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

[profdanglais]

Quote

It always came down to "Neal is the one who got Emma pregnant therefore they should end up together". 

I think this is behind a lot of Swan Queen shipping as well. People love the idea of the birth mother and the adoptive mother falling in love and raising their kid together. TBH, I get it. It would be a nice story, for different people in a different show. Just like young lovers being separated by a misunderstanding and reuniting years later when one discovers they have a child. It's a compelling idea. Just again, not this show, not these characters. Both Neal and Regina would be (are!) toxic for Emma. They both put her down and play on her insecurities. Graham may have been okay, but he seemed more interested in what she could give him than in her for herself. 

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, profdanglais said:

. Just like young lovers being separated by a misunderstanding and reuniting years later when one discovers they have a child. It's a compelling idea. Just again, not this show, not these characters. Both Neal and Regina would be (are!) toxic for Emma.

I could theoretically see Swanfire as a valid ship, even given Neal's betrayal; Emma does, after all, wind up with someone who has, objectively, done much worse than Neal ever did. Granted, Hook's crimes were mostly not committed against Emma, and he never betrayed her once they were in a situation in which trust might have been expected (indeed, everything he did or tried to do to her was after she had - however justifiably -- done the first bit of betraying). Still, Hook was a bona-fide bad guy for a long time, including a period in which he was in direct conflict with Emma. I also think that after his first couple of appearances as Neal, in which he is unaccountably douche-y to Emma, Neal is played as genuinely regretful about what he did to Emma, reasonably respectful to her, and determined (sometimes in stupid ways) to do right by Henry. In other words, he isn't, to me, irredeemable in the way that Regina is (in general, but certainly as a viable partner for Emma, even if their sexualities were compatible). 

The problem is that for Swanfire to have worked, it would have had to be a very slow burn in which Emma and Neal began to establish an adult relationship centered around co-parenting Henry well before either of them had any real thought of restarting a romantic relationship. If Neal had floated the idea in S3, Emma should have gently but firmly shot him down and suggested (rightly) that he was trying to restart a relationship with her out of confusion over Tamara's deception, guilt over what he had done to Emma himself, and a desire to create the semblance of a traditional nuclear family for Henry. The show should have validated this perspective, rather than having David and Mary Margaret cheerleading for Neal and suggesting that he might be Emma's true love. Had the show wanted to go in that direction, Emma should probably still have wound up choosing Hook at first, while Neal would have remained part of the team during crises and spent time building relationships with his father and his son. During this time, he and Emma would be reliable allies and sometimes have to work together in situations involving Henry. In this version of the show, Hook would have stayed dead at the end of 5A, and only some time after that - possibly after Neal and Emma had gone on an ultimately unsuccessful quest to rescue Hook from the UW, perhaps because Hook himself chooses to stay behind or move on -- should Emma and Neal have wound up together.

So while I don't think the ship was DOA, the way the show was trying to sell it from the latter part of 2B on - as if Emma and Neal still loved each other and always had, even if events had conspired against them -- was bogus.

Edited December 2, 2018 by companionenvy

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, profdanglais said:

I think this is behind a lot of Swan Queen shipping as well. People love the idea of the birth mother and the adoptive mother falling in love and raising their kid together. TBH, I get it. It would be a nice story, for different people in a different show. Just like young lovers being separated by a misunderstanding and reuniting years later when one discovers they have a child. It's a compelling idea. Just again, not this show, not these characters. Both Neal and Regina would be (are!) toxic for Emma. They both put her down and play on her insecurities. Graham may have been okay, but he seemed more interested in what she could give him than in her for herself. 

That's what I hate about those stories. It never comes down to the parents should be together because they love each other its always they have a child together. In this day and age? Lots of people have one night stands results in a pregnancy and don't end up together. Or were in a relationship it ended for one reason or another but resulted in a child. It happens they shouldn't be together just for that. There's nothing wrong with not ending up together but still raising your kid together or joint custody or whatever while they continue their lives maybe meet and marry someone else. Maybe that person is the one their suppose to be with. Maybe Neal isn't the right person for Emma. Maybe Emma isn't the right person for Neal.

The other annoying part about Neal-Emma is Neal never acknowledging what he did to Emma until the episode he's going to die in. The whole he had no choice. Yes, he had a choice. He didn't have to listen to August. But its not mention nor do Emma and Neal talk about it. It needs to be brought up and talked about. Not ignored because it is the big reason why Emma has a problem with Neal. He set her to jail for his crimes which also resulted in her giving up her baby. If he's truly in love with Emma which (I doubt he doesn't seem to have given Emma any thought in years) he needs to be apologizing for that, trying to make it up to her and proving he isn't the same person who bailed. Except for him coming to Storybrook for Henry (which I do give him credit for) what does he do? Well, he ignores Emma's concerns about Tamara, which turn out to be correct, then two minutes after that tells Emma he loves her. Even though two minutes ago he was engaged to someone else. Zero apology for that when he meets up with Emma again. He just wakes up in EF and is all about Emma. Why? The only thing that has changed was he realized his fiancée was villain who kidnapped his son for Pan. He also needs to have reaction to that and deal with that not just forget it ever happened and decide he wants Emma.

[tennisgurl]

The stuff with Snow pushing for Emma to get back with Neal, basically just because she and Neal had a kid together, really makes me wonder if that was supposed to be some reflection on the society of the EF. I know the EF is a medieval European style fantasy world, but what are their views on marriage and children? Are unwed mothers a common thing, or is it a societal taboo? Is divorce a thing? Or when married couples split up, is it just an unofficial break, like with Milah and Rumple? I mean, beyond the big royal wedding we saw in the pilot, we dont know much about how marriage works here, beside most couples we meet are either married or engaged. In their society, when people have kids, is it just assumed that they will get married, or can they co-parent without it being a big deal? Is that affecting her choices? 

But, since this show has done almost no basic world building...

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, companionenvy said:

The problem is that for Swanfire to have worked, it would have had to be a very slow burn in which Emma and Neal began to establish an adult relationship centered around co-parenting Henry well before either of them had any real thought of restarting a romantic relationship.

If they wrote the scenario as you suggested, I think it could have worked.  By Season 3, I was beginning to feel some chemistry when Jennifer Morrison and the Neal actor were acting opposite one another.  They had three more seasons to do a slow-burn and Neal earning true redemption, as Hook did.  But they never were interested in Neal the way they were interested in Hook.  I don't think the Writers even clarified in their mind the events in the flashbacks of "Tallahassee".  They were just working backwards to create a situation where Emma ended up giving birth in prison.  

I eventually warmed to Emma and Hook's story, so I think I would have wanted Hook to stay on (mainly, the actor was quite good on his own even without Emma).  I think it might have worked with Belle and Hook, if they actually treated Belle like an actual character instead of a prop.  I don't know if Belle was already too damaged by Season 3 to make this work. 

Initially, Hook and Regina had some potential as well, but I'm not sure the Writers would have serviced both characters equally in that particular pairing.  

