A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[YaddaYadda]

I was pretty okay with Regina getting her happy ending.  But then, I saw something that made me change my mind.  Not to mention that the whole OQ and the way it was built bugs the hell out of me.  I'm surprised at how they handled that whole thing given how A&E answer questions that have nothing to do with Regina by talking about Regina.  I'd think they'd handle her romance with extra care.

[ShadowFacts]

 

Nah, screw it. As far as I'm concerned Regina deserves no happy ending and frankly I don't want to see her get one. She can rot in the lower reaches of Fairytale Hell for all I care. I wouldn't want her to get a "happy ending" anymore than Hitler.

 

With that said, I was willing to go along with a very well scripted redemption story ala Xena. But we ain't got shit. So any grain of goodwill I may have been able to summon towards Regina is gone. Burn in Hell, Regina. Burn in Hell.

 

No happy endings for villains, isn't that what Rumple said once?  I'm on that bandwagon.  Her victims deserved their chance at happy endings and they never got/will never get that.  So she can atone and reflect and beg forgiveness til the cows come home, but not a happy ending in this life.  How could that even be possible if someone came face to face honestly with the horror they committed?  Slaughtering innocent people is just not compatible with peace of mind and happy endings.

[stealinghome]

I'm surprised at how they handled that whole thing given how A&E answer questions that have nothing to do with Regina by talking about Regina.  I'd think they'd handle her romance with extra care.

I actually think the whole problem with the Regina character is that the writers take "extra care" with her. Focusing 95% of their writing efforts for the past 2 seasons on her is what effectively destroyed her as a coherent character.

[KingOfHearts]

 

Focusing 95% of their writing efforts for the past 2 seasons on her is what effectively destroyed her as a coherent character.

 

It just proves that no matter how much effort and thought you put into a character, if it's crappy writing, you still get a crappy character. It's sad the characters who are still stable are the ones that are the most neglected.

 

There is one word to describe Regina's writing: Irony.

Edited September 3, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Jean]

 

It's sad the characters who are still stable are the ones that are the most neglected.

 

I don't know about that, see Henry and Belle. Although I guess you could say they do fine in the background but when the writers force attention on them, it all goes to hell.

 

I think the writing is the worst for the characters when they try to write high-brow drama or what they think is drama and good writing. Well they suck at that. Majorly. You could always tell when this is too, because A&E are not shy about patting themselves on the back. So the characters with the most drama usually fare the worst. And their pet is automatically trash no matter what. Mary Sues are always the worst.

 

I think Rumple gets by purely on Carlyle's talent. When David was stuck in the middle of a triangle and drama he suffered too. As Snow's sidekick there's not a lot to hate there or controversy. Hook gets more even writing than the rest and I have a theory why. He's not a straight up villain so he doesn't get as much attention and love. He's not a good guy either so they don't need to make him super dumb and get him to prop the bad guys. He's paired up with Emma who's not always drama-filled and she doesn't always have to be the one with the "bigger personality" so he gets more of an identity than say Charming, Belle or Hood.

[KingOfHearts]

Robin was decent until he got the huge Outlaw Queen plot, then he became a psycho-loving doorstop, as another example.

 

(I actually liked him in Lacey, then he was just okay in Quite a Common Fairy.)

 

 

And their pet is automatically trash no matter what. Mary Sues are always the worst.

I'd say Henry is also a "Mary Sue". (Haha.) It's not quite as obvious. He's a golden child who can do no wrong, and like Regina, even when he does to something stupid or bad, he gets nothing but admiration. I can tell he definitely takes advantage of that too.

Edited September 4, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

It just proves that no matter how much effort and thought you put into a character, if it's crappy writing, you still get a crappy character.

The weird thing about Regina is that in spite of how much they obviously love her and the amount of screen time she gets, it doesn't seem to me like they actually like writing for her. There's a wealth of potentially juicy stuff to mine with her that they ignore entirely. Transitioning someone from being the Evil Queen who slaughters villages to a mother who loves enough to give a True Love's Kiss and who can use white magic is a huge arc that should have had a lot of major moments along the way. The first new love for someone who had repeatedly declared that she'd lost all chances for happiness when she lost her first love should have been a romance novel's worth of story. And yet they skipped over it entirely, straight to the reward. This really does seem to be a hallmark of Mary Sue writing, where they like the character as though she's a real person and want to give her all the good things right away, with no waiting. They seem to just assume everyone else will like her the way they do and don't bother developing anything, and they like her the way she is, so they don't want her to really grow that much. So while she gets a lot of screen time, it boils down to about the three same old scenes -- we've got the Evil Queen chewing scenery, we've got Regina being snarky, and we've got her in either guise in victim mode.

 

On the other hand, when writers enjoy writing for a character (and realize that this isn't a real person, so they're allowed to be mean in a fun way), they like putting the character into difficult situations with real dilemmas. They like making them suffer consequences, learn lessons, change and grow and sometimes backslide. I kind of get the impression that these writers enjoy writing Rumple and Hook because they like torturing them. They give them difficult dilemmas. They make them suffer consequences. They pull out that trick of "what's the worst thing this character could have happen to him?" and then make it happen or ask "what would he never do?" and then find a reason he'd be forced to do it. The actors may also play into that, as I can imagine that it's really fun to have an actor who can take what you wrote to a new level, and it's really handy to have an actor who can convey a page worth of script in a facial expression.

