still, life had a way of adding day to day

helen | she/her

[lesbianshadowheart]

Day 1 of being a Wicked fan: damn these girls do have a bit of a gay vibe haha

Day 556 of being a Wicked fan: in a metatextual sense, Fiyero is not a person in his own right, but rather an extension of Glinda that is allowed to act on Glinda’s own repressed desires, which means that Fiyero’s not real

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[sakurabraches]

the thing about GITB that ultimately makes the song fall flat imo is that within the song, schwartz keeps getting at the idea of glinda's bubble needing to pop and her needing to put aside that inauthentic self she's grown to rely on so heavily, but he never quite manages to touch on who, exactly, glinda is outside all of the pretense and pretending outside of vague gestures

what's most interesting about glinda, and what makes her compelling to me is the constant struggle between her internal and external self. in almost every scene she's in, we see her putting on this very elaborate performance to maintain her social status and appeal to the masses at the expense of what she knows is right and her internal thoughts/desires. her movements when she's in front of a crowd are always stiff and awkward, like she can't quite manage to fit into the perfect popular society girl she wants to be. compare this to a scene like popular, where she's much sillier and more relaxed because she can truly be herself around elphie. she often makes rash and dumb decisions in order to get people around her to like her. she gives elphaba the hat after being pressured by pfannee and shenshen. she changes her name from galinda -> glinda because she hopes that by trying to engage in the Animals cause, she'll feel less excluded from elphaba and fiyero

it quickly becomes clear that glinda is someone who's extremely insecure in herself, which is why she's constantly chasing the approval of others and is so quick to self-abandon for the sake of public praise. so her character early on leaves us wondering: what is the source of that insecurity and the need to be liked? why does she feel the need to constantly self-abandon and put forth this constructed persona in front of others? who is the girl in the bubble really when that persona is stripped away?

GITB would've been the perfect opportunity to answer these questions directly. TG establishes glinda isn't happy and longs for elphaba. INTG reprise is the first moment where she really has to directly reconcile with the consequences of her choice to stay behind. GITB wants to be a moment of growth; it serves as a moment of reflection, but ultimately one that propels her into goodness. but where the song fails imo is that it never really manages to accomplish the second. at one point, glinda asks herself who she would be if she stepped out of her bubble. in theory, i like this question because it starts to get at glinda's stuggle with internal vs external self. her finally being willing to shed the glinda the good persona and rushing to save elphie is the culmination of her character growth, and makes it all the more tragic that she'll ultimatley have to remain in the facade (at least in part) so she can help oz

but i don't think schwartz was really able to get at who exactly glinda is under glinda the good. GITB never manages to quite pop that bubble. the song lays out that the persona she puts forth is a false one ("beautiful life built on lies") and that now she can't really slip back into that persona ("its hard to unsee what you've seen"). but it doesn't really give any insight into why leaving her bubble of comfort is such a terrifying concept for glinda. solos like this in a musical are supposed to provide us deeper insights into characters, but schwartz seems unwilling or unable to dig deeper into glinda's psychology

so why has glinda been so reluctant to step out of the bubble? i personally subscribe to the closeted lesbian reading, where the bubble is synonymous with the closet. her public persona is a desire to appear as a socially desirable heterosexual woman. she loves elphaba and wants to be with her, but doing so means facing intense social scorn and isolation. the "bubble popping" means that she's finally brave enough to strip back her public persona and go to the woman that she loves. i do think the cast and crew is very aware of this reading; ariana's favorite pass time in 2024 was reposting lesbian glinda memes on her instagram story, and her being locked in a literal closet at the end of FG is just. painfully obvious. that being said, i doubt the studio would've let them explicitly touch on the whole lesbian glinda thing, and it's quite possible stephen and winnie just see her as straight cuz they're gliyero's strongest soldiers for some fucking reason

even ignoring the lesbianism of it all, there's deeper insights we could've gained into glinda's psychology, and showing her shedding those could've made GITB a much better song. take her struggle with magic. while a lot of people seem to take this as a very surface level "oh she's just upset she can't do spells and elphie can boo fucking hoo," i think on a deeper level, her inability to do magic reflects the way people don't believe she can do anything substantive. obviously glinda's very beloved and popular, but no one seems to believe in her in a more substantive way than "wow glinda you're so pretty and great." her desire for magic represents her desire to do something real, but every time she brings this up, she's shut down. morrible straight up says she has no faith in her. her mother is like "why do you need this everyone loves you. you don't need to be anything more." even elphaba in that one deleted scene dismisses glinda's wish for magic as unnecessary

and this leads to an intense feeling of powerlessness. not only does she lack magic, but people seem to agree that she's incapable of learning it. the bubble and her public persona are a way to overcompensate for this lack. if popularity is her only asset, then she has to retain it. without it, she has no power. this ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, because as long as she stays in the bubble, she can never truly reach her full potential. breaking out of the bubble is glinda's defying gravity moment, the moment where she decides that she's not going to let other people's expectations of her define her, and--magic or no magic--she's going to try and save elphie

ig my point is that GITB could've been so much more. we could've gotten a much more thorough examination of glinda's psychology, which would've made the payoff of the bubble popping far more rewarding. ariana's acting/singing and the cinematography in that scene are great. unfortunately, i don't think the song itself really does justice to her character or flush out her internal struggle in a particularly interesting and compelling way--which is a shame because she's such a compelling character

[titfairy]

"Think of what we can do. Together."

