The Writers of OUAT: Because, Um, Magic, That's Why

[Shanna Marie]

I think a big issue is that they don't have someone on staff who goes back and watches what actually gets shown on screen.

That's where a copyeditor is so useful in the book world. That person isn't part of the creative process and doesn't see the many drafts along the way and therefore only judges what's actually in the final book. I've managed to keep the same copyeditor throughout a series, and she keeps a series bible, with lists of characters and bits of information about them, and she's caught me a few times when I lost track of what had been deleted between drafts. She also keeps track of the timeline and will question if I don't seem to have left enough time for something to happen. Plus, my particular copyeditor takes her role of Jewish mother seriously and will question if the characters have had a chance to get something to eat when there's a long sequence without any "offstage" time. A long-running TV series needs someone playing that role, maybe watching the final cut of an episode with a copy of the script and marking any changes, then keeping a timeline with key events, and then checking each script against that. It is really hard when there are changes along the way to keep track of what was in the final version.

 

But really, most of the continuity stuff in this latest episode is just plain sloppy, like Hook's enchanted hook vs. the potion or Zelena's supposedly unremovable heart that we saw be removed earlier. Both were actual plot points that affected events, not just a throwaway line only an obsessive nerd would notice, and probably not something that was altered in the editing room after something slightly different was shot.

[daxx]

Add to that Zelena's protection spell on her heart, that she said she put on "eons" ago, when we saw Regina rip her heart out while she was disguised as Marian, and Zelena was unconscious and frozen at the time, so she wouldn't have been able to quickly drop any protection spell to avoid giving herself away.

 

This episode was very sloppy. Is there no equivalent to a copy editor in TV, no one who checks things against a show bible or style sheet? Nobody on the writing staff with a halfway decent memory to say, "Hey, wait a second"?

I have a good explanation for the heart protection spell. It's blood magic. Of course Regina could remove her heart.

[YaddaYadda]

With Hook, I think they wanted us to remember that he took a heart once. But even with that, they could've said Regina once enchanted his hook to take a heart and he stole the potion from her (because of course it has a label).

 

Zelena's heart, she could've just said she put a protection spell on it after the freezing curse.

[Curio]

You know what makes the retcons even worse? Adam & Eddy were the ones who actually wrote the episodes they're retconning. "Queen of Hearts" was the episode Regina enchants Hook's hook—written by A&E. "Heroes and Villains" has Regina putting Zarian's heart back in her body—written by A&E. This premiere was (you guessed it) written by A&E. They can't even use the excuse that someone like Jane Espenson wrote the earlier episode and they just happened to forget the information. I get that these guys are writing at break-neck speeds to squeeze 22 episodes into one season, but if you consistently forget pretty basic plot points and details of your own writing, maybe television writing isn't your gig. Stick with movies and mini series where you can't trip over your own mythology. That's probably why Season 1 always seems to get touted as the best of the series, because they planned it out enough ahead of time to not fall into their own traps like in the later seasons.

[coops]

I agree in season 1 there wasn't so much for them to slip up on. All this heart nonsense also just highlights that the writers never envisioned Marian to be secretly Zelena at the time of writing... is she had protected her heart then how would that freeze-coma thing even effected her? Didn't they have to remove her heart because the Snow Queen's spell was freezing her heart? All those times Marian was in peril from Snow Queens & Ice monsters and Zelena never once instinctively used her magic to save her own life? Does that mean she would have rather died posing as Marian than completing her plan against Regina?

[Curio]

All this heart nonsense also just highlights that the writers never envisioned Marian to be secretly Zelena at the time of writing

 

That's a good point. Depending on when they decided for Marian to be Zelena, they could have initially wrote the first scene where Regina takes the heart out completely thinking that was Marian in their minds. But then somewhere down the line, they thought of the "amazing twist" and ran with it. But then when they wrote the 5x01 premiere, they forgot about the heart scene because that was still Marian, not Zelena, in their minds when they wrote it.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Curio

[Mari]

And what's frustrating is that it was sheer sloppiness that did it.

They could easily have made Marian into Zelena after most of season 4A was over--wasn't Zelena's necklace stored in the crypt? Just have something knock over the container it's in, releasing Zelena essence, and it takes over Marian. Then, most of the scenes that cause continuity problems are safely before Marian was Zelena.

