Morality in Storybrooke / Social Issues: Threads Combined!

[YaddaYadda]

Maleficent is like the murderer who gets murdered.  The murderer goes around, kills innocent people and then one day finds themselves with a gun held to their head so they cry and want mercy because they don't wanna die.  This is Maleficent.  She finds that she is pregnant so that ups the ante for her, she burns down a village without a care that there might be children in it or women in her situation, you know, pregnant and expecting, just like her.  Her child trumped everyone else's child, that life was more important than any other.  

 

The writers tried to put Snowing on par with Maleficent which might have worked if say Maleficent had retreated back to her castle where Regina had found and they had gone all the way there to steal the egg.  It doesn't make what they did better.

 

I guess what really bugs me with all of this is not that they took Maleficent's child, it's that yeah, dragons are bad, they lay waste to the land, David slayed a dragon when he was pretending to be James, I think what bothers me that they chose to inflict darkness on something that's innocent, something that knows nothing about the ways of the world.  

 

It's like the prime example on the show that we got was identical twins, separated at birth, James and David.  They grew up in different circumstances, with different parents.  They look exactly alike, but you couldn't have two more different people.  George was a shit father who indulged James' every whim, so much so that the guy thought he could do whatever he wanted because he was a prince.  He had no sense of responsibility which was something George for all his faults recognized as being his doing because he spoiled him rotten.  David on the other hand is the complete opposite.  David and James came from the same parents, the same egg, so the whole well Maleficent's child could be dark because Maleficent is the other isn't necessarily true and vice versa. (I don't know if this makes a lick of sense because it's still early and my brain is sort of on the fritz right now)

 

And I get it, while Snowing would be celebrating Emma's first milestones, like first step, first word, I'm guessing Mal would have been celebrating the first time her baby shapeshifted into a dragon or the first time it coughs up a flame.  We don't know how Mal would have raised her kid and they gave us zero backstory on her as well which for me makes zero sense.  

 

I would think that since you want to show that Snowing were jerks for doing what they did that they'd give us something on Mal, like how she became what she became, a (wait for it) villain.  How did that even happen?  Everyone gets their sob story told.

[Rumsy4]

 

David and James came from the same parents, the same egg, so the whole well Maleficent's child could be dark because Maleficent is the other isn't necessarily true and vice versa.

 

However, when David wondered if he would have turned out like James if he had been brought up by George instead of his twin, Snow immediately shot down the idea, saying that David would have never become like that. In a sense, this Darkness Transference Curse was like separating the evil twin (James) from the good twin (David). So, at least it's par on course for Snow to assume that some people have an inherent capacity for good and evil regardless of nurture. That could also be why she wasn't able to believe that if they brought up their child properly, it wouldn't turn to Darkness. She needed to make sure that her child would by nature have a greater leaning towards good, even if the cost was another child. She could assuage her conscience because she believed that the child of someone like Mal would turn out evil anyway.  Just like the kind innocent Regina who had rescued her from a runaway horse had eventually turned to Darkness like her own mother, Cora. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

With all the "Heroes and Villains" nonsense being thrown around lately, I've been wondering how, exactly, they define that for this show. It seems like they're treating it like the only two states of being -- if you're not a hero, you're a villain; if you're not a villain, that means you're a hero. But to me, it seems like it should be more of a continuum between two poles.

 

On one end, there are villains, the people who are doing bad things for bad (usually very selfish) reasons. On the other end are heroes, people who are willing to sacrifice unselfishly for the sake of the greater good or for other people. But there's a whole range of states in the middle, from just being generally selfish without causing great harm, to being fairly neutral -- not doing harm, but not doing a lot of good, to doing good but not quite in a heroic sense. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Few people are true full-on villains, and even fewer are true, full-on heroes. For instance, I think I'm basically a good person. I haven't murdered anyone. I do volunteer work and give to charity. But I wouldn't consider myself a hero. I haven't really put myself on the line for any cause, mostly because the situation hasn't come up, but then I haven't sought out the kind of life where that's likely to arise -- I didn't become a soldier, firefighter, paramedic or cop.

 

On this show, how many of the "heroes" are really heroes? I would consider Emma to be one because she essentially gave up her way of life to get involved in helping these people and her entire way of life now is one of focusing on what's best for others. Snow and David keep getting called heroes, but how heroic are they, really? For the most part, their sacrifices have been for each other, not the greater good. David might come out ahead, since he did go out of his way to help Abigail and Frederick, at a time when there was nothing really in it for him, and he was willing to give up his own heart for the second curse to be cast to save them from Zelena. I suppose Snow did end up trying to stand up to Regina on behalf of her people rather than just run off and try to live a comfortable life, but she's been turned into such a doormat. Season one Bandit Snow had heroic potential, but since then, what has she really done that wasn't on behalf of her husband or baby? I would consider her sacrificing her own peace of mind and good conscience to kill Cora and save them all to be a heroic sacrifice, but the show seems to consider that an evil deed.

