Who's a worse parent? Cora, Pan, Sultan,

[obisgirl]

I hate Pan for what he did to Rumple. But seeing what the Sultan did to Jafar, I feel bad for him. All he wants is for his daddy to love him. (Again, with the parental issues, I have to wonder about Adam and Eddie’s childhood). It’s just feel really sad Jafar that he has to resort to changing the laws of magic to make his dad love him, which even Regina and Charming know, isn’t real love either.

[RumplesGirl]

I hate Pan for what he did to Rumple. But seeing what the Sultan did to Jafar, I feel bad for him. All he wants is for his daddy to love him. (Again, with the parental issues, I have to wonder about Adam and Eddie’s childhood). It’s just feel really sad Jafar that he has to resort to changing the laws of magic to make his dad love him, which even Regina and Charming know, isn’t real love either.

After the last Jafar episodes, I was like “omg you poor man! I feel so horrible for you! I have to root for you now” (RG has issue apparently. She has to root for character who are abused and abandoned)

 

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

[kfchimera]

I said this in chat, but I strongly suspect that Jafar wants the Sultan’s love only to make sure the guy suffers the same shock of betrayal that Jafar felt when the Sultan killed him.  Just killing him isn’t good enough–needs to be betrayed in that same way.

That’s revenge!

Beyond that, the Sultan was horrible to Jafar, but it seems like Pan’s been horrible to many other people besides.  The Sultan had a kingdom to think about and while it was brutal there may have been some logic to it–but Pan’s just motivated by a selfish desire to stay young forever and fly around.  Even before as Malcolm he seemed to spend his days drinking and gambling (playing games) so …not seeing any sort of mitigating thing here to his behavior.  He not only cruelly insulted Rumple, his own son by talking about how everyone leaves him, he seemed to enjoy berating him in that last scene in Gold’s shop, taunting him how he’d kill the people he loves. Pan used many other people in his quest for immortality and kidnapped his own grandson, his friends for hundreds of years and would have killed his great-grandson and anyone who wanted to save him.

So I don’t know how they’re going to top Pan for the bad Dad of the year award but ….he makes Cora look like a sweetheart.  She always wanted the best for Regina even if her definition of “best” was cruel beyond anything Machiavelli ever had in mind.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Luciano Palladini]

Cora should be excluded in this survey, because even if she did bad things in Regina, in her own way she loved her, and moreover also Cora has been transformed negatively by the bad things that have happened to her (she simply wanted to give at Regina just what she had always wanted for herself but that she had never had, and eventually apologized to Regina, and she admitted she was wrong, and on her deathbed, when she got her heart, she also admitted to Regina that her love was be enough to feel full and happy). As for Peter Pan and the sultan, although the sultan has not been transformed into a super villain he is the worst parent. Everything that Malcolm did as Peter Pan don’t count. In that circumstance now Rumpelstiltskin was a grown man, who had an his own life. And Peter Pan himself points out at him all the good things that he had when he tries to convince him to go away to Never Land. Therefore must be considered only what he did to Rumple when he was a child. And what he did to Rumpelstiltskin was simply abandon it, but at least leaving him with those two ladies who treated him well, that have loved him, and grown up with love. And then, with the exception of this, the childhood of Rumpelstiltskin was quite normal. Rumpelstiltskin himself admitted to Zelena that when he think of something happy he think at when he was with them. Peter Pan And then it became a monster because of his desire to live, because if it wasn’t for the problem of the hourglass, would simply be remain to Neverland to enjoy his life for eternity. And as Malcolm was a slacker quite normal, because even other parents, in real life, can consider their childs a thieves of time and money, and a hindrance to their dreams (regardless of whether they love them or not, and decide to keep them or not). The Sultan however was not a normal person. He was a man with a perverse and distorted perception of reality. We say that at least he loved his legitimate son Mirza, however, but we saw what kind of education has given to the son that he loved: he taught him to be cruel and maltreat the others (as it were, for who knows Game of Thrones, that if the sultan was the father of Joffrey, would have approved and encouraged his cruel behavior). It’s certainly not a good person if he thought that a leader must be cruel and terrorize his subjects.  And that means in his life he will probably misbehaved even with other people, not only with Jafar.
He, before mistreating and then try to kill him (which he also did in cold blood with total and absolute indifference) has destroyed the innocence of childhood and Jafar. He tried to kill him, but even if he survived, he still lived a miserable life, first with a blacksmith who was cruel to him and then mistreated for each frivolity, and later was raised by Amara, but gave him education questionable, given that in his training caused him to kill an innocent person just for a spell. And the sultan has spent all his life, without forgetting to Jafar, without having any regrets about killing a child And when Jafar once grew arrived to seek revenge, the sultan showed off his not repentance for what he has done, and therefore indirectly also said he considered an outrage that presented itself before him when he does not gave him even allowed to be alive. And his reaction to the death of Mirza shows us which person was horrible. Because virtually criticized of having killed his son, someone who HIM has tried to kill. it is as if the Sultan thought that he can do what he wants and mistreat the others when he wants and that the others must only to submit and die. And all the while acting as a cocky and arrogant man who thinks he’s perfect and that are only others to make mistakes. It even groped to commit suicide to spite Jafar, showing that so hates him more than he loves himself (and Peter Pan wouldn’t never damaged himself for make sprite at Rumpelstiltskin). And is even an hypocrite because when is him at have the situation under control behaves like a monster, but when it does not have the knife by the handle starts to ape moralism. Because let’s face it, how can say they’ve learned from their mistakes if doesn’t regret what he did and did not admit its share of responsibility in what has become Jafar? Justified what he did to Jafar, saying that he had to earn his love, proves precisely his distorted perception of reality and perverse. Because for the sultan, it means that when you love someone you have to automatically be reckless with him and abuse him to the extreme. That should earn her love is not a valid reason to mistreat and kill somebody, and the sultan instead he thought that it was. And in general, in all the years in which he was a prisoner of Jafar, he never thought even for one moment to deserve what happened to him.

