Posted in the book forum because I expect a better response from people who have both read the book and seen the musical Contains musical + book spoilers! Cross-posted to GM.com.

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Much of the advertising and interviews for the musical feature the leading ladies, most specifically Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth who were promoting the show to begin with, saying that it’s unusual to find a Broadway show about two strong female characters and for them both to have sort of equal stage-time to portray their friendship.

Taking into account the changes made from the book to the musical, can we actually agree that the transition is a fair representation of the book’s ideals? That is, as in the book Elphaba is an intelligent, strongwilled individual who stands up for her beliefs regardless of what others think, who demands acceptance despite being green - as a woman with a sharp sense of humour, a strong opinion on politics and as an activist most of us can agree that she falls into the ‘strong female’ category, discussion about being intersexed not withstanding. Elphaba screws up, she has a chip on her shoulder and character flaws in the book. She can be spiteful, she can be vicious, callous and uncaring - all of which often out-stride her softer side in the book.

So when it comes to the musical version, can we say the same? Does Elphaba become a willowy, martyred character when moved to Broadway? Instead of demanding acceptance, Broadway’s Elphaba wishes to fit in by changing herself with magic. Instead of Fiyero meeting her in her prime of life when she had everything left to fight for, and falling in love with her for who she’s become, he falls for her mere moments after Galinda has ’prettified’ her , while Elphaba - distraught because she‘s ‘not that girl‘ nervously wonders if she‘s beautiful or not. Admittedly, there is one throw away line where he declares “You don’t have to do that”, but is it enough?

Even when it comes to releasing the Lion cub, Elphaba uses magic that she cannot control to overpower the guards, and later, it is revealed to be Madame Morrible and the Wizard who have manipulated her into the position she lands in. This Elphaba doesn’t make any of her own decisions and suffers no consequences - while the idea of pre-destiny is touched upon in the book it is never concretely explored, just implied - so Elphaba in the musical is faultless. Incidentally, she never comes to terms with herself with regard to being green - had the musical balanced out the beginning with this, it may have been easier. Instead, we see Fiyero turned into the Scarecrow (no sense of loss or blame for his death at all), and Elphaba realises she still loves him anyway. I think this should have been explored more with regard to Elphaba’s self-image.

And the ending - the concept that ‘happily ever after’ happens in the arms of a man (or a scarecrow). Where Elphaba in the book makes the ultimate sacrifice to overcome the Wizard, Elphaba’s ‘death’ in the musical is a fake - removing the power from the act itself. Elphaba in the book never really backed down or ran away - she had her fair share of distractions and troubles, but she died still working with the Grimmerie on Dillamond’s research.

In the musical (in comparison with Elphaba) I think that G(a)linda’s story is actually stronger - there we have a spoiled little girl who, over the course of the story, earns friendship with someone she finally sees for who they are, she grows up and she does face consequences, as well as the Wizard and Morrible - at the end, she is the only character who is left completely alone, with all the power and popularity she always wanted. It’s a sad story, but then it should be - Wicked was always a story about loss, and the Wizard of Oz was always about getting what you want and realising it's not what you needed after all. We know that Glinda was ‘changed for good’, that for having toughed it out, she’ll be better for it. It's not the same as she is in the book, but it works in the same way and goes for the same purpose.

...thoughts?

whoa.. That's awesome! My friend loves the book and didn't like how the musical changed stuff. I'm gonna show this to her.


amazing analysis!

Ah, thanks I've been studying Disney's portrayal of women and some of it stuck

I will say one thing for Musical Elphaba - she did resist the temptation to go with the Wizard when she realised he wasn't powerful or what she wanted him to be, but since it wasn't juxtrapositioned with any real signs of weakness or any personal development it gets a bit lost :E

I personally like the Musical Elphie better than the book Elphie. I hate how Fiyero loves her with a wife of his own and not just falling for her. But whatever, we can all think separate things.

