This actually legitimately happened with me and my mom. She got me the book cause we’d seen the musical and then a few days later I approach her like “Mom, I don’t know if I should be reading this.” I was in my starting year of high school I think and I remember covering the book often as I read it in class.
Fun Fact: L. Frank Baum (the author of "Wonderful Wizard of Oz") had an aunt/cousin who was a major figurehead in the suffragette movement; thus, she was the inspiration behind why there are so many female political figures in the book.
@@carlolombardi1998 You're welcome. I just realized when I saw your reply that my comment may have seemed rude, for which I apologize. I'm glad you took it in the way it was intended, just information.
I read this novel when it first came out, as a teenager, and when the musical came out I was absolutely baffled as to how that even happened. It took like five years before I found out how much they'd changed to make that even remotely viable.
Reminds me of John Gardener's Grendel. He writes a highly philosophical novel about why Grendel was a monster, and the movie Grendel, Grendel, Grendel is as simple as humans bad, monster nice.
Same thing for me! I liked the book and was totally confused about how something so dark could be made into a musical. But it’s very “Disney-fied” so has very little to do with the book.
Same here, read it in the 90s as a big Wizard of Oz fan and couldn't figure out why it was about the Wizard of Oz or took place in the Oz universe. I avoided the musical until the 2010s because of the book. I'm fine with subversion, the musical\movie are good, but the book seemed to be an edgy anti-imagining of the source material from before anti-imagining of source materials became cool.
@@The_Practical_Daydreamer It doesn't seem that similar? This wasn't an adaptation that was reductive or something. Wicked is not a highly philosophical novel. It's just a lot of descriptions of terrible things happening under the thin veneer of a pre-existing plotline. Like, it's not just that it's "dark" or whatever. It's stuff like realizing that, oh, the musical is not somehow using some kind of costume bondage to portray Nessarose as a Thalidomide baby. That's the joke, in the original. Magic Thalidomide. I still don't know how someone read it and went, "wow, this should be on stage."
Reminds of the fact there was an American Psycho and as a casual fan of the movie I went "that's a choice how you gonna pull that off" and they called former the doctor Matt Smith 😂
wicked actually took more inspiration from the 1939 movie adaptation so it’s more accurate to say the wicked movie is based on a play based on a book based on a movie based on a book
I could be wrong, but wasn’t the 1939 movie also put into production because of an extremely successful play version of the book? Which would add yet ANOTHER level!
@@willowjohnson8553 yes, Baum's theater owners and investors forced him to add in sex, and political jokes, and put in love interests and murder in order for them to produce his book for the stage. So Sex and politics has always been in the wizard of Oz from stage musical, to the sequel, but Maguire has said that it started both with the film, and then the wars that were going on around the world at that time. And also Malina was as nanny puts it a wealthy daughter who loved the boys and their toys. So Elphaba's mother was not all innocents, she cheat3d on her husband due to being left alone for days and weeks at a time, her father did love her, and was close with her, Turtle heart came, and who cares if they had a open understanding relationship, he helped them raise their children, and took an interest in Elphaba. I agree the book doesn't even come close to staying in the world that Baum created, but some of the things your saying are out of certain chapter context, and are being written in a time period where these things happened, and religion destroyed people, and such. i don't find what makes his writing any different then Dickens, or Victor Hugo, and Stephen king who deal with all kinds of topics. Plus the original Book the wonderful wizard of oz despite Baum's saying he didn't want to create a grimes fairy tales he did but it was an American grimes fairy tales type of telling. A girl who is orphaned raised by relatives, a horrible evil witch killed by her house, and then puts on said evil watches SILVER Shoes, and saves a scarecrow, hears about mutuilation and lost love due to a witches vengeance, and then attacked by a Lion, and then after he joins them they are attacked by creators who try to eat them called kalidahs, and then tin man kills a wild cat whos attacking a mouse who happens to be queen of the field mice, and so kills a wild creature which is what cat and mice do to one another, then scarecrow gets stuck on a river saved by a stork bird, are then after getting to Emerald City told to go and kill the west witch in order for them to be given their wishes, so far this is feeling pretty dark, and pretty Brothers Grim to me, move forward the witch sends out bees to sting them, crows to peek out their eyes, and wolfs to tear them to pieces, and Winkie solders to spear them to death, and then the winged monkeys. the witch forces DOROTHY TO BE A SLACVE, STARVES THE LION FOR NOT PULLING HER CHARIOT, AND THEN Trips the child, steals her shoe, and Dorothy kills her with a bucket of water just for loosing a magical shoe. After Oz is revealed and leaves, they are sent to travel to Glinda, attacked by fighting trees, have to cross over a china bowl and try not to damage the china made people who are all ass holes to them to begin with, and then lion is asked to kill a spider who's eaten all or most of the animals in the forest, they are attacked by creatures with flat heads and no arms called Hammer Heads, come on please Baum's series was just as messed up as Maguires wicked series, the only part is that he wouldn't have been able to write more in-depth in 1900 the way Gregory was able to in 1993. So this reviewer is cray cray.
Yeah. My understanding is that Maguire's Wicked novel is a response to the 1939 movie not the original books. I have no research, but it seems contemporary audiences are far more familiar with the story as presented in the 1939 movie versus the books and as such Dom's commentary (only where he speaks of the original books in the review section) while accurate, is not quite relevant. The 1939 movie only follows Dorothy. The political climate, culture, etc. described by Maguire could have existed in the movie but simply not shown. Hope that makes sense.
Agreed. It's especially telling that Wicked makes such a big deal about her being green. She was green in the movie, but not in the original book. In the book her most distinctive physical feature was that she only had one eye.
Honestly, Elphaba being the product of a willing affair actually makes the book's themes land way better, too. The reason she was alienated from her mother in that case is that she very much *is* a symbol of how broken that family always was, with her green skin being a side effect of willing drug abuse. She is very much the scapegoat of issues that isn't her fault. It's not...whatever that was.
Ostracizing the green rape baby is pretty apt for a society that completely fell apart when a clock made them actually look at what was going on. It's something everyone knows is going on and it's happened to everyone, but no one's supposed to think about it, but here's this girl and she's green and every time they look at her they have to think about it
Hearing you describe it made a connection for me that I didn’t make while reading the book. (Note: None of the following excuses how he went about this. It just seeks to make sense of the grosser aspects by putting them in light of what was happening politically at the time.) It really feels like he used this book to process how he felt about the AIDS epidemic. In college, the age that I took the group to be in their private dorms, people from all walks of life will come together to care deeply about a subject, but most of those people don’t maintain that energy once they’re settled into living their lives. At the time, homosexuality was lumped in with pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality. The book was published in ‘95, and the crisis didn’t peak until ‘97. So this was written while he was watching his community be slaughtered by a government that purposefully scapegoated them for perceived failings of morality. It also very much mirrors the attitudes that were held about sexual assault at the time. The author has said in recent interviews that he hid snippets of queerness in the books, and I originally thought he was just talking about that one time Elphaba and Glinda made out on a train. However, it makes way more sense if you look at it as allegory, and the characters who had weird sexual stuff going on were representative of queer people and how they responded to being queer during that time. Then the choice of setting makes sense, too. Because this was one of the first forays into edgy fairytale retellings. Judy Garland is considered a gay icon, so setting the book in Oz would have been a sign to the right people about what they were reading without setting off any flags for the straight consumers.
Also the gay experience was utterly different to what was portrayed in the news and on entertainment at the time. Especially during the Reagan era. So no doubt that fuelled the idea of the official version (the original wizard of oz story) being totally different to the “real” version (Wicked). I’m kinda surprised he didn’t pick up on this.
@@deanolium I don't actually know the details, but I've seen people I respect talk about how the original LFB Oz books contained a lot of political satire about America 1870-90, and it'd be interesting to see how Wicked interacts wit that.
He seemed to put a lot of own experiences and didnt seem to sugarcoatr how messy and tragic life really can be and how its still worth doing your best, even if unfair. And its good to talk about it? And some about messy sexuality? He didnt seem to sugarcoat? The selfloathing could be from some people? Ther are still now some blame yourself and victim blaming, then that was just the view probably. and the mental health, was crrazy women then a thing too? He probably just wanted to be real.
It's actually a bit sad seeing people comment (elsewhere) that this story makes them feel differently about the 1939 movie or the original Oz books. They are all different universes. Very different. So it's cool to see you're going to do videos dealing with all of that.
Yes, I see people who are seeing Wicked for the first time through the movie commenting on clips of the original 1939 film and saying things like "Glinda is evil! How dare she take those shoes off of Nessarose!" And "Dorothy is actually awful for killing Nessarose and Elphaba!" But in that film and the original book, Elphaba obviously does not exist and the witch truly is an evil villain. They are not the same canonical stories at all.
when i was a kid my mom bought me the novel bc she loved the play. HOLY HELL. And i was honestly so young i didnt really get the raunchy bits, but i distinctly remembered her sharp teeth and water allergy, and i never wanted to see the play bc i thought it would be INSANE. You cant even imagine my suprise at seeing how pg the movie was, i felt like 17 years of my life was a LIE
In the original books, the Wizard is revealed to have made the previous king "not be there anymore" and took the baby princess to another witch to deal with. Glinda knew that the Wizard had taken the baby to the witch but didn't do anything about it for quite some time. So canonically they aren't the best.
I believe this was retconned away, though, to where he had nothing to do with it, since it was apparently hated by readers. Future books never again mention it, at least, and show the events as having happened without the Wizard's involvement. But it's been a while since I looked into it.
I have *Wicked trauma* and I'm not from Boston. But I was in a theater program when the musical was taking off and that sound track was on repeat. Then I became a librarian and had to hear about how the books were so much better...they were not.
i cant help but feel that sometimes that "the books were better" opinion comes out just out of spite for an adaptations popularity rather than being a genuine opinion
One thing you forgot to mention was that there was a distinction between sentient animals and regular animals. Sentient animals are spelled with a capital A while regular animals are spelled with a lower case a. There's a scene where Madam Morrible makes up a poem with the line "Animals should be seen and not heard" and they make a point of her saying it in a way that could be about talking animals.
