I’ve seen a lot on how Regina and Emma’s relationship will possibly change next season since Marian is back, but I haven’t seen anything about how Marian being back will affect Regina’s friendship with Snow, and also, the big secret that Rumple killed Zelena will affect Regina’s friendship with Rumple?
Interesting that you use the term “friendship”, because that’s not what I would use describing or naming the relationships of Regina to Snow or Rumple. Actually would say Regina has no friends, not even Tinkerbell fits that, though the relationship between them could become friendship. And maybe Maleficent came close to being a sort of friend, but she is not in this picture at the moment.
Snow and Regina are family. As it is with family, sometimes they get along better, sometimes they don’t get along at all, and somehow they feel nevertheless entitled to deal with each other. We have family, we don’t choose them 😉 Having now been on the other side of jealousy, Regina might have a bit of an insight, how ridiculous and toxic some of her attitudes towards Snow had been, but some things are hard to get over.
Considering the past season, I would say, Snow will be rather busy idolizing and pampering her baby, while as usual not getting Regina (that Snow seems to have given her like umpteenth second chances doesn’t mean she ever had any understanding of Regina) and probably hardly getting anything going on for people outside her little baby bubble. Being the obstinate believer in true-love-solves-everything Snow is, she probably will tell Regina without even being asked, that things will sort out, she just has to have hope and trust.
Somehow can’t help it and even picture Snow kinda teaming up with Regina against her own daughter, snubbing Emma for having been so stupid to mess up things. But that is because by now the writers have pretty much ruined the character of Snow, the bandit, open minded, smart strong, complex woman from season 01.
Regina and Rumple aren’t friends either, Rumple was her dark magic teacher and he exploited her. That doesn’t excuse anything Regina did, but those two had and have a rather toxic relationship. They might tolerate each other in a way, for the sake now of Henry, but I don’t see any friendly feelings between them. At best Rumple will stay away from Regina and mind just his own business, whatever he is up to, but worst case scenario for me is, that he might be up to something and again use Regina’s nonreflective anger and reemerging fears for his own purposes. Meanwhile Regina hardly will care what Rumple is doing, and won’t go and ask him for any advice or help, unless she’s in need of a special spell or ingredients for some spell.
Now if Regina learns that Rumple killed Zelena, that could be interesting. It is one thing to want to kill your own family, but most people would still not let anyone else do it. But it might be not just about family feelings. Can argue, if Rumple hadn’t killed Zelena, the time portal probably wouldn’t have been activated, Emma wouldn’t have gone through and brought Marian back with her, Robin would hardly learn that Regina was about to execute Marian, which might put some strain on whatever feelings there are. Right, it seems more likely that events kinda repeat itself, so Regina blaming Emma like she blamed Snow once, but who knows. Talking of considering consequences. Rumple with all his knowledge about magic, his hundred of years of experience, with the ability to see glimpses of the future (does he still have that ability?) goes and kills out of pure revenge and without any regards for anyone else.
Which makes me think about, that it could be interesting if Regina after a first reserved or hostile reaction would team up with Elsa against Rumple. Seriously, Regina should finally get, that if anyone else is to blame for ruining her life but her than she should take a very hard look at Rumple. Could create some interesting conflict for everybody, seeing that Rumple is the granddad of Henry at the same time, the only one left as connection to Henry’s father side, that I am rather sure Snowing would on first (wrong) intuition take more likely Rumple’s side, and be it just for Belle’s sake, while Emma could probably feel somewhat guilty for how things turned out regarding Neal as well as for bringing Marian back, though she sure will feel it was right to safe a live.
It was Marian’s destiny to die, which means Emma screwed up Fate! And screwing up Fate will have major consequences on both her and Marian’s behalf. Whether or not it was a bad thing to happen, it was still her fate to die, and in order to right the universe….Marian will have to die
Was it destiny? Who says so? Because she died as far as we know in the “original” timeline? But as well can say, it was destiny for Emma to go back in time, to mess up her own parents meeting, to get a different idea what family and home means, and it was actually Marian’s fate to live, and fate corrected itself by letting Emma save her to create the “right” timeline. That is the thing with time travel and even more when destiny and fate comes into play, who can tell which of the timelines is the one doing it right according to whatever power allegedly set the destiny for a person?
Furthermore I am very much with @timespacer regarding destiny and fate. I dislike that concept, in real life as much as in fiction. In fiction it kills character development and story IMO. It’s a convenient way to avoid to endure that there is maybe not an answer to everything, that some things just don’t make sense but nevertheless are and happen, that life is not all predictable but still we are in charge of what we make of it, that there are conflicting interests sometimes even inside of one person but definitely between people, conflicts we can’t magically make disappear. Claiming destiny is the easy way out, it is what Rumple is doing all the time deflecting his own responsibilities.
It would be too easy to let it be destiny for Marian to die. Don’t worry Regina, things will turn out more or less fine, destiny meant for Marian to be out of your way anyway, just sit back and let it happen. Actually she should be grateful to Emma, because that way the conflict is resolved that Regina was the one who (now have to say) tried to execute, murder Marian, while Robin was meant to be her true love. All is good, it was just destiny forcing her hand, and thankfully Emma messed fate up, so Robin can forgive Regina, and destiny will now find a better, less morally disturbing way to get rid of Marian for them. There was intend but no execution. Where is the character grow in that? I have a growing problem with the one true love trope concerning OutlawQueen and even more if the writers would do some destiny trope, the universe rights itself plot with Marian. Good old fairy tale simplicity maybe, but it would leave a very, very bad taste for me concerning this allegedly meant to be true love.
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