Once Upon A...SHOULDA HAPPENED THIS WAY!

[KingOfHearts]

S2 could've been a great springboard for Regina's redemption. I don't think it would've made her a great person or made her enemies like her, but it would've at least set her firmly on the path to redemption. 2A did a good job of that. I think the Storybrooke events in Cricket Game could've happened, but framed less as Regina being a victim and more like her getting what she deserves despite not being culpable for the murder. It was completely understandable that everyone thought she killed Archie, regardless of the indisputable evidence. Regina would go into Cora's arms, reverting back into the submissive role she used to be in because of her mother's presence. But as 2B would progress, she would see the horrors of what her mother does and start to see the difference between right and wrong. At the end of the season, she'd finally get the courage to betray her mother and save everybody else. I think Cora controlling Henry or putting him in danger (or captivity) is what would push Regina over the edge. Then in 3A, she'd gain a sliver of respect for doing that to where the Charmings could at least tolerate her while saving Henry in Neverland. They still wouldn't trust her, but it would at least steer her into the right direction.

3A would've had her work as a background player with the Charmings. They still wouldn't trust her, but she'd score little brownie points here and then by helping. I liked the Charmings being appalled at her dark magic methods and Emma having to decide what's moral, so I'd keep that in there. (Particularly where they ripped the heart out of the Lost Boy.) Honestly, I'm not sure how I'd insert a Regina-centric or what it would even feature. I'm not a fan of her "connection" with Tinkerbell because it was very forced.

3B would be a bit more Regina-heavy. I wouldn't make Zelena her sister, but rather a rival. This would be Regina's opportunity to prove herself as someone on the side of the angels. I wouldn't introduce a love interest like Robin at that point because I feel it was too early for her to have any kind of healthy relationship. Zelena would represent Regina's evil past in the flashbacks, while in the present, her false identity would be well-liked and make Regina jealous. 

At the end of 3B, Emma would see Regina burning her mother alive in the past and be appalled. I'm not really sure what I'd do with Regina in S4 or what the next logical step would be.

Edited February 8, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

3B would be a bit more Regina-heavy. I wouldn't make Zelena her sister, but rather a rival. This would be Regina's opportunity to prove herself as someone on the side of the angels. I wouldn't introduce a love interest like Robin at that point because I feel it was too early for her to have any kind of healthy relationship. Zelena would represent Regina's evil past in the flashbacks, while in the present, her false identity would be well-liked and make Regina jealous. 

At the end of 3B, Emma would see Regina burning her mother alive in the past and be appalled. I'm not really sure what I'd do with Regina in S4 or what the next logical step would be.

I like your alt reality of this show so far.  Going back to the Enchanted Forest in 3B should have made Regina realize that she had a lot to repent for.  And Regina's price to pay should have remained... Henry should not have regained his memories by the end of 3B.  

If Regina's redemption were to continue, 4A would need to get rid of that stupid "Find the author" story arc.  Regina would need to learn to accept that Snow was taking her rightful place as Mayor.   Emma would be extra wary of Regina, but she would still need to learn magic from Regina.  Maybe 4A would have been an appropriate time for that idea we've mentioned before, to have Regina return the hearts in her vault... these could serve as the B plot for some episodes while the "Frozen" storyline occurred.

The Queens of Darkness in 4B could have truly tested Regina to see if she had actually changed.  

Maybe 5A would have been a better time for Regina to have a love interest in Camelot.

[Camera One]

I was wracking my brain thinking of anyone Regina had possible romantic chemistry with, and I couldn't think of any until now.  I think early on, the only character I felt chemistry with Regina was Hook, back in Season 2 or early Season 3.  I actually think Regina/Hook could have worked with different Writers (because NOTHING could have worked with A&E's worship of Regina, and this discussion is continuation of could-have-been if Regina actually had a true redemption arc).

I don't think Regina could have had a believable romance with any hero who knew about her or was impacted by her villainy in the Enchanted Forest.  Just like there was no way Regina could truly be BFFs with Snow, Emma, or Henry because of what she had done to each of them.

I was thinking about King Arthur, or a brand new character, but I actually think Regina might have had a possibly workable romantic arc with the Sheriff of Nottingham.  He was still despicable but was a more minor villain, so he had room to grow and possibility of redemption.  If he was given a backstory, maybe he could have parallels with Regina's past, and they could have a more organic connection.  They could challenge each other to be better.  The actor who played the Sheriff of Nottingham was reasonably charismatic and had an edge.  He could have had more of a past with Rumple and even Snowing.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/8/2020 at 4:20 PM, Camera One said:

I was thinking about King Arthur, or a brand new character, but I actually think Regina might have had a possibly workable romantic arc with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Nottingham was probably the best option as a love interest for Regina. But they would have had to actually write an arc, not just say, "Here, this one's your soulmate," and leave it at that.

On another note, I've been playing a bit of a mental exercise of trying to come up with the smallest changes that require the least rewriting but that would still have a significant improvement. I know ideally it would be lovely to go back and have them write a real redemption arc for Regina, or maybe even outright defeat her and move on, but that would have sent the show on an entirely different path. Are there ways to stay on more or less the same path while still making things better?

One thing that comes to mind is the rationale for curse 2.0 in 3B. The Charmings aren't even trying to get back to Emma, and when they mention her, it's about her having a good life where she is, but the moment Snowflake is threatened, they're ready to cast the curse so Emma can fix it all. But if they just added Zelena mentioning that she's sent one of her minions to take care of Emma, that would have given the Charmings a stronger motivation to cast the curse and get back to Emma, since she'd be defenseless against one of Zelena's minions if she didn't know about magic.

It would take a little more rewriting during 2B but would salvage Belle's character (until the end of season 4, when it becomes a total loss, and again in season 5, when it all really goes to hell (literally), and more at the end of season 6) if she ditched Rumple after she learns that he murdered his first wife (and lied to her about it), then sees him nearly beat Hook to death. They could skip the whole Lacey thing, since it had zero long-term impact and was only a plot device to keep them apart for a while, and that, too, sabotages Belle's character by having her witness everything he did while she was Lacey but not care about it even when she got her memories back. They might have to move the test of the shawl at the town line to earlier, but then that raises the stakes when Hook steals it, since it's now Rumple's only chance to leave town and retain his identity, and so Belle would be really motivated to track it down to Hook's ship. After Belle ditches Rumple, he might confront Hook, and that's when Greg could drive up. The farewell phone call might be even more meaningful if it's really Belle who hears it. Devote the Rumple/Lacey time to Rumple and Neal. Belle's starting to thaw when Rumple goes on the Save Henry mission and he entrusts her with protecting the town (though I don't know why the fairies aren't doing that). When he sacrifices himself to stop Pan, she believes he truly has changed, and that leads to their marriage (and makes the season 4 betrayal even worse). The rest of the series pretty much ruins Belle, but for a little while, at least, she might show signs of a spine.

We may not have got a true redemption arc for Regina, but if they'd just had her have some kind of epiphany when Cora killed Johanna, so she realized her mother was the real villain, that would have made everything else (except the end of the series) a little more bearable. Have her actually working with the Charmings to stop Cora. If we absolutely must do the dark spot on the heart thing, have them have one plan, but it starts to go wrong, and Snow punts to use the candle, but it doesn't have any real impact down the line, so you could cut that plot without affecting the rest of the series. Skip Regina plotting to murder the entire town. Have Greg and Tamara destroy the beans and find the failsafe, without Regina getting it out and planning to use it. Then it really is a heroic sacrifice when she's willing to die to stop it, and almost everything that comes afterward makes a lot more sense. As it is, it's total whiplash that she goes straight from plotting to murder them all to hero, and they never deal with the plotting to murder them all (and not actually changing her mind). The only thing that would have to be changed later in the series would be the references to Snow as Cora's "murderer." Just say "person who killed her," since if Regina's in on it, she wouldn't see it that way.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

We may not have got a true redemption arc for Regina, but if they'd just had her have some kind of epiphany when Cora killed Johanna, so she realized her mother was the real villain, that would have made everything else (except the end of the series) a little more bearable. Have her actually working with the Charmings to stop Cora.

That would have been so much more logical.  They could also have  removed their brilliant idea of a flashback showing how Regina massacred a village.  That really served no purpose while making it impossible to redeem Regina. 

2B was also when Henry was ruined, so to "fix" that, they could have had Henry stay angry at Regina until she realized she needed to help everyone fight Cora.  They would also have needed to throw away the scene with Henry at the well.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

They could also have  removed their brilliant idea of a flashback showing how Regina massacred a village.  That really served no purpose while making it impossible to redeem Regina. 

The really creepy thing about the village massacre flashback is that I think they saw Snow as the villain in that flashback because Regina was on the verge of being changed by Snow showing her kindness, and then Snow ruined it all when she said she couldn't forgive Regina for the massacre, since she thought the massacre made her irredeemable. Snow being judgey was the real problem, not the massacre. And then Snow did go on to apparently forgive Regina for everything, and the village massacres became a running joke that was treated as the equivalent of Regina having had a bad perm in the past that she hated when people mentioned it.

