A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[KingOfHearts]

Character imbalance is a major symptom of bad storytelling though. You lose coherency when you're constantly throwing some characters to the side for no logical reason within the story, only to push some favorite characters up to the forefront. This show is highly character-focused. If you take away Snow from the action and put up Regina everywhere in her place, you're removing one of the show's critical pillars without effectively replacing it. Every member of the main cast brings something to the show. You simply cannot tell a good story without strong characters. Character development is the drive that makes the story evolve. Character imbalance breaks the coherency of the show, thus making the story choppy and broken up.

 

You can watch for favorite characters without being a social media shipper. I don't watch for kisses - I watch for what my favorite characters will bring to the story.

Edited July 13, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Mari]

 They turned Regina into a flashy, mental, fairy tale evil caricature of the celebrity kind, giving her sorry excuses for doing evil, no regrets and let her look like the most misunderstood innocent soul of them all, while Snow was turned into a tumbling fool, and Emma is close to becoming the bad guy in the view of some people. The dubious morals of the show as much as their rushed and mediocre story telling is the problem, only somewhat buried by the loud squabble about favorite characters and ships in the fandom.

...

The most vocal fandom might be the once watching the show mostly for their favorite character or ship, but the fandom is diverse if it comes to who the favorites are, who deserves more story, who even is main character and who just supporting, and pleasing all is impossible, there always will be some character fans displeased. Writing good stories though could be in the realm of the doable.

I know this has been an issue in the fandom--particularly with Regina--and I've wondered if part of the problem is because they no longer have characters in-show that present the counter-argument to Regina's point of view about herself.  Regina gets upset, and there's not really anyone in-show who says "Wait?  What about this . . ."

 

It's really easy, I think, to not think about how things are impacting characters you don't care as much about, if those characters are never allowed to say so.  It was a better show when people were allowed to call Regina--and Rumple, to a lesser extent--on it when wrong,

[stealinghome]

ITA, KingOfHearts. The key, for me, is that the characters should always power the plot, not vice versa. In fact, to me, plot breakdown and character breakdown are two sides of the same coin, because a breakdown in one usually means a breakdown in the other. Plots become fragmented, unengaging, unbelievable, etc, when they don't grow organically from the characters' established personalities, motivations, histories, and so forth--everything that makes a character a character. When you have to twist your characters 180 degrees and basically change them into entirely new people, or give them a lobotomy or a brain transplant or make them braindead, in order to service the plot (which Once has done to literally every.single.one of its main characters at this point, with the two biggest victims being Regina and Snow), the plot is by pretty much by definition going to flop, because it's immediately unbelievable and contrived. If you want to do x with a character but can't figure out why they would believably do x at this time, you haven't been handling your character or your plot correctly.

[daxx]

Rewatching "Heart of Darkness" I had forgotten how much I shipped Snowing and how much I disliked cursed David.

The scene at the jail cell with Mary Margaret, ugh.

[stealinghome]

I'm pretty sure my early love for Charming started when I compared him directly to cursed!David, because ugh, cursed David sucked so hard, and Charming was so awesome in comparison. I think sometimes people forget how awesome David is until he's up next to some of the schmucktastic men the show has featured, and then you're like "Oh, yeah, Charming really is the shiz."

[YaddaYadda]

There's really a very defined difference between cursed!David and normal!David.  I started re-watching Broken and you can see the difference right away in the way he took charge, the way he spoke.  And David's scenes with Emma are like candy.

[KingOfHearts]

I loved the opening flashback scene with Snow White in her signature Disney appearance singing her song. It never ceases to crack me up when she suddenly tries to hit the bird with her broom. Evil Snow was pretty entertaining, imo.

Edited July 13, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[stealinghome]

Yes! Cursed!Snow was hilarious, and you can tell that Ginny had a ball playing her. That's one of the reasons I wouldn't have been opposed to a true Dark Snow storyline in S2, because I could absolutely use more hilariously "bad girl" Snow in my life.

[Shanna Marie]

After rewatching a couple more episodes, I remember why I didn't give up the show after the moral insanity that is Belle and Rumple and the prominence Poor Sad Regina's Tears started to take. "In the Name of the Brother" and "Tiny" aren't great episodes, but they contain a lot of the stuff I like about the series. We really didn't need to see more of Whale's backstory since we already knew just about everything we saw in the episode other than the fact that the person he was trying to revive was his brother. We didn't need the flashback to know why he was freaking out after the incident with Daniel, and the freakout was only really an excuse to have a flashback and to create fake suspense about the stranger. However, that episode gave us some fun with the fairytale/storybook characters being aware that they're now living in a world where they're fictional characters, so we see Doctor Frankenstein knowing that his name has come to mean "monster," and Red knows she'd be seen as a Wolf Girl. I've always wanted to see more of that, and they only barely touch on it. I'm also intrigued by their fear of how the outside world would see Storybrooke and what they need to do about it. Then "Tiny" was a great David episode, and I'm generally happy to see James. I wouldn't want him to be a regular, but when it comes to the concept of "here's the real story" about fairy tales, the fact that Prince Charming is really a shepherd posing as his evil twin who was raised as a king's son is exactly the kind of thing I look for, so the whole David/James contrast is one of my favorite things about the show. David is so good without being too sappy about it (Josh somehow sells it as being sincere without being cloying), and so brave, so it's fun to get the occasional look at his evil twin.

