Dani-Ellie

I did like the visual of the ocean portal swallowing the Jolly Roger whole and then flattening out to calm, serene ocean when it disappeared, but yeah, in terms of "Holy shit, how the hell am I going to wait till September to find out what happens next?!" it was nowhere near as satisfying as 1x22.

Then it's a definite bait and switch because she certainly was in season one. I didn't sign up for The Regina Show. I signed up for Emma Swan, Heir to the Fairy Tale Throne. And now I'm invested and I want to see where Emma's story goes, but it's maddening when her story is given token attention and that's it, especially when once considers how they writers are choosing to use the time they have. They need a better balance, not just with Emma but with all of the characters. I think there'd be a lot less frustration if everyone felt their favorite characters were getting their due. Whether or not Emma is the heroine of the story is kind of beside the point, though. Like @regularlyleaded said, it's criminal that we are now heading into season four of this show and know so little about one of its main characters.

Word. I really don't give two shits anymore about anyone who's ever accidentally looked at Regina funny. Can we please have some details about the heroine of the story, for crying out loud? Like I said in the "Lost Girl" thread, Emma is an original character, here. We can't rely on previous versions of the character to give ourselves an idea of where she's coming from. That is up to the show, and the show is utterly failing at it. The idea of a child growing up with no love whatsoever is so utterly tragic that this shit should really write itself. This is a real-world problem. This isn't "my dad was a knight and was killed trying to slay a dragon and my mom was a princess but her throne got usurped." This is a little girl who grew up here, who slipped through the cracks and flew under the radar, a little girl who was utterly failed by the system that was supposed to protect her. This is a little girl who, at three years old, was returned to the system by the only family she'd ever known. How come we haven't seen a flash of a confused little blonde three-year-old, wondering why "Mommy" and "Daddy" were giving her to strangers? Do they not comprehend how much more sympathy and understanding viewers would have if we could see that? Or do they just not care? Emma's story is the kind of thing happens all the damn time. It's real-world, human drama, and it really shouldn't be hard to put the audience on Emma's wavelength. I mean, just look how many of us want to hug Emma just from little we do know. How many more people would understand why she is the way she is if the show actually showed us? But in order to do so, they need to put even the tiniest attention on her and her past, and they absolutely refuse to do it. I don't get it.

Exactly. When the episode aired, I remember actually liking the parallel between Emma in the present and Snow in the flashbacks, but mostly because I like when they parallel Emma's journey with her parents' in the first place. It was only after the new-episode, Snow/Emma feels died down that I was like, "Hey, wait a second ..." I don't know why they're so allergic to showing us how Emma came to be the way she is. I mean, yeah, we can speculate that it's because it would reflect too poorly on the villains they have on redemption tracks, but honestly, show, give us something. We've spent countless episodes on how and why the Evil Queen became the Evil Queen, we've spent a few episodes on Rumple and the Dark One, but nothing on how Emma got to be the way she is? I mean, even when they show us a legitimate reason for her walls (Neal), they backtrack on it. What the hell, show? Because Emma is, essentially, a blank slate, there should be far more story attention on her. Everyone else (minus Henry and Neal) on this show already existed in some form or another in the fairy tales the show is based on. And yes, I get that the show subverts these stories and puts its own twist on them, but that doesn't change the fact that, say, Snow White is an already established character. Emma is not. Emma didn't exist prior to this show. As such, the audience has zero idea what her life was like, so we have to rely on the show to give us this information. We have a couple of offhand sentences from Emma and a few story implications. (And if you're more than a casual viewer and read interviews, you have Jennifer Morrison's headcanon, which feeds into how she plays Emma.) But that's it. We have no idea, for example, why Emma ran away from the system at 15. (This is only story implication: in "Tallahassee," August said he'd been looking for 17-year-old Emma for two years. A child ages out of the foster system at 18.) I have guesses but they're only guesses. We have no idea why Emma never connected with any of the families she lived with growing up. We have no idea how many of her years were spent in actual homes or how many we spent in group homes. This was the perfect episode so show us even a tiny fraction of Emma's backstory. We talk a lot about how much sympathy Regina gets from the fandom at large, but one of the big reasons she gets it is because the story focuses on her backstory. We've seen every little slight in Regina's past, real or imagined. With Emma, we've gotten nothing. Just think how much more understanding some of those fans would be if we'd seen a similar scene to Cora magically binding Regina and Regina promising to be good, only with a blonde teenager in Regina's position. It wouldn't even have to be as graphic as that. Show a little girl sitting alone on a bed, hugging a baby blanket. Show a little girl sitting by herself at recess because she's in yet another new school. Basically, make the viewers understand where Emma's coming from instead of giving us Round 34646 of Regina vs. Snow.

