Son OF A Witch!!! Wicked Book 2 Review and Summary | Deep Themes and Deep Thoughts

Today we continue our coverage of the Wicked 5-book universe by Gregory Maguire with book two: Son of a Witch! We’re diving into political fantasy like we never have before, just in time to watch Wicked for Good with all of you! 

Check out our kickoff  “Are Books Political" episode all about why books and reading are inherently political and why it’s not only important to acknowledge this, but to read our favorite books through this lens. We concluded during our subsequent deep dive of Wicked (book one) that Maguire intentionally uses the fantastical to expertly critique issues like authoritarianism, colonialism, and racism, just to name a few.

In this episode we dive into book two: Son of a Witch, released ten years after Wicked, which follows the life of Liir, protege and possible son of Elphaba as he grapples with what it means to be a soldier, a “man,” a human, and a possible rebel and military deserter. Who were our favorite and least favorite characters and plot points? Was this book what we expected?  Do we think these books can be separated from politics just because they’re fantasy?  What philosophical questions are posed? And what literary devices does Maguire use to critique government structures like the military industrial complex, and the ensuing “isms?”

Fantasy stories can be so much more than surface level storytelling, and often are. We’re here to discover why! Listen on for our reviews of book two, our deep dive reactions with five sentence summary, and fun facts about the book that started the Wicked phenomena! 

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You've Got to Be Critting Me
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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 9:09 [Ad] The Podcast Inside Your House
• 9:57 (Cont.) Spoiler Free Intro
• 10:32 Son of a Witch Book Review
• 18:59 5 Sentence Son of a Witch Book Summary
• 24:53 [Ad] You've Got to Be Critting Me
• 25:32 (Cont.) 5 Sentence Son of a Witch Book Summary
• 26:26 Fav and Least Favorite Things in Son of a Witch
• 42:10 Philosophical Questions in Wicked
• 51:57 Political Problems and Themes in Wicked
• 1:06:10 Son of a Witch Book Quotes
• 1:19:15 Bonus Questions
• 1:20:34 Wicked Fun Fact!

Transcript

If anything felt like Return to Oz vibes, it was that I love a good different perspective, same time period. TBH, everyone kind of sucks. Uh Candle is a little Yeah, we can talk about [Music] Welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast. I'm Ashley. And I'm Liz. And today is officially our second book deep dive episode in our newest bonus series. Oh, very nice. Well done. Well done. Mhm. I had to put it in the notes so that I remembered. Okay. All about the book that started it all. And by it all, we mean right behind me, the Wicked Universe. We've got all of our Wicked books back here. Um, today we're going to be covering book two, which is called Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire. So, I know I know I'm excited to talk about this. Ashley and I have basically not talked about it at all. So, yeah. And I did not remember this whatsoever from the first time I read it ages ago. So, it was all like new information to me, which is great. So, we kicked off this series, if you guys haven't been following along, with our full length episode where we ask ourselves and you guys, kind of the theme of this whole series, are books political? Should fiction and specifically fantasy be kept separate from politics? And if so, is that even possible? Um, we examine the history of access to information and reading, early works in the US, um, and their thesis and motivation, some political theories, which topics we believe Gregory Maguire, the author of all these wicked books, used fantasy to kind of examine, and we briefly discussed some popular fiction, the context of this discussion, starting with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 and what was going on when El Frank Bomb was writing that whole series of books as well. Yeah, that was so interesting. I want to do that more often now, like what's going on at the time of this to see what is reflected within the writing cuz a lot of times it aligns. Yeah. I think one of the things that kind of like inspired me to go down those rabbit holes honestly is when we were covering Hunger Games. I was just thinking that. Mhm. Yeah. Uh cuz it's one of those things where it's like obviously this is the time we're living in. So it's a little bit more obvious to us perhaps what like Suzanne Collins is getting at especially since you know she's kind of notorious for disappearing and then only reemerging. Yeah. When there's political unrest. Yeah. Exactly. Essentially um who's quoted as saying something as such. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like why would uh you know other time periods or other authors be I mean not have similar motivations you know if there's significant events going on which I feel like there kind of are significant events going on most of the time. Yeah unfortunately. Yeah. So yeah and we moved on after that on Friday we brought to you the deep dive into book one Wicked the life and times of the wicked witch of the west. We talked about are individuals inherently good and then corrupted or are they predisposed to wickedness? That classic line are people just born wicked or what is it line? Do they have wickedness thrust upon them? Thrust upon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't memorized it fully yet. So, you know, we talked about that discussions and topics of things like war, imperialism, capitalism and greed, colonialism, and environmental degragation.

