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

[KingOfHearts]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I know the Season 1 finale is beloved, but there were at least 5 major plot watersheds in that episode alone (if not more) which reduced the impact of any of them and short-changed the payoff.  

The Season 1 finale was like going all year without eating any candy before eating absolutely everything in sight on Halloween.

[Rumsy4]

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

The Season 1 finale was like going all year without eating any candy before eating absolutely everything in sight on Halloween.

And then candy being withheld forever after that point. :-p

Edited July 3, 2018 by Rumsy4

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I agree that more gradual questioning and investigating with Emma would have solved the problem of stagnancy in the middle and second half of Season 1.  They constantly had to have Emma "tricked" by Regina (like when she fell for Sidney being on her side), which was just frustrating and annoying to watch.  Not to mention encountering some major weirdness (eg. Mad Hatter and August) that she just shrugged off by the next episode.  I think having either Snow or Charming waking up would have been necessary as a Season 1 finale cliffhanger, if they had waited another season to break the Curse.  I know the Season 1 finale is beloved, but there were at least 5 major plot watersheds in that episode alone (if not more) which reduced the impact of any of them and short-changed the payoff.  

 

More gradual would have worked. There's just no way Emma would have bought Sidney's suddenly switch even if he had been the world's greatest actor which he wasn't. In the True North thread it was mentioned that Emma should have questioned or at least called the foster home in Boston and if she had she would have realized Regina lied. They use so little of Emma's experiences and that really should be something Emma had that Regina didn't have. Yes, Regina spent 28 years in this world but in a small town she controlled. How much experience does she really have beyond Storybrooke? Emma knows foster homes so why wouldn't she have called to see what kind of foster home Regina was sending the kids too?  Or maybe something more simply like after Hansel and Gretel's dad takes them Emma calls the girls foster home to let them know Gretel's isn't coming only to learn she was never expected? Emma could be confused an call the boys' foster home and get the same response. She knows Regina lied. Instead of confronting her it could have been a piece or another piece in her investigating Regina. Regina's lie could have been so easy been undone and there's no way she could cover everything especially with someone who was raised in our world would know. That really should have given Emma an edge.  She could have been secretly investigating Graham's death, and also Kathryn. She didn't buy the story. So why not look into it? She doesn't have to be looking into things thinking she'll uncover a curse or fairytales but simply looking into Graham's death, Kathryn, and Regina.   

Edited July 3, 2018 by andromeda331

[Camera One]

15 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

She could have been secretly investigating Graham's death, and also Kathryn. She didn't buy the story. So why not look into it? She doesn't have to be looking into things thinking she'll uncover a curse or fairytales but simply looking into Graham's death, Kathryn, and Regina.   

This would have been so much better use of Emma's time than having pointless conversations with that loser (August).  Speaking of which, was a character who was utterly destroyed by the show.  I didn't dislike August the first time we saw him. 

If Emma had done the investigating suggested, we would have happily cheered her on.  As said above, Emma was already rightly suspicious of these incidences above.  

Edited July 3, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

10 minutes ago, Camera One said:

If Emma had done the investigating suggested, we would have happily cheered her on.  As said above, Emma was already rightly suspicious of these incidences above.  

Emma doesn't have to even believe in the curse to realize there's something off about Storybrooke. There's got to be a reason Henry, August, and Jefferson are all "delusional" and Regina is so desperate to cover things up. If she couldn't investigate from inside Storybrooke because Regina had her hands in everything, she could've checked outside sources like @andromeda331 suggested. Being a bailbondswoman, wouldn't she have some helpful connections? Wouldn't she try to do a background check on Regina? Emma just didn't seem all smart in S1 despite her supposed prowess in investigation and uncovering peoples' tracks. Her occupation was never taken advantage of.

It's especially grating when she decides to keep Henry's book in 1x19. That never goes anywhere.

Edited July 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

48 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Being a bailbondswoman, wouldn't she have some helpful connections? 

7 seasons later, Emma's backstory world seemed to become even smaller.  Her only "helpful" connection in the outside world was Cleo, who died.

Edited July 3, 2018 by Camera One

[companionenvy]

Between this and the episode threads, there's been a lot of discussion of the logistics of the curse. I'm torn on this, as I do think some of the logistics are within the realm of things a writer can legitimately decide are better off left to the imagination. On the other hand, as these threads are revealing, there are just so many things that don't add up when you think about it even briefly that I don't think fans are being totally nitpicky in complaining. 

Where I finally wind up coming down is that I'm OK accepting some vagueness on the practical realities like how Storybrooke gets its mail or whether or not the people of Storybrooke vote in state and national elections or even the extent to which any of these characters exist in public records (and, if they do, whether or not their birthdays magically updated themselves during the 28 years to account for the curse). Since the show never raised the ability of SBers to exist beyond the town line as an issue, I'm fine fanwanking that the curse was so super-duper powerful that it had extensive reality-warping properties - or else that none of this really mattered before people were able to leave town, but that the various magic users would have been powerful enough to set up valid IDs for anyone who wanted to leave afterwards, as I assume Regina did on at least a limited level for Robin and his family in S4. The false life that Regina creates for Emma and Henry in S3 supports this, as while, unlike the rest of the town, Emma and Henry do have preexisting identities in the real world, obviously that would have required tons of alteration of records - there would be a track record of Emma being Henry's custodial parent, medical and school records, etc. 

What I'm less OK with is the show not exploring the interpersonal logistics of the curse, which should have affected both Emma and Henry's plot in S1 and, of course, the aftermath of the curse breaking. One thing that has struck me on rewatch is that Henry should have much, much more compelling claims than "my book says it, and it must be real" - namely, "I'm the only kid in town who ages, so the people I started kindergarten with are still in kindergarten, while I'm now in fourth grade."  Obviously, that would have made Emma and Archie think he had crossed the line into a truly alarming level of delusion, but it simply doesn't make sense that he wouldn't be able to comment much more specifically and elaborately on how messed up SB was - or that this wouldn't have come up repeatedly during his childhood. 

Similarly, the show really needed to confront in some way the question of how developed curse memories were, and exactly how much of a rut the town was stuck in. Emma is living with Mary Margaret, and their conversations include a lot of reference to Emma's past in the system and as an orphan. What would MM have said if Emma had asked her - as Henry should have urged her to! -- who Mary Margaret's parents were, or about other details of her earlier life? It actually doesn't make a lot of sense that Emma, given all of the suspicious shit that starts happening, doesn't start seeing and following up on more cracks in the facade. 

We know that SBers weren't aging, and the curse probably precluded certain life developments. Just as Ashley stayed pregnant until time restarted, I assume that people couldn't become pregnant, or die, or suffer irreversible physical harm. But could two people have become friends or fallen in love? I haven't looked for evidence of whether or not the townspeople had ordinary pop culture knowledge - could they do something as simple as finish the Harry Potter series or follow a long-running TV serial? If they had that knowledge, was it in the form of periodic "reboots" to the curse, or were they actually able to have the ordinary, day-to-day experiences of following entertainment or the news, while the curse just stopped them from thinking about the fact that they had been 13 years old for the entire 7 year run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or had memories of being a twenty-something for every election from 1984 to 2008?

I could fanwank a lot of this, too, but it is at the very least a huge missed opportunity that the show didn't play with some of these possibilities. During S1, even if you don't want to provide Emma with an absolute smoking gun, give more indications that these people's lives don't add up. In S2, have at least a few one-off episodes that include plotlines involving characters coping with the "We are Both" of it all, which would have naturally involved some more elaboration of how tied these people were to their curse lives (David was a uniquely poor choice to deal with that, given that he really only lived under the curse for a matter of months, and only after Emma had restarted time). Have a few more flashback episodes set during the curse. One of these would have had to address Henry's childhood. Others could have further clarified the extent to which these characters were living a total Groundhog's Day existence (which is implied by the scenes of MM teaching the same class, but doesn't quite add up with other information we have), versus just being in a very extended holding pattern. 

[Rumsy4]

8 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

She could have been secretly investigating Graham's death, and also Kathryn. She didn't buy the story. So why not look into it? She doesn't have to be looking into things thinking she'll uncover a curse or fairytales but simply looking into Graham's death, Kathryn, and Regina.   

This would have made the season way more interesting in the middle. I remember being extremely frustrated with the mid-season episodes, especially with such duds as 7:15 AM and Dreamy. The whole affair plot made me cringe. Like @Camera One said, it made me feel guilty about rooting for Snowing, even knowing it was the Curse that was making them act wishy washy. Emma, too, started acting really naive by trusting people like Sidney for the sake of plot. 

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

This would have been so much better use of Emma's time than having pointless conversations with that loser (August).  Speaking of which, was a character who was utterly destroyed by the show.  I didn't dislike August the first time we saw him. 

Seriously! I liked August as a character the first time I watched Season 1. Now, I just want to punch the smug look off his face. Does this mean I have dark spot in my heart?

[KingOfHearts]

It's very interesting to look back at S1 through rose-colored glasses, only to revisit it and see the flaws in place that ultimately played a part in the show's downfall. Many of us, I believe, assumed the problems started in S2, but the first season put the cracks in place before everything shattered. However, the cracks were so small and we glossed over them because we had more faith in the writers and thought they knew what they were setting up. The harshness of the relationship between Regina and Henry really did not gel well with the rest of the show. A&E knew they were keeping Regina on as a cast member, so why didn't they make her slightly more ambiguous? Why didn't they humanize her a little more so that after the curse broke she'd have a sliver of a chance for redemption? Why spend so much time on this Kathryn affair plot when it's never going to matter? S1 sets up a lot, but there are some things that shouldn't have been. Grumpy and Nova? The cursed personalities? Graham? None of those things had any payoff, so why did the writers even bother? If they were so dead set on redeeming Regina and making her Queen of the Universe, maybe they shouldn't have gone to such lengths to make her the devil incarnate. If they had zero interest in the Charmings, maybe they shouldn't have spent the majority of the screentime on them.

A few fleeting moments of vulnerability or guilt would've gone a long way for Regina. Maybe show her at least try to mother Henry, even if she were terrible at it. Just enough to show she cares about him deep down.