Wicked | Wicked: For Good

[rozecrest]

hold out if you can hold out my sweet -> i am married just not to a man -> as you abandoned me. you did, don’t deny it, stop those lightning bolt looks at me, i won’t have it -> you were devoted to glinda you were everyone knew -> [the night elphaba is “vanquished”] lady glinda had a bad night, a night of shakes and regret and pain; she guessed it was the early signs of gout from her rich diet. but she sat up half the night and lit a candle in a window, for reasons she couldn’t articulate. the moon passed overhead in its path from the vinkus, and she felt its accusatory spotlight, and moved back from the tall windows. -> “tell me what you need, tell me why i should help, and i’ll see what I can do. in memory of elphaba. you knew her.” her head tilted again, but up, this time, and it was to keep the sudden wetness from spilling into her carefully colored false eyelashes. “you knew my elphie!” + her hands reached out hungrily for the cape and rubbed its hem, as if it were leaves of thyme or hyssop. + glinda reached out and took the charred broomstick and cradled it. -> “oh, oh,” she managed, “i don’t know that i’ll see you again…and you remind me so of her.” + “her power was only part of it,” said glinda. “she was brave, and so are you.” -> [at the mauntery of saint glinda] i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised to find you here. after all, elphaba was here for a while, you know. it’s one of the reasons i like to support it. + glinda raised her chin. “no, liir. she lives. people sing of her. you wouldn’t guess it, being you—but they do. there’s a musical noise around her name; there are things people remember, and pass on.” + you refuse to be consoled, don’t you? well, that’s as much proof as i could ever need that you’re kin to her. she was the same way. the very same way. -> “didn’t elphaba trust you once to try? it’s your turn.” / i don’t mention her name,” said glinda. not coldly, but in deference.” -> her thoughts returned to elphaba thropp. It was more than fifteen years since they had parted ways. what an uncommon friendship they had had—not quite fulfilling. yet nothing had ever taken its place. years later, when that boy liir had shown up at glinda’s house in the emerald city, she had known him at once for elphaba’s son, though he seemed in some doubt on that matter. (children.) he had had elphaba’s broom, after all, and her cape. more to the point, he had had her look: that look both haunted and thereby abstract, but at the same time focused. a look like a spark on a dry winter’s day, that staticky crackle and flash that leaps across the air from finger to the iron housing of the servant’s bell. -> she didn’t believe she dreamed of elphaba; she didn’t have the kind of aggravated imagination that loitered in dreams. maybe she dreamed of a door opening, and elphaba coming back from the afterlife. to settle glinda’s consternation; to save her. or maybe this wasn’t a dream, just a foundational longing.-> for a moment, or ten, she was back in shiz, darting up some alley of flowering quinces, racing elphaba to the fountain at the back of the quad. elphaba was glowing with the effort—glowing emerald!—and glinda, in her dream, was almost absent to herself, caught up in admiring her friend. it happened so seldom, vacating the prison of one’s limited apprehensions. even dreams seemed ego-heavy, she thought as she was waking. but oh, to see elphaba, even in dreams, is both reward and punishment, for it reminds me of my loss. -> “here i go.” please, lurlina, please. or the unnamed god. anyone who might be paying attention. elphaba. -> “besides, i was hardly a stranger. i had known your grandmother. we were like this.” she twinned her second and third fingers together as if they might strangle each other. -> her glasses had broken a year ago. she didn’t need them anymore, not really. she knew who was turning the door handle of her cell. she called her name sleepily, and added, “you wicked thing. you’ve taken your own sweet time, of course.”

[kisseism]

"omg you remembered!" of course i did. I have a file on you

[telecaster-ringmaster]

Fox Mulder

[romansroys]

Josh Lyman in sunglasses appreciation post

[awsok]

I'm starting a collection (X, X, X, X, X)

BONUS:

[lady-glinda]

Who up mourning the wicked?

[titfairy]

- Elphaba Thropp

Wicked For Good

[lady-glinda]

Minimal context book Glinda quotes

[just-your-average-shiz-student]

✨ 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖂𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝕺𝔃 ✨

[sakurabraches]

morrible officiating glinda and fiyero's wedding is actually a subtle reference to wicked the novel where she imposes a vision of heterosexual sex onto glinda, which freaks glinda out so much she collapses into elphaba's arms and wants elphaba to ravish her in the middle of the street and is only normal again after elphaba says i love you

[forgelphie]

the few things glinda has left of her elphie

[gelphienation]

Have been dealing with so much personal bullshit that I literally forgot that wicked for good movie 2025 has a scene where Elphaba is like “I love you” to Glinda and pushes her back into the closet and Glinda says I love you too and then Elphaba shuts the door and there’s a scene that goes on for a very long time where they’re having a sort of tenrose moment that made Jon m Chu think god was speaking to him and then they show Glinda crying in the closet for about five minutes afterwards

[perigrin]

glinda upland nose scrunch. send tweet.

[sakurabraches]

she is so cutieful i get why elphaba's like That

[oddly-romantic]

“what good is this chanting? i don’t even know what im reading” PUT! ON! YOUR GLASSES!