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You probably can’t think of an example because there is none. Some supporting characters have been read over time as queer, but that was subtext, never openly done.
Recently an article made arguments for Disney movies nevertheless helping queer young people, that queer reading already does a lot, and that the movies are open to that. Interesting view, though I don’t share it. Here some arguments why the view of queer reading does the trick is short sighted at best. And a some months older article questioning, what image Disney movies creates by pretty much ignoring queer love.
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There’s no way the writers haven’t seen/heard of Elsa’s HUGE queer following, right? Even they must know that they’re walking on thin ice (pun so intended) when it comes to ouat’s queer fans and the depiction of Elsa as a character on the show. I think I’d rather them make her asexual than straight, and I think that would be a safer path for the show in general if they refuse to make her a lesbian.
Heard of quite sure, but they still can ignore it. And if they’d made her asexual it could be even interesting (even less represented than transgender and transsexual people, and widely misunderstood) that doesn’t mean that she is or has to be at the same time a-romantical. It is debated, if asexuality can be seen as a sexual orientation, and it questions the common view, that romantic love pretty much doesn’t exist without sexual attraction/desire. If there is no sexual desire than people equal it with platonic love (another somewhat misunderstood concept), friendship relation, good buddies (while bromance can have a slight level of some sort of sexual tension eventually), but that is not what some asexual people would agree with. They know the desire for a special someone, but it’s not about sexual attraction. Many asexual people identify as hetero, bi, gay or lesbian.
I guess though you meant it in the sense of not giving Elsa any kind of even the slightest romantic interest, attraction at all, just spare that part of a character out. Quite like with Archie and the Blue Fairy, although those are minor characters (despite being a plot device at times, the Blue Fairy is no major character on the show, we know more about Archie even), while Elsa will be in one or the other way a major character. They couldn’t help it and pepper even Zelena with some sexual innuendo, and it was already in the writing, not a matter of how Rebecca Mader played her. Right, they didn’t do it that obviously with Pan, although there was a lot of subtext reading possible with that guy, and of the sometimes rather dubious kind.
Well their bosses are Disney. And Disney is *certainly* aware of it. How they feel about it might be a different story.
Hard to speculate about that. While Disney as a branch seems sometimes stuck with 1950s world views though in a more modern outfit (which has a lot to do with the figure of Walt Disney), it is a huge company and its assets are following diverse strategies and are sometimes even rather progressive, like ABC Studios and ABC Television Network. Grey’s Anatomy is in some ways groundbreaking in queer representation, with treating their lesbian couple as equal to the het couples. In a certain way the show is as well conservative though, applying the same rules for het couples now simply to same gender couple, as conservative as same-gender-marriage is, but it is progress (and yes, some or even most queer people are rather conservative in their views on relationships if it comes to matters like true love and infidelity). Disney Animation could have set up some strict rules concerning character development as well as giving A&E creative freedom on such levels, they could feel uncomfortable about taking Elsa that road or be relaxed and think, could be an interesting test even, if people accept it – as long as it is on the show they still could insist it was interpretation and go on theater stage and in probable later sequels of the movie a different way.
Either way IMO it’s up to A&E, either because they can see it and take the character there or not, or because they’re eager to do Frozen even if it means to keep it more traditional if that is what Walt Disney Animation Studios only let’s them do.
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It’s more in the fandom than on the show. Character development and that includes relationships is rather understated on the show. It’s more the next big adventure, the next big bad driving the story (although the writers sure think differently about it, in their view it’s character driven). There are enough people ranting, that there is never enough Belle and subsequently never enough Rumbelle. Others can’t wait to the see the next CaptainSwan kiss, a few complain that Snowing have become a minor matter, some that the show has become all about “whiny” “saint” Regina and her sensitivities, her saving the day for everybody (exception final of season 1), and the next toy figure from the shelf of endless wonders. If the show has gone somewhat shippery then it was in the recent 11 episodes. Excluding though Snowing, because showing a working marriage has never been one of the strong things in entertainment, it’s mostly about finding true love, the chase, romancing and not how to make living together work on a daily basis. If marriage then as drama, something that needs fixing, because it maybe shouldn’t have been in the first place or gets in crisis because of money, distrust, infidelity or forced apart by live’s circumstances (war as prevalent theme). In season 1 we had the romancing for Snowing in the flashback and the marriage crisis in a way in present Storybrooke.
