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

[Camera One]

10 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, in my re-watch of season 1, I just got to the episode where Blue tells Rumple that the only way to get to another world to find Bae is through the Dark Curse, and I laughed my ass off. Honestly, I have no clue if she was deliberately lying, or if she was that clueless. There are, like, a million ways to jump from place to place. 

The disturbing thing is even A&E couldn't tell you that.  What I tell myself is until the Dark Curse was enacted for the first time by Regina (which caused the walls to fall down), it was almost impossible to get to The Land Without Magic.  I don't remember exactly but how many instances were there of people going to the Land Without Magic before that Curse?  There was The Apprentice, and there was The Shadow from Neverland.  I suppose one could say that Rumple avoided Neverland out of fear, so he never learned of Shadow Air.  Did we know for sure that the Oz Silver Slippers had the ability to get to the Land Without Magic back then?  I know it was implied to work, but didn't Dorothy come from a Fictional Kansas?  I know the walls were supposedly up again after "Going Home", but maybe the walls were much weakened by the First Curse, despite what Regina thought.

[Shanna Marie]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

7x02 was a very odd second episode. It didn't really expand on any of the new characters other than Rogers, but he's a catch-22. A&E say you can supposedly jump right in without any knowledge of the first six seasons. Yet, the second episode revolved solely on tying up loose ends.

I think the first episode of the season was accessible to new viewers, but probably not all that interesting. You'd understand what was happening in the plot without prior knowledge, but you wouldn't get any of the big "dun dun dun!" moments. You wouldn't think it was any big deal when you saw Rogers helping Henry, wouldn't know or care why Rogers was looking at that picture in the book, wouldn't know what the deal was when you saw Weaver torturing someone, wouldn't know it was at all significant that Rogers was partnered up with Weaver.

But the second episode would have been really confusing for a new viewer. We'd just seen Henry saying good-bye to a dark-haired woman he called Mom, but now a blond woman is there with him, acting like his mom. You could maybe have picked up the hints about her having missed a lot of his life and figured that she was a birth mother who'd given him up for adoption and reconnected, but they never spelled that out, and since she didn't call Hook a "stepfather" (they seemed to have specifically avoided using that term), it's possible that you might have concluded that Hook was his father and Emma a stepmother who came into his life later but was on really good terms with him. Later, Henry asks about his "other mom," which kind of makes it sound like a "Henry has two mommies" situation, but Emma has a husband. And then we get to the older, fatter version of Hook who turns out to be the guy we saw in the previous episode, and that has to be insanely confusing. I was thinking about discussing the switch-out with a writer friend who doesn't watch this show as an example of a clever way to write out a character without writing out the actor when all the other actors whose characters interact with that character leave the show, and I gave up because I couldn't think of a way to explain it without going into a half-hour discourse.

37 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Also, in my re-watch of season 1, I just got to the episode where Blue tells Rumple that the only way to get to another world to find Bae is through the Dark Curse, and I laughed my ass off. Honestly, I have no clue if she was deliberately lying, or if she was that clueless. There are, like, a million ways to jump from place to place. It might have been an impossible task requiring years of Machiavellian planning back then, but now? Its basically taking a red eye from LA to Chicago. And thats a long trip. 

I think the difference is that while Storybrooke is in existence with magic in it, it's possible to travel between worlds. Storybrooke is essentially a bubble of the Enchanted Forest extended into our world, which makes for a connection between worlds. Now it's easy and you can go back and forth, but then it was rather difficult because there was no Storybrooke making that connection. The only ways we've seen that worked before Storybrooke were the Shadow and the Apprentice's magic (he sent Isaac realm-hopping as the Author, sent Ingrid, sent Ursula and Cruella with the eggbaby, and apparently sent himself). I don't think Rumple could have used the Shadow, since the Shadow had basically cast him out of Neverland. And the Apprentice wouldn't have helped the Dark One. My confusion is over the magic bean issue -- Blue said that was the last one, but we later saw that there was a whole crop, and Hook always seems to be able to find one. They don't seem to have been able to use a bean to get between worlds while Storybrooke was erased. Was the bean Blue gave Bae a special bean that could punch through the barriers, and it was the last of its kind, while ordinary beans wouldn't work?

I don't think that the current curse needs to have been the Dark Curse. All they need is memory spells and transportation. It doesn't look like the neighborhood was created. The curse wasn't needed to punch through barriers, since Storybrooke is there. It's like Nimue/Hook's curse in season 5, entirely unnecessary because they didn't need a Dark Curse to travel between worlds (they just needed a way to get rid of Merlin because he'd be too useful). The question of the current curse is how they're managing to create legal identities for people and make the people in the world think the newcomers have always been there in the World Without Magic. It worked in Storybrooke because they were so isolated and the outside world didn't know they were there. But in this case, the memory spell has to have affected the World Without Magic in order for Rogers and Weaver to have enough background to work as cops or for Victoria to have the power she has. When the curse is broken, will it just be the fairytale people remembering who they are while the ordinary people still accept their cursed identities, or will the ordinary people in Seattle suddenly realize that these people just showed up out of nowhere and haven't actually been there all along?

[Camera One]

25 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

But the second episode would have been really confusing for a new viewer. We'd just seen Henry saying good-bye to a dark-haired woman he called Mom, but now a blond woman is there with him, acting like his mom. You could maybe have picked up the hints about her having missed a lot of his life and figured that she was a birth mother who'd given him up for adoption and reconnected, but they never spelled that out, and since she didn't call Hook a "stepfather" (they seemed to have specifically avoided using that term), it's possible that you might have concluded that Hook was his father and Emma a stepmother who came into his life later but was on really good terms with him. Later, Henry asks about his "other mom," which kind of makes it sound like a "Henry has two mommies" situation, but Emma has a husband.

That's funny because a new viewer would have so many questions and may come up with unexpected explanations.  Like maybe both Emma and Regina were married to Hook, and that's why Henry calls them both "mom".  The Wish Realm stuff would make zero sense.  I suppose the Writers could argue that all they would need to know is that there was another version of Captain Hook out there and now we care about him because he lost his daughter.

[Camera One]

Adam Horowitz @AdamHorowitzLA  4h4 hours ago
Replying to @Juanfri_Juanfra @d_alexandria94 @emmascaptn
It's all consistent.  It fits right in, we designed 511 to work within 209

Jon Clipper‏ @Juanfri_Juanfra  4h4 hours ago
Regina changes her clothes twice, takes Hook's hook twice, they drink twice... They even come back to the same position... 5x11 has no logic

 Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA  4h4 hours ago
it was constructed consistently and with lotsa logic!  Because we respect our fans and want to give them a consistent universe!