I do agree that the musical elphie is more "faultless" than the book elphie. I agree that they did change her a lot for the musical. But the book had a much different audience than the musical. I don't look at them the same way. I love them both but I look at the book in an analytical way and the musical in a more fun/laidback way. I think the musical touched on the points they needed to. If they went as in depth as the book, Wicked would be 5 hours long. I don't blame them for changing Elphaba. So many people that went to see Wicked saw it with their kids and with the family because it was based off of the Wizard of Oz, a family movie. If they came in and saw the book on stage with little change, people would be pretty mad as a whole. I know that several people would like it but there's those people that wouldn't understand it, kids wouldn't get it, it'd be too deep. Books, I say are a lot better for going deep into the storyline than plays or movies. Books don't have a limit to how short or long it can be (though there is common sense when it comes to the lengh). Books have the time to go deep and you can go back and reread books to understand the plot. A movie or a musical would have a set limit of how long it could be. You would have to simplify such a complex story and complex characters.

Okay, I rambled a bit...lol, and I probably didn't make any sense during half of that but yeah.

I absolutely love Elphaba in the book, I still love her in the play, just not as much. I guess it makes sense that they changed her, but I think that they could have at least made her a bit more sarcastic (I love that about her). I wish that they would make a movie that really follows the book.

Yeah but... I'm not complaining that they reworked the story for a younger audience, or that they made changes - I understand completely that it had to change to go to Broadway, what I was saying was that the way she's portrayed isn't necessarily that strong, not as strong as the publicity makes out. After all, they could have really given Elphaba a chip on her shoulder, too - they chose instead to concentrate on villifying Galinda and her friends until 3/4 of the way through act I. I think it'd have been perfectly possible to work it differently. It's almost as if they were so afraid the audience wouldn't like her that they had to water her character down and make absolutely sure there was no reason to ever think she became the Witch except as a result of other, EEBIL people. The workings of it are in there, but they concentrate much more on Elphaba's plight as a social outcast, and how sad she is because boys don't like her and she's green than they do on what makes her strong. Maybe I'm giving the audience too much credit here, if the vast majority of them are preteens and young teenagers, but they don't develop anything. Instead they use songs to tell you "This is where we've arrived at". Obviously it makes no difference to the show anyway, it's a freaking cashcow right now and very popular, but I can see why some people genuinely dislike it - I get my enjoyment out of catchy tunes and humour in there, I enjoy the performances, and try not to think about the plot - or else this happens

I think people take the same message from it anyway, though, which is weird. I'm guessing people just don't pay that much attention to the media they're taking in. The rant about Disney is about twenty pages long, but I'll spare you it :S

hmmmm... I really like both Elphaba's, book and musical...Like in RP I like to try and use both versions.

The book was alittle too dark for me, i like the musical versions of everyone much more.

We had to do that for 2 months in my college English class, because I stupid enough to take college classes while in high school. I do like book Elphie more than musical Elphie, for the same reasons already listed. I read an essay somewhere about why Elphaba had to die, and it made a lot of sense. I'll see if I can find it.

All my friends dont like how elphaba lives at the end. I am sorta neutral about this. I consider the book and musical two different things, and i dont compare them. If i did i would over analyze to much.

Well, like GM says in the Grimmerie, he thinks of them as 2 different things.

Yeah, me too - they are separate, the comparison was mainly to make the point that in the musical, Elphaba doesn't actually come off as strong as the publicity often claims. I wasn't necessarily whining that they changed the storyline, or that they lightened it up - but I think they could have done it without watering down Elphaba's character the way they ended up doing it.

Again, when she takes a stand over the lion cub, Fiyero says "What did you do?" and she says "I don't know, I got mad". That's not strength of character, it's being swept along by something you can't control - she makes the decision after an emotional and uncontrolled reaction rather than using her powers because she feels that way and she knows how. By that point she'd been to Morrible's classes, that would have been a good point to introduce some bite.

Also, after she takes the lion cub it's Fiyero who releases it for her, and then she proceeds to go into a soft-hearted song about how she can never have him, which I personally don't think suited the pace of that part of the musical - you get all fired up in the rush of stealing the cub, you've got some back and forth between she and Fiyero, and then it slows down, and it's almost as if you were denied a climax. I'd love to hear an angry version of 'I'm Not That Girl'.

"That A$$wipe took my guy!" .... in my pants... :ha:

:ha:

Snowie, I had to edit my OWN grammar/spelling there! All that stuff going on IN YOUR PANTS must be distracting you

"YES!!! YEs!! awwwww............. darn.............."