I don’t know that you can have a show about fairy tales and not have it focus heavily on romantic relationships – that’s what so many are about…
I disagree, romance is maybe a part in many fairy tales, but after all they’re called fairy tales and not romance tales. Fairy tales are often about proving as person through a quest, a journey to maturity, they are about virtues, and they are cautionary tales, finding love is more the gratification for all effort, the prize for growing up and become a decent person, it’s the happy ending, not the story. We have to thank in a way Disney that by now people think of romance the moment they hear the word fairy tale, because of emphasizing on the princesses stories, it (seemingly) became about finding Mr. Right (and seldom Mrs. Right), to get married and have children as happy ending. Disney created rolemodels for girls, and stuck to more traditional plain ideas of women finding their fulfillment in relationships, true love, marriage, children, making these things the future to dream for girls, while DC and Marvel comics created the rolemodels for boys (and tomboys maybe) with their fulfillment to become the savior of the day, the hero, defenders and creators of law and order, family more of an obstacle for them than a goal of their dreams, at best getting the smart hot girl was the reward for all the hard work of a hero.
In a way OUaT is a bit of both. Instead of the comic action figures played with fairy tale barbie family dolls with some additional action equipment.
edit: It’s ironic in this context that Marvel Entertainment has been acquired in 2009 by Disney Company.
keep in mind I’m used to British Soap Operas which are probably a little bit better.
U.S. soap operas have a tendency to focus on the relationship/romance melodrama in often enough upper middle-class to upper class settings, while British approach more daily life issues with a setting in working-class including social issues besides romance melodrama. It’s easy to see with Coronation Street or Eastenders (as the British soaps), but even if comparing medical soap drama shows like Casualty (UK) and Grey’s Anatomy (U.S.) that difference is notable, IMO Casualty is less glamorous (one could say it mirrors the difference in health system) and has better stories. My theory is, that the Brits have the royal family to get their daily dose of upper-class drama, while the U.S. need to create fictionally their “royals” (although there are a few families in the U.S. who could take that role in real, namely the Kennedy family could for a while). Of course one could count in shows like Downtown Abbey though as a kind of soap opera period primetime drama, but even with such a more aristrocrate setting it includes some of the working class due to stories of the servants of the house. Still think that 1970s Upstairs, Downstairs is the better series of such kind of period drama though, maybe because it told things more from the downstairs’ view, aka the servants’ view; the difference might explain, why Downtown Abbey though is such an international success and especially successful in the U.S., while in the UK it’s not seen as top drama.
Anyway, these “spoilers” are mere speculations, or at best a description of were the (canon) ships are with the end of season 3. Somehow sounding like the monthly or annual horoscope for OUaT couples. The usual. 😉
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Thanks for the vids!
Heard of Ory’s summer TV movie before, and will be interesting to see her as a different kind of character.
Agree mostly with what Meghan Ory said about Red, it was brilliant to make her the wolf. And yes, Ruby is aggressive in her sexuality, but at the same time she is depicted like the typical victim type, (young) woman working as waitress, somewhat gaudy in her appearance, the kind decent citizens judge as more or less calling for it, a woman not knowing her place, so someone has to show her her place (if you walk alone in the dark and in shabby places, look like a working girl, wearing very short skirts, flirt all day or night, still too many people think it is at least partially your fault when being assaulted, which is totally wrong thinking though – recommend watching for example the movie Accused from 1988 with Jodie Foster, if you don’t know what I am talking about, but caution, that movie is drastic). In a way Ruby is a classical female prey of modern tales, the urban version of cautionary tale Red Riding Hood. While Red the wolf is clearly a predator, she can be deadly, though for Red maybe should use more the more positive term hunter.
Love me a granny, who is cookie and milk and reading stories and sassy and no nonsense and good with a crossbow.
That little cousin of whoever brought it up with diner – dinner is some smart kid.
Always shocking when I see Bev without her Granny hair and makeup. She’s actually a lot younger than Granny.
LOL. Don’t know how old you think Granny is, but looks can deceive. Amuses me every time for example when people nearly faint learning that Ming Na is 50, but guess what, Sandra Bullock is 49 by now, Jodie Foster 51. And guess Beverley is at an age when most go into work retirement (not actors though). Fairy tale Granny of course plays with traditional images of what a granny looks like.
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PoM – never saw Ugly Betty, so can’t say anything about that character. But maybe it was something like I (and others) had with Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher, couldn’t stand that character but was never able to nail, why not. I love Wil Wheaton by now, great geek, great guy, but still have a hard time watching any episode with Wesley in the middle of attention. And they didn’t even tell such bad story with him at times. Interesting that some people have some problems with Henry, might be something similar. And now I am already straining my head to find a female character as example, lol.
Maybe there is no wrong or right way, but ways one can still dislike. I mentioned the sweep weeks lesbian kiss some pages back. Though there are some clear examples, there are as well some debated ones, like an episode from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where the Dax symbiont meets a former spouse but both are now in new hosts, and renewing their romance is something the Trill society forbids. I like that episode and how they addressed same gender love as not the issue. They could have very well made one of the characters a man and avoid the same gender question, the issue was true love against societal rules and laws. But as well one can argue, they downplayed the same gender relations too much, they should have made it an issue, or why make their love an issue at all. Not to mention, there is no happy ending for them. But’it’s one of my favorite Star Trek episodes.
