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Let’s keep it polite and centered please. This thread has been a nice almost scholarly approach so far but history has shown on this site and the fandom at large that any time ships come up (which is better, who is being appeased, who is not, who needs to “get over” something ect and ect ad infinitum) things get hairy. Let’s stick to what’s working with the narrative, what’s not, where things went awry, what’s a shark jump, what is not a shark jump, themes, and so forth. If you have a claim, back it up.
I thought what we were doing was fine. I’m not saying what ship is better or what not. I honestly could care less. In fact, just seeing you have to throw the warning message up due to shipping stuff seems to prove that people care way too much about the ship wars. But I digress. I assure you, that is not me. I just thought given the topic of shark jumping, and because Bar Farer brought up how he felt A&E switched the story to focus solely on the ships, and it was in that moment that he felt the shark jumping occurred, I thought everything we were talking about was relevant. And I can’t speak for him, but I thought everything was civil. Disagreeing can be civil. It’s not all unicorns and rainbows haha. I have nothing against his opinions and I’m sure he feels the same way. In fact, I enjoy the banter. It shows you care. But if you guys think it’s too much, my bad.
I didn’t mind the debate, I actually enjoy discussing with you, and everyone on this forum for that matter, this is one of the most level headed OUAT forums and I feel comfortable discussing here.
I can see why it can be viewed as off topic and the fear that a ship war can start any minute now, for what is worth, I don’t really care about shipping either.
[adrotate group="5"]"All your questions are pointless"
[mod] Let’s keep it polite and centered please. This thread has been a nice almost scholarly approach so far but history has shown on this site and the fandom at large that any time ships come up (which is better, who is being appeased, who is not, who needs to “get over” something ect and ect ad infinitum) things get hairy. Let’s stick to what’s working with the narrative, what’s not, where things went awry, what’s a shark jump, what is not a shark jump, themes, and so forth. If you have a claim, back it up. [/mod]
Sorry about my last post, published it before I saw this one.
"All your questions are pointless"
I wouldn’t have had a problem with Neal’s death if it had been done right and if it had had an emotional impact on the characters, especialy on Emma, but they basically forgot about about him two episodes later when Emma spend an entire episode with Regina (SQ fanservice) and the lips curse started (CS fanservice)
Ok so this is honestly the brunt of the disagreement here. Just because they write two characters interacting with each other, does not mean they are doing a service to SQ fans. They have to write a friking story. Regina is a big part of the story with Emma since the start of the show. Just because they have time together on screen does not mean they are trying to appease shippers. You could say they are trying to appease all ships if you go down that road.
You can’t just take the two sentences I wrote out of context and generalize it to the whole series. Emma having scenes with Regina can be really great and not all of them are fanservice (mainly the ones in 1-3A). I was talking specifically about 317, two episodes after Neal died, probably two days after, and Emma doesn’t even mention him and is up and about to do some alone time with Regina, and not with her son, who just unknowingly lost his father (which is another problem I have with Neal’s death). Regina was not the main point of the post, it was more about Hook, but don’t think that Regina and Emma’s scenes don’t have a lot of subtext which their main purpose is fanservice (405 is the best examples with lines like “I wanted you to be my friend” – these are 30 year old women. 30 year old women should not talk like they are 13 years old).
"All your questions are pointless"
I think the only reason Regina was compelling in season 2 was because of Lana’s acting. I don’t know why they thought they would make us have sympathy for Regina by showing us she massacred an entire village and planning to kill everyone in Storybrooke.
