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

[superloislane]

8 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Why do I get the impression that years from now we'll learn about some drama that went on behind the scenes that shaped the state of the show?

I've always had that thought and I don't know why. 

[Camera One]

I've had it up to here with all the exit interviews talking about how this show is all about hope and how it's not depressing like the rest of the TV landscape.  When I think back to all my favorite characters - Gus-Gus, Graham, The Oracle, Cinderella's fairy godmother, Snowing's handmaiden, Peter, Aunt Em, the Mute Maid, the people at Gothel's ball, Helga, Tiny's family, Marian, the man getting married on the Evil Queen's land, all the people in the Safe Haven in 2A, etc. - my first thought isn't hope, or justice.  It's how unfair and senseless the world is, both on this show, and in real life.  Do they seriously think having characters giving the occasional hollow speech about hope cancels out all that?  

Edited May 12, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I've had it up to here with all the exit interviews talking about how this show is all about hope and how it's not depressing like the rest of the TV landscape.  When I think back to all my favorite characters - Gus-Gus, Graham, The Oracle, Cinderella's fairy godmother, Snowing's handmaiden, Peter, Aunt Em, the Mute Maid, the people at Gothel's ball, Helga, Tiny's family, Marian, the man getting married on the Evil Queen's land, all the people in the Safe Haven in 2A, etc. - my first thought isn't hope, or justice.  It's how unfair and senseless the world is, both on this show, and in real life.  Do they seriously think having characters giving the occasional hollow speech about hope cancels out all that?  

It's only about hope if you're a villain. Then it's awesome because you get forgiven and don't have to pay for your crimes at all. If you're not a villain, it may be even worse than real life. The people who harmed you face no punishment. If you're angry at them or try to demand any kind of justice or retribution, you're considered even more evil than the villains. You get to live in a community with people who tormented and tried to kill you, and you have to forgive them and be happy about it. At least in our world, if someone tries to murder you, they'll at least face a trial.

Meanwhile, people who did relatively minor evil get worse outcomes than the worst villains. Ingrid had a rather small body count (mostly unintentional), and when she had a change of heart, she admitted she was wrong and sacrificed herself to stop the wrong she'd done. Lady Tremaine 1.0 got sentenced to community service. But Regina is acclaimed as queen of the town that she created with a dark spell and forced everyone to live in after she slaughtered villages and killed people at random on a whim.

[Rumsy4]

Let's not forget Will Scarlet who was confined behind bars with just a half-eaten pop tart for sustenance because he had disrupted the Sheriff's date.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Rumsy4

[companionenvy]

Prompted by a discussion in the spoiler thread, but not at all spoilery...

Someone mentioned, re: the reappearance of Wish Henry, that Emma supposedly retained her memories of being Princess Emma of the wish realm. This is, of course, only one of many cases of a character having false memories - everyone under the 1st curse had memories of "normal" lives, Emma and Henry acquired memories of the Regina-created world in which Emma didn't give Henry up, and Regina, Henry, Rumple, and the new characters have false memories from the latest curse. I think Hook Prime is actually the only major character who doesn't have multiple sets of memories at this point.

My question is whether or not we ever got clarification of how substantial these memories were supposed to be. My assumption about everyone in Storybrooke under the first curse was that they actually had very limited memory of their supposed backstories - they may have had a basic, surface-level narrative of their lives to default to, but the curse stopped them from thinking too deeply about it, just like it stopped them from realizing how many years had gone by without anyone aging. 

Emma and Henry's memories in NY, I think, would have to have been somewhat more solid because they were going to be interacting with normal, non-cursed people who would have, in the ordinary course of conversation, asked questions that required them to give at least some thought to specifics of the past twelve years. But that still doesn't mean their "memories" had either the specificity or emotional force of real ones. 

Wishverse is such a mess that I'm not even going to venture a guess as to how that works.

But the question is pretty important, I think, because logically, if these memories are anything like real memories, they should have a huge impact on our characters. An Emma who comes back to Storybrooke after twelve years of raising Henry shouldn't be quite the same Emma who left. And, perhaps most importantly, if Emma has her Wish Memories, the fact that she apparently never spared a thought for the orphaned wish Henry is horrific. Frankly, it is pretty bad even if she doesn't have Princess Emma memories, because once she met Wish Hook again in 7.02, and realized the Wish people had continued to exist beyond her visit there, she should have been devastated to realize what that meant for her parents and son in the wishverse. 

Am I missing something? Has this ever been addressed?

[Camera One]

No, it has never been addressed, and it is one of the major contradictions.  In the Wish episode, both Regina and Emma refer to the Wish people as "not real".  Then, the Writers on Twitter adamantly declared that the Wish people weren't real.  I think Jane Espenson said it's like how a book might be real but the characters inside are not.  

But when they decided to feature Wish Hook in Season 7, they started stressing that he was real.  In this past episode, the Writers even have Hook say he's as real as Rumple.  There's also the inexplicable addition of flashbacks for Whook which would have occurred before the Wish Realm was created by Aladdin where Wish characters interacted with characters from the Disenchanted Forest resulting in a real baby daughter.

So I'm not sure what the Writers are trying to get at.  In one of the teaser interviews, they said Regina killing Wish Snowing is "addressed".  But as we saw in "Homecoming", they cut off Regina's explanation to Wish Henry.  Wish Henry is also portrayed as having joined the dark side.  Are we supposed to see this as a grey situation where Regina is culpable or are we supposed to see Regina as a victim of unfair accusation by a psycho version of Henry?  I guess the only way to somehow excuse it would be to explain that Regina and Emma genuinely believe the Wish people were fake but they were actually real, but they didn't do that in "Homecoming".  I suppose they really needed to do it at the beginning of Season 7 when they realized Whook was a real person with a real backstory.  

Of course, it's *this show these writers* and I fully expect all of it to be swept under the rug by animated brooms.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

57 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Has this ever been addressed?

The cry of every hopeful fan of the Show for the past seven years. This is eventually followed by disappointment and disillusionment. Sorry if my response seems flippant. But seriously, the writers will never address this becasue they never thought deeply about it at any time. To them, it probably seemed fun to give Regina the "gift" of murdering Snowing, while also making her appear a hero for coming to rescue Emma. In Season 6 particularly, the writers had stopped caring about character motivations. It was all plot-driven. We simply cannot dissect these episodes without noticing the puppet strings. Otherwise, it makes both Regina and Emma look like moral monsters for abandoning Wish Henry to a tragic life after he lost every single member of his family. 

