Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yes! Seriously, would it kill them just to let the girl DEAL for five minutes – with anything? Pick one thing, one single anything, it can be the Walsh situation for all I care (he’s dead, btw?) but I would like to see Emma deal with ANYTHING. False memories? Parent issues? Heck, the random married man thing that was dropped S1?
[adrotate group="5"]Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
I personally am a firm believer that the villainy of 3B (not to mention the past) is there to cause future friction. He killed a man, taught her son to cheat, not to mention Milah and what he did to Bae… and she knows none of it? Not by accident. A bump in the road or a permanent roadblock, I don’t know – I will choose to believe the latter until proven otherwise. (But I’m happy here, floating along on De Nile.)
Regarding the first, what bothers me so much is the character development they have not done with Emma. Not only did they rob her of the opportunity to grow by actually DEALING with something in her past (*GASP* Emma is forced to face something instead of RUNNING for once?) they compounded it with 315 and 322. It’s something I needed to see dealt with so badly that I fic’d it, just to get that resolution for myself (I may have some issues :/) but on the show… the lack of reaction is insane. Once again, Emma gets away without dealing with anything real, any real feelings, anything difficult and just smashes it down for the next shiny thing that comes along. Can we develop this character, PLEASE?! This garbage with Hook… is not character development. It’s regression. She’s acting out of fear and out of reaction, because he’s the only option left. (When and WHY she had to choose *any* option is its own question – when did Emma’s character become defined by everyone she’s “been with”?)
I’m sorry, but regardless of “love” or romantic entanglement, you do NOT wish someone dead and then have them DIE IN YOUR ARMS and not react. That is CRIPPLING to a person, walls or no. I can even get smashing it down to deal with the immediate crisis but honestly, they’re not in crisis now like they were the latter half of 3B. You do not, do not, do NOT just move on like she is.
The whole point of Emma, from the start – and then later, SF – was to be the realism in the midst of the fairytale. Now she’s become the most blithely fairytale of all of them. She’s got her moments, but – I just cannot. When we sat down to introduce Other Roomie to Once in March – barely six months ago! – we bragged to her about how one of the best things about the show were the strong, kicka** females. A mere dozen episodes later, I feel like if I sat someone else new down to the show, it would be fraught with warnings instead of the enthusiasm we gave it to her with.
Even without spoilers, I am sincerely debating whether or not to watch 404. I hate the craptification of this show sooooo much 🙁 I have expressed in chat, but, I have literally stumbled upon a number of spoilers that I assumed were spoof spoilers only to find out later that they were legit. (Imagine my shock and horror to find out that they ACTUALLY brought Bo Peep on the show as an ACTUAL warlord…!!!)
I honest to goodness want to sit A&E down in a room and force them to watch 214 and 402 back to back… and then explain to me what in the crap happened. That is not even the same show. Not even close.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
ETA: Uh. This is kinda out of left field for the thread. I don’t do spoilers so don’t mind me just jumping in here with something completely unrelated to the current discussion…
——–
“Life costs. Comes with the dinner.” – Tad Martin
So I’m gonna go a little meta and rambly here, maybe this is better suited for tumblr, I dunno, but I’m sticking it here. I think it’s topical.
Yesterday I was cleaning off the DVR and came across the final reunion for another one of my ships. They remind me a lot of SF, in ways – or I guess I should say, SF remind me a lot of them, since their story was wrapped before Once began airing. Years and years of history and HURT but still love (and ultimately, forgiveness.)
“I guess if true love was easy, we’d all have it.” – Snow White
“It’s not all starry skies.”
“It’s not supposed to be. Life costs.”I have a lot of problems with CS (shocker, I know,) but at the moment, this is one of my key ones. If we forget, just for a moment, all of the history and all of the reasons this relationship is straight up dangerous, we’re still left with this: Once has told us that true love is not supposed to be “easy.” It’s to break that fairytale stereotype, you know, boy meets girl, they fall in love, face a single obstacle, defeat it, and live happily ever after.
But it’s not that easy. Life COSTS. In real life, I think of the couples I know – they all go through their share of hardships. Sure, most of them have managed to not send the other to jail, most of them have not misplaced their child for a number of years (my ships are particularly adept at this one,) most of them have not died and come back from the dead or taken forgetting potions or taken on curses or been locked in dungeons for 28 years. But life has COST them, they have struggled with each other and against each other and it’s little dumb things and it’s big heartbreaking things and they’ve all had a point where they’ve asked themselves, “Is this worth it?”
