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

Speakeasy · July 31, 2020

On 7/27/2020 at 9:33 PM, Melgaypet said:

An argument that always made me roll my eyes. And I'll say again, if they were that concerned about that perception, they could have countered by showing a positive adoptive relationship, like with Grace/Paige's Storybrooke parents. The answer was not to pretend that the relationship we saw between Henry and Regina throughout the entire first season was not how it was.

That seems a bit like putting a plaster* on the stump where a leg used to be. The entire central conflict of season 1 is the conflict between the evil, lying, manipulative, illegitimate adoptive parent and the pure, virtuous, honest and legitimate birth mother. The whole thing is about how Emma is The Saviour due to her destiny, due, essentially, to inherent factors surrounding her birth, and that parallels the fact she has to save Henry because of inherent factors around his birth (because she gave birth to him). Adding #notallstepmothers as a coda wouldn't change the fact that the entire rest of the season is about a heroic biomom whose biological relationship gives her a more valid connection to her child than the woman who raised him for ten years.

*Band aid

On 7/28/2020 at 7:25 AM, andromeda331 said:

Not to mention her character was the Evil Queen who killed who knows how many people, raped a man and her curse which ripped families apart. She never would have ended up with Henry had Regina left the Charmings alone.

That actually feeds into the anti-adoption narrative. Storybrooke is full of people who have been taken from their legitimate and rightful lives and forced to live under false identities and in false relationships. In the same way Henry is separated from his rightful and legitimate parents and forced into a false relationships with a false mother under a false identity as her son. Plus in fairyland Regina was a false Queen who played a false role earlier as snows stepmother where her real, legitimate biological parents were good and kind both as parents and as rulers (from what we can see; Leopold could have been burning down villages for not sending his daughter a nice enough birthday present but it wasn't on screen so we'll assume he wasn't) and Snow was of course good and kind and brave as she was the legitimate biological daughter of the real legitimate king who was presumably the real legitimate biological son of an earlier king and so on.

scarynikki12 · August 4, 2020

The only part of the first season that I felt was truly anti-adoption was when Rumpel told Regina that Emma is Henry's mother due to giving birth to him in the run up to her facing down dragon Maleficent. Even then an argument can be made that he was just being an asshole to Regina since he could have phrased it differently. I also understand why there was genuine concern during season 1 as a lot of the reaction to the characters and story did seem to go into "Emma's Henry's REAL mother not Regina!". To me that attitude missed the point because, in season 1 at least, the problem wasn't about Regina not being Henry's mom but that she was his mom, didn't love him, and was doing such a bad job that he sought out the only other family he had which was Emma. The family connection with Emma began in the most technical way but we saw it become real after they got to know each other.

I don't see Regina casting the curse as an anti-adoption metaphor but instead anti-kidnapping. She kidnapped everyone from their homes and brainwashed them while she held them captive. When they were set free the brainwashing went away and they reunited with their loved ones.

Speakeasy · August 5, 2020

On 8/4/2020 at 1:43 AM, scarynikki12 said:

The only part of the first season that I felt was truly anti-adoption was when Rumpel told Regina that Emma is Henry's mother due to giving birth to him in the run up to her facing down dragon Maleficent. Even then an argument can be made that he was just being an asshole to Regina since he could have phrased it differently. I also understand why there was genuine concern during season 1 as a lot of the reaction to the characters and story did seem to go into "Emma's Henry's REAL mother not Regina!". To me that attitude missed the point because, in season 1 at least, the problem wasn't about Regina not being Henry's mom but that she was his mom, didn't love him, and was doing such a bad job that he sought out the only other family he had which was Emma. The family connection with Emma began in the most technical way but we saw it become real after they got to know each other.

I find it kind of tricky to disentangle their behaviour from the fact that the good one is the biological mother and the bad one the adoptive mother, particularly since, to me, truth is easily as important a theme in season one as love and much more of one than HOPE. The villains do everything by lying and people are hurt by lies in various ways throughout the series, and our hero has to free a whole community imprisoned by lies, she has her alleged 'superpower' where she can tell lies from truth, she sees what Henry truly needs and feels, she is truly willing to risk and sacrifice for him and she is his TRUE mother-biologically and emotionally/socially. To me it's very difficult to separate these things and say the one isn't related to the other because it fits really well, even though I'm kind of awkward about the fact that it does fit so well.

On 8/4/2020 at 1:43 AM, scarynikki12 said:

I don't see Regina casting the curse as an anti-adoption metaphor but instead anti-kidnapping. She kidnapped everyone from their homes and brainwashed them while she held them captive. When they were set free the brainwashing went away and they reunited with their loved ones.

I don't think it's explicitly a metaphor for adoption, in fact I think you can use it as a metaphor for pretty much any abusive or manipulative relationship. But it does feed into the theme of lies Vs truth where Henry, the almost central character and/or central quest object, is imprisoned by lies in the form of his adoptive relationship.

Shanna Marie · August 6, 2020

I don't think the writers intended any kind of anti-adoption message. It was just their general ham-handed cluelessness. These are, after all, the writers who were surprised that viewers saw it as rape when Regina had a prisoner sent to her bedchamber after she ripped his heart out so she could control him. It seemed to me that it was much more about how Regina was a terrible mother because she was the Evil Queen (and a sociopathic narcissist) than because she was an adoptive mother. She was awful to everyone, not just Henry. In fact, she probably treated Henry better than she treated most other people. This is the woman who murdered her own father, the person she loved most, because her revenge was more important. I also don't think that they were necessarily showing that Emma was a better mother than Regina because she was the biological parent. Emma wasn't particularly maternal in season one. She was just nicer to Henry than Regina was, and Regina set such a low bar there that the bar was pretty much three feet underground. If Emma didn't put him in therapy to make him think he was crazy for believing the truth and didn't actively try to hurt him in order to score points against her rival, then Emma was a better mother than Regina. Emma in season one was more of a "cool aunt" type, someone Henry could talk to who was fun to hang out with. Emma was in no way up for the day-to-day work of parenting, keeping a kid fed and clothed, getting him to bed on time and up in the morning for school, supervising homework, dealing with him when he was sick, etc., and Regina did at least get credit for doing all that as Henry's mother. Even after the year in New York when Emma was totally responsible for Henry, it was Hook who was concerned about the kid getting proper nutrition.

The way they handled things once the optics were pointed out to them was their typical thing of making it worse and then doubling down on the thing that was a problem in the first place. Waving their magic wand and suddenly deciding that Regina was Mother of the Century who'd always had such a close, loving relationship with Henry and was so maternal that random strangers noted how maternal she was ended up being as insulting to abuse victims as the Regina vs. Emma thing had come across to adoptive parents. That "you're remembering it wrong, I was a great mother and we had a wonderful relationship" retconning is the kind of gaslighting that abusers pull, and it denies the victims' experience. They did have the one episode in which Regina realized she was becoming her mother and she apologized, but then instead of really building a new relationship that acknowledged the harm, they acted like they were always super-close and loving. Though I guess it's not as bad as what they did with Snow and the stepmother relationship, with Snow taking the blame by saying she was such a brat. That's also an abused child pattern, with them coming to believe that they were responsible for their own abuse.

Showing positive adoptive relationships would at least have balanced it out and made it clear that Regina was shown as a bad mother because she was evil, not because she was an adoptive mother. There are plenty of fairy tales about good adoptive relationships -- all those kindly woodsmen who find abandoned children and raise them as their own. They could have even had one of those relationships in the Enchanted Forest, with the curse putting the kid back with the biological parents who abandoned him and showing how bad those parents were. They sort of had a positive depiction of an adoptive relationship in season one with James and George, where James was shown as arrogant but not necessarily evil and George might have been a terrible person, but he genuinely loved his adopted son and deeply grieved his death. But instead of going with that depiction, they devolved it, so in season two James was an evil hedonist who committed genocide and George was fed up with him. Then in season five, we learn that James always resented David for getting to be with their biological parents (in abject poverty) while James was brought up as a prince by adoptive parents. And in season six, George was outright abusive to James, who tried to run away and instantly bonded with the biological father he'd never met before.

Then we had Zelena, whose adoptive father was cruel and abusive, and she bonded instantly with her sister without even knowing she was her sister, and Cora got to go to heaven because she was able to reconcile with her biological family.

So, they handled the criticism about the depiction of adoptive families about as well as they handled the criticism about rape, by whitewashing Regina and pretending she'd never done anything while doubling down and continuing to do the thing they'd been accused of.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Shanna Marie
proofreading

Camera One · August 6, 2020

I too never got the impression in Season 1 that Emma was simply better for Henry because she was the biological mother. At the end of the day, this show was adapting the story of Snow White where everyone knows there was an evil stepmother and she was, well, evil.

Because of that, it didn't even occur to me to extrapolate to conclude that all adoptive parents were bad while all biological parents were good. Heck, we saw early on from the Jiminy Cricket episode that his biological parents were horrible.

The main reason some people jumped to this conclusion was that a lot of people felt sad for Regina almost immediately. I suppose another reason could be because Emma only described negative experiences in the foster system.

On 8/3/2020 at 5:43 PM, scarynikki12 said:

I don't see Regina casting the curse as an anti-adoption metaphor but instead anti-kidnapping.

That's what I thought too. At the end of the day, Regina was kidnapping children from their parents by separating them (ignoring the fact she meant to have Baby Emma die). Her actions separated Henry from his family, regardless of the feelings she later developed for him.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · August 6, 2020

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I suppose another reason could be because Emma only described negative experiences in the foster system.

And that's a whole other can of worms. The people who should really feel insulted are foster parents, since they were all depicted as totally evil. Even the seemingly good one who wanted to adopt Emma turned out to be a psycho ice sorceress. Then they had to warp the depiction of the foster care system to make their point. For instance, an infant wouldn't have been in a crappy group home. There are foster parents who specialize in infants, and it's usually one child to a home. They might have kept Pinocchio (I wonder what he told them his name was) with her if they thought they might be related, but they wouldn't have been in a group setting with other kids. And they'd have been in Maine, not in Boston. Maine is actually its own state, not a suburb of Boston.

