Out in Storybrooke: Who should have a Queery Tale romance?

[RumplesGirl]

Just had a thought. FTL seemed quite patriarchal. Belle’s line “There’s not many opportunities for women in this land” seems to suggest that. 2 Queens may be looked down upon, not because of their sexuality, but because of their gender because they don’t have the hand of a king to “steer them right”.

I think it probably is and it isn’t. Snow was going to Queen. Regina WAS queen and uncontested until Snow decided to take back her kingdom. Granny Lucas had a voice at the council meeting and everyone listened to her. Blue Fairy is supposed to be the supreme power in the land. Cinderella convinced her husband to make more deals with Rumple.

I think the writers play it by ear when it comes to gender and power.

[TheWatcher]

Well Regina had hardcore magic. It would not bode well to defy her even if she weren’t a Queen. Same thing with Blue. Respect for her may come from the fact that she is the SURPEME being, regardless of her gender. And Prince Thomas loves his wife. Widow Lucas is a good example though, unless she had respect simply because she is an elder. Just throwing that out there. I think for normal women like Belle or Mulan, with no magic on their side, they probably won’t hold as much respect as though with super magical abilities. Look at what happened to Belle when she went after the yaguoi creature thing. Those men dumped her in the mud. And mulan had to pretend to be a man. So I think its safe to say in the FTL, men think they are head honchos. Two queens probably wouldn’t be a big deal, but two queens…umm…”merging” their kingdoms ( 😉 ) would probably get some negative attention.

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[Jenna_B]

Each season, the writers seem to try to not only introduce traditional (whether it be Disney, Grimm Bros, etc) fairy tales and put their own spin, but also take a pretty univerally accepted theme and play with it. In season 1, we learned about hope, and learned it’s ok to hope because we might just have that hope realized. We’ve learned that family is far more than the nuclear, mom-dad-and-two-kids structure – your family are those you love, whether related by blood or marriage, or not ‘related’ at all. Your home is not a place per se, but where your family is – that thing you miss when you leave.

I think, now that we’ve established that the traditional concepts of ‘hope,’ ‘family,’ and ‘home’ are not the only definitions of those themes, the next theme we’ll tackle is ‘love’ and how it’s defined. What is ‘true love’? Can you only have one ‘true love’? Is it fated? Do you choose who you love?
If they continue with this theme, I would find the natural progression of the show would be to incorporate a same-sex couple. I think the writers would be doing their fanbase a huge disservice if they did not bring a same-sex couple to the forefront…and I think they know that. So I do believe we will see at the very least one same-sex couple that ultimately becomes one of the core couples on the show.

I haven’t seen Frozen, but from what I’m gathering, Elsa might be a good character to incorporate either being a lesbian, or beginning to question and explore her sexual identity based on the themes presented in the film. If they brought in her sister, they can show family members fully accepting each other for who they are as a person, not simply identified by charcter traits or sexual identity, thereby both bringing the topic to the forefront and addressing it headon but also showing that it changes nothing about who either person is, nor their relationship as sisters. That could be very powerful. If they brought in Red, who is pretty much the embodiment of sexuality and being comfortable with one’s sexuality for the show, and whose own identity strugges have been addressed, either as a potential partner, or simply a friend who provides acceptance and support, I think you can bypass the need for someone outright NOT accepting of others’ sexual identity. And I think the storyline would be far more powerful if they focus on the fact that it doesn’t matter who you love or who you are attracted to, love between to people is pure and simple, deserved and accepted as opposed to an outside force putting a negative light on the character and storyline.

(And on a lighter note, seriously, we need Red back, in all her Red glory. And NOT with Whale…yeah, I definitely can’t get on that particular ‘ship! Red with a quality, important storyline – that just might include a romantic partner that’s as beautiful and amazing as she is – not THAT is a storyline, my friends!)

[TheWatcher]

next theme we’ll tackle is ‘love’ and how it’s defined. What is ‘true love’?

This. And it plays into Frozen because Just like how we are lead to believe the True Love that will break Anna’s curse is that of romantic love in the movie turns out to be wrong (it was sisterly love of Elsa that did it), going into this theme would be great a way to show that True Love comes in many and all forms whether it be hetero couples, lgbt couples, or even between two sisters. S1 touched on it with Emma’s true love for Henry breaking the curse

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[RumplesGirl]

And I think the storyline would be far more powerful if they focus on the fact that it doesn’t matter who you love or who you are attracted to, love between to people is pure and simple, deserved and accepted as opposed to an outside force putting a negative light on the character and storyline.

#Preach

I really like the idea of the same-sex relationship having to do more with the politics of the EF than any acceptance storyline. I’ve always wanted more world building in the EF (gender relationships, religion, politics…) but I think we may be stuck in SB for the season and not really dealing with that in regards to Elsa.

