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

[Shanna Marie]

On 11/1/2021 at 12:14 AM, scarynikki12 said:

I still can't get over Regina telling Tink that Snow "had my fiancé killed" like she called up the local mafia don, asked for a favor, and then Daniel got two in the back of his head.

With them treating it as though Snow really was in the wrong and was at fault for Cora murdering Daniel, they missed the opportunity to address the issue of privilege, that it was Snow's privilege in growing up with a loving mother who only wanted the best for her that made her easy prey for Cora. She wasn't capable of believing that a mother could be cruel, so her natural assumption was to believe that telling Cora about Daniel was the right thing to do, since any loving mother who knew her daughter was in love wouldn't force her to go through with marrying someone else. So, even though Snow wasn't really to blame and thought she was helping Regina, she got into that because her life had been pretty easy up to that point, so she couldn't understand what Regina was going through with a mother like that. That would have been a way to make Regina a victim compared to Snow that actually had some truth to it.

Though I guess the idea of Snow being privileged was somewhat undermined by the later revelation that Cora had murdered her mother.

Anyway, although they did sort of glance against the idea that Snow had it good and Regina was a victim, they were so focused on the narrative of Snow really being in the wrong (despite them having set up a pretty airtight case in which she was trying to help Regina and was a naive 10-year-old who was being manipulated by a master manipulator who was later able to manipulate an adult Regina who knew full well what she was) that they didn't bother exploring the idea of how different Regina and Snow's lives were because of the parents they had and how that played into what happened to Daniel.

On 10/31/2021 at 11:47 PM, Camera One said:

Having watched the whole series, it's interesting to think of the different strategies Regina could have used. 

She could have tried not being a heinous bitch, for starters. Just saying thanks to Emma for bringing Henry home and instead of blaming her for giving him up, maybe thanking her. There was a scene in the episode of Call the Midwife that aired in the US this weekend in which a nurse who's an adoptive mother was talking to a young pregnant woman who was planning to give her baby up for adoption, and the pregnant woman said something about the adoptive mom thinking badly of the birth mothers, but the adoptive mom said they made brave choices, and she tried every day as a mother to live up to that choice so it would be absolutely certain it was the right one. If Regina had taken that tone with Emma, Emma probably would have just left town. And Regina could have tried actually being a mother to Henry. For all her talk about being the one to change diapers and soothe fevers, we never saw her being anything like a mother to him until the later retcons. She felt like she was in competition with his birth mother, but left him at home alone all day on a Saturday while she went off and had sex with her sex slave. If that was the way she was dealing with Henry before he went looking for Emma, then no wonder the kid was unhappy. If she'd made any effort to spend time with him, listen to him, or encourage him to pursue his interests, there probably still would have been the issue of no friends because he was the only kid who was aging, but he might not have felt quite so alienated if he'd had the kind of relationship with her that they later tried to pretend they'd had.

[CCTC]

On 11/2/2021 at 2:24 PM, Shanna Marie said:

(despite them having set up a pretty airtight case in which she was trying to help Regina and was a naive 10-year-old who was being manipulated by a master manipulator who was later able to manipulate an adult Regina who knew full well what she was)

I remember them having a throw-away line I think during the frozen spell where Snow yells at Regina "I was 10!", but did Regina ever acknowledge at any point - "Yes - my mother killed Daniel, it was not your fault - sorry for the misdirected rage."  Regina did some broad, generic apologies, but did she ever tell Snow - "you were not to blame for my psychotic mother killing my boyfriend".

When Cora, Regina, and Zelina were bonding in the Underworld, was that an issue that Regina and Cora cleared up -- "Hey - sorry I killed your boyfriend - that is all on me!"  I seem to remember it more about making amends for keeping Zelina and Regina apart then apologizing for murdering loved ones.  I suppose if you discussed some of Cora's small murderous digressions, then going into the light would have been all the more jarring.   It is possible they did discuss it, but I suspect this will not be an episode I watch again.

Kudos to Hershey for actually making me by the redemption just  a little bit.  I still think they killed her off prematurely.  She really could have been a kick-ass big bad for at least half a season.  They could have had her gain full power as the season 2 finale cliff hanger and deal with her the following season.  Regina would have to come to terms how bad her mother really is and join forces with the Charmings etc, and would have been organic to her coming to terms with who she was herself and how she came to be the way she was.  It would have been a more earned redemption.  Alternatively, they could have had Cora last at least until the end of season 2 and be at full evil the last 4 or 5 episodes instead of bringing in two of the weakest antagonists of the show's run, Tamara and ?Owen?.  

Edited November 4, 2021 by CCTC

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, CCTC said:

but did Regina ever acknowledge at any point - "Yes - my mother killed Daniel, it was not your fault - sorry for the misdirected rage."  Regina did some broad, generic apologies, but did she ever tell Snow - "you were not to blame for my psychotic mother killing my boyfriend".

I don't remember Regina even making a broad, generic apology.  Though the Split Evil Queen did say she was sorry.  I remember Regina acknowledging that she was a bad stepmother (understatement of the year).  I think it was part of this scene?  Sorry, gotta grab tissues, I'm weeping.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Camera One

[CCTC]

Wow - even in a scene where Snow recounts the deaths of her parents and Regina trying to kill her, she thanks Regina.  That said, as wrong as that was, the actresses did a good job with the scene. 

While she was way too forgiving, I felt  Snow-Regina friendship chemistry came off as a little more genuine than the "warm" scenes they tried to do with Emma and Regina in the later years.  It always felt the Emma-Regina bonding scenes played like deep down Emma did not mean any of the nice things she said.

[Shanna Marie]

23 hours ago, CCTC said:

They could have had her gain full power as the season 2 finale cliff hanger and deal with her the following season.  Regina would have to come to terms how bad her mother really is and join forces with the Charmings etc, and would have been organic to her coming to terms with who she was herself and how she came to be the way she was.  It would have been a more earned redemption.  Alternatively, they could have had Cora last at least until the end of season 2 and be at full evil the last 4 or 5 episodes instead of bringing in two of the weakest antagonists of the show's run, Tamara and ?Owen?. 

Either of these scenarios would have worked. Recognizing that Cora was the one to blame and was a villain should have been a big turning point for Regina that led to her redemption. I'd have been okay with losing Cora at the end of season 2, but they could have let her last until the end of the season rather than having the weak villains for the rest of the arc. It was weird that they ditched one of their best villains in favor of their worst ones. As for Regina, it was hard to buy her redemption after she watched Cora murder Snow's nurse in spite of Snow giving her what she wanted, and yet she still whined about Snow killing her mother like Snow's crime was worse.

11 hours ago, CCTC said:

While she was way too forgiving, I felt  Snow-Regina friendship chemistry came off as a little more genuine than the "warm" scenes they tried to do with Emma and Regina in the later years.

The weird thing is that they tried to have it both ways -- Snow loved Regina as a stepmother so much that she couldn't ever bring herself to hate her, in spite of everything Regina did to her (killing her father, trying to kill her, trying to keep her apart from David, the curse that kept her from bringing up her daughter and consigned her daughter to a lonely existence, messing with her and her husband's identities so that they both ended up sleeping with other people), but at the same time Regina's hatred was at least somewhat justified because she was unloved and isolated while living as Leopold's wife and Snow's stepmother.

