Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
HappyEndings wrote: Someone should tweet Adam and ask if Blue is dead. After all Greg is dead.
Greg is but Greg asn’t an immortal to begin with. And Rumple was immortal, cut off his shadow and is fine. There is something very…SNEAKY…about this.
Rumple cut off his own shadow, huge difference. The shadow ripped out Blue’s shadow as he did with Greg. So, I’m pretty convinced, Blue is dead, and can’t be revived in any way. Dead is dead, one of the few limits to magic they have been quite consistent with so far.
And frankly, I am glad if they in fact killed Blue. Prefer a tough end instead of dragging out things, and they had no clue what to do with her besides keeping her around as plot device. Have your crack theories, but highly doubt they would ever make her really sneaky fairy.
As it looks after this episode sadly even Blue’s death seems wasted, meaningless, shallow and MacGuffinish. They’re good at wasting characters and good acting.
[adrotate group="5"]¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
WHAT?!? Snow had the idea to cut off the head of some allegedly fearsome creature to use it against Regina? Cut of the head from a living, breathing and possible sentient being, although one maybe dangerous, but still, to use the head as a weapon? Are they serious? That from the woman, who as girl declined to use the death candle to save her mother, and had a mild life crisis after she years later used it on evil horror mom Cora? Am I the only one thinking, that this is so out of character? It’s one thing that Snow desperately looks for a way to stop Regina, to defend herself, her family, friends and kingdom, but to kill and use another being to accomplish that… it doesn’t fit.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
You’re not alone, kpercyman. And your post isn’t lengthy.
Happened before, that shipping and inevitably arising shipping wars took over fandoms. I never minded it much before, simply looked for a corner, where there was still place to talk about more interesting things like character development beyond hot happy couples’ phantasies, and to talk about the story and plots, cultural references, injokes or even go into dangerous waters of looking into representation of society, ethics. At worst turned to enjoying the show mostly on my own, discussing it maybe with a few likeminded people in closed chats. Outed myself as non-romantic ages ago, but haven’t thought of myself as anti-shipper up until now.
Now OUaT is basically about happiness found in romance and marriage and family, hot happy couples and their kids. Although writers never give the happy end before the end, storytelling always means drama, so they put the characters through hell, making the lives of particular the romance shipping fans misery. OUaT is like the mothership of romance and shipping. It is what fairy tales have been reduced to before with some support by film industry and namely Disney, and what OUaT isn’t changing.
Right, it’s not just OUaT. It’s shipping craziness all over. For example Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has just started and is struggling to find its standing, but people are already talking who they’re shipping. Or people are already shipping Ichaboad Crane and Abbie Mills on Sleepy Hollow (at least they do have chemistry, plenty, but to me it’s just a great partnership). Or look at my fave airing show Lost Girl, which has a different message (yes, it is about relationships but not fairy tale romance, and though not outspoken open for the idea of polyamory; and Lost Girl made it a point to place pretty much in the middle of the show a declared non-romantic, non-sexual, pure friendship BFF relationship), but the shipping war happening has already epic dimensions. The only thing going on in fandoms worse than that is the character and actor/actress bashing, not bound to but often connected to shipping. What a coincidence that the character one hates so often is played by the allegedly worst actor or actress on the show. No bias, of course, never ever. And no surprise there when that very character is a threat for the OTP one has choosen. That is when one remembers that fan is said to be a short for fanatic.
Don’t remember much shipping on Star Trek though, just the famous slash pairing Kirk/Spock (talking the pre-rebirth Star Trek, don’t get me started about Spock and Uhura 😉 ), but sure remember the epic wars about Mulder and Scully and Xena and Gabrielle (if anyone is interested in the latter shipping war, the Great Divide, online magazine Whoosh! offers some material). Interesting that many of the shipping wars at least in the past were more about, should they or shouldn’t they, than with who. But that might be my perception.
Shipping is part of fandom – always was, not just in our modern internet fandom times. If you have a chance to get a hand on some old printed fanzines, take a look. And it is the heart of fanfiction. Shipping is not even limited to fictional characters, but fiction offers way more possibilities than other fandoms have. That doesn’t make it any less annoying though, it just says, it has been around for a while.