I already thought Regina was pretty irredeemable in season one, based on murdering her husband (and manipulating someone else into doing it), the curse, Graham, plotting to murder someone who considered her a friend just to make Snow look bad, and sending kids to their deaths. But then just as they were gearing up to turn her into a hero, they piled on and added mass slaughter. I've never understood that. Yeah, it can be more dramatic when someone really evil in the past is redeemed in the present, but you get to the point where the past evil is just so bad that you can't imagine a redemption, or else there need to be some serious consequences, certainly more than, "Oh, that wacky Regina with her village slaughters." (Regina: "I thought we said we wouldn't talk about that.") They can't claim that Regina was a misunderstood villain when she outright committed mass murder on a whim. That's not "misunderstood." That's just "villain."

And just minor editing of season 2 (plus cleaning up references to those events along the way, and maybe fewer random heart rippings) would have made the later Regina worship a little more palatable.

13 hours ago, Camera One said:

They would also have needed to throw away the scene with Henry at the well.

Do you mean when he was going to destroy magic? Part of the problem was that Henry was all over the map with his attitudes about magic. First, he insists that Regina swear off magic. Then he's okay with it again. Then he wants to destroy all magic. Then he's willing to sacrifice his own heart to save magic. Then he wishes he'd never brought Emma to town so he wouldn't have to be separated from Regina. He becomes totally cool with magic. Magic is great! He's got magic Author powers! Then magic is horrible and must be destroyed. Then magic is great! He wants to move to a magical world! Changing viewpoints along the way is okay, but it needs to be some kind of logical progression, not all over the map. He could be okay with magic in general but aware that Regina has a problem with it. He could start as okay with magic because that seems cool to a kid from our world, but then begin to see the darker side to it. He could start afraid of magic but come to get used to it. But trying twice to destroy all magic while being totally okay with it in between and being okay with people who use magic on a massive scale was weird.

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

Do you mean when he was going to destroy magic?

Yes, I meant that scene.  

Quote

Part of the problem was that Henry was all over the map with his attitudes about magic. 

When you lay it out like that, it is indeed wildly inconsistent.

They needed to stop having Henry be A&E's mouthpiece making false equivalencies between the heroes trying to stop the villains and what the villains were doing.

Maybe Greg tries to manipulate Henry into helping them to destroy magic.  It is possible after the events of 2B that he blames magic for causing all the problems.  

Heck, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to extinguish all magic from Storybrooke.  That's what differentiated it from the Enchanted Forest in Season 1 and that was necessary.

[Shanna Marie]

8 minutes ago, Camera One said:

They needed to stop having Henry be A&E's mouthpiece making false equivalencies between the heroes trying to stop the villains and what the villains were doing.

It didn't help that the times Henry decided to destroy magic, it wasn't at all an appropriate response to the situation. In season 2, it was because Snow killed Cora. He wasn't upset about Regina's evil sorceress mother coming to town and Regina joining her, and Cora plotting to kill Rumple and become the new Dark One. He was upset because Snow used magic to kill Cora. Later, he had no problem with Regina having set up the failsafe (since she used magic to stop it). There were a lot of magical things he had no problem with. Then when Robin was killed by a god (so not necessarily a magic issue), he decided again that magic was bad and had to be destroyed.

11 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Maybe Greg tries to manipulate Henry into helping them to destroy magic.  It is possible after the events of 2B that he blames magic for causing all the problems. 

And apparently Neal at that time was telling Henry about his plans to destroy all magic, since that's what Henry drew upon in season 5, so it could have worked if Neal had set him off, maybe without realizing the effect his words would have on Henry (because Neal was an idiot). Neal telling Henry scare stories about what happens when people use magic would have been a good motivator.

We'd have to cut the attempt to destroy magic in season 5, but I'm okay with that because that was dumb. Maybe if Emma hadn't dragged the resurrected Hook to Robin's wake at the diner and waited to tell Regina privately at a less emotionally-charged time, they could have just stopped Rumple's scheme without Regina being distracted. They still would have ended up needing the door to send people home, and Jekyll/Hyde could still have hijacked it. There wouldn't have been the "oh no, they're stuck there and can't get back because there's no more magic here" issue, but that also means no fountain speech. I'm good with that. Just have it be the usual "how will we open a portal?" issue. We'd need a new Storybrooke-side plot, but maybe they're just figuring out how to get their loved ones home. I'd have sent Emma instead of Zelena because that would have meant forced interaction among Emma and her parents with Hook there. Let Zelena and Regina interact back home.

[Camera One]

11 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

They still would have ended up needing the door to send people home, and Jekyll/Hyde could still have hijacked it. There wouldn't have been the "oh no, they're stuck there and can't get back because there's no more magic here" issue, but that also means no fountain speech. I'm good with that. Just have it be the usual "how will we open a portal?" issue. We'd need a new Storybrooke-side plot, but maybe they're just figuring out how to get their loved ones home. I'd have sent Emma instead of Zelena because that would have meant forced interaction among Emma and her parents with Hook there. Let Zelena and Regina interact back home.

The Dragon could have created the portal somehow.  I agree that Zelena/Regina should have interacted - they needed to hash out what had happened anyhow.  They could have travelled together since Zelena still has the key to Robin Hood/Neal's apartment or she had magic stashed there or something.  But it might have been too awkward since A&E probably didn't want to go into how Zelena raped Robin pretending to be Marian. 

17 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

And apparently Neal at that time was telling Henry about his plans to destroy all magic, since that's what Henry drew upon in season 5, so it could have worked if Neal had set him off, maybe without realizing the effect his words would have on Henry (because Neal was an idiot). Neal telling Henry scare stories about what happens when people use magic would have been a good motivator.

Neal could simply have told Henry about his own experience as a kid.  Which would have been natural if they had been bonding.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I'd have sent Emma instead of Zelena because that would have meant forced interaction among Emma and her parents with Hook there. Let Zelena and Regina interact back home.

I wouldn't have enjoyed this as much. While those groups of characters definitely needed to interact at some point, I appreciated the unorthodox grouping of Team Wicked Hero. That, to me, was more interesting and fun than having the same old pairings. The Charmings absolutely should've interacted in S6, and Regina and Zelena needed to move in together, but hashing out all that drama would've taken away from the "fun adventure romp" in the Land of Untold Stories. The Wicked Hero plot was by far the best part of the S5 finale.

[Camera One]

19 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I wouldn't have enjoyed this as much. While those groups of characters definitely needed to interact at some point, I appreciated the unorthodox grouping of Team Wicked Hero. That, to me, was more interesting and fun than having the same old pairings. The Charmings absolutely should've interacted in S6, and Regina and Zelena needed to move in together, but hashing out all that drama would've taken away from the "fun adventure romp" in the Land of Untold Stories. The Wicked Hero plot was by far the best part of the S5 finale.

I think the quote attribution got mixed up... it should have quoted Shanna Marie.

Having Zelena be mixed in with Hook and Snowing did lead to some "fun" moments. 

The ironic thing about the "same old pairings" is that Hook/Emma/Snow/Charming stand around together a lot, but Emma/Snow and Emma/Charming barely get any alone time together.  It's either group scenes, or individual scenes with the romantic couples.  So having the four together in The Land of Untold Stories would not have changed the writing bias.

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

They could have travelled together since Zelena still has the key to Robin Hood/Neal's apartment or she had magic stashed there or something. 

I was pretty much wiping out the whole New York trip. These people in Maine popped down to New York way too often.

The way I see it, things shift if Emma is allowed to act like a human being. Her dead boyfriend miraculously comes back to life, and like most people would do, she drags him home to see just how alive he is (I don't like to think about them having sex in the Underworld while he had whatever kind of Underworld ghost body, or while she was the Dark One, so it's been a while for them) rather than taking him to the diner. Therefore, Regina's just normally annoyed at life and not particularly in a "heroes have it easy and life in so unfair to villains, being good sucks" mood when Rumple pulls his stunt to pull magic into the crystal. That means Henry isn't worried that she's going to go evil again, and when he Authors the crystal away from Rumple, Regina just destroys it and restores magic (the way she does at the end of the two-parter). But the Camelot people and Robin's gang would still want to go home, so they still have the door that Jekyll/Hyde can hijack.

The tricky thing about playing this game with season 6 is that the whole season is so stupid that it's hard to know where to quit altering. It really needs to be entirely rewritten. I'd prefer to ditch the Evil Queen, while we're at it, and focus on the Untold Stories. The only thing about the Evil Queen storyline that ended up making much of a difference was the creation of the Wishverse, which ended up being critical to season seven. But the Black Fairy could have done that. Otherwise, that story doesn't really change Regina at all. She ends up being exactly the same, with the same mix of good and evil. Without the Evil Queen, we could have kept both Charmings awake, done a lot more with the Untold Stories, maybe even done enough with Aladdin and Jasmine to make them moderately interesting.

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I wouldn't have enjoyed this as much. While those groups of characters definitely needed to interact at some point, I appreciated the unorthodox grouping of Team Wicked Hero. That, to me, was more interesting and fun than having the same old pairings.

I was looking at it more from a perspective of "what would these people do?" It was hard to believe that Emma would have ditched her newly returned from the dead boyfriend to go on a road trip with Regina, and having to go after her son was about the only reason she might have (and even there, I think she'd have been more likely to drag him with them). If she's not having to go after a wayward Henry, she's not leaving Hook's side, so she'd have been sucked through the portal with him.

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The tricky thing about playing this game with season 6 is that the whole season is so stupid that it's hard to know where to quit altering. It really needs to be entirely rewritten. I'd prefer to ditch the Evil Queen, while we're at it, and focus on the Untold Stories. The only thing about the Evil Queen storyline that ended up making much of a difference was the creation of the Wishverse, which ended up being critical to season seven. But the Black Fairy could have done that. Otherwise, that story doesn't really change Regina at all. She ends up being exactly the same, with the same mix of good and evil. Without the Evil Queen, we could have kept both Charmings awake, done a lot more with the Untold Stories, maybe even done enough with Aladdin and Jasmine to make them moderately interesting.

I agree Season 6 was too intertwined with bad ideas to improve without making huge changes.  If we go through the two main threads:

- The Evil Queen: For sure, she needed to go.  She was a horrible villain.  Not only was this repetitive since we have already seen so many iterations of The Evil Queen, her "plan" was practically non-existent.  Ooooh, she's going to let you destroy yourselves!  She was definitely less "evil" than the combined Regina/Evil Queen which existed in the flashbacks.  It was all driven by the idiotic Regina needs to love herself messenging anyway.

- Premonition that Emma, one of many Saviors, would die by Gideon:  This intertwined three equally bad ideas.  Emma dealing with her impending death was boring and irritating to watch.  Gideon was a contrived construct to bring Rumbelle back together.  And the whole Savior idea made no sense, right down to the origin story of the Black Fairy.

I personally disliked The Land of Untold Stories, so I didn't see much potential in that either.  For that to work, they needed to define what that place was and how people got there.  Untold stories or unfinished stories or interrupted stories, or what?   As written, it felt like a random hodgepodge of characters for convenience of centrics.  Count of Monte Cristo to threaten Snowing!  Nemo and Hook's brother for his centric!  Ashley's stepmother and stepsister as a callback to Season 1!  Aladdin because why not!  And how people just went there to prevent themselves or a loved one from dying was a bit ridiculous.  

The idea to have a full-season arc for Season 6 was a really bad one, since A&E couldn't handle it.  They should have done two mini-arcs again. 

Maybe they could have had Hyde, Jafar and Lady Tremaine as the villains for 6A.  I don't have a specific scenario in mind, but they could have had a loose alliance somehow.

6B was tougher because I hated The Black Fairy.  She was a horrible villain.  They might as well have gone full camp and made her the evil twin sister of The Blue Fairy.  Bonus is they didn't need to hire another actor and she would still seem familiar.  They could have given a more interesting backstory of the beginning of time, how The Curse was created, and heck, the Origins of the Land Without Magic but then they'd be stealing thunder from "Flower Child". 

The Evil version of the Blue Fairy could have come from a Wish Realm... except maybe make it an Alt Reality/Broken Timeline realm instead because the fact that a wish could have a history didn't work.  Maybe The Blue Fairy and her twin sister had a huge disagreement and The Black Fairy broke time and space and created a parallel world but Blue took her wand. 

I wouldn't have minded if they had copied "Lost" in its final season and we would have seen "might have beens" in flashbacks for 6B... for example, Alt Jiminy Cricket/Gepetto for an episode, Alt Granny/Red for an episode, Alt Snowing, Alt Rumbelle, Alt Hook, etc.  That would have allowed nice call-backs to Season 1, and brought back a lot of guest stars for various Alt scenarios as they battled The Black Fairy aka Blue Fairy wearing black in the present day.  The finale could have been the musical episode, where "Happy Beginnings" would actually mean what it was supposed to.

Season 6 was really the final season of the show as we knew it and final seasons are supposed to be great and we got the absolute opposite.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

I thought the Land of Untold Stories was a great concept, and I remember being really excited about it when we first saw it. It was a new location that wasnt just another freaking castle or forest, it could actually use the "realm of stories" idea to do something interesting, or they could explore this huge revelation about the nature of not only this universe, but about the very existence of our characters (its an insane idea, but if they wanted to throw that out there, they could have actually used it and not dropped this bombshell on it and then just run away), they could go back to basics and tell classic stories in new ways or focus on new genres and ideas or tell stories from the perspectives of different characters, really focus on the whole idea of a world of story. It was full of potential, and then they threw it all away to tell yet another Poor Regina story, combining Regina tears as well as her in EQ mode at her most hammy and least interesting, and then even SHE got a Poor Regina story. Its the whole show in a nutshell really. A really cool idea come along, and then its all washed away in a sea of Regina's tears. 

[andromeda331]

1 minute ago, tennisgurl said:

I thought the Land of Untold Stories was a great concept, and I remember being really excited about it when we first saw it. It was a new location that wasnt just another freaking castle or forest, it could actually use the "realm of stories" idea to do something interesting, or they could explore this huge revelation about the nature of not only this universe, but about the very existence of our characters (its an insane idea, but if they wanted to throw that out there, they could have actually used it and not dropped this bombshell on it and then just run away), they could go back to basics and tell classic stories in new ways or focus on new genres and ideas or tell stories from the perspectives of different characters, really focus on the whole idea of a world of story. It was full of potential, and then they threw it all away to tell yet another Poor Regina story, combining Regina tears as well as her in EQ mode at her most hammy and least interesting, and then even SHE got a Poor Regina story. Its the whole show in a nutshell really. A really cool idea come along, and then its all washed away in a sea of Regina's tears. 

It was a great concept and could have been really interesting. But by that point I had zero expectations that it would be or that anything would actually happened because they hadn't even bothered to "finish" Camelot at all. It never got an ending, no one in Camelot learned anything about Arthur, and as far was we knew Guinevere was still sand. Camelot had been a great concept and started out with somewhat of setup only for it to all go absolutely no where, make no sense, nothing was tied up, and just get dropped. I wasn't sure how they'd mess up Land of Untold stories just that they would and it would be bad. Its really too bad. They were good at coming up with a good concept and that's it.  Really A&E should only be allowed to come up a concept. Then not allowed to do anything else. Bar them from writing, lock them a closet and hand the idea over writers to flesh it out and finish it out. 

[Camera One]

5 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

they hadn't even bothered to "finish" Camelot at all. It never got an ending, no one in Camelot learned anything about Arthur, and as far was we knew Guinevere was still sand. 

That's a really good point.  A&E rely on moving fast so that viewers forget when they drop their old toys like a sack of sad trash.  

I was really interested in Camelot because it was an existing world with mythology that could be played around with.  I was interested in Neverland, Arendelle, Oz and the Underworld for the same reason (though some of those were handled pretty badly).  I guess I just had zero confidence that A&E could handle creating and defining their own original world with The Land of Untold Stories and what little I saw in the Season 5 finale didn't impress me much.

[andromeda331]

3 minutes ago, Camera One said:

That's a really good point.  A&E rely on moving fast so that viewers forget when they drop their old toys like a sack of sad trash.  

I was really interested in Camelot because it was an existing world with mythology that could be played around with.  I was interested in Neverland, Arendelle, Oz and the Underworld for the same reason (though some of those were handled pretty badly).  I guess I just had zero confidence that A&E could handle creating and defining their own original world with The Land of Untold Stories and what little I saw in the Season 5 finale didn't impress me much.

Yeah, I was interested in each of these ideas. They sounded great and had so much potential. But each one got handled badly. 

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

I was really interested in Camelot because it was an existing world with mythology that could be played around with. 

It was the only generic castle location that had any actual world building. Everything else was focused purely on the characters and not on how their lands actually operated. 

I wish we could've gotten more random fictional worlds without the Author "frozen in a time period" bs. What about a Wild West World, or a sci-fi world, or more characters like Dracula in the World Without Color? If they didn't want to actually show those places, they could've thrown in more odd characters into the Land of Untold Stories. I really wanted to see more "fish out of water" scenarios with the main characters clashing into different genres. 

The Land of Untold Stories was a great excuse to bring in more obscure characters and non-fairy-tale stuff. We got Jekyll/Hyde and Captain Nemo, which were both great, but Cinderella's stepsister, Aladdin, and Jasmine were all pretty trite. The writers should've given the Land of Untold Stories a different name if they were going to use famous characters we already knew the stories of.  "Land of Temporarily Avoiding Responsibilities and/or Death", how about that?

Edited February 27, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

18 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

"Land of Temporarily Avoiding Responsibilities and/or Death", how about that?

LOL.  

Here are some classic quotes from Season 6 with that alternate name.

"It's a dirigible from The Land of Temporarily Avoiding Responsibilities and/or Death"

"Nothing's more dangerous than a story about temporarily avoiding responsiblities and/or death"

-----

The "Untold Stories" moniker gave them a number of lines that in hindsight were all over the place.

Episode 1:
Nothing more dangerous than an untold story and the people who don't want them told.

Episode 2:
You fled to the Land of Untold Stories because you were afraid that whatever was in this book is going to play out. 

The tales in the Land of Untold Stories aren't the only ones that never played out. 

The people from the Land of Untold Stories aren't the only ones with tales they don't want told. 

Episode 3:
Mother used to tell me stories of a key exactly like this. She said that it was magic that it could take you to another world and you escape all your troubles. It's the Land of Untold Stories. 

Patience. You just wait until those untold stories play out. 

It would pause our lives, but we could be together. To the Land of Untold Stories. 

---

I just saw that only the first 6 episodes of Season 6 mentioned the phrase "untold stories".  It must have been intentional.  A&E are genius personified.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

The story of Cinderella's stepsister was probably the only example that really counts as an untold story, that's what you'd expect-the stories of supporting characters from famous narratives.

It's an interesting theme but I'm still wondering how you justify these stories having their own world. Someone basically needed to sort out how this whole Author and Realms of Story business actually worked-

Now my own model for the OUAT cosmology is very tentative and not properly worked out but the essentials are-the cosmos is chaotic, and the existence of Saviours is an attempt by the gods to impose order onto the randomly emergent patterns that they see. The Saviour is a divinely-empowered warrior-poet-chieftain-prophet-(add job as appropriate to circumstances) whose job is to take the stories playing out around her, to get involved where appropriate, to observe where appropriate, to understand them, retell then, to inspire her people to take charge of their own stories and to have faith in the course they are taking. She has an inherent power to do this that comes from the gods, but by her actions she spreads this around to the people she meets, and when they retell the stories then it gets spread further, diluted, but still there. This is the golden tapestry of Fate.

The Author is both a refinement and a debasement of this, created by Merlin because he didn't think the Saviours had enough power to cage the Darkness he unleashed on the world. The Author can rewrite reality, and when he records a story his story is definitive, it cannot have been other than the way it is written (this is where it would get hard to explain and there is timey wimey stuff; without this sort of stuff going on, time isn't reliable, cause and effect can be mixed about by any number of magical accidents etc). But the Author's pen cannot spread this power to others.

The Untold Stories, in my version, would be people who have a link to the Authored stories but whose threads were left hanging. Their existence is vulnerable to the tides of Chaos in ways the main heroes and villains' aren't. The Land of Untold Stories is some kind of pocket reality where they end up, and other than that the idea would be the same, except they'd actually be side characters, not people like Dr Jekyll or Captain Nemo...

This is why I shouldn't write for network television of course: how many people are going to sit through that kind of rambling nonsense on a Saturday evening, much less follow it up by watching the cast joined by Dr Jekyll's butler or Captain Nemo's first mate 😁😉 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Speakeasy
Added my theory

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/22/2020 at 4:23 PM, Camera One said:

6B was tougher because I hated The Black Fairy.  She was a horrible villain.  They might as well have gone full camp and made her the evil twin sister of The Blue Fairy.  Bonus is they didn't need to hire another actor and she would still seem familiar. 

And if you've seen that actress in The Magicians, you know she could have totally rocked that dual role. She was so wasted in this series (though it's possible that she wouldn't have been available for that big a role on this show because of The Magicians).

14 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I thought the Land of Untold Stories was a great concept, and I remember being really excited about it when we first saw it. It was a new location that wasnt just another freaking castle or forest

That was my view of it. I didn't so much like anything about the "Untold Stories," but I was intrigued by the place Team Wicked Hero visited. It was a real city, which we hadn't really seen before. It was a location that wasn't a castle, forest, a village consisting of two huts, or a franchise of Ye Olde Tavern. I liked the steampunky aesthetic and I was intrigued by the possibility of character mashups in a place where you had characters like Jekyll/Hyde, the Three Musketeers, and Tom Sawyer all together. Unfortunately, that setting was a one-off and didn't even show up in flashbacks in season six.

But the whole concept of "Untold Stories" was poorly developed. For one thing, it's hard to imagine some of the most famous and iconic characters from literature as "untold." "Untold Stories" would be all the characters who weren't the main characters in this show, but then why would they all have ended up in the same world? In execution, it was "the land of putting your life on hold." They might have been able to do something with characters trying to avoid destinies and prophecies, which would have tied in with Emma's worry about her fate. But there we still have the question of why this place became a magnet for them when it's hardly the only place we've seen where time doesn't pass and things don't change. Not that "things don't change" is a great fictional setting.

To get the characters there they wanted, there needed to be more of a purpose, something deliberate, like maybe there's a villain who's The Reader, maybe someone from our world, and when he realized that the stories he read were actually true and happened elsewhere, he set out to try to meet them all, and he's been kidnapping all these people (maybe with some ultimate nefarious scheme in mind, like taking over Storybrooke, since that's what everyone seems to want). He snags Snow White, Prince Charming, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Captain Hook to add to his collection, but that turns out to be his downfall, since they aren't at all the characters he knows from what he's read and he can't anticipate what they'll do. It would have needed to be at least a partial arc, maybe something along the lines of Team Princess, where they spend several episodes there before getting home, and then the villain comes with them to threaten Storybrooke. Since I'd hate for Emma to be separated from Hook and her parents for so long (and wouldn't want her to be stuck in Storybrooke with Regina), maybe she gets accidentally sucked along with them, since she's sticking close to Hook, and she turns out to be the real wild card, since she's not in any story the Reader is familiar with. They could all help the various literary characters find their true selves, away from the expectations of their own worlds and the people around them, since they're all very different from the way they're written or what they started as. Once they start changing, the Reader has less power over them because he doesn't know what they'll do.

Maybe the Black Fairy could end up being one of the ones who comes back with them, but under a glamour so they don't recognize her if she's Blue's evil twin.

I was worrying about how doing that arc instead would mean Belle not moving in with Hook, which was one of the few things I liked in season six, but given the way time works on this show, they'd probably be gone for about five days, which hardly progresses Belle's pregnancy by much. She could take refuge on the Jolly Roger in Hook's absence, and then he'd be okay with it when he returned.

I guess Regina, Henry, and Rumple could be up to something back home. Rumple has the domestic drama with Belle, and Regina and Henry could be trying to find out what happened to everyone else, while maybe Regina starts to actually try to govern the town and deal with a crisis without backup from the Charmings and Emma.

[Camera One]

7 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

In execution, it was "the land of putting your life on hold." They might have been able to do something with characters trying to avoid destinies and prophecies, which would have tied in with Emma's worry about her fate.

Alternate pilot.

Grumpy: "The Queen's Curse is Coming!"
Snowing: "Let's head over to The Land of Untold Stories and then we'll go and save everyone afterwards.

Alternate Season 6

Hook: Gideon and The Black Fairy are both in town now and the prophesy might come to pass!
Emma: "Let's head over to The Land of Untold Stories until we can figure out how to defeat them." 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

19 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Grumpy: "The Queen's Curse is Coming!"
Snowing: "Let's head over to The Land of Untold Stories and then we'll go and save everyone afterwards.

Yeah, funny how Cinderella's stepmother knew about this before the curse, and yet the Charmings never considered going to the Land of Untold Stories to buy time.

20 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Hook: Gideon and The Black Fairy are both in town now and the prophesy might come to pass!
Emma: "Let's head over to The Land of Untold Stories until we can figure out how to defeat them." 

And they definitely knew about it by this point, but no one thought of that. I guess it would have been considered "weak" to run from her problems? But buying time to be able to defeat your enemy makes sense.

Emma's hand shakes started when they were at the airship, and I wondered if that had something to do with setting it all off, but I guess it was just convenient timing for others to notice and start asking questions.

[KingOfHearts]

19 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Emma's hand shakes started when they were at the airship, and I wondered if that had something to do with setting it all off, but I guess it was just convenient timing for others to notice and start asking questions.

The Savior Shakes plot was one of the most contrived of the series. There was nothing to trigger it other than an arbitrary "Final Battle" approaching that could've happened at any point in the time if the writers wanted it to. Usually the other plots on the show had some kind of catalyst, no matter how weak. Cause and effect. But there was nothing connecting anything else in 6A with Emma's shakes. Sure you had the Oracle, but any fortune teller could've given that prophecy. Again, nothing actually triggered the tremors. They just started happening because we were in what could've been the final season.

But let's say that on the dirigible was whatever enemy Emma had to fight in the Final Battle and that their presence put the symptoms in motion.* That would've made sense. On any other show, whatever was happening during Emma's tremors would've been a clue to their cause. You wouldn't have some random oracle come out of nowhere to explain it. If anything, Rumple should've been the one to sense something was about to go down since he can see into the future, already prophesied about the Final Battle ages ago, and had a son involved with it.

* In retrospect, it seemed like that's how they used Clone Queen as a fakeout. Emma fighting Regina as her "ultimate enemy" would've made a heck of lot more sense than Gideon or the Black Fairy, though Rumple would've been the best Big Bad for her to fight. (Even if it was just Wish Rumple.)

Edited February 28, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

That's an intriguing question of what triggered Emma's Savior shakes.  Is it implied Saviors just start getting them after awhile?  Aladdin started getting the shakes too.  So what was his "final battle" going to be with?

It would have made more sense for Emma to get the shakes or the premonitions of the hooded figure after Rumbelle's baby was kidnapped.  I mean, was Mind Controlled Adult Gideon always meant to be?  

[Speakeasy]

36 minutes ago, Camera One said:

That's an intriguing question of what triggered Emma's Savior shakes.  Is it implied Saviors just start getting them after awhile?  Aladdin started getting the shakes too.  So what was his "final battle" going to be with?

It would have made more sense for Emma to get the shakes or the premonitions of the hooded figure after Rumbelle's baby was kidnapped.  I mean, was Mind Controlled Adult Gideon always meant to be?  

Adult Gideon was probably going to be a villain... The snarl of plot twists in 6B suggests (to me anyway) there may have been a few different ideas that got smooshed together, some where he was mind controlled and some where he had his own agenda.

Maybe the Saviour Shakes were triggered by Rumplestiltskin's dream quest where they introduced Adult Gideon since that was what set off the events leading to his birth and ultra quick aging?

[Camera One]

9 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

Maybe the Saviour Shakes were triggered by Rumplestiltskin's dream quest where they introduced Adult Gideon since that was what set off the events leading to his birth and ultra quick aging?

That would have been another example of how Rumple ultimately screwed everyone over.  

I vaguely remember the Fetus Gideon actually trying to get daddy dearest away from Belle.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

10 minutes ago, Camera One said:

That would have been another example of how Rumple ultimately screwed everyone over.  

I vaguely remember the Fetus Gideon actually trying to get daddy dearest away from Belle.

Foetal Dream Gideon basically told her to stay away from his father when they were in the dream quest. This was also where Rumplestiltskin did his Beauty and the Beast dance number and it completely backfired because she remembered all the times he'd lied, coerced and generally been a prick to her.

[Camera One]

I had forgotten that!  I haven't rewatched that gem of an episode, LOL.

It's very interesting how they didn't even try to connect Emma's hand shakes or sudden prophesy with what she went through in Season 5, between becoming Dark Swan and going to the Underworld.  The first brainstorm the Writers should have done is - what would be the toll of all that on Emma?  How would being thrown back into "normal" life do to her?  A&E simply reset back to "Emma's WALLS are back up again, folks!"  

[Shanna Marie]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

It's very interesting how they didn't even try to connect Emma's hand shakes or sudden prophesy with what she went through in Season 5, between becoming Dark Swan and going to the Underworld. 

Not to mention, she'd already driven from Manhattan to Maine earlier that day, after having driven from Maine to Manhattan the day before. That's enough to give anyone the shakes.

So, a woman who's been through all kinds of hell -- literally -- and had barely buried her boyfriend before he came back from the dead, but then she immediately had to take a road trip to New York with a very annoying person because her idiot pre-teen/very early teen son stole all of the world's magic and ran away to Manhattan to destroy it, and as soon as he did she learned that her newly alive love and her parents were trapped in another world and wouldn't be able to get back without magic, but they they got them back, and then they had to drive back to Maine from New York, but before she gets a moment to relax, there's an airship crash and she has to go investigate it gets a little shaky and everyone is immediately all, "Gee, I wonder what's wrong" and thinks there must be something magical going on that she's hiding from them.

Like, maybe she needs some protein and a nap.

Okay, so they were right, but it was bizarre that it hit at just that time, but wasn't triggered by anything on the airship wreck.

And they never explained what the deal was with the shakes and the Savior stuff. For something that was so pivotal to their mythology, they were satisfied with just handwaving it.

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

Like, maybe she needs some protein and a nap.

It highlights the fact the writers make up drama (like the savior shakes) when characters like Emma already have enough to deal with as it is. Other than that short break between 4A and 4B, it's been nonstop shenanigans in Storybrooke and the magical realms. Emma's gone through so many traumatic events in her adult life alone. S6 should've been about her dealing with all that and coming to the grips with a more "normal life" with Hook. That may sound mundane, but it's really where her character needed to go. You can still get a ton of juicy drama from that. Maybe instead of her being the Savior that needs to die, make it so she no longer has those Savior duties. S1 brought up the question in Emma's identity - if she's not the Savior, who is she? Would her worry about the next bad thing happening get in the way of her relationship with Hook? Can she settle into having healthy relationships with her parents, Henry, and her BFF? 

You wouldn't have to get rid of the fantastical stuff. That's what we have other characters for. But they all don't constantly need to be in a state of panic. Lost did a better job of "rotating out" the drama so that while some characters were in chaos, the others got a moment to chill before their next arc or major event.

I think S6 should've just focused on the characters adjusting to life in Storybrooke. The writers still could've brought in a Big Bad and did crazy stuff, but I think the majority of the drama should've centered on the impact of the Captain Swan engagement/wedding, town politics, and side stories with the minor Storybrooke characters like Granny. Regina would be dealing with Zelena moving in, getting over Robin's death, and perhaps mayoral duties. Emma would be dealing with her trauma. Hook can keep his Liam 2.0 storyline and Charming can keep the murdered father storyline. (Except make King George the murderer, not Hook.)

Honestly, there were multiple things they could've done with Snow. Her character changed so much over the seasons that it's hard to know what she'd even do. One day she wants to be Snow White, another she wants to be Mary Margaret. One day she wants to be mayor, another she wants to be a teacher. One day she wants a relationship with Emma, another her focus goes to the replacement baby. Does she want to be a bandit with arrows? A princess? A queen? Who fricking knows. I don't like making her a teacher again because that was part of the original curse and wasn't supposed to be enjoyable. I'm not sure what I'd have her do in S6. I didn't like the sleeping curse storyline.

Rumpbelle's too stupid to even put in S6.

S6's themes should've centered around identity. Who are these characters now that they've gone through so much development? Is Snow still Snow White? Is Regina still the Evil Queen? Our perceptions of them have changed considerably over the years because their lives continued after their stories. Given that they can now have semblance of normal living in Storybrooke, how will they adjust to that? How will the other citizens in town interact with them? 

The S6 finale should've been the musical episode. Maybe only the second part, but that's what it should've been. I'm not opposed to seeing the cursed personalities again or the Wish Realm really, but the writers needed to execute those ideas differently than what they did in the season that aired.

Edited March 1, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

Why did the show never do a support group for rehabilitating villains? That was such a missed opportunity. Imagine Regina, Zelena, Maleficent, Ursula, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Tremaine all sitting in a circle for meetings. Hook could pop in occasionally. I'd suggest Drizella too if the logistics weren't so insane. (Wouldn't it be weird for her to meet Tremaine, her not!mother?) Rumple would be an obvious candidate to join but I don't think he'd actually go.

It would've been at least fun to see as a throwaway scene in one of the finales to show the villains developing over time. If Regina wasn't going to try to make amends with her victims, she could've at least helped other villains redeem themselves.

Who would've been the best non-villain leader for that?

Snow and Belle can start a support group for villain enablers.

Edited March 1, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Speakeasy]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Why did the show never do a support group for rehabilitating villains? That was such a missed opportunity. Imagine Regina, Zelena, Maleficent, Ursula, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Tremaine all sitting in a circle for meetings. Hook could pop in occasionally. I'd suggest Drizella too if the logistics weren't so insane. (Wouldn't it be weird for her to meet Tremaine, her not!mother?) Rumple would be an obvious candidate to join but I don't think he'd actually go.

It would've been at least fun to see as a throwaway scene in one of the finales to show the villains developing over time. If Regina wasn't going to try to make amends with her victims, she could've at least helped other villains redeem themselves.

Who would've been the best non-villain leader for that?

Snow and Belle can start a support group for villain enablers

Hook would 'pop in occasionally'? The man whose final big plotline was being all guilty because he killed a stranger 60 years ago who randomly turned out to be his future girlfriend's granddad and whose  parallel universe alter ego was literally a recovering alcoholic? The man who keeps the murderbling from all his murder victims so he can remind himself what a bastard he used to be and once knocked out his past self and expressed disgust for his own history of sleazyness? He'd be there every week, even when no one else showed up.