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

[TheWatcher]

Question: Did Phillip know about how Mulan felt for Aurora? I want to say he did for some reason? Or am I confusing him for Neal?

"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGIC

[RumplesGirl]

Question: Did Phillip know about how Mulan felt for Aurora? I want to say he did for some reason? Or am I confusing him for Neal?

Unclear. Philip was only scene for a few moments at the start of S3, before Mulan made up her mind to tell Aurora everything.

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

[obisgirl]

TheWatcher wrote:

Question: Did Phillip know about how Mulan felt for Aurora? I want to say he did for some reason? Or am I confusing him for Neal?

Unclear. Philip was only scene for a few moments at the start of S3, before Mulan made up her mind to tell Aurora everything.

I don’t think Phillip knew. Milan and Aurura did not meet until Phillip was free to go after Aurora.

I think Aurora/Mulan/Phillip love triangle would have been interesting to explore, especially since Mulan had feelings for Aurora but Aurura’s with Phillip.

[Myril]

Question: Did Phillip know about how Mulan felt for Aurora? I want to say he did for some reason? Or am I confusing him for Neal?

No, Phillip didn’t know, but neither did Neal. Or at least we never saw Mulan telling anyone on screen. Even Neal and Mulan have only a vague talk about telling someone to be in love, and while Neal names Emma, Mulan never says, who she is in love with. It’s the reason why a few people are still in denial of any romantic feelings of Mulan for Aurora and insist on believing, Mulan wanted to confess to her feelings for Phillip. It is to date on the show an unspoken love, only expressed by hints in the dialogue and bodylanguage.

At best (or worse) if Phillip is a very perceptive guy, he might have gotten a hunch, I doubt though he did. Aurora herself has at best now a hunch, that Mulan felt more than friendship for her, or might have started to wonder. It’s not like it takes days to notice something, perceptive people can do that it short time, but the three didn’t spend much time together since Mulan and Aurora rescued somehow Phillip’s soul, maybe 2 weeks at best (for the audience in the afilmic reality, outside the show’s story reality, meanwhile months went by). Plus the year Phillip and Aurora had together now, when Phillip retroactively could have developed suspicions. He doesn’t know, and doubtful he suspects even anything.

That Mulan’s feelings for Aurora are still unspoken love is something I find ambivalent about how the writers handled the whole idea. I can see dramatic value in it, for the moment of the plot as well as for later, and it’s sure not the only love kept vague, it’s something writers love to do, to keep things open, in this case though it was unfortunate. People have to be big time ignorant to deny there were romantic feelings, but they still can. The reality of the fictional world as it unfolds in plots, story is called in film theory diegetic reality, and in the diegetic reality Mulan’s love to Aurora is just a possibility, not yet an outspoken fact, though heavily hinted at. It is only interpretation, perception of the audience (so called spectatorial reality) and probably what the showrunners wanted (their intention, the creational reality), still the story could in theory at least still unfold differently. It is stuck at the moment in the gray region between explicit opentext and subtext.

Don’t expect showrunners to be trained in film theory at length and even less, that they think about it much while making the show, but sometimes it might do good to be aware of the different realities a film / show has (a sense I think A&E have shown a lack of not just in this case, looking at some of the stuff they’ve said in interviews, on panels, on twitter). Doesn’t even take much knowledge in film theory to see it.

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[Myril]

If they brought in Red, who is pretty much the embodiment of sexuality and being comfortable with one’s sexuality for the show, and whose own identity strugges have been addressed (…)

Maybe a reason, why they didn’t quite know what to do with this character anymore. Although there is still the matter of falling in love again, after all, and very traumatic, Red killed her first love – I can see some character story material in this, the struggle to trust herself when in love. Despite that in some ways Red is one of the emotionally most grown-up characters on the show, besides Charming, though her Ruby side is another matter. That Red is someone who seemed to handle some things better in the first aftermath of the Dark Curse broken in Storybrook made sense, she already knows something about handling duality, different personas. It’s in my view the biggest mistake of this show so far, that they rushed all the adventure stories, instead of taking a moment longer to dwell on how the characters with two identities/memory sets deal with their different personas. IMO they unnecessarily sacrificed season 2 the moment they knew they had the rights for Peter Pan and Neverland, and rushed to play with one of their most favorite toys (and subsequently they didn’t develop the potential of Neverland either). Something they can’t undo, chance missed, and in this case there is no second chance, now even less after they moved the story on with a jump of a year.

They should create a show for Red and let Jane Espenson take the captain’s seat on it. Just saying. And now better take a deep breath before I think even more about how they missed chances… (or should find time to write fanfiction)

Anyway. Interesting, that you see Red as embodiment of sexuality. I agree, but at the same time it is somewhat of a cliche to think of the person who has a bit of an animalistic side to her as the one who is that.