[scarynikki12]

One of my favorite episodes of the series is the season 1 intro to Cinderella. Now, the actors playing Ella and Thomas aren't particularly strong so I suspect they were cast primarily based on how pretty they are. That's fine because I love Ella and Thomas based on the script. I wish they'd kept them around longer than the few we saw. I also wish we'd seen them reconcile with Thomas' dad after the curse broke since he actually loved Ella and would no doubt be an adoring grandpa. 

Watching season 1 again and I'd forgotten how often Jiminy, Blue, and Geppetto were around. I know it's to connect to the Pinocchio reveal but I got so used to them being offscreen during the rest of the seasons that it ended up being surprising.

[Camera One]

9 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Watching season 1 again and I'd forgotten how often Jiminy, Blue, and Geppetto were around. I know it's to connect to the Pinocchio reveal but I got so used to them being offscreen during the rest of the seasons that it ended up being surprising.

After Season 1, they lost interest in the supporting characters of the town, which was a big disappointment to me as well.  In "Lost", they still gave centrics to the second and third tier characters well into the series.  Call me strange but I always enjoyed them.  Another flashback for Blue or Granny would have been better than dipping into the same time periods over and over again ad nauseum.  There was so much wasted setup with all the ignored, forgotten payoff, like the reunion with Thomas's dad, as you mentioned. 

[andromeda331]

41 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

One of my favorite episodes of the series is the season 1 intro to Cinderella. Now, the actors playing Ella and Thomas aren't particularly strong so I suspect they were cast primarily based on how pretty they are. That's fine because I love Ella and Thomas based on the script. I wish they'd kept them around longer than the few we saw. I also wish we'd seen them reconcile with Thomas' dad after the curse broke since he actually loved Ella and would no doubt be an adoring grandpa. 

Watching season 1 again and I'd forgotten how often Jiminy, Blue, and Geppetto were around. I know it's to connect to the Pinocchio reveal but I got so used to them being offscreen during the rest of the seasons that it ended up being surprising.

I wish they had kept them around for that reason it would have been interesting. How did Thomas's dad feel about trying to get rid of his grandchild in his cursed state? Also Snow and Ella had been friends in the EF which had been fun to see. It would have been great to see them as friends during season one and after the curse broken. I also still think of Ella's comment when their going to trap Rumple wondering to Thomas and Charming if they should even be using magic. That's what got them into trouble in the first place. It fit with what seemed like season one's point about magic. It for the most part didn't really help or make anyone happy not even Regina or Rumple make their lives any better. 

[CCTC]

I wonder if the budget kept shrinking, because besides the second tier like Granny and the dwarves, you saw more extras filling up the café and in the street.   In later years, when there was a confrontation on the street, it was just the main cast.  I also wonder if they cut their fight coordinator/budget, because the battle scenes became just two people with their hands out shooting out magic.  The first season you had the dual Charming/Emma dragon scene, Snow and the dwarves storming George's castle etc.

I noticed in season 1, Raphael Sbarge (Archie) is in the opening credits, so am wondering if he was on a contract for that season.  He is also in the group promo pictures for that year.  I wish they would have kept building Red's role.  She had potential and there were a number of ways they could have gone with her and she did not need to be tied to one love interest.  Instead we got the endless cycle of Gold/Belle.

By the end, it was not just the recurring characters that got neglected, half of the main cast was not used as well as it could have.  It was mainly Regina-Emma-Hook-Gold and the others were worked into their stories.

[scarynikki12]

11 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I also still think of Ella's comment when their going to trap Rumple wondering to Thomas and Charming if they should even be using magic. That's what got them into trouble in the first place. It fit with what seemed like season one's point about magic. It for the most part didn't really help or make anyone happy not even Regina or Rumple make their lives any better. 

If they'd actually made an effort with the magic vs science or the anti-magic plots then it would have been interesting to see the points of view of characters like Ella. I think she'd have a more positive view of magic if she'd had more than two seconds with her initial fairy godmother but then Rump killed her and used magic to manipulate her, kidnap her husband, and try to ruin her life. When magic came to Storybrooke I think characters like Ella would have been afraid of all the harm it would bring and see being unable to leave as just another part of the horror they'd been experiencing since the curse was cast. 

Speaking of the curse, I was thinking the other day about how they went too subtle with the curse related world building. This was one of the few areas of season 1 where a touch less subtlety would have been good. What I'm thinking of is how the characters real personas were trapped deep in the subconscious of their cursed personalities. The most obvious season 1 examples are Ashley naming the baby Alexandra and the instant connection between Mary Margaret and David which let us know that Ella, Snow, and Charming weren't erased but actually buried deep inside. A more subtle example is from the pilot when Emma and Mary Margaret first meet. MM stares at her for a few beats too long which tells me that Snow, wherever she was in the depths of the cursed personality, was aware that her daughter had arrived and was fighting to get out.

The season 1 final moments and season 2 premiere had a bunch of character reunions and comments that showed they were aware of being cursed and how much time had passed but I wanted them to explore what it was like for these characters to be their cursed prisons for 28+ years and aware of what the false personalities were doing yet unable to stop them. Things like the baby being named Alexandra must have felt like a win for Ella so did moments like that give her hope that the curse would break? Did Ella freak out the first time she saw Thomas again even though they were cursed? Was Charming upset about David Nolan's actions with regard to Kathryn and Mary Margaret? Did Red and Granny cringe every time Ruby and Granny said nasty things to each other? Did Rump spend the whole time relaxing while he waited for Emma to arrive? 

We don't know because they let the characters have a few minutes to reunite and then jumped right into Team Princess and villain apologia. 

Finally, I hate that Henry wakes up, sees Regina's outrage that the curse was broken but ignores that because she said she does love him now. He doesn't have to be in favor of her being executed or anything like that but she made it clear that she was angry the curse was broken which means she was perfectly happy to keep imprisoning and a torturing his family, friends, and neighbors. She was still evil in spite of learning to love her kid. 

[tennisgurl]

14 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Watching season 1 again and I'd forgotten how often Jiminy, Blue, and Geppetto were around.

I thought the same thing when I watched season 1 for the first time in awhile, the supporting cast was so much more prominent. They were still mostly in the background and became increasingly underused even in season one, but they did have both episodes based around them and showed up a lot in various subplots. Its really too bad that they ended up being so forgotten when they had so much potential to add a lot to the show. I would have loved to have a real Blue flashback especially, it seems like they were setting up so much with her and the fairies, that they might have some secrets or that she had some longer term plans, but none of it ever happened. Blue was around for almost the entire show but it feels like we never really knew her outside of her interactions with other people, even more than the other supporting characters. We didn't even see them pop up as supporting characters or as a Greek chorus to the main plot after awhile.

Its especially annoying considering we had so many flashbacks of the same people over and over that never gave us any new information about them. Yeah we could get another flashback for Archie, or we could another Regina episode where she learns that she should love herself for the 8th time or watch Belle have a random run in with a new character where we learn nothing interesting about either of them.

[KingOfHearts]

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I would have loved to have a real Blue flashback especially, it seems like they were setting up so much with her and the fairies, that they might have some secrets or that she had some longer term plans, but none of it ever happened. Blue was around for almost the entire show but it feels like we never really knew her outside of her interactions with other people, even more than the other supporting characters.

