Speakeasy

So I thought someone might get a chuckle from this. The end of this episode in which aRegina gets a surprise coronation that anoints her as Master of the universe, ridiculous, right? You couldn't possibly have a kingdom unanimously vote someone in as their supreme ruler without telling them then give them a surprise coronation. Or could you? Yes, apparently (and this is a massive part of European history I've only just learned about) on Christmas Day in AD 800, King Karl of the Franks went to mass in Rome and was surprise-crowned by the Pope as Emperor of Rome, and thus in theory the rightful ruler of Christendom and, by extension, the world. So given OUAT's habit of mixing and matching characters, does this mean Regina is Charlemagne? You decide

You guys are proposing love interests that would just highlight and encourage her worst qualities. She's supposed to have a journey of redemption so she should have a love interest who can help reign in her dark impulses. "Opposites attract" is an oversimplification but in a good couple each partner at least has something the other is lacking so they can help each other in some way. Robin Hood would have been a perfectly acceptable love interest if he'd had a bit of edge to him. If Marian was still dead and he was angry and looking for vengeance when they met but still had an intense sense of justice then he could understand her anger and resentment, but still call her out when she wanted to do something evil. And that in turn could help her better understand what's wrong with her attitude to people. HIstory edit: also the 3rd Crusade was launched to assist the Crusader Kingdoms after Saladin deposed the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was on his way to clearing out all the others. These states were allied to the French and through them to the Normans by blood, oath and religion. Richard wasn't just randomly deciding to go clear across the world to bash people's heads in.

I think TLK was consistent in season 1, even with Charming asking Abigail about kissing her beau to destatufy him-Charming is always shown as really idealistic about True Love, it's been pointed out that while Snow is the butt of jokes about Hope speeches, it's actually Charming who usually has to give her a pep talk. There's also that episode where Snow takes away her own emotions and Charming tries to kiss her better, only to fail because she's removed her love for him. Even in season two he tries to cure his sleeping curse by kissing Snow in the Curse Dream, again to no use. So he seems like, being in love for the first time, he's really into the idea that this true love's kiss stuff can cure anything, and those are examples where he gets overenthusiastic about the idea and the writers can use that to set some boundaries to explain why true love's kiss is not this all-purpose cheat code. 'Have you tried True Love's Kiss?' still sounds very clumsy but I think it's still consistent. and there was Hades curing his frozen heart by kissing Zelena even though the whole point of his heart being frozen was to stop him feeling strong emotions. -the next section is a rant about season 7, the one where the writers couldn't be bothered to even try to look like anything made sense anymore- Then in season 7 nobody tried TLK when it seems like it would be the obvious choice-like Wish Hook whose daughter was cursed to stay in a tower but didn't try to kiss her on the forehead to get her out. Or later on when he had the poison heart curse didn't try to kiss it away-now, ok, I know the idea was that the poison heart curse would keep them separated, but unless it would DEFINITELY kill him before he could get a peck on the cheek, that should have been something that they could deal with as long as they were quick-same with Henry. Henry was sillier actually because the tension was supposedly based around the idea he'd kiss Ella and break the curse which would activate his other curse-but unless that other curse killed him, IMMEDIATELY, on the spot, surely she could just kiss him again and he'd be ok? But that didn't break the curse because they weren't in love under their curse memories. And Regina should have known ALL OF THIS because this was very much not her first rodeo and she had a long time to think about it. The Saviour seems like it's an Avatar/Slayer type of cyclical chosen one, since it's 'fate'-hence the plot about cutting oneself loose from it with the shears of fate (the existence of those things brings up all kinds of questions-anyway...) To me that would make it not genetic, but inherent-which I would see as functionally the same as it being genetic in that there's no character or agency we know about doing it to them. Incidentally Dorothy might fit this mold as well... IF she is actually magical, I can't remember her doing any magic on the show so I think that was a goof by the good witches of Oz. I would say magic seems to run in families-or at least be present in families. All the Mills women we see are magic and that looks like it's inherited from Cora to Zelena to Robin. Gideon has magic and that looks like it's inherited since there's no indication the other slave children had it from working in the magic mines. The Disenchanted Tremaine Sisters both have it, although their mother didn't. Alice also inherited from her mother even though her magic looks completely different for the most part, and I think Ursula also inherited from her father-those two aren't human, though, so the rules might be different. Merlin, Nimue, Rumple and his parents*, Cruella and possibly some others I can't think of right now, all seemed to get it from an object, place or event. Then there were characters like the blind witches and (the glorious) Bo Peep who just seem to have magic with no explanation-ehoch is fine, you don't always need an explanation. *Though the fact that the Stiltskins have three straight generations of powerful warlocks, even though they got their powers for different reasons, might indicate that there is an inherited talent or proclivity in there.