 

Meanwhile, it kind of seems like they're bored with Snow, David and even Emma, outside her romantic storyline.

[Jean]

I'm pretty sure they like to write for Rumple and Carlyle but they're completely lost as to what to do with him and have been since Miller's Daughter. I don't know if it's a coincidence that that was the last episode Jane E. wrote for Rumple or if they just plain don't know where to go with his character after he completed his Holy Grail quest by reuniting with Bae. Maybe a combination of both.  They wouldn't have bungled the Bae/Rumple relationship so badly if they enjoyed writing for him and knew what to do. Now maybe some of that could be blamed on how badly they messed up Bae with Neal and the casting but they literally got nothing after 2x16. That was just 2 episodes in from his real debut, they couldn't have judged him that quickly. MRJ was pretty good in Manhattan. Rumple didn't get even get all that much material from Neal's death and the dude "died" twice!  If that was Woegina and Henry we would've spent an entire season on it. Maybe more. Actually that wouldn't even happen because they would probably expire from depression if they had to kill off Henry, their so-called "soul" of the series.

 

They can't go the full hog and give Rumple the "Woegina redemption" because Robert wants to play the villain and conflicted. I don't know how much say Robert has. Maybe they want to keep him conflicted, they just don't know how. They can't have him do the full villain act because now he's a romantic leading man in Rumbelle and here's where I think they buckled under fan pressure. They don't know what to do with him and they don't know what to do with him in relation to the other characters. That's why he was isolated the entire S3. They could've done so much more with Rumple and daddy Pan, Rumple/Zelena, Rumple/anyone but they don't. It just feels like Rumple gets a lot because of Carlyle, not the story or writing itself. He could probably be reading a phone book and it would feel like a real big moment for Rumple.

[KingOfHearts]

 

They can't have him do the full villain act because now he's a romantic leading man in Rumbelle and here's where I think they buckled under fan pressure.

Right now I think they need to kill off Belle and make Rumple go completely insane. Mr. Gold is becoming less and less interesting as he goes along. Plus with the Rumpbelle wedding, where else does he have to go besides straight-up redemption?

 

I think all the characters need a major shake-up that will affect them deeply.

 

Curio, great minds think alike. ;)

Edited September 4, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

Maybe they want to keep him conflicted, they just don't know how. They can't have him do the full villain act because now he's a romantic leading man in Rumbelle and here's where I think they buckled under fan pressure.

The unfortunate thing is that I honestly think Rumple would be 1000% more interesting again if they'd just kill off Belle. But because of the rabid Rumbelle fanbase and the writers buckling under fan pressure, Rumple will always be a leading man in that relationship until the end of the series.

 

ETA: Or, what KingOfHearts said like 2 seconds before me...

Edited September 4, 2014 by Curio

[Mari]

Right now I think they need to kill off Belle and make Rumple go completely insane. Mr. Gold is becoming less and less interesting as he goes along. Plus with the Rumpbelle wedding, where else does he have to go besides straight-up redemption?

 

I think all the characters need a major shake-up that will affect them deeply.

 

Curio, great minds think alike. ;)

Actually, I don't think the wedding needs to impact a redemption arc at all.  In fact, it could easily go the other way--Belle doesn't seem to be interested in an actually changed Rumple (yay dark parts) and they wouldn't need to kill her to evil him up.

 

All they'd have to do is get her pregnant, have her find out about the dagger, and finally be truly offended by him because he-gasp!-betrayed her.  She leaves, taking Stiltskin-in-progress, and he goes off the deep end for a while.

 

(You made me argue for keeping Belle.  This is a sad, sad, thing I now regret.  My apologies.  :)  )

[Mathius]

There's a big difference between an adult who ignores his child because his child reminds him that he's an adult and not a kid anymore, and a father pretending to still be a child who actively seeks out his middle-aged son to be hostile to him and torment him. If he's all "go away, you remind me that I'm really old" then why would he be going anywhere near his grown son to play "I hate you!" games? And if Pan kicked baby Rumple off the island because he reminded him that he was an adult father, what would the presence of grandfather Rumple have done to him?

But he DIDN'T actively seek Rumple out to be hostile toward him and torment him. He only went to Rumple once, in "Ariel"...and told him to give up and leave the island. All the other times were Rumple coming to him; Rumple was initiating their conflicts and "I hate you!" games. Hence Pan's ultimate breakdown of "why can't I be free of you!?"

Also, I think the "kicking Rumple off so that he's not reminded of being a father" was only required to make the magic take effect on him, not to maintain it, otherwise the hourglass is pointless. Baby Rumple hypothetically could have found his way back to Neverland and seeing him wouldn't change a thing for Pan. The spell had already been cast, and it can't be reversed until its time limit is spent.

Back to the Pan issue -- I think one other reason the Pan as Rumple's father thing didn't work so well was that Malcolm didn't map very well to Pan. Malcolm was set up to be that Peter Pan syndrome middle-aged man who didn't want to grow up, but he was shown as being the frat boy sort who resented having to leave the pub long enough to earn a living and look after his son. The kind of Peter Pan he'd have become seems more like he'd have run Neverland as a frat house. But the Pan we saw was intensely clever and not a bit lazy. He enjoyed the psychological mind games and trickery. He was even taking responsibility and showing a great deal of authority. Malcolm didn't seem intelligent or diligent enough to come up with elaborate plots and schemes spanning multiple worlds while manipulating multiple groups of people. That's too much like work. He seems closer to the book Peter, where he was truly immature and fun-loving, who'd have kidnapped boys to give himself playmates and then brought on someone to be "mother" and cook and clean for them so he wouldn't have to worry about things like food and clothes. Unless maybe the Shadow that created Peter Pan out of Malcolm was possessing him and influencing him somehow, kind of like the Dark One affecting Rumple.

