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

[tennisgurl]

The fish out of water stuff was so underused, and it just kills me because its right there, ready for comedy and drama, and if they played it right, that could have carried this show for at least a season of two. However, with the modern day download, it became clear that they had zero interest in any of the "fairy tale people in modern world" stuff (even though thats the premise of the damn show) and just considered it something that had to be written around to get to more jazz hand fights in the middle of town and villain worship. And it sucks, because when they tried to write those fun fish out of water moments, they were actually pretty good. I remember back in season 2 when Charming gave his big We Are Both speech, where they showed the dwarfs marching off with their pick axes in their normal clothes, and a shoe place putting up a sign for cobbling, it looked like this is what we were going to get. A clash and blend between the fairy tale and the modern, with some of the newer characters to do the fish out of water stuff. But...it all just fizzled, sacrificed at the altar of plot. They had the ability to write fun or interesting stuff with that theme too. Like, there was a scene in Wonderland where heroes Cyrus and Alice end up in Storeybrooke for an episode to do some plot stuff, and while they dont go crazy with the modern day references, as they're in a pretty big hurry, it does take some time to have our heroes (from, respectively, a Arabian Nights style world and a Victorian England world) marvel at some modern day technology. Theres an especially fun scene where Cyrus gets distracted by a light switch and keeps switching it on and off, starring at it like its the most amazing thing he has ever seen. And he was an actual genie! It didn't take long, but it was fun and allowed for some fun character beats. They could have done that more, but they choose not too! 

Really, I think it all comes back to that quote where A&E said something like "no one wants to watch Hook and Emma do dishes" or something, and thats where they show their priorities, and a serious lack of understanding about both fans, and story. For one thing, fans freaking LOVE shit like watching characters hanging out and doing random stuff. They eat that crap up. They like to see characters they love doing things that are fun or normal or just exist to build character and relationships, it makes them more relatible, and its just fun and cute to see. Theres a reason that "domestic fluff" is a whole subgenre of fanfic. Maybe some fans would complain about too much time not on the action, but A. you cant please everyone, and B. if you have a good show, you can balance character stuff and fun scenes that dont really advance the plot (and are just fun or creative or dramatic) as well as action and plot stuff. You need both in a good show, so that when the action starts, the audience cares about the characters, because they've gotten to know them, and their enjoying the ride. To A&E, all this interesting fairytale and fish out of water stuff isnt a reason to get creative or have fun or work on character stuff or world building, its the equivalent of watching people do dishes. Boring stuff that keeps them from the plot or the angst. They never seemed to understand that just because something isnt plot relevant (or angsty), that doesn't mean its time wasted. They become so enamored with their endless parade of shiny things and new "shocking" twists and developments, they forgot to actually use what they had.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Really, I think it all comes back to that quote where A&E said something like "no one wants to watch Hook and Emma do dishes" or something, and thats where they show their priorities, and a serious lack of understanding about both fans, and story.

There was that comment about not wanting to see the Evil Queen at the DMV. I'm actually seriously considering writing fanfic of that just to prove it could be entertaining. Imagine S2 Regina having to take the driver's test again and struggling not to use magic to pass parallel parking. She'd get so impatient waiting in line that she'd have to keep her fireballs under control.

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I remember back in season 2 when Charming gave his big We Are Both speech, where they showed the dwarfs marching off with their pick axes in their normal clothes, and a shoe place putting up a sign for cobbling, it looked like this is what we were going to get. A clash and blend between the fairy tale and the modern, with some of the newer characters to do the fish out of water stuff. But...it all just fizzled, sacrificed at the altar of plot. They had the ability to write fun or interesting stuff with that theme too. 

One major change I'd make S3 onward is get rid of the barrier around Storybrooke so that outsiders can come in. One of the few bright spots of 2B was the Storybrookers trying to hide their magic from Greg. 2B brought up a very interesting dilemma, and it's sad that it never came to fruition.

Edited March 31, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

17 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

One major change I'd make S3 onward is get rid of the barrier around Storybrooke so that outsiders can come in. One of the few bright spots of 2B was the Storybrookers trying to hide their magic from Greg. 2B brought up a very interesting dilemma, and it's sad that it never came to fruition.

 

Hello,

We could have explored that in Season 8 since magic would have come to Hyperion Heights in the Season 7 finale cliffhanger but we were cruelly cut down by narrow-minded viewers and network execs.  

Thank you for your compliments about Greg.  We loved that story too!

A&E

Edited March 31, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Rewatching parts of "Tiny" for giggles.

Storybrooke must have super soil or something. It took the giants 100 years to plant and grow their beans for harvest, apparently.

I LOL'ed at Hook flirting with Snow in front of Charming. "I see where your daughter got her gumption," with a lick of the lips.

[Camera One]

I was reading this old blog post (2012) from someone who felt A&E's use of flashbacks in Season 1 was weak (compared to "Lost") because the characters on "Once" were not self-aware of their past so could not remember what was occurring in the flashbacks.  I think they raise a few valid points that the main gimmick was to subvert or to surprise us based on differences between the known fairy tale and the "twist" they came up with.

Unfortunately, the flashbacks were no better once the characters' memories came back and they *could* remember those past events...

[Rumsy4]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

A&E tried in S6 of OUAT to "change things up", but it failed miserably because they didn't really replace their formula with anything. It was a bunch of nothing. No structure.