It’s a fair point. The slaughtering of the village was ridiculous given what they were trying to do with the character. However, I had no issue with the characters not forgiving her until season 3B because she was truly a terrible person to everyone. Forgiveness takes time and it felt realistic. Regina’s entire story arc is the only thing that doesn’t feel rushed on this show. I don’t know if it’s Lana’s acting, the writing, or whatever. Even when evil, she always loved her son. Henry was her moral ground. And Emma’s relationship with Regina over the years is also the best written relationship on the show. And it shall be her and Emma standing together to take down Rumple once and for all……haha I wish. But back to jumping the shark….as others have pointed out, jumping the shark is something the writers incorporate that seems out of left field just to improve ratings. Just because they wrote away from what made season 1 so great, doesn’t mean they are jumping the shark. If you are one of those people who truly believes they are writing for the sole purpose of shippers out there, then ok. Maybe, because they are attempting to change up the story to please fans and therefore keep the viewers they have. But I just don’t buy it. Writers take risks. They took a risk with Neal and killed him off. Maybe that didn’t work. But as I’ve said before, I think fans get way too caught up in shipping everyone and shipping wars that they think writers do too when the plot happens to coincide with their ship beliefs. I think it’s entirely possible the writers loved Hook, knew the fans loved Hook, felt that Neal had run it’s course, and thought it would be an emotional death, and a way for us to really hate Zelena. And then, Hook gets even closer to Emma and shippers think it’s because there were more CS fans then SwanFire fans. All you can do is speculate. You don’t really know. If I was writing a story, I would certainly take into consideration fan favorites and what not, but it would not be the biggest factor in my storytelling. I would think that I would have a story I wanted to tell and I would tell it. Obviously if your ratings suck, you may need to change things, but to say they jumped the shark because the narrative revolved around ships seems silly. There were ships going on in season 1 too. Obviously snowing, Emma and Graham, Regina and Graham, Rumple and Belle. The writing has just contradicted itself and has just been generally poor lately but that is not jumping the shark.
I’m not a shipper. I wouldn’t have had a problem with Neal’s death if it had been done right and if it had had an emotional impact on the characters, especialy on Emma, but they basically forgot about about him two episodes later when Emma spend an entire episode with Regina (SQ fanservice) and the lips curse started (CS fanservice), and honestly, you don’t fake kill a character just to actually kill him later. Another question I raise is what is the timespan of season 3B? a weak? So was it enough for Emma to mourn Neal for about 5 days before dating another guy? If they really had cared about Emma as a character, if they really had wanted Neal’s death to impact her, they would have taken their time before pairing Emma and Hook to allow it to develop naturally. They didn’t because they wanted that CS wish fulfillment.
I always like to give Ned Stark’s death as a main charater’s death that actually make sense – it set up the next two season with twotfk, and it allowed tragedy for other characters to develop from it, as opposed to Neal’s death.
Another narrative that suggest that the show only cares about the ships now is Regina and Robin in season 4A. They had adulterous sex time after time while his wife was in “coma” and his son was nowhere to be seen, and then Regina admits it to Snow White and the latter is all like “good for you” for doing a horrible thing, just to enable a justification for what Regina is doing so fans would approve OQ.
"All your questions are pointless"
I think the way Regina was written in Season 2 was the first major problem with the show.
Really disagree with you here. I think Regina’s story from evil queen to redemption might be the only arc they have done well. Is she better evil? Maybe. But her struggle on screen, (and Lana Parrila’s acting) I’ve actually really enjoyed, and would not loop into the jumping the shark conversation at all.
Hook had til that moment been awful, trying to kill Emma and Snow, working with Cora, trying to keep Snow and Emma from getting back to Storybrooke, shooting Belle to hurt Rumpel, being locked up in jail and then wandering off to help Cora again, taking part in the torture of Regina, stealing the bean.
And I also disagree with this. I think Hook was compelling up until he became Emma’s love interest. Colin O’Donoghue was so good at playing an evil pirate, and the he got so soft in season 4. It was tough to watch. what compelled me the most about Hook was trying to figure out where he stood and sided with. He was a mystery but also had very obvious intentions. And he knew he had to walk a tight line with working with Cora and getting his own revenge on Rumple when he himself possessed zero magic and could get screwed in a second. And yet, he talked his way out with words. And then, he fell in love with Emma and his character became bland and awful. The struggle didn’t feel real like it was with Regina. He just became boring and decided he was done being all revengy and what not. If you’re going to say the show jumped the shark before season 4A, the point where they made CS shippers happy by putting Emma and Hook together was it.
I think the only reason Regina was compelling in season 2 was because of Lana’s acting. I don’t know why they thought they would make us have sympathy for Regina by showing us she massacred an entire village and planning to kill everyone in Storybrooke.
