BRB devouring Myril’s post…
…
…And I’m back.
I hadn’t thought a lot about how the residents of Storybrooke would feel about their government, but I think it is probably a safe wager that their feelings about their particular monarchy (Snow/Charming) wouldn’t have changed. It’s true, they existed for 28 years as residents of a world where democracy exists- however even during their time as Storybrooke citizens it was common knowledge that Regina and Gold held all of the power there was to be held in their town. Nobody ever challenged Regina as mayor (I think this is said explicitly in an early episode) and any power that didn’t fall directly under Mayoral jurisdiction was in Gold’s hands. It wasn’t a true democracy because everyone was kept in line by their fear.
Also- it isn’t as though people in FTL weren’t accustomed to having cruel and unfair Kings and Queens (even excepting Regina). Plenty of monarchs were cruel, sending children to fight in wars, stopping at no cost to fund their bankrupt Kingdoms (Why is every kingdom broke in FTL? Is it all of the wars? Or is the Dark One just wreaking havoc by inflating prices with all of his gold? XD) I think the idea of having a fair and just leader is more important to them than how that person came to power.
And of course, there’s the nostalgia factor. After waking up from their curse the residents of Storybrooke are still stranded in a strange land- and many of them are homesick, some to the point that they’d rather forget their past lives if there’s no way to get back home. It’s no wonder that they’d want to fall back and rely on a (much loved) leading pair, Snow and Charming. I think we also have an interesting contrast with David during “We Are Both”. He tries to lead in the manner of a “modern man”, assembling everyone at the town hall, revealing his plan etc- but that doesn’t go well because it’s not what he’s suited for and in the end it’s not what people respond to. He is much more effective at the town line when he takes on the guise of the “hero”, giving a speech that sounds much more like a commander rallying his troops and encouraging them to soldier on. David’s kicking it old school, because that’s how he knows how to kick. ^_^
This of course doesn’t mean that the people won’t take back ideas from the modern world back to FTL. Some things might not make sense without a more advanced infrastructure (and honestly, it’s hard to say what physical bastions of civilization are still left in FTL), but maybe ideas like a more unified health care system and libraries wouldn’t be amiss. There’s a lot of work to be done restoring their old world and a little forward thinking would go a long way! Especially now that I imagine all the folks of FTL are literate, a skill that might not have belonged to them in their old lives.
Back to the Ogre’s war, I’m really curious how those events went. In “The Return” Rumple tells Bae that he created a “truce” in the war (not that he ended it, which was what I first thought, I had to go back and watch). I wonder what the statute of limitations were on that truce (200 years maybe? Haha…) if the fighting is as bad as it is during “Skin Deep”. Also interesting in that situation (although perhaps better suited to another thread) he uses the phrase, “I led the children home”. I know those children would have been eager to return home, but how do you round up thousands of children from a bloody battle field in an orderly manner? Magic? A magic flute perhaps?
(Psst, Cat, your love of the Pied Piper is showing.)
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him."
