Snow White/Mary Margaret Character Analysis

[PriceofMagic]

I think Snowing are superfluous, they don’t add anything to the story other than to harp on about “hope” and to be CS’s cheerleaders. Josh and Ginny could quit, causing Snowing to disappear off screen and, so long as the characters make some reference every now and then to what they are up to, the story would stay exactly the same.

[RumplesGirl]

I finally have time to sit and answer my own question.

At this stage, yes Snowing are superfluous. PoM is right: they just stand around, usually totally useless, spouting platitudes about hope. And even if the show turned them into boring heroes, at least they would be heroes nonetheless. But then they went and made them baby snatchers and turned them into self-righteous morally bankrupt  heroes. They add nothing to the story at all anymore which is a shame since they are how it all started.

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

[Gaultheria]

It seems to me that the producers think Snow and Charming are keystone characters that can’t be killed or sidelined without ruining the show, but neither have they allowed S&C to transition to the role of middle-aged parents and community leaders. S&C don’t look like youthful action heroes anymore, and when they’re forced to stay in their youthful roles, it’s awkward to watch. Actors age and change, and that’s good and natural, and the actors and their roles need to keep pace with each other.

Gaultheria's fanvids: http://youtube.com/sagethrasher

[nevermore]

It seems to me that the producers think Snow and Charming are keystone characters that can’t be killed or sidelined without ruining the show, but neither have they allowed S&C to transition to the role of middle-aged parents and community leaders.

I think that’s absolutely right. But also, I think the show runners don’t really know how to go about transitioning Snowing into middle-age beyond marital bickering, embarrassingly unhip outfits, and a general sense of doltishness occasionally interspersed with Snow’s inspirational speeches. I suppose it’s the “All happy families are alike” problem.

[Slurpeez]

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

Sadly, yes.

"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

[RumplesGirl]

LOL okay. So maybe my first question was an easy one. I honestly expected some resistance on that. Like, “how could you think that?! This whole show started with them (and Regina)!”

So maybe instead of a broad issue we tackle a smaller one that will help us look broadly.

One of the most controversial things to happen in S4B was Snow and Charming kidnapping the Lily-Egg. However we have seen Snow and Charming tackle hard problems before. What was it about this event that made us all just a tad too uncomfortable? And using Snow and Charming as a lens, what does it say about the nature of heroism and villainy on the show?

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

[PriceofMagic]

Kidnapping the Lily-egg was so OOC for Snowing and hypocritical, they were going to sacrifice someone else’s child so that their child didn’t turn “dark”. However, Emma turning dark wasn’t always a certainty, Charming’s vision was a happy one and the apprentice even said something along the lines that the visions aren’t definite and that Emma would have to choose her own path but Snow was adamant.

In some respects, I think Charming would actually be better off without Snow. He seems to have slightly more brains about him but he constantly allows himself to be led by Snow. We say that Charming doesn’t have much character about him but that’s because he’s kind of used as an attachment for Snow, he exists around her rather than in his own right. Snow’s character has gotten very self-centred from 3A onwards, everything is about what she wants. Poor Charming isn’t allowed to make his own decisions, he’s very dominated by Snow. An example being during 3B when Charming was trying to find the Wicked Witch, an important task, Snow henpecked him into dropping it all so he could meet the midwife that Snow randomly met in Granny’s (who turned out to be the wicked witch but Snow didn’t know that).

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[thedarkonedearie]

Alright, I’ll be the one to shed some resistance on this haha.  Nothing has pissed me off more than the writing of Snow White’s character.  She is the definition of character assassination.  You will not get an argument from me on this character.  She is beyond defendable.

However, I do not think she is superfluous.  While she has been completely useless for the last two seasons or so, she is so important to the overarching themes of the show, and as you said, it all started with her and Charming and Regina.  That is not the best reason to keep her around, but I do believe she will be vital in how the writers want to end the show.  If and when they bring back in the themes they started with (happy endings, hope, etc etc.), Snow will have more to say/do.  She is useless when it comes to going to Neverland, and Camelot, and the UW, but when the story refocuses the core characters that started it all when it’s sprinting to the finish line, I think she will be necessary, and her and Charming’s love will be necessary.

As far as the whole egg thing, honestly I wouldn’t have had a huge problem with it if the writing was better.  It was how they tried to hide it from Emma in Storybrooke, and then how the writers muddled with it, saying that some of it was the author’s fault, etc. etc.  Listen, good guys make mistakes.  And that’s what they wanted to convey.  But like, the whole reasoning behind why they stole the egg (make sure Emma doesn’t go dark and yet she ended up having the same potential for darkness anyway, which then resulted in nothing because we haven’t seen Lily since), was just horrible.  If it made sense, and we saw the story play out and Lily becoming super dark and Emma maybe not going dark because of what Snow and Charming did, then maybe you could understand and even defend their actions a bit.  But no, we got a half put together story line which we didn’t see through because Emma just became the DO anyway, and then we had Snowing lying about it for like many episodes.  Just come clean and own it.  And explain why you did it.  For me, Snowing has pissed me off, not because of horrible things they have done to cloud the light we associate them with, but because of the horrible inconsistent writing and them not knowing what to do with them.  And now recently, just having them stand by the sidelines imputing little lines here and there is so frustrating because they could do so much more with them(actually I enjoyed Charming’s Siege Perilous episode bc I actually could understand why he would want to be more than just a Prince who woke Snow White with a kiss).  But we have gotten nothing for Snow.  All she does is input a hope line here or there, hold her baby, or more recently, completely neglect baby Neal for the UW.  Frustrating writing has made me hate the character, not a bad action like egg stealing.

[RumplesGirl]

actually I enjoyed Charming’s Siege Perilous episode bc I actually could understand why he would want to be more than just a Prince who woke Snow White with a kiss

I really enjoyed that moment as well. It gave Charming some much needed color; I just wish that idea would keep playing out. That’s one of the biggest problems with Snowing as a whole; the writers set up some nifty and meaty ideas but then never see them through, choosing instead to focus on other ideas, other characters, other plots.

I think the big deal with the Lily Egg is that it crosses some sort of understandable line. You said “good guys make mistakes” and absolutely they do. But where’s the line between understandable mistake and unforgivable error? I just think there’s something wrong when in order to give the villains sympathy you have to tear down the people who are the definitive heroes of the show. But you’re right that it was also just a really horribly plotted storyline that made Snowing look more like villains but also like bumbling fools (putting darkness into a dragon strikes you as a good idea…?)

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

[nevermore]

Regarding “Egg-gate,” I really think half the problem was the awful, muddled writing. I genuinely think the writers got themselves confused with that one. They felt like they had to achieve a couple of goals at once: introduce the Author, connect Emma, Maleficient, and Lilly, set-up the stuff with the darkness/DO curse, and knock Snowing off its moral high ground, because that’s been one of their strategies for making the villains look better.

I think what they wanted to set up for Snowing was an impossible choice: like would you sacrifice someone else’s child if it would give yours a chance? Essentially, something that would pit one’s core principles against one’s deep seated instinct to do everything to protect one’s kid. But it didn’t work — the muddled talk about “potential for darkness,” rather than a more concrete, visceral threat just made Snow and Charming come across as privileged jerks, literally taking advantage of someone they described as ‘not even human’ (or something like that) to slightly bend luck in Emma’s favor. It was just over the top, and made Snow seem like the spoiled brat she used to be.

[Author]

Posts