shipperx

How can it have been without the intent to see the child? If she were intending to fully give up the child, she had that situation with the couple in Switzerland. There would have been no reason to change the situation. Her issue wasn't about English being the child's first language. It was about proximity And whatever relationship she could manage with her child, otherwise there was no point to changing anything in the first place. She had no issue with the Swiss adoptive parents. Edith backed out of that relationship because she wanted the opportunity to have contact with her child. Mrs Drewe, however, is in the dark to all of this which is why it's a disaster from the get go. Mrs Drewe was not dealt with fairly. But if Edith intended a regular adoption there was no reason for her to have cried off the Swiss adoption. The point of bringing Marigold to Downton was Edith's desire to be near her child.

The point remains that Edith only gave Mr Drewe Marigold in the first place under the understanding that it was to be close to and to see the child. Otherwise why would she have removed her from Switzerland? Edith hasn't changed the intended relationship. It began with her intention to be close to the child and Mr Drew understood that. Unfortunately Mrs Drewe was cut out of the agreement from the get go. The problem is not that Edith has altered the agreement. It's that Mrs Drewe wasn't aware of it or given a choice.

The reason I don't quite view this as the equivalent of most modern adoptions is that the Drewe's didn't want or seek out adoption. What you had was Mr Drewe taking on Marigold BECAUSE Edith wanted to see and be close to her child. Edith is trying to conform to what everyone (including society) insists she must do. The reason Marigold is on the Drewe farm is because Edith didn't want separation from her child. Where it all went wrong was in cutting Mrs Drewe out of the loop. I suppose Mr Drewe thought he could ale these decisions for his wife because those were the times. But the reason Edith didn't leave Marigold in Switzerland was that she wasn't willing to give up her child. This isn't new. The problem is that no one told Mrs Drewe about the plan or wanted her input prior to the agreement.

I could handle Avery's unending upset if just a little of it was self loathing. Juliette was so, so very wrong to sleep with Jeff, but good lord Avery was hanging all over Scarlet. It was 24/7 all Scarlet for him all the time. Juliette's mistake with Jeff was awful but it wasn't like she had no reason to think that Avery was in love with Scarlet. He contributed to the downward spiral. The sad state of their relationship is not all or only Juliette's fault. So unless part of his self pity is self recrimination, he seriously needs to take it down a notch.

A few years ago I watched a very good documentary on the Russian Revolution and while watching it I came to realize how we are almost always presented both the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution (see things like Scarlett Pimpernel) from the aristocracy's point of view. Usually, when you delve into the actual context, the peasants had good cause to revolt (then things devolve out of control because that's generally the way things go in war), but we're usually presented with narratives about the 'poor' suffering displaced aristocrats (I'll also add "Gone With the Wind" to this sort of topsy-turvey narrative. The downcast are dismissed as pointless while the displaced aristocrat is given the sympathetic POV). That said, given the way that Downton is generally written, I'm not the least bit surprised by Followes take on it all. After all, we're apparently supposed to think the worst thing in the whole wide world is whether Mary's sense of privilege might be undercut, ever. Wish I could like Bunting. But... sigh. Still want Tom to have a better love interest.