Jon Clipper‏ @Juanfri_Juanfra  4h4 hours ago
Really? In that same episode, Hook's father says he felt in love during a sleeping curse hearing his nurse. How? He was in the Netherlworld!

 Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA  4h4 hours ago
We designed it so it would all track consistently with what came before!

 Jon Clipper‏ @Juanfri_Juanfra  3h3 hours ago
I'm assuming you don't remember the Netherlworld. See the Charming's scenes in 2x08 again and tell me the where's the consistently in 5x11

Adam Horowitz‏Verified account @AdamHorowitzLA  3h3 hours ago
I don't see what the issue is.  Look at both eps again, they should fit seamlessly
---------

I guess the person is asking about two different things?  Whether the flashbacks from 5x11 fits into 2x09 without contradictions.  And then how could Hook's father hear the nurse when he was under a Sleeping Curse?

[Souris]

56 minutes ago, Camera One said:

 Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA  4h4 hours ago
it was constructed consistently and with lotsa logic!  Because we respect our fans and want to give them a consistent universe!

I ... just ... I ... SERIOUSLY?????

::looks into the camera like Jim from The Office then collapses into hysterical laughter::

[Rumsy4]

I'm dying from laughing too much!

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

My confusion is over the magic bean issue -- Blue said that was the last one, but we later saw that there was a whole crop, and Hook always seems to be able to find one. They don't seem to have been able to use a bean to get between worlds while Storybrooke was erased. Was the bean Blue gave Bae a special bean that could punch through the barriers, and it was the last of its kind, while ordinary beans wouldn't work?

Blue didn't know of the surviving giants; in "Tiny" they said their survival was secret. Somehow. Despite living on top of giant beanstalks.

I don't think it was a special bean. First the beans in "The Final Battle" were dying, and then there was no chance to use one before everyone was whooshed to safety anyway.

[Camera One]

The Giants didn't like Blue because she talked about "getting big" as if it were a bad thing.  So fairies were banned from giant territory.

I think the idea that Blue gave Bae a super-powered bean could explain a lot.  I can totally see Blue saving that to get rid of Rumple for good.  

But really, the Writers have no idea what they are writing half the time.  Earlier in Season 6, they had Blue say no one knows how The Black Fairy became dark.  I guess she could have been lying, but why?  The actress' delivery makes everything that she says seem significant and mystical.  But at the end of the day, it's mostly a bunch of very, very sloppy inconsistencies.  Oh well, I'm glad we didn't get Lady Gaga.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Camera One

[andromeda331]

I haven't watched either episode of the new season. I've read the threads to see what the new season was like and if there was anything to make me change my mind about quitting the show. Each episode last season was so bad, inconsistent and just the same old crap that by the time I sat down to watch the last episode. I knew Emma was leaving, Snow and Charming too. Three of my reasons for sticking with the show for so long (and this thread its been really fun talking about the show the good, the bad and the frustrating). I was tired of wading through crap, stories that when no where, never getting to see what made the show good and the endless wasting of characters, stories, and yes the endless stories of Rumple being evil and facing zero consequences, and Regina whining or whatever. Even if Emma, Snow and Charming had stayed I really doubt I would have continued watching. I was tired of seeing all three characters brushed to the side or propping up Regina. I wanted to see the Charming family together, the three characters growing, Emma and Hook navigating living together. I probably should have quit sooner but I didn't. Nothing in season six made me want to stay.  When the episode was done I was done. Zero effort to wrap up the Charmings story. Once again Rumple betrays everyone only to be accept as a hero in the end, even though all he did was kill his mother which he wanted to do anyway, Regina and the Evil Queen taking up way too much time, and zero reason as to why anything in the ending montage happen. Why are Hook and Emma sheriff and deputy? Did they want to do that and if so why? Why is Charming happy being a farmer? What in the past six seasons made it seem like he wanted to go back to being a farmer? Why is Snow happy living there? Why doesn't she want to go back to her kingdom and reign? Its not like Snow quit, it was all stolen from her. Why doesn't she want it back? Live in the castle raising her family, or commuting back and forth to Storybrook to see Emma, Hook and Henry?  

Reading through the episode threads of the new season hasn't changed my mind. The story still makes no sense. Victoria is power, so powerful but only owns one street? How is that evil? Just move. How does she have all this power in a real city? It was easy to see what Regina had all the power in Storybrook the Curse created it for that reason. She also worked against Emma. We knew why she wanted Emma gone. I love Hook and I don't want to see him parted from Emma. I knew what ever reason they came up with for him still being on the show I wouldn't like and it wouldn't make any sense. Hook isn't Hook but WishHook which is always real except Regina murdering Snowing that was still fake. How is that exciting? Watch notHook? Do I care if he builds a relationship with Henry? No, he's not really his stepfather. I suppose its nice that its not really Hook paired with Rumple but does that mean not Hook will ever get the upper hand with Rumple? I don't see A&E ever letting that happen. I have zero interest in watching anymore Rumple or Regina. They could have given Regina so many different interesting stories but never did.

Parts of the new story could have been really interesting. Exploring different Cinderellas would be fun. There's so many different stories it would be fun to see one of those play out or several. Or Snow Whites or other similar stories. But A&E aren't doing that. Two Cinderellas with identical stories but their different. Why not make them different?  Why not use one of the many other stories? Henry's reason for leaving home at best doesn't make any sense and at worse sounds selfish. He's upset he's not in any of the stories? But he's in the story of the last six seasons. He figured out the curse and tried to get Emma to break it, he spent time in Neverland flying around with Pan, and went to Camelot. It would make more sense if he decided to go off to college or as his job as the Author to travel through and record stories. Maybe accidentally get swept up in the stories. Or maybe found it hard not to get involved in a story. If he ran into an abused Cinderella being treated badly by her stepfamily and found it hard not to help. He knows he's not suppose to do anything but record but that might be hard when he sees people being treated badly and wants to help them. That could lead him to messing up a story or something with bigger consequences. The opposite of Isaac who felt bad for the villains. But that doesn't seem to be the case. He left because he was whining about no stories being about him or him in stories (although as the Author shouldn't he had written down the stories he was in like Neverland?) and chasing after a girl who punched him and stole his motorcycle.