And I am in love with Felix from Orphan Black. Street smart and hot. Yes, bit cliche gay, but so are some of my gay (guy) friends.
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Where to begin… In society and culture we have gender images and gender roles. In our European/American cultures gender is mostly equaled with biological sex, and we have a binary system of gender and sex. There are men and there are women, and eventually, though made invisible, those “by nature” not clearly defined, hermaphrodites. At school most of us learn biological sex has something to do with X and Y chromosome, but it’s a bit more complicate than that. Whoever is seen as biological as man is expected to behave more as such and women as women, and anyone somehow somewhere biological in between is expected to decide to be one or the other. In society we have ideas, what is proper manly behavior and looks and images of masculinity, and we have ideas what is proper female behavior and looks and images of femininity, and a kind of image of in between as androgynous. Some cultures though have not the same strict view of biology defining someone’s gender, in Albania for example there have been the so called sworn virgins, who are biological women but live accepted as men as long as they refrain having any sex (you can find pictures on the web, and its hard to tell by their looks that they are biological women). It’s known sometimes as “third gender”, though this term has been used quite confusingly sometimes for a different gender than the two common ones, sometimes including or not transgender, sometimes including or not transsexuals, and by a few even for different sexual orientation.
It can get confusing, not even biological sex is clear cut, different from what most remember from school. And there is gender identity and gender expression as two different things. We have people, who, out of whatever reason, live in a body not fitting their sexual identity, people whose bodies don’t fit their gender identity and people who don’t fit into any of the binary identities. We have multiple possibilities of sexual orientation (hetero, gay, lesbian, bi, pansexual, asexual to name the most common labels). Then we have people who like to cross-dress, but that doesn’t necessarily has to do anything with their gender identity or sexual orientation (a common misunderstanding). And we have people questioning the common gender roles in society, being gender-nonconform. Not to mention images of gender and gender roles might change with time and culture. It might seem a bit nitpicking to make all these differences, but when you discuss gender roles and gender images for a while it will make sense.
So Mulan. In the universe of the Disney movie story, in the diegetic reality Mulan is a young woman, has no doubt about being one, but she struggles somewhat with gender roles, she is more or less a tomboy in behavior, though in looks pretty much a young woman, she is gender nonconform. To protect her father Mulan masquerades as man to be able to fullfil his call to military duty. The movie has some typical jokes about acting gender nonconform (which makes the movie quiet ambivalent if it comes to questioning gender roles let alone identities), in the army emphasizing a more traditional picture of masculinity, but on the other hand one can say, it’s the army, warriors have to be tough no matter what gender. With a bit of comical touch in the crisis climax of the movie the best comrades disguises as women to fool the bad (masculine) guys, and though playing on gender roles, it as nothing to do with questioning them and not the least bit with Third Gender, transgender, transsexuality – in the diegetic reality that is.
Mulan has no doubts about her identity, but issues with gender roles, and while in the legend there are elements of attraction between two women, one can debate if is more sisterly or romantic, there is nothing like that in the Disney movie. Mulan is a gender nonconform but gender straight woman and straight in her sexual orientation.
Something different is again the spectatorial reality (perception audience) and maybe somewhat the creational reality (intention filmmakers). It is possible to see some subtext in it, coming from the tough warrior woman who dresses as man depiction, quite like there is plenty of subtext reading with a character like Olivia Benson of SVU, who I think though had an even more masculine appearance and behavior than Mulan ever had in the movie (and Benson is still more masculine, even though they made her more feminine over the years). In OUaT Mulan though was shown more masculine in her manners than in the movie, but most we have about her background, why she dresses as manly warrior, has become a warrior is speculation, based on the Disney movies.
If it comes to transgender and transsexual: The sad reality is, it is something barely shown on screen so far at all and neither noticed that much if it comes to subtext. In fantasy one can read some subtext into anyone struggling with being or becoming a supernatural being, in science fiction we have alien races and as well transformation process (Star Trek a few interesting episode to offer).
To break it down to OUaT: Red is a lot more transgender subtext open than Mulan. Even the dwarfs are more open for transgender subtext. Maleficent could have been an interesting character for it. Working with stereotypes, but as said, that is not per se negative.
PoM, RG: I very much appreciate how much thought you’re giving it.
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More Red, yes! With a good story. We can hope.
But all their own ships. So more going for Red with Mulan (RedWarrior, WolfWarrior, WarriorWolf?) or maybe with Elsa (RedItGo! IceWolf). If I would do any shipping, those were ones I could get into.
