up begging the Wizard for some gray matter to put in his head? That would be Winkie prince Fiyero Tigelaar, played by “Bridgerton” and “Fellow Travelers” standout Jonathan Bailey. If you’re impatient while you wait for “Wicked: For Good” — the recently retitled second half of Chu’s epic “Wicked” story — here’s how we think Fiyero will undergo his transformation when the movie releases in November of this year.

After Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande-Butera) arrive at Shiz University and begin their studies, the entire student body goes wild over the impending arrival of Fiyero, a notably handsome prince whose irreverent and rebellious behavior has gotten him kicked out of several other schools. When Fiyero shows up at Shiz, the women are especially titillated, including Galinda, who goes out of her way to flirt with him; Elphaba, notably, isn’t impressed by his behavior and disdain for knowledge and studying, which obviously means that Fiyero ends up fascinated with the green-skinned girl who won’t give him the time of day.

Fiyero convinces the entire student body to sneak out one evening and go dance and party at the nearby Stardust Ballroom, and Galinda — furious that she has to share her single room with Elphaba, who only ends up studying at Shiz after accidentally performing magic that attracts the attention of the school’s Dean of Sorcery Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) convinces Elphaba to wear an unflattering witch’s hat, humiliating her. Galinda ultimately joins Elphaba in a dance, bonding the two forever, and the duo starts spending time with Galinda’s “boyfriend” Fiyero. Though Fiyero seems airheaded and conceited, he and Elphaba join forces to help a scared lion cub (which, we can imagine, may grow up to become the Cowardly Lion) after animals are banned from teaching at Shiz and a cruel professor tries to experiment with the cub; after they share a moment together in the woods, Elphaba sings a lament over the fact that Fiyero loves Galinda and not her (the mournful ballad “I’m Not That Girl”). Once Galinda, who shortens her name to “Glinda” in honor of their fallen animal professor Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage), and Elphaba head off to Oz to meet the Wizard, we don’t see Fiyero again — so what can we expect to see from him in “Wicked: For Good?”

At the end of “Wicked: Part One,” Glinda has allied herself (unwillingly) with the evil Madame Morrible and the Wizard himself (Jeff Goldblum) after allowing Elphaba to escape their clutches on broomstick — so where’s Fiyero in all of this? He’s back at Shiz, and when we see him again in the second act of the “Wicked” musical, he’s Captain of the Wizard’s Guard for Oz and is engaged to Glinda. Fiyero is still in love with Elphaba, though — which Glinda seems to just innately know, especially considering that their engagement is fully arranged by Madame Morrible to boost morale in Oz and distract from her evil deeds done alongside the Wizard — and when Elphaba takes a huge risks and returns to Oz to try and free the Wizard’s flying monkeys, Fiyero protects her. He also disappears with her, leaving Glinda devastated (she sings her own reprise of “I’m Not That Girl,” in fact).

While hiding in a remote forest, Fiyero and Elphaba sing a duet, “As Long As You’re Mine,” revealing that they love each other … but after Elphaba is forced to try and save her sister Nessarose (played by the delightful newcomer Marissa Bode in “Wicked: Part One”), Fiyero ends up captured by the Wizard. Elphaba believes that Fiyero is dead and casts a spell to try and save his life; since he’s not dead, the spell transforms him into the Scarecrow, and after Elphaba fakes her death by water (at Dorothy’s hands) using a handy trapdoor, Fiyero and Elphaba run away together as the musical ends.

Is Fiyero’s fate different in Gregory Maguire’s original (and frankly, much darker) novel? Yes, actually! We likely won’t have to worry much about Fiyero’s journey in the “Wicked” book because Jon M. Chu’s movies certainly seem to be sticking to the plot of the musical, but just for some context, here’s the deal with Fiyero in the book (actually, books; Maguire wrote a small series).

In the book, Fiyero gets married after Elphaba officially “becomes” the “Wicked Witch of the West” and has three children (not with Glinda), but he and Elphaba have an affair anyway … and after Fiyero is discovered in Elphaba’s company and punished, he’s left stunned by the discovery of Liir, the child he fathered during his dalliance with Elphaba. From there, the Wizard takes the entire Tigelaar family prisoner, including all of Fiyero’s legitimate children — and when Elphaba begs the Wizard to release them, he reveals that they’re all dead except for Fiyero’s daughter Nor. Elphaba actually dies from the bucket of water in the book and Fiyero never resurfaces, so not only can we safely assume that the Wizard really did kill him, but he does not become the Scarecrow. See why Chu is adapting the musical and not the book? The ending of the book is definitively unhappy — even with Elphaba defeated and dead, Oz is plunged into political turmoil for years thereafter.

Fiyero’s big musical number in “Wicked: Part One” — which Jonathan Bailey absolutely crushes — is the lengthy song “Dancing Through Life,” in which he extolls the virtues of living an ignorant life free of thinking and concerns. If you know that Fiyero’s fate in the musical is that he becomes the Scarecrow, you might want to look and listen more closely to the lyrics of “Dancing Through Life,” which offer huge clues about that outcome.

The whole song is quite literally about not thinking, but a ton of the lyrics directly point to not having a brain. “Dancing through life, skimming the surface / Gliding where turf is smooth / Life’s more painless for the brainless / Why think too hard when it’s so soothing?” Fiyero croons early in the song, repeating this sentiment in various ways: “Life is fraughtless when you’re thoughtless / Those who don’t try never look foolish.” Certainly, one could argue that Fiyero is speaking in metaphors, but if you take him literally, he’s saying that the best way to experience your one precious life is to stop thinking entirely, which he’s forced to do when he loses his brain and becomes the Scarecrow later in the story.

Remember how Fiyero and Elphaba save a lion cub from cruel experimentation and basically kick off their relationship in the process? The whole reason that they’re able to get the lion cub safely out of Shiz in the first place is because Elphaba, incensed by the idea that the lion cub would be tortured in front of her and a room full of students, accidentally performs a spell that sends poppies flying throughout the classroom … and the flowers put everyone to sleep. Everyone, that is, except for Fiyero, who remains completely conscious and ensures that the lion cub makes it into the woods and out of harm’s way, earning a scrape on his face for his trouble.

Why does this relate to Fiyero’s future status as the Scarecrow? You may remember that, in “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion end up passing out in a field full of — you guessed it — poppies. The Scarecrow, though, manages to stay awake for some reason, somehow immune to the spell cast by the Wicked Witch of the West — or, as he knows her, Elphaba. In the stage musical, Elphaba manages to temporarily blind the entire class aside from Fiyero — so they both rescue the cub in that version as well, but Jon M. Chu’s choice to change the scene and involve poppies could be a very clear clue as far as Fiyero is concerned.

“Wicked: Part One” is available to rent or buy on demand now.