Once plot bomb – total disappointment :(

[surayya]

I’m starting to get a bit over the rules being bent & twisted.
It is starting to bug me that they set the rules up so we have a good grounded functioning story/world (it’s these rules that keep the limitations real for the characters- much like gravity or money is for us- & they allow us to become invested in the characters lives/stories as they are working with-in a relatable & ‘real’ frame work), but now are bending/twisting & looking like they’ll out right break some of them.

Yes, when the bad guys tell you something, it’s a given it could be false, but when the good guys start sprouting lies & 1/2 truths, your story immediately starts to loose creditability – as who can be relied upon to tell it like it is those watching (I think unless it comes from Snow or Charming, we cant consider anything anyone says as truth- good or bad, from what H&K said in their last podcast- Ok, I think I can deal with that little gem since they are main good guys 😉 ).

Now for the big one-
It finally clicked what has been bugging me since lady of the lake (I just couldn’t get excited about this episode, much as I wanted too, in fact I didn’t even bother to take lunch off & watch it right away like I usually do! 🙁 )- The flippn wardrobe!
It only had enough magic to transport 2 people back, so why does it still have magic power available after it’s been burnt to ashes?!?! 😕 ❓ ❗

Yes Emma touched it, but they were already talking about RECHARGING the darn thing- why didn’t they just do that to begin with for crying out loud!?! 😕

I mean really….. If you are going to start breaking the fundamental rules that set this whole show up & got everything set in motion, where are you going to stop? I’m not a fan of the move they’ve made here, it is a dangerous stepping stone to unravelling the entire core plot of the show & I must admit I’m kind of disappointed with H&K for going there.

It may seem like a ‘little’ thing to some, but that was the whole point of the so called “sacrifice“, being so “bad” for Charming & Snow, not to mention the reason an “epic” final battle could be fought! (there’s hardly going to be a final battle if everyone can just change worlds at will due to rechargeable magic portals &/or devices).
It was a major, major plot line- but it now it turns out the ENTIRE realm, including beings whom have lived hundreds if not thousands of years, are all apparently halfwits & are all vying for the obviously much coveted village idiot position! 😡 🙄

1, If there were portals all over the place (Cora knew of a number of them since she said they had “All” gone) that go to our world- why didn’t they just use one of those to avoid the curse? After all, they ‘only‘ need to recharge them for them to work indefinitely 🙄

2, If you can recharge magical items in FTL/EF why didn’t they just do that to avoid the curse in the 1st place? The whole realm could have gone through or even just the Charmings & then Regina would have had no reason to use the curse & for that matter why didn’t Rumple just use one of them to go find Bae?

3, If you can recharge magic- why only the one tree left? You could just recharge the magic wood & re use or re fashion it into what ever you needed.

4, Why is magic so pricey if it’s rechargeable at whim?

5, Why didn’t Emma flip her lid or even ask Snow ‘if the wardrobe was rechargeable, why didn’t you Recharge it & come with me then?’ since all the wardrobe needs to function again as a portal is to be recharged!

I really cant see how they can get out of this one & keep the fundamental plot intact, as it just involves having ALL the characters being conveniently, uncharacteristically, totally & thoroughly brainless imbeciles for mths before the curse hit! 🙄 😡 It’s just not a cool move to have made in my opinion. 🙁

[neverlander]

Who said all the portals go to “our world”?

[Phee]

Emma: What is the plan? You haven’t told me anything. What’s going on?

MMB: The wardrobe.

Emma: The wardrobe? ‘The’ wardrobe? Like, the wardrobe that sent little baby me to Maine? You think that can get us back to Storybrooke?

MMB: I don’t know. First, we have to see if it survived the curse, then we’ll worry about making it work.

(And then later…)

Emma: Where’s the ‘on’ switch?

MMB: It’s more complicated than that. We’ll have to get it back to the island. Hopefully, someone there has access to enough magic to make it work again.

I don’t think Snow knew for sure that it would work, she didn’t even know if it still existed. It’s just that they’re desperate, and that’s the one and only portal she ever knew of to get from FTL to our world, so it was their only option to try. But she didn’t actually have any idea how to get it to work, or if it was even possible.

As for the recharging, I don’t see that as a plot hole, I see it as a plot development. It was the second time we’ve seen something Emma touch become magical. Emma doesn’t even realise she’s a magical recharging device yet, but they’ve given the audience hints that she is as they’re developing her character. The way they worded Snow’s line, “if anyone has access to enough magic”, is a big hint at Emma’s ability to tap into any residual magic in the atmosphere. Her ability to do that and recharge magical objects and people is likely a power that’s unique to her, and no one in FTL history could do it, so recharging stuff back then wasn’t an option. In this particular case, Snow’s really just desperately grasping at straws in the hope of a solution. Little did she know, the solution was Emma.

[Killian Jones]

And besides that between just finishing the wardrobe and getting Emma through right before the curse hit there’s wasn’t time to even consider the possibility of recharging it again.