While I wouldn't say Blue had to be evil to be interesting, it would've explained why the writers held back so long on revealing her backstory. The way she was treated as a character was a little bizarre because it was always seemed like more was there than what was shown. The writers really didn't like working with "good" characters. The Charmings were the few good characters that got stuff later but it was always bland and phoned in. 

[Camera One]

3 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

While I wouldn't say Blue had to be evil to be interesting, it would've explained why the writers held back so long on revealing her backstory. The way she was treated as a character was a little bizarre because it was always seemed like more was there than what was shown. 

I think they had a big problem with Blue because she could technically be very powerful and could solve everyone's problems, and they didn't want that.  But at the same time, A&E never bothered to come up with a coherent reason why.  As you said, Blue didn't necessarily need to be evil, but she could have known more than she let on and she could have chosen to let things happen because of her strict adherence to a code.  They sort of went that route, but very sloppily and inconsistently.  

The actress also did a good job with acting cagey, with an all-knowing holier-than-thou type attitude, so that added to the intrigue of the character.   I loved it when she was clearly judgey about Regina and Rumple.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

 I loved it when she was clearly judgey about Regina and Rumple.

And sometimes that didn't even seem like it was scripted.

[Camera One]

18 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

And sometimes that didn't even seem like it was scripted.

Yeah, I got that sense too.  I like this scene with Blue.  She talks slowly but it feels very deliberate.  Her expressions and tone also tell you exact what she thinks of Regina, but her brief glance at Henry shows warmth.  You can totally imagine her taking the book after the scene and doing some investigations of her own.

[Camera One]

I wasn't going to, but I watched half of Season 1 Episode 2 just now.  Maleficent asked Regina who gave her the Dark Curse and Regina wouldn't say.  But Maleficent and the Queens were tricked by Rumple to help him get the Dark Curse from Bald Mountain.  

I had forgotten that Henry had ripped out the pages of the book before Regina got hold of the book.  I wonder when he did that.  Still, it's still hard to believe Regina would let him get the book back, since there are so many clues he can follow about who's who in town.

In the second episode, you really want Emma to begin to see that there was something odd about the town.  For example, Henry told her to ask anyone, and their memories would be a fog.  Emma later asks MM how long Regina has been Queen, and Snow gives a vague answer but Emma doesn't seem to respond.  I also wanted her to recognize her own baby blanket in the illustration from the book pages that Henry gave her, but she doesn't because the blanket is green in the storybook.  Though you'd think she would have a double-take that the baby blanket did have the name Emma on it.  

I still found Maleficent underwhelming.  The villains with the "darkest souls" that Regina gathered to get their hair were pretty much anonymous except the Blind Witch.  Surely, they could have cobbled together a cool assortment of famous villains of yore.  And Maleficient and the other Queens, or Rumple, aren't needed?  Surely, their souls are even darker.

Anyway, the scene with Emma and the chainsaw was still really cool.  As were any scene she had with Mary Margaret.

Regina is just really stupid in this episode.  Emma told her straight out she's staying because of her hostility and Regina dials up the hostility and gets her arrested.  Does she seriously think Henry would believe Emma was out to con them?  

 

[scarynikki12]

I just watched the Frankenstein episode from season 2 and I'm annoyed all over again at how magic was handled on this show. Regina's problem wasn't that she used magic but that she used magic to kill and destroy. Rump kept claiming that magic came with a price but really meant that dealing with him and his bullshit always came with a price.

If magic truly came with a price every time it was used, no exceptions, then Rump healing Whale's arm would have shown some magical consequence. Instead he just had to ask Rump for magical help and the consequence was that this man of science had to admit that magic was what was necessary in this specific situation. If magic truly came with a price then Regina killing Daniel at the end would have brought with it a magical consequence. Instead it was the perfectly ordinary heartbreak at losing him all over again that Regina dealt with after casting the spell. 

They should have stuck to what Regina told Emma in season 1: magic is unpredictable in the Land Without Magic. Remove the bullshit price and show that using magic was risky because you weren't sure if it would go the way you wanted. If they wanted they could even bring some world building into it and explain that it's called The Land Without Magic because the realm itself repels magic and warps it in the rare situations where it's been used. Instead Rump brought magic to Storybrooke and it worked exactly the way that he, Regina, Cora, and the other featured practitioners wanted every single time. 

It was fun seeing Jefferson again. I'm glad Sebastian Stan went on to join the MCU and is finding success there but I enjoyed the character and how he played him. He hit the right notes that the character needed and was fun even when he was brokering deals for the Dark One and helping break Regina's heart all over again. 

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Rump kept claiming that magic came with a price but really meant that dealing with him and his bullshit always came with a price.

I totally agree.  I've always hated the magic comes with a price crap, because it was basically Rumple's victims who had to pay him.  If every time Rumple, Regina, Cora, Zelena, etc. waved their hand and did evil resulted in a price, they shouldn't have lasted that long.  

5 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

They should have stuck to what Regina told Emma in season 1: magic is unpredictable in the Land Without Magic. Remove the bullshit price and show that using magic was risky because you weren't sure if it would go the way you wanted. If they wanted they could even bring some world building into it and explain that it's called The Land Without Magic because the realm itself repels magic and warps it in the rare situations where it's been used. Instead Rump brought magic to Storybrooke and it worked exactly the way that he, Regina, Cora, and the other featured practitioners wanted every single time. 

That would have been so much more interesting to watch.  The villains pretty much got their way until the end of the arc, when they didn't.  

[tennisgurl]

On 11/5/2021 at 5:22 PM, KingOfHearts said:

While I wouldn't say Blue had to be evil to be interesting, it would've explained why the writers held back so long on revealing her backstory.

I kept waiting to find out that Blue, while heroic, was more morally grey then she was letting on or was more ruthlessly pragmatic then she liked people to know about. She's the leader of the only good magical faction in the show, maybe she knew things that the other characters didn't or couldn't know and she was doing other magical things from behind the scenes all along. I think it would have been interesting to find out that she was playing a long game, that the reason she appears so useless is that she actually wanted the dark curse to happen, maybe even manipulated Regina (like everyone else) to get her on that path, because it was necessary for some kind of greater good. Like something was wrong with the Enchanted Forrest and they needed to get to another land to fix it? 

Some of the reason she was underused, beyond the shows lack of interest in good characters, was also because the show has no idea how to use magic to actually solve problems, only cause them, so all good magic users are useless or can easily fall to evil the second they use their magic just a bit too much. No wonder there were so many people who hated magic in this world, magic only seems to do anything when the villains use it, good magic only seems to make things worse. 

[TheGreenKnight]

The Blue Fairy was easily the most underused character considering her potential to be a good character with powers. Emma was really the only other one. And Merlin, too, I suppose. I think it would've been interesting to involve the Blue Fairy in the Oz storyline, perhaps she could have turned out to be one of the good witches (Glinda?). If Zelena ended up in the Enchanted Forest, it wouldn't have been that hard to believe someone else from Oz could have done the same either before or after her. The Blue Fairy being Glinda would have fit so well considering the actress as well as the character of Glinda's own ambiguous nature in the 1937 film.

