#mostly tagging gretchenmaurice

[wickedlyqueer]

It's so good to my little gay heart that you can apply Glinda question Elphie leaving her to the book as well, there has always been a missing puzzle piece in their relationship, especially with those fights in the end and everything being extra painful hahahahha good memories nvm

I’ve actually screamed talked about this before with @lily-onher-grave! We’re pretty much on the same page that had Elphaba given Glinda even a fraction of a choice after confronting the Wizard, she would’ve gone with her.

Glinda is heartbroken. The way Elphaba left her is very much described as a rejection:

Elphaba hadn’t cried, of course. Her head had turned away quickly as she stepped down, not to hide her tears but to soften the fact of their absence. But the sting, to Glinda, was real.

So reading it as a rejection it makes sense that Glinda wouldn’t immediately go after Elphaba. Also, Glinda isn’t the one out of the two who would throw herself headfirst in a situation. She’s more careful and calculative, and left on her own, would rather be in circles and situations she’s familiar with. 

This also explains when she meets Fiyero in EC, she has slipped back into her society behavior. But! Underneath it, she’s still that clever girl who was the first of her village to go to Shiz.

Glinda Upland reads him in a second. He barely has to say anything and she knows he has found Elphaba. And she’s so fucking pissed about it. Because (and this is where the screaming began) ever since in the Emerald City, Glinda has probably been looking for Elphaba. Without any luck.

 Here’s some evidence for that claim for funsies:

Glinda is very desperate to try and have the old Charmed Circle back together and wants to invite them all (Crope, Fiyero, Nessa, even Avaric), either as to try to recreate her happy period in Shiz or in the hopes Elphaba would show up.

Before Fiyero can leave she asks him about Elphaba (probably because she suspects the affair she had deduced so easily might actually be with Elphaba)

Crope says he might’ve seen Elphaba once and Glinda and Fiyero are both immediately on to him and Glinda even goes a step further saying: “You never told me that Crope.” Clearly suggesting she is hawking at any information she can find about Elphaba.

When Fiyero misspeaks about the oils, Glinda’s suspicion is confirmed

Before Fiyero leaves, she again tries to meet up with him, even specifies without Crope, because: “The past seems both more mysterious and understandable with you right here before me.”

And then she says that heartbreaking “If you should see her, tell her I miss her still.” A last desperate attempt. All her cards on the table: she knows Fiyero has met Elphaba and they’re having an affair. But she hopes that if Fiyero would slip anything of Glinda’s presence to Elphaba, she would have the upperhand again. Because she would.

All this happens in three fucking pages! Dear lord. 

Then we basically don’t see Glinda again until after Nessa’s death. Over 20 years have passed and this is also part of the ‘missing puzzle piece’ you mention. We don’t get to see Glinda’s journey. She was abandoned like Nessa, and she points this out when they re-unite again. 

Gelphie is as much as what is being said as what is left unsaid. It’s reading between the lines. We actually see that Glinda and Elphaba get the best out of each other during the Shiz-era. Glinda smoothens Elphaba’s rougher edges, and Elphaba is the first person to encourage Glinda to dig deeper and be who she is instead of who society wants her to be.

The more heartbreaking it is that circumstance rips them away from each other. Leaving them both rather bitter and resentful. Understandably so, but even after all this time, they cannot stop loving each other.

When Elphaba sees Glinda, it’s described that her heart is churring. Then a few pages later we get the gayest description ever how if she remembers her youth “she could scarcely dredge up an ounce” of their meeting with the Wizard, and rather choses to remember her and Elphaba sharing a bed “how brave that had made her feel, and how vulnerable too”. jESUS WOMAN HOW GAY CAN YOU GET??

If only one of the two had moved. If only one of them had gone after the other. If only they weren’t so hellbent in believing the other couldn’t possibly feel the same way. If Elphaba had been an ounce more selfish and not wanting Glinda to be safe, but with her. If Glinda had been a bit braver to step outside her familiar comfort zone and go after what she wanted. 

We could’ve had it all and it keeps me up at night tbh…