Edited July 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

Bringing this over from the episode thread, because really discussing requires bringing in info from all the seasons.

19 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

If I recall correctly, the world building throughout S1 is not consistent in terms of whether the outside world can enter or even knows of Storybrooke. It's a sign that the writers just didn't care enough to actually create rules and stick to them. In the Pilot, Henry says Emma is the first new person ever to arrive in town that he knows of. This is confirmed by the dust and cobwebs at Granny's check-in desk. How is this possible though if Regina adopted Henry? There would need to be home visits and reference checks and all that adoption entails. How is the town supplied with goods? Are there no deliveries or mail service or repairs or upgrades needed for utilities? Do the utility companies not notice a massive drain on their services from a town that doesn't exist? They went 30 years without anyone upgrading their infrastructure? They have cell phones, so how does that even work? I'd buy that Nicholas and Ava could be easily placed in the system now (not by the mayor though) if they hadn't gone out of their way to establish Storybrooke as this invisible/unknown city in the Pilot.

I think Henry's adoption was meant to be shady, given that they let Regina try to return Henry and then let her keep him, and given that the Darling Hipsters were next on the list. So maybe that's why there was no home visit for the adoption. As for the utilities, they did show that they got cut off by Elsa's ice wall, so they were connected to the outside world. It wasn't a magical self-contained system -- though, since Henry was able to get on the Internet and since Mary Margaret's credit card worked on the Internet, there had to be some outside connection. How much mail they got from the outside world is a question mark -- if none of them had any relationships with anyone in the outside world, they wouldn't be getting mail. But then there are those utilities and credit cards. And Emma managed to get her stuff from Boston. It seems like the curse reset itself every so often, re-shaping memories as it went, since they went from early 80s technology to having Internet and cell phones, with computers and phones that were a bit out of date. So I guess every 5-10 years the curse updated to get closer to the outside world, and everyone remembered it as though it had always been that way. When Emma arrived, they were late in the cycle before the next reset. I'm imagining the morning everyone wakes up with a cell phone on the nightstand and they just go with it, like they've had cell phones for years. The supplies thing I can kind of handwave because stores tend to get deliveries in the off hours. Emma might have noticed once she got suspicious and started looking, but it's not a thing most people pay any attention to.

14 hours ago, companionenvy said:

One thing that has struck me on rewatch is that Henry should have much, much more compelling claims than "my book says it, and it must be real" - namely, "I'm the only kid in town who ages, so the people I started kindergarten with are still in kindergarten, while I'm now in fourth grade."  Obviously, that would have made Emma and Archie think he had crossed the line into a truly alarming level of delusion, but it simply doesn't make sense that he wouldn't be able to comment much more specifically and elaborately on how messed up SB was - or that this wouldn't have come up repeatedly during his childhood. 

It's funny, it never occurred to me that he never said anything. It's just been fanon that this was obvious for so long, and yet he doesn't bring it up as evidence. No one even says anything when it's mentioned that Henry doesn't have any friends -- gee, I wonder why. Did the Storybrooke school not do class pictures -- the kind where they line kids up on the gym bleachers, tall kids in back, short kids in front, and the teacher either off to the side or in the middle, and someone holding a board saying the year, the name of the school, and the teacher's name? Henry could have shown Emma his series of class photos, where his entire class is different every year. Then Emma asks Mary Margaret about the photos of her classes (which you know Mary Margaret kept in an album), and that's the first time Mary Margaret notices that her class is exactly the same every year, with the only change being the addition of Henry to this year's class.

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

If they were so dead set on redeeming Regina and making her Queen of the Universe, maybe they shouldn't have gone to such lengths to make her the devil incarnate.

Yes, there's been a lot of talk about the course correction in season two that added in the village slaughter, but present-day Regina was pretty much irredeemable in season one. If they had any idea of turning her into a hero at the end of the second season, they shouldn't have had her be so absolutely horrible in season one. She enjoyed crushing Henry, was willing to let children die, murdered Graham, pretty much tortured the only person who considered her a friend, planned the death of the only person who considered her a friend, and was a terrible mother on so many levels. Her turnaround was too drastic for it to be so abrupt. Of all the villains we've had on this show, she's really the worst, the one who most needed a real comeuppance and maybe even a death. If she was going to be redeemed, it should have been one of those redemptions where she dies saving people. I actually thought that was where they were going with the situation at the end of season two, that she'd die.

And it's especially weird when you consider why she was mad at Snow. All of this was over a child who made a mistake while trying to help her. She didn't run to her father and tattle. She wasn't trying to get Regina in trouble or making sure Regina would be forced to marry her father. She was trying to help. And for that, all that suffering of so many people.

[Camera One]

I don't think all this is a problem in A&E's mind of insta-redemptions and insta-forgiveness.  As late as Season 5, they had Regina murder an innocent groom.  As late as Season, they had Rumple poison an innocent chamber maid.  But they had no problem declaring that they both deserved a happy ending in the end.  Heck, they had Regina almost murdering David in the Season 2 finale before giving Regina that semi-redemption arc in 2A.  They're the ones intentionally making it abrupt.

Emma should have noticed more and more of the weirdness as time went on, instead of becoming more and more clueless.  These posts are providing some great ideas for how Season 1 could have been even stronger with just some relatively minor changes.

Despite seeing all the problems, for me, the semi-rose-colored glasses still kinda work for Season 1 in the rewatch.  I'm still enjoying the moments, even when I know it might not go any further.  There's a twinge of sadness at the lost potential but I'm still feeling some of the same things.  I actually liked "Dreamy" and I suspect I still will.  With most shows, if one is waiting for payoff on the climax, it's sorely lacking most of the time, so I guess I subscribe to this show's mantra that it's the little moments that I value in most shows that I like most.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

It's safe to say that the half-season arcs were stronger. S1, S6, and S7 all had some serious pacing issues with everything being padded out to 22 episodes. A&E seem to be better at shorter stories with less time for character development and side plots. Some of us complained in S4/S5 about the repetitiveness of the half-season structure, but it was still pretty consistent in quality. Whenever the writers ventured off of it (4B, S6, etc.), things would always go downhill fast. Introduce the Big Bad, fight a CGI monster, do a few filler episodes with the side characters, ramp up the tension for the conclusion, execute the climax, setup the next arc, repeat. It wasn't amazing but it allowed for jumping through different stories quickly as A&E's ADD style writing demanded. 2A, 3A, 3B, 4A, 5A, and 5B were all solid. 

[Camera One]

And as their well of ideas dried up like a prune near the end of their run, it was a stupid idea in Season 6 and 7 to have A&E attempt full-season arcs again.  Like seriously stupid.  In Season 1, they could still get away with it since the characters were new and there was a lot to explore with the premise and the Easter Eggs were still a novelty.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

It's funny, it never occurred to me that he never said anything. It's just been fanon that this was obvious for so long, and yet he doesn't bring it up as evidence. No one even says anything when it's mentioned that Henry doesn't have any friends -- gee, I wonder why. Did the Storybrooke school not do class pictures -- the kind where they line kids up on the gym bleachers, tall kids in back, short kids in front, and the teacher either off to the side or in the middle, and someone holding a board saying the year, the name of the school, and the teacher's name? Henry could have shown Emma his series of class photos, where his entire class is different every year. Then Emma asks Mary Margaret about the photos of her classes (which you know Mary Margaret kept in an album), and that's the first time Mary Margaret notices that her class is exactly the same every year, with the only change being the addition of Henry to this year's class.

That would have been a good idea. Also it would have been nice for Mary Margaret to start getting suspicious too. Time started it would have been nice if people inside the Curse started getting suspicious. Not all of them. But they had that scene where Emma's wondering how someone like Regina ended up Mayor and Mary Margaret says she's been mayor as long as she can remember. Then there's Graham asking how they met and she doesn't remember. Why doesn't she stop and wonder about that. She doesn't remember meeting anyone and Regina has been mayor as long as she can remember? These are small parts but you'd think it would start getting the wheels going? Why doesn't she look at class photos and notice now that time is moving its the same kids every year (she seems like the type of teacher who would not only keep class photos but hang them up)? These in addition to Mary Margaret reading a story to a coma patient and who work up. Its like with Emma. These are small things that could start things it doesn't have to start with Mary Margaret suddenly believing Henry but wondering why she doesn't remember much of anything. Emma and Mary Margaret could looking to stuff individually or start working together. I mean why not? They're roommates and there's no way Regina's going to know. Come to think of it you'd think Regina would be a little more concern by the two becoming roommates, that it might spark something. But nope. She's not which would make it easier for Emma and Mary Margaret to investigate together.    

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Also it would have been nice for Mary Margaret to start getting suspicious too. But they had that scene where Emma's wondering how someone like Regina ended up Mayor and Mary Margaret says she's been mayor as long as she can remember. Then there's Graham asking how they met and she doesn't remember. Why doesn't she stop and wonder about that. 

I think this is what the viewer would have been hoping to see.  It seemed like Graham gave Mary Margaret an a-ha moment but then nothing.  Another was Mary Margaret picking up Emma's blanket and smelling it.  All of these amounted to teases because they basically went nowhere.  The fun would have been to have the heroes holding all these puzzle pieces, and to watch the lies slowly unravel.  Every question would have and should have been a headache for Regina.  And as said above, Emma's real-world knowledge should have been a major advantage over Regina.  Though in hindsight, we can see that they were really bad at doing this.  They never used the heroes' technological know-how to outwit fairy-tale villains like Zelena or King Arthur or Hyde.

[Shanna Marie]

As much as I may gripe about the show, I have to confess that I look forward to my rewatch night, and I make an event out of it, planning the right meal or snacks to go with it. There's a lot I nitpick later, but I usually enjoy it while I'm watching. There's a lot that's wrong, but when they get something right, they get it very right.