It's possible I'm bitter towards the whole arc because I found the whole thing so dull and underwhelming-Hades was dull, the setting being Storybrooke with slightly scary lighting was dull, the explanation for that was stupid-I suppose the main thing that makes me bitter, actually, is that it starts off with Rumple getting his darkness back, making the first half of the season half pointless, and ends with Hook getting brought back to life, making the first half of the season entirely pointless. Well, it did kill Robin (who wasn't doing anything anyway) and integrate Zelena into the cast. I still don't think that's enough to justify it even though I think Mader is delightful. I think if you were going to bring Graham up it needed to be earlier on in the series. If you said nothing about him for four years and suddenly had a huge dramatic storyline about his death it would just seem jarring, everyone would be confused and frustrated, either that they'd gone without mentioning him before or that they were suddenly talking about this side character from season 1 the audience had stopped caring about. To me it would make more sense for the real (ghost)Marian to turn up and actually resolve that mess of a subplot.

Probably-out of the elements in the Camelot arc I'd say Dark Swan certainly had some potential (plus it was the Season 4 cliffhanger... but since we are living in imaginationland we might be tempted to reimagine Season 4 as well), as did Arthur's descent into obsession-and you would want Merlin to be there and to have him tied to the Darkness but I'd personally redo basically everything about him. You could still have the Darkness be linked to the Holy Grail going evil-I can't remember if you or someone else suggested using the Horned King as the creator of the Darkness-so maybe he created the Black Cauldron by corrupting the Holy Grail and then melted it down into the dagger. But who would he be? I don't know. That's one option. Personally I didn't care for Darth Jones (well, I liked Colin going Full-bore Evil for a couple of episodes, he can genuinely be a scary antagonist when the occasion calls for it) or the Underworld arc as a whole. So I might well scrap that whole back half of the season. I do think this would be the perfect time to sell us on Regina and Emma being friends, if you were going to do that-because if Emma was going to be dealing with having evil magic then if you could sell Regina as having reformed and recognised her own evil, she'd be the perfect person to coach her through it by telling her what not to do. She'd understand what it's like to suddenly have all this power that demands to be used to cause harm, and how important it is to recognise the part of yourself that wants to use it before it convinces you to do it-just this once-then just once more-then just one more time...

It probably would have worked better if all of that had been tied together. Given how powerful Merlin was supposed to be, creating the book and the pen and his name being the big Shocking Twist! At the end of season 4. I think, though I can't say how I'd do it yet-that it might be better if there's been something like you suggest-abd if it took a whole season rather than a 13-episode arc. If the Camelot arc had spanned a full 26 episodes I think you could have explained a backstory between Blue and Merlin, you could have used the Black Fairy if you wanted, you could ALSO have had the arc with Arthur's backstory and his obsession, and you could do the Dark Swan storyline. You'd even have time for the Merida episodes. You know, if you wanted them. You don't need to have them. As it was I felt it was very rushed-the origins of the Darkness took up half an episode's worth of flashbacks and involved what I thought was a very forgettable villain. I think that a lot of the problems in the show involved them having everything tie back to the core cast, especially Rumple. There were a lot of other characters they had who could have been used, and there were a lot of elements that should have just been things the characters had an interest in because of circumstances arising out of the current plot, instead of everything tying to them because of family or past relationships or special destiny.

