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"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
Maybe next season will be better for us…
Because history has shown that OUAT gets better with each season?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Maybe next season will be better for us…
Because history has shown that OUAT gets better with each season?
You do have a point there…
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
Ahh! So many awesome points that I sort of want to quote all of you, but then my reply will be too long and break all the Internets 🙂 But I just want to say I’m glad I discovered this little community in its corner of the net, it makes my OUAT watching just a little bit less rage-filled these days…
As I was reading many of the comments on the beta/alpha stuff, I was struck by the sense that one of the problems I’m having with what OUAT did to Snowing — and mind you, in the interest of disclosure, I wasn’t in love with Snowing in the first place — is that it was one of the only positive relationships that had a long history. In other words, it’s a hard relationship to do/portray — it’s about marriage, and having kids, and sticking with each other after the initial head rush of passion has maybe worn off, it’s about still trying to keep things going while dealing with the hard stuff that life lobes at you. It’s not new and shiny — or rather, it shows that “shininess” takes lots of work. In this sense, while I’m not overly fond of how Snow and Charming have been written, and the note of self-righteousness, the relationship itself had potential for complexity. With the new developments it feels like what the writers are doing is taking a steamroller and methodically flattening it out, while also marginalizing them as increasingly unsympathetic. So my overall problem with OUAT is actually that we (the audience) are left with absolutely no positive model of relationships, romantic or not, that have depth, history, or potential for redemption (Neal and Rumple; SF; Neal and Henry; Regina and Henry; Rumbelle; and I’m sure I’m missing others), except for Frozen, but that’s because I don’t think it would have gone over well had they messed with Disney’s Frozen cult. (Though Frozen felt like a bit of an economically driven graft onto the main show anyway.)
And for those relationships that are seemingly still there and redeemed — say, Henry and Regina — the message is that they are simply not enough. It’s fine to pursue a romantic interest, don’t get me wrong, but insofar as the heart of the show was about the complexities of family, by now Henry has been made more or less irrelevant. His presence in the show is, for lack of a better word, perfunctory, except when he’s occasionally used as a (bad) plot device.
What we’re left with is the sense that only “new” and “shiny” is worthwhile, while old and worn and full of baggage is doomed to crash and burn on the rocks of boredom and taken-for-grantedness (Henry and his moms), past mistakes (SF, Snowing), and old habits (Rumbelle). On the one hand, it panders to our culture’s obsession with romantic love as the happily ever after. On the other hand, it outright dismisses what in fact does come after, which is all the more complicated, messy, mundane ways in which relationships must be kept alive. And not just dismisses it, OUAT either wrecks it or devalues it. And I might even be fine with, say, Neal and Emma never getting together in the end, if they were simply working on being friends, and good parents to Henry. Or if Rumbelle fell apart along a different set of fissures, for example because the relationship is premised on both incredible inequality and vulnerability (on both sides, actually), rather than on the evisceration of the two characters into 1-dimensional stereotypes. It’s fine not to have “twue wove” of the Cupid variety triumph every time. But why are we left with nothing but an injunction to what, frankly, feels like a brand of “serial monogamy?”
Now that I really think about it… I think S2 was the only season that got better in some sense than the season before it.
And even that is debatable among fans.
I liked s3, hated S4a, like 4b in some way, but yeah, no, OUAT isn’t one of those “Its gets better the more you watch” kind of shows.
"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGICSo my overall problem with OUAT is actually that we (the audience) are left with absolutely no positive model of relationships, romantic or not, that have depth, history, or potential for redemption
THIS. Lord. THIS.
And what the writer are doing in this regard–making all the relationships cringe worthy and ick-filled, romantic or not–are causing me/have caused me to stop *caring* about any and all of the characters. I simply don’t care about any of them anymore because they aren’t good people. They aren’t people I want to root for and the fact that the show keeps telling me I need to root for characters that have committed the most egregious and horrifying acts…seriously what is the MORAL of this show???!
I mean am I really supposed to root for a Zelena redemption about she gleefully admits to killing Neal, after she mind raped Rumple, and after she’s sexually assaulted Robin?
On the one hand, it panders to our culture’s obsession with romantic love as the happily ever after. On the other hand, it outright dismisses what in fact does come after, which is all the more complicated, messy, mundane ways in which relationships must be kept alive.
Yaaaas
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"To put OUAT simply…
It went from an exciting adventure originally about family and redemption to ship, ship, ship….
Did I get that right?
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
To put OUAT simply…
It went from an exciting adventure originally about family and redemption to ship, ship, ship….
Did I get that right?
"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGICTo put OUAT simply… It went from an exciting adventure originally about family and redemption to ship, ship, ship…. Did I get that right?
No.
Let’s not give this show airs. There has always been a romance aspect to it–as there is in any and all TV shows. For pity’s sake, the first scene is Charming kissing Snow awake with TLK. There was always going to be a “romance” aspect to it all. From Snowing to Rumbelle to little ships like Mad Swan, Wooden Swan, FrankenWolf, there was always going to be some “shipping” here.
What we’re talking about is the way the relationships are presented which is to make them cringe worthy amoral and that the only relationships worthy to be shown or explored or made a big deal out of are the “hot” physical ones and that the less dramatic but more nuanced relationships that have a bit of humanity to them because they touch on something that seems more real as cast aside in favor of what is “Tweetable”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
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