#wicked novel

[hurble]

I remember going to see the musical back in the 2000s and immediately grabbing the three books that were a available at the time. Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Immediately I was struck by how different the material was. The musical felt downright toothache sweet compared to the grubby, political world in the books.

Plot points that seemed so important were just totally lost from the musical. Turtle Heart and his relationship with the Thropps. Elphaba's early childhood and her Nanny who remained a major character throughout the books. Elphaba being way more active in the political upheaval against the Wizard. Her love affair with Fiyero resulting in a son. Fiyero truly dying. Elphaba's fate being way more up to interpretation. The ending of the first book was downright tragic.

Immediately after reading the first book I knew that this was the world I preferred over that of the musical. I still loved the stage adaptation, but the book was just so much more real.

I genuinely recommend the books to anyone who enjoys the movie or the musical. Is it different? Extremely. But it also keeps the core idea of the adaptions while expanding it into something larger. It's a story about fighting the power that keeps the Other down. About organising and striking back. About how fascism can so easily entrench itself in society. About fighting for those whose voices are silenced.

Now that Wicked is back in the cultural zeitgeist again, I cannot wait for new people to pick up the book after seeing the movie and be fucking absolutely horrified at what they find within.

[violet-moonstone]

once more defending my love, book!elphaba thropp

reading reviews of wicked and im seeing people say they hate book elphaba because she's "unlikable"

so many people love the feel good vibes of the musical while not seeing that they sound exactly like people who would have shunned elphaba at shiz for not being pleasant enough and making them feel unsettled instead of putting them at ease

I'm saying this because I find that people are often much more charitable towards fictional characters than real people -- and people IRL who have Elphaba's severe, unwavering personality and unwillingness to conform often face the same social stigma she did, no green skin required. Like yes, Elphaba was an outcast because she had green skin, but I don't think the green skin is the point of the novel. I think her being green is a visual manifestation of being so at odds with what you're "supposed" to be that people demonize you for it. Book Elphaba is queer and hinted to be intersex. I read her as neurodivergent, so this all tracks to me, and considering that other forms of oppression and stigmatization are very important themes in the narrative, I think the green-ness simply emphasizes to the other ways in which she's marginalized.

Trying not to go into the Wicked rant that I tend to do every few months but I feel it coming on

I'm all here for critiques of the novel, because it certainly has flaws, and I understand why people don't enjoy it -- but there is something funny to me about people wanting a narrative about looking beneath the surface to find true value but hating the version of that story that requires the most compassion to appreciate. Like the musical is fun and well-made but it does not require any effort to like musical Elphaba because she's conventionally attractive woman who's feisty and kinda quirky...oh and she's also green. And her being green matters more to the other characters than to us. We don't care that she's green (because we already know it would be wrong to judge her based on that) and the musical gives us no other reasons to judge her, so we don't really have to process any complex emotions.

(Sidenote, I think if book Elphaba were still green but more conventionally attractive, bubbly, and less political, she would not have been as much of an outcast -- at least not in her later adolescence. Her green-ness could have been a novelty or spectacle that she used to her advantage if she made up for it by being more palatable in other ways. Of course, she would never do this, because that's simply not Elphaba. She could never twist herself to be anything other than who she is, even out of social self-preservation.)

Book Elphaba is so much more prickly and unpleasant --and hell, so was I at the height of my social ineptitude and feeling like there was something so so wrong with me (because why for the love of God couldn't I just fit in and act the way the cool kids my age did).

Her unpleasantness and seriousness and insistence on talking about important things that make people uncomfortable are her green-ness imo. Those are the things that affect how we as the reader experience her, and we must experience her strangeness as well.

And while I understand that if the moral of the story is essentially "don't judge a book by its cover" then yes, you can tell a thematically sound story about a girl who is actually pretty cool but just happens to be green and talk about how she's ostracized simply because she looks different. That's a perfectly fine story -- but I think it can go much further -- because it's not only wrong to marginalize people who look different, it's also wrong to marginalize those who are internally different. Difference is persecuted whether its visual or behavioural.

Even if Elphaba weren't green, there are inherent aspects of who she is that prevent her from conforming to the ideal, both in her world and ours. And I think valuing her with all of those things in mind is a lot more rewarding than simply liking her despite the fact that she's green.

Anyway I love Elphaba Thropp and I don't think her being more palatable would have made the story better — it simply would have made it more popular, and I think on that at least, fans of both the book and musical should be able to agree is not an inherently better thing.

...

OK one last point, I saw someone saw they prefer the musical because it has more "girl power" meanwhile the book feels "obviously written by a man" and I just...dear god what a surface level take

Yes Gregory Maguire is a man (oh, the horror!), but he wrote the women in Wicked as people, without hand wringing about if they're likeable or pleasant enough. They are flawed and raw and not just there to make the audience feel warm and fuzzy. He writes about sexuality without making women feel like sexual objects -- I suspect because he also writes about the sexuality of his male characters (the women aren't just in the story to turn us on) and he himself is gay, so there may be less male-gaze going on than with a lot of men who write fantasy. Yes, characters are described in sexual ways, but this happens regardless of gender.

[suzerainoflegend]

Cynthia Erivo got Mike Wazowski’d by Target

[virtualsoup]

A sneak peek mayhaps

[faythropp]

I vastly prefer discussions about the Wicked book than I do about the musical (that I've had no opportunity to see). But I am gladly going to see the Wicked musical on Thursday because it's likely the only way I'll ever get to see it. (Then I have to wait a whole year to see part two. Ugh

That being said I cannot wait for the Wicked (book) prequel next year!

[belamourelysianlimerence]

Just saw WICKED

Oh. My. OZ!