[KAOS Agent]

I think Neal/Emma could have worked, but it would have required a lot more time to pass in show for it to work. The compressed timeline doesn't allow for those two to properly deal with their past and get to know each other again and still fit into an acceptable time frame for the audience to not get tired of waiting. The timeline being what it was, they needed Emma's romance to involve a character who didn't have that kind of baggage to deal with. They could be off on an adventure and then have a quiet moment at the end with no need to delve into the heavy relationship angst that Neal/Emma would require. I also think that Emma becoming the Dark One would have been a massive problem for Neal, one that I'm not sure their newly rekindled relationship would have survived given Neal's reaction to Emma simply using magic to light a candle.

[companionenvy]

17 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The stuff with Snow pushing for Emma to get back with Neal, basically just because she and Neal had a kid together, really makes me wonder if that was supposed to be some reflection on the society of the EF. I know the EF is a medieval European style fantasy world, but what are their views on marriage and children? Are unwed mothers a common thing, or is it a societal taboo? Is divorce a thing? Or when married couples split up, is it just an unofficial break, like with Milah and Rumple? I mean, beyond the big royal wedding we saw in the pilot, we dont know much about how marriage works here, beside most couples we meet are either married or engaged. In their society, when people have kids, is it just assumed that they will get married, or can they co-parent without it being a big deal? Is that affecting her choices? 

I don't get the sense that Snow wants Emma to get back with Neal because of some moralistic belief that having a kid together (and maybe even having sex in the first place) means that you should definitely be married. Rather, I think it is more a Fairy-tale land belief that everyone has a One True Love and that separated lovers - especially one whose meeting in the first place almost has to be seen as a manifestation of fate -- are bound to find each other again. This is helped by Emma's own claims about loving Neal.

Cora's experience suggests that there is some taboo on unwed mothers - but then, despite its relative commonness today, in most of modern American middle-class society, there's still some taboo against having an unplanned pregnancy outside the context of a monogamous relationship. Most communities won't shun a woman for it, but she'll be gossiped about, and it will be taken as a sign of irresponsibility and/or promiscuity. 

We really don't get a good sense of EF values - but if we want to give more thought to it than the show does, there are some indications that it isn't supposed to be a totally sexually repressive society. AFAIR, nobody from the EF without a curse download (i.e, Aurora) seems to have any particular response to the fact that Emma was not married to the father of her child. And Belle seems to have begun a sexual relationship with Rumple before the wedding, and Mulan is poised to tell Aurora about her feelings for her before she finds out about the pregnancy, so she presumably doesn't think Aurora is going to recoil in horror at the idea of same-sex attraction.

People who did have the curse download would at the very least have modern values in addition to whatever conservative mores the EF had possessed, and in any case, I don't think there is other evidence that post-S1 Snow has a notably old-fashioned morality. Charming, maybe a little, but not so much that he stands out as anything more than slightly paternalistic. But yeah, it would have been really interesting to see conflicts between the different moral systems. Another missed opportunity. 

32 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Initially, Hook and Regina had some potential as well, but I'm not sure the Writers would have serviced both characters equally in that particular pairing.  

Though I think a good writer could have pulled that pairing off as well, that one's harder for me to fanwank because I think Hook at this point in his life really needed someone who he saw as morally superior to him if a relationship was going to be anything more than an exercise in mutual self-loathing. Hook might have been able to puncture some of Regina's self-pitying garbage, but I don't think identifying her BS - and acknowledging the waste that his life had become -- would have been enough for him to have actually reformed all that much; at best, he might have given up active villainy and retreated behind a veil of cynicism, innuendo and alcoholism. Correspondingly, Regina might not have actually developed self-awareness, but by S3 she at least knew she didn't want to be a villain anymore - so a Hook who had more moral intelligence than she did, but who hadn't been inclined to move over to team hero wouldn't have appealed to her. 

Ironically, I think that if Belle had met Hook before Rumple, he would have been a much better match for her; he's a villain who needs saving, but he actually does have more good in him than Rumple does, and he's also a man of action and courage who could have given Belle a life closer to the one she seemed to want, on a much more equal footing than she ever establishes with Rumple. I don't, on the other hand, think Belle had enough of an edge for Hook - despite occasional hints of her own darkness, which the show never commits to, her whole MO is too earnest and goody-two shoes to seriously attract him.

[profdanglais]

I was actually pro-Swanfire for a hot second in S2, and I agree that it may have worked if it'd been handled differently. For me, the main thing I would have needed to see was Neal coming to actually value Emma for her adult self and not just because of their history and their kid. That would mean not dismissing and undermining her, but respecting her abilities and opinions. That's what made Hook and Emma work, more even than their chemistry and Hook's redemption, it was the way he always had her back 100% and so clearly thought she was amazing. That's what Emma needed to bring her out and help her move past her traumatic childhood. Neither Neil nor Regina, the way both those characters were written, could have done that for her.  

[tennisgurl]

49 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Rather, I think it is more a Fairy-tale land belief that everyone has a One True Love and that separated lovers - especially one whose meeting in the first place almost has to be seen as a manifestation of fate -- are bound to find each other again.

I think thats what I was trying to say, but you said it better! I also think some of Snows own experiences with Charming kind of color her judgement of the situation. She probably sees their romance in Neal/Emma, to an extent. Star crossed lovers forced apart by tragedy and circumstance and larger forces that neither of them could control. She wants her daughter to have her happy ending, and here is this guy Emma has admitted she loves, and she has a son with! So she gets a a kid, AND a One True Love! Granted, I might be reaching in an attempt to understand why Emma's parents arent at all wary of this guy who so callously broke her heart, but its something at least.

[Souris]

I could never, ever, ever have bought Swanfire as a viable, rootable ship after: 1) what Neal did to Emma in "Tallahassee" and 2) the way he acted toward her when they met again, literally laughing in her face at her pain over his betrayal. "Manhattan" utterly killed any possibility of my accepting Emma ending up with Neal. I wanted to kick him in the groin repeatedly after that episode. At that point, I still thought they were probably going to have Emma and Neal end up together, and boy did that thought make me cranky and queasy. What a douchecanoe Neal was.

Honestly, I'm not sure which relationship would've ultimately been more toxic for Emma, Swanfire or Swan Queen. Both would be nothing but demeaning to Emma -- and both were in what we were shown onscreen, given how the other halves consistently treated her.

In short, eff Neal forever and ever, amen. He was in no way a hero, no matter what the show kept trying to sell after he died. (I'm still flummoxed over how the awesome Original Recipe Baelfire devolved into Neal. Inexplicable. That's probably part of why I didn't like Neal -- he never felt "right" as the character he was supposed to be.)

[daxx]

7 hours ago, Souris said:

Manhattan" utterly killed any possibility of my accepting Emma ending up with Neal. I wanted to kick him in the groin repeatedly after that episode. At that point, I still thought they were probably going to have Emma and Neal end up together, and boy did that thought make me cranky and queasy. What a douchecanoe Neal was.

This exactly. The way he was all, “why are you wearing my keychain” smug just pissed me off too.

[companionenvy]

7 hours ago, Souris said:

could never, ever, ever have bought Swanfire as a viable, rootable ship after: 1) what Neal did to Emma in "Tallahassee" and 2) the way he acted toward her when they met again, literally laughing in her face at her pain over his betrayal.