 

He does totally fail on pirate management, though, but a lot of that may be Plot Stupidity caused by writers who forget what happened in their own show. "Tiny" takes place the day after all the hospital stuff, when the last time we saw Hook, he was handcuffed to a hospital bed. Even if you factor in the deleted scene in which he got free and was wandering the halls, trying to figure out what Jello is, you have to imagine that Emma probably marched him right back to his room and got him back in bed (probably with a few lewd comments from him about her joining him) and handcuffed him more securely. And yet David and Snow seem to run into him wandering around town the next day. Even if the hospital had released him, you'd think he would have been sent straight to the jail, since Emma was keeping him in custody in the hospital. The Storybrooke legal system may be iffy, and all evidence of him shooting Belle was magically undone, but they still could have got him as at least an accessory to Archie's kidnapping, and you'd think Emma would have wanted to make sure to keep him out of commission until they got Cora contained, even if it took arresting him for jaywalking. But the way the scene plays out, it doesn't give the impression that David's just taken him out of jail or the hospital to make him help them find Cora. We come into the scene as David goes straight to "Where's Cora?" and then Hook acts offended that he didn't even inquire after his health and recovery first, which isn't the sort of thing that happens midway through a conversation. Then later, Hook gets away entirely and is free to wander the town, with no one paying any attention to where he is. True, they were busy with the giant, but they had time to sit in the diner and discuss the giant and why he might be mad at David, and no one thinks to say, "Hey, where'd the pirate go?" Why bother handcuffing him to a hospital bed if you're going to let him wander loose?

 

Though I suppose Emma might have sprung him, since she really was concerned that Rumple was going to come after him, and it would hardly be fair to leave him locked up where he couldn't escape. While we're getting legal, they should have arrested Rumple for assault and battery, but Hook quite cleverly wiped the memory of the only witness, and calling the cops on his assailant doesn't seem like Hook's style.

 

It does seem like they were showing that Regina's "redemption" was purely for getting Henry back, since that's the reason she teams up with Cora so quickly, even knowing that Cora was the one who framed her. And we have Snow apologizing yet again, just for believing Cora's frame job, without a word of apology from Regina for actually having framed Snow. But poor Regina, nobody believes in her, and that totally justifies her turning against them all to destroy them so Henry will have to be with her. You know, if you murder lots of people, you don't have a lot of room to complain when people believe that you've committed a murder because of the evidence.

[tennisgurl]

And really, that's always been one of my biggest issues with the show. Episodes like Tiny or In the Name of the Brother don't advance the plot very much( in fact, very little in either of those episodes really gets brought up after that), but they have lots of good character stuff, interesting world building, and play with the traditional stories they were based on. You know, what this show SHOULD be doing, instead of bending over backwards to make us feel sorry for its villains, and rushing through the plot like a bat out of hell, and throwing new lands/villains at us, like they're shacking keys in front of an infant. They have a really interesting universe built, a great cast of characters with rich backstories, and the plot of fictional characters entering the "real" world, something that is full of possibilities. They just need to focus on THAT stuff, the stuff that they actually do right when they try. .

[Shanna Marie]

The interesting thing about both "Tiny" and "In the Name of the Brother" are that they don't really have "villains." Cora's out there and a threat, but the episode isn't about "we have to stop Cora's latest scheme!" Those episodes are more about Storybrooke as a community, which is something I don't think we see nearly enough of. With "In the Name of the Brother," it's about the community pulling together as they realize there might be an outside threat. There's nothing to fight, just them needing to make some tough decisions and think about their future. In "Tiny," Anton is something of a threat, but it's not about fighting him. They don't want to defeat him. They just want to stop him from seeing them as a threat, and then the community pulls together to save him, making him a part of the community. I love the idea of a giant becoming an honorary dwarf. These episodes show that you don't necessarily need a villain in every episode to have a story. They almost completely lost the community concept in season three because the first half of the season sent almost all the main characters to Neverland, and then in the second half the focus was entirely on the core characters facing Zelena, with no sense of what was going on with the rest of the town.