Wow, thank you all so much! I still can't get over how "Watch Over Me" pretty much just exploded. When I saw all the notifications on it rolling in, I was all, "o_O." Thank you for this. I try very hard to keep everyone in character, and there are certainly some characters I'm better with than others. (There's a reason why Rumple and Regina only show up when I need them. ;)) It's nice to hear that it is all working the way I intended.

Snowbound can be found here. :)

Thank you very much, Crimson Belle! It's been really fun to write so far, so I'm glad to hear it's been fun to read as well. :)

I hate beyond words that none of the characters are truly allowed to call Regina on her shit. I would love to see Snow go off on her for stealing the first three decades of her child's life from her and Charming. That is time they'll never get back, and all the firsts Regina got to share with Henry, Snow and Charming will never get to share with Emma. It's awful and it's terrible, and Regina most definitely owes all of them an apology for that. Word. I'm sorry, but I am not going to feel sorry for a woman who took her pain and anger out on an entire population and does not regret any of it. A person like that is not worthy of my sympathy.

Right. I don't have a problem with Regina, per se. I have a problem with the bipolar nature of the story, where one day she's trying to be a better person for the sake of her son and the next she's plotting to kill his whole family and the day after that she's working with said family and the day after that says she doesn't regret anything she's done, which includes trying to kill her son's entire family or gaslighting her son in the first place. I have a problem with the narrative trying to tell me she's a hero now when she hasn't earned it. I have a problem with how the story is twisted to make Regina some poor misunderstood soul who's justified in her villainy. I have a problem when her victims are written as apologizing to her when she's made no attempt at apology to them. Basically, I have a problem that the abuser is made to look like the abused. That's not redemption; it's rewarding villainy. And if this weren't a fairy tale where good is supposed to triumph over evil, I might have less of a problem with it. As it stands, though, it goes up my ass sideways. Because dammit, if you want me to give two shits about the Evil Queen's redemption, make it an actual redemption. Make her work for it, make her recognize her mistakes, and make her regret what she's done in the name of a short-sighted vengeance. Don't just hand everything to her on a silver platter and call it a day.

I think this is the key. I remember thinking the map thing was cool from a storytelling perspective because there was just a touch of innocence to it. Like two kids playing a game, Pan had given Emma a coded treasure map. The fact that the "treasure" she was seeking was her kidnapped son and the "code" she needed to figure out to make the map appear was her own emotional damage turns that innocence on its head, which was rather awesome ... and unbelievably cruel. Mind games are more insidious than just out and out kneecapping or killing because the intent is to force the "players" in the game to destroy themselves.

Exactly. Let's pretend for a hot minute that Regina wasn't involved with Robin. Wouldn't seeing the Hood family reunited have been a wonderful thing? (Hell, it's still a wonderful thing to me, regardless of Regina's upset.) Even Regina had no problem with Emma bringing someone forward from the past until it affected her. Only then did it become about the stupid time-travelers messing things up and only then was Emma made to look and feel guilty for saving a woman's life (which is some pretty f-ed up morality, even for this show). At the heart of it, this debate is not at all about the morality and responsibility of time travel. It's about the fact that Regina is disappointed and someone needs to be blamed for it because Regina isn't ever allowed to grow up for five seconds and recognize that the world does not in fact revolve around her or recognize that her own actions have consequences just like everyone else's.