Speaking of parallels to Harry Potter, I found it kind of interesting that good ol' JK also included magic rape as part of the backstory for Voldemort. Because of course she included that in it.
@@Jan_Iedema It was a woman assaulting a man in that instance. JK had a tendency to excuse love potions when used by women, but ultimately magical roofies are still magical roofies
@@Jan_Iedema Tom Riddle Junior (Voldemort) was born when his witch mother drugged muggle Tom Riddle Senior with love potions for years. She eventually got deluded enough to think he actually loved her and stopped giving him love potions, at which point he drove her out. I'm pretty sure it's one of the pensieve flashbacks in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore is trying to give Harry enough information to find Horcruxes.
@@Jan_Iedema Spoiler warning Voldemort's dad was love potioned by his mom for years had him and then she stopped because she thought they had true love but he left both of them and went back to his real family.
I have been hoping you would eventually get to the adaptation! As a teen, I saw my very first musical, Wicked. It was a magical experience and birthed a life-long adoration for stage musicals. A year or two later I discovered it was based on a book, and being an avid reader, naturally had to have it. I couldn't finish it. It was bleak, harsh, loveless, and generally the most depressing thing I had ever read to that point. I wouldn't call it traumatizing for me personally, but I was completely flabbergasted that this nihilistic book could have ever spawned a musical as beautiful, uplifting, and wonderful as Wicked. That it somehow did means I can never begrudge the book's existence, but needless to say I will never revisit this author. I look forward to the adaption review! The tone shift alone should make for interesting discussion XD
Personally, I think the entire cast becoming unlikable by the end was a very purposeful thing. To me , the thesis of the book is basically “the older you get, it becomes increasingly harder to believe you are a good person that can change the world for better”. And because of that the characters growing into people that would make fun of suicide or turn a blind eye to rape was a very fitting almost cathartic thing. I feel like the author told the story he wanted to tell and did it well. It all makes sense when you take into consideration that in the canon books the land of Oz gets fixed by the actions of little girls who are not corrupted by growing up. Over all I agree with you. This isn’t an enjoyable read. Quite the opposite, I hesitate to recommend this to anyone that likes happy endings. It’s a book that sticks with you, but one that you’ll never want to revisit.
I had read the Oz books by Baum when I was a kid (I had a grandmother whom most of the family found eccentric, and she had an illustrated collection), and I remember the matriarchal leadership point. It struck me as very cool.
I've always treated Wicked in the same mindset as stuff like Roger Rabbit or IT, where it's sort of agreed by the vast majority that the adaptations changed so much because if they didn't then they'd be so unendingly hard to watch due to some of the most uncomfortable themes and events imaginable.
Also since the goal of each one was to turn them into a specific market (kids movie and musical theater) so the books needed to be heavily altered if not completely altered just to fit the needed themes and restrictions of the medium.
Dom, love the shirt! To those looking to resist and push back against what’s going on please remember who owns the majority of social media companies. If you can find ways to start connecting offline with local people to plan next steps do so. Old school and underground.
in middle school I read Gregory Maguire's "confessions of an ugly stepsister" and if that's any indication of his writing I can say it's Not for Children and Very Weird Edit: thinking about weird treatment of exual ssault victims, I distinctly remember the Cinderella of that book getting gossiped about for being caught alone with the prince, though I can't recall if their eventual marriage was framed as happy for her or a cover up for an untimely pregnancy
Man I do not have a single memory of that book but definitely read it when it first came out. I think I was too young to really get what was actually happening
The reason there wasn't a witch of the South because when MGM made their movie (1939 release) they combined the Good Witch of the North with Glinda the Witch of the South to create Glinda the Good"
But...but the way the characters treat and mistreat each other over issues like sex, sexual assault, fidelity, honesty, faith, love, freedom, and personal integrity are very important to the theme of, well, wickedness. Is it evil to disregard someone's feelings? Is it evil to gloss over trauma? To look the other way? To give up in the face of injustice? To fail at doing the right thing? These are all evils, surely, but do people do them because WE are evil or only because we're human and we all have breaking points for our sanity and self-worth and capacity to just keep existing? Now if Dom's answer is "yes, these people are all assholes, I hate them," well fine. And he doesn't have to like the book--maybe this was not a smart way to explore these questions, that's a valid opinion. But I don't think you can say these incidents add nothing or just rhetorically ask "What the fuck?" because, hey, THIS is what the fuck.
I am a long-time Wicked fan (derived my first major screen name from it about 18 years ago) and I can only offer the MOST half-hearted defense of some of the weird shit in the book, because there's a lot about it that I find interesting more than... let's call it 'quality.' There's a lot of shit in the book that is very fucked-up in a way that, when I first read it, seemed to follow a sort of "reality is messy and fate is beyond our control" message. Like, the book would work better if it was framed less as a story about Good and Evil and more as a story about Reality and Morality: What Is vs What Ought. Crimes are real. Sex is real. Sex crimes are real. Religious institutions are real. Youth counter-culture movements are real. Ostracized minority groups are real. Charismatic con men are real. Bastard children are real. Which of these real things do we label as problems, and why? What happens when those labels shift, either in response to progressive reforms or fascist fearmongering? What do we do when we realize our way of life is paid for by the blood of others? When can a principled stance change reality, and how often does reality change your principles? The idea that the world "is what it is," and that society invents morality as a means to interpret the world, allows for a lot of the book's more egregiously "what the fuck" content to find its place and purpose. ...And I'll concede to basically every contrary point: the text doesn't support this reading. The morals are dismal and depressing on purpose. Characters with likable qualities either die or get ground beneath the narrative as dust. The intense focus on shocking and dark content steals focus away from political intrigue and rebel action. The magic of Oz is dull, absent, and barely impacts the plot. Sexism got added. Yes, I know. I've had nearly two decades to come to grips with this. But, knowing how rarely I resonate with grimdark tragedies, it's interesting how Wicked: TLATOTWWOTW can be ALL-OUT with its upsetting tone, and still comes out the other side as a story I treasure. Thanks for the first video, Dom, looking forward to the others!
And thats good, probably even gives teenager that accidently read it something to think about, messy interesting is still, thank god kids dont get a lot of bigger context? but yeah, he seemed to really used that as outlet of life experience as meddy, dark things that still isnt saying its meaningless, but its messy?! If its human chaotic , messy dark drama can show a lot of humanity. I think life is unfair but its worth trying the best of your ability , is good. Also next seems to be about his army time?!
the idea of a darker and more grounded adult take on the world of Oz is not a bad idea at all, I love twists on classic stories like that. But this book to me feels a lot more like edgy AU fan fiction written by a hormonal 14-year-old who just recently gained political consciousness.
You should read Dorthy Must Die if you’re looking for a darker version. It’s basically about another girl from Kansas who ends up in Oz where Dorthy is now the evil ruler and good guys are bad and vice versa. Really has a lot of Oz lore in it from the other books and borrows from the books and the MGM film
yes when done well it can be an interesting alternative look into a story not a book but a good example to me is something like American McGee's Alice in wonderland
I totally concur. Parents of young children who enjoyed the film and stage show may buy the book for them, not realising the adult themes and mature content. The musical is certainly an improvement over the source material.
It's written in the style of a 19th century novel. Most kids won't even be able to make it through the first CHAPTER, let alone the whole book. If a young kid is advanced enough to read books like Crime and Punishment, their parents should already be checking to make sure they don't read explicit content.
Hilariously enough, I think that the audiobooks have interview with GM and I believe that he said he was HORIFIED when he found out that some of his students had fully read his book.
Sounds like a The Boys situation where an edgelord came up with an interesting idea but it took someone else doing something with it to make it worthwhile.
I actually enjoyed the weirdness and adult themes. The political/religious themes stayed with me over the, um, other themes. I always describe the musical as a 'disney-fied' version of the book. Really really watered down, simplified, and with a happy ending. I love both for very different reasons.
Me too. Huge fan of both the musical and the books. I like Gregory Maguire in general. I think he's a great author and it surprises me the amount of people who dislike his writing.
I can't exactly say that I "enjoyed" the book, but I liked it too. The way of adressing certain topics was weird, sure - but to me that felt deliberate. Like... sometimes it's easier to discuss things through the lense of fiction, when you're a few steps away and don't actually feel attacked and such. Both book and musical have their value and there's no reason to put one against the other. (Though parents should check what sort of books they give their kids. It's not the books fault if you don't do your homework.)
@ Kind of! For some reason everyone was obsessed with this one monologue from Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister at the time and I had to hear SO many of my friends practice it for school play auditions. Tried it. Hated it. Then the musical dropped, my mum and I were on a road trip somewhere and we stopped at this ginormous Barnes and Noble in the middle of nowhere where she very kindly bought me one of those old school multi disc audiobooks of Wicked - I have SUCH a visceral memory of listening to it with an increasingly morbid “surely not” Like…I have no objection to writing the type of content that appears in the book. What I DO think is that it would have been a stronger book if it weren’t fanfiction. I love fanfic, but not everything is best served by being it.
5:14 "...getting himself orchestrated from the village". I think you might mean "ostracized". That is, unless they drove him out with a marching band! 😉
So McGuire has said he deliberately made the first chapter disturbing to make the point that this is not for children. Also as it was written in 1995, this was the one of the major retelling of fairytales that would become more popular in 2010s. My understanding is that LBF's original series is also seriously weird (although not sexual)... And that he was being unhinged like LBF.
I'd recommend checking out Team Starkid's "Twisted". A quite amusing parody of Wicked and Aladdin. And if that tickles your fancy, they also have the A Very Potter Musical trilogy. All free on UA-cam.
And as a fellow fan of Starkid's "Twisted" I now wonder if the tiger-related running gag about Prince Achmed is a reference to the tiger relations in the "Wicked" book. I never caught that before because like Dom I had never read the book.
I think the mini series Tin Man is one of the best OZ spin-offs that doesn't get talked about enough. It does the darker look at it all without going way off the deep end like this book does.