I think then you're delving into the issues of art vs. show business which is indeed a business, and viewers are consumers. This is always an issue with commercial art. That doesn't change the essential argument, however. Fans can idolize or criticize. They can boycott, etc. They are not, however, in the position to change the product. The property still belongs to the artist and/or owner. I'm not discounting the part we as consumers play in that when we buy we are tacitly supporting the profitability of something. We can choose to not buy (or in this case, not to watch). And, again, we can always criticize problematic elements. If enough consumers agree, and take issue then they can follow suit and cease to consume the product. But consumers are not entitled to dictate everything about a product, it's overestimating their power in this equation. Similarly, it's difficult to buy that a viewer is entitled to their prefered changes in a story simply because they are viewers/fans. It is not the fan's responsibility to effect change in a product, nor are they entitled to change it simply by virtue of being a fan of a product. Fans are, however, perfectly entitled to point out difficiencies and concerns and problems. If persuasive, perhaps enough people will agree that it does impacts consumer numbers. Raising awareness re: something may convince other fans to agree with you and if enough do, if enough people tune out, then the producer can decide what's really more important to them. That I think that such a view requires context -- at best. And, if taken too simplistically would be misguided. Fair warning Tl;DR fodder ahead. First off: canon. What is it good for? If fandom were a venn diagram, canon is the part that we more or less all have as common ground. We may interpret all sorts of things differently, but we have "this is what aired on the program" / "this is what was explicitly stated in text i.e. this is the specific dialog/wording." While we may disagree on meaning, interpretaion, subtext, etc., disagree on all manner of things, there has to be some common ground, some Venn-level overlap, otherwise fandom is just playing on disparate, disconnected playgrounds that have nothing to do with one another (which, honestly is what fandoms often devolve into anyway). We wouldn't even be capable of conversation, because what would we even be discussing? If I read this fanfic over here, and you participated in thie tumblr whatever over there the only overlap may be the show itself. The fanfic isn't canon. The tmblr screed isn't canon. Canon is the overlap, the common touchstone. In this case -- the show. What functions as canon is not interpretation or subtext (it's SUB-text, not TEXT after all) and that's because fandom will never reach consensus on interpretation and subtext.) The shared text -- that which we share and can agree-- is that these particular events aired in episode x.x. That's canon -- a common reference point, so that we're speaking the same language (no matter which dialect we prefer). We can disagree on interpretation and subtext surrounding the text. Heck, that's fandom's main fodder! But at least we all recognize Season X, Episode X as having occured as an actual thing, and most participants of the fandom have some knowlege of it having occurred. We agree that certain textural events took place and that certain dialog was stated (reguardless of interpretation or subtext we may assign it). That's canon. It's a bit like science: it doesn't require that you believe in it (much less worship it). It's just...there. This is why 'canon' usually is confined to the primary, mass-released product. (It becomes rather more complicated when you begin to have tie-in novels or comics which may be obscure and which large chunks of the fandom may be only loosely aware. Fandoms such as Star Wars, Star Trek or even Buffy then have to struggle with those. It begins to be a bit gray about what counts, what doesn't, and what percentage of fandom is even aware of the tie-in product (which tends to be why tie-ins and comics tend to provoke more disagreement than originating series). Basically, no single person (except possibily the creator) can determine canon. It's communal text. It's a communal refence. Now fandom... fandom isn't confined by canon. So, at least to that point and in that context I agree that fandom analyzes, breaks down, re-invents. Fandom allows many interpretations. Fandom sees many subtexts. But fandom doesn't actually exist without canon. If you're writing fanfic, you can certainly do AU's or offshoots (i.e. takes place post: episode X.X) but that still requires the existence of a common reference point. Other fans have to know what you are AU'ing and offshooting FROM. They have to know what you're theorizing your subtext FROM. So while fandom plays outside the lines of canon, fandom doesn't get to REALLY rebuild canon -- reinterpret, sure. But if a fan participates in the fandom 5 years after a bunch of other people have left it, they aren't going to appear suddenly knowing what some other fan theorized once upon a time. They're going to know what the book said, or the comic said, or what aired on the TV show or movie...That's the canon. It is the communal ground. And fans don't get to rebuild it from scratch.

I agree with this. I think it's a matter of boundaries and control. I totally agree with the sentiment that if we find something to be problematic we should point it out and say so. Yes, it does serve a purpose to raise awareness, to make people conscious of a need for diversity, of elements of sexism, of things which contribute to rape culture, etc. It's worth examining and discussing. It's worth raising awareness. However, while all of that is worthwhile, we don't own the media entity that is Once (or any other show). It is the work/art of those who create it. And, while criticism is valid as a form of feedback, we as fans do not have the responsibiity to nor the power to 'change' it (and it begins to create issues with boundaries when we convince ourselves that we are entitled to). It, ultimately, is not ours. We can voice criticisms or note problems -- and that's perfectly good -- but it isn't our property (well, then we come into the appropriation that is fanfic, in which case we do take a form of creative possession and the story does -- in that specific context -- become ours. But when people lose sight of where fanfic ends and where canon is the property of the show creator, things tend to become rather contentious). However problematic we may percieve someone's art and/or writing to be -- it's their art/writing. We can voice criticms and identify problematic issues... but it's still the artist/writer's property. It's not ours to change or control. It's also worth noting that no one is perfect. Not the writer... or the critic. Both come with our own set of biases. And, while voicing our opinion, we have to accept that some may disagree. It's kind of like what you see happening in some areas where people state really problematic views and at the least bit of pushback or disagreement scream 'censorship' and 'MY right to an opinion' while forgetting that other people have opinions also and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. You say stuff and someone may disagree with you. Some may really, really disagree with you. Some my cease to buy your product or carry picket signs in protest. A right to express our opinion doesn't necessarily mean the right to win an argument (And in some arguments, facts really should carry more weight than the random vagaries of opinion). At any rate, yes, I think it's a good thing for fandom to be aware of issues such as diversity, sexism, and rape culture. It's good to raise awareness. But it isn't our place to control someone else's art. We can take or leave it (or criticize it if we want to), but it's someone else's actual work and if they're the one's creating it and who own it, it's their responsibility to change it (or not) not fandom's.

