"No One Mourns the Wicked" is about Glinda, not Elphaba
Okay, but hear me out. Wicked songs are so good at saying one thing and meaning something entirely different once you have more context.
For instance, "I'm Not That Girl" is Elphaba singing about Glinda initially, then in Act 2 flips to Glinda singing about Elphaba. Because it turns out, Elphaba IS that girl and Glinda is not.
When we meet the Wizard, he sings about how he always wanted to be a father. When you get to Act 2, you get the sad little reprise in the background music as he realizes that WHOOPS, he was one and he destroyed his only kid.
"Defying Gravity" starts with "I hope you're happy" in the sarcastic sense and ends with them both using the same phrase to genuinely wish one another well.
"Thank Goodness" is set up as a cheerful engagement song where Glinda genuinely means "thank goodness for how great my life is" and ends in a place where she's insisting that she IS happy even as she realizes her engagement is a sham, her best friend is gone, and she's left with the Wizard and Madame M, who she doesn't even like.
Basically, the whole musical is about subverting what you expect, starting with the base premise of "what if the Wicked Witch was the hero of the story" and digging in from there.
Honestly, I'd never paid much attention to the first song. It's a good opener, sets things up well, but it has some big competition with later songs. However, in the movie the staging and camera choices made me really notice it for the first time. Because you know what? Someone DID pay attention to that song, and you can really really tell.
For those who need a refresher, the lyrics to the chorus Glinda sings are:
And Goodness knows
The Wicked's lives are lonely
Goodness knows
The Wicked die alone
It just shows when you're Wicked
You're left only
On your own
I was always so busy noticing Glinda's grief over thinking Elphaba was genuinely dead that I failed to notice Glinda's grief over her OWN fate. The movie did such a good job with this because every time we get to the pink lines about being alone, Glinda IS alone. She is standing apart from the crowd who adores her. Standing above them. Standing at the center of a bunch of people yet still, isolated.
Because in the end, we know that Elphaba DIDN'T die alone. We know she wasn't on her own. We know her life WASN'T lonely ultimately. She had her flying monkey and animal friends. She had Fiyero.
And who does Glinda have?
Everyone, but realistically, no one. She is an ideal, not a person to most of Oz, just as much as Elphaba has become the token scapegoat. Where Elphaba is the "Wicked Witch," Glinda is "Glinda the Good Witch" - she is literally supposed to be the embodiment of goodness.
And what does Glinda have at the end of this whole thing (as of this song at least)? A disastrous end to her engagement, the death of her best friend, a sorceress who has hated her, demeaned her, and dismissed her from the start, and a con man who is also just a symbol more than a person.
I think it really hit me when Glinda throws the fire on the giant effigy of Elphaba. Ariana's acting was SO good there, because I'd expected us to see that private moment of horror or regret. What I didn't expect was the sort of determined and almost angry glare at the effigy.
But it makes sense. At this point, Glinda has realized that she lost everything and everyone she actually cared about.
As she so aptly puts it in "Thank Goodness"...
Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated.
But I couldn't be happier,
Simply couldn't be happier,
Well, not "simply"
'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little, well, complicated.
There's a kind of a sort of cost.
There's a couple of things get lost.
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed!
And if that joy, that thrill
Doesn't thrill like you think it will
Still--
With this perfect finale,
The cheers and the ballyhoo!
Who wouldn't be happier?
So I couldn't be happier,
Because happy is what happens
When all your dreams come true.
Happy is what happens when you're dreams come true.
It's not Elphaba's fault that Glinda has ended up this way. Glinda chose it every step of the way. Yet, if Glinda had never met Elphaba, (if she'd never known her, you could say), she might have stayed shallow and vain. She might never have been challenged to look deeper and realize how empty it all felt.
So as Glinda sings "No One Mourns the Wicked," she realizes that even if the Munchkins are singing about the "Wicked Witch," she's not.
She's singing about herself.
The one who traded her morals, friendship, and love for a taste of the admiration and power over those who don't really know her. The one who was so worried about being likable that she herself doesn't like who she's become.
Even after she makes things better for Oz and herself by sending the wizard away and getting rid of Madame M, it just leaves Glinda by herself as the leader and source of goodness in Oz. It leaves her on a pedestal she can never step off of.
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