I'm really curious why everything spectacularly fell apart in S6. Once their supposed five-year plan was finished, did they get flustered? The drop in quality between Season 5 and 6 is staggering. Even if the various half-season arcs had a mixed reception in previous seasons, at least they had a structure. In Season 6, it was a mess. I don't buy that the elimination of half-season arcs was the sole reason. The only overarching arc of the season involved Rumple. Everything went to serve the Rumple storyline and to get him his Happy Ending. Emma was just incidental to the plot. Even the Clone Queen mess was just A&E padding the screentime with their favorite character. Regina had no actual relevance to the arc either. None of the other regulars or guest charatcers had anything meaningful to do either. Why did the writers decide to focus the central storyline of their potential final season on Rumple? I'm sure they did not know that they would get a reduced Season 7 when they planned for Season 6. 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Even from the season premiere, you can tell that plots were tacked on last minute for S6. I don't believe Emma's Savioritis was part of the original plan, nor the Aladdin inclusion. In fact, the Final Battle probably didn't occur to A&E until they started to realize halfway through that they were in danger of cancellation. Clone Queen, the Land of Untold Stories, and Rumple's plot were most likely the initial ideas. (That's my guess, anyway.) I also believe there was a significant amount of network meddling in the form of Dungey making requests and A&E botching them up in the worst ways imaginable. 

It's funny that S6 is so terrible even by this show's standards.

23 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Even if the various half-season arcs had a mixed reception in previous seasons, at least they had a structure.

They listened to those fans who were tired of the predictable half-season structure.

Edited April 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

The lack of a half-season arc was a huge reason for Season 6 being so bad, because they are such incompetent writers that they simply cannot construct a full-season story.  The only time they successfully did so was in the first season and they had a lot of help and oversight for that.  Just like Season 7, their strategy for a full season was to throw shiny toys at the wall to see if they stick.  Because half of it didn't stick, the show became an incoherent mess. 

They also had over-confidence in their dream arc of The Evil Queen and Evil Rumple being entertaining enough to mask the absence of a clear plotline. 

Furthermore, six seasons in, they had run out of ideas for all the characters they were bored to death with.  Snowing hadn't had an actual good storyline since Season 2, so naturally, they got put to sleep.  They already did the last-resort plotline of Emma becoming evil in Season 5, so now what? 

Aladdin and Jasmine were weak, but I too think that was a last-minute addition (maybe forced upon them), so it was shoe-horned in.  Then again, they tried to do Cinderella and it utterly failed this year, so maybe that's just how bad their writing actually is. 

Finally, their arrogance that Season 6 would not be the final season sealed the deal.  Instead of going for some of the last vestiges of emotional impact that could be mined, they instead soldiered on with their bad ideas, with the focus on setting up a requel in Season 7 so they could start fresh with new toys.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

The only time they successfully did so was in the first season and they had a lot of help and oversight for that. 

Even then, the middle sort of slumped and got a little filler-y.

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Just like Season 7, their strategy for a full season was to throw shiny toys at the wall to see if they stick.  Because half of it didn't stick, the show became an incoherent mess. 

At least with shorter arcs, if something doesn't work, you're not stuck with it for 20~ episodes.

Edited April 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

8 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Even then, the middle sort of slumped and got a little filler-y.

Maybe. But it wasn’t any worse than typical TV shows of that cadre.

9 minutes ago, Camera One said:

They also had over-confidence in their dream arc of The Evil Queen and Evil Rumple being entertaining enough to mask the absence of a clear plotline. 

I think that was definitely part of it. They tried to make it through on sex appeal. Lana had two to three costume changes per episode for the Clone Queen arc. Then the writers had Rumple and the EQ (the top two favs) making out. Literally everybody was disgusted with that storyline, and they knew it. Why would they intentionally put that kind of vile junk on their show? Did they think it was good drama? But it just went nowhere (thankfully). So, what was the point? 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

Literally everybody was disgusted with that storyline, and they knew it. Why would they intentionally put that kind of vile junk on their show? Did they think it was good drama? But it just went nowhere (thankfully). So, what was the point? 

I don't know if they knew people were disgusted with the storyline until it was written and being filmed.  They probably still think it was a great twist.  They did it to connect Regina, The Evil Queen, Rumple and Zelena.  As usual, clunky and ultimately pointless, but their writing style is filler, filler, filler, filler, filler, filler, filler, filler, filler, plot x 100000, finale to set up next season.

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

Maybe. But is wasn’t any worse than typical TV shows of that cadre.

This show in particular works better in shorter bursts, imo. It's just how these writers are.

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

Why would they intentionally put that kind of vile junk on their show? Did they think it was good drama? But it just went nowhere (thankfully). So, what was the point? 

I never thought, in the first five seasons, that there was any romantic subtext between Regina and Rumple. It's true that EQ would seduce anything that breathed, but Rumple would never reciprocate that in a million years. Especially when Belle is within walking distance carrying his child in her womb. I always thought Regina/Rumple had a twisted father/daughter relationship, not a "hot for teacher" thing.

[Rumsy4]

What makes Rumple so attractive to the Mills women? It’s almost incestuous as at one point, we wondered if Rumple was actually Regina’s mother.

2 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Rumple would never reciprocate that in a million years. Especially when Belle is within walking distance carrying his child in her womb.

By the end, Rumple betrayed and abused Belle in as many ways as possible without actually hitting her. And yet, she went back to him. What a great romance!