[Camera One]

I really think Blue would have done whatever it takes to get rid of the likes of Rumple and Cora/Regina.  Helping Baelfire was a win/win in terms of the security of the Enchanted Forest.  Blue also implied that Tinkerbelle should have just let Regina take a tumble off her balcony.  I like your idea of Blue being Glinda in Oz.  Maybe Blue finds out Cora sent her daughter there, and decided to test Zelena to find out if she were good or bad.  And Zelena fails the test.   Anything would have been better than that backstory... not sure if it was the Scarecrow who needed a brain or Glinda.

[andromeda331]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

I really think Blue would have done whatever it takes to get rid of the likes of Rumple and Cora/Regina.  Helping Baelfire was a win/win in terms of the security of the Enchanted Forest.  Blue also implied that Tinkerbelle should have just let Regina take a tumble off her balcony.  I like your idea of Blue being Glinda in Oz.  Maybe Blue finds out Cora sent her daughter there, and decided to test Zelena to find out if she were good or bad.  And Zelena fails the test.   Anything would have been better than that backstory... not sure if it was the Scarecrow who needed a brain or Glinda.

So do I.

[KingOfHearts]

On 11/9/2021 at 5:23 PM, TheGreenKnight said:

The Blue Fairy being Glinda would have fit so well considering the actress as well as the character of Glinda's own ambiguous nature in the 1937 film.

The Blue Fairy being sort of a "nega-Rumple" - being a world-hopping "good" character secretly involved in a lot of stories - would've been a cool concept.

I know it's been talked about before how much of a mistake it was to bring magic to Storybrooke at the end of S1, but you couldn't really break the Curse without doing that. Rumple and Regina would be dead as doorknobs. It made too much sense for Rumple to bring magic over with him somehow because there was no way in hell he was going to live in a land without magic. Having his cake and eating it too was true to his character. Regina would have to sleep with a knife under her pillow even if every main character came to like her because she displaced entire kingdoms and dethroned rulers. That's not even counting all the mass murdering she did in the Enchanted Forest. It really doesn't make sense the citizens of Storybrooke weren't constantly plotting to kill her. There's got to be a ton of Percival's, Jefferson's, and King George's. Lessening her crimes or redeeming her doesn't really fix that either. Could I believe the Charmings might eventually forgive her? Maybe. But the entire town? Yeah, no. 

Wouldn't the Charmings be crucified for supporting Regina? There would've been riots and wars in the streets. You can't tell me the Enchanted Forest was war-torn between a billion different small kingdoms and then everybody just lived peacefully on the same street in Storybrooke. If I were royalty reduced to a member of the middle class I'd be pissed. They were never given the choice to move back to the Enchanted Forest until the end of S7.

Edited November 24, 2021 by KingOfHearts

[TheGreatGrim]

I just found this thread a few days ago and I have been going through it. Really helping me with ideas for a full OUAT rewrite.

I'd like to expand on an idea mentioned on pg 53. There, people presented the idea that the LWM was the original land, and that losing its magic resulted in magic creating all the other realms as compensation. Using that, we could easily have the series finale being a villain working to reintroduce magic to the LWM, but at the price of all the other realms being destroyed since they were created by the very same magic which is now being sent back.

Instead of being whatever we got, the authors could instead be random people chosen by magic to have visions of the other realms-past, present and future. This is magic's attempt to link itself back to its origin world. However, the visions are often garbled and not clear, so when the authors write down the stories, its really a mix of multiple events separated by time.

For example, let's take the Grimm version of Snow White. Let's say they had three visions, each of a different time:

1. Most of the canon events we see in OUAT- the meat of the story.

2. A vengeful queen attacks a girl because she's jealous(or the girl's beauty led to the queen's lover leaving her for the girl, the specifics don't matter in this context). The girl and her new lover kill the queen by making her dance until she dies.

3. A prince saves a princess from choking on an apple.

These elements would all be combined to form Snow White, because unlike Rumple, they don't have over a century to decipher their visions, especially since the visions are of events that have taken place, are taking place, and will take place. This would also solve the plot hole for how Disney,a canonical author, was writing about fairy tales years before they actually played out.

Season 4 would feature the gang searching for the author because of their ability to see the future. Isaac would be a character who seeks to end the burden of the author,as the visions take a heavy toll. He was trapped in the book for attempting to push the burden  on an innocent person not in line to be his successor, not wanting his life to be dominated by the visions. Eventually, 4B would end with Isaac either dying and Henry getting the abilities, or Isaac finding a way to peacefully give it to Henry, who has been marked as the next Author. Merlin would create the quill in order to track down authors and explain their visions, and give them a book so they could faithfully record the events as they truly happened.

Let me know what you guys think!

 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by TheGreatGrim

[Shanna Marie]

A while back, someone brought up the hard magic vs. soft magic thing, and we were discussing how this related to the way magic was used in this show. I recently watched a lecture by author Brandon Sanderson on this topic, and it made me think of the way this show uses magic. The way he described "hard magic," it's magic that has some kind of rules and structure. You know what's possible and what the costs are. His example was the ring in Lord of the Rings. You know that wearing it makes you invisible, but when you put it on, Sauron can find you. "Soft magic" is more vague, and is not really understood. His example is Gandalf -- we don't actually know exactly what Gandalf can do or how he does it. Soft magic is more part of the aesthetic of the world, giving a sense of awe and wonder, than actually key to the plot. Gandalf's a wizard because this is a fantasy story, and he occasionally does something glowy that looks cool, but his magic doesn't have a huge impact on the plot. If the magic is going to be used to solve the plot, Sanderson says that the more the audience understands how the magic works, the more satisfying it is. If you've seen how something works in a lower-stakes situation earlier in the story, then you're more willing to accept it when that same thing is used at the end of the story to save the world.

Which, of course, immediately made me think of this show. I think the big problem with the magic in this series was that it was soft magic being used like it was hard magic. It was used by the main characters and was critical to the plot, and they tried to make it sound like there were rules by saying things like "magic always comes at a price" or talking about light magic and dark magic, but the magic was pretty vague and undefined. It mostly consisted of the magic users waving their hands and having glowy clouds happen. We never learned exactly what you could and could not do with magic or what it took to do it. Most of the time they just waved their hands instead of doing a specific spell, but sometimes they had to find a specific spell or magical item. When Regina tried teaching Emma magic, she started with a spell book, then got frustrated and just made Emma get emotional and have to use her magic to survive (actually, an emotion-based magic system would have been interesting with a WALLS character like Emma, if she only got power when she allowed herself to feel her feelings).

I think that idea about it being more satisfying when you know more about how it works really does apply well to some of the situations in this show. Take the season one finale -- would Emma's True Love's Kiss to save Henry have been as effective if the series hadn't opened with the Snow and Charming TLK? There's a general cultural thing about a TLK, especially from the Disney versions they used in this show, but if Emma had not only saved Henry and broken the curse with a kiss and it was the first time we'd seen a TLK work on the show, would it have been as satisfying a moment as it was?

Then there's the resolution of the 3B arc, the infamous Regina spewing white magic moment. They tried to set up some rules with the info that Zelena's power was in her necklace, so they had to get it away from her and it would take the most powerful light magic. But the problem was that we'd never seen any real difference between "light" and "dark" magic other than the color of the smoke, and we didn't know what it took to make someone's magic light instead of dark. Emma supposedly had the most powerful light magic, but we'd never seen her floating through the air and spewing light magic. Zelena had easily beaten Emma earlier. We didn't know why or how light magic would work when dark magic wouldn't. So, the way this was resolved came out of nowhere and made it a "huh?" moment instead of a "hell yeah" moment.