In SF, we had this beautiful story where we didn’t get the chance to ask those questions because it was truncated, but had it been? Yeah, life COSTS. And the cost on this one was high, very high. But it was to be a story of love triumphing over hurt, of the power of forgiveness and of the decision to put one’s self on the line in order to reap a greater reward. It’s like the old adage – if you hold onto something with a closed fist, you won’t lose what you have in it, but you’ll never get more, either. And that is (was) Emma Swan – holding onto the few things she had so tightly that she could never let anyone else in. Life costs, and she knew that better than anyone.
We live in a country where our divorce rate is above 50%. Because no one FIGHTS for their relationships anymore. True love’s not easy – not really – maybe the falling in love, but not staying there. In media, there is nothing more rewarding – NOTHING – than watching two characters face an obstacle and fight to overcome it. Snowing’s story is chock full of this, and they are supposed to be the template for True Love on the show, the Truest Love at that. Rumbelle’s had their fair share, too – internal, often though not always, as opposed to Snowing’s external. Heck, we’re even seeing it with OQ (even as I have my issues with them.) On OUATiW, Alice/Cyrus and Will/Ana – they all had to fight like crazy to be with their true loves. Why is CS exempt from this?
In every good story, you have the setup, and then the thing that the characters have to overcome. Watching them fight that battle, it’s what makes you root for them. Whether it’s meddling parents, self-esteem, or forgiveness for a faulty judgement made – that’s what we had on Once. And it’s missing from this couple. “I think I love you.” “Hmm, well that’s nice. I’m kinda still in love with – nevermind, he’s dead, we’re good!” WTF? That’s the whole plot? That can’t seriously be the whole plot. Suddenly true love is just that easy?
It’s NOT. Life COSTS.
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” – Shakespeare
This is supposed to be Emma and Henry’s fairytale. Emma and Henry’s true life, 21st century, jacked-up, screwed-up, but oh so worth it fairy tale. That is the premise of the series – or at least it was supposed to be. A family, separated by time and space but never, never by lack of love – how to overcome the hurt of abandonment, rejection, betrayal, shattered dreams – all things that we deal with in real life. In Snowing’s story, life costs – but those costs are ones we’re unlikely to encounter in real life. So the fairytale becomes the allegory, the way to handle our real world problems… the transfer of those fairy tale solutions to the very, very real life situation of Emma, Henry… and Neal.
But if you joined the show for S4, and someone told you, “This is Emma and Henry’s fairytale,” you’d say, “Huh?” Emma’s, okay. I’d presume that she and Hook had overcome some things and were finally getting their chance, so all right, as a new S4 viewer I can buy that this is Emma’s fairytale. But Henry’s? No, this is Henry’s living nightmare, where one parent is dead and the other two alternate who’s going to ignore him as they deal with their man-problems.S1, this was Emma and Henry’s fairytale. S2, S3 – at least 3A – yeah, okay, I can buy it. We are so, so far removed from that now…
Fairytale love is that which triumphs over evil. Dragons, curses, heck – even loved ones that return from the dead – yeah, that’s what fairytales are made of. Because if true love was easy, everyone would have it. Those trials, they’re what harden and refine that love as you go through the fire, come out the other side stronger. Yet somehow, CS is the exception to this rule, and they just… win. “Hey, here you go.” WTF? That’s not real, that’s not real life, that’s nobody’s fairytale. Life COSTS. Where is the cost in this, where your enemies give blessings and your family raises no alarms at the danger of the situation and your kid is just like, “K cool, whatevs,” and the reason for being is, “Well, all of the other guys died so I guess you’ll do.”
Maybe it’s a maturity thing, you know? I look at my earlier ships, and I just wanted them TOGETHER. But as I’ve grown up, and learned the lessons that life teaches us, it’s become so much more about the story, about the journey. “How do two people who love each other come together when there’s so much hurt?” That story has such a richness to it, such a realness to it… for everyone who’s ever dug in and fight when giving up is easier, that’s the reward.
How do you tell a tale, how do you label it true and deep and have no trials? Nothing to refine it through the fire, to grow, to strengthen, to mature? No obstacles, nothing to overcome, the things that could stand in the way are just magically poofed out of the path.
Life COSTS. It’s not all starry skies. It’s not supposed to be. And when you oversimplify it… it loses the relatability, the relevance and identity, rooting power and staying power. How do you root for something when nothing is against it? When you remove that principal – make it so life *doesn’t* cost – then why is it even worth the bother?
(Just some random meta thoughts from early in the AM. “Life costs” quotes come from All My Children – stop laughing at me! – August 2011. Yes, I just wrote a post involving a quote from a soap opera, a fairy tale, and Shakespeare.)