You answered your own question there: dark magic will corrupt someone overtime the longer they remain under its influence. I think "Good Form" showed this: Pan wasn't really at all like his present day self in the fairyback, which took place well before the Pied Piper one where he started kidnapping kids. He wasn't all that menacing or manipulative, in fact he was nothing but honest with Liam and Killian. He did seem like just a kid hanging out and doing whatever. Malcolm's mental transition into Pan clearly was not as quick as the physical one. They could have shown that better, I agree, but it is there.

I think S1 was pretty much the only tightly planned season and story from the beginning.

Season, yes. Story, eh, I'd have to also put 3A up there, though S1 still edges out since it didn't require the chore of 2B to set it up.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Mathius

[kili]

Pan wasn't really at all like his present day self in the fairyback, which took place well before the Pied Piper one where he started kidnapping kids.

 

"Good Form" probably took place about  8-10 years before the Pied Piper incident unless Killian really is ageless all on his own (he spends a couple of years as a pirate before hooking up with Milah and then Bae spends 6-8 years growing up to his Pied Piper age.).

 

I wonder if the incidents in "Good Form" were what motivated Pan to start taking children. He'd spent probably 30 years by himself on the island and suddenly two guys show up and he gets to interact with people again (and play a few mind games - not telling Killian exactly what he meant about the cost of the island magic was a mind game). Maybe he realized he was missing human contact and gradually decided to make plans to kidnap children. It seems from his words in the Pied Piper that those boys were his first batch of Lost Boys. He's truly scary by the time the Jolly Roger and Bae show up in Neverland a year or two later. But time in Neverland moves strangely. Felix must have come with one of the very first batches of Lost Boys since he's already an important figure by the time Bae arrives.

Edited September 4, 2014 by kili

[Jean]

I thought he started taking kids to search for the "heart of the truest believer." Man I can't even type that without rolling my eyes. It's just so cheesy but they don't want to embrace their cheesiness.

 

 

Right now I think they need to kill off Belle and make Rumple go completely insane.

 

I think Disney would draw the line at them offing a popular Disney Princess. But she can be moved offscreen permanently. 

I don't think Rumple needs to go completely cray-cray and start killing off entire villages. The fascinating part of Rumple for me is that he looks and acts crazy but his mind is actually sharp and always plotting something. It's the dichotomy that's visually presented in Rumple vs Gold. Rumple needs a goal. He should always be working an angle. And that goal needs to be more interesting than "Don't piss off Belle and keep Belle loving and pliant."

[amensisterfriend]

Having caught up on the show all at once, I have to say that the first season was my favorite by a REALLY wide margin. Season 1 was actually one of my favorite seasons of any show I've seen in a very long time, though I'm almost nervous to buy it on DVD in case my opinion of subsequent seasons retrospectively taints Season 1's wonderfulness for me to the point where I don't enjoy rewatching it. Season 3  had its moments and individually strong episodes, but it didn't really work for me overall. And the less said about the disastrous Season 2, the better! 

Edited September 5, 2014 by amensisterfriend

[stealinghome]

amensisterfriend, all I can say to your post is that your username fits it perfectly. :)

[Writing Wrongs]

I find myself watching my Season 1 blu-ray quite a bit. I'm struggling to finish my Season 3 though.

[Shanna Marie]

They wouldn't have bungled the Bae/Rumple relationship so badly if they enjoyed writing for him and knew what to do.

They bungled the relationship because they forgot to write Bae/Neal's side of it and therefore never dealt with any of the issues, like the fact that Rumple was the same man (or worse) Bae was trying to change/leave and that pesky little murdering his mother fact. But Rumple got a lot of stuff on his side of the story -- the nerves and fear of approaching his son, his shock at his son's anger, suggesting turning him back to fourteen, the deathbed somewhat reconciliation, the despair at the presumed death, the thrill and disbelief at seeing him again, trying to convince him that he wasn't going to hurt Henry, the dramatic sacrifice scene, the moment of getting the chance to choose his son over power and then Neal's death scene. They wrote a lot of good material for Rumple even if they didn't really write a coherent story.

 

Rumple may have been isolated from the rest of the cast during the last two arcs, but that meant he had the primary relationship with the guest villain. The Zelena story actually illustrates pretty well the difference between the way they write for the character they love vs. the character they love to write for. Regina got the classic Mary Sue treatment -- the guest villain was a blood relation out of the blue, we knew she was evil (excuse me, wicked) because she was so jealous of special snowflake Regina, Regina was the targeted victim of the evil scheme, and Regina turned out to be the only one who could defeat her as the one who could pull powerful white magic out of thin air. But Regina for the most part didn't have anything to do with Zelena. She still had the same basic kinds of scenes playing the same notes. Her part didn't become any more interesting or exciting because of her link to the villain. She just got rewarded with all the goodies without going through any process, without really being challenged or tested. It all just came to her. On the other hand, Rumple was intrinsically part of that arc. He was the one Zelena had a real link to in the past, and he was the one who essentially set it all off by not dropping Regina for Zelena (and I wonder if the turning green was something happening naturally to her or the result of something he did to her). He had a far closer relationship to Zelena throughout the arc and was the main person she interacted with, and he got to do more stuff -- the crazy spell, then trying to counsel her as her prisoner, trying to play along with her and seduce her, forced to be her puppet and attack the others, and finally, once free of her he was the one to kill her. While all the others were spinning in circles and twiddling their thumbs, he was the one getting to try various approaches to dealing with her, even though he was essentially helpless. The writers put the character into an impossible situation and truly tested him, playing out a variety of scenarios.