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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.
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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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It’s sometimes interesting, how different people perceive a movie, its characters, and what messages or ideas we read into it. Not talking to strangers was not a lesson I saw in the movie for example. After all it was a stranger who truly helped Anna, although not initially out of the good of his heart but for goods (supplies), but Kristoff turns out to be Anna’s prince of heart. Prince Hans is the charming predator type Anna falls for thanks to her trustful nature – more giving the message never trust the shiny charming sports boy (the charming predator kind is often shown in high school dramas as the sports star of the school, cool boys club, but taking advantage of the innocent, kind-hearted girl)
Certainly don’t see them keeping 100% of Frozen for OUaT. As much as I love though, that on OUaT they give (sometimes) new views, different perspectives on well known, classical, childhood heroes, storybook characters, I don’t like them to change the characters in their essence. If looking at plot it is seldom a problem to bring in a new iconic character, that is the easy part of it. It’s not even that much of a challenge to create connections with the core cast, with other characters per se looking at plot. I would even say, the show is more plot driven, but A&E have claimed, it’s more character driven.
I can see plot reasons, and of course shiny geeky fun reasons as well, to make Anastasia Anna but so far I don’t see Ana in Anna or Anna in Ana, I don’t see it in the character. Admitted I am not deep into knowing Ana, but nothing from what I’ve see of her in the few episodes of OUaTiW I watched (including the 3rd 11th and final), cries for me same character. Unless you want her to be someone with multiple personality – and no, memory loss doesn’t explain to me such different personalities as I think they are. To me Frozen’s Anna shares more personality traits with Snow White for example (as in the animated movie and OUaT), while Elsa on the other hand in some aspects comes closer to Anastasia of OUaTiW.
If just looking at plot, as said, that is more the easy part. And still it would need some good answers, how to make it work. Ana and Anna sound is nice to start with, to get a creative spark, but that doesn’t write the story, or plot. So, how can we imagine Elsa as Anastasia’s sister? Was Anastasia adopted? If not, than that would make Elsa one of the stepsisters of Ashley/Cinderella, which could have some plot charm, but so far they were only 2 stepsisters in the picture, Anastasia and Drizella. Anastasia falling in love with a commoner is not even something A&E had to come up with, it happened in the lesser known second Cinderella movie (thought there he was a baker). Drizella though never becomes a sympathetic character, stays pretty much cruel and jealous and ends up as maiden in the third movie. So anyone wanting Drizella to turn out to be Elsa? If not, we need a third stepsister – where was she in the story with Cinderella? So guess we better go with the idea that Ana was adopted, the child stolen by, uhm, Rumple from her parents, out of whatever reason, and given to the Tremaines to raise. But why should Lady Tremaine be interested in adopting Ana, asides getting some riches for it? Wait, Rumple could have told her, Ana some day would be a queen (as usual he would leave out details), so Lady Tremaine assumed, that would make her rich. Ana’s story goes on with the Knave and how it played out in Wonderland. And now Elsa shows up, desperately looking for her sister. And somehow Will stumbles into the mess, and in the end is the one to bring Ana and Elsa back together.
Could work, turn Ana even more into another victim of circumstances and of Rumple, at least her biological mother loved her maybe, it was her adoptive mother who seeded the bad traits in her, more prove for evil being nurtured and not born, because Ana was such a sweet, lovely child at birth. She could have been like Snow White, but thanks to bad Dark One imp Rumple was turned into a better version of Cora.
It could work, somewhat, still don’t see Anna in Ana. I share the view, that evil is not born, but as much I can’t help it but observe that no one of us is born as totally blank slate if it comes to personality. If we use our talents and traits for doing evil or for doing good, or for something more in between (so many things are many shades of gray) is nothing our genes dictate nor fate, but we are born with somewhat different set of talents and traits.
Advantage of making Elsa Penelope, Will’s sister, would be, that Penelope is a blank slate. All we know is, she was Will’s sister and died, drowning under ice, assumed dead. Instead she could have been found be a nice, freshly married royal couple somehow, who took pity and her in and she became Elsa. And Will, back in Storybrooke with some guilty feelings about having betrayed Robin Hood and his Merry Men back in the days, there to help Robin, who of course got in some mischief situation, because, well, that is what happens to Regina’s lovers, confrontation with death (maybe he got frozen, or his wife’s hearts gets cold and she turns into a fury). Only be accident and lucky for them all it is revealed, that he an Elsa are connected, and with his great experience in rescuing people through true love, he has the right idea to help her to get her powers under control and refrain from taking revenge on Rumple. Or something along that line. And instead of the big bad we get a new big hero for Storybrooke.
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