I'm quoting this over here because I really like the idea of dark and light magic being really, categorically different, and am curious about how others would want that to be implemented. Personally I think as you've said here, it makes a lot of sense for dark magic to be unable to heal-or maybe it could heal you by draining someone else of their life force, or turning you into something else. On the reverse, light magic would be unable to kill, perhaps unable to injure, but it would be able to protect or to neutralise dark magic. Maybe both kinds can create things but it all depends on what the effects of those things will be on the world-and how that intersects with the desires and emotions of the mage and, if applicable, the person the thing is created for. So Cinderella's accoutrements would be created with light magic and they'd have the intended effect of making her happy, while the Blind Witch's house would be created with the goal of ensnaring children, and would be made with dark magic. I'm not sure how you'd distinguish this mechanically though. Maybe all magic comes with a price and, using the above example, the price for Cinderella's spell was that her godmother had to ensure she got out of her horrible family and found happiness, while the blind witch needed to eat children to sustain her magic. If the fairies actually needed to make people happy and to encourage love to keep their magic going-i don't know if that's a bit too twee, but it would put their actions in a different context. It doesn't make them cynical, I don't think, but it would mean they weren't just nice because they were nice, there'd be a system to it. I also do really like the idea, at the bottom of it, that darkness and light are not equal and opposite. It is harder to be good than evil, it is harder to create than to destroy, it's harder to maintain than to destroy. But that doesn't mean that the force that creates is weaker than the one that destroys. I keep imagining also-this is possibly because the Rings of Power trailer has been doing the rounds and I've been reminded of the movies-I keep imagining what you might get of you were serious about Reul Gorm being an ancient godlike being, and I'm imagining her getting a Scary Galadriel moment. Just one, and very brief, but just enough that you understand she isn't weaker than Rumple, she's just doing something that takes a lot more effort, and if she were to give up and choose anger and destruction, well, to quote a witch from another story about fairy tales: "Oh, if I were as bad as you, I'd be a whole lot worse"

Gaston is a lot harder to make sympathetic than Maleficent or Cruella or the Wicked Witch of the West or Ursula (when they inevitably do that) because they are all weirdoes who live outside society and pop in to antagonise the heroes (broadly speaking). You can reframe that outsider status for a modern audience as them being persecuted and angry at the society that rejected them. Even if their victims are sweet and wholesome and likeable, they are still well liked members of normal society, so you can frame the villains going after them as just anger at that society, or at someone who is powerful in that society who hurt the villain in the past. Even when you have someone like Regina as a sympathetic villain on top of the social ladder, she is only there through the threat of force, clearly hated by the people she is oppressing, and still isolated and miserable, whatever resources she may have. Gaston, meanwhile, is at the top of the (admittedly fairly low) social pyramid in his story. He is roundly admired and spends his time persecuting Belle and her elderly father-a pair of likeable oddballs who live on the margins and are shunned by their small-minded neighbours. There's no obvious way to demonstrate that anyone should feel sorry for him when he just seems to be a simple-minded bully. That's the other thing-Gaston has very clear and understandable motives in the movie: he's a brat. He is used to getting what he wants, he gets almost everything he wants as a popular local hero, and he throws a series of tantrums when he doesn't get absolutely everything he wants. You can elaborate on why Maleficent might want to kill a baby or the Evil Queen might be so obsessed and angry with her stepdaughter being beautiful, because those are unusual and you can speculate on what's going on to make them act so strangely. An entitled, provincial thug who wants to coerce a vulnerable young woman into a relationship has an obvious, mundane and ugly motivation which is a lot harder to work with.