A&E completely miss what made Snowing epic. First the iconic story. As others pointed out we saw Charming racing to Snow. The kiss that woke her up. We saw their wedding and Regina crashing it threatening them with her Curse, we saw them learn their only hope would be to send their daughter away for 28 years. Completely miss out on raising her. The tears from Snow after she handed the baby to Charming to get to the wardrobe. Charming fighting through Black Knights to get his daughter to safety, taking a serious wound and passing out but not before seeing that Emma got away. By that point it was easy to be hooked on them. We saw a couple who loved each other and their baby being ripped apart by the Evil Queen. We wanted to see them reunite. We saw how they met, yes Snow punched Charming. But then Charming capture Snow and them working together against the Ogres. Snow running away thinking they escaped only to see Charming hadn't and deciding to use the dust to save his life instead of killing Regina. It wasn't instant. They both walked away from each other continuing on their current paths Charming off to his marriage, and Snow off to find a way out of the Enchanted Forest. Henry and Cinderella don't sound interesting. It doesn't even sound like Cinderella likes Henry. That seems like the only thing keeping them apart where Snow and Charming had Regina keeping them apart with the Curse, fake stories, and a fake marriage. Lucy doesn't sound like she knows a lot either so what is she doing? None of this makes sense or sounds interesting. Maybe in the hands of different writers it could be. But not in hands of A&E.  They somehow are incapable of making their stories interesting. No matter how great the premise sounds.  

Edited October 17, 2017 by andromeda331

[Shanna Marie]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

That's funny because a new viewer would have so many questions and may come up with unexpected explanations.  Like maybe both Emma and Regina were married to Hook, and that's why Henry calls them both "mom". 

After rewatching the key/interesting scenes, I think that before Emma shows up, it would be easy to get the impression that Regina and Hook were exes and Henry was their son. Hook and his new wife, Emma, got primary custody, and Regina ended up being the kind of weekend parent who's really more of a buddy, where her son is essentially her best friend. But then when Emma shows up, it becomes pretty obvious that Emma is Henry's mother, except then a lot of the dialogue gets confusing. She talks about how she and Hook haven't really been parents before, not in the bottles and diapers phase, and then she says something like "it took so long for us to find each other and to find ourselves." Is she talking about her and Henry finding each other? Because they didn't find each other. He found her. Is she talking about her and Hook? The taking a while to find themselves (and be able to be in a relationship) kind of works, but when you think about it, they didn't take all that long. Even if we're going with real-world time instead of show time, it was five years between first meeting and marriage, which isn't that drastic, especially when they spent the first year mostly as enemies. Within the world of the show, it was maybe a little more than two years between first meeting and marriage, counting the missing year when he was thinking of her but she didn't remember him. Depending on how long season six took (there aren't any good timestamps), they were married within a year of their first date. Or maybe she's talking about how much both of them went through before they met and the things they had to overcome before they married. Anyway, it all would become even more confusing to a new viewer who would now get the impression that Emma was Henry's mother but hadn't raised him when he was a baby, and where does Hook fit into this, and what about Regina?

They made a valiant effort at explaining Wish Hook in the dialogue between him and Hook Prime, but since they had to stop short of an infodump with charts, I'm still not sure it would make a lot of sense. The context doesn't help because they talked about multiple realms with multiple Cinderellas, etc., but Hook isn't the same thing because he's not just an alternate version of Hook but rather the same Hook from an alternate timeline. There, though, it may be more confusing for an existing viewer who maybe skipped season 6 because the multiple Cinderellas are different characters played by different actresses, while this is the same Hook at different ages. If you're totally new, you wouldn't know that there are multiple Cinderella actresses. It also doesn't help that he refers to the split point as Regina not casting the curse and otherwise having the same life, except then we soon learn he has a daughter, which our Hook doesn't. It's probably more accurate to say that the split point was Snow not letting Regina go. That meant she didn't cast the curse, but it also changes a lot of the events around that because it would probably mean Hook never met Cora. It was meeting Cora and learning of her plan that might actually allow him to kill the Dark One by going to a world where he wasn't immortal that renewed Hook's hope in getting revenge. Without that, things might have gone very differently for him.

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

I guess the person is asking about two different things?  Whether the flashbacks from 5x11 fits into 2x09 without contradictions.  And then how could Hook's father hear the nurse when he was under a Sleeping Curse?

Yeah, it looks like the person is asking about two different inconsistencies. I've rewatched, and there's no way the flashbacks from season five fit into the season 2 episode, for the reasons outlined. And none of the Sleeping Curse stuff with Hook's father has ever made sense, not just because of the being in that red room flaming place, but also because I have a very hard time believing you can have any kind of true love with a person you've never actually spoken to. If we're saying Brennan could have heard the nurse in spite of what we've been shown the curse is like, then okay, maybe he could have fallen in love. But I can't believe that a person can have true love with someone who has been unconscious the entire time of their acquaintance. You can't love someone other than in a general loving mankind or having compassion sense without knowing something about that person.

[superloislane]

2 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Henry's reason for leaving home at best doesn't make any sense and at worse sounds selfish. He's upset he's not in any of the stories? But he's in the story of the last six seasons

He seems to be annoyed that he wasn't the main hero or the main character of the Storybrooke stuff which makes him sound really egotistical. He was still a major character, he just wasn't THE main character. I mean Hook wasn't the main hero/character and he was the villain of his Peter Pan story and yet he's not complaining!

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

From the Trivia section of Henry's page on Once Upon a Time Wiki:

* Henry is ten years old in "Pilot", eleven in "The Cricket Game", and twelve years old in "The Jolly Roger". In "Dreamcatcher", he says to Sir Morgan that he is thirteen years old. However, the show's timeline would place the episode in early 2014, and Henry was born in August 2001, meaning that Henry was not yet thirteen at that point.[5]

Emma met Neal in 2001, so if Henry was born in August, they would have to conceive him in January and he'd have to be a month premature. 

Quote

KITSIS: Yes, we’re not doing sci-fi. As we’ve said in the past, some realms move at their own time.

There has never been an instance on the show where two realms had different timelines. Some realms were "frozen" in time, as in characters didn't age, but time still passed for them. Regina was stuck in frozen Storybrooke for 28 years, but it was still nearly three decades for her. She didn't say goodbye to Owen and then five minutes later meet him as Greg. The only time we've ever seen a "time moves differently" situation was in OUATIW, when Alice returned to a father who thought she had died. Since it's such an other-worldly concept, the writers need to make it clear within the show what's happening. The characters need to state it clearly. You can't just introduce a game-changing element after six seasons with no canon explanations.

I've never really been a fan of the idea myself since it was never well-established on the show, and whenever it came up in discussion or interviews, it was only to fix plot holes or validate fanwanks.

Edited October 17, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

38 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

There has never been an instance on the show where two realms had different timelines.

There was the Dark Fairy's realm, where Gideon aged 28 years in a matter of days.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

22 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

There was the Dark Fairy's realm, where Gideon aged 28 years in a matter of days.