Although the evil stepmother is a stock fairy tale character, in the first edition of the Grimm tales, a few of the evil stepmothers were actually biological mothers. The Grimms were pressured to change it in later editions because it reflected poorly on German motherhood for mothers to be so cruel to their children. For instance, in the first edition version, the mother who wants Hansel and Gretl to be stranded in the woods is their mother, not a stepmother.

Then there are fathers. In the Grimm version of Cinderella, Cinderella's father is still alive while she's being abused by the new stepmother and stepsisters. There's no mention of him dying. There's also no mention of Snow White's father. He could still be alive.

The weird thing about the later retcon of Regina and Henry having always had such a close, loving relationship is that in season one, not only did Regina outright emotionally abuse him, but even if you removed that aspect, she still wasn't what I'd consider a loving mother. She made no effort to spend time with him. Even when she was competing with Emma over him, she didn't step up to try to make him like her more. That would be the obvious ploy, you'd think. Your kid is drawn to his cool, younger biological mom who hangs out with him, and naturally the way to counter that would be to hang out with him, give him stuff, watch TV with him, etc. That not only might have changed his mind, but it would have kept him from having the opportunity to hang out with Emma. Saturday should have started with making pancakes/waffles, then maybe give him a video game console and have him show her how it works, then order pizza and have a Star Wars marathon. No Emma, without even looking like she's trying to control or limit him. Instead, she leaves him at home alone all Saturday with orders to do his homework and not watch TV so she can go off and spend the day raping Graham. Gee, I wonder what Henry will do while she's away. Duh. Regina wasn't very smart.

scarynikki12 · August 7, 2020

6 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Showing positive adoptive relationships would at least have balanced it out and made it clear that Regina was shown as a bad mother because she was evil, not because she was an adoptive mother.

Exactly. This is why so many of us lament the lost story potential of PG (Paige/Grace)*. Hers is the story of a kidnapped child who is then adopted by a family who believe it to be legitimate. Then her father, who has been searching for her since that day and never gave up hope that she was alive, finally finds her and the dilemma begins. On the one hand, Jefferson never relinquished his parental rights so she legally never stopped being his daughter. On the other, she and her adoptive parents were under the Curse for twenty eight years and, even with everything repeating until Emma arrives, they have a familial relationship in their own right. I would guess what probably happened is that Jefferson and the parents eventually came to agree on joint custody as they recognized it was in the best interest of PG. Maybe she even took charge and told them she wanted both families. This is the type of story that the show should have focused on to prove that they weren't anti-adoption, and explore the fallout of breaking the Curse, but they were so up Regina's ass that they dropped it instead.

*For my own sanity I've decided that she's been going by her initials since the Curse broke.

andromeda331 · August 7, 2020

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

And that's a whole other can of worms. The people who should really feel insulted are foster parents, since they were all depicted as totally evil. Even the seemingly good one who wanted to adopt Emma turned out to be a psycho ice sorceress. Then they had to warp the depiction of the foster care system to make their point. For instance, an infant wouldn't have been in a crappy group home. There are foster parents who specialize in infants, and it's usually one child to a home. They might have kept Pinocchio (I wonder what he told them his name was) with her if they thought they might be related, but they wouldn't have been in a group setting with other kids. And they'd have been in Maine, not in Boston. Maine is actually its own state, not a suburb of Boston.

Although the evil stepmother is a stock fairy tale character, in the first edition of the Grimm tales, a few of the evil stepmothers were actually biological mothers. The Grimms were pressured to change it in later editions because it reflected poorly on German motherhood for mothers to be so cruel to their children. For instance, in the first edition version, the mother who wants Hansel and Gretl to be stranded in the woods is their mother, not a stepmother.

Then there are fathers. In the Grimm version of Cinderella, Cinderella's father is still alive while she's being abused by the new stepmother and stepsisters. There's no mention of him dying. There's also no mention of Snow White's father. He could still be alive.

The weird thing about the later retcon of Regina and Henry having always had such a close, loving relationship is that in season one, not only did Regina outright emotionally abuse him, but even if you removed that aspect, she still wasn't what I'd consider a loving mother. She made no effort to spend time with him. Even when she was competing with Emma over him, she didn't step up to try to make him like her more. That would be the obvious ploy, you'd think. Your kid is drawn to his cool, younger biological mom who hangs out with him, and naturally the way to counter that would be to hang out with him, give him stuff, watch TV with him, etc. That not only might have changed his mind, but it would have kept him from having the opportunity to hang out with Emma. Saturday should have started with making pancakes/waffles, then maybe give him a video game console and have him show her how it works, then order pizza and have a Star Wars marathon. No Emma, without even looking like she's trying to control or limit him. Instead, she leaves him at home alone all Saturday with orders to do his homework and not watch TV so she can go off and spend the day raping Graham. Gee, I wonder what Henry will do while she's away. Duh. Regina wasn't very smart.

Pretty much that's all Regina had to do. Emma made it clear in the beginning she wasn't planning to stay. She planned to drop Henry off and leave which she did but wasn't able to leave town. When she talks to Henry later she's still pretty supportive of Regina. She only ends up staying when she realizes Regina's lying about loving Henry. At least from Emma's point of view Regina only had to act or show for a week that she really did love and care about Henry. What does she do? To show she's a great mom? Gets Emma set up to be arrested, goes to Henry at school to tell him about it and try to convince him Emma's bad, and then sets her son up to be crushed by having him overhear Emma saying she thought he was crazy. What? You mean that didn't work? Who would thought? Except you know pretty much everyone. Regina showed she didn't have Henry's best interests at heart or had no problem hurting Henry to get what she wanted. When Henry runs off crying Regina just sits there with a big grin on her face. Henry's not the one who convinces Emma that she needs to stay a week and then longer. Regina's the reason Emma stays. Had Emma seen what you suggested Regina making Henry pancakes on Saturday and hanging out with him all day and just showing that she loved Henry. Emma would have thought everything was fine and left. Not only did she not do that it never once seem to occur to her.

Camera One · August 7, 2020

8 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Regina's the reason Emma stays.

It really showed how much Regina and Emma needed one another to both grow. At the end of the day, both women suffered because of what Snow White did. It's not a surprise that they grew to become best friends and a ground-breaking representation of how co-parenting with a mass murderer can work, a relationship that is vastly under-represented in media but fully explored in multiple couplings on this show.

- Scholar from the Institute of the Genius of Adam and Eddy

daxx · August 7, 2020

Hilarious @Camera One. You could co sign that SQ.

KingOfHearts · August 7, 2020

I recall Regina doing a little (emphasizing little) to get Henry's attention during that whole period when Emma wasn't allowed to see him without permission. She gave him a handheld video game console and ice cream. That didn't seem to go on for very long. That was very much in the heat of things when she had already revealed how abusive and terrible of a mother she was. I feel like the writers thought she was some kind of mastermind, but she was a horrible manipulator. She only got as far as she did because all the cards were in her favor and Rumple constantly saved her ass. Her reliance on magic was the only thing keeping her on top.

Edited August 7, 2020 by KingOfHearts

tennisgurl · August 7, 2020

21 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

And that's a whole other can of worms. The people who should really feel insulted are foster parents, since they were all depicted as totally evil. Even the seemingly good one who wanted to adopt Emma turned out to be a psycho ice sorceress.

Yeah when we were doing the most recent re-watch, I remember thinking that, while many of the complaints about the Regina and Henry plot being anti adoptive parent were rather overblown or from Regina defenders, and would lead to the annoying and very problematic ret con of their perfect, creepy relationship, the shows portrayal of adoption really did leave much to be desired. The portrayal of the foster care system especially was practically Dickensian, with babies in these crowded and awful group homes, every potentially nice home or potential adopted family that Emma got into dumping her at the drop of a hat, Emma acting like Hansel and Gretel going to foster care is basically a fate worse than death, it not only suffers from some very outdated ideas, but is also a byproduct of another issue in the show, the almost comical levels the show would go to to make Emma's life suck. Sorry, I still cant buy that beautiful blond healthy Emma, who even got press coverage when she was found by the highway, was never adopted, or even that, when she was dumped by her potential adopted parents, she wasn't snatched up by another family instantly. I mean, the best foster parent we saw was was Snow Queen, and even she was presumably just a foster parent to get to Emma because of her magic! The only other adoptive parent we saw that seemed alright was Lily's adoptive father, who seemed like an alright guy, just a guy trying his best to deal with a very troubled daughter (because of her darkness! Poorly defined darkness!) and thats all I can think of right now. Well, and Grahams wolf family I guess, who we sadly never got to meet.

Camera One · August 7, 2020

35 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Sorry, I still cant buy that beautiful blond healthy Emma, who even got press coverage when she was found by the highway, was never adopted, or even that, when she was dumped by her potential adopted parents, she wasn't snatched up by another family instantly.

I always assumed they would go back and tell that backstory. No doubt someone from the Enchanted Forest was the real reason for her adoptive parents not wanting her anymore after they got pregnant. Or maybe Home Office? Or maybe her BFF August arranged it, by spreading rumors about Emma so they didn't want her anymore. Or maybe Toddler Lily set the people's house on fire and blamed it on Toddler Emma.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · August 7, 2020

13 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Regina's the reason Emma stays. Had Emma seen what you suggested Regina making Henry pancakes on Saturday and hanging out with him all day and just showing that she loved Henry. Emma would have thought everything was fine and left. Not only did she not do that it never once seem to occur to her.

