What Is This Feeling?
When we meet them in the musical, Galinda and Elphaba seem to be natural enemies. But by the end, these two young women will sing about their friendship: “Because I knew you / I have been changed for good.”
Galinda and Elphaba do not start out well.
When we meet them, they seem to be natural enemies. Elphaba expects to be bullied because she always has been, even by her father. Meanwhile, Galinda is the leader of the “in” crowd that instantly gangs up against Elphaba.
But by the end of the musical, these two young women will sing about their friendship: “Because I knew you / I have been changed for good.”
What happened?
As fans of Wicked, you know a lot happened! This show moves at a fast clip – as Dorothy observed in the 1939 movie with Judy Garland, “People come and go so quickly here!”
Yet at the heart of everything that happens is a transformation of the human heart. (Okay, they are “witches,” but what interests me about this show is that these characters allow us to see the best and worst of our humanity.)
In the girls’ first duet, “What is This Feeling?”, we are given a clue as to how witches and humans can overcome loathing. (Not that we ever feel loathing — after all, the world is such a joyful and forgiving place right now! But heck, let’s imagine that loathing is a thing that afflicts us all now and then.)
You remember the setup for the song: The two girls are rivals for Madame Morrible’s sorcery class, and are writing home to their parents about the unfortunate calamity of having been assigned to be one another’s roommates. Each sings about how awful the other girl is, and their mutual loathing “for every trait however small” – traits they believe will make the other girl a very bad roommate.
As I have returned to this song for the second edition of The Wicked Truth, I realized how helpful it would be to interpret it using a technique for conflict resolution that I learned from Dr. David Hooker. When he leads meetings with communities in conflict, Dr. Hooker guides the discussions with this motto:
"People are not the problem; the Problem is the problem."
This may seem like a bit of semantics, but the difference, though subtle at first, leads struggling communities to very different outcomes.
In the song, each girl sees the other as the problem: “That other witch is impossible, and I’m perfect!” (In this situation even Elphaba thinks she’s perfect by comparison to the empty-headed blonde girl).
If the problem is someone, what is the solution? Obviously, the solution is to weaken, defeat, or destroy the other person by any means possible, including violence. This is what I am referring to in the subtitle of my book: Good people do bad things when they see other people as the problem.
This song seems to set the girls on a path of mutually assured destruction. In fact, they do many things to hurt and wound one another, and those around them become collateral damage in their rivalry. But, if we follow Dr. Hooker’s advice and shift to thinking, “The Problem is the problem,” we stop focusing on the shortcomings of our rival. Challenging as it may be, once we see that the problem is not a person, then different solutions become possible.
Glinda and Elphaba’s journey is exemplary because it is a human journey. There is nothing magical about it. It proceeds in fits and starts—one step forward, two steps back—as they learn that they were wrong about each other. They discover that the problem is not either one of them. It’s not even Madame Morrible or the Wizard.
The real problem is the belief that violence is a legitimate means to achieve your ends, a means even good people can use without ever doubting their own goodness.
The show ends with each girl choosing a different path in the face of that problem. They no longer seek each other’s destruction. They are friends who love, admire, and respect the choices the other is making.
I trace that journey of discovery in my book and will write more about it here as we build up to the release of the second edition early next year. For now, I’d like to leave you with an exercise. Please try it if you feel a sense of loathing against someone or some group, especially if you are getting exhausted from feeling hateful and angry, or are becoming a little embarrassed about how the loathing is affecting your thinking, feeling, and behavior.
Here's the exercise: Fill in the blank of Dr. Hooker’s motto with the name of the person or group that makes your blood boil: “_______ is not the problem. The Problem is the problem.” What problem(s) are you able to name, once you stop thinking about the other person or group as the problem? What solutions become possible?
I’d love to hear how this exercise works for you! Please comment below!
Till next time, remember to always mourn the wicked. It’s what good people do.