Yeah, and that was the *only* realm they said that of before pulling this out now to explain the difference in time with the New Enchanted Forest. In fact, I remember that years ago they specifically denied time moving at a different rate in the original Enchanted Forest (time freezes aside).

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

The only time we've ever seen a "time moves differently" situation was in OUATIW, when Alice returned to a father who thought she had died.

And that I thought was because she had been in Wonderland a long time before returning home without thinking how it would affect her family, not because time moved differently.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

There was the Dark Fairy's realm, where Gideon aged 28 years in a matter of days.

I totally forgot about that. My mind has more blocked out of S6 than of Selfless, Brave, and True and Bleeding Through combined.

But still, it should have been established for multiple realms and earlier in the show's run. It's pretty contrived and arbitrary that the Dark Realm is the one and only exception. There's no reason for it other than it's just the Dark Realm. Neverland would have made more sense, since it's associated with agelessness. Plus, it would have given Bae and Hook less decades, making their character timelines less of a stretch. 

Quote

And that I thought was because she had been in Wonderland a long time before returning home without thinking how it would affect her family, not because time moved differently.

Wonderland's timeline was always weird. Alice aged but no one else did, so there's no telling how the curse affected her. 

Edited October 17, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Writing Wrongs]

I don't understand why they haven't explained anything about the curse or who cast it or who knows what. So annoying.

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I don't understand why they haven't explained anything about the curse or who cast it or who knows what. So annoying.

It's supposed to be a surprise this time, like it was in 3B and 5A.

[CCTC]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

It's supposed to be a surprise this time, like it was in 3B and 5A.

The fact that they have already used the curse multiple times suggests they really should have gone a different route.  They really do like going back to the same well again and again [and notice HH of course has a well].

[Shanna Marie]

Something that occurred to me when I was thinking about season one vs. season seven:

Even when Mayor Mills was ruling a town utterly isolated from the real world, where she had absolute power and control over everyone, she was still a lot more subtle and looking like a legitimate leader working within the law than Victoria and Weaver are while in the real world, mixing with people who aren't cursed, and under the jurisdiction of real law.

About the only obviously outright shady thing Regina did was send Graham to chase down Kurt and Owen. Otherwise, on the surface she was a perfectly legitimate mayor. Even when Emma, who wasn't under the curse and knew the way the real world worked, was looking to bring her down, she couldn't find anything. Regina either worked in the background, manipulating things quietly, or within the letter of the law. There wasn't actually anything legally wrong with her putting orphaned, homeless kids into the foster system. The wrong was that she knew that sending them out of town might kill them, and that she was doing it to make Emma look bad to Henry, not because it was what was best for the kids. When she leaned on Granny to make her not rent Emma a room, I'm pretty certain she didn't walk into the diner during the lunch rush and loudly announce that by mayoral decree, no one in town would be allowed to rent Emma a room.

Meanwhile, in what's supposedly real-world Seattle, where there's social media and a press Victoria couldn't possibly control, and there are non-cursed people, Victoria is able to take Lucy away from Jacinda with no real cause and no legal hearings, and she's able to call a police detective and tell him to arrest someone just because, and a police detective is able to publicly demand illegal searches and brutalize people in front of hundreds of witnesses.

[Rumsy4]

Maybe the Big Twist of the season is that they're not in Seattle at all, but in a collective Matrix-like Sleeping Curse. It's all one big simulation. That explains all the Real World discrepancies. 

[CCTC]

41 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Regina either worked in the background, manipulating things quietly, or within the letter of the law.

As much as she might have been over exposed later, Regina - in both Storybrooke and the EF - was an efficient villain and was very watchable in a love to hate sort of way.   On a similar note, Emma - while making a few mistakes - was pretty capable herself.  She sometimes was thwarted by Mayor Mills, but she did sometimes get the upper hand.  They were well matched foes and worthy adversaries of each other. 

It is interesting to watch those episodes now and see how the women (and to be fair most of the men as well) became more passive as the seasons went by.  They went from being people of action to basically standing around waiting for things to happen and were usually on the defensive if they were in a fight.  When they did try to do something, it almost always failed.  At least in the first season, while Emma did sometimes fail, there were episodes where she made progress and there were signs of hope.  Later seasons they characters basically floundered until things were somehow resolved at the mid-season or season finale (and then things would usually go bad again before they even had a chance to finish a celebratory cup of coffee).

[Shanna Marie]

Thinking more about this after reading the newspaper ...

Even if Emma had been able to call in the ACLU and they hadn't thought it was just a prank because no town of Storybrooke existed and they couldn't find it, Regina didn't actually give her any reason to do so. On the other hand, what happened in Seattle was so outrageous that no one would have had to call the ACLU. Their spidey senses would have sensed a great disturbance in the Constitution, and they'd have been all over it. In the current climate, that would have been cracked down on pretty quickly in a city like Seattle. They wouldn't want the reputation of having cops running amok. Weaver would have been out. Rogers had the saving grace of Henry checking his own pockets, so he didn't actually conduct the illegal search, but the fact that he was going along with it would probably have meant being busted back down to patrol.

As for Victoria, it's surprising that no enterprising neighborhood activist or reporter has done anything with the fact that, if we're following the Cinderella story here, she's based her development business on her late husband's wealth while her late husband's daughter -- a woman of color -- lives in poverty. Rogers was talking about finding dirt on her, but the dirt's right there in the open, with her having apparently taken what rightly belongs to Jacinda and then taken custody of Jacinda's daughter with no due process. I guess what they want is what Victoria's agenda is, but they have enough on her to make her toxic to a lot of businesses.

This doesn't take a deep knowledge of legal processes. It takes reading a newspaper every so often. This kind of stuff is in the news right now with heightened sensitivity. Police departments are on edge about the way the actions of rogue cops are making all of them look bad. People are questioning privilege and wealth.

2 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Maybe the Big Twist of the season is that they're not in Seattle at all, but in a collective Matrix-like Sleeping Curse. It's all one big simulation. That explains all the Real World discrepancies. 

I wouldn't be surprised that these guys would essentially pull a Bobby in the shower but call it a curse and think it was a brilliant twist that none of the events in the season actually happened. But where's the curse point -- did Henry dream growing up and going to other worlds (thus explaining the time issues with the reunion with Emma, Regina, and Hook and none of them aging while he grew up), or did all that happen, he really married Cinderella and had a daughter, and then they got put under a curse that made them think they were in Seattle?

[jhlipton]

On 10/15/2017 at 4:18 PM, Rumsy4 said:

I think the Witch cursed him, and only True Love can break the Curse. Which could be something in the horizon for Hook with his daughter. 