If they'd been doing it on purpose, it would have been a wonderful bit of plotting that everything that brought Regina down was Regina's own fault because she insisted on having it all, with no compromise or sharing with anyone else. She really brought about her own downfall. If it hadn't been for the curse that kept people from being able to leave town, Emma might have been able to leave in the first place instead of getting in a wreck (I guess Regina couldn't manipulate that part of the curse to let Emma out of town?). Even if it was coincidence that Emma couldn't leave, then arresting her for drunk driving and generally being a pain just made Emma want to stay longer. Then her weirdo behavior in trying to hurt Henry and gloating about it just ensured that Emma would stay. Emma was planning to leave at the end of the season, but Regina was too worried about maybe having to share Henry, so she baked the poisoned apple tart that led to Henry going under the sleeping curse and Emma breaking the Dark Curse (or the memory portion thereof). Emma's attempts to bring Regina down actually failed. She only won because Regina beat herself. But usually there's some kind of humbling going on when there's that kind of plot, where the villain is forced to realize she defeated herself and she either learns something or has to stew on it in her defeat. Here, they act like Regina was a victim of forces beyond herself.

30 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The only other adoptive parent we saw that seemed alright was Lily's adoptive father, who seemed like an alright guy, just a guy trying his best to deal with a very troubled daughter (because of her darkness! Poorly defined darkness!) and thats all I can think of right now. Well, and Grahams wolf family I guess, who we sadly never got to meet.

After season two, when they'd had the problematic portrayal of birth parents vs. adoptive parents pointed out to them, here's what they showed us:

Adoptive father George turns out to have been a terrible, abusive father to James, who tries to run away, meets and instantly bonds with his birth father, and resents his brother for getting to be raised by their birth parents in poverty while he grew up as a prince with adoptive parents.
Lily has a good, seemingly loving adoptive father, but she just can't seem to connect with him because he's not her biological parent, and all she wants is to find her biological family.
Zelena is adopted by a couple who find her after she's abandoned, but while the mother is loving, the father is cruel and abusive to her and thinks she's wicked for having magic (in a land ruled by good witches). Zelena instantly bonds with her biological half-sister when she meets her, even before they realize they're related. (Though here, Cora is no better as a biological parent than the adoptive parents were.)
Emma remains totally alone growing up, with the implication that it's because she was separated from her biological family. No one else wants a healthy baby girl who got a lot of media attention when she was found.
Giving up a child for adoption is shown to be a sign of moral weakness and a failing. A family that can't afford to care for two children is terrible for giving up one of them. A teenage girl in prison who's been abandoned by her child's father is considered to have made the wrong decision for giving up her baby.

But they thought they addressed the problem by declaring that Regina was a wonderful mother who had a "mother's touch" and whose key character trait was being maternal. Never mind that they showed us:

She sent children to their deaths to the Blind Witch
When Hansel and Gretl didn't want to be adopted by her because their father was alive, she separated them from their father
When Owen didn't want to be adopted by her, she murdered his father, leaving him alone in the world
She tried to give infant Henry back because he cried a lot
She smiled and was glad when Henry was heartbroken after she set up a situation that would allow Henry to hear Emma say she didn't believe him
She sent Henry to therapy to convince him that he was crazy for believing the truth
She left Henry at home alone all Saturday while she went off to have sex
She held the town hostage to force Henry to stay with her
She wiped Henry's memory so he wouldn't know that she was scheming to murder his whole family
When an impostor replaced Henry, she didn't notice
When she was sad about a breakup, she told Henry to stay away and locked him out of his home

Featherhat · August 9, 2020

On 8/7/2020 at 10:47 PM, tennisgurl said:

Emma acting like Hansel and Gretel going to foster care is basically a fate worse than death, it not only suffers from some very outdated ideas, but is also a byproduct of another issue in the show, the almost comical levels the show would go to to make Emma's life suck. Sorry, I still cant buy that beautiful blond healthy Emma, who even got press coverage when she was found by the highway, was never adopted, or even that, when she was dumped by her potential adopted parents, she wasn't snatched up by another family instantly.

I guess this was just a by product of the fairytale aspect. Emma can't have been adopted because she needed a grimdark backstory. Other shows these days do try and provide some sort of explanation for why healthy white babies weren't adopted immediately, even if it also doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I think foster parents get even more of a bum rap than adoptive parents do in most TV shows and movies in general anyway.

For me the key part of the early Regina/Henry/Emma relationship was always the point where Emma who wanted the hell out of Storybrooke and didn't want to interfere before had the realisation Regina didn't love Henry due to her superpower. Everything started with that. That and the fact that Regina was an all around psychopath and stayed like that until the end. I can see where that veered into anti adoption territory but in S1 it was always clear to me it was a Regina specific stance rather than "the bio mother is the only true mother". Having a list of other instances where they portrayed adoptive parents as bad or lesser is interesting though. Clearly they over fixed one and then wrote towards it as part of the big Regina is the most best person ever stuff but didn't in general. Though clearly some of it like the Prince vs the Pauper family for James also plays heavily into fairytale archetypes and narratives. You can't ever be happy to be adopted by royalty and the king is always and asshole who just wants an heir not an actual child otherwise you're a person who is ashamed of themselves, is arrogant and/or hates poor people.

It would have been interesting to see how they handled it if Emma had a decent adoptive or longterm foster parent she loved and how that would have affected Snowing who desperately didn't want to give her up the second she was born with her Dad risking his life to get her to the tree cabinet. But equally someone else *would* have been able to be there and be a parent when they weren't. I suspect it wouldn't have been nuanced either.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Featherhat

Speakeasy · August 9, 2020

You could have given Emma a nice foster family who all died in a house fire which left her so traumatised she didn't make a good impression on any of the others.

I think I might be stealing that from another show but I can't remember which one.

Anyway I still think that you've basically got a story where the birth mother's concern then love for her birth child is the main thing that keeps her in town to save both him and the whole of his community and their TRUE LOVE is the thing that saves everyone. Meanwhile Regina even wanting to adopt a child rather than making one of her own the normal way is a sign of her deficiency and emptiness, see how she tries to 'adopt' Hansel and Gretel in the flashback. Same idea-she wants a real, loving relationship but can't have it so she tries to get it by force.

The fact Emma isn't maternal and doesn't want to be a mother are:

in the first case, irrelevant, because things like skills and resources are shown to be the things that villains rely on, see

1) Regina insisting on how she's the one whose taken care of Henry, which is worthless because she doesn't really love him.

2) Rumplestiltskin becoming the Dark One to protect his son from death and persecution, which drives Bae to flee the universe because he's so horrible.

3) Cora insisting that she's doing everything for Regina's own good, refusing to let her ruin her life 'after everything I've done!' just before killing her boyfriend, after years of Vader-choking her when she spoke out of turn.

George fits in their somewhere because he's a king with huge resources who adopts/kidnaps Charming, but as has been pointed out we didn't know if his relationship with James was good or bad in season 1.

I want to put something in the Should Have Happened thread about George because there's a big missed opportunity there.

I also do realise half my examples are bad bioparents. But I'm giving examples about how making your main goal the safety and/or opportunities for your child are seen as the priorities of evildoers.

2) The fact Emma doesn't want to be a mother is part of her hero's journey, it's one of those famous WALLS of hers she has to let down along with having friendship and a love interest (which she didn't have on season 1 but everyone knew was on the way at some point). Accepting a mutual love with her child is one of those things she needs to do in order to heal herself as well as saving the town. Giving him up for adoption when she had pretty good reason to think she couldn't look after him could, in fact, be read as a big mistake because he ended up being taken in by someone evil who made him unhappy (and was ultimately the cause of all his mother's misery; I'm sure there's some kind of allegory for poverty in there somewhere)

I'll say actually that while I don't THINK you were meant to read her giving him up as a mistake, rather than her being a tragic victim of circumstance- I do think it adds an extra layer of drama that she probably gave him away hoping someone with Regina's wealth and status would take him in and give him the life she couldn't, and that she'd quite possibly feel a breach of trust that, all magic shenanigans aside, someone with so much could still make him feel so awful when they should have been looking after him.

-So that all bring said I'm not sure if a more positive depiction of one or more adoptive/foster parents would have changed things a lot. I may have jumped the gun there. I'm not sure who could fill the role there and be a major enough character, Jefferson could have been part of an interesting storyline if he'd been a major character. I think @Shanna Marie once posited a backstory for Hook where he was an urchin adopted by a noble family, I don't think George would give adoption a good name since he'd probably always be a bad guy.

Graham? I mean he seemed to like his wolf, I get the impression he preferred his adoptive wolf family to humans. That being said if he always cried when they killed a deer they'd probably laugh at him and call him a wimp.

I also think the comments about his badly they depicted the foster system and how every other instance after season 1 besides Gina and Henry seemed to dig in their heels on the 'blood is all' stance are pretty accurate. To say nothing of the awkwardness of essentially rewriting time through dialogue to erase abuse.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Speakeasy

Camera One · August 9, 2020

2 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

I also do realise half my examples are bad bioparents. But I'm giving examples about how making your main goal the safety and/or opportunities for your child are seen as the priorities of evildoers.

I think this was one of A&E's favorite strategies for humanizing villains. So they would be doing bad things for "good" reasons and thus more grey and "complex". They continued to recycle this concept in Season 6 with The Black Fairy and Season 7 with Lady Tremaine.

The other strategy was literally giving a baby to villains (eg. Regina, Zelena, Maleficent) so their actions could be motivated by a child.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · August 9, 2020

5 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

You could have given Emma a nice foster family who all died in a house fire which left her so traumatised she didn't make a good impression on any of the others.

That would actually have fit well within the fairytale framework and still had the desired results on Emma. Say, she gets adopted as an infant, since beautiful, healthy baby girl mysteriously found in the woods with no sign of a family is going to have a waiting list to adopt her. She lives with a loving, caring adoptive family until she's about ten (the age her mother was when her mother died, for symmetry), then something happens to her adoptive parents (fire, car wreck, plane crash, etc.). They don't have extended family to take her in, so she lands in the foster system, and a 10-year-old is a lot harder to get adopted than an infant. Having had a good home and then being thrown into foster care would certainly lead to WALLS because it would have been a harsh contrast rather than the only life she ever knew. Then she runs away a few years later to find her birth parents so she'll have a home.

