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

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

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. 

That still blows my mind they thought that was a good idea. Oh, Regina falls in love with a man who's wife she murdered. Ah, no no, that is not a good idea. That's far from a good idea. Many people are going to be horrified because he's only a widower because she killed his wife.  Some thought that would be a way for Regina to finally see what she did. To show sympathy for one of her victims. Listening to Robin talk about the pain of losing his wife and later learning she was the who caused him that pain. Who murdered someone he loved, like her mother murdered someone she loved. That would have been good too and interesting. Feeling bad and guilty for what she did to Robin. Nope, A&E somehow thought the better idea was Maid Marian put on ice, crypt sex, Marian is back to normal but has to leave, Robin never struggles over his feelings between his wife or Regina he always made it clear he wanted the woman who murdered his wife, and Regina learns zero about what she did she falls apart over a guy she only known for a week or so. To the point she tells her son to stay away.
 

Quote

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 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. 

 

Oh, they definitely thought that. They can make viewers believe whatever they want us to believe and still do. The ratings dropping and they doubled down on Regina and Rumple. Still refusing to see that was their problem. The show was doing good until then. Also, fans don't like sudden shifts that make no sense. Or writers changing the show they were watching into something it never was. I didn't watch ONCE to see Regina suddenly declared good, never pay for any of her crimes or watch every other character tinkered with until they were a Regina cheerleader and basically puppets. The thing about Hook, I think your absolutely correct. They liked Hook until they realized he was becoming more popular then Rumple and Regina and that's something they can't handle or accept. So they went to work on him to bring him down. Honestly that's pretty much what they did to every character that was liked except those two.   

Edited May 14, 2018 by andromeda331

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

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.

Me too. Normally yes you give your favorite actress the good material. The best story arcs, the emotional scenes, everything. You'd think they would have made the most out of Regina's redemption. Having her struggle, work hard, hit rock bottom and then work her way up. Those are good scenes and you'd think A&E would want those for Regina. You'd think Lana would want that. That's the juicy stuff. To slowly a rebuild a relationship with Henry. To fall in love with someone and deal with the drama of dating again for the first time since Daniel. But nope they all went the instant crap. Why would Lana as an actress want that instead of really showing different range? Why would A&E want that instead of actual real good scenes? It really would have been a goldmine.

Edited May 14, 2018 by andromeda331

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

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?

Exactly. Again, I'll forgive it because I think his redemption was mostly handled well, but I can't entirely reconcile his presentation even in the flashbacks as someone who generally did have a code/conscience with his ability to stay a villain for so long. As I said in our previous discussion on this, I can kind of buy him becoming enmeshed in a culture of casual slaughter while still having the capacity for change, but the fact that it went on for so long -- even if we assume that he wasn't quite that bad for the entire 200 or whatever years, I think we can assume it wasn't just a blip -- doesn't really bear thinking about it. Although in this case, I don't think that's an issue unique to OOaT; I think almost every show I've ever seen that features human characters who have lived well beyond an ordinary lifespan runs into some scenario where their ability to bounce back from trauma or protracted inability to grow or change becomes an issue. See Dean Winchester on Supernatural, then aged about 30 in real-world time, spending 40 years in Hell and coming back as a functional, if damaged person, even though the show gave no indication that his memories had been muted in any way.

Even Neal more or less acts like a guy in his 30s, and gives no real sense that he's got many, many more years of lived experience. Although I will say - unpopular opinion time -- that I was always a lot more forgiving of Neal's relationship with Emma than a lot of people seem to be. Neal grew up in the EF, where you could be drafted into war at age 13. I doubt statutory rape was a thing. He then spent some time in Victorian England, where likewise, not a thing. A girl under 21 would have needed parental consent to marry, but the idea of a guy in his 20s or 30s courting a 16/17 year old wouldn't have been considered scandalous. Tallahassee era Neal clearly wasn't concerned about legalities, and he met Emma on relatively equal, non-exploitative terms. She had already apparently been living on her own for at least some time; it wasn't like he was her teacher, or at a markedly different life stage. That's also a case where I think the writers had somewhat limited options, timeline-wise; I suspect if they had been able to go back to S1 and age up Emma by a few years, they would have done so, since they chose to use decidedly not teenaged JMo in the flashbacks and presented her much more as a young woman in love than a totally naive teen. I also suspect that while they decided to cast MRJ for other reasons, they initially envisioned a younger-looking guy whose character they could have made closer in age to Emma.

53 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I don't agree the writers never saw Regina and Rumple's behavior are prblematic.

Oh, I think they saw their behavior as problematic. I don't think they saw the forgiving behavior of their loved ones as problematic. 

[Shanna Marie]

39 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

The thing about Hook, I think your absolutely correct. They liked Hook until they realized he was becoming more popular then Rumple and Regina and that's something they can't handle or accept. So they went to work on him to bring him down. Honestly that's pretty much what they did to every character that was liked except those too.   

I don't know if they really wanted to bring Hook down. I think some of it may be that they needed extra drama. Most of the retconning of Hook's past was to create some kind of present-day drama. The whole story about the rings (which didn't fit continuity anyway because he was telling origin stories of rings he was already wearing when he met Milah, but the origin involved him having a hook) was to make present-day Hook look super-good and repentant, so it would look extra-ironic when they did the big "a ha!!!" revelation that Hook had been a Dark One all along. There was no other real purpose to that revelation, and I don't think it even came up again. The killing of Hook's father was just to set up a way for Regina to be the one to be able to reach Dark Hook, since there was no other way to involve her in that story. They had to find a way to squeeze something into the existing backstory in which Regina and Hook only met briefly (and it doesn't actually fit the continuity). At least we did get some fallout from that with Liam 2.0. Killing David's father was just to contrive some drama and give a reason for Emma and Hook to be briefly temporarily split up. I don't think the writers were consciously sitting in the writers' room going "Hmm, how can we make Hook look bad?" It was more a case of "how can we create drama here?" and they took the easy, cheap way out instead of mining the story and characters for existing drama. What complicates matters onscreen is that Colin is generally really good about playing continuity. If it's ever mentioned in the script that something is important to Hook, then Colin plays it that way for the rest of the series, even if the writers seem to have forgotten. So once it's mentioned that he has something in his past, he plays the character with that in mind, which adds a layer of darkness that wasn't previously there. The rings didn't matter for the first four seasons, but then once they're mentioned he goes on playing the character as having been the kind of person who once did those things. It's like with Neal/Bae. The scripts seem to have forgotten that they ever knew each other, and the relationship was never developed, but every time Neal or Bae is mentioned for the rest of the series, Hook acts like he's swallowing a lump in his throat and fighting back tears.