 

They don't really write for Regina. They just worship her. They write for Rumple.

[FurryFury]

and I wonder if the turning green was something happening naturally to her or the result of something he did to her

 

God, I hated the "green with envy" part so much! I mean, this is the stuff that just begs to be played with, and I'm convinced that the show we all signed up for in season 1 would definitely subvert this trope. Making Rumple the source of this magic would have been a pretty interesting idea - hell, anything but the literal interpretation would have been a good idea! I'd even settle for Wicked-style "discriminated from birth because of the color of her skin" backstory.

 

They don't really write for Regina. They just worship her. They write for Rumple.

 

Well, they try to. They still don't have the guts to get rid of Belle to really let his character develop and shine. She's his leash.

[Amerilla]

At this point, not much of what had become dull and predictable about Rumple can be pinned on Belle. They spent almost no time together in S3 (28 minutes, according to YouTube vids, and only 14 of that within the main story, i.e. not as visions or cray-cray. And 4 of those 14 minutes were their wedding). They spent far more of S2 not-together than together. It's a relatively small part of his overall part in the relentless plotplotplot.

The problem with Rumpel is the same as with every other main character post-S1: they don't really want him to change, so they can't do anything really interesting with his story. Especially with Bae dead, chances are he's just going to stagnate for the rest of the series.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Amerilla

[Shanna Marie]

Making Rumple the source of this magic would have been a pretty interesting idea

I think this is my new headcanon. After all, she's the only one this has happened to, and she first started seeing it after he pointed it out, which is what inclines me to think it was his doing. I don't know if we could truly call Regina's feelings toward Snow "jealousy" or "envy," but most of her issue with Snow was not being able to deal with Snow being happy and getting the happy ending that Regina felt she deserved, so if Regina didn't turn some crazy color because of her strong feelings -- and she's even related to Zelena -- I would suspect that it's not just something that occurs naturally or spontaneously. It might have been Rumple's attempt at a teaching tool, but Zelena was too stupid to really be taught.

 

They still don't have the guts to get rid of Belle to really let his character develop and shine. She's his leash.

But even there, they've put him in a difficult, challenging situation, a real rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma where he has two things that are likely mutually exclusive and he's trying to have them both, so there's still writing being done for him instead of him just being handed everything he wants in an uninteresting way. In a way, having Belle ups the stakes because without her there's no dilemma, nothing for him to wrestle with because there's nothing holding him back. I'm not sure he would be much more interesting if he didn't have to play nice because of her. He's more powerful magically than the others, so how could they beat him if he were openly opposing them? And I don't know that openly evil, who gives a damn Rumple would be fun for more than an episode. Secretly evil, having to play nice for the Mrs. while scheming behind her back Rumple makes for a better story (even as it ruins Belle by making her too stupid to live). He just needs a new goal, and I have no idea what that would be right now. To get back to the Enchanted Forest and his castle now that he no longer needs to be in our world? Re-do Zelena's spell and save Bae? Take over the town from Regina?

[KingOfHearts]

I agree Rumple needs a new goal, but as long as Belle is around, so does the question linger why he hasn't been redeemed yet or why they haven't TLK'd. She's always going to keep Rumple at a level, even if he hides stuff from her. It's a breeding ground for really, really stupid writing if he carries on a charade of being the Dark One for several seasons and Belle has no idea about it the whole time. I honestly don't want to watch scene after scene of Rumpbelle being all lovey-dovey when I know it's fake. The dagger lie can be a very interesting story for a half-season, but once it comes out, I'd quickly learn to loathe their scenes together if she stays with him.

 

You don't have to kill Belle, but she needs to go somewhere else. I wish they'd kept her in the asylum instead of reuniting her with Rumple so soon.

Edited September 5, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

She's always going to keep Rumple at a level, even if he hides stuff from her. It's a breeding ground for really, really stupid writing if he carries on a charade of being the Dark One for several seasons and Belle has no idea about it the whole time.

 

I think at this point, the best way to handle the whole how-do-you-keep-Rumple-interesting situation would be for Belle to find out about the dagger/Zelena’s real death and officially walk out on him. For a couple seasons, anyways. She can put her foot down and say, “I won’t be your wife until you give up the Dark One title.” Of course, Rumple doesn’t want to do that right away, so he keeps on being the Dark One until the end of the series. And then in the very final episode, he realizes his life is meaningless without Belle and they can finally reunite.

 

Okay, okay. Maybe that’s just my wish for how the writers should handle it because I want both: 1) a villainous/grey Rumple and 2) no Belle on my TV screen…

[Dani-Ellie]

So, I'm up to "A Curious Thing" in my DVDs and I am filled with rage all over again. So, like, not only do Snow and Charming only think of going back to Emma when they need her, there's not even any kind of "Tell Emma Dad loves her" last words from Charming?! Flames on the side of my face. I swear.