[surayya]

@Neverlander wrote:

Who said all the portals go to “our world”?

No one- not even I did thank you 🙄 When you listen to the conversation Cora has, she say’s “they are all” not “it is” so there was more than one portal going to our world, as that’s where she’s trying to get to.

@Phee wrote:

I don’t think Snow knew for sure that it would work, she didn’t even know if it still existed. It’s just that they’re desperate, and that’s the one and only portal she ever knew of to get from FTL to our world, so it was their only option to try. But she didn’t actually have any idea how to get it to work, or if it was even possible.

That’s exactly my point tho- they were desperate for months/quite some time looking for a way to save FTL/EF & no one in all that time mentioned recharging any magical devices (not in the pilot nor during all of S1).

@steliokontos1 wrote:

And besides that between just finishing the wardrobe and getting Emma through right before the curse hit there’s wasn’t time to even consider the possibility of recharging it again.

That’s not quite true though- They found the tree which was the ‘last of its kind’, BUT had months/time to wait while it was being carved into a wardrobe, knowing only one could go through. They had every waking minute of that time to consider & think about it, to the point that Snow was desperate to avoid having to go through & said out right, she didn’t want to/wasn’t going to go through without Charming right before going into labor!)- Still no mention of recharging magic here either! They also had the possibly oldest, ‘most powerful’ magical being in EF at their disposal as well & in all that time between finding the tree & the curse hitting, they what, conveniently forgot to think about re-charging portals or any powerful magic that entire time?
That is what I’m disappointed about. To me it is just poor writing- it was a major plot/theme for S1, but is degraded in S2, to, oh we could have recharged it – our bad!

I’m a rational person- I think it could have worked (it’d be very convenient still, but I would have brought it) if they’d had a single sentence in there from Snow to Emma or even Charming to Henry, Jefferson or Blue etc, saying ‘we thought about/tried to make it happen before having to send you/her through, but failed’ or something along those lines in any of the previous eps to explain it had ‘come up’ but wasn’t possible at that stage-( enter Emma as a catalyst & there you have a working loop hole to that rule). That would have also allowed some of Gep’s selfishness to be explained away too- but it didn’t go down like that 🙁

@Phee wrote:

The way they worded Snow’s line, “if anyone has access to enough magic”, is a big hint at Emma’s ability to tap into any residual magic in the atmosphere.

Which I would buy IF Snow knew about Emma’s ability- remember Snow didn’t SEE Emma touch the hat- she was focused on the wrath at that point & only saw Emma pulled into the hat, then they got captured, tied to horses, Snow knocked out & dumped in a pit with Cora etc, so because we haven’t seen that conversation (of how Emma touched the hat & it worked), we cant assume they have had it or that Snow knows about it yet- so Regina is the only other one so far to know something is different about Emma magicaly & this being the case, it doesn’t fit that context- at least not for me.
I do agree it’s a hint to Emma’s magic, but only for us.

I’m not saying I hate the show now- I still love it (although this weeks E05 was a bit of a let down story wise 😉 ), I just think they dropped the ball here is all, they could have worked it in much better, so it fit the story line they themselves have presented thus far, than they did is all.

[Phee]

@Surayya wrote:

@Phee wrote:

I don’t think Snow knew for sure that it would work, she didn’t even know if it still existed. It’s just that they’re desperate, and that’s the one and only portal she ever knew of to get from FTL to our world, so it was their only option to try. But she didn’t actually have any idea how to get it to work, or if it was even possible.

That’s exactly my point tho- they were desperate for months/quite some time looking for a way to save FTL/EF & no one in all that time mentioned recharging any magical devices (not in the pilot nor during all of S1).

But like I also said in my post, I’m thinking that this ability to recharge magic is something unique to Emma, that no one has been able to do before, so they never would have considered recharging magical objects as an option back then. All they had was a dwindling resource of magic and a one time use tree.

@Phee wrote:

The way they worded Snow’s line, “if anyone has access to enough magic”, is a big hint at Emma’s ability to tap into any residual magic in the atmosphere.

Which I would buy IF Snow knew about Emma’s ability- remember Snow didn’t SEE Emma touch the hat- she was focused on the wrath at that point & only saw Emma pulled into the hat, then they got captured, tied to horses, Snow knocked out & dumped in a pit with Cora etc, so because we haven’t seen that conversation (of how Emma touched the hat & it worked), we cant assume they have had it or that Snow knows about it yet- so Regina is the only other one so far to know something is different about Emma magicaly & this being the case, it doesn’t fit that context- at least not for me.
I do agree it’s a hint to Emma’s magic, but only for us.

Yes only a hint for the audience. Snow certainly has no idea that her daughter is magical, and I’m pretty sure Emma has no idea she’s magical herself. I was suggesting that Snow was just desperately hoping against hope that there would be someone back at camp who had some idea of how to make it work, not that she definitely knew there was a way to do it.