I guess in this scenario Pinocchio would have had to be adopted separately, or he did get adopted with her but got in with the wrong crowd and still ran away when he was young enough that she wouldn't have recognized August? And you've got to wonder what he told the authorities when they were found. Did he claim to be her brother? Did he tell them his name was Pinocchio? He wouldn't have known that he was a character in a story (and Disney movie) in that world, so he'd have had no reason to give a fake name. You've got to wonder what they'd have thought about a kid claiming to be Pinocchio.

5 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

I'll say actually that while I don't THINK you were meant to read her giving him up as a mistake, rather than her being a tragic victim of circumstance

I don't know, I kind of got the impression that they meant to show that her giving him up was wrong, especially in later seasons when that was contrasted against Regina The Perfect Mother. There was that rewind when she and Henry were given fake memories of her always having raised him, which made it look like that time around she made the right choice (with no mention of how she managed to pull off looking after a kid. Was she dragging around a small child when she ran into Cleo and got into the bail bonds business?). There was that weird echo of her saying she needed to give Henry his best chance when Cora abandoned Zelena because she needed to give herself her best chance. And there was the way they kept bringing up the effect on Henry of being given up, with her protests about not having really had a choice and doing it to give him his best chance coming across a lot like Neal's "I had no choice" about sending Emma to prison. Then again, the show seems to have really thought Neal had no choice, so that may just be the way I took it.

It did seem like in seasons one and two that they presented it as the only choice Emma really could have made, but then when they started whitewashing Regina and trying to downplay the heroes, it was recast into some kind of selfish or cowardly choice.

6 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

Meanwhile Regina even wanting to adopt a child rather than making one of her own the normal way is a sign of her deficiency and emptiness, see how she tries to 'adopt' Hansel and Gretel in the flashback. Same idea-she wants a real, loving relationship but can't have it so she tries to get it by force.

Though that goes beyond just having a child. Instead of having a mutual romantic or even sexual relationship, she controls Graham via his heart and forces him to have sex with her. Nottingham was in town, and they'd hit it off in the past, but it doesn't seem like she ever tried to honestly get together with anyone. She just used Graham as a sex toy. So that seems like less an indictment of adoptive parents and more just Regina being Regina, not being able to deal with someone she couldn't control, wanting it all but not being willing to compromise.

6 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

I think @Shanna Marie once posited a backstory for Hook where he was an urchin adopted by a noble family,

Ah, one of my favorite bits of headcanon -- little Hook dumped in a port town the next time the ship where he was abandoned by his father came in to port, fending for himself, then rescued from street toughs by Liam, the son of a prominent admiral, who then adopts Hook. It would have explained his abandoned child backstory plus his fancy education and rapid rise in the navy, plus his hero worship of Liam (and Liam's rapid rise in the navy). Then there was a bit about how the admiral learned what the king was up to and raised objections, so the king sent him on what amounted to a suicide mission, and then the mission Liam and Killian were sent on was also meant as a suicide mission to tie off all the loose ends. That makes more sense than two random guys getting to be officers because they found a gemstone, and they still manage to move up in the navy with minimal training.

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

I think this was one of A&E's favorite strategies for humanizing villains. So they would be doing bad things for "good" reasons and thus more grey and "complex".

Up to a point, it can work pretty well, since parents will do just about anything for their children and that provides a strong motivation, but I think they overused it to the point of cliche, and then they retconned things so it was diluted. That initial revelation that Rumple had rigged the whole curse so he could reach his son made for an interesting twist, but then they showed repeated other means of traveling between worlds, plus his son was in a place he could have reached at any time when the curse was cast, and he had means of knowing exactly where his son was. And then they never got into the complexity of how many lives he destroyed to reach his son and what his son thought of that. I don't think Cora was ever really doing anything for Regina's sake. She was doing it for herself, planning to rule through Regina or through Regina's child (the reason Regina drank the potion to make herself barren). But then that didn't make a lot of sense for Cora's character. She wouldn't have been happy pulling the strings for someone else. A terrible tragedy would have struck all of Henry Sr.'s older siblings and she'd have ended up as queen.

I think that "doing it for the kids" was mostly used to absolve the villains (and as a writing shortcut for a quick and easy motivation). Then they showed that the Charmings were willing to sacrifice their child for the good of their people (but Snow wasn't willing to sacrifice Regina for the good of her people). So I guess the villains were supposed to be better parents?

Camera One · August 9, 2020

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

She lives with a loving, caring adoptive family until she's about ten (the age her mother was when her mother died, for symmetry), then something happens to her adoptive parents (fire, car wreck, plane crash, etc.).

These Writers exaggerate everything so they couldn't have Emma grow up in a loving environment for ten whole years. That would have made her well-adjusted. After all, Snow's life pretty much blew apart when she was quite young (given the option of saving her dying mother or killing someone else), and yet apparently, she continued to believe in love and didn't have Walls™ (except when she did).

Quote

And you've got to wonder what he told the authorities when they were found. Did he claim to be her brother? Did he tell them his name was Pinocchio? He wouldn't have known that he was a character in a story (and Disney movie) in that world, so he'd have had no reason to give a fake name. You've got to wonder what they'd have thought about a kid claiming to be Pinocchio.

As Adam once said, "Filling in the blanks. Fun!" Except think Mad Libs instead of a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet.

Quote

I don't know, I kind of got the impression that they meant to show that her giving him up was wrong, especially in later seasons when that was contrasted against Regina The Perfect Mother. There was that rewind when she and Henry were given fake memories of her always having raised him, which made it look like that time around she made the right choice (with no mention of how she managed to pull off looking after a kid. Was she dragging around a small child when she ran into Cleo and got into the bail bonds business?).

I think A&E would say that the fake memories would be fuzzy with few details.

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with her protests about not having really had a choice and doing it to give him his best chance coming across a lot like Neal's "I had no choice" about sending Emma to prison. Then again, the show seems to have really thought Neal had no choice, so that may just be the way I took it.

These Writers are all about telling rather than showing. If they said the characters had no choice, the characters had no choice! Until they write a scene where they express regrets about their choices, or when they intentionally create situations where the characters actually did have a choice.

Quote

Up to a point, it can work pretty well, since parents will do just about anything for their children and that provides a strong motivation, but I think they overused it to the point of cliche, and then they retconned things so it was diluted.

That pretty much describes their writing style, truly.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · August 11, 2020

On 8/9/2020 at 4:15 PM, Camera One said:

These Writers exaggerate everything so they couldn't have Emma grow up in a loving environment for ten whole years. That would have made her well-adjusted. After all, Snow's life pretty much blew apart when she was quite young (given the option of saving her dying mother or killing someone else), and yet apparently, she continued to believe in love and didn't have Walls™ (except when she did).

Snow still had her father up to adulthood, and the parents she had until she was ten were her birth parents. Even when she was cast out as an adult, she immediately found a friend who helped look after her. Emma would have the double whammy of knowing her birth parents had abandoned her, then losing her adoptive parents and getting thrown into the system. Her having known love and security would make foster care even more of a jolt instead of it being the only life she'd ever known, and it would amplify the fact that she didn't know who she was or why her parents ditched her. She'd have lost two sets of parents. Someone who'd known love and lost it might be more likely to put up WALLS.

On 8/9/2020 at 4:15 PM, Camera One said:

These Writers are all about telling rather than showing. If they said the characters had no choice, the characters had no choice! Until they write a scene where they express regrets about their choices, or when they intentionally create situations where the characters actually did have a choice.

I got the impression that Neal being defensive about not having a choice and Emma being kind of eye-rolling about it was an actor headcanon, the only way they could play it with any truth. The writers might have really believed they'd shown that Neal had no choice and Emma acknowledged that, but then the actors played it like Neal knew he really could have handled it better, but claimed not to have had a choice as a defensive posture, and Emma was like, "Yeah, sure, right, whatever."

With Emma's adoption choice, they did the mirrored scenes of her giving Henry up and refusing to even hold him, then the reset, when they made it look like in the fake memories she made the right choice. Then later, there was the scene in which Snow told her how she came to give Henry the storybook, and she mentioned Henry being depressed about being adopted and knowing his birth mother had given him away. Emma got defensive (sounding a lot like Neal) in insisting that she didn't have a choice and was doing what was best for Henry (or something like that), and Snow said that was the way Henry felt. This was in an episode when Emma and Henry were at odds and Emma was depicted as not being a great mother. I believe it was in the same episode when Regina and Henry had a TLK in spite of her not having her heart, and after they all had their memories back, they fell into easy conversation, like they'd always had this relationship in which they chatted about what was going on in their lives, something we'd never seen them do before. The show seems to be framing it as though Emma made a mistake and was wrong to give away her child. But at the same time, they show the relationship between Henry and Regina to be perfect and healthy and close, but it wouldn't have existed if Emma hadn't given him up.

Their retcon to supposedly show that adoption can be a positive thing and that adoptive parents aren't evil ended up being their usual warping of the laws of the universe around Regina. Elsewhere in the show, they keep showing that blood ties are magically superior to adoptive ties, they show that foster parents are evil, and adoptive parents aren't as good for kids as their birth parents are, and giving up a child for adoption is abandonment, regardless of the circumstances. But Regina is the perfect mother as an adoptive mother, never mind all the emotional abuse they showed in season one or the fact that Henry and Regina were never shown to be close or affectionate before the retcon. He wasn't old enough to be chatting with her about her romantic life the last time he lived with her. That's not something he'd have casually chatted about like they'd never been apart.

Shanna Marie · August 15, 2020

This discussion of adoptive families vs. birth families and some discussion about how Rumple and Belle more or less ditched their son on the "Beauty" thread got me started thinking about how screwy their depiction of families was.

To a large extent, this ended up being a show about families and about how they're formed, aren't always about blood, and can sometimes be messy. They started the series with Emma's lonely single-candle on a cupcake birthday and ended Emma's time on the show with the big family dinner with all the crazy interconnections of stepparents, adoptive parents, birth parents, siblings, half siblings, and grandparents together. "They're family!" became something of a rallying cry. A family connection was like a get out of jail free card and meant that they'd move heaven and earth to save someone or even stop them from facing the consequences of their action. Snow let Regina skate after they took back the kingdom because she was her stepmother, then Regina got to go free after the curse because she was Henry's mother, and they were willing to sacrifice everyone else in town to keep her from dying to stop the failsafe she set up because she was Henry's mother. They moved heaven and earth to save Rumple when Hook poisoned him because they'd just learned he was Henry's grandfather (Snow was also trying to stop Cora from becoming the Dark One, but that was only an issue because Emma, Henry, and Neal went into "he's family!" mode and rushed him back to Storybrooke). Emma knew why Hook had poisoned him and what he was guilty of, but all that mattered was that he was family.

