A Thread for All Seasons: This Story Is Over, But Still Goes On.

[Camera One]

23 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Also, it pisses me off whenever A&E boast about making Snow White badass. No, you dumbasses: you ultimately made her worse than her fairy tale iterations, and you know it. Only A&E would keep patting themselves on the back for managing to turn something with exciting potential into something utterly stale and boring. Just like the Show.

 

The fact that they could say with a straight face that Season 6 was "Year of the Snowing" is telling.  How delusional do they have to be when they write Snow declaring that she didn't want to be Mary Margaret anymore in 5B and then follow that up with a final season where they wrote Snow as only ever wanting to be Mary Margaret for the rest of her life?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Camera One

[ParadoxLost]

3 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The fact that they could say with a straight face that Season 6 was "Year of the Snowing" is telling.  How delusional do they have to be when they write Snow declaring that she didn't want to be Mary Margaret anymore in 5B and then follow that up with a final season where they wrote Snow as only ever wanting to be Mary Margaret for the rest of her life?

I compartmentalized Snow from Mary Margret in my mind.  I loved Snow.  I did not care for Mary Margaret.  I was so happy when Snow declared she didn't want to be Mary Margaret.  It didn't last.

I think one of the biggest missed opportunities on this show was their failure to delineate between the cursed and fairy tale personalities and use that to drive story.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

The fact that they could say with a straight face that Season 6 was "Year of the Snowing" is telling.  How delusional do they have to be when they write Snow declaring that she didn't want to be Mary Margaret anymore in 5B and then follow that up with a final season where they wrote Snow as only ever wanting to be Mary Margaret for the rest of her life?

 

I don't know if I'd call Snow a badass or some freedom fighter for women just because she had a sword in her hand. She acted like a normal person would from a lot of crap she went through. She only became a bandit because that's what she had to do to survive. Whenever she was faced with a situation she had to be courageous in, there oftentimes was another person pushing her to do it. With the bandits, Hercules had to teach her and encourage her to persevere through her failures. Later when Graham was ready to kill her, she ran but later gave up because she knew she couldn't get away. She only lived because he spared her. Her message to Regina wasn't some plan to gain his sympathies.

Snow never did much solely from her own volition. She typically needed other people to push or help her. When she did do something by herself, it didn't turn out very well, whether that was getting a lovesick potion from Rumple or breaking into Regina's bed chamber to turn her into dust.

Edited February 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

They also had that flashback in Season 6 where she was ready to run away and leave the kingdom.  It was almost always Charming who was giving her hope speeches.  These Writers don't get to congratulate themselves because their writing for her got worse and worse.  In Storybrooke, the giving up was consistent... she gave up when Shattered Sight was about to hit, and I don't remember the occasion, but there was that time she decided they should spend their last moments at the diner while they waited to die.  

[KingOfHearts]

20 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I don't remember the occasion, but there was that time she decided they should spend their last moments at the diner while they waited to die.  

It was when the Dark Cloaks came to town.

Quote

 It was almost always Charming who was giving her hope speeches.  

Charming seemed to be the (ignored) voice of reason. He wanted to execute Regina, and don't forget this little gem:

Quote

Charming: "Banishing darkness into another, even if it to save our own, is wrong."

Snow: "What if it doesn't have to be a child?"

It was Snow's bright idea to use Maleficent's child, and goodness knows you don't disagree with her if you don't want to be in the doghouse. Snow's ideas only work out 50% of the time. Charming has played the doting husband since the beginning of the series, and I find it pretty annoying. I can't remember a single time when Snow disagreed with Charming but he was right and they went with his plan anyway, but it takes two hands to count how many times he reluctantly went along with her.

Edited February 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

By the fourth season, the writers were writing them interchangeably and using one to provide the devil's advocate perspective to the other.  If you read a transcript of their lines together, it's often impossible to figure out who said what.  Sometimes, Charming would be the one to be willing to bend the line and other times, it's Snow advocating that like with the eggbaby.  The two characters did not have a consistent voice.  

[jhlipton]

On 2/11/2018 at 7:05 PM, Rumsy4 said:

On 2/11/2018 at 6:19 PM, tennisgurl said:

Rumple as the wild card

How I wish he had maintained that status. That's what made him so interesting in the beginning.

 

3 hours ago, CCTC said:

As much as they tried to distinguish Story Brooke Regina from The Evil Queen in later years, Mayor Mills really was an effective villain in her own right.   It was interesting to see her use her brain and scheme and manipulate before she regained her powers, and it does make you wonder if they made a mistake giving her back her magic so early in the series.  

 

Imagine three characters:

One is Trickster (Chaotic Neutral), who does things more for his own amusement than whether it's "good" or "bad".

One is Lawful Evil,, using brains and scheming to get her way.

The third is what she believes is an "ordinary person".  She's trying to bring peace and happiness to the town while the other two fight her (and, more often, each other).  Both of the former can grow, but it's a long process, with some largely forgivable slip-ups.

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

The fact that they could say with a straight face that Season 6 was "Year of the Snowing" is telling.  How delusional do they have to be when they write Snow declaring that she didn't want to be Mary Margaret anymore in 5B and then follow that up with a final season where they wrote Snow as only ever wanting to be Mary Margaret for the rest of her life?

Don't forget the best part of Snow declaring she didn't want to be Mary Margaret anymore. Regina asking what took her so long.

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't know if I'd call Snow a badass or some freedom fighter for women just because she had a sword in her hand. She acted like a normal person would from a lot of crap she went through. She only became a bandit because that's what she had to do to survive. Whenever she was faced with a situation she had to be courageous in, there oftentimes was another person pushing her to do it. With the bandits, Hercules had to teach her and encourage her to persevere through her failures. Later when Graham was ready to kill her, she ran but later gave up because she knew she couldn't get away. She only lived because he spared her. Her message to Regina wasn't some plan to gain his sympathies.