All those fun stuff. All the fun stuff, guys. That's important to talk about, especially as readers, to find these themes. I mean, to find them, we're finding what we're finding is you don't need to find them in this book. They're there. They're there. They're there for you. Not playing hide-and-seek. So, these are just some of the topics that we cover in addition to our usual faves. You know, we go over our least favorites, most favorites, reviews, recommendations, favorite quotes, all that fun stuff. Yeah. So, we still do the usuals, but we're, you know, we're examining these books through that very political lens because you I mean, you kind of have to. I feel like if you guys are reading along or you've read them in the past or you're even interested in it, yeah, as soon as you crack that book open, that first book, it'll become very apparent like where this is going. Um, I have to say I hope that this book helps you guys who maybe read it and are like, "What just happened?" Um, because it's something that I needed to research a little bit after reading it because it's a little chaotic. So, you know, we break things down for you in this one. You mean for Son of a Witch, the book for today or for Wicked or both? Well, kind of both. I feel like probably all of them, but specifically speaking of Son of the Witch today. So hopefully give you guys some clarification on some of the things that went down. Yeah, cuz it's intentionally elusive. Yeah. Um so yeah, so we're going to be giving you all of our thoughts on book two as Ashley said. So we'll be doing, you know, our spoiler-free uh reviews in the beginning that way you guys know and then we'll be moving into our five sentence summary. Good luck to me. I'm like I feel like this is taking on a life of its own. And as I'm like writing it, I'm like, why did why did I come up with this idea? Like what where did this come from? So hopefully it does help you. It definitely I appreciated the structure of this book a lot. So I'm excited to talk about it. But I could see how it could be a little bit confusing and all over the place for some people. So just so you guys know, we've got um book three, A Lion Among Men, and then book four, Out of Oz, coming after that. And then we'll actually be covering Elfie, which is the fairly new prequel as well. And then we'll wrap up the series with our coverage of um you know the movies obviously cuz Wicked for Good second movie will be out by the time we cover that. And then that way you guys can watch it and then listen to our episode. We can all chat about it like we did last year. How exciting. Yeah. Um and you know Ashley and I have been lucky enough to see the play as well. So we'll throw some of that commentary in there and rank everything, rate everything. So we're excited about that. But before we get into our spoiler-free reviews, we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. Ah, seriously, thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day and your book to come on in and listen to what us silly weirdos have to say about this story. If you haven't yet, please make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast, including YouTube. And then we're also on Tik Tok and Instagram, Bessies in the Books Podcast. And that is where you can find out ahead of time what we're going to be reading for the upcoming, you know, bonus series. And you can follow along and pre-eread in that journey if you would like to. But if you're interested in reading this or you want to find out first in a spoiler-free way if you want to read this, you can always save it to your playlist to watch later in case you are in the midst of reading or about to pick up. So don't worry about that. You know where to find us, you know. more. I feel like too, I was thinking about this, you know, there are so many people who just love the movies. And even if you're like someone who's like, I realistically am not interested in reading all five of these books, but I kind of want to know what happens in the books as opposed to the movies. Like, we're not saying these summaries are perfect. Okay. But it'll give you, I think, a pretty good idea of how like what's going on kind of like behind the scenes to like set up the whole movie and you know what I mean? and kind of like a more comprehensive look at the world. So yeah, maybe if you're like me, I don't really feel like reading the series, but I do want to know what's going on in the rest of Oz. Hey, yeah, here it is. And if you're like us and you want to have these on your TBR, but you're never going to get around to it or it's going to be a couple years to get around to it. If you're like us, you'll forget it by the time you get to it anyways. I mean, and like Liz said, we're not going through like chapter by chapter here with this series. We're really going to be like she said, five sentence summary that can't fit at all. It's five sentences, you know, and our favorites and least favorites. So, we're not giving away every little piece of information, but I'm sure we'll be talking about the twists and turns that occur for sure. So, you know, warning, but also be like us and forget about it later. I mean, I'm kind of that mind where like I was even thinking that where I'm like, "Oh, I'll probably have to go back and like listen to some of our five sentence summaries before we get to like the end of the series even." You know what I mean? Just to tie everything together. That's what I do for like when we do book club and we have a second come out. I'm like, "What the hell even happened in the first? I don't remember. That was a year ago." So, hey, you guys are safe. I forgot what I read after I read it. So, hey, I had to go. What was this book about again? Oh, yeah. It's like the curse of like a reader though for real, you know? It's like are you are you a reader who reads and retains? Explain how do you do that? Like a little a little bit and some parts. How about that? Cuz it's like we're literally reading, relaying information to you guys oftentimes, writing notes, reviewing, and I still can't remember anything like two weeks later. Like I say, it's the Inside Out characters. It's like as soon as we're done filming, dump it. Bet. Boom. I just know if I liked it or not. Good luck later on when we have to do our like half year wrapup that we do. Good thing I write notes now because otherwise forget it. I have to write notes as soon as we're done with these books cuz it's a lot. Especially with things like this, like things like these where there's so many themes at play. It's not cut and dry. It's very complicated. So, hey, Anyways, anyways. Okay. Well, let's let's just kick it off with our spoilerfree. We say one sentence, but let's just say simple. Yeah. Short review. So, why don't you go first? I'm like genuinely curious. I'm super curious. I'm going to go with four stars for um unfair reasons. No. Um, I just it just I just had a hard time with it, specifically the main character. Um, not that it wasn't necessary and not that the writing was bad. It's just that h me I don't know. Whatever. We'll break it. You just didn't you just didn't connect with the character. Is that what you mean? Um, yeah, but I don't have to connect with the character, you know? I'm not rude. Um, but it was just, how can I say this so much more eloquently? I'm I'm doing what the book did. Um, yes, it's intentionally, you know, elusive. It intentionally jumps around, but and it's intentionally flowery and poy, you know, and a lot of symbolism. It just wasn't my favorite. And while it got things done, it went off on a lot of rabbit trails and I just wasn't there for it at this time in my life. Interesting. So, but I do have some stuff to say about the intentionality of it that I heard the author saying in an interview. So, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay. I'm excited to hear that. I didn't look up I looked up some reviews that I'll share with N, but not like um just very brief stuff, but not like anything in depth. So, yeah. So, I listened to the audio and there was a interview at the end of the audio that was a little treat about this specific book. I listened to the audio as well. Maybe I just didn't make it that far because I think I read the last maybe like hour or so on Kindle. Yeah. So, I didn't get there. Okay. I will say while Okay, let's speak on the audio for a second. Gregory Magguire narrates at least this one. I haven't looked at this is the only one I did audio so far. He did a great job. Yeah. I though if I had a chance to do it over again, I would not listen to the audio because that added to the way my brain handled the information that was given to me. It was harder to comprehend what was going on for me in this kind of context, which I don't usually have a problem with with books, but because it jumps around so much, it was a lot of rewinding and going back and like, wait, what's happening? you know, and it's Yeah, I just I think that maybe I would have had a different vibe if I actually physically read it or maybe not, but that's just how it felt. Yeah, I jumped back and forth between the two. So, I kind of would say like it was probably at the end of the day like a half and half situation for me. How do you feel about the audio? I really liked it. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, let's just start with my review because I have a very different opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. Okay. So, I rated this book a five star. I dare say I liked it better than Wicked. Wow. Interesting. I think like thematically maybe not, but like writing style and I did for sure. Um, I did like the main character. Oh. Um, and I rated it five stars because one of my favorite things, just in case you guys haven't picked up on this so far, one of my favorite things in books is when the timeline is disjointed, but it makes sense to me. So, for some reason, this may I think it was because it was two parallel timelines, but they were both happening in chronological order. Yeah. So, it wasn't necessarily jumping back and forth within those two timelines. Do you know what I mean? Like that's how I felt anyways where it was like you had one timeline where the main character was doing X Y and Z in the past and then you had another timeline where the car main character was doing X Y and Z in essentially the present or whatever you want to call it the future. Um and so that I really liked because I'm a sucker for a full circle moment. Yeah. And for seeing things from different perspectives. And so for that reason I gave it a five star. I just like ate it up. And I did jump back and forth between audio and Kindle and it didn't bother me at all. Yeah. Um so I think it just kind of depends on probably how your brain processes information. Yeah. Um because there definitely are times when I read books where there's multiple timelines going on or where flashbacks are happening and I'm like what the heck? Like I don't know where we are. I don't know who's talking even like what point of view it is. like I never felt that way here. And so for that reason, I gave it a five star cuz I I genuinely loved the storytelling um style. So, depends on the person. I think depends on the person. I think also for me like cuz I unders once I understood what was going on with timeline because it is cool because what it's doing is it's going back and forth but eventually it lines up which I did that was very satisfying. Um, but it's almost like I personally was having a problem zoning out too with how much what how did you describe it? How flowery the writing style is cuz while it's good and I do like it, I think to listen to it for my brain it just spins off into outer space. I'm like crap, what just happened? you know, when you have to keep like I had this is probably the most times I had to go back into a book like hit rewind, you know, like crap, you know, because it would just make me go. So, but so hey, my recommendation to you is if you have that problem like I do, physically read it, you know? Yeah. Like maybe do it on kids or even do the do the both cuz he is a great narrator and you had a problem with one of the voices, but I found them all hilarious and great. Who was it? Oh, it was it was Shell's voice. Yeah, I was like, I can't with this voice. Like, it's not that it's not that Gregory Magguire didn't do a good job. It's that the accent that he chose to give that character was just really odd to me and I was like, I don't get this. But, okay. I felt it was very fitting. So, I loved it. Okay, great. That's exactly what I pictured. So, hey, well, we'll get into because I kind of have a theory on that. So, we'll get into that later. Okay. Um, yeah, lots of unanswered questions, I think, after this book. So, we'll talk about that, too. But it's supposed to. It's only book two. We know there's four. So, hey, four in the this original series. Okay. So, should we get into Oh, and just uh to give a spice rating because we feel that there must be a formality each time. And just give the spice so that you guys know it. I'd say book one, I gave a one spice. I'd say this one is a zero. I don't think that there was anything in here that I would consider actual spice. like it was off page and closed door. Yeah, but trigger warning for essay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but yeah, otherwise it's off page. So, Okay. Yeah. And obviously, you know, you guys too, like I'm sure you could Google potential trigger warnings. So, I think most of these books don't include, as far as I know, any type of trigger warnings in the beginning. And there's Yeah, it's I say trigger warning essay, but it's not clear to um you know, this would be one that like my high schooler I don't have a high schooler. If I had a high schooler, it would be no issue to read it because you would have to connect the dots and it's not explicit. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Yeah. It's like like we said, it's closed door. It's off page. It's it's almost like it eludes. Well, and truly, you know, we'll get into this once we get into spoilers, but we don't really even know what happened yet at this point. For sure, right? So, there's also that they'll kids Yeah. high schoolers see more on screen than they would in this book from the average show. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, there you go. Um, it's not as it's not as explicit as the first one, for sure. No. And yeah, if you guys have any questions about it too, just DM us and we can answer the questions for you. For sure. Yeah. Okay, so let's get into our spoiler section, shall we? Spoilers coming in hot. Go on, get get out. If you want to save it to your playlist to watch later, that is understandable. Okay, if you're here for the ride, let's go stick. Okay. Okay. Okay. Again, I apologize for I just have to show you guys. You can't see the words, but that's the five sentence summary. It takes up the whole screen of my iPod. Wait, that's not allowed. Let me see that. That is not allowed. Those are five paragraphs, Liz. They're just run on sentences. They are. I couldn't do it any other way. I couldn't. Okay. It is what it is. I feel like Lucy sentence summary time. Don't judge us and critique our sentences. Do you want the information or not? Yeah, exactly. We did this for you. Don't be mad. It's so funny cuz I've been trying to turn our five sentence summaries into like shorts and reals and Tik Toks and stuff for people in case they're researching it and I can't fit it into the lot of time. I feel like here, okay, here's the thing. Maybe this is something that like we can try to do on certain episodes. We'll just spit all this and throw it out there. I always want to do the actual five sentence summary, which is what I'm doing here, which is long because I feel like that is useful for you guys. It's useful for us without us having to break down every single chapter and because that's just not our style. But what if we also had a challenge to do five actual sentences? Like five concise short sentences that had to tell the story of the book, but it would just make it so silly because it would essentially make very little sense. So we should try to do that some one of these days, too. It's like a bad like describe the plot of a book. You know what I mean? Like badly. It's basically that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that might be entertaining. Okay. I feel like with these we have to though. We have to give you as much information as we can because a lot's going on. We listen and we don't judge. Or you do and I don't care. Yeah, we'll do it anyways. So, hey, five sentence summary. I'm doing that in air quotes of Son of a Witch book two in the Wicked Universe. Okay. Lear, presumably the surviving son of Alphaba, the wicked witch of the west, is found comeomaosse and mangled almost beyond recognition near the side of the road between Kiamo and the Montter where he once lived. He is taken back to the Montter where he is slowly nursed back to health primarily by a quadling girl named Candle who plays an instrument called a Domingan with the magical feather of a phoenix.