I actually think this situation was begging for a non-magical or anti-magical solution. If you can't defeat Zelena with magic and she loses her magic without the necklace, then don't use magic, or else use magic to neutralize her. They'd set up the kiss curse to take Emma's magic. Could they have put a kiss curse on Rumple to remove her magic, and then they grab her necklace? Or find some way to neutralize everyone's magic, so none of them have power and it comes down to a physical fight -- but can they beat her and get the necklace before Rumple finds a way to turn the magic back on, since he'd be freaking out without it? Or supposedly Regina's new boyfriend is a master thief. Could they have distracted Zelena and had Robin steal the necklace?

The 4A finale was a mess in a lot of ways, but Belle's takedown of Rumple was quite satisfying, and the dagger was one bit of magic that was relatively "hard." We knew that whoever had the dagger could control the Dark One. They'd also established with Robin and his family leaving how the town line worked, that once you were over the line, you couldn't find your way back into town, and magic didn't work over the town line. So when we saw that Belle had the dagger when she caught Rumple in mid-ritual, we knew what she could do, and when she made him take them to the town line, we knew what was likely to happen. That made for a nice "hell, yeah" moment that wouldn't have worked if we hadn't seen the dagger before and hadn't seen anyone leave town.

I think the book/Author stuff suffered by trying to make it "hard" magic without going all the way there. The book was better to me when they didn't try to explain it. There just happened to be this book telling their stories that appeared when they needed a jolt of hope. It was part of the aesthetic of the world. But coming up with the Author and the magic pen that could change fate when it used ink made of dark Savior blood took away any sense of wonder from the book without actually explaining any of it enough to make it satisfying when it was used in the plot.

[Camera One]

18 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

A while back, someone brought up the hard magic vs. soft magic thing, and we were discussing how this related to the way magic was used in this show. I recently watched a lecture by author Brandon Sanderson on this topic, and it made me think of the way this show uses magic. The way he described "hard magic," it's magic that has some kind of rules and structure. You know what's possible and what the costs are.

Quote

I think the big problem with the magic in this series was that it was soft magic being used like it was hard magic. It was used by the main characters and was critical to the plot, and they tried to make it sound like there were rules by saying things like "magic always comes at a price" or talking about light magic and dark magic, but the magic was pretty vague and undefined.

That makes a lot of sense.  When solutions are pulled out of the Hat with soft magic not truly bound by rules, it really makes both obstacles and solutions feel contrived and determined by plot convenience, which means it is very hard to be immersed in the story and the world.

It seems like on this show, potion making is soft magic.  It often felt completely random with no rules.  Season 6's obstacles with breaking The Evil Queen's curse on Snow and Charming, and Season 7's potion to save Adult Henry, both felt like undefined hocus pocus potion stuff and seemed like a way of killing time before the resolution at the end of the arc.

I agree "magic comes with a price" and the light magic/dark magic stuff were the biggest examples of this problem, yet A&E made them taglines so the show sort of revolved around them even though they were pretty much meaningless.  Price for whom?  If everyone has "light" and "dark" inside of them, then when is it light magic and when is it dark magic?  Especially with the double standards (changeable "rules") for what is considered light or dark depending on whether you were a deeply flawed hero, or a bold and bodacious villain with a sob story.

[Shanna Marie]

On 1/22/2022 at 2:08 PM, Camera One said:

It seems like on this show, potion making is soft magic.  It often felt completely random with no rules. 

I think just about all their magic was random with no rules, and that was the problem. You don't have to have a magic system so "hard" that you could use it as the basis for a D&D game and roll dice to know how a spell works, but there are some basics you really need to know if you're going to use the magic as a major part of the plot, especially to resolve the plot:

Who can use magic?
On this show, they seemed to have maybe four categories of magic users:
People born with it -- this would include Ingrid and Elsa and magical beings like the fairies. Maybe Emma, depending on how the Savior thing works, though it doesn't seem to be a genetic trait with her. Possibly Zelena.
People who gained magic because of something that happened to them -- this includes the Dark One, Merlin (and probably his Apprentice) who got power when he drank from the Grail, and genies. The Savior might fit in here, depending on how it works. The way they were talking about Emma being a True Love baby who was the curse-specific savior who was built into the curse would have fit here. Zelena might if it was the magical tornado that gave her powers, or she might have been born with them if she was the one who summoned the magical tornado. I guess season 7 Anastasia might fit, with becoming the Guardian being something that happened to her.
People who learned to do magic (with perhaps some innate aptitude) -- Cora, Regina, Drizella, and Ana (from Wonderland) seem to fit here. It's possible that an aptitude for magic ran in Cora's family, but it's interesting that when we've seen someone with powers take on a magic student, it always seems to work. Rumple gave Cora a couple of lessons and she's suddenly the most powerful ever. Ditto with Cora and Ana and later Regina and Drizella. So, if anyone who learns to channel their emotions can do magic, why are there so few people who have learned magic? Does it take a certain kind of teaching, and most people with power don't want to teach others? It's also interesting that Regina seems to have had to learn (and work at it, and initially wasn't very good) even though she was born after Cora started using magic, while Zelena, born before Cora discovered magic, seemed to have great innate power she used instinctively. You'd think it would have been the other way around, that the one exposed to magic in the womb would be more powerful.
People who can use magical potions or objects -- The Author only seemed to have power when using the magic pen with the magic ink. They were all over the place with potions, where it seemed to take great magic to make some potions, while others were things anyone could cook up and use by following the recipe. We saw non-magical people do spells, like David doing the spell to track down what happened to his father or post-genie Cyrus doing a location spell.

Then there's what magic can do, which is super-vague. Sometimes they can wave their hands and do anything. Sometimes they need to do a spell or make a potion. Sometimes the spell requires specific ingredients. Sometimes it doesn't. There doesn't seem to be any energy usage. Doing magic doesn't wear you out, make you hungry, or make you tired, unless maybe the plot needs it.

There really also should be an impact on society, but that's less of a plot thing. The bare minimum if magic is going to be critical to the plot and the resolution of the plot is to figure out who can do what and play fair with that. No "hey, I can suddenly shoot light magic out of my butt!" without defining light magic or showing that such a thing is even possible. Just showing one of the Oz witches floating into the sky and radiating light magic might have made it work better when we saw Regina do it.

[KAOS Agent]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The way they were talking about Emma being a True Love baby who was the curse-specific savior who was built into the curse would have fit here.

Except that Rumpel was surprised that Emma had magic beyond breaking the curse. S2 was still building off of S1, where is was said that Rumpel created the curse. Later they changed that, but the whole point of S1 was him creating the curse and using Emma's parents' True Love DNA to the curse to make her the Savior. Everything about it all got shot to hell once they cast the curse a million times, but their original premise seemed to imply that Emma was not magical, just that she was the designated curse breaker by way of the True Love magic added to the curse.

[Camera One]

 

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

People born with it -- this would include Ingrid and Elsa and magical beings like the fairies. 

