405: Critical Analysis

So, my question then is, if these things were the writers ‘baiting’ various members of the audience — what would you have rathered seen, or not seen? Would you have NOT wanted them to include Neal in Emma’s memory box? Would you rather NOT see Emma/Regina’s friendship grow if it’s not going to turn romantic? Woudl you NOT want to see Emma did put the shoelace back on?

Many shows, even movie series, have done it, do it, the wink to the audience, to their fans (casual audience might not always see or get the wink). I have no problem with that in general, and wouldn’t call that baiting at all. Fanservice is to give fans what they want, and in the less friendly view, it is defined as giving the fans what they want without the moment having any merits for the story, not advancing the plot, not establishing anything important for the character, just there to titilate, excite the fans. The classic is to show a good looking guy shirtless whenever possible or to linger on a womans but or boobs just for the looks (which is done though even without fans wishing for it, so not just as fanservice but as well can be a general visual trope in entertainment). Having a sex scene of favorite and perhaps shipped charaters just for the naked skin is fanservice. Having someone beating up some attackers just to show some bloody fighting is fansrvice. Letting to shipped characters kiss just because is fanservice. It’s sometimes debated if a certain scene was just fanservice or did something to advance the plot or explore the character (pretty much every kiss scene of CaptainSwan in this season was discussed). But as well one can call a lot of references fanservice, like the reference to Asgard in the recent episode (not just that Disney owns the Marvel Cinematic Univers, David, Josh Dallas played in on of the movies and Asgardian). Fanservice can be nice and fun, but it can turn offensive to the fandom at times, practically turned into a joke, purposfully overdone to mock the fans, and as it is always, sometimes something might have been meant not offensive but comes across as offensive.

There is fanservice of the good kind. One of the best recent examples coming to my mind is a scene from past season Lost Girl, Lost Girl Car Wash. They used it even as promo. Did nothing for the story, was just there for the fans, but it was fun, enjoyable, and you could tell, cast and crew had fun doing it as well. It was a gift to the fans for their love. That’s how one can do good fanservice. (And it’s not like there is not some shipping fights going on there as well, for those not knowing the show – the two blonds, man and woman, staring at the dark haired washing the cars both are in love with her, have/had a romance with her, look for TeamLaura, TeamDyson, and it has become even a quadrangle with TeamTamsin)

In case of Neal the writers are walking on eggshells, and it’s really easy to come across the wrong way. They should be aware that the death of Neal, and how he died, is an issue in the fandom, for some fans more than for others, but overall an issue. Not that they have to care, but for marketing and PR it could be advisable to be aware of it. They are in the bad situation, that whatever they do could be taken the wrong way. No to mention would be as wrong as too much fanservice, bringing in the name, pictures, memory without doing anything for the plot and characters. Think they are walking a very, very fine line here at the moment. Now the pic in the recent episode of Emma and Neal, found in her box with memories – that was ambiguous. While remembering Neal was somewhat connected with the Emma flashback, another friend she made over stealing something, it still felt somewhat out of place, because this episode was about trust in friendship not so much romance. Did it do anything for the plot? Nope. Anything for the character (Emma)? Maybe. Was it any important in this moment? Don’t think so.

Now baiting is a different matter than fanservice. Baiting means to tease something you never intend to become canon, or that is how I would use it, and how it is used in the context with queer representation. Queerbaiting means to tease a same sex pairing without ever intending it to become canon. Again, it’s a fine line to walk at times, and it is often debated what is already queerbaiting and what not. The moment writers, actors, showmakers acknowledge a same sex pairing even just as fanon things get tricky. Eventually they don’t want to discourage fans to have their own imagination about characters and stories, their fanon, want to be nice and show they’re inclusive in general, but on the other hand they have their idea what they’re going to tell on the show, and that is a different one concerning these characters. Can you tell the story of a developing, close friendship of non-romantic, non-sexual nature without people nevertheless reading something different into it, and being even convinced, you did it intentionally so that they could read something different into it? Can you for sure avoid being misread? Probably not (and that is true for same sex as for different sex relationships, just that the later less often are portrayed as only friendship material).