So, within the same two episodes they had the contradictory logic of Regina refusing to fight Wish Henry and preparing to die by his hand, while minutes before, she casually crushed Wish Snowing's hearts in frustration when Emma wasn't responding to her bullying tactics. Five minutes later, she has no problem abandoning orphaned Wish Henry to his fate. Ten minutes later, she sees Wish Robin and wants to take him home with her. The writers cannot maintain logical consistency within a single episode because they have ten different contradictory agendas playing out on screen. Their wish of glorifying Regina as a hero at the same time as keeping her the Evil Queen has been their greatest weakness and downfall. Because every character who comes within Regina's orbit gets tainted by such slanted writing. The worst victim of the Regina-bias was Snow. She had zero personality by the end of Season 6. But Henry, Emma, Robin have all suffered to varying degrees. 

Edited May 13, 2018 by Rumsy4

[KAOS Agent]

I think you can't use the reactions of the characters to the Wish Realm in the S6 mid season finale with the ridiculous situation the writers created in S7 (and in late S6). The writers in S6 were adamant that the Wish characters were not real. Emma and Regina both said that they weren't real in the episode. Both Emma and Regina refer to the Wish Realm as a dream. Even knowing that it's fake, I can see why Regina would have difficulty harming what amounts to an avatar of her son, but wouldn't have much trouble murdering Snowing. That's some strong wish fulfillment right there. 

Then you have the issue of Robin. If the Wish Realm isn't actually real, then once Emma's leaves, the people in it wouldn't exist because the wish has been extinguished. That was my impression at the end of the episode. Regina had an actual Henry waiting for her in Storybrooke. Wish!Henry wouldn't be something she wanted. However, Robin was not waiting for her so she wanted to bring his facsimile back with her. It wasn't going to work out, but I see why she couldn't let go of that slim chance that it would. There was even a moment when they thought he hadn't come through the portal, which further pushed the idea that the Wish Realm wasn't real and thus, someone from there couldn't exist in this world. 

Now I get that later in the season they started changing the game with regards to the Wish Realm by sending Robin and the Evil Queen there and by S7 suddenly those characters were actually interacting with outside worlds before the Wish Realm was actually created and none of it makes any sense. Even if we stick with the initial premise that it only diverged post curse, nothing works. However, I'm not willing to fall down that rabbit hole because it's very clear not one of the writers ever bothered to think it through or apply even the most basic logic to things. It's more like you have to go with what you are being told during the specific episode about the Wish Realm in order to understand the character reactions. Wish Realm isn't real - killing Snowing and leaving an orphaned Wish!Henry is not an issue. Wish Realm is real - Robin can go home where he belongs. Wish Realm has always existed - Wish Hook had his adventures in the Disenchanted Forest, had a baby, lost her and then became the fat drunk Emma met. Because of the changing nature of the Wish Realm, you can't retroactively apply a character reaction because that's not how it worked at the time. Dumb as hell and another reason I lost interest in the show, but that's the only way to look at it where it works.

Edited May 13, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, companionenvy said:

But the question is pretty important, I think, because logically, if these memories are anything like real memories, they should have a huge impact on our characters.

I think maybe you can look at the various fake memory situations in terms of what the experience was like. With the Storybrooke curse, the memories were somewhat vague, as was their sense of the passage of time, but they lived those identities for 28 years, which might have made them seem more solid. Snow had probably spent as much time being Mary Margaret as she had being Snow White (depending on how old Snow was supposed to be) at the time the curse broke. The days might have blurred, but she really did live that life. Archie spent 28 years as a psychiatrist. Granny spent 28 years flipping burgers and reheating frozen lasagna. The background and earlier life of those memories was fake, but they lived out that life, which would have made it seem real.

Then there was Emma and Henry in season three, with fake memories of Emma having kept Henry. The memories of their lives up to that point were fake, but they really did spend a year living together as mother and son. There was a season 4 deleted scene in which Henry begged Rumple to give him back the fake memories after Regina kicked him out because of Robin going back to Marian, which suggests that when he got his real memories back, he lost the fake memories entirely, so there was no "we are both" in which he remembered growing up with Emma (which might explain his borderline indifference toward her in adulthood). Still, they really did live that one year, so even if he lost the fake memories, he should remember leaving Storybrooke with Emma and spending a year in New York (even if he claimed that he'd never lived anywhere but Storybrooke). Since Emma got her real memories back a different way, does that mean she still remembers bringing up Henry?

The next one I can recall is the Author AU at the end of season 4, where they had totally different experiences that they seem to remember, and while in those roles they remembered fake lives (that's the one set of fake memories Hook Prime should have). But they only lived those lives for a day or so, so how real were the fake memories to them? They'd remember the experiences they actually had, like Hook remembering being killed, but were the memories of the lives leading up to that time fuzzy or vague? Emma spent that time locked in a tower -- did she merely experience a day locked in a tower, since she had her real identity and memories, or did she get fake memories of years spent in a tower?

Then there was the Wishverse, where Emma had fake memories of growing up as a princess, but she only actually spent maybe an hour or so there. Those memories might be really vague, since they weren't reinforced with any actual experiences. That may be why she didn't put a lot of thought into Whenry's fate -- she barely knew him. He looked like the Henry she knew, but she spent a few minutes with him in reality and had dreamlike vague memories of a life with him.

Then there was the season 6 finale curse, which only affected Emma -- or did it affect Henry too? I haven't rewatched and don't remember if he kept his memories or if he just came to believe. She would have fake memories of being committed for thinking magic was real, but only a few hours of actual experiences to go with those memories, so they might have been vague.

Poor Emma has a lot of fake lives going on in her head if these memories stuck at all.

You'd think that some of these experiences would have affected them. Emma and Henry should have ended up with a much tighter bond after that year in New York. It's always bugged me how quickly he jumped back to Regina. They forgot that the last time he'd been in Regina's house before he was banging on the door and begging her to let him in was when she was holding him prisoner in season 2. Regina should have been a borderline stranger at that point. They weren't back on super-close terms before the curse reverse, so they shouldn't have fallen easily back into "how are your grades/you have a boyfriend, cool." It should have been an awkward transition, and that should have been really painful for Emma, who was used to having him to herself.

Regina should have come away from the Author AU with a new perspective, after having walked in Snow's shoes and realized what her life was like while she was tormenting Snow, but we never got any indication of that.

I was thinking about all this after this week's episode of Timeless, where it's time travel instead of curse memories, but they had a situation in which the time travelers ran into a younger version of a character they know in the present. They had to intervene to keep her life on the right path, but the intervention caused some changes, like her not ending up estranged from her mother, the way she'd been originally. When they returned to the present and ran into the new present version of this character, she was subtly changed. She had a lighter sense about her, seemed more open and happy, and they even changed her makeup a bit, so she had more color to her face and looked brighter. That's the kind of thing we should be seeing after these fake memories, especially if there were real experiences to go with the fake memories. Would Emma have had the same WALLS if she'd kept Henry and brought him up? (it's kind of hard to have walls with a small child) I do feel like the original curse changed their personalities, but otherwise, you'd think that getting a lifetime of fake memories and having multiple lives in your head was no big deal.