:ha: Usually it's "Oops", though

HAHA

"I think i missed... don't get pissed."

Snowie, have you been listening to RENT again?

Haha.

I'm actually watching "Home Alone"

:mrgreen:

I'm wrapping all of my family's Christmas presents, including mine. Christmas was a lot more fun when "Santa" came.

My family never did the whole Santa thing. Or the Easter bunny. LoL

Wow, you had a deprived childhood. JK. :ha:

I totally agree!

Oh Snowie, what about the Tooth Fairy?

nope....

I'm sorry.....

:rofl:

I don't really care

What's it gonna be like when you have kids?

Painful... Unless I adopt.

:ha: jk.

Um.. I don't know. Depends on my husband

Didn't you see the L5Y joke hidden in there?

Hahaha

When you come home to me...............

I'll wear a sweeter smile....

You know I can never understand how people make out book Elphaba to be a stronger character than her musical counterpoint. I find her surprisingly weak, petulant and generally ineffectual and her lack of emotion leaves me stone cold. Her crusading on the part of the Animals seems to cut her off from every human emotion. I never even really felt she was in love with Fiyero, there was no warmth on her side. It just seemed to be sex. There's just no real passion of any sort about her. I couldn't see any reason why she would spend seven years mourning a man she never seemed that bothered about in the first place. Her treatment of Liir seems indefensible and unconvincing. Why would she treat Fiyero's son so unkindly, not even bothering to see he had a bed to sleep in and yet spend years moping around the tower trying to get an opportunity to confess all to Fiyero's wife. None of this convinces at all. It seems to me she spends the majority of the book sulking.

Elphaba is a strong character in the musical. As her youthful hopes are eroded she gains steadily in stature and becomes a force to be reckoned with and even feared. She shows real emotion, real anger and despair and she makes a positive stand against the Wizard when she realises that she has been duped by him. You see her earlier girlish characteristics harden steadily into darker resolve and moreover she is indeed a powerful witch to be feared. Book Elphaba isn't even a witch at all, let alone a powerful one, which just makes absolute nonsense of the whole story. The musical gives us a really powerful witch who is sorely tempted to become bad, but who heroically manages to stop short of turning totally wicked. The book gives us a self absorbed depressive who has not a shred of magic in her whole personality.

bless you, thank you, i agree,

although, I do like elphie in the begging of the book, I like hearing about her childhood

I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling all this. To be honest I didn't even like the childhood part. I felt Maguire wasted most of this section wittering on about about the sexual and moral proclivities of her boring parents and failing to develop Elphaba in any way that we could truely sympathise with. I wanted to know about Elphaba and at the end of 70+ pages all I knew was that she was green, couldn't talk and like to pee on the floor. Why he never showed her beyond the age of two there is beyond me and what he does show ties up in no way with the character we see in Shiz, were she has somehow magically evolved into Hermione Granger, without the saving grace of being a first class witch. This is not realistic character evolvement. In fact I don't find any realistic character evolvment into the book Elphaba or Galinda for that matter.

the book really centered on Elphaba's life, although it was more political than anything really. You really didn't see any character development in the book on any characters, not even Elphaba herself if you think about it. The musical showed more growth in the characters, specifically with Elphaba and Glinda, as well as Boq and others. I agree with you on this

I absolutely agree with you. There is no growth in any of the main book characters which is pretty unusual because in a book you would normally expect to see much more depth of characterisation than a dramatic adaptation. It is however the musical which gives us much greater depth in the characters who really matter in the story. It is actually Maguire's minor characters which have the greater depth and to whom he accords more stage time. Nanny is a much better realised character, for instance, than Elphaba or Galinda or Fiyero, but there is something seriously amiss with a book in which the only memorable characters are actually of minor importance to the central storyline. It frustrates and annoys the reader who begins to wonder what is the point in trudging through endless chapters of yadda concerning a character who will be jettisoned from the book at the end of a section. Boq is a good instance of this. A whole section from his point of view and then he is simply wasted for the rest of the book. There seems precious little point in having got to know more about him in that section than we got to know about Elphaba if he is not to play some pivotal part in her story. Fiyero is barely mentioned in Shiz and yet we are expected to belive that two minutes after meeting her again in the Emerald City he and Elphaba are plunged into a love affair which lasts a few weeks. It would have made far more sense if it had been Elphaba and Boq, I could have bought that, given that they did at least have some basis for a friendship that might have eventually floweed into love at a later date. There is virtually no development of Fiyero as a character at all. He is just the princely stud horse. one minute he's there and the next he's gone for good. We are not given the opportunity to get to know him and it is very difficult to feel particularly sorry at his sudden death five minutes later. Elphaba's reaction to his death is totally over the top and unconvincing in relation to the rather cool and unconnected way she behaves during their love affair. And if she is so cut up about Fiyero's death and so full of guilt, why on earth treat his poor son so callouslly? None of it makes any sense at all. Maguire seems to have been going for realism rather than fantasy, but no real person would behave that way.

