From the musical we know nothing of his family background, his life and childhood before Shiz, his relationships outside of Glinda and Elphaba, what his personal hobbies are etc.

And the character change from pre Lion Cub to post Lion Cub is startling.

At the beginning, he was arrogant and even bullying. Then he saves a cub with Elphaba and he suddenly turns into a noble, heroic character?!

This character changes does not seem realistic unless Fiyero had some hidden depth to his character and he was genuinely a pleasant compassionate person before he became more spoilt and selfish. But then what would cause someone to change like this?

Fiyero is conundrum readers do not fully understand and for a good reason; Stephen Schwartz created Fiyero from a minor character ( Avaric) in the original Maguire book.

The original Fiyero was somewhat more realistic; he is first presented a shy outsider at Shiz before ( rather inexplicably) falling in love with Elphaba many years later in Emerald City.

Meanwhile Avaric is a minor character in the book who is rich, handsome and clever, a combination of traits which makes him believe he is better than everyone else and so does not have to be kind. This is somewhat realistic as I know personally quite a few people from wealthy backgrounds who do not care about the world around them as they are enjoying themselves too much to care and their families most likely never encouraged them to become empathetic individuals. At the beginning, Fiyero is like Avaric.

In real life, princes , the sons of tycoons and other rich people do not get involved in politics and when they do , they just try to promote their own ( and their family's) self interest-- look at Trump, look at George W Bush, George Osborne etc.

Therefore, how on earth does a boy who grew amongst privilege and power suddenly adopts ideals that go against the status quo which gives him his immense status?

The only explanation I can give is that Fiyero must have developed some sense of justice somehow before Shiz, then got horribly betrayed and dropped it before coming to Shiz, where it got rekindled??!!

Also, there are many other things I do not understand about Fiyero's character:

The rekindling/triggering of his nobler, more heroic side during the Lion Cub scene somehow makes him fall in love with Elphaba-- why???

How could he fall so deeply in love with Elphaba after one moment of connection and sustain that feeling for 2/3 years whilst Elphaba was a fugitive??

If he loved Elphaba, why on earth did he stick with Glinda for so long?

Why does he even talk to Glinda after the lion cub incident: I thought he only dated her because she fit some shallow ideal of what a 'perfect partner' should be, not because he genuinely liked her. Also, he was a prince so he could easily ditch Glinda without losing his status.

Did he even like Glinda, who is so selfish that she is actually very cruel?

This might be an unpopular opinion, as I don't really see anyone talk about this. But I recently saw Wicked on Broadway again with a friend who had never seen the musical or movie. She loved it so much that she wanted to watch the movie the next day which we did. Her favorite character in the musical was Fiyero but she was disappointed that the Fiyero in the movie is completely different, which I didn't realize before.

Basically, the movie completely cuts out the "frat boy" aspect of Fiyero's character. Think about the difference in their first scenes:

In the musical, he's asleep being ridden around in a carriage. He says "I'm sure I won't last longer at this school than at any of the others" and doesn't care at all that the carriage hit Elphaba, and just makes the offhand comment "maybe the driver saw green and thought it meant go."

In comparison, Movie Fiyero is much more dashing from the very first scene. He arrives on horseback (much more independent and strong than being taken asleep in a carriage) and is immediately fascinated by Elphaba.

Movie Fiyero does still teach the students how to have fun but he never really has that shallow "idgaf about anything" attitude. We're told in dancing through life that he's like this, but we never really see it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the movie doesn't even mention that he has a scandalous reputation and was kicked out of his previous schools.

To put it simply, Fiyero in the musical develops into the dashing, heroic character that he is by the end whereas movie Fiyero starts out that way. Fiyero's arc is supposed to be that he grows through with his relationship with Elphaba. He becomes fascinated with her slowly, rather than right away from the beginning. He goes from lazy and shallow to brave and righteous, finding Elphaba and standing by her side.

The movie has cut all of that short by having him start out that way. IMO, Fiyero's development/character arc won't hit the same in Part II as a result.

Hi, so I’m sorry if this is stupid question that’s been answered before, but since in the musical Fiyero becomes the scarecrow, was he technically a double agent? As in, was he helping Dorothy as well as Elphaba? I haven’t seen the musical in so so long, so if this is explained in the musical I’m very sorry, lol. Thanks!