In Wicked , the “lion” is the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz , shown in his earlier life as a frightened lion cub that Elphaba saves, hinting at how he later becomes “cowardly.”

Who the lion is in Wicked

  • The lion is the Cowardly Lion , the same character who later travels with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
  • In the Wicked stage musical, he appears briefly as a caged lion cub brought into a class at Shiz University as part of an experiment.
  • Elphaba (the future Wicked Witch) and Fiyero free the cub, an act that fits the show’s themes of animal rights and oppression in Oz.

How Wicked connects him to the Cowardly Lion

  • The story implies that this cub grows up to be the Cowardly Lion, whose fearfulness is partly a result of the trauma and interference he experiences as a test subject and political pawn in Oz.
  • In Act 2, during the song “March of the Witch Hunters,” the Tin Man refers to the lion as “cowardly,” reinforcing that this is the same Lion who will eventually meet Dorothy.

Book vs. musical vs. movie

  • In Gregory Maguire’s Wicked novels, the lion has a fuller identity and is named Brrr , becoming a major character in the book A Lion Among Men.
  • The Broadway musical keeps him as a minor, almost Easter‑egg‑style character so he doesn’t distract from Elphaba and Glinda’s story.
  • The recent Wicked film adaptation also shows him as a lion cub at Shiz, further underlining the link between Wicked and The Wizard of Oz.

So, if you’re wondering “who is the lion in Wicked?” — he’s the young version of the Cowardly Lion, briefly seen as a rescued cub whose past helps explain his future cowardice.

TL;DR: The lion in Wicked is the Cowardly Lion as a cub, rescued by Elphaba and implied to be the same character who later joins Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.