[surayya]

@Phee wrote:

But like I also said in my post, I’m thinking that this ability to recharge magic is something unique to Emma, that no one has been able to do before, so they never would have considered recharging magical objects as an option back then. All they had was a dwindling resource of magic and a one time use tree.

@Phee wrote:

Yes only a hint for the audience. Snow certainly has no idea that her daughter is magical, and I’m pretty sure Emma has no idea she’s magical herself. I was suggesting that Snow was just desperately hoping against hope that there would be someone back at camp who had some idea of how to make it work, not that she definitely knew there was a way to do it.

What you’ve said in the your 2nd post contradicts what you said in your 1st post though- why would Snow think of it, if it had already proven IMPOSSIBLE in the past- we all agree she has no clue Emma is special in that way, so nothing had changed- other than having even less magic & magical beings available to use it.
The fact Snow even thought of it, should have been addressed since it directly pertains to one of main themes of the show- Emma had to go through without her parents etc.

Yes she could have been hoping it was possible- but there was no tie-in given NO mention was made of any attempts to recharge magical objects before the curse hit.

You have to admit it’s looks hinky if all of a sudden they can recharge magic, yet never bothered to try it before the curse hit & that they could have approached this aspect of it much better given it involves one of the main themes of the show.

[Phee]

I just don’t really see it as a contradiction. *shrug* All I see in this situation is Snow being completely lost for any other option, so she’s clinging to faint hope that maybe something can be done with the wardrobe because it’s the only thing she knows of that’s been a portal between those two worlds before. If I were in her position, I’d have thought the same way, get the thing that was the portal and hope against hope that you can make it work somehow. Was a better plan than just sitting on their arses or wandering aimlessly hoping to stumble on a working portal by chance.

We don’t know whether or not anyone in FTL history attempted to recharge magic. Maybe they did, and failed. But I don’t think that needed to be shown. We can just assume it wasn’t possible, because if it was, Blue would have been going around recharging stuff left, right and centre, instead of being bummed about having a limited resource of magic left in the world.

Also, if that was possible in the past, well, we’d have no show. So I’m happy to just accept that it wasn’t ever a viable option in the past, and that in the present day, Snow was merely grasping at straws to find a way back to SB.

[surayya]

@Phee wrote:

We don’t know whether or not anyone in FTL history attempted to recharge magic. Maybe they did, and failed. But I don’t think that needed to be shown. We can just assume it wasn’t possible, because if it was, Blue would have been going around recharging stuff left, right and centre, instead of being bummed about having a limited resource of magic left in the world.

Also, if that was possible in the past, well, we’d have no show. So I’m happy to just accept that it wasn’t ever a viable option in the past, and that in the present day, Snow was merely grasping at straws to find a way back to SB.

I already agree with that as you’ve just repeated most of what I pointed out in my 1st post as reasons why I didn’t like how they had handled it. Nor did I say we needed to be shown- I said a single sentence would have ‘explained’ it away.

Snow grasping at straws- as I stated before, would have been fine had a single sentence been included in the dialogue somewhere- otherwise, honestly she seems to be a bit of an idiot considering she had mths/yr to come up with alternative plans for the whole ‘only 1 can go through’ curse problem- which she herself said she didn’t want to go through with – (Charming also said she was the one who “ran” the kingdom (aka the brains of the pair), he was the “sword”). How they did it doesn’t fit her character as they’ve portrayed her in the past in my opinion, so I don’t like it.

It also feels like they used the wardrobe as an excuse to get Emma & Snow to their home/castle- They could have gone looking for magic or fairy dust to make their own portal, have gone to try find another enchanted tree/object, see if they could find another realm jumper etc- none of which is “sitting on their arses or wandering aimlessly hoping to stumble on a working portal by chance” as you so eloquently put it 🙄 . All would have also made far more sense than bringing up recharging magic for the reasons we’ve both stated & that is where I have the problem– they could have had to have gone near the castle on their mission to find a way home & so camped there overnight, which would have allowed the castle scenes to take place as well.

I do understand what you’ve said & even tried to see it from your perspective- I did after all state if they had included a ‘tell’ sentence with-in the dialogue, I would agree with you & not have an issue with it, but they didn’t & nothing you’ve said has convinced me otherwise, I simply see it differently than you do 🙂

We don’t have to agree- it’s human nature that we don’t all think & feel about everything the exact same way- after all ‘ask 10 different people to describe the exact same image & you’ll get 10 different answers’ 😉 Everyone is entitled to their own opinion & the only expectation is those opinions be respected, whether we agree with them or not 🙂

[Phee]

‘Tis not the first time I’ve had to agree to disagree with someone and it won’t be the last. 😉 Like I’ve said, I’m satisfied with how they wrote it and don’t think the plot points needed any further clarification. But everyone expects different things from any show they watch and the writers can’t please every viewer 100% of the time.

[Author]

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