A big part of Emma's character arc was realizing that her family was "home." There was a lot of talk about pulling together or supporting each other because "that's what family does." Henry talked about wanting holidays with more than two plates on the table. Most of the characters had lost family members, so finding or creating some kind of family was important to them.

And yet they also had these same people ditch the families they'd made or found. There was Robin leaving Roland with Little John rather frequently, and ultimately ditching his kid entirely to go on a half-baked mission to rescue a guy he barely knew, which ended up leaving his kid an orphan. After all Rumple and Belle went through to end up getting their son back as an infant and get a second chance at bringing him up, they ditched him while he was still a young adult, before they had a chance to see what he made of his life, before he had a chance to marry, before they knew if they'd be grandparents. They went off on their own to a world where time passed more quickly so that she would die in some weird scheme to get to a point where he could die, and then he went off to another world after that to try to find a way to stop being the Dark One and die, with no mention of whether he ever saw his son again. He couldn't have just waited a few more decades until after Belle aged naturally and Gideon was older, maybe with adult children, before he decided it was time to die? And we had Henry, the kid who dreamed of having a big family around, ditching his whole family to go adventuring in another world. As far as we could tell, he never saw his younger sister until after he was sent back in time and ended up back in Storybrooke. He also never saw his grandparents in all that time. People do leave home and have adventures, but they're usually able to at least get back and visit, and people who previously felt isolated and longed for family tend not to entirely ditch that family once they've found it.

So it's a show that's about family, with family trumping everything, but you can also just ditch your family, going off on your own or leaving them alone, if you develop other plans for your life. Your kids don't need parents if there's something else you'd rather do. Family becomes unimportant to you and you don't need to be around them or in touch with them if you decide you want something else.

Camera One · August 24, 2020

I finished Season 7 with my visiting friend today, and I think her positive attitude about Season 7 rubbed off on me a little. I guess A&E's intentions do come through for some people. She was saying that she found this show very hopeful after watching some of the episodes in 7B (I think it was "Chosen"?... I guess she liked how people got second chances. She also said she liked how the show explored so many different kinds of relationships like parent/child, siblings, etc. She said she liked the new characters. I said I missed Emma and Snowing, but she said she could see why they didn't have Emma because she was kind of "boring"... well, I'm assuming they would have kept Emma if Jennifer Morrison had agreed to stay.

Did we know Robert Carlyle was out for Season 8 definitively? I am assuming if they had gotten another season, Mother Gothel and Dr. Facilier would have stayed on, and probably Ivy and Victoria as well. Gothel was a Rumple-esque character making deals and such. Well, Dr. Facilier made deals too.

CCTC · August 31, 2020

I made it through season 3 on my rewatch, and since I will never be able to watch the rest by the time it leaves Netflix the end of the week, I have been skipping around.

I just watched a handful of episodes from season 4A. I had forgotten Gold sadistically taunted Hook for episodes after stealing his heart and made sure he knew multiple times he was going to die as he forced him to hurt the people he wanted to show he had changed. Also, Gold really not caring that everyone was going to die really should have not been something that really should have been a point of no return where reforming the character was no longer an option. I felt Belle realizing that Rumple always chose power as his true self should have been the end of the story. The one thing I thought was out of character for Gold was wanting to save Henry. He would not have lost a minute of sleep if Henry perished.

The Shattered Spell defense really did not make a lot of sense. The main characters locked themselves, so they could not hurt themselves, but left the rest of the town running around free. Also, how effective was the spell, if all the townsfolk were under it for a significant period of time, but as soon as it broke they were all able to dust themselves off and laugh as they walked to the diner. I will say that the episode ending with Snow and Charming letting go of each other's hand and the change of their expression without them saying a word was well done.. It really set up an ominous feeling that was then followed up by being played almost fully for laughs in the following episode.

Robin and Marian leaving StoryBrooke should have also been the end of his story. It still gave Regina a chance to make a noble sacrifice, and its not like they really did much with him after they brought him back except kill him to give Regina round 2 of missing Robin.

The actress playing Anna did a good job with the character, but they really needed to tone her down a notch. The full cartoon character did not translate well with the rest of the show. While they did a good job with the Frozen characters, after that they really seemed tied down to simply brining in the Disney animated characters into the show rather than doing their own twists.

The end of the arc really had a couple of lazy developments to wrap up the story. Oh - hey look - there is Anna's necklace that should have been forever buried and crushed, but if conveniently showed up when the ice cracked by my feet. I wish Anna was here - good thing I am holding said necklace - and it conveniently grabbed them at a time prior to the trunk filled with water - although it seemed like they should have long perished. Also convenient it pulled up a bottle with a letter that Anna's mother wrote that showed up last minute with just the right words to make the Snow Queen instantly change her mind and stop her plan and sacrifice herself.

Shattered spell Evil Queen might have completed the transformation of the character from true bad ass to mainly camp.

Bo Peep really should have been in more than one episode and could have been a recurring character that caused trouble from time to time. Also, if in the EF she had basically a full army, wouldn't she have returned with them to David's farm and burned it down and crushed them. Just because David was able to defeat a couple of goons, does not mean he would have been able to withstand the full brunt of her force.

Even though it is in the background, the author stuff is already annoying. For that and other reasons, I will completely be skipping 4B.

CCTC · September 5, 2020

I will comment more later - but as I wrap up the season 5 two part finale, how did I forget about Henry's NYC speech that saved the day? This is time I will never get back....

Shanna Marie · September 6, 2020

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

I will comment more later - but as I wrap up the season 5 two part finale, how did I forget about Henry's NYC speech that saved the day?

That may be the worst moment in the whole series. I won't call it the shark jump because the series was well past the shark by then, but it was possibly the low point, the most cringeworthy bit that's hide-behind-the-sofa embarrassing.

CCTC · September 6, 2020

11 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

That may be the worst moment in the whole series. I won't call it the shark jump because the series was well past the shark by then, but it was possibly the low point, the most cringeworthy bit that's hide-behind-the-sofa embarrassing.

I swear there is a couple of reaction shots of Emma where she is supposed to look proud, but instead it seems like Jennifer Morrison is trying not to laugh. They knew Henry's acting skills by then, why did they have so much of a finale on him, although I was more irritated that he was so much of the focus on the season 6 finale when it was the swan song for so many other original cast characters.

Watching Henry both try to destroy and save magic in short order, remembering how he flipped back and forth on that throughout the season, a shot of him in Gold's hotel room where he momentarily looked deranged when he realized what he did, and how his best acting was when Pan was in his body, maybe they should have just had Henry go evil Dark Henry might have been more interesting.

I won't go into too much of the Land of Untold Stories, because it ended up a non-event, but the fact that they spent two episodes setting it up (they were really good about stopping any dramatic momentum by an arc finale by completely shifting gears and dropping any fall-out and shifting immediately into the next shiny object) that they clearly had different plans of what season 6 was going to be than what it actually was. T really ran out of time, and barely rewatched any of season 6, but they had about 4 plot lines going on and none of them really gained any momentum because they would be featured in an episode and then dropped for the next 5 shows. It really is amazing that they made Aladdin, Jasmine, and Jafar such ultimately non-events.

After watching Gold be all unrepentant evil in both arcs of Season 5 and what he did most of season 6, there is no way he should have been at the Last Supper. I still think his last arc should have been him going all Big Bad. I generally think Carlye is on of the best actors of the show, and he hardly ever showed any subtext that Gold had any trepidations about going down the dark path when he needed to do so. Occasionally he would show underpinnings of cowardice, but not of a conflicted conscience. Even at season 5, he still clearly disliked everyone except for his creepy obsession with Belle. He also clearly feels his is superior and looks at everyone else with disdain. Since my season 5 and 6 rewatch was mainly the first episode and then conclusion of the final arcs, not only his evil stood out, but his ineptness. He made everything overly complicated and his arrogance always tripped him up. In retrospect he was not as clever as he thought he was and his condescension might not have been exactly warranted. Watching season 5 and 6 in short order, Gold's development seemed like he was on the path to fully embrace the darkness, not to spend decades living in a cottage with Belle reading poetry,

CCTC · September 6, 2020

General thoughts about Camelot. Nothing that has not been said, but what a waste of a legendary kingdom and a largely good cast, especially Merlin, Arthur (who really could have been a complex flawed character), and Nimue (who really did exude evil and could have been a great foe to end the arc). I know they thought they were being clever with the mystery of how they ended back in StoryBrooke, but each episode having a flashback, time in Camelot, and a Storybrooke flash forward really sliced up the time, so they really were not able to explore anything in depth. Merida was a misfire as it was, but the fact that she took away time from an largely unexplored Camelot just made it more annoying. I did not catch much of her in my rewatch, but just seeing her standing in the background with her dollar store wig looking like she was from a different show, showed out of of place the character was. I think I said this at the time, but when Emma used her to train Gold because she as a hero, would have had so much weight if she had used Snow or David instead, who were also heroes and underused at the time.]

Emma's time as the Dark One also ultimately seemed like somewhat of a non-event. It is like they wanted her to be the dark one but not do anything truly evil. She did take Violet's heart, which was wrong but nothing compared to what other big bads had done. She tormented Gold and Merida, so even as the Dark One, she was doing good deeds. Her big evil act was one of misguided good intentions of turning Hook into a Dark One, and then the show had him do all of the bad acts such as crushing Merlin's heart. I will say Hook's portrayal of being the Dark One was more entertaining and gleefully evil. I understand why they went the more restrained route with Emma, because they probably wanted it to be different than Rumple and she was not fully consumed by it, but it might have been a bit too restrained. With her voice and stiff posture, it often seemed like she was just suffering from a cold or had a sore back.