Right, but this affects the present and the future, not the past. If, for example, someone from the past popped up in my life tomorrow, nothing about my past would have changed. My present and future will, but that's life. It would be no different from me making any other new acquaintance. Right. As much positivity is coming out of this as negativity. Like, I'm sorry Regina may lose her boyfriend of five days, but a four- or five-year-old little boy has his mom back. That's pretty damn good, in my eyes. Also true. Hook and Emma discuss this when she finds him on the patio at Granny's and he tells her his life went on exactly as it always had. They arrived back at the same point in time as when they'd left, nothing was out of place, and Hook himself had very little to no memory of his interaction with Emma in the past. Emma said that Rumple told them the only thing that changed was their little adventure ended up in the book because of how they ended up having to play matchmaker for Snow and Charming. Everything else played out as it always had.

They took pains to make sure the past remained the same for everyone (minus Marian, but I think Marian would agree that living out her years in the future was better than, y'know, being executed). Any change to the timeline could have had disastrous results for anyone the timeline affected, up to and including Regina. They were thinking of everyone by bringing Marian forward, not just themselves. If they weren't, they would have just let Marian go back to her family in the past and let the pieces fall where they may. That depends on Regina, and with the back-and-forth writing, I can't be sure. Maybe she just ranted and raved and threatened. Maybe she killed them in anger. But even if she did kill them, that's not on Emma, that's on Regina. Emma cannot be responsible for the actions of others, and people can't live their lives trying not to piss Regina off because that's no way to live. If Regina can't deal with disappointment without killing people, no amount of timeline-fiddling is going to change that. The issue at heart of my argument, however, was the notion that any negative consequences that come from Marian's arrival in the present by Marian's own hand should be laid at Emma's feet, which I wholeheartedly disagree with, for the same reason I disagree with the notion of laying blame for any collateral damage of Marian's escape at Emma's feet. Personal accountability matters to me, and Emma -- or anyone else -- should not be blamed for actions others take. Emma was saving a person's life, and I'm sorry, but nothing will ever convince me she was not behaving like a hero in this instance.

It actually is all the same to me, because the past remained the same. Emma and Hook took pains to ensure the past remained the same; that was the reason they brought Marian forward in the first place. The consequences to Emma saving Marian are to the present timeline, just as the consequences of Emma saving Regina were to the present timeline. Please tell me what the difference is, as you see it. Maybe then I can explain my argument a little more clearly.

This wasn't answered in-show as far as I can recall, but my headcanon is that the kids occupied themselves during the day, not unlike going out to play with friends on weekends or during the summer. But nighttime is when kids usually have parents and/or guardians doing some sort of bedtime routine with them, whether it's story and bath time or just winding down in front of the TV together before getting tucked in/heading up to bed. Evening/nighttime is, conventionally, parent/child time, and going to bed alone with no adults to comfort them from the dark is what made these kids really feel the loss of their parents all the more.

For one, we have no idea if Marian is secretly evil and, as of right now, have no reason to believe she is, but even if she is, by this logic, Emma should have let Regina die in the fire Gold set waaaay back in 1x08. The situations would be very similar: Emma saving a secretly evil woman (if Marian is secretly evil) from certain death. Had Emma let Regina die back then, the people of Storybrooke would have been saved a hell of a lot of trouble. Kathryn wouldn't have disappeared, Mary Margaret wouldn't have been set up for murder, Henry wouldn't have almost died, Snow and Emma wouldn't have ended up in the Enchanted Forest (they only ended up there because Emma pushed Regina out of the wraith's way and got knocked into the hat for her troubles), Cora wouldn't have come to Storybrooke trying to kill everyone, etc. etc. Emma saving Regina in 1x08 was touted as a good thing, as the heroic thing. Is Emma responsible for all of the events Regina set in motion following the fire because she pulled Regina out of that building? My vote is no, because Regina is responsible for her own actions. Was Emma wrong for pulling Regina out of that building in light of what followed? My vote here is also no, because saving a life is not wrong. But it can't be taken both ways. If Emma wasn't wrong for saving Regina, she's also not wrong for saving Marian.