Like, there's a discussion in another thread about an article talking about the casting. Most of the time, the casting is spot-on. Could they have found a better person to play an adult, somewhat modernized Snow White -- and then they found her Mini Me to play her younger self. Josh Dallas makes a perfect farmboy-turned-Prince Charming. He's got a boy-next-door quality, but is enough of a ham to pull off the more pompous moments -- and he even sings like an old-school Disney prince (pity they only used that once near the end). Jennifer Morrison looks like she could be a fairytale princess, but she's got a bit of an edge to her that makes her also totally contemporary. I'm not a Regina fan, but I think Lana Parilla does pretty well with what she's given. Her redemption wasn't dramatized, but I think she played the softer version of Regina well enough to make it kind of work, and she certainly had fun with the camp. Whoever found Colin deserves a raise because casting Hook must have been really tricky. If they'd gone with a more typical leading man type, the character might have been insufferable, but going against type and getting the shy, geeky guy gave him a hint of vulnerability underneath the swagger. I can't imagine any other actor pulling off this version of Rumpelstiltskin.

I think the big problem with the show (other than the Regina focus) was the focus on plot to the exclusion of all else -- all worldbuilding sprang from the needs of individual episode plots, which meant it was scattershot and incoherent. Most characterization came from the needs of plots, which meant the characters usually didn't get to react like any person really would. That might not have been such a problem if the plotting had been really tight, with proper setups and payoffs and decent pacing. With good plotting, the characters would have been consistent even if their actions were driven by the plot. But the plotting was so all over the place and poorly executed, which made the worldbuilding and characterization stuff even more glaring. Every so often, it all came together and created a lovely moment, but the further we get into the series, the more it's about moments and the less it's about the story or episodes.

[KingOfHearts]

57 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Most of the time, the casting is spot-on.

The casting is part of what makes the show, imo. It's got a great premise and great actors, and that's everything outstanding about it. Everything else ranges from "horrible" to "decent". 

Many of the guest characters had awesome casting, too. Cruella, Pan, and Ingrid were all a ton of fun as villains. Barbara Hershey pulled off Cora really well as the ultimate "manipulative mother" role. While Rebecca Mader fit into the cast, as @Shanna Marie and others have said, she should've been playing a different character. She's extremely charismatic and warm when she's not directed to snarl or cackle. I honestly felt sympathy for Zelena, even when she had done awful things. If the writers wanted to give Regina a long-lost sister, she could've just had a major personality clash with her. Make Zelena cheery and unselfish to conflict with Regina's no-nonsense narcissism. Perhaps Regina could've been the selfish one when everyone starts getting along with her sister more than her. It's dumb to insert random lost relatives, but you can still make a dumb plot work if the payoff is entertaining enough. I've got to mention Alice, because that was another example of perfect casting; just late in the game.

Notorious casting misfires: Ashley, Thomas, Neal, Victoria, Jacinda, Lucy, and Aladdin. There's others that played poorly written or directed characters or didn't bring much to the role. Characters like Hades, Dorothy, Guinevere, or Jasmine were kinda "meh" and weren't completely the fault of the actors. Ursula and Maleficent are examples of characters that were played very straight and didn't have much nuance.

[Shanna Marie]

19 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

If the writers wanted to give Regina a long-lost sister, she could've just had a major personality clash with her. Make Zelena cheery and unselfish to conflict with Regina's no-nonsense narcissism. Perhaps Regina could've been the selfish one when everyone starts getting along with her sister more than her.

Ooh, and even better if Zelena still had the horrible upbringing, which would have made Regina's woe-is-me attitude even worse. Zelena was abandoned at birth and grew up poor with a father who hated her, but she manages to be cheerful and unselfish, while Regina who grew up as a princess is bitter and selfish. But that would have required them to be willing to let Regina look bad (intentionally). And Rebecca Mader had the comic ability to play the Little Mary Sunshine bit with a straight face and make her funny rather than sickening.

19 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Ursula and Maleficent are examples of characters that were played very straight and didn't have much nuance.

I think both had a lot of potential. I was one of the ones who actually liked the against-type version of Maleficent we got early in season one. Her world-weary demeanor when we saw her again in flashback should have been explored more. That was a huge bit of wasted potential. I really liked Ursula and hoped we'd see her again (especially given that her sister ran the network). I liked the twist that she wasn't all that evil, though I think we needed to see more of what happened between her turn to the dark side and her being a full-fledged Queen of Darkness. In general, that was the problem of the Queens of Darkness plot. It involved three characters who all could have sustained an arc on their own, and throwing them together meant they were all drastically underdeveloped and basically wasted.

Cruella was interesting given that she couldn't outright kill. That would have required some creativity on her part and on the writers' part for her to be a real threat without being able to kill anyone. She could have manipulated the town in other ways. Mal apparently had some rather epic backstory that tied into a lot of the other characters, since she had issues with Aurora's family (and maybe Philip's), seemed to have known Hook, and because of the eggnapping, had issues with the Charmings. Ursula could have given us a whole new aspect of the world, getting into the oceans and the various sea-related stories, plus she truly was a misunderstood villain.

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Ooh, and even better if Zelena still had the horrible upbringing, which would have made Regina's woe-is-me attitude even worse. Zelena was abandoned at birth and grew up poor with a father who hated her, but she manages to be cheerful and unselfish, while Regina who grew up as a princess is bitter and selfish. But that would have required them to be willing to let Regina look bad (intentionally). And Rebecca Mader had the comic ability to play the Little Mary Sunshine bit with a straight face and make her funny rather than sickening.

Its funny when 3B aired I actually thought that's what they were going to do. Zelena kept making remarks about how great Regina's life was and I thought they'd tie that to either Regina realizing that when they all got sent back to the Enchanted Forest or Zelena would point that out to her. For all her complaining Regina had a really great life. She grew up a princess and pampered. Her father adored her. Once she got rid of Cora she was free to do anything she wanted. She didn't have to marry Leopold. But realize not only that or Zelena pointing it out to her. She chose to marry Leopold and how badly did that suck? She became Queen, she had everything, including a stepdaughter who adored her. Her life only sucked because she made it suck. She had everything and could have done anything she wanted. She threw it all away to be evil and petty. 

[tennisgurl]

On 7/3/2018 at 3:18 PM, KingOfHearts said:

A few fleeting moments of vulnerability or guilt would've gone a long way for Regina. Maybe show her at least try to mother Henry, even if she were terrible at it. Just enough to show she cares about him deep down.

The weird thing is, they seemed to actually get that a few times in season two, and those worked really well. Like the episode where we saw flashbacks to how Cora abused Regina, and showed how she was treating Henry the same way, and we saw how she did try to be a good parent, but did poorly at it due to her lack of role models. Regina is basically the worst traits of both of her parents, without their better qualities. She got Cora's cruelty and pettiness, and Henry's door mat qualities and stupidity, but losing Cora's intelligence, and Henry's kindness. I wish they had realized that, and done something with it, and showed how it affected her parenting. But, in season one we saw very little of her actually trying to be a good parent (treating Henry as more of a possession than a son) and by the midpoint of season 2, they had gone hard on her backsliding into evil again, and then by the end of the season, we had entered "Regina is the best mom ever and Henry loves her so much" territory, and that took us into the rest of the series. We never saw her go through a real arc with Henry, with her realizing that she loved Henry, and was making the same mistakes Cora made with her, and Henry realizing that while Regina was a bad parent, but was still HIS parent, we just jumped from one thing to the other, out of the writers desire to make Regina never look bad again. I mean, to THEM anyway. 

[Rumsy4]

7 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I agree about Henry Sr he could have done something a long time ago and chose not to. Not only that he helped his daughter murder her husband, he helped her take over the kingdom and so much more. I think we're suppose to think of he's a nice guy. If he is how is he not sick without how his daughter turned out? Why didn't he do anything to stop her? Why isn't he sick about his part in all of this and all the murders his daughter committed? She became the Evil Queen and he helped her. 

The only time he did anything to stop her from killing Snow, he let Regina crush the heart of some enslaved black knight. Nobody cared about the red shirts. He was complicit in Regina becoming the Evil Queen.

Quote

I'm not sure why Leopold was reading Regina's diary. He always left her alone in other flashbacks so why does he care so much now? Has he never once wondered what she's up too? Or has he only now been getting rumors that his wife may have a lover? How did he get a hold of her diary? I assume Regina or Henry Sr made sure he came across it but how? It shouldn't be anywhere but in Regina's rooms. Leopold doesn't seem like he's been to her rooms in a long time if ever. Is she acting like a woman in love with someone else around her husband? I really don't understand it doesn't make any sense. Why does he only suspect a lover and not that Regina is psycho and plotting his murder?

Later flashbacks muddy the issue here. Leo was either neglectful or extraordinarily stupid. He married Regina so she would be a mother to Snow, but it's obvious that she never bothered to even be a friend to Snow, let alone a mother. It doesn't even seem like she and Leo ever shared the marital bed. It was a sham of a marriage, and Leopold must have known it. Did he ever try to bond with her? Or did he leave her to her own devices from the start? We have large chunks of the puzzle missing. 

Regina kept herself aloof from her husband (whom she chose to marry even after shoving her mother off to Wonderland) and step-daughter, and started taking magic lessons from Rumple on the sly. Did none of the castle servants and knights notice her sneaking off? Did nobody in the kingdom see her cavorting with evil sorcerers and fairies and dragons? It doesn't make any sense. 

And once again, this Show proves that good people are morons and that kind acts will come back to bite one in the err...neck. 

Edited July 7, 2018 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

The only time he did anything to stop her from killing Snow, he let Regina crush the heart of some enslaved black knight. Nobody cared about the red shirts. He was complicit in Regina becoming the Evil Queen.

I don't think we were ever supposed to think Henry Sr. had any sort of healthy relationship with Regina. He was a pushover who is directly responsible for making Regina the thing he claimed to fear. He directed her to Cora's spellbook and delivered the Agrabahn vipers to Sidney.

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Later flashbacks muddy the issue here. Leo was either neglectful or extraordinarily stupid. He married Regina so she would be a mother to Snow, but it's obvious that she never bothered to even be a friend to Snow, let alone a mother. It doesn't even seem like she and Leo ever shared the marital bed. It was a sham of a marriage, and Leopold must have known it. Did he ever try to bond with her? Or did he leave her to her own devices from the start? We have large chunks of the puzzle missing. 

