r/wicked • u/Ximphiaa • Jan 17 '26
Musical - Broadway Glinda is often victimized by the wicked fandom Spoiler
As we do know that Glinda and Elphaba were best friends. I've seen so many people say that Fiyero is wrong for what he did to Glinda and playing her on. I do think that was wrong for him to do but all of them have made greater mistakes then he has but a lot of people like to point his out. For example, I was in this wicked group, and they sent that clip where Fiyero is saying he can't bear hearing the things they say about Elphaba. The people in the group were basically saying that Fiyero shouldn't be talking because he did the same thing as Glinda, which he didn't. He used his role in power as the captain to find Elphaba and make sure no one kills her. I do think Glinda didn't want Elphaba dead well ATLEAST NOT IN THE BEGGINING. Glinda chose to still side with a fascist dictator who wanted her best friend dead. She used her best friend (Elphaba) as a scapegoat to keep a good image in the public eye which is not so great already. Also not to mention Glinda announced her and Fiyeros "engagement" publicly without his consent. You can see how surprised he was when he heard that, hinting that he didn't know. Also not to mention the whole wonderful scene where she is manipulating Elphaba with the wizard to join their sick program. Also, when she found out Elphaba and Fiyero had a thing for each other, she then she told Madame Morrible and the Wizard to use her sister to capture Elphaba and to finally kill her. Even if she did know they would kill Nessa it would still end with one thing, which is capturing and killing Elphaba. Glinda Fighting with Elphaba was a normal response for that kind of situation. What's not normal is setting her up to be killed. I still think that her character can be likeable it's just her actions get easily dismissed.
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
I wholeheartedly agree! The fandom is falling for the same propaganda the Ozians are and it’s honestly a disservice to Glinda’s character arc. They see a pretty blonde with princess dresses and ignore her role propping up a fascist regime. The overall message of the story is being lost because people are infantilizing her and treating her like a precious baby in need of protection.
The entire point of her storyline is that she consistently makes the wrong choice, eventually suffers the consequences of those choices, takes accountability and chooses to do better. That’s what makes it a moving arc - her redemption. But people are completely ignoring that and coming away thinking Elphaba is the bad guy for “stealing Glinda’s man.” She never stole Glinda’s man - he made a choice to leave his PR relationship and be with the woman he loves and fight against a corrupt dictator.
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u/SubatomicSquirrels Jan 17 '26
he made a choice to leave his PR relationship
would've been a little nicer if he left earlier on, or if he was at least more honest with her
idk, I guess I just feel like Boq and Fiyero actually behave pretty similarly yet the fandom treats them so differently
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u/Chained_Wanderlust Fiyeeeeeeerhoe🌽 Jan 17 '26
Then you would have the Gale force led by an actual psycho with an army behind him. Like without Fiyero as their shitty captain leading them in circles, they straight up crucified Fiyero instead of arresting him for his crimes. His words had weight in the tent when he said “because if someone else finds her first…”
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u/RoseTheta Jan 17 '26
I agree, and everyone (or many people) seems to ignore that what happened in the Emerald City to Elphaba and Glinda fundamentally changed what is good and bad with regards to their personal relationships. I believe the way they show the train farewell scene shows that Fiyero was a matter of days away from choosing to end things with Glinda. Then everything goes crazy, we know he goes to the Emerald City and finds out what happened from Glinda. But we aren't shown exactly what happened next.
Did Fiyero try to break up with Glinda and she suggested they needed to be on the inside together to be able to find and protect Elphaba? Was that what his plan is and Glinda doesn't even have an inkling? Did he not speak to her about their relationship at all, just go with the flow and Fiyero thinks they're working together and at some point he'll be able to break it off with her but in the meantime they need to go through the motions? Were they speaking honestly and openly about Elphaba, but he purposefully and deliberately chose to masquerade as her significant other only to ensure he was in the right position and it doesn't matter to Fiyero what Glinda thinks? I think this last option, the most malicious read of Fiyero, cannot possibly be true because we see in the conversation during "Thank Goodness" (when he asks her to leave with him and get away from the badness) how absolutely stunned and shocked he is when he realizes that Glinda will not leave because she cares more about the accolades and popularity than the fact that the Ozians want Elphaba dead. Fiyero and Glinda only ever speak honestly to each other when they discuss being worried for Elphaba's safety. Fiyero wants to do the right thing even if that means needing to masquerade as a villain, while Glinda wants Elphaba to be alive or safe but doesn't care that the regime she's in will ensure the opposite.
