[Myril]

@RumplesGirl wrote:

True. But I believe it was Myril who pointed out (I can’t remember which thread. Myril if you read this, chime in and let me know what you were saying) that our answer to the time question isn’t going to be solved via science. Science and magic are tricky. People generally assume they are opposites but the are not. Truth be told I tend to follow Arthur C. Clarke’s law that

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

and that science and magic are actually very similar. People may believe that science evolved from magic, following Frazer (see: The Golden Bough) but the two are not mutually exclusive. With that said there is the question of genre. While I think drawing a hard line between sci fi and fantasy is a futile exercise (especially in today’s TV/literature examples) I think it may apply here. Thus far everything about NL (that we’ve seen) has been magical, such as the Shadow and ripping shadows from boys. I think magic will explain any time issues, not science. I think that outside of NL, THO is well funded and uses science because in our world it’s the only thing they can use.

It was in this thread, my previous post 😉 It’s of course nevertheless fun to see, how much science as we know it can be applied to the logic of the universe of OUaT.

The question of genre. Agree, drawing a hard line between science fiction and fantasy is futile, in the sense that stories told can have elements of both. But there is a difference between science fiction and fantasy. In fantasy for example a witch has magic, that is part of what makes her a witch, part of the archetype witch (more so witches have evil magic or use it for evil) and nothing that has to be explained. In science fiction a witch has at best powers which look like magic, but if you digg deeper one likely will find some machine or biological-chemical substance at work, a more or less scientific explanation (if that explanation is all true to or science is another thing, but it has to have a scientifical tone). Great example for the latter is an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, where an imposter pretends to be the devil playing on a myth believed in on some planet – of course the crew of the Enterprise finds the gadgets and exposes her as fraud. But I still have a big laugh every time I hear the midichloria explanation on Star Wars, because it forced a science fiction tone on a story that did very fine as a fantasy universe and so didn’t need that kind of explanation. Space opera doesn’t equal science fiction. Franchises like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica are fantasy universes, with more of a fantasy logic than science ficion logic. Just because of space and the extensive use of technology we tend to perceive them as something more like science fiction than fairy tale – but they are way closer to fairy tales than to science fiction.

And then there is supernatural fiction. While fairy tale story logic and plots not at all care if what they describe could be found like that in nature, supernatural stories imply more that something is part of nature although something that our science is not able to explain, it’s a bit between fairy tale fantasy and science fiction and horror. Supernatural is something that plays most of the time in our world (or world resembling our world), there is (weird) science and technology, it is eventually embeded in real historical events and involves more or less mystical creatures like vampires, werewolves, ghosts. Grimm is a recent example for a show with supernatural tone, even though playing with figures and archetypes drawn from fairy tales, and the notion that the Grimms where more than fairy tale story tellers (they were indeed linguists and cultural researchers, but that is not the point).

Now what is OUaT? it’s fantasy with supernatural and maybe a few science fiction elements, but the basic logic of the OUaT universe is a fantasy one, a fairy tale logic. A witch is a witch because she can do magic, a fairy is a fairy and does magic, a curse works because there is magic. That was all still quite clear in first season, despite discussing how can a town created by magic exist in a world without magic. But in second season this element of magic vs. science has been brought in, first through Dr. Whale and then Greg and Tamara, and I think since we are somewhat struggling to find and follow the logic working inside of the OUaT universe. Had to remind myself that this show is still basically fantasy not science fiction.

Story telling 101: keep things simple. That some have the ability to see into the future, no matter how blurry and misleading these views are, has been established, in fantasy logic no problem, there is magic, so people can see the future. It is the simple solution to explain, why the Lost Boys in past Neverland have a picture of present Henry. I agree with RumplesGirl here. TimeSpacer your idea can work but it is hard to grasp and thus more confusing than explaining. Fun to ponder though.

While time was an important story element on Lost, and because K&H worked on the show we like to look at Lost for references, I don’t see time ever be an important plot on OUaT. It is already too much of an issue in my opinion. And when fans are discussing more technical details of a story like this t-thing instead of character development, and the writers claim it’s a character driven show, then something is going wrong.

[Myril]

@Phee wrote:

@RumbelleDearie wrote:

@OnceABeliver wrote:

We have to assume that storybrooke is cloaked from everyone, since belle asked rumple how he would find his way back, and he said he didn’t know… I doubt Neal will be able too…

It’s cloaked from them as well? I thought it was cloaked from more outsiders getting in, but not people from FTL. I don’t think the Charmings plan on staying in NL for good.