I think some of the difference in how characters were handled also comes from the actors. Lana has been quite open about her requests for Regina to get good things, like a better relationship with Henry or a love interest. It doesn't sound like Colin asks for stuff like that, but he does love playing those angsty scenes and he likes the reminders of the darkness in Hook's past. He's said that "Emma's Hook" is who is closest to his real personality (though that was in an interview done before Rogers, who seems fairly close to being like Colin), and as an actor he's said he prefers to play roles that are very different from his real self. So, if there's any campaigning about what he wants for his character, it would have been for more darkness and angst.

I really feel like the "cake runs" for Pan were a retcon, something that wasn't originally part of the story but that they added because that was the only way to have "Hook" flashbacks that would tie him to the regular characters or to the guest characters who also had ties to the other regulars. That didn't come up until late in season 4, and previously there was no mention of anything like it other than the reference to a deal with Pan that allowed him to leave Neverland -- and at the time, it seemed to be about how he escaped Neverland for good. If he's in Neverland during the whole 100+ years, then there's a lot less opportunity for bad behavior. We're left with maybe 10 years, at the most, of piracy, most of which was spent with Milah, then 100+ years in Neverland defending himself against Lost Boys and researching revenge methods, then maybe a year or two back in the Enchanted Forest world, more focused on tracking down Rumple than on piracy. Throwing in the cake runs in the second half of season 4 first had him stealing Ursula's voice, then most of the ring killings had to have happened during that time, and there was the killing of David's father. And then in season 6 they contradicted the previous implication of life in the Coradome, which seemed to have been truly frozen, the way they talked about it in season 2, and had him off having adventures during the curse.

36 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

That's also a case where I think the writers had somewhat limited options, timeline-wise; I suspect if they had been able to go back to S1 and age up Emma by a few years, they would have done so, since they chose to use decidedly not teenaged JMo in the flashbacks and presented her much more as a young woman in love than a totally naive teen. I also suspect that while they decided to cast MRJ for other reasons, they initially envisioned a younger-looking guy whose character they could have made closer in age to Emma.

I think they were somewhat hampered here by the story effect they wanted. They were building to the big "Neal is Bae!" revelation, where the moment we see him, we know who he is. That means that unless you've got such perfect casting that you can take one look at him and know he's the older version of the character we saw previously, you need the same actor. But if they'd had teen Bae and teen Emma in the "Tallahassee" flashback, we'd have known right away that Neal was Bae. But since MRJ looks older than he really is, it would have looked even creepier if they'd used a teen actress for Emma. I think they were pretty much stuck with Emma being a teen when she had Henry if they wanted her not to have an adult record (though they blew that with the season 5 retcon) and if they wanted her to have been a minor when she had Henry, so it really seemed like she had no choice but adoption. They really needed to have done something to try to age down MRJ, like get rid of the stubble and maybe cover the gray in his hair, if they were aging down Emma. Or different casting.

I think we were supposed to see him as being a lot younger than he came across -- Henry told Hook that he and Neal were the same age, but Colin was several years younger than MRJ (he's even younger than Jen) and looked much younger. Incidentally, I thought that was a dynamic that had real potential with all the timeline wackiness, to have had the boy Hook looked after in Neverland now be older than he was. But they didn't go there.

[october]

22 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Although I will say - unpopular opinion time -- that I was always a lot more forgiving of Neal's relationship with Emma than a lot of people seem to be. Neal grew up in the EF, where you could be drafted into war at age 13. I doubt statutory rape was a thing. He then spent some time in Victorian England, where likewise, not a thing. A girl under 21 would have needed parental consent to marry, but the idea of a guy in his 20s or 30s courting a 16/17 year old wouldn't have been considered scandalous.

By the time he met Emma, Neal had been in modern America long enough to adjust to new cultures and technologies, to learn to steal and drive cars, to learn that people made fun of women drivers, to get a fake ID, to learn to get around modern locks and security systems, to get contacts he could fence stolen goods to, to get a job and to lose his accent. In all that time, he must have noticed the lack of child brides in his new home.

When he met Emma, he would've spent more time in the modern US than he did with the Darlings in Victorian England. He showed no sign of having held on to his Enchanted Forest attitudes and he behaved in a way that was indistinguishable to a modern man (even his chauvinism seemed distinctly 21st century, instead of faux-medieval). As quickly as Hook adjusted to Storybrooke, the show at least paid lip service to him being 'old fashioned' in certain ways. Plus, I don't remember them portraying Hook as being ready to bed a teenager.

Then there's Neal's shitty reaction to Emma calling him out for what he did to her. In the decade that followed their relationship, he had plenty of time to ruminate on the gravity of his actions. Instead, he laughed in her face. That's not ignorance or a difference in culture. That's just being an asshole. So I don't see any weight to the argument that it was a culture thing. I really think it was all down to Adam and Eddy needing to desperately preserve their plot twist, no matter the troubling implications and inconsistent characterisation that would result.

[Inquirer]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

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?

I think yes, he would, because the whole point was that he shut his conscience down entirely in order to dedicate himself 100% to revenge, upon achieving which he planned on promptly dying. That was a big differentiating factor between him and Regina or Rumple: he had no intention of living happily ever after as a villain, he was on a suicide mission.  It was only after thinking he got his revenge but living (due to being tied up for a while after said revenge) that he realized that maybe taking all those lives and planning on taking his own life, all for this thing that left him feeling nothing but empty, wasn't the best path to take after all. From then on, you saw him begin to value both his life and the lives of others, and his conscience turned back on and made him feel guilt for all the people he killed (Blackbeard and Eric - or so he thought - being the final tipping point).  I think wanting to do good in order to make up for his past sins was as much a motive for Hook to keep on living as helping Emma, Henry and/or Baelfire was.

I actually didn't mind the rings backstory, it sounded fitting for Captain Hook to have done. Killing his own father and David's father, on the other hand...yeah, no.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Inquirer

[tennisgurl]

13 hours ago, companionenvy said:

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.