 

On the other hand, they're calling Regina a hero because she stopped killing people. She's not a villain anymore, but she mostly seems to have just moved closer to the "neutral" sector. She's still too focused on herself, her own happiness, and her own desires to count as heroic (contrast to Emma, who feels that her mission in life is to bring happiness to other people). Hook is making headway because I think he's done some heroic things and he's now trying to think of others, but because he started from so far down the scale, he has further to go to really make it to "hero" status. I hesitate to call someone who's been doing bad things a hero just for doing one or two good things.

 

I think that's one of my big issues with all this heroes and villains and happy endings stuff. They're making it sound like just by stopping being evil you're being a hero, and that puts you on equal footing with people who were never evil to begin with and you deserve all the same rewards.

[KingOfHearts]

It's ironic that people seem to Snowing's mistake with Maleficent's daughter to be so evil that they're villains, yet no one batted an eye when Regina plotted to kill Marian or locked Sidney up. Of all the sins committed on this show, it's funny that Snowing's is seen as one of the worst.

[FabulousTater]

It's ironic that people seem to Snowing's mistake with Maleficent's daughter to be so evil that they're villains, yet no one batted an eye when Regina plotted to kill Marian or locked Sidney up. Of all the sins committed on this show, it's funny that Snowing's is seen as one of the worst.

If by "people" you mean other characters in the show and how they don't blink at any of Regina's crimes anymore, I think that's obviously because of the writers' Regina permaboner. The writers have a huge hard-on for Regina and so everything is written around her. Other people here have said it before: The rules of this show's universe bend around Regina. Other characters don't get to have normal reactions to her evil, to her bitchitude, to the very idea that's she's walking around scott free after having put loads of people in the ground (so many she lost count). Even adultery isn't considered bad anymore (in show) because Regina's the one doing it. It's mindboggling unbelievable and yet that's how far the morality on this show has been twisted. I don't think we can even call it morality anymore. Morality on this show is another name for "Inconvenient obstacles in the way of Regina's happiness".

 

One of the problems with this though (besides being gross and offensive) is that while the writers have twisted the basic ideas of morality and justice so far out of shape to be unrecognizable, they at the same time they want to pay lip-service to those concepts and pretend they don't have a warped morality. So, they come up with these contrived plots where other people who have done far less heinous things are taken to task and browbeaten for when they do something bad. That's how these writers pay lip service to morality and justice.

 

---

 

As far as the audience calling Snowing "villains", well, I don't think people are calling them villains. I'm not anyway. I've seen viewers really angry at them, but I haven't seen them labeled as villains. Though, when it comes to this show I generally just stick to these forums, so maybe there's a subreddit somewhere that are burning Snowing in effigy.

 

The thing for me is that even though Snowing aren't villains for what they did, I'm also not pretending what they did wasn't horrifying (and stupid. Ya, it was really vile, but it was so seriously stupid that's what makes it almost unforgivable to me ;-) ) and it's made all the worse by the retcon nature of the plot.

Plus, their subsequent reaction of "it was worth it" is really disturbing.

 

I don't think Snowing are anywhere near Regina levels of evil, and really, I don't think any other character except Rumpel (and maybe Maleficent?) can make that claim. But people who have been watching the show this long don't even blink at the horrible things Regina does because she has done so many horrifying, atrocious things, committed more evils than we can count, evils that have put her in another galaxy light years past the moral event horizon that it's like "Well, it's Regina, The Evil Queen. What did you expect?" Of course Regina tried to murder someone and was enslaving someone else and nobody blinks. I mean, you expect a rabid dog to turn on you, don't you. And Regina is rabid dog.

 

I think everybody still watching this show have also come to terms with the fact that the writers are never going to have Regina pay for anything, so there's no point in dwelling in Regina's newest crime #92734628734 because the writers are gonna ignore it and so are the other characters because, as usual, they aren't allowed to have normal reactions when it comes to Woegina Sue. Regina's gonna continue getting away scott free because she's the writer's Mary Sue pet. Hell, the "heroes" mission in 4B is to get Regina the happy ending that she "deserves". Snow and Charming stopped themselves from burning the author page because "Oh noes, Regina won't get her happy ending if we burn the page! *sad face* " </insert eye roll>. If that's not writing on the wall that Woegina's gonna get a happy ending even though she's the Enchanted Forest version of Hitler, then I don't know what is.

 

At the same time, just because nobody blinks at Regina's evil that always goes unpunished that doesn't make it wrong to call Snowing out on something they've done that's really, really, really wrong and kinda evil. Ya, it's unfair to Snowing's characters but the writers have never been about fair. They've always been about writing a universe that bends itself into a pretzel  (along with the other characters that exist in that universe) to get Woegina Sue all her undeserved rewards.

 

(ETA:  I think people can do horrible things and not be villains, but that's not a distinction that the show has ever made and if they have they are doing it wrong. In the show it seems to be all black and white. You're either Team Villain or Team Hero. There's never an inbetween of Team "Everyone Else Who Screws Up Every Once In A While But We're Not Villains And Really Just Want To Be Left Alone to LIve A Quiet Life Without Anyone Trying To Kill Me".