It's things like this that make me pretty sure that the reveal was a deliberate retcon, because they were receiving unexpected backlash over "Adultery Queen." To me it reeks of panicked fix. This way, Robin was absolutely not married, and, see? Regina didn't kill Marian.

Since they liked Mader, and were probably planning on using Zelena again, this solved two problems with one plot line.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Mari

[coops]

But it doesn't really resolve anything because Robin and Regina still believed they were having an affair while his wife was in a coma. They didn't have a clue that Marian=Zelena but that doesn't get them off the hook in a moral sense. Also I never brought Zelena would settle for a happily married life to Robin outside Storybrooke in a land without magic. She wanted all the power and status Regina had as the evil queen, she wouldn't have cared for settling down to married life even if she was stealing Regina's boyfriend in the process. She also seemed to be playing the part of Roland's mother with total ease, how does someone as crazy as Zelena manage that?

[BoPeeps]

I just don't think they care.

As long as Daddy Disney gets to market their cash cows, the creators will make up anything to suit the parent company.

A+ E have proven themselves to be less than brilliant countless times. They lost their way and their edge a long time ago. Their follow through has been constantly lacking.

The fans will lose. As long as they placate the most vocal portions of the fandom somewhere along the line, the fans will hang on...for a while.

The facts that they don't have the creative freedoms of cable, are constantly overpopulating the show with one season guest characters and don' t seem to have any true direction are all leading to the sad deterioration of the show. And I think their boredom is showing.

[Camera One]

All this heart nonsense also just highlights that the writers never envisioned Marian to be secretly Zelena at the time of writing.

 

But A&E adamantly claims they planned it all along!  Pinky swear with Isaac.

[daxx]

The Spell on Hook's hook is a problem, but not the protection spell. It could be blood magic, so Regina would have no issue with it. Just like Neal was able to use his father's walking stick to open his magic vault.

[Mari]

But it doesn't really resolve anything because Robin and Regina still believed they were having an affair while his wife was in a coma. They didn't have a clue that Marian=Zelena but that doesn't get them off the hook in a moral sense.

Well, no, it doesn't. But the morality on this show is skewed enough we've got an actual thread about it. It doesn't seem like the writing team has a firm grasp on the implications of some of their story choices. Adding in angry, negative feedback from sources who usually cheered any action Regina took, and I don't doubt there were at least a few panicked, confused conversations about how to resolve the adultery storyline.

[Shanna Marie]

The Spell on Hook's hook is a problem, but not the protection spell. It could be blood magic, so Regina would have no issue with it.

But not all magic is blood magic. That only seems to be used as a security measure by people who think they have no relatives or who want to limit access to members of their families. Why would Zelena use a protection spell that would leave her vulnerable to her worst enemy, who has the ability to rip out hearts?

 

It's funny that I've been bitching all along about their lack of development for a magical system and the fact that there don't seem to be any limits on magic for the magic-using characters, in spite of all that "magic comes at a price" stuff -- and then they finally have someone weakened by using magic. Except it comes without any precedent at all, and just to make the plot work, which is even worse. So not only did Regina have no way of knowing enough about the wand to know that it would weaken Zelena enough to get the jump on her after she used it, this is also the first time we've ever seen any indication that there's any kind of drain on magical power after use. Previously, there have been no limits at all -- they can throw fireballs and poof around left and right without weakening or getting tired. Until now, when they need Zelena to be weaker.

[Serena]

Well, no, it doesn't. But the morality on this show is skewed enough we've got an actual thread about it. It doesn't seem like the writing team has a firm grasp on the implications of some of their story choices. Adding in angry, negative feedback from sources who usually cheered any action Regina took, and I don't doubt there were at least a few panicked, confused conversations about how to resolve the adultery storyline.

Yeah, but those people didn't really care about the adultery. If Regina were having an affair with a married Emma, they'd be cheering it as a big eff you to patriarchy, or whatever. So having Marian be Zelena didn't solve anything.

[Mari]

True, a lot of them probably just didn't like Regina/Robin, and that was a convenient weapon. And I totally agree that it actually solved absolutely none of the problems with the ethics of the pairing.

However, since a lot of the criticism was based on Robin's marriage, on the surface, Zelarian addresses that issue. Poof! Tricksies! Robin's a widower!