[MaiLuna]

That curse makes me angry too. First, the fact that they are able to cast the curse because they love each other more than they love Emma. OK, for the sake of the plot and their epic TL I can get behind that but then Charming says "when you look at that baby's face". What about Emma's face? And they weren't even shown to miss her in the missing year at all. Snow showed more sadness at that letter from Regina in the deleted scene.

 

I hate that Emma is the one with the "issue", that she's the one has to accept and love her parents but they don't need to show that they love her. Even in that final scene in the finale, Emma wasn't answering her phone and they were "worried" by just standing there looking at their baby. Ugh.

[KingOfHearts]

They made such a big deal about letting Emma and Henry be and not interrupting their lives. What were they expecting to do when they got to Storybrooke? It's like they didn't even care that they were taking away what they thought was Emma's happy ending all of a sudden. Did they not count on Zelena following them? She could have easily gotten to them before they could get Emma to believe again.

 

Honestly there could have been far more interesting curse casters than Snowing. 

Edited September 6, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

OK, for the sake of the plot and their epic TL I can get behind that but then Charming says "when you look at that baby's face". What about Emma's face?

 

This was actually the part that set me off the most. The conversation was all about them and their new baby with zero mention of the daughter they have. The one whose life they are planning to screw up just so that she can save their asses once again. But when Snow is fretting about missing David, he says she'll see him in the baby's face. Why no mention of Emma who is so much like her father in personality? Or their grandson who has apparently inherited David's heroism gene? It's just enraging how this shows how little the writers even think about Emma with regards to the Charmings that she doesn't even warrant a mention in this conversation.

Edited September 6, 2014 by KAOS Agent

[YaddaYadda]

Do-over baby is everything!

[stealinghome]

Honestly there could have been far more interesting curse casters than Snowing.

I think Snowing (well, Snow) was an interesting idea, but the execution was so lacking that I hesitate to say there was execution at all.

[MaiLuna]

It's like they only see Emma as the savior and not their daughter. Snow didn't care that she was gonna be able to see Emma again, but it was very important that she helped them save their new baby. Snow's line about Emma forgetting about them is so ironic because they completely forgot about her. And when Snow mentioned losing her it was only to assure David that he was going to be a great father to the new baby. And the baby's name now makes it even worse.

 

I really hope the writers some day realize how bad all of this comes off.

 

 

Do-over baby is everything!

 

They really treated him like he was their only child. But then, even Snow endangered his life anyway by asking Regina to split her heart because she's too co-dependent with David. So the whole curse would've been for nothing if it hadn't worked.

Edited September 6, 2014 by MaiLuna

[KingOfHearts]

 

I think Snowing (well, Snow) was an interesting idea, but the execution was so lacking that I hesitate to say there was execution at all

 

Well, here's the possible scenarios that could have played out.

 

* Zelena. She would get Rumple to write a new curse scroll for her. Motives could have been that she wanted to cast the curse to prove she's as good as Regina to rub it in, or that she needed something in the Land Without Magic, or that cursing Storybrooke was her entire goal. They could have maybe made her mayor, then give everyone fake memories of her. This would have given her character much more intimidating, because it would put her closer to Evil Queen territory.

* Neal. Neal was desperate to get to Emma from the get-go. A slow descent into darkness would have done so many more wonders for his character than the stupid impulse we saw in Quiet Minds. The hole here is the lack of the heart of thing he loves most.

* Rumple. Perhaps Neal resurrects Rumple, then Rumple uses Neal's heart.

* Snowing. If Snowing wanted a valid reason for doing it, how about Zelena terrorizing the kingdom? They really only did it because Zelena made some threats. I was wholeheartedly expecting an outright war during the Missing Year with Team Evil vs Team Wicked.

Edited September 6, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[stealinghome]

I was wholeheartedly expecting an outright war during the Missing Year with Team Evil vs Team Wicked.

Yeah, you know, this is twice now that the writers have completely turned away from the opportunity to tell a great, Game Of Thrones-style epic war story pitting the good guys against the villains in the fairybacks (the first was S2, that season should've been Snowing taking back the kingdom from Regina and George). I don't know why they're so afraid to do it. That shit is so popular right now and certainly it would be better than most of the dreck we were given in S2/3B.

[Dani-Ellie]

They made such a big deal about letting Emma and Henry be and not interrupting their lives. What were they expecting to do when they got to Storybrooke? It's like they didn't even care that they were taking away what they thought was Emma's happy ending all of a sudden.

 

Oh, that pissed me off so much. I don't agree that Emma's happy ending was in New York but if Snow and Charming truly believed it was, she should have been off the table, period, end of story. It shouldn't have been "No, we have to let them be happy ... unless our happiness in threatened, in which case screw whatever Emma has going on, we need her!"

 

What pisses me off even more is Dead Man Walking Charming in "Good Form" tells them to tell Henry Grandpa loves him. Yet About to Have His Heart Crushed Charming makes no mention of telling his grandson or his grownup baby girl that he loves them. WTF, show?

 

Snow's line about Emma forgetting about them is so ironic because they completely forgot about her.

 

And they weren't even magically whammied into it! Like, STFU, Snow. You and Charming seemed to move on just fine in your new home without Emma and Henry and you remembered them the whole damn time. Why the hell couldn't Emma and Henry find home in New York despite forgetting you through no fault of their own?

