| For other versions, see Wicked Witch of the West. |
Zelena, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West and also known as Kelly West, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. She was the main antagonist for the second half of Season 3 and reappears as the secondary antagonist in Season 4 and Season 5. She became a heroine in Season 6 and Season 7.
Appareance[]
Once Upon A Time[]
The Wicked Witch of the West appears in the episode "New York City Serenade", played by Rebecca Mader. Her only line being "The Queen maybe evil but I'm wicked, and wicked always wins". Her name on the show is Zelena. Prior to her actions with The Evil Queen learn Cora abandoned Zelena. Zelena was then taken to Oz and taken in by a childless couple. Her adoptive mother dies and her adoptive father tells her he never wanted her. Before Zelena leaves her house he tells her to always put on a good face.
Zelena vows to stop Regina's birth as she turns green
Zelena then goes to the Wizard of Oz who tells her Regina is her sister and is a queen making Zelena furious. The wizard gives her magic slippers that take her to the enchanted forest. Zelena arrives in Regina's castle and Rumple notices her. He offers to teach her magic. Zelena gladly accepts. Despite being great at magic Rumple tells her Regina will cast the dark curse making Zelena jealous and her skin starts turning green. She goes back to Oz and discovers the wizard is a mortal and in her anger transforms him into a flying monkey. She then seethes as she sees a projection of Regina being called the best student Rumple ever had. Her skin then turns completely green as she vows to go back in time and stop Regina's birth.
Zelena begins to turn green again
After turning the Wizard of Oz into a flying monkey Glinda the Good witch of the South appears to Zelena. She thanks Zelena for turning the wizard into a monkey and offers Zelena a place in her sisterhood of witches. Zelena is hesitant to accept at first but she joins them and her skin turns back to normal. Glinda then gives her a pendant that will harness her magic but if she loses it she loses her magic. As Glinda shows Zelena the west a cyclone appears and carries a house in it. The house has a person in it a girl named Dorothy Gale. Glinda takes the Dorothy back to her fellow witches but Zelena doesn't trust her. At first she fears Dorothy will take her place in the sister hood then Zelena learns from The Book of Records Dorothy was meant to come to Oz and kill her. Zelena skins then reverts to green again as she is jealous of Dorothy. She then decides to make both Glinda and Dorothy think she is dead by having Dorothy splash her with water and she pretends to melt.
Glinda then thinks Zelena is dead and she takes Dorothy to The Wizard of Oz who they believed is a person again since they both think Zelena is dead. Zelena then poses as the wizard and when Dorothy asks to go home Zelena does this for her. Once Dorothy is gone Zelena shows herself to Glinda and banishes her to the Enchanted Forest.
Years later as the second half of Season 3 begins everyone who was affected by the Dark Curse returns to the Enchanted Forest. Sometime before this occurred, monopolizing the castle abandoned by Snow White and Regina, Zelena threatened to harm Aurora, Prince Phillip, and their baby. Zelena agrees to not hurt them as long as they give her valuable information. When they tell her of the return of Storybrooke's residents, she sends flying monkeys to get blood from Regina, who are successful in procuring the blood. When a flying monkey attacks Regina and Roland (the son of Robin Hood), Regina transforms the monster in plush. Belle who had read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, understand that the new occupant of the castle is the Wicked Witch.
Zelena and The Evil Queen
However, at the great surprise of all, Regina does not know her. After that, the Evil Queen enters in the castle by a secret passage which she had put under a magic shield, making her the only person able to enter it. As the Queen makes her way through the passage she notices her mother's crypt had been opened despite being sealed with blood magic. Making her question just how powerful the witch is. Regina finds herself face to face with her new nemesis who reveals to her that she is her half sister. Denied by Cora because Zelena could not give Cora the one thing she wanted most (being royalty) Cora abandoned Zelena. Zelena tells Regina she learnt magic with Rumplestiltskin just as Regina did. Zelena shows herself warlike and jealous to Regina although the latter tells her that to life with Cora was not enviable. However the witch dismisses this comment and tells Regina she will take everything away from her and flies away on a broom.