There's also the Curious Case of Fiona, the Black Fairy, who turned herself into a fairy with a wand and has way more powers than even Blue, though I suppose it could be that Blue just tries to use her powers as little as possible even when the fate of the world depends on it.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Except that Rumpel was surprised that Emma had magic beyond breaking the curse. S2 was still building off of S1, where is was said that Rumpel created the curse. Later they changed that, but the whole point of S1 was him creating the curse and using Emma's parents' True Love DNA to the curse to make her the Savior.

My read on that in season 2, before you could have True Love with people you'd barely met and before The Savior was some kind of thing that happened all the time, was that this was an unintended consequence of all the tinkering Rumple did to set up the curse and Emma as the Savior. He just meant for her to be able to break the curse, but by creating all the situations that made Snow and Charming fight to be together (like Charming having to fight the dragon), and them having a TLK, it gave Emma unexpected magic. It was like he accidentally supercharged their True Love.

Of course, that was undermined in numerous ways later. In season 1, they were surprised that the kiss woke Snow. A TLK was so rare that it was literally magical, and it was a shock to Regina that this was able to break her sleeping curse (though there was the season 1 episode in which Charming asked Abigail if she'd tried a TLK, as though he was asking if she'd tried aspirin for a headache, so they weren't consistent, even then). They talked about how Emma had magic because she was a child of True Love.

But then they started using True Love's Kisses left and right, so that there were multiple children of True Love who didn't also have powers (by that logic, Liam 2.0 should have had magic powers as a child of true love, since his father managed to fall in True Love while under a sleeping curse and his mother fell in True Love with a man in a coma, whom she knew absolutely nothing about).

16 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Everything about it all got shot to hell once they cast the curse a million times, but their original premise seemed to imply that Emma was not magical, just that she was the designated curse breaker by way of the True Love magic added to the curse.

I think there was a hint even in the pilot that Emma might have some kind of magic to her, like with the sparks that occurred when she arrived in town. That could have just been the cursed environment reacting to the arrival of the Savior, so it could have gone in either direction at that point.

Anyway, all this is why I wasn't sure whether to put Emma in the "born with it" or "something done to her" category. I'm not even sure where The Savior, as portrayed in season 6, fits. They seem to have been born with the Savior designation, but then their power had to be activated somehow, but how were they designated Saviors? Did Emma get chosen by whatever force decides these things because she was also set up to break the curse, and Rumple accidentally created his own enemy that way? If so, then what made Rumple and Aladdin get chosen as Saviors? They're probably in the "done to them" category still, since it doesn't seem to be genetic.

Then there's Gideon, whom I totally forgot earlier. Does he have magic because he's the son of the Dark One, and his father being magic affected his DNA so he was born with magic? He seemed to have magic aptitude even in the reset when he wasn't taught by the Black Fairy, so it doesn't seem to have been another case of teaching and they turn out to have powers. Unless his father taught him and he got power that way.

The teaching thing makes you wonder why Rumple doesn't seem to have taught Belle to do magic. And if there's a school, why are there so few magic users?

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

There's also the Curious Case of Fiona, the Black Fairy, who turned herself into a fairy with a wand and has way more powers than even Blue

I'd forgotten about her (I seem to have repressed a lot of season 6), but I'd put her in the category of "done to her," even though she did it herself. And if it's possible to turn yourself into a fairy, you've got to wonder why no one else seems to have done so.

[tennisgurl]

On 2/5/2022 at 11:38 AM, Shanna Marie said:

It's possible that an aptitude for magic ran in Cora's family, but it's interesting that when we've seen someone with powers take on a magic student, it always seems to work.

Given that it seems really easy to learn magic, and it seems like most anyone can do it, the same way anyone can learn to be a cook or a carpenter with schooling and some natural talent, its weird that there are so few magic users in any world that we see. If its such an easy thing to pick up, you would think lots of people, even totally normal people with no aspirations towards being a hero or a villain, would be interested in something that can be so helpful. We're told over and over that magic has a price, but that seems to be more about using your power responsibly, not anything about the nature of magic in general. You would think people would use magic for all kinds of mundane things, like easily building structures, medical purposes, making travel and trade easier, its really off that magic is considered this very rare and mysterious thing when you would think it would get out by now that just about anyone can take a few classes from your neighborhood imp to get at least some basic spells. Most of the problems people with magic have or usually just because of their own bad choices, or because they have some other kind of magic then what seems to be common, like Rumple's Dark One powers that pull him towards the Dark Side, or Emma's Savior shakes, which seems to be more nerves than anything magic related. Even if there is something where some people are born magic and are more powerful, it seems like anyone can pick up at least a bit. 

If they were aiming to make this a soft magic system, it might make some sense that people don't learn magic very much, if its seen as this powerful and often unknowable thing to tap into which freaks people out due to its power, but then they try to add all of these hard magic rules that just makes things seem inconsistent and confusing. They also seem to have completely missed the greater narrative purpose behind having a hard or soft magic system in general. Usually in a hard magic system, the advantage to your story is that your magic has very specific rules and you can see how characters can use magic creatively, plus it makes the world feel more real and lived in. The advantage of a softer system is that you can make magic ethereal and mysterious, making your story feel more, you know, magical. This show added too many rules to be soft, but not enough rules to be hard, making it just really confusing.  

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

You would think people would use magic for all kinds of mundane things, like easily building structures, medical purposes, making travel and trade easier

That got me thinking about the Missing Year, and whether Regina used magic to make things a little easier on the population, and if they did, what the "cost" would have been.

These people had lived in Storybrooke for 28 years and gotten used to modern conveniences.  Were they all going back to their old homes?  Which were likely destroyed by Ogres?  Then, they had to chop down trees or dig up grasslands and rebuild their farms or villages?  People who used to be servants of nobles... did they just go back to doing that?   Despite being completely free people probably working in the service industry in Storybrooke for the last 30 years?   

All we saw was the royal castle, and Regina didn't magick any modern clothing for them to wear.  Surely, some fleece and ski jackets might have been more comfortable in a drafty castle than garb from the 1500s.  

What if people got sick or injured?  Did they set up a field hospital with antibiotics and modern medication?  I guess you don't need that when a magical wave of the hand would do, but who supplies that?

[KAOS Agent]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

What if people got sick or injured?  Did they set up a field hospital with antibiotics and modern medication?  I guess you don't need that when a magical wave of the hand would do, but who supplies that?

Don't forget, healing people makes you go evil. Or did that only apply to Emma because reasons. Seriously, I'm still so pissed that healing someone made Emma evil when we repeatedly saw Rumpel and Regina quickly and easily heal people without a second thought. No worries that it would turn them darker or had any kind of price at all.

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:16 AM, tennisgurl said:

Given that it seems really easy to learn magic, and it seems like most anyone can do it, the same way anyone can learn to be a cook or a carpenter with schooling and some natural talent, its weird that there are so few magic users in any world that we see. If its such an easy thing to pick up, you would think lots of people, even totally normal people with no aspirations towards being a hero or a villain, would be interested in something that can be so helpful.

Yeah, most of the magic training we've seen amounts to one session of "tap into your feelings and feel the power." There are no spells to memorize, you don't need a wand that's bonded with you. You just need to feel, and you can learn it all in one session and suddenly be all-powerful, able to do anything you want with the wave of a hand. When we've seen lengthy training processes, like Rumple teaching Regina and Amara teaching Jafar (on Wonderland), that seemed to be more about the mentor emotionally manipulating the student because the mentor needed to use the student for something than about really needing that much time to teach the student to use magic (Rumple needed Regina to cast the curse; Amara needed another sorcerer to do the spell that would break the laws of magic so she could free her sons).

