Stories by Morgan Sun
Feature Editor
After leaving the movie theater for Wicked (with raucous applause and watery eyes), I overheard a young woman disparaging a certain character. “Glinda is so selfish, how could she leave Elphaba like that?”
When I first watched the musical, I felt the same. Glinda’s inability to take the literal and metaphorical leap irked me. But after years of binging “Defying Gravity” and the entire Wicked soundtrack, there’s a certain familiarity that comes with the characters.
Wicked has resonated with audiences for years, partly because it challenges our assumptions about heroism, morality, and power. At first glance, it’s easy to think of oneself as Elphaba, the misunderstood “wicked witch” who stands up against a world of injustice. But in reality, most people are more like the Munchkins — either oblivious or indifferent to the darkness around us, willing to accept the simple, comforting, and black-and-white narrative that “no one mourns the wicked.”
In the opening moments of the show, Glinda tries to stir empathy for Elphaba by pointing out how difficult her childhood was. “It couldn’t have been easy,” she says. But even with this attempt at empathy, the Munchkins return to their anthem of blind judgment. It’s much easier to sing, “No one mourns the wicked” than to confront the uncomfortable truth of a person’s humanity in the face of their apparent monstrosity.
Wicked doesn’t just show the extremes of good and evil; it shows the messiness of human response to power and oppression. Glinda sees the moral contradictions around her, but benefits too much from the existing systems of power to step away. She may recognize Elphaba’s worth, but she chooses the safer route — working within the system to change things from the inside. In her iconic song Popular, Glinda reveals her way of life: “It’s not about aptitude, it’s the way you’re viewed.”
Elphaba, on the other hand, has true, raw power. Her magic is extraordinary, and yet it’s almost irrelevant in a world that is quick to demonize her for her appearance. Her entire life has been one of rejection, and by the time the two women reach their crossroads at the end of Part One, their paths have split irrevocably. Glinda has everything to lose if she betrays the system — her popularity, her influence, and her position. Elphaba, however, has already lost it all. She becomes the tragic hero, misunderstood and cast aside — in a world governed by perception, real power is dangerous if it isn’t controlled by the “right” people.
In the words Ms. Kadri so often likes to say: What is the meaning of the work as a whole? At its core, Wicked asks us where we stand in the grand scheme of society. Are we the Munchkins, comfortable in our ignorance and willing to let the wicked be punished as long as it doesn’t affect us? Or are we like Glinda, trying to change the system from within, but hesitant to give up the privileges that come with conforming? And perhaps, on our better days, we can be like Elphaba, willing to confront the world’s ugly truths — even if it costs us everything.