I think the real tragic friendship relationship in Wicked is not Gelphie, because at least they end up in good terms (I genuinely don't think they were ready to forgive each other, especially Elphaba, but as someone who has lost a friend being in bad terms with them, who thought that life would cross our paths again eventually and that we would make up when we were ready and had grown, if I knew that we would never see each other again - in our case, he died - like Elphaba did, I too would have apologized and forgiven them, because our peace is more important). The real tragic friendship is Elphaboq (and I ship their friendship really hard, especially because I read the book). Take this:
• Childhood friends (in the book he's the first one to call her Elphie at Shiz. It wasn't Glinda who came up with that, it was a childhood nickname that Boq revived);
• They come from the same country and have the same cultural background. I bet that, because of that, they can have a bunch of internal jokes that no one else gets, besides, of course, Nessa;
• They're both major ass nerds, they can bond over that, since no one else in their friend group is (maybe Nessa, but I don't think she's as much of a nerd as Boq and Elphaba are);
• I like to headcanon that they went to the Ozdust a few more times after Dancing Through Life, and they would play songs from Munchkinland that Elphaba and Boq would dance together, because they're the only ones who know the choreographies;
• I know, I know. I'm this website's biggest movie critic, but I think this one is relevant. When they're talking to each other at the train station about Nessa, Glinda and Fiyero, when Boq calls her out on her love for Fiyero, it shows that he was paying attention to her specifically. Why would he do that if they weren't close?
• When Elphaba leaves it arguably causes more harm to Boq than anyone else, due to the butterfly effect it created: her leaving causes her to be announced to all of Oz as a Wicked Witch, which led to Frexppar having a heart attack, leading Nessa to become the Governor prematurely. The pain she's feeling due to Elphaba's situation + being compared to her, leads to her trying to be her opposite, becoming the dictator of Munchkinland, trapping Boq with her (especially after he already dropped his act at the Train Station. Nessa knew he would leave at his first opportunity). It's sad to think, but easy to understand, that he would blame Elphaba, especially after seeing how awful Nessa and Frex are up close. Why would Elphaba be different?
• When he sees her again and points a knife at her, she says "Boq, it's just me", implying that they had a relationship we're not fully aware of. That's something you would say to an old friend;
• He doesn't know the context of the conversation she was having with Nessa before he entered the room. Who's to say she wasn't teaching Nessa how to use the Grimmerie on him? I mean, the propaganda against her was claiming she was such a powerful witch, so powerful she could use the Grimmerie just fine, then why the hell would he assume that Nessa could read it on her first try? And he knows for a fact that it was Elphaba that turned him into the Tinman, so you can understand how he would believe that it was her who taught Nessa how to steal his heart, too.
Very sad to see a friendship die like that due to lack of communication and oppression, but I can understand where Boq was coming from and all he went through. They could have been like siblings!
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