If you get an overdose of something, it can happen that you develop a (longer) lasting intolerance or even an allergy. That is happening to me at the moment when it comes to shipping. And mostly have the OUaT fandom to thank for that. Have been through years and shipping wars in other fandoms, but finally reached the point, where it is enough. I am tired of being the one who has to look for places without shipping talks or very, very little of it, tired of making compromises, tired of letting shipping romance craziness ruining just another fandom for me while smiling understandingly and all tolerant.
Could be, shipping is nowadays just a lot more visible thanks to the vast possibilities of sharing and oversharing the web offers (but before it became Tumblr and Twitter and whatever, there was Livejournal, still somewhat is, and long before that there was the usenet and its discussion groups). But I think that doesn’t explain it all. Think we’re in a period where people want to romanticize again, overwhelmed, disappointed and scared by life challenges, a gloomy looking presence and future. Fifty Shades is perhaps one of the worst written novels and even fanfictions I’ve ever tried to read (and I am so not alone in that perception) but it’s big romance and big hit. Geee, Twilight series already was one of the worst written romance teenager wet dream novel series of the past decades, and the movies where only visual a little better. (No, I don’t mind to drop a brick here)
So feel free to not ship.
What should that mean? Sorry, but of course I feel free to not ship, would be very sad if there would be any kind of dictates to ship if one wants to be part of a fandom. But how can I in practice “not ship”, if everywhere around shipping is happening? Ignore it, not talk about it at all, alright. But is my only choice to leave, if the shipping has become so loud, that one simply can’t turn a blind eye to it anymore? To watch the show on my own, avoid every place and forum because there hardly ever is no talk about ships, isolate and lose the fun of discussion with others?
It would be easier, if the shipping would be confined to mostly shipping threads, shipper sides, but it is creeping into everything. No matter what a discussion started about, it can be taken over. Forum moderation is sometimes a tedious task, done it myself. If I had the time at the moment, would probably set up an anti-shipper forum, a place for people tired of shippers and shipping discussions, a place to focus talk on all the other interesting things shows offer and tell. No talk at all about shipping, strictly moderated (yep, censorship, I know). Okay, there would be a subforum to vent, whine and joke about shippings in fandoms, need that too.
We sometimes are blind to the amount we are actually talking about something, self-evaluation is something we all often fail in. So we know and say we are interested in other things, but in the dynamic of a group end up talking about the same things again and again without noticing it at times.
No offense, but criticism to shippers in general intended, whoever the shoe fits, wears it. I know, when people get passionate it is not easy to look up and beyond the own passion. And I agree mostly, that it should be let live and each their own – but that doesn’t always, can’t always work. Each to their own is an utopian ideal, in practice we have to make compromises. Now for a show like OUaT it is nearly impossible to not talk about relationships, they are part of nearly every plot, but there is a difference to talk about the plot and to talk ship. And not all is about romance. Wrote about that in another place.
I appreciate that we try on this forum to keep shipping in the topics dedicated to it, but occasionally passion is overwhelming here too. Happens. It is not about this forum though (just to be clear). It’s a general observation. Fandoms have a huge shipping problem and excessive, fanatic shippers can kill the fun for everybody else. It’s tough work to not let that happen and not free of conflict.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Agreed, other characters besides Rumple got development, or story plots in this season so far too, but that is not my point. The question for me is, who is at the center of the show.
They have quite a big regular and recurring cast, and of course they have to do something with them (although Red, Meghan Ory, was a regular in season 02 and they very much failed to do something with her character). Having a plot as character and character development are not the same thing though. Charming had a plot, but that was no character development, he had been the heroic, noble, protective and ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good and love man since we know him. Wouldn’t even say that Rumple got much character development, not in the present time. Like pretty much every character, he developed more in the past but barely in present time. At least Rumple has still more development than everybody else, past and presence. Exception Emma, she has not much past development, more present, but her character plot and development was drowned in the second half of second season by the rush they had to leave at the end of season for Neverland. Right, Pan forced Emma to admit she still feels like an orphan and that she wished Neal were dead (so she would have to confront her conflicting feelings about him, I guess) – but, I don’t know how it was for others, I couldn’t really feel these moments. “Show, don’t tell” – something every professional writer sure has heard of. It was the biggest problem I had with the Echo Chamber of Dark Secrets, they all were just talking.
One can say they try what classic fairy tales sometimes did, have a message or moral, with filling this season so far with plots bringing up the issue of believe in variations , but that is not the center of the story either, it’s maybe the message.
