One of the weirder tendencies I’ve noticed about people who demonize Glinda and sanctify Fiyero is that they don’t seem to want to engage with the fact that Wicked is about characters from The Wizard of Oz and that there’s genuine and intentional significance to that. It’s not just a schtick, it’s not just a marketing tactic, there’s a real actual purpose to the fact that it centers on already well-established characters from a story that has existed in some iteration for over 100 years.
Elphaba isn’t just Generic Misunderstood Outcast Rebel Girl fighting fascism, she is very specifically the Wicked Witch of the West, far and away one of the most iconic characters in film. And she’s iconic, because she’s a caricature. Pure evil. No nuance. Green skin, crazy cackle, setting people on fire, terrorizing a whole nation over a pair of shoes, tried to kill a kid and her little dog too. Completely irredeemable.
Glinda the Good Witch? Same deal, but flipped. A caricatureof pure goodness.
And after watching Part 1, so many people decided Wicked was a SURPRISE TWIST THE GOOD GUYS ARE THE BAD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS ARE THE GOOD GUYS story.
Which is so completely insane to me given that right from jump, Wicked is screaming at the top of its lungs “The concept of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil is NOT REAL, it is a tool used by a fascist regime to subjugate and control the masses.”
If Wicked were a Good versus Evil story, or a Hunger Games-esque Fight Fascism story, Elphaba and Fiyero would be the central relationship, Elphaba as our Outcast Rebel Protagonist, Fiyero as our secondary lead who would presumably show some textual evidence of a grander moral backbone and awareness and aspirations beyond just running away from it all and becoming Mr. Elphaba Thropp.
But Elphaba and Fiyero aren’t the main characters, Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters; because Wicked is not a Good versus Evil story, nor is it even a Fight Fascism story. Fighting fascism is Elphaba’s personal goal, and it’s the reason why her image has been twisted and exploited - but it’s not the overarching theme of the narrative itself.
The narrative itself is about Good and Evil as propaganda, not literal moral states of being. It’s asking you to look at the Wicked Witch, and Glinda the Good, two of the most recognizable icons in film who represent Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, and dismantle both of them.
Not SWITCH both of them; DISMANTLE both of them.
Because both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are creations of the Wizard’s regime; they’re pawns, they’re puppets, they’re caricatures manufactured by the authoritarian government to keep control over people, to keep people from questioning or rebelling, specifically by weaponizing moral panic. As such, both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are just as much the antagonists of the story as the Wizard and Morrible. Because they ARE the propaganda machine.
And the only way to take down the fascist regime is to take apart the propaganda machine, which means taking apart the two most pivotal pieces keeping it together.
Basically you’re supposed to be unearthing the humanity beneath the icon, on both ends of the spectrum.
When we first meet Elphaba and Galinda in Act 1, back when they had no idea they were going to become political props, they were both very human - BUT, very notably, they were both extremely armored in these protective facades they’ve been carrying around since childhood. For Elphaba, that armor manifests as brutal honesty, self righteousness, and disdain for social hierarchy. For Galinda, that armor manifests in hollow, self-serving proclamations of goodness, and an obsession with outward appearances of perfection, both physical and moral.
What’s interesting about their “loathing” era is that they loathe each other specifically because they see the human in each other. Galinda doesn’t hate Elphaba for being green, she hates her because she publicly took a sledgehammer to the Galinda Is Perfect statue she built of herself and said nah, you’re not perfect, you’re just a person, and kind of a lousy one at that.
In a very weird way, Elphaba just created the first genuine human connection for BOTH of them - Elphaba has always been treated like an inhuman monster, Galinda has always been treated like the superficial embodiment of perfection beyond reproach - so for the first time, these two girls have someone looking them dead-on and saying, no, idiot, you’re human. And because of that, they’re obsessed with scratching and picking away at the armor of each other. It’s loathing, but there’s a give and take to it, even a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment - they want to find the human in each other, even if they claim it’s for purposes of mutually assured destruction.
So by the time we get to the Ozdust, they’ve both worked away at each other and gotten to see the human in each other so well, Galinda recognizes the vulnerability in Elphaba when she’s dancing alone, when no one else does - when even Fiyero just thinks Golly it’s so super duper cool Elphaba doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about her.
Both Elphaba and Galinda are at their most vulnerable during the Ozdust duet, because they’ve earned it. They know each other better than anyone, they both see each other as human when no one else does. But this time it’s changed tone - Galinda dances with her because of this recognition of holy shit, this person whose armor I’ve been obsessively chipping away at is vulnerable in the way that all humans are vulnerable, and I did that, I’m responsible for that, and I don’t want to be that person, and I actually admire this person, and care about this person, and I want to fix the damage I’ve done, I need to do something to show her I’m with her.
