#madame Morrible may be less openly and cartoonishly evil in the film

[sorio99]

It’s been over a week since I last saw Wicked Part 1, but I can’t stop thinking about how blatantly and sinisterly the film portrayed Madame Morrible’s grooming of Elphaba.

Like, from the first time they meet, she does something as an authority figure that immediately makes Elphaba indebted to her, than takes her off - entirely alone, separated from literally everyone else - and offers her these incredible opportunities, everything she ever wanted, if she just abandons her current life and agrees to work with Morrible for an indeterminate amount of time and “do as you should”.

And is constantly giving this girl who has clearly been hated, mocked, and feared her entire life positive reinforcement, specifically when she does exactly what Morrible wants. Openly manipulating Elphaba’s emotions in order to, in the film, unlock her power.

And, like, it’s obvious what she’s doing, right? Making Elphaba entirely reliant on Morrible, not only for her chance to meet the Wizard, but also for the only positive relationship she’s had in her whole life up until that point. So that when the time comes, and Morrible asks her to do something deeply immoral and wrong, Elphaba has no choice but to agree.

And if it wasn’t for Dr. Dillamond, Galinda, and Fiyero, it probably would have worked.