Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-24386552-20140613183643/@comment-4975807-20140613201854

What I see is Zelena is a very insecure person. The slightest thing that makes her feel self-conscious is the one thing that makes her turn. She's very susceptible to that as well as her own fears coming true.

I do see, had she gotten more positive encouragement from a parental figure, to be proud of her gift of magic (rather than her father yelling at her for being "wicked"), she may have not felt like such an outcast because she has magic.

I did see Zelena's fears getting the best of her when Dorothy arrived to Oz. Partially, I perceived her to be a person who gets jealous very easily. I believe she saw Dorothy had the purity and innocence she did not. Even when Glinda said Zelena was supposed to take on the Witch of the West's seat and she explained how the Witch of the West represents innocence, Zelena herself could not fathom that she herself possessed any shred of innocence. It definitely was wrong for Glinda not to tell Zelena the *whole* prophecy. This only served to make Zelena distrust Glinda once she discovered, on her own, the other part of the prophecy. At the same time, I don't think it's entirely Glinda's fault. Had Zelena ignored the prophecy and stayed to the path of goodness, would she still have become wicked?

This prophecy reminds me of the prophecy Rumplestiltskin was given by the seer. In both aspects, I believe both prophecies were self-made. Had Rumplestiltskin ignored the seer's foretelling and just gone into battle, the prophecy would still come true because he'd die as a soldier and make his son fatherless. In Zelena's case, if she stayed good, I believe the "greatest evil" she was supposed to unseat was likely the Wizard and no one else.