The moment I concluded for me, that they did a bit of queerbaiting with this episode was, when the official Twitter account of the show tweeted the picture of Regina and Emma joining their magical powers to beat the Ice Viking giant – and used the hashtag #SwanQueen. I know, for a lot of people by now these portmanteaus (words, names blend together) are used for all kind of reasons and not limited to romance. The word ship, shipping is not even limited anymore to romance for some, but I am maybe old fashioned that way and still use ship for romantic pairings. While I might be someone seeing not such an exclusive line between friendship and romance though, I think that most in society still do, there is friendship and there is romance, not hundreds of shades in between. There is sexual and platonic (and always have to smirk, because if you look at Platon’s ideas about love, platonic means something bit different than as it is used for), nothing in between, we prefer it clear cut and binary in our culture. It is not that clear cut, but we prefer to see it that way. Using one and the same portmanteau for two quite different ideas of relationship is IMO, as things still are in our society, misleading and asking for conflict – even more stupid when there already has been some conflict about the character of Regina’s and Emma’s relationship, if a shipping war already revolves around this relationship. Or using the same hashtag is simply baiting. Invent a new portmanteau, it might be hijacked, but still you can try to distinguish. (some are using TeamMoms, though not sure in which way, so maybe something like Emgina) A baiting is seldom that much about just what is shown right on the show, but what happens around it, promotion, interviews.

But aside the queerbaiting in the promotion. To me not even the friendship makes much sense the way they are writing it. I get their intention, and it sounds nice and positive the way you described it, @Jenna_B, but that is not what I am seeing on the show. I agree, there are some things the two could bond over, and it is in Emma’s character to reach out, unlike Regina, whose character it is to leash out, so makes even sense, if Emma is the one trying harder to make it work than Regina does at the moment. Some see no way for a friendship between Emma and Regina seeing that what Regina did in the past (killed Emma’s grandfather, tried to kill her mother multiple times, Emma saw even how Regina put Snow on the stake and burnt her, luckily Snow could escape thanks to some dark pixie she had, and Regina tried to kill Emma, and all for no good reason) – why should the victim of a bully befriend her tormentor?

But for some, and I am one of them, the issue is not so much if there is a friendship eventually possible at some point and eventually developing, it is quite simple Emma saying, she wants to be friends with Regina. I can only take the flashback with Lily as an attempt to build up a parallel for Emma’s development, there she turns her back, walks away, here in the present time with Regina she stays and reaches out, but the problem is, Lily and Regina are very different people, and what they did to Emma are very different things, the parallel doesn’t work. Regina is far from redeemed, still struggles to admit her responsibility for the evil she did, doesn’t get yet, that it’s up to her to find happiness and not the doing of any kid, lover or higher power, she might be at a point where it would be good if there is someone not giving up on her, but that doesn’t mean to me the necessity of that someone wishing to be friends with her. But maybe that is because I have a definition of friendship that means pretty much only close friend, I care about people as well who I wouldn’t call friends, just because I know them and see they need support. There are friends, there is family, and there are acquaintances.

In real life for outside viewers people sometimes make don’t that much sense and even less seem to act any logical if it comes to any kind of relationship, so if these two were real life people, they didn’t even need to make much sense to anyone but themselves. But they’re fictional characters, and that is where fiction is never realistic, because while reality sometimes quite simply doesn’t makes sense, fiction has to make sense, it’s what it does, it tells stories making sense, giving us sense in a sometimes senseless world.

Still to make sense things have to be told in ways appearing realistic to us, we need to feel, see, that what is going on is something that could happen that very way, so it has to connect with common everyday life experience of emotions and behavior. Fiction can question that behavior, but if one feels a story is pretty much throwing all common sense over board, and that is a feeling some have with how they showed Emma and Regina here, then the connection is lost.

Good human psychology isn’t necessarily good television and that is 100% the goal here. It’s not a medical journal on psychology it’s a drama..

I am not all sure, what you mean with good human psychology, but guess you are meaning scientific psychology, in difference to common human sense and understanding and interpretation of the world, or amateur psychology, what I would call kitchen sink psychology. You’re right, this show is not a documentary about the human psych, this is entertainment, and fictional story telling works a bit different than scientific research. A good knowledge and understanding of common sense and world interpretation though is something quite important for good story telling IMO, if you want people to connect with your characters and their stories.

I’ve seen plenty of praise for the episode by fans (no idea, what casual viewers think, they seldom talk about it), but as well seen some very negative reactions. Grimmsistr is not the only fan I’ve seen saying, they’re done with the show now, that the episode was the last straw.

