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They needed Emma to defeat Zelena. They did not necessarily need to take Zelena to Emma, if they’d thought about it for a minute, they’d have realised that they could have looked for a way to bring Emma to them instead. That would still get Emma in the right place to defeat Zelena, without having to Curse the whole kingdom.
I agree with this notion. Snow and Charming were desperate to get to Emma to defeat Zelena, but they should have taken at least a day or two to inquire whether there really were another way besides resorting to the “curse to end all curses” (as Rumple called it in The Thing You Love Most).
[adrotate group="5"]"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy
I am surprised by all the negative comments about the episode.
My complaints are mostly to do with the inconsistency of the “rules” established by the writers themselves in S1 now being magically skirted in S3. There always seems to be some exception to the rules, but only when it’s convenient for the writers to include it. “Dead is dead” seems to only apply half of the time. For every death that sticks (e.g. Graham, Daniel, Cora, Tamara, Neal), another death gets reversed (e.g. Henry, Philip, Blue Fairy, Rumple, David,).
Also, “all magic comes with a price,” applies to Regina, who paid the price of the first curse by her father’s death and hole in her heart, yet Snow gets a free pass, because she’s pure of heart and cannot have a happy ending without her Prince Charming. It just seems so contrived that I’m struggling to be happy about this episode. I see how the writers were doing reverse parallels. Snow became like Regina (to a degree) in casting the curse, Regina became like Emma in breaking the curse by kissing Henry, and Emma became like Regina was in S1 in that she didn’t really want Henry to believe in fairy-tales. However, for all of that creativity, I just wish that the writers were consistent with their own rules. Otherwise, they resort to so many loopholes whenever it’s convenient for them to do so, that it becomes really obvious how contrived it all has become.
To quote J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter franschise.
“I loathe books that have inconsistencies and leave questions unanswered. Loopholes bug the **** out of me … so I try to be meticulous and make sure that everything operates according to laws, however odd, so that everyone understands exactly how and why.” Sydney Morning Herald, 2001
When Rowling sat down to write the first book of the entire series, it took her five years to research magic folklore, alchemy and to come up with her own story’s internal structure. It’s very important to her that her stories have a consistent internal logic. If an author is inconsistent, the story breaks down.
“The five years I spent on HP and the Philosopher’s Stone were spent constructing The Rules. I had to lay down all my parameters. The most important thing to decide when you’re creating a fantasy world is what the characters CAN’T do.” South West News Service interview, 2000
That is why when Albus Dumbledore, arguably the greatest wizard ever to live, says no magic can bring back the dead, he means it. There is no skirting that rule, no matter how much Harry may wish he could’ve known his parents. It’s because Rowling follows her own rules that her fantastical world is believable.
"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy
You know I’m hearing a lot of people call this a plot hole why hasn’t anybody done the heart splitting thing before but if you pay attention or look back it all makes sense. Ok first look back at who has been killed with a heart crush of them who gave up their heart willingly, and had someone magical that could or was willing to split a heart and save them in this way?
Off the top of my head Daniel? Was Cora going to spilt Regina’s heart and help save him she was the only one that could at that point? Milah? Was Rumple going to split Hook’s heart in two and try and save her?
Next thing remember what Snow said in that scene, since he woke her up from the sleeping curse they’ve been of one heart. Lastly what happened there? Regina didn’t even know it would work! Snow’s faith gave them reason to try it what they did could have ended up killing both of them! What happened there was both a long shot and something unique for them.
Snow paid the price for the curse Charming’s heart was sacrificed, they can be of one heart because for one thing they’ve been of one heart since the sleeping curse and it was just a shot of blind faith that even let them try it. The price of the curse was paid they just had enough change left over that both of them could live.
Another thing about the hole in their heart Maleficent warned about, here’s the difference. Regina cast curse 1.0 out of vengeance, to take everyone’s happy ending. What happened here in curse 2.0 wasn’t that this was self sacrifice. This was to keep the a happy endings Charming was willing to die to protect his family, Snow thought she was killing the one she loved to save their family. Regina didn’t do that before she sacrificed who she loved for selfish reasons that’s why there was a hole in her heart.
Off the top of my head Daniel? Was Cora going to spilt Regina’s hear and help save him she was the only one that could at that point?
If they wanted heart splitting to be part of heart lore, they could have shown Regina trying it after she’d mastered the art of heart manipulation. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked because she had too many black spots in her heart by then, but they could have introduced the concept to establish that maybe it’s a thing that could be tried. The way they did it just smacks of them needing a plot device so they could cast the Curse and keep Charming despite him actually dying.