See, that wasn't too bad. Yeah, that was it. It looks way longer than it sounds. Tell that to the person who wrote it. You and me.

Okay. Uh, while Lear is in a coma, much of the story is told through flashbacks, beginning with him leaving Kiamoko with Alphaba's broom and cape and traveling back to the Emerald City with Dorothy the lion, woodsman, and scarecrow in order to find Noir, who was kidnapped by the Imperial Imperial Guard. They cross by Princess Netoya on the way, an ancient Arjiki princess who is slowly dying and needs help transitioning back into her elephant form before doing so. So she enlists Lear's help as Alphaba's son and agrees to help find Nor in exchange. Once at the Emerald City, Dorothy goes back to Kansas and abandons them all. The wizard disappears in his balloon and Glenda temporarily takes over.

Two two lots of semicolons. Get a little longer. Yeah. Yeah. Lear briefly looks for No, utilizing Glenda's help, but learns that she escaped from prison, so he no longer has any leads. So feeling lost and abandoned in the world, he enlists in the home guard led by Captain Cherry Stone, the very man who sieged Kamoko Co and killed his family and serves loyally and blindly until he is sent to Quadling country where he is ordered to participate in the systematic extermination and disenfranchisement of an entire group of people in the name of quote unquote restoring order. So he defects and rides Alphaba's groom back to Kiamo.

Three. Three. The It's always just It's funny because we're talking about such serious topics and then you like come in with a harmonica. You know, we got to lighten the mood. Got to lighten the mood. Okay. Uh Lear returns to Kiamoko where he finds Nanny alive and Chisy the monkey now able to fully speak. An injured swan princess lands to tell them a conference of birds is meeting to form a resistance against the new tyrannical emperor of Oz, who we later find out is actually Shell. I put I put in parenthesis undercover agent turned religious zealot question mark Lear's uncle. So Lear decides to fly there, but he is knocked out of the sky by dragons working for the Imperial Army and almost dies.

Four. Four. Okay, Lear finally wakes up from his coma and is told by the crone mother Yakalle to leave for his safety. So he and Candle, who is supposedly pregnant with his child, take up residence at a remote apple farm, where she finally helps Princess Netoya transition and die with the help of her Domingan playing. Then Lear leaves temporarily in order to represent humans at the conference of birds demonstrating descent in Emerald City. While there, he meets up with his old military buddy, Trism, who is in charge of the dragons, who have been quote unquote scraping the faces off of any known enemies of the state. They have a short love affair, kill the dragons together, and then Trism disappears, and Lear returns to the apple farm, where a candle is gone, but a green baby girl awaits his return.

I don't have enough air in my lungs. That's all I got. There we go. Five sentence summary. Yeah, five sentence summary. Question mark. But like really though, I felt like everything that I put in there was necessary. I don't know how to sum it up more. So, hey. Yeah, it's not even that long of a but there but there is a lot that happens. A lot that happens. So, packed in there. Mhm. Mhm. I will say though, like as crazy as many things as I had to include in here, I did feel like again the timeline made sense to my brain, so it's almost easier for me to write this summary. I don't know, man. I don't know. Good for you. It's weird how the brains work.