 

Take for example Emma's  potential for great good or darkness. Snowing didn't seem to consider that sure she has great potential for good or darkness, but HELLO, MORONS! maybe in the end Emma's just GRAY like 99% of the rest of the population. Just because she has the potential doesn't mean she'll fill it either way. They only considered the two extremes. JFC, it's always all or nothing with these idiots. I feel like there were a few times in the recent eps where Emma was trying to make that point by telling them nobody can make her what she doesn't want to be, but the writers haven't given Emma or anyone time enough for a solid rebuttal or time to drop some serious truth bombs on all the stupid flying around because the high speed trainwreck author plot shoves everything else out of the way. Pffft, this show needs a "Voice Of Reason" Fairy, STAT. )

Edited April 19, 2015 by FabulousTater

[KingOfHearts]

I was referring to people in the social medias. I've seen a lot of disdain for Snowing over this and some have called them "villains". These are the same people who likely worship the ground Regina walks on.

[FabulousTater]

I was referring to people in the social medias. I've seen a lot of disdain for Snowing over this and some have called them "villains". These are the same people who likely worship the ground Regina walks on.

Oh, gotcha. That's not surprising. Someone else posted in another thread that some fans think that since Zelena = Marian that  removed the moral issue from Outlaw Queen. Like, "No, it didn't, but it's adorable that you think that."

 

There's always gonna be people like that...

[tennisgurl]

So in tonight's episode, we learned that, if someone has a gun pointed at your child, and you have to shove the clearly evil person holding the gun to their death to save your loved one, its clearly the start of your descent into evil!

 

I`m sure all those soldiers that the Charmings and their friends killed talking the castle from Regina, or who tried to attack them at various points, are all just fine and dandy! Heroes don't kill after all, even if its for reasons that are completely justifiable!

[Mari]

But, hey, if you go on killing sprees because you're angry at a ten-year-old's actions, and then thirty years later stop?

 

You're in excellent shape.  Go find your boyfriend and your mansion, 'cause you're totally not evil and everyone knows it.

[Mathius]

And in case anyone was hoping A&E were somehow NOT going to be spreading an effed-up moral message: http://tvline.com/2015/04/19/once-upon-a-time-season-4-emma-kills-cruella/

So, let me get this straight: Regina ripping out an innocent's heart and threatening to crush it, killing her, if her demands are not met? Totally acceptable! Killing someone in defense of a loved one? CROSSING THE LINE! TS, TW indeed!

Edited April 20, 2015 by Mathius

[Crimson Belle]

This convinces me that there is something very depraved about Adam Horowitz. What a slap in the face to the soldiers and police who sometimes have to kill.

[Guest]

OK, new mindset in watching this show.  Snow's kingdom within the Enchanted Forest has a very rigid and baffling view of morality compared to our world and other kingdoms in the EF.  However, she is so convinced that their way is the only way that everyone around her has started to try to appease her using her own belief system.  That has resulted in a slow indoctrination to her way of thinking by her immediate family.  If you try and fail to reason with crazy long enough you start to think maybe its you.

 

Wait no,  that doesn't explain Bandit Snow.  I think that this is all an aftereffect of Regina's curse.  There is a stench of if you aren't perfect then you are a villain to all of this.

[tennisgurl]

I love how many people in the comments in that TV.line interview are calling Adam Horowitz out on his double standards (kill a village with no regrets? Totally cool! Kill a sociopath with a gun to your sons head? Evil!), and his bizarre morality. 

 

This is why, no matter how much I would love a job where I could just talk about TV all the time, I could never interview writers/creators about their shows. Too much bullshit to call out. 

[scarynikki12]

I think Emma crossed a line by stopping Cruella from killing Henry and finally getting him off my screen, but that's clearly not what the show was going for.

[Mari]

Yeah, I think those are different lines, scarynikki12.

 

I can't say that yours in this case is any more . . .moral  . . . than theirs is, but at least it might have been more entertaining and less infuriating.  :)

[Mathius]

Cruella couldn't kill Henry, remember? That was sadly never an option. :(

[Guest]

Given that Rumpel's heart is almost all black after centuries of dark deeds, I'm beginning to wonder if Belle's characterization can be explained somewhat by the number of times Rumpel has manipulated her memories and put her to sleep over the years.

[Zuleikha]

But, hey, if you go on killing sprees because you're angry at a ten-year-old's actions, and then thirty years later stop?

Or you know, because you watched the mother who had been emotionally and physically abusing you your entire life rip out your true love's heart right in front of you and then force you into an unhappy marriage with a king, have a brief moment of thinking you escaped when a surrogate father figure seemingly gave you the power to rid yourself of your mother, to then be manipulated by said surrogate father figure who pretended to truly care about you while in reality deliberately teaching you only dark magic and encouraging you to dwell in all of your pain and anger for his own purposes. Tomato, tomahtoe and all of that.

 

But we do, at least, agree that Emma killing Cruella to defend Henry wouldn't drive her dark or be a sign of darkness.

[buildmeupbuttercup]

So Camera One linked to this article in the media thread which, while not quite as atrocious as the TV Line article, gives off the same whacked morality flair: 

http://www.thewrap.com/once-upon-a-time-death-surprises-but-killer-identity-truly-shocks/

Some gems A&E must love:

“Once Upon a Time” bids farewell to another beloved classic character, but it’s at the hands of a most surprising murderer

Watching Savior turn killer left viewers as dumbfounded as Morrison looked in that bizarre closing scene.