[companionenvy]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

You'd think that some of these experiences would have affected them. Emma and Henry should have ended up with a much tighter bond after that year in New York. It's always bugged me how quickly he jumped back to Regina. They forgot that the last time he'd been in Regina's house before he was banging on the door and begging her to let him in was when she was holding him prisoner in season 2. Regina should have been a borderline stranger at that point. They weren't back on super-close terms before the curse reverse, so they shouldn't have fallen easily back into "how are your grades/you have a boyfriend, cool." It should have been an awkward transition, and that should have been really painful for Emma, who was used to having him to herself.

Henry's attitude toward Regina was retconned between S1 and S2, but honestly, I think having them be closer actually made more sense. The scenario Regina brought Henry into was fundamentally abusive, but when Henry was a little kid, they presumably had a normal mother son relationship that only deteriorated when she started gaslighting him over the curse. Honestly, while I think S1 era criticisms that the show was anti-adoption were mostly silly - creating an evil adoptive mother does not = anti-adoption -- it really didn't make sense that Henry would apparently feel no love or loyalty toward his mother. 

The issue was that the show never treated the situation with any nuance. When he feared Regina, she was the EQ who Emma needed to rescue him from. When he loved Regina, she was his mom and now one of the good guys. The only time there was any middle ground was S2, when Henry didn't want them to kill Regina but also didn't want to go live with her and had a very real, "What happens to me now?" reaction before Charming took him in. When Emma came back, she seemed to be acting as his primary parent (Regina hadn't been told about the Manhattan trip, and Mary Margaret snippily tells Regina that she doesn't get any say in what Emma can and can't do with Henry). In S3 Henry went from being kidnapped to being body-swapped to the missing year to not remembering Regina, so there was no time to deal with the relationship - and then in S4, as you say, they were presented as super close without any reckoning with the past. 

[superloislane]

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

There's also the inexplicable addition of flashbacks for Whook which would have occurred before the Wish Realm was created by Aladdin where Wish characters interacted with characters from the Disenchanted Forest resulting in a real baby daughter.

But no matter how you see it, either they're still all fake or they only became real after the wish, that means those flashbacks never actually happened, are all fake and are just made up stories/implanted memories.

[Rumsy4]

It seems like the Wish retroactively made the Wish Realm and its characters to have always existed. It’s like Emma’s Time Travel adventure changing the Snowing meeting to have always included Emma and Hook’s interference. I’m not saying it’s logical for a genie to have that much power, but this is what it amounts to.

[CCTC]

This first  Trailer  - they really did do a nice job giving Story Brooke character the first year.  Charming's horse ride might have been filmed a bit more in a dramatic fashion than Henry's bike ride.

[companionenvy]

29 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

It seems like the Wish retroactively made the Wish Realm and its characters to have always existed. It’s like Emma’s Time Travel adventure changing the Snowing meeting to have always included Emma and Hook’s interference. I’m not saying it’s logical for a genie to have that much power, but this is what it amounts to.

And I could maybe accept that the WR came into existence with full backstories/history/etc that were now as real to those characters as our memories are to us, but it would still have to be dealt with. I accepted Buffy and Dawn (who was magicked into existence at age 14, at which point everyone had memories of her always being there) as fully legitimate sisters, and after S5, no one in the Buffy-verse questioned it either, but Dawn had some understandable existential angst when she realized that her whole life was a fabrication of the monks. It wasn't just taken for granted that this was a non-issue. And on Once, the Wish characters seem unperturbed or unaware about their origin, and no one from the Prime universe has commented on the fact that people they assumed were fake are now real people with real histories, emotions, and lives. Which means that Regina killed two real people  when she crushed Snowing's heart, and Emma really abandoned a version of her son for whom she was the only parent.

It is kind of like some of the Holodeck episodes of Star Trek, although at least there, we were mainly dealing with one-off minor characters, so you could a void thinking too much about it. Plus even though Holo-characters felt real, IIRC, there were some limitations; the DS9-crew got to be friends with Vic Fontaine in his club on the Holodeck, but he didn't cross over and help them fight the Dominion. Vic obviously had feelings, but you could still kind of look at him as a super advanced AI, and when Nog, suffering from PTSD, decides to temporarily move to Vic's, this is not treated as a healthy choice; even Vic ultimately tells him he has to go back to the real world. Wish Hook and WR-native Alice, by contrast, are now main characters whose realm is treated as every bit as legitimate as ours. Which, again, has really horrific implications for some of our Prime characters, and should be at least unsettling to the wish-folk. 

[superloislane]

2 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

It seems like the Wish retroactively made the Wish Realm and its characters to have always existed. It’s like Emma’s Time Travel adventure changing the Snowing meeting to have always included Emma and Hook’s interference. I’m not saying it’s logical for a genie to have that much power, but this is what it amounts to.

That doesn't make sense at all-Emma's time travel adventure was actually changing the real time that was already in existence. The wish only created a world - it didn't do anything with time itself like planting a wish world retroactively through time even though it's not real and never happened. The easiest solution is that none of it actually happened and they're false memories.

Edited May 13, 2018 by superloislane

[Rumsy4]

52 minutes ago, superloislane said:

The easiest solution is that none of it actually happened and they're false memories.

That's not how it is explained on-screen. 

Quote

The wish only created a world - it didn't do anything with time itself like planting a wish world retroactively through time ...

But this is how they are explaining it.

It's upto us whether we buy the plausibility of their explanations. After all, time travel doesn't exist either. 

Their version of how time-travel works is convoluted too. They're stating that past history can be changed as in Emma's TT adventure, but sometimes, "whatever happened, happened" as with Henry phoning Henry. If Emma hadn't interfered with history, we may have assumed the latter case to be the only plausible way for Time Travel to happen in the ONCE 'verse. But we know that history can be changed. 

Edited May 13, 2018 by Rumsy4

[superloislane]

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

1 minute ago, Rumsy4 said:

That's not how it is explained on-screen. 

This is how they are explaining it.

So they actually said on screen that they changed/created time itself? I'm not watching so I don't know what they've said.

[andromeda331]

None of these characters are ever allowed to show any sort of true emotion or even have emotion towards everything that happened in the last seven years or however long everything's been happening since the Curse broke let alone where they stand or feel on all the fake memories. Hook's probably the closest although they skipped over his relationship with Bae and how he should have been acting after being brought back to life and given a new chance. The Charmings and Emma obviously weren't allowed to explore or react to anything that happened In a real cause of the Regina crap.  Henry of course went from the boy who knew what Regina and called her on her crap to her biggest defender and cheerleader. If you didn't know any better you'd almost think there was another Curse on everyone once the Regina crap began with all of the sudden changes in nearly everyone else. And Belle for all her Rumple's good heart crap where every once in awhile it was like she had a break or reality came through for a brief moment and she left Rumple. But then the Curse pulled her back into believing Rumple's crap.