[eatingjewels]

I'm reading Wicked rn and idk if I just have lez colored glasses but... Galinda, after a night of talking and realizing elphaba is sexy in a praying mantis way is a bitch to her a poetry reading(not a gay reading just propaganda). Then when elphaba gets bummed out by seeing a childhood playmate she goes back to their shared dorm room. AND THEN GALINDA FEELs REJECTED WHNE SHE DOESN'T WANT TO TALK TO HER. THEN FEELS ASHAMED(not about being bitchy) THAT SHE EVEN FEELS REJECTED. So on and so forth toxic yuri.

[just-some-guy-at-shiz]

Fact: in the novel, Elphaba calls Fiyero “Yero, my hero” in affection. It wouldn’t make sense for her to invent this phrase if the abbreviation “yero” didn’t actually rhyme with “hero.” Therefore, I propose that, in the novel, Fiyero’s name is meant to be pronounced “fee-yee-row” instead of “fee-yay-row.” In this essay I will

[cigarettestreetlight]

So I've been reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire and oh my god I am in love. I haven't finished it yet, I'm on like page 383 or 519 but regardless of how it ends I adore this book. It's probably one of the more thought provoking books I've read in a while.

--Also, slight sidenote ig. I've heard part of the musical version before, and after getting into this book a lot (I really adore this book so far like more than I expected, like my love of the falsettos musical where I want to write 20 page essays analyzing it kind of love) I decided to listen to the musical again. I got to Popular before I couldn't take it anymore. And I'm probably biased with me getting really into the book and whatnot but I was hoping for a bit of similarity between the novel and the musical, which was my mistake. From what I heard so far it's like they kept the characters names but stripped them down to their barest elements and then twisted it more for the musicals sake. And it may be a very good musical, I'm not sure, but I have to regard it as being very separate from the book because they're ridiculously different from each other. But that's a rant for a different day and perhaps an essay I'll never end up writing.

But the point of this all comes back to Taylor Swift because that's where my mind always ends up. The blessing and curse if growing up with her music for as long as I can remember. But I was listening to Champagne Problems, and maybe it's just me being insane but it reminded me somewhat of Elphaba...

Maybe I'm insane but I think it's a pretty fitting song in some ways of what I know of Elphaba so far, even if I haven't finished the book. At the very least I think it's more fitting to her character than The Wizard and I or whatever from the musical, but that's just me.....

[knightotoc]

Animal Crossing takes place in the same universe as Gregory Maguire's Wicked because there are both animals and Animals, and some of them are made of metal or fabric. And, you can even dye your eyes to match your gown. I do seem to be standing under a rainbow, though I believe this is just a facsimile, as it has a shadow.

Perhaps our avatars are liberated Munchkins? I have often thought about how the player characters always get more power and bigger houses than the Animals, and how this wealth inequality has increased with every game. 90% of the dialogue in Pocket Camp is the Animals complimenting me and begging for a spot at my campsite. I think AC takes place in a neighboring kingdom to Oz, to which Animals fled for the promise of a conditional freedom, and we play as some sort of colonial supervisor.

[violet-moonstone]

things from the first wicked novel that aren't in wicked the musical

(keep in mind i have a very basic knowledge of the musical, so there may be some things that were included/partially included that i missed)

some of these are just fun facts...others are very upsetting or just absolutely wild

spoilers below!

two of boq's uni friends are gay (and possibly dating?)

baby elphaba was born with a full set of sharp teeth that later fell out and were replaced with regular teeth. when she was born, she bit the tip of a woman's finger off

fiyero is brown and comes from a culture distinct from those of the other students at shiz

elphaba and nessa's mother (melena) and their legal father (frexspar) were in a polycule with a man named turtle heart (implied to be nessarose's biological father)

elphaba is intersex

frexspar is a priest of unionism, a major monotheistic religion in oz that worships an entity called the unnamed god

elphaba and nessa have a younger brother called shell (who if i remember correctly is a pretty terrible person)

the wizard is a racist, authoritarian ruler

nessarose can walk but has no arms

nessarose becomes a religious zealot when she rules munchkinland. she uses magic but calls it "performing miracles"

fiyero has a wife, whom he cheats on with elphaba

elphaba meets fiyero's wife and becomes friends with her

elphaba murders a child (but he deserved it, trust me)

elphaba had a son with fiyero...who she treated pretty badly

one of elphaba's (human) uni friends had sex with a Tiger (capital first letter for sentient animals)...with...dubious consent if I remember correctly

elphaba briefly becomes a terrorist

gregory maguire (the author) predicted tiktok...kind of...im not sure if i know how to explain this coherently

[clockworkbee]

When they propose marriage, and that's the response they get. My beloved boys 😭🤌🏼

—The Wicked King, chapter 29

—The Prisoner's Throne, chapter 12

[the-patchwork-girl-of-oz]

Elphaba using the same nickname for Fiyero, her CANON love interest, that she uses for Glinda

Like okay Greg you ain’t slick

[wingzoffeather]

Ya, the novel is PG-13, AT LEAST.

I mean, I read the book when I was 15. Baby-ace me wasn't prepared for some of that lol.

[eatingjewels]

Lmao she's a reddit atheist

[just-some-guy-at-shiz]

Fanart for @the-patchwork-girl-of-oz’s chopper siblings AU

Nick: I refuse to let my brothers fight each other over a girl. Talk it out, you two.

I’m considering nicknames for the twins. They’ll both respond to Boq, but for clarification, or mostly just when they’re talking to each other:

B -> Bee | Q -> Que -> Query

I think these work well personality-wise too. Opinions?

Plus, if Oz has a Halloween equivalent, then this definitely happened when they were kids: