A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Camera One]

They also did it to create an angsty reason why Emma might "go dark" and to knock Snowing down a few pegs to show heroes do bad things too.  

[YaddaYadda]

They also did it to create an angsty reason why Emma might "go dark" and to knock Snowing down a few pegs to show heroes do bad things too.

 

Honestly?  I think Snowing being knocked down a few pegs is perfectly fine because they were too perfect.  I can't say I'm down with the way they did it though.

[Camera One]

I think they still had a lot more room to grow in many areas, from learning how to be better rulers, to finding a better way to relate to Emma.  Both of those would have resulted in much more emotionally satisfying story arc.  

[tennisgurl]

I would be fine having Charming/Snow do something in their past that was morally ambiguous, or even straight up evil. My issue with that whole egg plot was that it was set up so we don't know how much Snow/Charming were controlling their actions at that point. Its hard to judge someone when they're just puppets being manipulated by some hack Mad Mad reject. 

 

Plus, it led to Snow/Charming acting completely remorseless, which seemed to be more about Emma angst than staying true to their characters. When they did show remorse, usually to Mal, it was all about Mal and her reactions. They're story seemed to just exist to affect other stories. 

[Camera One]

Jane Espenson said they were not manipulated and they were in control of their own actions.

[KingOfHearts]

Jane Espenson said they were not manipulated and they were in control of their own actions.

Except there's nothing canon to prove that. In fact, the conversation Snowing had with Isaac during the finale seems to suggest otherwise. These writers...

[ParadoxLost]

Jane Espenson said they were not manipulated and they were in control of their own actions.

 

LOL.  This is the first thing I read and I went to check which thread I was in.  Not the writers thread.  I thought maybe hell had frozen over and they were explaining how something inexplicable had come to be and were taking responsibility.

 

I could buy Snowing being in control of their own actions.  What was missing was why was Snow, in particular, so ready to believe the tree and the unicorn when presented with the idea of Emma being predestined to be evil to the point of removing the possibility at the expense of another child.  Really, all they needed to do was drop some of the useless flashbacks and then present a Snow flashback that explained what deep seated fear she had based o prior experience that would drive such extremes.

[KingOfHearts]

Really, all they needed to do was drop some of the useless flashbacks and then present a Snow flashback that explained what deep seated fear she had based o prior experience that would drive such extremes.

 

It's a case of PRSD - Post Regina Stress Disorder. She saw Regina descend into the darkness firsthand and felt guilty for "letting" that happen. Seeing how susceptible one can be to evil, she feared the same would happen to her daughter. Unlike Charming, who hadn't really seen utter darkness (besides maybe Bo Peep), she knew how awful it was and she had been scarred by it ruining her life.

[tennisgurl]

 

Jane Espenson said they were not manipulated and they were in control of their own actions.

I really wish that had come across in the episode though. The way everyone talked, the Author was fully controlling things, not just manipulating. 

 

Also, that actor just keeps freaking showing up in shows I watch! Now every time I see him, I`m all "its the evil Author! Everybody run before he messes up your story"! It could be the same character, he can travel around the multiverse after all...

Edited June 2, 2015 by tennisgurl

[Faemonic]

The way everyone talked, the Author was fully controlling things, not just manipulating.

 

I figured that Isaac's Enchanted Forest was pretty much like The Dark Curse v.1 where everyone is fully controlled and manipulated and also in control of "their" actions...that latter only because they're not themselves. I mean, why else would any of these characters do something in AU!Misthaven that they certainly wouldn't in Standard Misthaven? So, in Storybrooke 1, Graham did voluntarily sidle up to Regina and participate in the Call Of Booty, but he wasn't himself. Katherine was immensely sincere about rekindling her marriage with David rather than Fredrick, but she wasn't herself. Mary Margaret apologizes when Regina bumps into her (even when Regina herself gets annoyed with it), and in AU!Misthaven Evil Queen Snow did make the decision to thin out the dwarves...

 

But while The Dark Curse v.1 has come around to a sort of rule, which is that the Storybrooke people are their fairy tale counterparts without their best trait: Gold is Rumple without his passion, Lacey is Belle without her compassion, David is Charming without his courage, Archie is Jiminy without a moral compass...

 

Isaac doesn't seem to be very good at subversions. What is the rule of the AU? Alignment Changes Only? Chaotic Neutral Hook becomes Lawful Neutral? Chaotic Good Snow becomes Lawful Evil? Or just anything that Isaac felt like doing.

[jhlipton]

 Or just anything that Isaac felt like doing.

 

Ding ding ding ding!!!!

[KingOfHearts]

Rewatched 4x11, and in my opinion it acted more like a finale than 4x21/22. Besides the glaring absence of Captain Swan payoff, it focused more on where the characters stood and going next. It had more authentic interactions. Not just with Rumpbelle and Outlaw Queen, but with Regina/Zarian, Belle/Henry, and even the Frozen gang. The flashbacks were okay as well. Went it aired I didn't care for this episode at all, but in retrospect it's actually more productive character-wise. Again, like I said, Captain Swan is the exception.

4x22 was more involved with the Author/Apprentice crazines outside of the AU. The only two real (not fictional) deep character scenes were the CS false ILU and Henry/Apprentice. Everything else was PLOT PLOT PLOT.

Edited June 4, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[KAOS Agent]

I was thinking about how little the Season 4 finale actually did for the show at all. Sure, it was fun to watch the AU, but everything that happened there was swept away as not real. Even Emma's realization that she should have told Hook that she loved him didn't hold up when she actually had the chance to tell him. She couldn't go through with it and reverted to Emma's tried and true way of telling someone she loves them only in crisis mode.

 

The rather dead atmosphere here is expected during a hiatus, but I realized it has a lot to do with how little there is to speculate or be excited about especially in comparison to other seasons. Season 1 went out with a bang and there was tons to look forward to and speculate about. Season 2 was similar in that it offered us a lot of interesting thoughts about the characters having to work together to get Henry. Season 3 featured a major development that would affect Regina's character both in terms of her redemption arc and her romantic relationship. It brought us the beginning of official Captain Swan and the way both characters would handle that. Even naming Baby Snowflake Neal gave us something to talk about with regards to Emma's relationship with her parents. Plus, there was Frozen, which I wasn't all that excited about, but it was some clue about where they were going. Despite most of the Season 3 finale being a Back to the Future retread, the stuff that happened on that adventure actually mattered and affected the present. The Season 4 AU didn't do that at all. Not a single character experienced any development or changes from the end of "Mother" to the end of "Operation Mongoose"

 

Considering how disappointing 4B was to many fans, I'm not sure that the finale was the best way to go out. It was fun, but in addition to no character development, it didn't do anything to generate excitement for the next season. Coma!Rumpel isn't interesting without some context of where he'll be when he wakes. Dark One Emma might be interesting, but it's left a ton of people very wary and unhappy about where it's going, so it's less excitement and more trepidation. Pregnant Zelena was never really interesting in the first place and it doesn't seem like it's going to drive much with Outlaw Queen. Regina & Robin seem happy together and they're just going to take the baby, so there's little drama there.

[YaddaYadda]

Regina & Robin seem happy together and they're just going to take the baby, so there's little drama there.

 

The writers will have Regina clutching at pearls and crying about something (broken nail maybe?) in no time.  

 

Season 4 was disappointing at as a whole for me on a personal level.  I was expecting a lot more than this.  They relied too much on Frozen and forgot to write the rest of the show and then wedged the QoD in that which ate screentime and did nothing really.  Maleficent, the one character I was excited about was a complete dud and was used to usher Lily in who in return will usher her father in.

 

Season 4 was one large plot point that led absolutely nowhere and did nothing for the show.  And it's too bad because the ideas were good, the follow through as always was quasi-nonexistent.  There is nothing in season 4 that really stood out for me.  I ship Captain Swan, so their development is what I'll remember from this season, but the stuff that I really wanted to see outside of that, as in Emma and her parents finally addressing certain things or someone telling Regina to shut up about the Author or people taking the fight to Rumple after they knew what he was up to instead of just posturing, none of that happened.  Stuff that might have breathed new life in the show...instead, it's always the same gimmick.  

 

That being said, and it's probably because I don't learn anything, I am sort of looking forward to season because I have no idea how to lower my expectations and that's just based on the last 30 seconds of the show.

[KingOfHearts]

The Dark Emma twist is so vague that there's not much to speculate about it. We have no hint of what she'll be like or how the Dark One curse will treat her versus Rumple. We know Camelot is involved somehow, but that's pretty much all we know. If they teased where Emma had gone or how it transformed her a little, we might have been able to play guessing games all summer. As it stands, the cliffhanger is so broad that we have nothing to go off of.

 

The 3A finale gave us Hook at the apartment, 2B flashbacks showed a bit of Neverland, and S1 at least showed flashes of the character reactions to magic coming. 4B's ending scenes gave us squat. Knowing they won't have a main character dark for long doesn't exactly help the suspense factor either.

Edited June 4, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

The writers will have Regina clutching at pearls and crying about something (broken nail maybe?) in no time.

The baby will have Zelena's eyes, so she'll never be able to forget that it isn't really hers. Or Zelena's pregnancy will send her off on a magical quest to undo the potion she took so she can have a baby of her own because it's just not fair and the universe is out to get her.

 

The Dark Emma twist is so vague that there's not much to speculate about it.

Yeah, there's no real room for mental fanfic speculation, and it's not even fun mental fanfic to speculate about. I've taken to mentally rewriting past seasons with different twists and developing the mental fanfic I did based on last summer's speculation, since the show veered so widely from what I came up with that mine was a totally different plot line. I've just moved some of that speculation to the future after the presumed resolution of whatever happens next. But I've got nothing for next season. It's just not a very appealing or intriguing story prompt for me, and what little I have come up with I know would never happen on the show because it requires things that won't fit a TV series, like exploring what would be going on in Storybrooke with the characters with a prolonged Emma absence (interesting to speculate about, but I wouldn't want to see it on the show).

[KAOS Agent]

The Dark Emma twist is so vague that there's not much to speculate about it.

 

I guess we won't know whether it would have helped with fan interest or not until we can see it to judge, but I kind of think the Emma teaser that Jennifer Morrison said was filmed to air at Comic Con might have been better to put at the end of the episode rather than ending with the shot of the dagger. I still question if they didn't include that in the episode because they were unsure of where they really wanted to go with Dark!Emma and didn't want to lock themselves into something. As it is, Emma could be in Storybrooke or she could be elsewhere. She could be insanely evil or she could be crazy or she could be in control but utterly devoid of emotion. Basically, they made it so they can do whatever with her, but that results in little to no interest in speculation because there's nothing to go on.

 

Season 4 was generally pretty disappointing to me. The first four episodes were good, but then it just went to hell. They don't seem to care that they generate plot points that should resonate throughout the season and can't be wrapped up with a hug. Emma's issues with her crazy magic and her parents being resolved with Emma gaining control of her magic and not them discussing all of the crap that set her off in the first place just pisses me off. Hook's hand being reduced to a one and done episode "Evil Hands" plot took a serious issue like the loss of a limb and brushed it aside like it was nothing. The Shattered Sight spell was not carried off as it was billed and Emma never getting any resolution to her relationship with Ingrid also bugs. Let's not even start on the resolution to Hook's heart, Zelena's rape of Robin somehow being all about Regina, Lily and the eggnapping, Rumpel finally getting kicked out of town and returning immediately the next episode, Rumpel getting a complete redo with his life in general and the not so riveting Queens of Darkness (although I liked Cruella a lot).

Edited June 4, 2015 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

Yeah, it is tough to come up with any worthwhile possibilities from the 4B cliffhangers.  And after being burned so many times, the optimistic "Oh, maybe Dark Emma will lead to more opportunities for Emma's relationship with her parents to grow and strengthen" sounds hollow because it's just not going to happen.  

[Shanna Marie]

Despite most of the Season 3 finale being a Back to the Future retread, the stuff that happened on that adventure actually mattered and affected the present. The Season 4 AU didn't do that at all. Not a single character experienced any development or changes from the end of "Mother" to the end of "Operation Mongoose"

The annoying thing is, they really should have had some changes based on their AU experiences, since they do remember them, if only these writers weren't allergic to letting their characters have reactions like actual human people would. The AU may not have changed the physical circumstances in Storybrooke, but the We Are Both people are now We Are All Three, to some extent. Even if it kind of feels like a dream, some of them went through some pretty traumatic things, or else they were forced into having another perspective. And all of it came about because of the Operation Mongoose that they'd been supporting.

 

So Regina and Hook and whichever dwarf that was (Doc?) now have memories of painful deaths. That's nightmare fodder. Henry had two people die for him, right in front of him, and at the very least Hook wouldn't have died if Henry hadn't dragged him into the situation. None of it would have happened without Operation Mongoose, which Henry was obsessed with. Regina had to walk a mile in Snow's shoes and now has first-hand experience of what she put Snow through, and then there's all the other stuff that happened to others, which all came about because she assaulted Lily to get her blood for ink and then gave it to Isaac so she could have her life rewritten. This really should be a major character turning point for Regina. It should have been a humbling experience. Is Hook likely to be even more reckless and rash as an overreaction to remembering what it was like to be written as a coward? Will any Evil Queen seep into Snow's behavior, or is she going to become even more meek for fear that she has that potential in her? Will being Snow's puppet in any way affect the way David sees his wife? He's always had a tendency to give in to her, so will he stand up to her a little more now or be even worse?

 

Just like with Shattered Sight, even if the reset button was hit, it should have had lasting emotional consequences that changed the relationship dynamics. The aftermath shouldn't have been limited to Emma realizing she needed to tell Hook she loved him and Hook and David joking about David killing Hook. But TS;TW.

[YaddaYadda]

Regina didn't die.  She was going to die, but she didn't.

 

I was hoping that the AU would be used as a growth experience for all the characters.  I know that it was only a few hours before the shit hit the fan once more with the whole Dark One stuff.

 

These people walked a mile in each others' shoes, I'm hoping for some character growth for everyone though I'm not really holding my breath.

 

I also think those pesky words of hero and villain should be completely dropped from the show's vocabulary since they decided that the lines should be blurred.  I'm also done hearing them saying those words over and over, I might burn my eardrums if they keep it up.

[Shanna Marie]

Regina didn't die.  She was going to die, but she didn't.

I figure it's close enough for trauma, since she had the pain of the wound and the fear that she was dying and would have died if things hadn't been reversed at the last second. And since everyone else was also afraid she would die, it wasn't just a case of Regina having a paper cut and acting like it was the worst pain anyone has ever suffered.

 

Then again, if Regina got a paper cut, everyone else would probably run around in crisis mode like it was the biggest emergency the town had ever seen.

[Free]

 

The 3A finale gave us Hook at the apartment, 2B flashbacks showed a bit of Neverland, and S1 at least showed flashes of the character reactions to magic coming. 4B's ending scenes gave us squat. Knowing they won't have a main character dark for long doesn't exactly help the suspense factor either.

Definitely underwhelming for a cliffhanger, I hope S5 gives us something more to look forward to.

[Shanna Marie]

I was thinking about the discussion we were having in the Hook thread about the massive power imbalance between him and Rumple, and we've had some similar discussions in other threads about one of the issues in this show being that the villains are so much more powerful than the heroes that the heroes can't fight back -- until the last second when suddenly they can. But I don't think the power imbalance is the real problem. The ordinary, unpowered hero up against a seemingly invincible and super-powerful villain is a major trope in a lot of fantasy and most fairy tales. The trick is in how that's handled. Some of the ways the non-powerful heroes win include: the villains cause their own downfall through arrogance or trying for too much; the heroes win by making sacrifices so great the villains can't anticipate them; the heroes get magical assistance from magical beings and/or objects (usually as a reward for a kindness); the heroes team up with others and combine their skills and powers; the heroes find and exploit the villain's weakness; the heroes earn the loyalty of others who come to their aid.

 

So how does this apply to this show? Season one got it right. Regina may not have had magical power, but she was super-powerful in that she held all the cards and controlled the playing field, while Emma didn't even realize what game she was playing. Regina was defeated because she reached too far. Emma was willing to give up and leave town and just wanted to be able to still see Henry, but Regina wanted her out of the picture entirely so she could have Henry to herself, so she tried to poison Emma, and then Henry was willing to sacrifice himself to make Emma believe.

 

They get partial points for the way they defeated Cora. It was actually very fairy tale appropriate, since they were using Cora's own magical object to kill her, and the reason they had it available to use against Cora was that Snow had been good and resisted the temptation to use it to save her mother. It was perfect fairy tale poetic justice. The problem was that the show didn't treat it like justice and instead went off onto that dark heart/heroes don't kill tangent that derailed the series' moral compass. I'm also not crazy about it being Rumple who was saved, since he needed killing and was only being saved because he's in the opening credits, and it's just gross that these idiots keep saving his sorry ass because "he's family" when he keeps hurting people. Does this mean his victims are less important because they're not family? (And in this case, the victim being avenged and the reason he was dying was as much family as he is.) It would have been perfect if Johanna hadn't died when falling from the tower, but instead was in a coma and dying, and they killed Cora by saving her.

 

I think the defeat of Pan also works, since it was a case of a sacrifice so big the villain wasn't able to anticipate it, and they were able to escape from Neverland due to what Neal had learned, and they saved Neal because of all of them (especially Hook) making minor sacrifices (they went through a lot of emotional discomfort to save him).  But it all falls apart with Zelena, on so many levels. Yes, there's the finding and using the villain's weakness, but the way they did it was very deus ex machina. To start with, her weakness was silly. The idea that the supposed good guys would use a device that amplified their magical powers but that would leave them powerless if they lost it is ridiculous. That's a villain move -- so desperate for more power and so arrogant that they think with their great power they aren't in any danger of losing the device. If Zelena had found the necklace and done it to herself, it would have worked better. Then there was the way they learned about the weakness. Because of skipping eight months of the Missing Year in one episode, it made it look like they sat around most of that time, then at the last minute found Glinda and had her tell them. We didn't get the sense of them having done anything particularly good, clever, or brave to find Zelena's weakness. In the present, they just had to break the memory spell and suddenly knew everything -- again, nothing particularly good, clever, or brave. Then the idea that the way to defeat the super-powered villain was with someone as powerful as she was, but with good magic, doesn't really fit, especially when it feels like they've just rewritten the rules of magic to make it possible for Regina -- who even with the dark magic she's familiar with using couldn't fight Zelena -- to suddenly be able to defeat her with light magic she's just discovered. There's a reason why Dorothy defeated the Wicked Witch with a bucket of water while trying to help save her friend the scarecrow from the fire the witch started rather than suddenly discovering that her slippers gave her superpowers. It's so much more satisfying. I get that Regina needed to be the one to end up fighting her sister, but it would have been more interesting if instead of suddenly shooting light magic out of her ass she'd managed to defeat Zelena using something entirely non-magical -- a real growth arc for Regina, who's always solved all her problems with magic. What if she's figured out that fighting her with magic was going about it the wrong way, and Regina had to humble herself magically to fight her?

 

I actually liked the way they dealt with Ingrid, though that might have been more palatable if Anna had been treated less like a Mary Sue all along. If they'd just changed the David story so that he helped her instead, or they helped each other, rather than her teaching him to fight and have courage (all in one day), it might have been easier to stomach her being the one who could reach Ingrid. But it works that it was the acceptance of a non-magical person who could reach her, while taking her on magically didn't work (see, that's what could have happened with Regina and Zelena).

 

Where it utterly fails is with Rumple. A magical object helping defeat the superpowered villain is fine, but it works so much better if the hero gets the magical object by doing something other than knocking it off a shelf. Then there were all the clues to what Rumple was doing that could have led to a teamwork rescue mission, but didn't. There was Emma's magical epiphany and her power being so great that Rumple wanted it for himself, but she wasn't able to even fight back. Why set all these things up if you're not going to use them?

 

Hook helping Ursula rather than fighting her, and thereby getting her on their side, was a wonderful way of dealing with a power imbalance (if you can't beat 'em, get 'em to join you). Ditto bringing Maleficent her daughter. Cruella was actually underpowered in the long run, so I guess she doesn't count, and Isaac was almost too easy to beat (Henry is a brat ex machina, and then there was the contrivance of Regina's blood counting as Savior blood, when Emma is a Savior not because she's saved someone but because she was magically tinkered with in the womb and was woven into the curse and the potion that returned magic).

 

So overall, the problem isn't so much that the villains are too powerful, but more that the ways of defeating them are, oddly enough, too easy when it comes down to it, after too much time spent in futility.

[Camera One]

The ordinary, unpowered hero up against a seemingly invincible and super-powerful villain is a major trope in a lot of fantasy and most fairy tales. The trick is in how that's handled. Some of the ways the non-powerful heroes win include: the villains cause their own downfall through arrogance or trying for too much; the heroes win by making sacrifices so great the villains can't anticipate them; the heroes get magical assistance from magical beings and/or objects (usually as a reward for a kindness); the heroes team up with others and combine their skills and powers; the heroes find and exploit the villain's weakness; the heroes earn the loyalty of others who come to their aid.

 

This is a good summary of the major tropes of fantasy/adventures/fairy tales.  The difference is these are normally satisfying to watch, whereas on "Once", they write in such a way that takes the satisfaction out of it.  Like Cora totally deserved to die with her own candle, but the whole thing was framed to make Snow look morally depraved, with an extra reprimand from Henry.  

 

I also agree that the ways of defeating the villains are too easy and comes conveniently at the climax, usually pulled out of you-know-where.  From Henry suddenly becoming the Author at the pivotal moment, to Regina suddenly accessing the lightest of the light magic, to Anna finding the bottle, and finding Ingrid's forest hideaway.  These moments were not built up to, which meant there was little to no anticipation for the villains' comeuppance.

 

I still think the villains being too powerful compared to the protagonists is still a major problem, because it results in an entire half-season of the "heroes" reacting, usually ineffectively.  In 3B, there was literally nothing anyone could do to Zelena, ditto in 4A with the Snow Queen, or 2B with Cora, or 4B with Rumple.  Every time the heroes took a step forward, the villain couldn't care less anymore (eg. when they realized Zelena was the Wicked Witch, in 3B, it was pretty much a moot point and Zelena didn't even care; when they realized Rumple was back in town in 4B, he couldn't care less about the secrecy anymore).