Snow never did much solely from her own volition. She typically needed other people to push or help her. When she did do something by herself, it didn't turn out very well, whether that was getting a lovesick potion from Rumple or breaking into Regina's bed chamber to turn her into dust.

It really seemed like they were going to make her badass for the first year or so. The way she immediately readied her bow and arrow at the Ogre to save her daughter. The Mad Hatter episode when she hits Jefferson and knocks him out of the window. She fought. I thought with her backstory they seem to set up for her learning to become a badass. Sure at first she just kind of tries to survive or look for away to escape. Which makes sense in the beginning she's never been on her own before and she just lost everything and was all alone. But that would change after awhile. Seeing how her people were being treated, making friends, seeing that people would help her, and learning how to fight would all lead to her deciding to fight. She did get that potion that would turn Regina to dust. I like that she was in the battles to get her kingdom back. It really seemed like we were seeing Snow become a badass. Plus you could see how different her cursed Mary Margaret was. When Snow decided after Johanna's death that she was sick of losing people and was going to fight back. I was excited. I thought this was going to be when she return to being a badass. How awesome would it have been to see Snow fight back? I was really interested in seeing Snow fight back. I thought we were going to finally see after the Curse the woman who fought to get her kingdom back and won.  But nope she kills Cora (who needed to be stopped) and mopes and decides that's not her.              

[Shanna Marie]

21 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I don't know if I'd call Snow a badass or some freedom fighter for women just because she had a sword in her hand. She acted like a normal person would from a lot of crap she went through. She only became a bandit because that's what she had to do to survive. Whenever she was faced with a situation she had to be courageous in, there oftentimes was another person pushing her to do it.

A lot of that stuff was retconning in flashbacks. They really started undermining Snow starting in mid-season 2. She was pretty tough and brave in the season one flashbacks, where she was a fighter. Then they started having the standard Snow flashback being Snow ready to give up, and then someone else making her brave. They were also bad about being contradictory with her, like with the "I'm done with being Mary Margaret/I want to go back to Mary Margaret's life" routine or by having her spout hope speeches at other people but then always being the one ready to give up. That "I'm Mary Margaret here" stuff didn't start until 3B. In season two, she was very much Snow once the curse broke.

[ParadoxLost]

@Camera One and @KingOfHearts   Are you conspiring to make me insane?

Every time I come in here the quoted post with "I'll Be Your Mirror" is at the top of the page and infects me with an ear worm of

I can be your mirror, baby. 

I can kiss away your curse

I will find you forever

You can take my walls away

I plead with all of you, make Enrique Iglasias stop singing by getting us to page 21.

[tennisgurl]

You can run you can die @ParadoxLost but you cant escape this page! 

I think Snow was badass beyond being a bandit to survive, eventually leading an army with Charming to defeat Regina, retaking her kingdom, which she apparently ruled successfully for at least a little before the curse struck, then managed to find a loophole in the curse to save her family and her people. It was beyond "she has a sword so now she rocks! #feminism", she was shown to be a mature person and leader, who cared deeply for her friends, family, and her people, and, to me, that made her as much of a badass as when she was beating people up as bandit Snow. She could actually beat people up, and yeah that was cool, but she also grew as a person, and became a strong leader while she was on the run, then when she was fighting against Regina. It should have been a story about how a sweet, innocent princess went through horrible things, but became a stronger person who connected with her people in new ways, saw what horrible things were happening to them, and decided to fight both for her life, and for them. She learned to fight, but it could also be a story about learning to be a leader who could make tough choices and lead soldiers into the field, kicking ass and taking names, but also had great love for her people, and eventually, for the friends she made along the way, and her husband, who she learned to connect with on a deep level, and would do anything for. 

And thats what we got until the season two, especially in the later half. We got more of her toughness at first, but after she came back to Storeybrooke from the EH, and we got that shitty flashback where Snow didn't let Charming execute Regina, and basically sent her away with a slap on the wrist after she straight up tried to stab her right there, and then Snow in the main story became a limp noodle, crying about killing evil monster Cora, and being Regina's cheerleader. She had some good moments after that, and Lord knows Ginny tried for quite awhile (until even she gave up, more or less), but eventually she just became a shell of her former self. She didn't qualify as a badass in a sword wielding way, a leadership way, or in a person way anymore. She was just kind of...there. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by tennisgurl

[KingOfHearts]

One time period the writers could have played with more was the time between Bae falling through the portal and Rumple meeting Cora. How did Rumple figure out where the Dark Curse was kept? Were there other attempts to create True Love babies? When did he get the prophecy that Cora's daughter would cast the Curse? It took at least a century for him to get his ducks in a row. I like to think he experimented around before going dead set on Regina/Snow/Charming/Emma.

[Camera One]

35 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

One time period the writers could have played with more was the time between Bae falling through the portal and Rumple meeting Cora. How did Rumple figure out where the Dark Curse was kept? Were there other attempts to create True Love babies? When did he get the prophecy that Cora's daughter would cast the Curse?

That's a really good point and a good idea for a list.  It's possible A&E could say Rumple saw Cora and where the Dark Curse was kept in the "pieces" he received from The Seer.  

There were still a number of time periods that the Writers could have explored for each of the characters.  Instead, they kept hitting the same eras, to the point where we saw every millisecond of Belle working as Rumple's maid, and The Evil Queen's two millionth failed attempt to find and kill Snow.  

With Snow, I was curious about her relationship with her father.  I'd rather have spent an episode where we saw her with Leopold on one of the tours of the kingdom, to find out how she felt about her father always being away and what Leopold imparted on Snow regarding ruling the kingdom.  Though, as Jane once explained about Leopold in "Bleeding Through", "We don't care about him."