My feelings after Manhattan were similar  - but I still don't think it is totally beyond the realm of what is redeemable. And after his first few appearances, Neal does improve. He doesn't believe her about Tamara (understandably), but he is sympathetic to her feelings. He may still, at times, show disbelief or discomfort in her abilities, but he also praises and expresses confidence in her on other occasions. He apologizes to her for what he did, and shows willingness to fight for her and Henry - even, ultimately, when it means relying on his rival Hook. All of this doesn't add up to Neal being an awesome man or partner, but in the context of this show, it doesn't make him utterly unforgiveable either, IMO. 

The ongoing problem is that the show clearly doesn't want us to see how illogical his decision in Tallahassee was - we're just not supposed to really think about the fact that a)August's rationale makes no sense, as there is no reason to think Emma being with Neal would be an obstacle to her breaking the curse and b) that if Neal did want to leave Emma after what he learned, he could have done so without setting her up to go to prison. But if we go by the show's rationale, Neal did what he did out of a combination of buying into August's comforting claim that this was what was best for Emma, and unwillingness to get drawn back into the whole EF world. He was deluding himself on the first score, and being a coward on the second, but it pales before, say, Hook making multiple attempts on Belle's life (and I'm not trying to rag on Hook, here; he's my favorite character). In addition, we see in his final scene with August that Neal does feel bad about what he did (and seems not to have expected Emma to have gotten even as much jail time as she wound up with), plus he leaves her the car and 20K - not remotely adequate, but showing some conscience and concern. And, of course, he didn't know that Emma was pregnant. Once he sees Emma again, nearly twelve years have passed, and he knows she has broken the curse and has presumably been reunited with her family. So, while it is shitty that he doesn't realize how profoundly he hurt her, I can also see him having rationalized himself into minimizing what he did to her as a means of self-protection without being a total monster. I mean, compared to a century in Neverland and abandonment by your mother and father, 11 months in a minimum security juvenile facility after being betrayed by your boyfriend of a few months might not seem necessarily life ruining.

7 hours ago, Souris said:

In short, eff Neal forever and ever, amen. He was in no way a hero, no matter what the show kept trying to sell after he died. (I'm still flummoxed over how the awesome Original Recipe Baelfire devolved into Neal. Inexplicable. That's probably part of why I didn't like Neal -- he never felt "right" as the character he was supposed to be.)

Not adequately shown on screen - but again not, I think, totally inexplicable, any more than the same man being both straight-shooter naval officer Killian Jones and the vengeful pirate Captain Hook. The show just doesn't bother to show Bae's transformation into Neal. But given everything Bae goes through, I can see him losing that idealism and adopting a nihilistic, selfish approach - and adult Neal does, stupid as he may be at times, continue to demonstrate some capacity for decency and heroism. 

[profdanglais]

18 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

any more than the same man being both straight-shooter naval officer Killian Jones and the vengeful pirate Captain Hook. The show just doesn't bother to show Bae's transformation into Neal. But given everything Bae goes through, I can see him losing that idealism and adopting a nihilistic, selfish approach - and adult Neal does, stupid as he may be at times, continue to demonstrate some capacity for decency and heroism. 

While I definitely wish we'd seen more of the transition from Lt Jones to Captain Hook, I can buy that a lot more easily than Baelfire to Neal. It's not unbelievable that a good person would spiral when they lost people and things that they valued, and Killian lost his brother, his king/country, and his job all in one go. Plus, we see multiple examples of how he doesn't stray from a path once he's chosen it, even if he later had second thoughts about turning pirate, he would likely ignore them and double down instead, that's consistent with his character. 

Bae to Neal OTOH, makes no sense because the fundamental characteristics of Bae --nobility and moral compass primarily-- are nowhere to be found in Neal. I will never, ever accept that the brave little boy who jumped into a portal in an attempt to save his father would ever turn into a petty criminal, no matter how disillusioned he became.  

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, profdanglais said:

Bae to Neal OTOH, makes no sense because the fundamental characteristics of Bae --nobility and moral compass primarily-- are nowhere to be found in Neal. I will never, ever accept that the brave little boy who jumped into a portal in an attempt to save his father would ever turn into a petty criminal, no matter how disillusioned he became.  

Even after 100 + years?

The thing is, we just don't know exactly what happened to get us to petty thief Neal Cassidy. What we do know is that Bae, post portal jump:

-Found a home with the Darlings, only to have to sacrifice himself again to save his foster family

-Learned both that his mother had left him and that his father had killed her

-Started to bond with Hook, only to be betrayed by him

-Spent a century in Neverland, where he was either in isolation or under Pan's sway

-Wound up in the LWOM circa 1990 presumably still physically and emotionally about 14-15 years old, with no money and no experience of the modern world.

After his steadfast nobility earned him a series of betrayals and traumas, it wouldn't be surprising for even someone who started off as moral as Bae to become cynical and decide that goodness wasn't worth it. At the very least, there's a good chance that both in Neverland and in the early days in the LWOM, Bae would have had to develop some cunning and resign himself to some morally questionable behavior for the sake of survival, so it wouldn't have been a matter of going from noble Bae one day to hardened con-man Neal the next. There would have been a transitional phase where Bae was uncomfortably forced to compromise his morals - which then becomes a slippery slope to worse behavior.

He also may have had exposure to some bad influences. We, frustratingly, know almost nothing of Bae's time in NL, or what relationships he might have developed there, but if he ever teamed up with either Hook or Tink, they would have promoted a different kind of morality, to say the least. He also may have spent some time with Pan and the Lost Boys, where he likewise would have been encouraged and almost enchanted into abandoning his scruples. And a teenage boy who winds up homeless in 1990 NYC is pretty likely to fall in with a rough crowd as well.

Also, Neal even at his worse is not totally without conscience. He doesn't become a serial killer. He doesn't set up or leave Emma just for the hell of it, and tries to make sure that she has the means to start rebuilding her life when she gets out of jail. He wants to go legit even while living with Emma, and apparently does so sometime between Tallahassee and Manhattan. Once he is back in the EF orbit, he does once again display a capacity for bravery and sacrifice. 

So IMO, while it remains ludicrous that the show doesn't bother exploring the Bae to Neal transformation, it isn't thoroughly unbelievable. 

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, companionenvy said:

So IMO, while it remains ludicrous that the show doesn't bother exploring the Bae to Neal transformation, it isn't thoroughly unbelievable. 

My issue with the transformation isn't so much that I don't believe Bae could have taken a wrong turn and ended up as a different person from the teenager we saw, it's that I still don't see Neal as that potential outcome. Neal isn't the grown-up version of a Bae who's been through things. He's an entirely different entity who has nothing of teen Bae in him. It's mostly a casting issue because he's all wrong physically, but there's also a quality about him that's all wrong.