One thing I noticed watching this arc finale this time around having watched season 6 in the past, how Emma had evolved from a woman who took action, often too impulsively, too someone who seemed shell shocked and worried and was much more passive. She was never really active in vanquishing a big bad again - Hook talked her into killing him -- Zelina killed Hades (which made sense from a story standpoint) - she let Gideon kill her (which granted was a big act of courage). None of her plans at fighting evil ever worked out after a certain point in the series.

Gold absorbing all of the Dark Ones was never really a factor in him being a greater threat. You also think his heart would have turned black again in a much quicker fashion, but that was never mentioned again either. The first time I watched it, I kind of convinced myself he partially took back the power because he could not have Belle, but on rewatch I kind of think he was trying to send her away because he really wanted to be evil and powerful without her standing around and frowning and saying there is good in you (no - there is not and never was).

Zelina also seems to show no remorse for what she had done and that the fact everyone was soon going to die and was actually gleeful about it. You think since they were most likely already planning on starting her redemption the next arc, they would have at least shown her having some momentary pangs of regret that everyone was going to die. I was more tolerant of gray character Zelina, maybe because they did not always try to paint her as a hero or lament on how she deserved a happy ending, but she really was unworthy of not having a villain's end.

Two moments I laughed out loud in the arc finale. When Henry scolded Emma and said she had not proved she had changed like Regina and Gold (granted Regina really had changed by then, but had a few misfires and Gold really ahd done nothing to show he had changed - his turning into a hero was forced upon him and he had already secretly gone evil, and even ignoring that, had not that long past controlled Hook's heart and was going to let the town destroy itself with the frozen sight curse. The other moment is when he said how the underworld was worse than you can imagine. Maybe for Hook who was tortured, other than that they ended up spending most of their time in the diner. David was even able to get groceries. Cora did have to haul flour around.

Edited September 6, 2020 by CCTC

CCTC · September 6, 2020

My last long convoluted post about the show - the Underworld.

It actually was not a bad concept, and had some decent episodes. My biggest complaint was that it was that they had too many episodes on the Mills family, when they could have explored Snow having unfinished business with her Mother. David could have had more than two scenes with his brother, especially since the actor was available. It was nice to see some of the characters they brought back - such as the blind witch and especially Cruella (who would have been more interesting running the place than Hades. They could have even had that be their same-sex love story and kept the Zelina factor in there). It is always fun to see Pan, but Gold's joy at killing him a second time just highlighted that he is not someone who deserved a redemption. I am not saying Pan deserved a second chance or that Gold should have felt any love for him, but anyone with human emotions should have felt some pang of regret for having to kill their father not revel in it (and really it was not even necessary, he could have left him in the Underworld to face a judgment by someone more impartial).

Hades could seem menacing at times, especially at the beginning, but mainly his trying to seem menacing was just distracting. His whisper speak with halts, seemed like a cross between a spoof on a 80's soap hero and a creepy stalker. Also, if they wanted to push the big true love Zelina story, they might have wanted to go with someone closer to her age. This might have been one of the times to not follow the Disney version and go with someone who had a bit more of a charisma that you can see generating some passion in Zelina. Even though Snow and Charming were supposed to be this true love -- you could tell by their looks they wanted each other - same with Hook and Emma. Zelina and Hades generated none of that chemistry that you thought would trigger a true loves kiss (and should have a true loves kiss even worked when Hades was clearly working Zelina at the time and probably did not actually love her?) Between that and Ruby and Dorothy having a true love kiss when they barely knew each other really cheapened that plot device.

One quick random thought about the season 6 finale. The Hook Charming adventure. Why did they not do more fun adventure flashbacks in the EF? About midway through the series, every flashback seemed to end in misery or was dreary from the start. They needed more fun adventure for fun adventure sake. Explore some of the wonder of the realm without it ending in death.

I have rambled on long enough. I no longer have Netflix access, so this most likely be my last post like this for quite a while. I do kind of wish I would have stepped up my rewatch a month ago and caught more of seasons 5 and 6, and possibly the season 7 finale (not sure I would have watched any more of season 7). If I don't eventually subscribe to Disney Plus, I will probably buy season 1 at some point, and possibly a couple of other random episodes (season 3 finale etc).

As much as I have mocked the show, I will miss having access to it, and there were some legitimately good episodes. Generally it was well cast and fairly well acted.

CCTC · September 6, 2020

One more random thought -- more noticeably from watching parts of multiple seasons over the summer. As much as Snow and Charming were used less in the later years, they really did not know how to utilize Belle. There are a couple of episodes where they really had to contort themselves to find a way to work her into certain arcs for a couple of epsides.

And one more, since I just watched the Henry fountain scene. The awkwardness between him and Violet was all the more apparent, because I had just watched the Hercules episode, which was not necessarily great, but he and young Snow did a good job seeming like they were crushing on each other. And a final petty comment, why was Violet dressed like an American Girl doll?

Speakeasy · September 7, 2020

@CCTC regarding Rumple's characterisation. I think I read an interview where Carlyle said he thought of Rumple as a solid baddie and didn't think he should get a happy ending. Is it possible there was a bit of dissonance between the writing and the acting?

Camera One · September 7, 2020

2 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

@CCTC regarding Rumple's characterisation. I think I read an interview where Carlyle said he thought of Rumple as a solid baddie and didn't think he should get a happy ending. Is it possible there was a bit of dissonance between the writing and the acting?

I wonder if that eventually changed... Carlyle supposedly cried when he read the script for "Beauty" in Season 7 (according to Emilie de Ravin).

Edited September 7, 2020 by Camera One

AnotherCastle · September 7, 2020

I think starting with killing Baelfire/Neal, Robert Carlyle was unhappy with the writing on a lot of things in general, like here and here for example.

Shanna Marie · September 7, 2020

2 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

I think I read an interview where Carlyle said he thought of Rumple as a solid baddie and didn't think he should get a happy ending. Is it possible there was a bit of dissonance between the writing and the acting?

It was the writing that had Rumple proposing with a fake dagger, putting Belle to sleep so he could conduct evil scheming behind her back, plotting to let everyone in town die, scheming to get his power back, etc. If anything, the acting humanized him because he always sounded utterly sincere when he was vowing to be better. And Belle was never treated like an idiot for believing in his good heart, even when he was dying because he'd been so evil that his heart turned to charcoal.

On 9/6/2020 at 9:16 AM, CCTC said:

I understand why they went the more restrained route with Emma, because they probably wanted it to be different than Rumple and she was not fully consumed by it, but it might have been a bit too restrained. With her voice and stiff posture, it often seemed like she was just suffering from a cold or had a sore back.

I think the real problem was that they didn't have any kind of thesis for what they were saying about Emma being a Dark One. The thinking stopped right at "wouldn't it be shocking if Emma was turned into the Dark One?" It might have been interesting to explore what happened when a good person who wasn't tempted by power became the Dark One -- did it work like a possession or could they resist it? Was evil inevitable? Or they could have explored what happened when someone who already had power became a Dark One, so the power wasn't tempting. Or what happened when someone didn't choose to become a Dark One or did it for unselfish reasons. Then they could have compared it to what we saw with Rumple. With Emma, they were so inconsistent, and inconsistent with the mythology they'd already established. Like, there was no reason she had to change her wardrobe. She might have got the sparkly skin like Rumple, but she didn't have to suddenly change clothes when she went darker (and why would saving someone's life make her go darker?). It got even sillier with Hook, where he went from one all-black outfit to another when he remembered that he was a Dark One.

I wonder how much they even planned of all this. Did they already know that Hook had become a Dark One and Emma was desperately trying to save him when they wrote that first episode cliffhanger of Dark Emma coming into the diner and blaming all of them for not saving her? Emma's Storybrooke behavior in the first half of that arc made no sense in light of what we later learned was going on. Emma's struggles in the Camelot flashbacks made some sense as she fought what was in her and held on to her humanity. The stuff after she went full Dark One and started wearing black didn't work at all. That's where it's clear that even if the writers knew what was going on, they didn't bother to let the actress know, so she was making up a characterization that ended up not fitting what was actually happening, though you can hardly blame her if they stuck her in that outfit and makeup.

As I've said before, if we're going with what actually is happening and what Emma's true agenda was, she'd have made herself look normal (as we saw she was able to do when she had the date with Hook) and would have pretended that they saved her. Then she wouldn't have had to worry about them digging into what she was up to because they were worried about her. She might have needed to find an excuse to keep Hook out of her house so he wouldn't be drawn by what was in the basement, but he wouldn't have had a reason to poke around if he didn't think she was in danger or up to anything. Swanning (hee, couldn't resist that one) around town in black with dramatic hair and makeup was just asking for everyone to try to intervene.

Come to think of it, did she drag the sword with the stone in it into the basement of the house she bought, or did the sword and stone just happen to be brought by the curse to the basement of the house Hook and Henry picked out for Emma? If she put it there, then it would have been smarter for her to have had a secret lair that Hook wouldn't have known about rather than putting it in her basement. Or put it in the basement of that house but not let on yet that she'd bought it and instead spend time at her parents' place or on the Jolly Roger (that way, Hook might not have noticed that he wasn't sleeping).

Camera One · September 19, 2020

I read this article a few weeks back, so I probably posted the link to it already. I still find it weird how this person reviewed "Once Upon a Time" by watching 3 episodes, and didn't choose to watch the pilot.

https://www.deseret.com/entertainment/2020/8/24/21330675/is-once-upon-a-time-worth-watching-abc-netflix-tv-show

I suppose the flashbacks on this show are out of order normally anyway, so it matters less if episodes are watched randomly? But it's still weird, since this is definitely not a show I would recommend to someone to jump in anywhere (which might be possible with a procedural).