Whether the group's thinking is really that shallow, or if they were just giving themselves a shield against those in an uproar, I don't know. But, going on past experience with the show, I don't think they usually see the moral corners they paint themselves into. If you don't truly recognize the problem, you can't usually actually fix it.

They had already made Robin and Regina soul mates without much of a screen test, fast tracked their story, and then wrote themselves into the adultery quagmire. They'd put too much into canon to get rid of Robin and find Regina another love interest.

When the backlash started, I think they assumed it would blow over quickly. When it didn't they had to hurriedly find a way to fix it. Based on the morality of the show, I'm convinced that they are simply not gifted at all in understanding deep ethical issues.

The writing team that wouldn't recognize the complex and difficult issues like rape, self-defense killing, and mental abuse, aren't probably going to recognize that they fixed nothing until it was too late and they'd already filmed, released, and committed to it.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Mari

[Free]

So having Marian be Zelena didn't solve anything.

 

They made it even worse by dumping in a baby plot.

[Camera One]

People seemed to have collectively groaned over the new amnesia this season.  But it's not too surprising they did this since by restricting themselves to the storytelling format with a flashback and a present-day, A&E pretty much left that route as the only alternative.  If they want flashbacks to Camelot, they need to have the characters not remember, or else they will need to talk around the stuff they know (eg. 4B with Snowing's "that horrible secret... the horrible thing we did", etc., which can only work if one character is hiding the truth and refuses to talk about it).  

 

This will also allow the "shocking" events of the past 6 weeks to be parcelled out every week.  Thinking back, both 4A, 3B and 1 used this strategy for the flashbacks... 4A with Elsa with amnesia, and 3B and Season 1 with everyone with amnesia (closest to current arc).  

 

I think it would have been less groan-worthy if they followed the Frozen route and had the Camelot people only without their memories.  But then again, they want to flashback to the Storybrooke folks in Camelot, which I must agree is more fun.  

 

However, if they had to repeat a writing strategy, maybe it was wiser to use the 2A pattern of half the characters in Storybrooke and half in Camelot, or the 3A pattern of everyone in Camelot.  However, both of these are more difficult to write.  With the latter, they clearly found it difficult to figure out appropriate flashbacks in Neverland plus they lost the grounding Storybrooke setting, and with the former, the dream-state sleep connection was inspired and they likely couldn't think of something like that.

 

Still, A&E need to be careful.  Repeating the same strategy multiple times is risky as some viewers would conclude they've seen it before and tune out.  For me, telling the story backwards is kind of frustrating since you already know the endpoint.  And it's especially unenjoyable for me when the endpoint is something you don't like, eg. Emma being full on Dark.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Camera One

[YaddaYadda]

I'm actually okay with the memory loss. Everyone needs to stop calling it a twist though, cuz a twist, it's not.

[KingOfHearts]

I don't think anyone objects to the amnesia element itself, and if this show had only done it once or never at all it would be a good plot device. However, it's the repetition that kills it. Once has had this problem since S3 with its monotonous structure. Baddie comes to town, random flashbacks no one cares about it, then deus ex machina at the end. Sometimes it feels like filler on a grander scale. You could skip all the way from the end of S2 and go to 5A with only a few minor explanations. (Regina isn't a villain any more and she's dating Robin Hood, Captain Swan is a go, Neal died and Zelena is the Wicked Witch + Regina's sister. That's all the information you need really.) I remember A&E saying how 4B was going to break the cycle. Nope not really.

 

One of the biggest complaints viewers have is that the status quo doesn't change. There's always a curse to break or villain to kill. 5A adjusted it a tad bit, but not necessarily for the better. Exterior conflict is fine as long as the characters are consistent through the arcs. But aside from a very few they get reset at every premiere. (Especially Regina, Rumple, Belle and Henry.) The show is complicated, but over-simplified. There's constant movement but no change at the same time.

Edited October 3, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

You could skip all the way from the end of S2 and go to 5A with only a few minor explanations. (Regina isn't a villain any more and she's dating Robin Hood, Captain Swan is a go, Neal died and Zelena is the Wicked Witch + Regina's sister.

It may be even worse than that. This came up on the All Seasons thread when someone was asking how much needed to be watched before diving in. Really, you could jump from the end of season one to 3B. 3B explains Zelena, Robin, and Snow and Charming having a baby. Then the end of the 4B finale sets up the current arc, with a few bits during the arc to explain Zelena's return.