[AnotherCastle]

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Why would they intentionally put that kind of vile junk on their show? Did they think it was good drama? But it just went nowhere (thankfully). So, what was the point? 

EK getting his way no matter what thinking it was fun times? Robert Carlyle did say he had a fight and falling out about it with Eddy specifically. The rest of the writers went radio silent on the GQ topic, even when they were live tweeting about the episode they had written; they just skipped the GQ scenes in 6a. 

1.22 commentary

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Eddy Kitsis (chuckling): I love how [the Queen] just abuses [the huntsman], that he’s basically just a trapped sex slave.

If he thinks that's fun, I doubt he saw any problem with GQ or the Mills women sharing the same men since they alo went there not just with Rumple but with Robin Hood and Snow's father.

[Rumsy4]

Eddy is really something. He always seems tone deaf when it comes to these kinds of issues. Adam is more disingenuous because secretly he cares a bit too much about what other people think, and tries to cover his bases. 

[KingOfHearts]

41 minutes ago, AnotherCastle said:

1.22 commentary

It stinks that you have to buy the DVD sets for the commentaries. I don't want to pay for all the episodes I could just watch on Netflix just for those.

Quote

Eddy is really something. He always seems tone deaf when it comes to these kinds of issues. Adam is more disingenuous because secretly he cares a bit too much about what other people think, and tries to cover his bases. 

It's comments like the ones about Graham that genuinely irk me. And we wonder why there's so much sexual harassment going on in show business right now.

Edited April 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

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Rewatching parts of "Tiny" for giggles.

Speaking of "Tiny".  I went to watch some clips too and it just reminded me how contradictory this show is in its messaging.  

For example:

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“The show is about how evil is made, it’s not born,” Kitsis said of Victoria’s death.

The question of whether someone could have grown up to be good/evil is briefly discussed in this scene from Tiny, but it seems to indicate there is inherent goodness.  It's also easy to see how A&E constantly flipped-flopped the characters in terms of their key motivating drivers, what they wanted, what they cared about, etc., in order to fit the plot.  In Season 2, it seemed like we knew who these characters were, but by Season 6, it was impossible to tell because they were all over the place.  It shows how it is very possible to destroy a show and its characters.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

this scene from Tiny

Oh my. How the tables turned. Charming seemed fine ditching Emma and Henry and going back to the EF. And Snow refused to leave without Emma. In Season 3, Snow was fine staying in Neverland with David, and moved on to have a replacement baby in the EF. I remember this scene, but generally ignore it because it seemed ludicrous that David would say that, and besides, David has a better relationship with Emma than Snow. But if we just going by canon, the writing made it seem like neither parent truly cared about Emma. She was a concept more than a daughter for them. 

On the point of the inherent goodness of David vs James, I took it more as something wives would say about their husbands and vice versa. But technically, at this stage they're already supposed to have Darkness in their hearts from having kidnapped Mal's baby. It's a mess when later season flashbacks contradict past events. 

I think the main reason Season 6 ruined the show for me was because they turned all their charatcers into plot devices. The motivations and actions were all over the place and had very little internal consistency. Plot drove events more blatantly than in previous seasons. The Show lost the immersive experience. When you can clearly see all the strings being pulled, it's hard to stay interested. 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

I think the main reason Season 6 ruined the show for me was because they turned all their charatcers into plot devices. The motivations and actions were all over the place and had very little internal consistency. Plot drove events more blatantly than in previous seasons. The Show lost the immersive experience. When you can clearly see all the strings being pulled, it's hard to stay interested. 

I'm not sure if you're talking about OUAT or Lost. The same things could be said for both shows in their sixth seasons.

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Oh my. How the tables turned. Charming seemed fine ditching Emma and Henry and going back to the EF. And Snow refused to leave without Emma. In Season 3, Snow was fine staying in Neverland with David, and moved on to have a replacement baby in the EF. I remember this scene, but generally ignore it because it seemed ludicrous that David would say than, and besides, David has a better relationship with Emma than Snow. But if we just going by canon, the writing made it seem like neither parent truly cared about Emma. She was a concept more than a daughter for them. 

It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't supposed to believe everything was just perfect between them and Emma. Ingrid brought up some pretty good points about it in 4A, which showed some awareness, but that got swept under the rug quickly. I wish Emma could have been allowed to react to her parents' laissez-faire attitude. It's quite interesting that the character flaws in this show aren't inherently bad to have, but they're never dealt with realistically. I actually have no problem with Rumple being an abuser, Belle consistently enabling her husband, or Regina acting like a tactless prima donna. The real issue lies in a lack of reasonable consequences.

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Oh my. How the tables turned. 

 

To me, it's an example of how they just switch back and forth depending on where they want the wind to blow that episode.  What Snow said in that episode really fit, after the Princess adventure in 2A.  David got to know Emma a lot better in Season 3, but yeah, it was a stretch for him to go that far, but again, it was a case of needing 2 opposing opinions, so they pick one to say one thing, and the other to say the opposite.  But in Season 2, the conversation still felt genuine.  The other thing that struck me about the scene was how Snow missed the adventure, so the internal conflict was still something that could have been explored, yet later in the series, they always had her flip-flopping between one or the other whenever her occasional centric rolled around, and it became empty.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

11 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't supposed to believe everything was just perfect between them and Emma. Ingrid brought up some pretty good points about it in 4A, which showed some awareness, but that got swept under the rug quickly. I wish Emma could have been allowed to react to her parents' laissez-faire attitude. It's quite interesting that the character flaws in this show aren't inherently bad to have, but they're never dealt with realistically. I actually have no problem with Rumple being an abuser, Belle consistently enabling her husband, or Regina acting like a tactless prima donna. The real issue lies in a lack of reasonable consequences.