 

There's a lot they could work with here, as Storybrooke is bringing together people who otherwise might never have known each other in their world and bringing in some people from different worlds. And yet they're all here in this town, and they need to find where they fit in. The problem with the half-season arc and big bad for the arc is that it doesn't leave room for these "little" episodes that are about the characters and how they fit together. They need something like this for Curse 2, since there are new people in town like Robin and his people, Aurora (and presumably Philip) and Hook, none of whom seem to have Storybrooke identities. Are people picking up where they left off in the last curse, or are they building their own lives in Storybrooke since this time they're starting out already knowing who they are?

 

But after these episodes that reminded me why I watch this show, it went to hell again in "Manhattan." There's some interesting stuff, but I just want to shoot Neal for the way he treats Emma, and even though it actually hasn't happened yet, I'm already pissed off at him for throwing Emma under the bus with Henry instead of telling him the truth about what happened. At least here they aren't yet at the "I had no choice" stage where Emma even agrees. Even he seems to realize it's kind of a lame excuse and that he may have had a good reason, but he went about it in a crappy way. Meanwhile, there's Regina biting at every line Cora feeds her and quite willingly going along with a plan to kill everyone so she can keep Henry.

 

Does anyone know during which episode filming Colin broke his leg? Hook is limping badly in the aftermath of the accident when Greg/Owen hit him, but I think that must be acting limping since if he could do that much with a real broken leg, there wouldn't have been a need to write Hook out of planned storylines. So the poor guy spent weeks having to limp for work, then broke his leg and had to limp for real.

[KAOS Agent]

I believe Colin broke his leg when they were filiming "The Queen Is Dead". I think they said in an interview at Comic Con last year that Neal & Hook were supposed to film together the day after he broke it. I wish someone would leak that script because I'd love to know where they were going with the Hook/Neal relationship and whether Milah's murder and Rumpel's culpability were addressed during that conversation. 

[Amerilla]

I wish someone would leak that script because I'd love to know where they were going with the Hook/Neal relationship and whether Milah's murder and Rumpel's culpability were addressed during that conversation.

 

 

I would be surprised if it amounted to much. Neal knew who Hook was, but Hook wouldn't have known who Neal was (since they wouldn't have met since Neverland), so it was probably a quick scene "re-introducing" the characters during some other action - like it was originally Neal who dragged the semi-conscious Hook down to the basement, rather than just having Emma do it off-screen.  

 

They were saving the "reveals" in the Hook-Neal relationship for the finale - that would have already have been planned before Colin broke anything -  and it seems like they weren't interested in working on the Rumpel-Neal relationship in the last third of S2 (or, apparently, in S3). I think at best it would have filled in the little gap in the finale where Hook somehow knew that Neal = Bae when Emma told Hook Neal had died.   

[Camera One]

This was a quote from the EW interview posted today (beware: the article does have some spoilers or teasers about the upcoming season, though it's a gold-mine of discussion for why this show can be so infuriating).

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/07/17/once-upon-a-time-showrunners-frozen/

I wanted to reply to a non-spoiler quote, though.

 

Horowitz: We sometimes like to think of our show as a Disney cul de sac. You can come in, and have some fun with the characters, leave, and the characters are what you loved before.

I actually laughed at this, since it is so ridiculous. Are they kidding? After "Once" is done with some of the characters, they are definitely NOT the characters you loved before! The characters are lucky if they don't get completely destroyed. At best, they become bland and uninteresting like Rapunzel. At worse, they get murdered like Gus Gus and Cinderella's fairy godmother. And then in between, you have Belle who has become an enabler, Glinda who became a brainless idiot, Peter and Michael who became pawns, Wendy who became a helpless prisoner who betrayed a friend's trust, Maleficient who became a toothless prop... the list goes on and on.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Camera One

[myril]

Doesn't cul de sac mean blind alley, dead-end? English is not my first language so sometimes some special meanings might elude me. But, I mean, dead-end is a rather fitting description for the story telling on this show IMO.

 

And they actually talk about seeing characters as toys on the shelf they want to play with.

We said so for a while, didn't we. Guess they think we think that is cool.

 

I will now go into a padded cell for a round of wall banging and rolling on the floor with laughter.

Edited July 17, 2014 by katusch

[Camera One]

From the interview:

Kitsis: The entire writing staff was so inspired by [Frozen]. And thematically it’s very much within what we do—the [Frozen] curse was broken with true love’s kiss, but between sisters. And if you remember, [in] season one, we did [the curse breaking with the love] between a mother and a son. And the idea of a villain who is not actually a villain—one of the things we loved about Elsa is she went away not because she was a villain, but because she didn’t want to hurt anyone and felt different. All those themes are very related to some of our characters like Emma, and Regina and Rumpelstiltskin. It was like seeing two toys on a shelf we wanted to take off and play with.