I think part of it may be kidness but a bigger chunk may be gratitude. Wasn't there a plot last season about the way his (fathers?) family was going to lose the farm but the Crawley's allowed him to step in and gave him a chance to set thing aright? That along with the general thought that they're his 'bosses' as it were, goes a long way toward why Drewe would be deferential (though he should tell his wife that Edith is Marigold's biological mother. I think that wife should trump Crawley).

I suppose it's the nature of fandom that people who are invested participate in it and eventually it can grow to hyperinvestment such that people become obsessed by certain details, or insistent on the way that they imagine the story is the way the story should go, or becoming upset over things that are relatively minor when all is said and done. It seems to happen with every fandom (eventually). But, it's terribly frustrating when things become blown out of all proportion. People go from 0 to 60 in no time flat and behave as though something that is relatively small in scale is something gargantuan in scale... which is to say I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to take a character asking for clarification of a situation as supporting rape culture. It's pressing an issue a bit too far. If Hook were harrassing Emma to 'put out' that would be harrassment, but it isn't coming off that way. It's that he apparently wants relationship clarification (which, yes, could become an issue, but that's a question of magnitude. At a relatively small scale it's a rather human foible -- for either gender.) Really, stories need to have friction. Because stories are on TV, friction will be visible and verbal, ergo characters will disagree and badger. If it were frictionless there would be nothing to talk about and no story for the characters, so every time characters disagree or want clarification or snark it is not zipping from the slow lane into hitting the turbo jets. There's an awful lot of room between badgering someone for clarification and entitled objectifying of women as sex objects and yet further to egging on rape. It's a matter of scale. I don't know that it's helpful to turn things up to eleven about everything. Some things can be problematic without it having to be cliff jumping terrible for the entirity of humanity OMG! I think something can be termed problematic and it not having to be the worst thing in the world. And I think some things can actually be shrugged off occasionally.

I don't think it requires the show to acknowlege it for it to still be a motivating factor. Not everything has to be explicit to be a valid interpretation. I like this. Generally, I tend to view the storytelling methods on Once to be something other than realistic... and not being bothered by that. It's a rif on fairytales and thus a lot of the time it tends to go more thematic even fable-istic than realistic. It's not realistic drama to begin with. I also think that considering any question of current Regina as "she isn't redeemed when she does X" is a different question than "is she redeemable?". I don't expect Regina to behave as if she is redeemed. She is not redeemed. For one thing, the story is on-going. There may be incremental progress and/or backsliding, but she's a long, long way off from being redeemed (and so shall she remain until some projected end-date). And I don't really expect her to BE redeemed any time soon. It's basically her story. When setting up story arcs, there's a character's primary internal conflict built into characters. As frustrating as it may be, Emma is going to continue to struggle with walls, Rumps is still a power addict, and Regina is still narcissistic in her choices and behavior. I want/expect growth from each of the characters, but once they stop having their central issue that was created for their character, the show either has to come up with a new internal battle (which is tricky writing to pull off and thus may be more than Once can handle) or the character gets shelved for lack of story because writers have nothing to then do with them. At any rate, Regina isn't redeemed. Despite words being flung about (especially by Regina) that she has been, the very fact that she flings it about as a shield says that she is not redeemed. But... I don't really expect her to be. It's an ongoing process and she's still in the early stages of it (at best!). She isn't going to be redeemed without a hell of a lot more work and a few epiphanies about empathy and her place in the universe as not being the center of it. And, honestly, maybe she never will be redeemed. Maybe she's doomed to fail by her narcissism, but I think it's the conflict driving the character. She isn't redeemed now. The story is ongoing, and conflict is the engine of story. As long as they need her 'evil' to drive her plot, she cannot reach some definitive state of 'redeemed' (if there even is such a thing. Redemption is a great goal, but it's never a constant, immutable end point.)