I agree. If they had dealt with all the delicious issues head-on, it would've made for a much better show. That's why I enjoy reading fanfic for this show so much, I think. There are so many aspects to mine and plot holes to fill in. The show in itself just doesn't satisfy. It's the meta discussion and fanworks that makes this crappy show so addictive. 

[Camera One]

14 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

There are so many aspects to mine and plot holes to fill in. The show in itself just doesn't satisfy. It's the meta discussion and fanworks that makes this crappy show so addictive. 

It's the weirdest thing.  I've watched a number of other shows this past month since I had a week of vacation and I've been trying new series to replace this one, but I really have little to nothing to say about a lot of those other shows.  Whereas I still want to talk about these horrible shiny new toys they brought on this season, for some reason.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I do tend to spend a lot of time on this show, even more than on shows that I really love and are actually GOOD sometimes, both because it has so much potential and untapped ideas, that its fun to imagine all this cool stuff happening just off screen, and because when Once is bad, its so often fascinatingly bad. like it cant even fail in the way that normal shows fail, it makes choices that truly boggle the mind. And thats something to talk about. You can only talk so long about a boring love triangle, but you can talk for a loooong time about a show that white washes countless acts of torture, murder, abuse, and rape with a hand wave. 

I think they started with the idea of "evil being made, not born", but its long sense fallen apart. We dont see people with darker tendencies really struggle, and choose to be good, or members of "races" that are supposedly evil (like ogres, monsters, and such) actually turning out to be good, or decide to become better despite their reputation, or people dealing with having an awful parent and not wanting to be like them. We get heroes doing bad things and everyone screaming about how awful they are (then it goes away so there are no real consequences anyway) and former villains having all their evil excused with zero work on their part because they had a mean parents or something. Theres nothing there about how no one is born evil and you can choose your own destiny or anything, its just an endless excuse to forgive the villains for everything. 

[KingOfHearts]

55 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I think they started with the idea of "evil being made, not born", but its long sense fallen apart. We dont see people with darker tendencies really struggle, and choose to be good, or members of "races" that are supposedly evil (like ogres, monsters, and such) actually turning out to be good, or decide to become better despite their reputation, or people dealing with having an awful parent and not wanting to be like them. We get heroes doing bad things and everyone screaming about how awful they are (then it goes away so there are no real consequences anyway) and former villains having all their evil excused with zero work on their part because they had a mean parents or something. Theres nothing there about how no one is born evil and you can choose your own destiny or anything, its just an endless excuse to forgive the villains for everything. 

"Evil isn't born, it's made" gets conflated with the concept of free will, I think. In the show's universe, they're not the same thing because there are two distinct columns of "heroes" and "villains". Heroes can become villains and vice versa, but there's never anything in the middle. (Just thinking about this show's philosophic principles is making my head hurt. I'm sure Chidi from The Good Place would implode.) 

Quote

I agree. If they had dealt with all the delicious issues head-on, it would've made for a much better show. That's why I enjoy reading fanfic for this show so much, I think. There are so many aspects to mine and plot holes to fill in. The show in itself just doesn't satisfy. It's the meta discussion and fanworks that makes this crappy show so addictive. 

This show is poised to be very twisted and dark, but it never goes there fully because it's a Disney show and the writers are oblivious. It's not really about hope at all. It's about toxic relationships in a universe with a corrupted moral system. Either it needed to go the more traditional approach, with evildoers losing and good people winning, or be the depraved, iniquity-filled world it is.

Edited April 1, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

"Evil isn't born, it's made" gets conflated with the concept of free will, I think. In the show's universe, they're not the same thing because there are two distinct columns of "heroes" and "villains". Heroes can become villains and vice versa, but there's never anything in the middle. (Just thinking about this show's philosophic principles is making my head hurt. I'm sure Chidi from The Good Place would implode.) 

This show is poised to be very twisted and dark, but it never goes there fully because it's a Disney show and the writers are oblivious. It's not really about hope at all. It's about toxic relationships in a universe with a corrupted moral system. Either it needed to go the more traditional approach, with evildoers losing and good people winning, or be the depraved, iniquity-filled world it is.

In the hands of better writers that could have been interesting. But we never actually saw anything that matched up to "Evil isn't born, its made." Regina didn't have to make the choices she did. She always knew her mother murdered Daniel and she managed to get rid of her mother before her wedding. She could have just left as she was when Rumple stopped her. She could have remained in her home and made a lot of different choices. There was nothing really that forced her into marriage. She could have called off her wedding and just enjoyed being free from her mother for the first time in her life. Same with Rumple who seemed like the best one who would fit the "Evil isn't born, its made." He raised by a crappy father who got the family branded as cowards before ditched him to be a kid forever in Neverland, his mother was the Black Fairy. Rumple's excitement to go off to war and redeem his family name. Before crippling himself. His wife running off with another man, and his son about to be forced to fight a war. But his son loved him and he loved his son and he made the mistake of not going with Bae. Rumple didn't have to remain in the same town where everyone thought he was a coward he could have moved at any point. Instead of choosing to control the Dark One he kills him and becomes him. From then the only nice the did was ending the war and bringing the children home. We don't really see him being "made" to be evil. He moved onto drunk on power and murdering people very quickly. He hunted down and murdered his ex-wife. He just flipped a switch and began murdering people.       

