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Alright someone explain to me why Rumbelle’s TLK didn’t work. She’s cursed; he’s her true love; it should work (like it has in the past)…so whattup?
I agree in general with @Keb’s interpretation — it has to do with sacrificial love of some kind. I think more broadly, there’s got to be an element of letting go — say, of giving up the ego/self (whether as a form of self-sacrifice, as its ultimate expression, or as a kind of “goodbye”).
I think in both instances of the Rumbelle kiss (the one that half-worked, and the one that didn’t), both parties are still showing up to the table with a whole lot of ego (or, say, a kind of ‘hubris’). I don’t think it’s exactly about accepting the other person unconditionally — that’s, as @RG said, not the sort of thing that happens with romantic love. Rather, it’s about leaving one’s own hang ups and desires and projections at the door. At least, that’s my head canon for this.
Anyway, the definition of True Love has gotten so very vague on this show that I’m really not sure of the actual mechanics. Likely, it’s whatever the writers came up the night before.
[adrotate group="5"]If it is, indeed, Neal, I really hope that he gets to have a scene with Rumple in addition to Henry. Where he gives him a solid kick in the pants that finally gets Rumple to course correct. It’d be deus ex machina, but I really think that book-ending that relationship in a way that actually acknowledges how central it was to the show and Rumple’s character might be … I don’t know… helpful? *grumble grumble grumble*
Okay, if anyone has been listening to the podcast these past few weeks, I’ve been trying to drive home the point that the show is deliberately paralleling Rumbelle and Zades, with one looking decidedly more healthy than the other (though neither is anywhere close to picture perfect or idealized).
I see what you’re drawing attention to here, but I think the jury’s still out on how this will turn out in the end. If we look at the narrative (rather than the psychological dynamics of each couple), we get another kind of picture:
So, first of all, OUAT likes to do last minute “shocking” reveals (which sometimes fall flat because everyone saw them coming a mile away) where, in the last episode, it “flips the script” on the season. Since the show is currently working hard on putting a very positive spin on Zades, I think this is a bait and switch set up. The more “shippable” the pairing — and, what this boils down to, the more likable Hades, since we’re mostly getting at him through Zelena’s POV, even down to that scene where he is dancing alone — the more “shocking” the twist they probably have planned. Though this likely depends on their plans for Zelena next season. If Bex is done, and Zelena is not coming back, then it makes sense to ship her off to her HEA.
Second, there is the theme of change that’s being explored in both cases. In both cases we have, I think, a negative spin but from different angles. In Belle’s case it’s the standard “I can’t be with you unless you change” that the audience is now very familiar with. The thing with Rumbelle is that the audience can see, very clearly, that this is an impasse (because we know this couple very well). In Zelena’s case, the implied relation is the mirror opposite: “I will be with you for the potential that I can change you.” But we were already told through Rumbelle that this isn’t a good foundation for a relationship. More broadly, this trope (that the ‘beastly’ man can be tamed by the beautiful princess) gets squarely critiqued, anywhere from gender studies, to clinical psychology, to pop self-help. With OUAT’s claims to feminist sensibilities (whether we buy them or not), I think they will go the “you can’t change someone, they must change themselves” route. While we know that Rumple’s going to be some sort of version of shady (that’s the role he fulfills on the show), we actually have no idea how exactly Hades is meant to change, or why. I mean, Hades so far isn’t particularly evil: for all intents and purposes, he’s a snarky mildly inefficient mid-level bureaucrat with a peculiar scalp condition. What’s there to change? Hades’s role as the god of the UW isn’t an inherent attribute, it’s a job. So, it makes sense to assume that there is more to the story.
Another point is that the show likes to flip the script on Rumple too. So if Rumple starts off dark, by the end of the arc he’ll end up on the lighter end of the spectrum. If he starts the season “lighter”, by the end of the arc he’s darkened again. This 1/2 arc, we’re in the dark to light phase of the cycle.
She FINALLY sought genuine redemption and forgiveness.