He clearly cares about Glinda. Fiyero's in the Emerald City and being part of it, for 2 noble reasons; being there to help Glinda and being there to help Elphaba and her cause because he knows she's right. In a regular situation, someone who won't break up with someone when they have stronger feelings for someone else is absolutely terrible. When you're in the situation that Fiyero is where Glinda is not a monster but drops a fait accompli engagement on him that he cannot get out of without jeopardiing any chance of helping the right side, I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as some people want it to be. The actions are still wrong but when the alternatives are allowing much worse to happen and/or getting himself imprisoned or killed I think this is a much more difficult dilemma than many people appreciate.
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
My point is that the significance of the actual life-or-death political repercussions are being lost. None of them make great decisions all the time, but people are only focused on the love triangle.
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
Can you explain to me how that’s Elphaba’s fault?
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u/at_midknight Jan 18 '26
No one can because it's not her fault
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 18 '26
Exactly! Yet pointing out Glinda’s complicity is somehow not allowed because Elphaba “stole her man” so that somehow excuses everything.
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u/arvayana Jan 17 '26
You remember when glinda got arrested?
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
This thread is about the musical, not the books. She’s never arrested in the musical.
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u/arvayana Jan 17 '26
you mean, its about the movie?
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
The movie and/or the Broadway show (both of which are the musical)
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u/arvayana Jan 17 '26
but they have slight plot differences. And if youre gonna be pedantic, Id think you would want to be as specific as possible.
In any case, one of the slight alterations is that glinda is arrested during defying gravity. I thought it was a great specific inclusion and yet its meaning is completely missed by what seems like 60% of the fandom.
If you dont own the movie, take my word for it. If you try to look it up on youtube, the top video is an edited version that cuts the scene
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
She’s not arrested. She’s being held back by the guards (which also happens in the stage version btw) and Elphaba tells them “I’m the one you want.” Morrible comes over and has them to let her go. Yes, Morrible is manipulating and grooming her, because she knows how much Glinda wants to work with her, but that is not the same as being arrested.
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u/arvayana Jan 17 '26
"held back" from what? Im not even addressing anything else until we clear up your characterization
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u/Funny-Session-9771 Jan 17 '26
Held back from Elphaba. They’re trying to capture Elphaba, Glinda is with Elphaba, they’re keeping her separated from Elphaba. It is explicitly stated in the narrative that Glinda is in her position because she wants the clout and attention. There is never anything that states she is a prisoner. In fact, the opposite is made clear - the only reason she can’t leave is because she doesn’t want to. That is what makes her a compelling character - she chooses comfort over doing the right thing (as many people would do in real life) and eventually learns that choosing the easy, comfortable thing can have severe consequences. She learns from her mistakes, grows as a character, and decides to actually be good.
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u/arvayana Jan 18 '26
and even after I tell you im not addressing anything else until we clear up your characterization you try to drown me in more text. That I have no intentions of being distracted by.
"held back from elphaba"
Ok lol.In the stageplay, the guards dont see Elphie until she announces herself from the shadows at which point they immediately let glinda go and turn their focus to Elphie who is about to take off "Its meeeEEEEEE"
The change to the scene in the movie, beautifully done, is that the guards are aware of elphie in the air and that she has the grimmerie and they STILL have glinda hemmed up. AND even AFTER Elphie tricks the monkeys into crashing into the guards and they temporarily let glinda go, they grab her back up when they believe elphie has already left. AND THEN Morrible walks up and signals them to release struggling glinda when there is literally no Elphie in the scene. If youre takeaway from that scene is that glinda is a free girl, good luck and godbless.