Rumple: It’s a cloaking spell. It will shield the town, making it impossible for anyone to find.
Belle: Then h-how will you find your way back to me?
Rumple: *awkward silence and sadface*
Rumbelle fans: WAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Charming is the only one who overheard that conversation, so if he hasn’t told the rest of them about it, they have no idea about the cloaking spell and don’t anticipate it complicating their getting home.

Seeing how great the cloaks we’ve seen so far worked, be it for the Jolly Roger of for the bean field, they will find a way to find cloaked Storybrooke. Interesting how Charming reacted, like, oh, yes, wait, the town … They would have sailed off without telling anyone if not for Gold asking Belle to stay behind.

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[Myril]

@thelonebamf wrote:

I do wish Tamara would stop dropping words like “unholy” and other sort of… religiously leaning bits into her explanation. The organization/mission is already sort of weak and undeveloped and that sort of dialogue just sort of makes me (and I imagine many viewers) sort of roll their eyes because it seems like a cop out. If you’re going to play the “religious backing” card, you need to support it with a back story. Otherwise it just seems like a throwaway.

this!

I don’t have a problem with giving them a religious fanatics touch, but it needs a story.

Because magic is involved, pretty much one of the first thoughts is witch hunt, but don’t get me started about common misconception of witch hunt and particular the role of church in it, the mix-up of church hunting heretics and what is called inquisition with secular witch hunt driven by intolerance and superstition, it had little to do with religious fanaticism. Nope, church were not the worst witch hunters. People were sentenced to death by burning by secular courts, church had no jurisdiction in this (most people don’t seem to know). And they were sentenced, not killed by crazy crowds.

The choice of words is distinct, especially Tamara I see by now as a nutjob of some religious kind. I couldn’t care less about her back story but for this detail, that the Home Office seems to have a religious streak while using science to eradicate magic. The name choice Greg Mendell makes one think of Gregor Mendel, and, well, Gregor Mendel was so no nutjob, but an Augustinian friar with open mind and scientific thinking, and to me this name association looks by now like a bad joke. Have the feeling they drop one clanger after the other not thinking things through.

Sorry for being ranty here. Have the impression this Home Office thing was cobbled together, rushed to give the Neverland arc a start this season.

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[Myril]

@RumplesGirl wrote:

But this show isn’t your standard fairytales, it’s the story we were never told before. In this particular medium, and on this particular show where everyone we thought we knew actually has more of a back story, Blue’s plot divisiveness sticks out like a sore thumb.
Image

I wonder if Rumple’s snark about the BF plot device situation in ASOTM was a hint that they too recognize what they’ve done and maybe plan to fix it? Because it’s starting to irritate quite a number of people. Even the actress tweeted the night of the finale something like, “I hope I’m off doing something important to save SB…” because she doesn’t appear at all when you would think the BF would be the first person to turn to.

Maybe they did notice something. And I think it was a wink to the fans of the show. They knew we would find it contrived, and even more so because it was the Blue Fairy (creating a Blue potion). OUaT isn’t standard fairy tale, right but the focus is still more on main fairy tale characters, isn’t it, with Snow, Prince Charming, Rumple, Evil Queen (just to name the fairy tale characters, ignoring Emma, Henry, Neal here).

Very much agree, that it would be nicer if the Blue Fairy would be more than a plot device, but she hasn’t been. Belle could need support taking care of Storybrooke. And it would have an interesting touch if not only Leroy gets involved but also the Blue Fairy (we already know Red won’t be much around for next season, busy patrolling the woods using her wolfish skills for intelligence). Just imagine, Leroy and Mother Superior working together and Leroy just can’t help it to make some grumpy remarks remembering that the Blue Fairy made him leave Nova.

Might be though a matter of filming schedules. Keegan Connor Tracy was recurring on Bates Motel. The show got picked up for a second season, and filming for it will start in fall. Don’t know if Tracy is again on the show and how much time it will take, but could make it harder for Once to get her for more.

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[Myril]

Looks interesting enough. So Alice was sent by her father to a mental institution. And they try hard to talk her there out of her experience, what they judge as pure fantasy. Wanting to do some new procedure on her to cure her … Why do I think it might look like ECT (Electroconvulsion therapy)? Alice goes looking for her lost love. A story in a story. See where this will go. 😎

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[Myril]

I”ve posted a few days ago in the glossary topic info about character status and actor status (in short what is a main character, supporting, what means being regular on a show, recurring etc.)
https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3578&p=59983#p59983
Maybe helps when discussing cast lists 😉

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[Myril]

Will give Intelligence for sure a try, and cross fingers that it will work out for Meghan Ory. I’m glad she has a chance to show more of her talent.

It was to be expected, that for the time being, for the next season Meghan Ory as Red will be no regular anymore. But hopefully her new series will leave her the time to drop by. Guest star once a year, could live with that.