I was literally just about to leave a comment about the parallels that Wicked has with Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire when you described the animals not wanting to leave their cages, but you saved me the trouble . I do miss hearing you talk about The Wizarding World.
To be fair to the abuse victims, it's not like you can just forget years of abuse and mental conditioning and walk out of the cage and start a new life. That's why therapy exist. So I do find that part kind of realistic. For freedom to occure, opening the gate isn't enough, one has to provide a lot more support on so many levels...
0:48 So its like your phantom videos again. Not complaining I liked that mini retrospective but i get the same vibe. Book that gets overshadowed by a musical version that got a big screen adaptation decades later.
So the book is another "What if this thing was darker and edgy though?" Those get so tiring. Also Oz can still be done Dark in a fun way, Return to Oz for example.
1st thing to realize is that GM was a professor and loved the themes in children's Literature. He chose OZ because of Elphaba, she is labeled the wicked witch, but we never get any backstory for her in the wizard of oz movie. The point was to to introduce a world we knew and a villain we inherently knew as evil and then ask the question "but why was she evil" [roll the opening for the musical] the rest mostly comes from his writing style of referencing real life as much as possible. like Tales of an Ugly Step Sister being set during the great poppy crash. Now this is just my feelings about this, your interpretation is just a valid BUT, his "cavalier" attitude towards SA was intended to show how fucked this world was. Kind of like writing a period piece where women are 2nd class citizens. I feel like, yes you are suppose to be weirded out by it. As far as the kid stuff goes, I think he was just trying to be brutally honest when it came down to puberty, and yea it feels weird talking about children and anything sexual, so fair enough, if that was a huge turn off for you
Like, yes, Nanny is smug and callous about her surrogate daughter's feelings and well-being; but then years later we see that she also has courage and integrity, to the point that it even gets her killed (effectively). She is BOTH of those people, and that is not inconsistent, it is just (sadly) how people are. Is that evil? Is wickedness what we do? What we don't do? How we treat people? How we treat just SOME people? Are WE wicked, or just our actions? These are not rhetorical questions in this book! You can't just say "What the fuck?" when presented with something uncomfortable about human nature, because THIS IS what the fuck.
@@Tamlinearthly I completely agree. I also feel like looking at Wicked as your standard fantasy book is kind of the wrong way to go into this series. Unlike many products of fiction, there really isn't a "moral to the story". Just an honest look at a world with a giant "What If" plastered across it. Religion was done so well in this book series. As a person who grew up in a very religious home, the religions in this book felt so real and peoples reactions to them were so real that I started to have church revival flashbacks. GM defiantly knew what he was writing, but I guess thats the Catholic part of himself.
Fwiw, people have straight-up asked Maguire to his face "So what was up with that tiger chapter?" and his answer has always been "Yeah I have no clue". So like... 🤷♀
just so you know dom, the religion of “tiktokism” was actually named after a robot from the oz books with the name tiktok. so technically baum is the real psychic
I liked the book, personally, but it's mostly because i saw the musical first and thought that the exploration is interesting. I respect this opinion, though, there are valid points that I can agree are not great. Happy reading, all!
Oh my god, you have unearthed my buried trauma. I fell in love with Wicked the Musical when I was in about 10th grade, and so my sweet innocent parents bought me the book. Somehow I actually read the whole thing, but I had this perpetual feeling of shock and disgust throughout. As you were talking, I started to vividly remember so many of these weird disturbing scenes that I had been suppressing for about 20 years. The part about the poor guy being forced to have sex with a tiger hit me like a punch in the face. Seriously, WTF Gregory.
Fun fact: my iirc 10th grade English teacher had this on a shelf of books we were encouraged to take out and read. I don't think she actually read it, though then again the school library had the first 5 Song of Ice and Fire books.
I am currently listening to the book right now. I came to what was the basis for Act 1 and Part 1 yesterday. My first impressions of the book has very much been "Oh wow, this book relies ALOT on the fact that it's a crass take where whimsical things like talking animals and all other characters in a world meant for children are crass and rude. With most of the "shock value" being derived from the fact that everyone says fuck, talks openly about sex, drugs and alchol." That was most of my thoughts for most of Part 1 and 2 of the book. Characters gets drunk on page. There's rude language all about. Whmsical things such as talking animals gets VIOLENTLY murdered. There are whore houses in Oz. I WAS NOT prepared for the straight up BEASTIALITY! And in Part 3, the story is right up a "rebel or terrorist" tale with the clear anaology of being about a fight for rights. Rights in general. A difficult listen for certain.
Wow. AMAZING! This is first time I've disagreed with nearly your enitire assessment of a book! It's refreshing! I would highly recommend this book. It's one of my all time favorites.
THANK YOU for all your great work on this story! There’s so much nuance about this book and story, and it changes a ton along the way :3 Also: first XD
This book always felt like... more than a sympathetic retelling of the story of the Wicked Witch, a story where someone really wanted to make Oz "darker and edgier", because it feels like at every turn, someone has to be traumatized or murdered. There's something that could be interesting about making a story where the Witch is a hero, but the author changed so much about Oz that he may as well have just written his own world.
I honesty think so many weird and horrible things being written so glibly plays into the whole "nature of evil" theme. A major theme is that apathy towards evil is just as much a problem as the evil itself, and it's being told explicitly through the POV of characters who feel this apathy. That's why we dont get Elphaba's POV until far into the story. The previous PoV characters (her mother, Boq, Galinda, Fiyero, his wife, etc.) all either participate or at least dont really care about the poor morality of their world. So we dont shift to Elphaba until she's been utterly broken by her failed fight against evil and utter dismissal by the world.
Yeah I’m having a difficult time enjoying this review bc I feel like he’s kind of missing the whole point. Just bc there’s horrible things in the story doesn’t make it a bad story. He majorly missed the mark there…
Dom i know you wont see this but heck to it. ever since i started watching your videos years back now i never finished a book. i hated reading. but now thanks you, and that you recommended audible i've finished just over 50 books. some rather big ones like the GOT books aswell. so with all my heart. thank you Dom, for being you.
I liked Wicked when I read it, but it’s been like a decade since I did. I might feel differently if I read it now. I’ve also read the sequels. Son of a Witch was relatively enjoyable as I recall, but I hated the last two.
My friends and I are huge Wicked the Musical fans. We all read the book a few years ago and we absolutely baffled by it. Everyone but one of my friends absolutely hated it. My favorite aspect of the musical: Elphaba and Glinda’s complex relationship is almost completely missing from the book. I also really didn’t like how quickly it skips around, there’s very little time to enjoy the characters or plot.
I do think Maguire does does do the shock jock thing quite a bit, which is why I never read his Cinderella story or any of his other stuff. But despite your allusion to the fact that this book is in some ways more about the 1939 movie than Buam's books there is a lot of Oz lore and things that people who have been fans of the literature that sprung up around Oz perhaps one of the oldest American fandoms with a fan convention that's been around for nearly 60 years would spot. There is a lot of love for Oz in the story even though it's not faithful. Also not the only Oz book that's a "cotemplation of evil," I've never managed to convince myself to read Adolph Hitler in Oz (yes that's a real book, and not the only time Oz has faced Nazis they also had to deal with them in Oz Squad).
I'd be lying if I said the idea of a sentient clock beating up a preacher didn't have some appeal, but the rest sounds like edge pretending to be depth.
I've already read this book in the past as a fan of Wizard of Oz, it was one of the hardest books I forced myself to finish. I'm glad you're talking about it here. I haven't seen either the stage play or the recent movie.
I will defend her defining feature being a sign of sexual assault. The point of the wicked witches was to showcase *how* someone becomes a villain. For Elphaba, it was by being continually persecuted for something outside her control causing her to be willing to harm society at large. For her sister it was by believing in something so strongly that she no longer cared whether or not she harmed the out group. It falls flat since the WWotE doesn't get enough narrative to capitalize on the differences in their lives or their villainy.
I tried and failed to read Wicked at certain point. I fell off hard in part 3. At an entirely seperate time I was on a road trip with my mother as a teenager. We rented the audiobook for McGuire's take on Snow White, MIrror Mirror. We finished it mostly because we needed something to keep us awake and alert for the drive and because we'd both kinda assumed that the other person was at least invested in it. When we finally reached the end I asked her if she liked it and she reluctantly said she hated it. I also hated it and we bonded over complaining about. In summary, frustration and disappointment with the writing of Gregory McGuire was a family bonding moment for me.
I have remained permanently disturbed by the tiger scene alone, let alone the rest of the uncomfy assault stuff. I couldn't understand all the fandom around the Wicked musical and move because I read the book first and my permanent feeling about Wicked is ick.
I feel like my favorite version of Wicked is the hybrid of book and musical that exists in my head. I genuinely like certain aspects of Maguire (like, I much prefer Fiyero in the book and how race plays into his character) but I also like the narrative cohesion and brightness that comes from the musical. So I meld them in my head.
This book was an option for me in high school for my English class individual book report for the quarter, at a private faith based school. It was around the time the musical came out, and I don't think anyone on the staff of my school actually read the book before adding it to the option list. I picked it, and even as a teenager, I don't think I was old enough to read that book. While as an adult I enjoy it upon rereads, teenage me was not ready for that at all.
The other books in this series are arguably worse and the last one is "let's write a story where the protagonist just WATCHES other people do the important work."