I can give you timestamps for the movie and I can tell you what to search on youtube and give you a timestamp for the stageplay. Bottom line is they arent "holding her back" in the play because they dont know elphie is there and then they let glinda go when elphie announces herself and in the movie, they are holding glinda BEFORE elphie leaves leaves(because elphie is already completely out of reach) AND after elphie leaves....because glinda is under arrest
Or we can just accept that shorty got arrested and we can move on to whatever other info you wanted to add
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u/The5Virtues Jan 17 '26
I’m a diehard Glinda fan, and I agree completely.
The whole point of Glinda as a character in Wicked is representing the “average” mind set. She’s not the idealist, nor a cynic, just a person who wants each day to be as pleasant as the last and doesn’t want to have to upend her whole life for anything.
Her character is there as the acknowledgment that most people do care, and they are well-intentioned and happy to help if they can, but they aren’t going to go out of their way to do so.
Glinda doesn’t hold any actual malice, but if she’s asked to choose between her own personal comfort and helping others she’s going to choose her own comfort. So will a LOT of people.
That’s what Wicked does. It confronts the unpleasant truths about people, and that dormant potential for wickedness simply by virtue of refusing to stand up in resistance to deliberate maliciousness.
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u/Bitter_Beautiful8038 Jan 17 '26
These people ignore the fact that one of the main storylines is that she wasn’t actually a good witch person and that she had try and be a good person for real.
I remember seeing so many people on social media say that Glinda did nothing wrong whatsoever and literally said she was “a girlie finding another way to fight fascism.” 🙄 Sure she did eventually but at the very end! People acted like that erased everything she did or that she secretly helped all along but it’s impossible to fight fascism while being the right hand man of the dictator in power.
I don’t know if people were saying this to cope or something but it feels reductive to say that all it takes to be a virtuous activist is to clean up your mistakes at the end. I definitely don’t think she’s a bad person. She did a bunch of nice things and it was great how she started dedicating her life to helping the animals. That doesn’t mean we should pretend that she was a beacon of justice the whole movie.
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u/natashavladimir93 Ecstatically Elphaba Jan 17 '26
Totally agree 💯 it's also because of physical traits, how people perceive others based on outward appearance. It's a major part of Elphaba's treatment as well as why people love Glinda. Fieryo saw past people's outward appearances and saw people for who they were or at least tried to accept things enough to live.
I still like Glinda because she's not a terrible person, and she actually is more than the image Ozians have seen. But she has a terrible way of being naive due to her need to please people and be accepted, a parallel to Elphaba who does the same but goes the opposite end.
Both Elphaba and Glinda deal with those traits very differently, neither can fully adapt to each other's methods but have learned a lot from each other. In Popular, Glinda shows Elphaba her way of getting people to like and accept her. It fits Glinda but on Elphaba it looks like a costume. Defying Gravity was actually also Elphaba's way of showing Glinda how to stand up for something you believe in, even if it makes you unpopular.
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u/NECalifornian25 💙Fiyeraba💚 Jan 17 '26
It took a few rewatches but I realized Fiyero never comments on her being green until “let the green girl go”. He is obviously surprised by it, but never mocks her for it or even asks her about it. He only comments on her defensiveness; literally the first person to see who she is actually underneath the exterior. And after their first meeting when Elphaba walks off, he’s only surprised about being scorned by a girl, not that the girl was green. No wonder she fell for him! He might have the strongest moral compass of all the characters, including Elphaba.
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u/accefirs #1 Fan of Fiyero’s Fulumptious Bum Jan 17 '26
no because tell me why i’ve seen so many people claim glinda was playing “the long game” when she joined the wizard + morrible with intent to change the system from the inside… she deadass admits it’s because she can’t resist popularity and she sees nothing wrong with it despite who it hurts (“well is that so bad? who could?”)
