#the Wizard and I

[shelbypeake]

Young Elphaba explorations I did for my “Wizard and I” sequence.

I would do so much differently now… Maybe I’ll do a 2.0 version in the future?

[that-ari-blogger]

What Do I Want?

Wicked has a thing with dreams.

The land of Oz is a land of fantasy. I mean this in the sense that it isn't exactly non-fiction, but its also a place where dreams come true. This is a place and a story in which if you wish really hard, good things can happen.

But Oz was never what it seemed, and where the original The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz used smoke and mirrors for a big reveal towards the end of the story. Wicked leans much further into deceit and scheming to lean into its theming, and that is set up in The Wizard And I.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

A key part of storytelling is making the lead character empathetic or understandable. It isn't essential (Watch Deathnote for a good counter example), but it is a strategy for getting the audience invested. In musicals, where most important plot beats are sung, this often takes the form of an "I want" song that establishes quickly and efficiently the goals of the protagonist. Think Part Of Your World from The Little Mermaid for an example.

The Wizard and I is Elphaba's "I want" song, and that honestly made this post rather difficult to write. Because I don't think that's an unobvious take and I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. But I think Elphaba's song is fascinating because of how it subverts the premise.

Wicked is a satire, and the key to writing good satire is to understand the core text and tropes and to take them both in a wildly different direction. Most notably, Elphaba is on the verge of getting what she wants. This isn't an "I wish I could", it's a "this is what I'm going to get", and because this is a story about dreams colliding with reality, which sets up that theme rather neatly.

The plot of Wicked centres around the falling apart of Elphaba, and the breaking down of her ambitions. But it is a story about hope throughout, and I think it is important to set up how relentlessly hopeful she is.

Although, Elphaba's hopefulness is in direct contrast with the rest of her demeanour. Once again, the theme of deception is on display, this time through her false face. She has to please everyone, especially her father, so she puts on an incredibly restrained and abrasive personality. But what she wants truly is to be "unlimited".

Don't get me wrong, Elphaba is abrasive, and that's not a flaw, she's just not that social. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between being awkward and actively pushing people away. Elphaba does the latter to disguise from her true self.

"Unlimited

My future is unlimited."

I have extremely limited musical knowledge here, so bear with me. There is a key change here, to sell the importance of this line, because it keeps coming up. I will point it out when it comes to it. But the change from A Flat Major (should I use the flat symbol here? I have no idea) to G Flat Major emphasises that this is the point of the song. If I've got those keys wrong, please tell me.

Everything else is superficial. When boiled down to it's barest principles, Elphaba wants to be free. To be free from prejudice and expectation, and she spends the rest of the show achieving this. She defies gravity, free from the laws that keep her down; she defies death and lives her own happy ending; and she defies the wizard to pursue her own path.

I watched Wicked live in Sydney, and I am using the official video from that show of this song as images. What is interesting there is how Sheridan Adams, who played Elphaba in that show, chose to act out that character.

She became slowly more expressive throughout the course of the song, starting very closed in and spotlit against a background that couldn't help but contrast with her appearance. But she got more relaxed and more open with the audience as she sang, realising she was finally getting what she wanted.

And as she sang, the world changed, with the sky going from the sunrise of the opportunity to the bright day of a new world, to a green tint to match Elphaba, letting her still stand out. But now she isn't a sore thumb, she belongs in the world and is free to do whatever she wants. As she gets freer, the world becomes hers to explore.

It's also notable that as Elphaba imagines more, and as she continues to hope, the set opens up. No longer is she boxed in by the school, now the world is her oyster.

But that isn't the only recurring theme set up by this song.

These notes form a motif that comes back in Dancing Through Life. Specifically, from Galinda, when she is falling in love with Fiyero after decieving Boq into dancing with Nessarose, and again when she and Nessa retrospect about those relationships. The flourishes are different, but the core pattern is the same.

"Help me meet the wizard"

"We deserve each other."

Neither of those two relationships work out, by the way, because everyone involved was deceived in some way. They all thought the relationships would work out in different, contradicting ways.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on that song here, as this is a post about The Wizard and I, but it's interesting that a motif with themes of deception, false beliefs and and misguided aspirations, gets used for Elphaba's most achievable goal. She wants to meet the wizard, why is that misguided?

Well, because the wizard isn't what he says he is. He cannot do any of the things Elphaba hopes he can be. The plot twist of the original story becomes central to this one in a much more psychological way. Elphaba has pinned all of her hopes on something, and the music is telling you from the start that this isn't going to work out.

The song also tells you through the lyrics.

"If you work as you should

You'll be making good"

First up, conditional acceptance. Not what Elphaba is after, but she's at such a low point in terms of belonging that this is enough to sway her. This is a fault that she gets over. She doesn't want the bare minimum; she wants what everyone else has. To be unlimited.