 

The power imbalance and the heroes being at a disadvantage means we rarely get to see the heroes doing intelligent planning, or outsmarting the villain until the half-season is over.  Everything the "heroes" know the villains also do.  That is not the case with many fairy tales or fantasy stories.  

[daxx]

Shanna Marie, that is such a good analysis of the power balance and the resolutions to the different storylines. You should post it on Tumblr. I bet you would get some good responses.

[Shanna Marie]

The power imbalance and the heroes being at a disadvantage means we rarely get to see the heroes doing intelligent planning, or outsmarting the villain until the half-season is over.

In other words, they skip the parts of the fairy tales in which the heroes gather allies, magical objects, and information by being kind, clever, and courageous and skip straight to the part where they suddenly just stumble on the fact or tool they need in the final confrontation. So we get Belle finding the gauntlet when it's knocked off the shelf and going straight to knowing what Rumple's up to rather than her putting together the clues throughout the season, thinking twice about what her mirror self told her, realizing that she's sleeping through everything critical, noticing the times that Rumple did something she'd told him not to do in spite of the dagger, and then going looking for the gauntlet to prove it to herself, one way or another, because obviously he'd have taken it back (duh, she's met him).

 

The other thing that hampers them is that they insist on keeping the villains onstage and keep forcing confrontations that the heroes aren't allowed to win until the end of the arc. In a lot of fairy tales and fantasy stories with super-powerful villains, the villain is mostly offstage and seldom interacts with the heroes until the climax. Sometimes the villain initiates the quest (that's actually a cover for trying to get rid of the hero). Sometimes the villain is at the end of the quest and isn't even aware of the hero (one reason for the "ordinary guy" hero who flies under the radar). Or if the hero encounters the villain, they usually go with the rule of three -- two encounters that go badly, but the hero learns enough from those encounters to form a new plan and be successful in the third encounter. The Zelena arc would have worked a lot better if they'd really treated it like a mystery, where we didn't know for a while who the Wicked Witch was -- we didn't see her other than from a distance for a while in the Missing Year (since there was no story reason for her to reveal herself to them -- that was what brought her plan down) and in Storybrooke they could have had a Miss Gulch type red herring so Zelena wasn't obvious. Ingrid's plan would actually have been better served if she'd kept up the front of the ice cream lady for a lot longer and they'd had to do more than discover an ice cream shop that doesn't need a real freezer to figure out who and what she was. Where's the fun when the villain just shows up in full costume and tells the hero who she is?

 

The more I think about it, the more I think they should have moved the Rumple and the hat plot to 4B. The Author/Operation Mongoose story really wasn't enough plot to carry an arc, and it would have been thematic with both Rumple and Regina trying to find loopholes to get them what they want (though I guess that would require admitting that Regina was wrong). If Rumple had lured the Queens of Darkness to town using the ruse of the Author when he was really just rounding up all the magical people he could find so he could hat them, that would have given them more of a purpose in the story, and then the heroes could have done more fighting back by doing stuff like having Hook win Ursula over and Emma win Maleficent by finding Lily. That would have given more to the hat story than Rumple making speeches and Hook being helpless, and it works even if they aren't trying to defeat Rumple but are just trying to do the right thing, and that's what gives them the edge in the long run. Then we'd have had a heroes vs. villain showdown.

[Camera One]

I find that in a lot of film adaptations of books, they already tend to skip a lot of the research and logical deductions and jump right to the instant discoveries, when the process and the little victories were usually my favorite parts in the book.  This show is even worse and skips all of that in its entirety.  The plot rarely has the heroes "clue in" to gain an upper-hand, and if it does happen, it's too late or useless.  They had Snow interacting with Midwife Zelena for three episodes, and they didn't let Snow figure it out.  They had Henry in captivity under Pan, but hardly let him have any resistance and eventually he just fell for everything hook, line and sinker.  

 

The heroes' strengths... the ability to love, having kindness, sparing others, etc. are usually rewarded in other fairy tales, such as the old hag turning out to be a fairy and rewarding them, or Frodo sparing Gollum in "Lord of the Rings", or Voldemort in Harry Potter not understanding the power of love.  On this show, Snowing shows kindness to the Peddler and he screws them over, they let Regina go for the umpteenth time and it blows up their face, and it is rare when the villains' lack of understanding about love backfires in a satisfying way.  In fact, apparently, extreme sisterly love can be countered by extreme hatred.  Yikes!

Edited June 8, 2015 by Camera One

[Free]

 

On this show, Snowing shows kindness to the Peddlar and he screws them over, they let Regina go for the umpteenth time and it blows up their face, and it is rare when the villains' lack of understanding about love backfires in a satisfying way.  In fact, apparently, extreme sisterly love can be countered by extreme hatred.  Yikes!

 

Oh yes, the plot dumb/idiot ball, Snow is definitely no stranger to that.  Remember last season when everyone was on a witch hunt and Snow blindly trusted Zalena, who was a stranger at the time with her baby instead of someone she actually remembered.

[Shanna Marie]

Remember last season when everyone was on a witch hunt and Snow blindly trusted Zalena, who was a stranger at the time with her baby instead of someone she actually remembered.

That one was particularly frustrating. There were clues all over the place, with giant neon signs with arrows pointing to the clues, and yet they all missed all of them, and Neal had to be separated from Rumple and die so that Rumple could tell them who the Wicked Witch was, and therefore Neal got credit for being a hero and sacrificing himself to save them all by letting Rumple be able to tell them. Not that I would have wanted Neal to have to stay in the state he was in because ick, but the whole thing was just unnecessary if these idiots had applied half a brain cell. There was Snow just assuming that she'd been great buds in the Missing Year with a woman she's never seen before, who's suddenly all up in her business and getting super chummy, just at the time when they're trying to figure out which new person in town might be their enemy. There was Leroy immediately turning his back on the room rather than watching the reactions of everyone in the room after running into to spread information for the purpose of getting a reaction, so he missed the stranger in town who suddenly jumped up and bolted out of the room. There was David, having weird hallucinations immediately after the stranger in town made tea for him and not adding up two and two. I think that's one thing that was so frustrating about that arc -- the good guys didn't seem to actually do anything other than sit around and wait for someone to tell them what was going on and what to do about it.