Truly. Okay, so here we go. What was your favorite part in Son of a Witch? favorite part might surprise y'all here, but it was actually when Lear kind of hooks up. We're kind of alluding here with uh Trism. Yeah. For me, it felt like the first time Lear actually made a decision for himself unapologetically as well. Mhm. We'll talk a little bit more about that when we talk about Lear as a character. Yeah. So that's to me what that kind of symbolized. Yeah. I liked that, too. I thought that that was good. I didn't really see that coming, but I was like, "Oh, so I hope I hope that we see more of Tism in the future." Yeah. He's a dag. We'll see. But yeah, we'll see. I don't think he is, though. I think he was very similar. And we'll talk about this a lot when we move into our different philosophical and political questions here in a second. Um, I think he was similarly to Lear caught up in a greater system than himself. It's not like he was like cuz you could tell that he actually didn't like what he was doing. Why that's why he worked with Lear to stop it, right? Yeah. Mhm. Um, I put that my favorite part of this book was the back and forth timeline. That's literally what I put. I was like, I love a good unique structure and I loved that. Um, I mean, he was essentially in a coma for like a lot of the book, but it was all in his, you know, I guess you could kind of say, was it in his dreams? Like, was he literally dreaming this as it was happening or was it just the story being told as like kind of a parallel thing, but either way, that was my favorite part of this book. I thought it was really well done and I enjoyed it. Yeah. Um, what about your least favorite part? Yeah, the burning of the bridge. O, that got me. That got me good. Yeah, I don't know how that couldn't be anyone's like least favorite part in this book. It was pretty brutal and terrible. Did you put that as well? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, I put I put burning the quadlings alive. That's what I put actually specifically because that's what happened. Yeah, that's literally what's happening. Um, and it's it was a reminder how of how awful humans are to each other in the name of [ __ ] Okay, to sum up, [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] I hated how Lear was not seeing the similarities and what happened to his own family to what he turned around and was doing. Um befriending the villagers for it was years, wasn't it? Yeah. He was there for like like literally years. I don't remember now how long, but like seven years or something crazy. Burning down the settlement. I mean, it's guys, it is literally what colonization colonizers did to the Native Americans by befriending them, giving them smallox blankets, you know. So, sorry, that's not funny, but just the way you said it. Um, well, it's not only that, but other atrocities. It's Yeah, I was going to say, you know, not just here, but all over the world, right? I mean, yeah, it's been happening all forever. Yeah. Um, I think what was unique to this situation as far as in a fantasy book was the way that it very explicitly, well, first of all, it's told from the quote unquote colonizer bad guy's perspective, which I liked, right? Even though he's supposed to be the good guy or the protagonist, which that I think is why I liked Lear's character a lot. M. Um, but also I think that it showed just between his conversation as a like up and cominging, it felt very like President Snow getting like promoted as a kid in the military, you know what I mean? That's how it felt to me. Um, I liked the conversation that was happening between he and uh, Cherry Stone because again, Cherry Stone was literally the general who like took all of his family away, kidnapped Nor. She's off somewhere. We don't even know where she is. And murdered his whole other family, right? And he he's like, "Oh, yeah. I'll just like get on board with what's happening and, as you say, do the exact same thing to this other group of people." The way it was presented was really fascinating to me because they're told that their assignment is to go in and to essentially quell this um group of people who's going to like rise up and you know rebel against them. Well, they get there and the Quadlings are like, "Hey man, we're just minding our own business and we're also super friendly to you, so I don't really know what this is about." And they're like, "Oh, interesting. Okay, so we don't really need to use any force." Like they're cool. So, as you say, they kind of almost like assimilate. The, you know, soldiers are in relationships with quadling women, right? So, they're probably having mixed babies, I'd imagine, too, right? Um, and all this is going on. Well, then the um commander Cherry Stone is like, "Okay, well now they're like we took away their means of like I don't know farming or doing whatever kind of subsistence like agriculture they were doing. So they're essentially now tolling people to cross their lands via or their waterways via boat, right?" And they're like, "Well, we don't want to let them do that anymore." So it's basically like we're taking away their method of existing and sustaining themselves. So they come up with this other way and now we're going to take that away from them as well to completely disenfranchise them. And when they say like, "Okay, well, how are we going to do that?" They say, "Well, we're going to start taxing them on these earnings that they're making from, you know, these tolls." So they agree. They're like, "Sure. Okay. Yeah, we'll pay we'll pay your taxes. Like, no biggie. get it, you know. So then they're like, "Oh, okay. Well, I guess we're going to attack some more." So then they're like, "All right, well, we don't." They're trying to incite a war that they have to act upon, right? Yeah. And so that's the thing is like they basically are like every time they try to do something to incite a war, the Quadlings are like, "Well, we don't love it, but sure, okay, we want to keep everything like amicable until it essentially goes too far." and they're like, "Well, now you're going to completely destroy all of our ways of life." And they take that as active descent. And so that's when they send the soldiers in to explode the bridge and essentially like burn their villages down and kill a bunch of people. Crazy. But that like I thought that it was really fascinating that they showed all of those steps though in the book. You know what I mean? It wasn't just like they went in and burned the village down. It was like Gregory Magcguire was like, "No, we're going to break this down as being like a systematic erosion of like all of that happening over time." So, I did appreciate that. Yeah. And now I was watching someone talk about that part of the book specifically how they were reading an interview, and I haven't read this or source checked it or whatever, but at this time that Gregory Maguire had taken a 10-year hiatus and wasn't going to write anything after Wicked. Wrote Son of a Witch. and for this time period was during the Iraqi war. So a lot of symbolism was placed in there of what he saw unfolding in the Middle East with the United States. So again, I haven't back checked it completely, but it lines up well. And even I feel like a lot of that makes sense because um I read an afterward that was quite long in and I think Wicked in the Kindle version and it's an interview or essentially whatever an afterward, but it feels like he's answering a bunch of questions. That was one of the things he addressed. So yeah, he does talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Um which makes perfect sense. Yeah, definitely our least favorite part, but important. Yeah. Also, because that's what leads Lear to essentially be like, "What am I doing?" and kind of like reth Yeah. finally realize finally clicks for him a little bit. But it was also, yeah, like you said, seeing that internal monologue of someone who is doing these atrocities, you know, and he's like, "Well, hopefully she made it. the baby like hopefully that burning baby made it alive. You know, just trying to justify and do those mental gymnastics in their brain that's like, well, this happened, but may maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked, you know, to try to help them sleep at night essentially. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like a really complex issue for sure because I think at this point he's supposed to be maybe around like 23 or 24. So, he's still, you know, for all intents and purposes pretty young. And so I think like that's something that I want to talk about too, like once we get into our other questions for sure. Um because I think that it brings up a lot of um interesting things, interesting topics. So before we get there, how did this book make you feel? Like how did you feel after you're done reading it?