Edited September 19, 2020 by Camera One

KingOfHearts · September 21, 2020

Man, those episodes really are random. "An Apple Red as Blood" and "Good Form" are both great episodes, but they mean so much less out of context. The first one is built up across most of S1 and sets off the climax, and the second is payoff for Hook (and the Captain Swan ship). It's a shame they had to throw the garbage that is "Mother's Little Helper" after those two. For someone just jumping in to watch an episode or two, I'd pick one of the mid-arc stories like "True North."

Camera One · September 26, 2020

From our favorite media source: "Once Upon a Time: The Main Characters Ranked by Intelligence"

As usual, it was so dumb that it gave me a good laugh.

Unfortunately, few of the characters on this show were allowed to exhibit the presence of half a brain, especially in the later seasons. I think it made a difference in how enjoyable the show was.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · September 26, 2020

On 9/19/2020 at 12:35 PM, Camera One said:

I still find it weird how this person reviewed "Once Upon a Time" by watching 3 episodes, and didn't choose to watch the pilot.

This is one show where I don't see how you can skip the pilot and still have it make any sense, since the setup is so convoluted, and I don't think it's concisely explained elsewhere in the series. I guess they occasionally refer back to the curse, but to get the rest of the series, you have to understand how the fairytale characters are living in modern America with different identities even though they used to live in a fairytale world and were living out the fairytale stories (but in a different way), how Emma is the daughter of two characters who are the same age she is and who she doesn't really know, and who Henry is and how he's the son of both Emma and Regina, even though they've just met.

On 9/19/2020 at 12:35 PM, Camera One said:

I suppose the flashbacks on this show are out of order normally anyway, so it matters less if episodes are watched randomly?

I was going to say that the present-day part of the story is so serialized that it would be hard to follow out of order, but when I thought about it, I realized that it's really the worst of both worlds. It's so serialized that it's not the sort of thing you can just jump in on anywhere in the series and understand it, but the episodes don't really flow one to the other. The present-day story is usually a self-contained chunk of the larger story that seldom has any kind of impact on the rest of the story, other than maybe revealing something. The centric model means that generally nothing carries over to the next episode. One episode will focus on a character, something major will happen to that character, and the next episode will be about a different character, so we don't see any fallout from the events of the previous episode. At the same time, I'm not sure you could understand what's going on in each episode without having seen some of the previous ones.

And then there's the issue that very little that really matters happens in the middle of an arc. You could watch the first episode of an arc and then the last two without missing much. You can skip entire arcs and still be able to follow the next season because nothing really has long-term effects.

On 9/21/2020 at 2:44 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Man, those episodes really are random. "An Apple Red as Blood" and "Good Form" are both great episodes, but they mean so much less out of context. The first one is built up across most of S1 and sets off the climax, and the second is payoff for Hook (and the Captain Swan ship).

I think "Good Form" might actually work as a standalone. You don't need to have a lot of knowledge of series lore to understand what's going on. The flashbacks have nothing to do with any ongoing story arcs, and just understanding the concept of Captain Hook and Peter Pan will tell you most of what you need to know. I guess you'd need to know about David being poisoned, but how that happened doesn't matter much. The Captain Swan stuff would be deeper if you'd seen season 2, but there's enough here to get the gist of him being into her and them having a bit of sexual tension bickering going on that leads to the kiss. It's a fairly standard-issue TV relationship situation. So, if you're at all familiar with the Peter Pan lore and have watched TV before, you could probably follow this episode and possibly even enjoy it, though you might be a bit confused about how Emma's father is her age and how she and Regina are both Henry's mothers.

Camera One · September 26, 2020

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I was going to say that the present-day part of the story is so serialized that it would be hard to follow out of order, but when I thought about it, I realized that it's really the worst of both worlds. It's so serialized that it's not the sort of thing you can just jump in on anywhere in the series and understand it, but the episodes don't really flow one to the other.

It really is the worst of both worlds. But at the same time, maybe the show is simplistic enough that someone could get the general gist simply by assuming that in most episodes, there's a "bad guy" doing bad stuff to the "good guys", and you just need to figure out who the "bad guys" and the "good guys" currently are. The reviewer seemed to clue in on the main idea in the convoluted mess that was "Mother's Little Helper", which even included the incomprehensible Henry Author nonsense. So much dialogue on the show is just boring exposition fairy recaps/explanations, that maybe a parachuting viewer could sort of understand it (with the help of the previously's as well). KingofHearts made a good point that jumping right into "Apple Red as Blood" really doesn't allow you to get the payoff from watching in order (when there was actual payoff... sort of, back in Season 1).

Edited September 26, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · September 28, 2020

I wonder what someone who watched some random episode without having seen the pilot and without having heard anything about the show would think was going on. There's a part taking place in what looks like modern America, and then there's a part in a sort of quasi-Medieval meets 18th century fantasy world with the same actors playing fairy tale characters, who mostly have different names and are in totally different roles, with some of them having totally different personalities. Would you think these are actually flashbacks or dream sequences, or some kind of parallel storylines with the same actors playing different characters? In the present, there's Mary Margaret with short hair, being a meek schoolteacher who's super close to Saint Regina, the person everyone in town drops everything to help, and then there are random scenes of the same actresses, with Mary Margaret now being called Snow White and being some kind of warrior woman with a sword and a bow, and Regina dressing like some kind of goth drag queen and tormenting her and everyone else.

It would be very confusing. But aside from that issue, the centric nature of so many episodes might make them stand alone to some extent, since a lot of times, the flashbacks have nothing to do with the present plot. They just fit a theme or explain some bit of backstory that only matters to that one episode, and in the present there's not a lot of flow between episodes. There's no emotional fallout from the previous episode, so you don't have to worry about that. Whatever plot there is in what they're doing to counter the villain is generally self-contained, the tactic of the day. It's pretty procedural-like -- villain seems to be doing something, heroes try something to stop villain, it may succeed in stopping that particular tactic, but fails at stopping villain entirely, or it turns out that it was all a setup by the villain to get the heroes to do something that furthers the villain's scheme.

Camera One · September 28, 2020

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Would you think these are actually flashbacks or dream sequences, or some kind of parallel storylines with the same actors playing different characters?

I am curious what people would think too, and how these viewers would explain what they're seeing. Mary Margaret and Snow White look so different that some people might not realize they're the same character. It's more obvious for the others.

However, I suppose if they already knew the general premise of the show (or if they google searched and read a single sentence) - basically, "fairy tale characters were transported to our world", then they will realize they're flashbacks, and it wouldn't be too tough to get the gist of what's happening.

The friend I watch with said the cliffhangers make this show really addictive, so I think that's what A&E count on. People watch an episode and then they're "Hooked". It might be popular on streaming because people can immediately see the next episode, whereas they need to be bothered to remember to tune in the following week.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Camera One

Shanna Marie · October 4, 2020

On 9/27/2020 at 10:26 PM, Camera One said:

The friend I watch with said the cliffhangers make this show really addictive, so I think that's what A&E count on. People watch an episode and then they're "Hooked". It might be popular on streaming because people can immediately see the next episode, whereas they need to be bothered to remember to tune in the following week.

I would think it's a mixed bag for binge watching. The cliffhangers do encourage you to keep watching, but then how many times would you get burned by a cliffhanger with a disappointing resolution or that was just dropped? When there's a week or months between episodes, you might just remember being eager to see the next episode without remembering the details. When you watch the next episode right away, the continuity problems would be more obvious, and the bad conclusions to the cliffhangers would be more annoying.

There are some good ones, like going from season 2 to season 3, where we leave off with them heading to Neverland, and then pick up on the journey to Neverland. Or 3 to 4, where we see Elsa arrive in Storybrooke, and then we get to see Elsa interacting with Storybrooke and reacting to it. But then there are things like going from 4A to 4B, where the blank storybooks don't really amount to anything, and there's never an explanation, in spite of devoting an arc to the Author, in which it's revealed that Merlin is the Sorcerer whose mansion the books are in, and then an arc involving Merlin. At the moment, I'm drawing a blank on any ordinary episode cliffhangers, other than the painful ones like going straight from the revelation that Hook is a Dark One to a one-off episode that has nothing to do with that story (though I guess if you're streaming or binge-watching, you can skip that episode and go straight to the one that follows up, but if you aren't aware of the situation, you might not know that episode isn't going to deal with that story, so you might watch, waiting for it to get to it).

This is a slightly different topic, but I thought of it while mentally scrolling for cliffhangers ... it's funny how the writers were so afraid of spoilers that they didn't set things up, but when there were good times to withhold information, they didn't. The one that jumped out at me was the fact that when our characters met Hook, he was pretending to be someone else and they didn't know he was Captain Hook, but the audience had been introduced to him in an earlier episode and already knew he was working with Cora. It's a rare case of an "audience superior" situation, in which the audience knows more than the characters. But it might have been more interesting if that was the first time we'd seen him, and we saw his origin story flashback later. What if we'd met this maimed blacksmith who'd barely survived Cora's killing spree and then learned along with our characters that he was really Captain Hook? How would that have affected the way we saw Hook? I suspect they were going for surprise elsewhere, since what they went for was the big surprise that the young, handsome guy who was taunting Rumple was actually Captain Hook, once we saw him lose his hand. Not that it was a huge surprise, since they'd been promoting the fact that Hook would be the new villain, and I think they'd even announced the casting. There were pictures of Colin in the entertainment magazines. So we knew when we met the pirate that he would end up being Hook. I doubt it would have been any different if they'd introduced him posing as the blacksmith. We'd already have known that this guy was really Hook (well, those who followed the news; not every viewer would have known), but we wouldn't have known his story or that he worked with Cora.

Camera One · October 4, 2020

16 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

The cliffhangers do encourage you to keep watching, but then how many times would you get burned by a cliffhanger with a disappointing resolution or that was just dropped? When there's a week or months between episodes, you might just remember being eager to see the next episode without remembering the details. When you watch the next episode right away, the continuity problems would be more obvious, and the bad conclusions to the cliffhangers would be more annoying.

The inter-season cliffhangers would definitely be more disappointing. Though what I've noticed when I've binged-watched with her, is that there are so many distractors and you're constantly pelted with new information or shifts from one character to another, that within a season, it's easy to forget plot points, including the dropped ones, and the storyline is often so convoluted that your brain can gloss over continuity issues.