I just rewatched the scene during Snow's birthday where Leo calls his late wife "the fairest in all the land". After that scene, it's hard to imagine Regina's complaints about the king were all false. I don't know why Regina was sitting in the back of the room. But, geez, Leo. That's a pretty insensitive thing to say publicly in front of your wife. If you really want to justify it, we'd need to see Regina being a bitch or some other marriage problems going on beforehand. That scene is very heavily framed in Regina's favor. It's not like there's a cut away right before he recognizes her presence, since she walks out and nobody but Sidney notices. That whole scene was just odd.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say Leo was trying to be petty.

Edited July 7, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

4 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

If I didn't know any better, I'd say Leo was trying to be petty.

Maybe. Or maybe he had given up on Regina by then due to her withdrawal and persistent aloofness. We're (intentionally) only given one side of the story.

[superloislane]

10 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

If you really want to justify it, we'd need to see Regina being a bitch or some other marriage problems going on beforehand. That scene is very heavily framed in Regina's favor

Considering Snow knew for a fact that Regina sent someone to murder her and knew she murdered her father about a day or two after Leopold died, I'd say Regina wasn't very good at acting like sweetness and light in that relationship or her relationship with Snow.

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Maybe. Or maybe he had given up on Regina by then due to her withdrawal and persistent aloofness. We're (intentionally) only given one side of the story.

Kind of getting into headcanon territory here, but the marriage must've deteriorated already if he was digging through her diary and suspected an affair. Leo doesn't seem like the mistrusting type. He was very gullible with Sidney and Cora. It's more likely that Regina pushed him over the edge than him just being paranoid and possessive. 

[companionenvy]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Later flashbacks muddy the issue here. Leo was either neglectful or extraordinarily stupid. He married Regina so she would be a mother to Snow, but it's obvious that she never bothered to even be a friend to Snow, let alone a mother. It doesn't even seem like she and Leo ever shared the marital bed. It was a sham of a marriage, and Leopold must have known it. Did he ever try to bond with her? Or did he leave her to her own devices from the start? We have large chunks of the puzzle missing

Yeah, this gets back to the problem of the scene in Snow Falls where Snow is embracing and comforting Regina after Leopold's death, which actually does suggests that Regina must have been keeping some of her feelings for Snow on the DL. But there's just way too many unanswered questions. 

By "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree," Regina and Leopold clearly aren't sleeping together, but I have to think they must have had something more of  a "real" marriage at first. I just don't buy that Leopold married an attractive, much younger woman with the idea that she'd be a glorified governess. As we've been seeing in the plotline with David and Abigail, this was a culture in which marriage for love would have been the exception rather than the rule among royals. Leopold probably never thought they were going to have a love-match, but he is depicted as too decent a guy in his affection for Snow and freeing of the genie for me to think he married a woman with the idea that they were going to have an unconsummated marriage where they remained virtual strangers to one another. Even if we assume he was so unusually free of desire that he didn't want to consummate the marriage.

Obviously, consummating the marriage would have been problematic in its own right, but presumably not in Leopold's mind; given the culture, he would have had to see the extraordinary unfairness of marrying a young woman and expecting her to be celibate, but likely wouldn't have seen any scenario where having sex with his legal wife could have been morally iffy.

33 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

After that scene, it's hard to imagine Regina's complaints about the king were all false. I don't know why Regina was sitting in the back of the room. But, geez, Leo. That's a pretty insensitive thing to say publicly in front of your wife. If you really want to justify it, we'd need to see Regina being a bitch or some other marriage problems going on beforehand. That scene is very heavily framed in Regina's favor.

Exactly. It is kind of incoherent, because in that scene we're clearly supposed to feel bad for Regina, especially given that Leopold then reads her diary and locks her away (assuming Regina wasn't making that up). But at the same time, Leopold is presented as a really decent guy in the scene with the genie, and Regina is so cold-blooded in the way she kills him that her credibility is shot to hell (and, of course, though it doesn't come up in this episode, the woman has magic. She could have run off if she had wanted to). As you say, even by the end of the show we never really get a sense of how Regina and Leopold's marriage actually functioned and what caused it to deteriorate to the point where they were sleeping in separate beds and Leopold was openly calling his late wife the fairest of them all while ignoring his queen. 

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, companionenvy said:

As you say, even by the end of the show we never really get a sense of how Regina and Leopold's marriage actually functioned and what caused it to deteriorate to the point where they were sleeping in separate beds and Leopold was openly calling his late wife the fairest of them all while ignoring his queen. 

If you didn't know what was revealed later, from this episode you could imagine that Regina had married for love, in good faith, only to learn that she'd always be in third place after the first wife and the daughter. That would fit with the fairy tale as well as with Snow's remarks about Regina hating her because she was prettier than her and that she'd ruined Regina's life. It would have been a weak motive for murder and a curse that required her to sacrifice her own father, but so was the real reason.

Knowing what we'd learned by the end of the series, it's easy to see where Leo might have just given up by that time. Regina seemed to have avoided ever being around him. If the marriage wasn't consummated, I could see it being Leo wanting to let her set the pace, since he knew she hadn't married for love, and she just never gave the okay (I have to wonder, was Graham the first lover she took, or had she been fooling around behind Leo's back? When did Facilier fit into the picture?). She was undermining Snow behind their backs. After 10 or so years of getting the cold shoulder, he might have just quit trying to be nice to her. He sounded more sad than angry about finding out she loved someone else. We only have Regina's father's word for it that she was locked up. It seems more like Leo to give her her freedom while they maintained a facade (even if there was divorce in their world, royal divorce even now is pretty shocking, so I doubt the king would have been able to divorce his queen or let her divorce him. Their best bet was having an "understanding.").

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Exactly. It is kind of incoherent, because in that scene we're clearly supposed to feel bad for Regina, especially given that Leopold then reads her diary and locks her away (assuming Regina wasn't making that up). But at the same time, Leopold is presented as a really decent guy in the scene with the genie, and Regina is so cold-blooded in the way she kills him that her credibility is shot to hell (and, of course, though it doesn't come up in this episode, the woman has magic. She could have run off if she had wanted to). As you say, even by the end of the show we never really get a sense of how Regina and Leopold's marriage actually functioned and what caused it to deteriorate to the point where they were sleeping in separate beds and Leopold was openly calling his late wife the fairest of them all while ignoring his queen. 

It really does. She's a sad, neglected wife, she has a husband still in love with his first wife. We're suppose to feel sorry for her. But then yes she murders Leopold and in a pretty brutal way and setting up the Genie as the fall guy. That's a brutal way to deal with her husband and play a man in love with her. That really ends up being the problem that continues with Regina (and Rumple) they want us to feel sorry for her. Then destroy that by giving her a petty or stupid reason for murder or show her murdering people at whim and laughing. Poor Regina, the sad and neglected wife. Who hates her stepdaughter and plotting her murder, her husband's murder and to take over the kingdom. Who convinces a would be lover to murder her husband. Who spent all of her time away from Leopold and Snow by choice so he's not ignoring her because he's indifferent or cold, he's ignoring her because they've probably been doing that forever. Maybe he tried after they were married but by this point why would he try? I still have a hard time believing Regina's been able to keep from revealing how much she hates Snow or that no one else in the castle noticed. She threw a tantrum and tossed her ribbons on the ground and put the girl's horse under a sleeping spell.  Like the scene at the ball where Snow's being praised. Leopold and Snow should be more surprised that Regina showed up. Aside from that one scene where she's seated with young Snow listening to problems with the thieves (which still makes no sense that's the job of the knights, army or sheriff or something) we never see Regina doing any of her Queen duties. I doubt she's done any of them for a very long time if she ever did them.  

[KAOS Agent]

This show always framed things from the villains' perspective such that relatively minor negative actions by "heroes" are portrayed as the worst thing ever while the poor, sad villain does truly heinous crap, but it's okay because they are just so put upon and their pain makes it understandable. It's one thing to write a backstory that explains why a person became a certain way, it's another to pretend that it makes mass murder, slavery, rape, etc. a reasonable reaction.

Regina's backstory was sad, but we were shown that she had the choice to leave before the wedding and didn't. That right there leaves me with zero sympathy for Regina when she's unhappy in her marriage. Maybe Leo wasn't present, but she knew exactly what she was getting into and she put no effort into her marriage either. We know she wasn't locked up because she was wandering around looking for Robin at some point (and made a choice to turn away from her True Love and back to her loveless marriage). She went off to help Maleficent get her evil on again. She also had to have hired those thugs that were terrorizing the kingdom to set up young Snow. She had numerous chances to be happy and free and turned away from it every single time. Why should I feel bad for someone who wallows in her anger and pain and commits a bunch of murderous acts rather than taking one of the many opportunities offered to make her happy?

Edited July 8, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

It's one thing to write a backstory that explains why a person became a certain way, it's another to pretend that it makes mass murder, slavery, rape, etc. a reasonable reaction.

This. It isn't even that I think the show is saying what she did was OK - it is that her reaction is so over the top and has such a tangential relationship to its ostensible cause that it makes any attempt to elicit sympathy for her absurd. 

What this rewatch is driving home for me is just how indiscriminately and purposelessly awful Regina was over several decades and two realities, unrelieved by any redeeming features. One of the ways a writer can make a villain complex is by giving him or her a sympathetic backstory. And again, the writers try to do that for Regina, but it falls flat because the response is so wildly disproportionate and the motive so terrible even by villain standards that it erodes whatever fleeting pity we might feel for her younger self. 

But the other way to make a villain complex is to show that he or she possesses another dimension. One of the chilling things you find even in RL examples of evil is that people can do terrible, terrible things because of ideology or greed or revenge yet still be loving parents or children or friends. There are genuine sociopathic or psychopathic monsters, and they aren't all that interesting, but a complex and potentially redeemable person is precisely someone who is not mustache-twirlingly evil all the time in every facet of their lives. 