Edited February 18, 2018 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I think the plot that I felt was most painfully excecuted and dropped was definately the Author stuff, because it was the supposed answer to questions that I always wanted to know since the first episode. How did people in our world learn about the stories of people in this other universe? Why are our versions of the story different than what we see here? Who the heck wrote Henry's book?!?! 

Then, it all turned out to be...just some loser guy. Henry's book didn't end up connecting to anything (nor did the other books we found) and the whole Author thing raised more questions then it answered, and not in a good way. So, does every single piece of fiction exist in some other, parallel universe, and is just recorded by these Author people? Or just some stories, and others are actually fictional? Can authors create whole people? Does that happen? How does the freaking Land Without Stories fit in? Why are they apparently stuck in stasis for ever, like in the Cruella episode? Because if thats true, we have been watching/ reading about the lives of poor sentient beings that are trapped in a fictional vortex with no means of escape, which is pretty freaking dark, and yet its never really talked about outside of that episode. Speaking of, where does the whole "different cultures, different stories" thing established this season come in? Are there different Authors for every country or culture? Where do they even come from? Whats their actual point in existing? How many of these weirdos are there, playing peeping to all over the fictional multiverse? Are there more like Isaac who mess with people? In fact, WHY do authors have these powers anyway? If they just watch stuff, they should just be able to jump worlds, right? Actually, why the hell are they even called authors then? They should be called, like, Observers or something. The idea of a massive fictional multiverse where all, or even most, fiction exist on parallel planes with the "real" world, has been an idea that the show has been kicking around since day 1, but they never really went there. They just kind of used the author to justify some stupid ret cons, and prop up Henry some more. Seriously, how does this world freaking work? I think we should be more concerned that countless sentient beings are, at best, being spied on and used as unwitting inspiration for a bunch of assholes with hipster writers utensils, and at worst, are the cosmic playthings of monsters who dont care about what happens to them, as long as it makes a "better story". There was so much that could have been done about the relationship between author and creation, Death of the Author, existential questions about existence, and the question of free will. But, NOPE. Just write some Regina fan fic and make Henry your self insert and call it a day I guess. 

I mean, I guess it doesn't all have to be Animal Man, where shit gets REAL meta when the concept of an author affecting the characters reality is brought up, and it turns into this whole exploration about the nature of fiction and how people treat their own characters, and what the authors owe them 

Spoiler

And has the main character realize that he is a comic book character, and call the writer out on screwing his life up, inspiring the writer to help him, because "even fictional characters deserve kindness". 

or dont owe them, but I wanted something a bit more interesting than millions of creepers running about the multiverse, who may or may not include the most famous authors of our time. Of course, then you can make your brain bleed by trying to figure out why the stories we see in the show in their "real" form are different than the ones we know, but I guess that means it was another author from another culture or from one of a million parallel worlds that all have their own creepers and oh dear now I've gone cross eyed. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Shanna Marie]

The time period I always wanted to see was how they won the war against George and Regina. If Regina was the (de facto) ruler of Snow's land, and George was the ruler of his land, where did Snow and David get their army? Were people defecting? It would have amounted to a revolution. It would have been cool to see how that worked and how they won against Regina's magic. I also always wanted to see how/when it became common knowledge that David wasn't "Prince James." Or was it that common? They were living in George's castle, ruling that land. Was it just because they defeated George in battle, or was there anything to do with David being George's heir? I guess it ended up not mattering, since Regina was hailed as queen later.

Then there was what happened in Neverland with Bae and Hook, and Bae's return to our world and his transformation into Neal.

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The time period I always wanted to see was how they won the war against George and Regina. If Regina was the (de facto) ruler of Snow's land, and George was the ruler of his land, where did Snow and David get their army? Were people defecting? It would have amounted to a revolution. It would have been cool to see how that worked and how they won against Regina's magic. I also always wanted to see how/when it became common knowledge that David wasn't "Prince James." Or was it that common? They were living in George's castle, ruling that land. Was it just because they defeated George in battle, or was there anything to do with David being George's heir? I guess it ended up not mattering, since Regina was hailed as queen later.

Remember when many of us foolishly thought that would form the core of the flashback stories for Season 2?  

In hindsight, I suppose it would have been hard to write a coherent story based on just that, but maybe they could have used it to tell the Sleeping Beauty story as well.  It could have been cool if it culminated in Snow and Charming bringing in forces from Mulan's kingdom and Aurora's kingdom to defeat Regina and George, who could have tried to get Shan Yu and Maleficent to help.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

15 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The time period I always wanted to see was how they won the war against George and Regina. ...

Remember when many of us foolishly thought that would form the core of the flashback stories for Season 2?  

Sigh...so did I. I bet the writers don't even have a headcanon about that. 

20 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Then there was what happened in Neverland with Bae and Hook, and Bae's return to our world and his transformation into Neal.

Neverland-era flashbacks were another huge missed opportunity in the Show. What did Hook do for Pan (aside from cake runs)? If he could come and go several times, where did he find all those magic beans? How did Bae transform into Neal? How well did he know Tink? How about Tink and Wendy? What the heck was the point of the Home Office crap? 

[Camera One]

44 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

How did Bae transform into Neal? 

The problem with that is it's hard to tell that story and make it relevant to Rumple.  It would have been easier to tell while MRJ was still on the show in Season 3.  But remember how they twisted "Nasty Habits" so the flashbacks were actually all about Rumple and his daddy issues?

Edited February 18, 2018 by Camera One

[Free]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Remember when many of us foolishly thought that would form the core of the flashback stories for Season 2?  

