more thoughts on "Wicked"

ok. haha this isn't just thoughts, it's a essay. there're some spoilers here, so read only if u've already read the book... i mean, the story was good and it warrants sth like this... so here goes....

to me, i think this story is abt people, the people in Elphie's life, her relationships with them, how these relationships change, and how they ffect her character and her beliefs. It is also about belief, and identit, as seen in the symbolic changing of Elphaba's name along the way-- Elphaba, Elphie, Fabala, Fae, the Witch, and finally, The Wicked Witch of the West.

I think the two characters the Witch loved the most was Glinda and Fiyero. But both in different ways. Her friendship with Glinda is the classic one, which endures and grows in spite of strong differences in class, character, and outlooks in life. For this reason, it is charming, warm and sincere. The sincereity of the friendship is touching, as is the way it blossoms to the climax: Glinda pretends Elphie is her sister to save her a seat, but at this precise climax, it is tragically broken as their different destinies, and perhaps, different choices, tear them apart. This parting is to me, the sadest one on the book, surpassed only by the final meeting between Glinda and Elphaba, where Glinda reaches out beyond her pride to Elphie, but Elphie is too blinded by her own scars and hurt and losses to reciprocate it, to see what else life still holds for her.

Boq is the classic boy-form-childhood. Perhaps he represents a simpler Elphaba, the choice she has. He represents a choice, a choice she had forsaken. he choice to live a normal quiet life. The choice to leave behind the youthful naivete in trying to change the world, even though he was involved in this revolutionary actions in his past. In the end, both choices, both lifestyles, both destinies, both friends, accuse and criticise each other, but they also secretly desire the other life perhaps, desire the alternative? Boq is the question " What If?", He is the "Could-Have-Been".

Liir is the fruit of Elphie's and Fiyero's love affair. He is also a "perhaps"; He may not be their son. Being somewhere in between (like Nessie ws to Turtle Heart's memory), Liir is a symbol of Elphie's love, love lost, her capacity for love, her potential to love. Yet, he may not even be thier son, even so, he draws out Elphie's maternal affection, again being a symbol of the vestiges of love, even as the Wicked Witch. His foolishness and brashness towards the bigger things surrounding him which he cannot change, his cruch on Dorothy, his intense determination, is a delicate portrait of Elphie in her own youth.

Doctor Dillamond seems to be a living prophecy of Elphie's life. So focused, so intense, so devoted, so much potential, but a potential cut away from its realisation.

Nanny's life also seems to mirror Elphaba's: "always the bridesmaid, never the bride." Nany and Elphie share this similarity: a tragic, tired life, where everyone they care for is taken from them, and delusionment and denial towards the end of their lives.

St Aelphaba and the Kumbric Witch are both compared to Elphie. Good vs Evil. the personal conflict. The historical conflict. The fundamental conflict. Both steeped in mystery and myth.

I think the ultimate tragedy of this story is that of a life lost in vain. One of the saddest scenes was when Boq asked "We all belived in what we were doing. We all believed we were doing good. In the end, did it all do any good?", which can be extended to Elphie's whole life. She couldn't answer. "If nothing else, we helped Doctor Dillamond..." She tries hard to justify a life, a life that has seen so much pain and loss, and suffering. A life that has caused suffering in others, but for what? Driven by what? What used to seem clear seems clear no more. Even her "murder" of Madame Morrible is a manifestation of her life in vain, her failure, a result of the desire to feel that her life amounted to something, and to justify to others in the publicity sh tries to draw around it, sucj was her insecurity in her final days. But even the "murder" seemed to mirror her failure, seemed to be a mockery of her own life, as it was of Madame Morrible's. "For All That You Have Done." inscribed on the trophy/lethal weapon seems to be as much for Elphaba as it was for Madame Morrible.

Driven by what? An unfulfilled desire for equality, for justice, for revenge? The love and attention of a negligent father? Forgiveness? release? Or the opposite, belonging? (this paradox is highlighted in her relationship with Sarima.) Or perhaps Elphie needs to understand, understand her destiny, understand what she fears, because she fears what she does not know? Or perhaps the deire to belive, to belive in an Other Land, to believe in a soul, to belive in redemption, justice and forgiveness? To belive these thigs can still be out there (symbolised by the broom, her desire to soar)or in her (symbolised by the Glass, a mirror into destiny, into herself).