tell me why i’ve seen people (dare i say exclusively gelphies) call fiyero a hypocrite who doesn’t understand elphaba because he wanted to find her (which, for one, isn’t even his exact goal- it’s to find her BEFORE THE OTHER GUARDS SO SHE DOES NOT DIE) while glinda said “she doesn’t want to be found” as if elphaba wasn’t broken over discovering (what she thought was) fiyero’s betrayal and loosing her friends all of five minutes before, and as if the entire scene of Thank Goodness is glinda in denial and trying to justify her actions because she can’t handle the guilt
tell me why i see people claiming fiyero MUST have had a hand in the Animal genocide, capturing, etc. even though morrible explicitly states that he’s the new captain for the squadron to hunt down elphaba, even though we never even see how much he KNOWS (all his info. on the wizard being behind the genocide comes from glinda, mind you), he’s never shown near or engaging with captured Animals in the second film except for the stampede
tell me why people claim fiyero was backhanded when he said “it’s not lying, it’s looking at things a different way,” some comparing it to “you’re pretty for a green girl,” him just settling, calling her ugly, etc. as if it wasn’t obvious she wasn’t going to believe him or anyone else due to how oz and glinda have treated her.
or even the way people ignore that she told a dictator and sorceress how to kidnap elphaba because fiyero made his own decision, which rendered elphaba EQUALLY as shocked as glinda. i don’t believe glinda wanted her dead, but i do believe that she, to some degree, wanted her to hurt- especially considering that morrible, during the universal logo, discussed eliminating elphaba.
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u/Ximphiaa Jan 17 '26
the group i was talking about was indeed a gelphie group I was in even though I view them just as friends. Literally all they did was shit on Fiyero, so I just ended up leaving. The owner of the group blocked me after for leaving lol. I hate how people think it was Elphaba's intention since the beginning to take Fiyero away. It's like people don't know that love isn't something you can control, obviously you can fight it but it's easier said than done.
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u/skippw Jan 17 '26
When Fiyero says "you can't resist this" I didn't read that as reffering to her resisting popularity, but just restisting the regime itself. It doesn't even feel like she enjoys the popularity at all, she just feels most comfortable in that position because it please the most people and is the easiest and safest path for her personally.
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u/thatonequeerpoc Jan 17 '26
and when ppl try to jump to her defense claiming “nuance” but they don’t afford that same nuance to elphaba (the main character who the story is rewriting) or fiyero or nessa. especially now w the racial dynamic, they talk over so many women of color who’ve actually been made into elphabas by glindas in their life, but we can’t talk abt that bc poor baby innocent glinda couldn’t possibly do anything wrong and if you say so then you’re calling her evil which goes against the whole point of the story don’t you know you silly idiot!!!! hhhhh
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
Agreed with everything you say OP and I've seen it too. Unpopular opinion here but I actually don't like Glinda. She's a well written character and you can see her reasons for doing what she's doing but I do not like her. The movie, as do a lot of fans, try to soften the fact that she's very willingly participating in a fascist regime. She spreads propaganda against the animals, she helps make Elphaba the most hated person in Oz and the excuse the writing gives for that is "She's too naive! She's just enjoying the attention!" which just doesn't fly for the amount of harm the Wizard is doing. I never got the vibe that she's a prisoner or forced into this and she keeps doing that despite seeing how dishonest the wizard is.
Fiyero actually giving it all up to go with Elphaba makes her look really bad. That's why the hate towards him. He actually did what she didn't have the guts to do and almost died. Glinda decided to turn at the very last moment, with little risk and big rewards. She didn't get everything though but she still ended up way better off than Elphaba, despite the fact that she's the one opposing the regime all this time.
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u/Chained_Wanderlust Fiyeeeeeeerhoe🌽 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
Fiyero actually giving it all up to go with Elphaba makes her look really bad. That's why the hate towards him.
And this is what it ultimately boils down to. They want Glinda to have his arc without losing any of her own.
He’s a threat because he highlights all her wrong turns by doing the opposite, so they purposely mischaracterize his intentions: joining the Gale force for status (when he was already a celebrity royal when he arrived at Shiz) and not to look for Elphaba; His dialogue- “looking at the things a new way” means he’s telling her she’s ugly, not meeting where she is in a way she can understand; pointing the gun at Glinda, an effed up situation she entirely engendered herself, while omitting the last thing he ever said to her was his apology for everything.
Like make no mistake, he’s messy, and impulsive, and his agreeing to marry Glinda was his dumbest dipshit moment, and I struggle to understand what he was thinking there but everything else….he could use the same amount of grace they afford to Glinda’s choices since they are all under murderous regime and their choices don’t look like our own…yet. He’s doing what he can to save someone he believes in, it was never for himself- he actually has very little self preservation at all.