I've just finished the latest season of Freeform's Fort Salem, a series about an alternate world where witches exist and are drafted into the army upon reaching 18. It's a neat show, and it's got me thinking about magic systems and how to show magic visually. In Fort Salem the magic looks very different from most-indeed I'd say from any on screen magic I can remember. The concept behind it is that the witches in this world generate power through sound, so when they use it they need to sing: not lyrically but more like an opera singer holding a particular note. There are visual effects that go with some of the spells too but what struck me was how it disallowed the usual TV magic visuals where someone will wave their hands or make a face to make a thing happen-doing magic in this show requires the full attention of the witch doing it, and it involves their whole face and body. This helps with the feel of the magic in this show, which is deliberately very visceral, and this is something that helps set the tone of the series. I've been thinking about how other visual depictions of magic give different impressions about what it is and how it works-as I said there's a lot of TV shows that go for someone flicking their hand or making a face to make something happen, though less so these days as budgets get bigger and effects get cheaper. I thought about 'Once' because there is a lot of flick-of-the-wrist telekinesis and glittery-jazz-hands, but there are also some very distinctive elements and visuals. For me heart-ripping is the definitive magic of the show; it's very unique as a concept and as a visual. The fact that the hearts that are pulled out by magic don't look like real hearts but that it's such an intensely dangerous and terrible thing in the show is an ingenious way to make something kind of whimsical but deadly serious at the same time. The fact that metaphors about the heart are literally true makes this even better: doing evil literally blackens your heart, removing your own heart makes you a psychopath because you are literally heartless, if someone steals your heart you are literally unable to resist them. It's great. I also loved the Dark Curse-because of the idea that a curse isn't just an idea but a physical presence, I think that is really cool and something that they might have been able to do more with. I think it might have been better, or more unique at least, if all the dark magic used against people had been along those lines, something specific with a particular physical presence. An example would be something like the wraith lure Rumple sticks on Regina in season 2. Would have at least been more interesting than just flick-hand-now-you're-dead. The other thing I really liked but which I think got left behind after season 3 at the latest was the idea of magic being based on emotion, and specifically with dark magic being based on anger and light magic based on love. I really liked that idea, I think the writers put it to good use in 2A but then decided it was too much trouble, which again is a shame. I think it might have been something you could take all kinds of different ways and honestly I think that would have been a better use of the colour coded jazz hands-you could have a bit of subtlety there so for instance if Emma is using her magic and it's usually gold but then in this episode it's more like burnt orange then a keen eyed viewer could tell something was going on. It also strikes me as very fairy-taley and whimsical-yet-serious since you could tie the world into the characters emotional state in a particularly fairy-taley way. This might belong in the 'should have done X' thread. I'm not sure. Does anyone else have any Opinions in the mechanics and looks of magic in the series?

I don't know if it's an entire lifetime. I'm curious to see what happens to him next season and whether we learn more about how the Camarilla has apparently been operating secretly for 200 years with no one being any the wiser (I don't find this plausible, I think this is a new organisation taking up the old ones mantle but I don't really know.) The VP I think is kind of sympathetic but that's very subjective, I tend to have more sympathy for evil people who are sad and regretful than many on this site though. To my mind he's sympathetic because it was his weakness rather than his evil that led him to this point-if he'd been strong enough to defy his bosses and risk exposure for himself and his organisation he could have saved her. But he wasn't and he didn't and it is all downhill all the way to Hell from here. My interpretation anyway. I do think that there's kind of an issue where there isn't really much sympathy for the muggles in this universe. Any of them who are resentful over all the people the Spree have murdered or have an issue with the Witchitary Industrial Complex are regarded, by the writers, not just by other characters, as at least suspicious and probably violent racists. Those are the moderate muggles who dare to have any opinions, not the actual terrorists. The Camarilla's goals and ideology are treated as being utterly worthless and based purely on race hatred and fanaticism while the Spree are treated as having questionable methods but ultimately understandable goals.

My guess would be the threat of the Camarilla who want to exterminate the entire witchy race and might actually have the tools to do it. It probably just wasn't worth doing anything like this in the past when it didn't seem like there was an existential threat like this. Right now, though, witches are getting killed left right and centre and Alder wants to have as many of them as she can where she can at least do something to protect them. I would also guess they are only looking for girls because Alder is taking the long view; it's only the girls who can make new witches, if they want another generation after this one, they need to save the girls, they can breed with Muggle boys if it comes down to it (lie back and think of Salem!). Any resources they spend finding and protecting witch boys are resources that could be spent on the girls and ultimately a waste if they end up without enough wombs to make a new generation. And this is the way Sarah Alder must think, this is what it means to be the immortal steward of her race.