Zelena and Lumiere
Zelena entraps a man named Lumiere into a form of a candelabrum; forcing him to manipulate Belle and Neal into reviving Rumplestiltskin by using a key to open the vault of the Dark One. Unknown to the pair, whoever resurrects the Dark One will lose their life. Shortly after Neal opens the vault, he begins dying while Rumplestiltskin is resurrected. During the Chaos Zelena is able to grab the dagger that controls Rumple. Zelena then orders him to kill Belle, but before he can, she is entrapped by Lumiere's flames. The girl flees unharmed; taking Lumiere with her, while Zelena furiously seethes. After learning Aurora and Prince Phillip told Snow White that she desires their unborn child, Zelena makes a speedy entrance to the palace to turn the twosome into flying monkeys as punishment. Then she approaches to touch Snow White's belly and promises the child will soon be hers. Snow White learns from Glinda the good witch to defeat Zelena they need a wielder of light magic(which is Emma) but the only way to get to Emma is to cast the Dark Curse. Zelena interferes with the curse being cast by Snow White and Regina by dropping a forgetting potion into the mixture, which will erase their memories of the past year in the Enchanted Forest. Victorious, she flies off back to the castle to ingest a substance to retain her memories. Zelena then hands the same vial to Rumplestiltskin; daring him to keep his memories or be foolish enough to want to forget. Before she is sent to Storybrooke with the others she sent Walsh, whom she had turned into a winged monkey many years earlier after uncovering his charade as the Great and Powerful Wizard, to live in New York City in his human form. There, he is to seduce and occupy the Savior (Emma who Zelena believes is the only person who can defeat her), who is also living in New York amnesic after the battle against Peter Pan.
In Storybrooke, she appears the same, except for the green skin she unwillingly acquired due to envy. When the inhabitants assemble together, she sits among them while remaining quiet. She smiles when Regina is accused for the new curse. Afterward, Zelena approaches Snow White, who is pregnant. She claims to have been a midwife in the fairytale world. Zelena then goes in the storm cellar where she holds Rumplestiltskin prisoner.
Rumplestiltskin escapes the cellar and is able to inform Emma that she is the Wicked Witch. Zelena however is able to bring him back to the cellar as she controls the dagger. After her cover is blown she challenges Regina to a witch fight which ends in a draw.
After the showdown between her and Regina, Zelena distracts Regina one day because she is having Rumple retrieve Regina's resilient heart. Her plan is to alter the past to claim a life with her mother, who abandoned her after birth. Zelena kidnaps Mary Margaret's baby and begins the time travel spell but is stopped by Regina who has learned light magic. Following her defeat she is supposedly killed by Mr. Gold who makes everyone think Zelena killed herself.
As part of a plot twist, it is revealed she time travelled to the past and killed Robin Hood's wife Marian in order to take her place using a magical six-leaf clover necklace. Not knowing of the switch, Emma and Hook brought her into the present time to be with Robin. As this false Marian, she either knowingly or unknowingly ate ice cream cursed by the Snow Queen named Ingrid which almost made her freeze to death. With knowing this is a magical curse, Robin decided to take her and his son to the world without magic outside of Storybrooke where it cannot affect her. As Mr. Gold is in the outside world (after being banished by Belle for his misdeeds), he suffers a heart attack as he instructs Robin to steal a healing elixir from a store called "Wizard of Oak". Robin gives Gold what he thinks is the right bottle, but Zelena reveals her true self to explain that she switched it with a cold remedy. She agrees to give him the real one if only he stops trying to kill her and he helps her get a happy ending through the author of the fairy tales. Weeks later in Storybrooke, Regina calls Robin's phone to have the false Marian answer as she changes to Zelena and reveals the truth to her. As parting words, Zelena vows they will see each other again soon.
Personality[]
Zelena is mainly characterized by her unhealthy envy towards Regina (who combined with her unstable magic drastically changed the color of her skin making it green), to which she releases her anger and her hatred for being abandoned to her birth by Cora and having been put aside by Rumplestiltskin when the latter decided to choose her younger half sister to cast the Dark Curse, despite Zelena herself being much more gifted and adept at the gift of magic.
Removed this feature, however, it is clear that Zelena actually feels very lonely and in the depths of her heart is always looking for someone who accepts and loves her unconditionally because she has always been abused both verbally and physically by her adoptive alcoholic father. Because of this when she met Glinda and entered the coven of the 4 witches protecting Oz, she even gave up looking for revenge against Regina and Rumple (to the point that her skin had returned to normal). However, the unexpected arrival of Dorothy Gale and her inclusion in the coven, together with the discovery of what is written in Glinda's book of prophecies and her paranoia that the child herself would have defeated her, report Zelena on the her dark path once again.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Witchcraft: The magical ability to cast spells and/or curses. In particular Zelena is described as an extremely gifted witch because she is the only one to be born already equipped with the ability to use magic, while both Cora and Regina have spent many years learning and mastering all their skills and that's why Zelena is much more powerful than both (as well as one of the most powerful sorcerers of all realms). Among the powers she used more are listed:
- Telekinesis: Zelena is able to levitate and manipulate objects and people with her mind. She can levitate her foes, push them away or even choke them by focusing her telekinetic energy on their throat. This power has always been present in her since birth as when she used it to prevent a tree from fallen over her adoptive parents' head immediately after they found her as well as, when she was 12, simply by moving her arms upwards, she put the numerous pieces of wood in they order.