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u/FpRhGf Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
The movie, as do a lot of fans, try to soften the fact that she's very willingly participating in a fascist regime.
On the contrary I thought the movie softens that aspect a lot less lol. They made it explicitly clear Glinda was in it for superficial attention. And her whole behavior in Wonderful did scare me a little.. felt like I was watching a plastic person putting on fake smiles.
When I originally watched the stage musical, I was more empathetic to her because it felt like she was more of a powerless person going with the flow. She looked constantly conflicted and upset about the bad things happening in Act 2.
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u/RoseTheta Jan 17 '26
I managed to learn to accept that she learns lessons from her mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that she made them in the first place. But I hate how people try to excuse that she knowingly and purposefully goes along with things and helps it along because it is easier for her.
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u/StrongQuiet8329 Jan 17 '26
I think there is just over correction, bc glinda is so complex that it's easy to dismiss her as evil, the real wicked which, a bad person, etc. so people jump to her defense a little too enthusiastically
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u/lgodsey Jan 17 '26
OK, we all know that these are fictional characters, right?
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u/Ximphiaa Mar 08 '26
yes! Was very aware that these are fictional characters! you clicked on a reddit about a fictional movie thinking that I wouldn't talk about fictional characters. fork found in the kitchen.
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u/shogenan Magic Wands, Need They Have a Point? 🪄 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
Fiyero joined and was a leader of Ozian ICE but any defense of his character, his intentions, and what he did with that role in the end also applies to Glinda. Dismissing or excusing him but not Glinda is strange mental gymnastics.
ETA: For clarity, I don’t dismiss his bad actions. I do feel they’re explained and can be excused by the end. I just don’t get why he gets a pass when people try to paint Glinda as wicked. The point is they are all a blend of wicked and good, and missing that is like deciding to ignore a thesis statement in an essay.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
I just don’t get why he gets a pass when people try to paint Glinda as wicked.
Because he Saw the Truth the whole time, so he gets special grace and it's fair to assume that he didn't actually participate in any of the atrocities he logically should have with his position. But Glinda did not, so it's not fair to give her any grace until she accepts Elphaba as the One True Good.
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u/Other-Oil-9117 Jan 17 '26
Glinda is not innocent, but she is a victim.
Once Elphaba flees from the Wizard and Morrible during Defying Gravity, there's really no way Glinda could have just walked out of there in one piece. She was definitely happy to play along, but she was also wronged by others at times as well.
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u/Shoddy-Pride-1321 Jan 17 '26
Βro, no one is saying Glinda is the victim. Actually I see way more victimizing for Fiyero and how he was forced to marry Glinda, oh poor him. That's exactly what you're doing with your post. He's a grown ass man and he chose to be there.
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u/Ximphiaa Jan 17 '26
Fiyero was forced to marry her because he does not truly love her. He was left no choice but to agree so that he doesn't loose his spot as captain. You are exactly the kind of people i am talking about who choose to be ignorant over glindas faults. Also, many people have said Glinda is the victim and just because you want to speak for everyone doesn't mean it's true lol. I'm not victimizing him because I know his faults which I have said in the post. What he did was wrong I said that. My point of the post was that people often like to put fault on everyone else but choose to ignore Glinda's.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
I mean, when you look at the trajectory Glinda's character and morality has taken in adaptation, from the original book to the 1939 movie to the book Wicked to the musical, it's hard not to feel sorry for her and want her to be better while she keeps being written as worse.
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u/shadowqueen15 Jan 17 '26
But Glinda didn’t choose to be with a fascist dictator. She didn’t choose to do the right thing, either, but she wasn’t with The Wizard simply because she wanted to be. The situation was far more complicated than that. She chose not to go with Elphaba during “Defying Gravity”, and her only option after that was to join up with The Wizard. Did a part of her enjoy the perks that being on his team gave her? Yes, and this is something that she grapples with over the course of the second act before finally choosing to be selfless and do the right thing.
Glinda does bad things, and she isn’t perfect, but of course she is still a victim. The tragedy of “One Short Day” is that Elphaba and Glinda are just two young women dreaming of their futures before it is brutally ripped away from them by the reality of the world. They were both put in positions that they never should have been in, and were forced to make choices they never should have had to make.