I don't know. You go first. I don't know how I felt. I felt like a little bit less unsettled, I think, than I did when I read Wicked. Like Wicked had me like really riled for a while. Yeah. Like um this one I feel like was a little bit more balanced to me. Mhm. Um, as far as like if you want to call it like political problems, philosophical questions versus like plot and like character development. I feel like it was a little bit more balanced to me. So, I felt a little bit more like, yeah, it had the wheels turning and I was thinking about all of these things, but I wasn't like completely just like overtaken by like my emotions, I guess you could say. There was a lot more different themes at question here with Wicked than there was Son of the Witch was like pretty like just a couple themes that we were discussing. Would you say? Yeah. Yeah. I'd say very like focused on the military theme specifically. Yeah. Um so it was a little bit easier. Obviously that exists within a greater, you know, if you're looking at it like a military industrial complex that exists within a greater conversation. However, I feel like yeah, it was a little bit more like honed in as opposed to Wicked where it was just like everything you could possibly imagine just going on, but it's because of Empire is essentially getting ready to fall, right? So, there's like a lot happening. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I feel like I I felt, like I said, a little bit more settled and a little bit not as crazy like as when I had finished Wicked. Uh, so that's good. And I did enjoy it from a story perspective as well. And I think that's why. And so um yeah, I don't know. That's I don't know if that's an answer, but that's how it made me feel like I was still thinking about important things, but I did enjoy the um individual characters stories, too. Yeah. I guess I felt while reading it and after I'm like, "Yeah, yep. These things do suck." Great. Great. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. No, I'm just kidding. No, it's a great way to, you know, through art speak to the reader about different things that are happening within our world. For sure. For sure. For sure. Um, what about your most and least favorite characters? Well, my favorite character, TBH. Everyone kind of sucks, so I don't really have one. Maybe Princess Neatoya cuz at least like she's clear and concise and she wants what she wants and I get it. That would be so crappy. She had to go into hiding as a human and wants to die as an elephant, you know, and she's like, "Well, this sucks. Please help me. You're my only hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi." So, you know, I I'm going to give it to her cuz everybody else uh you know, cuz people are complex and it's a complex time, so everyone sucks. Did you have a favorite though? Yeah. Um I kind of agree with you. I think that's kind of the point of this book, right? Is that like we're dealing with Yeah. Like, okay, for the sake of argument, sure, there's some magic here in this world. We know, right? It's like obviously we know that Lear Lear is able to uh singing faces. Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, just in case you were wondering if this is if this is for kids, people's faces are getting cut off and then someone's carrying them around. You know what? If anything felt like Return to Oz, Yes. vibes. It was that that's exactly what it reminded me of and like what the hell is happening and everybody's so cool with it. Yeah. Um just I mean the fact that like I mean when you find out it's dragons doing it it made it a little bit less creepy I guess cuz they are it's like a monster ripping your face off which is better than like a person doing it I guess but like it was still pretty like morbid. Um, you know, I would say like if I had to pick any favorite characters, because I would agree with you that everyone's very flawed and that's kind of the point of this. Um, it would be a tied for a couple reasons between Glenda because Glenda does help them escape. So, I did appreciate that with her character even though she was fairly minor in this book. Um, you could see that she might be pulling a few more strings behind the scenes than we we know of. Um, so I did appreciate that. I also at this point in time, all we know about Shell, right, is that he was working underground for the resistance as like a I don't know, he was like in espionage and like a kind of a double agent his whole life. Right now, all of a sudden, he's turned into like a quote unquote like religious zealot who's basically like, I've been reformed. I've seen the ways of, you know, the unseen God or whatever. and now I'm qualified to lead you. I'm choosing him because I really really am hoping that this is part of like an insider plan to take it down. Right. I'm very interested to see where that goes because I do like his character and I do think that Lear is passing very he heavy judgments on him when he finds out what he's doing in the jails and stuff. It's like we don't really know what he's doing in there either. He could be helping them break out and disguising it. Like, we don't know what he's doing. Yeah. So, I'm very curious to hear because every single action that Shell is hearing about, sorry, every single action that Lear hears Shell is doing is passed with preconceived judgments. You know, it's kind of like he's family member and it almost feels like he feels abandoned by him. So, he's quick to judge in a negative light. So, I'm curious to see from other perspectives what's going on with Shell, not just I just have a really hard time thinking that Shell's going to be so rage against the machine his whole life and then all of a sudden be like, I'm a changed man. Like, maybe. Yeah, but I don't know. That seems too simple to me. I don't know. So, he's very g He's giving Matthew McConnA, you know. I just got to say, we'll see though. We'll see. We'll see. Not in like a good vi in like the, you know, elusive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. Like you never really know what he's thinking cuz it could be anything. Yeah. He could tell you what he's thinking, but you still won't understand it. So, we'll see. Exactly. Um, okay. Was this book what you expected? Yeah, actually kind of. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. I don't know. We only got we got a little bit of Lear's personality in book one. And I felt like uh yeah, it's what I expected. Timeline jumping. No, not necessarily, but we did kind of get a little bit of timeline jumping in Wicked as well. But yeah, I would say so. I would expect him to at some point cover the themes that were covered. So yeah. What about you? I didn't expect it to be so heavily like military theme. Um, but for the most part, yeah, I would agree with you. Like I feel like it there wasn't any like insane curve balls thrown here. Like the ending was cool. I do I did like that kind of little twist. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it was pretty much what I expected. for the most part. I will say, and I think I mentioned this before somewhere, um, you know, The Pros in my opinion is a little bit more easily digestible than Wicked. Um, and so that was nice because I do really appreciate like that writing style. But I feel like since we're reading it for a series and it's going to be five books back to back to back that we're reading, that would be a lot to handle. And so, um, I did appreciate that in my opinion, this one flowed a little bit easier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, let's get into let's get into the tough questions, shall we? I'm sad. Okay. Um, so let's just start off with the philosophical questions. Which what were your top three that you pulled out of this book that you think um, you know, you just want to kind of like pose to the group? Personal identity. So, what is the question? What is the question? Um, hey, I did the same thing I did last week. Great. Personal identity. So, it was very interesting to watch somebody navigate the world basing all of their actions on outside influences. Yeah. So, I don't know how to phrase that as a question. Sorry. But like, what would you do? Or like are we an individual? Well, I think the philosophical question would be like, are we capable of being a an individual or are we just an amalgamation of like all our different external influences and that's what we call personality? Yeah. Would that maybe be the question? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I see exactly what you mean by that though because it's true. It's like what who are we? Who am I? I feel like as Lear, Lear's character is probably the most extreme version of he is only what has happened to him and what is happening to him. He's reactionary and he is very much led by what he's being told. He doesn't seem to have a self a sense of self and he's kind of trying to discover that later on in the book, you know, but he doesn't even have an issue with it. He doesn't realize that that's even what's happening until I don't even think he ever realizes what's happening. He just suddenly is like, "Oh, wait. This is the things that are injustices and I want like you said, he's young, very traumatized." Yeah. Like super traumatiz. He doesn't even he doesn't know where he comes from even. Like he's speculating that he's Alphaba's son, Alphaba and Fiero's son. But he doesn't even really know, right? It's like he's like, "All I know is that I grew up essentially an orphan. Got shoved into this lady's like, you know, I was essentially her ward and then she kind of kind of liked me, but not really. And I kind of followed her around until she died. And then the rest of my family was killed or kidnapped. and now I'm just kind of like on my own. I think he has a very like minimal self sense of self-worth as well and I think that's important. Yeah, that was the other thing that I put is self-v valueue. He does talk about you know he wants to be a valuable valuable person but what does that mean? So he goes into that questioning a couple times and obviously he doesn't find the answer but it does come up. Yeah. So what is so the question for that one would be what makes you a valuable person and is it a valuable person to society? Is it a valuable person to yourself? Are you finding value within yourself just as being yourself? You know all those things are intertwined. Yeah, I think they're intertwined. Like I like that you brought that up because I hadn't really thought about that. But it's like not just the individual characters themselves, but then that's also like a greater theme, right? Because when you're dealing with um you know like topics like imperialization or colonization, who gets to decide the worth and the humanity of other people to the point where you know you get to go in and take them over or destroy them or what have you, right? So I think it's a bigger theme too. It's not just Lear. It's like more it's bigger than that. I like that that you brought that up. It's important. Definitely. Yeah. So, what's your other one? Um, well, I have Well, you had two so far. Do you want to just say your favorite? Okay. So, um the other question that came up is what is family legacy cuz he's also grappling with that as somebody who can't even admit to himself that he is the son of Alphaba and Fiero because he feels like he needs he would have to have more tangible evidence and because he was treated the way he was, he gets he almost will say it so many times. So I'm the son of well maybe you know so at that point he's also grappling with family legacy and what that means is it important why would it be important why not and all those questions and again all intertwined with everything that's happening with his personal identity as well right and what would that mean for him moving forward right it's like I think that he's starting to realize okay well if I am Alphaba and Fiero's son not only would that make him you know the last remaining in the bloodline to take over that kingdom over in Kiamoko. But then it would also make him essentially like it would pass down the legacy of being the leader of the rebellion essentially to him. So I think that's like a I mean that's a lot to take on for sure. Yeah. Somebody who doesn't have a sense of self. Yeah. Or to anyone. It's like almost like well I can justify some of my actions because I want to possibly have this family legacy but I maybe I'm not even part of that family. So then maybe I won't and I'll just go disappear and like you know do what I want to do. Yeah, it's like this constant internal battle that doesn't feel like a heavy weight necessarily on him, but it's often times brought up. Yeah. He felt like it, you know, it felt like I was reading like if the scarecrow was a an actual character in the books, it would be him. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Um, okay. So, my philosophical questions were, are all leaders just quote unquote straw men? So that seems to be like a constant theme. So that could go like political or philosophical. So I just put it in this category because it really could go either way. But I feel like that was kind of a constant theme because you literally had straw men take over um in kind of the interim, you know, before you had uh Shell take over, right? you had Glenda kind of step in as kind of like this temporary like little quick fix and then you literally had I think two straw men step in one after the other to kind of like rule or whatever. So um I just like really liked that imagery um of just kind of like this boneless puppet, right? Yeah. Because that's what it is. um you know he I don't remember who poses this question or at what time but the actual quote is are the mighty deserving of thrones so that's kind of like he even brings that up so it's kind of like the flip side of that it's like you know are all leaders just straw men or are the mighty actually deserving of thrones and if so are they the ones who are actually ruling so it's kind of like this just you know pose these questions kind of think about yeah totally um The other one I had, the other one I had was um is opposing the powers that be futile. So Lear asks himself these his himself these questions. Did Alphaba really change anything or did she just do what she did and then die for nothing? Yeah. Um so you know we can have a lot of opinions about that. But I was also like okay that's an interesting question that he's asking especially as someone who uh until very recently wasn't really looking at things outside of himself or the bigger picture. Yeah. you know, um, and then how important is language when creating history? Because the normalization of things seems to happen really quickly. And I like that this book shows that because we're talking not even one full generation change and we already have a completely different viewpoint of several different types of people, societies, government, and not that much time has gone by. I mean, Lear, like I said at the end of this book, I think is only in his maybe mid20s. Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah. and how important specifically language is in kind of like constructing those new and differing ideologies. Um, I also put just like a little kind of like side tangent one that I wanted to mention because it's brought up a lot. Kind of this idea that um, religion absolves you of actual action [Music] because it takes you it takes away agency, right? It's like we if I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times, right? Like give it to God. Yeah. And it's like that idea that that is what's happening in a lot of different parts of Oz where, you know, they're giving it to God and then all of these atrocities continue to happen. Yeah. So, yeah. Not It's not unlike things that I hear in my day-to-day life. Yeah. From people. Mhm. Yeah. Well, it's not it's not it's out of my hands. It's not my problem. Yeah. It's that must be nice. So you know and it's it's the indiv it's the individual responsibility is absolved but then also the collective responsibility is absolved as well because then you just join together and you know God will handle it. Yeah. Or whatever or this idea that not just God will handle it but whatever is meant to be will be. It's like this very fatalistic um perspective that you know it's God's will so therefore our individual actions really don't matter that much anyway at the end of the day or like you said not even God it's fate. Oh well it's going to Yeah. Yeah. Some people find comfort in that. That is terrorizing to me. Like what do you mean? Yeah. Cuz we're given free will. That doesn't make sense. So hey that's a different story. Yeah. So, this was the philosophical questions portion. So, we'll just leave you with that. Something to think about. Mhm. Okay. So, what about three political problems that were brought up that you thought were important in this book specifically? Oh, well, that's the easy one. Military industrial complex. Boom. Yeah. Prison industrial complex. Boom. Oppression and discrimination. specifically the birds too as well. Boom. Uh, one bonus one. I don't know how to say it more eloquently, but just following orders. Yeah. Came up a lot. And I feel like we're seeing that today, too, unfortunately. I mean, we always will, but like especially right now. Mhm. Yeah. It's um, what did I put here? uh the wizard left but society is nowhere near better or fixed because and I put kind of as a side tangent capitalism under the regime is not much better than imprisonment to a lot of people who are very low on yeah the totem pole so there's that too um at one point the scarecrow says to Lear that there's lots to celebrate these days for those of the right station so Yeah, that so yeah, that would be a, you know, obviously like a hierarchy situation that's kind of like created by this kind of capitalistic system or whatever you want to call it at this point. Um, I put yeah militarization under the pretense of safety. Um, but not prioritizing human life. So that's kind of the problem, right? where it's like you have this entire army that's supposed to be keeping the country safe but actually does not prioritize human life. Like I'll say it again. How does that make sense? Because not only does the one do the ones suffer at the hands of the military who are they're going around literally burning alive, but it also doesn't protect the lives of the people who are fighting for its army either. Yeah. So, it's both. Yeah. Um, and then I put colonization because you can't really ignore that as being a major theme in this book, too. Yeah. I I really liked how Gregory Maguire took a lens and an examination into the military-industrial complex and the way that it utilizes people in poverty and in extreme circumstances to enlist. Mhm. Um, and given I don't think I've ever read anything like this from the perspective of the person that is it's happening to, right? How quick it happens, how easy it falls in line, how, you know, he's just at the end of the day, he doesn't know what else to do, you know, like, let me just join this, you know, let me just do this. And and he's even like, oh, it's not so bad. Oh, we're we're guarding. Nothing bad's happening. I'm pretty safe. I'm protecting people. And then, oh, I'm burning people alive. Yeah. Like, well, I think it it starts off as, you know, he needs food and a roof over his head and he's what, 16, 18? Yeah. Something like that, you know. Um, that's how it starts. And a lot of it is cloak and dagger, too, right? It's like they don't tell you what you're doing. They don't tell you where you're going or why you're doing it. They give you the information that they feel that you need to know and then you by the time you're burning this bridge down and watching people burn alive, you're like, "Oh my, like how did I get here? It's too late. It's too late." It was so eerie when I don't remember what the character's name was that had told him how to get a leg up when he was enlisting cuz they were picky. They didn't want people that were certain demographics below a certain poverty level. So he said, "You'll get in faster if you say you're from a family of like 12 or whatever it is." So he gives him this tip. He gets in right away. Later on, he meets up with him and he's like, "Hey, if you're looking I helped you get in, but if you're looking how to get out, I can't help you with that." Mhm. You know, it's like it's very eerie like and he's not even thinking of how to get out yet, you know? Yeah. It's like Yeah. Well, and I put here too, it's like they're specifically trying to not just recruit, you know, people who are somewhat disenfranchised, but then also while he was in the military, Gregory Magcguire made it a point to explain that the soldiers were kept un uneducated and uninformed. So, they didn't have access to even just like the news. It's like they sometimes would get their hands on like a really old newspaper and find out what was going on. And so it's like all they know or at least in this world and through Lear's eyes all Lear knows is that hey this is the job that I go do every day in and day out. I'm just a guy like I'm just guarding these people or I'm just doing this thing when like the bigger picture of what's actually going on right now like under this regime is not even something that he understands is happening. And so I think that also makes it more insidious too. And that is intentional. It's a whole different type of propaganda inside the military. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. So, I also made sure to note those things too because I felt like Yeah. They were the main themes like this book was mostly about that. Mhm. Yep. Based on this book alone and its contents, would you say that um fictional fantasy books can be political and what about in relation to real life society? Well, just a little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything mentioned and then whatever we're leaving out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like literally around every corner pretty much the only stuff that's not real life is just the the random fantasy elements that are thrown in there like dragons or um the broom, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Um so, are you excited to read the next one? Book three, A Lion Among Men.