I liked the relationship between Elsa and Anna. Nice to see the girls supporting each other. There was definitely a theme going on with Elsa calling herself a monster and fearing that her parents thought she was a monster (when clearly her parents did not) and the fact that 'monster' is being said to/about Regina so many times in the episode. Not that Regina and Elsa are the same. Elsa's fear turns inward and that's then passively and unintentionally reflected outward in the freezing. Regina is rather more extraverted and actualized. She immediately turns her fear into anger/rage and knowingly directs it outward. That's one differences, and why Elsa needs no redemption. But it is still rather a bit of Yoda wisdom about fear leading to anger leading to trouble. However, I think that Regina's quest is going to turn out with her being wrong. Regina did a couple of quasi-good-guy things in the last season (and feels entitled because of it...which is not the reason to do good things so she's missing the point), but she still does. not. get. it. There is no one determining the happy endings. Nothing is preventing the villains from 'getting happy endings'... except the villains themselves. They create the unhappy situations rather than seek constructive solutions. I think that'll be a discovery that's made down the road (and loosely connects to Hook's comments to Emma about how there's always a crisis and that if you don't have a life in the midst of it all, you won't have a life. Your 'happy ending' is what you make of it. It's not some predetermined end destination. And I do think that's going to be the ultimate point. I think the quest for the writer of 'the book' is a McGuffin. It's a fools quest. Something for a character to chase as a plot but it is essentially meaningless (someone may have written it down and illustrated it, but they didn't do so in a manner that determined the characters lives). This will NOT solve Regina's problem. The only thing that can do that... is Regina. Regina has a lot of evolving left to do. Anyway, I liked that the Frozen stuff depends on the sisters being there for each other. And I liked Kristoff's faith in Anna, that she is strong enough to go off on her quest on her own and he'd be there to prevent Elsa from being alone. Nice relationship dynamics (and Sven was cute). Movie!Anna is pretty adorable too ("Do You Want to Build a Snowman" youtube clip) Really? I don't tend to think so. Everyone knows Regina is acting out. Rumple is more successful in doing it stealth-style. As far as I can tell, giving Belle the dagger means squat. He steals it back whenever he wants to do something. First he lied to her and used her having the dagger as an alibi so as to murder Zelena in her jail cell (Regina actually did forego vengeance. Rumple killed her... albeit Rumple had more reason to do so than just about anyone else. But for sake of argument, Rumple's forego of vengeance was 100% fake while Regina's was actually -- dare I say it -- *gulp* genuine). Then rather than fess up, he froze Belle with magic to put the dagger into her bag. Then the first time he wanted to do something that required the dagger, he waited until she was asleep, took the dagger AGAIN, and used it to find the Disney Mickey hat (what do you want to bet the 'writer's name will be Walt or Micheal?). Whoever described Rumple as an addict was dead on. I don't think that Rumple is any more redeemed than Regina... he's just better at hiding it (which if anything, makes him a tad more dangerous).

I don't think they're saying that the villain must be a blood relative. I think that may be why they're mocking the blood relative thing. Though of course I could be wrong and could be giving them too much of a benefit of a doubt, I think what they may be attempting to inartfully say is that a villain needs some sort of personal connection to the story. There needs to be more than mwhahahahahaha! [/manical laugh]. Maleficent is coming back, but to date she hasn't had a blood connection to the main characters, and I'm willing to bet (for the moment) that she won't need to because they've already established connections to other characters which can be mined.

I could only ever put this down to a serious case of denial. Regina really should have hated her mother -- and certainly there are indications that in many respects she did/does...but Cora is still her mother. It was an internal conflict that she tended to turn off and deflect. (Deserved) anger at Cora got redirected at (undeserving) Snow. In any logical, pragmatic sense that's crazy. But somewhere, emotionally (and there can be multiple reasons as to why) it was so much easier to hate Snow than for her to embrace her hatred of her mother. That's a massive emotional dysfuction. That's a stupendous amount of deflection. But it's the only thing that made any sense of Regina's actions for me. It's a coping mechanism gone seriously, seriously haywire.