As others have also said, that quote from Kitsis is so indicative of their mindset which causes us so much frustration, and also shows how delusional they are. Look at the assumptions that the quote makes:

1. Kitsis says "what we do" is true love between family members, just like Frozen.

Yet the show hardly gives any time to Snow/Charming/Emma as a family unit.

2. To Kitsis, the villains on "Once" are "not actually a villain"

So Regina, Rumple, Cora and Zelena aren't villains? People who kill innocent villagers and servants and have no moral dilemmas about collateral damage aren't villains just because they have a sob story?

3. Kitsis puts Emma, Regina and Rumplestiltskin in the same boat.

I don't even know how to respond to this one.

4. Kitsis sees the new characters they add (Neverland, Oz, Frozen) as "toys to play with".

So that's their focus... not on the long-term journeys of the actual characters on the show, but how to work in these "toys" which they toss aside like last week's bag lunch when the half-season is over.

[Mari]

I hope your right. I hated that Emma was fine with changing the timeline as long as it didn't impact her. Heck she could have killed Rumple and saved everyone but she choose not too. Must be nice to play god the way she does.

This post made me think about a few things.  I don't think Emma killing Rumple in the past is a reasonable idea--you need the special dagger to do it in the Enchanted Forest, and Emma didn't know where it was. 

 

But should she have done something to try and stop him?  I think, from the tone of Rockybeach's post, some do believe that. 

 

While in the past, would Emma have been able to scuttle Rumple's plans?  And if so, should she?

 

If she did manage to contain or kill Rumple somehow, what would change?  Would Regina still cast the curse?  I think she would--or at least something fairly equally dire--simply because she was so obsessed with Snow.

 

Who, exactly, would killing or containing Rumple in the past actually save?

[RadioGirl27]

If Emma had killed Rumple in the past or if she had done something to stop the curse, Henry wouldn't have been born so I don't think she would have ever considered it.

[Mari]

If Emma had killed Rumple in the past or if she had done something to stop the curse, Henry wouldn't have been born so I don't think she would have ever considered it.

Oh, I agree.  She wouldn't want to risk Henry's existence, and I think she made the right choice.

 

But, if we pretend that doesn't exist--what would stopping Rumple in the Snow Drifts/Falls era change in the bigger story?  Would the curse still get cast?  Would the greater good have been served if Emma had stopped/contained/killed Rumple, or would most of it have happened anyway?

[Dani-Ellie]

The issue with changing the past is that you have no idea what could greatly alter the future. In Back to the Future, Marty shoves his father out of the way of an oncoming car and ends up threatening his own existence because his father was supposed to get hit by that car. Even in the storyline the finale presented, Hook and Emma were trying to be as unobtrusive as they possibly could, and all it took was the snap of a branch to interrupt the moment Emma's parents met. Then they had to run around and fix things so that the present they returned to would be as close as possible to the one they left.

 

Killing Rumple at that point in time could have had even more disastrous effects on the timeline than letting things stand the way they were. Since Snow and Charming hadn't met, there was no True Love for Rumple to have weaved into the curse. There was no safety valve. If Rumple had died and Regina had somehow found a way to finish his work and cast the Dark Curse without him, it's entirely possible that the curse would have unbreakable. Hook and Emma could have arrived back in the Storybrooke we started the show with, where no one knew who they were and families were separated and Henry was unhappy and Regina played with her puppets all day long.

 

Emma even references this when she tells Rumple he has to forget everything she told him about Bae. Attempting to fix the future could end up making it worse. You just don't know, and since they don't have a DeLorean sitting in their backyard, it's not like they could go back to the point where everything went wrong and keep trying to fix it.

 

I'd said before that The Butterfly Effect is kind of a terrible movie, because it is, but it also illustrates this very idea. Ashton Kutcher's character keeps going back and trying to fix what he thinks is where everything went wrong, and the timelines that result from the "fixes" are increasingly worse than the ones before.

 

As for Emma saving Marian, I'm sorry that Regina's past is coming back to bite her in the ass, but them's the breaks when you imprison people and sentence them to death. Saving a woman from certain death is not wrong (just like it wasn't wrong for Marty to push his father out of the way of an oncoming car), and Emma mitigated the damage Marian could have done to the timeline by bringing her forward with them. Instead of Marian actually dying, she was just given up for dead. Reuniting a family in the present is also not wrong, and if Regina weren't involved with Robin, I still maintain that Robin, Roland, and Marian finding each other again would have been cause for celebration. (Hell, from my perspective, it still is cause for celebration.) The fallout from bringing Marian forward is Emma's and Regina's to share, because it's not like Emma freed Marian from some random dungeon. She freed her from Regina's. If Regina hadn't imprisoned Marian in the first place, which kept her from returning to her family, Robin wouldn't have even been available.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Dani-Ellie

[Amerilla]

But, if we pretend that doesn't exist--what would stopping Rumple in the Snow Drifts/Falls era change in the bigger story?  Would the curse still get cast?  Would the greater good have been served if Emma had stopped/contained/killed Rumple, or would most of it have happened anyway?