In hindsight, I suppose it would have been hard to write a coherent story based on just that, but maybe they could have used it to tell the Sleeping Beauty story as well.  It could have been cool if it culminated in Snow and Charming bringing in forces from Mulan's kingdom and Aurora's kingdom to defeat Regina and George, who could have tried to get Shan Yu and Maleficent to help.

S2 probably would've been about a lot of things before A&E completely threw out major plot points out the window.

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

Remember when many of us foolishly thought that would form the core of the flashback stories for Season 2?  

In hindsight, I suppose it would have been hard to write a coherent story based on just that, but maybe they could have used it to tell the Sleeping Beauty story as well.  It could have been cool if it culminated in Snow and Charming bringing in forces from Mulan's kingdom and Aurora's kingdom to defeat Regina and George, who could have tried to get Shan Yu and Maleficent to help.

 

I really thought that was what they were going to do when season two started. That two season was going to Sleeping Beauty's story along with fallout from the Curse being broken. We would see flash backs to how Snow and Charming defeated George and Regina and how they did it. In the present we'd see Snow and Emma helping Aurora and Mulan fight for her kingdom. There was that moment they made her their leader. With all the stuff with Maleficent in season one it seemed like a perfect set up since she had plenty of reason to be pissed at Regina, Rumple, Charming and Emma too. With the Curse broken Maleficent would be free in Storybrooke and looking for revenge. It could have been really good and really fun. Emma asking Charming why Maleficent is mad at him 'I shoved potion in her why is she mad at you?' 'I got the potion out of her'. It would have be nice to see Charming and Emma talk about their attack on the dragon.  Now I'm sad we didn't get to see father and daughter with swords fighting together or one with Charming, Emma and Snow swords and bow and arrow. Charming teaching Emma how to swordfight or Snow teaching Emma how to use a bow and arrow. Maybe both teaching Henry.      

Edited February 18, 2018 by andromeda331

[Camera One]

They could also have done a lot of parallels if Snow and Aurora The First were contemporaries.  They would both be dealing with not seeing their children grow up.  Charming and Mulan's father would also be able to commiserate about having such capable and strong daughters and maybe feeling like they were not needed. 

The Princess story in 2A would have been even more interesting if Snow had actually known Aurora II and Mulan's parents.  Aurora may never have met her mother, and she could ask Emma what it's like to reunite with parents as an adult.  In Storybrooke, I think we could have seen Charming struggling to be a leader without Snow, with people seeing him as a shepherd boy.  There could have been more stand-alone stories of the week where Charming and Henry helped people to find their loved ones.  Maybe the flashback could provide some missing pieces to how Prince Philip could be saved.  I still think it was ridiculous that Mulan, Aurora and Philip were MIA and they reunited off-screen and then came back for a single scene in the Season 2 finale where they randomly found an injured Neal.  And then they came back for a short cameo in 3A before once again disappearing into the ether. 

I was pretty excited that King Stefan was cast and I really thought we would see Aurora's backstory.  Unfortunately, it was "How Regina Helped Maleficent to Get Her Groove Back".

Edited February 18, 2018 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I always wanted them to talk more about the various kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest world, and how they all worked with each other, or didn't. We got bits and pieces of it, with King George arranging the marriage with Abigail and King Midas as part of some kind of alliance, and Snow and Charming were apparently friends with Cinderella and her Prince, so we can assume their kingdoms got along, but what about the other places? We see there are other kingdoms around, like, as above posters said, Mulan and Auroras kingdoms, and Arendale and Erics kingdom seemed nearby too, so what was the situation in this world? Did they all fight in the Ogre War, that seemed to go on off and on for years? Did they work together, have trade agreements, rivalry's? I agree that it would have been cool to see Snow knowing Auroras or Mulans parents, and having that be a part of their adventures in season 2. It would continue to hit on how much things had changed since Snow was trapped in a time vortex. Things in both the Land Without Magic and the magic world had changed, and now she was meeting the adult kids of people she knew as young adults. We get a bit about the other kingdoms, like Erics kingdom seems like a seafaring nation, and Mulans is magic China, and Arendale is exactly like it was in the movie, but can we get a bit more? Or is everything just one giant, medieval forest? 

Or, what was it like in the time between Regina being dethroned, and the Dark Curse? What was it like to run a country filled with magic creatures and such? Snow was a princess so I assume she knew something about governing*, but Charming was just a random guy until pretty recently. Granted, he seemed to take to being a prince pretty well (mostly in being a leader), but I assume he would need some help. Maybe parallel that with him feeling overwhelmed in Storybrooke as the king in a magic less little town, like @Camera One suggested. I dont need the magical West Wing, but I think it could have been really interesting, and could have shown a lot of great world building and character growth. I feel like we still have no idea how this world works, and or anything happened, even though we`ve had plenty of time for it. 

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

In hindsight, I suppose it would have been hard to write a coherent story based on just that, but maybe they could have used it to tell the Sleeping Beauty story as well.  It could have been cool if it culminated in Snow and Charming bringing in forces from Mulan's kingdom and Aurora's kingdom to defeat Regina and George, who could have tried to get Shan Yu and Maleficent to help.

See, when I hear "Disney mash up TV series" thats what I want to see! That sounds awesome! I dont think "a frequently crying Evil Queen bones Robin Hood next to corpses of her victims that no one cares about while his wife watches their kid." 

[jhlipton]

21 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

What the heck was the point of the Home Office crap? 

The cynic in me thinks it's so they could have fans rejoice when they killed a Black woman...

[tennisgurl]

I think with Home Office, they wanted to do a classic Science vs. Magic story, but then they realized that they totally dropped the ball with their shitty characters, lame fake spy speak, and terribly explained science bracelets, so they just tossed the whole plot out between seasons, and just said it was all Pan manipulating these two dunderheads. Then they could just forget about the whole thing. Which, yeah I was glad to be rid of that horribily done, half asses plot, but it also made the whole second half of season 2 pretty pointless. 