Of even more significance is Elphaba’s acceptance of Galinda dancing with her. Elphaba is very shrewd and very guarded and very good at seeing through people’s bullshit, so by accepting this olive branch, she’s also recognizing that this person whose armor she’s been chipping away at does actually have a genuine desire to make amends, to admit she was wrong, to be better than who she was - to be human, not just a one-dimensional icon superficially beloved by the masses.
It’s not elegant, but from both Elphaba and Galinda, that scene is a slow unfolding of “I was obsessed with hating the fact that you called out the human in me,” to “Oh, there’s a vulnerability to the human in you.”
So now we’ve got Defying Gravity, and Elphaba and Glinda hit the irreconcilable differences mark, and they part ways - and the dictator swoops in and uses them to embody an ideal of Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, effectively stripping away the humanity that Elphaba and Glinda found in each other. Thus begins the propaganda machine.
These are not roles Elphaba or Glinda ever meant to find themselves in. And they still love each other, but over time, we see them begin to relapse into their old pre-Ozdust facades in order to protect themselves - Elphaba withdrawing into self righteous solitude, Glinda fixating on surface level adoration from the world, both of them beginning to deny and reject the vulnerabilities in themselves that the other brought out.
The Wizard and Morrible very much succeed in driving this narrative of the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good,” to the point that both Elphaba and Glinda start to find comfort and strength in these roles as their personal lives and relationships begin to fall apart. Toward the end of Act 2, they have largely embraced and committed to these caricatures of themselves, which means that just like the rest of Oz, they’ve been suckered in by the propaganda machine, while at the same time, literally being the propaganda machine.
The story hinges on their ability to recognize that they’ve become part of that machine, and their ability to dismantle it.
I don’t know where the article is anymore but I remember Jon Chu said something along the lines of them being each other’s salvation, which in addition to being the most insane way he possibly could have phrased that, is actually the crux of their relationship. They saw each other as human before anyone else did, then they had that humanity torn away from them, then they took comfort in the stripping-away of their humanity…so how do they get it back?
Essentially they have to come back to themselves at the Ozdust. Glinda has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by her own denial and fear and need to be adored, and Elphaba has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by self righteousness and hubris and the need to be respected, and that neither of them has had any real effect on the state of Oz as a whole, except to serve the narrative created by the Wizard and Morrible. That’s the point: they have both been reduced to pawns who exist to propagate the unchecked authority of the Wizard’s regime.
Wicked has heavy Fight Injustice, Resist Fascism, and Stand Up for What’s Right Even If You’re Standing Alone messages, and it does raise parallels to the real world stripping away of human rights and using “otherness” as a scapegoat to manipulate a disenfranchised populace (I’m gonna say they were clumsy about it and really lost that whole plot in Act 2, but…y’know…that’s…it’s Wicked Act 2 - Dana Fox, you did the best you could with what they gave you, angel, truly Act 2 is a whole mess to try to work with, you’re a hero honestly <3)
But as the audience, you really are supposed to be looking at Good and Evil as propaganda, not a true moral binary to simply be flipped on its head. You’re supposed to be taking two of the most recognizable fictional images of Good and Evil in media, and questioning the whole concept of Good and Evil, and how this authoritarian government was able to use these young women to embody that concept to further their own agenda, and to what degree both Glinda and Elphaba submitted to it.
And you’re supposed to be looking for the human in both Elphaba and Glinda when they’re at their worst, when they’re petty or vengeful or self-serving. You’re supposed to be rooting for them to get free of the roles they’ve been corralled into and come back to themselves, which in turn will allow them to, y’know, overthrow the government. That is actually the point of this very oddly-paced and inconsistently-toned weirdo story, that’s the reason Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters, because the evolution of their relationship from beginning to end actually addresses the main themes Wicked has laid out.
…Or! Alternatively! You can just say Elphaba is a precious pure cinnamon roll who’s a misunderstood but morally pristine freedom fighter and is also meeeee :D and Glinda is a self-obsessed fascist >:( and Fiyero’s a noble hero and martyr and should actually be the main character <3 and thank goodness Elphaba’s arc ends in being provided for by a man who loves her so she can live out the simple life she REALLY wants as wife and mother in the story of Anthony Bridgerton’s Adventures in Oz ;) Like genuinely some of you are so determined for Wicked to be about quite literally anything except what it’s about, and I’m just over here smacking my head against the wall slowly going insane.
^I am aware that this is me right now btw. like it’s fine. i know what i’m about. showin up to tumblr with my clown shoes writin my clown essays. the wicked era is over and i’m still here muttering and shaking my fist at the sky, full clown. this will still be me in the nursing home i fear. do they make nursing homes for clowns. god i hope so.