Edited May 13, 2018 by andromeda331

[Rumsy4]

8 minutes ago, superloislane said:

So they actually said on screen that they changed/created time itself? I'm not watching so I don't know what they've said.

It's implied. However, not everything needs to be stated.

In the beginning, I too found the retroactive existence of the Wish Realm idiotic, but since then, WHook and Alice have really sold me on their "realness". So, it doesn't bother me anymore except when it comes to Regina. But then, 95% of any storylines within Regina's radius bother me. So, that frustration is not specific to the creation of the Wish Realm.  

Edited May 13, 2018 by Rumsy4

[superloislane]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

It's implied. However, not everything needs to be stated.

But could it also not be implied that they're just implanted memories like every other curse/spell in the entire show does? (This feels like I'm arguing but I'm not-just a question!)

[Rumsy4]

38 minutes ago, superloislane said:

But could it also not be implied that they're just implanted memories like every other curse/spell in the entire show does? (This feels like I'm arguing but I'm not-just a question!)

No. Because people from the Wish Realm have had past interactions with people from other Realms like the Disenchanted Forest of Cinderella 2.0.. And Alice is the biological child of a Wish Realm and non-Wish Realm person. So, they are not implanted memories. 

For example, Grace was implanted with fake memories of parents who weren't biologically her parents. She was Jefferson's daughter. When the Curse broke, her real memories came back. Alice is the bio child of WHook and Gothel (non-Wish Realm). There is no curse to break here.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

When the season began, I assumed implanted memories.  But Whook meeting Gothel created Alice prior to Aladdin making the Wish Realm so his remembered past must be real somehow.   It still bothers me even though I liked the Whook Alice subplot.

[superloislane]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

No. Because people from the Wish Realm have had past interactions with people from other Realms like the Disenchanted Forest of Cinderella 2.0..

Will I say it? I'm gonna say it - we all just spent longer thinking about this than the writers did

[Camera One]

So when the Wish Realm and its retroactive past was created, it actually changed the past of people in the Disenchanted Forest.  If Aladdin hadn't granted that wish, then Whook would never have inadvertently allowed Gothel to leave the Tower, which would have meant Drizella never had an ally, Gretel wouldn't have died, etc.  What made the Wish Realm Past Modifier Algorithm decide to create Alice, a "Guardian" (not that we even know what that means).  Ultimately, this all led to Gothel's demise.  So did the Genie Federation have a past with Mother Gothel and there was a Genie vs. Tree Nymph war in the past?  Tune in for the spinoff in 2022 - Once Upon a Time-Space Continuum.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

11 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Henry's attitude toward Regina was retconned between S1 and S2, but honestly, I think having them be closer actually made more sense. The scenario Regina brought Henry into was fundamentally abusive, but when Henry was a little kid, they presumably had a normal mother son relationship that only deteriorated when she started gaslighting him over the curse.

Even at their closest, it's hard to imagine the kind of semi-best friends relationship they're showing now (in the present and in flashbacks). Henry was already lonely and depressed before he got the storybook and figured out that Regina was the Evil Queen so that she started gaslighting him. They didn't seem to have any common interests when he was a child. He expressed surprise about her actually giving him comic books when she was trying to get back on his good side in season 4, like that was something he wasn't allowed to have usually. We haven't seen a TV in her house. Her house is decorated in all white, without a single thing out of place. All of Henry's stuff was in his room, and she lectured him about leaving a single shoe on the stairs. I can't picture Regina sitting on the floor with a small child, playing with blocks or trucks. What I can picture is her making breakfast and dinner and them sitting together for those meals every day. So there might have been conversation about their days, his schoolwork, etc., but probably not a lot of interaction otherwise (especially since she seemed to be spending her leisure time raping Graham).

It's a contrast to what we saw of Emma and Henry's life in the Missing Year, in a comfortably cluttered home, where Emma kicks off her shoes and joins him on the sofa to play video games. That seems more like the kind of relationship that would lead to them becoming essentially best friends as he got older, where they hang out together and have interests in common. Regina's the kind of mother he would religiously have Sunday dinner with every week without fail, even when he was grown, and they would have pleasant conversations about what's going on in his life.

There definitely should have been more of a transition even to that friendly a relationship, given that they went from her holding him prisoner in his room, to him coaching her on being good and frowning on her using magic (whatever happened to that?) to him being horrified about her wanting to kill the rest of his family (and getting his memory wiped), to learning that she'd set something up to kill his family before she stopped it to save him -- and then suddenly on the way back from Neverland they're all cozy with each other. Back in Storybrooke, it was Emma who realized that something was wrong about "Henry" while Regina accepted Pan as Henry without noticing the difference -- and yet Henry claims he wishes he'd never come to get Emma. While we might see Regina being willing to give Henry and Emma memories of always having lived together as a sacrifice showing love, would Henry have seen it that way? He's an adopted child who's now been given up by both mothers. Afterward, he may or may not remember the fake 11 or so years before New York, but he did spend a year living with Emma as his mom, and her being the kind of mom who plays videogames with him. That's why it's awfully abrupt for him to suddenly be practically "Emma who?" after he gets his memories back. Even if he once had a good, close relationship with Regina, that was at least two years ago, if not more. That's a long time for a kid. Then throw in her literally telling him to stay away, and if he's acting realistically, he's going to be wary of Regina rather than being her biggest cheerleader. She'd have to work to re-earn his trust. They'd have to start from scratch and build something new. That would have been more interesting to see than the insta-bond, as though she'd never mistreated him and as though they'd always been super-close.

[Camera One]

There was also the flashback, before Snow gives Henry the book, so presumably before he "figured out" he was surrounded by fairytale characters.  Henry says that Regina says she loves him but she doesn't.  That doesn't suggest they had a normal mother-son relationship.  If they did, in Season 1, Henry would likely have some mixed feelings about his assertions that Regina was The Evil Queen.  You could see the pain in his eyes when he knew he would have to return to Regina's house.  I don't think he would have been so quick to jump to the conclusion that Regina would actually poison and kill his birth mother, if he had a bunch of good memories with Regina as a child.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Camera One

[companionenvy]

29 minutes ago, Camera One said:

There was also the flashback, before Snow gives Henry the book, so presumably before he "figured out" he was surrounded by fairytale characters.  Henry says that Regina says she loves him but she doesn't.  That doesn't suggest they had a normal mother-son relationship.  If they did, in Season 1, Henry would likely have some mixed feelings about his assertions that Regina was The Evil Queen.  You could see the pain in his eyes when he knew he would have to return to Regina's house.  I don't think he would have been so quick to jump to the conclusion that Regina would actually poison and kill his birth mother, if he had a bunch of good memories with Regina as a child.

