A Thread for All Seasons: OUaT Across All Realms

[Rumsy4]

Emma can't even voice a passing thought about how she wishes she wasn't a savior. She needs to be taught a cruel lesson where she has to watch the Evil Queen kill her parents as she watches helplessly. 

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

Remember, some have made the argument in the past that Regina didn't really kill Leopold.  Or he was abusive so he deserved it.

Killing Snow isn't a big deal... it's not like she died.  And she was suuuuuuuch a brat.

Right, the victims always have it coming. Its always poor Regina. You see Leopold had to die, he deserved it for neglecting her so she could be tutored by Rumple, put a horse under a sleeping curse, and put her plan together to take over Leopold's kingdom so she could send someone to murder his daughter. Regina had no choice.  It was fault of the bride and groom for choosing to get married on that day, didn't they know it was the day of their evil Queen's secret boyfriend's murder at the hands of her mother? No one in the Kingdom is allowed to be happy!  Those villages? Well, they most likely did something wrong so they all deserved to die, every man, woman and child. Snow certainly deserved to be terrorized, on the run, have her father murdered, separated from her husband and child for 28 years, in fact everyone in the kingdom and several others deserved to be cursed, ripped away from their homes and family for 28 years because darn it Regina only wanted to be happy or revenge or her happy ending or to win. What was wrong with that? 

[daxx]

And of course Jefferson totally deserved to spend those years aware and trapped away from his daughter with her in eyesight.

[Shanna Marie]

So, in continuing the "what went wrong with the problem arcs" analysis, I'm up to 4B, and that one comes down to lack of development. The season comes across like the results of one of those brainstorming sessions where all ideas are equally valid and no criticism is allowed, skipping the part that's supposed to come later where you take the ideas and develop them.

Central to this is the mythology of the Author, which should be fairly central to the show. It became clear that there was never any developed mythology to explain the book, and no one ever sat down and outlined the mythology they did have, or it would have been obvious that it didn't work. In the first season, they had a voiceover at the start of the episodes saying that there was a world where the fairy tales we know are real, but they don't go the way we've always heard them. That had always raised some questions, like how the people who told these stories in our world get them wrong, and if these events are fairly contemporary in that world, how have we been hearing some of these stories for centuries? In the first season, there were a few mentions of traveling through time and space that might have explained that, but then in season two we started having real-time travel and communication between the worlds, settling the fact that the Snow White story mostly happened in the 1970s. Then in season 4 they decided to get cute and declare that the Grimms and Disney were past Authors. But then that means the Authors were the ones who got the stories wrong, and we still don't know how Authors with a magic pen that allows them to write about events they didn't witness managed to tell stories that haven't happened yet and also get them wrong. Meanwhile, we also learned that the Authors were chosen by the Sorcerer, who was also Merlin, during a time that Merlin was in a tree. There are special blank storybooks in the Sorcerer's house that didn't come in the first curse but came in the second (while Merlin was in a tree), and the magic pen allows Authors to change fate, but they're not supposed to do this, and it requires dark Savior blood for ink. We never did learn why Merlin came up with the Author concept, why he would give them the power to change fate that they weren't supposed to use, and why he would have created a magic pen that required dark Savior blood to work, given that you'd think a Savior gone dark would be a bad thing.

Then there's the plot itself that's built around this shaky, nonsensical mythology. Regina wants to find the Author to write her a new ending so she can be happy, since villains don't get happy endings, and both Henry and Emma, and later Snow, endorse this as a good plan. There's never any question of what Regina would consider a happy ending, what she would have the Author write for her, and no mention that she came up with this plan because she felt like it was somehow a cosmic injustice that she couldn't be with a man whose wife she took away from him in the past. These other people aren't just humoring Regina or being supportive friends. They're willing to sacrifice and take risks to bring this about for her, even when they know Rumple wants the Author for an evil scheme that puts Emma at risk. It's considered a terrible thing when Rumple wants the Author to write him a new ending, but they're all working to make that happen for Regina. And then we learn that it's wrong for Authors to change fate, and the last one got punished for doing so, so the main story goal for the heroes is actually a bad thing (not that anyone mentions this). Furthermore, we learn that Regina is actually wrong about there being any kind of villains don't get happy endings rule being enforced by the Author, and the Author actually likes villains and the people he messed with were the heroes. Not that anyone ever mentions any of this. Regina gets Robin back before they find the Author, which saps her big "I've been my own worst enemy and I don't need this anymore" revelation. None of these people ever react to the fact that Regina realized she was wrong, after they spent the whole arc trying to get this thing for her. When there are terrible consequences for freeing Isaac and giving him the magic ink -- the alt universe, where Emma is imprisoned and Hook is killed -- none of them show any sign of taking personal responsibility for what they unleashed. Meanwhile, the main plot is contradicted in a one-off episode in which Ariel states the obvious, that the reason villains don't get happy endings is because they go about it the wrong way, and then former villain Hook is able to change the way he goes about things to give villain Ursula her happy ending. I suppose Regina's epiphany that she's been her own worst enemy fits with this, but none of the people who've been helping Regina all this time ever notice this disconnect.

And then there are the Queens of Darkness, who end up not really doing anything and being dismissed along the way.

I'd say this arc is the closest to matching 6A, since we have the underdeveloped core mythology issue (in 6A the Savior stuff). We have Regina taking a shortcut to her happy ending, with the encouragement of the others, only to have that turn out to be a bad thing, but with no one ever taking responsibility for the bad consequences (has Regina ever said, "Oops, probably shouldn't have split myself" when seeing what the Evil Queen has done?). And we have guest characters built up into a big thing (the Untold Stories stuff) that end up fizzling out before the arc is done.