 

 

Absent of Rumple, I don't think the curse would have been cast. Initially, Regina didn't want to punish Snow, she wanted to kill her. While Blue and Snow's other friends and allies were making it hard to do, Snow was entirely kill-able...until Rumple interceded. It was his putting a protection spell on Snow in the fairyback of The Cricket Game - and then his suggestion to Regina that she use the curse to inflict a non-lethal punishment instead - that put all that in motion.     

Edited July 19, 2014 by Amerilla

[Souris]

I hope your right. I hated that Emma was fine with changing the timeline as long as it didn't impact her. Heck she could have killed Rumple and saved everyone but she choose not too. Must be nice to play god the way she does.

 

I will never, ever get the hate some people have for Emma over her saving Marian. If it hadn't affected Regina, I don't think people would care overmuch. I challenge any good person not to feel an overwhelming urge to save the nice, sweet woman who is about to be executed for protecting your mother. It was an emotional decision, not a rational "science-y" one, and I completely understand it. Heroes don't leave innocent people to die. That's not playing God. That's being human. And the reason they brought her to the future was BECAUSE they were trying not to change the timeline. If Emma was unconcerned about changing the timeline, she'd have let Marian run off to her family. 

 

As for killing Rumple, she couldn't have, for so many reasons. 1) Talk about changing the timeline, that would sure as hell change the timeline. 2) Rumple isn't exactly easy to kill. Hook spent 300 years trying to find a way, and he was super-motivated. 3) She didn't have his dagger. 4) If she did somehow manage to kill Rumple, wouldn't that mean SHE would then become the Dark One? I don't think that's on Emma's bucket list.

[RadioGirl27]

I will never, ever get the hate some people have for Emma over her saving Marian. If it hadn't affected Regina, I don't think people would care overmuch. I challenge any good person not to feel an overwhelming urge to save the nice, sweet woman who is about to be executed for protecting your mother. It was an emotional decision, not a rational "science-y" one, and I completely understand it. Heroes don't leave innocent people to die. That's not playing God. That's being human. And the reason they brought her to the future was BECAUSE they were trying not to change the timeline. If Emma was unconcerned about changing the timeline, she'd have let Marian run off to her family.

Sometimes this fandom amaze me so much. And the funny thing is that those who criticize Emma for saving Marian, would have criticize her if she hadn't done it ("See, she is not that good, she let that poor woman die").

[stealinghome]

If it hadn't affected Regina, I don't think people would care overmuch.

Does anyone hate Emma for it other than Regina superfans?

[Mari]

I remember quite a bit of "How dare Emma mess with the timeline!" at the time it happened, and from more than just the Fabulous Regina faction.  I think most of it has quieted down, now, but won't be surprised if it starts up again when the season starts.

 

But I will admit that I pick out quotes from people that quite obviously see things from Regina's perspective, and try to promote discussion about the idea in them.  The logic behind it often completely escapes me, so it's nice to read what other people have to say about it, and while I do have a strong opinion about a lot of the show, I don't want to have a closed mind about it.

[FavFable]

 

4) If she did somehow manage to kill Rumple, wouldn't that mean SHE would then become the Dark One? I don't think that's on Emma's bucket list.

 

You make a good point. Emma wasn't going to change anything in the timeline that would impact her. Even if it prevented her parents from being separated for 30 years.

[Rumsy4]

 

You make a good point. Emma wasn't going to change anything in the timeline that would impact her. Even if it prevented her parents from being separated for 30 years.

 

So you think Emma should have become the Dark One? If you think she is wrong for bringing Marian back to the future with her, why would she also not be wrong in trying to alter the past in other ways?

[snarkastic]

You make a good point. Emma wasn't going to change anything in the timeline that would impact her. Even if it prevented her parents from being separated for 30 years.

Wait. If Emma was soooo concerned about preserving her own timeline, then bringing Marion to the future with her isn't the best move on her part as you stated that she purposefully changed the timeline by doing this. ANY CHANGES MADE TO THE TIMELINE COULD EFFECT HER AS SHE WASN'T BORN YET. You don't just get to pick and choose like that and just KNOW what'll effect you or not. So, either there were no changes to the timeline after this point, or she wasn't only concerned about how it impacted her.