Ahhh Season 2's morality and throwing around of the word "murderer" how you've (not) been missed!

 

And in case anyone was hoping A&E were somehow NOT going to be spreading an effed-up moral message: http://tvline.com/2015/04/19/once-upon-a-time-season-4-emma-kills-cruella/

So, let me get this straight: Regina ripping out an innocent's heart and threatening to crush it, killing her, if her demands are not met? Totally acceptable! Killing someone in defense of a loved one? CROSSING THE LINE! TS, TW indeed!

This x 1000. The fact that in the comments section of the article where they want you to believe "Emma has crossed the line" there is a lengthy debate over whether or not Belle gave her heart to Regina willingly (which still seems morally "eww" in my book) or Regina stole/took it just goes to show how much they've skewed their morality message in this episode. I get that they whacked viewers over the head with "it's ok when Regina does it because she's never been portrayed as a paragon of virtue" in this episode but geez.  

 

I'm not trying to ever justify killing but with at least four human (and at least two dog) murders, leaving Mal's egg baby to die in the woods after sucking the "preserving youthfulness" properties out of it, and threatening her kid with a gun on a cliff, Emma's actions could hardly be compared to slaughtering an innocent village. Why...it's almost like you could equate Cruella with Cora on the depravity scale...and we all know how that aftermath turned out.

[Mathius]

Also, gotta love how everyone in-show and out is just gonna conveniently forget about Walsh.

[The Cake is a Pie]

So, show, let me get this straight: Emma tosses Cruella off a cliff in Henry's defense and she's now a MURDERER! Because "heroes don't kill."

By the way, have we added up the Charmings' body count?

- countless numbers of Regina's guards

- countless numbers of King George's guards

- Medusa

- at least four trolls

- ogre

- Cora

- random dragon for King Midas

- siren of Lake Nostros

Did I forget anyone? Even if you only count the humans, that's an impressive list for two people who call themselves heroes who supposedly don't kill. And yet now Emma has crossed a line. Riiiiiiiight.

[Shanna Marie]

While I can understand Emma being angry at her parents for lying to her and for assuming the worst about her fetal self, in spite of their usual mode of believing in the best, we do have yet another screwy bit of morality going on.

 

Apparently, it's better to be openly evil and admit it than to try to be good, consider yourself good, and have the occasional screwup.

 

Yeah, you get into hypocrisy if you pretend to be good while you're actually being evil or if you hold others to a standard that you don't live up to. But Snow has actually been pretty forgiving of others. She doesn't seem to be holding anyone else to a standard that she fails to live up to. She refused to execute Regina and has forgiven Regina, so it's not like she's been super high and mighty about how perfect and wonderful she is while condemning others for the slightest flaw. Meanwhile, while Regina tosses around the word "villain," does she really openly own her villainy? She hasn't yet repented of anything she's done, hasn't apologized for her actions with Snow and has given no indication that she accepts that she was ever in the wrong. When the thing she did to others happen to her, she acts like it's the worst thing ever.

 

So how is Regina really better than Snow, other than this particular event being more personally painful to Emma?

[Curio]

To be clear: “Emma crossed a line.”

 

How pathetic that the website has to preface that line with: "To be clear." It's like their way of saying: "Okay, just to make this very clear for our reading audience -- because we were certainly surprised by this comment, too -- Emma crossed a line apparently. I don't know. Just go with it. I only quote what the man says."

 

Apparently, it's better to be openly evil and admit it than to try to be good, consider yourself good, and have the occasional screwup.

 

Yeah, that was one of my biggest takeaways from the episode. It's like if a teacher punishes the good student severely with multiple detentions because they happened to cheat one time on a test, but the troublemaker student who has years of bad behavior issues just gets an eyeroll from the teacher for doing the same thing because they expect that kind of behavior from them. What the hell?

 

Instead of Emma latching onto the whole "You guys said you were heroes but you clearly aren't!" mantra, I wish she was more upset because of actual family issues and because it's her parents. Hook and Regina can try and reason with Emma all they want, but they aren't her family. (Well, not yet anyways. Unless you count Regina being Emma's step-grandma as family.) I know I hold my family members up to a higher standard than everyone else. But Emma seems more concerned about the whole hero vs. villain title right now. Maybe the writers think they're pulling off a family-driven drama here, but I'm not seeing it.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Curio

[Dani-Ellie]

See, I don't think everything each character says is supposed to be some meta statement on morality and ethics. I don't think Emma was trying to say anything about the nature of good and evil when she explained why she was more willing to forgive Regina and Hook their grievances. I think she was just trying to explain the difference in the offenses. She was pissed. She felt betrayed. And she is right when she said that Regina and Hook never pretended. When she met both of them, they were enemies to her. They never pushed her to trust them completely while hiding something so big that it affected the very nature of her being.

 

I don't think she was saying Snow and Charming are evil or that Regina and Hook are better than they are. I think she was just saying in terms of the betrayal, Snow's and Charming's is hitting her worse.

[Shanna Marie]

And she is right when she said that Regina and Hook never pretended.