- Teleportation: Zelena is able to transport herself and others people from one place to another in an instant. She will usually disappear in a cloud of green smoke and emerge from the same green smoke at the place she is transporting herself to. Although she does not seem to be able to teleport herself through the realms except through the use of magical items like the Silver Slippers and the Sorcerer's Wand, Zelena is perfectly able to teleport others into different realms as when she exiles Glinda and all the other witches from Oz.
- Conjuration: Zelena possesses the ability to conjure almost anything out of thin air or she can unconjure an object by making them vanish into thin air, usually accompanied by a cloud of green smoke that the conjured item will emerge.
- Apportation: Zelena can transport anything she wants in an instant.
- Pyrokinesis: Zelena can ignite flames or put them out with a wave of her hand and she can also conjure balls of fire from her hands, she is even able to conjure green fireballs capable of incinerating the hit target instantly. She can even manipulate it until it takes the forms she wants most, like when she created fire handles to burn a young Hansel through the fire of the fireplace.
- Divination: Zelena is able to observe the events that are happening in the present and also those that happened in the past through the magic floor of the Oz palace or a mirror.
- Energy Blasts: She can directly manifest her magic as green energy that she can use offensively in the form of balls or rays, as she demonstrated in her brief confrontation with the Black Fairy.
- Ripping Out Hearts: Like many sorcerers, Zelena possesses the ability to rip out any living being's heart and can either crush it in her hand to kill them instantly or to control them with their own heart.
- Ripping Out Brains: She killed the Scarecrow by ripping his brain out for her Time Travel Spell.
- Transformation: Zelena possesses the ability to turn objects or others people into what she wants.
- Transfiguration: As best shown in her signature ability to turn her victims into flying monkeys. She can also use this power to kill like when she killed a Munchkin by turning him into ashes.
- Shape-Shifting: She is also able to take the form of any person and animal she thinks of, usually a cloud of green smoke will engulf her when she is transforming into another or transforming back to herself. She even turned into a pool of green liquid when she tricked Dorothy into believing the water making her melting.
- Disintegration: Zelena's magical abilities are so advanced that they allow her to make matter through disappear into nothing with just the gesture of a hand, demonstrating it in Marian's murder.
- Protection Spells: Zelena can create almost impenetrable magical barriers around a place to prevent other people, including those with magical powers, from accessing them. However, it is not able to cover any secret underground passages.
- Protected Heart: She placed a Protection Spell on her heart so it cannot be ripped out, although Peter Pan almost did it.
- Enchanting: Zelena can easely confer magic properties on objects and people, such as enchanting an amulet to act as a Glamour Spell to be able to take the form of another person while in a world without magic. She can also use this ability to deprive others of magical powers, such as when she cursed Captain Hook's lips so that when Emma Swan kissed him, all her magic would be sucked into her spell.
- Locator Spells: She is able to identify the position of the people she seeks by enchanting an object they own.
- Healing Spells: As a teenager girl, she was able to heal a young Regina from a magical coma without needing their mother Cora to take one of her spell books to show her the appropriate spell. She also healed a bird's broken egg.
- Immobilization: Zelena can immobilize a whole group of people with just a wave of her hand.
- Dispel Spells: Zelena is able to remove certain spells and curses, such as Protection Spells and Regina's fireball, by a hand gesture or a potion.
- Holographic Duplication: Zelena has the power to multiply herself with magical holograms.
- Spell Creation: The most noteworthy magical enterprise of Zelena is creating and casting the Time Travel Spell and change the past, despite this is one of the 3 limits of magic for the ordinary magic users.
- Flight: Zelena has the power to fly through her broom stick.
- Magic Detection: She and Regina are able to partially perceive energy in a certain place where someone has used magic.
- Potioncraft: Zelena is very skilled at creating complicated magic potions like the Potion of Memory Preservation, as well as replicating the potion for the Sleeping Curse.
- Magical Manufacturing: In the musical special in which Blue Fairy was able to enchant entire realms with the power of the songs through the desire of Snow White, Zelena, also affected by the spell, was able to create from her cauldron a jewelry box with which subsequently Regina was able to undo the magic by opening it.
- Healing Hearts Elixir: Zelena proved able to create a special potion capable of healing and purifying corrupted hearts by the darkness.
- Phylactery: Because Zelena's life is linked to the magic pendant given to her by Glinda for an increase and better control of her magic power, She can not be killed even if this pendant is taken off (and with it all her magic) because until the pendant is still intact and preserved, so will be Zelena.
- Flying Monkeys: Zelena have control over her flying monkeys.