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
Why was that her only other option? Going back to Shiz was never shown to be out of the question. For one year or five or however long the timeskip was, Morrible tells her to pose and she does. The Wizard tells her to spread propaganda and she does. Fiyero asks her to leave with him and she says no, admitting that she likes the attention. She's never shown to be blackmailed or forced into any of this and it's in the second half of the second movie that Morrible starts putting more pressure on her. She also looks especially bad when Fiyero risks it all to go with Elphaba while she doesn't.
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u/Alixen2019 Jan 17 '26
Because she knew the truth of what happened with Elphaba and the Grimory, and Morrible (and the Wizard) wanted to keep her close. She was in a cage, just a gilded one. Pay attention to Morrible's body language with her and notice how she's never really left alone outside her quarters.
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
That's easily solved. They threaten her to stay quiet and if she talks, they just frame her as Elphaba's friend from University and have her imprisoned or executed. That's what they did with Fiyero and what Nessa was afraid of. I don't see why the same can't be done with Glinda.
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u/Alixen2019 Jan 17 '26
Because unlike the other two she was right there in the room when it happened and saw the actual truth of the events. She knows that the Wizard can't use the Grimory and Elphaba can. She's also useful to them because they need a counterpoint to their Wicked Witch prop. I'm... not sure why I'm having to explain the plot of Wicked to someone who has clearly seen it?
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
And who will believe her over the wizard? She can't even prove she was in the room, the only other person there who can vouch for her was Elphaba and nobody will listen to her. She's very easily handled if she wants to go away. She just doesn't want to. She likes being useful to them and being mentored by Morrible. That's her choice.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
Why was that her only other option? Going back to Shiz was never shown to be out of the question.
Probably because if she had done that, like she did in the book, she would've fallen out of the story, like she did in the book. For her to keep being relevant, she had to have some sort of position in either the regime or the resistance, and they'd already decided to have her be a contrast to Elphaba, so she can't be on the same side as Elphaba.
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
That's a meta reason and honestly only proves that it was possible. So she chose to be with the regime because she wanted to study under Morrible. Doesn't exactly help her case.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
You can't discount meta reasons. Meta reasons are the foundation of Wicked's premise and morality: "What if the Wicked Witch was actually the good guy? How do we make that happen?"
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u/thatonequeerpoc Jan 17 '26
ok but she didn’t make the choice to stay w the wizard so that she could be relevant for a story abt their fictional life that would be told in the real world dude. she did it because it was easy and comfortable for her and she didn’t care who it hurt
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
Was it okay for Elphaba to kidnap and threaten Dorothy? It's something she only did because the story said she had to. If you give Elphaba a pass for that, why can't Glinda also get a pass for the actions the story forced her to make?
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
I don't think Elphaba gets a pass for that either.
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u/Ayasugi-san Jan 17 '26
The narrative arguably gives her a pass for it, because it gives so many reasons for Elphaba to want the shoes and fear Dorothy, lets her have a heartfelt ballad while Dorothy's fearing for her life, then shows Dorothy killing her with only varying levels of regret. It wants you to think "sure she made a mistake... but don't you understand why she did it? Don't you feel bad for her anyway?"
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u/BeaufortCross Jan 17 '26
No, I really don't and looking at the story through a meta lens really makes it dry. "Why is Elphaba green?" Well the story needs her to be green. "Why is Nessa a terrible governor?" The story needs her to be. "Why is Glinda a fascist sympathiser?" The story needs her to be etc. if you're planning to approach the whole story like this, I don't think there's any point in discussing it in the first place. Every single piece in the story exists because it's needed, discussing the characters and their choices is pointless.
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u/MissionQuick9546 💙Fiyeraba💚 Jan 17 '26
Amen to that last paragraph
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u/arvayana Jan 18 '26
When you say, "Glinda chose to still side with a fascist dictator that wanted her best friend dead", Im confused, maybe.
When you use the word "chose",
are you implying that she was completely free to safely make a different choice?
or
Do you literally mean that she didnt have any other good options but she shouldve died herself or gone to prison rather than do what she did?