 

I somehow highly doubt I'll be rewatching this episode much because grrrrr.

 

* Rumple. Perhaps Neal resurrects Rumple, then Rumple uses Neal's heart.

 

When the death spoiler came out, I honest to God thought that was going to be how it turned out. I was thinking it was going to be a Zelena forced him into it kind of thing, but still, I fully expected Rumple to have cast it and had to have killed Neal to do it.

[KingOfHearts]

3B was just a weird half-season. We spent it back in Storybrooke, but SB had almost nothing to do with it. You could have had the exact same basic premise if Emma had been taken to EF instead. SB wasn't a roadblock for Zelena at all, and the curse really held no weight. None of the episodes focused on town affairs. There really was no difference between the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke. Regina, theoretically, could have just ended Zelena in the Missing Year and they would have never had to cast the curse to get to Emma.

Edited September 6, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

I don't agree that Emma's happy ending was in New York but if Snow and Charming truly believed it was, she should have been off the table, period, end of story. It shouldn't have been "No, we have to let them be happy ... unless our happiness in threatened, in which case screw whatever Emma has going on, we need her!"

 

What's so very sad about this is that Emma did have something nice going on. She was in love with a guy and was seriously considering accepting his proposal. And she was ready to sacrifice it all in order to save them even before the Walsh = flying monkey reveal. Henry told Regina he liked how happy Walsh made her and both had a much more stable and happy existence than they did in Storybrooke. So while Emma was willing to give up her happiness for these people, you can't say Snow would do the same. I hated what 3B did with the Emma/Snowing relationship because it was just so dismissive of Emma from the Snowing side and yet it's obvious that the writers don't see that at all.

 

Emma is not just the saviour. She's a person with feelings and dreams of her own and I hate that they have her own parents constantly disregarding that for their own purposes. Emma has always been used for what she can do for others (meal ticket as a child, Saviour and curse breaker as an adult), then they make her feel guilty for wanting something else. No one has ever asked what they could do for her. Is it any wonder she spent the season wanting to just ditch them all?

Edited September 6, 2014 by KAOS Agent

[Dani-Ellie]

Emma has always been used for what she can do for others (meal ticket as a child, Saviour and curse breaker as an adult), then they make her feel guilty for wanting something else. No one has ever asked what they could do for her.

 

I absolutely hate that this episode turned Snow and Charming into two people who are now no better than some of the foster families Emma grew up with. As far as I'm concerned, it turned them into people who use her, people who only see her for what she can give them. And the truly awful thing is, it didn't need to be this way. A little more writing attention to Snow and Charming missing Emma during the lost year or not having Charming discouraging Neal from trying to find a way back to the Land Without Magic would have made a world of difference for me. If the writers wanted someone to discourage Neal, they could have had literally anyone else do it. Let Regina do it, for crying out loud. They could have even given her more of the Regina Angst they love so much by having her scream at Neal that there was no way back, period, full stop, because if there were, didn't he think she'd be doing something already?

 

Some more writing attention to Charming's goodbye speech in "A Curious Thing" would have felt less like Snow's and Charming's only concerns were themselves and their baby. Of course they were concerned about themselves and the baby but no mention of Emma and Henry showed me a complete disregard for the two people whose lives they were uprooting, two people whom they'd said like 7 episodes before they needed to leave be and let them be happy. Hell, even making Zelena a threat to the entire kingdom and not just the core cast could have made it feel like they were at least weighing the good of the many against the good of the few.

 

I honestly don't want to believe that Snow and Charming don't give Emma a second thought, and I hate that pretty much throughout all of 3B, I have no televised evidence to support what I want to believe and actually have plenty of televised evidence to support the complete opposite. What the hell happened to the Snow White who leaped into a portal that could very well have been leading to oblivion, for all she knew, after her daughter or the Prince Charming who leaped off the side of a pirate ship in a storm to save his baby girl?

Edited September 6, 2014 by Dani-Ellie

[FurryFury]

I'm not sure he would be much more interesting if he didn't have to play nice because of her.

 

He'd still have to play nice because of Neal and then Henry. They were perfectly okay as his morality pets. His story doesn't need Belle and the writers don't know how to create another one. So Rumple's stuck without any real development.

[YaddaYadda]

Emma is calling Snowing Mom and Dad now, so everything must be emotionally good, right?  It has to be right, no?

 

I think they destroyed whatever could have been between Emma and her parents when they decided to focus the emotional impact of the separation on Regina alone.  The Charmings lost Emma twice and she was back to not knowing who they were.  I don't know, but as parents, shouldn't they have felt the tragedy of that?  Her life was interrupted.  And yeah, the whole New York, New York was super annoying but they made her feel bad for wanting something that was hers and happy (aside from monkey boy).

 

This whole conversation though makes me wonder what Emma really wants from life, for herself.  She sort of voiced that during New York Serenade before she took the memory potion. 

 

Henry will never be Emma's son completely, he will never belong to her completely.  How does she feel about that?  Because in NYC, he was completely hers.

 

The dynamics are interesting, but the writers like scratching the surface and never delve into it unless it serves PLOTPLOTPLOT.

[Serena]

When the death spoiler came out, I honest to God thought that was going to be how it turned out. I was thinking it was going to be a Zelena forced him into it kind of thing, but still, I fully expected Rumple to have cast it and had to have killed Neal to do it.