 

With Hook, although his redemption arc was well done and worth watching, at the moment you could probably figure him out from context, that he's dating Emma so he must be decent, and he's Captain Hook, so he must have once been bad. Regina's "redemption" arc didn't actually happen onscreen in a way that watching it would make any more sense than not seeing it, so you'd have to go by context and just accept that she's good now.

 

It's rather frightening that the only arcs that have had lasting consequences have been among the worst ones, and even there, 3B only has consequences because they brought back Zelena. There was no actual onscreen relationship development between Robin and Regina that you'd need to see to appreciate where they are now. The big "you write your own happy ending, hero or villain" epiphany doesn't seem to have changed anyone's attitudes about heroes and villains. Nothing in 4A changed other than Belle kicking Rumple out, and her anger didn't stick, so you don't need to have seen her realizing the betrayal and kicking him out, and he was back by the end of the next episode after that happened, so it had no consequences. Marian, Neal, and Ingrid seem to have been forgotten. We don't even know if Emma actually got back her Ingrid memories and how that's affected her.

 

For the most part, the only thing in the status quo that gets changed is which people are around from season to season. I guess if you saw season 2, then Hook's change was something that stuck, and it was a process over time, so there's no one episode you can look at. Same for his relationship with Emma -- it was a process rather than one big turning point. Almost every other change has been a big "poof!" with the magic wand, and very little has actually stuck over time.

 

On the amnesia, I'm kind of coming around on it because since they've established that this is a thing people can do, it makes sense that they'd use it. I'd love to have a memory wipe spell I could use on people. Oops, made a fool of myself. Memory wipe! It would make less sense if they didn't use it, since they have it. But then you'd think that they'd have counterspells and protections in place, or some way of backing up memories, or something like that, since this is something used so often. And there should be serious consequences when the spell is used and people get their memories back -- or else people shouldn't get memories back. Like Henry shouldn't have had his memories restored after the missing year, or he should have struggled more with what he remembered, or maybe he should have got ALL his memories back, including Regina's earlier wipes. But making it all a case of "oh well, never mind" is the real problem.

[Free]

Once has had this problem since S3 with its monotonous structure.

 

Exactly, it's always the same amnesia/memory loss, time skip/missing time, etc.  It would've been better to shake things up from arc to arc.

[Mathius]

With the latter, they clearly found it difficult to figure out appropriate flashbacks in Neverland plus they lost the grounding Storybrooke setting

Storybrooke has ceased to be a "grounding setting" since magic was brought to it.

Once has had this problem since S3 with its monotonous structure. Baddie comes to town, random flashbacks no one cares about it, then deus ex machina at the end.

2B started that, not S3 (Cora came to town, there were random flashbacks no one cares about, and the magic candle introduced just an episode earlier proved to be the deus ex machina that led to her defeat.) Really, most of this show's current ills can be traced back to 2B.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Mathius

[KingOfHearts]

 

2B started that, not S3 (Cora came to town, there were random flashbacks no one cares about, and the magic candle introduced just an episode earlier proved to be the deus ex machina that led to her defeat.) Really, most of this show's current ills can be traced back to 2B.

Cora only dominated the first half of 2B, and some of that was spent on Nealfire. The rest of the arc was about Greg and Tamara. But I agree, 2B was when the show took a turn for the worst.

 

 

I agree about that.  Though I think to the writers, they feel the Storybrooke setting provides a "balance" of modern and fantasy.

Less CGI too.

Edited October 4, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Storybrooke has ceased to be a "grounding setting" since magic was brought to it.

 

I agree about that.  Though I think to the writers, they feel the Storybrooke setting provides a "balance" of modern and fantasy.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Camera One

[Serena]

Cora only dominated the first half of 2B, and some of that was spent on Nealfire. The rest of the arc was about Greg and Tamara. But I agree, 2B was when the show took a turn for the worst.

Yes. Cora wasn't the problem at all with 2B. The arc actually went bad when they got rid of her (the way they had Snow kill her was awesome - the aftermath with her being all apologetic was not). IMO, the problem was twofold in the latter part of 2B: Colin broke his leg so there had to be quick rewrites (I'm guessing Hook was supposed to come back with Emma/Rumple/etc as their prisoner instead of being randomly left behind), AND they suddenly got permission to use Neverland so they had to conclude the Cora arc quicker than they meant to, to set up the Neverland arc.