Now for Red/Ruby. She is one of my favorite characters (hard to tell), and I wish they would have done more with her. For the sake of this brilliant idea to make Red her own wolf, and for the sake of Meghan Ory.

Different from others here I saw some story potential, still see. After all she tragically killed her first love, and that is great material for character driven drama. We got a glimpse of how she dealt with it in Child of the Moon, but there could be more. Imagine her getting interested again in someone, all the angst coming back if she would be able to control herself when emotions might run high. The angst how that person will see her as a werewolf. Memories coming back. Make it someone with family, who fears the werewolf. Make the someone a person seen with some doubts by Granny and her surrogate family aka Snow, Charming, Emma… Red/Ruby as the first to find her true love in Storybrooke, or maybe even in our world.

Then there is the friendship with Belle. And now taking care of things in Storybrooke while the everybody so far in charge is away. King George resurfacing conspiring with Keith/Sheriff of Nottingham against Ruby, Granny and Belle, combined with a flashback to Red’s role in overthrowing George.

I know the upcoming graphic novel they’re publishing will include Red and Graham and maybe some interaction between them. Some had speculated that their paths crossed in FTL. Would have love to see that on screen. But it’s something.

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[Myril]

@BeastWhisperer wrote:

@myril wrote:

The idea of Wendy, the Darlings starting the thing was, well, too convenient for my taste, too much still Disney, but I have sometimes a dark, wicked mind if it comes to story telling. Of course it would have been a dark twist in some way too, if the Home Office had started as something different, something to bring back Bae for good, but even that sounded too predictable to me.

Actually, this whole episode makes me more convinced that the Darlings started the Home Office. Greg and Tamara’s original mission was to destroy magic, and that could definitely be the ultimate goal of the Darlings after SSTTR. But there’s another goal that makes sense for the Darlings that I think comes into play here. In the original tale Wendy brings the Lost Boys home to our world. Remember how she was affected by her experience of hearing them crying in the dark. I think she made a treaty with Peter Pan for that very purpose, probably after SSTTR. Something like: “We give you this one boy you’re looking for, and you give us back all the children that you’ve taken and never come here again.” That’s the type of deal I think they could have made many years ago.

I think as soon as the HO found out about Henry, they discovered their chance to fulfill the treaty and this purpose. At the same time, the HO wouldn’t know what Peter Pan and the Lost Ones intend to do, and I think the entire HO is being manipulated by him as Rumple’s words suggest to me. You don’t just keep the Darlings entirely out of the story once Peter Pan gets introduced. It’d be bad form. Trying to save lots of innocent children at any cost fits amongst the moral dilemmas that this show brings to its characters, and I think that’s where H&K might be going.

That makes some sense to me. Not a big fan of Home Office story at all, but your idea is good.

Notice while watching the episode again, that they lead us to make this connection, that Home Office work for whoever “HIM” is, like the Lost Boys, might be even “HIM”, but they never say it does. We know that “HIM” has been looking for Henry for maybe one or two or more centuries, we know that the Lost Boys are involved in it, we know Peter Pan is (not sure he is “HIM”), and we know there is a shadow traveling between at least Neverland and another world (ourworld or a fictional world) looking for boys to find Henry. As well we know that Greg and Tamara despite all their holy bable against magic found it more important to get Henry. GOAT knows nothing about who is the Home Office nor do they care, they believe in their cause and follow orders. They won’t know why they had to take Henry besides that he is somehow very important. And we know they went to Neverland, though we don’t know why.

So,yes, it is possible that the Home Office has a different agenda than the Lost Boys and “HIM” and only got Henry to trade. Would be wicked, and not sure if Wendy would agree with such a policy, but she might not be around anymore, and who ever now leads the Office cares less. Maybe besides getting the boys back they were promised an ultimate solution for getting rid of magic forever in our world (which means, that Wendy’s London would have to be our historical London IMO).

If even Gold has some respect for whoever HIM his, then I think that force knows how to manipulate and pull strings and make people do a lot of things while this force has its own agenda, quite like Gold/Rumple, maybe even better at it. So the Home Office could be used, the Lost Boys, all having their own agenda being manipulated by “HIM”. And the big riddle of “HIM” will take some more time to be solved. Bit early for a big bad like the First Evil (sorry, Buffy reference again), but could stay around longer than a season. But, well, as we all know, there is always a bigger fish … (sorry for the Star Wars reference).

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[Myril]

@RumplesGirl wrote:

@AngieBelle wrote:

I think Adam and Eddy confirmed that time works differently in Neverland. It’s like in Narnia- remember years went by with the children as the princes and princesses of Narnia, but when they returned, almost no time had passed in our world. Then when they went back to Narnia a year later, it was like 1,000 years later in Narnia.

