Some may say Rumple is further down the road to redemption even though he has been seen to follow his old ways every now and then but that’s fine since he is changing into a better person and with any sort of change its slow and gradual and there will be bumps along the road. Why can’t the same ‘allowance’ be given to Regina. Why is it that as soon as Regina slips up Oncers seem to forget the ‘good’ she has done and focus on the ‘bad’ meanwhile Rumple is given a different sort of reasoning that places him above her (talking in general terms). If your going to judge one character judge the others in the same way or else it will all be for nought.
The difference between Rumple and Regina is that Rumple takes responsibility for his actions. Regina blames others for her bad deeds. For example, when Regina is massacring villages and burning down homes, she blames Snow for the peasants not loving her. Regina is capable of redemption, she started making progress in early season 2, but since then she has blamed everybody else for anything that has gone wrong for her, instead of taking into account that she may have had a hand in it herself.
Regina’s redemption can’t be based on whether or not everybody loves her and never brings up her past again. It needs to be based on how she chooses to not be the person she was, how she chooses to make the right choice even if she doesn’t benefit from it, and how she strives to be a better person even though it is hard and difficult and sometimes she may stumble. Regina trying to find the author of the book and force them to write her a happy ending is not Regina redeeming herself, it’s Regina trying to take a shortcut. It’s like Little Red Hen Syndrome, Regina wants to eat the bread without helping to make it in any way, or in other words, Regina wants the reward without putting in the hard work required to obtain that reward.
Regina is making progress in some areas of redemption, such as she is rebuilding her relationship with Snow and healing their past, so points to Regina for that. However in other areas Regina isn’t making any redemption progress at all such as in her treatment of Marian. Regina killed her in the original timeline, at the very least locked her up and kept her prisoner until Emma freed her, and Regina is now planning to get rid of Marian because Regina wants Robin all for herself.
Let us not forget the other main villain (of sorts) in this show Hook. The writers have shown a great deal of change and goodness in Regina and Rumple, in Hook it appears to me as if they have barely or partially shown any of this and have decided to fast forward his redemption and just hand him his happy ending on a golden plate. We have not really seen him go through the turmoil Regina and Rumple have experienced and it very much irritates me as it would be good to have an insight into that side of Hook’s character which I think has been skipped.
This I agree on. We haven’t seen Hook struggle as much as Regina and Rumple, though at the moment we haven’t really seen the full extent of his bad deeds yet to determine whether he has done stuff as bad as Regina and Rumple.
Here’s something that I don’t believe has been brought up, but Rumple killing Zelena as vengeance for Neal is actually history repeating itself. After all, Rumple killed Tamara for thinking she killed Neal, too. The main difference is there was no lying to Belle involved. However, Rumple still killed a defenseless woman, and one who was already dying. But of course that will never be brought up because none of the characters mourn Tamara, nor do the writers clearly care to say anything more about her. Heck, fans actually cheered Rumple on once he did that due to Tamara being a very unpopular character. Neal never even found out, and he was the one engaged to her.
This is a good point. Nobody gave Rumple a hard time over Tamara, yet people are giving him the side eye over Zelena. This could all be to do with the fact that Tamara wasn’t fleshed out beyond Neal’s cheating fiancée whereas Zelena got a backstory and was fleshed out more.
Also I thought Neal was present when Tinkerbell revealed that GOAT were dead because she got the watch off the body and spent hours scrubbing blood off of it? It would’ve been nice to see Neal show some sort of emotion over Tamara’s death considering he was going to marry her, instead it seems like his reaction was “meh, whatever!”
We generally are more understanding if we like a person, or a character, more willing to find good explanations, see that they are trying though maybe failing, we usually struggle to call a person out for bad stuff without fuss or quibble if we like them. The more we like a person, even identify with them, the less likely we will convict, condemn them, or at least if then we go for a lenient sentence.
I agree and think this is why Rumple, Regina and Hook can literally get away with murder. We like them, we want them to succeed. We all have our favourites and that is why we don’t like any character that is in opposition to our favourite. For example, we like Cinderella less than Rumple. We like Zelena less than Regina and Rumple. I hated season 2 Hook because Rumple was my favourite.
Eventually though, when pushed too hard to feel sympathy, the opposite can happen as well, it is felt as forced, unearned, the person/character becomes disliked. When disliked a person has to do so much more to get (back) on our good side.
I agree. I think this was Zelena’s main problem. The writers were trying to push us to feel sorry for Zelena in the episode “it’s not easy being green” and it didn’t work. Zelena just came off as whiny and spoilt. However Zelena came across a little more sympathetic in the episode Kansas when Glinda let Dorothy sit in Zelena’s chair. Zelena thought she had found acceptance and instead she suddenly found she was being passed over for Dorothy. It still wasn’t enough for me to care that Zelena was killed because of her present day actions especially towards Rumple.
All magic comes with a price!
Keeper of Felix