There were plenty of discussions and speculations about Pan, who he might be, what he needed Henry for, what he was doing. It didn’t even take much screentime to put him in the center of attention. And quite obvious the big thing of the first half of the season was for the show to answer that and build up for the finale moment, when they’re going to safe Henry (and the rest of the season they can deal with Henry doubting himself then, with his heart tainted by the narcissistic black soul of his great-grandfather). That puts Pan very much into the center of the story, as big mystery (more or less) and big bad. Even before it was out, that Pan is Rumple’s rejuvenated father, it had been established, that there was some bigger history between Rumple and Pan and that there was the possibility of Rumple’s undoing in some connection with saving Henry from Pan. It could have been something different if Pan had been just some very evil guy, wanting to suck the life out of the heart of the truest believer to become some truly immortal, never full grown up, forever young guy with endless powers, but no, they choose to make him Rumble’s father and turn Rumple’s story even more into a sob story than it already is. Didn’t help that they tied in the Pied Piper in this the way they did – I know many liked it but I found it was a total waste of an interesting story (btw a legend not a fairy tale). I seriously began to wish not Disney / ABC would have been interested in this show idea but HBO, although there they tend to drown stories in graphic sensationalism.
It is not per se bad story telling (although admittedly think they could do better). It’s just that I thought they were telling a different story, and the one they are telling isn’t that interesting for me. It has a different focus, it has become very soap opera like, and they try to play that action figure style so to speak. The later could work, if they would take the show a lot less serious and become campy, but a) is ABC perhaps not the right network for that, b) at least not for Sunday primetime, and b) is there already a show taking that niche on TV market, and I doubt there is place for more of that kind.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Two chalices in the same room in scenes that involve Robin coincidence? I think not.
So is Robin Hood affiliated with the chalice? Perhaps he, like Lancelot, was once a knight of the round table.
All for mixing mythologies and characters, but nevertheless first let’s get the originals straight. T.H. White put Robin Hood and Prince Arthur together in his 1938 novel about the youth of Arthur, “The Sword in the Stone”. That novel was the base for the animated feature film by Disney from 1963 with the same title, which probably many here have seen.
The original myths of Arthur and of Robin Hood though are different mythologies, playing in different time periods. While Arthur is set in the late 5th/ early 6th century (very early Middle Ages the time shortly after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire), Robin Hood plays in the late 12th century (time of the Third Crusade 1189-1192, King Richard I the Lionheart 1157-1199, High Middle Ages), so about 700 years later. Robin Hood was never a Knight of the Round Table.
Not saying the chalice can’t be meant as a connection for the scenes of Robin Hood in the castle, and maybe as a reference to the Holy Grail even. In the novel “Ivanhoe” by Sir Walter Scott from 1820 the bad guys in the story are members of the Knights Templar, a certain Robin of Locksley helps the good protagonist Wilfred of Ivanhoe. And the Knights Templar have been named in legends as the keepers, guards of the Holy Grail. In the novel “Ivanhoe” that plays no role, but you can make the connection.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Where did you get the information, that Jane Espenson is a contributor to the book? Because she isn’t. Brad Bell is (GoGeeksGo, producer, writer, star of the sitcom Hudsbands, which he created with Jane Espenson) Guess you missread the tweet a little, happens. 😉
But Amber Benson (actress known best for her role as Tara on Buffy, but also writer of urban fantasy, screenwriter, director), and Rachel Caine (writer Weather Warden, Red Letter Days, Morganville Vampires, working on producing a webseries of the latter with Amber Benson in a role btw) contributed besides others. Here a list of contributors
Since Shades of Grey fanfiction gets some more attention and is taken slightly more serious.
But book is on my list as well. Sure it is.
They did a panel at the SDCC’13 (San Diego ComicCon 2013). Someone recorded most of it http://youtu.be/aAprlzh0DSI
Audio only and not best quality (and warning, some people should consider chewing gum or whatever never in public, it can be annoying)¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Have not much hope, but who knows… Never say never again.
And on a not so serious note, maybe something for an upcoming extra season (and eventually something to get me more interested again):
Cell Block Tango – a Disney version
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
I would be interested. Yes, despite that I am not much invested in the show anymore, and I am so no romantic 😉 just some social scientist with interest in cultural studies. It is an interesting subject, the different aspects of how true love, love is portrait on the show, what the show’s take is on it.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