Well, Regina did pretend that they were parting on no hard feelings and even baked an apple turnover for her as a farewell gift -- that turned out to be poisoned. True, not as big a betrayal, but they're pushing this to such extremes now that it feels more like the writers are forcing it than like it really came from Emma.

 

And it does seem like the show itself and the overall morality promoted by the writers in the way they're talking about it is going with this idea that it's a terrible, horrible thing if a good person screws up, but that's not unique to this show. It's Hollywood morality in general, where the absolute worst thing you can do is try to be good or consider yourself good unless you can be absolutely perfect (and then you're unsympathetic because who can relate, and then you're also judgey).

[kili]

And she is right when she said that Regina and Hook never pretended. When she met both of them, they were enemies to her. They never pushed her to trust them completely while hiding something so big that it affected the very nature of her being.

 

Regina pretended to be nothing but a diligent Mayor and well-meaning mother while actually being the Evil Queen. She pushed Emma to leave Henry with her (all while framing Emma's mother and killing her boyfriend). That's pretty big lot of pretending. As for affecting the very nature of her being, Regina knew the entire time that she was the reason Emma was abandoned on the side of the road.

 

Meanwhile, Hook tried to pretend to be an innocent villager, but he was so useless at that, she figured it out in 5 seconds so I can see why she doesn't count that.

[Dani-Ellie]

Right, but my point was that she and Regina were enemies from the jump. Regina never said, "You can trust me, it's okay to let me in" while hiding something as big as "we had your darkness removed in utero and gave it to someone else."

 

With all the pushing that Snow and (to a lesser extent) Charming have done to get her to trust them, this reveal is a huge slap in the face to her. She finally trusted them and it turned out they were lying to her, too, from the day they remembered her, just like everyone else in her life. And not only that but just like everyone else in her life, she herself wasn't enough for them. She was apparently so untrustworthy that they felt they had to remove her darkness from her in utero.

 

So yeah, I can see where Emma's thinking is that her parents' betrayal is worse because of the nature of the lie and the nature of the secret, especially coming off a lifetime of being used and betrayed.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Dani-Ellie

[Curio]

[Emma] and Regina were enemies from the jump. Regina never said, "You can trust me, it's okay to let me in" while hiding something as big as "we had your darkness removed in utero and gave it to someone else."

 

The ironic thing is: in the very same episode Emma lumps Regina into her small group of people she actually "trusts," Regina goes off and takes Belle's heart and forces her to say some nasty things to Rumple that I'm not entirely sure normal Belle would approve of. You'd think Emma would be against using someone's heart as a tool after everything Hook went through recently with his heart being taken. Then again, the show never actually addressed Hook's heartless issue, so maybe Emma wouldn't give two shits about Belle's heart.

 

You know what would be kind of a great "twist" and tie together all of the random Graham mentions this season? Emma now finding out about the true nature of Graham's death, which would just be one more thing that sends her closer to Rumple's Dark Savior plan. First, she was upset about her parents keeping this egg baby secret from her. Then, the "friend" she thought she could trust was also keeping a secret from her for several years. All that would leave is one tiny mess-up from Hook or Henry, and Emma would be much further down the path of darkness. But the writers won't ever go there.

[Crimson Belle]

Until Regina admits what she did to Graham, then yeah, in the present she is pretending with Emma, far worse than Snow and Charming did in my opinion.

[KingOfHearts]

 

So yeah, I can see where Emma's thinking is that her parents' betrayal is worse because of the nature of the lie and the nature of the secret, especially coming off a lifetime of being used and betrayed.

Snow and Charming have been a moral rock for Emma since S1/S2. When things were less than ideal, she could always depend on them to give her hope and direct her in the right way of handling difficult situations. Emma went from orphan girl to a wanted daughter, but after so many events beginning with the Echo Speech, this was the killing blow. The very people who she depended on for support lied and manipulated her.

Edited April 20, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[scarynikki12]

Apparently, it's better to be openly evil and admit it than to try to be good, consider yourself good, and have the occasional screwup.

 

Television has been pushing this idea for so long it barely registers with me anymore.  I think every show I've watched has embraced it unironically at some point.  I will say that Once is the rare show that flat out states it while the others prefer to imply on screen and then have the producers talk about it at press events. 

 

One thing that happened last night that I did catch was that Emma had her "evil" look on her face when she told off Regina for spending a lifetime seeking revenge against a ten year old.  It reminded me of how Snow has only defended herself against Regina when they were under the Shattered Sight Spell.  It seems that neither woman will ever seriously mention this or any of Regina's crimes when in a normal state of mind.  What that tells me is that the two mentions were supposed to be symptoms of whatever is affecting them (the spell, going dark) and, therefore, not accurate. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if the show is trolling all of us and will truly address our concerns only when we reach the final season (and no longer have to worry about ratings or renewal) but I know I'm not that lucky.

[Dani-Ellie]

Until Regina admits what she did to Graham, then yeah, in the present she is pretending with Emma, far worse than Snow and Charming did in my opinion.

