...plot of Wicked in reference to The Wizard of Oz?

For instance, when one goes on the YouTube video of practically any clip of the Witch dying in context of The Wizard of Oz (such as the 1939 film or a stage adaptation of the novel) to find a string of comments insisting that she is a tragic, misunderstood character undeserving of her treatment. Another would be when people refer to the Witch as 'Elphaba' when discussing The Wizard of Oz.

Honestly, is it so difficult for them to grasp that Wicked is a book written about a century after the publication of The Wizard of Oz that is in no shape or form an official entry of Baum's canon? For want of a better term of summary, it's fanfiction. Fanfiction that has been given legitimate levels of treatment, but fanfiction nonethless.

*Sigh* I must say that there are days when the headache-inducing behaviour of young girls (males and adult women are hardly exempt from this, but teenage females are by far the most prominent offenders) makes me wonder why I haven't been driven to misogyny...>.>

I can see your point, but I bet this happens because some people forget to keep the two stroies in their own indivisual contezt. They hardly relate to one another for one thing. And, as you said, the novel is basically fanfiction anyway.

Yes, I totally see your point and I agree. The Wizard of Oz and Wicked are two different works.

Thank you! Someone agrees with me!

Although they are two seperate stories, and Baum never intended The Wicked Witch to be named Elphaba, she is still essentially the same character. Don't lose sleep over it.

^ Understood, but nevertheless they are two seperate continuities. Maguire simply used Baum's characters to make his personal take on the Oz mythos, much like how one may post a work of amateur fanfiction online concerning an existing fictional universe. As such it is incorrect to treat Wicked as either a part of Baum's series or as a prequel and parallel to the 1939 feature film. By this course of reasoning, Paradise Lost should be always be taken into account when discussing the story of Satan and the Fall of Man even though it is a poem written in 1667 based on mythological tales written centuries beforehand rather than a part of the religious myths themselves. There is no room for subjectivity in this regard. The story of Wicked simply does not exist within Baum's universe and as such 'Elphaba Thropp' is not the canonical interpretation of the Wicked Witch of the West in either the book or the 1939 film. It is easy to accuse me of being fastidious, but those are facts of the matter.

What do you mean? That she was named that on accident?

^ Frank Baum is the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The name 'Elphaba' is an entirely a creation of Gregory Maguire, the writer of Wicked. The Wicked Witch of the West's name is not officially made explicit at any point in Baum's series.

Oh, that makes sense.

It was based off of Baum's name, actually.

L. Frank Baum -> LFB -> eLPHaBa. I know it's kind of a stretch since he used "ph" to stand for "f", but that was Maguire's intent.

Oh, I'm aware of that, but the point remains that Baum himself did not invent the name 'Elphaba'.

Hm, could be a coinicidence...