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But what I loved more than the chuckle was what he had to say: “I worry that people might fail to write good books because they think these warnings are real rules. There are no real rules. Tell good stories and tell them well and don’t leave the reader feeling cheated at the end.”
Lol, that picture is possibly the best thing ever.
But isn’t that the problem with OUAT? That a portion of the audience is actually very vocally content with the kinds of stories the show is telling, as long as their ship sails into the sunset? And are actively and aggressively trying to silence dissent, criticism, or alternative interpretations along the lines of “this is misogyny/racism/sexism/classism” etc?
In other words, it sounds like part of the fandom is attempting to enforce their own very narrow experience of OUAT as the only normal and legitimate one. And Kistowitz are encouraging that part of the fandom, essentially giving them the authority to act as a thought police, thus outsourcing the labor of actually telling a good story to essentially a group that acts like trolls, and brow beats everyone else into agreement, silence, or “safe places” (or, really, minority enclaves) like this forum?
Is that a more or less fair assessment?
[adrotate group="5"]However this I just don’t understand. If the bad guy is supposed to do bad things, how can you find that offensive. It is logic. They don’t get a pass. We are supposed to hate them, not get offended. Being offended to me, sounds like you are taking it personal. But I don’t get what kind of behavior you are expecting from a villain.
The behavior i am expecting from a villain is that they then don’t get to date the main good guy and be called a hero with a snap of the writers fingers.
Is that a more or less fair assessment?
Yup.
A and E don’t like criticism. They don’t like being confronted with the knowledge that there are swaths of people who are genuinely unhappy and, more to the point, disturbed by their show. And people who don’t claim these things are “true fans” and A and E respond to them instead of any thoughtful but also respectful conversation. And by contrast the people who are disturb and want to have these kind of frank conversations are haters, bitter, judgmental, and need to either stop watching or just go with the ride.
In a way, it’s understandable. No one wants to be told that they are coming across as racist/misogynistic/homophobic/ageist, ect. It’s an uncomfortable thing to hear and our natural reaction is to balk at that. But A and E don’t even stop to hear the problems; to get the other perspective.
There’s a great example of Arrow on the CW. There was a lot of dissent in the fandom during S3 because of Ray (the A.T.O.M) and how he was pursuing Felicity. The show runner heard some of this and tweeted something about how “that {meaning Ray’s stalking and possessive qualities} were how romantic comedies go.” As you can imagine, this did not go over well with many in the fandom. So, realizing this, the showrunner told the fans to explain it to him. Someone wrote a very long explanation of *why* Ray made them so uncomfortable. I don’t know if he saw it or if it informed anything for Arrow through the rest of S3 or even into Legends of Tomorrow. But at least he was willing to listen.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I don’t exclude the possibility that this tension is deliberate, but whether it is or not, I think if we take a reception studies approach, and look at how the audience is divided, then you just have to assume that’s what the show does, pragmatically. It’s peddling 2 mutually exclusive messages at the same time.
I tend to think this dichotomy is deliberate, or at the very least, the byproduct of the writers hitting a reset button. As Eddy and Adam said about S3b in a telling interview:
ASSIGNMENT X: You’d already done one huge reset at the end of Season 1, with everyone getting their memories back. What made you feel like you wanted to do another reset so soon?
ADAM HOROWITZ: It’s hard to answer that in a lot of ways without you seeing the second half [of Season 3], but for us, I think that there was a certain sense of, we wanted to kind of end one chapter and start another.
EDWARD KITSIS: Yeah, we wanted to keep the show moving forward and the challenge is to make the show feel like the same show, but different and exciting in a new way, and that’s what we’re endeavoring to do.
HOROWITZ: And we had an idea that we loved for the second half, and we just went for it. To us, usually, the scary decisions are the ones that either you’re going to fall flat on your face or you’re going to hit a home run. Like we ended the curse Season 1, and people were like, “What the hell?” So …
KITSIS: And one of our goals was, we knew the first half of the season was going to be primarily set in Neverland, and we wanted to do a second half of the season that was radically different.
HOROWITZ: Really like two different seasons.
KITSIS: Right. And so when you see what we have in store for the second half, the vibe, the feel, the storytelling and the tone is very different. Same characters, same show and all that, but we’re attacking it from a completely different direction.
Straight from the horses’ mouths. Same characters, same show, but different direction starting in S3b after the reset button was hit. The problem is that the old paradigm keeps cropping up, and the writers actually keep calling back to it, especially in certain episodes like Dreamcather.
Though they thought they were taking the show in a great new direction by appealing to the CS fan-base (what they called “epic wish fulfillment”), they also knew hitting the s3 reset button was a major risk. As Adam said:
Horowitz: To us, usually, the scary decisions are the ones that either you’re going to fall flat on your face or you’re going to hit a home run. Like we ended the curse Season 1, and people were like, “What the hell?”