I think he was Cursed and poisoned and Emma cured the poison but not the Curse.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

6 hours ago, CCTC said:

It is interesting to watch those episodes now and see how the women (and to be fair most of the men as well) became more passive as the seasons went by.  They went from being people of action to basically standing around waiting for things to happen and were usually on the defensive if they were in a fight.  When they did try to do something, it almost always failed.  At least in the first season, while Emma did sometimes fail, there were episodes where she made progress and there were signs of hope.  Later seasons they characters basically floundered until things were somehow resolved at the mid-season or season finale (and then things would usually go bad again before they even had a chance to finish a celebratory cup of coffee).

I feel like in later seasons the focus went from character to plot. Which reminds me of what Stephen King said about wielding plot in On Writing.

It's sad because A&E did a good job with TRON: Legacy and TRON: Uprising.

2 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

I think he was Cursed and poisoned and Emma cured the poison but not the Curse.

The curse was that his heart was "poisoned", which in some way prevented him from freeing his daughter. Probably that he couldn't give her True Love's Kiss or something.

[Camera One]

11 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Something that occurred to me when I was thinking about season one vs. season seven:

Even when Mayor Mills was ruling a town utterly isolated from the real world, where she had absolute power and control over everyone, she was still a lot more subtle and looking like a legitimate leader working within the law than Victoria and Weaver are while in the real world, mixing with people who aren't cursed, and under the jurisdiction of real law.

Meanwhile, in what's supposedly real-world Seattle, where there's social media and a press Victoria couldn't possibly control, and there are non-cursed people, Victoria is able to take Lucy away from Jacinda with no real cause and no legal hearings, and she's able to call a police detective and tell him to arrest someone just because, and a police detective is able to publicly demand illegal searches and brutalize people in front of hundreds of witnesses.

The subtlety was very effective in Season 1 and completely lacking in Season 7.  I just watched the first scene with Regina and Emma when she brings Henry back.  Regina was smooth as molasses and seemingly cordial, with a frigid air, all at the same time.  Compare this to Victoria practically with devil horns threatening Henry at the bar the first time they meet and snarling at the police station demanding special treatment.  

Even when Regina started threatening Emma, she made sure it was done privately.

How interesting, eh?  S1 Ep 2 attempted frame job.  S7 Ep 2 attempted frame job.  Except Emma follows up the frame job with a chainsaw, while Henry doesn't even realize it's a frame job and has a drink at the bar.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

How interesting, eh?  S1 Ep 2 attempted frame job.  S7 Ep 2 attempted frame job.  Except Emma follows up the frame job with a chainsaw, while Henry doesn't even realize it's a frame job and has a drink at the bar.

The 1x02 frame job had a better setup, too. Emma was a stranger with a prison record who got arrested for drunk driving the night before. She had a motive for taking Henry's files away from Archie. Henry had no reason to steal a watch for Victoria other than "he's poor". And, again - it was Storybrooke. Graham outright admitted she had her hands in everything. We don't even know why Weaver was "helping" Victoria out.

Edited October 19, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[snarkastic]

I just realized one great thing about the wish realm: if the curse was never cast, Hook and Emma never went back in time, so in that world Snow Falls still exists in its original form. It's still a canon flashback!

(Also, that means that Hook and Whook for sure don't have exactly the same past.)

[Rumsy4]

Yes! I agree. Snow Falls is still canon in the Wish Realm. :-D

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It was still an attempt at a royal's life. I wouldn't blame the guards for chasing after [Cinderella], even if Tremaine hadn't finished the job. I don't understand why the guards just started swinging swords at her, though. Wouldn't they arrest and execute/imprison her? She didn't react in any violent or dangerous manner until she had to defend herself from their blades.

The Black Knights' ruthlessness made more sense because they were working for Regina, who wanted Snow dead. These guards don't work for Tremaine, do they?

That's part of the horrible world-building in the flashback portions of Season 7 alone.  They've never clarified what Tremaine's position is with the royal family, why she is helping the soldiers actively hunt Cinderella, why a prisoner like Henry is brought to her house for interrogation and execution, why she even wants the Glass Slipper, nor how she knows how to use the Fairy Godmother's Wand.  Maybe these issues were be clarified after tonight's episode, but even if it is, too little, too late.

A casual viewer I know (who pretty much watched for Rumple) told me she couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of "A Pirate's Life" and she's not planning to watch any more of this show.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

That's part of the horrible world-building in the flashback portions of Season 7 alone.  They've never clarified what Tremaine's position is with the royal family, why she is helping the soldiers actively hunt Cinderella, why a prisoner like Henry is brought to her house for interrogation and execution, why she even wants the Glass Slipper, nor how she knows how to use the Fairy Godmother's Wand.  Maybe these issues were be clarified after tonight's episode, but even if it is, too little, too late.

Well, we got a bit more about her involvement with the royal family in "The Garden of Forking Paths". Hopefully the flashbacks in future episodes will explain things to our satisfaction.

[Camera One]

10 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

Well, we got a bit more about her involvement with the royal family in "The Garden of Forking Paths". 

All we found out was confirmation from Tiana that they were involved.  That's practically nothing.

[oncebluethrone]

On 10/19/2017 at 8:57 PM, snarkastic said:

I just realized one great thing about the wish realm: if the curse was never cast, Hook and Emma never went back in time, so in that world Snow Falls still exists in its original form. It's still a canon flashback!

(Also, that means that Hook and Whook for sure don't have exactly the same past.)

From my understanding everything that happened in the Wish Realm was the exact same as in the original timeline (meaning the current timeline of FTL during 6x10) up until the casting of the curse so the time travel adventure still happened. This version of Emma and Killian just blinked into existence when the wish was made at the time when the original Emma and Killian traveled to the past and then blinked out of existence when original Captain Swan went back to the future. 

[Mrs. DuRona]

So, after watching the most recent episode, I realized why it seems too off.  I get that they want to do a more “modern” take on it, setting it in a city vs. small town environment.  But there’s a few issues I have.

There is no urgency.  Not in present day, and not in the flashbacks.  They just feel like regular flashbacks.  But there’s no charm, no playfulness about any of them. About anything really.

The setting is too big, and the cast is too small.  It’s hard to believe that this one neighborhood in a large city is the “cursed town”.  There are no true boundaries, at least none that have been established.  Anyone can come and go, there’s no curse stopping them.  And the only cast is our main crew.  No supporting cast has really been introduced.  There’s (again) no sense of playfulness or “tongue in cheek”-ness about who someone is in the cursed life vs. fairy tale.  We’re introduced to Tiana, but there’s no reference about who she is or where she came from.  No little frog figurines or a touch of green in the wardrobe as sort of subtle teasing.  There are no new Grannies or Archies, and without a supporting cast, the main cast is going to get very old, very quickly.