Yeah, because now I want to see what themes he goes over in that one. Are they different? Same? What's up with that? So, I'm actually a little bit more intrigued now, which like with the first Wicked, I was like, if we weren't reading this for the podcast, I wouldn't continue. I have two big books in now, so I'd continue. Yeah. So, I'm also excited, especially because you guys know I love a good different perspective, same time period. So, I am assuming we're going to get this from obviously the cowardly lion's perspective, the lion cub that Alphaba saved in the first book. Um, what's he got going on? What are they doing over there? Yeah. Um, you know, is he working in, you know, the Emerald City in the capital or whatever you want to call it. And what are the inner workings there? Maybe we'll see more of Glenda because that's kind of where she's been hanging out. Um, so I am excited to read this one for sure. Yeah. I mean, hello. He has a green baby. He has a green baby. Girl specifically, too. I Yeah. I'm like, okay, maybe the greenness just skips it, you know, skips a generation. That's fine. Crazy line. Yeah. Hey, I don't like Candle. Uh, Candle is a little Yeah, we can talk about her. What? Let's talk about Candle. Okay. So, because we haven't yet because she's the worst. She's problematic. Okay. My issue, well, I have a couple issues with Candle. So, first of all, supposedly she engaged in sexual activities with him while he was in a coma and this is how this baby came to be. So, yeah, that's extremely kind of a kind of a jerk about it. Like a well, you did this to me and he's like, what? I was in a coma. Well, that's what we're talking about where it's like closed door eluding, but it's like that. But is that what happened? I also wonder because it's unclear. Is this magic at play? Is she saying that but that's not really what happened? Like we don't really know. We don't really know. Yeah. Um so she could be terrible and have done that for real or this could be some kind of like I mean we're in a magical world so lots could happen here. We're not really sure. Um but at the same time it's like you know Alphaba did birth a child also in a coma. So that would be like kind of a full circle moment. A coma and her mom was asleep when the elixir happened. So like what what are we gonna have happen here? Yeah. H interesting. So yeah, she is problematic for those reasons. The other reason why I did not like her is because Okay, so before we knew that, right, I'm thinking this whole time because we still don't know where Nor is. Okay, after this whole time, I was hoping up until that point that she says that she's pregnant with his baby cuz no, I was like thinking, what if this girl who they've put in charge of keeping an eye on Lear while he's in a coma this whole time actually he wakes up and opens his eyes and it's his sister? Like, how cool. By the way, that's why I didn't text you back when you texted that to me cuz I had already gotten to the part that Candle said that and I was like, I hope you don't know you don't want it to be. But I was thinking, oh, what a cool moment that would be if like, you know, through a series of unfortunate events, they end up back together this way. But obviously that was not the case. That is my maybe. Yeah. I mean, he knows it could still be her, but something else different happened. No, it's knows what she looks like. Like, he would recognize her, you know. Yeah, that's true. He woke up, so never mind. But yeah. Um, but yeah. So, and her character is just weird cuz then also it's like why did she abandon the baby and him and then just disappear or was she taken? Like, we don't really know what happened. Yeah. So, what if it's not even her baby? it. I mean, you know, I got to say though, one of the reasons why I don't like Lear, and it's not his fault. It's Karen, it's not your fault that you're stupid. You're stupid cuz I hate you. What does that mean, girl? Yeah. Yeah. It's not your fault that you're Yeah. It's exactly what you just said. It's something like that. Like, it's not Lear's fault. Like, he is very I don't know how much education he got, you know, in his circumstances. And I actually liked him better when in Wicked because he had an excuse. He was a kid. But like he's just not the brightest crayon in the box, you know? Oh, he's like a scarecrow. Like literally. Oh, here's this dead baby. Oh, it's alive. Like I don't know. I don't know. He just seems really dumb. And it just pisses me off a lot of times. Yeah. I I feel like he's he's a little bit Yeah. like he he's figuring things out and I think that's why he's written that way because I feel like I don't even know that he's had any education to be honest, right? I think he went straight from basically being an orphan living in the hills to being in the military. I think is what happened. And so, um I don't know that he's had any education whatsoever. Uh and so that's a part of it. But I do feel like sometimes his character can be like frustratingly like stupid. Like for lack of a better way to put it, it's like oh my god. That's why I say when I think about him more as like oh you're like to me you're supposed to symbolize like a scarecrow. Like that helps me. Yeah. Yeah. True. True. Good point. That helps me too. So um I don't know where that's going if that's even going to go anywhere but we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Um interesting. But yeah, for these other questions, I am excited to read the next book because I'm hoping we get some answers with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I'm sure we will. I can't imagine that we wouldn't by the end of it. Um do you have any notable quotes that you wanted to bring up? Okay, so Nanny was a nice comic relief for me. Gosh. Okay. Uhhuh. She How is she still alive? Frick, dude. It's amazing. Every time she comes back on page, I'm like, what? She's going to outlive them all. She's not even going to know it. Um, Nanny's referencing a time that they were trying to perfect a spell uh on a pigeon. I think it was Alphaba was trying to from the Grimmory. Oh. Uhhuh. So, she's talking about it's so it's so bad, but I just was cracking up. It's one of those stupid It's one of those stupid things. She says the pigeon launched itself out the window. When when she called back to it, it turned sharply and impaled itself on a weather vein. Actually, it was kind of funny. That's what she says. So, I just I thought it was hilarious because it took me off like it likeaught took me off guard. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just like listening to the story, she's like, "Oh, yeah. This terrible thing happened." Well, actually, it was kind of funny. It's like how it happened. It's terrible. But that stuck out to me. Yeah. Her character is a crack. I love that she's just living out there still. She's like, I'm still young. I do. I think it's interesting that Chis now is like fully talking. I'm like, where is this going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So, I put uh So, it's kind of what we're talking about about Lear joining the army. He says, "It was indisputably thrilling to fall into formation to the punch of snare drums. The men squared their shoulders and became men. The wind obliged by whipping the banners and emblems. It was also glorious and immediate." So that also brought up some questions of like what you know how depending on you know maybe where you live or what country is manhood quote unquote this is also capitalized in here became men that's capitalized. Um like how is that tied up with military stuff you know? Yeah. So another question. Do you have any more quotes? Yeah. Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented or crooked or blessed. Some are born defiant in no particular reason at all. We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions. Most of us beautiful in the concept if we're lucky, but frequently tedious and regrettable as we flush ourselves out. Deep, deep, good, deep thoughts with Gregory. Uh, the guard's culture had trained him into thinking that a well-brushed smile and a groomed chin were somehow vital to the preservation of the nation.