Thats one of the weirdest things about Regina's arc, especially looking back on it. In the first season, when she was still a full on villain, most of her evil was based around getting her revenge on Snow, or getting power. Granted, her beef with Snow was always stupid, but her actions were at least consistent with a person blind with revenge and a lust for power. And she did a lot of unrelated evil things, like raping Graham (as much as A&E like to pretend that wasn't a big deal), but she was basic levels of evil for the most part, killing and hurting people to advance her goals. It wasn't until season two, when they started going hard on the Regina redemption/white washing stuff, that they started doubling down on what a twisted monster she really was. Almost every episode which was Regina centric (so, a lot of them) seemed to have flashbacks that were supposed to make us feel bad for Regina...while also showing her slaughtering innocents, and being an irredeemable psychopath. Like, when she met up with Snow on the run, and we found out that she had a whole village massacred for helping Snow, and Snow said she couldn't forgive her, and we were supposed to be like "oh, poor Regina" instead of "those poor innocent villagers, and poor Snow", like any sane person would. Or when they flashbacked to killing that groom on his wedding day for no reason, and then expected us to be "poor Regina" five seconds later when she visited Daniels grave. Its just the most bizarre way to do a redemption story. They add in all of these terrible crimes, but instead of using that to make her face up to what she`s done, they just double down on how we should feel sorry for her, and just ignore all of these things that they brought up in the first place.

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, Inquirer said:

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

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?

I think yes, he would, because the whole point was that he shut his conscience down entirely in order to dedicate himself 100% to revenge, upon achieving which he planned on promptly dying.

But they also showed him having glimmers of conscience even during that phase, like you can see he immediately feels bad and regrets stealing Ursula's voice. Not enough to actually do anything about it, but enough that he clearly knew he screwed up. With him, it seems to be a temper thing -- he has that flash of sheer fury during which he does really dumb and awful stuff that he immediately regrets when he's calmed down. I guess that's where he might have killed easily in the past -- it happens in a fit of rage, but feeling bad afterward isn't enough to make him think twice the next time he has a fit of rage. This is another reason why the murder of David's dad doesn't fit the way they did it. I don't think we've otherwise seen Hook do something awful without him being furious. That's where they could have fixed it by having Hook learn he sold his son. It would have been in character, then, for him to blow up and act in rage. The calm "I don't want to leave witnesses" doesn't fit. When he reforms, one of the changes is that when he has one of those temper tantrum screwups, he takes immediate steps to try to make up for it. And he's gotten better about calming the temper so he doesn't screw up that way as much. By season six, he's become pretty zen and has become a sponsor for Impulsive Ragers Anonymous.

I think this kind of change is part of what makes his redemption work. He not only acknowledges where he went wrong -- the obsession with vengeance -- but he's addressed the character flaws that led him down that path. He's clearly not just changed, but he's learned. The problem with the way they handled Regina was that she changed, but there was no indication that she'd learned. She still blamed other people for her problems and acted like she was the victim when something bad happened to someone else, and she still had very little empathy for others. I guess by the time she's Roni she's better, but was that Regina getting better or was it something she got from the Roni personality? Did she have to literally become a different person in order to learn what empathy was like?

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

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.  

 

 

7 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

They can make viewers believe whatever they want us to believe and still do. The ratings dropping and they doubled down on Regina and Rumple. Still refusing to see that was their problem. 

 

They are so arrogant that they think they can tell the audience what to think or how to feel, and viewers would automatically just take it.  That was why Regina's redemption, or relationships they were pushing like Regina/Henry or Regina/Snow or Regina/Emma or Rumple/Belle, or their constant retcons, were unconvincing and felt forced. 

They continued with the same attitude and mindset this season.  As if declaring that Henry and Jacinda was an epic couple made it so, or thinking the reveal that the Hyperion Heights Curse took them back to 2017 meant we would overlook all the errors in the timeline.  People who didn't like Season 7 were not open-minded and their voices were overpowered by the whiny naysayers because Season 7 was awesome and there couldn't be any other explanation.

No one expects showrunners to outright admit mistakes, but I don't remember one instance where A&E addressed criticism through action and their writing became responsive.  It's always the same old problems over and over and over again.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

They are so arrogant that they think they can tell the audience what to think or how to feel, and viewers would automatically just take it. 

That's exactly it. Great writers are great because they lead their readers/viewers to reach a certain conclusion by their meticulous plotting and set-up. Just telling someone to feel a certain way, while playing things out in a completely illogical or contradictory manner is inane.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

Inspired by the discussion of what A&E thought were their best "twists" of the series (going by a broad definition, to include plot twists and twists on the familiar stories), what are your favorites? Some of mine, off the top of my head:

• A beautiful blond "Disney princess" who carries a gun and works as a bounty hunter (and later cop), and who's more comfortable in jeans and a leather jacket than in a ballgown.
• Prince Charming is actually a farmboy forced to impersonate his twin brother, who was secretly adopted by the king
• Little Red Riding Hood is a werewolf, so she's also the Big Bad Wolf. And so was Granny, back in the day.
• Snow White as a bandit (they keep talking about putting a sword in her hand, but archery was always more her thing. How often did we see her using a sword?)
• Rumple was the one manipulating the curse into being cast so he could find his son again
• Henry takes a leap of faith and eats the poisoned apple tart so Emma will be forced to believe, with absolute faith that she'll save him with True Love's Kiss
• Captain Hook is young and sexy instead of the way he's usually depicted, and he reforms, turning into a hero
• The Queen of Hearts is the Evil Queen's mother, and she was the Miller's Daughter from the Rumpelstiltskin story (a lot of their character mashups get ridiculous, but I liked this combo)
• After a season in Storybrooke, Emma gets sent to the Enchanted Forest with her mother and gets to see her mother in her element.
• Cora can't take Emma's heart
• I liked the idea of Greg turning out to be a boy who saw Storybrooke formed and was forever changed by the experience, but I hated the way it was executed and dealt with.
• Rumple's son ends up with Captain Hook in Neverland
• Bitter and jaded Tinkerbell (I wish they could have done more with her)
• the Snow Queen was once Emma's foster mother (another one of those things that wasn't fully carried off well, but the revelation was one of the better moments of that arc)
• Cruella is a flat-out psychopath instead of having a sad backstory that excuses her evil
• Hook was a Dark One all along (the "he didn't know because he couldn't remember" thing was weak and a lot of Emma's actions don't make sense in context, but otherwise they actually executed it pretty well, and it's one of the few big revelations that adds a layer in rewatching)
• King Arthur is actually kind of bad (driven to obsession by Merlin's vague prophecies) -- I'm not crazy about their tendency to turn heroes into villains, and this didn't entirely live up to potential, but this kind of worked, mostly due to the acting.
• Nothing Emma does brings Hook back from the Underworld. He earns it himself. (I'm normally not fond of them making Emma passive, but I like this one just because something so big as reversing death should be something you have to do for yourself)
• Jekyll is just as evil as Hyde
• "Rogers" is Wish Hook, not the Hook we know

I noticed that they become sparser as the seasons progress. You'd think the more recent ones would be fresher and more top of mind.