[andromeda331]

12 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I do tend to spend a lot of time on this show, even more than on shows that I really love and are actually GOOD sometimes, both because it has so much potential and untapped ideas, that its fun to imagine all this cool stuff happening just off screen, and because when Once is bad, its so often fascinatingly bad. like it cant even fail in the way that normal shows fail, it makes choices that truly boggle the mind. And thats something to talk about. You can only talk so long about a boring love triangle, but you can talk for a loooong time about a show that white washes countless acts of torture, murder, abuse, and rape with a hand wave. 

So do I. I think a lot of it is it did have so much potential. But also season one made me love certain characters. I loved Emma's and Mary Margaret's relationship slowly built over the entire season. I loved Emma's and Henry's relationship too slowly building their relationship. I loved Snow and Charming in the flashback. I initially liked Rumple and Belle, he seemed genuinely surprised and shocked that anyone loved him plus his fear of losing his magic meaning he wouldn't be able to find his son. It would have been fun to explore Rumple's fear of not having magic and that he'll go back to a coward. He also seemed to regret losing his son. His remarks to Emma about how fast kids grow up and really seemed encouraging Emma towards Henry more it always felt like more when just him needing the Curse broken. Regina was a really good villain to hate which made if fun when Emma did get victories over her. It was fun to Emma helping out Ava and Nicholas, and Cinderella and those also counted towards weakening the Curse. I really loved Emma taking a chain saw to Regina's tree. I still crack up at her "picking apples" comment.  I really was invested in these characters and that's what made me remain watching the show even as it turned into the Regina show. It drove me crazy and still does to see how the other characters were changed. That so many of the storylines made zero sense. When I was about to quit the show the first time then I saw the season three finale. Yes, it had my favorite characters but it was also fun. It felt like maybe they finally figured out how to do the show make it fun and funny. I probably should have learned since my thoughts at the beginning of season three was it looked fun and like A&E finally figured out how to use the characters. Use Emma when it made sense for Emma to be doing something, use Hook who had been to Neverland, use Regina to get a message to Henry. But nope that went no where. I should have remembered that and quit after season four. But I couldn't let go of my favorite characters at least until season six when that season finally made me bail. But I still can't stop talking about the show. The insane storylines, the characters, the good, the bad, all of it. The show had so much potential and its insane that they didn't learn from the mistakes with LOST which they really should have. How they keep double down on the bad parts. If they had really used the potential the show could have easily lasted into the double digits.    

[Mabinogia]

3 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

In the hands of better writers that could have been interesting. But we never actually saw anything that matched up to "Evil isn't born, its made."

I think the biggest misstep with "evil isn't born, it's made" was that in both Rumple and Regina's case they were born to evil parents, so it feels more like "evil is hereditary". But I would say Regina was more "made" than "born" because from the moment she was born her mother and Rumple did everything in their power to make her choose evil. Her whole point in being was to enact the curse. Whereas, Rumple had a shitty life and instead of walking away from it he chose to turn to darkness all on his own. No one was pushing him to take the dagger, he liked it. Regina almost had no choice but to like it because the woman who's job it was to teach Regina how to live taught her to be a vengeful, spiteful person for the sole purpose of enacting a curse.

God, that plot was so stupid. Especially Cora killing the person Regina loved the most when she had to have known that was part of enacting the curse. Did Cora do that because she knew her hubby, whom she didn't like, was next in line in Regina's "who I love the most" list? I wish Regina had still loved her mother more and killed her instead because that would have been delicious irony.

[Rumsy4]

Cora never wanted Regina to cast the Dark Curse. She wanted her to become a queen one way or the other. She named her Regina hoping for that outcome.

[superloislane]

21 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

But I would say Regina was more "made" than "born" because from the moment she was born her mother and Rumple did everything in their power to make her choose evil. Her whole point in being was to enact the curse.

Cora never wanted Regina to cast the curse though - she never even wanted her to be evil and she did nothing to make her choose evil or anything. She wanted her to be queen and have power. And Rumple didn't even meet her until she was an adult. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by superloislane

[Rumsy4]

I do think Rumple tempted and pushed Regina into casting the Dark Curse for him, and Regina was ripe for manipulation. She had a power-hungry woman as a mother, who was never kind or nurturing to her. And then, her mother murdered her lover right in front of her eyes. So, it's not like Regina had a healthy upbringing.

But there comes a point in everyone's life where they need to start taking responsibility for their actions. Regina consistently chose not to, because it was easier to stick to being a bitter yet wealthy woman and a queen. I'm not sure how Regina would have coped with a life of poverty, or at the very least, comparative poverty and hardship that running away with Daniel would've entailed, but that option died with Daniel. When Tink offered her the chance to run away with her Soulmate, she didn't take the chance, either due to cowardice, or because her thirst for power and revenge were stronger, or both. 

In a vacuum, we don't know if Regina might have turned out to be naturally evil (like Cruella), but it's a moot point, as she ultimately chose to be evil and stay evil. But of course, the writers and A&E would object, and say, Regina would've been a saint if not for that brat Snow.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, superloislane said:

Cora never wanted Regina to cast the curse though - she never even wanted her to be evil and she did nothing to make her choose evil or anything. She wanted her to be queen and have power. And Rumple didn't even meet her until she was an adult. 

wow, my need for this show to make any bit of sense has clearly gotten away from me. I really, honestly remember Rumple knowing Cora before Regina was born and convincing Cora to have a child because he needed her to enact the worlds longest escape plan. I even remember fan speculation that Rumple was Regina's father.