[Camera One]

It was an early clue to their tendency to grab extra stuff to throw at the wall once they get bored or run out of ideas.  Instead of exploring the buffet of issues Neal could have dealt with in Storybrooke, they didn't know what to do except bring on a fiancé who also had to be evil.  Instead of exploring Regina questioning whether she should really be aligning with her mother, they threw in the new villain of ex-Owen, now Greg.  Instead of exploring Snowing deciding whether to go back to the Enchanted Forest and working through their relationship with Emma, they needed to make Snow a murderer just like Regina.   And then now with Greg/Owen and Tamara, instead of exploring the threat of the outside world finding out about Storybrooke, they had to do an apocalyptic everyone-might-die nonsensical fail-safe.  I don't accept the lame excuse that they got the rights to Peter Pan and had to find a way to get everyone to Neverland.  That could have been done in a billion other different ways.  Without the stupid "Henry will be your undoing" prophesy, too.  Neal had plenty of reasons to distrust Rumple and they didn't need to add "plotting to kill his grandson" on top of it.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Camera One

[ParadoxLost]

35 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I think with Home Office, they wanted to do a classic Science vs. Magic story, but then they realized that they totally dropped the ball with their shitty characters, lame fake spy speak, and terribly explained science bracelets, so they just tossed the whole plot out between seasons, and just said it was all Pan manipulating these two dunderheads. 

 I was expecting that they'd go with an anti-fairy tale agency founded by characters from the real world who ended up in fairy tales and returned to the real world and became totally against magic.  I was expecting Wendy and the Darlings to be behind Home Office.  But they really did mess up the set up of a lot of arcs and basically have to scrap it and start over

15 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It was an early clue to their tendency to grab extra stuff to throw at the wall once they get bored or run out of ideas.  Instead of exploring the buffet of issues Neal could have dealt with in Storybrooke, they didn't know what to do except bring on a fiancé who also had to be evil.  Instead of exploring Regina questioning whether she should really be aligning with her mother, they threw in the new villain of ex-Owen, now Greg.  Instead of exploring Snowing deciding whether to go back to the Enchanted Forest and working through their relationship with Emma, they needed to make Snow a murderer just like Regina.   And then now with Greg/Owen and Tamara, instead of exploring the threat of the outside world finding out about Storybrooke, they had to do an apocalyptic everyone-might-die nonsensical fail-safe.  I don't accept the lame excuse that they got the rights to Peter Pan and had to find a way to get everyone to Neverland.  That could have been done in a billion other different ways.  Without the stupid "Henry will be your undoing" prophesy, too.  Neal had plenty of reasons to distrust Rumple and they didn't need to add "plotting to kill his grandson" on top of it.

Letts throw in how ridiculous it was to scrap the potential of the curse being recast with Emma having no memory of her fairy tale family and raising Henry while everyone was transported back to the EF for amnesia and Wicked.  Honestly, they did a disservice to both the Storybrooke characters and Oz with that one.  Another one that made no sense was why they would burn the story potential of Camelot by weaving it into Dark Emma and Dark One lore.

[tennisgurl]

A&E are idea guys, and you can really tell that while watching Once, as well as some of their other works. They come up with interesting ideas, but then they either dont think about the actual follow through "Wouldn't it be cool if..." as story telling essentially. It’s sometimes a good idea, but it often doesn’t serve a point for the story or the characters. Or, they come up with lots of characters and concepts they think are interesting, then discard them immediately when they see the next shiny thing, and we dont get pay off from any of the formally shiny things that have been tossed away when A&E lose interest in the past. 

Thats why I think Lost went so much better, and why season 1 (and to a lesser extent, the Frozen arc) were so much more tightly written. They had people overseeing them who knew how to actually properly structure a story, beyond "Wouldn't it be awesome if..." then instantly moving to the next "awesome" thing, character, or moment. While Lost wasn't perfect, they at least tried to come up with actual reasons for things to exist beyond being weird. Not that idea people are bad to have around, but they normally arent show runners, because idea guys need more structured people to get beyond just an idea, and turn it into a story. They were good idea guys, but crappy show runners, especially without adult supervision. 

Edited February 19, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, tennisgurl said:

While Lost wasn't perfect, they at least tried to come up with actual reasons for things to exist beyond being weird. 

They also attempted to provide character arcs, at least until mid-Season 5.  They did have favorites, but they still did a better job of spreading the screentime around and giving the supporting characters some time and attention, at least until mid-Season 5.  The new characters they added generally stuck around and had relevance for more than half a season... whereas A&E's added characters generally had relevance for a few episodes, if that.  

The worst thing with A&E is that they never learn, or maybe it's that they never acknowledge or maybe never recognize their writing flaws.  Eddy once said, "Who remembers stuff like that" when asked about their regrets.  It really mirrors a certain character on the show.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

 I was expecting that they'd go with an anti-fairy tale agency founded by characters from the real world who ended up in fairy tales and returned to the real world and became totally against magic.  I was expecting Wendy and the Darlings to be behind Home Office.  But they really did mess up the set up of a lot of arcs and basically have to scrap it and start over

That would have made sense and good reasons for anti-magic. Maybe even have some fairytale characters who join because they became anti magic from living in fairy tale land. They really should have found a lot of support or had a lot of members and/or gained more members in Storybrooke. There had to be people sick of Rumple and Regina, of how much their lives sucked in the Enchanted Forest and how their rulers were unable to protect them from evil magic users. Maybe Snow becomes interested her entire life has been destroyed by magic or Henry.  Some times I think it should have been started by Neal give his hate for magic.  
 