[yeswedo]

I remember quite a bit of "How dare Emma mess with the timeline!" at the time it happened, and from more than just the Fabulous Regina faction.  I think most of it has quieted down, now, but won't be surprised if it starts up again when the season starts.

 

But I will admit that I pick out quotes from people that quite obviously see things from Regina's perspective, and try to promote discussion about the idea in them.  The logic behind it often completely escapes me, so it's nice to read what other people have to say about it, and while I do have a strong opinion about a lot of the show, I don't want to have a closed mind about it.

 

This can be a fun discussion because we do all bring different perspectives to the show. Even people who generally agree about a character or storyline may have differing points of view in certain areas.

 

Thanks @Mari and to all of you for keeping this forum a welcoming place for all opinions. It really would get boring if everyone agreed about everything.

[Shanna Marie]

As for killing Rumple, she couldn't have, for so many reasons. 1) Talk about changing the timeline, that would sure as hell change the timeline. 2) Rumple isn't exactly easy to kill. Hook spent 300 years trying to find a way, and he was super-motivated. 3) She didn't have his dagger. 4) If she did somehow manage to kill Rumple, wouldn't that mean SHE would then become the Dark One? I don't think that's on Emma's bucket list.

My impression is that you only become the new Dark One if you kill the current Dark One with the magic dagger. If she killed him some other way, then it's just a dead Dark One. But killing him some other way is nearly impossible. Hook had to get the incurable (until it wasn't) poison from Neverland, then track Rumple to a world without magic in a place where his powers didn't work to even get close. In the Enchanted Forest, Rumple was practically invincible. He's somewhat prescient, can apparate and disapparate in an instant, can instantly heal any wound to himself and can kill others without even touching them. Come at him with a sword or knife and he'll poof out of the way while Darth Vadering you.

 

And, as much as Hook hates Rumple, I don't think he would have let Emma kill him because of the danger to the timeline. While Rumple was egging Regina on, he was also a moderating influence because he was goading her to just the right level of hatred that he needed without letting her do too much in a way that would destroy his plans. At that point, when she was already well on the revenge path and already had great power, if you remove Rumple from the equation, there's no telling what she might have done. If freeing Marian was a danger, killing the person orchestrating just about all the big events could have been catastrophic. But saving Marian didn't change the timeline. It only changed the way she was removed from the timeline. Bringing her to the future changes the future, but it doesn't alter events leading to the present.

[Camera One]

Unfortunately, Emma could have changed the timeline even by bringing Marion back to the future, because you never know if Marion's execution would have occurred. Maybe it didn't (an escape, Regina had a great day, etc.), and Marion lived on to do something important.

Emma and Hook were so careless in that "adventure" that it's an unbelievable miracle that the timeline "corrected" itself at all, and Rumple was pretty much an idiot for letting them bumble around when he could have accomplished it more easily, especially if he was sooo afraid the effects on the timeline might affect his quest to find Bae.

Having said that, I'm glad Emma saved Marion. It is true to who Emma is. Realistically speaking, this episode was a hot mess, but at least it was reasonably interesting to watch.

[Shanna Marie]

Unfortunately, Emma could have changed the timeline even by bringing Marion back to the future, because you never know if Marion's execution would have occurred. Maybe it didn't (an escape, Regina had a great day, etc.), and Marion lived on to do something important.

The irony there is, if they'd known who she was, then they'd have known she actually did die in the original timeline and that it was safe to bring her to the future. It was only an uncertainty because they didn't know her identity and therefore didn't know her original fate. But if they'd known who she was, they'd have known that it was really going to screw things up to have her in the present in Storybrooke. Not that this should have stopped them because I'd think that reuniting a mother with her son would outweigh a days-old romance (and since we know that Emma knows all about kids being separated from parents and Hook seems to have issues relating to that, too, I think it's clear what they would have decided if they knew her child was in Storybrooke).

 

I went to a swordfighting demo/workshop today, and it turns out that in the Italian style, which a lot of the cinematic swordfighting is based on, the swords actually were designed so the basket hilt could be used as a club, so the way we saw Hook fight in the finale was actually the way someone might have fought, though if he'd had two hands, he'd have had a knife in the other hand (under normal circumstances, that's how he uses the hook, but he was one-handed in that fight). So I guess they weren't just playing games to avoid bloodshed and clubbing someone on the head with the hilt would have been an expected move. (And I got to play with live steel, which was an interesting change from blunted competitive fencing weapons.)

 

I did notice that up to the midpoint of season two, the good guys were still allowed to actually fight. Charming's fight to escape Regina's dungeon was pretty brutal, and Graham killed one of the guards holding him. Snow's fight into George's castle to rescue Charming was also pretty rough. Not Game of Swords-level blood spurting everywhere, but they were still fighting to kill. It's just in late season two when they start in on the "heroes don't kill" routine.