That's why I call it a retcon. In S1, it was basically canon not only that Henry feared Regina, but that Regina didn't love Henry. That's why Emma stayed in the first place. Shanna also makes excellent points about Regina's home not being presented as in any way kid-friendly, and other signs that Regina was at best a dutiful but austere mother even without taking the curse into account.

At this point, there's simply no way to reconcile this with everything that came later. This isn't merely another case of the show engaging in emotional whiplash, or not allowing characters to have realistic reactions to events; it is crazy and borderline offensive that Snow becomes a close friend of Regina's, but they never literally pretended that their past didn't exist. They simply didn't give that past realistic emotional weight. Whereas it is pretty clear that the show simply changed its mind about Regina's relationship with Henry between S1 and S2. 

Which, whatever I think about the execution, wasn't necessarily a terrible idea; its actually a better story if Henry feels ambivalent about the woman who raised him, and if Regina actually loves Henry despite being otherwise evil. The issue is that the show didn't stick with ambivalence, and shifted entirely to presenting their relationship as unambiguously warm and loving. 

[Camera One]

6 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

At this point, there's simply no way to reconcile this with everything that came later. This isn't merely another case of the show engaging in emotional whiplash, or not allowing characters to have realistic reactions to events; it is crazy and borderline offensive that Snow becomes a close friend of Regina's, but they never literally pretended that their past didn't exist. They simply didn't give that past realistic emotional weight. Whereas it is pretty clear that the show simply changed its mind about Regina's relationship with Henry between S1 and S2. 

The Writers love Regina but this totally shortchanged the growth and development she might have had.  By pretending that Regina and Henry's relationship was never rocky, this meant Regina never had to apologize or make up for it.

The Snow situation was handled differently, but the result was just as laughable and unconvincing.  They kept showing Regina trying to kill her in more and more flashbacks, and then they have Snow in the present thanking Regina for teaching her what hope is.  

In both of these cases, the relationship just did not feel natural or believable in any way.

[KingOfHearts]

11 minutes ago, Camera One said:

They kept showing Regina trying to kill her in more and more flashbacks, and then they have Snow in the present thanking Regina for teaching her what hope is.  

I wish we could've gotten the AU where Regina succeeds at killing Snow. That could've happened in the S4 finale where villains win. Would she spiral deeper into depression like Maleficent did? Would she find another defenseless soul to target? Would she eventually regret pursuing a hollow victory?

Edited May 13, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I wish we could've gotten the AU where Regina succeeds at killing Snow. 

It did happen momentarily in the Season 3 finale.  She seemed pretty happy.  But yes, it would be interesting to see her next action.  Knowing these Writers, of course her happiness would be short-lived because deep down, she knew that the person she truly hated the most was herself.   

In that world, what would Rumple have done?  Would Regina still enact the Curse now that she had accomplished her goal of killing Snow?  

I guess she might because she might seek The Love of the People™.

Likewise, it would have been interesting to see what Wish Regina was up to after her defeat.  

[Rumsy4]

2 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Likewise, it would have been interesting to see what Wish Regina was up to after her defeat.  

I'm wondering if she'll show up in the series finale, or if she's supposed to be dead.

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

In that world, what would Rumple have done?  Would Regina still enact the Curse now that she had accomplished her goal of killing Snow?  

I guess that could've been a way to go about the "curse never happened" scenario. Another interesting AU would be Regina realizing the error of her ways and Zelena casting the curse instead.

Quote

I'm wondering if she'll show up in the series finale, or if she's supposed to be dead.

I'd like to see all four copies of Regina on screen at once.

Edited May 14, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

50 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Very true. The S2 Aurora and Philip TLK was way more meaningful even if we had only just met them as well.

It made me want to rewatch that scene, and I did.  It's interesting they didn't plagiarize themselves with another "You found me".  She just said "Philip".  The good ol' days when we thought they would actually tell the Sleeping Beauty story.  Good thing our illusions have all been swept away to hell, LOL.

25 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I'd like to see all four copies of Regina on screen at once.

 

Hello,

This is Adam and Eddy and we have a treat for you.  Instead of "101 Dalmations", next week, you will be treated to "101 Reginas".  You should know by now.  All Regina wishes shall be granted!

Enjoy!

A&E

Edited May 14, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

5 minutes ago, Camera One said:

It made me want to rewatch that scene, and I did.  It's interesting they didn't plagiarize themselves with another "You found me".  She just said "Philip".  The good ol' days when we thought they would actually tell the Sleeping Beauty story.  Good thing our illusions have all been swept away to hell, LOL.

 

Still forever bitter they dropped the wraith plot. Bringing Mulan to 5B was the perfect opportunity to explain how they rescued Phillip. (And possibly how to rescue Hook.) Instead we got Ruby Slippers.

Edited May 14, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 minute ago, KingOfHearts said:

Instead we got Ruby Slippers.

That was a very memorable episode, Kansas.

[KingOfHearts]

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

That was a very memorable episode, Kansas.

Shut up, Wolfie.

:)

[Souris]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Shut up, Wolfie.

:)

Congratulations! Now you two get a TLK.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Souris

[KingOfHearts]

17 minutes ago, Souris said:

Congratulations! Now you two get a TLK.

TLKs are now as easy as swiping right.

[tennisgurl]

TLK used to be something really meaningful and important. Kind of like how traveling from land to land was super hard for awhile. And now...

[KingOfHearts]

23 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

TLK used to be something really meaningful and important. Kind of like how traveling from land to land was super hard for awhile. And now...

... or casting curses. I'm pretty sure I could make a quick trip to Walgreen's and get the ingredients right now. Where do y'all want to be cursed? Hawaii? The French riviera?  Disneyland? I know those all sound like torture, but I have to be on par with an idyllic small town in Maine.

Edited May 14, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

What always drives me nuts about this show is how repetitive they had to get with the characters' development/regression. They had plenty of options to actually explore some of the major issues the characters had over the course of the season or more and instead would resolve them within one episode only for it to spring up again when the character's next centric would roll around. Emma's walls are often picked on, but most of that comes from a lack of interest in the character and no idea what to do with her. While they definitely failed to address these issues, even a realistic examination of the problems with her parents or her romantic interests couldn't have stretched out much beyond S4. That they continued to have the same thing cause problems seems more like laziness on the part of the writers than anything else.

