Snow White/Mary Margaret Character Analysis

[RumplesGirl]

But besides that, because Snow didn’t raise Emma any attempt to parent Emma is stupid, the only chance for a good relationship to her is to become her friend.

And can Snow do that? she’s always wanted to be a mom. Is she ever going to stop trying to parent Emma?

[PriceofMagic]

I think Snow sees herself as others see her: pure, innocent, and a bit of a saint. She’s Saint Snow in her own head, though without the negative ramifications. She can save everyone if she just believes it hard enough. It’s a unique quality, I’ll grant her that. And it stems from being unable to save her own mother at young age (queue Screwball essay on character who repeat their greatest traumas, I’m sure POM can link it for those interested) But Snow thinks that she has the salvation of everyone on her shoulders so therefore she has to save them. Because she sees herself as acting from a place of good, she never sees far enough to see the damage she’ll do in the process.

Here’s the link for the essay RG mentioned:

http://screwballninja.tumblr.com/post/62363283978/the-one-ouat-essay-you-have-to-read-ready-for

Also an interesting essay on why Snowing aren’t that great as rulers.

http://screwballninja.tumblr.com/post/57097968395/the-charmings-unfit-to-rule-essay-in-6-parts

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

Ah, since POM has linked to another article….are Snow and Charming fit to be rulers?

Note: I’m not asking if Regina was any better but rather, on their own, just Snow and Charming…can they rule the EF?

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[PriceofMagic]

Ah, since POM has linked to another article….are Snow and Charming fit to be rulers?

Note: I’m not asking if Regina was any better but rather, on their own, just Snow and Charming…can they rule the EF?

I think Snowing would do okay as rulers so long as everything remained hunky dory but the moment they are challenged, they’d struggle to do what’s right for their subjects.

Prime example being Regina’s execution. Snowing were going to have Regina executed for all her past misdeeds, however Snow stopped it and decided to banish Regina instead because Regina couldn’t hurt Snowing anymore thus giving her the opportunity to cast the dark curse which affected everybody. Charming wanted to go through with the execution but was swayed by Snow. The right things for their subjects would’ve been to execute Regina so she couldn’t be a threat anymore, even Snowing’s friends agreed the execution was necessary, however Snow decided to do what she wanted. Regina was spared because SNOW wanted to give her a second chance because she couldn’t hurt SNOWING anymore.

Snowing are quite self-centred in a way, if it doesn’t affect them, they are not really bothered.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[RumplesGirl]

I think the first problem with the question I asked if that the show, on the whole, hasn’t done the best job of setting up the EF as a world that is capable of answering that question. We know surprisingly little about the EF, its customs and laws. Every few episodes, we get another kingdom or another ruler and must struggle to place them in this limited world.

For example

–we know Snow and Charming rule out of what once was King George’s kingdom while Regina is exiled to the Summer Palace. But how far apart they? And which kingdoms border Snow and Charming’s? What is their main source of trade? What do they trade? What sort of law keepers do they have? Beyond their friends–dwarves, Granny and Red–what sort of council do Charming and Snow have?

–Snow goes in search of the Gorgon Medusa because she fears what Regina would do to her people, which is nice, but outside of the magical Regina ramifications, is she aware of hardships? Does she know what sort of problems her citizens might face? Does she have a plan for improving their lives?

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[WickedRegal]

Regina was jealous of Snow, of her having all she wished for from her point of view. Snow had her true love Prince Charming, the people loved and helped Snow even despite the threats and fear Regina spread, even someone as seemingly uninterested in humans as the hunter Graham, who preferred to live with wolfs and pretty much despised humans, “fell” for the sweetness and innocence Snow seemed to represent to people. Regina saw a different Snow, one who couldn’t keep her mouth shut, who believed she was good and doing good but caused that way havoc in Regina’s life, who was adored by her father to a degree of being a spoiled brat. People assumed an inner beauty in Snow, that from the point of view of Regina wasn’t there. It was not about the outer beauty, or only in the sense, that we in general assume a connection between inner and outer beauty. It would have been maybe a bit clearer if they’d used the phrase as it was in the fairy tale (and if I remember correctly as well in the animated movie): “fairest of them all”, so instead of pretty let have Snow said, “she thought I was fairer than her”. Problem is, many are not aware of that meaning of fair, the meaning of beautiful to look at. To me that sentence was not a lie, more of a misplaced linguistic modernisation of a thought at the very core of the Snow White tale, Snow’s alleged pureness and (inner) beauty. A nod to the movie, to what people know about the tale but written badly. It was odd that Snow used the word pretty instead of fair seeing that otherwise they let the characters talk old fashioned in the EF. Unnecessary and in this case even misleading modernisation for the sake of getting a modern audience into it. Ginnifer Goodwin said in an interview though as well, that they played a bit with the vanity of Snow, who after all in the tale is blended by shiny things, typical young woman so to speak though, like a nice comb, silky laced bodices, a tasty looking apple. You can find that interview btw on the first page of this thread. I have some problems with the overall writing and with the writing of snow concerning relationship to Emma, but making Snow a somewhat ambiguous character, and they did that from the pilot on, was a rather good move. People though struggle to see Snow in a less favorable way, and I think they don’t really bring it across. Good intentions by the writers but not so good execution. The twisted thing is, that Mary Margaret in some ways might have been actually the better version of Snow, exception maybe the bandit Snow side. It would be rather ironic, if Regina’s Dark Curse brought out the better of Snow, her actual beauty and fairness. Regina might have thought, might have been made to believe she was in control of the curse, but she never fully was. Besides that Rumple was the true mind behind it, think the curse had a bit of a mind of its own. And still the Dark Curse did its job, as Ginny quite nicely describes it in that interview, MM is constantly getting in her own way. Even after the curse is broken she still does. I agree with @WickedRegal that Snow is a bit of a self righteous hero. She is frequently missing how ambiguous good intentions can be at times. Not sure if I said it here in the forums before, but IMO most heroes are the fools doing the stupid stuff but getting away with and in most cases save lifes. What they do might have been not even the reasonable thing to do, though it was despite all the right thing to do (reasonable and right are different from what we choose mostly to belief in our modern scientific world view not automatically one and the same). And doing the right not always means doing good for all who would deserve it, it can have plenty of shades of grey. The problem is, that some of the people convinced that they are the good guys just can’t admit it, that good and evil are often not that far from each other, not as clear cut as we wish it to be. Snow should know better, but she chooses to wrap herself into some pink bubble of hope again and again (while Regina is the other end of the scale, wrapping herself again and again in a black bubble of despair).