I’m still giving it a chance.  I am mildly invested.  But there is such a disconnect from the rest of the show in feel and style.  There is no message of hope, no true urgency, no whimsy.  It’s just kinda sad.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

All we found out was confirmation from Tiana that they were involved.  That's practically nothing.

It was confirmed they had been conspiring together for a long time. It looked like the show was just going to have Tremaine's word be trusted and royal guards answer to her for no spectacular reason.

5 hours ago, oncebluethrone said:

From my understanding everything that happened in the Wish Realm was the exact same as in the original timeline (meaning the current timeline of FTL during 6x10) up until the casting of the curse so the time travel adventure still happened. This version of Emma and Killian just blinked into existence when the wish was made at the time when the original Emma and Killian traveled to the past and then blinked out of existence when original Captain Swan went back to the future. 

I doubt that. Nothing they did was crucial to history, and as A&E said the Wish Realm isn't really a splinter timeline that shows that would have happened if the Curse hadn't been cast, but a warped world set up so that Emma didn't become a hero. Hence inconsistencies like Henry being named Henry and Robin being young.

[Camera One]

A more appropriate leader of the Resistance would be Nala from "The Lion King", and then Scar could have been the King that Lady Tremaine was aligned with.

[Camera One]

14 hours ago, sharky said:

There's been speculation that Damon Lindelof helped out his former Lost writers with advice and guidance in the first season on the show. It would make sense considering what happened after that.

9 hours ago, cappoe said:

These writers are so disconnected from their audience. They probably don't even understand themselves why they're ratings tanked 3 episodes in. It couldn't possibly be because the audience watched this show for the characters and relationships of the past 6 seasons and once they realized that S7 held absolutely nothing for them like Emma or the real Killian they stopped watching when the main character left.

Cause the newbies suck and the plot lines are so convoluted now and a rip off of S1. A blatant one at that.

It is astounding that the Writers are basically ripping themselves off, yet, every single time, they are leaving out major elements which made the original recipe successful.  It's like they can't pinpoint the reasons why Season 1 was successful and pick the wrong things to repeat.  More and more, I'm thinking Damon must have helped them a whole lot.

It would have been uncreative, but they had a lot of the pieces (gender-reversed copies) to replicate the same formula, but they couldn't even do that right. 

They tried to do "Snow Falls" in the premiere... female steals from male, male and female works together - but they forgot that "Snow Falls" ended very importantly with the female character sacrificing her only chance to defeat The Evil Queen to save the male character.  They tried to replicate Young Henry with Lucy but without the vulnerability and without showing how badly the villain was treating the kid.  They tried to replicate Emma with Adult Henry without the very painful real backstory, not even bothering to show the very painful FAKE backstory.  They tried to replicate Regina with Victoria without giving her any reason for doing anything.  They tried to do Cinderella without proving to the audience that this was actually Cinderella who was forced by her stepmother to be a slave.  They tried to replicate Storybrooke with Hyperion Heights, despite claiming that this neighborhood was part of Seattle and subject to real-world and urban sensibilities.  They even jumped ahead and tried to replicate dead Daniel with dead Anastasia, and Snow offering herself to the villain with Cinders offering herself to the villain, except telling the context verbally instead of showing it.

I can totally see them blaming this on the new cast, or on closed-minded fans not willing to give new characters a chance.  How could they possibly have been so blind to the blatantly obvious problems in the first three episodes, especially with the way they presented Cinderella?

Edited October 23, 2017 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I guess this is not a spoiler to Adam anymore.

Liliam (Lilo)‏ @girlLily  Oct 19

Are people in Storybrooke unaware of what's going on in Hyperion Heights? Or is that a Spoiler question? #JustCurious

Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA

Replying to @girlLily @yarosnikulina and 2 others  they're not aware in 2017 SB of HH or they'd be trying to help.

--------

But they're not worried their Magical Skypes aren't happening?

[snarkastic]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA

Replying to @girlLily @yarosnikulina and 2 others  they're not aware in 2017 SB of HH or they'd be trying to help.

Ah, yes. The good old year qualifier. They're not aware in 2017 Storybrooke, but they are aware in like 2027 Storybrooke.

(I'm never letting this time travel thing go)

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Ah, yes. The good old year qualifier. They're not aware in 2017 Storybrooke, but they are aware in like 2027 Storybrooke.

This show's timeline is more convoluted than Dr. Who's.

[Guest]

21 hours ago, Camera One said:

Adam Horowitz‏ @AdamHorowitzLA

Replying to @girlLily @yarosnikulina and 2 others  they're not aware in 2017 SB of HH or they'd be trying to help.

 

I think 2018 SB will know once the ratings nose dive can be worked into scripts.  Whether they want to help is up for debate.

[Shanna Marie]

The writing for this show is weird in so many ways, but one thing that's becoming more and more obvious is that it's supposedly a serialized show telling a story over an arc, but it's written in a very episodic manner. Instead of working out the present day and past stories and cutting the present day story into episodes, then finding the appropriate pieces of the past to pair with the present, it's like they come up with what each episode is about, and it may or may not actually fit together as a whole. Instead of following organically from the previous episode, it becomes a Hook centric, a Cinderella centric, a Rumple centric, etc.

So, our previous episode was about Lady Tremaine trying to find Cinderella, capturing and planning to torture Henry so she could find her, and then planning to kill him when they were done with him. In the next episode, Cinderella goes right back to her old house and has a chat with Lady Tremaine, who apparently knows that Cinderella has joined the resistance movement, and Lady Tremaine needs Henry's heart. All that trying to find Cinderella is rendered pointless, and I bet Lady Tremaine is happy Henry got rescued before he was killed, or it would have ruined everything.

Meanwhile, the previous episode was about Regina and WHook joining Henry because he needed help for this epic quest to find Cinderella, a quest so epic that it would help Regina find her own story and help WHook take advantage of his second chance. But that quest to find Cinderella amounted to "Oh, hi, there you are. You dropped your shoe."

And there's the fact that if Victoria's main goal is bringing her daughter back to life, why is she spending all that time turning ballet recitals into major charity fundraisers instead of getting that coffin? Separating Lucy and Jacinda the way she did is only giving Jacinda more opportunities to prove herself to be a hero to Lucy, which is the opposite of destroying belief. If she let a struggling single mom keep Lucy and keep failing by losing her temper at work and never quite managing to pay the bills, that seems more effective than creating situations that allow Jacinda to move heaven and earth to stand up to Victoria.