Regina's ease of issue resolution seems more like the writers wanting too much to give her everything without having to deal with the horrific effects of her past actions. Her relationship with Henry could have driven a lot of plot if they had actually worked through their problems realistically rather than pretending they never existed and given them the perfect relationship. The same could be said for her relationship with Robin. There was no need to create drama with them via external means when there were plenty of internal issues for them to deal with that actually would have allowed for Regina to understand how her actions hurt people and actually start to apologize and atone rather than waving most of it off as simply collateral damage. Apparently village slaughter isn't a big deal because they weren't her real targets despite onscreen visuals and victim descriptions of her enjoying the carnage. When bad things happened that were supposedly Regina's punishment, they never happened to her. It was those around her who suffered worse than she. 

One of the things I wonder was whether they ever considered or evaluated the long term effects of what they were writing when they created some of their surprise twists. Was there a way to make Outlaw Queen a viable ship in a realistic way (not the ridiculous hand wave it got in show) once it was revealed that Regina murdered Marian? Was there some way to resolve the very understandable hate and anger felt by Owen and Percival without pretending it made them more evil than Regina when they sought justice/revenge, and in Owen's case, basic closure on what happened to his father?  I wonder if anyone in Storybrooke even knows that Regina murdered a man from the real world and that he was Greg/Owen's father. There's just too much that the writers put on her and then brushed aside like it was nothing. Was it because they loved the character too much to actually make her deal with this or because they had no way of actually addressing these actions in a meaningful way and still keeping Regina a viable hero/redeemable person?

Edited May 14, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[companionenvy]

13 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

One of the things I wonder was whether they ever considered or evaluated the long term effects of what they were writing when they created some of their surprise twists. Was there a way to make Outlaw Queen a viable ship in a realistic way (not the ridiculous hand wave it got in show) once it was revealed that Regina murdered Marian? Was there some way to resolve the very understandable hate and anger felt by Owen and Percival without pretending it made them more evil than Regina when they sought justice/revenge, and in Owen's case, basic closure on what happened to his father?  I wonder if anyone in Storybrooke even knows that Regina murdered a man from the real world and that he was Greg/Owen's father. There's just too much that the writers put on her and then brushed aside like it was nothing. Was it because they loved the character too much to actually make her deal with this or because they had no way of actually addressing these actions in a meaningful way and still keeping Regina a viable hero/redeemable person?

What's strange to me is that they actually doubled down on how evil she was in flashbacks, and then kept reminding us of it. So they combined scenes of her doing things that -- especially given the motivation and the apparent joy she took in her killings -- made it really, really hard to imagine her as redeemable with present-day scenes that persistently refused to really acknowledge the gravity of what she had done. This is also odd because we did get multiple episodes of Hook confronting his past crimes, so the writers were capable of coping with a character who we were supposed to root for in the present but had done some terrible things in the past without completely ignoring their crimes.

And honestly, I'd have been willing to meet the writers halfway on this. Frankly, if I really think about it, Hook's redemption came way too easy as well, given that he had been a pirate for two centuries and was presented as a valid love interest for Emma within days of his decision to take them to Neverland, especially when we get the backstory of how he got his rings, which considerably darkens his past. I'm not sure if I buy either that Killian as written would actually have stuck with a life of theft and at least an occasional spot of murder for so long, or that someone who did do that would be a person of conscience capable of a pretty quick turnaround. But I'm willing to go with it because in a general sense, I absolutely buy his arc if I don't think about the ridiculously exaggerated time-scale, which is a level of suspension of disbelief I'm willing to apply to a fantasy show. Pretend Killian was a pirate for five years, and the reformation works. But it works because he actually has to confront his past and a few of his victims, is clearly ashamed of who he was, and has to make real sacrifices - repeatedly. As I said above, Regina's best moment for me was casting the spell to give Emma and Henry false memories of a good life together because it was the closest she came to sacrificing something in a way that showed believable growth that directly addressed and avoided a past mistake. As opposed to Killian, who went back to Neverland at least part in reparation for what he had done to Bae, gave up the Jolly Roger to get the magic bean to save Emma, gave up the idea of getting revenge on Rumple for the sake of the Save Henry mission, and then never went back to it, helped Belle on several occasions partially out of guilt for things he had done to her, gave back his lost hand out of fear it would make him revert to evil, begged Emma to let him die rather than risk becoming a Dark One, sacrificed himself to destroy the darkness, and spent some time getting tortured in what was essentially a kind of Purgatory. 

If the show is willing to do all that, I'm willing not to think too hard about the fact that all of this was preceded by not a few years, but a few lifetime's worth of evil.

[superloislane]

I keep thinking about the differences between Hook and Regina's redemptions. I keep trying to give Regina a pass on some things because I don't like the character and sometimes I feel like that clouds my judgement a little. But anytime I give her a pass for something, it still doesn't work in her favour!

For example, I was thinking Hook had an easier to believe redemption because his main 'victim' was Rumple who was the real culprit behind Milah's death and he was pretty damn evil so that meant Hook didn't actually have to apologise to him or say he was wrong like Regina would have to since she went after a little girl who didn't do anything wrong. But then I remembered that Hook actually said he was the villain in their story when he threatened non-Dark One Rumple and he said that Rumple was a good man then and I thought damn! Hook even admitted he was wrong there! But I can't think of a time where Regina admitted she was wrong for going after Snow or even saying Snow was innocent of the whole thing. The only time she's ever said she shouldn't have done evil is because now it's preventing her from her own happy ending. Unless someone knows a scene where she did admit she was wrong? So I can't even give her a pass here!

Another pass I tried to give her was the fact that her primary victims were the other major characters whereas Hook never went after the Charming family to get revenge on them or anything so that would make it easier to believe his redemption because the audience don't have to remember that he's around his victims all the time. But he did go after them in the Enchanted Forest with Cora, took the bean and then it was revealed that he killed David's dad (ughhhhh). But he still showed more remorse for all of these things and hated himself more than Regina did for decades of abuse and murder against them. And it's even more of a good thing for him because he wasn't related to any of them in any way and so didn't really have to turn the ship around or go to Neverland with them so that means he did all those things just because he wanted to.

Damn!

[Rumsy4]

4 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Was it because they loved the character too much to actually make her deal with this or because they had no way of actually addressing these actions in a meaningful way and still keeping Regina a viable hero/redeemable person?

It was a combination of both, I think. They gave the Evil Queen a persona that was "sexy", wealthy, and powerful, because sadly, many people are attracted to the trifecta of beauty, money, and power. Good is "boring" to them. That is evident in the way they dress their heroes vs villains, especially with the whole "evil cleavage" thing (the one exception being the boob Blue Fairy).  