Yet Regina is awful even to the few people she ostensibly likes or loves, and/or who like and love her. She kills her father, obviously, but even before that, she's pretty consistently terrible to him. She turns vicious any time he shows the faintest sign of being anything other than a validating doormat to her. Sidney loves and remains unreasonably devoted to her in both realms, and she enslaves and treats him like crap (making it worse, she later has the gall to be angry at him for betraying her after she is supposedly redeemed). Katherine sincerely thinks of Regina as a friend, and she gives the order to have her killed as a means of furthering her revenge on Snow (which begs the question: why doesn't she just have Snow killed? Probable answer: Because she enjoys seeing her suffering that much). And then, of course, there's Henry. Beyond even the overtly terrible things she does in gaslighting him, using him as a pawn in her conflict with Emma, even when it means hurting him, and killing and/or ruining the lives of people he is fond of, she's pretty obviously a cold and emotionally distant mother, stern to the point of joylessness.

So you have a character who was evil for poor and sadistic reasons, with no demonstrable limits, for decades, despite living a life of privilege in which she had tons of agency for pursuing other options, and who is not only merciless to people on her extremely generous list of enemies, but is incapable of showing normal affection or decency to her few allies and loved ones even when doing so would NOT interfere with her plans. 

There's just no basis for thinking this woman is redeemable, or wanting redemption for her. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 7/8/2018 at 5:12 AM, companionenvy said:

So you have a character who was evil for poor and sadistic reasons, with no demonstrable limits, for decades, despite living a life of privilege in which she had tons of agency for pursuing other options, and who is not only merciless to people on her extremely generous list of enemies, but is incapable of showing normal affection or decency to her few allies and loved ones even when doing so would NOT interfere with her plans. 

There's just no basis for thinking this woman is redeemable, or wanting redemption for her. 

If you hadn't seen any interviews with the writers about the inspiration behind the show, all that stuff about writing about the place where the Evil Queen could get a happy ending or about them relating to Regina because her struggle represents the struggle of making it as TV writers, you might think from watching season one that they were setting Regina up to take a huge fall, be defeated, and then be written off the show -- until the network learned that the character was popular and demanded that she return for the next season, so they were stuck with having to redeem this irredeemable character, and the only way they could do that was to wave their magic wands and declare her redeemed because there was no logical, coherent way to bring this character back from the brink. That's not an uncommon scenario on American TV, where the season one villain proves so popular that he/she is kept on as a regular even though that makes no sense within the story world.

Because, yeah, they gave her a terrible reason for turning evil. She was going after the wrong person who'd been a child when she innocently did something that led to Regina being harmed. Even if she had been able to get justice with Snow -- like dragging her before a court to answer for her "crime," I'm not sure any judge or jury ever would have convicted Snow. If Regina had given up on revenge against Snow, nothing bad would have happened to her. She'd have just been able to keep living her life. It's not like she had to kill Snow in order to protect herself against Snow.

And they didn't even bother humanizing her. Her relationship with Henry would have worked well for that, if they'd really shown that she loved him instead of treating him like a possession. She has a rival for Henry's affections, and all she does is try to destroy Emma and keep her away from Henry. She doesn't seem to make any effort whatsoever to compete with Emma by winning Henry over. I doubt that season one Henry would have bought it. He'd have been highly suspicious if she'd suddenly started buying him comic books, but it would have helped if we'd seen her even making an effort. I don't think we ever see her trying to spend time with him, aside from maybe an awkward dinner. She leaves him alone all day on a Saturday with orders to do nothing but homework, not even TV allowed after finishing his homework. She doesn't talk to him other than to give him orders. You've got to wonder how all those photos of them together when he was that age and they were both all smiling and happy that we see in later seasons were taken (I've wondered if they used a behind the scenes photo of Jared and Lana together on the set for the happy mother-and-son photo they used for season seven, since it doesn't seem like Henry and Regina ever had that kind of relationship when he was that young).

I think they had the impression that being sad was the same thing as being complex. They just made Regina look sad or cry, then patted themselves on the back for writing such a complex, layered villain.

[daxx]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If you hadn't seen any interviews with the writers about the inspiration behind the show, all that stuff about writing about the place where the Evil Queen could get a happy ending or about them relating to Regina because her struggle represents the struggle of making it as TV writers, you might think from watching season one that they were setting Regina up to take a huge fall, be defeated, and then be written off the show -- until the network learned that the character was popular and demanded that she return for the next season, so they were stuck with having to redeem this irredeemable character, and the only way they could do that was to wave their magic wands and declare her redeemed because there was no logical, coherent way to bring this character back from the brink. That's not an uncommon scenario on American TV, where the season one villain proves so popular that he/she is kept on as a regular even though that makes no sense within the story world.

I hadn’t seen any bts anything until season 3. Until season 5, I think, I still believed this was Emma’s fairytale. What a disappointment season 6 was when I truly realized how wrong I was. Sigh.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

She doesn't seem to make any effort whatsoever to compete with Emma by winning Henry over. I doubt that season one Henry would have bought it. He'd have been highly suspicious if she'd suddenly started buying him comic books, but it would have helped if we'd seen her even making an effort.

Regina gives Henry a handheld video game console shortly after Emma is denied visiting rights. That's about it.

[KAOS Agent]

I suspect that the showrunners were pushed to include Emma/Charming stuff by the network while they were much more interested in telling the stories of their villains - most especially Regina. 2B was a very early indication that the audience was composed of many people who were not solely interested in the Regina/Rumpel/Cora villain stories and wanted something else (Hook was stuffed in the NYC closet for injured actors, so his role is ambiguous here). This could have been wanting more focus on the Charmings (not doormat-ization of Snow and sidelining of Emma) or secondary characters or a better, clearer plot and simple closure for S1, but the wandering disconnected nature of 2B was not working. When these viewers started dropping out by the millions, the network stepped back in and tried to right the ship with the core characters all together in Neverland. This did work to stabilize the audience, but it had little effect in regaining those already lost. 

After the 2B fiasco, I suspect that there were some notes given to the showrunners that some combination of Emma/Charmings or Captain Swan needed to have a feature role because focus groups were showing that that subset of characters was popular with many in the general audience and losing focus on them would result in loss of viewership. Regina/Rumpel/villains were pretty obviously an interest for the showrunners, so there was never any danger of those characters losing focus and viewers only interested in them would continue to stick with the show.

I think that as time went on the writers simply decided that using the characters they weren't interested in (Snow, David, Belle, Robin) as sidekicks to their favorites counted as keeping focus on them and things pretty steadily devolved for those characters. I think that's why the show so often lacked focus and would cater to certain fans in one episode and then would turn around and cater to a different group in the next.  S6 ended up being horrific because they'd stopped caring at all except about Regina, Rumpel and to a lesser extent Hook/Captain Swan and their limited well of creativity had run dry years before. Even though they had nothing left to explore with their favorites, they thought these were the characters who should return for S7. Jen Morrison was smart enough to understand that nothing good would come of it for Emma and got the hell out. Sadly, the showrunners and the network weren't and we were treated to the mess that was S7.

Edited July 10, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[companionenvy]

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If you hadn't seen any interviews with the writers about the inspiration behind the show, all that stuff about writing about the place where the Evil Queen could get a happy ending or about them relating to Regina because her struggle represents the struggle of making it as TV writers, you might think from watching season one that they were setting Regina up to take a huge fall, be defeated, and then be written off the show -- until the network learned that the character was popular and demanded that she return for the next season, so they were stuck with having to redeem this irredeemable character, and the only way they could do that was to wave their magic wands and declare her redeemed because there was no logical, coherent way to bring this character back from the brink. That's not an uncommon scenario on American TV, where the season one villain proves so popular that he/she is kept on as a regular even though that makes no sense within the story world.

I sometimes suspect that the interviews are themselves a retcon. But I think what may actually have happened is closer to this: the writers always intended to keep Regina around and give her a redemption arc, which would have been hard to swallow in any case, but because she became a breakout character as the EQ, they wanted to have their cake and eat it too, so they "redeemed" her while still wanting her to be a snarky, Magnificent Bitch in the present and campy pure evil in flashbacks. Which may have even led them to over-compensate with all of the Woegina scenes. 

Because the problem was two-fold. It sometimes happens that a show decides to go in a different direction with a character, and so you kind of have to suspend some disbelief about their "transformation" or not think too hard about the earlier scenes. Admittedly it is easier to do this in a sitcom, but in Parks and Rec, Leslie is depicted as outright delusional, and Andy as a jerky loser without redeeming features in the first season, and then the show figured out neither was working, and Leslie becomes sometimes naive/over idealistic but hyper-competent and someone genuinely respected by her colleagues, whereas Andy becomes a lovable idiot.  You can't really reconcile the early scenes with the rest of the series, but that's within the realm of what I'll accept as a show finds itself. Or, even when a show doesn't deliberately decide to change course, at times I might not entirely buy parts of a character arc, and think the change is too extreme, but if the show is otherwise well-written and the result is a character who remains complex, compelling and consistent, I'll register the objection and move on. As I've noted, there's a level on which I do this even with Hook; while the show is kind of vague on the extent of his crimes, and he's realistically still orders of magnitude better than Regina, depending on just how bad he was as a pirate, I'm not actually sure if I think someone who spent at decades if not more in a life of random violence, contract killing, and single-minded commitment to revenge at all costs could really be a fundamentally decent guy. Complex person who might sometimes do the right thing for the right reasons, or sacrifice himself in a grand gesture of nobility when the better angels take over , sure, but not the consistently heroic, noble, and generally good character he becomes in fairly short order. But beyond the other differences between him and Regina (he seems to have had some scruples/limits, shows glimmers of conscience even at his worst, and has better reasons for going bad), in the present he actually is being shown as a decent guy who is struggling with his past, making efforts to atone when possible, and who doesn't assume he is entitled to happiness and acceptance just because he's stopped being an awful person.

So, if it were just a matter of a retcon or a too-hard-to-swallow redemption, that wouldn't have necessarily been fatal. It is that if you ARE going to redeem someone as bad as Regina, she has to actually change. It is all of the continued nastiness, lack of awareness, and general self pitying bullshit - usually inexplicably validated by those around her -- that makes her such a problem for the show. And I'm not actually sure that even being in a quandry because of network directives fully explains that, though it may exacerbate it. There's no reason they couldn't have kept Regina around, kept her snark, and made her an ally of Team Good who was on an arc of growth without having her victims fall over themselves to cater to her, totally forget about how terrible a mother she had been to Henry for years, and ask us to sympathize with things like the return of one of her murder victims interfering with her love life. Let alone make her Queen of Queens. That shows that the writers just didn't get it, because having Regina, post S1, be depicted as Grey but on an upward trend would have served all of these goals - keeping the character around, keeping her snarky, giving her a redemption arc -- without totally warping all moral and character logic. That the writers didn't do that shows that they just didn't get it. 