[andromeda331]

My favorites were Snow being a bandit, Emma the bounty hunter and daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, Charming having to pretend to be his dead twin brother and not really a prince, Red and Granny both being the wolves (they really should have done more with that), Cora being the Queen of Hearts, Miller's Daughter and Regina's mother really worked for her character, Rumple turns out to be looking for his son and I loved that Cora couldn't take Emma's heart it was so perfect finally that trick wasn't going to work. Oh, Cora pretending to be Lancelot, she was very convincing.  

I've never really been interested in trio-relationships. I've mostly never seen how they could possibly work but Philip, Aurora and Mulan was the first time I could really see all three of them in a relationship together and it working. All three really seemed in love with each other.   

[Camera One]

I'm not a huge fan of plot twists, so I don't think I will get to 25.

• The fairies were nuns in Storybrooke (they could have explored the fairies mythology so much more)
• Prince Charming had a twin and he was a shepherd (they could have done so much more with this Prince and the Pauper tale)
• Princess Abigail never wanted to marry Charming
• Granny was a bad-ass (they could have explored her backstory more... how she became a werewolf, for example)
• The Blue Fairy gave Rumple's son the magic bean
• Mad Hatter's hats were portals
• Regina tried to poison Emma with an apple turnover but Henry ate it
• Mulan and Prince Philip were friends (and then never explored again)
• There was a Sleeping Curse dream realm where ex-Cursed people could communicate
• David going under with the "traditional" spinning wheel spindle technique
• Baelfire met Wendy and the Darlings and went to Neverland
• Ariel could travel between realms
• The original Snow Queen was Elsa and Anna's aunt
• Cruella's two-color hair was part Author's ink
• The Underworld had phone booths to communicate with the living
• Alice turned out to be Whook's daughter who grew up in the tower
• Tree nymphs lived in Seattle thousands of years ago 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Camera One

[Camera One]

Watch Adam's skills of deflection.

Quote

marisqen‏ @marcviolets May 13

hey @AdamHorowitzLA why is regina asking for granny’s grilled cheese sandwiches when they give her indigestion??? do y’all even write down ur most important character traits from season 4 episode 13 darkness on the edge of town plS

Adam Horowitz @AdamHorowitzLA

Replying to @marcviolets   413 was Unforgiven

marisqen‏ @marcviolets 17h17 hours ago

Replying to @AdamHorowitzLA   depends on whether or not you consider smash the mirror as one episode or two, which has been as inconsistent a calculation as regina’s tolerance for grilled cheese ://

Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA 15h15 hours ago

Smash the mirror is 2 episodes

He could compete in the Olympics if deflection became a sport.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

Why does he even reply??

[RolloTomasi]

I probably should have known there would be that much interest in Regina’s dietary restrictions. (“Most important character trait”? Okay...) 

[KAOS Agent]

Quote

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.

While I think Regina was always quite popular, I think the notion that the writers were super successful in convincing the audience to root for her and that gained her fans is somewhat false. This show has been shedding viewers quite heavily since the back half of season 2. They really seemed to have little direction in their writing at that point, but it is very strongly tilted into Regina as victim mode while showing truly horrific crimes in her backstory. During this time, the heroes were either sidelined (Emma) or painted as worse than Regina (Snow) for acting in perfectly reasonable ways. Regina fans would probably enjoy seeing Regina getting more screen time and a sympathetic POV while fans of other characters might be disgusted or turned off by the way the show was changing what it had been in S1 and tuned out. One of the lowest rated episodes of S2 was "The Evil Queen" and by that point, the show had dropped four million viewers (37% of the audience) from the S2 premiere.

The more the show focused on Regina/Rumpel and the less time spent on Snowing or Ruby or just giving resolution to the side characters in Storybrooke, the more of those viewers who aren't fans of the villains tune out. This would obviously lead to the audience in later seasons skewing heavily towards favoring Regina/Rumpel.

Edited May 15, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[superloislane]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

They are so arrogant that they think they can tell the audience what to think or how to feel, and viewers would automatically just take it.  That was why Regina's redemption, or relationships they were pushing like Regina/Henry or Regina/Snow or Regina/Emma or Rumple/Belle, or their constant retcons, were unconvincing and felt forced. 

I think this might be why what the writers say about an episode and what they actually show are so different and why viewers constantly have to ask questions about what happened on Twitter. A&E are convinced that if you tell the audience something even if you showed something else, they will believe what you said but that's just not true.

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

While I think Regina was always quite popular, I think the notion that the writers were super successful in convincing the audience to root for her and that gained her fans is somewhat false. This show has been shedding viewers quite heavily since the back half of season 2. They really seemed to have little direction in their writing at that point, but it is very strongly tilted into Regina as victim mode while showing truly horrific crimes in her backstory. During this time, the heroes were either sidelined (Emma) or painted as worse than Regina (Snow) for acting in perfectly reasonable ways. Regina fans would probably enjoy seeing Regina getting more screen time and a sympathetic POV while fans of other characters might be disgusted or turned off by the way the show was changing what it had been in S1 and tuned out. One of the lowest rated episodes of S2 was "The Evil Queen" and by that point, the show had dropped four million viewers (37% of the audience) from the S2 premiere.

That's what I've found in informal surveys I've done at science fiction conventions and on my blog. Most of the people I talk to about the show say they started watching it at the pilot and stopped sometime during the second season. The most common complaint is "they turned badass Snow White into a wuss, and it became all about Regina." I have Facebook friends (former co-workers and classmates) posting about discovering the show on Netflix and posting updates about what episode they were on in watching with their families, and then there always comes the "what the hell?" post when Snow is treated like a villain for killing the villain. So, they lost a lot of the audience that didn't buy the Regina worship.

Meanwhile, social media tends to amplify extreme views. The people who are really invested are going to post more, and it seems like a lot of the extreme Regina fans are the ones who are extremely emotional. That emotion can drive away others from posting, especially if they go on the attack. I don't tweet about this show much because I've seen the crazy and don't want to bring it down on me. It also seems like a huge portion of the big Regina/SwanQueen fanbase is Brazilian, so they aren't reflected in the US ratings. So, if A&E were justifying the Regina tilt on the basis of what the fans want, they have both a self-fulfilling prophecy (from driving away others) and a confirmation bias from social media being an echo chamber. The people who either stopped watching or don't bother to post publicly aren't measured. Mostly, though, they're writing what they want to write, and their list of favorite twists shows that they were always writing a different show than I wanted to watch. They're most proud of the parts of the show I hated.