 

The heroes' strengths... the ability to love, having kindness, sparing others, etc. are usually rewarded in other fairy tales, such as the old hag turning out to be a fairy and rewarding them, or Frodo sparing Gollum in "Lord of the Rings", or Voldemort in Harry Potter not understanding the power of love.  On this show, Snowing shows kindness to the Peddlar and he screws them over, they let Regina go for the umpteenth time and it blows up their face, and it is rare when the villains' lack of understanding about love backfires in a satisfying way.

Don't forget Regina sparing Zelena's life and showing her some kindness, with the impression that she was going to try to help her, but then when Zelena gets a second chance at life after Rumple kills her, she goes on a crazy life-ruining crusade against Regina rather than going up against the man who killed her.

 

The moral of the story is: never show mercy or spare anyone. It won't go well for you.

[KingOfHearts]

 

Lancelot was known under another name that I can't recall just now though.

He went by the name Leviathan, or at least that's what people called him. He was surprised to find out he was given that name when Snow told him what it was.

Edited June 11, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Dianthus]

Isaac wasn't originally an EF character, despite being in the EF, so he screws over Snow and David (two people who'd helped him and never done him any harm). I think that's the big difference. OTOH, Hook, Ursula and Ariel are all EF characters in the LwoM. He's eager to set right what he'd done wrong, ends up helping someone when he didn't even know she was in trouble, and gets the Jolly back as his reward. Even then, he said he was taking a page from Emma's book, to restore Ursula's Happy Ending.

[KAOS Agent]

Because I'm bored and the showrunners really gave us little to discuss for the future, I think we should have some fun with this show's past. Pick a random category, any category (avoiding the usual suspects of Favorite Episode/Season/Character and keeping in mind this is the All Seasons Thread) and list your top pick(s) in the category.  Want to discuss your favorite Captain Floor moment? Favorite fairyback? Best parallel between the past/present? Most ridiculously bad CGI episode? Go for it. Entertain us with your thoughts. Let's try to improve some of the waning enthusiasm for the show by discussing some of the fun/enjoyment it's brought in the past.

[KingOfHearts]

One of my favorite twists is when Kathryn turned up alive. The timing was too perfect and it worked because the audience was more concerned with Snow vs. Regina than the actual case at the time. It caught viewers by surprise, but it wasn't contrived either. The seeds were planted with the lack of body and then Rumple's promise to help. It was a fitting end to the murder case and the catalyst for Regina to begin taking more drastic measures.

 

I wasn't too fond of the arc because it was fairly predictable, but it did garner some wonderful character development... even if the personalities were cursed.

Edited June 19, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[HoodlumSheep]

Favorite fairybacks I can currently name off the top of my head (I've been a bit spacey today) were the ones in Snow Falls, Miller's Daughter, Straight on til Morning, Heart of the Matter (Wonderland). I really liked the feel of the Poor Unfortunate Soul fairybacks, and I also loved the Sympathy for the De Vil flashbacks (if they're considered fairybacks).

Favorite twist? Hmm...I don't know if I have one, I liked the twistiness of the Zariel twist (not so much the kiss curse), but I actually thought that was Ariel up until what felt like a punch in the gut. And I did like the Snowbug twist in the 3b finale. I didn't know at the time whether A&E were going to carry over any of the time shenanigans to season 4 at the time (I should have known better), and I liked that it showed how smart and capable Snow was (or used to be).

Favorite deus ex machina (no joke, I'm serious): the wishing star. Out of all the last minute plot devices A&E have thrown at us I liked this one the best. I don't care what anyone else says, when Elsa was making her wish I was struck by season 1 nostalgia and it didn't bother me that Kristanna were magically saved at the last second. I thought it worked. And unlike the gauntlet, it was built up for more than one episode.

Favorite YoungerSelf/child character/actor/actress (played by a different person):

Out of Young Snow, Young Baelfire, Rumple, etc. I liked Baelfire and Ursula. Young Ursula was a sweetie and I adore her outfit/dress. And what most people seem to agree on, Young Baelfire was awesome.

All the kid actors they've found to portray the group's younger selves have been awesome.

Edited June 19, 2015 by HoodlumSheep

[KAOS Agent]

One of my favorite twists is when Kathryn turned up alive.

 

Kathryn was the character who just kept on giving with the twists. I loved that Rumpel used her to work "diagonally" as Emma said in his efforts to undermine Regina and get Emma to end the curse. However, more fun was that she wasn't the spoiled bratty princess she'd appeared to be in the fairybacks, but was actually pretty cool and mourning her own lost love, Frederick. It was a very nice use of a character to move the plot and cause emotional angst at the same time. Even better, she was not a misunderstood villain.

 

Favorite deus ex machina (no joke, I'm serious): the wishing star

 

This was infinitely better than the gauntlet that randomly falls off the shelf. They'd actually woven that necklace into the storyline for multiple episodes, so when it turned out that it was the wishing star, it didn't just come out of nowhere. Now why they couldn't use it to wish the Shattered Sight curse away, I don't know, but at least it didn't just randomly appear just when it was needed having never been mentioned before.

