In sum, I don’t think there is any one “moral of the story” precisely because OUAT has done away with traditional fairytales in which there usually are clear boundaries or right and wrong, and instead said we’re all a little messed up, but that with enough belief, faith, and hope everything can work out in the end (except when it doesn’t for certain characters).
See my problem with this, is that it’s wholly unrealistic. You can have all the belief, faith, and hope in the world and sometimes (very often) things simply don’t work out in the end. Sometimes you don’t get that happily ever after, sometimes your dreams do not come true. Now, I recognize we’re dealing with the medium of TV where everyone expect this to have a happily ever after message, but it’s not realistic. And if ONCE is going to realism (and in the first season, I think they were and with each passing season they’ve gotten further away from that) it’s not succeeding anymore. And not having it work out doesn’t have to mean loneliness or isolation or death. It could just be that you accept your fate and any consequences of your actions. Bobby Carlyle has gone on record a few times as saying that he doesn’t think Rumple should get his happy ending with Belle (and formerly with Bae) because of all the terrible things Rumple has done. As a shipper of Rumbelle, I disagree. But as a person who lives on Real! Planet Earth, he’s 100% right. Where’s the realism? Has ONCE lost it?
The reason I prefer this definition of love to any other on the parent show is that it’s not about an unrealistic, unobtainable ideal or some pie-in-the-sky notion that seems ungrounded in reality. It presents love as a choice, as an act of forgiveness. Real loves doesn’t have to mean acceptance of wrong doing, but it does allow for forgiveness. I think this gets to the heart of what most real-life couples go through, which can include breaking up and getting back together. It’s not meant to excuse bad behavior, but it does allow for how to imperfect people can make love work.
Absolutely. Will’s definition of love is my absolute favorite because it’s so grounded in the reality of what love really is. If love were an element–earth, air, fire, water–it would be fire. It can be absolutely destructive. It can kill and main and hurt and traumatize. It can leave cities as dust in the wind. It will consume you and burn you up until you are nothing more than a hollowed out shell of your former self. But like fire, it’s also LIFE. It can save you from the cold and dark. It can light your way, and all these other metaphors I can come up with.
But my problem with ONCE is that they focus on only one aspect–everything is acceptable because love. Well, no. There needs to be accountability and responsibility and a mea cupla. You cannot simply brush away bad deeds or negative aspects and say “loved saved this person” because love is not just a salvation force. Maybe there is forgiveness at the end, but first there must be a reckoning.