I guess I have to question what “time” means when A and E say that. Because like Phee pointed out “time being different” has not affected the rotation of the sun, so far as we can tell. Bae found out about Milah in the daytime and seemingly that night he was taken by the Lost Ones. So far as we could tell time wasn’t moving faster in between those two scenes nor was it moving more slowly. So when they say time moves differently, I wonder if it’s on a personal level: your own personal biological time works differently.

A good question: What is time? Time in physics, time in biology and medicine (chrono-biology), time in society (sociology of time), time experienced individual (psychological time perception) … Plenty of answers depending on who you asks.

The camera, or viewer, in that moment were inside the time frame of Neverland, so we couldn’t notice any difference. 😉 No one would notice the difference unless comparing it with how much time went by in a place outside Neverland. You have to be an outside observer to notice. Maybe you’ve heard of gravitational time dilation effect. Clocks on different altitudes already tick slightly different, like on the ISS compared to Houston. Anyone who spends a bit of time on the ISS ages slightly less than those remained on earth do, but if you ask them, their days are not longer, still 24 hours if measured with clocks. At the same time they experience on the ISS a different cycle of night and dark, being not in stationary orbit, what might influence their sense of time (psychology).

Biological time, biological clocks, circadian rhythms are another thing. Our bodies are full of those, more or less in sync with each other, more or less finding common ground. Guess everybody know of larks and night owls, which are chronotypes: some people just don’t function early in the morning, while other are already of no good use right after prime time TV. Recent research suggests, that our internal clocks on average have a 24 hours and 11 minutes day cycle, independent of chronotype or something like age (older research said it was closer to 25-hour day, but that couldn’t be confirmed)

And then there is the psychology of time, how we percieve time individually – and that varys with what we experience. We all know that, when we’re excicted and looking forward to something or if we are utterly bored it sometimes seems like time slows down, turning into snail time, while when something is exciting and fun time flies.

We’re not going to find answers in science here, and doubt science fiction will be of much help either.

What Wendy described, makes it sound like she has experienced there at least part of a day day and a night, maybe more (when night fell the children missed their parents and cried through the night). In my opinion it’s not about how someone there perceives time, it’s as real as Neverland is real. Time there moves faster. It’s at last one day (including a night) in Neverland while in our world and FTL just a couple of hours passed. Neverland is, to use science fiction terms, in another dimension, alternative universe, alternative reality, if their “earth” rotates faster has no effects on other worlds like ours.(it’s the earth’s rotation causing night and day, saying the sun rotates is mistakable ;))

Daniel suggested a ratio of 7:1 or even more, but I think actually less. We could otherwise get in trouble with main cast now spending a bit of time in Neverland while others still are in SB and FTL – we don’t want the main character meet the grown up daughters and sons of those left behind when they return, do we. 😉 Not to mention Jared is visibly growing up, can’t stay too long in a land where no one grows up, ages, or we need another actor for Henry. Unless things have changed in Neverland when the Dark Curse was enacted. We still don’t know how much it effected other realms. Bit contrived but possible that by now time in the different worlds is in sync.

Not aging in Neverland has nothing to do with the pace of time there. Time passed, but people don’t age (convenient particular when time moves at a different pace than other worlds and people travel between these worlds)

Like the idea of shadows taken being somehow connected with not aging, but if you only age when you don’t have a shadow anymore, at least Smee and Hook have to lose their shadows too or they would be older by now.

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[Myril]

I see, some love the Blue Fairy so much, that we desperately need to find a way to make her one of the big badies, the big bad even,the puppet master behind everything. After all, badies are the one getting more attention and we’re more attracted to them than the just good hero. Either big tragedy, anti-hero, or big bad, best both 😉

Despite what the name suggests, fairy tales are seldom about fairies, and not even always having a fairy in them. And if, most of the times fairies are just a plot device. After all the tales are not meant to tell us to dream away and always trust some fairy to get things done for us, but that in the end we are in charge of our lives and have to go out on adventures and take our chance to find happiness. Face your fears, find courage, and forget about the fairies is the message. Blue Fairy is a character in good fairy tale tradition.

Anyway. Highly doubt the Blue Fairy has to do anything with the Home Office and GOAT. She’s not sneaky but just there, when she needs to be, when it fits the plot and no one else can save the day, the big things to do are always for the main characters. Blue Fairy is a plot device. Doesn’t mean that can’t change, but don’t see so far that there is anything more profound to her character (as much as I love Keegan Connor Tracy and would love to see more of her on OUaT as well).

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