Really, Neal as he was presented wasn't a viable option as the romantic leading man (which the love interest of the heroine and one half of the primary present-day couple is) for a series like this. His story with Emma is right out of a Harlequin romance, with the secret baby and reunited lovers tropes. That's not very fairy tale, especially not in contrast to one of literature's great villains (in a younger, sexier incarnation) being inspired to turn his life around by the heroine. The secret baby/reunited lovers trope is something you might see in any soap opera or TV drama, but it's awfully mundane for a show like this. Emma's already the "normal" person with the real-world perspective, so there's less fun in putting her into a relationship that could have been in any TV drama, with the "ordinary" guy. They could have done something with it in a culture clash way, but only if the old lover/babydaddy truly was mundane, if he'd been just some guy Emma knew before she knew her fairytale origins, and then he's thrown into conflict/contrast with the fairytale world -- the ordinary guy having to deal with being Snow White and Prince Charming's son-in-law. But that couldn't have worked with Neal because he had his own fairytale origins. He spent his childhood in the Enchanted Forest, was the son of the Dark One, spent about six months in Victorian London, then spent about a century in Neverland. There's no room for culture clash. He doesn't really work as the "normal" guy.

And yet he also doesn't work as a guy with fairytale origins. That's what I mean about a quality that's all wrong. At the time Emma meets him, he's only been in this world in modern times for about 10 years. Would he have acclimated quite that well, for someone who grew up in a magical world at about 16th century levels of culture and technology, whose previous exposure to this world was Victorian London, and who'd spent a century or so in Neverland? I know they didn't want to give away that Neal was a grown-up Bae, but there should have been subtle things about him you could look back at and realize were clues. He certainly might have been corrupted by exposure to Pan and Hook and might have become cynical about being noble and heroic, but I'd think that would have come across very differently from a criminal who'd actually grown up in our world. I guess him not knowing about security cameras when he stole the watches was one of those signs, but I think his manners, his ways of interacting with people, the kinds of crimes he'd have committed, all might have been different. 

On paper, I think an adult Baelfire would have made a perfect romantic interest for Emma. They have a lot of similarities in being lost and abandoned and having to make their own way in the world. They could have had some fun with him being a grown-up Lost Boy in the modern world, using tricks he learned from Captain Hook, having some commonality with Peter Pan (both with genetics and influence from exposure), maybe eventually coming back to his old self under Emma's influence. I don't think we got that with Neal.

So it was pretty much this show's usual worst of both worlds problems. Neal as written and portrayed was too mundane to be a good romantic leading man for a fairy tale show, but he had too much fairy tale in his background for him to work as the normal guy in contrast to the fairy tale world.

[tennisgurl]

Yeah, nowhere in Neal did I ever get "son of the Dark One from a magical fantasy forest who traveled the multiverse, lived in Victorian London, was a Lost Boy in Neverland, and probably had countless adventures before he somehow became a grifter in the modern day US. Hell, with all his world jumping, we dont even know how old he is! But, none of that comes across with him. Its not even a matter of him not acting like Bae, he just doesent feel like a person with that backstory. He just comes off as such a normal, modern dude. Its especially noticeable when so many of the actors (especially Josh and Ginny) were so good at playing both normal, modern people, as well as more ethereal fairy tale characters, and then having them blur together. Neal just came off more as "guy who fixes your roof and overcharges" than anything else. 

[profdanglais]

Yeah, I actually think you could make a solid argument that one of the first places the show began to go off the rails was in the casting of Neal. Imagine what could have been different if he'd been played by someone who a)looked like a grown up Bae and b)behaved like someone who'd grown up in a fairy tale. He'd have been a lot more interesting as a potential love interest for Emma, a stronger foil for Rumple and Hook, a more interesting father for Henry--as in, one who maybe actually could teach him sword fighting and not just how to pick up girls with 80s music. It actually makes me irrationally angry at Michael Raymond James, even though it's obviously not his fault. Still, his face upsets me. 

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, profdanglais said:

Yeah, I actually think you could make a solid argument that one of the first places the show began to go off the rails was in the casting of Neal. Imagine what could have been different if he'd been played by someone who a)looked like a grown up Bae and b)behaved like someone who'd grown up in a fairy tale. He'd have been a lot more interesting as a potential love interest for Emma, a stronger foil for Rumple and Hook, a more interesting father for Henry--as in, one who maybe actually could teach him sword fighting and not just how to pick up girls with 80s music. It actually makes me irrationally angry at Michael Raymond James, even though it's obviously not his fault. Still, his face upsets me. 

I think it's a testament to how much worse the show got the more freedom A&E had. They cast Neal themselves, despite the casting department's (usually) wonderful work. They wanted the shock value of someone so different from Bae while also concealing his identity initially. It's a perfect example of putting Shocking!Twist over story and characters. 

[Mitch]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I think it's a testament to how much worse the show got the more freedom A&E had. They cast Neal themselves, despite the casting department's (usually) wonderful work. They wanted the shock value of someone so different from Bae while also concealing his identity initially. It's a perfect example of putting Shocking!Twist over story and characters. 

Yea, they way it worked out...they could have made Neal and Bae two separate characters...the "reveal" of that twist didn't amount to anything back in SB. Did Regina even get a reaction that Rump was Henry' grandfather..did it move plot along? I know Henry was just super duper extra special but I think it would have worked best if Neal was just a guy from our world who could bring a fresh perspective to the nonsense...and a real threat to Regina that he might take the kid away as he has no ties and a threat to everyone as he is the only "outsider" to know that they exist in our world.  Keeping Neal as a con man who basically wanted to do good for his kid but still couldnt resist perhaps making a buck by letting the outside world know about SB.  I think the plot mechanics to make Neal...Bae were just goofy and sloppy..he was here, there and everywhere.

They could have kept "Where's Bae" as a running mystery is he in our world or not..and why doesn't he want Rump to find him.

[Shanna Marie]

On 12/4/2018 at 8:53 AM, KingOfHearts said:

I think it's a testament to how much worse the show got the more freedom A&E had. They cast Neal themselves, despite the casting department's (usually) wonderful work. They wanted the shock value of someone so different from Bae while also concealing his identity initially. It's a perfect example of putting Shocking!Twist over story and characters. 

This is one of those areas where I really want to know the behind-the-scenes story. Did they always have him in mind for the casting of Neal? Was the role written with him in mind? Or was it a case of "hey, you should be in our show! Let's see what role might be available right now..."? Did they get this casting past the network by at first acting like it was just the cameo at the beginning of season 2, so the casting department didn't bother giving it their usual magical touch, and then they sprang the "Aha! That guy we saw at the beginning of the season is Henry's father. And aha! It turns out he's also Rumple's son. So that critical part has actually already been cast!" surprise on the casting department? Did they really think this was the best casting to play grown-up Bae/Henry's father/Rumple's son? Or did they consider the complete lack of resemblance a feature, not a bug, because it preserved the "surprise"?

[Camera One]

To the actor's credit, it seems like he did spend a lot of time thinking about his character and his possible character motivations.  It seems like he was quite intrigued by his character and excited to explore him.  Now do we blame the writing or the direction or his interpretation/acting for Neal coming off like a jerk in the present-day scenes in Season 2?  Would this have been lessened if he looked a bit more like Baelfire?  Or was it fully the writing making Neal incompatible with Bae.

In Season 1, the actor who plays August looked like Baelfire, which was intentional so we would be surprised by the "twist" that he was actually Pinocchio.  I wonder if he would have been more likeable as Neal.  Though by the end of the series, I hated August with the fire of a thousand suns, so maybe no.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Now do we blame the writing or the direction or his interpretation/acting for Neal coming off like a jerk in the present-day scenes in Season 2?  Would this have been lessened if he looked a bit more like Baelfire?  Or was it fully the writing making Neal incompatible with Bae.