[Camera One]

I don't know as many "Once" fans outside of here, but two viewers I know from other message boards prefer Rumple and Regina, respectively, but neither follow the show too closely, nor are they too interested to discuss it beyond a sentence or two.  The Rumple fan quit, not because of how Emma or Snow was treated, but because the show didn't have enough Rumple and the rest bored her.  I do find it interesting the other friend (who likes Regina) was disappointed she was so weak this year.  The friend I binge watch with (though she hasn't had time for a year now) also don't follow the show on the news (she doesn't even know it's cancelled).  She doesn't seem to have a favorite character, but she does think Snow is stupid.  

So unfortunately, I don't think I've met a fan in real life who actually likes the heroes.  

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

So unfortunately, I don't think I've met a fan in real life who actually likes the heroes.  

I did have one friend post something like "poor Regina can never catch a break" after the season 3 finale, and when I replied that it was kind of creepy for her to be dating a man who was only single because she executed his wife, she said, "Oh, I didn't think about it that way, you're right, ewww!" so it does seem like there are people who take things at a surface level and buy what they're being sold without thinking about it.

In general, I find that the most hated person in just about any show is the nice person -- I don't mean that in the sense of the Internet "nice" guys, but the person who's actually trying to be good. If someone is trying to be good and ever fails the least bit or screws up, then he's a hypocrite for talking about being good but not being perfect. If he doesn't screw up, he's a cardboard cut-out character or a Mary Sue who's boring. It's usually the quasi-villains who get all the praise. An evil person who does one good thing is complex. A good person who does one bad thing is terrible. That's why I've drifted away from discussing TV online as much as I used to. I seldom agree with the majority of the posters about the characters.

And Hook may be the first/only reformed bad boy type I've ever liked. I normally have a strong resistance to that kind of character. I think a lot of it may have been Colin's geeky niceness leaking out, and the backstory revelation of "Good Form" helped. Plus, Hook had a decent redemption arc and continued to suffer consequences of his past evil. I don't think they ever truly went the "poor tortured misunderstood woobie" route with him, unlike a lot of the bad boys that get swooned over.

[KingOfHearts]

I will be writing a long post this weekend after the finale as my overview of the series. But before that, I'd like to say that my biggest problem with the show is that there were a billion-and-one different possibilities to run with, and the writers consistently chose the most boring and unoriginal paths to take. We did not need to be saddled with Regina's redemption issues or Rumple's literal crocodile tears. We could have explored all kinds of realms and stories of various genres and styles. If the writers had dealt with the main characters' issues in S2 or S3, they could've given them all new material to work with that wasn't chained to the pasts. That's the crux of it - the characters doesn't get to make choices in the now. They're always trapped in the box the flashbacks set them in. They don't live in the present, which takes away their agency. So instead of them reacting to Camelot, Neverland, etc., they're still harping on stuff from years ago. If the writers had allowed their characters to go on new adventures, this show could have easily lasted indefinitely. 

Doing something remotely new was how S7 wasn't the total disaster S6 was.

[companionenvy]

One thing I will give the show credit for was being willing to do things that messed with the status quo for a substantial period of time. When they decided that the gang was going to Neverland, or the Underworld, they actually committed to that for the better part of a half-season rather than being afraid to leave Storybrooke behind. They may not have been willing to have Emma go that dark, but they did make her a Dark One, and Rumple not the Dark One, for an extended run. Some of these arcs worked better than others, but I think it took guts for a popular show to depart from its usual pattern for more than a few episodes at a time.  

Now if only they'd have been willing to commit to the emotional realities these characters were facing...

[tennisgurl]

7 hours ago, Camera One said:

So unfortunately, I don't think I've met a fan in real life who actually likes the heroes.  

I've been binge watching the show with some of my friends/co-workers, some of whom have seen the show up till now, and some that are just watching it now, and they are all on about the same page as the majority of us, if not quite so passionate. They hate Regina and cant stand how she gets away with everything, and hate that Emma and the Charmings are sidelined. One of them in particular is a big fan of Ruby, and is very salty about her being ignored then written out. The ones who are just watching it now are already sick of Regina by late season 2. One of them keeps asking when "that bitch will get her comeuppance" and I just have to shrug and exchange knowing looks with the others who have seen the show. So its not just us. 

[KingOfHearts]

It's worth remembering that in 2B, it wasn't just that Regina was murdering entire villages in the flashbacks. She put into a motion a plan to murder everyone in Storybrooke, including her son's own family and her step-daughter. How can you push a redemption for her when she's not only committing atrocities in the past, but in the present as well? It boggles my mind. You could say, "well in this universe, murder isn't as big of a deal," but it's a big deal if one of the heroes does it. (Unless it's Charming killing Black Knights or damning his own brother, or Hook impaling Jekyll on a harpoon.) I can't even headcanon how this stupid world works in its own universe.

Edited May 15, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[companionenvy]

6 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

You could say, "well in this universe, murder isn't as big of a deal," but it's a big deal if one of the heroes does it. (Unless it's Charming killing Black Knights or damning his own brother, or Hook impaling Jekyll on a harpoon.) I can't even headcanon how this stupid world works in its own universe.

I usually don't like going here, but I wonder if there aren't some unfortunate gender biases coming into play. As far as I can recall, the characters who bear the brunt of the "heroes don't kill" shaming are Snow and Emma. Whereas Charming, the classical male hero, gets away with plenty of battle-kills (including Percival, who didn't deserve it, even if he did need to be stopped), and even Hook, charter member of the new 12-step Murderers Anonymous, is allowed to get some  kills in post-reformation. My memory is hazy, but doesn't he even kill some guards when he rescues adult Henry in early S7? 

Of course, as you said, murder can be forgiven with absurd ease if you used to be a raging sociopath. I think the funniest manifestation of the double-standard is when Henry is willing to deal with Cruella in the Underworld so that his mom won't be a murderer anymore -- and the mom he is talking about is Emma, not Regina. 

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, companionenvy said:

I think the funniest manifestation of the double-standard is when Henry is willing to deal with Cruella in the Underworld so that his mom won't be a murderer anymore -- and the mom he is talking about is Emma, not Regina. 

Well, if Henry wanted to deal with all of Regina's murder victims, they would have been stuck in the Underworld for years, with a line that could wrap around the planet twice :) 

[KAOS Agent]

Except Emma didn't murder Cruella and this show needs to stop trying to peddle that nonsense. The definition of murder is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought." Cruella was holding a gun to a child's head. Taking her down was neither malicious nor illegal. It was the action anyone with the ability to achieve an outcome of saving the child would have done. And they would be praised for doing so.