There's also the fact that the opening of the musical, No One Mourns the Wicked, went out of its way to break down the concepts of good and evil in this world. The story reenforces this with Wonderful later, but here it comes up and Elphaba accepts it uncritically.

But whose definition of "good" is Morrible using here. Good for whom?

So, here is where my reading of the story as a whole comes in. I will elaborate further when we get to it later on in the musical. But, in my opinion, this is a fundamentally queer coded story.

Elphaba is born different, outside of the norm of her society. All she wants is to be unlimited, for people to not see her and have their minds filled with prejudice.

I brought up Part Of Your World earlier, because the queer theming there is all but explicit, but The Wizard and I has this coding in spades. Obviously, being green is something that others her, and something she wants "cured", only to find that people like her for it, or like her for other reasons and the greenness is just who she is. She can't and shouldn't change it.

But, an angry mob is an angry mob, and people are small minded. People see something they don't understand and cast it as a villain for their own narratives.

Alternatively, she gets told that she can be accepted despite being green, if she contributes to society in the way that the leadership wants her to. Her personhood is contingent on her usefulness, rather than being assumed like everyone else.

Let's, talk about me for a second. I am a queer individual. I am neither heterosexual nor cisgender, and I can definitely empathise with Elphaba here. I have felt that same antipathy towards me for something I could not control, and I have wished that I could be "normal". I have definitely been given that "contribute to society" ultimatum.

But as I have matured, I have learned to respect myself enough to understand that these are parts of who I am, and that I am deserving of respect and dignity just as much as anyone else.

All people are deserving respect, queer or otherwise, and those that take issue with that are the problem, not us. I hope that one day, all of us can feel free to be who we are.

One day, we will be "unlimited".

Final Thoughts

The Wizard and I is my second favourite song in the musical, and I will reveal my favourite later on. But its fascinating how much setup this song does for the worldbuilding of Oz.

The audience gets told just how powerful everyone thinks the wizard is, and even if you know the plot twist, you empathise with Elphaba after the betrayal because you have seen how much of her heart gets put into this.

This is part two of a series on Wicked, with part three coming next week, centring around What Is This Feeling and continuing with the queer analysis of this very queer musical. So, stick around if that interests you.

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[theotherpacman]

i made this im proud of it

it was a ton of fun and also got me all emotional to make this bc like... when i look at all these different actresses lined up like this... it really feels like they're working together to give elphaba a voice. they're all going to play her differently but each actress is doing her best to feel what elphaba is feeling and sing it. and sing it. so we hear it. yknow? to bring her to life. it's beautiful to me.

here it is with captions if you want

the actresses are, in order of appearance: julia murney, teal wicks, jessica vosk, mandy gonzalez, allison luff, eden espinosa, carmen cusack, shoshana bean, emmy raver-lampman, caroline bowman, christine dwyer, emma hunton, willemijn verkaik, jackie burns, alyssa fox

[jely-bely]

Elpheba and Glinda💚💛

[butyoucouldberadiant]

I know “The Wizard and I” is supposed to be an emotional song (and it is), but I really feel like more people should laugh at “I swear, someday there’ll be a celebration throughout Oz that’s all to do with me.”

Cause celebrating that she’s “dead” counts.

And that’s hilarious???

…Honorable mention to “when people see me, they will scream”

[bashcrandicoot]

Thumbnails on wizard youtube

[ruushes]

sleeping arrangements (not sure tara would ever actually deign to sleep in the same 20ft radius as shovel but who can resist those big shiny insectoid black eyes 🥺)

plus:

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Move aside swagless boutta get a new Wizard’s Staff that comes loaded with spells like “open locked doors” and “dismantle car”

[decolonize-the-left]

The last remaining hospital in Gaza is now under attack. Everyone is fleeing and nobody has anywhere else to go. Rafah was designated safe.

Posted 3 hours ago as of 2 am UTC January 17. She was recently live and it was cut off.

TikTok link

Free Palestine

🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

[wizard-of-interesting-failure]

Reblog this post to cast Crumb of Serotonin on whoever you reblogged it from

[precariouswizardry]

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

"ummm the global strike was called on such short notice we need more time to plan ahead this just isn't gonna work it feels like slacktivism :///" hmm lets try to figure out why a palestinian journalist in gaza who has been documenting her own genocide for the past hundred fucking days called for a global strike on short notice during a livestream while the hospital she was sheltering in was being attacked and she believed she was going to be killed that night. lets think about it. lets put our thinking caps on. lets sit down in our thinking chair and think think think

[annabelle--cane]

you think people actually have sex? naked and everything? I have to laugh.

[mynameismad]

A collection of all the wizards I’ve drawn over the past year or so! Some of them used to have gray backgrounds, but now they’re all nice and colorful 🧙‍♂️✨