Quote

 

Letts throw in how ridiculous it was to scrap the potential of the curse being recast with Emma having no memory of her fairy tale family and raising Henry while everyone was transported back to the EF for amnesia and Wicked.  Honestly, they did a disservice to both the Storybrooke characters and Oz with that one.  Another one that made no sense was why they would burn the story potential of Camelot by weaving it into Dark Emma and Dark One lore.

 

It also made no sense that everyone had to go back to EF. Everyone that Regina brought over by the Curse, yes should have had to go back. Emma and Henry, but also Hook who wasn't brought to town because of the Curse, Neal and August. Cinderella's baby may count as well since she was born here. Unless being born in Storybrooke made the difference.   

[Camera One]

If they had any intention of keeping Neal on the show, the logical love interest would have been a grown-up Wendy.  

[Rumsy4]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

If they had any intention of keeping Neal on the show, the logical love interest would have been a grown-up Wendy.  

I actually assumed that to be the case, until we found she was still a little girl. Or Tink would've worked (several fanfics written during the Neverland arc used that pairing).

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

If they had any intention of keeping Neal on the show, the logical love interest would have been a grown-up Wendy.  

It really should have been. Bae and Wendy had such chemistry. They would have been really cute.

28 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I actually assumed that to be the case, until we found she was still a little girl. Or Tink would've worked (several fanfics written during the Neverland arc used that pairing).

This could have been a good possibility too. I wish we knew more about their relationship. Were they friends or more then friends? If they were more then friends exactly when? Before or after she hooked up with Hook.    

[Inquirer]

14 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I was expecting Wendy and the Darlings to be behind Home Office. 

They technically were - the Home Office front was made and run by John and Michael, who were working for Pan due to Wendy being held hostage.  It's just that this wasn't delved into much, and I think there was probably a more complex plan for the whole thing than just "Wendy's a captive and her brothers forced into servitude" - like the Darlings made the Home Office as a legit organization of their own free will due to hating magic over what happened to Bae, and Pan found a way to hijack it for his own purposes (whatever the Darlings' role, Pan being the one pulling the Home Office's strings was made clear by Rumple in the S2 finale, so at least that wasn't a S3 retcon.)

Quote

I think with Home Office, they wanted to do a classic Science vs. Magic story, but then they realized that they totally dropped the ball with their shitty characters, lame fake spy speak, and terribly explained science bracelets, so they just tossed the whole plot out between seasons, and just said it was all Pan manipulating these two dunderheads. Then they could just forget about the whole thing. 

See, that's what I'm saying - Pan manipulating them was NOT something they made up between seasons, since one of the last lines of S2 was Rumple flat-out saying that Greg and Tamara "are merely pawns being manipulated by forces far greater than they can conceive - they've no idea who they're really working for", who is "someone we should all fear" - and then cut to the first name-drop of Peter Pan.  What likely changed between seasons was the nature of the whole Home Office thing, which was just made one big lie when I think there was supposed to be more truth to it.  Like Pan was using it for his own ends, but the mission to eliminate magic was real and started by the Darlings.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Inquirer

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Mabinogia said:

Even with that said, I think a focus on the villains could have worked, though it would have changed what this show started out as

If they treated Regina and Rumple more like how they treated Hook, it might have worked. As it is, they made the Charmings Regina’s doormats and Belle the eternal dupe of Rumple. I also think they overdid the beating down of Hook to the point where he started to look like a second-class citizen of the Charming clan. 

The writers overdid all the character beats they actually attempted, and that’s what ruined all of them. 

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Inquirer said:

Pan manipulating them was NOT something they made up between seasons, since one of the last lines of S2 was Rumple flat-out saying that Greg and Tamara "are merely pawns being manipulated by forces far greater than they can conceive - they've no idea who they're really working for", who is "someone we should all fear" - and then cut to the first name-drop of Peter Pan. 

I don't think anyone argued that it was a retcon made up between seasons, since, as you said, they dropped all that in during the season 2 finale. But it does seem like a retcon happened between the time we first saw Greg and/or Tamara making furtive phone calls and references to the Home Office and the time they were all heading off to Neverland. Heck, there was even room for them to have abruptly changed course right up to the first part of the two-part finale. I'm sure they always planned for Bae to have been a Lost Boy of sorts, since we already knew he knew Hook, knew how to sail a pirate ship, and there had to be some reason he was still alive. But the setup for actually taking the story to Neverland pretty much came out of nowhere at the end of season 2. I don't think when the first references to the Home Office were made that the writers had any idea that they'd end up making that about Pan. They seemed to start out telling one story, then forced it to become a different story when they either got a different idea or got clearance to use Peter Pan. The season two finale felt like a rather abrupt course correction, since it rather quickly turned Regina from someone plotting to murder the entire town into a heroic would-be martyr, and it brushed aside all the magic vs. science plot to make that a Pan scheme. I felt like the story was on the verge of going somewhere entirely different in the episode before those last two, and then it was all scrapped for something else.

Going back to them skipping the actual war against Regina and George ... I think one reason that they never actually showed it was that it would have made it even more ridiculous for everyone to be okay with Regina still being in charge as mayor and apparently ruling alongside the Charmings during the Missing Year if we'd ever seen them fighting against Regina's forces to win their kingdom back. It's still a bit ridiculous how often they showed her being cruel to them, but if we'd seen what they went through to get the kingdom back, it would have been crazy. The other reason is that I doubt they even know how that worked or put any thought into it. For Snow's kingdom, it probably would have been more of a guerilla resistance movement, looking a lot like many of the versions of the Robin Hood story, where the survivors of Regina's village slaughters and everyone outlawed for standing up for Snow ends up hiding out in the woods until they form a kind of army. Meanwhile, the members of the army who haven't had their hearts ripped out might have mostly sided with Snow and defected, and the people seemed to be on Snow's side, as their rightful ruler. They may not have known for certain that Regina was behind the king's death, but kicking Snow out of the palace, taking control, and putting a price on Snow's head soon afterward wouldn't have made her look particularly innocent. That war would have been about getting rid of a usurper and putting the rightful queen on the throne.