Archie seems to be the only psychologist or counsellor in town but given that Regina got him to gaslight her son for her I wouldn't tell him shit. Um... Not sure who else would work for it

Maybe Granny? She did coach her granddaughter through her lycanthropy, so she might have some sympathy for people who've done horrible things because they've made a mistake at some point. Or maybe Ruby herself since she's been through that and knows about having the urge to do violence and hurting the people she loves but now she's a hero and she's great! And she's so very happy with her wife, VERY happy, Dorothy is just busy these days so you know if she can't make it to a romantic evening that Ruby spent weeks putting together that's just... She's very busy, ok? They're FINE. Anyway we're not here to talk about that.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Speakeasy

[Camera One]

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Why did the show never do a support group for rehabilitating villains? That was such a missed opportunity. Imagine Regina, Zelena, Maleficent, Ursula, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Tremaine all sitting in a circle for meetings. Hook could pop in occasionally. I'd suggest Drizella too if the logistics weren't so insane. (Wouldn't it be weird for her to meet Tremaine, her not!mother?) Rumple would be an obvious candidate to join but I don't think he'd actually go.

That was the clever and entertaining type of stuff that we saw briefly in "Wreck it Ralph" which "Once Upon a Time" could actually have elaborated on and had fun with.

The type of stuff in the old TV show "House of Mouse" could have been done in a more realistic fashion on this show.  Maybe the show should have casted less well-known actors for guest Disney characters, so it would be easier to get them back.

I mean, how did non-magical villains like Lady Tremaine and the Sheriff of Nottingham feel about the magical villains who could do so much more than them, so much more easily?

The show did have flashes of brilliance, for example with Bo Peep, but why was she willingly working as a butcher in Storybrooke?  She should have been a petty crime boss causing problems for Emma and the Sheriff department. 

There should have been plenty of everyday crime problems in Storybrooke that did not require an over-the-top Big Bad swooping into the town for a weekly confrontation on Main Street before he/she goes to a random cave and talk to themselves about their secret dragged out convoluted-as-hell plan.

3 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

Maybe Granny? She did coach her granddaughter through her lycanthropy, so she might have some sympathy for people who've done horrible things because they've made a mistake at some point. 

Granny was one of the few hold-outs who didn't warm to Regina and Rumple, so I think she holds a grudge... which is the most lovable quality about her, LOL.  

I think the show was trying to Captain Nemo in this type of role, where he was trying to help people to let go of their revenge.  

Even Maleficent in Season 1 was more interesting because she had resigned herself to the loss and was over wasting her time on Aurora Sr. and her family, until Regina helped her get her groove back.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/29/2020 at 7:25 PM, KingOfHearts said:

It highlights the fact the writers make up drama (like the savior shakes) when characters like Emma already have enough to deal with as it is. Other than that short break between 4A and 4B, it's been nonstop shenanigans in Storybrooke and the magical realms. Emma's gone through so many traumatic events in her adult life alone. S6 should've been about her dealing with all that and coming to the grips with a more "normal life" with Hook. That may sound mundane, but it's really where her character needed to go. You can still get a ton of juicy drama from that.

What's really annoying is that they didn't so much as mention any of the drama of the previous seasons in season 6. Aside from Regina's angst about Robin and Zelena's baby, it was like seasons 4 and 5 never happened. There was never a single reference to the fact that Hook died. I can't believe that they killed a character, he was dead for nearly half a season, then came back to life, and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. Emma and Hook don't talk about it. Emma was the Dark One for half a season, and it never comes up in season 6. Hook's Dark One time also doesn't ever come up. Both of them should have had some serious PTSD. Let Regina have the angsty drama plot for half a season (she takes over the show, anyway), and let Emma be on the support team for fighting evil while her personal plot is just the domestic stuff. Between the two of them, there's the PTSD from their Dark One experiences, plus Hook's death(s) and him dealing with torture. He'd probably have some survivor's guilt from being brought back to life, maybe some identity crisis from wondering if he's really getting a fresh start and trying to figure out what he wants to do with his second chance at life. Do both of them still have the ability to sense the Dark One dagger? And then there's stuff like the culture clash in their relationship, Henry's issues with Hook and with his dad being "replaced," the Charmings and how they're dealing with the idea of Hook joining their family.

One of the big problems with the show is the fact that Emma had so much trauma, but there was seldom any catharsis for her. She seldom got a triumph after all the suffering, and her suffering was seldom really dealt with. That led to an overall sense of misery. I can take suffering that leads to triumph or even when it brings about an emotional catharsis from just a strong reaction. But going back to 3B, we don't get that for Emma. In 3B, her ideal life is disrupted because she's needed to go to the rescue, the father of her child dies, and then she has to weigh whether to keep her powers or save a life, but then she's stuck standing on the sidelines in the big conflict, so no triumph. At least she does get to have all the emotional reactions in the finale, talking to Hook about what she's been through and her feelings about her family, and then the moment of her finding her power and lighting the wand to open the portal was nice and cathartic.

After that, though, in 4A she suffers through worry about losing another love and whether her magic is dangerous, only to stand there as someone else resolves the situation (twice), and her emotional response is limited to about 20 seconds (and Hook gets more of a reaction than she does). In 4B, she has to deal with her potential for darkness, learning about her darkness being put on someone else, Rumple trying to turn her dark, and lots of guilt, followed by her being chained up, watching her love get killed -- and then she stands there while Regina saves the day because she's the Savior of that world. She gets one big emotional response (that was apparently mostly ad libbed), and then she has to take on the darkness. She spends 5A as the Dark One, being emotionally tortured, has to watch the man she loves die (again), then saves him, only to have him reject her, and then she has to sacrifice him. She gets about ten seconds of lying on the sofa and feeling sad. Off to the Underworld, where her quest to save Hook gets mostly swept aside until the end, and then she gets to stand back while someone else saves the day. She gets a tearful moment at Hook's grave (though we don't get to see his funeral) and does get a joyous reunion with him, but then she's separated again, fears she's separated for good, and from her parents, too, and then stands there as someone else saves the day. Then there's the Savior shakes and prophecy of doom, and she finally gets to triumph -- by standing still and doing nothing.

In genre fiction, struggle and suffering need to lead somewhere, and it seems like Emma just suffers for no good reason. It doesn't lead to triumph, and it doesn't lead to any kind of emotional payoff. She doesn't even get any kind of three-hankie Emmy Bait scene.

9 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

Hook would 'pop in occasionally'? The man whose final big plotline was being all guilty because he killed a stranger 60 years ago who randomly turned out to be his future girlfriend's granddad and whose  parallel universe alter ego was literally a recovering alcoholic? The man who keeps the murderbling from all his murder victims so he can remind himself what a bastard he used to be and once knocked out his past self and expressed disgust for his own history of sleazyness? He'd be there every week, even when no one else showed up.

Hook would lead the former villain support group. He seemed to be serving as a kind of counselor in season 4 onward, anyway, talking people away from revenge and coaching Emma on avoiding darkness. He'd be good as a Villains Anonymous sponsor, since he'd faced it and come out the other side.

They also needed to have the "modern life 101" group for the newcomers who didn't get the curse memory download, with sessions on using the talking phone and why the TV doesn't have to be a devil box. Driver's Ed for those used to horses.

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

In genre fiction, struggle and suffering need to lead somewhere, and it seems like Emma just suffers for no good reason. It doesn't lead to triumph, and it doesn't lead to any kind of emotional payoff. She doesn't even get any kind of three-hankie Emmy Bait scene.

It became comical in later seasons. She was the writers' punching bag. Every flashback, from Ingrid to Lily to Cleo, gave her more reasons to be the most despondent person on earth. We make fun of her WALLS, but she went through so much you can't really blame her for having them. The writers actually ran out of things to torture her with, so they made up the "Savior death prophecy" and the Savior shakes in S6 from nothing. Heaven forbid she or her loved ones aren't in moral danger for five seconds.

It wasn't that the writers hated Emma, but she was a hero and they didn't know how else to write her. She became so two-dimensional like everybody but Hook and Zelena.

Edited March 2, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It wasn't that the writers hated Emma, but she was a hero and they didn't know how else to write her. 

I think that was really the key.  They didn't know what to do with her, so they gave her angst and worrying.  That was the only way they could give her something "internal" to work with.  The death prophesy gave the Writers a convenient reason for her to put her WALLS back up, and then her "arc" could yet again be letting people (aka Hook) in.  

The other pair of characters they didn't know what to do with were Snowing.  Because they could be more easily shunted aside, the Writers barely bothered to give them anything internal.  It was almost all external.  For example, in Season 6, they were just put to sleep, so they could "deal" with that.  Whenever they needed to give Snow something internal (like OMG!  I have to give her a centric!), they would flip flop between her wanting to be Snow or Mary Margaret, and that's why she made no sense.  Look at that lame Season 7 episode where Jasmine encouraged her to teach the students how to do archery.  It was totally WTF.