 

But Emma (presumably) doesn't know that. On a global moral scale, yes, of course Regina's crimes are worse but Emma can't be angry about something that she doesn't even know happened. Emma's anger is coming from the reveal of a secret that happened (at most) 24-48 hours earlier that potentially changed who she is as a person. And the people who she learned to trust most in the world, the people she apparently deluded herself into thinking could never lie to her, are the people who perpetrated this heinous act and then kept it from her since remembering who she was waaaaay back in "Broken."

 

At the end of the day, her parents didn't believe in her. They didn't trust her. They didn't have the faith in her that she could overcome the potential darkness of life and took steps to ensure that she was a "hero." They speak of her goodness and heroic spirit with pride ("you don't have to be embarrassed to say it") but I can see where Emma would be thinking, especially after Ingrid digging into her, that all they care about is that she is a hero. Would they still love her if she was just Emma? This thing that they did is playing into her deepest insecurities because even in the womb, she wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for them that she was going to be born a healthy baby ... they wanted her to be a hero, too.

 

And then they take credit for her accomplishments and tell her that her goodness is because of them and so what they did was worth it! No, Snow, it wasn't. What would have been worth it is ensuring your daughter knows right from wrong and light from darkness. (I do get that this all becomes moot anyway because they didn't get the chance to raise her, but that's also part of my point here. Emma's accomplishments are her own and her parents are diminishing them by saying that she only accomplished those things because they made her that way.)

 

Basically, I think there are two issues here, one meta level and one text level. I don't think Emma's anger at her parents is supposed to be some sort of damning morality speech. She's pissed and she feels betrayed to her core and she's just explaining what the difference is to her, period.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Dani-Ellie

[CatMack]

I have no problem with Emma being furious with her parents, and I think the message that you have to instantly forgive people who've wronged you or you're a terrible person is horrible and in the real world would be incredibly emotionally abusive.  My main issue is that I think they have Emma being angry about the wrong thing, because it's easier to tell her to get over it that way.  

 

Emma on the show seems to be mostly mad that her parents lied to her about being perfect heroes.  What she should be most angry about, what I'm most angry about, is that they chose to screw with free will for two innocent children, taking away their autonomy and their right to self determination.  That is horrific.  Like, that's such a fundamental violation of basic human rights to me.  Yeah, fine, Lily didn't really die so they didn't actually kill anyone.  Don't care.  There are people who've done "worse" things on the show.  That doesn't mean using magic to mold and manipulate someone without their consent isn't evil.  Since we don't have magic in our world it's hard to come up with a perfect analogy, but IMO it's pretty close to parents who have their kids kidnapped by those wilderness survival camps to correct behavior.  It's the "you have to be our perfect child, we can't accept you as you are, we will mold you into what is acceptable to us" mentality.  Only Emma wasn't even allowed to be born and start making (or not making) decisions they didn't like.  They just decided on the flimsiest of "evidence" that Emma wasn't going to be good enough as is and they had to start fucking with the very core of her being in utero.  

 

And the writers don't seem to have any idea how heinous that is.  I certainly wouldn't forgive them any time soon, especially not with them spouting off about how it was worth it to violate my basic human rights for their own peace of mind.  And I resent the implication, from Regina and Hook, that Emma is somehow at fault for not just shrugging it off as no big deal.  It's a huge deal.  I don't know if I as a viewer can ever get past Snowing's actions.  And before anyone points out there are worse villains - yeah, and I don't necessarily forgive them either no matter what the show wants me to believe.  And the ones I am willing to forgive, it usually has to do with their motivations and their decent into villainy being less mind blowing stupid than Snowing's reasons for doing this.  

[Shanna Marie]

I think it would have helped immensely if we'd actually seen the scene in which David and Snow told Emma. Then we'd know how they framed it, how they built up to it, how they described it. Were they in denial mode and skimming over the worse details, or were they guilt-stricken, so they focused on the worst details? And it would have helped to see her specific reactions to each aspect of the story rather than the blanket reaction in the aftermath. Is she most angry about what they did, why they did it, them not telling her until now, or them lying about it when it came up?

 

While having someone you trust betray you does hurt more than an enemy betraying you, the flip side of that is that the people close to you should have at least some level of built-in benefit of the doubt. There's a lot more good to balance out the bad. So while Regina may not have betrayed her trust, since Emma didn't really trust her to begin with, her parents also haven't tried to kill her. I think maybe that's my main issue in how this is playing out. I don't mind so much Emma not wanting to deal with her parents right now and lashing out at them, but pointedly talking about trusting Regina instead, given the things Regina has done -- even recently she turned out to have been keeping Sydney prisoner, and just a day or so ago she kidnapped Pinocchio and ditched Emma's efforts to track him -- is where it gets into the "see, Regina's better than they are" show message. I could get her putting Hook into the "people I trust" category because he's jumped through multiple portals for her and gave up everything he owned to reach her. He's balanced out whatever bad he's done to her, and I think right now it would be a big blow if he did betray her because he's moved into that trusted zone. But what has Regina done to earn that level of trust? That's the part that feels artificial, and that comes back to that overall moral message that the worst thing someone can do is try to be a good person and slip up, while anything a villain does is okay.

[YaddaYadda]

But what has Regina done to earn that level of trust?

