Warning: This article contains spoilers for Wicked (movie/musical version).

Entwined with the compelling origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked cast includes other noteworthy Ozian figures, shedding light on their role in Elphaba, Glinda, and Dorothy's stories.

In a tale largely about labels and misdirected anger, Elphaba's encounters with familiar characters contribute to her building frustration with the public and how she feels like she can't do anything right. Even so, for every Wizard of Oz character who appears in Wicked, the Cowardly Lion occupies a unique space in the narrative. The mild absurdity of how Wicked uses the Cowardly Lion piles onto the obstacles Elphaba faces, illustrating the fraught circumstances of Oz and challenging Glinda to stand with her friend, which she should have done all along.

Elphaba Saves The Cowardly Lion As A Cub In Wicked

Elphaba & Fiyero Rescue A Lion Club From Their Cruel Teacher

Following their goat professor Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) being dismissed from Shiz University's faculty, the students in Wicked are instructed by a vicious replacement who aims to impart upon them a desire for the systematic oppression of Oz's anthropomorphic animal population. The new teacher brings a caged lion cub to class, demonstrating how imprisoning him from youth will result in him never learning to speak at all. Elphaba, who is close with Dillamond and advocates for the animals throughout Wicked, causes a magical commotion, allowing Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) to grab the lion cub before they both run from the classroom.

Throughout the encounter, Elphaba is only gentle and sympathetic towards the cub, showing deep comion.

Elphaba and Fiyero go out into the woods somewhere near Shiz and set the lion cub free. Throughout the encounter, Elphaba is only gentle and sympathetic towards the cub, showing deep comion. This adventure coincides with Elphaba and Fiyero's budding feelings for each other and is something they share going forward. Ultimately, Elphaba's ionate responses towards injustice draw Fiyero to her, inspiring him to act the same way. While this causes tension with Glinda, who is for all intents and purposes in a relationship with Fiyero, the lion cub comes back around later in the story.

What Happens To The Lion Cub After Elphaba Frees Him

The Cowardly Lion's Time Between Elphaba & Dorothy Is Skipped Over

Following being freed from captivity by Elphaba, not much is known about the lion's experiences in the intervening time in the movie/musical version of Wicked. However, he grows up to be the famously timid character everyone knows. At some point, the lion meets Dorothy, as well as Boq (Ethan Slater), Elphaba's former classmate who becomes the Tin Man. Boq bitterly blames Elphaba for his tin state, not knowing that she transformed him to save his life after her jealous sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) miscast a spell to make him fall in love with her.

During the "March of the Witch Hunters" musical number, Boq speaks to an angry crowd of witch hunters about Elphaba's "crime" against him and tries to get the lion to do the same. Boq claims: "If she'd [Elphaba] let him [the lion] fight his own battles when he was young he wouldn't be a coward today." It's flimsy justification for animosity when, if she hadn't rescued him as a cub, he'd have been treated like a lesser animal his whole life and wouldn't be having this conversation with Boq. It also ignores Fiyero's role, who is mostly considered a hero in Oz.

How Wicked's Cowardly Lion Origin Changes Wizard Of Oz

The Cowardly Lion Seems Unaffected By Supposed Prejudice Towards Animals In Oz

Like few other examples in Wicked, the origin story of the Cowardly Lion shows how Elphaba can do everything right and something objectively good, and still walk away as the villain. It also frames the lion in a new light throughout the events of The Wizard of Oz, when there is supposedly a lot of discrimination directed towards talking animals, abusing them until they accept their inferior status and forget how to speak. Everyone in the Emerald City is nice to him, and he can speak, which is likely only because Elphaba freed him.

The lion still gets his gift from the wizard (Jeff Goldblum in Wicked) and finds his confidence. However, the events of Wicked suggest that he is either very ungrateful to Elphaba for helping him out of an even worse situation or has been gaslighted by people like Boq into believing that everything wrong with his life wouldn't be so if it weren't the actions of the Wicked Witch of the West. In multiple ways, Wicked shows how people cast blame rather than work towards a solution, making the Cowardly Lion an intriguing facet of the story.