Sometimes the show seems to acknowledge that killing someone who is intent on harming another is okay. Hook killing Jekyll is a good example of this. Hook gave him plenty of opportunity to stop and he chose not to. Plus, I'm not entirely sure that he intended to impale him. Charming killing Percival was treated the same way. Someone was attacked for seemingly no reason, so he jumped on defense.

At other times, the show wants to pretend that acting in defense is the most evil thing ever like with Emma and Cruella. I can tell you that the moment where they claimed Emma crossed a line by killing Cruella was a massive tipping point in my enjoyment of the show. After that episode aired, I never again was as excited or interested in where the story was going because I knew it was only going to make me angry.

[Camera One]

The morality of defeating a villain is very inconsistent.  I'm surprised they didn't give the impression that Alice turning Gothel into a tree somehow damaged her status as The Guardian.  Especially because, right now, Rumple is unable to do anything about Wish Rumple, or Dr. Facilier, or Gothel because doing so would mean he wouldn't be able to reunite with Belle (as if all his previous evil deeds wouldn't already strike him off the list a thousand times over).

Edited May 16, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

Except Emma didn't murder Cruella and this show needs to stop trying to peddle that nonsense. The definition of murder is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought." Cruella was holding a gun to a child's head. Taking her down was neither malicious nor illegal. It was the action anyone with the ability to achieve an outcome of saving the child would have done. And they would be praised for doing so.

Also, Cruella is a dumbass for perching herself up on a cliff like that. If she had been anywhere else, Emma would've just knocked her out.

40 minutes ago, Camera One said:

The morality of defeating a villain is very inconsistent.  I'm surprised they didn't give the impression that Alice turning Gothel into a tree somehow damaged her status as The Guardian.  Especially because, right now, Rumple is unable to do anything about Wish Rumple, or Dr. Facilier, or Gothel because doing so would mean he wouldn't be able to reunite with Belle (as if all his previous evil deeds wouldn't already strike him off the list a thousand times over).

But somehow Rumple killing his parents was considered redemptive. I watched scenes from the S6 finale - Belle didn't give two flips about Rumple killing his mother. And when he killed Pan:

Quote

Neal: "My father did what he had to do. He saved us."

Edited May 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Quote

 I hope our legacy is people realize that they can save themselves,” said Kitsis at an event celebrating the series Tuesday in Los Angeles, Calif.

That's not the message I get from the show at all.  If anything, characters are helpless.  Nothing works until someone somehow stumbles upon good luck.

Quote

Rose Reynolds, who plays Alice in Wonderland and was originally only slated for a five-episode run in the rebooted season 7

Imagine if she had only appeared in 5 episodes.  Though I'm not sure what they initially intended for the character, if she was just in 5 episodes.  What would her "ending" have been?

Quote

“This is a show where people have second chances. For us, what’s interesting is that it’s not about being a hero or a villain, it’s where you end up. And that’s what the show was always about — the journey..." says Kitsis

Their idea of a "journey" is a bunch of pointless filler full of red herrings and dead ends.  

Edited May 16, 2018 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Imagine if [Alice] had only appeared in 5 episodes.  Though I'm not sure what they initially intended for the character

I guess they originally meant her to be a peripheral character. I imagine Tilly was meant to jump out of buildings and give cryptic warnings to characters for the most part. The father-daughter story with WHook would’ve been a C-plot. 

Thanks to Murderella and Tremaine being epic flops, even A&E couldn’t ignore it and course-corrected. Good thing Rose had the acting chops to pull off a much-bigger role than planned. It didn’t save the Show, but it saved the season.

[Camera One]

8 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

The father-daughter story with WHook would’ve been a C-plot. 

I wonder if they had decided Alice was Whook's daughter yet when they planned her presence for 5 episodes.  I guess she could have been one of those "What was the point?" characters without that connection.

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

Except Emma didn't murder Cruella and this show needs to stop trying to peddle that nonsense.

Just because Cruella could’nt kill anyone, Emma saving Henry was considered “murder” in the Show.

Let’s say Emma’s parents had managed to get to her in time to tell her Cruella couldn’t kill because Isaac said so. Emma would’ve been a fool to take that in faith with her son’s life hanging on the line. Mary Margaret would’ve taken that kind of risk with Emma’s life. But Emma wouldn’t with Henry’s.

It’s moronic to claim this was murder. Henry is a little shit. Typical of him to want Emma to be “pure”.

1 minute ago, Camera One said:

I wonder if they had decided Alice was Whook's daughter yet when they planned her presence for 5 episodes.  I guess she could have been one of those "What was the point?" characters without that connection.

I think she was meant to be his daughter from the start. Nobody else fit the bill in HH.

Unless...she was originally meant to be the Love Interest of WHook’s daughter. And then they made her his daughter instead.

[Camera One]

Remember the whole thing was set up by Rumple to darken Emma's heart or whatever.  But it had zero effect on anything.  It was one of those dead-end cul de sacs.

[Rumsy4]

Remember when the Cherna-thingie zoomed in on Emma as the one with the greatest Darkness or potential for Darkness?

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Remember when the Cherna-thingie zoomed in on Emma as the one with the greatest Darkness or potential for Darkness?

Because the biggest potential for light means the biggest potential for darkness.  And only Light can defeat Light.  We need to write down all the contradictory and nonsensical rules of this show.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

And only Light can defeat Light. 

Only water can dry water.

[companionenvy]

2 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Remember when the Cherna-thingie zoomed in on Emma as the one with the greatest Darkness or potential for Darkness?

Which I still don't get. Wasn't the whole point of what Snowing did to Lily to make sure that Emma didn't have any particular potential for Darkness? And even if she did, there's no way that she had more potential for Darkness than Regina. She never did anything on screen to indicate that, including when she actually did become infected with the Darkness, where pretty much the worst things she did were being kind of Machiavellian and plotting to kill Zelena, a confirmed murderer and rapist. 

Even if we discount Regina,  Emma can't possibly have more potential for Darkness than Hook, unless its purely a matter of magical power. Which, if it is, means the whole idea of "great potential for darkness" shouldn't be a matter for angst, because all it is saying is "someone with a lot of power could in theory use it for evil," which is obvious. And even in that case, in a world where people can acquire magic or magical items with relative ease, intrinsic power shouldn't matter all that much as far as potential for evil is concerned. Hook doesn't have magic, until he becomes the Dark One, and does. And, of course, he was capable of quite a bit of evil well before that, some of it magically aided.

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Wasn't the whole point of what Snowing did to Lily to make sure that Emma didn't have any particular potential for Darkness?

