somehow

cuz obviously glinda's important to elphaba in the first book and continually haunts her narrative, but i've always seen it as one important relationship of several, all of which converge and implode and ultimately build to the melting. it's a product of nessa's death and elphaba's desire for the shoes--representing her unresolved family issues--her anger around glinda 'betraying' her by giving the shoes away and not living up to her full potential and never fully being able to love her like she wants, feeling like her entire life has been controlled by morrible/the wizard and being frustrated she's unable to enact the political change she wants, and guilt around fiyero's death and sarima being unwilling to forgive her. the melting is symbolic of her being unable to make peace with these things

and while many of these relationships and threads are explored throughout the other books in the series, out of oz features glinda either dying and reuniting with elphaba in the afterlife or elphaba literally coming back from the dead and letting her out of prison. and you could argue this being a product of glinda being the only one alive and her arc being the last left to conclude. but i also think it's significant that liir/trism and rain/ozma both parallel gelphie in really obvious ways. rain/ozma literally end the series with a green girl leaving oz and a blonde girl ascending to the throne, and the another day series is all about rain trying to get back home, ultimately to ozma

elphaba (and glinda)

Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain? Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain