Morality in Storybrooke / Social Issues: Threads Combined!

HoodlumSheep · November 10, 2015

I still remember the press release saying Regina suffers a huge loss. i thought it was Robin choosing Marian but nope, it was a black man getting away from his slave master. JFC.

I hated that. Sidney was finally free from Regina! I wanted to reach through my television screen and give him a high five. His "betrayal" was one of the best moments of that episode because Regina deserved it. And of course it got treated like, "how dare he?"

KingOfHearts · November 12, 2015

Selena's so smug because she knows they won't hurt her with Robin's baby. lol

I don't like how this show seems to always use morals against the heroes instead of for their benefit. Of course they can't hurt Robin's baby, but as it's written they get punished for not ridding the world of Zelena. Emma gets punished for sacrificing herself to save the town. Snow gets punished for killing the woman who was going to kill her family. Emma kills Cruella to defend her son, and somehow its the catalyst for darkness. Snow tells Cora about Daniel because she doesn't want Regina to be motherless like she was, and that somehow warrants a lifetime of vengeance. Robin finally chooses to stay with his wife and... nope! It's Zelena. Follow your libido, not your morals, kids!

No wonder villains are so reluctant to switch to the good side. They can just pretend to repent and still get all the shinies.

Edited November 12, 2015 by KingOfHearts

Faemonic · November 14, 2015

A bit on social issues, Rumbelle expert Screwballninja on Tumblr provided a lot of statistics and links about essays on people of color in Once Upon A Time here.

While browsing the Disney_POCs Dreamwidth tags, I found an interesting parallel between religion and ethnicity, from here. If the existence of polytheism in the first season didn't make much of a difference, then what was the point of making any difference? There's some lip service to the philosophies of True Love and the enaction of True Love's Kiss, and Destiny, and Fate, and maybe the goddess Ursula in some mythos never named. Greek mythology

is coming up next, I've heard

but nobody really seems to be a Hellenistic Polytheist--which would be different from a Kemetic polytheist or even Roman polytheist. And where's Aslan? Why are all the fairies Catholic nuns in Storybrooke? Meanwhile, Snow White's got some hippie stuff there about how the Universe takes care of you.

The original essay stated that the writer didn't want Pocahontas on the show because the writers wouldn't handle the portrayal of religion very well. They probably wouldn't handle it at all, and that erases a relevant part of a First Nation woman's identity. Quote:

In a way, I guess, you could draw a parallel between gods and Regina being Latina. They can say it all they want, but until they start actually writing about how that detail impacts a person’s conceptions of the world and how said person is treated in that world, they’re perpetuating damage

I mulled over before about how, if any show has claims to race-blind casting, it would be this one. Rapunzel's not blonde, ain't no thing (Heck, Rapunzel had really inexplicably long hair in that episode and that wasn't an important thing.) Lancelot, Merlin, Poseidon and Marion are black because just why not.

So the treatment of Mulan kind of comes off very strange to me because the character's ethnicity is much more than a why not. Casting an American of Korean descent, I can believe that was because she was the best at the auditions or has a good agent or something, but the casting call clearly called for a particular, ahem, look. But the look is just one thing. The treatment is another. Everybody's shocked and surprised when Mulan removes her helmet because she's a girl but all the white women do kickass things that all the white dudes just shrug at like of course they would (except for Charming for like 0.2 seconds with Snow.)

It's like the show is trying to show that Enchanted Forest people just don't have the social constructs to recognize race, but at the same time they've only made that much of a fuss with the gender of Mulan.

And by complete coincidence, I haven't seen any other person in the Enchanted Forest who could pass for Asian in the Land Without Magic. (Except one of Snow's dwarven posse, maybe, but I blinked and missed it.) Not even Mulan's comrades-in-arms from the movie. Seriously, if they expect us to know why Mulan's got such a chip on her shoulder about gender because of what happened in the movie, then I want to know why she wanders the world alone as if she had an explosive falling-out with her army bros and got exiled by the Emperor. That's part of the treatment, too. I could go on and on and on about the missed opportunities in representing Chinese mythology/legend/folklore, and I think I might already have.

But I meant to ask: what, then, would it mean for Regina to "be" Latina? Did Henry Sr. joust with windmills to convince young Regina that good is weakness? Is Inigo Montoya truly Regina's long-lost illegitimate brother? Can Henry Jr. also speak Castillian Spanish semi-fluently? Will Season 7 feature a musical episode after everybody has their memories wiped and magically poofed to New York, and Regina and Robin re-enact the balcony scene of West Side Story?

Edited November 14, 2015 by Faemonic

Serena · November 14, 2015

So the treatment of Mulan kind of comes off very strange to me because the character's ethnicity is much more than a why not. Casting an American of Korean descent, I can believe that was because she was the best at the auditions or has a good agent or something, but the casting call clearly called for a particular, ahem, look. But the look is just one thing. The treatment is another. Everybody's shocked and surprised when Mulan removes her helmet because she's a girl but all the white women do kickass things that all the white dudes just shrug at like of course they would (except for Charming for like 0.2 seconds with Snow.)

Aurora's "You're a girl" to Mulan in 201 was clearly a callback to Charming saying it to Snow in 103, with even the exact same response. It was a parallel, I don't see it as racist.

I think Regina in the Enchanted Forest can't be Latina because it's an ethnicity, and we've seen the EF doesn't have parallel ethnicities to this world. Arthur is from Camelot, but he's not from England. Belle isn't French. Ginny Goodwin is Jewish, but Snow White isn't. Are they erasing the actress' Jewishness?

Lana is half-Latina. They cast Regina's father with a Latino actor to respect that. However, Regina can't be Latina because that culture isn't there, or maybe it's there but it's not called "Latina" in the Enchanted Forest. Like there are part of Greek myths in the EF but when we met Poseidon or Midas, they weren't Greek.

Faemonic · November 14, 2015

Aurora's "You're a girl" to Mulan in 201 was clearly a callback to Charming saying it to Snow in 103, with even the exact same response. It was a parallel, I don't see it as racist.

Was it a parallel? I thought Sleeping Warrior only came about after fans clamoured for it. They weren't shipping Mulan with the jerks who tried to waterboard Belle in a well. The explicitly selective sexism demonstrates an implicit racism in Mulan's case. (Read: Orientalism by Edward Said.)

Lana is half-Latina. They cast Regina's father with a Latino actor to respect that. However, Regina can't be Latina because that culture isn't there, or maybe it's there but it's not called "Latina" in the Enchanted Forest.

If it isn't there, then the "respect" only extends cosmetically; if the culture is there, then what would it mean for it to be there? (Then I can textwall about the missed opportunity of a Jewish Schneewittchen.)

Serena · November 14, 2015

Was it a parallel? I thought Sleeping Warrior only came about after fans clamoured for it. They weren't shipping Mulan with the jerks who tried to waterboard Belle in a well. The explicitly selective sexism demonstrates an implicit racism in Mulan's case. (Read: Orientalism by Edward Said.)

The scenes are identical. Charming/Aurora say: "You're a girl" and Snow/Mulan answer: "Woman". The parallel isn't to the romantic relationship, but of a character expressing surprise to a woman being a warrior/kickass.

I don't get what you mean by "selective" sexism. Some characters are sexist and others are not. We hear that Merida's clan doesn't think she should lead. Belle feels like she doesn't get a chance to be a hero because, being a girl, she has no opportunities. There's domestic violence, with Rumple killing his ex-wife after she says she doesn't love him. Not every single character is sexist, nor every single society is sexist to the same extent... but even in the real world, not every society/person is sexist to the same extent.

If it isn't there, then the "respect" only extends cosmetically; if the culture is there, then what would it mean for it to be there? (Then I can textwall about the missed opportunity of a Jewish Schneewittchen.)

The respect is to the actress' heritage. The character wasn't born in this world, so she won't be part of a culture of this world.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Serena

Faemonic · November 14, 2015

The scenes are identical. Charming/Aurora say: "You're a girl" and Snow/Mulan answer: "Woman". The parallel isn't to the romantic relationship, but of a character expressing surprise to a woman being a warrior/kickass. I don't get what you mean by "selective" sexism. Some characters are sexist and others are not.

Sexism is a cultural trait. Recognition of different genders by itself isn't sexism, but recognition of gender combined with recognizing some genders as generally better than another then generates a cultural norm: prejudice based on gender, combined with the systemic oppression in society based on that prejudice. Even the individuals who defy that norm can be sexist in other ways, only because it's a prejudice so people don't usually think about it or notice it. In real life, the question is if we leave that internalized sexism unexamined. In fiction, either none of the characters are sexist (because they're not real and don't have a psychology or a culture), or they're all sexist (because the writers and costumers and directors that create the characters do have those things and release it into a culture.)

What I noticed on OUaT was an in-between. The Enchanted Forest did show details that suggested the role that gender played in what could be the culture. When Belle tells Rumplestiltskin in "Skin Deep" that women don't have many opportunities in her kingdom, the point that she says it out loud and explains it suggests that it's unusual. Otherwise, they wouldn't think about it or notice it. Instead, both of them and everyone else would just know that women don't go on adventures or inherit titles and responsibilities.

Not every society or person is as comfortable with sexism, or are sexist in the same way. That's true. However, there's a long history in the real world of Westerners stereotyping those in the Orient as barbarically sexist.

If you're still with me, that's called an issue of Intersectionality. The Western view of Eastern sexism is racist. That's what comes up with the treatment of Mulan, who evidently isn't a character from a medieval European fairy tale.

If I could just shake it off by saying that there's no China and there's no Europe and there's no medieval age or dynasties, there's still the problem of failing to construct Enchanted Forest culture while showing cultural traits. Mulan is evidently othered. Why is that? Otherwise, where the show draws the line in extending "respect" to the actresses...doesn't surpass the line drawn for tokenism.

The character wasn't born in this world, so she won't be part of a culture of this world.

If the Enchanted Forest doesn't have a culture, then we interpret what we're shown through cultures of this world. That's why I keep saying that Orientalism is a problem. The show bothers to make a distinction between Arandelle with the Elder Futhark writing system and Misthaven. But the writing system that likely originates in Mulan's nation (because it looked like Chinese writing, the name of the monster was yaoguai which means monster in Chinese) is just Another Language. That cultural phenomenon, called Othering, applies too well to both this world and what we're shown in the show. If that's because of Mulan's ethnicity, well...then we call that racist.

It takes a lot of mental acrobatics to argue that Mulan doesn't have any ethnicity in the context of the show, that's distinct and othered compared to the rest of the character cast.

With regards to Regina, again, why bother to extend the "respect" of a nudge-wink to the actress' heritage if she plays a character who "wasn't born in this world and won't be part of the culture of this world"? Either ethnicity is a factor on the show or it's not.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Faemonic

KingOfHearts · November 14, 2015

And by complete coincidence, I haven't seen any other person in the Enchanted Forest who could pass for Asian in the Land Without Magic.

The only other Asian character I can think of besides Mulan or the Ancient China extras is the Dragon from the Episode That Shall Not Be Named.

Edited November 14, 2015 by KingOfHearts

Serena · November 14, 2015

What I noticed on OUaT was an in-between. The Enchanted Forest did show details that suggested the role that gender played in what could be the culture. When Belle tells Rumplestiltskin in "Skin Deep" that women don't have many opportunities in her kingdom, the point that she says it out loud and explains it suggests that it's unusual. Otherwise, they wouldn't think about it or notice it. Instead, both of them and everyone else would just know that women don't go on adventures or inherit titles and responsibilities.

I don't think we can make that leap. It's an observation. I can tell someone "Women don't have lots of opportunities to get in STEM fields in my country." which doesn't mean that doesn't often happen in every part of the world.

Not every society or person is as comfortable with sexism, or are sexist in the same way. That's true. However, there's a long history in the real world of Westerners stereotyping those in the Orient as barbarically sexist.

And also the French? Because you've just said that you think the show implied Belle's Kingdom was particularly sexist, unlike other Kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest. So, OUAT is implying Chinese and French people are more sexist than, say, the Germans (since Snow White is German and her Kingdom seems not to have any problem with her being Queen)?

Or possibly, it's likely that the writers decided to put "rebels against a sexist society" in both Belle and Mulan's stories not because of their ethnicities, but because that's what happened in their "original" Disney cartoons: Belle was considered strange for her love of books, and Mulan had to disguise herself as a boy and was sent home when discovered.

If I could just shake it off by saying that there's no China and there's no Europe and there's no medieval age or dynasties, there's still the problem of failing to construct Enchanted Forest culture while showing cultural traits. Mulan is evidently othered. Why is that? Otherwise, where the show draws the line in extending "respect" to the actresses...doesn't surpass the line drawn for tokenism.

Because the writers are hacks who can't even keep straight the gender of characters in their story or their own timeline. Creating a whole (or more) parallel culture is definitely beyond their capabilities. That doesn't only apply to Mulan. There have been discussions on this forum about what the heck kind of society Hook comes from, because the writers pick and choose from different looks, stories and real cultures depending on what side of the bed they woke up that morning.

If the Enchanted Forest doesn't have a culture, then we interpret what we're shown through cultures of this world. That's why I keep saying that Orientalism is a problem. The show bothers to make a distinction between Arandelle with the Elder Futhark writing system and Misthaven. But the writing system that likely originates in Mulan's nation (because it looked like Chinese writing, the name of the monster was yaoguai which means monster in Chinese) is just Another Language. That cultural phenomenon, called Othering, applies too well to both this world and what we're shown in the show. If that's because of Mulan's ethnicity, well...then we call that racist.

Okay, I admit I didn't 100% pay attention to all the boring Frozen bits. Does one character ever call the writing "Elder Futhark"? I know Regina once mentions Elvish and Emma makes a joke about the Lord of the Rings. If no one ever gives the language a name, then it's the same situation as Belle calling Chinese "a language". We're shown a piece of writing different than the Misthaven standard, that only some people are capable of reading.

I agree Belle's was an awkward line, but should they have called that language "Chinese"? Is Mulan even Chinese? She's played by a Korean-American actress and we've never heard her identify as such. The character in the Disney movie is, so does that mean the Once character is too? Belle has never called herself French, or Arthur English. We found out last season that the society (reign?) Snow comes from is called "Misthaven", not "Europe". So will the writers decide to give Mulan's kingdom a random, made up name too in the future, like "Rainsanctuary"? Then should we assume that society's writing is parallel/similar to our China? Is there a parallel world that's Chinese 5th Century World like there was a Victorian Society World for Cruella?

I get what you're saying, but our opinions differ in that you think it's a problem specifically for one character. I think it's a widespread writer disinterest in going deeper culturally with any character. I can't pinpoint one character in Once who seems to have a culture that isn't "Disney Movie Easter Egg In The Background" or "Hey, That Thing Appeared On Lost!". Anyway, agree to disagree.

EDIT: I think you edited something while I was answering, so I'm answering to this too!

In fiction, either none of the characters are sexist (because they're not real and don't have a psychology or a culture), or they're all sexist (because the writers and costumers and directors that create the characters do have those things and release it into a culture.)

Could you expand on this? I don't get what you mean. In my opinion, some characters can be written as sexist, and that's one of their character traits, while others are written as not sexist. Or, often, an in-between (like in real life). For example, I think Charming is fundamentally not a sexist character, but some of his behaviour like "Stay away from my daughter!" was.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Serena

Shanna Marie · November 14, 2015

Or possibly, it's likely that the writers decided to put "rebels against a sexist society" in both Belle and Mulan's stories not because of their ethnicities, but because that's what happened in their "original" Disney cartoons: Belle was considered strange for her love of books, and Mulan had to disguise herself as a boy and was sent home when discovered.

I think that's the key here. They aren't making any statements about sexism, racism, or any other kinds of isms so much as they're suffering from poor (or nonexistent) worldbuilding. They're taking bits and pieces of various stories and mashing them up without doing anything to create the new world they've developed. Most of the time it doesn't really matter, but then there are stories where they keep some aspects, like the culture, and throw them into a new context without figuring out how it all fits in.

So they started with a fairy generic storybook Europe, but then they wanted to throw in Mulan, and they did so more or less in a vacuum without figuring out where her culture fit in. If they'd just taken the Mulan story of a girl posing as a warrior and made her part of the overall Enchanted Forest culture, it would have been whitewashing, but by making her the lone Asian and trying to keep that cultural aspect of the story totally out of context, it made her "other." But then the story doesn't even fit with the culture they've created because there are badass women fighters left and right, so how is it a big deal that this one girl is a warrior, unless maybe her culture is different? Without showing her culture, we don't get any idea of why she's here on her own. Aside from the issue of skin color, there are similar problems with Merida. The original story was set in a realish version of medieval Scotland, where there were certain expected gender roles, and that's what the story was largely about, the girl who wanted to be something other than a prize to be given away to a contest winner. But they've plunked her down into this world in a kingdom that's a rowboat ride across a lake from Camelot, which is an easy day's walk away from the Enchanted Forest, and they've tried to keep her story of a woman trying to make it in a man's world in a kingdom adjacent to one in which no one has blinked an eye about a woman ruling it. Then we have Belle with her issues of wanting to be a woman who's a hero, while she's surrounded by woman heroes, but we haven't seen enough of Belle's culture to know if it's unique or distinct.

Basically, they've totally ignored the issue of cultures, aside from a few vague stereotypical trappings that they've tacked on as window dressing.

Faemonic · November 15, 2015

I don't think we can make that leap. It's an observation. I can tell someone "Women don't have lots of opportunities to get in STEM fields in my country." which doesn't mean that doesn't often happen in every part of the world.

Or I could say, "I'm breathing air now." You've got to admit, that would be a weird thing to say right now. That would only be worth mentioning if I were a mermaid who didn't always do that, or narrowly survived asphyxiation.

If both you and the person you were talking to knew that it happened in the other person's country, and often enough in most of the rest of the world, then some internal checker would be likely to stop you from stating the obvious.

And also the French? Because you've just said that you think the show implied Belle's Kingdom was particularly sexist, unlike other Kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest. So, OUAT is implying Chinese and French people are more sexist than, say, the Germans (since Snow White is German and her Kingdom seems not to have any problem with her being Queen)?

Or French-Australians, at which point we can't even relabel it as "Fantasy Occident" or "Fantasy Orient" or "Fantasy Global North"...even though we've established that there is no France, China, Germany, England, or Scandinavia. Or the New World.

We can just get on with "coded" culture. Even if culture doesn't exist, markers of culture do: Belle makes the distinction between the opportunities of men and the opportunities of women, Mulan's costume is carefully designed to stick out for some reason, and Mary Margaret expresses that she imagined they'd all live together in a palace with turrets rather than Agrabahn onion roofs. Why bother to make those differences show?

Or possibly, it's likely that the writers decided to put "rebels against a sexist society" in both Belle and Mulan's stories not because of their ethnicities, but because that's what happened in their "original" Disney cartoons: Belle was considered strange for her love of books, and Mulan had to disguise herself as a boy and was sent home when discovered.

...the writers are hacks who can't even keep straight the gender of characters in their story or their own timeline.

I agree with that last part, because it's jarring to decide to make Belle and Mulan into rebels against a sexist society when they don't build a sexist society. But again, they show it with Belle, and they show it with Young Cora, for about one episode each. Mulan...talks in nudge-winks so viewers had better also have seen the movie to "get" why she's there and saying that.

What I see is that part of keeping Mulan "coded Chinese" is suggesting that her hometown has a cultural climate more sexist even than the slapdash of Belle's and Young Cora.

Does one character ever call the writing "Elder Futhark"?

Yes, Elsa first encountered the urn with what she called "futhark runes" which exist in the Land Without Magic and bothered persnickety viewers like me with how that alphabet was really used to write things with in the Land Without Magic.

I agree Belle's was an awkward line, but should they have called that language "Chinese"?

They called Norse runes "Futhark"! They ought to have called the language of Mulan's region Hanzi, or Jiaguwen if they wanted it to be mystically archaic. (And I'm concluding that was coded-Chinese because Belle was researching the yaoguai, which means "monster" in Chinese, so that's another bit of tokenism because we still know nothing about Mulan's army bros or government or why she's gone errant.)

Is Mulan even Chinese? She's played by a Korean-American actress and we've never heard her identify as such. The character in the Disney movie is, so does that mean the Once character is too?

What would it mean if she wasn't? The coded differences are still made.

So will the writers decide to give Mulan's kingdom a random, made up name too in the future, like "Rainsanctuary"? Then should we assume that society's writing is parallel/similar to our China? Is there a parallel world that's Chinese 5th Century World like there was a Victorian Society World for Cruella?

They probably won't, and that would actually be unfair. The people of Arandelle call Snow's country Misthaven. Snow White calls it The Enchanted Forest, although it's suggested that refers to the dimension rather than the political division (otherwise Snow calls it "my kingdom" or to Charming "the/our kingdom".) They bothered to name Camelot as distinct because that was the name of King Arthur's hub in the stories.

Mulan's hometown, they could have named the Middle Kingdom, or Shangri-La, or even Xanadu. There are as many literary precedents for that as Camelot or the fairy tale Enchanted Forest (that also for some reason includes Enchanted Beaches or Enchanted Meadows, and serves as a Haven for many other things than Mist but whatever.)

I get what you're saying, but our opinions differ in that you think it's a problem specifically for one character. I think it's a widespread writer disinterest in going deeper culturally with any character. I can't pinpoint one character in Once who seems to have a culture that isn't "Disney Movie Easter Egg In The Background" or "Hey, That Thing Appeared On Lost!". Anyway, agree to disagree.

I also think it's a widespread disinterest in going deeper culturally with any character, but what I mean to say when I focus on Mulan is that her character gets the worst of it. The fan theory of Belle's real mother being Tinkerbell wouldn't raise the hue and cry among Aussie's who can't abide Australian Belle being related to one of those shady Kiwis. Nobody's at A&E's throats for constructing, coding, and calling back to Old World proto-Latina culture (Don Quixote de la Mancha) instead of the Colonies.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen to everyone else. I'm saying that Mulan has the worst implications.

In fiction, either none of the characters are sexist (because they're not real and don't have a psychology or a culture), or they're all sexist (because the writers and costumers and directors that create the characters do have those things and release it into a culture.)
Could you expand on this? I don't get what you mean. In my opinion, some characters can be written as sexist, and that's one of their character traits, while others are written as not sexist. Or, often, an in-between (like in real life). For example, I think Charming is fundamentally not a sexist character, but some of his behaviour like "Stay away from my daughter!" was.

Sexism is a cultural construct, like romantic love or hospitality. If you try to assert that romantic love happened throughout human history, I'd assert that there was a time that the same energy was more acceptable in (for instance, ancient Greek military) society to direct to your comrades-in-arms. Your spouse would have been more of a business partner. That's a cultural construct. But just because it changes through time doesn't mean that it's not real, which is why I also brought up hospitality: that has very real effects with how you feel it and express it. Within that cultural construct, we're taught to be hospitable as part of society. If you welcome somebody into your home, you ensure that they're not dreadfully uncomfortable or dying. We can feel that imperative, but that wasn't necessarily something directly taught.

Fictional characters don't have the personal agency to respond to that structure. They don't exist as a single object. Maybe they exist more like...in a constellation of personality fragments: Whoever writes Prince Charming's lines has a miniature Prince Charming in their heads, Josh Dallas probably has a Prince Charming somewhere in there too, and I get one in my head when I watch the recording of Josh reading out what Jane Espenson wrote for him. All of them and none of them are the "real" Prince Charming.

So, how sexist is Prince Charming? If the character doesn't exist, and as you keep arguing, neither does the culture of a fictional world...then there is no structure that generates sexism. Sexism isn't only about expressions of recognizing the difference between genders, or preferring to have a son over a daughter, or carrying a prejudice that "girl" doesn't ever overlap with "violent criminal". That needs societal conditioning. Instead, there's only pieces of set design and writing to trick us into thinking that there's another world, that might maybe have cultural structures, and the "people" (the characters) in that world can be conditioned to behave appropriately or know when they're behaving inappropriately.

If what Prince Charming says is sexist, it's because of what is coming through from and going to the Real World. The writer can decide, "I decided that Prince Charming has a sexist trait in his character, so I'll make him say... 'Snow did the talking. I did the fighting.' What a lovable jerk!" Or maybe the writer doesn't think about it at all. They go with the flow of their inspiration, and that rides on the idea of what they think their own dad or brother would say in that situation. This is what I mean by prejudices that hardly anybody examines, or talks, or thinks about. Maybe the writer didn't decide to make Prince Charming sexist, but they pass on their own sexism, and the viewers can see it, and everybody considers that normal.

Prince Charming can't be a sexist "person" because he's not a person; he's a character. But the writers might be subject to societal conditioning, and project those in qualities that make more sense between the show and the real world than in the real world itself. Prince Charming voices some prejudices, but they don't seem to gel with the world that he grew up in. We don't see that it matters if the regent of their kingdom is male or female, but Charming prefers a son. He's surprised to have been overpowered by a "girl" (woman!) but his mother raised him, he was terrorized in his youth by a female warlord, was taught to swordfight by a girl...how did he learn to be surprised? He says that "I did the fighting, Snow did the talking" and doesn't act like he's being sardonic when the facts of the flashbacks were that he did most of the speechifying and Snow White was the action girl (woman!)

In-world, it makes no sense to call Prince Charming sexist (because of all the cultural constructs and personal agency I explained.) Between the show and the viewer in the real world, it totally makes sense to call Prince Charming sexist.

I think that's the key here. They aren't making any statements about sexism, racism, or any other kinds of isms so much as they're suffering from poor (or nonexistent) worldbuilding. They're taking bits and pieces of various stories and mashing them up without doing anything to create the new world they've developed. Most of the time it doesn't really matter, but then there are stories where they keep some aspects, like the culture, and throw them into a new context without figuring out how it all fits in.

...

Basically, they've totally ignored the issue of cultures, aside from a few vague stereotypical trappings that they've tacked on as window dressing.

So much concurrence to all of this, with only one thing I would add: Something fills the fissions. Even if they don't mean to make statements about sexism or racism, if the creators play with gender roles and the "exotic" as irresponsibly as they have, a statement is going to form. That's what it means to contribute to a culture. There's no such thing as being apolitical, even if anybody intends to be apolitical. No one has ever succeeded in separating the author from the circumstances of life, from the fact of the author's involvement (whether intentional or unintentional) with castes, beliefs, social positions, or from the mere activity of being a member of society. From what I've seen, there's just supporting the status quo well enough that nobody notices, or presenting a feature that fits in exactly the right point of conflict that its political incorrectess can be argued either way.

Serena · November 15, 2015

But when we discuss the morality of Prince Charming, aren't we talking about him as if he were a real person? That's the point of this thread: we say "Regina is a rapist" even though she's not real and in the real world no one was raped by her. Why is it wrong to discuss Charming in similar terms, and say "He is/isn't being sexist here"? Of course it's a writer making the characters do or say stuff, I think no one is under the impression he's real. But if we're not judging these characters as if they're real persons, what's the point of discussing morality in a tv show?

CatMack · November 15, 2015

But when we discuss the morality of Prince Charming, aren't we talking about him as if he were a real person? That's the point of this thread: we say "Regina is a rapist" even though she's not real and in the real world no one was raped by her. Why is it wrong to discuss Charming in similar terms, and say "He is/isn't being sexist here"? Of course it's a writer making the characters do or say stuff, I think no one is under the impression he's real. But if we're not judging these characters as if they're real persons, what's the point of discussing morality in a tv show?

Speaking as the roommate of an English professor who teaches colleges students how to write proper analysis, here's my understanding.

If you're critiquing how something was written, you'll most likely be talking about the writing itself - referring to the characters, the setting, the plot, etc, addressing those things directly (ex: Regina is a rapist and that makes it difficult to sympathize with her).

If you're critiquing why something was written the way it was, the context, the author him or herself and their history, you'll be talking more about the 'real world' and how what you're critiquing fits into it (ex: Adam and Eddie have inadvertently perpetuated rape culture by having Regina rape a man and never addressing it as rape, thereby reinforcing the harmful cultural idea that women cannot rape men).

Both forms of critique are valid, it just depends entirely on what you're focusing your argument on.

Edited November 15, 2015 by CatMack

Faemonic · November 15, 2015

Why is it wrong to discuss Charming in similar terms, and say "He is/isn't being sexist here"? Of course it's a writer making the characters do or say stuff, I think no one is under the impression he's real. But if we're not judging these characters as if they're real persons, what's the point of discussing morality in a tv show?

I didn't say it was wrong, but if it is wrong to call Prince Charming sexist...then it's wrong for the same reasons that it's "wrong" to discuss Mulan being Chinese.

Serena · November 15, 2015

CatMack, I understand that. I feel like this forum has always done both. We have both criticized Regina and Zelena for what they did, and A&E for the way they wrote it - not for writing it at all, but for writing it and not calling it what it was (completely denying it in Regina's case, and using euphemisms such as "tricking" with Zelena).

Faemonic, I'm sorry to say I still don't 100% get the comparison. I'm sure it's a language barrier issue on my part. I'm gonna try one last time: are you saying you believe that the writers are not making Charming sexist on purpose, in the same way they are not writing Mulan's ethnicity the way they are on purpose, so analyzing both Charming's sexism and Mulan's culture is useless/wrong because they are not written to be sexist or to have a particular ethnicity, respectively, but both characteristics are instead a byproduct of the writers' lack of skill?

Faemonic · November 15, 2015

are you saying you believe that the writers are not making Charming sexist on purpose, in the same way they are not writing Mulan's ethnicity the way they are on purpose (...)but both characteristics are instead a byproduct of the writers' lack of skill?

Yes. From that standpoint, the TV series itself becomes worthy of discussion because of what fills the "cracks" left by the lack of skill, how the show itself interacts with larger culture in real life.

What I did not say, what I never said, and what I never will say is:

analyzing both Charming's sexism and Mulan's culture is useless/wrong

I never said it would be useless or wrong! If you would prefer to change the level of discussion from art-effect-on-culture to characters-as-people then I can do that too.

Shanna Marie · November 15, 2015

Something fills the fissions. Even if they don't mean to make statements about sexism or racism, if the creators play with gender roles and the "exotic" as irresponsibly as they have, a statement is going to form.

And that's why the unintended consequences on this show are off the charts. They jump to the "wouldn't it be cool?" without thinking through the possible implications or ramifications, and they seem resistant to thinking about these things even when they're called out on them. That's how we get the Evil Queen ripping out the Huntsman's heart and ordering him sent to her bedchamber, and they treat it as just the Evil Queen being a bit naughty without it occurring to them that this actually means she spent more than 30 years raping a man -- and when they were called out on this, they apparently stuck their fingers in their ears, went "la la la" and wrote yet another storyline involving a man in a situation of having sex with a woman he wouldn't want to have sex with. That's also how we get an entire race bred purely for the purpose of hard manual labor and a character played by an African-American actor being cheerfully enslaved to a master he enjoys serving. Or that's how we get platitudes like "you never give up on the people you love" depicted in such a way that they seemingly endorse stalking and sticking with an abuser.

With Mulan, they don't seem to have considered the cultural context of the original story or even the Disney version. They just apparently went "wouldn't it be cool to include Mulan as a character?" and ripped her out of her own story, stuck her in the Enchanted Forest, and tried to tell her story in that new context. Unfortunately, that made her a token character of another culture, which had some unfortunate implications about her culture in contrast to the dominant culture in this story universe, and that then makes it look like a statement on the real culture her story is based on. The fact is that just about all cultures, including the ones the other stories are based on, would have been equally sexist during the time period in question. Snow White being a badass archer wearing pants and running around in the woods would have been just as much an anomaly as Mulan disguising herself as a boy to join the army, but they'd already established a world in which there might have been some surprise that the bandit was a girl, but Snow's behavior doesn't seem to have been particularly transgressive in general, and then they threw Mulan into that world with her story intact and it made it look like they were making a statement about Mulan's culture.

(And I hope this all makes some kind of sense. The antihistamines seem to have kicked in -- I can breathe, but thinking has become more difficult.)

Rumsy4 · November 16, 2015

Man, this show with its twisted morality gives centuries-old Dark One Rumple a blank slate without him having to work for it, but turns redeemed pirate/villain Hook into the Dark One. Only on this show do the so called heroes get punished so much for doing the right thing!

KingOfHearts · November 16, 2015

Because saving lives makes you darker in this show.

If A&E did Disney movies:

* Prince Eric would have become Blackbeard for ramming a ship into Ursula.

* Prince Phillip would have become the Horned King after stabbing Maleficent.

* Simba would have become a lion version of Shere Kahn after throwing Scar off a cliff.

* Mulan would have become a demon from Chinese lore for slaughtering an entire army in an avalanche.

Edited November 16, 2015 by KingOfHearts

Faemonic · November 16, 2015

Man, this show with its twisted morality gives centuries-old Dark One Rumple a blank slate without him having to work for it, but turns redeemed pirate/villain Hook into the Dark One. Only on this show do the so called heroes get punished so much for doing the right thing!

Whaaat?? I haven't been watching! Spoil me: Are you saying that Dark Swan lasted like naught point two seconds and it was essentially just a fake-out anyway? I mean I could buy Hook becoming the Dark One if there was ever a good reason for anybody in this show to have gone Sith, but please tell me he had a better reason than (clutch the pearls) he had to kill somebody with a penchant for razing villages and now his heart is dark.

And to think Killian had the Lieutenant Hair Muss of Utter Innocence in the episode trailer! Oh, you subversive hair stylists.

InsertWordHere · November 16, 2015

I mean I could buy Hook becoming the Dark One if there was ever a good reason for anybody in this show to have gone Sith, but please tell me he had a better reason than (clutch the pearls) he had to kill somebody with a penchant for razing villages and now his heart is dark.

I'm afraid it's worse than that. They're both Dark Ones now. In order to save his life, Emma tethered him to Excalibur against his wishes and went full on Dark One in Camelot. It's not clear if Hook will immediately embrace the darkness or not. I hope your pearls can survive this. Mine can't.

Faemonic · November 16, 2015

Sigh. Well, I never was a fan of the idea that darkness can "make" people do things, rather than it's what people do that makes darkness, or that some extenuating circumstances can bring out the darkness already inside. Remember when Snow White slapped Gepetto across the face? And she was all, "Evil hand! My Evil Hand!" It's like...give them a motive to do something wrong, let them do something actually wrong, or show them repressing the desire to do something wrong, but, why make it out like The Darkness is an entity in and of itself with no relation to its host's personal agency? (Whether that's a dark spot in the heart, or how it's tethered/cleaved to some lineage of corrupted Holy Grail magic, or some metaphor for Carl Jung's Shadow so killing "makes" people dark as an act of rejection rather than acknowledging and accepting what is socially unacceptable--but then "embracing the darkness" would dissipate it so we're not going Jung here then.)

The only other Asian character I can think of besides Mulan or the Ancient China extras is the Dragon from the Episode That Shall Not Be Named.

Sorry I missed this one. Oh! Oh, I'm calling it: the Dragon was Lily's paternal grandfather. August will blame himself for the Dragon's death because he was turning to wood in an alleyway while Tamara had the extra superpowered taser. That's how taking responsibility or accountability for death and misfortune works in This Show.

Mari · November 16, 2015

Responding from the continuity/timeline thread.

The darkness is lame-o with its blame-o. Why should Merlin collect dark points for doing things magic makes him do? Shouldn't that be darkening Arthur not Merlin? If I use inanimate objects to do my dark magic, does that mean that nobody turns dark?

Absolutely Arthur should be the one going "dark."

I don't think you should get "evil" points for doing things when, basically, you're involuntarily acting as the tool of someone else. How can it be your fault if you are someone's meat puppet? It's not like you are choosing to do it after being manipulated--you are pretty much incapable of not doing it.

regularlyleaded · November 18, 2015

Bringing this over from a discussion in the spoiler thread because this part isn't spoiler related. The quote below is wrapped in spoiler tags just in case.

"Who said anything about killing? They could have them mutually decide to give up the power which they know will result in Hook dying. The issue isn't how it happens or making it terrible, it's requiring Emma to deal with what happened. In this case, she needs to let go no matter how much it hurts. If someone else comes in and ends Hook, then Emma isn't given the chance to make amends for her actions."

I've been avoiding broaching this subject because it's touchy and highly subjective, and this isn't so much a response to your post, KAOS Agent, but more that there's something you touched upon that brought this topic back to my mind. But anyways, to my point:

I just don't see Emma's actions as all that damn terrible. Did she tether Hook to Dark Excalibur against his wishes? Yes (and I still don't understand how Excalibur is dark or being tethered to it makes someone a Dark One, but that's what the writers are claiming so *UGH* we just have to go with), but IMO, Hook's desire to just rollover and die was partly motivated out of fear and self-loathing. He wanted to die because he's afraid that he can't fight the darkness and he doesn't believe that he's a good enough person and will instead turn into a monster. That man doesn't believe that he's really changed for the better. He has no faith in himself, but the thing is is that Emma does believe in him.

It's not a foregone conclusion that Hook will turn all Muhahaha evil. Even Merlin wasn't entirely sure of what would happen. The only certainty in the scenario as it played out was that if Emma did nothing, if she didn't take the chance and go against Hook's wishes he was dead. So Emma latched onto that glimmer of hope (something that Hook and everyone has always pushed her to do – to have hope) and saved Hook's life by tethering him to dark Excalibur in hopes that they could both fight the darkness and be free. Emma may have tethered Hook to the darkness against his wishes but that doesn't mean he's doomed to become a monster because we've seen that the darkness can be fought against.

In her desperation, Emma has latched on to the idea that because Hook's love and encouragement allowed her to resist the darkness, she hopes that together he will be able to do the same. For as much faith and love Hook placed in Emma that she could fight the darkness and win, Emma was placing that same amount of crazy pants faith in Hook and belief in the strength of the goodness in him that he could fight off the darkness and they could both be free. That's why she tethers him against his wishes. I just don't like that's it's been simplified to Emma has done a terrible, unforgivable thing and taken away Hook's agency so now she must suffer for this terrible, mortal sin.

I guess it would've been nice if she would've stuck to an intransigent set of principles of never depriving anyone of their agency ever, but it's just not that simple of a situation. This was a literally a matter of life or death. Letting someone die but going around saying “Yes, I let them die because I stuck firmly to my principles. Aren't I awesome” is some damn cold comfort. It's like the ridiculous tag that the show-runners like to throw at us that “heroes don't kill” because principles. And yet, every time they let a villain live because “Heroes don't kill” what happens? Well, wouldn't you know it, the villains manage to kill more people. But hey, as long as the "Heroes" stuck strictly by their principles and didn't kill anyone, including that villain who went on to kill more people, then all that doesn't matter. I'm not saying all villains must die, but some situations aren't as simple as just sticking by an arbitrary set of principles no matter what.

If saving Hook's life against his wishes makes Emma an evil and terrible person, then I'm an evil and terrible person right along with her. If I was in Emma's situation and someone I loved was moments away from dying and they just wanted to rollover and die and not even try, but I knew of a way to save their life though it was going to be an extremely difficult battle and there's a good chance it may go all to pot, but still, it's a chance, then well, I'm sorry. I'd grab them by the scruff and save their damn life. Principles are good things to have and they should be strong guide posts that we use to live our lives, but they shouldn't be 2x4's that beat all hope and possibility and risk taking out of us, and we shouldn't be mindless slaves to them either.

As usual, YMMV.

Edited November 18, 2015 by regularlyleaded

Camera One · November 18, 2015

Despite the "consequence" that Emma became Dark, overall, I don't feel "Birth" painted Emma's actions as evil and terrible. They portrayed it in quite sympathetic light, and what she did was shown to be very understandable given the obvious life-and-death circumstances. It was clearly meant to be a tearjerker for CS fans. The moral message was nowhere near as blatant as Snowing after the babynapping. Regina wanting to save Robin in "The Prince" was more clearly shown to be selfish in what she was asking Emma to do.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Camera One

Faemonic · November 18, 2015

I just don't like that's it's been simplified to Emma has done a terrible, unforgivable thing and taken away Hook's agency so now she must suffer for this terrible, mortal sin.

Is it the fandom doing that? Or the show doing that?

Because what I've mostly read in these forums is snarky "only on this show would saving a life become a villainous act" and more magnanimous "but thank goodness they have a character stigmatized for something that they actually chose to do, and that can arguably be morally ambiguous well within a stretch of imagination". And maybe some, "Oh come on Killy wasn't even going to die from that, he cut himself worse shaving let alone the amputation that Rumple gave him 300 years ago. Emma could have tethered him to a Band-Aid strip!"

KAOS Agent · November 18, 2015

I don't think it was the worst thing ever for Emma to tether Hook, but it was against his wishes. However, there was one thread in his wishes that a lot of people skip over when discussing her actions. Hook explicitly said that he didn't want her to do it because it would turn her dark. She had just spent all that time and energy fighting against the Darkness and he didn't want to be the reason for her to fail now. His refusal of her help was tied up in his love for her and wanting what was best for her. That makes things murky because then Emma is reasoning that he is giving up for her, not because he refuses to be the Dark One since she believes he can fight the Darkness like she did.

The whole thing is a moral grey area because she took away his agency in not allowing him to die at that moment, but he is still capable of ending it all now if he so chooses. He's not her slave. He has free will as the Dark One.

Rumsy4 · November 18, 2015

I agree that Emma put her faith in Hook just as he had put his faith in her and encouraged her to hope for their future together. This is the kind of situation where there is no right answer. But something happened in those three weeks that made Emma steal people's memories and coldly decide to use Zelena to get rid of the Darkness. So that might temporarily seem to indicate Emma made the wrong choice. However ultimately I do think Emma's faith in their relationship will triumph in the end, even if it takes a while to get there.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Rumsy4

KingOfHearts · November 18, 2015

Graham died in Emma's arms. Neal died in her arms. Walsh died in front of her. She wasn't going to let the same thing happen again. I have a lot of difficulty feeling any judgement against Emma given the circumstances. When you love someone so passionately, you don't want them to die - even if there are major consequences. Rumple did the same thing for Neal, Regina tried to do it for Daniel, and Snow risked her own life to split her heart with Charming's. She did go against Hook's wishes, but she loves him too much for his own good.

I don't really think Emma planned it out, either. I don't think she was wondering how Hook could combat the darkness or the moral implications. Her mind was completely set on preventing him from dying. Once she becomes the Dark Swan, you can see in her eyes that what she did just hit her.

Edited November 18, 2015 by KingOfHearts

KAOS Agent · November 18, 2015

Graham died in Emma's arms. Neal died in her arms. Walsh died in front of her. She wasn't going to let the same thing happen again. I have a lot of difficulty feeling any judgement against Emma given the circumstances.

I know it's more a function of Emma being the main character, so character deaths tend to always affect her, but it seems like Emma is the only one who ever actually experiences true permanent consequences for things and I wonder if that could be applied to her being the "real world" character. Everyone else gets magical fixes where Emma gets real world harshness. Even if you look at the original curse, Emma is the one who suffered the most. Snowing lost their daughter, yes, but they didn't age and they didn't spend 30 years wondering and worrying about their lost child. It's not ideal, but they can and did start over with a new family by having Baby Snowflake. Emma cannot go back and relive her traumatic childhood years now with her loving parents. Emma was a lonely teen runaway who became a thief and ended up in prison to pay for her crimes. Emma faced justice. Not one of the fairy tale characters has faced justice for their many crimes - this includes Snowing and their eggnapping ways. Graham died. Neal died. Walsh died. Ingrid died. These things were not undone in the next episode. Other characters have experienced loss, but so much of it is minimal when compared to the ever growing pile of bodies surrounding Emma. Why is that?

Regina has to pay for casting the curse by losing Henry forever. Ha, nope. She has to give up Robin to his wife & child, but he's back within a couple of months. Robin "dies" and twice he's saved by magical means. Snowing has faced David's death several times, but every time he's saved by magic. Rumpel has died/been on the verge of death three separate times, but is saved by magic each time. It always works out for them. It's no wonder these people are all Hope rules! while Emma is such a cynic. This has become a bit of a problem for me because morally I do think Emma should face consequences for her actions, but since no one else ever does, I have a negative reaction to it. It would be extremely biased to say Regina/Rumpel/whoever should face consequences for their actions and then ignore it for Emma, but if I have to accept that those others never really are held to account or punished even karmically, then dammit after looking at all the crap that's piled on Emma just for doing the right thing, I have a really hard time with the show punishing her yet again even if this is a case where real consequences should come about.

regularlyleaded · November 18, 2015

Is it the fandom doing that? Or the show doing that?

It's, for the most part, coming from my interpretation of what the show is doing. Some in the fandom (and by fandom I mean Tumblr, and yes I know I need to stop going there) have found Emma's actions of taking Hook's agency super terrible, so a part of my response is a reaction to that, but I'm mostly looking at how the show is painting Emma's actions of taking Hook's agency and not letting him die by tethering him to Excalibur, as so bad that it turned Emma into the Dark Swan.That's where I'm coming from saying that I don't see Emma's actions here as all that damn terrible to the extent that the show is presenting it. It's a problem I've always had with this show -- I often find it's morality completely wack. It also doesn't help that some things that play out as they do don't make a lick of sense, so we're left scratching our heads and wondering what the hell the show is talking about.

However, there was one thread in his wishes that a lot of people skip over when discussing her actions. Hook explicitly said that he didn't want her to do it because it would turn her dark. She had just spent all that time and energy fighting against the Darkness and he didn't want to be the reason for her to fail now. His refusal of her help was tied up in his love for her and wanting what was best for her.

That's...not accurate. It's a thread people don't mention because it didn't quite happen like that. Hook didn't explicitly mention not wanting Emma to pay the price. He's pretty clear that it's that he doesn't want “to become that”. Here's the full transcript from the moment that Hook falls over bleeding and Merlin tells them that Excalibur inflicts mortal wounds:

Mary Margaret: What? There has to be something we can do, something she can do *gestures at Emma*!

Merlin: Even Emma's power isn't strong enough nor is my own.

Emma: Killian, you have to hold on. I can't lose you.

Hook: It's alright. Emma, it's alright.

Emma: No. Please, no. Don't leave me. You have to stay. You have to stay. Come on, Killian. What about our future together?

Hook: Our future is now. Reunite the blades so I can see them before I go.

Emma: No!

Regina: No?

Emma: I'm not going to let him die when I know there's a way to save him.

Regina: Emma, Merlin said it there's nothing you can do.

Emma [to Merlin]: That's what he said ,but it's not true, is it? You told me how powerful I am. Let's use that power. I can use the Promethian flame to release you from Excalibur and then I can use it to tether Hook's life to it instead. It could save him.

Merlin: Emma, you know what that could do.

Regina: Create another Dark One.

Merlin: It will multiply the darkness so that it cannot be destroyed. Not without you paying the steepest of prices. It will be your final step into the dark.

Emma: I don't care what happens to me.

David: Emma, wait.

Mary Margaret: Please. Listen, you can't.

Regina: Emma, your parents are right...

Emma: If you could've saved Daniel or Robin – look how far you were willing to go, how far you pushed me to save him! I'm not gonna lose Killian and I won't let anyone stop me.

*Emma and Hook Poof to the field of flowers*

Hook: Emma...

Emma: Killian, you're going to be okay.

Hook: No, please. You have to let me go. I don't want to pay this price. I don't – I don't want to become that. [emphasis mine]

Emma: You won't. You can fight the darkness. I can help you. We can do it together.

Hook: I'm not as strong as you are...or Merlin. I'm weak. The things I've done. I've succumbed to darkness before in my life. And it took centuries to push it away. I don't know if I can do it again.

Emma: But our future...

Hook: I'll just be happy knowing that you have one. *Hook goes unconscious*

Emma: That's not enough for me! *Emma takes out Merlin's darkness and tethers Hook to Excalibur, and afterwards, she instantly turns into Dark Swan*

Based on that, I got that Hook's primary objection to Emma tethering him to Excalibur and the darkness was that he (understandably) was afraid of succumbing to the darkness and becoming evil again.

Look, I'm not saying what Emma did was the heart of purity. I agree that it's murky and gray. But it's a grayness that I just don't think that's all that damnable to the extent that the show has painted it, such that it's Emma's final step into the dark.

Once again, I just find the way they present the morality of certain things on this show highly problematic. It always seems to come down to some -ism with this show, with no nuance or indication that they realize complexities exist. It's all "Heroes don't kill" and "using dark magic makes you evil even if it's to save a person's life". It's absurd.

Intent at times doesn't seem to matter on this show when it comes to what makes someone bad or condemns them to falling into darkness. Emma's intent was to save Hook's life not some sort of evil revenge plot. Ya, maybe it was selfish because Emma didn't want to lose Hook, but then isn't all love selfish to a certain degree because we don't ever want to lose the one's we love, and I imagine that most of us would try to save someone we love if there's even a small chance of saving their life and if it's within our power to do so. So given that, there's an angle here where I'm looking at this situation that leaves me thinking, "the show is making saving someone's life a dark thing." And I just don't see that as such a dark thing even if it was because Emma took Hook's agency from him and ignored his objections that were born from his own fear. Because to me, a chance of life is still a chance and the only other option was for Emma to willingly let Hook die even though she could stop it. For me, sitting on your hands and letting someone die when there's chance to save them is worse. This is, of course, not the only way to look at this situation, but it's the one that I can't stop seeing.

Edited November 18, 2015 by regularlyleaded

Serena · November 18, 2015

I just don't see Emma's actions as all that damn terrible. Did she tether Hook to Dark Excalibur against his wishes? Yes (and I still don't understand how Excalibur is dark or being tethered to it makes someone a Dark One, but that's what the writers are claiming so *UGH* we just have to go with), but IMO, Hook's desire to just rollover and die was partly motivated out of fear and self-loathing. He wanted to die because he's afraid that he can't fight the darkness and he doesn't believe that he's a good enough person and will instead turn into a monster. That man doesn't believe that he's really changed for the better. He has no faith in himself, but the thing is is that Emma does believe in him.

Agreed. I mean, I guess it's noble that he doesn't want to risk becoming the DO and going crazy mwahah like Rumple, but... really? He's JUST been saying "I'll never stop fighting for us.". And we've seen he can fight against powerful wizards, kings. He can be all "Emma, be better! Forgive your parents! Don't run away! Fight the dark urges!" when it's Emma who has to do it. But when his turn comes to fight the Dark One inside himself he's all "Nope, sorry, can't do it, it's over, goodbye." WHAT?

I mean, I get that he was weak and dying, and I'm not saying a moment of weakness isn't forgivable. But "fighting for us" shouldn't be only physical fighting plus giving Emma pep talks IMO.

However, for once I have to give credit to the writers that they have actually managed to create a situation where a character does something "bad" that is actually morally grey. It wasn't Snow "told a secret as a 12 year old" silly when the writers tried to paint it as a big thing but anyone can see it's ridiculous. In this situation, IMO, both "it was a bad thing" and "she did the right thing" factions have fair points.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Serena

YaddaYadda · November 18, 2015

I've seen posts condemning Emma for what she's done.

What she did was completely human. Who doesn't wanna keep the people they love, and not lose them to death?

Hook not wanting Emma to do what she did was two fold. He didn't wanna be a Dark One because as he said, he had done things in his past, he let the darkness consume him, and that was just him, with no magic coursing through him. What kind of Dark One will he be? And he didn't want Emma to pay that price, and crossing over the line. They fought hard to keep her from embracing the darkness completely.

And all of this is so unfair. This is all I got from this episode, how unfair all of this whole arc has been to Emma.

Her sacrifice in 4x22, done for noble reasons, costs her the man she loves in 5x08. She is literally 5 seconds away from putting Excalibur back together, and 10 seconds away from the darkness being destroyed once and for all. She's 15 seconds away from getting home, and starting the next chapter of her life, and the man she's planning all of this with is lying there at her feet dying.

The thing is, we don't even know how Emma would've reacted to his death. I still think this version of the Dark One that she turned into is the lesser form of evils.

And you know, I also understand why she targeted Zelena in all of this. In Emma's mind, Zelena deserved to die.

Zelena helped Arthur. She's the one who performed the spell that tethered Merlin to the sword, taking away his agency.

I can see where Emma is coming from, and why she chose Zelena to carry out her plans.

And I even get why she wouldn't want Hook to know about any of this, and doing whatever she felt she needed to do in order to suck the darkness out of him. He was never supposed to find out about being the Dark One. I don't think anyone was ever supposed to recover their memories of the 6 weeks in Camelot because of what happened in the last 3 weeks they were there.

kili · November 18, 2015

What she did was completely human. Who doesn't wanna keep the people they love, and not lose them to death?

But at what cost? If Hook goes full evil because his assessment is correct and he is not strong enough to fight it, he goes from dying a hero and at least content with that to being a villain everybody wants dead who also turned his girlfriend dark.

It's hard to think of a real world analogy, but it's kind of like if Hook was a recovered drug addict that needed a donated set of lungs to survive. To get the lungs, his girlfriend would have to kill their neighbour and go to prison for life. The anti-rejection drugs would tempt him to become an addict again and he's positive he won't be able to resist. As an addict, he will steal from his friends to feed has habit and generally hurt people. He'd rather die a good person than go back to being an addict with his girlfriend guilty of a crime.

She willingly took on the darkness believing that the people that love her can free her from the darkness. She forced him to take on the darkness when he knows the only person who loves him is going to be made darker in the process. He will be the only one who can stop the darkness from consuming everything and he does not think he is strong enough.

It is all on him now to save everybody or he will be blamed for everything.

Serena · November 18, 2015

I agree with your analogy up until the "kill their neighbour and go to prison" part. Maybe, if we want to go with the drug addiction thing, we could day it's like Hook is a recovering drug addict who is having terrible withdrawal symptoms, like convulsions that are physically killing him. His girlfriend wants to give him some drugs to "cure" the symptoms, but he doesn't want to because he knows that if he starts using again he won't be able to stop and as an addict he did terrible things to his friends. He would rather die "clean" than risk that again. She thinks he WILL be able to stop so she gives him drugs against his consent.

Camera One · November 18, 2015

I mean, I get that he was weak and dying, and I'm not saying a moment of weakness isn't forgivable. But "fighting for was" shouldn't be only physical fighting plus giving Emma pep talks IMO.

I don't see Hook's wish to be allowed to die to be weak at all. He didn't want to prolong his life artificially with magic, not just normal magic but Dark Magic. Most of the redshirts who died on this show, the victim's loved ones had to just deal with it and let go. He made the final right decision by refusing a great temptation when he knew it was the wrong thing to do. Technically, Hook could have just died at the end of "Birth" and his arc would be complete.

Even that dialogue has Hook saying he doesn't want to become Dark, I suppose people could always interpret him saying that solely because he didn't want to have Emma grow Dark and ruin her life. I just got the sense upon first watch that Hook was basically just making a sacrifice, to die, rather than be the reason for that final step which would turn Emma fully Dark. Hook also didn't know how bad Emma would be as the Full Dark One. How would he know all she would do was brood around town. For all he knew, Dark Emma would have zero control over her actions anymore and wreak revenge and spiral out of control.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Camera One

Rumsy4 · November 18, 2015

What she did was completely human. Who doesn't wanna keep the people they love, and not lose them to death?

Exactly. Snow took a pretty big risk when she asked Regina to split her heart into two to save Charming. That could potentially have led to both their deaths, and the death of their unborn child--the very reason they cast the Dark Curse. Yet, her blind hope paid off, and no one became Dark, even though it was Regina's magic that was used.

Regina was ready to pay the price for Robin's life, but the others held hands with her and that poofed the Fury away. No one knew holding hands would do the trick, and I still don't see how anyone paid any price.

But just because Emma is the DO, her magic darkened her soul when she saved Hook's life. How does that make sense? She has both Light and Dark Magic in her. That's where the narrative doesn't hold up.

I get that Emma went against Hook's wishes. The analogy that comes to my mind is undertaking a risky surgery to save someone's life, but could potentially leave them helpless, needing extensive physical therapy for rehabilitation. If a spouse went against their partner's wishes and that person woke up and discovered they were bedridden and helpless, they might be pissed too. But their life was saved, and they still have a chance of full recovery down a long road.

Hook didn't have enough faith in himself to fight for their future at that point. Maybe he learns to recieve encouragement and hope from Emma, and not just give it. Not saying that fully justifies Emma overriding his wishes, but it really is a complex moral quandry with no easy answers.

YaddaYadda · November 18, 2015

Here it is...

I blame Regina, Zelena and Merlin for this 2 Dark Ones outcome. And I don't even need any kind of mental gymnastics for it.

Zelena lives or dies by whatever Regina says or does.

Zelena wants to be on the winning side, so she does what she did with Arthur.

And Merlin knew at the end of 5x05 that Hook would become a Dark One. He foresaw that, he just didn't know how it would happen since he didn't see what Arthur and Zelena would do with the sword. So he basically made the choice to not say anything, and let the man die, thinking that'd be that with the whole Dark One business.

For me, this arc, the biggest bad guy without being a bad guy is Merlin. When you try to change the future, shit happens.

Edited November 18, 2015 by YaddaYadda

Faemonic · November 18, 2015

Maybe, if we want to go with the drug addiction thing, we could day it's like Hook is a recovering drug addict who is having terrible withdrawal symptoms, like convulsions that are physically killing him. His girlfriend wants to give him some drugs to "cure" the symptoms, but he doesn't want to because he knows that if he starts using again he won't be able to stop and as an addict he did terrible things to his friends. He would rather die "clean" than risk that again. She thinks he WILL be able to stop so she gives him drugs against his consent.

That'd definitely put a strain on the relationship, but then again ultimately he lives to die honorably another day. I'd say he's still technically clean because it's somebody else who dosed him in a condition that he couldn't have dosed himself. Get closer to death and, who knows, he might not have been himself and been begging for anything to alleviate his suffering, so it's tricky to see on the outside even in a hypothetical. When it comes to what ought to be a slightly more consistent influence, that is, dark magic...

Exactly. Snow took a pretty big risk when she asked Regina to split her heart into two to save Charming. That could potentially have led to both their deaths, and the death of their unborn child--the very reason they cast the Dark Curse

I'm misremembering...I thought Snow's curse was so they could get back to Emma :-( But either way wow yeah sure David and Snowflake aren't complaining but that was basically Snow in the same position as Emma was with Hook and using Regina as the Grail Sword. Neither of them knew what would happen.

I suppose that's the problem with making Darkness into some external magical force that can be summoned by Plot. It doesn't really matter anymore what the intentions or effects are to the morality. Which then makes no sense. So, Darkness or dark magic doesn't even really symbolize anything. It's almost an incidental thing, like bad weather.

For me, this arc, the biggest bad guy without being a bad guy is Merlin.

He and Blue could do a Vulcan mind-meld sometime.

Rumsy4 · November 18, 2015

I'm misremembering...I thought Snow's curse was so they could get back to Emma :-( But either way wow yeah sure David and Snowflake aren't complaining but that was basically Snow in the same position as Emma was with Hook and using Regina as the Grail Sword. Neither of them knew what would happen.

Snowing wanted to get back to Emma so she could use her Light Magic to defeat Zelena and save Baby DoOver. But Zelena added a Memory Potion into the Dark Curse. Charming would have potentially died for nothing if none of them remembered why they were back in Storybrooke. So, in a desperate act, Snow asked Regina to split her heart and put half of it in Charming to give him a chance to survive, even if they lost their memories. But if the heart-split failed, Charming, Snow, and Baby DoOver would have died. (I hate the whole heart-split thing.)

And Merlin knew at the end of 5x05 that Hook would become a Dark One. He foresaw that, he just didn't know how it would happen since he didn't see what Arthur and Zelena would do with the sword. So he basically made the choice to not say anything, and let the man die, thinking that'd be that with the whole Dark One business.

I agree Merlin was misguided and harmfully secretive, but it's only conjecture that he foresaw Hook was going to become a Dark One.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Rumsy4

kili · November 18, 2015

Maybe, if we want to go with the drug addiction thing, we could day it's like Hook is a recovering drug addict who is having terrible withdrawal symptoms, like convulsions that are physically killing him. His girlfriend wants to give him some drugs to "cure" the symptoms, but he doesn't want to because he knows that if he starts using again he won't be able to stop and as an addict he did terrible things to his friends. He would rather die "clean" than risk that again. She thinks he WILL be able to stop so she gives him drugs against his consent.

These real world analogies are hard because this scenario is out there. Giving Hook the "drugs" are also endangering Emma's soul too. There are two things he's objecting to:

1) He doesn't want her to go full dark

2) He doesn't want to be a Dark One and he is afraid of what he might do as one.

He would rather die than do either of those things. If either he or Emma do horrible things as Dark Ones, he's going to know it is all his fault. Of course, Emma is going to think it is all her fault too. These two are not "No Regrets" Regina.

It is interesting because he has been all about giving her the freedom to make her own choices and she did not do the same for him. If he ends up being another Merlin and saves the day, then her decision will be correct. She's really taken a leap of faith here and that is always a little troublesome when you are making a choice that the other empphatically does not want.

And I did criticise Snow at the time for what she did. Her husband sacrificed his life to save his child and Snow takes a flyer on saving him that could have easily ended up with his sacrifice being for nothing.

YaddaYadda · November 18, 2015

I agree Merlin was misguided and harmfully secretive, but it's only conjecture that he foresaw Hook was going to become a Dark One.

Absolutely my assumption. Now that 5x08 has aired, it's easy to go back and pick apart the previous episodes. Merlin is shady because of his visions, and the way he uses his knowledge of the future is very questionable.

Rumsy4 · November 18, 2015

Hook didn't explicitly mention not wanting Emma to pay the price. He's pretty clear that it's that he doesn't want “to become that”.

That seems to be the case with this tweet from Brigitte Hale that shows notes from when the writers were planning the story. Hook doesn't want to become the very thing he's hated for so long. :-/

Edited November 18, 2015 by Rumsy4

Camera One · November 19, 2015

Interesting how the scene played out as more complex than how it was planned, which seemed awfully simplistic to me.

Mathius · November 19, 2015

Tweet has been deleted, what did it say?

Rumsy4 · November 19, 2015

Tweet has been deleted, what did it say?

Weird. Here's a screencap.

Interesting how the scene played out as more complex than how it was planned, which seemed awfully simplistic to me.

I'm sure the script-ideas and scripts get tweaked a lot before finalization. This was just initial ideas for this plot.

I tweeted Brigitte asking if she could explain why Emma/Hook turned Dark with the tethering. She hasn't responded yet. Looks like she too is spending more time placating demanding fans on twitter. Oh well...

HoodlumSheep · November 19, 2015

^ not gonna lie, I've been tweeting her once a day (I feel awful, but I want answers! is that too excessive?). Always the same few questions (basically about why Hook didn't see mind rumple or if he noticed if he wasn't sleeping,etc.). I figured she'd be more likely to respond than Adam or the others. I've even asked whether any of these questions have even a possibility of being answered in the last 2 eps. Nothing yet.

mjgchick · November 19, 2015

Here it is...

I blame Regina, Zelena and Merlin for this 2 Dark Ones outcome. And I don't even need any kind of mental gymnastics for it.

We got to also blame Arthur because he did cut Hook. Edited November 19, 2015 by mjgchick

regularlyleaded · November 19, 2015

This is the reason I am forever grateful that we do not live in a world with magic.

I don't know. My iPhone is pretty magical and I'm very grateful for it ;)

I think it's less that magic is bad and more that since this show has no world building or solid magical rules that it sticks with, then the moral and ethical questions that arise from the uses and applications of magic are warped because there's no set rules in their world that these can be judged by.

I think the root problem with this show's magic and morality is that the writers never bothered to do proper world building and that has caused a trickle down effect and warped everything else. (That and the few in-show rules seem to bend around Woegina Sue throwing any small amount of stability in the system totally out of wack and any recognizable morality skewed beyond recognition)

Faemonic · November 23, 2015

Over at the Hook thread, somebody mentioned that

Hook being the Dark One now

means that Hook can access the memory of Milah's death from her murderer's point of view rather than from his bystander's point of view. Won't that be so dramatic?

And I thought I'd bring it over here that...it won't. Because, I think, the show treats Milah as a prop instead of a character, just like Graham.

Which brings me to the point of morality, which is that while the show makes a big fuss over how wrong it is to kill somebody no matter how awful they are (Snow killing Cora, Nimue killing Vortigan) because it seems to enjoy the conflict caused by the contrast...that argument completely loses its gravity, first because it's gimmicky and philosophically lazy, and second because it doesn't apply to every life. Only the worst ones, because how interesting the irony and conflict is supposed to be. The props don't matter, not even when those props are people.

And I get that Snow gets angst over Cora, or so-and-so declares an illogical culpability over somebody else's whatever, but a lot of people dust their hands off without a fraction of that angst. When it comes to Snow or Nimue, their lovers tell them both basically, "I'm not fighting for (evil person), I'm fighting for you!" This creates boundaries in that if Cora lived a longer life without troubling herself for a moment over Johanna, then somebody who knows what's right or good should let that go because that is (or would have been) Cora's path.

I very much disagree with the values that put the onus on the victim to forgive the perpetrator and continue with life happily, but I know it's pervasive and that's what stands on this show. It's very "Let go and let God" without the Christian God. I can understand such an attitude better with God brought into it, even if I consider that attitude unconscionable. Without even that theological structure to play on...well, there's no excuse and therefore no words for how contemptible I find the moral landscape of this show.

It just becomes ridiculous to declare the principle of a thing when the measure of it displays an appalling imbalance of power, when you let a person become invisible on the level of power and make that "okay". Especially when you keep having people say "power, power, power" all the time like it's the final TV season of Buffy and everyone's run out of vocabulary and want to appear philosophical about issues that they haven't thought through! Basically: Marian, Percival, Johanna, Milah, and Graham are ultimately people who don't matter. Zelena didn't and then did/does, Regina definitely does, Cora definitely does, Rumple does, Regina does most of all...and Vortigan kind of really did even though he didn't and now he doesn't.

Which is messed up. This show. That's nothing new, but I feel like I was able to think up a new angle of why the moral landscape of this show puts me off so much. It's selectively solipsistic in that it never considers the need for restitution in a climate of such vast power imbalance.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Faemonic

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