Edited June 20, 2015 by KAOS Agent

[Camera One]

I thought the necklace/wishing star and the message in a bottle were both similar in formula.  Both were shown in the first two episodes and were "lost", and both were conveniently accessible again (due to the ice opening up and the waves washing it ashore, respectively) in the last two episodes of the arc.  It's better than the gauntlet, but not by much.  I found 4A enjoyable despite these deus-ex-machinas, but I still found them more transparent than the Snow Queen's pointless ice sculpture.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Camera One

[KAOS Agent]

The convenience of the wishing star necklace being accessible was ridiculous, but Anna & Kristoff were actually looking for it in Arendelle/Misthaven, so it was set up as a magical item that was meant to solve their problem. They just needed to find it. It's sort of like the stupid compass in that it's a thing that's needed to complete the mission and there was an effort put in to get it, but ends up in the right hands at exactly the right moment much too easily. How convenient was it that Emma falls right onto the compass while Hook is playing at sword fighting with her? 

[Camera One]

I had forgotten about that.  And in the gauntlet category, there was Isaac's pen conveniently falling out of his bag right in front of Henry.  

[Shanna Marie]

However, more fun was that she wasn't the spoiled bratty princess she'd appeared to be in the fairybacks, but was actually pretty cool and mourning her own lost love, Frederick.

Abigail turning out to be cool rather than the bitch she appeared to be in "Snow Falls" is one of my favorite character twists. You're all set up for her to be the bitchy mean girl because that character always is, and she turns out to be cool and sympathetic to Snow and Charming.

 

I think my favorite "these aren't the fairy tales you've always heard" twist was Prince Charming turning out to be a shepherd boy masquerading as his twin, who'd been adopted by a king. For one thing, I've always loved "the fake person pretending turns out to be a better royal than the people born to it" kinds of stories, so I love that Charming, who seemed to be the perfect prince, wasn't born a prince. I wish they would do more with that aspect of his character, that he's really a normal guy who only became a prince recently. And then one of their best surprise!shocks ever was the moment when James was killed and we didn't yet know he was a twin. At that point in the show, the pattern of seeing the backstory that's surprising in contrast to the way we see the person in Storybrooke had been established, so I was a little surprised to see Charming as a jerk, but thought he was going to learn a valuable lesson in this backstory that would show how he became the good guy we've already met. Then boom, he's dead. The hell? And then we meet the shepherd boy and learn that it's going to be a different kind of transformation, and then it puts the "Snow Falls" story into a totally different context.

 

I also liked the revelation of the reason Rumple wanted the curse cast. You could look back at all the previous episodes and see the buildup to that, so it didn't feel at all ret-conny (unlike their later attempts at twists). It was a surprise that made total sense, and that worked.

 

Other fun revelations: Cora as the Queen of Hearts (because duh!) and Bae ending up as a Lost Boy in Neverland (after meeting Captain Hook). I'd been puzzled at how Rumple's son would still be alive, and that twist made it work.

[Writing Wrongs]

I think my favorite "these aren't the fairy tales you've always heard" twist was Prince Charming turning out to be a shepherd boy masquerading as his twin, who'd been adopted by a king. For one thing, I've always loved "the fake person pretending turns out to be a better royal than the people born to it" kinds of stories, so I love that Charming, who seemed to be the perfect prince, wasn't born a prince. I wish they would do more with that aspect of his character, that he's really a normal guy who only became a prince recently.

I always found it weird that everyone in the kingdom seemed to know that David was a fake prince. You'd think George would want to keep that under wraps.

 

I've started my Season 2 re-watch. Every time I watch the opening for Broken, it makes me wonder what Neal's job in Manhattan was. He's dressed like a Wall Street guy or some sort of businessman. I guess that's another unanswered question.

[YaddaYadda]

I always found it weird that everyone in the kingdom seemed to know that David was a fake prince. You'd think George would want to keep that under wraps.

 

Did they though?  I mean in Tiny, Leroy had no clue that David's name wasn't James and there was a whole discussion about that while they were running away from Tiny about what David should be called.

[Camera One]

I'm seeing a pattern...

 

2A: Find Snow and Emma!   2B: React to Hook and Cora!

3A: Find Henry!                    3B: React to Zelena!

4A: Find Anna!                     4B: Find the Author + React to Crap!

5A: Find Merlin!            

[KingOfHearts]

 

5A: Find Merlin!

5B: React to Merlin!

[Shanna Marie]

I always found it weird that everyone in the kingdom seemed to know that David was a fake prince. You'd think George would want to keep that under wraps.

We don't know when or how everyone found out -- including Snow. In "Tiny" the others, especially Grumpy, didn't know that David's name really was David, that James was his twin brother. But in the fairyback where David faked the sword in the stone to give Snow confidence, Grumpy (or one of the dwarfs, but probably Grumpy because he's usually the only one who gets to talk) made some kind of snarky remark to him about being a farmer/shepherd/something along those lines. George did tell Snow that "James" wasn't his son when she tried to call his bluff about threatening Charming's life if she didn't back off, but I don't think we've ever seen when or how she learned the whole story or how anyone else did, and we don't know who knows. I'm not even sure Emma knows who her father really is -- she told Rumple her father was Prince James during the time travel.

 

So, yeah, a major aspect of the character, and they've totally neglected to use it to the point we don't know how secret it is or isn't. Dare we hope that on the quest for Camelot, or whatever it is, they run into someone who mistakes him for James? I still have that dream scenario in which David and Hook are together and someone attacks them, talking about being wronged, and Hook just assumes it's about him, then is highly amused to find that they're after David, and it's because of James.

[KingOfHearts]

I was rewatching New York City Serenade (3x12). I remember how much hype there was for this episode after that freaky winter finale. During that hiatus was actually when I began watching the show seriously, so I couldn't wait to finally watch new ones with everyone else. It was also during that time that I started lurking on TWoP and all the speculation/spoilers were so fun to read. Post-S1, that's probably when Once garnered the most intrigue from its viewers... at least to me.