I think it's an "all of the above." They might have made it work even with his lack of physical resemblance if they'd bothered to do anything to bridge the gap between Bae and Neal, like an episode in which the flashbacks showed him arriving back in our world and becoming Neal, with maybe the final flashback being a few years later and showing the Neal we know. We really should have seen that transition, regardless, but without it, they needed to have cast an actor who bore more of a physical resemblance to young Bae, as well as to Rumple and Henry. The actor who played adult Henry in season 7 would have been more along the lines of someone who might have fit (and he'd have been more convincing/less creepy as younger Neal with teen Emma). It also didn't help that MRJ looks so much older than Emma in the present and they did nothing to de-age him in the flashbacks, which made the poor physical resemblance even more glaring, given that those flashbacks were our only bridge between teen Bae and adult Neal. Would it have killed them to cover the gray for the flashbacks when he's making out with what's supposed to be a teenager? You can buy spray-on stuff at Target to do that, so it's not like that would have been a time/budget buster.

But then there's also the writing, which wrote Neal as not only a jerk who doesn't seem to have a hint of Bae in him but also seems to have forgotten that this is a person who grew up in the Enchanted Forest, lived in Victorian London, and spent a century or so in Neverland and has been in modern America for, at most, ten years in the flashback. I wonder if they even clued the actor in about who he was when they filmed "Manhattan" or if he just had that script without any of the backstory. I really don't think the character as written ever came across as a continuation of Baelfire, and if they didn't bother to tell the actor in his first non-cameo appearance, then he didn't stand a chance of playing it in the subtext, which meant that he couldn't start playing it in the present day if it wasn't there in the past. So he was in a no-win situation in that he was miscast and given bad material. I've liked him when I've seen him in other things, and I think in terms of acting he did okay here in conveying emotion. He just didn't have a chance of really being able to play the character he should have been playing.

Little things should have come up in his dialogue, like him maybe having a few things he phrased in more archaic language, maybe not quite getting some slang terms, or maybe overusing slang but getting it all mixed up in time period, like he learned to speak modern English from watching afternoon TV when they show lots of reruns. How/when did he learn to not only drive, but drive a stick shift and know how to hotwire a car? I could see him knowing how to pick locks, since Hook has that skill and they spent time together in Neverland, but did he have someone to teach him about cars? When/how did he learn how to talk his way out of a ticket with a cop? Wouldn't that have been a time for him to go very proper and old world? Though I guess some of that comes back to them only sometimes writing the Enchanted Forest people as being "old world." Sometimes they went with more archaic language like "fear not" or "worry not," but then they also had people in that world talk about "dating" and use words like "okay" (which is relatively modern). It would be hard to show a real difference between someone brought up in modern America and someone brought up in the Enchanted Forest, since so often the Enchanted Foresters sounded like they were from modern America.

[profdanglais]

So much of what a lot of us object to about Neal is the ick factor of the guy who looks mid-thirties with an Emma who's supposed to be 17, leading her into a life of crime before knocking her up and abandoning her. If it had been a teenage Bae/Neal and a teenage Emma (meaning the actors who played them were teenagers) and the crime stuff was shown as a mix of teens acting out and a bit of desperation because they were homeless and alone, then maybe they got in over their heads, met some older people who tricked them into committing a bigger crime, then August (original actor) showed up and pressured scared, impressionable, still-not-100%-comfortable-in-this-realm Bae into leaving Emma, that would have worked far better. That plus a bit of regret and recognition that he made the wrong decision from present-day Neal is all I personally would have needed to like the character or at least not hate him. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 12/5/2018 at 2:50 PM, profdanglais said:

If it had been a teenage Bae/Neal and a teenage Emma (meaning the actors who played them were teenagers) and the crime stuff was shown as a mix of teens acting out and a bit of desperation because they were homeless and alone, then maybe they got in over their heads, met some older people who tricked them into committing a bigger crime, then August (original actor) showed up and pressured scared, impressionable, still-not-100%-comfortable-in-this-realm Bae into leaving Emma, that would have worked far better.

Oh, that would have been so much better -- and if we'd maybe seen the process of them falling in love, where at first maybe they were partners in crime, but they grew together, and it was two lonely kids kind of fumbling around, then that might have made the present-day relationship make more sense. We didn't see enough of them together in the past to merit them still supposedly being so attached after ten years of zero contact. They didn't necessarily have time in "Manhattan" to show the whole story, but that would have been a better flashback subject for 3A than all the Regina vs. Snow stuff that had nothing to do with the present-day story.

What really hampered them was what seems to have been a strong focus on the big revelation that Bae was Neal when Emma tracked him down in New York. I can just see the writers cackling with glee over the wonderful Shocking!Twist of Emma tackling the guy we know is Bae, and it's Neal! I think that's what kept them from using a different actor in the flashbacks. They wanted it to be really obvious, and I guess they didn't want to rely on Emma recognizing him being enough for the audience. Which is funny because they kept having people who knew Bae in Neverland instantly recognizing Neal, even though they looked nothing alike. And I guess if they'd cast a younger actor that looked more like young Bae, there would be the concern that people would have figured it out. And that's another funny thing -- they really spoiled that for themselves. Was anyone actually surprised by the revelation? I think it was pretty much a given when we saw Neal at the beginning of the season and then Emma met him, since he had to have been important or significant if they bothered to show him at the opening of the season, and when we knew Bae was in New York, that sealed the deal. If it had been revealed or at least hinted at in "Manhattan," then they could have used suspense rather than surprise. Imagine if we knew that Neal was Bae and knew what Emma was about to run into.

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

and if we'd maybe seen the process of them falling in love

Hello, it's A&E here.

We don't do that.

Thanks for your fanship!  

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Her character without crazy eyes or snark is actually really boring. (It doesn't have to be this way, but Lana nor A&E knew how to make Redeemed!Regina entertaining.) 

Roni?

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

Roni?

Or Vanilla!Regina from S6.

Edited December 16, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

22 hours ago, Camera One said:

  On 12/15/2018 at 1:40 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Her character without crazy eyes or snark is actually really boring. (It doesn't have to be this way, but Lana nor A&E knew how to make Redeemed!Regina entertaining.) 

That's what happens when you just wave away all the conflicts inherent to a character. You get a boring character. She doesn't have any internal conflict, since she doesn't seem to really struggle with changing her behavior, and we don't really know what she thinks about the behavior change. She just changed her behavior without changing her attitude. She doesn't seem to feel any guilt. She doesn't seem to fear that she wasted her life (and her father's life) on her revenge quest. She may have stopped the murder and revenge, but she doesn't seem to have picked up any new goals or interests. She didn't gain any empathy for others that makes her realize the pain she caused them. Instead of actually dealing with her relationship with Henry and trying to build something as they move past all her neglect and emotional abuse, they just acted like they'd always been close and she's the perfect mother. Instead of her having any kind of struggle as she gets into her first real relationship after Daniel, with her having to learn how to have any kind of healthy relationship and her past being any kind of issue that makes it hard for her to meet anyone who's interested in her, she gets a sprinkle of pixie dust to tell her who her soulmate is.