Hook got the constant second-guessing and guilt, because it was an easy way to give him continuous internal conflict.  Again, I don't think the Writers hated him.  It was something the actor could play very well, which actually elevated the writing.

Zelena got more internal stuff when she fully got put on the redemption path.

Regina got internal stuff, but instead of repetance, which should have been her path, it was more learning to love herself.  

Rumple and Belle's internal stuff was cyclical.  Wash, rinse, repeat and vomit (the last one for the viewers).

Who else was there?  Oh yeah, Robin Hood.  Not much going on there, internally or externally.  Here, go babysit in the forest.

[KingOfHearts]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

Who else was there?  Oh yeah, Robin Hood.  Not much going on there, internally or externally.  Here, go babysit in the forest.

Regina's purse isn't going to hold itself.

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Zelena got more internal stuff when she fully got put on the redemption path.

They didn't really do anything different with Zelena's redemption arc from Regina's. She seemed to have a little more self-awareness, but her flashbacks were just repeats of what we'd seen Regina do. Usually she'd meet some nice person who wants to help her out, but she makes a wrong choice and continues to do evil anyway. The audience doesn't learn anything new about her character because we already knew she was a villain in the past. In S1, we knew Mayor Mills was evil, but not to which extent. The flashbacks of the Evil Queen made her a bigger threat because we saw how far she was willing to go. Zelena was the same brand of evil both in the past and present, so just watching her murder munchkins didn't really serve a purpose. We didn't need constant reminders of how awful she was in the past to be invested in her redemption in the present.

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Speakeasy]

Does anyone think that more could have been done with the Camelot people, maybe to the extent of being a big, non-personal-drama plot in season 6? During 5B I plotted out a head fanfic called 'Snow White and the Immigration Crisis' where I imagined what might be happening back in Storybrooke, given there was this whole new population whose government had been wrecked by the main characters as essentially a side effect of their investigations into their personal crisis. I decided they'd have descended into civil war between Arthurians (because some people would have to rationalise and besides how do we know this 'lifting the sands curse' isn't the real illusion? Oh, the Evil Queen and the Dark One told us, well then...)and Guinevereans/anti-Arthurians and the local Storybrookers would be fucking sick of it by the time the heroes got back. 

This, by the way, is where Snow White can decide she wants to be Queen Snow White. And you can introduce all sorts of characters, since Arthur says in 5A that many of his knights are rulers in their own lands, and they could well be people who want to get home but were staying out of the way while they were still sanded. Aladdin and Jasmine could easily have been in Camelot and you could bring them in that way (hopefully with a better storyline).

Does mean the visuals for the Land of Untold Stories aren't necessary but you could still find reasons to put it there, I'm sure, it's be a shame to lose that.

[Speakeasy]

The discussion on the 'welcome to Storybrooke' episode thread made me think about the relationship between Gina, Emma, Henry and the Charmings: I figure that of all four of them, David would be the only one who sees her as nothing but an enemy:

Snow looks at her and she's the cruel witch who murdered her father and stole her kingdom, but also the brave girl who saved her life and the beautiful woman she looked up to for years. She can't help but feel the darkness that overtook Regina is, in some way, something she could have prevented. It's complicated.

Henry looks at her and she's the mother who lied to him and tried to hurt the people he loves, but also the mother who raised him and gave him the only home he's ever known. Having Stockholm Syndrome for your own parents is complicated. 

Emma looks at her and... Well this could take a while. Back in the carefree days when Mayor Mills was just some small town bully things were complicated. She really wanted to be wrong about Regina, she wanted to like her, and not because she likes to assume the best about everyone but because the alternative is she handed over her child to this cruel, warped person and condemned him to a loveless childhood. On the other hand she kind of wants to be right about her so she can take down the villain and be the hero her son needs. 

That's in season 1 when things are simple. After it turns out, yep,  Emma the orphan turned bounty hunter really IS a lost fairytale princess... Well that's really complicated.

For David, though, it's simple; she's a tyrant, she's a witch, she's intent on killing the woman he loves and everyone close to her, she's a menace and she shouldn't be anywhere near his family or his people. 

I feel like these are not the expectations the writers had though.

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

For David, though, it's simple; she's a tyrant, she's a witch, she's intent on killing the woman he loves and everyone close to her, she's a menace and she shouldn't be anywhere near his family or his people. 

Interestingly, Charming is one of the first people to see Regina genuinely wanting to redeem herself. He watches Regina's remorseful speech to Henry in 2x02. He says if she wants to change, she'll tell him if the Enchanted Forest still exists, and she obliges. She lets Henry go without resistance. Charming remains apprehensive, as he should, but that flash of humanity had to make him think for just a moment. For all he knew, mass murdering Regina shouldn't even be capable of that. I'm not saying he should've vouched for her by any stretch of the imagination, just that he at least tolerated her being in town for most of 2A.

2B comes in and just pretends 2A never happened, which is aggravating. Snow and Emma come in on the hate train and Regina's quickly framed for murder. Regina's progress in 2A ultimately amounts to nothing and we never see the same level of self-awareness again. It's crazy whiplash. Charming doesn't really get a vote in 2B. It's all about how Snow (and Emma to a lesser extent) view Regina. Nobody in town tries to lynch or murder her. Neal doesn't seem to give a crap that his son was raised by an abusive dictator. Everything about Regina just becomes the Cora show, followed by Greg/Owen. It's very external. We don't really see Regina have internal conflict because everything she does is just a reaction for PLOT.

I appreciate 2A's willingness to slow down for a second and focus on the characters dealing with themselves. Not just with Regina, but Team Princess and Storybrooke. It allowed the characters to make active choices that drove the story. Everything in 2B (aside from Rumple's goal of finding Neal) is very reactive.

Edited March 3, 2020 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

Emma looks at her and... Well this could take a while. Back in the carefree days when Mayor Mills was just some small town bully things were complicated. She really wanted to be wrong about Regina, she wanted to like her, and not because she likes to assume the best about everyone but because the alternative is she handed over her child to this cruel, warped person and condemned him to a loveless childhood. On the other hand she kind of wants to be right about her so she can take down the villain and be the hero her son needs. 

But by the end of season one, she knew that Regina had framed Mary Margaret for Kathryn's murder, and she was pretty sure she'd had something to do with Kathryn's kidnapping and that she was just letting Sidney take the fall. She had given up on having a civil relationship with Regina and was preparing to leave town, and Regina still poisoned her. Henry nearly died because of that. She then learned that it was all true, that Regina really had cast a curse that had separated her from her parents and her parents from each other. She saw the devastation caused by the curse, saw the palace nursery where she should have grown up. I would think that would have straightened out a lot of complication. And it it's coming out of this that she suddenly starts really trying to be friends with Regina. That's what makes no sense. It was one thing when she thought Regina was just a small-town bully, but when she knew Regina was willing to put an innocent woman on trial for murder just to be mean, and when she knew Regina had tried to kill her, that should have ended any hint of friendship.

[Camera One]

 

12 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

The discussion on the 'welcome to Storybrooke' episode thread made me think about the relationship between Gina, Emma, Henry and the Charmings: I figure that of all four of them, David would be the only one who sees her as nothing but an enemy:

Snow looks at her and she's the cruel witch who murdered her father and stole her kingdom, but also the brave girl who saved her life and the beautiful woman she looked up to for years. She can't help but feel the darkness that overtook Regina is, in some way, something she could have prevented. It's complicated.

Henry looks at her and she's the mother who lied to him and tried to hurt the people he loves, but also the mother who raised him and gave him the only home he's ever known. Having Stockholm Syndrome for your own parents is complicated. 

Emma looks at her and... Well this could take a while. Back in the carefree days when Mayor Mills was just some small town bully things were complicated. She really wanted to be wrong about Regina, she wanted to like her, and not because she likes to assume the best about everyone but because the alternative is she handed over her child to this cruel, warped person and condemned him to a loveless childhood. On the other hand she kind of wants to be right about her so she can take down the villain and be the hero her son needs. 

That's a really interesting point.

On paper, Henry should have mixed feelings, but in Season 1, it seemed like he was pretty black and white about it, which is weird considering he had known her since birth, so you'd think there would be some loving moment he would look back on.  He didn't skip a beat when he concluded that Regina murdered Graham or that she was trying to kill Emma.  If that was how he felt then, I can't see how it would have changed after everything went down (especially when he saw Regina choking Charming to death in the Season 2 premiere until he stopped her).

For Emma, the Writers made an effort to make her see the "grey" in Regina by having her believe that Regina loved Henry, and later, by ensuring that Henry loved Regina (even though there was no indication that he did in Season 1).  Up until the Season 3 finale, I could imagine that Emma found it hard to really see Regina as "The Evil Queen", so some of the things she found out about Regina's past from her parents didn't solidify in her mind.  