That would have been a great twist. The Rumple-kills-Zelena at the end would have been more deserved (because seriously, I do not believe Zelena "killed" Neal, no matter how many times they repeat it), Rumple could have been legit fucked up, and Neal "having" to die for story reasons - which is the reason A&E were selling for killing him off - would have been actually true. Like, so many people specced this exact same scenario, I don't see how the writers didn't see it?

[FurryFury]

They probably chickened out because it would be too dark and were too afraid of people hating Rumple (as if Neal's death could have any other reaction than a loud cheering).

[Writing Wrongs]

Ok so I just finished re-watching A Curious Thing and the heart splitting thing has to be one of the dumbest things they've done. Is it being sustained by magic? Because I'm pretty sure a heart doesn't split symmetrically like that.

 

I wish Emma would just be all, "You know, I'm glad I finally found my parents and know my backstory, but fuck all you guys. I'm going back to New York."

[ShadowFacts]

 

Ok so I just finished re-watching A Curious Thing and the heart splitting thing has to be one of the dumbest things they've done. Is it being sustained by magic? Because I'm pretty sure a heart doesn't split symmetrically like that.

 

Amen I say.  That episode to me was pretty much the beginning of shark-jumping.  I hated that so much.  The sacrifice was essentially meaningless, cheapened by the fact that David sprang back to life.  Before that even happened, I was so done with the heart ripping anyway.  It's utterly asinine.  And I agree that Emma and Henry would be so much better off in New York or anywhere away from these loons who don't even prioritize Emma as an important person in her own right.

[Shanna Marie]

Snowing. If Snowing wanted a valid reason for doing it, how about Zelena terrorizing the kingdom? They really only did it because Zelena made some threats. I was wholeheartedly expecting an outright war during the Missing Year with Team Evil vs Team Wicked.

Or, to make them seem less selfish, they do it because they've found out that Zelena has sent one of her evil flying monkey minions to New York and is about to send the order to do away with Emma or otherwise do something to Emma. Emma's just about helpless without her memories because she won't know the danger she's in and won't know what to do about it. They have to find a way to get to her to warn her and protect her, but Zelena pops the memory spell into the curse so they won't remember to warn her once they're back in Storybrooke. And that's where Neal sending the message to Hook saves the day, only he doesn't go to bring Emma to Storybrooke. He goes to warn her that she's in danger and maybe doesn't have the full info in Neal's cryptic message so his warning doesn't seem credible, and it's only after she fights off the danger -- maybe having to deal with the flying monkey before she gets her memories back is what drives her to take the potion -- that she gets her memories back and decides on her own to go to Storybrooke to see what the hell is going on. And preferably all this happens after Zelena has really demonstrated what a threat she is in the Enchanted Forest during the missing year.

 

This doesn't really change the rest of the plot, and it makes it a little less annoying that Emma doesn't end up having much at all to do with the resolution if they don't cast the curse just to get to her because she's the only one who can defeat Zelena and then Zelena is defeated by someone who's already in the Enchanted Forest. It also kind of mirrors the original reason for the first curse, since Rumple wanted it to be reunited with his son, and they'd be casting it to save their daughter (rather than casting it because they want their daughter to save them).

[Writing Wrongs]

I really hate that with all the time travel crap, they changed Snow and Charming's backstory. I loved the original way they met. Snow Falls is one of my favorite episodes.

[Curio]

Or, to make them seem less selfish, they do it because they've found out that Zelena has sent one of her evil flying monkey minions to New York and is about to send the order to do away with Emma or otherwise do something to Emma. Emma's just about helpless without her memories because she won't know the danger she's in and won't know what to do about it. They have to find a way to get to her to warn her and protect her, but Zelena pops the memory spell into the curse so they won't remember to warn her once they're back in Storybrooke.

Okay, I might have to make this my new head canon. Because what the writers actually showed us makes absolutely no sense. They never explained why Zelena sent Walsh to spy on Emma in New York for so long and why Walsh went along with the plot to become her boyfriend. If Emma was such a threat that Zelena ended up making a stupid spell to remove her powers, why didn't Walsh just kill her when he had 8 months to do so in New York? In fact, both Emma and Henry were unnecessary for casting the time travel curse, so wouldn't it be smarter for Walsh to just kill them both when he had the chance? Perhaps they could have explained it by saying Walsh was initially sent to New York to kill Emma, but he accidentally fell for her and couldn't go through with it. But, nope.

 

They also never explained why Zelena couldn't harm Emma. Hook called her out on that detail, but they never actually gave a good explanation as to why Emma needed to stay alive. Emma wasn't needed as one of the 4 ingredients to make time travel work, so why not off everyone in town to make sure the spell went smoothly? All the writers needed to do was throw out one little line where Zelena says, "I don't want to kill people! I may be wicked, but I'm not evil!" As corny as that sounds, I totally would have accepted it because it at least would have explained a ton of the 3B plot holes.

 

ETA: Oops, I just caught up with the Unanswered Questions thread and it seems like you guys already discussed this ad nauseum today.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Curio

[Rumsy4]

This is what happens when you want a certain end point, but are too lazy to work out the details. They wanted Walsh to extend the CS-angst, but didn't bother fleshing out er... Monkey Swan. They wanted Zelena to be unable to kill Emma, but gave no explanation as to why she bothered sending Walsh to the Real World to be her boyfriend when a) she could have had her killed and b) she did not cast the Curse to bring people to Storybrooke. There is no evidenace to suggest that Emma could have unleashed her latent magic to protect herself from being shot or poisoned.

