How It All Goes Down
- Major style shift here, gang. We're introduced to a random nun, whom we've never met before. This is definitely a bit jarring after the ending of the previous section.
- A nun at a local convent is getting ready for Lurlinemas Eve festivities when she hears a knock at the door.
- She's annoyed but decides to answer anyway:
She decided, once she saw the blood on the odd green wrists, and the darting look in the eyes, that holiday decency required her to drag the creature inside. (3.17.4) - The nun takes Elphaba inside and cleans her up.
- She then leaves her in a room where retired, elderly women are cared for.
- One of these women comes to comfort Elphaba and holds on tightly to her hands.
- The woman's name is Mother Yackle.
- To which we say, whoa! Maybe she got tired of her life of pill pushing and sex club management and decided to become a nun. Though probably not along the lines of Mother Superior in The Sound of Music.
- Mother Yackle does her own version of "Climb Every Mountain" by calling Elphaba a pathetic failure and consoling her in a rather sinister fashion.
- And thus ends Volume 3. We'd like to say, for the record, that the Emerald City portrayed here is way more depressing than the one in the movie, although that one is creepier, with its dyed horses, green fur muffs and handlebar mustaches.