The price of the curse was paid they just had enough change left over that both of them could live.
They didn’t have change left over IMO, they just got a full refund of the price, and if you get a full refund for something, that means you didn’t pay for it.
This was to keep the a happy endings Charming was willing to die to protect his family, Snow thought she was killing the one she loved to save their family. Regina didn’t do that before she sacrificed who she loved for selfish reasons that’s why there was a hole in her heart.
If that was their rationale, they should have made it more clear. They were paralleling a bunch of other stuff in this ep, so include a line where Regina warns them, the same way Maleficent warned her, another parallel, so it would have fit. And explain their rationale by having Snow reply that the motivation is different so perhaps the heart hole doesn’t apply. But they didn’t clarify that, so it just feels like another thing that makes this storyline feel contrived.
If they wanted heart splitting to be part of heart lore, they could have shown Regina trying it after she’d mastered the art of heart manipulation. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked because she had too many black spots in her heart by then, but they could have introduced the concept to establish that maybe it’s a thing that could be tried. The way they did it just smacks of them needing a plot device so they could cast the Curse and keep Charming despite him actually dying.
It doesn’t come off that way to me, Regina didn’t even know it would work when she helped the Charmings do it which means it never occurred to her before then to even try something like that before. Snow’s desperate thought to save Charming just panned out for them, I know maybe some fans wished that something similar could have been done before but it makes sense for it to work this way for the Charming’s the way they explained it, having been of one heart, and they way they played it as something crazy that had never been tried before made it work for me.
They didn’t have change left over IMO, they just got a full refund of the price, and if you get a full refund for something, that means you didn’t pay for it.
The price to be paid was the heart of the thing you love most. What was paid up? Charming’s heart. They paid the price of the curse it just happened that Snow found a way to keep him alive despite giving up his heart. The price of the curse was paid.
If that was their rationale, they should have made it more clear. They were paralleling a bunch of other stuff in this ep, so include a line where Regina warns them, the same way Maleficent warned her, another parallel, so it would have fit. And explain their rationale by having Snow reply that the motivation is different so perhaps the heart hole doesn’t apply. But they didn’t clarify that, so it just feels like another thing that makes this storyline feel contrived.
To me this was hammered home over and over again. Casting a curse out a vengeance will leave a hole in your heart. We know why Regina cast the curse, we’re a smart audience, we’ve been paying attention we’ve known for three seasons why she did it. It was pretty clear to me why Snow was casting it this time around. The reasons behind it are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Regina wanted to enact her vengeance upon everyone, she sacrificed the one she loved most to reach her own selfish ends that’s not something we don’t already know. Snow and Charming her are doing something out of desperation to save their family, Charming knows going in he’s going to have to pay the price for that with his life. He knows that and willingly lets it happen. Snow knows she has to end his life up to that point there was no known out for them. The intent behind the two cast curses is pretty clear.
We’ll just have to agree to disgree, because the whole situation just feels contrived and contradictory to me.
I have to disagree about the Charmings getting a full refund for the price of the curse. I would argue that splitting your heart does have a price in itself. It’s likely if one of them dies, they both have to die at the same time now. We saw this idea with Alice and Will on Wonderland. That’s a pretty big risk for the two of them to take.
If that’s revealed to be the case, then this story line will annoy me less, because there will be a consequence for them. The fact that a consequence wasn’t even alluded to in the ep where the thing happened doesn’t instill me with confidence though. If, in 320, during the fight with Zelena and the Monkey in the barn, Charming gets seriously injured and is lying there in crazy pain, unable to get up, and we see Snow in crazy sudden pain in the hospital, I’d be happy to see that.
Something else we know from WL is that there are beings out there who get really pissed when people go on living when they’re not supposed to. I’d love to see Nyx (or another being like her, I’ve been thinking of her like one of the Fates, so perhaps there are others) putting the smackdown on Snowing, but instead of “you must return the water” it’s “you must return that half of Snow’s heart”.
I have to disagree about the Charmings getting a full refund for the price of the curse. I would argue that splitting your heart does have a price in itself. It’s likely if one of them dies, they both have to die at the same time now. We saw this idea with Alice and Will on Wonderland. That’s a pretty big risk for the two of them to take.
While this is a good idea, it’s an “if ,….then” situation and you have to have the “if” part first. Let’s face, after this episode neither Charming nor Snow will ever die meaning that Matt’s hypothetical will never come into play. So it’s risk without any real consequence.
I don’t expect the writers to revisit this with Snowing. They have a tendency to leave the arc once it wraps and never mention it again. Think about S3A. So much happened emotionally to those characters and one has even mentioned PP>
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
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