So, if all you need to do to be a powerful sorcerer is feel something strongly, why aren't people accidentally doing magic all over the place? If you feel something strongly and feel a surge of power, then you might accidentally channel it.

It might have made for an interesting bit of worldbuilding if magic was something everyone could use, if they just knew the secret to unlock it, but the people who knew the secret were really close-lipped about keeping it, since if everyone can do it, it's less of an advantage. So, everyone could possibly do magic, but only a few people can actually unlock it, and they only tell a very few people, who then want to keep the secret to themselves.

[scarynikki12]

11 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

It might have made for an interesting bit of worldbuilding if magic was something everyone could use, if they just knew the secret to unlock it, but the people who knew the secret were really close-lipped about keeping it, since if everyone can do it, it's less of an advantage. So, everyone could possibly do magic, but only a few people can actually unlock it, and they only tell a very few people, who then want to keep the secret to themselves.

That would have made sense and been really interesting. That also would have been decent motivation for the anti-magic story they tried. If the anti-magic leaders had wanted to learn but were refused by the only practitioner they could find (make it Pan and it leads right into the Neverland arc) then their immense hatred would have made some sense. 

I wished they had distinguished between types of spells and the spell caster's motivation. There's a belief that it's easy to be bad but really hard to be good so why not incorporate that into the magic world building? Make the good magic really hard to master and therefore things like healing spells are something Regina and Rump can't do because they're both about shortcuts and immediate gratification* while Emma succeeds because she knows how important it is to put in the work to be good and actually does it. It would still give a reason for Regina and Rump to cast all the destructive magic that they did because destroying is easy and fast while building is hard and time consuming.

*I know Rump waited centuries to find Bae but he really didn't have a choice since the Curse needed someone like Regina to cast it and he had to wait until he found her. If he could have cast the Curse himself without being sucked into the magic he wouldn't have waited.

[Speakeasy]

On 2/6/2022 at 6:04 PM, Shanna Marie said:

My read on that in season 2, before you could have True Love with people you'd barely met and before The Savior was some kind of thing that happened all the time, was that this was an unintended consequence of all the tinkering Rumple did to set up the curse and Emma as the Savior. He just meant for her to be able to break the curse, but by creating all the situations that made Snow and Charming fight to be together (like Charming having to fight the dragon), and them having a TLK, it gave Emma unexpected magic. It was like he accidentally supercharged their True Love.

Of course, that was undermined in numerous ways later. In season 1, they were surprised that the kiss woke Snow. A TLK was so rare that it was literally magical, and it was a shock to Regina that this was able to break her sleeping curse (though there was the season 1 episode in which Charming asked Abigail if she'd tried a TLK, as though he was asking if she'd tried aspirin for a headache, so they weren't consistent, even then). They talked about how Emma had magic because she was a child of True Love.

I think TLK was consistent in season 1, even with Charming asking Abigail about kissing her beau to destatufy him-Charming is always shown as really idealistic about True Love, it's been pointed out that while Snow is the butt of jokes about Hope speeches, it's actually Charming who usually has to give her a pep talk. There's also that episode where Snow takes away her own emotions and Charming tries to kiss her better, only to fail because she's removed her love for him. Even in season two he tries to cure his sleeping curse by kissing Snow in the Curse Dream, again to no use.

So he seems like, being in love for the first time, he's really into the idea that this true love's kiss stuff can cure anything, and those are examples where he gets overenthusiastic about the idea and the writers can use that to set some boundaries to explain why true love's kiss is not this all-purpose cheat code.

'Have you tried True Love's Kiss?' still sounds very clumsy but I think it's still consistent.

On 2/6/2022 at 6:04 PM, Shanna Marie said:

 (by that logic, Liam 2.0 should have had magic powers as a child of true love, since his father managed to fall in True Love while under a sleeping curse and his mother fell in True Love with a man in a coma, whom she knew absolutely nothing about).

and there was Hades curing his frozen heart by kissing Zelena even though the whole point of his heart being frozen was to stop him feeling strong emotions.

-the next section is a rant about season 7, the one where the writers couldn't be bothered to even try to look like anything made sense anymore-

Then in season 7 nobody tried TLK when it seems like it would be the obvious choice-like Wish Hook whose daughter was cursed to stay in a tower but didn't try to kiss her on the forehead to get her out. Or later on when he had the poison heart curse didn't try to kiss it away-now, ok, I know the idea was that the poison heart curse would keep them separated, but unless it would DEFINITELY kill him before he could get a peck on the cheek, that should have been something that they could deal with as long as they were quick-same with Henry.

Henry was sillier actually because the tension was supposedly based around the idea he'd kiss Ella and break the curse which would activate his other curse-but unless that other curse killed him, IMMEDIATELY, on the spot, surely she could just kiss him again and he'd be ok?

But that didn't break the curse because they weren't in love under their curse memories. 

And Regina should have known ALL OF THIS because this was very much not her first rodeo and she had a long time to think about it. 

On 2/6/2022 at 6:04 PM, Shanna Marie said:

Anyway, all this is why I wasn't sure whether to put Emma in the "born with it" or "something done to her" category. I'm not even sure where The Savior, as portrayed in season 6, fits. They seem to have been born with the Savior designation, but then their power had to be activated somehow, but how were they designated Saviors? Did Emma get chosen by whatever force decides these things because she was also set up to break the curse, and Rumple accidentally created his own enemy that way? If so, then what made Rumple and Aladdin get chosen as Saviors? They're probably in the "done to them" category still, since it doesn't seem to be genetic.

Then there's Gideon, whom I totally forgot earlier. Does he have magic because he's the son of the Dark One, and his father being magic affected his DNA so he was born with magic? He seemed to have magic aptitude even in the reset when he wasn't taught by the Black Fairy, so it doesn't seem to have been another case of teaching and they turn out to have powers. Unless his father taught him and he got power that way.

The teaching thing makes you wonder why Rumple doesn't seem to have taught Belle to do magic. And if there's a school, why are there so few magic users?

I'd forgotten about her (I seem to have repressed a lot of season 6), but I'd put her in the category of "done to her," even though she did it herself. And if it's possible to turn yourself into a fairy, you've got to wonder why no one else seems to have done so.

The Saviour seems like it's an Avatar/Slayer type of cyclical chosen one, since it's 'fate'-hence the plot about cutting oneself loose from it with the shears of fate (the existence of those things brings up all kinds of questions-anyway...) To me that would make it not genetic, but inherent-which I would see as functionally the same as it being genetic in that there's no character or agency we know about doing it to them. Incidentally Dorothy might fit this mold as well... IF she is actually magical, I can't remember her doing any magic on the show so I think that was a goof by the good witches of Oz.

I would say magic seems to run in families-or at least be present in families. All the Mills women we see are magic and that looks like it's inherited from Cora to Zelena to Robin. Gideon has magic and that looks like it's inherited since there's no indication the other slave children had it from working in the magic mines. The Disenchanted Tremaine Sisters both have it, although their mother didn't.

Alice also inherited from her mother even though her magic looks completely different for the most part, and I think Ursula also inherited from her father-those two aren't human, though, so the rules might be different.