[onceaholic]

I am going to stick with the Once Upon a Time parents only, no Wonderland (sorry, folks).

I would say that Cora is the worst parent…towards Zelena.

Cora plonked Zelena in the middle of a clearing. If you watch the scene carefully, she had no knowledge that a cyclone for Oz was coming. So basically, instead of putting her on someone’s door step, she left her exposed to the cold air, wolves (yes, wolves do attack and devour babies, it’s a fact!) and other things.

Pan  abandoned his child too, but at least he was left in the care of others; others he could trust. Rumple was left with the emotional scars of this abandonment (which has the same effect on the brain as physical abuse, I know), but Zelena could have died.

Keeper of Regina's bravery

[obisgirl]

I think maybe both Cora and the Sultan. I agree, Baby Zelena definitely could have died if not for the incoming cyclone.

Cora also abuses Regina and abandoned her emotionally, thinking very little of her needs and basically what Cora wanted.

The Sultan was pretty bad too. He actually killed Jafar, held him under water and waited until he knew that he was dead.

[PriceofMagic]

I think Cora is probably the worst parent. Cora dressed up all her abuse and manipulations of Regina as “love” thus giving Regina a warped sense of what love was throughout her adult life.

What Pan and the Sultan did to their sons was horrible but Rumple and Jafar knew that wasn’t love from their fathers so they could disengage from that.

Also as has been pointed out, Cora left baby Zelena to die, and that was when she had a heart.

All magic comes with a price!

Keeper of Felix

[Keb]

All three of them were pretty awful, as was King George (who put the son he loved in danger and tried to kill the replacement himself).

But this is a show where the “good guys” put their newborn in a wardrobe and shipped her, alone, to Maine (they didn’t know about Pinocchio going along even!).

I also think Regina’s a strong contender for the title, though I agree she loves Henry and has the capacity to be a good mother (and, with Henry at least, before the book/after S2 she has done much to demonstrate this capacity).

But for the record:

Her first (step)daughter, Snow White:
–Fantasized about killing her when she was just ten
–Arranged for her father’s murder
–Sent the huntsman to kill her
–Tried multiple times to kill her personally/through other means
–Forced her to eat a poisoned apple
–Virtually forced her husband to cheat on her
–Attempted to seduce her husband herself
…etc. And this is a girl she once expressed affection for and raised through her teen years.

Her son Henry, whom she truly loves:
–Attempted to making him think he was crazy (this IS abusive, and both of them later recognize this; Archie, too, recognizes that what she’s doing is wrong)
–Tried, multiple times, to kill his birth mother
–Kept him prisoner when she couldn’t keep him any other way
–Accidentally poisoned him (in another attempt to destroy his birth mother)
–Used magic to wipe his memory at least once
–Attempted to kill his entire family, including his newly-discovered father (when she was going to use the failsafe)

And then there are the kids she WANTED to adopt:
–Owen, whose father she killed
–Hansel & Gretel, whose father she kidnapped before sending them to deal with a witch who eats children, and then separated their father from them for three decades
–Roland, whose mother’s execution she ordered and plotted to redo later (though she changed her mind), and whose father she carried on an affair with even while Marian was apparently RIGHT THERE.

And kids she directly damaged to get her way:
–Grace, whose father she left in Wonderland knowing full well that Grace had no other family–and then separated the two of them for the duration of the Curse.
–Emma, whom she was happy to kill as an infant and who was likewise separated from her family for the duration of the Curse as a direct result of her efforts
–And now apparently Mal’s baby, who was also affected by the curse, though they’re going to pin the blame on Snow for some reason. Probably Lily.

Anyway, while Regina, unlike Cora etc, is working on redeeming herself and is trying hard to be a good mother now, which I give her full credit for, she has worked hard to earn the title of Worst Parent (mainly because she followed in her own mother’s path for a long time). Even without knowing all these details, I think Emma was right to want to remove Henry from Regina’s custody back in S1 (even if she went about it the wrong way). I don’t think she’s earned the right to be Roland’s mother (but if spoilers are correct, it will mitigate the awfulness of OQ slightly).

Once Upon a Time should NEVER be used as an example of good parenting, though. Even Rumple, who really, really tried, couldn’t be the father Baelfire needed when it came to the portal. Even Emma has let Henry down multiple times. When it comes to parenthood, most of the parents in the show are better used as examples of how NOT to parent.

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[obisgirl]

The thing I think we missed with the Henry and Regina relationship is not really seeing the abuse that happened. We know Regina ignored Henry’s “it’s a curse thing” in season one but what I’m curious about here is the years before the pilot.

[Keb]

I don’t think she abused him terribly between infancy and 10, except by being strict (not a crime, but her mother was likewise strict) and keeping him isolated (partly because of the nature of the curse, partly to keep him from becoming aware).

Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing

[Author]

Posts