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Just another note about Emma as Savior and her role as such.
In this past episode, 416, Charming stated that by doing good they had a chance for grace.
There is a deep theological meaning behind grace, especially in the Christianity we’ve been discussing in this thread. Grace, then, is “the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it”
It’s very possible that Emma will give everyone–villains and heroes–happy endings by bestowing a type of grace (love and mercy) on each of them after she defeats Rumple/temptation-Devil. Something she could only do once she “dies” and is “reborn” (rewritten into the story) as comes into her full Savior potential.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Grace, then, is “the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it” It’s very possible that Emma will give everyone–villains and heroes–happy endings by bestowing a type of grace (love and mercy) on each of them after she defeats Rumple/temptation-Devil. Something she could only do once she “dies” and is “reborn” (rewritten into the story) as comes into her full Savior potential.
Oooh, great point! (And it helps clarify that dialogue, which felt like a bit of a non sequitur with its heavily theological overtones. But if it’s actually foreshadowing, then it makes a whole lot more sense).
WARNING. Read at your own risk. Heavy spoilers for the finale that play into this literary analysis.
Emma has the dagger and sacrifices herself. The True Love Incarnate Savior appears to die for the sake of everyone which makes it look like Death/Temptation-Devil-Rumple has the upper hand, but S5 will be Emma being reborn/rewritten into the story, by Henry I still believe, and defeating the darkness for good. *If* Rumple doesn’t die this season–some spoilers believe that Bobby has wrapped but will return–then it’s very possible that his ultimate downfall, the downfall of temptation and darkness, will occur in S5, something @Obisgirl suggested in this thread
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"The Monomyth of Emma Swan
In the OP, I looked at how Emma and Rumple are playing into the Western Biblical idea of Savior vs Temptation and how it might play out for the rest of the season. I want to take a step back, now that we’ve more or less established a plausible endgame for the two (the Savior appears to be defeated only to rise again, Phoenix style, and defeat the Darkness/Temptation and come fully into her Savior-powers). Now I want to look at Emma’s classic hero journey and how Adam and Eddy are telling, quite possibly, the oldest story there is.</p>
Two caveats. One, when I speak of Adam and Eddy telling the same story as has happened throughout history, I am not bashing them or hating on them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking archetypes, brushing them off, and presenting them to an audience again. Not every writer or showrunner needs to break the mold and try something new (not everyone can be George RR Martin, in other words). We still read and enjoy Tolkien, we still watch and love Lucas’s Star Wars or JKR’s Harry Potter series because they told a good story, and that, at the end of the day, is all we want: a good story. There is no better story than the Hero’s Story.Two, I owe a lot of thanks to a very long conversation @Storyteller and I once had (well over a year ago now) in THIS thread about various characters and their own monomyth. We started with Emma and then branched out. I am absolutely pulling from that thread, but adding new spins and takes based on where we are now with the show.
What is the Monomyth?
At its heart, the monomyth is a basic pattern that has found it’s way into stories all over the world by using universal themes, symbols, and archetypes. From the Natives of north America to inhabitants of Mesopotamia, certain stories are repeated time and time again without the any interaction between these cultures telling the same story. The most popular outline of this pattern was codified and described by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 work, “The Hero With a Thousand Face.” It is, easily, the most popular way to understand the heroes journey and is readily used by storytellers who want to tell the oldest story there is–one of light vs dark. (side note: I fully recognize that from a pure scholarly perspective, Campbell is a bit of a sore subject but I am speaking of the most popular way to understand the monomyth. Just ask George Lucas about his inspiration for Star Wars…)
The Monomyth Pattern
Campbell breaks down the Monomyth into a series of stages. It is important to note that one step does not have to follow the other, and often times steps are ignored all together. While the storyteller might be drawing from these universal themes and motifs, they are not chained to this pattern and can feel free to branch out, ignore, or solely focus on one step. There is still creative license, in other words. However, some steps are “more important,” or at least seen more often, than others.
1) The Call to Adventure: essential to the heroes journey. At some point the hero is asked to take up a burden, a quest, that forces them to leave their home and knowledge of the world as they know it, and enter a more magical, more fantastical, more divine one where they will be asked to perform feats they likely didn’t know they could. Obi Wan taking Luke from Tatooine. Hagrid arriving to take Harry from the Dursleys. Buffy’s first Watcher informing her that she was the Savior. Gandalf asking Frodo to take the One Ring to the Elves. OR: Henry, showing up at Emma Swan’s door and telling her that she was a magical savior, responsible for breaking a curse that lay over a small town in Maine.