Personally the dark aspects of this book don’t bother me. We’ve seen dark interpretations of fairy tales and other works before - probably the most famous is The Bloody Chamber, which also interpreted female and children’s characters through a sexualised lens, still amazing. Wicked just feels like a different interpretation of Baum’s works, except for a purely adult audience. I actually like how Maguire maintains that timeless sense of language, which a good fairy tale needs, despite the childlike origins of the world. To me it’s just a good fantasy. And I never felt the adult themes were purely exploitative, to me they felt like they were written in a purely negative way to point out the way humans themselves can have negative or beastial sexual urges, it’s not condoning, more confronting it. Also the whole thing about Maguire being a catholic and a gay guy?? Dom, I really think you’re overthinking that part mate. I’m a pure atheist but different sectors of the same type of religion do exist, it’s like saying all Christians are part of the Westboro Baptist Church, it’s just not reality. In the end, I just don’t think this book is for you, and god knows you’re not the only one who feels that way. I’m fairly certain you’ll enjoy the musical a lot more! Still love you man! And love the shirt! ❤
I'm surprised by the negative review, I like this book. I think it's a slow read, but it's great fun to discuss, I talked to a friend about it for three and a half hours. It is, as you point out, exceedingly weird, dark, and bawdy in a way that I think is fair to say is problematic but I never read it as ever being purposefully edgy. I think what appeals to me about the book is its messiness and the exact unlikable nature of the characters you point out. I'd like to give a thematic reading that maybe presents a different view. First off, I think you leave out two important moments that matter for the book overall. There is a whole passage where Morrible puts a spell on Glinda, Elphaba, and Nessarose and basically tells them "you will be leaders, but you will never be able to speak to eachother about this." and those three characters, undergirded by that fundamental truth and ambition, achieve that in three separate, relevant thematic ways. Nessa becomes a religious tyrant, Glinda becomes complacent in the establishment rule, and Elphaba becomes a rebel. They are avatars for the individual ideology wrapped up in it, but part of the messiness that makes the book interesting is how all characters are guided by personal squabbles as well as ideology. To your point, Nessa arguably accomplishes more for freedom than Elphaba does! Her father criticises her for this and basically says "why would you not come back and help your sister?" That to me, is embracing the messiness that these are ideological battles but also, Elphie is imperfect. There's no solidarity, no trust between the sister and it hurts both the causes they represent and their own lives. It's a book about politics, but it's also a book about the tragedy of broken families and what a lack of love and trust does to someone. You can even see the pattern repeating in how awful Elphaba is to her children. The second plot element that matters is the Wizard is the one who orders Elphie to kill Morrible, and she can't because Morrible is already dead. A fair criticism of the character is, for as rebellious as her ideology is, she is so PASSIVE in her engagement with the Wizard. Even her revolutionary action is motivated by resentment of the world as much as it is by politics. Her internal monologue is filled with so much resentment and hate, only abated for such a brief moment in her affair with Fiyero. There's a gentleness in the time they spend together i find compelling, and make his death all the more tragic. She's talking to all these people who are so disconnected from the injustice going on around her and she feels insane and hateful because why is no one else reacting the same way? Feels like an apropos feeling for this time we're in! But then, because she's human, she can see a kindness and a gentleness in this affair partner, despite the fact that he's also doing something pretty wicked by cheating on his wife. It's really messy! You feel awful for Elphaba, but you are also frustrated by how awful she is. She's awful to her kid, she passively agrees to kill Morrible , there's so much stuff where you can argue she's an evil person. I think the core of the disagreement comes down to how much you think the messiness is purposeful or just muddling the themes. I think part of what makes the book kind of maddening is how it seeks to create this feeling of inevitability. That every character is so passive about where they are, they just feel "well that's just the way it is". But I think that's purposeful, that is what alot of status quo politics feels like and Its rare to have a book deal seriously with both the personal and the poltiical. If you can stomach the trigger warnings, I would recommend reading this book with friends; every person I've talked to about it has a different spin on the level of responsibility, on the stability of the political system in Oz, on if any character is likeable.
Something about the way this book is written is so impersonal. It feels like the narration is highly judgmental of every character and action, and it makes it really difficult to connect to any of the events in the story. I've tried to read it twice, once as a teenager when I first discovered the musical soundtrack, and once just a few months ago after I saw the movie. I couldn't finish it either time, it was a bizarre experience that I've never felt with any other book - it felt like the narration doesn't want me there, and is actively trying to kick me out. A lot of what you said here helped me put my finger on some specifics of why I couldn't get through it.
Boy i love these stories of popular works of fiction that are relatively tame, where their source material was almost unrealistically batshit insane. Like THAT sequence from Stephen King's It. Or Narnia near the end.
My sibling had the opposite effect. They read the book prior to the musical and was shocked to hear that they adapted this book into a play let alone a musical. She missed the Broadway show but finally watched the movie and was unsurprised by what they changed from the book. Assuming it was mostly adapted from the musical.
I think I know what you mean. I didn't enjoy it either, but I did like the book. It gave me stuff to think about. Some very weird stuff sure - but nevertheless. It did seem like it wanted to be disturbing.
1984 made me feel depressed but I never once questioned the intention behind describing negative experiences. Personally I can´t bring myself finishing a book where I am questioning if the author agrees with certain aspects that feel (to me) morally wrong. It has nothing to do imo with the themes but rather with, what´s the author trying to say basically and are they doing a good job with that.
I haven’t read this book since 7th or 8th grade, and honestly your review makes me want to revisit it even more. I remember really loving it, and I have not seen the musical so I had planned to reread it before checking out the movie.
The novel is based on the Judy garland movie which convinced glinda the good witch of the south with the witch of the north meaning she was both the one who told Dorothy to see the wizard and the one who told her she could use the slippers to go home which has spawned all types of fan conspiracies
Yahhhh. I tried reading it when I was a teenager (I was probably about 16) and I didn't get past the sex club scene. I was so disturbed by it that I set the book on the shelf and never touched it again. And I am a guy who loves the wizard of Oz and the music of Wicked... but that book always gave me an unclean feeling after reading that scene.
So, I read this in high school, around when it came out. Regarding all the weird sex stuff that you react to around the 20 minute mark; yes, it’s weird and it’s supposed to be weird. Reading it at the time felt looking at a harsh mirror of the world. Victim blaming existed and was prevalent. Children were exploited and we didn’t talk about it. The late 90s had this haze of “we fixed all the bad things because they’re all technically illegal” but all the bad things were still happening. If you go back and look at the WWE storylines of the time, you’ll see the same unkind attitudes that exist in the Wicked book. Also, when “Wicked” came out, it was sincerely dark and edgy. It wasn’t until about 10 years later that the dark actions became attention tropes.
Oof. I remember seeing this in bookstores and toying with the notion of buying it but I never took the plunge. Sounds like I really dodged a bad take on the Oz stories, almost as rough as the Oz Squad comic that came out in the '90s.
It honestly baffles me how someone looked at the hot mess that is the wicked book and decided to make not only a musical, but a GOOD musical about it. Any time it comes up I tell people to NOT read it. I have a lot of thoughs but the main one is, for all it tries to say about the nature of evil, it never actually does something substantial or meaningful. It's all tell, no show. It felt like someone who says incredibly intelligent philosophy but acts like an idiot
7:38 "his research that scientifically prooves that sapient animals share common genetic code with humans and therefore deserve equal treatment" me after that sentence: "okay, so the world of wicked makes no sense. good. good. good. keep going." genetics as the basis of equal treatment, or even recognition, is just a crazy assumption to pu in your book
As a major fan of the Oz Books growing up this series always seemed like such a slap in the face to the fun and lighthearted stories that those books told. Great job giving the book the ol what for!
Hearing you talk about the book felt like flasbacks from the war. I read this as a teenager learning english (my parents speak Spanish, and of course didn't proof read) just UFF boi all around
I tried reading this book as a teenager because it was my mom’s favorite book. The writing style bored me so much I never made it past part 1. The parts I did manage to read didn’t sit well with me though so I’d say I dodged a bullet with this. I’ve taken all of my mother’s book recommendations with a grain of salt ever since.
A moment of silence for the parents who bought the wicked book for their kids thinking it would just be the book version for the musical they liked
This actually legitimately happened with me and my mom. She got me the book cause we’d seen the musical and then a few days later I approach her like “Mom, I don’t know if I should be reading this.” I was in my starting year of high school I think and I remember covering the book often as I read it in class.
Good thing I read the book way before I saw the musical
I mean a lot would go over their head?!
It's marketed as an adult book by an author who is known for dark fairy tale retellings. It is exactly what you expect from a McGuire book.
Or in my case, a kid who got it themselves for the same reason
Fun Fact: L. Frank Baum (the author of "Wonderful Wizard of Oz") had an aunt/cousin who was a major figurehead in the suffragette movement; thus, she was the inspiration behind why there are so many female political figures in the book.
It was his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage.
@@johnburnside7828 Thank you. I remember it being one of his female family members; but, I couldn't remember which one.
@@carlolombardi1998 You're welcome. I just realized when I saw your reply that my comment may have seemed rude, for which I apologize. I'm glad you took it in the way it was intended, just information.
@johnburnside7828 Nah, don't worry; you're good.
I read this novel when it first came out, as a teenager, and when the musical came out I was absolutely baffled as to how that even happened. It took like five years before I found out how much they'd changed to make that even remotely viable.
Reminds me of John Gardener's Grendel. He writes a highly philosophical novel about why Grendel was a monster, and the movie Grendel, Grendel, Grendel is as simple as humans bad, monster nice.
Same thing for me! I liked the book and was totally confused about how something so dark could be made into a musical. But it’s very “Disney-fied” so has very little to do with the book.
Same here, read it in the 90s as a big Wizard of Oz fan and couldn't figure out why it was about the Wizard of Oz or took place in the Oz universe. I avoided the musical until the 2010s because of the book. I'm fine with subversion, the musical\movie are good, but the book seemed to be an edgy anti-imagining of the source material from before anti-imagining of source materials became cool.
@@The_Practical_Daydreamer It doesn't seem that similar? This wasn't an adaptation that was reductive or something. Wicked is not a highly philosophical novel. It's just a lot of descriptions of terrible things happening under the thin veneer of a pre-existing plotline.
Like, it's not just that it's "dark" or whatever. It's stuff like realizing that, oh, the musical is not somehow using some kind of costume bondage to portray Nessarose as a Thalidomide baby. That's the joke, in the original. Magic Thalidomide. I still don't know how someone read it and went, "wow, this should be on stage."
Reminds of the fact there was an American Psycho and as a casual fan of the movie I went "that's a choice how you gonna pull that off" and they called former the doctor Matt Smith 😂
wicked actually took more inspiration from the 1939 movie adaptation so it’s more accurate to say the wicked movie is based on a play based on a book based on a movie based on a book
I could be wrong, but wasn’t the 1939 movie also put into production because of an extremely successful play version of the book? Which would add yet ANOTHER level!