But this Show is supposed to be a Fairy Tale Show with a twist, not a "twisted" Fairy Tale. They couldn't overtly show a villain succeeding over heroes. So, they hit upon the disingenuous idea that even the worst villain "deserves" redemption, and subtly promoted the morality that villains deserve good things more than the victims whose lives they destroyed. They made Regina more sympathetic to the audience by giving her the most screen time and point-of-view narrative in the whole show. And their tactic has succeeded with a large group of people. Regina is one of the most popular characters in the show.

People were discussing a recent interview that claimed the seed of the Show was about where the Evil Queen would find her Happy Ending. I really believe this was A&E's original idea for the Show, even if they ladled a lot of good sauce over the spoiled meat (or should I say, heaped ice cream over rotten apples) in earlier seasons. Here are some quotes from an A&E interview from 2013 (pages 43-46; 62-63 on the pdf or 41-44; 60-61 on the scanned pages) that support this:

Quote

Kitsis: “The first thing we talked about was the Evil Queen and how hard it would be to live in a land where everything you did failed.”

Horowitz points out the obvious: It’s a metaphor for Hollywood. “As writers, you have to believe what you’re doing because it’s so difficult to get anything off the ground.” Their Evil Queen wasn’t just a baddie; she was misunderstood. “So then the thought process was, Where would this character succeed? Where does good ... always win? Her world. Then that led to the idea, What if she cast a curse and came to our world?” 

Quote

“The Evil Queen is ... a strong, tough woman who will get in your face and scare the hell out of you,” Kitsis notes. “Rumpelstiltskin ... you’re never quite sure where you’re standing, he’s Machiavellian.”

Mayor Mills was to a certain extent what they described in Season 1--a tough woman who would get in your face. Rumple was very much a Machiavellian character in Season 1. They both started losing their nuance from Season 2 onwards.

I had to laugh at this part:

Quote

They assumed Lindelof would take an executive producer credit, but he demurred. “We were like, ‘Oh, because you hate the idea, you don’t fucking believe in us,’” says Kitsis. “And he said, ‘If I put my name on it, it’s my show and everyone will only write about me.’” 

The interview has some priceless quotes about their writing process which we have discussed in the past. These are quite interesting to revisit now that the Show is ending. But I don't want to make this post even longer. So, I'll stop here for now.

[superloislane]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Horowitz points out the obvious: It’s a metaphor for Hollywood. “As writers, you have to believe what you’re doing because it’s so difficult to get anything off the ground.” Their Evil Queen wasn’t just a baddie; she was misunderstood.

Oh good lord in heaven! I totally forgot about their 'metaphor for Hollywood' idea! I still don't understand this (and I love how it says he points out the obvious-that was supposed to be obvious?) That's why they're obsessed with her - she's them and they deserve everything good in the world and for people to recognise their genius.

I REALLY don't understand the 'The Evil Queen was misunderstood' thing that gets said every now and then. How was she misunderstood? It isn't like she was actually trying to help people but accidentally had negative consequences and everyone just thought she was evil like Elphaba. She was pure evil and slaughtered villages. If anything we understand her a little too much!

[Camera One]

For me, Hook's redemption worked because his remorse and steps to make up for what he did was sustained, relatively consistent and lasted multiple seasons.  In Season 2, I was pretty sickened by his sexual innuendos towards Emma.  I would have been totally fine if he had been left to die in the beanstalk episode.  Even by this early point, just like with Regina, the Writers and certain fans made excuses for him or implied that Emma was just as bad.  This turned me off the character.  I wasn't too impressed that he sailed back in the finale when it would have common decency to save some of them while saving himself as well.  It wasn't an all-or-nothing choice.

In Season 3, step by step, he slowly began to win me over with his actions despite the character facing distrust (which was realistic and actually made me buy that he was genuine).  But it was clear by this point that for many people, he was already fully redeemed and it was mean for the "heroes" to treat him so badly, and how Hook was so much more gallant and moral than Neal, etc.  However, it did annoy me that the Writers were only really interested in spending Emma's screentime on him.  

It was probably Season 4 when I finally saw him as a worthy love interest to Emma. 

Maybe A&E were willing to let Hook have this path because he filled the role of a brooding ex-villain which is common for male characters in many shows and this was something the actor did really well.  His Enchanted Forest pirate demeanor wasn't as showy and entertaining as The Evil Queen or Rumple's, so A&E didn't feel the need to showcase it as much.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

31 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Maybe A&E were willing to let Hook have this path because he filled the role of a brooding ex-villain which is common for male characters in many shows and this was something the actor did really well.  His Enchanted Forest pirate demeanor wasn't as showy and entertaining as The Evil Queen or Rumple's, so A&E didn't feel the need to showcase it as much.

I think the writers realized that they couldn’t have the savior end up with an unrepentant or unstable villain like Regina or Rumple. Most of us don’t respect Robin or Belle for their blindness towards their respective love interests. And many of us were really annoyed when Emma or Snow behaved like a doormat when it came to Regina. Hook had a better redemption than Regina or Rumple mainly because he was lower down in the totem pole of the characters in the show. 

I hate how the writers basically had everyone bend over backwards to worship Regina into hero status.

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

I think the writers realized that they couldn’t have the savior end up with an unrepentant or unstable villain like Regina or Rumple. Most of us don’t respect Robin or Belle for their blindness towards their respective love interests. And many of us were really annoyed when Emma or Snow behaved like a doormat when it came to Regina. Hook had a better redemption than Regina or Rumple mainly because he was lower down in the totem pole of the characters in the show. 

I hate how the writers basically had everyone bend over backwards to worship Regina into hero status.

I think that's an element of why Hook became so unambiguously good so quickly, but I don't think K&H ever saw Robin and Belle's feelings towards their loved ones -- especially Robin's -- as problematic. Belle was presented as right on those occasions when she told Rumple he had gone too far and ditched him, but she was also presented as right to go back to him, and their story is ultimately depicted as a great love story. And we cared that Robin basically shrugged off the EQ thing, complete with attempted murder of his wife, but I don't think the show saw this as a problem, because Regina had changed.

[Shanna Marie]

9 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Regina's ease of issue resolution seems more like the writers wanting too much to give her everything without having to deal with the horrific effects of her past actions. Her relationship with Henry could have driven a lot of plot if they had actually worked through their problems realistically rather than pretending they never existed and given them the perfect relationship. The same could be said for her relationship with Robin. There was no need to create drama with them via external means when there were plenty of internal issues for them to deal with that actually would have allowed for Regina to understand how her actions hurt people and actually start to apologize and atone rather than waving most of it off as simply collateral damage.