Since we didn't get to see Regina go through any real redemption process with any struggle at all, Redeemed!Regina is just a hollow shell with no substance.

[KAOS Agent]

They really did manage to make all of Regina's potential storylines as dull as dishwater. Why would you remove the interesting drama and make everything just happen with no struggle? There was a lot of interesting stuff to mine with the Robin relationship and they skipped over all of it with him being into her bold and audacious behavior and her seeing the tattoo and being instantly in love. Where was the fun of falling for each other? Where was the indecision or worry about getting involved with Robin? You don't have to like Captain Swan or Rumpbelle to at least see that there was development of something with both of those couples. It may have gone too far or gone on too long and become repetitive, but there were at least some internal struggles going on with each of the characters involved in those relationships. Outlaw Queen was only affected by external forces and even then they took away the interesting stuff. 

Did we ever see Regina take the initiative to fix something that she wasn't being forced to deal with? Why not have her work to return a few hearts and maybe deal with some past behavior and learn something? Why not see her try to make amends? How about see her reach out and not be forgiven? Too often we saw people apologizing to Regina, but we never saw the reverse. Even worse, there were times when Regina refused to forgive. Her attitude towards Zelena was awful and showed zero self-awareness about her own past behavior even when Zelena tried to point it out. And that was in S6! Regina is the weirdest character for me.

[daxx]

4 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Her attitude towards Zelena was awful and showed zero self-awareness about her own past behavior even when Zelena tried to point it out. And that was in S6! Regina is the weirdest character for me.

Regina is an example of show runners falling in love with a character and wanting them to have all the good things. I think of Lana from Smallville. Very similar.

smallville spoilers

Spoiler

Literally every ability Clark had Lana also got to experience at some point. She with little to no experience acquired and ran a coffee shop while still in high school for goodness sake. She ended up becoming super at the end of course. At least in this case the show runners were let go after season 6 I think. The show improved a lot after that.

[KingOfHearts]

12 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Too often we saw people apologizing to Regina, but we never saw the reverse.

She apologized a few times, but people often brush that under the rug because it wasn't to the Charmings. She has apologized to at least Henry, Belle, and Henry Sr.

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

She apologized a few times, but people often brush that under the rug because it wasn't to the Charmings. She has apologized to at least Henry, Belle, and Henry Sr.

I think that gets brushed aside because it's hard to believe in her redemption if she didn't apologize to Snow, since the harm she did to both Henrys was part of her wanting vengeance on Snow (I'm not entirely clear on why she was hurting Belle -- to get Rumple, but I'm not sure why she wanted to hurt Rumple at that time). She might have been sorry that she hurt them (though I don't think she actually was sorry about Belle. She just wanted Belle to help her and had to apologize to get cooperation), but without the apology to Snow, there's no indication that she's truly changed. I guess you could say that without the apology to the Henrys and Belle, her redemption wouldn't be complete, but without the apology to Snow, her redemption hasn't started because it was her belief that Snow was an evil monster who deserved to die that led to all her evil. If she hasn't changed her mind about that and realized that she was wrong, then has she changed?

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

They really did manage to make all of Regina's potential storylines as dull as dishwater. Why would you remove the interesting drama and make everything just happen with no struggle?

I was thinking about 4A. Regina's storyline was that her new boyfriend's (and soul mate's) believed-dead wife was brought to the present. In the premiere, Regina at first wants to murder Marian and not get blamed for it, then she sees that she was the one who had captured Marian in the first place (and in the original timeline, she executed her). That's the last this comes up. We never see Robin learning that his new girlfriend was the one who took Marian away from him, we never learn how he feels about this. Marian gets conveniently removed from the board by the ice curse, and then Robin ends up choosing Regina, until he has to leave town for Marian's sake (and then that's resolved in the next arc when it's revealed that Marian was always Zelena in disguise, so Regina gets him guilt-free). Regina gets to spend a minute or so contemplating the fact that she was the monster who terrorized Marian, but then Marian acknowledges how she's changed and that's not really an issue. Regina's all noble and tells Robin to love his wife again, but he chooses her. Henry is mad at her for a little while for locking him out, but he instantly gets on board with her idea to find the Author to write her a happy ending. There's no moment of empathy for the people she's separated from their lovers. Regina doesn't grow or change at all from this experience, other than, I guess, not giving in to the impulse to murder Marian. She doesn't have to make any difficult choices other than giving up Robin, but then he soon chooses her.

In contrast, Emma's storyline in that arc has her being forced to consider part of her very nature. She has to wrestle with whether her family can accept her magic and whether her magic makes her a liability. Would she be better off getting rid of it so she won't accidentally harm someone she loves? She has to face her mother shying away from her, accidentally nearly hurting her father and Hook and accidentally hurting Henry, which makes her want to get rid of her magic. But will that change who she is? Meanwhile, she's forced to face the consequences of what she brought back from the past and whether she harmed Regina by saving Marian's life. She comes out of the arc having finally reconciled her magical nature so that she accepts that part of herself and can use her power for good (until the next story line when she's made to doubt herself).

And then there's Hook, who's trying to be good now, but when he can't resist blackmailing Rumple, he ends up making a deal that could reveal to Emma that he hasn't changed that much, after all. He has to risk losing Emma in order to potentially save Emma from Rumple's schemes (not that this went anywhere). Then when Rumple gets his heart, he's forced to do the kinds of things he might once have done willingly (if they might have led to him getting his revenge). He has to struggle with being made to be the kind of person he's trying not to be, which makes him doubt himself. After this story line, he's more confident about Emma's feelings for him, has learned not to get cocky with Rumple, and he ends up being friends with Belle after they're both betrayed by Rumple.

This is why Redeemed!Regina is boring. It's more like it's just the attitudes of everyone around her change while she's not expected to change. She stops murdering (though she still wants to), but isn't confronted with any of the consequences of her past and she gets what she wants without having to actually do anything. Her struggles are all about her feelings about things happening to other people, not about things actually happening to her.

[KAOS Agent]

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

She apologized a few times, but people often brush that under the rug because it wasn't to the Charmings. She has apologized to at least Henry, Belle, and Henry Sr.

Her apologies never really work for me in terms of her being a better person. The Henrys are people she cares about, which puts those apologies in a different category for me. I believe that she was sincere with her father and I liked that, but that turned into him apologizing to her and taking all the blame on himself, which kind of ruined the moment. But did she ever apologize to someone she didn't care about when she didn't want something from them? Apologizing to Belle was not done as an actual expression of remorse, but because she wanted Belle to do something for her. Here is a snippet from that conversation in "Bleeding Through":

Belle: What do I have here? Self-respect. Why on Earth or any realm would I help you? The woman who imprisoned me in a tower in her castle, then put me in an asylum for twenty-eight years, who's done nothing but mentally and physically torture me ever since we've known each other!

Regina: Huh. Bookworm's got teeth.

Belle: Get out.

Regina:  Yes. I did all those horrible things in the past. But right now, I need something to defeat the woman who's puppet-mastering your boyfriend. She has your Rumpel, and unless you help me, you may never see him again. I'm sorry, Belle. I really, really am.