I think the writers are also aware of the issues with their characterization and plots. They just don’t want to call a spade a spade, because they like to play both sides. That is why Regina and Zelena usually call Hook a myriad of derisive nicknames while the CS fan-base get lots of seemingly sugarcoated things, but yet which have a darker side like the pink flowers of doom signaling betrayal. The writers know what a divisive character Hook can be, and they play up that villain angle a lot like making Hook the dark one and giving him the fake cursed-hand one-episode plot. Yet, they also try to have their cake and eat it too, which is why it’s so gross that Emma would risk herself and her family for a man who so hurt her and her family (both before and after becoming the dark one).
"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
Is that a more or less fair assessment?
Yup. A and E don’t like criticism. They don’t like being confronted with the knowledge that there are swaths of people who are genuinely unhappy and, more to the point, disturbed by their show. And people who don’t claim these things are “true fans” and A and E respond to them instead of any thoughtful but also respectful conversation. And by contrast the people who are disturb and want to have these kind of frank conversations are haters, bitter, judgmental, and need to either stop watching or just go with the ride. In a way, it’s understandable. No one wants to be told that they are coming across as racist/misogynistic/homophobic/ageist, ect. It’s an uncomfortable thing to hear and our natural reaction is to balk at that. But A and E don’t even stop to hear the problems; to get the other perspective. There’s a great example of Arrow on the CW. There was a lot of dissent in the fandom during S3 because of Ray (the A.T.O.M) and how he was pursuing Felicity. The show runner heard some of this and tweeted something about how “that {meaning Ray’s stalking and possessive qualities} were how romantic comedies go.” As you can imagine, this did not go over well with many in the fandom. So, realizing this, the showrunner told the fans to explain it to him. Someone wrote a very long explanation of *why* Ray made them so uncomfortable. I don’t know if he saw it or if it informed anything for Arrow through the rest of S3 or even into Legends of Tomorrow. But at least he was willing to listen.
THIS!
But what I loved more than the chuckle was what he had to say: “I worry that people might fail to write good books because they think these warnings are real rules. There are no real rules. Tell good stories and tell them well and don’t leave the reader feeling cheated at the end.”
Lol, that picture is possibly the best thing ever. But isn’t that the problem with OUAT? That a portion of the audience is actually very vocally content with the kinds of stories the show is telling, as long as their ship sails into the sunset? And are actively and aggressively trying to silence dissent, criticism, or alternative interpretations along the lines of “this is misogyny/racism/sexism/classism” etc? In other words, it sounds like part of the fandom is attempting to enforce their own very narrow experience of OUAT as the only normal and legitimate one. And Kistowitz are encouraging that part of the fandom, essentially giving them the authority to act as a thought police, thus outsourcing the labor of actually telling a good story to essentially a group that acts like trolls, and brow beats everyone else into agreement, silence, or “safe places” (or, really, minority enclaves) like this forum? Is that a more or less fair assessment?
AND THIS!
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor
A and E don’t like criticism. They don’t like being confronted with the knowledge that there are swaths of people who are genuinely unhappy and, more to the point, disturbed by their show. And people who don’t claim these things are “true fans” and A and E respond to them instead of any thoughtful but also respectful conversation. And by contrast the people who are disturb and want to have these kind of frank conversations are haters, bitter, judgmental, and need to either stop watching or just go with the ride.
True enough. As I was digging around old interviews, I found this doosey:
Interesting. Since it’s been such a long hiatus, are you looking online to see what all the fan theories are about her, and what’s to come?
Eddy Kitsis: I stay away, because it tends to not do the greatest things for my psyche. It’s hard to write a [story] with everyone commenting all the time. What happens is there are so many contradictory thoughts, that it ends up just making me cry. And so my wife has pulled me from the internet.No crying!
EK: At the end of the day, you hear certain things, you write this for the fans, but at the end of the day, you have to have a vision and stick to it, and if it fails and people hate it, you have to deal with it.
Well, there’s also literally no way to make every single fan happy.
EK: Zero. Impossible. [It’s] too fast, too slow, not enough, too much. So for us, it’s like, let’s do what we like, and as long as we’re happy at the end of the day, you hope other people are. But at least you don’t look back and say, “I only did this because Chewbacca20 said he hated this!”
So, they obviously dread fans’ criticism. On the one hand, they claim they write for fans. But which ones? They claim that they’re staying true to a vision. But, whose? They try to please certain fans, as the S3 finale showed (just not the ones who disagreed with it). They are very aware of fans’ reactions. As Adam has also said:
HOROWITZ: It’s hard to say that, because it’s funny – for us, it’s like you’re trying to write a book and you’re commented on [by viewers] every chapter.
He also said in another interview: “We are in the age of Twitter, we do see the pitchforks.”