The musical suceeds in making some sense of the story and also makes the main characters behave in a believeable way. Even the Wizard is given a fair hearing. Maguire doesn't even bother examining the Wizard's character, we don't even meet him until the very end of the book. We're just told he's a baaad egg. Why or how he gets to be so bad is never dealt with. He's just a Hitler charicature in the book and there is never any satisfactory explanation as to why he is so set on eradicating the Animals. In the musical we get to at least undestand a little about him and so can spare a little sympathy for him, rogue though he clearly is.

Maguire pretty much thows Galinda away as a character too. She is never more than two dimensional at best and then she too simply disappears from huge swathes of the book while we are made to plough through endless chapters concerning the journey to the Vinkus and Fiyero's family. Who the heck care about Fiyero's sisters-in-law? Why waste so much valuable narrative time on their none-doings and chuck out Elphaba and Galinda's later relationship? Galinda in the musical is very fully developed, she suffers for her ditzy blonde superficiality, she faces real moral conflict and she grows as a person in consequence. Her relationship with Elphaba is a continually growing thing, it suffers from their opposing views and their rivary for Fiyero's love, it is central to the whole story. There is, in short, some point to it, it is a dynamic relationship that we get caught up in and that consequently we care about. Fiyero developes from a callow, shallow youth into a man we care about, again he is central to the story. In the book we hardly notice him.

again i agree with you......the musical really explains how Elphaba became the witch of the west and how Glinda became the "Glinda the Good". it also explains more how the tinman became tin, as well as the scarecrow, and the lion. it all sets up everything that the movie didnt explain.....which makes it a little better than the book character wise

O I worship you now, I have felt this way forever!!!!!!!!!!!! and I went with my friend to the musical and she still thought the book was better...we no longer speak, AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH it drives me crazy, the only credit I give the book is that in some twisted miricle winnie was a able to write Wicked -the musical out of it. SHE deserves multiple awards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and anything her heart desires, the woman is genius!

There was nothing to really explain about the Lion. It was interesting to see his connection to Elphaba, but the Cowardly Lion did not need an explanation. As far as the Tin Woodman, Maguire told the same overall story that Baum did: the Witch of the East cut off Nick's body parts through an enchanted axe. We never knew how or why the Scarecrow was alive, but the musical's version still seems cheap to me.

the musical version wasn't cheap in my opinion.....it was sugarcoated yes, but that was to make it more suitable for younger ages. im just saying that the movie left out the entire backstory of how everything came to be, and the musical set that up for us. The book did on some parts, but it was more political and didn't have much character development.

Maguire's took parts from the Movie, but it was ultimately supposed to be based off of Baum's book. If anyone ever bothered to read them, they have the backstory to most questions.

see the thing is it wasnt based off Baum's version, it was based off of Maguire's......so yea ok maybe not everyone has read Baum's version, but that's not this discussion is about

All they practically took from Maguire were the names of the characters and the extreme-basic plot. The musical doesn't hide that their version is supposed to be prequal to the MGM Movie.

and i agree with you, but all im saying is that the musical pretty much gave us somewhat of a backstory, the plot is very basic yes i know this, i saw the show and read the book and they are extremely different, but do u think kids would understand anything in the book? no.....the musical tells them the story, one they can understand, one that is not so political like the book is. there is more character development in the musical than in the book, people who saw the show and read the book would probably see it as well

So glad to have been able to articulate what you feel about this essentially dull and pretentious book. I believe a growing number of people are starting to look at this book as a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Strip away the cant and there's nothing there, no real plot, no deep characterisation and no real story. Maybe it took the musical to make people realise that the book is just a hollow sham not one half so clever as it likes to think it is. Political allegory can be effective when it is is subtly done and does not take precedence over the actual story, but this is not the case with WICKED. Maguire hits you over the head with it on virtually every other page at the expense of the story. It's not so much a novel as a thinly and very badly disguised political rant that uses a cheap trick to pull the punters in.

