Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

I hate the Baelfire retcon, but it doesn’t ruin the character for me because I still think he was a good person. The problem is that I have to do a lot of work to explain to myself what they’re trying to do. As I see it, there are two main problems: sloppy worldbuilding and consequent retconning of the dagger, and Baelfire ordering to kill Beowulf. This part especially is either just lazy, sloppy writing, or a conscious effort to take the character off the “pedestal,” or a combo of the two. Much like what they did to Snowing at one point.

Pretty much THAT. I really didn’t like the retcon, but I’ll always love Baelfire. This new development seems so left field and OOC for me, but sadly I’m not surprised. For some reason, these writers feel the need to darken our heros — Snow, Charming, Emma, Robin, and Belle — to make the other villains look better by comparison.

So, it doesn’t come as much surprise that the writers would rake Baelfire through the mud, despite his being dead for 3 seasons. Sadly, I think the writers fail to realize that they’ve ended up throwing their show under the bus as a result. I predict the ratings will continue to go down this season and become even more fractional. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit 0.6 by half way through S6b. About shoddy world building, I agree. Besides the former dark ones who felt the allure of the dagger, the only people who’ve been shown to like the power of controlling the dark one were pretty much Cora and Zelena, but they were already power hungry and evil. But we haven’t been given much, if any, evidence of others who liked the power the came with controlling the dagger. Neither Regina nor Belle really showed much evidence that they liked contolling the dark one. This isn’t LOTR where the ring actually spoke to anyone who held it. The only ones affected by the lure of the dark one dagger are those who’ve been cursed. *head desk*