[KingOfHearts]

Or they could have just reopened the time portal to stop themselves from messing with the timeline in the first place...

[Souris]

Or they could have just reopened the time portal to stop themselves from messing with the timeline in the first place...

 

But they didn't know HOW to do that, which is why they went to Rumple. The only way they were able to was with the wand he gave them and Emma regaining her magic.

 

My impression is that you only become the new Dark One if you kill the current Dark One with the magic dagger. If she killed him some other way, then it's just a dead Dark One.

 

Ah, OK, I was unclear on that, then.

[KingOfHearts]

 

But they didn't know HOW to do that, which is why they went to Rumple. The only way they were able to was with the wand he gave them and Emma regaining her magic.

Yes, but instead of risking messing with the timeline even more by trying to "fix" it, they could have been waiting for Rumple to get the solution ready.

Edited July 20, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Souris]

Yes, but instead of risking messing with the timeline even more by trying to "fix" it, they could have been waiting for Rumple to get the solution ready.

 

The timeline was already messed with in a MAJOR way. Rumple told them to fix it, and they did eventually, so I think it was the correct call.

[Camera One]

Yes, the timeline was already messed up. The correct call would have been Rumple forcing King George to arrange a carriage journey for Charming and Abigail, and Rumple to change his appearance to someone telling/getting Snow to rob that carriage, and bam, situation recreated. Meanwhile, Hook and Emma are trapped in the vault with their hands tied behind their backs so they don't start taking random urns out of cupboards.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

 

The timeline was already messed with in a MAJOR way. Rumple told them to fix it, and they did eventually, so I think it was the correct call.

 

But it wouldn't be messed up if they had gone back to the future right before they went through the portal to warn themselves not to.

 

Rumple could have fixed the timeline easily himself. He organized the original in the first place, anyway. Hook and Emma were really bad time travelers, so I'm surprised Rumple even trusted them to fix it themselves. He even called them out on their bad Marty McFly skills.

 

"It's a miracle the timeline hasn't imploded already!"

Edited July 20, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

But it wouldn't be messed up if they had gone back to the future right before they went through the portal to warn themselves not to.

But they couldn't control when they went back. Rumple's wand only reversed the spell, so it re-created the same portal, going in the opposite direction. They weren't able to go back to before they left. And it wasn't as though they were trying to change the timeline. They knew not to and were trying not to. Emma accidentally broke a branch. So even if they were warned not to change the timeline, there's the chance that they might have done something else unintentionally that still would have changed things.

[Rumsy4]

I do think Emma was not a very savvy time-traveler, though. She called out the Evil Queen as "Regina!" in King Midas's Castle. Any idiot would have known not to act familiar around the Evil Queen, and Emma is supposed to be a smart bounty hunter. In the same way, she blabbed that Rumple and Belle "fall for each other". Hook and Emma not having thought out fake names for themselves before going to the Ball was also idiotic. These moments were all played for laughs, I get it, but it was hard to reconcile with their personalities. However the twig-snapping was completely accidental, and I can't blame Emma for it. I suppose Rumple could have tried to set it right himself, but he didn't know the details of what exactly needed to be set right, the way Emma did. Overall, they did a good job fixing everything back in the end. 

Edited July 20, 2014 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

 

So even if they were warned not to change the timeline, there's the chance that they might have done something else unintentionally that still would have changed things.

They could have just gone to the moment right after they fell into EF and tell them where to go to get the wand and how to avoid areas that have people in them.

 

I thought in the end the portal reopened, but I didn't think it was reverse-trip only. It was never stated to be, anyway. Emma could have gotten back to the present by thinking of it, as all portals work like Neal says.

Edited July 20, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I suppose Rumple could have tried to set it right himself, but he didn't know the details of what exactly needed to be set right, the way Emma did.

That's why Emma would have to tell him what to do to get her parents to meet. Of course, the entire episode wouldn't work if that were the case, but still, it makes you have to ignore all the questions and enjoy while sort of shutting your brain off.

She called out the Evil Queen as "Regina!" in King Midas's Castle. Any idiot would have known not to act familiar around the Evil Queen, and Emma is supposed to be a smart bounty hunter. In the same way, she blabbed that Rumple and Belle "fall for each other". Hook and Emma not having thought out fake names for themselves before going to the Ball was also idiotic. These moments were all played for laughs, I get it, but it was hard to reconcile with their personalities.

I did laugh at some of those, but you're right. It probably happened one too many times. She didn't even need to call Regina by her name, since she would have been arrested regardless. Plus I can't see someone laughing at that one.

[Dani-Ellie]

What I mean is they could have gone back to the future, where Hook and Emma were in the park, and told themselves not to investigate it.