But the part of the war against George is a little trickier, since he may have been a jerk, but he was the rightful king. It's hard to say how popular he was, and the kingdom was broke, but he had an army. I'm not sure how a rag-tag guerilla movement in another kingdom could have toppled him, unless maybe his alliance with Regina meant he sent troops to her kingdom, and he got captured when his troops were defeated there.

The whole thing is really weird when you think about it. Wasn't Regina still in Knifingham Palace when she cast the curse? The Charmings were living in George's palace, not Snow's palace, and they seemed to be ruling both kingdoms. But Regina still had a palace and knights, so how, exactly, was she "defeated"? Where was George? Why were Snow and Charming in George's kingdom and not her own? I don't think David was originally from George's kingdom, since Anna went to his place when she went to Mysthaven/the Enchanted Forest. He was an imposter of an adopted son. Was he ruling under the guise of being "James," the heir to George's throne, or as a conqueror who had defeated George? Why were Snow and Charming still "prince and princess" and not "king and queen"?

I'm not sure the writers ever figured out how the politics worked with all these kingdoms clustered together. They had George taking action within Regina's kingdom, Regina bossing George around, Regina showing up at Midas's castle and ordering his guards around. Regina and George may have had an alliance, but the way she acted when she came to Midas's ball would generally have been grounds for a war. Then again, they had Tiana being a princess within a kingdom ruled by a king she wasn't related to, so they must never have studied much history and don't know how royalty works. That may also explain why they didn't seem to realize that Regina wouldn't have inherited the throne when Leo died, that she wasn't a rightful queen, and if she was supposedly reformed and had become a good person, she'd have stepped down as mayor to hand the job over to Snow, or else called for a fair election, not stood smiling smugly while "Queen" was stenciled on her door.

[tennisgurl]

The thing is, ignoring all the political and day to day stuff is normally ok in a fairy tale. I doubt most people left Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs thinking "that was cool and all, but I have some very unanswered questions about the Queens fiscal policy" because its a movie with a finite amount of time, and thats not what people usually go to fairy tales for. However, this is a television series that has lasted for several seasons now, where the politics and hierarchy of this world has been important to the plot and characters, so now this has become relevant to the show. You can feel that A&E were thinking "its a fairy tale, who cares about how this world works?", but thats ridiculous, because they keep bringing up how the political situations in this world, with wars and alliances and what not, are affecting the story, and they have SO MUCH time to tell it, why do they bring it up, if they dont wanna freaking talk about it? Its fine in a quick "Once Upon a Time" style story, or a movie that has other focuses, but when you have a whole tv show, and it keeps affecting the plot, you have time and reason, so why not get into it? 

Its kind of like another tangent I've gone on a few times, about how A&E seem to think they dont have to spend time world building, explain how their worlds rules work, or that we shouldn't think too hard about the magic stuff and its implications, because its a fantasy show. In reality, its literally the opposite. In any series/book/movie/whatever that involves fantasy or science fiction or anything like that, you NEED to explain how things work, or the audience will be totally confused and annoyed. Like, you dont need to explain everything about how the Presidency works when you write The West Wing, because you can assume your audience knows the basics or can quickly look things up, because its stuff that exists in the real world. We dont know how leadership or the line of succession works in this world, so you have to explain it to us. We dont know how magic works in this world because we dont have magic in our world, you have to explain it to us. If you dont world build, how can we care? Why are there any stakes when you can do anything, because you haven't established any rules? You dont need to explain everything in great detail or anything, you just have to give us the rules so we understand what can or cant happen, and why characters are doing what they're doing. We dont know how this world works, so you have to explain it at least a little bit to us so we can understand what everyone is fighting about, and why anyone is doing anything!

Edited February 20, 2018 by tennisgurl

[Camera One]

18 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I have some very unanswered questions about the Queens fiscal policy"

I'm sure we would all be lining up for that movie on opening day.  

Edited February 20, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

21 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I'm sure we would all be lining up for that movie on opening day.  

We could watch The Crown for that.

Quote

The thing is, ignoring all the political and day to day stuff is normally ok in a fairy tale. I doubt most people left Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs thinking "that was cool and all, but I have some very unanswered questions about the Queens fiscal policy" because its a movie with a finite amount of time, and thats not what people usually go to fairy tales for. However, this is a television series that has lasted for several seasons now, where the politics and hierarchy of this world has been important to the plot and characters, so now this has become relevant to the show. 

Fairy tales are not the kind of media you can draw multiple conclusions out of. They're not open for interpretation, but rather straight and to the point. They are formulaic, follow simple structures, bow to familiar tropes, and have a strong beginning, middle, and end. You can't extract a bunch of "moral grayness" very easily without twisting them into pretzels. You're not going to read Snow White and Seven Dwarves and think, "Gee, I wonder if the Evil Queen was misunderstood". (Well, unless you're A&E.) If you could, it would be a different story. However, there seems to be a trend nowadays to analyze them to death and grasp at things that simply weren't there in the source material. There's a lot of "maybe's" and "what if's", but not "oh yes, I definitely see it in this different way".