2) Refusal of the Call: The Hero refuses to believe or partake in the grand narrative that is playing out, for whatever reason: emotional trauma of the past, reluctance to accept their role in this new world. At this stage they often guided by some sort of spiritual adviser who pushes them to accept their place in the narrative (there’s always a wise old wizard, guys…). We can essentially label Season 1 of OUAT as this phase. Until Emma touches the Storybooke and comes to believe in magic and her own Saviorhood, she can’t see (refuses to see) what Henry is telling her.
3) Supernatural aid: Once the hero finally decides to take up the mantel, they receive help in the form of some “other” who has knowledge and insight into the magical world the hero has entered. Emma has had quite a few. August, Regina, Rumple, Ingrid, and even Elsa to a smaller extent.
I am going to skip around a little bit just because rehashing everything from 4 seasons would be….exhausting. It’s also how monomyths normally play out–you can move between steps seamlessly.
8) Woman as the Temptress: I’m picking up the analysis here for obvious reasons. This one stands out to me quite a bit. In this step the hero is tempted by something they greatly desire: something pleasurable, something tangible, something that seems more fulfilling than the fantastical world they live in that often leaves them beaten, broken, and alone. The “women” aspect here can easily be subverted given that OUAT’s hero is a female whereas most of the heroes in history’s stories are male. We’re inverting the story so it makes sense that we can read this as “man as the tempter.” Rumple is tempting Emma as outlined in the OP and subsequent conversation. He is the “Devil” in that he is the manifestation of temptation, hoping to tempt Emma into opening her Pure Love Heart to darkness. Emma seems to be giving way to Rumple’s machinations, if only ever so slightly at present. We’ve seen her outbursts about stabbing Rumple through the heart in 415, for example. I believe that we just set her at the beginning of this stage and we will see her progress down this particular branch for the rest of the season.
10) Apotheosis: Coming from the Greek, apotheosis recalls the move to divinity, normally followed by either literal death or metaphorical/spiritual death. They are raised to a god like status. Jesus dying on the cross and rising again, for example. Harry “dying,” visiting the Limbo-Train Station and coming back. And to an extent, Buffy merging with Giles, Xander,and Willow to defeat Adam in S4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For Emma this step is where the season is taking us, if I’m right. Emma will die, either literally or metaphorically and once reborn she has become a fully realized savior. All the fantastical, divine, magical powers that a Savior can wield, she’ll wield. We might also expect to see some sort of descent into the Underworld here where the Hero meets with dead loved ones and gains knowledge needed to move forward (Odysseus, Gilgamesh and Aeneas travel to the Underworld in their epic poems, for example). This is often called the katabasis from the Ancient Greek and is a fairly common theme in the hero journey. I would note here that modern interpretations often have the hero undergo a metaphorical katabasis instead of a literal one: a dream, a journey to a crypt or tomb, some sort of vision that takes them to the great beyond, ect.
11) The Ultimate Boom: in which the hero finally gets whatever they sought to get when they started down their journey. For Emma, it’s the happy endings of her friends, family, and all of Storybrooke. Spoilers reveal that before Emma’s death she apparently yells that they all worked too hard to get their happy endings only to lose them now Sounds rather familiar, does it not?
16) Master of Two Worlds: In which the hero has the transcendent ability to live in both the mundane human world (SB) and the fantastical (the EF), a fully realized transcendent hero. Jesus, Buddha. I’m going to quote Campbell because I love the way he put it:
The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity.
For me, I think this means that Emma will be able to take people “home” to the EF effortlessly without needing a portal or a bean or any other plot device to travel between realms. It fits nicely with her Christ-like status; a Savior who, through the power of true love and sacrifice, offers residents of this world (a flawed and non magical world) a way to the more transcendental and mythical one.
17) The Freedom to Live: Emma, the fully realized Savior, lives at peace with her powers and her family/friends. This is the happily ever after. This is how the story ends. We obviously haven’t seen this yet, but this is what the series finale (whenever that happens) will look like. Emma has brought the happy endings to everyone, through her death and resurrection (rewritting?) and defeat over Temptation and Death.
As usual: thoughts?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"This is a really great theory, and it makes me happy to see the show finally centered on Emma again because, many times, the show feels really centered on Regina.
The one gripe I have with this theory doesn’t contradict it at all. It’s that the show (re: Adam and Eddy) made such a big deal about Rumple redeeming himself to the point of sacrification only for him to turn out to be “the Devil himself.”