I also hope that Anastasia shows up in the latter part of the season. Not only because I liked her, but because if she's supposed to be the Knave's true love (and I do think Wonderland earned that) then I don't understand how she can simply disappear with little or no explanation. He's had his heart ripped out, brought back, she's gone evil, redeemed herself, died for him, and got resurrected and...? She can't simply be MIA. There needs to be some sort of closure. {edit to add} Re: Regina, I understand calling her a Mary Sue. I get the agitation over "and everyone loves her! What's up with THAT?!" within the show. But that's only one aspect of Mary Sue-dom. I can see it argued that Regina is a writers' pet (She is). But Sue's began their Sue-ishness over being self-insert characters and then morphed into the impossible girl who is spectacular at everything and without flaw and... that's not Regina. Regina has huge flaws and makes catastrophic mistakes. She's catty, selfish, quick to anger, etc even though she enjoys incredible favor with the writers. And, for all the favor she enjoys from the writers, for all that they hand-wave many plot points, it IS a plot point that she's quick to anger and to push people away. That's sort of her story so I don't think (in a purely definitional sense) that makes her a Mary Sue. An annoyance for many? Clearly. She enjoys both writers favor and many an audience member's fuming rage. But until the day she bursts out sugary sweetness and an ability to be kind and loving and giving and gosh-darn perfect to everyone, I'm going to hold off on "Mary Sue". In a purely definitional sense, I don't think she qualifies. And I tend to try to resist the slow drift towards fandoms labeling any female character we don't like a "Mary Sue." We can dislike a character for many valid reasons besides that. Though, at this point, I think it's swimming against the OUAT riptide to resist Regina (eventual) redemption. I can see hating to be swept in that direction, but the tide doesn't give a rip about hate... and the writers are the tide in a narrative. If the writers want redemption, that's the way the story is going to flow. I understand and empathize with the vast majority of the points about the horrible, awful, frankly unforgivable things that Regina did. These are legit beefs to have. But...Regina is going to be given umpteen chances at redemption. She just is. My raging about it will only make me unhappy and it won't change the plot. At a certain point it's time for me to sing the chorus of the Frozen song. The narrative's memory is going to be somewhat tied to arc, what's more recent is more important to the immediate present than what happened three season's ago. It's totally unfair in a 'justice' sense that things like Graham's death is swept away... but in a narrative sense, the liklihood of their swinging back to deal with a story point from three years ago (involving an actor that they most likely cannot get back) is basically nil, because of that, they probably won't reference it again. That's a product of both TV production and the process of creating fictional arcs. Since the Graham killing, Regina has done the "I'll sacrifice myself to save someone else(Henry)" plot, the "I'll halfway play team player" arc, the "I'll play hero for once" arc. No, it doesn't solve or resolve the issues of the Graham killing, but the narrative has moved on. Next up: testing her to see how much she'll backslide... It's an incremental thing. That's what's in the here and now. It's what's playing off of what immediately preceded it. And, while we may hate dropped and forgotten story points, they most likely aren't going to u-turn to 3 year old ones to deal with them if they're incompatible with telling the story they are on at present. Sucks, if we really, really, REALLY wanted those points addresssed and feel like ignoring them is offensive. But... *sigh*... that's just the way serial television works. No, three years ago the show didn't plan out everything in advance and nail down how these things would be adequate dealt with. Three years ago they didn't know they'd still be on air, or that they could license "Frozen". TV production isn't novel writing. They rarely get to plan very far into the future and thus are constantly toiling in the present. It's frustrating for completionists, but it's a bit of the nature of the beast. Not even "Game of Thrones" which has a whole series of books to follow (albeit unfinished -- GRRM needs to write faster!) has everything planned out for them in advance. Things happen that writers can't adequately address, they make mistakes, some story points do not work, and sometimes having a great memory isn't to the viewers advantage. Then again, I was one of the scant few who actually enjoyed the way that LOST ended. (I never kidded myself that they were going to make much (any?) sense of the show mythology. I had a background of having watched The X-Files and Buffy to have taught me that lesson about serialized TV.) And I'm kind of looking forward to the back half of the season because Maleficent is going to be so PISSED!

I will most likely regret weighing into this, but... I don't think it's a matter of 'education'. It's a matter of representation. I think assigning concepts such as "agenda" or "social education" are a way of looking at it that may be missing what many people requesting diversity are talking about. We hear of concepts like 'privilege' in things like John Scalzi's (humorous science fiction writer) quasi infamous blog post or some of the debates about female character depictions in (male dominated) comic books, and people go into high dudgeon mode. People don't want to hear it. But what I think may be the core of the point attempting to be made is that the default is not a neutral to begin with. (It never is. That's just life on earth -- in any time period or culture. Not just here and now. It's sort of the way that when I was a teen in the rural U.S. deep south, I never really picked up on there being a specific culture. To me, it was just 'normal'. Living outside the U.S. for a few months, I realized that's not the case. There's something unique about... everywhere, actually. There are specific things that are 'normal' because it is familiar. It's your cultural experience...but it's not everyone's. You can begin to see a few of those things a bit easier when you take a step outside of your own culture. That's not a value judgement. It's neither a positive nor a negative. It's just recognizing that just because something was nomal to me didn't mean that it was a universal default.) If the default feels agenda-less or bias-less, chances are that it's percieved as such because it's not running against one's own experience/situation. If you're in sync with the POV being presented, you may not percieve it as point of view, but that doesn't mean that it isn't one. Just that it's a shared one. That's the privilege. There may be no negative consequences associated with it... or maybe there are. Maybe there aren't for one segment but there are consequences for another and we may not notice... or care. Whether it's worth becoming bothered by, much less whether it's worth fighting against, may be a question of exactly whose ox is being gored. When they do psychological studies that show that female readers are more accepting of/disposed to being capable of placing themselves in male protagonists' point of view than male readers tend to be for female protagonists, it's legitimate to ask whether that's a product of presenting children with more male protagonists than female protagonists (example: how many male superhero movies are there as opposed to female superhero ones?) Is it a matter of the degree of exposure rather than that women are just simply 'better at' placing themselves in a male POV than men are with women? (I'm not sure I would buy an argument that women are just biologically 'better at it'.) If so, which gender might we be doing a disservice to? When you read/hear Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o's moving speech on beauty and recognize the number of studies showing the way Hollywood's depiction of beauty and race impact very young girls and the documented ways it can negatively impact young girls of color (and often young girls in general. Period), it's worth pondering whether lack of representation is not, in fact, benign. Even if unintentional, it still doesn't make it benign. There's a reason why Disney just spent a ton of money building a castle in their park so that little girls can meet the Disney Princesses. Those are popular, beloved characters. Many, many little girls play dress-up and watch those movies on a loop. And while it's great to claim that it's color blind, it would be privilege to say it really doesn't matter if all the princesses were white (which, thankfully, they no longer are. But I do laugh at the old Wanda Sykes routine about having to wait around through x many princesses, an array of talking animals, "and whatever the hell Stitch was" first.) It very well MIGHT matter if it's one's own little girl feeling she couldn't be a 'princess' because no princess 'looked like her.' And it should matter regardless of whether said little girl is our own, or the one down the street or in a classroom on the other side of town. Which is sort of what I mean about it perhaps being a question of representation rather than 'agenda'. Maybe wishing to be seen is exactly that -- to not be irrelevant or absent or invisible. To be included. To be seen. Maybe inclusion matters in its own right (though of course how inclusion works matters as well). And to say that lack of representation is not a meaningful thing to criticize or to work against, that it 'doesn't matter'... Well, I think about the old Douglas Adam's quote in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy about the invisibility field: a 'cheap, easy, and staggeringly useful way of safely protecting something from unwanted eyes. It can run almost indefinitely on a 9 volt battery, and is able to do so because it utilizes a person's natural tendency to ignore things they don't easily accept or like {...}. Any object around which a S.E.P invisibility field is applied will cease to be noticed because of any problems one may have understanding it (and therefore accepting its existence).. It becomes Somebody Else's Problem (SEP), where an object becomes not so much invisible... as unnoticed. All of which to say -- diversity in casting? I'm all for it. There's good reason for it and little reason to fight against it.