 

Please don't all jump at me at once because I've been thinking about this, but Regina is also Henry's mother.  Even if she doesn't trust her, what is she going to do?  Tell her to stay away when a psycho is holding their son at gun point?  

 

I know we all have a problem with Regina and how her character has been handled and how Emma didn't bat an eye lash when she saw her in Storybrooke after the time travel adventure after Regina smoked her mother, but Emma is really the first one to give Regina a chance back in season 2, pre-Cora arriving and her reason was basically that she would not have been able to turn her life around had someone not given her the chance to do so.  And Regina did earn some points in Neverland and during that awful 3B, but they chose to regress her in 4A in that awful, awful episode 405, which I still don't understand, and still don't get why it had to happen the way it did, especially since Regina told Robin he should go back to his wife.

 

The issue with Regina is the way they always choose to regress her character imo.  I can understand wanting to go back to that place because it's much easier, but don't lash out at people who are kind to you and try to give you a chance to be a better version of yourself.

[YaddaYadda]

BTS

 

So they posted more stills for episode 418 (Sympathy for De Vil) and I thought I'd post the link here because of the discussion of morality and what have you.  One of the still is Emma looking at her hand horrified after she blasted Cruella off the cliff.  So I'm assuming that Pongo's reaction shot was more important than Emma's reaction at what just happened.

[Camera One]

That shot probably didn't fit with the profile of Emma as America's Most Wanted.

[The Cake is a Pie]

If I were Emma and I had just blasted the bitch who threatened my son off a cliff, I wouldn't be holding my hand up to look at it in horror, I'd be holding it up to flip the bird at her broken body. I guess that means I have quite a dark spot on my heart.

[nksarmi]

See, I don't think everything each character says is supposed to be some meta statement on morality and ethics. I don't think Emma was trying to say anything about the nature of good and evil when she explained why she was more willing to forgive Regina and Hook their grievances. I think she was just trying to explain the difference in the offenses. She was pissed. She felt betrayed. And she is right when she said that Regina and Hook never pretended. When she met both of them, they were enemies to her. They never pushed her to trust them completely while hiding something so big that it affected the very nature of her being.

 

I don't think she was saying Snow and Charming are evil or that Regina and Hook are better than they are. I think she was just saying in terms of the betrayal, Snow's and Charming's is hitting her worse.

But Snow and Charming weren't hiding anything from Emma or it would have come out in the Cave of Secrets in Neverland!  These aren't even her parents - that's what should be freaking her out!  Who the heck are these pod people and what did you do with the real Snow and David?

 

Just when I think I might come back to this show, I come here and decide, nah......

[orza]

This convinces me that there is something very depraved about Adam Horowitz. What a slap in the face to the soldiers and police who sometimes have to kill.

No, it is not a slap in the face to anyone. Those people all have some perspective and know what they see on the show has nothing to do with them and what they sometimes have to do on the job because is just a tv show about the make-believe shenanigans of make-believe fairy tale characters and does not represent the real-life personal morals and values of anyone connected with the show,

 

That said, killing a person is always a big deal regardless of the reason. Many people wonder whether they have it in them to kill another person but most people never not find out for sure. So, yeah, once you have killed someone you have crossed a line. You now know that you are capable of doing what you may have hitherto considered unthinkable and you have to learn to reconcile that with your personal morals and values.

[Curio]

Just had an interesting thought. After the last episode, Emma and Hook now have the exact same on-screen kill count. Unless I'm forgetting something, the only on-screen deaths we've been shown include Emma killing Cruella and Hook killing Regina's random castle guard.

 

(Blackbeard doesn't count because he miraculously survived and I also don't count Walsh because I'd like to think all of those monkeys in Storybrooke didn't die either.)

[Shanna Marie]

So, based on things said/shown in the show itself and on writers' comments in interviews and on Twitter, it seems as though:

 

Emma doesn't know Regina killed Graham and would be upset if she knew, but since she doesn't know, it doesn't really matter. She and Regina have a wonderful friendship that's good for both of them, and Regina is one of the people Emma absolutely trusts, which is great because Emma doesn't trust easily. Unlike Emma's awful parents, Regina has never betrayed her.  (And if you're a SwanQueener, that would be a "friendship," wink wink, nudge, nudge.)

 

Regina and Robin didn't really commit adultery because Marian was dead that whole time and the Marian they saw around at the time wasn't really Marian. It doesn't matter that neither of them knew it wasn't really Marian and they both believed Marian was alive and around. They probably sensed that something was wrong with her, so on some level they knew she wasn't really Marian, and that makes it okay.

 

Emma killed Cruella to save her son, whom Cruella was holding hostage with a gun to his head while she demanded that Emma murder someone else or else Henry would be killed. But it was a cold-blooded killing because Cruella was magically incapable of killing anyone, even though Emma didn't know she couldn't kill and could only go by the gun and the threats and the fact that Cruella wanted her to believe that she would kill Henry. Killing a person who was incapable of killing -- even if she had no way of knowing this -- was a dark act that could start Emma down the path to real darkness.

