11-22-11
Hello; NiteOwl here. This is a page I've created for English class because we are reading the book Wicked for Gregory Maguire and need a place to post our "reactions" weekly to what we read. The first section was "Munchkinlanders," which talked about where Elphaba--that's the Wicked Witch of the West, y'all--came from and who her parents were and everything. I enjoyed reading it and just kept going on because the book drew me in. It is very well-written and imaginative and now I feel a sympathy for the Witch that I guess I never had before. The book is making me think about evil and where it comes from and what it really means.In a way, Elphaba is like Darth Vader--the first time you saw him, he was this hulking mass of black evilness and you hated him, but then you discovered his past and where he came from and what his life was like and what happened to him to turn him into Vader (whether you liked the prequel movies or not doesn't matter. They happened, so get over it). And she is also like the Titanic; you know that she is going to sink, but you don't really know all the mistakes that happened along the way before that iceberg came and smashed that ship in two.
This book is quickly becoming one of my favorites, and I love reading it. I am into the second section, "Gilikin," now, and Elphaba is reminding me more and more of myself--quiet, watchful, sarcastic. It's a shame what happens to her, that little green Titanic. That's my reaction so far.
11-30-11
The second section, "Gilikin," is done; I enjoyed it even more than "Munchkinlanders" because Elphaba is away at school now and I can relate to being a teenager at school--although I don't get to learn sorcery, which would be cool. It also introduced several familiar characters, like Galinda/Glinda and Elphie's sister, who is named Nessarose and has no arms (clearly, this wasn't in the movie because the only time we saw her was after Dorothy's house had sat on her head.). There was a Munchkin boy named Boq who had a crush on Galinda, and a Goat (trust me, the capital letter makes a world of difference in Oz) who got murdered and a Lion cub who just might turn out to be a very familiar figure.
There was also a few pages that it's awkward to talk about and is the reason our parents had to sign a paper before we could read the book in the first place. I don't want to think about it, but it's the reason Tibbett becomes mentally damaged. And, I think, we did, too.
But other than that, I love the book so far (actually, I've been done it for a while...about three times.). In The Wizard of Oz she was painted as a horrible monster, but this shows she's not...not that I was completely on Dorothy's side anyway when I saw it. I thought she was annoying. But that's just me.
12-7-11
Despite some awkward love scenes in "City of Emeralds," I enjoyed reading this section. It helped to reinforce Elphaba's humanity by showing that she can love someone like Fiyero, and it also made me think about what makes a person a terrorist or not. People say that Elphaba is a terrorist, but I'm having some trouble agreeing. I mean, sure, she's an extremist in the way that she goes about doing things, but I don't think she's an full-blown "terrorist." She admits that there will be civilian casualties, but she's not going out of her way to cause them like a Bin Laden would. She did not carry out the assassination she was supposed to when the children were in her way; a true terrorist would have gone through it anyway, damn the casualties, and used the innocents as a way to prove their "point." Elphaba hesitates and doesn't go through with it. While I don't exactly approve of her methods, I think that she's trying to rid the land of a truly terrible ruler and that, if she were a true terrorist, she would have killed Morrible anyway, children or not.
12-14-11
The ironic thing is, I was placed on the opposite side in our class debate, and we won anyway. Not sure how I feel about that.
Just wanted to say that "In the Vinkus" was a monster section, but I enjoyed it anyway. I hated how the kids were mean to Liir, Elphaba's son, but I thought it was funny when a kid in my class compared him to Russel, the kid from Up, and Chistery the monkey to the dog. I also liked how Elphaba learned she was magic and the changeling elephant taught her about destiny and how she could change it if she really wanted to. The next section is the last and I'm getting kind of sad, because that means she's going to die, but if she really is the reincarnation of Saint Aelphaba of the Waterfall like the book's been hinting she is, then she will come back one day, maybe in another form, when Oz needs her the most, like King Arthur is supposed to rise again in Britain and Vlad the Impaler in Romania (yes, seriously).
12-15-11
Ding-dong, the witch is dead--which old witch? Both of them. "The Murder and Its Afterlife" was the last section, and both Elphaba and her religious fanatic sister Nessarose are dead, though Elphie's the only one I feel sad for. Dorothy threw the bucket of water on her--thus making Elphie "pass under the waterfall" like St. Aelphaba, leaving until one day when Oz needs her again. I like how everything was wrapped up in the end and we found out that Yackle was--SPOILER ALERT--her anti-guardian angel, sent to keep Oz safe from Elphie, and the Wizard was--EVEN LARGER SPOILER ALERT--Elphaba's real father. It was sad when she thought that the scarecrow was her dead lover Fiyero coming back to her and when she began to finally fall apart in the final few scenes of the novel. It was ironic that Dorothy came to her home not to kill her but to seek forgiveness for causing the death of Elphie's sister when Elphie had gone there in the first place to apologize to Sarima, Fiyero's widow, for causing his death. It was also ironic that Dorothy's words to the Witch as she threw the bucket of water on her were "I'll save you."
Wicked was a great novel and made me think about good and evil, just like it was supposed to. I think that I'm going to read Son of a Witch on my own so I can find out what happened to Liir, Elphaba and Fiyero's son. I found it appropriate that the book ended with the end of a story Sarima told her daughter Nor, who asked if a witch had come out of her cave yet and Sarima answered "Not yet." This implies that Elphaba, if she is truly Saint Aelphaba, will one day come back, possibly in another form. This makes true what Elphaba said about her not having an afterlife--she doesn't have one because she will continually come back.
