Wicked

So now - I've read the book, seen the show and bought the piano music :)

The show and the book are so different - I was talking to Meg and began to wonder whether or not it was a good thing that I read the book first. I certainly went into the show with preconceived notions aside from the plot structure. To me, it seemed sillier and more light hearted than the book. The book certainly attempted to drive its point about moral ambiguity home.

I guess the main point I've ascertained from the basis of this story about the witches of OZ is that we shouldn't judge the wicked. It attempts to justify the behavior of the Wicked Witch of the West. She was an outcast her whole life, her father disliked her, etc. etc. She used to be a good person, but then something changed ... There's something about the whole situation that makes me a bit uncomfortable. If, in fact, the original plan behind this whole idea was to justify immoral behavior by revealing an uncomfortable childhood, then that seems to me to be a cop-out. Just because someone has a difficult time, we should excuse their behavior. Actually, as I think about it now, this was really more the point of the book and less so for the show. In the show, I don't know that I ever really viewed Elphaba (the wicked witch of the west) as being a truly wicked person. It seemed more like she got the shaft from the Wizard who got everyone in OZ to hate her for his own personal gain (a theme I can certainly relate to). It was more like a conspiracy theory and less like an examination of human nature and the origin of evil.

But in the book, to continue my above argument - if they AREN'T attempting to justify evil behavior by grounding it in personal history, I think I like the message a lot more. If it is simply to shed light and understanding about another person's seemingly irrationally evil behavior by providing context, I firmly believe in its soundness. In fact, I have subscribed to this theory for a long time. I think that a lot of the problems human have stem from an unwillingness to put yourself in someone else's position. People make all sorts of excuses for the way they treat other people. That's a real problem in my eyes.