That is why I just don’t buy the idea that the writers don’t understand how problematic certain things like Regina raping Graham was. My own opinion is that Adam’s not fessing up to what Regina did to Graham during the council meetings doesn’t mean he’s unaware of how appalling it was to fans; it just means he doesn’t want to get nailed for it. His dodging of qualms is a problem unto itself, but his and Eddy’s use of doublespeak means they get to play both sides. They know how to talk like politicians and play the tensions to their show’s advantage. They know, as do the cable news outlets, that drama and polarization are what keep the masses engaged (even if counterproductively).
"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
(what they called “epic wish fufillment”)
They did? Seriously? I thought this was a thing that fans came up. I’m so confused. Whose wish, what was its fulfillment, and what, for the love of everything that is holy, was epic about it? Is this a direct reference to CS? Seriously, this confuses me.
It’s hard to say that, because it’s funny – for us, it’s like you’re trying to write a book and you’re commented on [by viewers] every chapter.
What in the Blue Fairy is Horowitz going on about here? You know, it’s exactly statements like this by Kistowitz that have made me lose all respect for them over the years. I mean, can you hear that annoying buzzing noise? That’s the world’s smallest accordion playing a circus tune about the fact that this is what people who write, whether for a living or not, actually do on a regular basis. You know, run their writings by beta readers and get constructive criticism so that their actual audience isn’t falling into plot holes. Work with their writing group. Get critiqued in peer review. Get reviews on the internet for the things they’ve published, as they are writing the next thing. Writers don’t work in some kind of mythical bubble of perfect writerly genius, until the magnum opus emerges in all its shining glory and perfection. That seems like a very outdated, romanticized, and, frankly, privileged take on what a writer does. Speaking of wish fulfillment.
A&E are getting free feedback from fans. Some of it is constructive, some of it is not. It’s their jobs to decide how to tackle that feedback, but generally speaking, as much as one might like to hear only praise, it’s also useful to listen to the critique. Otherwise one never grows. Essentially they’re complaining about doing their jobs. Kistowitz,
His dodging of qualms is a problem unto itself, but his and Eddy’s use of double speak so means they get to play both sides.
Yes, that sounds exactly on point.
They did? Seriously?
They did! They flat out said the S3 finale was “epic wish fulfillment” — so something doesn’t add up.
THR: Lastly, how would you describe the final two hours of the season?
Horowitz: Wish fulfillment.
Kitsis: Epic wish fulfillment.I thought this was a thing that fans came up. I’m so confused. Whose wish, what was its fulfillment, and what, for the love of everything that is holy, was epic about it? Is this a direct reference to CS? Seriously, this confuses me.
While it wasn’t a direct reference to CS, what else could it be? It’s not as though many fans were wishing for a time-travel episode, but many vocal CS fans were wishing to see Emma dressed as a princess, dancing with Hook in the Enchanted Forest. And that is exactly what they got.
"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 hate season 3B, they killed off an interesting character and assassinated the personality of every character on the show for that ridiculous finale. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
Even the moments that led to the time travel didn’t make sense! Emma tells everyone she wants to take Henry back to NYC and leaves the diner, and Hook is the one to follow her? Out of all the people there, her stalker is the best man to reason with her why she needs to stay? NO. The one that needed to go after her was Regina and tell her “You are not taking my son away from me” like a good S2 Regina would, but I guess she needed to spend more time with Robin instead of making sure her son stays in Storybrooke. Whatever A&E, you betrayed your story and your characters and your fans by selling out and do this “epic wish fulfillment” followed by Disney cash grab.
"All your questions are pointless"
Milah I’ll grant and recoginze that I rather forgot about her. The mute maid and the cart guy are within the pre-losing-Bae time period I already stated was the “murdering” time. Gepetto’s parents and Gaston were cursed, not killed. The former can be uncursed if someone chose to do so. The latter we only recently learned was dead The Fairy I’ll also grant as I forgot about her. Rumple is not a good guy. He’s manipulative, and can be cold and cruel. But he also recognizes his own villainy–“I’m the villain. And villains don’t get happy endings” (and then dies to save the town without having first tired to kill them all). That to me is a big difference. It certainly doesn’t make him a saint and if anyone has listened to the podcast this season OR read anything I’ve written, they know that I’m really struggling to still like/defend Rumple like I did in seasons past.
I don’t agree at all that Gaston or Gepetto’s parents were cursed not killed. Especially when Gaston as a flower was cut in half, i think everyone considered that a murder at the time. Also when we saw the creepy puppets in the shop in present day, it was clear that they were probably not coming back from that. Though even if that is not a murder, it is still almost as good as. I also very much think that Rumpel is at great fault for teaching Cora and Regina how to pull hearts, knowing the sort of people they would be. Rumpel can see the future. He taught Cora to pull hearts so she would murder the king, and Regina so that she would eventually do the curse. He taught them how to murder. That doesn’t make him completely at fault. They are people with their own minds, but it certainly does make him partially responsible.
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