Yes, I've heard people say they like Elphaba best. I think she is indeed a credible character, but some things in her behaviour still don't make sense to me. I can't remember the times when it was most obvious in the book, but I frequently had the feeling her actions were unexpected and shouldn't be. This could have been avoided, perhaps, by closing those time gaps that Jude mentioned. We miss out a lot of her life that would help to explain why she does what she does. The way the story is told with those gaps, it is not a good way to do it when it comes to characterisation. So for me Elphaba may be credible and "real", but not really well-developed, being the main character. I did not care about her as much as Maguire should have made me care, I didn't even really like her. I bothered even less with the other characters, needless to say.
But with the character it is as with almost all things in the book: they just are. No explanations are given, which is unheard of in fiction, generally. What you do as a writer needs to make sense somehow, things need to be tied together. I feel there is too much disjointedness.
What didn't I like about the story? It has a lot of potential, but it wasn't realised. A story fails if it cannot be told well. If we look at the plot itself, all the things that happen, it is good; but the story, the actual telling of events, fails. The author has good ideas, but he cannot present them.
Elphaba's death did not seem poignant to me, unfortunately. It was the part of the story I was really curious about and felt would be a strong section in the novel. It was described far to briefly for that and didn't manage to grab me. It was a useless death, as Maguire wanted to point out, I suppose. Yet I felt no sadness at all. It was just an end. I did love the last lines of the novel, however - they were magnificent. My thoughts on reading it at the time were, "Even if the man does not know how to write a good book, he at least knows how to end one."
He said that he left all of those loose ends on purpose.
After ten years I am sure he believes it too.
But seriously: I think we are not speaking of the same loose ends. You mean the things that remain unsolved in the story, the things that Elphaba wants to bring to a proper end, the things she wants to achieve. I meant something different - Maguire has so many great themes, probably too many for just one book, that he cannot write about at length simply because they are too many. The nature of good and evil, politics, love, human nature, friendship etc. None of these are dealt with satisfactorily. These are the loose ends that I doubt Maguire all left unresolved on purpose, for if he did, there is no use in writing a book about them.
Oh, now for something good about Wicked: I named my gerbils Fiyero and Liir after the characters.