Trauma & Abandonment in OUAT – Footholds of Darkness

[possum snoodle]

What’s up with all the trauma and abuse in OUAT? Rumors OUAT is “about to get dark” have me wondering beyond the normal literary and dramatic reasons traumatic life events are written into characters. However, for nearly every character to have such life-warping issues, it begs for a closer look.

I’m sure there are other examples of OUAT trauma but these are off the top of my head:

Child loss:
Rumple – lost Bae (and the unknown Mother)
Snow and Charming – lost Emma
Emma – lost Henry
Jefferson – lost Grace (and the unknown Mother)
Geppetto – lost Pinocchio (briefly) and then lost him by trying to save him through the Wardrobe

Child Abandonment:
Pinocchio – sent into a strange land, orphaned and probably frightened every day of his life he’d revert to a pile of firewood at any given moment.
Emma – sent away out of necessity but still orphaned, endured a difficult 16 years of foster care, teen pregnancy, gave up child
Bae – loss of Mother, abandoned by Rumple, a 14yo, alone in some strange land without magic
Grace – loss of parents, orphaned when Jefferson got trapped in Wonderland
Snow, loss of parents, kept in isolation by the Regina/Queen
Henry – adopted but wanting his real mother to save him from his evil Queen mother
Hansel & Gretel – father (The Woodcutter) abandoned them but only due to Regina having kidnapped him to compel H&G to steal cursed apple from blind witch. H&G and Father remained separated until Storybrooke counterparts were reunited. This story got some closure, as did Ella’s. With time now moving forward, emotional healing is possible, perhaps; Light in the Dark breaks the hold (but not “the forget” component) of the curse?

Psychological Trauma:
Regina watched as her Mother ripped out her true love, Daniel’s heart
Bae witnessed his Father “die” as the Dark One took over and took the lives of others (mute maid, snail-man crushing)
Geppetto seeing his parents turned to dolls…really weird if you link that with him making a doll son/Pinocchio, eh?
Jiminy Cricket also seeing the parents into dolls has a major guilt trip for turning Geppetto’s parents into the dolls
Jefferson – enduring the two realities in his head and knowing Paige is his Grace just out of his reach and losing his head and going mad trying to make a new hat, all the while, the vision in his severed head, is of Grace and her make-shift rabbit, sitting and waiting for a father who will forever, “be late, be late for a very important date…”

Physical Trauma:
Charming/David – sword wound, coma for 28 years??
Hunstman – having his heart ripped out and being made Regina’s boy toy
Granny – healed gash on arm indicates some major wounding may have occurred.
Ella/Ashley – pregnant for 28 years? Egads. How does that even work for the unborn child? Talk about an Extended Stay Hotel womb.
Charming/David – suffered physical trauma/coma
Kathryn – wrecked leaving Storybrooke, vanished, suffered captivity in a basement, was drugged and who knows what else before she was left in a field and crawled all the way back into town. Really?
Henry (now) – in “sleeping coma”

…and of course, in a category of her own, Belle – all curled up in a cell in the hospital basement with no telling what kind of internal scars she’s gotten from life after Rumple and 28 years of captivity and “therapy.” I doubt her condition is solely due to Rumple not returning her love. Perhaps, she eventually found out the rose Rumple gave her – which, btw, she snipped off and shoved into a vase – was actually, Gaston. That ought to cause some nightmares and a new hatred for Rumple, if she ever learned the truth. Something had to twist her up. Whatever her torment, It’s going to be a doozy of a reveal.

So, what’s going on with all this trauma? The visual of the massive curse rolling over an entire Realm implies villages and kingdoms of people were swept up. It would take a metropolitan city or two to hold so many people. Storybrooke isn’t near large enough to house everyone. So, why so much trauma compacted into one tiny town and how does it relate to well, everything? Sure, the simple answer is, “because, Good, like Evil, is made and the characters’ trauma motivates them in either direction.” Yeah, I got that part and understand that sometimes, common life tragedies bring people together. However, everyone in Storybrooke was selectively brought there by Regina….or whoever actually enacted the curse (Rumple, Maleficent, other). What’s missing is what grander, unrevealed purpose the repressed memories being used for, if any.

[hjbau]

I think that it seems realistic. There is this much trauma in every city, even every family. I think about my family and if i listed all of the big traumatic events it sounds overwhelming. And that is just my. I do think that a lot of people have had significant events like this in their lives.

[LisaFromOH]

I thought it was just because it’s based on fairy tales which often have an orphan as the main character and then have more trauma/drama as the plot of the story. And, as hjbau pointed out, sadly these things happen frequently in real life, too.

[king arthur]

The original Grimm fairytales and other similar stories were rather dark and “grim”.

[fairygodmother]

If you look at fairy tales, they are often pretty dark but have hope in them and an ending where good is rewarded and evil is punished. The hero or heroine often goes through many trials which test him/her in multiple ways — including to stay true to their goodness and ideals. Family ties are also very important, but themes of loss and abandonment also run through many traditional tales.

Thing is, life was in fact harder when these tales were written. An infection that is an inconvenience to us could develop into something that could and quite possibly would kill you in those days. Death was common, and while life is still a fragile thing today, it was arguably more fragile hundreds of years ago. So, people lost loved ones “before their time” more often, I think, than we do. I think these facts influenced the development of the stories.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that yes, they do have dark themes. But, there is a good deal of hope and light in the stories also, especially the belief that love is the strongest force of all.

For a related read on this subject, I highly recommend C.S. Lewis’s writing on fairy tales. Not because I think they need defending to any of you, but because he writes so beautifully about what fairy tales are and what they are to us.

[Author]

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