[Free]

Yes. Cora wasn't the problem at all with 2B. The arc actually went bad when they got rid of her (the way they had Snow kill her was awesome - the aftermath with her being all apologetic was not). IMO, the problem was twofold in the latter part of 2B: Colin broke his leg so there had to be quick rewrites (I'm guessing Hook was supposed to come back with Emma/Rumple/etc as their prisoner instead of being randomly left behind), AND they suddenly got permission to use Neverland so they had to conclude the Cora arc quicker than they meant to, to set up the Neverland arc.

 

Definitely, S2, especially the second half was very messy, in between setting up Neverland which they wanted to get sooner, Greg/Tamara which was poorly executed, Baelfire/Neal and August who should've had a lot more emotional impact given Emma's backstory, etc.

[coops]

I actually liked S2 to a degree now I know what to expect and I had no problems with Cora being killed off so early to make way for the Greg and Tamara storyline... if only the storyline had been half decent. I think the main reason most people became disenchanted around the time of 2B was by that point it was becoming clear the world building was poor, a lot of what we were seeing was being made up as the writers went along and the characters didn't act like real people. The contrast between the Storybrooke characters and their real counterparts was fasinating in S1 but in S2 the writers barely explored the fall out from their memories being restored which is what viewers had been itching for all through S1. When I realised I was never going to get the payoff I thought S1 had promised me as a viewer I fell out of love with the show.

Edited October 5, 2015 by coops

[LizaD]

I saw somewhere on twitter where Jane answered the "Mary Margaret" in Camelot thing and she said it was so that viewers would know the flashback wasn't the distant flashbacks of yore. Are they serious?

I don't know if this implies that they think their audience is dumber than they are or that they think viewers are so casual in their watching of this show that can't tell pre-curse flashbacks from flashbacks of 6 weeks back. You know the flashbacks that prominently feature Dark Emma in them. If that's the audience they're aiming for I think it explains so much.

I also hate to break it to them but I don't think the people that can't tell pre-curse flashbacks vs "present" flashbacks are watching the show. They would've just switched the channel.

[Serena]

Eh, I don't know. For us it's annoying, but you should try to take a look at any Facebook comment section. The questions those fans have, which are things clearly explained in the show, are mind-boggling.

[Camera One]

That is so dumb, and it actually retracts from the scene.  What's their excuse for having Charming call her Mary Margaret in the end scene when Snow is feeling down?  That detracts from the emotion of the scene.  Surely viewers wouldn't be so confused when they're in Storybrooke?

Edited October 9, 2015 by Camera One

[YaddaYadda]

We know who these characters are. It said "6 weeks ago in Camelot". Emma is standing right there next to her mother, her mother who has a pixie hair cut, so it's not like it's a flashback from 28 years, when Snow didn't have a daughter and she had long hair.

 

It would have been easier for them to say #nospoiler or I don't know...the Nevengers didn't tell Arthur the whole story which very clearly they did NOT.

[Mathius]

AND they suddenly got permission to use Neverland so they had to conclude the Cora arc quicker than they meant to, to set up the Neverland arc.

No, they had permission to use Neverland and all the Peter Pan stuff by the start of Season 2, hence Hook and mentions of Neverland early on. So permission wasn't a factor, it's just that during the writing of "Manhattan" they had the IDEA for a Neverland arc with Peter Pan as the Big Bad in present-time (as opposed to just using it for Baelfire and Hook flashbacks), and needed to re-do their original plans for the end of the season so that it sets that arc up. Greg and Tamara are a blantant case of this, as they are made into dupes for Pan and the Lost Boys but still feel rather disconnected from Pan and the Lost Boys, they were clearly originally meant to be their own thing and the Pan connection was shoehorned in so that Neverland could happen (and thank God, since NOBODY liked Greg and Tamara as their own thing.)

Edited October 9, 2015 by Mathius

[Rumsy4]

The rights to Peter Pan-related works is confusing at best. From what I remember, A&E got the full rights to play with the Neverland Universe while they were in the middle of S2. 