They also seem to be more concerned with coming up with cool images or moments than in telling a coherent story. We open the backstory with Henry tearing down the road on his motorcycle and running into Cinderella's carriage. He says it's because time was of the essence to get to the portal. But the portal opens in the spot where he ran into the carriage (we can see the carriage wreckage there), so he was going at full speed through his destination. If he hadn't crashed into the carriage, he'd have shot right past it. Wouldn't he have been slowing down as he neared his destination, maybe looking for landmarks or checking coordinates on his phone? Time was supposedly of the essence, but he had time to teach Cinderella to drive the motorcycle, get to the ball, talk to her at the ball, get waylaid and drugged by Alice, help Cinderella escape, then Cinderella had time to chat with Tiana before the two of them rode off on the motorcycle, and then Henry got back to that spot before the portal opened.

All this also makes me wonder what Henry's been doing in his travels (maybe we should have had a montage showing the transition from teen Henry to adult Henry as he traveled and met story people). Supposedly, he's looking for stories he can insert himself into so he'll end up in a book. Unless this world is only a portal transfer point, where he came out of a portal from another place so he could catch the next portal, he's been here long enough that he's ready to leave. We learned in this episode that Lady Tremaine's position is powerful enough that there's a resistance movement against her. Henry's supposedly a fairy tale expert who's read all the books of tales from all the worlds, and a Lady Tremaine has been picking up trash in Storybrooke as punishment for trying to kill Cinderella. Why is he surprised to run into Cinderella? Why is he leaving this world on the night of the ball? Wouldn't you think that a guy who's looking to land in a storybook would think he had an opportunity if he found himself in a world where Lady Tremaine is in league with the king and is able to give orders to the palace guards? You'd think he'd maybe be spying on the manor to try to find and help Cinderella, or he'd have tried to find a way into the infamous ball so he could see Cinderella, maybe be the one to figure out who she was when she wasn't recognized because of her transformation or get in the way to get his hands on the glass slipper. But he seems to have been utterly oblivious to the fact that he's landed in a Cinderella story until he crashes into Cinderella.

[Camera One]

11 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The writing for this show is weird in so many ways, but one thing that's becoming more and more obvious is that it's supposedly a serialized show telling a story over an arc, but it's written in a very episodic manner. Instead of working out the present day and past stories and cutting the present day story into episodes, then finding the appropriate pieces of the past to pair with the present, it's like they come up with what each episode is about, and it may or may not actually fit together as a whole. Instead of following organically from the previous episode, it becomes a Hook centric, a Cinderella centric, a Rumple centric, etc.

So, our previous episode was about Lady Tremaine trying to find Cinderella, capturing and planning to torture Henry so she could find her, and then planning to kill him when they were done with him. In the next episode, Cinderella goes right back to her old house and has a chat with Lady Tremaine, who apparently knows that Cinderella has joined the resistance movement, and Lady Tremaine needs Henry's heart. All that trying to find Cinderella is rendered pointless, and I bet Lady Tremaine is happy Henry got rescued before he was killed, or it would have ruined everything.

That has definitely been a problem for awhile now, and I agree it was particularly bad between Episode 2 and Episode 3.

I'm thinking that maybe they could have benefited from a 2-hour season premiere, where they could have done more of a balance of introducing the new characters, while showing the exit of the old characters like Emma and Hook, and maybe ending with a more logical Jacinda-gains-her-fighting-spirit back victory in Hyperion Heights. 

But really, between all the ideas that we've had on this board, the various elements of this season so far *could* have been re-worked in such a way that it would have been a little more engaging and made more sense.  As much as I miss the old characters, there were elements with some potential, but every aspect of this new season has fallen flat on its face, and blame falls squarely on the writing decisions.  Even with the lacklustre new cast, they didn't *have* to actively make Cinderella/Jacinda such an annoying/unlikeable character.  Henry/Cinderella would have been weak regardless, but it didn't have to be *this* bad.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Camera One

[Camera One]

15 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

And there's the fact that if Victoria's main goal is bringing her daughter back to life, why is she spending all that time turning ballet recitals into major charity fundraisers instead of getting that coffin? Separating Lucy and Jacinda the way she did is only giving Jacinda more opportunities to prove herself to be a hero to Lucy, which is the opposite of destroying belief. If she let a struggling single mom keep Lucy and keep failing by losing her temper at work and never quite managing to pay the bills, that seems more effective than creating situations that allow Jacinda to move heaven and earth to stand up to Victoria.

That was my major problem with the whole Victoria reveal.  That "shocking" ending did not explain any of her behavior in Hyperion Heights before or after Henry showed up.  Nor any of her behavior in the flashbacks.  A reveal should make you go, "Ohhhhhhhh, that's why."  Not "WTF.  What a convoluted mess."

Edited October 25, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I think a lot of the problem with the season so far is that it's awfully vague, and the things we do know don't make a lot of sense. I've come up with these issues just with Henry, his history, and his book:

1. If Henry's name is used as the author (since Lucy was able to track him down), then is the character in the book also Henry Mills, or did he give the "Henry" character a different name, since he thinks it's fiction?
2. What background does the curse make Henry think he has? He mentioned that the character of Emma was the mother he wishes he'd had. Does he think he grew up in foster homes, like Emma? Does he think he had an adoptive mother who only adopted him to try to fill the hole in her heart, but she was too narcissistic to be capable of love, and the character of Regina in his book was based on her (in what I guess would be a retcon of a retcon)?
3. Does the book cover just the "present day" part of seasons 1-6 -- from Henry going to get Emma to the Last Supper, plus apparently an epilogue of Henry running into Cinderella, basically, the stuff he would have written as Author -- or does it also incorporate all the backstory flashbacks that were in the storybook he had as a kid?
4. What makes Lucy think that the book is true, that these things all happened to Henry? Does she have pre-curse memories of him telling her these stories, or is there something that made her decide the book was true and they're under a curse?
5. Why hasn't Lucy figured out that Roni, Weaver, and Rogers map to characters in the book (well, sort of, in Rogers' case)? There was a pretty good likeness of Emma in the book. Are there no illustrations of Regina, Rumple, and Hook? If she's trying to convince Henry of the truth, wouldn't that be a good bit of evidence? Or did she send Henry to Roni's to get the laptop so he would see Regina/Roni and figure it out for himself -- or was that an engineered meet cute for him to meet Jacinda when she returned the laptop?
6. Whether or not there are illustrations of those people, wouldn't Henry as the author have a mental image of his characters? His illustration of Emma looked like the real Emma, and Rogers recognized the woman he remembered as saving his life, so it must be accurate in-world. We know his characters are real people, so he should have accurate mental images of them, so why hasn't he recognized them? Wouldn't he have had a "whoa!" moment to walk into the bar and see a woman who looked just like the way he imagined Regina? Wouldn't he have been a bit taken aback when Rogers popped up in the police station, not only looking the way he imagined Hook -- which is very different from any other representation of that character -- but also having an English accent in Seattle and throwing in words like "aye" and "mate" and missing a left hand? Wouldn't he have been utterly stunned when he met Jacinda, the mother of the girl who claims he's her father, and she looks exactly the way he pictured his Cinderella? Even without Lucy's insistence that the book is real, he should be having some serious questions just from running into these people who stepped right out of his head. Without the Emma illustration, you could say he imagined them differently, but we know that he drew at least one illustration that matches the real person.