 

But then you get a paradox. If they stop themselves from time-traveling, they then can't come back to the future early to tell themselves not to time-travel.

 

They could have just gone to the moment right after they fell into EF and tell them where to go to get the wand and how to avoid areas that have people in them.

 

The portal only reopened because Emma magicked it open with the wand, which fell from her hand and was left in Rumple's vault. Once they were back in Storybrooke, there was no way to reopen the portal, short of recasting Zelena's spell.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Dani-Ellie

[Rumsy4]

What I mean is they could have gone back to the future, where Hook and Emma were in the park, and told themselves not to investigate it.

 

I thought in the end the portal reopened, but I didn't think it was reverse-trip only. It was never stated to be, anyway. Emma could have gotten back to the present by thinking of it, as all portals work like Neal says.

 

That seems rather over complicated, and reminds me of the movie Primer. If Hook and Emma went back to the point where they would have gone back to the past and stopped themselves from going back in Time, what would happen to their time-traveling selves? Would they branch-off to make two Hooks and Emmas in Storybrooke? ;-) 

[KingOfHearts]

 

But then you get a paradox. If they stop themselves from time-traveling, they then can't come back to the future early to tell themselves not to time-travel.

 

I noticed that, so I edited the post. Well they would disappear from existence - it's the same with if she were to stop her parents from meeting. That would have been paradox. They couldn't go back to the future because their future would no longer exist - it's like Back to the Future Part 2. Nice catch, though!

 

 

what would happen to their time-traveling selves?

 

They'd just disappear.

 

Oh gosh open timelines have so many paradoxes and issues. Even the whole "disappear" thing as they've explained on the show and Back to the Future doesn't make sense. If you killed your mother in the past, then disappeared, how were you able to time travel and kill her in the first place if you were never born? I hope Once never does time travel again.

Edited July 20, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Dani-Ellie]

Well they would disappear from existence - it's the same with if she were to stop her parents from meeting. That would have been paradox. They couldn't go back to the future because their future would no longer exist - it's like Back to the Future Part 2. Nice catch, though!

 

I don't think they would disappear from existence. The only reason Emma (and Marty!) were in danger of ceasing to exist was because their parents hadn't met/fallen in love. Without mommies and daddies loving each other very much, there are no babies to be had. ;)

 

If you follow BTTF time travel physics, two versions of the same time traveler can indeed exist in the same time period at the same time, because Marty does it at the end of Part II. First Movie Marty is still in 1955 playing "Johnny B. Goode" onstage while Second Movie Marty is trying to steal the book back from Biff.

 

 

 

I hope Once never does time travel again.

 

Haha, I hear you! I always hated when Charmed did time travel because it made even less sense than this, and it was just a big giant headache.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Dani-Ellie

[KingOfHearts]

 

If you follow BTTF time travel physics, two time travelers can indeed exist in the same time period at the same time, because Marty does it at the end of Part II. First Movie Marty is still in 1955 while Second Movie Marty is trying to steal the book back from Biff.

 

Yes, but Second Movie Marty didn't stop First Movie Marty from being in the past.

[Dani-Ellie]

Ahh, my mistake. I misread the original question. Never mind!

[KAOS Agent]

Having Hook & Emma go back and tell their past selves to do something is a bit like Bill & Ted going back in the past after their original adventure and telling themselves to do things - Like wind his watch and hide the keys and the tape recorder in the police station and the garbage can. I hated the idea of that because what happens if they mess that up? Do they go back again and try to fix that? I always found it unbelievable that it would work out the way it did. Not that Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is my go to in terms of evaluating how not to screw up the past, but I never get on board with future people going in to the past and telling themselves not to do something. Not to mention, Emma & Hook are in Storybrooke. Who's to say these aren't shapeshifting villains pretending to be them so they don't stop the villains' plans?

 

The whole time travel issue is a paradox, but since that's what we're stuck with I think having Emma try to fix it was a better idea than Rumpel trying to do it. The man is off his rocker, has little time for the failings of humans and emotions most especially True Love and did not have the book to guide him with what was supposed to happen. Plus, he's prone to meddling when he should not be meddling. Even Hook, who knew the general story including about how the Troll Bridge was the inciting love incident, got worried when Snow & Charming went their separate ways. Emma was really the only one who knew enough to know when things were on the right track and I'm not sure if she could have given enough details to make sure Rumpel got those two in the right place and let them do their thing without interference.

Edited July 20, 2014 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

Rumple could be capable of doing exactly what Emma/Hook did in that episode. Maybe he could shrink Emma to fairy-size and made invisible, and she could just whisper what to do in his ear. When the show gives the characters way too much power, then pretty much anything is possible.