[Actionmage]

According to The Show:

 

*Telling the Truth is so important  that telling a still-smarting teen (with allegedly more Evil than the usual), the full, unvarnished Truth of her birth and circumstances is cool, but not even 'Hi/Bye' for her Good flipside is also cool. (Lily is now more armed as a teen to blow apart Storybrooke than poor Owen and wood-murderer Tamera.)

 

*That someone who has lied to you from the moment you met is deserving not only of a second chance, but as many chances as they feel they deserve. Even when they are totally lying about wanting to renounce their past actions and are willing to ruin you in the now.

 

*As I and others  have stated here before, if you are considered Good, you aren't allowed to get angry unless you start calling yourself Evil. 

 

*Women aren't allowed/capable of guarding/protecting their own hearts. They have to have an officially selected male for the post, by another male--husband or father, or quite possibly your own son.

 

*People who have proven themselves to be liars in the past, and also endangered infants, are to be taken at their word when they reveal big, shocking news. (Granted, it was the alleged twist to end on, but  that everyone in that room did not roll their eyes like the rest of us?) 

 

Or am I somehow misreading what the Show is trying to sell? 

 

PS: Am I the only one who chuckled at the irony of the beloved Yellow Bug being stolen?  I was all "Bitch!", but then I remembered it's history and chuckled.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Actionmage

[Camera One]

Thanks for summarizing the lessons of the week, Actionmage.  I'm sure we're all doing our weekly homework sticking needles into Snow and Charming voodoo dolls.

[MaiLuna]

Gotta love Regina's line tonight. "She went back in time and...*dramatic pause by a morally disgusted Regina" SHE killed Marian" (see? it wasn't me, it was Zelena that killed Marian; nevermind that I did it in the original timeline and that if Emma hadn't freed her, I would've done it since she was already on death row ordered by me"). I will never understand why Robin never gave a fig about that fact.

[Mari]

Gotta love Regina's line tonight. "She went back in time and...*dramatic pause by a morally disgusted Regina" SHE killed Marian" (see? it wasn't me, it was Zelena that killed Marian;

Yes, that was particularly clunky and glaring.

So, A&E., want to explain to me again how the Zelarian thing really, truly, absolutely wasn't a response to people pointing out all the moral squick in the Robin/Regina pairing? Because I might've missed something.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Mari

[nksarmi]

Yes, that was particularly clunky and glaring.

So, A&E., want to explain to me again how the Zelarian thing really, truly, absolutely wasn't a response to people pointing out all the moral squick in the Robin/Regina pairing? Because I might've missed something.

But they only way they could have REALLY fixed it would have been to say that the moment Regina caught Marion it was ALWAYS Zelena - in fact, that Zelena let herself be caught by Regina to frame her for Marion's death because originally Marion died in some manner completely unrelated to Regina. 

 

Oh heck, who cares if they fix the Regina side at all - Robin's the icky guy having crypt sex with Regina while his NOTwife is a popsicle and then apparently hoping right back into bed with NOTwife once Regina is out of the picture.  And now I guess he wants to stay with Zelena because she is pregnant?  Is that right?

 

What the hell did these people do to my beloved Robin Hood?

[YaddaYadda]

And now I guess he wants to stay with Zelena because she is pregnant?  Is that right?

 

Well you know, his "code" and all.

Edited April 27, 2015 by YaddaYadda

[Curio]

Well you know, his "code" and all.

 

I'm beginning to think that whenever Robin says "code," he actually means his penis.

[Shanna Marie]

So, according to the writers, we're being silly to think that Zelena sleeping with Robin while pretending to be Marian isn't anything like rape, and besides, it involved magic, so it's not like it's real.

 

The problem is, magic makes it possible to do something that's far worse than could be done in the real world, and the fact that it's magic doesn't mitigate what happened to Robin.

 

One real-world analogy I could think of would be drugging him so he's incapable of telling the difference and then pretending to be Marian for long enough to get pregnant, but while that would have a similar result -- the woman he slept with because he thought she was his wife is pregnant -- the impact is less because it would have to be a one-time event and it wouldn't mean he's been living with his wife's murderer pretending to be his wife all this time. The drugging and deception would make it rape because he would not have slept with her if he'd been in his right mind and known the truth.

 

Another way something remotely similar could happen in the real world might be a honey trap situation -- an enemy he doesn't know is an enemy pretends to be an ally and gets into a trusting relationship with him in order to deceive him, but it's still not quite as serious as him thinking that she's his long-lost wife. Whether or not it would be considered rape gets into a gray area because while she's with him under false pretenses and he might not have been willing to sleep with her if he'd known who she was, he was willing to sleep with the facade she presented without knowing her well enough to know it was fake. That's not quite the same thing as her actually replacing someone he was already in a trusting relationship with.

 

I kind of feel like using magic makes things worse, morally, not better. The magic, especially used against people without powers of their own, creates a power imbalance and an unfair advantage. Graham literally couldn't fight back against or escape Regina because she controlled his will. That's worse than anything that could happen in the real world, where a man his size might have had a chance of fighting off a woman Regina's size or he could have just walked away from her if he wasn't interested. Robin wasn't making a poor choice in who he met and decided to trust without learning enough about her to realize she was a fraud. He was with someone he believed to be his wife. There was no real defense against that, no research he should have been expected to do.