This isn't a Regina who thinks she needs to make amends for something, but is more like fine, you want an apology? I'm sorry. Now wipe the slate clean and give me what I need. It's not genuine to me. Maybe she means it, but it's clear that she's only saying it because it's expected and Belle will give in once she does. There wasn't a moment where Regina did something simply because it was the right thing to do and she genuinely wanted to atone. 
 

Edited December 18, 2018 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

47 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Regina: Huh. Bookworm's got teeth.

That comment alone shows she couldn't care less about what she put Belle through.  If the apology had been made in lieu of that "bold and audacious" comment, maybe we can imagine it might have been genuine.

[AnotherCastle]

Lana Parrilla did talk about that scene at a con panel:

Quote

It's funny when we did that scene I remember feeling as Regina: 'Oh God I have to apologize to her.' It became very comedic, it was like a funny moment but I looked at Emilie and she was really hurt as Belle. She really wanted me to apologize and I had as Regina, I had to really be honest about the apology and I think that is going to change their relationship.

You can watch it here at 2:44:

Edited December 18, 2018 by AnotherCastle

[tennisgurl]

To me, its not just a matter of saying sorry (although that certainly would have been nice), its about so rarely getting the feeling that Regina really IS sorry. She is sorry that things dont always work out for her, and she might grit her teeth and throw out a half assed apology when she needs something, like with Belle, but its so rare to really see in her actions real guilt for what she did. She mostly just tries to brush things away when her evil deeds come back to haunt her, or she acts like the wronged party is the real asshole, and the show seems to agree with her. A really remorseful person might see the connection between her suffering at being separated from Henry the way she separated countless families during the curse. A really remorseful person would have felt terrible when she met Sir Percival and realized what she did to him. But none of that happened. Regina is a narcissistic, who eventually saw that being on good terms with the rest of the people of Storeybrooke would give her the validation she craves. A few shallow apologies are not enough, nor would they be if she ever handed them out. She just never bothered to act like a person who really cared that much, beyond having the chance to angst for a second so people could immediately jump to comforting her and telling her how it wasn't her fault anyway (It was The Author! It was Snow! It was her Evil Queen Persona!) so why should she even feel bad?

[Camera One]

I was thinking about 4B.  I think Snowing would have had a tough time ruling again once they got back to the Enchanted Forest.  For the regular people, their prospects would have been extremely bleak.  A lot of their homes and farms would presumably have been destroyed during or post-Curse.  Finding food would have been difficult until they could get re-established.  They would have no shelter. It would have made sense if Snowing had planned to immediately look for a way to get back to Emma and Henry, but they were preoccupied since they faced a possible revolt for people who blamed them for what Peter Pan did and for not defeating Regina.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

14 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was thinking about 4B.  I think Snowing would have had a tough time ruling again once they got back to the Enchanted Forest.  For the regular people, their prospects would have been extremely bleak.  A lot of their homes and farms would presumably have been destroyed during or post-Curse.  Finding food would have been difficult until they could get re-established.  They would have no shelter. It would have made sense if Snowing had planned to immediately look for a way to get back to Emma and Henry, but they were preoccupied since they faced a possible revolt for people who blamed them for what Peter Pan did and for not defeating Regina.

Those people are jerks for being mad at Regina for destroying their homes. She gave them a beautiful seaside town and served as their mayor for nearly 30 years. How dare they whine about their feudal hovels. She just saved everyone from Peter Pan, too!

[Camera One]

From episode thread:

36 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

On the other hand, if they were bored with the character and didn't care enough to keep writing him, why did they keep bringing him back for cameos and retroactively make him such a great hero? Was it the reverse of their "he's a regular, so now we're bored with him" pattern, where the moment the character died, they became super interested?

I think A&E were trying to placate the fans who were angry Neal was gone and A&E needed them to buy their claim that they loved him as a character and hated to see him go.  Did the actor keep coming back for cameos?  I thought he was only appeared again once or twice.  Throwing him a line or two would have been easy.  It didn't necessarily mean they were interested.  They did the same with Robin Hood after they killed him off.  

Edited December 23, 2018 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

There were also nasty rumors about why the actor was let go, so maybe they felt like their defense of Neal was necessary to show support for the actor. Having him back for a quick cameo shows there's no bad feelings and painting Neal as a saint placates those upset fans and allows them to bring him back as a helpful spirit who would never upset Emma in any way.

[profdanglais]

1 hour ago, KAOS Agent said:

There were also nasty rumors about why the actor was let go,

What rumours? 

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, profdanglais said:

What rumours? 

I'm hazy on the details, and they tend to blur since it happened to multiple actors on this show, but the usual suspects (the more radical and unhinged fringe of SwanQueeners, I believe) had started rumors that MRJ was fired for being unstable on the set, had trashed his trailer, etc. I don't remember if the rumors about him being terrible on the set started before or after he was written out. They might have started before, when it looked like Neal was a viable romantic prospect for Emma (and therefore a threat to SwanQueen), then used him being written off as proof of how terrible he was. I think A&E eventually had to step in to set the record straight, and it's likely that at least one of his later cameos was meant as proof that he wasn't fired in any kind of disgrace. Not to be confused with the incident in which the radical and unhinged fringe of the SwanQueen faction started rumors that Sean was sexually harassing people on the set in an effort to get him fired and claimed victory when he was written out in season 4, which then backfired because they brought him back as a regular (I don't know if that's actually why he was brought back, but it fits the pattern).

I'm surprised they never got anything really nasty about Colin, since Hook was the real "threat." I know there were wishful thinking rumors about him and JMo having an affair (though those were as much the unhinged real-life shippers as they were the SwanQueeners trying to tear someone down), but nothing ever really seemed to stick. I know JMo shot down a few of the gleeful insinuations by telling people to show a little respect, but I don't recall (or wasn't aware of) anything so nasty that any of the higher-ups had to step in and set the record straight, the way they did with the other two.

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

This show is so weird with its portrayal of events. It's like the writers can't agree on what's heroic and what's not, so actions on this show end up like Schrödinger's cat, where they are both heroic and villainous. 

The showrunners desperately want to be liked and they can't handle criticism at all. There are times to throw a bone to fans when they are upset about something, but there are also times when you need to tell the story you've been telling and not screw around with it because some small group of fans is unhappy. The writers on this show have a very hard time dealing with the dislike and can't stick to their story. 

This really sums up how the show became so inconsistent.  Pandering to various fandoms and characters led to wildly inconsistently stories where characters swung around like weather vanes.  They tried to be everything to everybody once in a while to (ineffectively) placate various groups, but all the other times it was all about their pet favorites, so it was easy to see them moving the puppet strings, to look behind the curtain, etc., whichever fantasy story metaphor you want to use.