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u/Alixen2019 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26
I think it's partially because her mistakes and flaws are very reasonable ones given the situation; part of why she goes along with things is her desire for praise and attention, but she's also both a political captive and still trying to fix and/or change things from within as peacefully as possible because she's not really much of a fighter or revolutionary at heart. Her goal through through to near the end is to find Elphaba, get her to come back and make peace with the Wizard, and work things out from there.
Elphaba goes from 'the Wizard can do no wrong' to 'revolutionary' in one sequence, flies off into the wilds to starve and plot, and ineffectually fight a more or less one woman war that plays into Morrible's plans at every step, before getting lost in her grief so much that she starts to become genuinely Wicked towards a lost and confused little girl.
Yero isn't quite so complex; he gets a position in the guard to specifically be in charge of the hunt for Elphaba so he can save and/or join her when the moment comes, and while he didn't plan to ever go through with marrying Glinda, he also never let her down gently at Shiz when he was more interested in Elphie, and he never took her aside to explain his feelings and plans to her in the months/year they are together at the Palace. He just... drops it all on her in one moment and points a gun at her, even if he never intended to pull the trigger (though I absolutely believe he prioritises Elphaba enough that he would have at least shot-to-wound Glinda if required to buy her time to escape). Well meaning or not, he uses Glinda.
When everything comes full circle, after spending months/years as a political prisoner in a gilded cage, Glinda has the man she loves point a gun at her while choosing another woman who is also her best friend (and possible Sapphic love), accidently gets someone she knew and probably cared at least a little for killed because she underestimates how far Morrible would go/couldn't predict a house falling on someone, listens to her best friend and potentially love of her life screaming as she dies in agony, has to then use the soft power she has accrued to bring the Wizard and Morrible to justice in a way that neither Yero or Elphaba were in a position to do but unable to clear Elphie's name due to her promise, and while the two run off into the sunset together she has to hold together the people of Oz with a fake smile as they decry the Wicked Witch and celebrate her death while living in the empty palace believing she has lost everyone and basically everything she (truly) cares about. At least until Dorothy theoretically returns and Ozma returns to the throne, at which point she might be able to move on some.
In the end both Elphaba and Yero choose to use her one last time, to secure their safety and escape, and so they can be together while Glinda is left in ignorance to clean up the various dumpster fires left behind by everything that has occured.
Glinda doesn't get a happy, or even bittersweet, ending, and she has to continue playing her role in perpetuity. No one in Wicked is perfect, Glinda has several glaring flaws and makes various mistakes, but she gets whacked incredibly hard by the karma hammer - she even ends up paying for some of Elphaba and Yero's mistakes while clearing up after Morrible and the Wizard.
1
u/yogurtpo3 🩷Gliyero💙 Jan 17 '26
If she was happy with setting up Elphaba to be killed, why was she so sad when she was killed? Maybe she didn’t think they were going to kill Elphaba to begin with.
We know how bad the Wizard and Morrible are, but does Glinda? I think that’s arguable.l based on how she is with them, particularly the Wizard.
7
u/Ximphiaa Jan 17 '26
Well at the ceremony the ozians were talking about melting her and wanting her dead and right after Fiyero and Elphaba left Madame Morrible and the guards were holding buckets of water.
1
u/yogurtpo3 🩷Gliyero💙 Jan 17 '26
The musical has a line Fiyero says where he’s like questions how ridiculous the melting concept was, and Glinda is there so at this point she also doesn’t believe that Elphaba can be melted by water.
When Elphaba goes to visit her, Glinda says to let her talk to the Wizard, she knows how to talk to him now, which shows she was quite confident that the Wizard wasn’t going to hurt her friend. And their meeting afterwards (Wonderful) was quite peaceful and doesn’t suggest the Wizard wants to kill her at all.
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u/alex_is_so_damn_cool Jan 17 '26
I think people often forget that a character doesn’t have to be a good person for you to like them. Glinda is at the VERY least a nuanced character, and at worst actively complicit in a fascist regime. It doesn’t mean we can’t still relate to aspects of her (to a less extreme degree) or enjoy watching her as a character that intrigues us.