Once Upon A Moral Conundrum

Basically If something/someone intervened in the characters original actions but the outcomes happened anyway but just in a different way (So Marian disappeared, Zelena ended up dead, Bae still ended up in Pan’s clutches, Emma still turned out as season 1 Emma) Should the audience still judge the characters on their original actions because we know what they did whereas the characters don’t?

This is, essentially, why I have a lot of issues with the s3B finale; crimes were erased, new crimes that are not really crimes were given, all in an effort to create drama. I’m much more interested in the idea of people doing the work to pay for their sins. I am an audience member; I do not have amnesia. I remember what these characters have done. Sweeping their sins under a rug with some magical hand waving time travel is lazy. It’s not how forgiveness and redemption work. You have to DO the work. In real life no one is going to come along and absolve of your sins without you, your very self, actually owning up to those crimes and asking for forgiveness. I understand that fantasy and the real world are not one and the same, but this show operates under the paradigm that the real world and the fantastical have collided. For any character to move forward you cannot keep erasing their past and saying, “never happened, new drama!” It’s unfair to the story, it’s unfair to the character and it’s unfair to the audience.

We judge characters on what we know about them and not on what the characters know anyway, and that can be a difference of knowledge without any time travel, changes in time line. We judge them from our point of view and experience and culture, which is absolutely okay, but differs from how the characters see themselves and others. Seeing things just from our (audience, outside) point of view might though prevent us from understanding, how things developed, why characters do things they do. Not that we have to see their point of view, but it can broaden once horizon.

Should we judge people on what happened in a different timeline? What we know from the other timeline are insight into how the character acted when things were slightly or more different, it gives us insights into where the characters could have gone if, and I find it okay, if we don’t forget about it in our overall judgment. The interesting qestions is, what did change in the timeline, was the different outcome something that showed a different set of thoughts, motivation within the character or was it merely that the character was prevent from doing what they did in the other timeline by outer forces. So did merely the circumstances change or did the character?

We know little about the changes in the timeline following Emma’s trip into the past. It seems though that most still happened as it did before, maybe with a few variations. So far I have no reason to assume that much of what we have seen in the three seasons has changed at all. Tthings like Regina murdering her own father and sending an assasin after her own mother likely still happened, and for sure she cast the curse. A lot of what we have seen has happened before the point anyway, Regina was already Evil Queen, wasn’t she. So I don’t think that much was swept under the rug, if anything at all. (It’s not necessary, a number of fans seem to suffer amnesia anyway or seem to have seen a very different show)

The changes we know of:

Regina had not the chance anymore to execute Marian, because she disappeared, on the other hand not much of the original outcome at that point seemed to have changed, Robin still though he had failed his love and mother of his son and that she died. It doesn’t change that Regina had the intention to execute Marian, imprisoned her, and I have so far no reason to assume he wouldn’t have done it if Marian had been still in her dungeon.

Can’t put Regina anymore on trial for executing Marian (legally anyway doubtful, unless marked as war crime, an atrocity against human rights, otherwise Regina as more or less rightful ruler had the right to set a law declaring everyone helping Snow or preventing her capture as committing treason and set death penalty for that). Morally that is a different matter. She still was about to do it, just was prevented from doing it. And I find it right to judge Regina for that action of hers.

For Regina: She barely cared about peasants as Evil Queen and I have not the impression she cares by now more about the “little” people and all the damage and suffering she has done to them. That she executed Marian in the original timeline hasn’t bothered her, and now she can even more claim no guilt for herself, because Marian is still alive, though without her doing. Totally undeserved. It didn’t change out of her doings, it changed because of what some else did. No extra point on her redemption card, I am even more inclined to take points away. That will depend a lot on how she will handle Marian being alive and back in Robin’s in Roland’s lives.

For Robin: He didn’t seem to know before that Regina imprisoned his wife and was thought to be responsible for her death, otherwise I can’t explain at all how he ever could fall in love with Regina. I don’t care about fate and what pixie dust tells (and I don’t even say fairy are sneaky), but knowing now Regina was involved raises plenty of more questions about this love for me. Now Robin can feel maybe a bit relieved, that he didn’t fell in love with his wife’s murderer, but Regina was only prevented from doing by others, that change came not from her. Well, it’s his conscience he has to live with. But I never got his love in the first place, being thankful for saving the life of his sons his is in view of all the other things Regina did and Robin new of not enough IMO to sell love to me. Not that quickly happening. I know, people fall in love with jerks and brutal thugs and even serial killers, but that questions there morality as well. Serial killers groupies are illussional. The basic question Robin has to ask himself considering his feelings to Regina have IMO not changed with the change that Marian didn’t die.

Emma didn’t go back to change things, she accidentally was taken back and accidentally changed things, which she then tried as best as she could to tidy. She quite sure committed a violation of any time directive set by Star Trek command, sorry, time traveler rules (unless she were the new Dr. Who) by helping Marian to escape the dungeon. To keep the damage at bay Emma took Marian then with her. Emma made mistakes but she didn’t do anything evil like a few others did. Emma shouldn’t be judge negatively in any way. Nothing says that bringing back Marian will destroy for the next decade or longer Regina’s happiness, so people judge on what they assume anyway. Besides that breaking Regina’s heart (if) outweighs in my book not reuniting Roland with his mother, who loves him.

Other scenarios. If in different timeline Rumple had decided not to kill Zelena, that would make a huge different, but if he was just prevented from doing it because Zelana had escaped and then was killed by a car or so, to me it does still seed doubts about his mind and motivations. Couldn’t put Rumple anymore on trial for murder, right, but I very well still can question his morality.

Another case. If it hadn’t been Hook handing Bae over, it depends a lot on how else it happened. If he was not at all around and in another world, no, couldn’t blame him, but then Bae might have drowned on the sea unless been taken by the merpeople. If Smee would have raised a mutiny and taken over the ship to do it, and Hook was chained under deck, that what make a difference too. If he just had Smee do it and turned his back, more or less pretending he couldn’t do anything about it, that would have made no difference.