Out of the three, I think Snow would be the most likely to have some mixed feelings given she did look up to her as her stepmother for years.  But at the same time, the trauma that Regina inflicted on her was the most cruel and direct.  Between killing her beloved father, trying to murder her, and ordering the village massacre, there's no way she would ever want Regina as her BFF or confidant, since there would have been so much associated pain.  Heck, you'd think seeing her beloved nanny murdered while Regina stood by would have generated some new trauma.  Regina never apologized for that, and it was certainly not a condition for Cora before entering the light.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Camera One

[Speakeasy]

On 3/3/2020 at 9:06 PM, Shanna Marie said:

But by the end of season one, she knew that Regina had framed Mary Margaret for Kathryn's murder, and she was pretty sure she'd had something to do with Kathryn's kidnapping and that she was just letting Sidney take the fall. She had given up on having a civil relationship with Regina and was preparing to leave town, and Regina still poisoned her. Henry nearly died because of that. She then learned that it was all true, that Regina really had cast a curse that had separated her from her parents and her parents from each other. She saw the devastation caused by the curse, saw the palace nursery where she should have grown up. I would think that would have straightened out a lot of complication.

I'd actually forgotten she knew that Gina had deliberately framed Mary Margaret-that is the sort of thing that you'd expect to generate more antipathy. That's pretty much the point at which kidnapping Henry starts to look like a good alternative. 

What I was getting at with the fairy tale stuff at least is that it's so much and so far outside the normal sphere of human experience that I would expect hard-headed, down to earth Emma to have a hard enough time believing in it before she worked out how she was supposed to be feeling about it-especially since shes not very good at feelings.

I mean it's one thing to hate it be angry at someone for the things they've done to you after you've met them or the things theyve done to others before that, but to find out your whole life and all the pain you've gone through has been because of this person you didn't know existed a few months ago, and that you were supposed to have this whole other life and role in a whole other world and culture-that's way too much for her to know how to react.

But 'she just needs a hug and some cake' also seems out of place, I'll admit. Kidnapping Henry and running away looks like a REALLY good idea at that point (though it would be unbelievably callous since she's got a whole town full of hostages)

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And it it's coming out of this that she suddenly starts really trying to be friends with Regina. That's what makes no sense. It was one thing when she thought Regina was just a small-town bully, but when she knew Regina was willing to put an innocent woman on trial for murder just to be mean, and when she knew Regina had tried to kill her, that should have ended any hint of friendship.

Yeah... I always laugh remembering Snow White being the voice of reason with 'Emma, she tried to kill us... Yesterday'

I'll freely admit Regina has never made me angry the same way she does so many on here, not sure why. I have always found it bizarre how she's apparently ok and everyone's ok with her once she's no longer regularly killing people all the time. I was particularly confused by how popular Swan Queen was-Emma Swan seems like a nice young lady, she deserves to date someone who is not CONSTANTLY TRYING TO MURDER HER 😛

Edited March 6, 2020 by Speakeasy

[ParadoxLost]

20 hours ago, Speakeasy said:

I have always found it bizarre how she's apparently ok and everyone's ok with her once she's no longer regularly killing people all the time.

I used to really want just a few scenes to make this make sense.  Just a townhall meeting or a few therapy sessions where they reveal that there is a concerted effort by Storybrooke citizenery to keep Regina in check by acting like they are ok with her.

[Speakeasy]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I used to really want just a few scenes to make this make sense.  Just a townhall meeting or a few therapy sessions where they reveal that there is a concerted effort by Storybrooke citizenery to keep Regina in check by acting like they are ok with her.

That seems like a logical solution. The thing about Regina is she has 3 qualities:

A) she's powerful enough to be crucial in any invasion or crisis they face, or to be a huge threat of she goes full on bad again.

B) she's fragile enough that she'll turn on them if she thinks they don't like her but

C) She's invested enough in her family to reliably stick by them if she thinks they do like her.

So it makes sense to be nice to her to keep her on side. Unlike Rumplestiltskin who will stab you in the back as soon as it's more convenient for him to do so, whether he thinks you like him or not. So no one bothers being nice to him.

[Camera One]

That has been the only head-canon that makes this show bearable.  That off-screen, Emma, Snow and Henry conspire about how to keep Regina stable and out of crazy-town with strategic compliments, validation and outreach.

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

That has been the only head-canon that makes this show bearable.  That off-screen, Emma, Snow and Henry conspire about how to keep Regina stable and out of crazy-town with strategic compliments, validation and outreach.

This should've been overt in S2 and S3 when Regina was a live wire. Instead, we got Emma being all afraid of her in the S5 finale and acting patronizing. That whole "don't upset her or the Evil Queen might come out" thing should've been addressed seasons ago. Not long after Regina's so-called redemption. 

[Shanna Marie]

On 3/3/2020 at 8:12 PM, Camera One said:

On paper, Henry should have mixed feelings, but in Season 1, it seemed like he was pretty black and white about it, which is weird considering he had known her since birth, so you'd think there would be some loving moment he would look back on.  He didn't skip a beat when he concluded that Regina murdered Graham or that she was trying to kill Emma. 

There's no sign of any affection between Henry and Regina in season one. Although they later tried to spin it, even as early as 2A, that Regina's one redeeming quality was her love for Henry and that was her motivation for changing, they seem to have forgotten that Emma's reason for staying in Storybrooke in the pilot rather than just returning Henry to his home and going back to her life was that her internal lie detector pinged in a big way when she asked Regina if she loved Henry.

The only times Regina truly acts like she cares about Henry's well-being in season one are during the mine cave-in (when she was probably more concerned about what Henry would find down there) and when Henry was dying of the poison Regina meant for Emma. Otherwise, he's a prize to be fought over. She doesn't even really seem to like him as a person. She doesn't try to spend time with him. She doesn't touch him. I guess maybe she quit trying after he rebuffed her, but even there, you'd think that if they formerly had a close, affectionate relationship before he learned she was the Evil Queen, it would still be a habit. We should have seen her reaching out and him flinching away, or maybe her starting to reach out and stopping herself. She doesn't behave like she was ever a mother who gave hugs and kisses.

If most people found themselves competing for their son's affections with the younger, hipper birth mother, they'd focus on actually winning over the kid while spending time with him so he couldn't be around the rival. Saturday morning would be like, "I let you sleep in, now have some pancakes, with chocolate chips, the way you like them. Then let's take a picnic and go for a hike, then tonight we'll get a pizza and watch Star Wars. Here are some comic books for you to read while you eat breakfast." Regina goes off to spend Saturday raping Graham and leaves Henry locked up alone in the house, doing his homework, with orders not to watch TV. Her way of competing with Emma is to make Emma look bad by having her betray him or fail to help his friends, with no concern that doing this will actually hurt Henry, and she tries to keep him away from Emma by destroying the place where they tend to meet, his favorite playground.

Regina was too good of a heartless villain in season one for her to be a credible reformed hero in the rest of the series. If you're watching at the pace of the original airing, I guess by 3B when Henry and Regina are so loving and affectionate and best buddies after he gets his memories back, it's been a couple of years since season one and we had Regina constantly talking about saving her son in 3A. It's really glaring if you're marathoning it because you get whiplash from him fully believing her to be evil and her not caring about him. I bet it's particularly jolting if you watch season one and then the end of season 7, when they practically act like they're dating.

To fix this, they either needed to show Regina trying with Henry in season 1 or have it be more of a process for them to build a relationship from scratch once she changed. The process of building a relationship could have been interesting and would have been good acting material. Flipping a switch made it seem inauthentic.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

This should've been overt in S2 and S3 when Regina was a live wire. 

I think the only time this showed outwardly was in the S4 premiere, when Emma brought Marian back.  Rewatch this scene carefully.   

Emma and Snow talk to Regina with kid gloves like they were afraid of what she might do.  Even Henry raised the possibility of her turning evil again (followed by crickets from all of Regina's BFFs).  Charming sounds like he outright thinks Regina will snap.  When Marian is calling Regina a "monster", I think we are supposed to see this as a parallel to Elsa thinking she's a monster.  But if you look subtly at the hesitancy of all the "heroes" to defend Regina (even Emma doesn't finish her sentence to say Regina isn't a monster), it could be telling.  If that was their first gut reaction, then it means that deep down, their true feelings about Regina wasn't all sunshine and rainbow stickers. 

I remember I was annoyed how they weren't defending Marian, but you could interpret this as everyone being afraid to trigger Regina further.  Maybe this explains how they were acting in S4, between Emma declaring her deep wish to be Regina's friend, or everyone jumping on the "Find the Author!" bandwagon or Snow validating Regina committing adultery, etc.  All we need is to add a few more private scenes between Emma and Snow, for example, talking about her experience back in time seeing The Evil Queen literally burn Snow alive and how that was affecting how she saw Regina.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Camera One