I vaguely remember the Apprentice saying something like it would only work if they raised Emma, but they didn't so she still had the potential for Darkness?  Or something.  I don't remember much from that horrific arc.

[superloislane]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I vaguely remember the Apprentice saying something like it would only work if they raised Emma, but they didn't so she still had the potential for Darkness?  Or something.  I don't remember much from that horrific arc.

Yeah that's right. He said it would only work if she was raised right into goodness by Snow and Charming but if she wasn't then the potential would come back and since she wasn't raised in a good home, the potential did come back. So that entire eggbaby darkness thing was completely pointless!

[companionenvy]

Thanks. Totally forgot that. Still doesn't explain the rest of it. Or, you know, make a lot of sense. Either there's a cosmic way of removing the darkness, or, like all of us, Emma by nature has the potential for good or bad, and nurture will incline her toward one or the other. It is pretty weak to claim that they can do this transfer, but then Emma's fate  still winds up contingent on upbringing. And again, Emma did get a quite crappy upbringing, and didn't turn particularly dark. She became a thief, which is....not great, but it isn't exactly epic evil, especially given her circumstances. By the time Henry came for her, she had a lonely life, but had straightened herself out. Neither Emma's behavior during the present-day of the show or pre-SB supports the idea of a dark side. At all.

The fact that Snowing had to raise Emma in order for her to avoid the darkness also makes their decision to both leave her in Awake even more inexplicable. 

[superloislane]

37 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

She became a thief, which is....not great, but it isn't exactly epic evil, especially given her circumstances

I think the point was that she had the backstory of a villain but chose not to turn into one, or at least that's what I got from it. But I'd say being a thief and being quite violent at her job is a dark side, just not evil. I don't think you have to do really horrible, evil things to have a darkside.

37 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

The fact that Snowing had to raise Emma in order for her to avoid the darkness also makes their decision to both leave her in Awake even more inexplicable. 

That is a good freaking point right there! And this episode was two seasons after the eggbaby thing so it's not like the writers didn't even know about it (even if they pretend it never happened). And I saw saw people say that they saw her in a bedroom reading a book so they might have assumed she was living in a good home, but Snow says there that they have to believe Emma is strong enough to grow up without them which implies that Snow didn't think she was perfectly fine and growing up in a good place...

Edited May 16, 2018 by superloislane

[asabovesobelow]

11 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Remember when the Cherna-thingie zoomed in on Emma as the one with the greatest Darkness or potential for Darkness?

That was actually one thing I loved. I thought it was a good twist. Not that Emma was dark, but that she had the greatest potential. Regina was more 'surface' dark, with the killing and what-not. Emma had the most potential to be really dark, because she was actually really good. 

 

17 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Of course, as you said, murder can be forgiven with absurd ease if you used to be a raging sociopath. I think the funniest manifestation of the double-standard is when Henry is willing to deal with Cruella in the Underworld so that his mom won't be a murderer anymore -- and the mom he is talking about is Emma, not Regina. 

Again, I liked this. Regina's ship on not being a murderer had sailed long ago, and she accepted that as much as the next guy. Emma, on the other hand, was the beacon of light, so it was important for Henry to preserve her past, her morality. The contrast between Regina and Emma has always been my favorite part of the show.

 

On 5/15/2018 at 10:18 AM, Shanna Marie said:

Meanwhile, social media tends to amplify extreme views. The people who are really invested are going to post more, and it seems like a lot of the extreme Regina fans are the ones who are extremely emotional. That emotion can drive away others from posting, especially if they go on the attack. I don't tweet about this show much because I've seen the crazy and don't want to bring it down on me. It also seems like a huge portion of the big Regina/SwanQueen fanbase is Brazilian, so they aren't reflected in the US ratings. So, if A&E were justifying the Regina tilt on the basis of what the fans want, they have both a self-fulfilling prophecy (from driving away others) and a confirmation bias from social media being an echo chamber. The people who either stopped watching or don't bother to post publicly aren't measured. Mostly, though, they're writing what they want to write, and their list of favorite twists shows that they were always writing a different show than I wanted to watch. They're most proud of the parts of the show I hated.

I do think this goes both ways though. CS fans can be just as insane as Regina fans. And there are plenty of CS extremists if you browse the right posts. Emotion driving people away is an actual thing, for sure. I've had lots to post here about the show, since this is my go-to for tv discussion, but I don't do it. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I love Regina. I liked her redemption arc. I bought it. That doesn't make me wrong or naive or shallow. I get it, she's not everyone's cup of tea. Totally cool. But she's mine, and I'm good with that.

For me, Robin and the Wish Realm ruined this show. It became too convoluted and silly. They should have left that as a one-episode aberration and never spoke of it again. And Robin was the worst love interest for Regina they could have possibly concocted. IMO, they had zero chemistry, and Mr. Moral would never have overlooked Regina killing his wife. If they were intent on giving her someone to be with romantically, I would rather have seen her with...anyone, really. 

[daxx]

21 minutes ago, asabovesobelow said:

And Robin was the worst love interest for Regina they could have possibly concocted. IMO, they had zero chemistry, and Mr. Moral would never have overlooked Regina killing his wife. If they were intent on giving her someone to be with romantically, I would rather have seen her with...anyone, really. 

They should have put her with someone more ambiguous like the sheriff of Nottingham if they wanted to bring on Robin Hood characters.

[KingOfHearts]

Emma's potential darkness comes from the fact that she also has the greatest potential for light as the Savior. Her power runs so deep she could go in two opposite extremes. I actually really liked that idea. Of course, "darkness" is vague on this show and could mean evil or just dark magic. 

[Mitch]

8 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Emma's potential darkness comes from the fact that she also has the greatest potential for light as the Savior. Her power runs so deep she could go in two opposite extremes. I actually really liked that idea. Of course, "darkness" is vague on this show and could mean evil or just dark magic. 

I liked that too..as don't we all have to potential for both? I can see in their goofy world of heroes and villains that would be a head scratcher to Snow and Charms but one thing I have always liked about a recurrent theme of this show is duality..."we are both"  etc, etc. Granted they screw it all up but I like that its at least a theme.

But a baby being born in an egg? I..just...can't...

[companionenvy]

4 hours ago, superloislane said:

I think the point was that she had the backstory of a villain but chose not to turn into one, or at least that's what I got from it. But I'd say being a thief and being quite violent at her job is a dark side, just not evil. I don't think you have to do really horrible, evil things to have a darkside.