Quote

The one that jumped out at me was the fact that when our characters met Hook, he was pretending to be someone else and they didn't know he was Captain Hook, but the audience had been introduced to him in an earlier episode and already knew he was working with Cora. It's a rare case of an "audience superior" situation, in which the audience knows more than the characters. But it might have been more interesting if that was the first time we'd seen him, and we saw his origin story flashback later. What if we'd met this maimed blacksmith who'd barely survived Cora's killing spree and then learned along with our characters that he was really Captain Hook?

That's an interesting question. I wonder if we as the audience would have felt betrayed along with the characters, that he wasn't a victim of Cora but her accomplice? I guess they had already done the fake-out with Lancelot by that point, right?

Shanna Marie · October 11, 2020

On 10/3/2020 at 9:39 PM, Camera One said:

I wonder if we as the audience would have felt betrayed along with the characters, that he wasn't a victim of Cora but her accomplice? I guess they had already done the fake-out with Lancelot by that point, right?

The thing with Lancelot might have added to the twist. The audience expects him to be Cora in disguise again, but then it turns out it really is him, and then it turns out he's actually Captain Hook and he's working with Cora!

But the problem remains that the whole scheme of getting Hook to infiltrate Team Princess makes no sense. The only reason for that plot is to introduce Hook to Emma and have them go on an adventure together, either to set up the future romance or as some kind of chemistry test. The risk/benefit ratio doesn't work at all. On the risk side, there's the danger that Hook will flip and join Team Princess the moment he's either threatened or gets a better offer (which is how he's working with Cora to begin with). Or there's the risk Team Princess will overpower or doublecross Hook and get the compass themselves. And by sending Hook to infiltrate Team Princess, it lets them know about the compass in the first place. The only benefit I can think of is that it keeps Cora from having to climb the beanstalk herself. If they'd skipped the whole scheme, then Cora and Hook could have climbed the beanstalk, got the compass, and headed to Storybrooke while Team Princess was still wandering lost in the woods, trying to think of what to do next. The only thing that might make sense is if it wasn't a plan, if Hook really was freaked out by Cora's killing spree and hid, and he was attempting to scam Team Princess on his own to find his own way to Storybrooke without Cora, then ended up deciding to team up with them, and when Emma betrayed him and Cora caught up with him, he spun it to Cora as a plan on her behalf.

Camera One · October 11, 2020

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

The only benefit I can think of is that it keeps Cora from having to climb the beanstalk herself.

I wonder what kept her from apparating up there.

daxx · October 11, 2020

16 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The only thing that might make sense is if it wasn't a plan, if Hook really was freaked out by Cora's killing spree and hid, and he was attempting to scam Team Princess on his own to find his own way to Storybrooke without Cora, then ended up deciding to team up with them, and when Emma betrayed him and Cora caught up with him, he spun it to Cora as a plan on her behalf.

Isn’t this what happened? I was always under the impression that Hook got in trouble with Cora because he went off script and went up the beanstalk without her. Once Emma betrayed him he flipped back to the original plan and Cora. Which is why he had to regain her trust taking Aurora’s heart.

Any port in a storm as it were.

Camera One · October 11, 2020

I just read the synopsis to remind myself. I had forgotten bracelets had to be worn to climb the beanstalk, so I guess it was guarded by magic (though thank goodness she simply had the magic to enchant the bracelets that let them climb up, eh?).

I've always wondered why Cora wasn't keeping tabs on Hook, and what she was so busy doing when Hook and Emma were climbing. These "all-knowing" villains are usually conveniently MIA for an episode or two at a time

Shanna Marie · October 11, 2020

6 hours ago, daxx said:

Isn’t this what happened? I was always under the impression that Hook got in trouble with Cora because he went off script and went up the beanstalk without her. Once Emma betrayed him he flipped back to the original plan and Cora.

I may need to rewatch to be sure (that's one I don't mind rewatching), but my impression was that it was some kind of plan that Cora set up and was in on, and the reason Hook was tap dancing with Cora after Emma betrayed him was that he was flipping and would have stuck with Emma if she hadn't betrayed him. I thought Cora had set Hook up to join Team Princess and win their trust. The question is how much of it was the plan -- was he supposed to stick to the wounded blacksmith story, win their trust, and stick with that persona to do ... something? and he just gave up on that when they figured out he was lying? Was the plan always to con them into helping get the compass from the top of the beanstalk by him pretending to flip, and the problem was that he really did? Or did Hook actually steal the cuffs and hide from Cora when she went on her killing spree and was hoping to join Team Princess to find his way to Storybrooke by offering to help them get back? The latter is the only thing that makes sense, but I thought I was giving Hook too much credit in going with that. I seem to recall us having had a discussion here about whether Hook stood by Cora with the slaughter or whether he was genuinely freaked out and that was part of why he was willing to join Team Princess.

Speaking of the killing spree -- why? She did later use the bodies as zombies, but again, she wouldn't have had any problem with Team Princess if she and Hook had gone to get the compass right after she got the wardrobe ashes, and they'd headed straight to Storybrooke. They wouldn't have needed the zombies. She wasted time and gave Team Princess a fighting chance by delaying to commit mass murder (and possibly set up an overly complicated plan).

If she didn't want to climb the beanstalk herself, she could have ripped out the heart of one person from the haven and ordered them to go with Hook. If she was part of setting it up for Hook to get Team Princess to help, she overly complicated the story.

6 hours ago, Camera One said:

I've always wondered why Cora wasn't keeping tabs on Hook, and what she was so busy doing when Hook and Emma were climbing. These "all-knowing" villains are usually conveniently MIA for an episode or two at a time

Yeah, she slaughtered the haven, either sent Hook off on the "infiltrate Team Princess" mission or didn't bother to figure out what Hook was up to, and wandered off to do what? I think that may be part of why I have the impression that she was part of setting up the plan and Hook wasn't going entirely rogue. If he'd just stolen the cuffs and hid from her before flipping, you'd think she'd have gone after him, stopped him, and got the cuffs back instead of giving him the chance to make new allies. But then if it was her plan, it was a really dumb plan, based on what she already knew about Hook.

I'm afraid it comes down to the writers not thinking about why the characters were doing things but just writing what they wanted them to do to make their plot work.

Camera One · October 12, 2020

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Speaking of the killing spree -- why? She did later use the bodies as zombies, but again, she wouldn't have had any problem with Team Princess if she and Hook had gone to get the compass right after she got the wardrobe ashes, and they'd headed straight to Storybrooke. They wouldn't have needed the zombies. She wasted time and gave Team Princess a fighting chance by delaying to commit mass murder (and possibly set up an overly complicated plan).

If she was controlling their hearts as part of the army, did she actually kill all those people? Murdering everyone in the safe haven would have been pretty horrifying.

Shanna Marie · October 13, 2020

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

If she was controlling their hearts as part of the army, did she actually kill all those people? Murdering everyone in the safe haven would have been pretty horrifying.

If I recall correctly, she did kill them all. It was a different kind of heart ripping than we later saw her and Hook do with Aurora or Rumple did with Hook in season 4 or Regina did with Graham, where they showed no physical sign of it and it was entirely bloodless, with the victim still alive and walking around, just with the person who had their heart controlling them. Team Princess got to the settlement and found a bunch of dead bodies with gaping holes in their chests, and then they found Hook in his "blacksmith" mode buried under some rubble and totally freaked out. Later, Cora did magic to raise the dead bodies to make them attack Team Princess. The bloodbath, in which she slaughtered everyone in the settlement, is one of those issues where we've debated Hook's culpability -- if it was part of the plan and he stood by to watch, then pretended to be a would-be victim who hid as part of the scheme to infiltrate Team Princess, it looks a lot worse for him. Or was it less calculated, he really was freaked out and hid while she killed everyone, and he really did want to join Team Princess as a way to get to Storybrooke without Cora because he'd realized Cora was too much even for him? But then when/how did he get the bracelet things for climbing the beanstalk? Had he already stolen them, or did she leave them behind when she left after the slaughter to do whatever, and he got them, then hid again and pretended to be buried under rubble when Team Princess approached?

Didn't Mulan recognize "blacksmith" Hook from the settlement? Which meant he must have been living there under that guise for a while for him to have been there before she and Philip headed off to find Aurora. I guess Captain Hook was notorious enough that there was some advantage to hiding his identity and the fact that he was in league with Cora, though I'm not sure exactly why, since that would have been going on probably since time started moving, long before Cora had any idea there even was going to be a Team Princess. I can see hiding that Cora's henchman was Captain Hook, since she seemed to be pretending to be benevolent, but there was no real reason to hide that the "blacksmith" was her sidekick. He doesn't seem to have been hanging around the settlement while Emma and Snow were there, but maybe he was in the background and not someone they interacted with, and that might have given him the chance to observe them to help set up his later ruse with them. But then that makes it seem like he was in his blacksmith outfit at the settlement, then when he and Cora met to discuss their plans (at the end of "The Crocodile") he put on his pirate garb, then he changed back into his blacksmith outfit to go back to the settlement. Or was the blacksmith outfit just his black vest pirate outfit without the long coat? My impression of it was that it was a different doublet rather than just the vest that he usually wore under the coat.

Camera One · October 13, 2020

4 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

If I recall correctly, she did kill them all.

That is really horrible. There's a special place in the light for that type of atrocity. I vaguely remember being quite horrified by it, but when I read a synopsis, it was written like she simply took their hearts.

Quote

But then that makes it seem like he was in his blacksmith outfit at the settlement, then when he and Cora met to discuss their plans (at the end of "The Crocodile") he put on his pirate garb, then he changed back into his blacksmith outfit to go back to the settlement. Or was the blacksmith outfit just his black vest pirate outfit without the long coat? My impression of it was that it was a different doublet rather than just the vest that he usually wore under the coat.

LOL. Maybe Cora had some other dastardly clever plan that we never got to find out.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Camera One

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