Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

I thought Frozen was good, but I agree, it’s kind of funny how it became such a hit.  It’s like the hula-hoop, its a fun toy, but why it became a national obsession for a time and now is just one more toy in the aisle, who knows?  Some things are just fads, its not that they are any better or worse than other things but maybe its a matter of timing or hitting a nerve in the culture at the right time–not that the thing that starts the fad is always totally useless or horrible.  A hula hoop after all is still good exercise and fun!

In many ways, Frozen just did things other Disney/Pixar films did.  Spunky, active heroine? Yes, look at Tangled and Princess and the Frog, and the Pixar Brave.  Romance isn’t the love story?  Yes, I mentioned Brave already, all about the mother and daughter relationship.  What it did though was combine things so there was the music and beautiful 3D visuals, the romance and the strong family story about sisters.  Little girls didn’t want to dress up as Queen Elinor–but Queen Elsa? They like her much more, want to identify and be her more than Anna even.  I was at a little kids library program where they sung that “When I grow up to be…” song, and almost every little girl said she wanted to be Elsa. ( Go figure.  I was proud of mine (6) for saying she wanted to be an architect, but then for Halloween guess who even she wants to be?  Yes, Elsa.  ) She loves her for building the ice palace…but there’s something powerful about Elsa in a way that other Disney princess heroines I suppose have never been.  Of course, she’s not a Disney princess, she’s a Queen.   She doesn’t revel that she has these powers and can do whatever she want regardless of how it hurts others–it actually horrifies her.  She runs away to protect everyone from her, but also to give her a measure of freedom to be who she is, tired of repressing her power for the greater good.  So she is in many ways, not the villain from whom everyone needs to be saved, but the one who needs to be saved as well.

I can see why A&E loved Frozen.  The problem though is what they set out to write was much worse.  Regina, Jones, and Rumple all were actually selfish people who at times have reveled in that.   Regina laughing as Marian pleas for mercy?  That’s a horrible image, and Elsa never seemed amused by the pain she caused people, unlike I would say, Regina, Jones and Rumple at times.  They found it funny or amusing  when they hurt people sometimes.    I think the writers did intend to originally write them as sociopaths, but the problem is, they’re the more appealing and interesting characters to the writers and a lot of the audience, and whatever their original intentions (shown by hiring Sbarge and Ory, planning arcs for them, for Bailey and the last straw for me as an enchanted rather than disenchanted fan, for MRJ.. )–this is where we are.

What I think interesting is that there is something intertwined between heroes and villains.  This article is a very interesting read on it.    Thin Line .   So heroes and Villains are alike –its easy at times to confuse the two, or to imagine reasons they should get along, or that one could flip easily from one to the other.  Of course we root for  people to find the light rather than lose it.

I’m all for seeing that sort of story, if indeed it IS that.  This is where OUAT fails though, because the redemption is achieved by shortcuts aplenty.  Victims have zero voice in this story to talk about their pain.   Anything bad the villains do is, since Season 3, gets dismissed as “in the past”–yet the past is what happens to the present after  a commercial break.   It drives me nuts that there’s no real moral confrontation in this story about the attitude and choices the villains have.   So the villains can have evil ambitions that get thwarted or they change their mind last second, so no lasting harm done, and even if lasting harm is done (like with Graham or Johanna), no one talks about it to those responsible.   King George gets locked up in the mines for trying to frame Ruby and killing Gus–the last sort of attempt at justice on the show.  Apparently everyone’s been just content with Mirror sitting in jail for a crime that Regina orchestrated then framed him for all of it –and she’s never felt on her own hey, I should let that guy out because HE doesn’t deserve to be there for MY crime.  Or maybe I should try to return some of these hearts.

From what I hear, its all about  her quest for happiness.    Instead of Regina telling Robin she understands and wants him to be happy even if not with her (aww, heartbreak), we apparently will have him telling her he loves her still but he’s got the ball and chain, so what are you going to do? She’ll decide to be a hero and save Marian, showing growth–but meanwhile she’s also secretly plotting to break up Marian’s marriage to Robin essentially by finding the author of the books to rewrite her fate.   Spoiler Regina, they already rewrote it, stop worrying!  You’ll be fine.  Marian? Not so much–one way or another, whether she pulls a Katherine/Abigail “I want to find someone who loves me as much as you love her….” or gets hit by a truck, Marian’s not getting her happy ending with Robin.  Everyone else has to settle for a new definition of happiness (August? Reversion to child of course.  Neal? Heroic Death.  Marian? If she’s lucky, she can live to cheer her ex-husband marrying the woman who in a now alternate timeline killed her, and still in this timeline cursed everyone for decades and slaughtered hundreds of others and then redeemed in the sense, she’s found less selfish and damaging ways of seeking her happiness without needing to feel compassion and a desire to restore happiness to those she stole it from.  Yes, this show is ALL about hope).

Remember when Regina thought Henry would be enough?  Kind of what Cora told Regina as she died–but apparently that’s not enough for Regina anymore.  She still wants it all–and what’s changed is that the writers are determined (because fans are) to see she gets it.  Not right away, of course, but it is the clearly marked destination for this story now–Emma bringing back Happy Endings isn’t about restoring the wrongs Regina and Rumple created anymore–it is to make sure Regina, Rumple and Jones all get their happy endings and that everyone else redefines their happiness to fit within that, or dies or otherwise is put out of the way.

There’s a quote from Jane Austen that fits the writing and fan view of this story very well.  “With a perversity of judgement, which must be attributed to his not having by Nature a very strong head, the Graces, the Spirit, the Sagacity, and the Perseverance, of the Villain of the Story outweighed all his absurdities and all his Atrocities with Sir Edward. With him, such Conduct was Genius, Fire and Feeling. It interested and inflamed him; and he was always more anxious for its Success and mourned over its Discomfitures with more Tenderness than could ever have been contemplated by the Authors.”
― Jane Austen

Except these authors not only contemplated and endorsed such tenderness, they encourage it, and it has become the lynchpin of their story.  We shouldn’t for example cringe that Rumple covers up his lie to Belle and his murder of Zelena.  No we should root that no one catches him in that lie or discovers what he’s done, because it was just in the past, and he wouldn’t do that again!    Good thing all it takes is visiting Neal’s grave, for Bae to inspire him to be better, no need to waste screen time on or pay on an actor to say nothing in response to all that, right?   If he were alive, maybe he could call Rumple out but then Neal would  be raged at by the fanbase, so really, its best its just Rumple talking and chastising himself.  Its not ok for anyone else to say he’s done wrong and needs to do better, perhaps not even Belle, for we all think he’s perfect, unless he himself thinks otherwise, and even then, we must disagree with him.