Yeah. Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. [Music] So, this was about um you know how I was talking about how language is important. So, the soldiers are just kind of talking about Quadling country. No wonder this place is uninhabited, says Bernie once. It didn't used to be. The Quadlings lived here. Lear pointed out. It's one huge stink house. Any locals still preferring this to the rest of Oz must be cretinous or subhuman.

Othering. Othering. I this is the only thing I ever liked Kendall saying. Okay. One plus one equals both. That was so good. You're right. Yeah. As someone who grew up being constantly told you are just a half of yourself and you have to find your whole I think in in so many different ways and cultures that's said. So, I was like, "Wow, I love that." Cuz you're Cuz he's trying to figure out what is his relationship with Kendall. Like, what the hell is happening here? And she's just as elusive. She's confusing. He's like, "God, I'm a simple man. Can you help me out?" This didn't help him, but it helped me. So, yeah, she's just like, you know, we're what we are. And then she's says 1 plus one equals both. like we can be together and still be ourselves and still be individuals. Well, the way you have to have somebody to make you equal and whole. Well, and the way that I read that too, like now that you're bringing that up, I'm glad you did cuz I forgot to write a note about it. Yeah. You know, 1 plus 1 is both. It's like this idea that like all of these topics that we're talking about too are both and situation. And I think that's a huge theme in this book. Yeah, that as well. Yeah, totally. Mhm. That's what it made me think of. And people are complex. Mhm. Yeah. Lear can be both a good guy and a bad guy. And he is. He can both be interesting and stupid.