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Because, yeah, they gave her a terrible reason for turning evil. She was going after the wrong person who'd been a child when she innocently did something that led to Regina being harmed. Even if she had been able to get justice with Snow -- like dragging her before a court to answer for her "crime," I'm not sure any judge or jury ever would have convicted Snow. If Regina had given up on revenge against Snow, nothing bad would have happened to her. She'd have just been able to keep living her life. It's not like she had to kill Snow in order to protect herself against Snow.

I was going to save this from when we got to "The Stable Boy" in the rewatch, but as I've thought about it, I actually, to the show's credit, think the reason may have been more complex than that, even if Regina herself didn't consciously see it. Ultimately, I actually don't think Regina is punishing Snow for telling a secret that got Daniel killed; she's punishing herself for allowing herself to be duped by Cora. We see that, supposedly, Regina was a good and loving person before Daniel's death; I think she actually sees herself in this sweet, trusting, dark-haired little girl who loves riding horses and is hungry for affection. Even within "The Stable Boy," Regina actually thinks that she has convinced Cora and isn't prepared for her to kill Daniel, so she's still being fooled by her. So I think there's some projection going on there - its kind of like Gold beating Belle's father while shouting "you had her love but you locked her away..." He does, at that point, think that Mo is responsible for Belle's suicide, but he's obviously referring to himself as well, and that's what is driving some of the extremity of his rage. 

Of course, again, the problem with that is that it wears thin sometime between the first and second village massacre.

[Mitch]

On 7/3/2018 at 4:18 PM, KingOfHearts said:

e harshness of the relationship between Regina and Henry really did not gel well with the rest of the show. A&E knew they were keeping Regina on as a cast member, so why didn't they make her slightly more ambiguous? Why didn't they humanize her a little more so that after the curse broke she'd have a sliver of a chance for redemption?

That unfortunately was the MO of this show and its writers. Regina is smirking evil one minute and crying her eyes out the next...Zelena doesn't stop Aunt Em from drinking whatever the hell the water was, she doesn,t even look conflicted, but we are supposed to think she turned on a dime..."Evil" Wish Henry watches Dream Rump suck Dream Blue up into a private hell with a smirk on his face, he doesnt even say..."Hey, I just want to hurt Regina, nobody else is involved..." but then he has a chat with Regina and is all "Cwy Baby" Henry.

It was so easy for these writers to NOT do this that I can't explain it. When the townspeople come to kill Regina after the curse broke, instead of being "cocky" Regina should have looked afraid and after 28 years..embarrassed that she was "outed" (it was implied in S1 that Regina cast the curse not only to see her enemies suffer, but to start over as a new person) that we could kinda sorta sympathised with her...( I would have much rather had Regina come out as her Mayor Mills persona "I have no idea what you people are talking about..I think there is a mass delusion going on..to try and bullshit her way out of it..and then pull the old EQ when it doesnt work...)

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, Mitch said:

It was so easy for these writers to NOT do this that I can't explain it. When the townspeople come to kill Regina after the curse broke, instead of being "cocky" Regina should have looked afraid and after 28 years..embarrassed that she was "outed" (it was implied in S1 that Regina cast the curse not only to see her enemies suffer, but to start over as a new person) that we could kinda sorta sympathised with her...( I would have much rather had Regina come out as her Mayor Mills persona "I have no idea what you people are talking about..I think there is a mass delusion going on..to try and bullshit her way out of it..and then pull the old EQ when it doesnt work...)

That's what should have happened after the Curse broke the very second she realized she didn't have her powers. She was cocky when they first came to kill her because she thought she had her powers. The second she didn't. She should have been scared to death. She had nothing to keep them from killing her. Even thought she was locked up she still should have been scared after the Charmings left. There was no guarantee that someone or most of that mob didn't follow them back to the jail or where watching and waiting for everyone to leave. Then kill her or torture and kill her.  

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, companionenvy said:

I sometimes suspect that the interviews are themselves a retcon. But I think what may actually have happened is closer to this: the writers always intended to keep Regina around and give her a redemption arc, which would have been hard to swallow in any case, but because she became a breakout character as the EQ, they wanted to have their cake and eat it too, so they "redeemed" her while still wanting her to be a snarky, Magnificent Bitch in the present and campy pure evil in flashbacks. Which may have even led them to over-compensate with all of the Woegina scenes. 

Some of the "the Evil Queen gets a happy ending" interviews happened during the first season. The impression I have from what they and others have said about the process of developing and pitching the series is that production companies/networks weren't too excited about their original concept (which seems to have been about the Evil Queen getting her happy ending, and meanwhile Snow White is a nun and Prince Charming dies in the pilot), and it got retooled to what we saw somewhere along the way. When the first season was a hit, they got a bit more leeway, and it edged back to their original vision. Which doesn't explain quite why they made Regina so awful in season one and made no attempt other than a few tears to humanize her -- unless they were so caught up in identifying with her that they naturally loved her and it didn't occur to them that they might have to actually write reasons for the audience to like her (and there were plenty of fans who did love her the way she was in season one). I've wondered if Emma was a later addition when they were told they needed a heroine other than the Evil Queen or if maybe she was there all along but in a different role, maybe even as the villain, the mean person coming to take Henry away from Regina. Because, really, there's not much story to the Evil Queen getting a happy ending unless there's some struggle or conflict. Even in what we see, there's no story to Regina's redemption. If you remove all the other plot elements and just focus on Regina, there's no there there. The conflict involves all the other characters, but Regina doesn't struggle. She has a few sad moments and then gets things given to her.

14 hours ago, companionenvy said:

I was going to save this from when we got to "The Stable Boy" in the rewatch, but as I've thought about it, I actually, to the show's credit, think the reason may have been more complex than that, even if Regina herself didn't consciously see it. Ultimately, I actually don't think Regina is punishing Snow for telling a secret that got Daniel killed; she's punishing herself for allowing herself to be duped by Cora.

I might buy that if Regina had ever taken responsibility for anything. She talked about not being able to forgive herself, but never saw any of that. She thought she deserved every good thing and that something was wrong if she didn't get it. I would hope that an epiphany about that would have been part of her redemption. It's a nice read on it, but I think you're giving the writers way too much credit. There was also the theory that Regina didn't actually want to hurt Snow, deep down inside, and that's why she always failed to kill her (as I recall, that was something Lana Parilla even said in an interview), but that got torpedoed when they showed Regina thinking she was killing Snow and being extremely gleeful about it.

[Rumsy4]

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 If a character is not related to or romantically interested in one of the main characters, their story is not important.

This show ended up justifying every stereotype about blood being more important than found family (except with Regina-Henry), and romance being more important than friendship or even one’s children. Sad.

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Some of the "the Evil Queen gets a happy ending" interviews happened during the first season. The impression I have from what they and others have said about the process of developing and pitching the series is that production companies/networks weren't too excited about their original concept (which seems to have been about the Evil Queen getting her happy ending, and meanwhile Snow White is a nun and Prince Charming dies in the pilot), and it got retooled to what we saw somewhere along the way. When the first season was a hit, they got a bit more leeway, and it edged back to their original vision

That seems to be what happened. They kept trying to get their original concept approved but it never happened. They had to retool it and get help from Damon Lindelöf which resulted and them finally getting approved. I do think after the show was a hit the network gave them more leeway. A&E decided to go back towards their original concept. Even though that was the one that was never approved.

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. Which doesn't explain quite why they made Regina so awful in season one and made no attempt other than a few tears to humanize her -- unless they were so caught up in identifying with her that they naturally loved her and it didn't occur to them that they might have to actually write reasons for the audience to like her (and there were plenty of fans who did love her the way she was in season one). I've wondered if Emma was a later addition when they were told they needed a heroine other than the Evil Queen or if maybe she was there all along but in a different role, maybe even as the villain, the mean person coming to take Henry away from Regina. Because, really, there's not much story to the Evil Queen getting a happy ending unless there's some struggle or conflict. Even in what we see, there's no story to Regina's redemption. If you remove all the other plot elements and just focus on Regina, there's no there there. The conflict involves all the other characters, but Regina doesn't struggle. She has a few sad moments and then gets things given to her.

They really did. I don't know if it started out that when they were developing their original idea but its my guess it probably started there and got out of control. Because why go back to the original idea when that wasn't the that was approved and that's not what was on season one. They really showed Regina to be horrible in season one and only got worse. Which is a weird way to go with a favorite character. Let's show how horrible she is, don't you just love her? And not the love to hate her type or she's really bad. When you hear them talk about how Regina's suffered you wonder where their getting that from? Why doesn't that match up with what we see? They don't seem to see what a lot of the fans see on the TV. Regina caused so much death and suffering for so many people. But we're suppose to still feel bad for her. How dare that bride and groom decided to get married on Daniel's birthday.  They seem so confused when anyone tries to point out how much everyone else has suffered and most of the time it was due to Regina. Or zero understanding on Regina raping Graham for decades or how terrible it was to have her chewing Zelena out for the same thing. Its also weird that they don't actually give Regina the great scenes or arcs. Everything just happens or gets handed to her. Why don't they want to write Regina working hard to redeem herself? Working hard to be a better mother? She whines and then gets instant love, instant son, instant friends with her victims. I mean they love to talk about how Regina's now friends with her victims even though they never bothered to show how that happen. Again, instant. The other weird part is how their talk about how Regina's an inspiration but also a tale of struggling Hollywood writers. I mean, really? Where does that even come from? How is the Evil Queen murdering her way totally is the same as writers who can't get hired in Hollywood. 

