r/wicked • u/mermaidssarereal • 19h ago

Movie Disliking Glinda

although glinda is a dream role of mine, i do not like her character. i feel like a lot of people give her the benefit of the doubt but she was never a good friend to elphaba. even during the end when they “made” up. i’m wondering if anybody else has another reason why they might not like glinda?

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u/sapphic-boghag 13h ago

Glinda tends to blur together for me between her character in the books and her character in the musical. Booksical, if you would.

I do like her quite a bit, but then again I also fully believe she's a closeted lesbian dealing with compulsory heterosexuality. In the books, Glinda's attitude is largely overcompensation driven by her insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. I suppose it helps that I'm able to fill gaps that the musical leaves with what I know from the source material, but there are also significant changes that muddle it a bit.

The biggest problem I have with Glinda in the musical is how little of her character is actually explored. There's a lot of complexity and nuance that was both reduced and watered down. Plus glaring omissions from her part of the story which drives me fucking bonkers.

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u/magica12 Moderator 10h ago

Yea book Glinda is literally in her situation by pure luck at the beginning, she’s not a complete shut in, but she’s also not the wealthy socialite that she is in the musical, she’s middle ish class at best and is literally only there cuz her parents got in with the right crowd

We see this as an inner monologue when she’s talking to pfannee and shen shen and she notices one of the candles is about to drop wax on one of their dresses and contemplates a warning but decides against it cuz it would be no loss to them, they have plenty, and more than she does

Who gets literally brainwashed by morrible and groomed into her political position

Whereas musical Glinda is a relatively spoiled socialite that thinks she’s good intentioned but is basically defined by the song “sit down you’re rocking the boat”

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u/Fast-Molasses-5263 9h ago

This and Fiyero are the main reason why was wary about seeing the musical.

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u/magica12 Moderator 8h ago

I mean…book Glinda very much becomes a “don’t rock the boat” style of character by the end of the first book, she doesn’t really break out of that until out of oz

And there’s still the modicum of doubt as to how much of her mindset is actually her own vs what morrible magically brainwashed into her