Sorry. I feel I feel like if you met Lear though, like he wouldn't be interesting. You know what I mean? He's only interesting to us because we're reading about him. Like Oh, I That's the thing is like he would drive me crazy to be around. Yeah, for sure. So, but we got to find out why, you know, because we have all the information about him. So, it's like, I get it. Like, it's not your fault. You're stupid. It's not. Well, so, um, this is one that Lear, I think, kind of regurgitates from the commander telling him when someone asks, you know, are we supposed to go in and like kill the children, too? That seems crazy. and he said, "Are children still blameless if they're going to grow up to be the enemy?" Uh, yeah. Mhm. Nope. Wow. All right. Last one I'm going to say. Okay. Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself. Otherwise, you're just a bundle of ticks, a stringed puppet manipulated by the chance and the insensible wind. M but yeah, I mean it's like they tell you on the airplane, you got to put your mask on before you help the person next to you cuz you can't help anyone if you're dead. Hey, so it's true. But it's symbolic for so many different things. Obviously, in a serious on a serious note throughout this book, throughout our lives, but yeah, like it's kind of like at a certain point, I think most humans will come to that realization is that like I'm responsible for my happiness. I need to take accountability for who I am as a person. And it's not other people that make me whole. It's not other people who make me complete. It's not other people that will save me. I need to take responsibility for my actions at a certain point in who I am. Yeah. Yeah. So my last quote will be ending on I guess you could say a positive note kind of like going into the next book since you know they just did that demonstration in the sky saying that Alphaba lives you know and he went with the conference of birds and presumably you know Shell saw their demonstration because there was several thousand of them in the sky. So Lear said, "I'm sorry about the Unimata attack. That's the emperor's strategy to keep his foes busy nipping at one another. That has to stop. There's no way to survive without our making peace amongst ourselves." Yeah. And if that isn't a sign of the times, I don't know what is. Woo. There you go. Yep. Okay. So, just to kind of like get wrapping it up, do you feel like this would be considered to you a positive or negative contribution to the canon? Positive. Boom. I would agree. Do you have any critiques or additional things, you know, that you'd like to share about book two that you found in your searchings? I didn't look too much into reviews and things like that, but I did listen to that portion of the interview that Gregor Maguire gave at the end of the I got it from Libby, so I don't know if that changes where it was narrated, if it was like bonus for libraries or whatever, but um he himself addresses some of the criticism that was in Wicked and also goes into Son of a Witch and that a lot of people were upset that He alludes to a point to try it like leads the reader there but then doesn't complete the thought. We talked about this a lot in Wicked, but he says this is 1,100% intentional. He wants to take you on the journey and then watch you go to the destination on your own. So he leaves and then also not only that but I loved what he talked about. He said he's following these different lives and with Alphaba with Lear. He says sometimes people don't die of old age and you get that final montage and everything's wrapped up in a nice little bow and it feels complete and perfect. Sometimes like Alphaba, they die mid- young and you have a lot of loose ends. He said those loose ends are intentionally supposed to elicit that reaction within you, the reader. You are supposed to feel unsettled because that's life. You don't always have all the answers and you don't always get the full circle moments because he's like get think about your life in and of itself. How many times don't you have the answer and all you can act upon is what the information that you know so far and that's what he's making his characters do. So yeah, I loved that. I like when because he says a lot of times people are criticizing him for plot holes and he's like these are not plot holes these are completely intentional and that's what is the difference of reading something that is like what the hell the why did I go on that journey when it's never brought up again from an author that it's a just a straight up plot hole it's makes me feel better when it's like even though his don't feel like plot holes to me but obviously to some people it do it does and the author addresses it as like literally this is the point, but I cuz you can see it as this is the point, you know, makes total sense. I feel like I feel like I feel like by saying something that he's writing about is a plot hole, you're expecting Gregory Maguire to somehow wrap up and resolve something like colonialism in a fantasy book, which makes no sense. Like the point is to like pose these questions and that's why we're doing the same thing. That's like the structure that we're taking with these episodes. We don't have all the answers either. all we can do is discuss them and open up a conversation so that you could try to come to some type of conclusion thinking about it on your own and talking with others about it. And I think that's exactly what Gregory McGuire is doing because his characters can't solve those problems either. Yeah. You know, and I think that's what makes this a little bit more realistic than say, you know, I mean, there's plenty of fantasy books where the regime is taken down and we get a happily ever after. And I'm not saying I don't like those books. I do. I really enjoy those books, but that's not reality. And I think that Gregory Magcguire was trying to write a fantasy that was a little bit more parallel to reality and complex. Yeah. Um yeah, I mean on Goodreads it gets a 3.51, so not particularly high. Um that's out of about 69,000 reviews. Um, most people that I could find, I'm not going to read off reviews or anything like that, but most of the criticism that I got was, yeah, the timeline was confusing. It was muddled. There was a lot of, yeah, like um, side quests to nowhere. It was slow. Um, so a lot of the things that we kind of mentioned could be a, you know, a common thing that people could think of this book for sure. Um, but it did get a lot of consistent praise from what I could find of the queer representation, so that's good. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Um, also, no resolution for Norah's character was a common thread, too, which I I can kind of relate to. But at the same time, I do know that there's two books. Like, if I was reading them when they were coming out, I might have been more upset about it, but like I know there's more books, so whatever. Like, we'll probably figure out what's going on with Nor by the end. If we don't, then I might still be annoyed. Yeah. He said in his interview, he said, "Hey, guess what? In book one, Nor's dead, but he said, but for those 10 years that he wasn't writing anything, he had so many young female readers writing to him and he realized what an important role that she played in their reading journey that he didn't want her to be dead anymore cuz obviously it's never official or anything. Like he had no intention of ever talking about that again. And so not only that, he had a daughter of his own and he saw, you know, he grew as a person. He learned and he understood how important it is to, you know, find out that story for readers and stuff. So I thought that was funny. But hey, that leads me to my bonus question. If you're ready for it. Yeah, I'm ready. Where do you think No is? I think Okay. In an ideal world, I would have Nor working with Shell. Yeah. Yeah. Or the resistance or something like that. Yeah. She's somehow working underground with Shell to take things down from the inside. Or maybe even working with Galinda as well. Like we don't, you know, um but I don't know. I don't want to say that's where I definitely think she is cuz like really I have no idea. Um but that would be cool. people. Do you think Glinda really didn't ne recognize Lear when he was near her or do you think that she intentionally didn't recognize him? Um I don't think that she recognized I don't think that she recognized him. Um okay. Yeah. But I mean that's just my opinion. I think that she you know she's the flipflopper. But I'm hoping that she, you know, decides to join up once she I think I think that once Alphaba died, she had something the light bulb might have gone off a little bit. And I think she might be leaning more to that side. And now that her husband's dead, too, I'm thinking that she might be a little bit more persuadable to that side. So, we'll see. Yeah. So, fun random fact. I don't have it sitting in front of me cuz I read it somewhere. So, whatever. like I can't read it word for word but in this is actually a fun fact about book one Wicked. So you know when there's that really brief scene in the bar where Alphaba is singing a song and Fiero's there. So Gregory Gregory Maguire said that that song was actually meant to be somewhere over the rainbow. Oh I know. Like we didn't know that when we were reading the book. It's just the way that the song is described was like talking about going somewhere where there was hope and better, you know, things and um yeah, he said that it was supposed to be somewhere over the rainbow. And I was like, I see those are the full circle moments I live for right there, the connections, the Easter eggs. You know, one of the songs, and I don't remember which one it is now, so I'm so sorry, but one of the songs someone broke down, and it is D, but it's on a different note. I don't obviously I have not musical instruments over here on my freaking kazoo or whatever the hell this is. Um, but yeah, it's so subtle and slight and it's just like a little nod to the Wizard of Oz Somewhere Over the Rainbow. So, I have to I'd have to look it up and if I can find it, I'll share it to our stories so you guys can hear it. But when you hear it, it's hard to hear, but when you do, you're like, "Whoa, chills." Crazy. That's cool. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It might be unlimited or whatever that song is. I mean, yeah, makes sense. Yeah, I think it is. Defying Gravity. Yeah, Defying Gravity, but it' be that like bridge or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's very slight. It's very secret. It's very safe. It's good. But yeah, there you go. Cool. All right. Well, do you have any last words to say about Son of a Witch, or can we close this chapter? We can close it. We can close it. We'll be back next week with our regular episode, but then also with A Lion Among Men. Yes. So stay tuned. Like, follow, and subscribe everywhere you like to list your favorite podcast, including YouTube, so you don't miss out on that. You can also go check us out on Instagram, Tik Tok. We're a Besties in the Books podcast everywhere. And you guys, we'll see you next Tuesday next Tuesday and Friday. Tuesday. Bye. [Music]