went in with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. the cast was good, musical numbers were mostly forgettable, i saw it as both christian (girard's scapegoat mechanism strongly deployed) and "pagan" (green witch as good, animal rights), with some sort of attempt to incorporate "evil" along with "good" (good as evil, evil as good)

the best part to me was the Wizard's song "Wonderful", which recounts how the people want to offload the crucifixion of opposites onto anyone who will accept it, they are desperate to do so. in other words, it is not the "elites" manipulating the masses, it is that the masses are DESPERATE for anyone to tell them it will all be okay and to take the responsibility for the horrifying Void unto themselves (the grand inquisitor point)

"That's why I've wanted to give the citizens of Oz everything

(So you lied to them)

The truth is not a thing of fact or reason

The truth is just what everyone agrees on

You see, back where I come from

We got a whole lot of people who believe all sorts of things that aren't true

You know what we call it?

History

A man's called a traitor or liberator

A rich man's a thief or philanthropist

Is one an invader or noble crusader?

It's all in which label is able to persist

There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities

So we act as though they don't exist"

yes, he's referring to moral relativism here, but from my perspective he's more subtly referring to the crucifixion of opposites and its offloading function - in the song, ordinary people are explicitly described as having "precious few at ease with moral ambiguities", so they act as though the ambiguity doesn't exist. That line is the hinge; it's a population failing to hold the tension and instead collapsing it via outsourced narrative, which is structurally the same failure mode my framework identifies as the redemptive move, just instantiated as political mythmaking rather than theology

Girard's scapegoat mechanism is correctly diagnosed by the show, but the show still needs its own scapegoat (the Wizard, Madame Morrible) to resolve narratively, which means the work itself doesn't escape the redemptive structure it's nominally critiquing, it's ironically performing it. This is not a failure of the show per se; it's a demonstration that no narrative can escape the offloading function entirely. The crucifixion must be borne somewhere; if not by the characters, then by the viewers (via a tragic ending). The show chooses to distribute it onto the villains so that the audience can feel resolution

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5875186&forum_id=2).#49945588)

This kind of redemptive fantasy stabilizes the author’s psyche but it is make believe nonsense

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5875186&forum_id=2).#49946308)