[ SECRET POST #2678 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2678 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 069 secrets from Secret Submission Post #383.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - still not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[othellia]

The musical is much slashier than the book, and it's better written. As for Good Omens, I personally prefer Vimes/Vetinari to Crowley/Aziraphale as far as Pterry slash ships goes (and the Watch books over Good Omens), but that's just me.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought the book was slashier. In the musical they had that "both in love with the same guy" thing going. Glinda in the book, if I remember correctly, was never into Fiyero and didn't seem interested in men at all, even her marriage seemed like it was just a political/image thing. So I was reading her as totally gay and totally in love with Elphaba. In the musical, though, I ship Glinda/Fiyero/Elphaba.

Spoilers for the sequel books

[ozaline]

Especially in Out of Oz, Glinda seems really gay, (not to mention Liir being explicitly bisexual, and the implication of Rain saying she always knew Tip/Ozma was a woman).

Re: Spoilers for the sequel books

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt: I still haven't read Out of Oz, but now I want to even more.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I always thought Glinda being in love with Elphaba was just another fact of the book. I didn't realize it was being interpreted differently until it was brought up in discussion.

[(Anonymous)]

Ayrt: Same. I was baffled when I saw people saying "She can't be gay, she has a husband." because it seemed pretty clear to me that she wasn't having sex with her husband. But these people were also saying "Slash is gross, why do gay people have to make everything gay, etc." so obviously they had a bias. If there's an actual non-homophobic well thought out alternate interpretation of her character, I'd be interested in reading it.

[crunchysunrises]

Eh, I haven't read the book (I watched the play) but since you asked for an alternate interpretation of a character not banging her hubby...

Just because a woman isn't having sex with her husband, it doesn't mean she's not having sex with other, hotter men. This observation is brought to you by my love of the Montalbano series, in which women often forgo having sex with their husbands... to have illicit sex with the hot boyfriends that they keep on the side. (Hot boyfriends who sometimes murder them, but that's a different issue.)

(I haven't read the book yet, so please, no details if you reply.)

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - Sorry this is so late, you probably won't see this. But I didn't really mean an alternate interpretation of just that one fact, but Glinda's personality and other events in the book as a whole. That part (and she doesn't exactly phrase it as them not having sex, but I won't elaborate on that since you asked me not to) just further cemented what I already thought. Also, the author happens to be gay himself. Obviously gay authors don't only write about gay people but there were certain subtextual things that seemed familiar to me, as a gay person. Since he understands that experience I took them as being deliberately written.

[crunchysunrises]

It's fine!

(Thanks for not spoiling me on the book. I haven't worked out if I want to risk reading it yet. I loved the play, and I'm quite fond of the source material, having read it as a kid. So on the one hand, I might like the shameless Oz fanfic. On the other hand what if it's terrible?)

Gotcha! I dunno. In the act of writing, people write parts of themselves into the book. It's inescapable. So he might've meant to put that dynamic in there, and he might've meant to make her gay. On the other hand, maybe he wrote a familiar romantic dynamic in there subconsciously, and Glinda came out kinda gay. Either way, once the story's out in the world, it's up to the readers to decide what they will (or won't) take away from it.

So if part of your take away is that the author's version of Glinda was gay, pining for Elfaba, and politically savvy enough to marry... someone... that's cool. Conversely, if someone wants to take the text at, er, face value, (and maybe they need to for whatever personal reasons,) it's cool too. Generally speaking, I like personal construction of meaning... except if people get weird, like in some of those "Q&A at a con with X super popular t.v. show."

[(Anonymous)]

The thing is that the people who usually bring up her husband do so in a really insulting way, complete with homophobic insults and "slash shippers are delusional". I've yet to see an intelligent, non-insulting analysis of it that hasn't at least said "there are queer themes/subtext here", but admittedly I haven't done that much digging. I just read a forum one day and noped out of there.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

meant to say "there are queer themes/subtext here or it's ambiguous"

[ozaline]

If you don't mind dark and depressing with a fair bit of purple prose the first book is quite good. Maguire is a lot more taken with the movie than with the original books, but he does draw a lot of elements from the later books too while still mostly forging his own new world with some familiar faces.

In my case my fascination with Baum's books started from reading Wicked, so I take the reverse path of most people. I also dream of publishing some Oz works of my own so the fanfiction elements don't bother me much either.

That being said: I do think the middle two books are a disappointment, there is so much that is magical and mysterious in Wicked, and left deliberately hanging cause it wasn't meant to be a series, and when it later gets explained I can't help but feel it's a let down. I think the last book is superb though (but then it touches on some elements of Oz that are quite personal to me). My suggestion is to skip Lion Among Men entirely (You kinda need to read Son of a Witch and it does have it's good points)... Out of Oz I consider a must read though.

[crunchysunrises]

Thanks so much for the thoughtful recommendations! It's definitely given me the motivation to pick the first book up and give it a go. Thanks so much!

[(Anonymous)]

Totally agree. I actually read the book interpreting it as an Elhpaba/Glinda love relationship that could never be. I was surprised to see others didn't interpret the same way.

[othellia]

You could be right. The general feeling I remember from the book was that Glinda liked Elphaba, but Elphaba never seemed to care as much about Glinda as she does in the musical, especially after they part ways in the capital. It's been a while since I read it though, so maybe that's why the musical seems a lot more Elphaba/Glinda shippy in my mind.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - I did think it was very one-sided on Glinda's part in the book but I also saw it that way in the musical. Elphaba leaves with Fiyero and Glinda thinks she's dead (right? Maybe I'm misremembering?) so yeah. Not exactly requited.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, I disagree. I didn't think the musical was anywhere near as slashy as the book. That scene on the train/in Oz in the books was SUPER gay.

[(Anonymous)]

The Watch books aren't slashy though. Like, people may ship things from them, but the books themselves don't really contain any fodder the way GO does.