Merlin, Nimue, Rumple and his parents*, Cruella and possibly some others I can't think of right now, all seemed to get it from an object, place or event. Then there were characters like the blind witches and (the glorious) Bo Peep who just seem to have magic with no explanation-ehoch is fine, you don't always need an explanation.

*Though the fact that the Stiltskins have three straight generations of powerful warlocks, even though they got their powers for different reasons, might indicate that there is an inherited talent or proclivity in there. 

[Melgaypet]

I came across this video on plot twists (it's a little old, it came out in 2019) and it got me thinking about A&E's famous plot twists and how some worked and some (most) really did not.

 

[KingOfHearts]

I saw a news article today about seeing five planets align in the sky, and immediately Rumple's voice came to my mind: "when the stars in the sky align with the stars in the hat..."

This show might've scarred me for life.

Edited June 11, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

Brilliant scene from a horrible episode. Rumple has many great lines here mocking Regina for how deluded she is. Unlike Regina, Rumple knew he was a hated bastard and didn't try to cover it up. I'm not sure how such a scene was even written at the height of Regina's woobification. It seemed clear the writers knew she was out of her mind for thinking she wasn't an evil dictator while at the same time trying to make her sympathetic. They really couldn't pick a lane.
 

I also love how in the same episode, Snow is framed as the bad guy for thinking Regina is unforgivable for slaughtering an entire village while she's staring over the mountain of dead bodies.

Edited August 9, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

6 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Brilliant scene from a horrible episode. Rumple has many great lines here mocking Regina for how deluded she is.

When I watch individual scenes, the show does seem better than it was taken as a whole.  That scene above really did have some snapping dialogue which was entertaining.  Almost makes me want to rewatch more.   If I didn't know any better, I would think you are tempting me down a dark path!

Edited August 10, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

17 hours ago, Camera One said:

When I watch individual scenes, the show does seem better than it was taken as a whole.  That scene above really did have some snapping dialogue which was entertaining.  Almost makes me want to rewatch more.   If I didn't know any better, I would think you are tempting me down a dark path!

This show's whole has never been greater than the sum of its parts. Rumple, for example, is very entertaining in short bursts, but gets grating after a while because of his nauseating redemption arc and inability to actually die.

[tennisgurl]

On 8/10/2022 at 9:20 AM, KingOfHearts said:

This show's whole has never been greater than the sum of its parts.

It makes it an easy show to re-watch because of that, you can skip around to good episodes and individual scenes while easily skipping over the garbage. I can enjoy all of the Frozen parts of 4A while skipping past all of the creepy crypt sex, you can almost forget how terrible the stuff your skipping truly is.  

[KingOfHearts]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

It makes it an easy show to re-watch because of that, you can skip around to good episodes and individual scenes while easily skipping over the garbage. I can enjoy all of the Frozen parts of 4A while skipping past all of the creepy crypt sex, you can almost forget how terrible the stuff your skipping truly is.  

I forgot the crypt sex was a thing. Thanks for the reminder LOL

[KingOfHearts]

I've been watching clips from 3B and there's so many things that have made me laugh that I forgot about. The kiss curse, Regina pulling light magic out of her ass then never using it again, Glinda being totally okie dokie with Dorothy "killing" Zelena even though "heroes don't kill", Rumple letting Zelena get away with world-traveling silver slippers, Regina TLKing Henry, the Charmings casting the curse... this show was astronomically dumb in some of the best ways. (While it taking itself as seriously as possible.) I both miss and don't miss how cartoonishly over-the-top it was. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I've been watching clips from 3B and there's so many things that have made me laugh that I forgot about. The kiss curse, Regina pulling light magic out of her ass then never using it again, Glinda being totally okie dokie with Dorothy "killing" Zelena even though "heroes don't kill", 

I just rewatched 3 scenes... Dorothy "killing" Zelena with water, Zelena confronting/banishing Glinda and Glinda telling Snowing that only the most light of the light magic can defeat Zelena.  You're right, it was totally LOL when Glinda was like, oh well, you fulfilled the prophesy.  Plus with zero awareness that Zelena faked her own death.  I mean, was it normal for a person to melt to death from water?  And then Glinda telling Snowing that she and Zelena used to be friends.  The whole thing was just so unrelentingly bad.  Are we seriously supposed to believe Glinda cared about Zelena but was totally whatever when she "died"?  I guess I should also rewatch the scenes when Glinda welcomed Zelena into the sisterhood of the plunging necklines.  So did we ever find out what the prophesy actually referred to?

Edited August 14, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

On 8/13/2022 at 10:37 PM, Camera One said:

So did we ever find out what the prophesy actually referred to?

"The book foretells of a powerful sorceress who will join our sisterhood as a protector of Oz. The book says that the sorceress of the west will come here by cyclone."

"The sorceress from another land will make Oz her home until she fulfills her destiny and unseats the greatest evil the realm has ever seen."

It does seem to be referring to Dorothy, but Dorothy doesn't actually "unseat" Zelena. The writers never do anything clever with it like they did with "the boy will be your undoing" either. 

On 8/13/2022 at 10:37 PM, Camera One said:

  Are we seriously supposed to believe Glinda cared about Zelena but was totally whatever when she "died"? 

I think the writers were trying to imitate Glinda's "space cadet" personality from the MGM film, but it just made her look stupid and unsympathetic. She was also a total copy and paste of the Blue Fairy. It was clear the writers were not interested in giving her any nuance.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

"The sorceress from another land will make Oz her home until she fulfills her destiny and unseats the greatest evil the realm has ever seen."

It does seem to be referring to Dorothy, but Dorothy doesn't actually "unseat" Zelena. The writers never do anything clever with it like they did with "the boy will be your undoing" either. 

This does suggest a huge blunder in planning.  Dorothy's actions actually led to Zelena cementing power over Oz.  Unless it refers to Zelena unseating herself eventually as the realm's "greatest evil".  Or it refers to Alice coming to live in Oz in Season 10 and defeating a great evil with Robyn by her side, and I guess Dorothy and Red.

[KingOfHearts]

47 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I guess Dorothy and Red.

It's funny because Dorothy and Red utterly fail at defeating Zelena. They only win when Zelena is stuck in the Underworld and she's not even in Oz. Heck, she just gives the silver slippers away, which means she actually helps them win. LOL

Edited August 15, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

On 8/13/2022 at 10:37 PM, Camera One said:

So did we ever find out what the prophesy actually referred to?

Everyone in the Once universe just needs to stop listening to prophesies, they're always more trouble than they're worth. 

[KingOfHearts]

On 8/13/2022 at 10:37 PM, Camera One said:

And then Glinda telling Snowing that she and Zelena used to be friends.  The whole thing was just so unrelentingly bad. 

I just rewatched the scene with Snowing. I love how after they realize they need to get to Emma, Snow immediately goes "We must enact the Dark Curse." In a world of magic beans, was that really the first thought? Like I get it if they exhausted other options, but she went really quick to that.

Also - I love how Glinda's light magic wasn't strong enough to take down Zelena but Regina's was. I also love how Regina's light magic made the entire point of casting the curse moot since they didn't even need Emma after all. Snowing casting the curse was for shock value and nothing more. I'll never forgive the writers for not having Zelena make Rumple cast the dark curse using Neal's heart.

Edited August 19, 2022 by KingOfHearts