I don't think that makes OUAT's core format flawed per se, but changing up the fairy tales to better suit a more dramatic serialized structure made it work. Straight-up adaptations would not. Sometimes, the writers treat it as an "open-and-shut" story, forsaking what happened before or could happen after the current point of time. There's many moments in the show that would be fine if they were the end (like Rumple sacrificing himself for Pan) or the beginning (Regina deciding to redeem herself), but they don't function like they should because of the context of the whole. Belle kicking Rumple over the town line would be amazing if it stopped there. 

This all kind of loops back to it being a show of "moments". It would work so much better as more of an anthology series. (See: OUATIW)

Edited February 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[ParadoxLost]

31 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

This all kind of loops back to it being a show of "moments". It would work so much better as more of an anthology series. (See: OUATIW)

I always loop back to it would have worked better with better writers.

Even an anthology wouldn't work because they can't come up with that much content for an arc.  Two TV movies a year, maybe.

I do wonder if it would have worked better if the show were more soapy from the beginning.  If they were going to attempt to have Regina's role in the curse minimized by having her manipulated by Rumple, they should have just had Rumple cast it.  Then they could have had Regina's natural personality drive her to become Mayor and basically play off the same story without the same level of responsibility.  It would have also allowed her to have relationships, some of them driving post curse drama, without.it being rapey. 

It was weird that they just dropped the sticky issue of curse personalities and relationships once the curse was broken.

[KingOfHearts]

38 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

It was weird that they just dropped the sticky issue of curse personalities and relationships once the curse was broken.

The characters briefly mentioned their cursed personalities from time to time in 2A. "In the Name of the Brother" was, I believe, the final episode to highlight the contrast between the fairy tale and real world versions of them. (If you don't count Lacey.) After that, the show boarded the plot train with Cora, Neal, Greg, and Tamara.

It's as if most of S1 never happened. Heck, it's as if most of the show never happened.

Edited February 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[ParadoxLost]

4 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

The characters briefly mentioned their cursed personalities from time to time in 2A. "In the Name of the Brother" was, I believe, the final episode to highlight the contrast between the fairy tale and real world versions of them. (If you don't count Lacey.) After that, the show boarded the plot train with Cora, Neal, Greg, and Tamara.

It's as if most of S1 never happened. Heck, it's as if most of the show never happened.

Charming would periodically become irritated over Snow and Whale.

Still irked they never went to black and white movie monster land.

[KingOfHearts]

34 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

Charming would periodically become irritated over Snow and Whale.

Oh yes. With no mention of Charming sleeping with Kathryn or Regina attempting to seduce him. Everyone forgets that Regina has this weird thing for Charming toward the end of S1. It was never mentioned again, but apparently there was all this Golden Queen subtext?

Edited February 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Free]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I always loop back to it would have worked better with better writers.

Even an anthology wouldn't work because they can't come up with that much content for an arc.  Two TV movies a year, maybe.

I do wonder if it would have worked better if the show were more soapy from the beginning.  If they were going to attempt to have Regina's role in the curse minimized by having her manipulated by Rumple, they should have just had Rumple cast it.  Then they could have had Regina's natural personality drive her to become Mayor and basically play off the same story without the same level of responsibility.  It would have also allowed her to have relationships, some of them driving post curse drama, without.it being rapey. 

It was weird that they just dropped the sticky issue of curse personalities and relationships once the curse was broken.

Logically, that's what the show should've focused on since the big curse was broken, not immediately be sucked into a new realm and have the characters be separated for a sizable chunk of 2a.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I always loop back to it would have worked better with better writers.

Or even borderline "normal" writers.  I mean, what type of headwriters push major main characters to the background by the middle of Season 2 and then ignore some of the biggest core relationships (Emma/Snow) for the rest of the show?  What writers jump over truly meaty redemption stories and claim a villain is misunderstood while giving them a never-before mentioned history of mass murder?  

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Oh yes. With no mention of Charming sleeping with Kathryn or Regina attempting to seduce him. Everyone forgets that Regina has this weird thing for Charming toward the end of S1. It was never mentioned again, but apparently there was all this Golden Queen subtext?

Or show Charming after the Curse is broke vomiting repeatedly remembering that Regina hit on him. But that's what bugs me. Its part of a larger part of no real fall out from the Curse.  Everyone except Regina was under the Curse and did things under the Curse they wouldn't normally do. There should be questions of how much their responsible for but also guilt about what they did under the Curse. How Charming treated Snow and Kathryn. He would still guilty about that. How does Snow feel about having slept with Whale under the Curse? What about the couple that raised Grace? How do they feel now she's reunited with her father?  Cinderella's father-in-law he almost sold his grandchild.             

[KingOfHearts]

7 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

. How Charming treated Snow and Kathryn.

We really needed a scene where Charming met with Kathryn post-curse, preferably with Snow in tow.

Edited February 20, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

If they weren't going to deal with the aftermath, why have Charming sleep with Kathryn and Snow with Whale?  It was unnecessary.  It would have been nice to see something in Charming making him stop, if true love is supposedly so strong.  I've always hated how Snow in the flashback did not have the inner goodness to resist the urge to kill Regina if Charming hadn't stopped it.  It was the first sign that these characters had so little free will and no inner strength.  

[andromeda331]

Thinking more on the Charming and Kathryn, do you think that should have effected Emma and Charming's relationship in season two? The Curse breaks but all Emma knows of David/Charming is he cheated on his wife and didn't man up to leave her. Unlike everyone else who gets their memories back and remember who they are. That's all Emma really knows of Charming. She knows Mary Margaret better because they spent a year building their friendship. But she's never spent that much time with David. 

[Camera One]

Now that you mention it, the lack of interest in building Emma and David in 2B is really quite striking.  A&E wrote David wanting to go back to the Enchanted Forest without much second thought.  I'm glad that they eventually did give Emma and David some good scenes in Season 3, but I wonder if that was because Ginny was pregnant and had less screentime.