This is the thing that utterly baffles me as a writer. When I have a "favorite" character, that means I give them all the good material in the story, which generally means making them suffer. They get the big, emotional scenes. They get the drama. They have bad things happen to them so that readers can worry about them. They do get happy endings, as well, but they really suffer along the way. I'd think this would apply doubly for something that involves an actor, when the writers like the actor and want to give that person all the really great scenes to play -- that Emmy reel stuff. But they treat Regina like a real person they want to give all the good things to, and it sounds like Lana is in on that. Most actors would have loved getting to play all the emotional scenes that would have been involved to reconcile Henry and Regina's relationship, but Lana talked about asking the writers to make their relationship happier, and so the drama got skipped over. Regina's redemption should have been a writing and acting goldmine, but they just made her instantly be seen as a hero.

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Kitsis: “The first thing we talked about was the Evil Queen and how hard it would be to live in a land where everything you did failed.”

Horowitz points out the obvious: It’s a metaphor for Hollywood. “As writers, you have to believe what you’re doing because it’s so difficult to get anything off the ground.” Their Evil Queen wasn’t just a baddie; she was misunderstood. “So then the thought process was, Where would this character succeed? Where does good ... always win? Her world. Then that led to the idea, What if she cast a curse and came to our world?” 

This also makes no sense because Regina wasn't a failure. She had made herself a queen and had taken over the kingdom. She had great wealth, lived in a palace, had magical powers, had the neighboring rulers so afraid of her that she could walk into their kingdoms and give orders, she had her own private army that she had absolute control over. Snow White was a bandit on the run who even tried to leave the kingdom a few times. The only things Regina didn't have were the love of the people -- which was her own fault because she slaughtered villages -- Snow White dead -- again, her own fault because she could have been rid of Snow a number of times if she hadn't intervened -- and romantic love -- also her fault because she rejected every possibility of a relationship. She never actually tried to get the love of the people. It's not like she was a benevolent queen and they rejected her anyway out of loyalty to Snow. She didn't get rejected by suitors. The only thing she actually tried and failed at was killing Snow. That's not "misunderstood." It's also a bizarre metaphor for the struggles of a writing career, since Regina was hugely successful. If it's a metaphor for a writing career, it's a showrunner for a major network hit who gets frustrated because someone who beat them out for one particular job early in their career now has a job on a struggling basic cable show rather than being run out of Hollywood entirely.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

In Season 3, step by step, he slowly began to win me over with his actions despite the character facing distrust (which was realistic and actually made me buy that he was genuine).  But it was clear by this point that for many people, he was already fully redeemed and it was mean for the "heroes" to treat him so badly, and how Hook was so much more gallant and moral than Neal, etc. 

I wouldn't have minded the heroes being overall mistrustful of Hook during season 3. My issue was that David was being such a jerk in a way that was counterproductive to the mission. So, it wasn't him being mean to poor, sad Hook, but him being downright dumb in cases like Hook, the Neverland veteran, telling them don't touch these extremely poisonous plants, and we'd better avoid that dangerous jungle, and David being all "you can't tell me what to do, you nasty pirate" about it. And then all the back and forthing in his attitude, plus the contrast to the attitude toward Neal. It wasn't that I thought David should have trusted Hook more or been nicer to him. It was that I thought David should have been a lot more leery of Neal, given that he got David's teenage daughter pregnant and abandoned her. Even if he didn't find out the details of how that went down, it was obvious that Emma was pregnant with Neal's baby while Emma was still a teenager and Neal would have been an adult, and Neal had so little to do with Emma afterward that he didn't know she'd had a baby. Independent of anything to do with Hook, that should have made David have issues with Neal, and the fact that it didn't threw David's treatment of Hook into sharp contrast and made it look unfair.

9 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Frankly, if I really think about it, Hook's redemption came way too easy as well, given that he had been a pirate for two centuries and was presented as a valid love interest for Emma within days of his decision to take them to Neverland, especially when we get the backstory of how he got his rings, which considerably darkens his past. I'm not sure if I buy either that Killian as written would actually have stuck with a life of theft and at least an occasional spot of murder for so long, or that someone who did do that would be a person of conscience capable of a pretty quick turnaround.

The rings backstory thing is a lot like the village slaughter, where they retroactively made their pasts so much worse at the time they were showing them as redeemed in the present, though the retconning of Regina into a mass murderer started while she was still in ambiguously villainous mode, while with Hook he was in pure hero mode when suddenly they made his past so much worse. Not that I thought he was a choirboy, but before the ring story, which was followed almost immediately by the father murder and then followed by the murder of David's father, he did come across more like someone who did some dark stuff but who had a code about it. The stuff like in the flashback with Ursula seemed more in line with what I expected was going on with Hook in the past (and the writers even said that was Hook "at his worst," which implies they changed their backstory after that time, since we later saw or heard of him doing worse). The problem with characters who are that evil in the past is that if they do have enough of a conscience to turn themselves around, that conscience would drive them mad, given their crimes. If they really let Regina acknowledge that casting the curse was wrong, that she was wrong to go after Snow White that way and the curse was pointless, then she'd have to live with the fact that she murdered her father for nothing. If she really had a conscience, the village slaughter wouldn't be treated on a par with "let's not talk about the bad perm I had in the 80s." With Hook, it does seem like those killings wear on him, but if he has that kind of conscience, would he have killed so easily in the past?

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, companionenvy said:

 I don't think K&H ever saw Robin and Belle's feelings towards their loved ones -- especially Robin's -- as problematic. 

I don't agree the writers never saw Regina and Rumple's behavior are problematic. I think they did, but they relied on cheap tactics to get the viewers reconciled to the problematic behavior. As writers, A&E seem more focussed on drama and emotion than objectivity and morality. That's why the villains and heroes get judged by different standards. 

For example, they thought it would be an interesting drama to throw a wrench into the Regina/Robin relationship by making Regina Marian's would-be murderer. We were supposed to care more about Regina than Marian because Regina is the main character, and Marian is dismissed as too vanilla. The writers didn't understand that some viewers are never going to feel sympathetic to the Evil Queen over Maid Marian, even if Marian was only a peripheral character in the Show. Netflix's Jessica Jones had a similar backstory with two of the main characters. I loved the way they handled that issue. It was nuanced and believable. I have only seen the first season, so I don't know if that plot thread is followed up in Season 2 or the crossover series. 

With Rumple, Belle had become a crutch for the writers to keep Rumple a villain, and yet retain a smidgen of his humanity by stating that he loved Belle. That probably seemed like a wonderfully portrayal of a morally gray character to them. 

Towards the later seasons, the writers had a too high opinion of their writing. They thought they could reconcile viewers into anything by playing on our emotions. That's one of the reasons why the villain backstories got progressively worse. And with Hook, I suspect it also had something to do with bringing him down to the level of Regina and Rumple in his crimes, as he was getting a little too popular. But that's just my (probably) biased opinion. 

Edited May 14, 2018 by Rumsy4