 

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I might buy that if Regina had ever taken responsibility for anything. She talked about not being able to forgive herself, but never saw any of that. She thought she deserved every good thing and that something was wrong if she didn't get it. I would hope that an epiphany about that would have been part of her redemption. It's a nice read on it, but I think you're giving the writers way too much credit. There was also the theory that Regina didn't actually want to hurt Snow, deep down inside, and that's why she always failed to kill her (as I recall, that was something Lana Parilla even said in an interview), but that got torpedoed when they showed Regina thinking she was killing Snow and being extremely gleeful about it.

 

This would be another thing that would have been great. It would have given Regina depth and character development. Plus that was one of the biggest complaints about Regina's redemption. It would have been great to see Regina take responsibility for what she did, give back the hearts she stole or try to. Apologize to Snow, Charming and Emma for everything she did to them. Apologize to Henry for how she treated. And admit she was wrong to target Snow in the first place. It would have made such a huge difference.

[KAOS Agent]

I'm still baffled as to why the writers thought Regina would have any interest in being friends with Snow. She hates her and everything she stands for. She murdered her father to get her revenge on her. She still blames her for Daniel's death. She despises the "True Love" between Snowing. She's devoted her life to her destruction. Even once she gave up on the whole Kill Snow! thing, why on earth would she want to voluntarily hang out with her? It makes no sense. Snow is depicted as a too sweet, fairy tale character, so the Regina forgiveness is marginally believable (not to me, but possible), but Regina liking Snow is beyond belief. 

Regina admitted to Emma that she wanted to rip Hook's throat out after he'd returned from the dead because "it's not fair that he survives and Robin doesn't." That's way past the time this show called her redeemed and turn to good. She then admits that she hates doing good and is constantly wanting to do evil. I just don't see this working out well for her friendship with Snow since Hook is not someone she spent decades blaming for her life going to hell and her first impulse was to kill him. Why put yourself in the position of being with someone who would constantly remind you of everything? To me, Regina's happy ending was not being Queen of Everything particularly in light of her conversation with Emma in the S5 finale. Regina needed a clean slate with none of her previous victims or tormentors around. It would make much more sense for her to move to a big magic-less city, find a career that she loves (I assume she'd have limitless funds), meet a non-fairy tale romantic partner and live a life that is completely removed of the reminders of the past that cause her continued "suffering" as she describes her feelings about lack of evil doing. 

[companionenvy]

Again psychoanalyzing Regina, I don't actually think it is a matter of liking or respecting Snow. It is a matter of her constant need for validation. Bizarrely, Regina, is desperate to find approval, admiration and love from everyone around her, even as she commits action after action that would make it crazy for anyone to approve of, admire or love her. 

Even if I'm giving the writers too much credit in thinking Regina's anger at Snow over the Daniel incident is more complex than rage over Snow telling the secret, it seems clear from flashbacks that her hatred morphs into jealousy of everything Snow has, and especially the fact that she is so capable of inspiring loyalty and affection. Irrational as it is, part of the crux of Regina's vision for herself as Queen seems to have been that she could convince everyone that Snow was the real villain; if that happened, they'd all love her and she wouldn't have to do things like wiping out villages and killing innocent bystanders in fits of pique. It doesn't matter that her campaign against Snow is based on lies; according to Regina-logic, if she thinks her lie should be believed, she will hold people responsible for not believing it and judge their behavior according to the ethics of lie-world. This is a remarkably consistent feature of her behavior. 

-Regina says that Snow is a traitor who was plotting against her maliciously and for no reason, so anyone who helps Snow is also an awful traitor who deserves what they get.

-Regina has made Graham believe that he is in a real relationship with Regina, so when he leaves her, that is a terrible betrayal.

- Regina  is pretending that she isn't the Evil Queen who created Storybrooke via curse, so how dare Henry suggest that she is? Similarly, she is pretending to be a good mother who isn't emotionally abusing Henry and didn't obtain him by deceptive means , so Emma is awful for undermining and challenging Regina's exclusive right to him.

- Regina is pretending to be a good friend to Katherine, so Katherine is fair game for murder once she correctly determines that this is a sham. 

When Regina "reforms," it isn't actually because she has gone through a moral awakening. At every step of the way, Regina could have experienced enough remorse to change her behaviors. Even if she wasn't going to break the curse, given the potentially dire consequences for her if she did, she could have, at a bare minimum, been kinder to those around her and stopped doing things like offing or trying to off everyone who crossed or hurt her. Instead, she only starts to change at all when she is defeated, and no longer has the option of continuing as she was. I suppose it shows some growth that, at least post S2, she mostly doesn't try to find other ways of "winning" and instead joins Team Good. But that's mostly because all of her evil plans have failed, and made her totally miserable. It isn't an ethical move; Regina simply realizes her practical and emotional needs are much better served by hanging out with the good guys, who are inexplicably willing to let bygones be bygones and give her the approval she craves well before any reasonable person woulds say that she deserved it (if indeed there is anything she could have done that would have made it reasonable for Snow and Emma to grant her anything more than the possibility of uneasy cooperation and distant respect on occasions where she genuinely did something heroic enough to warrant it).

Snow, as the person who is most consistently earning the love and validation that Regina wants handed to her, becomes the ultimate symbol of what Regina wants and can't get, and of people's unwillingness to buy into Regina's reality. So getting Snow to be her "friend" is then the ultimate sign of approval. 

The disgusting part being that the show itself winds up totally validating this. Like "redeemed" Regina, it is willing to concede that Regina did bad things and shouldn't do similar things anymore, but really, we should feel still bad for Regina because she was so unhappy and unloved (never mind that this was almost always her own damn fault); even the Evil Queen just needs a hug, right? Maybe if Snow hadn't been so quick to declare Regina irredeemable after seeing the aftermath of her massacre, Regina would have turned it around. Besides, it isn't like Snow is so perfect! She also plotted against an unborn baby, and killed Regina's mother, and committed adultery, not to mention being a "brat" as a child. Just ignore the radical differences in circumstances and scale. In any case, now that Regina isn't doing things like this, she has totally changed and if you're not willing to forget the past (like the fact that, five minutes ago in your personal timeline, you were on the cusp of being executed by this woman), you need to be given a lesson in how different Regina is now - never mind that she is still seriously considering murdering or erasing you from the timeline! She decided not to, which is the important thing. If Regina basically not being actively evil is enough for her to earn total forgiveness and friendship, no wonder making a "good" decision to merge the multiverse entitles her to be Queen of Everything.

One of the most offensive things it that I honestly think that Regina's various tragedies and disappointments in love is supposed to counteract the fact that she is consistently getting everything she wants in every other respect. For the writers, the fact that Emma, after a miserable childhood and early adulthood caused by Regina, winds up with a partner and child and Regina doesn't requires giving Regina literally everything else in the world to even the scales. Even though the scales shouldn't be even in the first place. 

[Mitch]

14 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I might buy that if Regina had ever taken responsibility for anything. She talked about not being able to forgive herself, but never saw any of that. She thought she deserved every good thing and that something was wrong if she didn't get it. I would hope that an epiphany about that would have been part of her redemption. It's a nice read on it, but I think you're giving the writers way too much credit. There was also the theory that Regina didn't actually want to hurt Snow, deep down inside, and that's why she always failed to kill her (as I recall, that was something Lana Parilla even said in an interview), but that got torpedoed when they showed Regina thinking she was

They could have easily..softened this a bit with the goofy, stupid...(and I like Regina) coronation scene. Her speech..(which was awfully similar to Glinda's last speech in "Wicked" ) should have included..."I know I have hurt so many of you, and for that I am truly sorry. I know that I can never make up for my past or bring loved ones back...but I will try my best to protect everyone and make all of your lives better. Thank you for forgiving me and helping rescue me from my own dark heart...(nodding to Snow off to the side...) many former enemies who I now count as friends (glancing at Emma) helped me along the way, and for that, I can never be thankfull enough!" Then Snow crowns her and she smiles and the end.

[Shanna Marie]

9 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Even if I'm giving the writers too much credit in thinking Regina's anger at Snow over the Daniel incident is more complex than rage over Snow telling the secret, it seems clear from flashbacks that her hatred morphs into jealousy of everything Snow has, and especially the fact that she is so capable of inspiring loyalty and affection. Irrational as it is, part of the crux of Regina's vision for herself as Queen seems to have been that she could convince everyone that Snow was the real villain; if that happened, they'd all love her and she wouldn't have to do things like wiping out villages and killing innocent bystanders in fits of pique.

Oh, there's definitely a lot of jealousy going on, the whole "how do you not see that she's a monster and a murderer? Why do you love her more than me?" routine. I suspect the inability to keep a secret was just the seed that started the resentment, then the resentment led to her alienating Snow and Leopold, which led to Regina feeling like Snow got chosen over her, which made her even more jealous of Snow, and it snowballed from there. What made it worse was the fact that Snow is the kind of person who'll bloom where she's planted. Whether she's living in a palace or in a hollow tree, she'll be reasonably happy and content with her life. Whether she's a princess or a penniless vagrant, people will like her and want to help her. That just meant that no matter what Regina did to her, it seemed to work out okay for her. Even in Storybrooke, given a sad-sack curse personality, Mary Margaret still seemed to live a fairly fulfilling life. She had a job that mattered to her, people liked her, she spent her spare time volunteering, and her life had some meaning. Meanwhile, Regina's the kind of person who's never content because not only does she always want more, she can't be really happy if other people around her are happy. She has to have more and better, and no matter how much she has and no matter how well things are going for her, she can't cope if the people she hates happen to be happy. She was living in a palace, had wealth and power, and still thought she was the underdog and victim in comparison to someone who'd lost everything and was living in a hollow tree, just because people liked and supported Snow and didn't like and support her. She had everything in Storybrooke, she was in control, and yet she was still unhappy.

That's why the "struggles of a Hollywood writer" metaphor is so nonsensical. Regina didn't struggle. She was the freakin' queen. She was wealthy, she had the Black Knights at her command, and she had magical powers. By any measure, she was successful. The only thing she didn't have was the defeat of her enemy. If that's the metaphor for a writing career, then Regina's a showrunner for a prime time series on a major network who can't enjoy her success because her former rival who once beat her out for a job more than a decade ago is selling the occasional script for a Hallmark movie. (Hmmm ... I wonder who it is they hate so much that they can't enjoy their own success while someone else is even moderately successful.)