I knew Cora wanted Regina to be queen but I thought that was the promise Rumple made to her in exchange for helping him get Regina to the point where she was so filled with hate she would enact the curse. So Rumple just got really lucky in picking Regina to cast the curse? He gets less and less impressive the more I learn that most of what made him interesting I made up in my head. lol

The reason I was able to hold on to any affection for Regina long after most of you was this mythology that I obviously made up. I'm going to crawl back into my head canon now. It's so much more interesting than the actual show canon.

[Camera One]

I assume Rumple picked Regina based on his visions.

I thought Regina got married because Rumple promised he would teach her magic and she clung on to the belief that magic could resurrect Daniel.

[RolloTomasi]

Rumple and Cora did know each other before Regina was born. It’s been a while since I rewatched, but I think Rumple wanted Cora to run away with him? And instead she married the king’s son so her daughter (not yet born) would be queen one day? And then Rumple didn’t meet Regina until just before her wedding to Leopold, where Rumple learned who she was and decided to train her? I’m fuzzy on the specifics, but I do remember Cora being alarmed in Queen of Hearts whenever she found out Regina was casting the curse. 

The fan speculation was there because Bobby and Rose McGowan reeeaaalllyy played up the sexual attraction between Cora and Rumple. And, of course, everybody needs to be related to everybody on this show. (And now I’m even more grossed out by Golden Queen than I already was.)

[Rumsy4]

16 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

The reason I was able to hold on to any affection for Regina long after most of you was this mythology that I obviously made up. I'm going to crawl back into my head canon now. It's so much more interesting than the actual show canon.

Don't worry. Pretty much most of us die-hard viewers are in that zone. We all have favorites, and we have to ignore canon and make up our own headcanons for them to remain favorites. 

This is exactly why one faction of OUAT cannot relate to another opposing faction. I can never understand how anyone could ship Rumbelle after Season 6, but I know people who do, some of whom are my mutuals on tumblr. They still remember Rumple as the character he was in earlier seasons (when he was one of my favs too). Conversely, Season 6 took the shine out of CS for me, and the only way for me to enjoy it now is if I ignore Season 6. Snow/Mary Margaret stopped being a real character a while back. And yet, I love earlier season Snowing and reading Charming family feel fics. Part of the reason I don't give Regina and Rumple the benefit of the doubt (or headcanon, as the case may be), is because they've harmed my favorite characters, and they never seem remorseful. But if you have loved Rumple from the start and think of him as a poor woobie, then you can find a way to justify him no matter what. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

Just now, Mabinogia said:

I knew Cora wanted Regina to be queen but I thought that was the promise Rumple made to her in exchange for helping him get Regina to the point where she was so filled with hate she would enact the curse. So Rumple just got really lucky in picking Regina to cast the curse?

Rumple's seer powers told him that Cora's daughter would cast the curse, and as I recall that was part of the "give up your first-born" contract for helping Cora spin straw into gold that she tricked Rumple into rewriting to be "our" first-born when they got cozy with each other and he thought she would choose him over the prince (more evidence that Zelena was a retcon -- she wouldn't have needed to get Rumple to rewrite the contract if she knew her first-born was already out there). But I don't think Cora knew about the curse. Cora rejected Rumple so she could marry a prince and ripped her own heart out so she could go through with it even though she loved Rumple (for Cora values of "love"). I don't believe Cora and Rumple had any contact after that. Rumple didn't make contact with Regina until Regina was an adult and trying to escape from Cora. That's when he started grooming her into casting the curse. It was prophecy, not luck, that told him she would cast the curse. I guess he was lucky that she fell for it, but then that's where the free will thing comes in -- could she have rejected that fate, or was the prophecy just accurate in reading that she was the kind of person who'd end up doing that sort of thing? Regina was a product of both nature and nurture. She does seem to have those narcissistic tendencies, but she also didn't exactly have a great role model to learn to be a better person. Her mother didn't seem to have been outright cruel until near the end when her plans were already in motion to get Regina to marry a king and Regina was on the verge of ruining it all. That's when she started forcing Regina to comply and killed Daniel. The whole thing, starting from Regina's rescue of Snow, happened after Cora had already murdered Eva to clear the way, so the plans were already in progress by the time Regina was in love with Daniel and wanting to just ride her horse instead of being a lady.

[superloislane]

11 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

wow, my need for this show to make any bit of sense has clearly gotten away from me. I really, honestly remember Rumple knowing Cora before Regina was born and convincing Cora to have a child because he needed her to enact the worlds longest escape plan. I even remember fan speculation that Rumple was Regina's father.

I knew Cora wanted Regina to be queen but I thought that was the promise Rumple made to her in exchange for helping him get Regina to the point where she was so filled with hate she would enact the curse.

Rumple knew Cora before Regina was born because he saw in visions that Cora's child would enact his curse. But the deal he made with her was to spin the straw leading to her becoming queen and he would get her first born child (which technically would have been Zelena who was already born at this point). But then Cora changed the deal to be that she would have a child with him and he would have that child but she was able to get out of the deal because they didn't have a child obviously. It had nothing to do with filling the child with hate or anything.

