Put it this way, folks. Why do we like the characters we like? If I were to ask each of you to explain why your favorite character is you favorite, I would be some good money I’d get this sort of answer: “because I understand them.” We not only sympathize with the character, we empathize with them. They become some sort of televised avatar and our struggles and pains and longing and needs play out in their stories. It’s what @Myril was saying in her first monster essay: it might be escapism, but there must still be something that connects to you, your very self and the world in which you inhabit. Even if ONCE took place 5000000 years from now and everyone lived in a giant submarine, there would still be something that connects back to you, the audience, in your present day.
Doctor Who or Star Trek fans: you travel the stars to great distant times and places, and always–ALWAYS–there is something fundamentally human about the places and people. And most often, it’s the morality. There are certain taboos or cultural moires that harken back to that which is understandable and familiar.
My fear is that ONCE is loosing that in an effort to push storytelling. That a basic moral message is getting lost in the SHINY! of the couple/ship.