It goes even deeper than that, though.  Their wish to be seen as edgy writers who write complex stories meant that a lot of the events were neither here nor there.  They made sure they allowed characters to consciously make bad choices, often completely against their characters' personalities, and then bent over backwards to excuse them, and then called this complex.  They had villains do horrible things to the heroes in one scene, and then they had the heroes ignore them in the name of redemption or forgiveness forever after.    They followed scenes of cutesy Disney references with events with disturbing moral consequences, and then expressed disbelief that people could take fantasy fiction that seriously.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

15 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

the usual suspects (the more radical and unhinged fringe of SwanQueeners, I believe) had started rumors that MRJ was fired

Actually, I think the rumors were started by a production assistant. I don't know if she had an ax to grind or what, but it didn't come from the usual suspects. Of course, the minute these claims seemed even remotely plausible (the death of a major character had been confirmed to gin up interest in the show), the shippers spread it with glee. One thing I'll give this show is that it inspired a very passionate fan base. Since Neal stood in the way of both Swan Queen and Captain Swan, you had crazies from all corners of the fandom participating. Neal's death stopped being a way for the show to be edgy or do the unexpected and was twisted into something that many fans believed they were responsible for. It was not a good thing. It fed into a lot of the nastiness that many of the actors experienced and it also fed into Adam Horowitz constantly placating people and affected the show's writing.

[KingOfHearts]

Giving Regina a sister is not a bad idea. In the long run, it could be good for her character. Her parents are dead, so Zelena would be the blood relative Regina would have. I personally wish they would've gone the Frozen route and challenged Regina to seek True Love through a sibling bond, rather than simply loving herself. In the end, Zelena is just another cheerleader. Regina doesn't care about her all that much beyond maybe saving her ass once in a while. The writers could've mined a lot out of that relationship. But instead, Zelena gets exiled to the farmhouse, even when she's got Regina's boyfriend's newborn daughter. 

Zelena and the Wicked Witch should've been two separate characters. Maybe Zelena could've been a nobody who discovers she's Regina's sister in Storybrooke. I'm not sure how to make it less contrived without planning it from the beginning of the show, though.

Edited December 30, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

In retrospective, making Zelena Reginas  sister turned out to be pretty pointless. The added backstory for Cora just made the story more complicated and reeked of retcon, Regina was soon too caught up in her Robin angst/romance to really deal with her sister being dead/resurrected/good, and after she turned good, her being the Wicked Witch was even more pointless, beyond her using the same jazz hands magic that everyone uses. Gee, it’s almost like this show is so obsessed with iconic character designs (without any understanding of the actual characters) and “shocking” long lost family revaluations  (without ever really exploring those relationships) that they forget to write actual stories!

[Camera One]

Of all the characters, Regina still had so much more room to grow as she repented and earned her redemption.  She should naturally be in conflict with Emma, Henry, Snow, Charming, Rumple, the townspeople, etc.  It should not be smooth sailing with any of them.

Instead, they needed to create artificial conflict for Regina, with Zelena by generating a sister we couldn't care less about and then throwing in Robin Hood for good measure to preoccupy Regina's time.  It was all so unnecessary and made the whole setup even more contrived.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Of all the characters, Regina still had so much more room to grow as she repented and earned her redemption.  She should naturally be in conflict with Emma, Henry, Snow, Charming, Rumple, the townspeople, etc.  It should not be smooth sailing with any of them.

Instead, they needed to create artificial conflict for Regina, with Zelena by generating a sister we couldn't care less about and then throwing in Robin Hood for good measure to preoccupy Regina's time.  It was all so unnecessary and made the whole setup even more contrived.

It also would have been interesting to watch.  

[daxx]

It does seem like they always took the least interesting path when it came to Regina.

[Camera One]

I felt like banging my head against the wall today so I read a 3B Adam and Eddy interview.  

Quote

Had Rumple not come in and killed Zelena, do you think she had a good shot at redeeming herself like Regina had hoped?

Kitsis: I think this is a show that when Adam and I created it, we wanted to say everyone had a shot at redemption. It was about hope. If Rumplestiltskin, the most selfish man in the world and someone who was a coward, can literally sacrifice his life and break the cycle of his family's cowardice, which we saw in episode 11, I think everybody is capable of it. It's really a matter of whether you choose to do the hard work to get there.

It's interesting how they conflate "hope" with "redemption".  So the redemption of villains who did unspeakably evil acts is hopeful?  To who - the victims?  It's clear whose POV we're supposed to be looking at this show from, despite the false front of having Snow White and her family.

The "hard work to get there"?  LOL.  

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We've seen Emma and the gang go up against a number of foes over the past few seasons. How would you rate Zelena against the rest?

Edward Kitsis: She is the most wicked. What makes her formidable is that you could see that she is just this prodigy of magic. You just see just how super talented she is. But what makes her so formidable is that she has so much pain behind her, and torture.

Yeah, "super talented", as in know-all and do-all, except when she can't.  A lot of these villains are interchangeable in the bigger scheme of things.

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Is there another spoke in the wheel of evil you want to explore in the future?

Kitsis: One of the biggest evils we all have is the one inside us. That is always a spoke.

Horowitz: We said it all the way back in season one. Evil isn't born, it's made, and there's always room on the wheel for another spoke. We may be seeing more of that.

I guess they followed through with that in Season 6.  Except the message was there was good in The Evil Queen too, so maybe not.  Though we did find out in Season 6 that Baelfire was evil deep inside, so there was that.

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Kitsis: And the question of what is evil? There's been lots of things presented to us as evil that we found have just been misunderstood.

Village massacres are just misunderstood.  I always forget the valuable lessons I learn from this show.

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What does a Belle and Rumple engagement look like? He's hiding a big secret from her, and we know secrets never end well in Storybrooke.

Kitsis: Secrets never end well. (Joking.) I can tell you that his bachelor party is going to be in Atlantic City.… As we said, Rumple's love for Belle is genuine but he also let us know in their very first episode together, "Skin Deep," that he's a very difficult man to love. There are a lot of complicated things going on in his head and we're just beginning to explore that. Next year, we'll understand a lot more what he's thinking.

What they showed in later seasons is that Rumple was selfish as hell and not willing to put Belle above his own wants, which makes his love NOT genuine.  Or maybe I'm misinterpreting what love really is?  "Next year", we didn't understand anything more.

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Hook wasn't happy when Emma said she was thinking of leaving town. What is he going to do to ensure that that doesn't happen?

Kitsis: He is getting fed up because it's like the entire world cannot resist my charms, why is one person I fall in love with so resistant to me. He is becoming frustrated because he has declared that he will win her heart and she has declared it's going to be very hard. They are going to be put in a lot of danger this week and we'll see if romance can even rear its head.… But I'd be depressed if it didn't.

I don't think I interpreted Hook as thinking the world can't resist his charms so why can Emma.  

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How difficult will it be for them to get back to Storybrooke?

Kitsis: I hope it's difficult or else it will be a very boring two hours.

Oh give me a break.  It's always difficult until the last minute.

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How different will the world be following the events of the finale?

Kitsis: You set up things in the beginning of the season and you hope to have certain things resolved, but I definitely think some of the characters are going to find themselves in happier situations than others.

This was a good question but now we know the answer every time.  It's not going to be any different.  Reset time!

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Looking ahead to season four, have you honed in on how you'll bring Michael Socha's Knave into the fold?

Horowitz: We've had extensive discussions with the writers already …

Kitsis: Mapping out next season.

Horowitz: We're very excited about the possibilities for Michael and all the characters.

Kitsis: He was a member of [Robin Hood's] Merry Men. We think he'll fit in well in the show.

LOL!  Great planning, guys.  It sounds like those "extensive" discussions really peter panned out.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Camera One