Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[kfchimera]

Phee that’s a fantastic signature.

Ranisha, I’m caught up on Grimm and looking forward to it.  I did make the mistake of peeking at online fandoms about it–woah nelly!  Is it just an internet thing that mean, flirtatious characters need to be coddled and hugged and good, compassionate but willing to stand up for themselves type characters are “boring” and need to be killed?   Because I’m sensing a pattern, that’s all I’m saying, and if I want to keep enjoying Grimm–I think I better stay away from reading what people think should happen or what they think happened.  Maybe I just stumbled on the wrong forum but after what happened with OUAT, I kind of don’t think so.

As I see interviews straggling out from Adam and Eddy, I have to admire their ability to talk out of both sides of their mouth.  It’s really an art.    Like this gem, we don’t write ships, but then in an interview when asked if the core characters would be pushed to the side, they answer (and its in quotes) that Rumple and Belle, Hook and Emma, Robin and Regina and Snow and Charming will (I’m paraphrasing now) get development. They didn’t say all our core characters, or just list the names in general, or talk in general we have a larger story that of course will impact the lives of our (then list them all, including Henry).  Nope.  They listed couples.  Later in another interview, they talk about how Rumple and Hook ‘s “detente” will come to an end–interesting choice of words, to suggest they have not actually stopped hostility towards each other, they just backed off for a temporary time.  Another interview talked about Henry and Regina having a big upcoming plot.   Then they’ve teased some things for Elsa and Emma–in short, there was absolutely ZERO need to push the whole “its a show about couples” but they knew the audience of that particular interviewer, so that’s what the pushed there.  Then when people complain about shipping and the focus on romance and all–oh no, there’s plenty more.  Tah dah, both sides of their mouth work to say what they think we want to hear.  ALl I know is, their track record tells me what they care about writing, where they devote the most scenes and what ends up being the ploys of their villains. 

I was musing today that the writers could have brought Lancelot back as the pixie dust soulmate–a guy who has a sense of honor, a backstory with Snow, and instead of having a loving wife and kid–he would have had a paramour married to another man–a situation that didnt’ end happily. Now there’s a second chance at love I could honestly have rooted to see.  Instead, we get to root for Regina to break up a marriage and/or for a kid to lose his mother somehow, someway.  We’re supposed to comfort ourselves that “it was always supposed to happen that way”–but who made that choice? The writers.  Who killed off Neal (see I’m trying to talk about Neal, I’m sorry I know this veered way off course for the thread)?  The writers have a slant to what they write, and whatever they tell us their intentions are, and whatever they may have initially been when they signed up various actors for arcs that went nowhere–where they end is always in the pile of cheap melodrama.

Speaking of cheap melodrama–I applaud RG for that Love and Romance, what’s the message thread–you did a beautiful job of setting up a discussion that almost could manage to avoid the shipper bias that usually infests any attempt to talk about these things.  That thread basically covers why I said I feel about the current relationships in the show more or less the same–there’s really something off and unsettling in all of them if you poke hard enough.  The question is, can you enjoy the dynamic and ignore the previous history and context?  Can you watch OUAT like it is a Twinkie–tasty little confection if you ignore its lack of nutritional value?  I don’t think there IS a message–at least, there’s an outward candy shell of a message but the actual way they write these relationships falls off the rails sometimes because they also just can’t help themselves from going for the big twists and shocking moments.

I came across this review, and I find it interesting.  OUAT is the Best Worst Show You’re Watching   I agree with a lot said there–particularly about how the show does better when it DOES NOT take itself seriously.  In the comments, someone mentioned that review special with Adam and Eddy, and how seriously they talk about everything–that’s the problem.  It’s their tone.  One second they’re laughing hah hah about something they wrote on twitter, then the next they’re putting the serious face on to deal with fans who take offense.  If they think they’re writing something one click above the little shorts they do for Comic Con–one step before broad farce, then fine.  We aren’t supposed to take it seriously, and we’re SUPPOSED to laugh at how outrageous some things are.  Emma’s hand waiving in the air, saying she will avenge August–then promptly more or less forgetting all about him.

So I suppose if they’re aware of how they contradict themselves, does it make it better? I don’t know.