@@willowjohnson8553 yes, Baum's theater owners and investors forced him to add in sex, and political jokes, and put in love interests and murder in order for them to produce his book for the stage. So Sex and politics has always been in the wizard of Oz from stage musical, to the sequel, but Maguire has said that it started both with the film, and then the wars that were going on around the world at that time. And also Malina was as nanny puts it a wealthy daughter who loved the boys and their toys. So Elphaba's mother was not all innocents, she cheat3d on her husband due to being left alone for days and weeks at a time, her father did love her, and was close with her, Turtle heart came, and who cares if they had a open understanding relationship, he helped them raise their children, and took an interest in Elphaba. I agree the book doesn't even come close to staying in the world that Baum created, but some of the things your saying are out of certain chapter context, and are being written in a time period where these things happened, and religion destroyed people, and such. i don't find what makes his writing any different then Dickens, or Victor Hugo, and Stephen king who deal with all kinds of topics. Plus the original Book the wonderful wizard of oz despite Baum's saying he didn't want to create a grimes fairy tales he did but it was an American grimes fairy tales type of telling. A girl who is orphaned raised by relatives, a horrible evil witch killed by her house, and then puts on said evil watches SILVER Shoes, and saves a scarecrow, hears about mutuilation and lost love due to a witches vengeance, and then attacked by a Lion, and then after he joins them they are attacked by creators who try to eat them called kalidahs, and then tin man kills a wild cat whos attacking a mouse who happens to be queen of the field mice, and so kills a wild creature which is what cat and mice do to one another, then scarecrow gets stuck on a river saved by a stork bird, are then after getting to Emerald City told to go and kill the west witch in order for them to be given their wishes, so far this is feeling pretty dark, and pretty Brothers Grim to me, move forward the witch sends out bees to sting them, crows to peek out their eyes, and wolfs to tear them to pieces, and Winkie solders to spear them to death, and then the winged monkeys. the witch forces DOROTHY TO BE A SLACVE, STARVES THE LION FOR NOT PULLING HER CHARIOT, AND THEN Trips the child, steals her shoe, and Dorothy kills her with a bucket of water just for loosing a magical shoe. After Oz is revealed and leaves, they are sent to travel to Glinda, attacked by fighting trees, have to cross over a china bowl and try not to damage the china made people who are all ass holes to them to begin with, and then lion is asked to kill a spider who's eaten all or most of the animals in the forest, they are attacked by creatures with flat heads and no arms called Hammer Heads, come on please Baum's series was just as messed up as Maguires wicked series, the only part is that he wouldn't have been able to write more in-depth in 1900 the way Gregory was able to in 1993. So this reviewer is cray cray.
Yeah. My understanding is that Maguire's Wicked novel is a response to the 1939 movie not the original books. I have no research, but it seems contemporary audiences are far more familiar with the story as presented in the 1939 movie versus the books and as such Dom's commentary (only where he speaks of the original books in the review section) while accurate, is not quite relevant. The 1939 movie only follows Dorothy. The political climate, culture, etc. described by Maguire could have existed in the movie but simply not shown. Hope that makes sense.
Yeah to my understanding it's a response to the movie not the book.
Agreed. It's especially telling that Wicked makes such a big deal about her being green. She was green in the movie, but not in the original book. In the book her most distinctive physical feature was that she only had one eye.
Honestly, Elphaba being the product of a willing affair actually makes the book's themes land way better, too. The reason she was alienated from her mother in that case is that she very much *is* a symbol of how broken that family always was, with her green skin being a side effect of willing drug abuse. She is very much the scapegoat of issues that isn't her fault.
It's not...whatever that was.
Ostracizing the green rape baby is pretty apt for a society that completely fell apart when a clock made them actually look at what was going on. It's something everyone knows is going on and it's happened to everyone, but no one's supposed to think about it, but here's this girl and she's green and every time they look at her they have to think about it
Hearing you describe it made a connection for me that I didn’t make while reading the book. (Note: None of the following excuses how he went about this. It just seeks to make sense of the grosser aspects by putting them in light of what was happening politically at the time.)
It really feels like he used this book to process how he felt about the AIDS epidemic. In college, the age that I took the group to be in their private dorms, people from all walks of life will come together to care deeply about a subject, but most of those people don’t maintain that energy once they’re settled into living their lives. At the time, homosexuality was lumped in with pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality. The book was published in ‘95, and the crisis didn’t peak until ‘97. So this was written while he was watching his community be slaughtered by a government that purposefully scapegoated them for perceived failings of morality. It also very much mirrors the attitudes that were held about sexual assault at the time.
The author has said in recent interviews that he hid snippets of queerness in the books, and I originally thought he was just talking about that one time Elphaba and Glinda made out on a train. However, it makes way more sense if you look at it as allegory, and the characters who had weird sexual stuff going on were representative of queer people and how they responded to being queer during that time. Then the choice of setting makes sense, too. Because this was one of the first forays into edgy fairytale retellings. Judy Garland is considered a gay icon, so setting the book in Oz would have been a sign to the right people about what they were reading without setting off any flags for the straight consumers.
Huh, that makes a lot of sense. The book is messy, but... so was AIDS.
Also the gay experience was utterly different to what was portrayed in the news and on entertainment at the time. Especially during the Reagan era. So no doubt that fuelled the idea of the official version (the original wizard of oz story) being totally different to the “real” version (Wicked).
I’m kinda surprised he didn’t pick up on this.
@@deanolium I don't actually know the details, but I've seen people I respect talk about how the original LFB Oz books contained a lot of political satire about America 1870-90, and it'd be interesting to see how Wicked interacts wit that.
He seemed to put a lot of own experiences and didnt seem to sugarcoatr how messy and tragic life really can be and how its still worth doing your best, even if unfair.
And its good to talk about it? And some about messy sexuality? He didnt seem to sugarcoat? The selfloathing could be from some people?
Ther are still now some blame yourself and victim blaming, then that was just the view probably. and the mental health, was crrazy women then a thing too? He probably just wanted to be real.
Ah, yes. "Friends of Dorothy".
It's actually a bit sad seeing people comment (elsewhere) that this story makes them feel differently about the 1939 movie or the original Oz books. They are all different universes. Very different. So it's cool to see you're going to do videos dealing with all of that.
Yes, I see people who are seeing Wicked for the first time through the movie commenting on clips of the original 1939 film and saying things like "Glinda is evil! How dare she take those shoes off of Nessarose!" And "Dorothy is actually awful for killing Nessarose and Elphaba!" But in that film and the original book, Elphaba obviously does not exist and the witch truly is an evil villain. They are not the same canonical stories at all.
It is like Secret Galaxy says,
*clap* *clap* MULTIVERSE!
I really appreciate your shirt, honestly I almost cried
Why?! 😅 (I don't get the reference sadly)
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
@@erima4270It’s about trans support. Trans people are targeted with bigoted hostility at a legislative level
Same, in a scary political state, I’m glad he’s with us trans beautiful watchers.
@@erima4270 Those colours are the trans rights flag
when i was a kid my mom bought me the novel bc she loved the play. HOLY HELL. And i was honestly so young i didnt really get the raunchy bits, but i distinctly remembered her sharp teeth and water allergy, and i never wanted to see the play bc i thought it would be INSANE. You cant even imagine my suprise at seeing how pg the movie was, i felt like 17 years of my life was a LIE
In the original books, the Wizard is revealed to have made the previous king "not be there anymore" and took the baby princess to another witch to deal with. Glinda knew that the Wizard had taken the baby to the witch but didn't do anything about it for quite some time. So canonically they aren't the best.
I believe this was retconned away, though, to where he had nothing to do with it, since it was apparently hated by readers. Future books never again mention it, at least, and show the events as having happened without the Wizard's involvement. But it's been a while since I looked into it.
A plausible explanation would be Mombi turned Ozma, a girl, into Tib, a boy to throw anyone off their trail.
I have *Wicked trauma* and I'm not from Boston. But I was in a theater program when the musical was taking off and that sound track was on repeat. Then I became a librarian and had to hear about how the books were so much better...they were not.
i cant help but feel that sometimes that "the books were better" opinion comes out just out of spite for an adaptations popularity rather than being a genuine opinion
One thing you forgot to mention was that there was a distinction between sentient animals and regular animals. Sentient animals are spelled with a capital A while regular animals are spelled with a lower case a. There's a scene where Madam Morrible makes up a poem with the line "Animals should be seen and not heard" and they make a point of her saying it in a way that could be about talking animals.
Speaking of parallels to Harry Potter, I found it kind of interesting that good ol' JK also included magic rape as part of the backstory for Voldemort. Because of course she included that in it.
Wait where did that come up?
@@Jan_Iedema You know that love potion in #6?
@@Jan_Iedema It was a woman assaulting a man in that instance. JK had a tendency to excuse love potions when used by women, but ultimately magical roofies are still magical roofies
@@Jan_Iedema Tom Riddle Junior (Voldemort) was born when his witch mother drugged muggle Tom Riddle Senior with love potions for years. She eventually got deluded enough to think he actually loved her and stopped giving him love potions, at which point he drove her out. I'm pretty sure it's one of the pensieve flashbacks in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore is trying to give Harry enough information to find Horcruxes.
@@Jan_Iedema Spoiler warning
Voldemort's dad was love potioned by his mom for years had him and then she stopped because she thought they had true love but he left both of them and went back to his real family.
I have been hoping you would eventually get to the adaptation! As a teen, I saw my very first musical, Wicked. It was a magical experience and birthed a life-long adoration for stage musicals. A year or two later I discovered it was based on a book, and being an avid reader, naturally had to have it. I couldn't finish it. It was bleak, harsh, loveless, and generally the most depressing thing I had ever read to that point. I wouldn't call it traumatizing for me personally, but I was completely flabbergasted that this nihilistic book could have ever spawned a musical as beautiful, uplifting, and wonderful as Wicked. That it somehow did means I can never begrudge the book's existence, but needless to say I will never revisit this author.