Petra has clearly been wanting to get rid of her since last season-Alder is the most interesting character to me... Petra said in the first episode of this season that she's vain and reckless and it is true, you'd normally expect someone that old and experienced to be much more restrained, Alder rushes into things all the time. You have to wonder if people like Minerva Bellweather all tend to get sick of her when they've seen just how gung go she can be while maybe the natural aging process helps make them more cautious, particularly when they will have seen so many friends and family KIA over the years. Scylls and Wills killing some Rills is the best place for them, there's no moral complications when you can watch the monsters kill each other, and you can cheer the ones who are trying to save innocents rather than murder them (at the moment). As for when the inevitable reunion happens at the very least I hope Raelle doesn't welcome Scylla back with open arms straight away and that Abi and Tally show her an appropriate amount of suspicion and anger. And I hope they at least talk about... SOMETHING that needs to happen to address all the things the Spree have done. Because if they try to ignore all their crimes and tell their Muggle countrymen their lives really are worthless then Alder's girls have two options: a new age of never ending race war or a new witch-ruled apartheid state. Thats definitely not going to happen but when Tally was so eager and happy to listen to Raelle singing a love song she'd written it really did conjure up 'what if' images, didn't it? Ok now for some reason the what if image I've got is Tally picking up Rae's guitar and sadly singing 'and baby I can treat you better/than she can-' while Rae is canoodling with the terrorist 😉

Perhaps a minor point but... Does anyone else think that at the end Miss Mad Eye Mooney came to the right conclusion by completely the wrong process? I mean she immediately says the Camarilla can 'only crudely imitate our work' just minutes after seeing the evil witch-eating magical spiky blob monster they created. I think maybe underestimating the Camarilla has been established to be a risky thing to do at this point, you know?

I didn't think of that but it's a pretty good contrast. I also do like that the healing spell that uses Christian scripture works by the witch literally taking on the wounds of their patient, that's really neat thematically. Also whilst I feel a teensy bit cheated by Willa getting redemption through death rather than having to explain herself to her husband and child-it is fitting that after being forced to be a soldier and choosing to be a terrorist, after so many years causing pain and death, she died healing her daughter and giving her another chance at life, and in doing so went back to the traditions and faith that the Army and the Spree* both despised. *Well probably, given their all around hatred of Muggles and America and how many witches got murdered for Jesus by those hated muggles over the centuries I can't imagine they like Christianity any more than the army does

Short one this time: A month or so ago I rewatched Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, it's a mixed bag, some of it is amazing and beautiful and some of it is punch-the-screen frustrating. I only connected it to OUAT because of the following stream of consciousness; Katee Sackhoff plays a space fighter pilot named Starbuck, which is the name of the first mate in Moby Dick, and she has an antagonistic relationship with the first officer onboard the Galactica, Tigh, who is played by Michael Hogan. Now if you've ever seen or heard Michael Hogan, you may understand why I think he would be the ideal man to play Captain Ahab. The man does brooding and obsessive really well, this was reinforced when I saw his character on Teen Wolf, who could kind of be described as Ahab with Werewolves. But this of course all got me thinking of whether the characters from Moby Dick could have been used well in OUAT instead of Ahab's brief, boring appearance in season 7. I had this idea of Henry going out to the Worlds of Story to do his Authorial Duties and deciding like, just for fun (or maybe because there's a reason he doesn't want to be recognised), he'll use a pseudonym and he says 'uhm... Ishmael, call me Ishmael' when asked, and then he ends up in some kind of alternate version of Moby Dick and... The whale is Ahab's abusive grandmother... Or something... I don't know how to do OUAT twists. But anyway, Michael Hogan, brooding in his fishing supplies store, staring at fish hooks. He'd have been great. Would have been a better villain than any of the season 7 crew until the final 2 episodes. Also with them both being nautical types it'd probably make a bit more sense for him to have a history with Hook or WishHook. I haven't developed these ideas very well. Actually if you want to keep Hook's estranged daughter and to do the whole patented OUAT 'What a Twist!' thing then the aforementioned Katee Sackhoff could probably play a genderbent Captain Ahab. Ahab's obviously a man's name so I don't know how you'd explain that, I don't think it's a last name. But anyway in the show I thought her character might be bipolar since she flips from manic 'LESSSA BLOW UP SOME ROBITS WEEEEEEEEE!' to brooding 'life is shit and I'm even more shit I'm gonna drink now' quite a bit. That could be an interesting take, and you could have her as another obsessive sailor who hooks up (ayyyyyyyy) with Killian at some point and they have this ongoing custody battle across the high seas... I don't know if this would work or which version of Hook it would have to be but it could work and it's definitely an OUAT Twist. Uhh. So that's my stream of consciousness. I said it was going to be short. Apparently I lied.