The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is understood as a cautionary tale, warning to girls and adolescent women, the wolf seen as sexual predator. As kid I already loved Little Red, because it had a wolf in it (I am a born dog and wolf fan), and because I identified in some ways with Red (getting distracted, being a merry dreamer, strolling or roaming the woods was something I could relate to). But as much I hated the fairy tale for the story and that the wolf was made the bad guy in it. So I retold it when I was barely in primary school, and with a happy ending for the wolf. In my version Red and the wolf fall in love, and they leave the village together to live happily ever after in a place, where people accept the wolf as he is (psychologists might have fun with my childhood fantasies, I turned most of the bad guys into misunderstood beings, who then got a happy ending in my book)

Vampires and werewolfs have a particular erotic nature but are deemed unable of true love, and they are often not limited in their desires to one gender but more or less bisexual. They are the seductive condemned beast or supernatural creature, charming, sensual, but deadly, eventually tortured souls but evil doers. The lesbian vampire is a frequently used trope in exploitation films, but as well it has been used to explore same gender love like in the 1871 novella Carmilla. Female werewolfs are lesser known, the wild, raw nature more depicted as something male, masculine. It probably goes less well along with the image of the nurturing mother wolf, which can be found in mythology, like in the story of Romulus and Remus. On the other hand Valkyries have sometimes been brought in connection with wolfs, riding them.

In Platon’s Symposium Sokrates discusses love, eros, and distinguishes the vulgar eros, the more or less animalistic form, physical attraction for physical pleasures, and the devine eros, transcending the physical existence for a love of paramount beauty. The latter is also known as platonic love, although sometimes misunderstood as a love without any physical attraction, which is not quite right, it can start with physical attraction but then goes beyond physical desires. Our ideas of “pure” true love have something to do with this differentiation, it made its way into Christian philosophy, was expressed in the Minnesang in the High Middle Ages and echoes in our modern understanding or concept of love.

The supernatural seductive beasts stand in for the animalistic side of eros – it is not much of a wonder that in the Victorian Era with its strange mix of rigid morality, prudery, and romanticism and mysticism some of the best known gothic novels were produced.

A good but lesser known novel with a female werewolf is the 1896 novel The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman (writer, illustrator and suffragette). The werewolf, White Fell is a complex strong female character, someone should make movie of it. It ends though tragically, of course, for the wolf – but also for her main antagonist. Highly recommend reading it, it’s public domain and can be found here It reads a bit like a fairy tale. (And maybe shouldn’t tell of it, because, when you read it, you will see, it can inspire ideas for a connection of Red and Elsa, friendship or romance, so should write a fanfiction)

It was a brilliant idea to make Red the wolf, and a friendly wolf, but I am not sure if A&E knew, what they were doing, or maybe they did, or some people around them did. Female sexuality (in the sense of activity) is still depicted more as something more passive, discrete and low-key. If women are shown as more active it is often more as variation of the femme fatale trope, aggressive, masculine, enticing but destructive for whoever is their “prey” and themselves. Or they are serving in some way, and sometimes do both. Women are more objects of desire and less the ones desiring, and if the latter seldom in any good way.

Ruby is more of the classical kind of approach, free minded but too free minded while somewhat insecure, in fiction a stereotypical future victim of assault, the single, young woman of lesser social status, struggling to make a living by waiting on towns people and passing through strangers in some diner. These young women don’t dress properly for a decent community, skirts too short, pants too tight, clothes colorful (and often red or redish pink, or blue jeans), makeup and hair flashy, cheap and proletarian.

Red as the wolf is a predator, Ruby is prey.

As the wolf Red became a predator, but they kept characteristics of Little Red Riding Hood for Red as well. She is a friendly, helpful, open-minded (or naive) person, cheerful, adventurous, dreamy. Though her predator side is something she struggles at first with, and how much of a predator and danger she is made more than clear when they made her kill her first love. There is the destructive beast, and her mother is shown later as a bit more on that side of the spectrum. But when Red turns into a wolf to help Charming escape, or just in recent episode to help to rescue Emma, we see a positive side of the beast, the usefulness and advantage of her wolf skills in some situations.

It is ambivalent to work with cliches, on the other hand sometimes it’s exactly the right thing to do but maybe in a playful manner. When Joss Whedon created Buffy he did that, the blonde petite became the powerful hero, the stereotype prey turned deadly successful hunter. As it is a stereotype to make the female warrior a queer character it would be cliche to make the (were-) wolf one, but certainly Red was on my list of candidates since season 1.

¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯

[Author]

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