I look forward to the adaption review! The tone shift alone should make for interesting discussion XD
"A book whose main appeal will always be the premise" is such a succint and great way to summarize this!
Personally, I think the entire cast becoming unlikable by the end was a very purposeful thing. To me , the thesis of the book is basically “the older you get, it becomes increasingly harder to believe you are a good person that can change the world for better”. And because of that the characters growing into people that would make fun of suicide or turn a blind eye to rape was a very fitting almost cathartic thing. I feel like the author told the story he wanted to tell and did it well. It all makes sense when you take into consideration that in the canon books the land of Oz gets fixed by the actions of little girls who are not corrupted by growing up.
Over all I agree with you. This isn’t an enjoyable read. Quite the opposite, I hesitate to recommend this to anyone that likes happy endings. It’s a book that sticks with you, but one that you’ll never want to revisit.
I had read the Oz books by Baum when I was a kid (I had a grandmother whom most of the family found eccentric, and she had an illustrated collection), and I remember the matriarchal leadership point. It struck me as very cool.
U are mad!!!! Starting from the very beginning of wicked!!! I bloody love you!!!!
Dom! 'ripping off' the osp style for this is THE BEST THING YOUVE DONE RECENTLY
ANd Victorias art is fantastic, obviously!
I've always treated Wicked in the same mindset as stuff like Roger Rabbit or IT, where it's sort of agreed by the vast majority that the adaptations changed so much because if they didn't then they'd be so unendingly hard to watch due to some of the most uncomfortable themes and events imaginable.
Also since the goal of each one was to turn them into a specific market (kids movie and musical theater) so the books needed to be heavily altered if not completely altered just to fit the needed themes and restrictions of the medium.
Dom, love the shirt!
To those looking to resist and push back against what’s going on please remember who owns the majority of social media companies. If you can find ways to start connecting offline with local people to plan next steps do so. Old school and underground.
I'd love if somebody did something that'd make stonewall look like a toddler's tantrum.
in middle school I read Gregory Maguire's "confessions of an ugly stepsister" and if that's any indication of his writing I can say it's Not for Children and Very Weird
Edit: thinking about weird treatment of exual ssault victims, I distinctly remember the Cinderella of that book getting gossiped about for being caught alone with the prince, though I can't recall if their eventual marriage was framed as happy for her or a cover up for an untimely pregnancy
The book doesn't clarify. They just say "perhaps she was pregnant even then" - so nah Ella wasn't having a specifically shotgun wedding
Man I do not have a single memory of that book but definitely read it when it first came out. I think I was too young to really get what was actually happening
oh man i totally forgot he wrote that! it kinda seems like he's more of an "ideas guy"... like his ideas are fun but the execution is a little lacking
The reason there wasn't a witch of the South because when MGM made their movie (1939 release) they combined the Good Witch of the North with Glinda the Witch of the South to create Glinda the Good"
I still wonder if MacGuire even read the original Oz books.
I am not surprised that the book didn't tickle your fancy. It didn't tickle mine either. Your shirt is pretty badass though.
But...but the way the characters treat and mistreat each other over issues like sex, sexual assault, fidelity, honesty, faith, love, freedom, and personal integrity are very important to the theme of, well, wickedness.
Is it evil to disregard someone's feelings? Is it evil to gloss over trauma? To look the other way? To give up in the face of injustice? To fail at doing the right thing? These are all evils, surely, but do people do them because WE are evil or only because we're human and we all have breaking points for our sanity and self-worth and capacity to just keep existing?
Now if Dom's answer is "yes, these people are all assholes, I hate them," well fine. And he doesn't have to like the book--maybe this was not a smart way to explore these questions, that's a valid opinion. But I don't think you can say these incidents add nothing or just rhetorically ask "What the fuck?" because, hey, THIS is what the fuck.
I am a long-time Wicked fan (derived my first major screen name from it about 18 years ago) and I can only offer the MOST half-hearted defense of some of the weird shit in the book, because there's a lot about it that I find interesting more than... let's call it 'quality.' There's a lot of shit in the book that is very fucked-up in a way that, when I first read it, seemed to follow a sort of "reality is messy and fate is beyond our control" message. Like, the book would work better if it was framed less as a story about Good and Evil and more as a story about Reality and Morality: What Is vs What Ought.
Crimes are real. Sex is real. Sex crimes are real. Religious institutions are real. Youth counter-culture movements are real. Ostracized minority groups are real. Charismatic con men are real. Bastard children are real. Which of these real things do we label as problems, and why? What happens when those labels shift, either in response to progressive reforms or fascist fearmongering? What do we do when we realize our way of life is paid for by the blood of others? When can a principled stance change reality, and how often does reality change your principles? The idea that the world "is what it is," and that society invents morality as a means to interpret the world, allows for a lot of the book's more egregiously "what the fuck" content to find its place and purpose.
...And I'll concede to basically every contrary point: the text doesn't support this reading. The morals are dismal and depressing on purpose. Characters with likable qualities either die or get ground beneath the narrative as dust. The intense focus on shocking and dark content steals focus away from political intrigue and rebel action. The magic of Oz is dull, absent, and barely impacts the plot. Sexism got added. Yes, I know. I've had nearly two decades to come to grips with this. But, knowing how rarely I resonate with grimdark tragedies, it's interesting how Wicked: TLATOTWWOTW can be ALL-OUT with its upsetting tone, and still comes out the other side as a story I treasure.
Thanks for the first video, Dom, looking forward to the others!
And thats good, probably even gives teenager that accidently read it something to think about, messy interesting is still, thank god kids dont get a lot of bigger context?
but yeah, he seemed to really used that as outlet of life experience as meddy, dark things that still isnt saying its meaningless, but its messy?! If its human chaotic , messy dark drama can show a lot of humanity. I think life is unfair but its worth trying the best of your ability , is good.
Also next seems to be about his army time?!
Any copy you see with "Now a Major Motion Picture" is a damn lie
the idea of a darker and more grounded adult take on the world of Oz is not a bad idea at all, I love twists on classic stories like that. But this book to me feels a lot more like edgy AU fan fiction written by a hormonal 14-year-old who just recently gained political consciousness.
You worded this perfectly! You articulated a nebulous feeling I've always had about the book.
You should read Dorthy Must Die if you’re looking for a darker version. It’s basically about another girl from Kansas who ends up in Oz where Dorthy is now the evil ruler and good guys are bad and vice versa. Really has a lot of Oz lore in it from the other books and borrows from the books and the MGM film
@@athf4ever780 now that sounds even more like baby's first edgy fic...
yes when done well it can be an interesting alternative look into a story
not a book but a good example to me is something like American McGee's Alice in wonderland
@@mrroboshadow also Alice is Dead! again not a book but it's a charming lil point and click game i have a lot of fondness for
I totally concur. Parents of young children who enjoyed the film and stage show may buy the book for them, not realising the adult themes and mature content. The musical is certainly an improvement over the source material.
The book isn't placed in the children's and young adult collections. Wish parents would pay attention to that.
Totally happened to me when the play first became popular
It's written in the style of a 19th century novel. Most kids won't even be able to make it through the first CHAPTER, let alone the whole book. If a young kid is advanced enough to read books like Crime and Punishment, their parents should already be checking to make sure they don't read explicit content.
Hilariously enough, I think that the audiobooks have interview with GM and I believe that he said he was HORIFIED when he found out that some of his students had fully read his book.
@@sarahp5880 It doesn't matter. No one asked Baum. It's not cannon. I hate it.
Sounds like a The Boys situation where an edgelord came up with an interesting idea but it took someone else doing something with it to make it worthwhile.
Wicked, the book, is not inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book. It's a fanfic of The Wizard of Oz, the movie.
This makes a lot of sense. Source?
That Shirt Rocks! REALLY appreciated dom!
I just realized, is Nessarose not having arms a reference to the movie only showing her legs.😅😂
I actually enjoyed the weirdness and adult themes. The political/religious themes stayed with me over the, um, other themes. I always describe the musical as a 'disney-fied' version of the book. Really really watered down, simplified, and with a happy ending. I love both for very different reasons.
Me too. Huge fan of both the musical and the books. I like Gregory Maguire in general. I think he's a great author and it surprises me the amount of people who dislike his writing.
I can't exactly say that I "enjoyed" the book, but I liked it too. The way of adressing certain topics was weird, sure - but to me that felt deliberate. Like... sometimes it's easier to discuss things through the lense of fiction, when you're a few steps away and don't actually feel attacked and such.
Both book and musical have their value and there's no reason to put one against the other.
(Though parents should check what sort of books they give their kids. It's not the books fault if you don't do your homework.)
Same here, I loved the political themes of it, so it's disappointing that the musical leaves it out more
I didn't remember the.... uncomfortable bits Dom brought up regarding the children and some of the possible victim blaming implications in the book.
Gregory McGuire books haunted my adolescence, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this 😂
Did you also stumble across them in a middle school library?
@ Kind of! For some reason everyone was obsessed with this one monologue from Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister at the time and I had to hear SO many of my friends practice it for school play auditions. Tried it. Hated it. Then the musical dropped, my mum and I were on a road trip somewhere and we stopped at this ginormous Barnes and Noble in the middle of nowhere where she very kindly bought me one of those old school multi disc audiobooks of Wicked - I have SUCH a visceral memory of listening to it with an increasingly morbid “surely not”
Like…I have no objection to writing the type of content that appears in the book. What I DO think is that it would have been a stronger book if it weren’t fanfiction. I love fanfic, but not everything is best served by being it.
5:14 "...getting himself orchestrated from the village". I think you might mean "ostracized". That is, unless they drove him out with a marching band! 😉
That would be hillarious XD
In the Land of Oz, that could be possible 😂
@@nightmare_eyes430 I'm picturing Munchkins with sousaphones!🤣
So McGuire has said he deliberately made the first chapter disturbing to make the point that this is not for children. Also as it was written in 1995, this was the one of the major retelling of fairytales that would become more popular in 2010s.
My understanding is that LBF's original series is also seriously weird (although not sexual)... And that he was being unhinged like LBF.