"All your questions are pointless"
I don’t think that the Emma/Hook relationship is the single cause for the decline in the show. I think the way Regina was written in Season 2 was the first major problem with the show. She was written as doing all of these horrible things, but we, the audience, were supposed to feel sorry for her. The good guys hung out with her and forgave her in a way that did not make any sense at all. I think that was the initial problem that caused the decline in the show as well as then having entire episodes with pretty much no Snow and Emma. Hook was not even remotely a love interest in Season 2, in my opinion. That was created for Season 3. That was jumping the shark. Hook had til that moment been awful, trying to kill Emma and Snow, working with Cora, trying to keep Snow and Emma from getting back to Storybrooke, shooting Belle to hurt Rumpel, being locked up in jail and then wandering off to help Cora again, taking part in the torture of Regina, stealing the bean. It was only when the writers decided to change their intention for Season 3 and do Neverland and they decided to do a love triangle with Emma, Neal, and Hook that they jumped the shark. As i said before, i believe the show was declining and making Hook a love interest, creating a love triangle, was the gimmick they thought would keep the viewers interest, a failed gimmick, which i believe was the point at which the show strayed irretrievably from it’s original formula. I am not even sure if Emma and Neal would have gotten back together. This is not about that. I just do believe that Neal and his relationships with Emma, Henry, and Rumpel were central to later plot points. That Neal’s connection with Neverland as well as being the son of a dark one, now a significant other of a dark one, via Emma becoming the dark one would have made much more sense in light of Neal then Hook. I think the complication of dark one Rumpel’s son and the true love couple Snow and Charming was supposed to be central to the show. I believe that the moment they decided to make a love interest of Hook as a gimmick that they thought would bring in viewers as jumping the shark and that it irretrievably changed the show from it’s original formula.
The way Regina was written in season 2 was horrible, however they managed to fix it with 303 and 309. I don’t recall that the heroes hung out with her except the awkward dinner in 210 that no one paid any attention to her, and Emma kind of invited her as an obligation, and they never forgave her until 3B.
I agree about Hook, he was never ment to be a love interest. His actions in season 2 are too hateful to make him a love interest (which I think every character forgot about it, Belle and Archie sure did). The love triangle was a bad choice. Emma and Hook’s kiss was disgusting and Neal came off as a jerk by competing with Hook while his son is in danger, but I honestly think those were only two instances from what I consider to be a pretty good season (3A).
Neal had more potential (than Hook) as a character because the conflict he had with Emma was real, unlike Hook’s confilcts, which are pretty much forced and pretty much the same (keeping a secret about cursed lips and what he did in the missing year, keeping a secret about doing shady things with Rumple, keeping a secret about his connection with Ursula – basically keeping a secret of some sort). Neal also had a real conflict with Rumple that wasn’t made out of nowhere, and he’s Henry’s dad.
The thing about 3B- 5A is that the narrative revolved around ships, more so CS and OQ and apologizing for bad characters’ behavior (mainly Rumple, Hook, Regina and Robin). That’s why to me 3B is when the show jumped the shark because it wasn’t about family anymore, it wasn’t about what makes sense, it never had a natural plot development, the characters became templates to put the plot on them (ie they served the plot and not the other way like it should), and everything is forced to enable OQ and CS.
"All your questions are pointless"
Every main couple has been involved in a love triangle. I don’t see them doing it again.
"All your questions are pointless"
I just hope that if he comes back, he and Emma will have the next exchange:
Emma: Remember how you sacrificed your life in order for your father to live and do good.
Neal: yes
Emma: well, thanks a lot for that headache.
"All your questions are pointless"
We saw in 1×18 that Leopold doesn’t know who Cora is while in 3×18 we saw they were engaged before – contadiction.
We saw in 1×02 that the curse has to have a price, yet Snow and Hook conveniently found a loophole for that – contradiction.
We are thought that dead is dead no matter what, yet everyone goes to the underworld to save Hook – contradiction
According to what you’re saying, those instances should not be considered canons because of contradiction.
Like I said, canon is not an opinion, it’s a fact decided by the creators.
"All your questions are pointless"