[Camera One]

And ever since 4B, what have we learned about powers of The Author (now Henry), the Pen and new Storybooks that happen to be in the NYC Library?   The so-called "mythology" is even more all-over-the-place now.  5A shed zero light on the connection between Merlin and the Author/Storybooks.  5B added The Pen That Won't Die and showed Henry's writing "power" at work - he shouldn't use the pen, he should use the pen, he shouldn't use the pen, he should use the pen.  6A introduced that new book being "used" (well, now abandoned).

[TheGreenKnight]

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 9:15 PM, Shanna Marie said:

To me, it's not so much the lasagna stuff that annoyed me in 2B as it was the "poor Regina" moment when Snow and Emma had returned from the Enchanted Forest and the whole family was getting to have their first family dinner. When you've spent nearly three decades trying to keep a group of people apart, you don't get to feel sorry for yourself that they don't invite you to join them when they're reunited. In fact, it would have been a bit presumptuous even for a good friend to feel like they should have been invited. That was a family moment. Let them have it. Not to mention the fact that she hated those people. The only one of them she'd have wanted to have dinner with was Henry. Why was she sad that people she hated didn't want to have dinner with her?

Was she sad that everyone didn't want to have dinner with her? Like you said, the only person she cared about was Henry and I took it as her only being sad that the people who hated her were keeping her from her son.

As for 3B, the only character I thought didn't act like a rational human being was Glinda (and the other witches) welcoming Zelena into the group and just handing her so much power immediately.

[KingOfHearts]

What scenes does everyone find to be the funniest? I laugh out loud whenever I rewatch Evil!Snow humming and swatting birds. I also snickered when Regina couldn't go through Glinda's Door because she wasn't pure hearted. Sometimes, it's simply the line delivery that can make something funny to me. Robert, Lana, Jen and Colin are all really good at taking a mundane line and taking it to the next level. 

Maybe this belongs in the Wish thread, but I really want more WTF moments for Emma.

[Camera One]

23 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Maybe this belongs in the Wish thread, but I really want more WTF moments for Emma.

** Granted **  in 6B, Emma kills a village.

[Kktjones]

24 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

What scenes does everyone find to be the funniest?

I agree with you on the Evil!Snow scenes from S1. I also absolutely loved the scene when Mary Margaret & Leroy went door to door trying to sell candles. I found several of Hook's lines in S2 to be laugh out loud worthy ("I've been tied up in bed...and not in the good way."). I also liked the scene between Robin and Hook with the sonogram picture. I really love when they use humor and so many of these actors can pull it off.

[CCTC]

Leroy's frustration in trying to figure out Charming's real name while in the middle of a crisis was a nice humorous moment.

 

[Shanna Marie]

Hercules is on Freeform, and it reminds me of just how badly they bungled that plot line. I can sort of deal with them wasting Herc and Meg because that wasn't the story they were telling, but it's still so weird that they talked about the backstory between Zeus and Hades but didn't bother to show anything about whatever happened that caused Hades to be trapped in the Underworld in the first place and how it was apparently a big enough deal for Zeus to be willing to bring Hook back from the dead as his reward for helping stop Hades. But we could devote an episode to Liam's past crimes (that had absolutely nothing to do with the story) and an episode to Dorothy, a one-off character who had nothing to do with the plot.

[Camera One]

In a typical arc, the villain gets multiple appearances in flashback and one big "origin" centric.  Think Peter Pan in 3A, Zelena in 3B, Ingrid in 4A, Queens of Darkness as a combined whole in 4B.  Arthur got a bit less in 5A, but we still saw his origin story.  With Hades, instead of the origin story, his biggest flashback was the Hades/Zelena "love story".  As you said, they could easily have done the Hades/Zeus backstory instead of Ruby Slippers (I suppose one could argue they needed a way to send Snow back home, but really, it's THIS show... they could have said Hermes flew her back).  They would still have done the Liam episode because Hook needed a centric.  Then again, they also made the choice not to give David a centric, while Regina got multiple centrics (and even Belle and Zelena each got one).  And that still leaves out Robin Hood of The Babysitters' Club Forest.  So there seems to be an attempt to spread out screentime (with the Regina exception), but it's never complete.  It really is quizzical how the Writers make the decision who gets deprived of screentime in every given arc.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

Hades didn't even need an entire centric episode. We could have had single scene with him and Zeus to understand their dynamic. (Maybe at the beginning of Last Rites.)

Edited January 21, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I find a single scene doesn't really provide enough depth.  Plus a full episode flashback would have given them a chance to explore Greek mythology.  LOL, am I forgetting who's writing this show?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I could have lived without a Hook centric in that arc, since it was about him in the present day. We got him in a flashback of the Milah and Rumple story. The Hook centric wasn't even a Hook centric, since it was about Liam.

Really, I wish they'd get over the "centric" thought process and just write stories. Write the episodes that are necessary to tell the story rather than worrying about who gets a centric. For that arc, we needed to learn how Rumple ended up owing Hades a favor (not that it ended up mattering much), why Hades was trapped there and scheming to get out, what relationship Hades and Zelena had, and what went on in the past with Zelena, Cora, and Regina. The Hercules stuff was fun because of the link to Hades and did help progress the plot, since it helped them find Hook. I could have done without Regina and Henry Sr., since there's the ick of the victim apologizing to the murderer and it took the Regina focus over the top, since we later also got her reconciliation with and redemption of Cora.

[Camera One]

The Hook centric wasn't even a Hook centric, since it was about Liam.

Maybe the poor writing made it unclear, but the Hook episode was not truly about Liam.  Liam was a prop mangled beyond recognition to get Hook to come to the realization that he deserved to live, he deserved to be happy, and he's not as messed up as the people he idolized.  

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Maybe the poor writing made it unclear, but the Hook episode was not truly about Liam.  Liam was a prop mangled beyond recognition to get Hook to come to the realization that he deserved to live, he deserved to be happy, and he's not as messed up as the people he idolized.  

I think thematically it was meant to be about Hook, but the flashback was Liam's story. Hook was just a participant in it. He didn't make any choices, and we didn't really learn anything about him. I'm also rather bothered by the idea that not being as messed up as someone else is meant to be encouraging, or that his very distant past had anything to do with him deciding he deserved to live. The deserving to live thing needed to involve something happening to him right now, in the present, based on the person he is now and the people who care about him now, not something that happened more than a hundred years ago that he's just finding out about. He needed to be presented with a choice in the present and make the right choice now, maybe contrasted with a wrong choice in the past or breaking his pattern. And, really, that shouldn't have been a single episode, but rather a process, starting when they rescued him from Hades and ending when Zeus gave him a second chance at life. There shouldn't have been a "Hook" episode in that arc, but rather addressing his issues a little bit in each episode. That's the problem with the "centric" writing -- they too often bring up a serious issue and then solve it too quickly and easily, only to forget it when they move on to the next character's centric when it's an issue that would be an ongoing process to resolve. In a way, that's actually kind of what they did, anyway, with Hook continually atoning by doing stuff like rigging things so Snow could leave, making Emma leave without him, and then helping Arthur. The Liam stuff was really unnecessary to Hook's arc.

[Camera One]

Quote

but the flashback was Liam's story. Hook was just a participant in it.

Again, I'm not saying the episode was effective or well written.  But the flashback was meant to shed light on how Hook came to see himself as a failure.  So the take-home message was about Hook, not about Liam.

I too wish character development was more of a gradual and ongoing process, and yes, the centric structure is mostly used in a way that inhibits continuity of character growth.  And I definitely agree that the Liam stuff was unnecessary and an extremely ham-fisted way to get across this message.  The dynamic between Liam/Emma/Hook would have been interesting enough without this ridiculous over-the-top scenario.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

41 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I too wish character development was more of a gradual and ongoing process, and yes, the centric structure is mostly used in a way that inhibits continuity of character growth.

That's one of the areas where season one succeeded. They did have centrics for secondary characters, but for the main characters, the flashbacks did show process over time. It wasn't just "and here's the one incident that explains why Snow is this way." It was multiple incidents over time, building the characterization. Then in subsequent seasons, they resorted to "and this is when Snow learned to have hope," which was less effective.

[Camera One]

They actually did manage to do gradual character development with Zelena in 5B, through the B or C plots in several consecutive episodes.  So they can do it if they want to.

[Free]

2 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

That's one of the areas where season one succeeded. They did have centrics for secondary characters, but for the main characters, the flashbacks did show process over time. It wasn't just "and here's the one incident that explains why Snow is this way." It was multiple incidents over time, building the characterization. Then in subsequent seasons, they resorted to "and this is when Snow learned to have hope," which was less effective.

S1 had a more communal feel to it, it featured the characters even when they aren't the centric, but it allowed the show itself to breath instead of what it's like nowadays.

[Dianthus]

On BtVS, they did a Spike centric ep called Fool For Love, one of my favorites. Flashbacks showed Spike's evolution up to that point, and tied in nicely with present day scenes. They didn't rely as heavily on centrics.

[Camera One]

I was watching some clips from "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and the acting and the emotion just felt so much more raw.  The moments in Season 1 between Emma and Henry, Emma and Mary Margaret, Emma and Graham, etc. just sparkled or crackled with chemistry.  It's still palpable on rewatch.  What a shame.  At least the later seasons don't ruin the experience too much.  That I'm thankful for.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

12 hours ago, Camera One said:

I was watching some clips from "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and the acting and the emotion just felt so much more raw.  The moments in Season 1 between Emma and Henry, Emma and Mary Margaret, Emma and Graham, etc. just sparkled or crackled with chemistry.  

In S1, the characters were allowed to have opinions and be themselves. The REC didn't exist, and there wasn't a need to redeem villains at every corner.

Quote

It's still palpable on rewatch.  What a shame.  At least the later seasons don't ruin the experience too much.  That I'm thankful for.

It's hard for me to watch S1 because I get angry. I see what the show could be, and it makes me realize how much it sucks now. I would recommend someone who has never seen it before to watch it for the experience, though. (Even if they get disappointed later on.)

Edited January 26, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

8 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's hard for me to watch S1 because I get angry.

The last time I tried to rewatch S1, I couldn't. It was difficult for me to get through in the first place because it all seemed so unfair, with the deck heavily stacked in Regina's favor, since Emma had no idea what she was up against. I only got through it then because I figured that Regina would ultimately get her comeuppance and it would be glorious. That's what happens to the villain in fairy tales and Disney movies, so that bit of hope kept me going. Now it's even more difficult when I know that Regina barely got a moment of "oops" before she was turned into some kind of victim. I don't think I could watch "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" again with the knowledge that Emma and Regina are now BFFs and Graham's death meant nothing -- either Emma knows Regina murdered him and it doesn't bother her or Regina hasn't told her and is letting Emma grovel for friendship and feel guilty about every little thing she does to thwart Regina's happiness, like saving Marian's life (well, she thought she did) or Hook coming back from the dead (not that Emma had anything to do with that), while knowing what she did to Graham in order to spite Emma. I think I might damage my TV if I tried to watch that episode again.

[Souris]

Something came to me last night and I realized I didn't know: Did they explain why Zelena didn't age during the curse? Was she in the Cora-dome or did time move differently in Oz or some-such contrived explanation?

[Rumsy4]

IIRC, Adam said on twitter that she was in a dome similar to Cora's, with no explanation as to how or why.

[KingOfHearts]

32 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

IIRC, Adam said on twitter that she was in a dome similar to Cora's, with no explanation as to how or why.

They said she made her own dome, I believe. Yet, in other instances, they claimed that all magical worlds were frozen al a Cora Dome. So take your pick.

[Camera One]

If you watch really carefully, it all makes sense.  Remember, as A&E said, the funnest part is filling in the pieces.  

[Souris]

OK, so I didn't miss some actual explanation. It's basically the title of the writers' thread: Uh, because magic, that's why.

What I figured.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Souris

[Shanna Marie]

I get the impression that we're supposed to assume that everyone was either frozen in time during the curse or transported to Storybrooke. They've forgotten about the time issue enough that they gave up and just decided it was a Coradome for everyone.

[Camera One]

The lamest in-show explanation was the anti-aging egg shells.  Seriously?

[Free]

On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 1:42 PM, KingOfHearts said:

In S1, the characters were allowed to have opinions and be themselves. The REC didn't exist, and there wasn't a need to redeem villains at every corner.

It's hard for me to watch S1 because I get angry. I see what the show could be, and it makes me realize how much it sucks now. I would recommend someone who has never seen it before to watch it for the experience, though. (Even if they get disappointed later on.)

I miss the small town community feel it had, while learning more about the characters.

[Camera One]

I was watching some of the San Diego Comic Con interviews like this one with Colin and Josh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FdEm443E-s

 

I never watch them in the summer due to spoilers, but I find them a little cringe-worthy.  I feel sorry for the actors because they've only seen the scripts of the first two or three episodes, and they can't give any spoilers, yet they still have to find something to say which is really tough.  It's probably difficult to come up with questions too but they mostly seem to be questions that have pretty predictable answers.  Like when the interviewer asked if Hook having died would have ramifications, and Colin's like, I'm guessing, uh, probably, I mean, maybe, etc.  It just puts the actors into such a quandary.  Josh seems to be keeping himself entertained since he doesn't get to say much.

[Curio]

From another thread:

Quote

[Hook] turned over the entire village of Storybrooke to be killed, remember? The whole place was to die to let Dark Ones take their places. That went nowhere, but it was about to happen and it was on Hook. And unlike Rumple, this was with no coercion or deals in play.  In under 48 hours he was about to match Rumple's body count. Think what he'd have done in a year. He'd have made Rumple look like a cute little peddler. Hades was a fool not to see it.

There's a reason it went nowhere—in the end, Hook's conscience was too strong to go along with Nimue's plan.

The main difference between Hook and Rumple as Dark Ones is that Hook had his darkness forced upon him without his consent while Rumple willingly took on the role again and flourished in it for centuries. Yes, I remember Hook was ready to turn over the entire village of Storybrooke to the Dark Ones, but I also remember Rumple essentially doing the same thing in 4A when he was willing to allow all of Storybrooke (save for Belle and Henry) to die because of Ingrid's spell. I would actually argue that the 4A situation reflected worse on Rumple than 5A reflected on Hook because Hook made the conscious decision to stop his Dark One plan on his own. The only reason Rumple's scheme with Ingrid in 4A didn't work is because the heroes intervened. If Rumple had his way, everyone would have died and Rumple, Belle, and Henry would be living outside of Storybrooke. No one intervened and successfully stopped Dark Hook's plan and no one was forcing Hook to turn on Nimue and sacrifice himself because that was entirely his decision. So we don't even need to think about what Hook would have done in a year as a Dark One—the fact is he wouldn't have been a Dark One for a year because he could only handle the gig for 48 hours before caving into his conscience. 

I liken the Dark One stuff to alcohol. Hook is the guy who went to a party not looking for any trouble, and in fact saved a girl by catching her when she fell off the counter. Throughout the party, people keep spiking Hook's drink with more shots of alcohol without his consent, so instead of being buzzed, he's blackout drunk by 2:00am and hardly has any control of his actions. He gets into a fight with some guy he hardly knows and sends him to the hospital. Hook then does something incredibly stupid that almost harms everyone at the party, but he has just enough of a fight in him to back out of it at the last second because he knows it's wrong. But Rumple is the guy who walks into the bar, orders three beers, chugs them all, then sits back in his chair and eyes out which people he can mess with. Sometimes Belle walks in and yells at him for drinking too much and Rumple stops drinking for a day, but eventually he just tells her that this is who he is and she just has to accept that about him.

[Rumsy4]

14 minutes ago, Curio said:

So we don't even need to think about what Hook would have done in a year as a Dark One—the fact is he wouldn't have been a Dark One for a year because he could only handle the gig for 48 hours before caving into his conscience. 

This is definitely the key. To put it simply, Hook went temporarily insane when the Darkness took over him. But he was able to eventually fight back and overcome it because that's not who he wanted to be. Ever since he turned the Jolly Roger around at the end of S2, he has been on a path of redemption. And while he has backslid many times, ultimately, he wants to be a good man--a man of honor. And he made the choice to ultimately rectify his mistake by sacrificing himself.

[Camera One]

28 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

On the other hand, the original show could have functioned more like an anthology, telling one story an arc/season and then truly moving on. Maybe keep one or two central ongoing characters, but then move on from one story’s villains and guest characters to go tell another story. Season one was Snow White, then maybe season two could have been Sleeping Beauty, etc.

Anthology might have worked for one-offs during the spring hiatus, but I don't think that would have worked for the parent show.  Viewers became attached to characters like Emma, Snow, etc., and I was not ready to let them go after a single season.  Plus they still had stories left in them and continuing character journeys in Season 2.  It was just that A&E didn't want to tell their story or they were bored by their story or didn't know how to keep them interesting.

I actually thought Season 2 would tell the Sleeping Beauty story in flashback, based on the premiere.  It would be more difficult, but I think 4A shows that they would have been able to tell a complete story like "Frozen" while keeping the main characters relevant with some cameos in the past but moreso connections in the present-day.  

2B could have shown Snow with Aurora Sr. in Storybrooke, since they both dealt with missing their childrens' childhood.  Maleficent could have been the big bad.  And that doesn't even mention all the consequences of the Curse breaking that they could have explored (from Emma/Snow/Charming, to Regina starting to face consequences, to Rumple searching for his son, to the question of who should rule Storybrooke, etc.).

Edited February 24, 2017 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Anthology might have worked for one-offs during the spring hiatus, but I don't think that would have worked for the parent show.  Viewers became attached to characters like Emma, Snow, etc., and I was not ready to let them go after a single season.  Plus they still had stories left in them and continuing character journeys in Season 2.  It was just that A&E didn't want to tell their story or they were bored by their story or didn't know how to keep them interesting.

Anthology is probably the wrong term. You know, it was really clear in my head what I meant when I thought about it, but trying to describe it is hard. Really, I think that what they've done with the story arcs could have worked, with the core characters interacting with a new crop of characters in each arc while they have their own character and relationship stories playing out -- kind of like those cozy mystery book series, where there's the protagonist, her love interest (usually a cop), possibly a triangle guy, her friends and family, and some townspeople, and then there's a case for each book in which she solves the mystery, but then there are also personal stories that carry over between books, like her developing relationship with the love interest(s), conflicts with family and friends, etc.

I think part of the problem with this show is that there's too much in the core so that the ongoing stuff doesn't ever really get developed and they just get repetitive. Really, I think a lot of the problem is Regina, and not just the REC, but the show isn't big enough for both Emma and Regina. You can't really have two protagonists with a show like this, with a huge guest cast for each arc. On something like Game of Thrones, where there's just the ongoing cast and multiple story lines in different locations, you can have multiple protagonists. But this show has a guest cast for each arc that's almost as big as the main regular cast, and it's hard to do the ongoing character stories when you have to deal with a romantic plot and family relationships and internal conflict for two separate characters. They've added two characters who have no connection to anyone else and who didn't/don't really have anything to do in order to flesh out Regina's personal story.

So, if you imagine treating Regina like any other villain, where she's defeated and then gone, or maybe locked up offscreen and only appearing in flashbacks, then that cleans up a lot of the problem with the story because it allows them to focus on Emma and her relationships and really develop the arc plot. Removing Regina cuts out Robin and Zelena from the ongoing cast, means the writing for Henry can focus on his interaction with Emma and reaction to her growing relationship with Hook, means the writing for Snow and David can be about their relationship with their daughter. Maybe keep season 2 more or less the same, but either Regina is defeated along with Cora or Regina flips on Cora and dies in her sacrifice. 3A wouldn't have to be too different. Do something entirely different with 3B, either a different motivation for Zelena or do a different story. 4A wouldn't change much other than that deleting all the Marian and Robin stuff and Regina whining and crypt sex might have allowed them to really flesh out and deal with the Frozen stuff and the Rumple plot. 4B needed a new plot anyway. 5A might have needed minor tweaking to remove the fake Savior stuff, but otherwise might have been able to build a reasonably coherent plot. 5B would have needed a lot of rewriting, but might have been a stronger story without it getting sidetracked in Regina's family drama -- actually deal with Hades' backstory and his issues with Zeus.

[Camera One]

Regina is the last person A&E would write out of the show.  To them, this show is ultimately about Regina.

Regina is far from my favorite character, but I think she did have a story and a character journey past Season 1.  She was not a simple big baddie with no value.  The actress is good enough that I would have enjoyed a redemption story if other characters weren't destroyed to make her look better, and if she didn't monopolize so much screentime.

[Shanna Marie]

12 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Regina is the last person A&E would write out of the show.  To them, this show is ultimately about Regina.

That's part of the problem. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the pitching process. Did they admit from the start that their premise was giving the Evil Queen a happy ending? Was Emma something they came up with when the pitch focusing on Regina fell flat, or maybe was something suggested by the network, and then they pulled a bait and switch and made the show more about Regina once they were on the air?  If the show's about Regina, don't pretend that it's also about Emma because that just makes it muddled and means the show doesn't really have a viewpoint.

There was potential to show that the way you get a happy ending is by being good and working for it, and that be the way the Evil Queen gets a happy ending, but clearly they didn't go in that direction. 

[KingOfHearts]

IMO, there's no Once Upon a Time without Regina. As Camera One mentioned, she was sewn into the fabric from the get-go. There's definitely enough material excluding her to make a show, but it wouldn't be the same. She is supposed to be the antithesis or counterpoint. She's everything Emma and the Charmings are not. I don't believe she should be a protagonist, but she has brought enough to the table to be a major player on the field. She cast the curse, raised Henry, and has a "complicated" history with the central family. The real issue is that other characters like David have plenty to offer as well, but she gets the bigger piece of the pie regardless.