My guess re: the Colin/Hook comment is that Hook is going to be paralleling Kristoff. Kristoff is trying to transition from his own life to being consort for Anna. Hook is trying to find a place in Emma's life. Plus, from what I gather, Anna is off trying to save Elsa while Kristoff was left behind. Similarly Hook is somewhat less than the focus for Emma who is off saving the world and/or Regina from herself. I expect angst and I expect Hook to screw up (the 'willing to do something good -- or bad' seems to imply that). I also expect Emma to ignore Hook perhaps one time to many and this leading to some form of accident/angst/separation, possibly to be carried over into the second half of the season. Though with Frozen- winter-heavy story and the mini-season ending mid-season, I wonder whether they can resist having a happy Christmas episode.

As a fandom dinosaur, I find both nostalgia (oh, sweet summer children... fandom was dark and full of terrors) and horror in the concept that there was any way short of actual physical violence being done that the toxicity of the Buffy fandom could've been any worse than it actually was ( or in certain quasi-hidden calcified niches still is). The only thing I can think of in fandom that has ever seemed substantially worse than the culture of name calling, ostracization, accusations, threats, hissyfits, and the writers' room ugly deliberate online fandom sh!t stirring (hey, David Fury! And Stephen DeKnight's pants earn at least a "kitten jihad" shout-out) that were constant and ongoing in the Buffyverse fandom has been the possessiveness over Supernatural actors' personal lives by a subset of that show's fandom (with Fandom_wank tracking a number of occasions where that went so far over the line as to be creepy and disturbing). I don't even try to locate Once's twitter or tmblr 'fandoms'. After a couple of seasons, most online fandoms seem to go at least a little off their rockers (while others disassemble said rocker and start piecing together makeshift rocket launchers). Fandom rarely seems to exist except to be a state of squee or seething hotbeds of raging disatisfaction.