[Camera One]

13 hours ago, Amerilla said:

(As someone who unashamedly really liked the final season of Lost, I think it would have been interesting if Jen and Em had stayed on and they had played out that premise of Emma/Hook Prime and Belle/Rumpel getting new personas in the real world and meeting up all over again. I know I'm probably a lone voice in the wilderness on that.)

Anything would be better than what we have right now in Season 7.  Or even Season 6.  If they're planning to rip off themselves anyway, I would rather have seen Emma, Snow, Charming, Henry, Hook, Regina, Rumple, Belle and Zelena with New Curse Identities in Hyperion Heights than the boring stuff we got with The Evil Queen and The Land of Untold Stories. 

Different personas can be done well.  In "Lost" Season 6, I actually enjoyed the really different flash personas, like Jack as a dad, Locke as a substitute teacher, Sawyer as a cop, etc. (though the Writers failed in writing interesting flash personas for other characters like Kate, Claire, Sun, Jin, Sayid, etc., partly because they wanted to "trick" the audience into thinking the bomb worked and/or they used some characters like Sun/Jin/Sayid to feature their cameos of bad guys like Keamy rather than explore the characters themselves).

If Jennifer Morrison had agreed to stay, I think the Cursed Emma and Hook subplot could have been the one thing people could enjoy amidst the Jacinda, Victoria, Lucy, Weaver, etc. snoozefest.

10 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think a lot of the problem with the season so far is that it's awfully vague, and the things we do know don't make a lot of sense. I've come up with these issues just with Henry, his history, and his book:

1. If Henry's name is used as the author (since Lucy was able to track him down), then is the character in the book also Henry Mills, or did he give the "Henry" character a different name, since he thinks it's fiction?

From the first episode, I think Henry used his name as the character's name and wrote in the first person.  Since he told Lucy that he didn't fly with Peter Pan and his grandmother wasn't Snow White, etc.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Camera One

[RulerofallIsurvey]

18 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think a lot of the problem with the season so far is that it's awfully vague, and the things we do know don't make a lot of sense. I've come up with these issues just with Henry, his history, and his book:e know that he drew at least one illustration that matches the real person.

"Your questions are pointless." - Rumple, (aka A&E) ;)

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

From the first episode, I think Henry used his name as the character's name and wrote in the first person.  Since he told Lucy that he didn't fly with Peter Pan and his grandmother wasn't Snow White, etc.

But Lucy could also have come to that conclusion because she believes the book is real and about his actual adventures, no matter what the character's name was. The problem is that we don't know why she thinks the book is real -- does she have real memories and isn't affected by the curse, or is there something that made her realize that this was the truth, not just a novel? The main character having the same name and it being written in first person might make your average unhinged fan think it's really about the author (heck, even semi-average regular readers seem to think that any first-person narrator character is basically just like the author), but if Lucy has some evidence of truth, she wouldn't need that. Not knowing why she believes is one of the real issues of this season. Yeah, we know she's right, since we know who these people really are and we're seeing the flashbacks, but we don't know what made her know they were under a curse, since the book doesn't seem to cover a curse if Henry meeting Cinderella is the last chapter.

[andromeda331]

Given how Jacinda/Cinderella is in the present and flashbacks. Was it a complete accident that they created people like Snow and Emma? Do A&E not know how to write characters that aren't nice? Or are these their favorite characters? Or is this the chance to write the story how they always wanted to write it in the beginning but their script kept getting rejected? Did they just luck out with the casting? They gave us so much to root for when it came to Snow and Charming. When it came to Emma. But their not giving any reason to root for Jacinda/Cinderella or Henry. Was it a complete accident then with the Charmings and Emma? Do they really not understand what made people like those characters? For all their attempts to turn Regina into the main character, the hero, the Savior, etc. it didn't work because Regina was not Emma, and they wouldn't tune her character in ways to be more likable. The more sass, the more time, none of it mattered because they never let the character deal with anything they just declared everything instantly. She and Henry are fixed, Regina and the Charmings are fixed, she's a hero. Had the original script not been forced to be changed to be accepted is this what we would have gotten?  

[Camera One]

I was watching some David/Mary Margaret scenes from Season 1 while I was waiting for tonight's epic romantic adventure, and I really enjoyed their scenes together in Episode 3, 4 and 5.  In some ways, I think I might have preferred Mary Margaret being a nun and breaking her vow, than the whole adultery stuff with Kathryn, even though the actress who played Abigail was actually really good.  Her Storybrooke demeanor was so different than her Enchanted Forest one.  In some ways, some of the Season 1 stuff was really frustrating to watch, but those little moments between MM and David pre-affair were really good.  

Edited October 28, 2017 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I disagree, since Regina didn't have an arc at all. (Other than the Robin grief.) The Evil Queen felt like her own character and while she had an arc, Regina fans couldn't really appreciate it. Absolutely everyone from every corner of the fandom hated Golden Queen, and Wish!Robin failed to impress Outlaw Queen shippers.

It's still an arc, even if nobody liked it. Golden Queen and Wish!Robin may have been horrible, but they were part of the arc for Regina and Clone Queen. Emma's only arc was death prophecy and shaky hands. She had nothing else going on. Snow and Charming took turns sleeping. I don't think Hook had an arc until 6B. If he did, I can't remember it. Rumple may have had the most significant arc in S6, even if his screen-time was less. But of the others, Lana had the most screen-time. You can't really separate Regina and Clone Queen's arcs, as they overlapped. 

Quote

I think S6 was the season A&E stopped caring about Current!Regina. They've given her nothing to do for herself in S7. With Emma out of the picture, there's room to make her more of a well-rounded, likable protagonist, but the writers have not taken the time nor effort.

The writers do love her as the Evil Queen more. They're bored with "good" characters. That's why they have "redeemed" Regina continue to make insulting remarks disguised as "snark". However, it's sort of too late to make Regina a well-rounded character becasue they bypassed the remorse and empathy stages of redemption for her journey.