RumplesGirl wrote:

PriceofMagic wrote:

This is a difficult one. I don’t think a parent can really be the friend of their child. A friend is on an equal standing with the child whilst a parent is an authority figure and therefore a higher position.

But as Emma points out in 301, how much wisdom can Snow really share when they are the same age? Snow doesn’t have the life experience to teach Emma, not really. Especially not in the “real” world.

Seeing it somewhat different what parents are or should be. The role of parents is in constant change with the child growing up, but that might be because I grew up with what is called a democratic parenting style, in our case leaning more to the permissive side than authoritarian. Seeing parents less in a higher position but more in a position of more experience and knowledge which is what establishes a (timely limited) authority until the child is able to judge in the matters itself. In other words, with the increase of knowledge and experience of the child the authority of the parents decreases. At best it leads to a change over time in relationship of parents and child coming closer to a friendship, mutual respect and care without (forced) dependency. But besides that, because Snow didn’t raise Emma any attempt to parent Emma is stupid, the only chance for a good relationship to her is to become her friend.

I just love this entire post @Myril!! Like…best break-down explanation EVER!!! Just….brilliance!

"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor

[WickedRegal]

Snowing as rulers…a shepherd turned false prince along with a spoiled princess turned bandit….hmmmmmm.

To be honest…they would be okay monarchs, not the best, but okay. We didn’t see too much of their reign, but the people seemed happy enough to deal with them. For one thing, @PriceofMagic has a point, they are definetly somewhat selfish enough to where if war broke out in Cinderella’s kingdom or Philora’s kingdom…I don’t know whether or not if they’ll intervene, and assist unless they are being threatened by the same force.

For example…had it been Maleficent about to attack Philora’s kingdom, I can’t say whether or not Snow and Charming would send back up to defend their allied kingdoms. Snowing tends to steer clear of trouble if it doesn’t involve them. However, Snowing did help Cinderella and Thomas with the Rumple issue.

So to rate Snowing as rulers, I would give them 3/5 Stars. But I really think the Enchanted Forest needs to be divided into four kingdoms, ruling in four separate parts. Kinda like how the Witches of Oz were, you have the rulers of the north, south, east, and west kingdoms, and the Peasants need to vote who runs what.

But what we do need is a map of the Enchanted Forest, because that seemed to be a whole world. Like in the past, it looked like there was the big mega kingdom with the smaller kingdoms under it. Because wasn’t everyone under the Enchanted Forest, and Snow’s family was like the declared Monarchy of the whole realm, but with the smaller kingdoms under it?

"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor

[RumplesGirl]

Since it seems like we’ve all had a say in the Emma thread, let’s move on.

For this one, it’s important to note that we’ll be dong both Snow and Charming here. At this stage in the game, it’s almost hard to talk about them apart and since Snow usually dominates the conversation/screen time/attention, I’ll use her thread.

Question the first: as the show stands right now, at the end of S5A, are Snow White and Prince Charming superfluous?

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[WickedRegal]

Question the first: as the show stands right now, at the end of S5A, are Snow White and Prince Charming superfluous?

Quote

Let’s just say that if Ginny and Josh were to quit tomorrow and Snow White and Charming were to be killed off at the end of Season 5….I wonder how much of the fandom besides the general public and Snowing fans would really blink an eye at this?

"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor

[WickedRegal]

Just realized we’ve started back the Character Analysis…how many did I miss?

"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor

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