I actually tend to take the opposing view. Angel's dichotomy always smacked a bit of deus ex machina cop-out to me (continually subtly undercut by the show, but never truly confronted). His "curse" seemed a convenient quick 'fix' to clear up why Angel would be 'different', to clear up his murder of Jenny (et al), and "okay" for him to be 'true love' or to be called a out-and-out hero (and he does tend to get hero status rather than anti-hero status, which... well, a lot of fandom web 'ink' spilt on that debate back in the day...). The blanket "he was cursed with a soul" (against his will. Three times) never quite worked for me as redemption (I give him brownie points for effort but...hmm..it always felt mildly unsatisfying that it boils down to curse. I actually preferred the more evolutionary process with Spike reaching an existential crisis point and choosing his own soul (albeit they massively botched the soul-quest with a cheap fake-out). I honestly never buy they 'they're two different people" line, so generally slough that off. Liam=Angelus=Angel just as much as William = Spike. The soul matters but it doesn't literally make them different people. That would be entirely too easy. To me, choice is more persuasively redemptive anyway. Generally, though, I tend to think of soul-canon as something of a dodge. It's a bit too deus ex machina and undermined by the fact that it was pretty consistently hypocritically employed in Angel's favor (and I liked/loved Angel! {at least up to his megalomoniacle comic book "Season 8" version, in which he did vastly more damage while souled than unsouled... ::shudder:: {If you don't know, don't ask. The comics are awful} ) But the whole soul-canon thing is a different show and different story so. . . At any rate, I do tend to agree that they pushed Regina too far a number of times. Sometimes restraint is a good thing and they needed to have exercized it in places with Regina when they did not. The writing on Once can at times be too episode-centric or too cavalier about pushing things for the sake of "drama" with inadequate build up or exploration of the issues they just created. Generally, I just roll with it. The writing is flawed, and I accept that. But it is frustrating when they do things cavalierly that shouldn't be treated cavlierly (Graham, the village murder, etc) or illogical (Regina not having more overt conflict withher Mother over her murdering her true love). I love a great redemption story... but they can be very difficult to write, especially when being done on the fly in a weekly serial. Sometimes things are pushed further than they should be or under explored when that would've been the better option. Where OQ are concerned, I can see on paper why it would be an intriguing thing to explore. There's lots of in-built conflict with a hero and an evil queen. I ALSO understand the determined resistance the pairing receives because there is a GREAT DEAL that is very problematic in it. I usually end up nodding my head at most of the protests against the pairing, and yet, entertainment wise, I'm not constitutionally opposed to it's being explored. I just wish the whole thing were more fully/well developed and better written than it has been. I cannot say it has been well executed so far. It hasn't been. Like many things, there seemed too much rush and not enough development.

Neat. I09 has an article today on the origins and evolution of the legend of Robin Hood

I kind of think that's where they were trying to go with the black magic/blackening the heart thing. That the use of black magic corrupted in something of a similar way to BtVS/AtS's concept of "soulless". But, I agree, it was not developed well or enough to form any sort of reasoning for Regina being two people (which isn't a favored trope of mine anyway. Frankly, it was rather a cop-out for Angel/Angelus too. Though I always loved Darla's Angelus smackdown at his father's grave, informing him that the person he had been in life informed Angelus, no matter how he might try to run-away from it or try to deny it.)

I adore The Lion in Winter as well. Kathryn Hepburn and Peter O'Toole rocked. I believe that Blackbeard was an actual person as well. With there being theories that he was executed for piracy primarily as a way for the Crown to distance itself from its policy of condoning privateering. I know mileage will vary on these things, but I'm not terribly concerned if OUAT takes liberties with John. For one thing Robin Hood is a mutable legend. In all of them he wasn't against John. That just came into being, probably for expediency, generations after the end of the rule of the Plantagenets. (And, as noted, other stories about that era, such as Lion in Winter, took significant liberties with these characters as well {and I tend to feel for the middle brother, Geoffrey, when he complains in Lion in Winter that no one ever remembers him.) There's actually plenty of evidence that Robin Hood's "Good" King Richard was not a particularly "good' King however you wish to define it (he kept being ransomed because he tended to destroy places on his way to the Crusades, so they were more-or-less holding him for restitution of damages done when they captured him on his way back home from the Crusades). And there probably was little discernible difference in Richard's absentee reign and when England was "under" Prince John while Richard was at the Crusade/being held hostage... because there's evidence that either way it was STILL their mother, Eleanor of Aquataine, doing the domestic ruling. So basically the whole conflict of Robin Hood fighting John the "bad king" during Richard "the good King"'s time as hostage was always dodgy. There was little change in domestic policy during that time period because there really was little change in the controlling (feminine) hand. It's that history had a tendency to like to de-emphasize the contributions of women, and when things like the Robin Hood legend was being cobbled together the Eleanor question was often being side-stepped. Plus, historically, both Richard and John were less than ideal kings. Basically the myth of Robin Hood, as it has developed, wasn't exactly historically accurate re: Richard and John in the first place. Liberties were taken in who and what was designated "bad' vs. "good". Historically, this is simply not clear cut or simple (and implies a difference in domestic policy that didn't really exist during Richard's time as hostage.) However within the legend of Robin Hood, things are generally treated as far more clear-cut. And in a story like Once, it's primarily myths and fairytales we're discussing rather than historical fiction, I don't think they have a great deal requiring them to be more historically accurate than the myths they are riffing upon such as Robin Hood or a 20th Century play like The Lion in Winter (and neither of these is remotely historically accurate). It's "Storybrooke"... it's pretty much all re-takes on old legends/folktales. I'd go so far as saying if they nixed the whole Plantagenet angle and went with Frozen's Arendelle and Richard and John were Hans's brothers... I wouldn't scream too much about it.