I'd recommend checking out Team Starkid's "Twisted". A quite amusing parody of Wicked and Aladdin. And if that tickles your fancy, they also have the A Very Potter Musical trilogy. All free on UA-cam.
That show is hilarious. Schafrillas brought me to it
And as a fellow fan of Starkid's "Twisted" I now wonder if the tiger-related running gag about Prince Achmed is a reference to the tiger relations in the "Wicked" book. I never caught that before because like Dom I had never read the book.
@@qofaconfirmationI was thinking the same thing! What is it with tigers?
I think the mini series Tin Man is one of the best OZ spin-offs that doesn't get talked about enough. It does the darker look at it all without going way off the deep end like this book does.
Yes! Love Tin Man
Heck yes!! I actually loved tin man :)
I was literally just about to leave a comment about the parallels that Wicked has with Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire when you described the animals not wanting to leave their cages, but you saved me the trouble .
I do miss hearing you talk about The Wizarding World.
To be fair to the abuse victims, it's not like you can just forget years of abuse and mental conditioning and walk out of the cage and start a new life. That's why therapy exist.
So I do find that part kind of realistic. For freedom to occure, opening the gate isn't enough, one has to provide a lot more support on so many levels...
0:48 So its like your phantom videos again. Not complaining I liked that mini retrospective but i get the same vibe. Book that gets overshadowed by a musical version that got a big screen adaptation decades later.
So the book is another "What if this thing was darker and edgy though?"
Those get so tiring.
Also Oz can still be done Dark in a fun way, Return to Oz for example.
have to remember that his was one of the 1st though. Back then this was very new and exciting.
1st thing to realize is that GM was a professor and loved the themes in children's Literature. He chose OZ because of Elphaba, she is labeled the wicked witch, but we never get any backstory for her in the wizard of oz movie. The point was to to introduce a world we knew and a villain we inherently knew as evil and then ask the question "but why was she evil" [roll the opening for the musical] the rest mostly comes from his writing style of referencing real life as much as possible. like Tales of an Ugly Step Sister being set during the great poppy crash.
Now this is just my feelings about this, your interpretation is just a valid BUT, his "cavalier" attitude towards SA was intended to show how fucked this world was. Kind of like writing a period piece where women are 2nd class citizens. I feel like, yes you are suppose to be weirded out by it. As far as the kid stuff goes, I think he was just trying to be brutally honest when it came down to puberty, and yea it feels weird talking about children and anything sexual, so fair enough, if that was a huge turn off for you
Like, yes, Nanny is smug and callous about her surrogate daughter's feelings and well-being; but then years later we see that she also has courage and integrity, to the point that it even gets her killed (effectively). She is BOTH of those people, and that is not inconsistent, it is just (sadly) how people are.
Is that evil? Is wickedness what we do? What we don't do? How we treat people? How we treat just SOME people? Are WE wicked, or just our actions? These are not rhetorical questions in this book! You can't just say "What the fuck?" when presented with something uncomfortable about human nature, because THIS IS what the fuck.
@@Tamlinearthly I completely agree. I also feel like looking at Wicked as your standard fantasy book is kind of the wrong way to go into this series. Unlike many products of fiction, there really isn't a "moral to the story". Just an honest look at a world with a giant "What If" plastered across it.
Religion was done so well in this book series. As a person who grew up in a very religious home, the religions in this book felt so real and peoples reactions to them were so real that I started to have church revival flashbacks. GM defiantly knew what he was writing, but I guess thats the Catholic part of himself.
Fwiw, people have straight-up asked Maguire to his face "So what was up with that tiger chapter?" and his answer has always been "Yeah I have no clue". So like... 🤷♀
just so you know dom, the religion of “tiktokism” was actually named after a robot from the oz books with the name tiktok. so technically baum is the real psychic
I liked the book, personally, but it's mostly because i saw the musical first and thought that the exploration is interesting. I respect this opinion, though, there are valid points that I can agree are not great. Happy reading, all!
Oh my god, you have unearthed my buried trauma. I fell in love with Wicked the Musical when I was in about 10th grade, and so my sweet innocent parents bought me the book. Somehow I actually read the whole thing, but I had this perpetual feeling of shock and disgust throughout. As you were talking, I started to vividly remember so many of these weird disturbing scenes that I had been suppressing for about 20 years. The part about the poor guy being forced to have sex with a tiger hit me like a punch in the face. Seriously, WTF Gregory.
Fun fact: my iirc 10th grade English teacher had this on a shelf of books we were encouraged to take out and read. I don't think she actually read it, though then again the school library had the first 5 Song of Ice and Fire books.
I am currently listening to the book right now.
I came to what was the basis for Act 1 and Part 1 yesterday.
My first impressions of the book has very much been "Oh wow, this book relies ALOT on the fact that it's a crass take where whimsical things like talking animals and all other characters in a world meant for children are crass and rude. With most of the "shock value" being derived from the fact that everyone says fuck, talks openly about sex, drugs and alchol." That was most of my thoughts for most of Part 1 and 2 of the book.
Characters gets drunk on page. There's rude language all about. Whmsical things such as talking animals gets VIOLENTLY murdered. There are whore houses in Oz.
I WAS NOT prepared for the straight up BEASTIALITY!
And in Part 3, the story is right up a "rebel or terrorist" tale with the clear anaology of being about a fight for rights. Rights in general.
A difficult listen for certain.
Wow. AMAZING! This is first time I've disagreed with nearly your enitire assessment of a book! It's refreshing! I would highly recommend this book. It's one of my all time favorites.
Seconded.
THANK YOU for all your great work on this story! There’s so much nuance about this book and story, and it changes a ton along the way :3
Also: first XD
I love your shirt Dom! ❤
Really, thank you. Solidarity is very much appreciated right now.
This book always felt like... more than a sympathetic retelling of the story of the Wicked Witch, a story where someone really wanted to make Oz "darker and edgier", because it feels like at every turn, someone has to be traumatized or murdered.
There's something that could be interesting about making a story where the Witch is a hero, but the author changed so much about Oz that he may as well have just written his own world.
I honesty think so many weird and horrible things being written so glibly plays into the whole "nature of evil" theme. A major theme is that apathy towards evil is just as much a problem as the evil itself, and it's being told explicitly through the POV of characters who feel this apathy.
That's why we dont get Elphaba's POV until far into the story. The previous PoV characters (her mother, Boq, Galinda, Fiyero, his wife, etc.) all either participate or at least dont really care about the poor morality of their world. So we dont shift to Elphaba until she's been utterly broken by her failed fight against evil and utter dismissal by the world.
Yeah I’m having a difficult time enjoying this review bc I feel like he’s kind of missing the whole point. Just bc there’s horrible things in the story doesn’t make it a bad story. He majorly missed the mark there…
Dom i know you wont see this but heck to it. ever since i started watching your videos years back now i never finished a book. i hated reading. but now thanks you, and that you recommended audible i've finished just over 50 books. some rather big ones like the GOT books aswell.
so with all my heart. thank you Dom, for being you.
After reading the book myself, I applaud the musical writers for doing so much heavy lifting
You should consider checking out rest of Original 14 Oz Books
He has, at least for the first few
I think he has for the first few books like Narnia
I liked Wicked when I read it, but it’s been like a decade since I did. I might feel differently if I read it now. I’ve also read the sequels. Son of a Witch was relatively enjoyable as I recall, but I hated the last two.
This book goes in the same category as Stardust for me. The people who adapted them worked _miracles!_
My friends and I are huge Wicked the Musical fans. We all read the book a few years ago and we absolutely baffled by it. Everyone but one of my friends absolutely hated it. My favorite aspect of the musical: Elphaba and Glinda’s complex relationship is almost completely missing from the book. I also really didn’t like how quickly it skips around, there’s very little time to enjoy the characters or plot.
I do think Maguire does does do the shock jock thing quite a bit, which is why I never read his Cinderella story or any of his other stuff. But despite your allusion to the fact that this book is in some ways more about the 1939 movie than Buam's books there is a lot of Oz lore and things that people who have been fans of the literature that sprung up around Oz perhaps one of the oldest American fandoms with a fan convention that's been around for nearly 60 years would spot.
There is a lot of love for Oz in the story even though it's not faithful. Also not the only Oz book that's a "cotemplation of evil," I've never managed to convince myself to read Adolph Hitler in Oz (yes that's a real book, and not the only time Oz has faced Nazis they also had to deal with them in Oz Squad).
I'd be lying if I said the idea of a sentient clock beating up a preacher didn't have some appeal, but the rest sounds like edge pretending to be depth.
I've already read this book in the past as a fan of Wizard of Oz, it was one of the hardest books I forced myself to finish. I'm glad you're talking about it here.
I haven't seen either the stage play or the recent movie.
I will defend her defining feature being a sign of sexual assault. The point of the wicked witches was to showcase *how* someone becomes a villain.
For Elphaba, it was by being continually persecuted for something outside her control causing her to be willing to harm society at large.
For her sister it was by believing in something so strongly that she no longer cared whether or not she harmed the out group. It falls flat since the WWotE doesn't get enough narrative to capitalize on the differences in their lives or their villainy.
WELCOME back dom! You always make My day ❤❤❤❤
I tried and failed to read Wicked at certain point. I fell off hard in part 3.
At an entirely seperate time I was on a road trip with my mother as a teenager. We rented the audiobook for McGuire's take on Snow White, MIrror Mirror. We finished it mostly because we needed something to keep us awake and alert for the drive and because we'd both kinda assumed that the other person was at least invested in it. When we finally reached the end I asked her if she liked it and she reluctantly said she hated it. I also hated it and we bonded over complaining about.
In summary, frustration and disappointment with the writing of Gregory McGuire was a family bonding moment for me.
Can't wait for your review of the musical and the movie version of said musical!
I have remained permanently disturbed by the tiger scene alone, let alone the rest of the uncomfy assault stuff. I couldn't understand all the fandom around the Wicked musical and move because I read the book first and my permanent feeling about Wicked is ick.
Ah, I loved this book in highschool and was shocked when it finally became a musical, which I never saw.
