Previous
Nanny
Turtle Heart is a handsome glassblower from Quadling Country who begins an affair with Melena. When Frex returns from ministering, he quickly accepts Turtle Heart’s presence in their home. Over time, Frex comes to love Turtle Heart, and the three settle into a peaceful, polyamorous arrangement. Gentle, principled, and wise, Turtle Heart never fears the green-skinned Elphaba; he even blows her her very own looking glass, in which she foresees the arrival of the Wizard in a crimson balloon. Turtle Heart is also likely Nessarose’s biological father. Quadling Country, swampy and inhospitable to outsiders, sits atop vast ruby deposits, and Turtle Heart warns the Thropps that the pursuit of these riches will destroy the Quadlings’ delicate ecosystems and homes. He dies shortly before Nessa’s birth, when the Clock of the Time Dragon incites a Munchkinlander crowd to sacrifice him to end a longstanding drought. Afterward, Frex blames his own failure to lead his people away from the Clock’s influence for Turtle Heart’s death. Seeking to atone, he uproots his family to Quadling Country, but Turtle Heart’s relatives never give him the absolution he seeks.
Turtle Heart Quotes in Wicked
The Wicked quotes below are all either spoken by Turtle Heart or refer to Turtle Heart. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
8. Darkness Abroad Quotes
“Horrors,” she said again, looking without binocular vision, staring at the glass in which her parents and Nanny could make out nothing but darkness. “Horrors.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Wicked LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Turtle Heart Character Timeline in Wicked
The timeline below shows where the character Turtle Heart appears in Wicked. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
5. The Quadling Glassblower
...at their home. With Frex away, Melena invites him in. The man introduces himself as Turtle Heart , a glassblower from Ovvels in Quadling Country. After Melena fixes him a meal, he...
(full context)
6. Geographies of the Seen and the Unseen
...with him. He’s relieved to be home with Melena and Elphaba—and even this foreign stranger, Turtle Heart —though Elphaba is still wary around him. When she breaks a small toy he carved...
(full context)
7. Child’s Play
...Elphaba to a daycare in Rush Springs run by a woman named Gawnette. By now, Turtle Heart is living with Melena, Elphaba, and Nanny, while Frex has resumed preaching and is often...
(full context)
8. Darkness Abroad
One fall evening, as Turtle Heart tells Melena, Frex, and Nanny about the “horrors” he left behind in Ovvels, Elphaba suddenly...
(full context)
Turtle Heart goes on to say that it won’t be Ozma or her Regent, Pastorius, who bring...
(full context)
...Melena tells him she can’t—she’s pregnant. She doesn’t know whether the father is Frex or Turtle Heart , and she doesn’t much care. Nanny pulls Melena aside and reveals something of her...
(full context)
After helping Melena to bed, Nanny realizes Elphaba is missing. She gets Frex and Turtle Heart to help search. Eventually, they find her beneath the dock, sitting in a dry patch...
(full context)
11. The Charmed Circle
...as a long drought ended (temporarily) in Munchkinland. Nessa’s birth coincided with a human sacrifice: Turtle Heart was killed by villagers incited by the Clock of the Time Dragon. Feeling it was...
(full context)
...a pair of sparkling shoes, decorated with silver glass beads Frex learned to make from Turtle Heart . He sends nothing for Elphaba. That evening, the charmed circle goes out for wine....
(full context)
15. Uprisings
...had given her pills to ensure Melena’s next child wouldn’t be born green, and that Turtle Heart may have been Nessarose’s father. The name Yackle stuns Elphaba—she wonders if this is the...
(full context)
...pagan rituals tied to human sacrifice that resurfaced during the Great Drought. He says that Turtle Heart was a victim of this sacrifice and that he and Melena had loved and “shared”...
(full context)
16. The Murder and Its Afterlife
...father. Elphaba refuses to believe it, until the dwarf hands her the old looking glass Turtle Heart once made, the one she left behind in Emerald City the night Fiyero was killed...
(full context)
...dead when he pulled it up in the bucket. In her room, Elphaba peers into Turtle Heart ’s old looking glass and sees a scene play out from her childhood. She’s in...
(full context)