[Mabinogia]

Shanna Marie, I admire your recall. My memory is shit. I remember none of that. lol

What I'm now realizing is, this show always sucked.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Mabinogia
w is a vital letter when writing now

[Camera One]

It was in the second episode 2A when they had the episode where Regina pushed her mother through the mirror and Rumple convinced Regina to go through with marrying Leopold if she wanted to keep learning magic.  Back then, I actually did still feel sympathy for Regina.  I could see how her desperation to bring Daniel back may have explained her wish to learn magic and also the addiction aspect they were peddling at the time.  She was still wary of becoming like her mother.  It wasn't until "In the Name of the Brother" that Regina killed someone.  Before that point, it was still possible to redeem Regina.  But then they kept making her evil deeds more and more extreme. 

With Drizella, the progression from normal to evil was much more abrupt.  She went from Regina teaching her magic to coldly murdering her fiancé.  Yet after that, she had a hard time killing hew new insta-BFF Gretel?  Drizella did have a mother who wanted her to be evil, since in the flashback, Tremaine wanted Drizella to kill.  That raised the whole issue of how Rapunzel became so evil and wanting her daughter to be evil.  So it seems like the Writers clearly became worse writers than they were before, even when penning villains meant for redemption.

1 hour ago, RolloTomasi said:

The fan speculation was there because Bobby and Rose McGowan reeeaaalllyy played up the sexual attraction between Cora and Rumple. 

"The Miller's Daughter" was the first episode with Bobby and Rose and the episode was written with the sexual attraction in mind, so A&E wanted it all along, unless they were inspired by Bobby and Barbara Hershey's scenes together?  They probably wanted to play the concept of Young Cora being seduced by magic, literally and figuratively.  

[KingOfHearts]

Rumple and Cora probably did have some sort of contact between their parting and Rumple meeting grown-up Regina. We know that Rumple sent Cora a letter about how he met Zelena, and he also held Regina as a baby. It was pretty rare and one-sided.

Quote

 Her mother didn't seem to have been outright cruel until near the end when her plans were already in motion to get Regina to marry a king and Regina was on the verge of ruining it all.

Especially after the "Sisters" flashback, I have difficulty believing Regina was cruelly abused her entire childhood. Cora always seemed to have some sort of twisted but legitimate concern for Regina, and it wasn't until her plans were in danger that she became tyrannical. It was a selfish love, but I wouldn't say she didn't love her at all. Rumple's parents were much, much worse.

Quote

It was in the second episode 2A when they had the episode where Regina pushed her mother through the mirror and Rumple convinced Regina to go through with marrying Leopold if she wanted to keep learning magic.  Back then, I actually did still feel sympathy for Regina.  I could see how her desperation to bring Daniel back may have explained her wish to learn magic and also the addiction aspect they were peddling at the time.  She was still wary of becoming like her mother.  It wasn't until "In the Name of the Brother" that Regina killed someone.  Before that point, it was still possible to redeem Regina.  But then they kept making her evil deeds more and more extreme. 

There's an obvious dichotomy between kind-but-naive younger Regina and the Evil Queen. You could say "The Doctor" was turning point, but it doesn't flow that well with her other flashbacks. For better or worse, she did seem to have some sort of conscience before she realized she couldn't resurrect Daniel. She seemed to be a pretty innocent child, too. I don't think "The Doctor" was enough to turn her into a cold-blooded killer overnight. If anything, it should have just made her more prone to relent to Rumple's teachings. She would have been more sympathetic if her descent had more reluctance and wasn't such a nosedive. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

9 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Rumple's parents were much, much worse.

Rumple's mother Fiona was loving and was willing to do everything to save him.  His dad abandoned him but he didn't try to control his life.  Rumple was a pretty normal and moral person up until he met Zoso.

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Rumple's mother Fiona was loving and was willing to do everything to save him.  His dad abandoned him but he didn't try to control his life.  Rumple was a pretty normal and moral person up until he met Zoso.

Fiona could have taken Rumple back with her at any time. She stripped his destiny away from him with the Shears. I'd say abandonment and neglect is worse than pushing them to live well in a noble setting. I wouldn't say Rumple was moral, but rather afraid of consequences. He didn't refuse to kill the Healer because it was wrong, but because he was too scared to. He admitted later that he injured himself on the battlefield out of fear and not for Bae. His cowardice led to Bae being an orphan for centuries. Poor Regina had to live with a kind king and stepdaughter.

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, KingOfHearts said:

Fiona could have taken Rumple back with her at any time. She stripped his destiny away from him with the Shears. 

Fiona believed he was going to die as Savior, so it's understandable that she stripped away his destiny.  I don't see that as evil at all.

Just now, KingOfHearts said:

Poor Regina had to live with a kind king and stepdaughter.

Who constantly flaunted how much she didn't measure up to Eva.  Those two are meanies.  

[Rumsy4]

There are a ton of abrupt and poorly explained character transitions in the show. The transition between Regina to Evil Queen was never satisfactorily presented in spite of the 101 flashbacks we got. It seemed like a switch was turned on after Daniel died, and that let loose her inner psychopathic tendencies.

The Baelfire to Neal transition is another thing that makes little sense. We can headcanon that Neverland changed him, but we never saw it. 

Ingrid becoming magically competent inside the Urn she was imprisoned in and her later abrupt redemption is another example.

In Season 7, Drizella, Rapunzel, Cinderella all suddenly turned murderous or potentially murderous for inexplicable reasons. 