[KingOfHearts]

I have a question. Brigitte Hales (the newest writer) is not listed as a writer for any of the upcoming episodes in 5A, yet according to her tweets she's had an active role in its development. Is she just assisting the main writers since she's new? Are there writers like that on shows? I don't know much about production.

Edited October 13, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Serena]

No, I think they may be giving her a half season to get familiar with the material before giving her a script? Then they'll probably pair her with an experienced writer for her first episode.

[Camera One]

Regina worship needs to be cultivated slowly, and you can't earn a degree in deus ex machina in two months.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Camera One

[Curio]

I think Brigitte probably helps assist with outlining or breaking story ideas with the entire writing team, but she most likely won't get her first script credit until 5B when she has more experience.

 

Speaking of not seeing writers listed on episode scripts...did they ditch Scott Nimerfro? His imdb page still lists him as a co-executive producer for the first two episodes of Season 5, but the last episode he penned was Heart of Gold. With his only episode credits being Breaking Glass, Shattered Sight, and Heart of Gold, I wouldn't be heartbroken if he only stuck to producing. Those are some of the worst episodes of an already terrible Season 4.

[HoodlumSheep]

^ i think he's still a writer. Which makes me nervous because he'll probably write an episode in 5b; and I don't want him touching certain stuff A&E have said they plan to cover in 5b...

[Serena]

Jane says the writers get a 20-page outline of the episode when they start writing, so I think it matters only marginally what their individual tastes are. The difference shows in the dialogue - ex. "Doctoberfest" was a quintessentially Jane line. And she manages to reign in the more annoying quirks of her writing in this episode, so kudos to her!

[daxx]

I sent Jane a compliment on the scene on the Jolly via Twitter. No idea if she saw it but I felt moved to give it anyway.

[LizaD]

Is she just assisting the main writers since she's new? Are there writers like that on shows?

Yes and the rules governing all of that is set by WGA. I'm going to guess that since she's a total newbie that her title is staff writer. There are several levels of writers on any given show.

Disney-ABC also has an in-house writers and directors development program. I'm not certain on the exact details but you apply to the program and Disney places you in one of their shows. Kind of like a paid internship I guess. I don't know if that's what this new writer is but that is an option.

Edited October 14, 2015 by LizaD

[coops]

Some writers are much better on other shows which is understandable if they get given a 20 page outline, that doesn't leave a lot of leeway. And then there's the flashbacks. They worked in season 1 but now they cripple the show and force numerous memory loss storylines.

[CalamityBoPeep]

I’ve spent way too much time over the last several days thinking about what’s bugging me about the writing on this show, and whether I can really try to invest in it again after bailing for 4B.  TBH, I came back for Hook and Emma, wondering how they’d deal with the Dark Swan storyline.  But I haven’t been able to trust the story, like I wanted to, through these first episodes.  So after reading the entirety of both the Morality thread and this one, I think I’ve got some insight into where things have been going wrong for me.  Everything that follows should be prefaced with In My Opinion, fwiw.  I totally know that mileages are going to vary on all of these points.

 

I don’t think A&E plan to ever have Regina take an action that would truly show her regret and have her attempt to make restitution, since that would essentially change her from a Villain to a former-but-now-deeply-reformed villain and legitimately put her into the “normal human being” camp.  For Regina to cease having all her Villain traits, for her to regret and redeem, would go against the very premise that they started with (per their interviews).  Their premise was that the traditional Villain was not getting her story told and that the Villain should have her happy ending.  Unstated part: without changing herself in the process.  I think they believe that the Villain should ultimately win, and we should accept that because we now understand her side of the story, which the traditional fairy tales left out, but they’ve revealed to us (in their show-verse).  I believe that they want to have us accept this inversion of the story, by “proving” that the heroes do not, and have never deserved the title of hero.  To do that, they have to insist that the heroes and the main Villain, as she is, are morally equivalent.

 
All of the terrific ideas about how to redeem her, or where they missed their opportunity to truly create a redemption arc, then, are moot.  They never intended for her to have to go through all of that to get her preferred outcome.  They want her to win.  Just as she is.  They want to prove that she is fine, as she is, and in fact is a sympathetic character, and to get the audience on board with that.  In framing it this way, they set the moral bar to be: that acceptance without judgment of any behavior is the highest value. That it’s our fault that we see her as wrong, and as needing to take responsibility and make up for all the atrocity she’s engaged in.  I think the story they wanted to tell is about Regina’s frustration, not only with the heroes, but with the audiences throughout history that have said that “this behavior is a bad thing.”