- Magic Resistance: Zelena has a certain resistance to magical attacks, best demonstrated when she was caught unawares and hit by a fireball of The Evil Queen and, although she was thrown several meters away from her original position and slammed painfully against the doors of her granher (remitting a wound to her forehead), neither she nor her clothes showed signs of burns.
- Keen Magical Knowledge: Thanks to the teachings of the Dark One and her subsequent research and discovery by self-taught, Zelena is not only a powerful witch but also very cultured in everything that has to do with dark magic. Her arcane knowledge goes so far as to have fully understood how the three limits of magic work enough to know how to stem them, as well as creating a magical serum that allows to reinvigorate hearts worn down by darkness, making sure that the people whose heart is healed are magically indebted to her and therefore not allowed to try to hurt her directly.
- True Love: She was able to allow Hades to finally abandoned the Underworld thanks to his heart that came back to beat by kissing him.
Weaknesses[]
- Land Without Magic: If Zelena leaves Storybrooke and enters in the Land Without Magic, she will lose almost all of her magical abilities.
- Enchanted Cuffs: As shown (on-screen) cuffs that are enchanted to block magic have the same effect on her as anyone else.
- Crimson Heart: A magical artifact in the form of a red glass heart that has the ability to suck up all the magic of any magical being by touch it in its inside. Zelena used it and sacrificed all her powers to return into their normality state the corrupted crystals by her dark magic, which the Black Fairy planned to use as a magical nuclear weapon.
- Squid Ink: Like all magical beings Zelena can be immobilized with squid ink.
- Unstable Magic Power: In the world of Once Upon A Time, magic is generated purely by the emotions of those who practice it, which is why Zelena, at times, has great difficulty controlling or even using her powers when she is not emotionally stable.
- Different Universes: Some realms and parallel worlds such as the Underworld, make the magic of those who are not accustomed to used it in different places to using them even more unpredictable or difficult to use.
- Light Magic: Because she is one of the most powerful dark witches in the series, the Light Magic is particularly effective on her according to Glinda.
Former Weaknesses[]
- Laws of Magic: Like any magician or sorcerer, Zelena is subject to the laws of magic, as a result she is unable to raise the dead, create love and time travel. However, she managed to find a loophole for the latter law by creating a spell that allowed her to travel back in time.
- Oz Pendant: Initially, the life and powers of Zelena were inextricably linked to the pendant given to her by Glinda as a member of the sorceress of the witches of Oz, so much so that if someone had removed it, she would have completely lost her powers and would have left her completely helpless (making her essentially a lich). However, after Rumpel killed her and tore her body into pieces with the Dark One's Dagger, the witch's life essence freed herself from the pendant and allowed her not only to reactivate her Time Travel Spell but also to reform her body with its full powers.
Trivia[]
- Zelena is the second most recurring villain of the series (after Rumplestiltskin), having appeared as the main antagonist in the second narrative arc of season 3 and having played the role of secondary antagonist in seasons 4, 5 and 6.
- There is a bicycle with a basket in Zelena's porch, which references Miss Gulch, the Wicked Witch of the West's Kansas counterpart, from the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film, who has a similar bicycle.
- Alchemical signs for the four elements are carved into the table and the stone pillars where Zelena and her fellow sister witches are gathered. Fittingly enough, the element of Wicked Witch of the West (downward-pointing triangle) is water, which is also associated with the west.
- Although she has been cast aside for Regina's favor as she not have a noble heritage, Zelena is most prone to behave, in a disturbingly similar way, as her mother Cora, despite she has not been raised by her.
- Moreover, just like her mother, she was once genuinely attracted and in love with Rumple.
- Both have also conceived and given birth to illegitimate children through deception.
- The design on Zelena's compass is the same as the witches' table in Oz except that the colors are different. The back on the chairs around the table and the illustration on the cover of the Book of Records have the same design.
- Despite that her adoptive mother seemed to love her, Zelena had no qualms against changing her past so that they never met, still seeing again Cora as her mother despite her resentment against her.
- It is unknown whether or not she knows (or cares) who her biological father is as she is mostly focused on her mother. Though, despite their mutual hatred for each other, she still see's the woodcutter as her father (even if is unknown what happened to the latter after Zelena completely embraces her wicked nature and use the magic to subdue and terrify the whole realm of Oz).
- The character of Zelena and the Oz arc during the second-half of third season (2014) are allusions to the film Oz: The Great and Powerful released just in the 2013 year.
Zelena herself, despite being an alternative version of Wicked Witch of The West exactly like Theodora, seems to share some things with Evanora; for example, both having dethroned the Wizard of Oz by taking complete control of the Emerald City, being the only witches to be able to control flying monkeys, draw their powers from a magic necklace without which they are almost completely impotent and so on...
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