Oh I get it completely. Son of the Witch was just dreary and I never read the other follow-ups
I feel like my favorite version of Wicked is the hybrid of book and musical that exists in my head. I genuinely like certain aspects of Maguire (like, I much prefer Fiyero in the book and how race plays into his character) but I also like the narrative cohesion and brightness that comes from the musical. So I meld them in my head.
I desperately want a musical version where Fiyero gets blue skin. I think that would be soooo interesting from a thematic pov.
This book was an option for me in high school for my English class individual book report for the quarter, at a private faith based school. It was around the time the musical came out, and I don't think anyone on the staff of my school actually read the book before adding it to the option list. I picked it, and even as a teenager, I don't think I was old enough to read that book. While as an adult I enjoy it upon rereads, teenage me was not ready for that at all.
When dom uploads is always a great time 😊😊😊
The other books in this series are arguably worse and the last one is "let's write a story where the protagonist just WATCHES other people do the important work."
Personally the dark aspects of this book don’t bother me. We’ve seen dark interpretations of fairy tales and other works before - probably the most famous is The Bloody Chamber, which also interpreted female and children’s characters through a sexualised lens, still amazing. Wicked just feels like a different interpretation of Baum’s works, except for a purely adult audience. I actually like how Maguire maintains that timeless sense of language, which a good fairy tale needs, despite the childlike origins of the world. To me it’s just a good fantasy. And I never felt the adult themes were purely exploitative, to me they felt like they were written in a purely negative way to point out the way humans themselves can have negative or beastial sexual urges, it’s not condoning, more confronting it.
Also the whole thing about Maguire being a catholic and a gay guy?? Dom, I really think you’re overthinking that part mate. I’m a pure atheist but different sectors of the same type of religion do exist, it’s like saying all Christians are part of the Westboro Baptist Church, it’s just not reality.
In the end, I just don’t think this book is for you, and god knows you’re not the only one who feels that way. I’m fairly certain you’ll enjoy the musical a lot more! Still love you man! And love the shirt! ❤
I'm surprised by the negative review, I like this book. I think it's a slow read, but it's great fun to discuss, I talked to a friend about it for three and a half hours. It is, as you point out, exceedingly weird, dark, and bawdy in a way that I think is fair to say is problematic but I never read it as ever being purposefully edgy. I think what appeals to me about the book is its messiness and the exact unlikable nature of the characters you point out. I'd like to give a thematic reading that maybe presents a different view.
First off, I think you leave out two important moments that matter for the book overall. There is a whole passage where Morrible puts a spell on Glinda, Elphaba, and Nessarose and basically tells them "you will be leaders, but you will never be able to speak to eachother about this." and those three characters, undergirded by that fundamental truth and ambition, achieve that in three separate, relevant thematic ways. Nessa becomes a religious tyrant, Glinda becomes complacent in the establishment rule, and Elphaba becomes a rebel. They are avatars for the individual ideology wrapped up in it, but part of the messiness that makes the book interesting is how all characters are guided by personal squabbles as well as ideology. To your point, Nessa arguably accomplishes more for freedom than Elphaba does! Her father criticises her for this and basically says "why would you not come back and help your sister?" That to me, is embracing the messiness that these are ideological battles but also, Elphie is imperfect. There's no solidarity, no trust between the sister and it hurts both the causes they represent and their own lives. It's a book about politics, but it's also a book about the tragedy of broken families and what a lack of love and trust does to someone. You can even see the pattern repeating in how awful Elphaba is to her children.
The second plot element that matters is the Wizard is the one who orders Elphie to kill Morrible, and she can't because Morrible is already dead. A fair criticism of the character is, for as rebellious as her ideology is, she is so PASSIVE in her engagement with the Wizard. Even her revolutionary action is motivated by resentment of the world as much as it is by politics. Her internal monologue is filled with so much resentment and hate, only abated for such a brief moment in her affair with Fiyero. There's a gentleness in the time they spend together i find compelling, and make his death all the more tragic. She's talking to all these people who are so disconnected from the injustice going on around her and she feels insane and hateful because why is no one else reacting the same way? Feels like an apropos feeling for this time we're in! But then, because she's human, she can see a kindness and a gentleness in this affair partner, despite the fact that he's also doing something pretty wicked by cheating on his wife. It's really messy!
You feel awful for Elphaba, but you are also frustrated by how awful she is. She's awful to her kid, she passively agrees to kill Morrible , there's so much stuff where you can argue she's an evil person. I think the core of the disagreement comes down to how much you think the messiness is purposeful or just muddling the themes. I think part of what makes the book kind of maddening is how it seeks to create this feeling of inevitability. That every character is so passive about where they are, they just feel "well that's just the way it is". But I think that's purposeful, that is what alot of status quo politics feels like and Its rare to have a book deal seriously with both the personal and the poltiical.
If you can stomach the trigger warnings, I would recommend reading this book with friends; every person I've talked to about it has a different spin on the level of responsibility, on the stability of the political system in Oz, on if any character is likeable.
Something about the way this book is written is so impersonal. It feels like the narration is highly judgmental of every character and action, and it makes it really difficult to connect to any of the events in the story.
I've tried to read it twice, once as a teenager when I first discovered the musical soundtrack, and once just a few months ago after I saw the movie. I couldn't finish it either time, it was a bizarre experience that I've never felt with any other book - it felt like the narration doesn't want me there, and is actively trying to kick me out. A lot of what you said here helped me put my finger on some specifics of why I couldn't get through it.
Its an aggressively unpleasant book to attempt to read
Boy i love these stories of popular works of fiction that are relatively tame, where their source material was almost unrealistically batshit insane. Like THAT sequence from Stephen King's It. Or Narnia near the end.
My sibling had the opposite effect. They read the book prior to the musical and was shocked to hear that they adapted this book into a play let alone a musical. She missed the Broadway show but finally watched the movie and was unsurprised by what they changed from the book. Assuming it was mostly adapted from the musical.
Title: I did not enjoy reading Wicked
Me: I don’t think you’re supposed to? I didn’t enjoy reading 1984. Same energy, but with magic
I think I know what you mean. I didn't enjoy it either, but I did like the book. It gave me stuff to think about. Some very weird stuff sure - but nevertheless.
It did seem like it wanted to be disturbing.
I disagree, because reading 1984 was enjoyable in that it was very readable and well-written rather than boring.
1984 made me feel depressed but I never once questioned the intention behind describing negative experiences. Personally I can´t bring myself finishing a book where I am questioning if the author agrees with certain aspects that feel (to me) morally wrong. It has nothing to do imo with the themes but rather with, what´s the author trying to say basically and are they doing a good job with that.
I haven’t read this book since 7th or 8th grade, and honestly your review makes me want to revisit it even more. I remember really loving it, and I have not seen the musical so I had planned to reread it before checking out the movie.
I'm only 8 minutes into this video and the plot already sounds more akin to a poor fanfiction story set in Oz. Good Lord.
It’s Gregory McGuire. Oooh you should read the rest of his works if you think Wicked is a trip.
Right? 😅 I wish I could go back in time and stop my younger self from reading A Lion Among Men...
The novel is based on the Judy garland movie which convinced glinda the good witch of the south with the witch of the north meaning she was both the one who told Dorothy to see the wizard and the one who told her she could use the slippers to go home which has spawned all types of fan conspiracies
Oh, you’re gonna have a great time with the musical-film. Crazy how different it is from the original work.
Also, based shirt.
Yahhhh. I tried reading it when I was a teenager (I was probably about 16) and I didn't get past the sex club scene. I was so disturbed by it that I set the book on the shelf and never touched it again. And I am a guy who loves the wizard of Oz and the music of Wicked... but that book always gave me an unclean feeling after reading that scene.
Interesting and also love the shirt Dom.
The art is great, such a nice touch for the video!
So, I read this in high school, around when it came out. Regarding all the weird sex stuff that you react to around the 20 minute mark; yes, it’s weird and it’s supposed to be weird. Reading it at the time felt looking at a harsh mirror of the world. Victim blaming existed and was prevalent. Children were exploited and we didn’t talk about it. The late 90s had this haze of “we fixed all the bad things because they’re all technically illegal” but all the bad things were still happening.
If you go back and look at the WWE storylines of the time, you’ll see the same unkind attitudes that exist in the Wicked book.
Also, when “Wicked” came out, it was sincerely dark and edgy. It wasn’t until about 10 years later that the dark actions became attention tropes.
"What the f*ck, Gregory!?" Dominic said with increasing despair.
this was really interesting. I'm not reading the book after hearing about it now.
Oof. I remember seeing this in bookstores and toying with the notion of buying it but I never took the plunge. Sounds like I really dodged a bad take on the Oz stories, almost as rough as the Oz Squad comic that came out in the '90s.
It honestly baffles me how someone looked at the hot mess that is the wicked book and decided to make not only a musical, but a GOOD musical about it. Any time it comes up I tell people to NOT read it. I have a lot of thoughs but the main one is, for all it tries to say about the nature of evil, it never actually does something substantial or meaningful. It's all tell, no show. It felt like someone who says incredibly intelligent philosophy but acts like an idiot
7:38 "his research that scientifically prooves that sapient animals share common genetic code with humans and therefore deserve equal treatment"
me after that sentence: "okay, so the world of wicked makes no sense. good. good. good. keep going."
genetics as the basis of equal treatment, or even recognition, is just a crazy assumption to pu in your book
Really good video, can't wait for the next part of this!
As a major fan of the Oz Books growing up this series always seemed like such a slap in the face to the fun and lighthearted stories that those books told. Great job giving the book the ol what for!
Hearing you talk about the book felt like flasbacks from the war. I read this as a teenager learning english (my parents speak Spanish, and of course didn't proof read) just UFF boi all around
I tried reading this book as a teenager because it was my mom’s favorite book. The writing style bored me so much I never made it past part 1. The parts I did manage to read didn’t sit well with me though so I’d say I dodged a bullet with this. I’ve taken all of my mother’s book recommendations with a grain of salt ever since.
'Wicked: What the fuck, Gregory?'
This REALLY makes me want you to do a video essay on gender and Oz. Love me some General Jinjur analysis.