 

It’s taking the concept of the Protagonist Centered Morality, and turning it on its head by making Regina the Protagonist, when traditionally, in any story, she’d be the Antagonist.  In this story, the traditional good guys are the Antagonists.  A&E screwed up their premise from the beginning though, by giving their Antagonists (the good guys) stories, and also obliviously maintaining their traditional roles as the victims of the Villain.  By telling their stories, and not making them evil from the beginning, they allowed the audience to automatically relate to them.  To make their premise work, they would have needed to keep the heroes rather generic and uninteresting, and have them doing blatantly evil or hypocritical things from the beginning.

 

But of course, the likelihood of selling a story like that to Disney, when they’re basing the characters on classic Disney characters, would have been somewhere between slim and none.  Their claim of their core message being hope, sells with a Disney chain of command.  But I really believe that in their minds, they considered that to be the core message only as far Regina was concerned.  She would always be able to hope.  Everyone else was screwed.  I think season 1 was their sales pitch for the audience.  Season 1 was the bait, and season 2 saw the switch.  Where we saw hope of this terrible thing being undone, and that the good guys might win, they saw the breaking of the original curse as a mere set-back for Regina, a step along her inverse-hero’s-journey.

 

Human beings typically want to see evil punished, and will automatically generate sympathy for individual, well-understood victims of evil.  A&E never should have allowed us to care about these heroic people at all.  The actors have managed to keep audiences on their side, in spite of some shoddy writing, by pure grit and determination, and wonderful skill with their craft.  They’ve made Emma, et al… sympathetic.  So to undo that terrific effort, the writing team has had to absolutely undermine their characters with crappy writing.  The actors have been trying to tell a good story about heroes and villains and shades of grey.  The writers have been determined to equate the good with the evil, if they have to hit us over the head with it and make Snow and Charming, and now Emma, into complete inverses of their original season 1 characterizations.

 

Having a true redemption arc for Regina would mean that the writers accepted that she was wrong in the past, and that her season 1 self didn’t actually deserve a happy ending.  That she was actually an Antagonist all along, and that the audience was right to see her as the bad guy, and the heroes should not have trusted her and propped her up.  That’s a bridge they won’t cross.  Their story is that the Villain gets a happy ending.  To do that, she has to keep the deeper characteristics of a Villain.  Maybe she annihilates fewer villages, but she’ll never see why that was such a bad thing in the first place.

 

People are better at hand waving away atrocities on a mass, faceless, scale... village destruction, condemning a whole population to a curse, a vault of hearts which signify removal of volition.  But it is usually more difficult to wave away an individual’s tragedy.  Not that it can’t be done.  But most people aren’t hard wired to be able to do that easily, and expecting an entire audience of a network’s family hour show to do that is a little unrealistic.  So, by giving the heroes a story, and by having such great actors tell it, A&E really shot themselves in the foot.  They’ve been trying to “right” their preferred ship, ever since the end of season 1.

 

It’s why I actually dread the (unspoiled) end of the Dark Swan arc.  I fear they will either 1) keep Emma dark, giving us Dark Swan until the bitter end of the series, making her the new Rumple, and have her get a happy ending that way; 2) save her after she commits some terrible atrocities that put her on a complete equal footing with Regina, as if to say “see, audience, you never should have been on her side!”, destroying her character in the process like they did with Snow and Charming; or 3) kill her off.  They’ll never kill off Regina, so I could see them killing off anyone that makes Regina look bad.

 

They accidentally wrote a hero’s tale, in spite of their best efforts to make it all about Regina’s frustration.   If they go with what they accidentally created in season 1, and have Emma successfully come out of the Dark Swan phase, having never truly lost her soul and having never out and out destroyed those who love her, (and having her deeply regret and want to make restitution for the pain she inevitably does cause), then they will have brought Emma through the true hero’s journey, and shown, in vivid color, that their propping of Regina was worthless.  So, I just don’t trust that they’ll do it.  I don’t think they have the self-awareness, the depth, or the moral compass to do it. A&E talk all the time about “exploring” this and “exploring” that, but they never actually explore anything.  They dabble in it.