 

I wish we could have spent more time in New York or with memory-less Emma. Not much longer, but maybe another half episode. It would be an annoying repeat of Season One if it was a trip to get her to believe again, but I liked the idea that now Emma had a sense about it. Even when Hook was stalking her, there was something in the back of her mind that knew the game was afoot somehow. Going to Storybooke would have been a more sensible leap of faith than drinking from a possibly poisonous/drug-infused bottled, anyway. I would have liked to see Snowing see her before she remembered or Emma using her real-world detective skills to find Zelena. Belle could have just gotten a memory potion in the backroom of the Pawn Shop and slipped it in Regina's lasagna... or you know, Emma could just touch the book.

 

As for Henry, I liked him better as the video-gaming teenager. His character would have benefited so much more to this day if he had to readjust to Storybrooke without getting his memories back. Regina also would have benefited from the fact she needed to win him over organically instead of just being his mother. It would have brought a real-world element back into the show that it has desperately needed. Emma hasn't filled that void like used to. I'm okay with Henry coming to terms with it and believing, but there was a total lack of consequences to him remembering all of a sudden. What was even the point of him not knowing for most of 3B?

 

There's a host of other problems with this arc I won't even touch in this post. The Missing Year, Zelena, Rumple, Emma's revelation, Charming Family drama, the crazy plot holes and deus ex machinas, etc.

Edited July 4, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Serena]

Kathryn was the character who just kept on giving with the twists. I loved that Rumpel used her to work "diagonally" as Emma said in his efforts to undermine Regina and get Emma to end the curse. However, more fun was that she wasn't the spoiled bratty princess she'd appeared to be in the fairybacks, but was actually pretty cool and mourning her own lost love, Frederick. It was a very nice use of a character to move the plot and cause emotional angst at the same time. Even better, she was not a misunderstood villain.

I LOVED Kathryn. I just can't believe the same writers who created Kathryn gave us (ugh) Tamara.

[Rumsy4]

I LOVED Kathryn. I just can't believe the same writers who created Kathryn gave us (ugh) Tamara.

 

Or Walsh. Or the Marian popsicle drama. Or Zelena. How far we have fallen...

[KingOfHearts]

I noticed that the b-side of every season post-S1 are always just setup for something else. 2B was setup for Neverland, 3B was setup for the time travel adventure and 4B was setup for the book adventure and Dark Emma. The writers didn't really care about the Home Office, Oz or the Queens of Darkness. They were all just pre-shows for the main event. So I'd say the writers do know how to execute what they set in motion, but it's only whatever they're excited about at the moment. When it comes to characters or plots that actually matter in the long run, it's a different story.

 

On the flip side, the former half of the seasons usually focus on one particular realm and tell a pretty self-concluding story. Team Princess, Neverland and Frozen were all very focused on their own tales to spin, while b-sides remained all over the place. It's almost as if they use the beginning of each season to regroup after the chaos from the previous arc.

 

The irony is that audiences complain that the a-side gets boring because it so scarcely drifts from its main plot, but the b-side is also complained about for being too confusing and disorderly. I believe the a-side arcs are reasonably balanced for the most part, but if the subplots were more developed it would have evened out even more. We should have saw more Storybrooke curse aftermath in 2A, more Neverland backstory in 3A and more general main cast characterization in 4A. (From pretty much everyone other than Regina, Emma and Rumple.)

Edited July 8, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

Looking back at my own post:

I also liked the revelation of the reason Rumple wanted the curse cast. You could look back at all the previous episodes and see the buildup to that, so it didn't feel at all ret-conny (unlike their later attempts at twists). It was a surprise that made total sense, and that worked.

I think this is one area where those non-linear fairybacks worked. We saw all of Rumple's maneuverings without explanation as to why he was doing it, and then when we finally got the explanation, it was a nice "oh, now I get it!" moment that suddenly made him a lot more sympathetic. Not that I think he was making good choices or that I would have done the same things he did, but I understood why he was doing it. That was a huge contrast with the revelation of Regina's motivation, where after all the buildup about her hatred for Snow, and when we finally saw the root of it all, I was left thinking "That's it? Seriously?" In fact, only the Rumple reveal kept me interested in the show after the near shark-jump of the revelation of Regina's motivation. I should have known then what I was in for ...

 

As for Henry, I liked him better as the video-gaming teenager. His character would have benefited so much more to this day if he had to readjust to Storybrooke without getting his memories back. Regina also would have benefited from the fact she needed to win him over organically instead of just being his mother. It would have brought a real-world element back into the show that it has desperately needed.

Regina's "sacrifice" to undo the curse should have stuck. Having it be erased like that was yet another case of Regina being handed all good things and never suffering consequences. She should have had to live with that and get used to the idea of maybe being an "aunt." Henry could have come to believe based on evidence rather than by touching a magic book. Seeing magic would have been the way to make him believe in it. Let him figure it out for himself the way he did the first time around. The book gave him information that he was able to compare to the people around him. It wasn't magic. He'd have eventually realized that Snow and David were his grandparents, and Regina the Evil Queen would have had to prove to him that she was different now. Hook's not in that book but would have had to show that he was different from the Hook in the Peter Pan stories.

[Camera One]

I was thinking about how they had Will from "Wonderland" on the show, and another way they could have gone for 4B.  Since "Wonderland" had Jafar, they could have done Aladdin/Jasmine in 4B, with the Author being Scheherazade.  They could have done the One Thousand and One Nights tales.  Though if they went that route, the Author wouldn't be a villain and Scheherazade would probably say she can't change the past.  They could still have Jafar or some other villain forcing Scheherazade's hand, though.