The writers did the same with the whole Marian thing. They wanted her in Storybrooke by the season finale, but they did not bother fleshing out Regina/Robin in the missing. 3B is worse than Season 2 in that sense.

[KingOfHearts]

They also wanted Emma to accept Storybrooke as her home in the finale, but without showing any good reason why she would choose to do that. I found the whole "I miss my parents!" thing to be really weak. The writers were totally ignoring all the other moving variables associated with the matter. Emma didn't even care about Henry's safety or well-being, for crying out loud. They did not bother to actually lead up to it or work on Emma at all until the very last second.

 

There's the curse too. Instead of writing out the Missing Year that led up to it, they jumped about six months in one episode. Snowing's opinion about the curse dramatically changed just because a witch made some threats. It's like the curse was just a plot hurdle for the writers to jump over. They didn't care about the weight of it or what caused it. They threw in their little twist and completed it in one episode.

 

3B was incredibly half-baked. It felt like they just wanted to rush through it ASAP so they could get to their time travel adventure, then onto Frozen. All they cared about was Zelena's crazy scenery chewing and Regina's epic romance. (Which by the way was also half-baked because the writers were only using it to get to Marian!)

Edited September 7, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

3B was incredibly half-baked.

They didn't even attempt to bake it. They just gathered up a bunch of fun ingredients they thought would be interesting to cook with, threw it all into a big bowl, and then left it on the counter.

[stealinghome]

Yeah, I find 3B massively, incredibly disappointing because of how half-assed the writing was. 3B had a ton of potential--I think the core ideas behind 3B were way more interesting than the core ideas powering 3A, and frankly their best ideas since S1--but the writing was just incredibly, ridiculously lazy. Like...at least in 2B, no matter how much that half-season sucked, I got the sense that they were trying. 3B just felt like they weren't even trying 80% of the time, you know? Like they were like "plot hole...oh well, no one will notice!" They didn't care that it was bad. The sheer apathy to how awful the writing was is actually embarrassing.

Edited September 7, 2014 by stealinghome

[myril]

To me 2B and 3B are pretty close as failures. The first  was a mess and felt in the end like an unplanned rush to the Neverland arc - which then for that rush I found rather mediocre and stretched for the little they had to tell about Neverland and even the Nevengers in it. 3B was botchy, ignoring the potential Oz had for the sake of some phoney sister rivalry and Woegina hero moment, rushing to an out of the blue time travel no-surprise package to bewitch Emma to finally feel home in Storybrooke. Because of the experience with Neverland, I have no good feeling about Frozen, though had been hoping for a while for something better, but that hope is gone by now, before the begin of the new season.

 

These writers suck at world building. That could be okay, if they would stick most of the time to the world we all know, the world right around us, often called real world, its physics, laws, cultures mostly applying. But if you take the stories into a fantasy world, you better build that world. It is annoying when all you really want is tell character driven drama, which could be quite the same regardless what world it happens in , it takes time away from developing characters and their drama stories, but it's necessary to keep yourself and your audience in the logics of your fictional world. Otherwise they fall back on the logics they know, or think to know, from the world(s) they know, and you lose control of your stories. Of course, it can be the point, to have little to no control of the stories, you write it with your logic but leave it wide open for whatever logic your audience will apply, whatever they want to read into it, let them do it.  And people always can take one's story and make their own thing with it (like the Once writers as well are doing it with the fairy tales and storybook stories), but that is a different thing.

 

I don't know if it is intentional or a lack of attention, but that is what is happening with OUaT: The logic of the show is so all over the place, it's arbitrary. The writers have their interpretation and every faction of the fandom has their reading, to a degree, that I in fact sometimes wonder if I am watching the same show other people seem to watch. It's not just the physics of the worlds (like what magic can or can not do), see the need for discussing if there is any difference between soul mate and true love and what each might mean. When reading on Social media and in forums divergent readings, sometimes diametral opposite, of just one moment between two characters, I wonder, if that is because headcanons and expectations override whatever is shown on screen (it's amazing how much bias can do), or if what happens on screen is so random. By now think it is a mix of both.

 

They didn't seem to have a enough ideas for Neverland or Oz to make it each a full long, 22 episodes season each on it's own, but more ideas than to make it just some short 2 or so episode arc. They don't manage to mesh their shiny new toy approach well with the regular, lead cast stories and character development, which is too much like soap opera for combining it much with single appearances of known fairy tale and other fantasy characters. The Tower and what they made of Rapunzel very much showed that. But because they have not much of a grip of their own fantasy world, and I would say not much of an understanding for the logic of other worlds they are using, what the show is is a wild medley without substance. Can be fun for a while, but it gets boring, even more so if it counts on sensationalism, because always higher and bigger is impossible to deliver.

 

The writers don't have the skills, to combine soap opera and new toy game, and even less substantial character drama with one or both of it, in a satisfying way. As long as it still works to entertain a big enough audience with that, they don't need to care though. What does it matter if it's good or mediocre writing, if it makes money (and looking at something like 50 Shades even worst writing obviously can get you money if answering some needs of many). 

Edited September 7, 2014 by katusch