 

I’m willing to be swayed that they’re beginning to see what they have put on the screen, and just want to tell a satisfying story, but honestly, I don’t have much confidence that they will since they’re so obtuse about what non-Regina centered fans are responding to.

 

They wrote heroes that people could relate to and root for.  Not a good plan when you want to make the villain the audience-insert character.  But if they’re willing to go ahead and embrace what they’ve done, and not destroy Emma’s characterization, then I’m willing to stay.

 

If 1, 2, or 3 above happens… then I’m out.  I checked out for 4B and found I didn’t miss the show that much.  It’ll be easy enough to take it off my DVR list.

Edited October 18, 2015 by CalamityBoPeep

[KingOfHearts]

https://twitter.com/AdamHorowitzLA/status/655827487885135872

 

Adam has begun writing the 100th episode!

[myril]

I haven't watched the most recent episode, just read the commentaries in the forum about it, and it made me giggle. This show starts to sound more and more like a less than mediocre fan fiction, a fan fic series as if written by die hard fans of a mediocre YA prime time fantasy show long overdue to get cancelled, with romance shipping and character worshipping galore, filled with stories lacking imagination by people inserting own biographical moments without much of a sense as character moments into their OTP fanwank fiction. Couldn't help but picture the cliche of a nerdy 30- or 40-something guy struggling with a mild (early) midlife crisis while bored by job and family, having too much time at hand, who decided to show all those bullying fan girls who "friendzoned" him in his teenager years, how to write fan fiction. The long-term revenge plan: Let's slaughter their beloved Disney princess fluff. Alias that writer might use: B. F. George.

 

They should apply for a fan fiction award, for most popular prosaic ff series, they might win that one. And for writing worst caricature of Mary Sue and Gary Stu characters. If that were all much more campy and taken a lot less serious it could gain some cult show status for bombastic fantasy show with silliest moral ever. Genius.

[Curio]

filled with stories lacking imagination by people inserting own biographical moments without much of a sense as character moments into their OTP fanwank fiction

 

The most glaring moment of this was when Henry was showing Violet some movies they could watch on his phone. What are the only two options? Commando and Harold & Maude. What? Why would only those two movies be on Henry's phone, which means they're probably some of his favorites? That moment just reeked of Adam & Eddy giggling and throwing in their favorite movies instead of thinking about what Henry the character would like as a 13-year-old boy. Unless Henry really identifies himself with Harold...

Edited October 26, 2015 by Curio

[BoPeeps]

You know, if the writers, et all, had any real deep seeded talent, they could be producing a highly entertaining, thought provoking, witty AND campy show. They just can't, or won't do that. Whoever/whatever is driving their creative machine, the wheels have fallen off and the cogs are jammed.

 

Writers, producers and creators: Step back and delete all comments regarding fans from Twitter, ignore Tmblr, give hashtags a seriously LONG vacation, distance yourself from too cutesy media blogs that have no depth~ just spastic, Internet fan pandering drek.

None of it is clever. It's just lousy, lazy, soulless story telling.

 

It's a bloody mess and I AM PISSED THAT THEY CAN'T GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER.

[Mathius]

When is it that you think the writers so irrevocably lost their way?  Most seem to cite 3B, since it seems like everything afterward (4A, 4B, and now 5A) never truly improved on the flaws in that arc and even made them worse (at least with 2B, they were able to course-correct with 3A).

[Curio]

I feel like it goes in hills and valleys with these writers. Season 1 started out strong, had a weak middle, then finished strong again. 2A was fairly decent with some weak episodes here and there. 2B was just a mess. 3A was generally strong, but had some weak flashbacks. 3B was generally weak but had a strong finale. 4A had a good first couple of episodes but then drastically dropped off and had a terrible finale. 4B was ass sauce all around. The first four episodes of 5A have been a huge improvement, but this past episode and the preview for next week makes me think we're back to the annoying filler episodes that bring down the rest of the season. If 5A can manage to stick its landing with the finale, then it might become one of my favorite arcs of the series. I'm willing to forgive one or two bad episodes per half season, but I can't deal with 4B where there were only one or two good episodes.

[Mathius]

I feel like it goes in hills and valleys with these writers. Season 1 started out strong, had a weak middle, then finished strong again. 

 

Subjective; I know many people disliked the middle, but I mostly enjoyed it and found it to be perfectly strong.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Mathius