 I agree, there are some things the two could bond over, and it is in Emma’s character to reach out, unlike Regina, whose character it is to leash out, so makes even sense, if Emma is the one trying harder to make it work than Regina does at the moment. Some see no way for a friendship between Emma and Regina seeing that what Regina did in the past (killed Emma’s grandfather, tried to kill her mother multiple times, Emma saw even how Regina put Snow on the stake and burnt her, luckily Snow could escape thanks to some dark pixie she had, and Regina tried to kill Emma, and all for no good reason) – why should the victim of a bully befriend her tormentor? But for some, and I am one of them, the issue is not so much if there is a friendship eventually possible at some point and eventually developing, it is quite simple Emma saying, she wants to be friends with Regina. I can only take the flashback with Lily as an attempt to build up a parallel for Emma’s development, there she turns her back, walks away, here in the present time with Regina she stays and reaches out, but the problem is, Lily and Regina are very different people, and what they did to Emma are very different things, the parallel doesn’t work. Regina is far from redeemed, still struggles to admit her responsibility for the evil she did, doesn’t get yet, that it’s up to her to find happiness and not the doing of any kid, lover or higher power, she might be at a point where it would be good if there is someone not giving up on her, but that doesn’t mean to me the necessity of that someone wishing to be friends with her.

And the reason she won’t accept FULL responsibility for her evil actions is because she knows that it’s not all her fault?

One can take full responsibility for something, can have full responsibility for something even if it is not much of their fault. It means you step up, take charge, and don’t try to explain away that bad was done, you accept, bad was done by you, you hurt someone, someone suffered because of you, and you regret it. Wallowing in self-pity is not regret in my book.

@WickedRegal we’re having very different views on the world, on the show, and we’re not going to agree with each other.

Honestly I think its difficult because of shipping. People connect to ships instead of characters (or one side of a ship so they focus too much on the one character and the other is just supposed to act in accordance to the ship). I’m guilty of it too. It makes it hard to see stuff for what it is. We get so caught up in these ships and the grand ideas of romance and when they don’t work out it’s hard to accept that maybe the writers didn’t see it how you saw it or didn’t want to continue it romantically. People have trouble seeing that their interpretation doesn’t equal the writer’s intention. We all see the show differently. We all connect to different things. That goes for the viewers and the writers. They can’t please everyone. They can’t even try to.

Agree, a lot of people are biased and not seeing anything beyond their favorite pairing or characters. Agree as well, how audience read something and what the writers intend are not one and the same, can’t even be, because different context, different point of view. It is even more complicate, every fiction exists in and has a number of different realities, the reality inside the story, the reality of the format, of the production, of the audience, of society and more. There are a lot of different ways to read a fiction, and sometimes people mix them up. For example not many make a difference between liking a character as person and as what the character means in the story. So if people like a character, they often struggle to see the character as antagonist of a story. With screen fiction things go even a step further and some people disliking a character because of it might dislike the actor portraying the character as well. And yes, people connect to different things and in different ways.

But the problem of this episode was probably that they tried to please pretty much everybody without it being possible. The fanservice though is just one rather smaller thing in this episode.

The biggest issue people have, from what I read here and in other places, and I share that issue, is Emma wanting a friendship with Regina. That is not actually fanservice, though it very sure excited all Regina fans. The writers said it enough times, that evil isn’t born, that Regina is more or less misunderstood, and deserves a chance, and I even was able to go with their view for the first season mostly, and parts of season 2, but since then less and less – and that is mainly because of how they write Regina and how they write how the other characters, particular the Charmings, Emma and Henry react to Regina. There is a growing rift in the fandom and it’s about ethics and not shipping. It’s about, as some put it (and be sure some here will jump at that phrasing), that they make Regina look like the biggest victim and misunderstood person in the worlds.

I thought the scene of Emma looking through he box of memories was VERY important to the story of her journey.

Emma keeps those things because they’re important to her. They’re her history. They represent joys in her life. But also turmoils. Neal was the heartfelt joy in her life. But he was also a layer of pain on which she’s built her walls. The camera represented the beginning of what she hoped would be her first real friendship, but also another layer of bricks in her wall. The blanket, a lost childhood, lost family. Higher walls.

When Emma used her magic, when she spoke with Elsa, when she told Regina she wouldn’t walk away from their friendship, she was, in a sense, letting go of resentment. In her memory of Lily, and how she used those memories to help heal herself and heal her friendship with Regina, she was learning to let go of hurt and acknowledge strength, friendship. She’s learning to let go of the past hurt and look to the future.

Emma’s walls are being washed away, little by little. It’s shown in how she dresses, how she uses magic, and in how she’s relating to others, and in particular, to Regina. But you can’t move forward without reflecting on where you’ve come from.

Emma can’t look to her future with hope unless she acknowledges her past. And her past included both pain and and joy. Both of which she reflected on when she opened her box of memories.

I saw this scene as very important in the story of Emma’s journey. She’s at a crossroads, breaking down her walls.

She’s acting out the lyrics..let it go. The past is in the past. Let it go.