Emma is ultimately the Buffy of the series and should remain the main protagonist. Everyone else should have varying degrees of spotlight at different points in time, so that everyone gets a turn. I don't mean each person gets a centric. I don't believe in constantly shelving the majority of the ensemble in order to bring stronger focus on a select few. But, some characters are going to take a more active role in some arcs than others. It's a balancing act to keep everyone relevant while also logically figuring who would most drive a plot. It made sense in 3B when Regina got extra focus because the villain was her jealous sister who was specifically targeting her. Yet, at the same time, Emma had her own arc and in the end had a two-hour finale devoted to it. 

However, in 5B, Regina and Zelena received undeserved focus. The arc's purpose was originally to save Hook, but that got derailed into oblivion. It was logical for Regina to face her victims at least once, but it wasn't to give her an entire arc about her family. Zelena's relationship with Hades was completely contrived and had no business being in the arc other than to establish an artificial weakness in the Big Bad. After all the buildup of the season, Emma only got one centric episode that really didn't mean much. The finale didn't feature her at all. S5 ended on a sour note because it abandoned the orbit around the protagonist in favor of introducing new elements no one wanted.

Now in S6, the show has still lost track of Emma's importance. She's stuck in this single mode of panic. Even in the Wish Realm that was supposed to be about her, it was still mainly about Regina. The tremors plot morphed into the Gideon plot, which made Emma's fear of death pointless. It's like the Emma, Regina, and Rumpbelle shows are all fighting for screen time.

All we need now is a spinoff where Regina moves to LA to start a magical law firm.

Edited February 24, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

Was Emma something they came up with when the pitch focusing on Regina fell flat, or maybe was something suggested by the network, and then they pulled a bait and switch and made the show more about Regina once they were on the air? 

From past interviews, it is clear that the Show was meant to be a vehicle for the poor misunderstood EQ to get her Happy Ending. I have a feeling that Emma was meant to be a sort of non-magical straight man character to balance the magical Evil Queen, but not the true protagonist of the Show. Maybe the network didn't like the idea. OR maybe Damon Lindelof suggested some changes. But I definitely feel that A&E pulled a bait and switch between S1 and after.

It's obvious that the writers never looked in-depth into Emma as a person. It took four seasons to get a flashback episode of Emma's childhood, and it was really about her friendship with Regina. Five seasons in, we find out that Emma became a bail bonds person two years before meeting Henry. Her so-called superpower is a plot device. And all the writers can talk about are her WALLS six seasons in. In the meantime, Regina gets hundreds of flashbacks, focus, and in-depth conversations with practically everyone but David and Grumpy. They've dropped all pretense this season with the split-queen storyline. Regina/EQ has taken over the Show as originally meant.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I have a feeling that Emma was meant to be a sort of non-magical straight man character to balance the magical Evil Queen, but not the true protagonist of the Show. 

Non-magical straight man sounds accurate. The writers see that as a bad thing now, which just breaks the show's original formula even further. They've been stripping away her uniqueness little by little for a while. It's sad. She's just a Regina-loving robot now.

Edited February 24, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

IMO, there's no Once Upon a Time without Regina. As Camera One mentioned, she was sewn into the fabric from the get-go. There's definitely enough material excluding her to make a show, but it wouldn't be the same. She is supposed to be the antithesis or counterpoint. She's everything Emma and the Charmings are not. I don't believe she should be a protagonist, but she has brought enough to the table to be a major player on the field. She cast the curse, raised Henry, and has a "complicated" history with the central family. The real issue is that other characters like David have plenty to offer as well, but she gets the bigger piece of the pie regardless.

Emma is ultimately the Buffy of the series and should remain the main protagonist. Everyone else should have varying degrees of spotlight at different points in time, so that everyone gets a turn. I don't mean each person gets a centric. I don't believe in constantly shelving the majority of the ensemble in order to bring stronger focus on a select few. But, some characters are going to take a more active role in some arcs than others. It's a balancing act to keep everyone relevant while also logically figuring who would most drive a plot. It made sense in 3B when Regina got extra focus because the villain was her jealous sister who was specifically targeting her. Yet, at the same time, Emma had her own arc and in the end had a two-hour finale devoted to it. 

However, in 5B, Regina and Zelena received undeserved focus. The arc's purpose was originally to save Hook, but that got derailed into oblivion. It was logical for Regina to face her victims at least once, but it wasn't to give her an entire arc about her family. Zelena's relationship with Hades was completely contrived and had no business being in the arc other than to establish an artificial weakness in the Big Bad. After all the buildup of the season, Emma only got one centric episode that really didn't mean much. The finale didn't feature her at all. S5 ended on a sour note because it abandoned the orbit around the protagonist in favor of introducing new elements no one wanted.

Now in S6, the show has still lost track of Emma's importance. She's stuck in this single mode of panic. Even in the Wish Realm that was supposed to be about her, it was still mainly about Regina. The tremors plot morphed into the Gideon plot, which made Emma's fear of death pointless. It's like the Emma, Regina, and Rumpbelle shows are all fighting for screen time.

All we need now is a spinoff where Regina moves to LA to start a magical law firm.

This would have worked a lot better. Emma was the main protagonist in season one but we still got so much. The story of Snow and Charming, how they met how Charming went from peasant to prince, Rumple's back story and why he created the curse and was so invested in helping Snow and Charming and Regina's reason for hating Snow. Season two we could have still had that the fall from the curse Emma reunited with her parents and son and trying to figure that out while seeing the town figure out what to do now that the curse was broken, Rumple trying to find his son, Regina the target of hate from all those families she ripped apart but also hitting rock bottom. Finally, hitting rock bottom. She cast the curse but now it was broken and she lost her own child who she treated like Cora treated her. Imagine her at that moment and then learning how long Cora had been planning to marry her off to the King. How all of it, everything Cora did, how even Regina herself was nothing but something to be used in her revenge against Eva. Season three could have built off of that while still having Emma, Snow, Charming and others having their stories too.