5 hours ago, companionenvy said:

I agree that you don't have to do horrible things to have a dark side, but I just didn't see Emma as having all that much of an edge that would suggest that she even had potential for it than the average person. I'm not going to claim she was stealing cars only for the sake of survival, but she was a foster turned street kid without a ton of options for whom a certain amount of theft probably would have become close to a necessity, if she wasn't going to turn to some other illegal act like drug dealing or prostitution to earn money. She was a sixteen year old runaway without a high school degree, and probably with precious little in the way of paperwork or documentation; it isn't like she could go apply for - or be likely to get -- a normal job. While the show didn't exactly present a  balanced or nuanced portrait of the foster care system, I'm willing to bet that in real life, the percentage of kids

a) raised in the system from birth through their mid to late teens and 

b) who never find a permanent or even long-term placement 

who wind up getting in some legal trouble as teens or young adults is pretty damn high. Emma and Neal's approach to life was cheerfully amoral, but she never came off as hard or cruel, and they were ultimately planning on settling down into some sort of legitimate life. The woman we meet in S1 seems to have a strong moral core, sense of responsibility, and capacity for guilt. She is not inclined toward ruthlessness and, despite all the "walls" she's thrown up around herself, seems naturally possessed of compassion toward those around her.

As for her job being violent - yeah, I think there are people for whom being a cop or soldier can be a legitimate release for aggression that could also take less acceptable forms, but I don't think that's really true in Emma's case. Again, her options, career-wise, were fairly limited. Maybe she got a GED in prison, but even so she wasn't qualified for most jobs. She then fell into the bail bondswoman life after her encounter with Cleo. I agree that she couldn't have been good at it without a certain hardness, but it still doesn't, to me, amount to a person who is showing herself to have any kind of intrinsic darkness. Almost anyone with Emma's life experiences is going to wind up at least a little rough around the edges, but that's nurture, not nature, and it isn't what the show is claiming; Snowing not raising her will restore her potential for darkness, per the Apprentice, but the initial potential is portrayed as something specific to Emma, which I just don't think the character as written bears out. 

4 hours ago, asabovesobelow said:

That was actually one thing I loved. I thought it was a good twist. Not that Emma was dark, but that she had the greatest potential. Regina was more 'surface' dark, with the killing and what-not. Emma had the most potential to be really dark, because she was actually really good. 

I'm not sure what you have to do to be "really" dark if "surface" dark includes massacring civilians and plotting to kill babies. It would have been hard for Emma to top that if she'd wanted to. And as I said above, if the whole potential for darkness thing is reducible to "Anyone with the power to do great good could also have the power to do great evil," that's basically, IMO, a truism that shouldn't have unduly bothered Snowing. In theory, I suppose Ghandi had greater capacity for evil than the average man on the street, simply because the average man on the street isn't capable of emerging as a great leader, and a great leader is going to be the one who is in the position to cause real harm - and, of course, an idealist can be extraordinarily dangerous if he chooses the wrong cause/values, which he will be especially prone to do if he is raised under difficult circumstances without a strong moral influence to guide him. But that seems very different from saying "Your child has a great darkness inside him." Plus, neither Regina and Hook were the "man on the street" in the above scenario, either. Both of them obviously proved to have had great capacity for heroism, and great capacity for evil. So it is still really hard for me to see how Emma having powers that could in theory be used for evil makes her more potentially dark than two canon murderers with proven records of actual evil. For me to buy that, Emma would have to be a lot morally grayer than she ever appeared to be on the show. 

So I guess for me, in the end, I can only buy Emma's darkness as a pretty technical point about the capacity to misuse power and light and dark being opposite sides of the same coin, which seems fairly intuitive, and not worthy of the angst Charming and Snow had over it in the past or present. Its like when they say the opposite of love isn't hate, it is indifference -- that doesn't mean you freak out that your deeply loving child is in some respects closer to a person who hates passionately than to someone who is just kind of apathetic. 

4 hours ago, asabovesobelow said:

Again, I liked this. Regina's ship on not being a murderer had sailed long ago, and she accepted that as much as the next guy. Emma, on the other hand, was the beacon of light, so it was important for Henry to preserve her past, her morality. The contrast between Regina and Emma has always been my favorite part of the show.

I can see what you mean in that Henry obviously couldn't have saved Regina from being a murderer, although it does, I think, make it pretty glaring that the show never really had him coming to terms in any kind of mature way with Regina's past. When one of your moms is the former EQ, it would require an extraordinary amount of compartmentalization to then obsess over your other mom being "guilty" of a single, far more justifiable killing without then having to confront the crimes of the former. What I object to, though, is the idea that Emma was in any way compromised morally by killing Cruella, who was actively threatening the life of Henry. I'm not saying Emma should have been happy about having to kill Cruella, especially after finding out that Cruella's threat was empty, but it should not have been portrayed as something incompatible with goodness or heroism. If anything, Emma should have maybe expressed a momentary qualm when she realized Cruella literally couldn't have killed Henry, and then everyone should have immediately reassured her that she couldn't possibly have known and did what she had to do to protect her child. 

[asabovesobelow]

4 hours ago, companionenvy said:

 

I'm not sure what you have to do to be "really" dark if "surface" dark includes massacring civilians and plotting to killIing babies.

I was referring to Regina’s ‘outward’ darkness by the word ‘surface’, it wasn’t a minimization of the horrible things she’d done. And I’m sure that the writers used Emma as having the most potential for darkness as a cheap twist when everyone was been expecting it to be Regina, the characters not excepted. I thought it made Emma more nuanced, and I liked it.

 

Quote

What I object to, though, is the idea that Emma was in any way compromised morally by killing Cruella

Agree 100%. Emma did nothing wrong. But in the mind of a child (used loosely in this case), I could see his need to erase that from her slate. Henry loves Regina in spite of her past, I don’t think he wanted his love for Emma tainted in the same way.

Edited May 17, 2018 by asabovesobelow

[KingOfHearts]

44 minutes ago, asabovesobelow said:

I don’t think he wanted his love for Emma tainted in the same way.

Which, imo, is consistent with the show's themes going back to S1. Emma ran for sheriff through the proper channels because she wanted to be this "righteous Savior" that Henry idolized her as. Without Emma's clean record of heroism, she isn't much to Henry. That's solidified by the fact he doesn't give two figs about her unless she's saving the day. He's never really been attached to Emma as a person (except during the Missing Year), but rather he was enamored with this image of a virtuous hero she presented. As eye-rolly as it is, it's been pretty consistent. This might be an unpopular opinion, but outside of New York, I don't think Henry has ever had a healthy relationship with her.

Edited May 17, 2018 by KingOfHearts