The only way to explain it is by saying the characters are more two-dimensional and literal in the fairy tale world. For example, Dark One Rumple acquiring a reptilian skin that blares out his twisted soul, the "Evil Cleavage", etc.. That's why they're so obsessed with being heroes and villains. 

Edited April 2, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

8 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

There are a ton of abrupt and poorly explained character transitions in the show.

 

I think it's because A&E believe that they can make a character "complex" by showing them act in the polar opposite way in the flashbacks.  So Lady Tremaine is automatically complex because she was sweet poor innocent Rapunzel chasing after lanterns.  Cinderella is automatically complex because she was going to the ball with a weapon to seek revenge.  However, they don't bother following through with the transitions because it would actually make little to no sense.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Camera One

[Mabinogia]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

So Lady Tremaine is automatically complex because she was sweet poor innocent Rapunzel chasing after lanterns.

Did we ever learn what made Rapunzel turn into murderous Lady Tremaine? I mean, other than A&E thinking it would be sooooooo cooooool to trick us by making a Disney heroine grow up to be a Disney villain? Because I still don't get it. With most of the other villains, if I squint and handwave (and drink a lot) I can kind of get what they were going for, but with Rapunzel it felt like it was literally only because they thought it would be cool to have them be the same person.

[Camera One]

4 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Did we ever learn what made Rapunzel turn into murderous Lady Tremaine? 

I think it was supposed to be grief over losing Anastasia and then desperation to resurrect her.  Which doesn't really explain the transition at all but the amazing acting pretty much sold it for me.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

There are a ton of abrupt and poorly explained character transitions in the show.

Then there's Emma, who has the opposite problem - too much transition. Nearly every flashback of hers was meant to explain away why she had walls up. Neal left her pregnant in jail, Lily backstabbed her twice, Ingrid almost got her killed by a car, and she had bullies in every single foster home. After all that was Cleo, where it was revealed that none of it mattered because she was still open and vulnerable just a year or two before meeting Henry. Forget that slow burn. The leather jacket explains all. Did we really need the play-by-play, though? It was pretty self-explanatory that someone abandoned as a child would grow up to have trust issues. Neal even sealed the deal later. It's easy to see how Emma became the person she did, but it was still a mess. It was both tedious and abrupt.

Edited April 2, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Then there's Emma, who has the opposite problem - too much transition. 

But in a lot of ways, it wasn't transition.  It was just the same thing over and over and over again.  

[Shanna Marie]

Drizella may be the worst villain transition yet.

We saw her as a preteen being happy with her sisters. She didn't seem to have an issue with her mother. The problem was that her mother pretty much ignored her but then felt hurt that Drizella wasn't paying attention to her. The next time (in the timeline) we see her, she's coldly watching her mother torture the fairy godmother and then tells Henry that she's even worse than her mother, and soon after that Regina teaches her magic and tells her about the curse, which leads her to murder her fiance and set out to find a way to cast the Dark Curse. There's absolutely no transition between loving sister and evil bitch, and although we have Lady Tremaine's later vicious treatment of her, we don't see her mother being awful to her or there being a terrible relationship. We go straight from Rapunzel gazing longingly at her daughters and deciding to poison Cecilia to her being grief-stricken and imprisoning Gothel in the tower to her being evil Lady Tremaine who has no use for Drizella. We also never see Drizella being a wicked stepsister to Ella. We see her and Anastasia and Ella being close, but no interaction after that before Drizella pops up to announce her curse plans.

Of the original cast, Hook also had terrible transitions. In chronological order, we've got a child who hero worshiped his father getting the shocking news that his father sold him into slavery. Then we have a useless drunk deckhand (but who's also incredibly competent and a natural leader) who vows to turn his life around once he and his brother get a second chance. Next time we see him, he's the ultimate naval officer, a stickler for rules who's a teetotaler opposed to rum (I think that was one of their "he used to be the exact opposite, so he's complex!" bits). He gets disillusioned by the navy/his king, goes rogue, and vows to fight a one-ship war against the king. Next time we see him, he's a full-blown pirate, complete with black leather, guyliner, and jewelry, but he's gentlemanly and doesn't push his case once he learns Milah is married. Then we see him being a bully and a jerk to Milah's husband. His present-day transitions make a lot of sense because we see each step of his progression, but his past makes less sense the more they show of it.

[Rumsy4]

3 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It was both tedious and abrupt.

Something only this show is capable of. When it came to Emma, it was obvious the writers had no interest in her past. And in her present, they kept repeating the same character beats.

There is no meaningful utilization of any of Emma's flashbacks to explain her character, and they ended up giving contradictory messages. This was the result of the writers deciding to whitewash Neal and Regina, two of the main people responsible for her bad childhood and hard life. Emma was sent back by her original foster parents, and she stayed in no foster home for more than 6 months. She was a homeless runaway as a child at some point, and again as a teen. She was serially betrayed by August, Lily (twice), Ingrid (in her mind), and Neal. She ought to have turned into way worse than a petty thief. 

On the one hand, the writers showed Regina commit more and more terrible acts in the past. On the other, they showed Emma's childhood full of betrayals. And yet, the present day message is that Regina had the worst life imaginable and feels the most and has suffered the most. It's showing something one way and deriving an illogical and contradictory message from it. I guess the writers wanted to test how good they were at manipulating the audience, all the while snickering into their hands about their cleverness.