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Hans: This is the man she’s to marry?
Kristoff: [Scoffs] In fairness, I never tried to kill her.
Hans: I didn’t try to kill her. I left her to die. Important distinction.
Finally got around to watching the episode last night. It was interesting, in the sense that it felt a lot more like the latter part of 3B, where there were random SF shout-outs thrown in… and I’m still a bit flummoxed as to the why of it. (I have my theories of course but in any event, it’s odd!)
Anyways, I found the lines quoted above quite interesting, particularly given the notes that have circulated tumblr about Hans vs. Hook. That’s instantly what I thought of, and I was surprised more that anything to see that acknowledged as an act of villainy.
Issues… a lot of issues. Belle ordering the DO – no, just no. Is Marian/Robin the first time we’ve seen Once assert that someone’s fairy tale true love is not really their true love? I hate (HATE) this Marian arc, because I was really digging OQ and now I can’t… I just can’t. I also can’t see any way to fix it, like, I can see myself warming to CS before I can see myself being able to root for OQ again (and uhhhhh that’s pretty much never gonna happen, so…) That sucks.
Henry was awesome, because he’s Henry and that’s that. Glad to see he at least has one parent who gives a crap. Oh, how the tables have turned.
All in all, IMO the episode as a whole was stronger than 402 but, as Other Roomie was quick to point out, “The bar was pretty low.”
Most interestingly, as the weeks go by it is somehow easier to watch the show. Maybe it’s because it’s easier for it to become just another show – one that we pull off the DVR when we are bored, like we do Grey’s or Nashville – instead of “is it 8 o’clock yet?!” We laughed a lot – “Dairy Queen” got a huge fit of giggles – and it was at the jokes rather than at the show so I suppose that’s a positive. Once is supposed to be roommate bonding time, I was never supposed to ship it, so if I can go back to that I guess it’s okay.
Just as long as I can keep from thinking about the awesomeness that should have been.
ETA: Forgot to say, about Will – wasn’t there clear indication at the end of WL that it was several years later (Alice & Cyrus’s kid) and Will and Ana were ruling Wonderland? In order to go Emma/Will – which I almost kinda could ship, though never never in the way I ship SF – they’d have to totally retcon that, no?
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
I still vote Cold-Hearted Snake is highly thematic.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
So we watched Manhattan Love Story tonight. It was pretty okay, for a pilot.
Then we watched Once Upon A Time.
I laughed harder at the drama than the sitcom.
That’s not right.
(Is this REALLY the same show that gave us the brilliance of Manhattan?!)
I miss my ship 🙁
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in this commercial, but it made me giggle. It’s like a cross between a bison and The Beast!
Happy Saturday y’all!
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
That tumblr is one of the funniest things ever.
(Except the part where the only two characters who aren’t animated is our ship, hmmm WHY IS THAT?! I am sure it has *nothing* to do with the fact that they were created as originals to be each others’ counterparts…
Oops my bitterness is showing.
Tumblr. Hilarious!!)
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Heather, I think you know which is which already so I nominate you to keep track of the tally.
I think the rebeller should totally change their name to Cyder.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
Hugs Slurp! I totally feel you!!
I have struggled – continue to struggle – so much with finding the balance between watching/fanning/caring enough to enjoy but not so much that I give a crap when they screw it up. Summer hiatus did me good – a lot of good – I think I need a hiatus that long between each and every episode. LOL!!
I want to partake in the discussion and be around everybody but then I start to get worked up and… blah. No twitter, no tumblr, no spoilers. I can handle a little discussion, and somehow the show itself seems to bother me far less than the rest of it.
That Jared tidbit breaks my heart. Our little SF kid was such a shipper… as was most of the cast… and I totally get him not wanting to ship anymore. That, BTW, tells me he’s detached – they’ve managed to have their actors remove their emotional attachment from the characters and that’s how you get “phoning it in.” (Please note I am NOT accusing him of phoning it in, just noting that’s how actors end up there.) “I just play with the script says”? – yeah, that’s never something you want to hear from an actor. Excited about their projects, rooting for their characters, etc, is what you’d hope to hear. Sigh. Time to break out the slow clap again.
And this “everyone deserves a happy ending”… sorry, that’s garbage. You don’t get to pull that when the most self-sacrificial character on the show gets no happy ending, no chance to break the cycle and parent his own son. Unless Regina in her book-finding time-travelling plan manages to bring back Neal, then hey, maybe we’ll talk.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...
