As someone who also had their brain chemistry fundamentally altered by seeing Wicked live as a teenager, THANK YOU. For years it has driven me nuts when folks only see Glinda how she presents herself at the surface level. The core differences between Elphaba and Glinda in how they experience and approach the world but still recognize each other is one of the things that makes Wicked so compelling.

Glinda has been one of my all time favourite characters for many years now, i love how complicated and flawed she is. It is tragically uncommon for a female character to be allowed to so clearly make mistakes and be in the wrong, while still being deeply sympathetic

"because while this is the glinda that might've gone, it's also the elphaba that might've considered staying." sobbing

Oh my god…No One Mourns the Wicked isn’t about Elphaba, it’s about Glinda. She has to live with the decisions she’s made, reaping what she’s sowed. And she’s the one experiencing the loneliness they keep saying the wicked deserve because of their actions.

5:50 There’s actually a deleted scene after the lion cub scene where Glinda is practicing her magic but is really struggling, and Elphaba tells her it could be because she’s so used to things coming easy to her. Kind of wish the scene had been kept, the rest of the scene with Elphaba promising to rely on Glinda if she needs help is sweet and this little moment gives even more concrete insight into her decision to stay during Defying Gravity

I think it’s interesting to think about WHY Glinda was willing to risk her social standing for Elphaba at the Ozdust ball. It’s because Elphaba risked her dreams for Glinda. She threatened to quit training alongside Morrible just to get Glinda a spot alongside her. This showed Glinda that sometimes the risk is worth it. But in the palace, the cost was just too great. For both Glinda and Elphaba. They had to go there separate ways.

oh my god, i never even thought about the line "where are your wings?" and how glinda thought she wasn't gonna be part of her plans, until it's revealed that elphaba made the broom fly. CHRIST that is so subtle. i've seen this movie seven times, and i've never thought of this

Glinda is a very complicated character and I seriously wish people would understand that. People argue that she danced with Elphaba because Elphaba got her in Madame Morrible's class, but she empathizes so much with Elphaba.
Personally, my theory is that Glinda decides to stay in the hopes of maybe changing things on the inside at best, but she's gonna become a bird in a gilded cage.

I see the real tragedy as that they couldn't walk the same path together because that's when they are at their most powerful, drawing strength off each other. If Elphaba had stayed, changing the system from within could have been easier with Glinda's social skills backed by the threat of Elphaba's magic. Likewise if Glinda had left, their rebellion could have been stronger as she had the power to give it the good PR that Elphaba lacked alone. 💔

Glinda in my brain is like an Effie Trinket type character. Fashion aside, both characters mean the best through their actions, but recognize their limits so they allow the system to be convinced that they are one of them when they not only despise the system they’ve grown up in, but they attempt to work from the inside to dismantle it. This is most evident in Mokingjay/the last few scenes of wicked. They work with what they know best. They play a social game rather than straight up vocal activism.

Code Geass is also basically this conversation: Do you destroy the system or work within it to change it, even if it means you are complicit in harm. It's one of my favorite tropes.

"the irony is that in staying, se becomes the glinda that might have left ... and because she left, she becomes the elphaba that might have stayed" WOW

I think one of THE BIGGEST talking points for Glinda’s character that keeps getting swept over AND under the rug is how big of a people pleaser she really is. This video explains perfectly how and why which is why I find it interesting her people pleasing tendencies & how she internally challenges them weren’t brought up at all.

[Part 2 spoilers]

I think one of the great failures of Wicked is that it lets most of the Animal rights activism happen offscreen in the second act and never fully explores what precisely is happening with the Animals.  Elphaba is framed as “helping” in some nebulous and poorly defined way, but we never find out how the Animals feel about it or how the Wizard’s policies change in response to what Elphaba is doing.  Hell, I don’t think a single Animal has any spoken lines in the second act of the musical.

Glinda is one of the worst casualties of this, because we ultimately never get any indication of what she’s doing behind the scenes.  Is she actively helping the Wizard’s agenda?  Passively going along with it?  Subtly undermining him?  The second act focuses so much on the personal and romantic relationships between the core human cast, so much so that you have to fill in a lot of the gaps of the politics yourself.  Glinda is a character who needs to be better fleshed out in terms of her impact on the broader political landscape of Oz.  She’s a complex and fascinating character in terms of what she says about performative activism and the perils of privilege, and that side of her is a lot more interesting than whatever goes on between her, Elphaba, and Fiyero romantically.

I really hope that the movie improves upon this.  There were some changes to flesh out the Animals in Part 1.  Doctor Dillamund meeting with the other Animals rather than Elphaba for most of “Something Bad” was a positive change, and I hope we see much more of that energy in Part 2, when the cracks in that plotline really start to show.  We already know that there will be new songs, which I see as a good sign.

Historically, most major movements required both Elphabas and Glindas to accomplish their goals.
Without an outside agitator, the insiders would get passive and become complicit. Without insiders, the agitators can be shut out of the process and mostly ignored by the system they fight.
While this isn’t the way the story goes, because it had to lead into the eventual Wizard of Oz canon, it would have been interesting to see a more cunning approach to the conflict from the two of them using their own positions and skill-sets.

I think a lot of people are harsh on Glinda because theoretically they think morals should be above everything. But the truth is the majority of people would be Glinda in this situation, whether they want to believe it or not. Most people aren't strong or brave enough to turn away from the systems we've known our entire lives to rebel. That's why rebellion leaders throughout history are such huge figures... there's not a lot of them, they're special - not the norm.

The segment of the song "I hope you're happy" is iconic for a reason. these are two friends, who reached a fork in the road where they must split, genuinely wishing eachother every happiness, even if they can't understand eachother's choices, they accept those are the choices made, and it must be so.

As someone who’s a old Wicked fan who had it reignited by the movie, I adore this analysis. I always related to Elphaba because she’s an obvious allegory for any ‘outsider’ but as I’ve gotten older Glinda’s outlook has become a lot more understandable as a chronic people pleaser.
Being likable and getting along with people is power but it’s a double edged sword. Sometimes when you have a moment to yourself you realize you don’t know what you want because you’ve given so much of yourself to others. Having Glinda being someone who knows that this is her power and trying to do her best to use it without bringing Elphie down shows how she’s clever and observant in a way that I’ve very rarely seen in media, finished with a sparkly pink candy coating. I just love her, she was born to be a hype woman/PR girlie and both her and Elphaba deserved a better world

now i need a fanfic where elphaba stays with glinda and they play the social game. working title succumbing to gravity. cue heavy angst glinda centric

The best glinda analysis I've ever heard. She is so complex, nuances that are tricky to convey onstage, no one mourns the wicked made me bawl in the cinema.