I think a lot of the characterization problems come back to their "what do we need for the plot of this episode?" writing style. They wanted lots of Emma vs. Regina conflict in season one, so they wrote Regina doing terrible things, regardless of what their mental impression of Regina's character really was. Then they disregarded the events they actually wrote and didn't consider that they built and developed what the audience saw of Regina's character when they wanted something else to happen. Regina got an instant redemption because they wanted the main characters to go off to Neverland together, and they wanted to focus on the Pan plot rather than on Regina and the Charmings really working out their differences or on Regina really having any kind of moral epiphany. Although the half-season arc format did help them focus better, it meant that they didn't have the time to deal with any of the personal or character issues. It really should have taken a whole season for Regina and the Charmings to come to any kind of terms, but there was no time in Neverland to deal with that because Henry's life was at stake, and then it seemed like water under the bridge when they might have had time for that during the missing year.

That was such a wasted opportunity they could have played with -- have the whole Neverland thing be an uneasy truce because they all want to help Henry but they don't trust Regina and Regina doesn't like them, and even Henry is still iffy on Regina (given that she'd just tried to murder his whole family), so that's part of his reason for listening to Pan and trying to avoid his family when they come to rescue him. Then there's the curse reverse, and the Charmings and Regina have a year to work things out. Regina has a big moral epiphany and changes her attitude, which leads to a reconciliation with Snow. But the memory spell makes them forget all that, so when they're back in Storybrooke, they're at odds again and Regina is back to her old self, though perhaps not actively evil. Henry's memory spell means he's actually able to interact with Regina somewhat calmly, since she's a stranger to him, and she enjoys that. Then the memory spell is broken (and not by a TLK between Regina and Henry because they've barely interacted since she tried to murder his whole family, and before that was the emotional abuse and gaslighting, and it's not like they ever had a close, healthy relationship), and it's rather freaky to Emma because suddenly her parents and Regina have a totally different relationship, and Regina seems like a different person. But Henry is now wary of Regina, which upsets Regina.

[Mitch]

19 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Then the memory spell is broken (and not by a TLK between Regina and Henry because they've barely interacted since she tried to murder his whole family, and before that was the emotional abuse and gaslighting, and it's not like they ever had a close, healthy relationship), and it's rather freaky to Emma because suddenly her parents and Regina have a totally different relationship, and Regina seems like a different person. But Henry is now wary of Regina, which upsets Regina.

Very good! I can't believe we didn't see the whole missing year...(which to make a reconciliation between Regina and Snow more believable and to compensate for the Henry actors growth..I would have made it two years..) of the Charmings and Regina in the castle together having to deal with each other and ruling together. I would have also had this been the deciding factor between Regina deciding who the hell she was finally. Back in the EF in her EQ clothes and with even more people around hating her, with Henry gone, etc..it really would be tempting to turn evil again..I would even have Zelena trying to tempt her to join forces with her to beat the Charmings  (all the while secretly going to kill Regina when the Charmings are gone..) Regina could wrestle with that (and not be snarling, smirking evil one minute and crying the next...just secretly wrestling with the temptation...) and reconcile herself that redemption doesnt mean she will be that 16 year old girl anymore, she can never go back, but she can put the EQ to bed. I would also have Robin Hood be really, really, confrontational with Regina, and of course, they are both turned on by each other..but he would never be the wuss we got.

But I thought S2 would have been a good start to paving a way for Regina and Charms to come to a sort of understanding, with Emma and Snow gone Charms would slowly let Regina help co-parent Henry, he would see that she really did feel pain in having to kill the stable boy again, and Regina would find out that Charms in not just a self righteous prig (no romance or hint of it..) and would slowly start to help him try to locate Emma and Snow and get them back. I would love to see Emma roll her eyes when Charms says, "Oh Regina, I cleaned the lasagna pan and left in on your porch..." and Regina, "Remember to give me the marinade recipe for the flank steak you made..." (the show so missed out on doing goofy eveyday things like that among the goofy magic and snarling villains..) Emma "Seriously, did you guys start a book club together...) Charms and Regina wouldnt be freinds but it would be the first step in learning how to deal with each other in a nonantogonistic way.

[profdanglais]

From the 7.15 episode thread, re: whether MM and David were sleeping together or if they were just emotionally involved, I had also thought on the first watch that they weren't having sex, just based on the way their interactions were framed. Also, in the making tacos scene in S2, MM says that 28 years is too long. She may just have meant that it's been 28 years since they'd had sex as Snow and Charming, but it really does sound like it had been 28 years full stop. Which makes the S4 scene where Snow tries to justify adultery to Regina a definite retcon, and it was such a WTF moment for me that it actually led to me finding this forum (happy accident) when I googled "Morality in Once Upon A Time" to see if I was the only one who thought that was not only OOC for Snow but also not compatible with what we'd seen before. 

[superloislane]

10 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

whether MM and David were sleeping together or if they were just emotionally involved,

It did seem like two 14 year olds dating with picnics and just kissing all the time. But I remember Emma saying that she knew Mary Margaret and David were seeing each other because there were always two teacups in the sink and Mary Margaret's shirts were now unbuttoned slightly and she was a 'top button kind of girl' when Emma first got there. I assumed that meant they were sleeping together since they were in the apartment alone and MM's shirts were unbuttoned showing she feels sexier and/or more free than before. But yeah that line Snow said is odd if they weren't.

[companionenvy]

3 minutes ago, superloislane said:

there were always two teacups in the sink and Mary Margaret's shirts were now unbuttoned slightly and she was a 'top button kind of girl' when Emma first got there.

Ah, I'd forgotten that line - thanks, for me, that is enough to make it at least highly probably that they were supposed to be having sex in season one. 

Doesn't make the S4 line any less bad, but for other reasons. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 7/10/2018 at 6:16 AM, companionenvy said:

As I've noted, there's a level on which I do this even with Hook; while the show is kind of vague on the extent of his crimes, and he's realistically still orders of magnitude better than Regina, depending on just how bad he was as a pirate, I'm not actually sure if I think someone who spent at decades if not more in a life of random violence, contract killing, and single-minded commitment to revenge at all costs could really be a fundamentally decent guy. 

Something I just read made me think of this. It was one of those "the conventional wisdom you think you know is actually wrong" books, and there was a bit about pirates and how most of the fearsome reputation they had was marketing on their part. If they spread the word of how cruel, violent, and fierce they were, people were more likely to just surrender to them, so they didn't have to fight, and therefore they didn't risk injury. The historical Blackbeard apparently didn't actually kill anyone that they know of. It was really better to work on a pirate ship than in the British navy of that time or most merchant ships because a pirate ship was essentially a democracy. The crew elected the captain, and the captain only got a slightly larger share of the profits. The captain couldn't afford to be too cruel to his men or he might be voted out of office. They even had healthcare and pensions. Meanwhile, in the navy men worked in terrible conditions and the officers could be quite cruel, and a lot of the crews of both navy ships and merchant ships were indentured or even kidnapped because conditions were so bad that they had trouble recruiting. The pirates had little trouble recruiting, and a lot of navy and merchant crew members deserted to join up with the pirates, who would treat them better.

Not that I imagine the writers had this in mind for Hook, since I suspect that the extent of their research for developing the character was vaguely remembering seeing the Disney Peter Pan as kids and maybe having seen the trailers for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but this kind of background would have made a lot of sense for Hook (up to season 5 when they started listing his past crimes and we got stuff like him killing his father and David's father). I could easily imagine that being the kind of pirate he was. He was very big on his reputation and looking fierce, but we saw in most of his flashbacks that he was capable of empathy and kindness up to the point his pride or his revenge were at stake. Once he got over his fit of temper, he showed remorse over what he'd done while he was angry, but he took no steps to correct it, probably out of pride. He generally got what he wanted either by charming people or by scaring them with the angry, flashing eyes.

Of course, once they started telling us more of what he did, that idea flies out the window.

I don't know that he has to have been a fundamentally decent man all along, though. Maybe the very core of him still had that potential, and that's why he loathed himself so much. He couldn't stand the person he'd become. But I think mostly he changed, and change is possible. I know someone who's active in a prison ministry, and he knows people who genuinely changed, who took a good look at themselves, realized that they screwed up, and changed their attitude and their life and focused themselves on helping others. Some of these people are killers who will never get out of prison, but they become good, decent people even in a horrible environment. I do wonder how I'd react if one of those people got out of prison and I got to know him -- would I be able to put that past behind me and disregard the fact that he killed someone, even if he's totally different now? I think the closest I've come is that I have a friend who went to jail for drunk driving after being a hardcore alcoholic, and he did totally turn his life around because of that (and he talks about the kindness shown to him in jail by some of the prisoners who had changed while in jail). His past doesn't change my attitude about him, even though I was actually dealing with some of the fallout while he was at his worst because I was teaching his daughter at that time (though I didn't know what was going on then. I just know she was difficult, and now I understand why). I don't know if how I would feel about someone who had killed, no matter how good and nice he was now.

I think there has to be some core of decency for someone to have the capacity for change. They have to be able to look at themselves and hate what they see enough that they're willing to put in the work to be a better person. But that's usually a total transformation. That's part of what annoys me about the way they handled Hook, where they wanted him to change enough to be a hero, but they were afraid to change him too much, so he was still dressing like a pirate and calling himself a pirate. If he'd really turned his life around and admitted that he'd done wrong, you'd think he'd have changed completely, especially as gung-ho as Hook is about everything. I think that's part of why Rogers worked for me. He still wore the black jacket (because we wouldn't recognize him otherwise, I guess), but we got to see what a changed Hook who wasn't clinging to remnants of his pirate past might be like. He didn't have to be still enough Hook to fit the image.

[KingOfHearts]

34 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I could easily imagine that being the kind of pirate he was. He was very big on his reputation and looking fierce, but we saw in most of his flashbacks that he was capable of empathy and kindness up to the point his pride or his revenge were at stake. Once he got over his fit of temper, he showed remorse over what he'd done while he was angry, but he took no steps to correct it, probably out of pride. He generally got what he wanted either by charming people or by scaring them with the angry, flashing eyes.

I'm getting some serious Dread Pirate Roberts vibes.