site banner

Friday Fun Thread for November 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can anyone explain the appeal of the book/play/film Wicked to me? I really, really don't get it. At all. What's the appeal of this plotline? Everything people say it is about, I don't see. I feel like there's zero work put into explaining why characters do what they do, or why I'm supposed to care about them. I don't identify at all with any of the characters.

I'm not inherently opposed to revisionist versions of stories, or to musicals. I can get caught up in either or both. But I just don't get Wicked. Can anyone help me out here?

((Also, Ariana Grande should not be allowed on screen. That might not be helping.))

The book (series) is an incredibly grimdark. It's mostly notable now as a culmination the trend of other fantasy retellings, but I can't really recommend it, for a lot of the same reasons. A lot of the people going to read it after seeing the movie are going to be pretty disappointed. That said, the characters are pretty well-explained and have clear motivations: they're just universally petty and selfish motivations. It's very much an exploration of the cycle of harm and motivations of evil.

Popocatepetl's got a Bulveristic take that works for the movies, but for the book, it's a Carrie story. It's not about how you could get everything you could want, and how it's just bad people's faults you didn't. It's about that anger and outright hatred burning in you, and having just cause in your targets, and it not really being your fault, even if your methods are wrong. I don't like it, but I'm not outside of the appeal.