Rumple has been manipulating Regina for his own purposes to suit his own devices since she was a teenager, so yeah, she is a 'victim' of Rumple... which isn't to say that she is not responsible for her own actions, because she is responsible for her own choices. That said, yeah, Rumple was a magical predator with a plan, which does him no credit whatsoever (though it does not relieve Regina of culpability for her own actions/choices.)

I tend to agree. I've never thought of Robin Hood as a morally gray character. I've always thought of him as a good guy fighting for the greater justice within an unjust system. Yeah, he was an 'outlaw' but 'the law' (i.e. Sheriff of Nottingham) was evil. Robin Hood was just: it was the law/the system/the authority that was UNjust. It's about like saying that because Katniss Everdeen is a bad guy because the Capitol/President Snow labels her an insurrectionist, or that Luke Skywalker is a 'bad guy' because he's fighting the overthrow of the ruling authority. Robin Hood (and similar characters such as Katniss) are basically an appeal to a higher -- more moral -- justice than simply following the assigned ruling order.

I'd enjoy it if Hook grew jealous of Will's friendship with Charming. :) And, because I binge-watched Once: Wonderland, I do want Will's true love to remain his true love. Hire her for a visit or whatever, but I liked their chemistry and it sort of blows the 'true love' bit if he suddenly forgets all about her after all the heartache she caused him (and her dying to protect him and then her being resurrected, etc.) I assume there will be Will in Robin Hood flashbacks. Will Scarlet is naturally part of Robin and Marian's past. (And aren't most Robin Hood legends either that he was a commoner, a returned Crusader/knight or a displaced Earl? Generally, he isn't cast as royalty, is he? (Except as an Earl he would be an aristocrat, so perhaps distantly. Having a 'family crest' would mean some form of aristocracy.) As to Robin/Regina . . . I'm okay with it. I understand the teeth-gnashing over "Woegina" but it's a bit like swimming against the tide. The show has its take on the character of Regina and fighting against it is a bit like being caught in a rip tide and desperately trying to swim directly to the shore. It's not going to change the tide and will only lead to the exhaustion of the swimmer. So... I go with the tide and see where it goes. I don't think it was well developed last season, too much by-passed and under-developed, but I can't get all that worked up raging against it. It'll either get better or it won't. Saddling it with a host of expectations (one way or the other) does little but close the door to my own possible entertainment. I may find this seasons development a disappointment (again), but I'm not going to pre-decide that beforehand. Same goes for Frozen. I assume that the Frozen characters will work with the shows regular characters thematically. The various sub-plots have a thematic point with the regulars. Not every storyline has to deposit permanent characters (in fact some of the better uses have been short-lived). So, again, I don't know the way that they'll interact thematically, so I cannot judge yet. It could be interesting, it could suck. I'm willing to sit tight and see where it goes. (Personally, I enjoyed the Peter Pan plot last year far more than the Wicked one... but I realize mileage varies on that subject). And I am a bit amused that the actress hired to play Belle's mother is younger than the actor playing Belle's love interest (i know, timey-wimey on this show and actually Rumps is far older than even that, so it's a bit dumb to become too overwrought about it, but still it causes a rueful eyeroll.)

About a year ago I listened an interesting interview with the headwriter of "Frozen" on some screen writing site. She said point blank that Hans is a sociopath, that he's a sociopath from beginning to end of the movie, that what he does is mimic whoever he's with, so when he's with Anna he's cute and hammy, when he's with Elsa he's serious and "heroic", etc. but that there's no "THERE" there. He's just mimicking the behavior that he's around in order to ingratiate himself to the person he's speaking to in order to get what he wants. (She also said that the point at which he realized how to manipulate Anna was when she first introduced herself as 'not important' and "just Anna". He realized that she was dismissive about herself and that he could manipulate to get what he wanted. The writer laughed about it, but was pretty unequivical that Hans was a hollow fake to the bone and was intentionally written to be a complete sociopath (who is good at it). She had lots of interesting things to say about how the script for Frozen evolved over time as they figured out the story, saying when she was given the script (it had been in development multiple times over 30 years but never quite worked)... Anyway, when she was given the script she was basically told that she had to have Anna save Elsa through an act of true love and that anything she did to 'earn' that was fine. Just make the story work. At that point. Anna and Elsa weren't even sisters in the script. That came later. Elsa was also supposed to be a 'redeemable villain' but once they hired lyricists and the lyricists wrote "Let it Go" from Elsa's perspective, she realized they had to go back and re-write the script because Elsa wasn't really a villain at all. I was particularly amused by her saying how much she enjoyed the fan theory that Anna and Elsa's parents didn't 'really' die in the shipwreck, but got shipwrecked in Africa and had baby Tarzan (making him their brother). It doesn't actually WORK (for various reasons) but she really enjoyed that fan theory anyway.