Intent matters. To me, saving a life is not wrong, no matter whose life it was. If Marian turns out to be evil, Emma's responsibility is to contain her so that she's no longer a threat. Emma turning around and being all, "Screw you guys, I'm going home" and letting Storybrooke deal with the evil she'd brought in would be wrong, but saving her life would not have been. To say otherwise is making Emma responsible for Marian's actions, which I don't think is fair.

What I find interesting is that I could have felt like Regina, at least, felt justified in her villainy if the writing had chosen to let her grow and recognize eventually that she was indeed wrong. Instead, the writing has her making the same choices over and over again and Lana plays up the sadistic wickedness (see: the smirk upon hearing that Greg/Owen was dead or the glee upon watching Snow burn at the stake), all of which makes the villainy a choice. Which, I'm sorry, but this isn't being misunderstood or feeling justified. This is being evil, period, full stop. This is evil for the sake of it, because on some level, Regina and Rumple like it.

I don't think anyone was suggesting Regina was solely at fault, but I also think it's clear that Regina had her own issues and did her own deceptive things here as well. Neither one of them behaved the way a husband or wife should, and no matter their problems, like you said, Leopold didn't deserve to die. I'm not laying the blame squarely at Regina's feet, but I'm not comfortable with Leopold being vilified because he was upfront about what he was offering and how he thought was doing the right thing for his daughter, either.

She was free enough to disappear for her lessons with Rumple. He tracks her down at the castle because she didn't show up for her lessons. (The "roast swan" scene.) She goes off with Tink, and she says the king and Snow are gone a lot. No, it's not the life she wanted and yes, it was lonely, but it hardly screams of "you are trapped within these walls, never to leave" to me. It makes me wonder how much of it was Leopold and Snow and how much of it was Regina keeping herself miserable, as she is wont to do. I agree that he's not a saint and that he was neglectful but as far as he knew, he thought Regina was okay with their arrangement. He led his proposal as the sole purpose of the marriage was to give Snow a mother. It's not like it was a bait and switch.

I forget ... is there any point which Leopold says he's locked Regina up? Because I remember Regina's father telling the Genie she was locked up and Regina repeating the same story, but those two can't be trusted as far as I can throw them. (Regina's father could have been just as played as the Genie, I suppose, but still, is there confirmation not from Regina's side of the story that Leopold locked her away?)

Both of them are on my shit list for that. Charming gets a teeny tiny pass from me because he was the one whose life was at stake but neither one of them considered Emma. There was no "You can't stay here, you need to go back with Emma and Henry" from Charming. There was no "You're not going to ever know your daughter or grandson" from Snow. Neither of them even bothered to think of a solution. The fact that it took Emma all of two conversations to come up with one doesn't help, because it makes the answer so damn easy that it's like "Why the hell couldn't you two have taken five damn minutes to think about it before just giving up?"

I would, because 1) I'm one of the only people on the face of the planet who hasn't seen Frozen so I don't give two hoots, 2) I'm so over Regina, and 3) as much as Captain Swan makes me melt into a puddle of goo, the Charming Family is more important to me. I need for these three people to learn about each other and come together to heal and accept what they've lost and learn how to move forward with what they have. I need to see them crying for what they've lost and I need to see the "it's not fair"s and I need to see the "I love you"s. It's not enough for me to imagine that it happened in Offscreensville.

I agree that writing a redemption arc must be fun, but I can think of a bajillion ways Snow/Charming/Emma learning how to come together as a family could have been just as fun and interesting and emotionally satisfying. But that would require kitchen sink conversations and apparently those are not worthy of attention. They'd rather write Scene 4548632 of Regina deciding whether or not to wear her Evil Queen hat today. (Me? Bitter? Nah. ;))

Right. It's not necessarily the fact that the villains see themselves as the victims that's my problem (because honestly, everyone is the hero of their own story). It's the fact that the narrative is agreeing with the villains and perpetuating their warped worldview by not allowing the other side into the equation in any kind of meaningful sense. There's the saying that the truth is somewhere in between the two sides of every story, but with this show, the villains' side of the story is what we see and the good guys' side of the story is getting shortchanged by the narrative.