I mean, I can understand a final battle between the Ultimate Good (Emma) and the Ultimate Evil (Rumple), but what was the point of building him up as this Imp who manipulates everyone (whether good or bad) to get back to his son when the end result is that he becomes the Big Bad? If they wanted this climactic final battle at some point, they definitely could’ve built this up without extreme character assassination.
Keeper of Thor’s Hammer, Will Scarlet’s Genie Bottle, Emma’s Gun, Emma and Henry’s Moment at the Castle, Cora, and the infamous Family Tree!
Maybe, Corbin, it’s because they [maybe, probably, definitely] have strayed from their original vision and that the changes and concessions they’ve made to get through the series has altered the show.
RG, you’re just so smart. 😉 I bow down to your knowledge. And it makes me wonder how I made it through undergrad without having to take a literature class. It was all scientific and technical writing and then grad school was children’s literature. I might not remember my Greek tragedies but I am an expert at the Dr. Seuss catalog. I don’t think Green Eggs and Ham is applicable to analyzing Emma or Rumple. However, Oh, the Places You’ll Go is quite handy to reference for many of life’s situations.
Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.
RG, you’re just so smart.
I bow down to your knowledge. QuoteI bow down too! I remember most of that stuff that you outlined when thinking about Emma’s hero journey.
For me, I think this means that Emma will be able to take people “home” to the EF effortlessly without needing a portal or a bean or any other plot device to travel between realms.
With fairytales as cautionary life lessons, I see the enchanted forest as a metaphor for childhood, the real world as adulthood, and Storybrooke as the intermediate stage. I think Storybrooke’s residents need the opportunity to choose, but that the real world is the most fulfilling choice. Emma has a special perspective because of where she was born and where she grew up, and she’s had longer to contend with the decision because she can cross the town line, so she’d be a good gatekeeper/Charon/midwife. (Metaphors, eh? Once it starts…)
Gaultheria's fanvids: http://youtube.com/sagethrasher
For me, I think this means that Emma will be able to take people “home” to the EF effortlessly without needing a portal or a bean or any other plot device to travel between realms.
With fairytales as cautionary life lessons, I see the enchanted forest as a metaphor for childhood, the real world as adulthood, and Storybrooke as the intermediate stage. I think Storybrooke’s residents need the opportunity to choose, but that the real world is the most fulfilling choice. Emma has a special perspective because of where she was born and where she grew up, and she’s had longer to contend with the decision because she can cross the town line, so she’d be a good gatekeeper/Charon/midwife. (Metaphors, eh? Once it starts…)
That’s a very interesting idea. Many a season ago, I once referred to Emma as a bridge between this world and the next. She might be able to take people who want to go home (ie: peasantry cause who wouldn’t want to get away from the Crazy at this point…?) while others can stay in SB. The worlds are then linked through Emma and she can help others move between them.
(and thanks for the compliments, y’all)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"RG, of all the things I would have expected from the OUAT forum, it wasn’t for someone to casually bust out Joseph Campbell! *jumps up and down in delight* Now, if we just could throw in Mircea Eliade, my life would be complete!!! ^-^
I think the theory is absolutely sound, and I wouldn’t be surprised if A&E end up following the pattern, because, after all, one of the points of this narrative structure is that it works, and is recognizable and hence satisfying on some level.
The one gripe I have with this theory doesn’t contradict it at all. It’s that the show (re: Adam and Eddy) made such a big deal about Rumple redeeming himself to the point of sacrification only for him to turn out to be “the Devil himself.”
So I think if we were to revert this back to the sort of meta-structure question that RG is talking about, it depends on whether A&E decide to do a good vs evil story where good/evil are absolute, or whether they think of it as contextual. I think they’re constantly moving between the two, making it hard to figure out what side of the divide they fall on. Is Rumple pure evil? Well, over time he moves from a trickster archetype to a Machiavellian ruthless dirtbag to essentially, an apparently irredeemable character.
If I may, if we were to map him on a standard alignment system he goes from Chaotic Neutral to Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. And it’s a testament to Robert Carlyle’s acting ability that he can pull off SOME sense of continuity between the three, but seriously, that’s a bit excessive, even for OUAT.
The other option is that the endgame is actually a battle between absolute good and evil but “incarnated” in specific people. In which case, Rumple the man has been consumed by the DO magic, and his personality no longer mediates how the dark magic works itself out in the world. I think that depends on their theory of magic. Is magic just an abstract force (we get this sense with this whole conservation of magic in the universe thermodynamic theory they got going), “colored” by the essence of those who touch it, or is magic dark or light, and hence colors the essence of those whom it touches?
I bow down to your knowledge. 
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