I've always agreed with the sentiment that musical Elphie-Glinda are just easier-- and that doesn't mean simpler-- versions of Maguire book Elphie/Glinda. There's no way that a musical could go to the harder lengths GM goes to in his book to have Elphaba and Glinda achieve their characters-- but on easier terms, the musical characters take the same paths/developments.

Interesting topic ...
I just finished reading the book (I've seen the musical first) and I liked it but I think I prefere the musical overall ! I really liked the first half until the end of the Emerald City chapter. I loved Elphie as a student and I still liked her a lot as a freedom fighter/terrorist and didn't find her too emotionless then (though I would have liked to see Fyero's character more developped).
But after that, she became too detached of everything (especially Liir), all the part on the Vinkus dragged on much too long and by the end of the book, she seemed to have gone almost completely mad rather too quickly for my taste ( after her first meeting with Boq and she kept changing her mind every two seconds !). And her death as an accident lacked dignity.

Still, I found the book more interesting than the musical on an intellectual POV : all the political and religious thems were rather well drawn out but emotionally I much prefer the musical, though the plot is simple, the characters appeal more to me and I found Elphaba a strong character : she chose to revolt against authority when she could have had everything (though perhaps a little fault or two would have benn good) !

See, I disagree with the notion that the musical was better because it "explained" more -- the book isn't meant to make you go, "ohhh THAT'S why they called her Wicked, and that's why the Tin Man is Tin, and that's why Glinda is called Good, etc etc." While I enjoy the musical aspect of that, it feels like it's only there so the audience will go "OOOO I REMEMBER THAT FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ!" or "OOO SHE SAID WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST, GET IT??"

I enjoy both. I discovered them at the same time... ^^; I bought the CD when I had some extra money, having remembered seeing the Maguire book on the shelf a few years before, and went and bought the book after listening to the soundtrack. Like most Maguire work, it's full of prose and long paragraphs, but it's so deep and you need to read it several times before you can start getting underneath the surface of it. The musical is deep in its own way, but I see the titles of both works as their "summaries": The book is about the Wicked Witch of the *West* while the musical is about all the Witches of Oz. ('cept... south, or wait, I can't remember, did they even mention who was north/south in the musical?)

My main problem with the book is that it sometimes goes off on tangents that it doesn't fully use, and I wish Glinda had been there a bit more at the end, but I like that it focused more on Elphaba. I like Glinda more in the book as well because she matures pretty much completely on her own, not because of humiliating Elphaba after learning that Elphaba got her into the sorcery class. She realized that her friends were spoiled selfish girls, and decided not to associate with them and get closer to Elphaba.

There's a particular passage near the end of the book, after Elphaba's death, that definately stuck with me:

"Lady Glinda had a bad night, a night of shakes and regret and pain; she guessed it was the early signs of gout from her rich diet. But she sat up half the night and lit a candle in the window, for reasons she couldn' explain. The moon passed overhead in its path from the Vinkus, and she felt its accusatory spotlight, and moved back from the tall windows."

There's still an extremely strong connection between them. They didn't 'reunite' before her death, nor was Glinda the ultimate salvation for Oz, but the connection between them was still there.

--

As for musical vs book Elphaba, I have to agree that the musical Elphaba was too much of a martyr for me. At least the book Elphaba was a sarcastic, sometimes rude, girl who stuck to her word even when humiliated. (we get a little of this during the Ozdust scene, where instead of flipping out, she does her little Elphie dance.) I love "I'm Not That Girl" but it begs the question - why does she HAVE to like a guy? I do love the words, sort of a sad resignation that she realizes that she won't ever be the girl of his dreams, but I'm not a fan of that whole scene. I wish she would've had some control over her magic, instead of it being the "I just got mad" incident.