[Curio]

Quote

Really, I think a lot of the problem is Regina, and not just the REC, but the show isn't big enough for both Emma and Regina. You can't really have two protagonists with a show like this, with a huge guest cast for each arc. On something like Game of Thrones, where there's just the ongoing cast and multiple story lines in different locations, you can have multiple protagonists. But this show has a guest cast for each arc that's almost as big as the main regular cast, and it's hard to do the ongoing character stories when you have to deal with a romantic plot and family relationships and internal conflict for two separate characters. They've added two characters who have no connection to anyone else and who didn't/don't really have anything to do in order to flesh out Regina's personal story.

 

 

I could not agree more, and I wrote a fairly long essay talking about this a few months ago, but I forget which thread I posted it in. Basically, I was trying to argue that OUAT would be a much better show if they only chose one protagonist to focus on, but the show doesn't work with both Emma and Regina as yin and yang protagonists. There's a reason the writers have struggled to feature both of them equally throughout the years, and it's also the reason why the split arcs always seemed to come across as either "The Emma Arc" or "The Regina Arc." It was clear when an arc featured Emma as the lead protagonist, which usually turned out to be the fall arc, and the spring arc featured Regina as the lead protagonist. 3A, 4A, and 5A are drastically different in tone than 3B, 4B, and 5B, and a lot of that has to do with who is the focal point.

Season 6 proves that, ultimately, Emma and Regina absolutely and unequivocally do not work well when they share the lead status together. By getting rid of the split season format, A&E were also getting rid of the Emma Arc/Regina Arc split, and they could no longer use that as a crutch to write the season's emotional arc. How do you write a season where there isn't a true lead protagonist? The answer is you can't. Season 6 is a mess. Without one true protagonist to keep everything in balance, A&E are trying to make Emma and Regina equally important, but because their stories and their goals are so different from each other, it ends up becoming a confusing pile of mish-mashed storylines. Instead of one cohesive show, it's like there are separate shows within OUAT competing for airtime. And when Emma and Regina are forced to be in the same episode together, all canon has to be tossed out the window and one of them has to act completely out of character in order for the episode to work.

If Emma and Regina were true "best friends" like the gals on Broad City, then sure, go with two co-leads. But that's not at all what Emma and Regina are. A&E might think their friendship is at that point now, but what has been shown on screen is nothing like what's in A&E's heads. Emma and Regina might be co-mothers to Henry, but that's as far as their friendship goes. Neal was technically a co-parent to Henry too, but that didn't matter to the writers. "Oh, but they both have magic! They bond so much over being so different and special!" Okay, so why hasn't Emma bonded with Rumple, Blue, or Tink? They all have magic too. When I think of the strongest relationship bonds on this show, Emma and Regina don't even crack the top five. When True Love® is a totally legit canon concept on a television show, those relationships are automatically deeper and more meaningful than everyone else. Charming and Snow, Emma and Henry, Emma and Hook, Regina and Henry, and Belle and Rumple are five True Love couples who have much stronger bonds than Regina and Emma will ever have. So why force Emma and Regina to share co-lead status? Just because they happen to be women? Why not make Snow and Emma co-leads after Season 1 then? This show could have been unique where the co-leads were a mother and daughter who happen to be the same age. But A&E went out of their way to make their favorite character more important, and in the end, this series might finish with Regina having far more screen time than anyone else in its final season.

I've seen an argument that says that Emma and Regina are yin and yang and that's why they work as co-leads, but I don't see it. Their reasoning is that whenever Emma is truly happy, Regina becomes miserable, and vice versa. But when has Emma or Regina ever been truly happy? No one on this show is truly happy. Even when Emma has Hook around as a boyfriend, she can't enjoy her happiness. When Regina had Robin around as a boyfriend, she barely paid attention to him. This is the one area of the show where I can actually see the logic behind the Swan Queen fandom when they become convinced that Emma and Regina are endgame—what writers would create two equal protagonists if they weren't going to pair them up in the end? TS;TW, that's who. In fact, I doubt Regina and Emma's happy endings will have anything to do with each other. Emma's happy ending is with Hook and her family, and Regina's is probably with Henry or Zelena.

Why have these two characters whose ultimate endings have nothing to do with each other split equal protagonist duties? I actually think it could have worked if Emma and Regina remained enemies like Lex and Clark throughout the series because at least that way there'd be a reason why their stories are so interconnected. But by forcing the Emma and Regina friendship, they've actually inadvertently made Emma and Regina less important to each other. In Season 1, Emma's battle with Regina was truly significant and was a major storyline, but now that they're friendly to each other, there isn't any major plot line tying them together besides being Henry's mothers. I think A&E fell into the millennial/liberal/special snowflake trap where they truly were offended when people called them out on having a show where two women faught all the time in Season 1. It's probably why the writers and the actors now always give the trite, "What's so unique about Emma and Regina is that the show could have kept them as enemies, but women need to stand up and support each other. Women power! Such a great friendship!" Newsflash, women are allowed to fight with each other. I actually wouldn't have minded a show where the main villain and the main hero were both women because that's also rare. If the writers were so concerned about female friendship, Snow and Emma in Season 1 perfectly encapsulated what it meant for two women to support and befriend each other, but apparently, that wasn't good enough for A&E.

So they went and made Emma and Regina friends. Okay, I guess I could have gotten on board with that, but only if: 1) Emma learned about Graham and Regina, and 2) Emma remained the only lead protagonist. But by splitting equal protagonist duties, it's kind of this weird juxtaposition where the audience doesn't know which story is the most important. If Emma and Regina were mortal enemies, then the yin and yang concept works perfectly, but by having them be friendly with each other, we have the current murky mess where it's hard to decipher who is truly the lead of the show. If they wanted to keep them as co-leads, then their friendship needed to be skyrocketed to super-duper best friend levels, but Regina isn't even Emma's closest friend. Hook is Emma's best friend but also happens to be her boyfriend. A&E have mentioned that Snow is closer to Regina than Emma is. So they've now created two leads where the pitch is, "Here are OUAT's two main characters! Here's Emma, the Savior, and the woman she happens to co-parent her son with. They're decent friends but not really best friends, Emma's best friend is actually Captain Hook, and Regina separated Emma from her parents as a child and has also been keeping a secret from Emma since Season 1, but they're cool now. And hey, they both have magic!"

Ultimately, the lead protagonist should be the heart of the show, and that character is clearly Emma. There is a huge difference between being the heart of the show and being a popular character. The heart is the character who the audience can most sympathize with and has the moral compass to drive the emotional scenes. Regina might get some sympathy from A&E and her fanatical fandom, but she does not have any moral compass in canon. Someone who is a narcissist who lacks empathy for others cannot be the heart of a show where the main theme is about hope. If this show was on HBO or Showtime and these were supposed to be ironic fairy tales, then sure, have the narcissist as your lead. But this show is on ABC. This show is supposed to be unironic and happy. This show is supposed to be about hope and happy endings.

Quote

Removing Regina cuts out Robin and Zelena from the ongoing cast, means the writing for Henry can focus on his interaction with Emma and reaction to her growing relationship with Hook, means the writing for Snow and David can be about their relationship with their daughter.

 

 

What you described would probably make A&E cry from boredom. No way they would write a show where it heavily featured Emma, Snow, and David family interactions. 

Quote

Regina is far from my favorite character, but I think she did have a story and a character journey past Season 1.

Quote

IMO, there's no Once Upon a Time without Regina. As Camera One mentioned, she was sewn into the fabric from the get-go

I agree that Regina's character had a reason to stick around after Season 1, but not as a protagonist where it's difficult to debate whether Emma or Regina is the true lead of the show. The issue is that instead of keeping Regina's character around in the same capacity as Rumple or Snow, they went and made her as important as Emma. Emma needed to be kept as the only protagonist with other significant characters supporting her to keep the story grounded like in Season 1. Regina should have been kept around in the same way Rumple is still a significant character—I think we can all agree that Rumple is extremely important to the plot after all these years, but he doesn't ever overshadow Emma. Regina could have been treated the same way, but instead, we have dozens of useless Evil Queen flashbacks and only a handful of Emma flashbacks. Season 6 features so much screen time for Regina that it's actually a statistical outlier when compared to the other main characters. Who is the main character here again?

Quote

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the pitching process. Did they admit from the start that their premise was giving the Evil Queen a happy ending? Was Emma something they came up with when the pitch focusing on Regina fell flat, or maybe was something suggested by the network, and then they pulled a bait and switch and made the show more about Regina once they were on the air?

 

 

Yes, A&E have admitted that the entire premise of the show is based around the Evil Queen's happy ending. They've straight-up said that Regina works as a self-insert character for the struggling Hollywood writer. They didn't even think of Emma's character until after they thought of the feud between Regina and Snowing. Emma was so ill-defined as a character in their minds that her name was Anna up until a few months before they shot the Pilot. I think what happened was that Damon Lindelof—who was A&E's mentor in Season 1 and helped them hone in their pitch—realized the show doesn't work with Regina as the lead. In A&E's original pitch, they probably focused more on Regina, but Lindelof saw that the true heart of the show was Emma and Snowing. That's why Season 1 feels like an entirely different show than what it is now. After Lindelof left after Season 1, Season 2 came along and we began the Woegina Redemption Tour.

At the end of the day, this show either had to choose to go 100% with Regina or 100% with Emma as the main character. The Regina Show or The Emma Show would look drastically different than what we have right now, but at least each show would have a clear vision and would be better written.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Curio

[Kktjones]

I love you Curio. This is probably the best thing I've ever read in regards to the issues with this show, and specifically Regina.

[Camera One]

Regina should have been kept around in the same way Rumple is still a significant character—I think we can all agree that Rumple is extremely important to the plot after all these years, but he doesn't ever overshadow Emma.

This is the key.  By making Regina the co-lead, something had to go, and I think it was largely Snow and Charming.  When Emma does have an arc, there is more of a focus on her romantic life, so Emma's parents tend to get the short-shrift.  Even when it's the Emma arc (eg. 5A), she also has to support Regina, which means we get a double dose of her.

[Rumsy4]

6 hours ago, Curio said:

Why not make Snow and Emma co-leads after Season 1 then? This show could have been unique where the co-leads were a mother and daughter who happen to be the same age.

If I could marry your post, I would, @Curio. But this part made me weep. If only...

[Souris]

If Jen doesn't sign on for S7, A&E will be thrilled they can have it be All Regina, All the Time. Even more than now.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Souris

[KingOfHearts]

52 minutes ago, Souris said:

If Jen doesn't sign on for S7, A&E will be thrilled they can have it be All Regina, All the Time. Even more than now.

A&E: "Well now that she's gone, we can embrace our true artistic vision! Prepare to be enlightened, world."

Edited February 27, 2017 by KingOfHearts