Really? Sure, she made things right with Regina and Zelena. And… that’s it. I’m not convinced that I would count that as “genuine redemption.”
There is also the problem that Cora (and Liam) were asking for forgiveness for very specific cases–Cora, her two daughters and Liam, the sailors he led to death. This doesn’t cover all the crimes these two did yet they both earned the Better Place which would imply there is some sort of force/deity/thing controlling this whole situation who decides which sin is greater.
Another way to interpret it is that on OUAT, precisely, there isn’t any kind of force/deity/thing controlling things. Instead it’s all about an individual’s psychosocial hangups. For Cora, that’s her guilt about her daughters. For Liam, it’s the murder of the sailors. We know little about Liam beyond this one event, but Cora had managed to do oodles of damage to other people during her life. But it’s entirely possible that she just doesn’t feel all that bad about that — it sounds like her only real source of guilt is being a bad mother. So while making peace with her daughters resolves her individual “demons,” it seems like a rather nihilistic view of atonement.
One only needs to atone to the people that count. No one cares about the dead peasants. They’re just cameos. (Which is pretty much what @Bar Farer was saying above).
Zades is one of the healthiest relationships on the show.
Seriously, folks. I’d get your wine/tea/gin ready. Anything on OUAT that looks this shippable cannot be trusted.
Also, @Phee, I’m with you. I still don’t like Zelena. In fact, I’m pretty sure there is nothing in the world that will make me like Zelena’s character (though she does occasionally deliver astute snark), no matter what new sob story they give her, so I’m going to assume that I’m shipping Zades for Hades’s benefit.
http://screwballninja.tumblr.com/post/143440920516/towards-a-functional-reading-of-ouat-or-move-the
Oh my god, I saw this too, and it’s amazing! I love Screballninja’s writing in general — such thoughtful, in depth, and often hilarious analysis — but I think this is one of her best ones.
KITSIS | The Underworld is kind of a weigh station between two other worlds. Hades has a brother that’s up in Mount Olympus, and then there’s a place “downstairs” that’s even worse. This is kind of a domain where you’re there because you haven’t found closure yet.
In other words, *handwave* *handwave* *incomprehensible and illogical cosmological potpourri explanation* “Ooh, look over there, shiny!”
So, business as usual from Adam and Eddy.
I wasn’t under the impression that Mount Olympus is a universal heaven for everyone. I mean, it seemed like Liam’s version of a better place was on the watery side. Unless “Mount Olympus” actually means a single realm that’s the manifestation of each individual’s desire, and hence varies by person. But then, what happens if different people have conflicting ideas about what they want the heavenly realm to be?
And on the bad side of things, wasn’t there also a Fire Realm, in addition to the ROLS?
Like going back to Neal, i would see Neal happy afterlife having Rumple, Emma and Henry and maybe Belle, the same goes to Cora and to henry Sr, to Daniel, to Marian, having the people they love,but if the show is implying this, that there is a afterlife happy for these characters, then is not really move on, bc that happy place is full of fake dreams, UGh, just got confused, sad and i think i may have confuse you all as well.
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The only way I can make sense of this hot mess is to assume that afterlife in OUAT is actually following some sort of Buddhist interpretation. A better place is a “better” rebirth (with less suffering), a worse place is a “worse”/”lower” rebirth (with more suffering). The ultimate goal is to actually transcend all forms of attachment, including those to your loved ones, as they perpetuate the illusion of the existence of a self. All realms are illusory, and therefore all beings are stuck in an endless cycle of attachment/suffering. Neal reached enlightenment and but chose to come back as a Boddhisatva, for the benefit of all living beings. He retained his consciousness after death (hence passing unscathed through the liminal Underworld phase), broke away from the wheel of reincarnations, and is no longer realm-bound. He thus chose to come back and warn Emma and her friends that they are lost in a sea of delusion.
(Just in case this isn’t clear, this is a tongue in cheek explanation, not meant to get us into a debate over religious exegesis, or offend people’s various religious sensibilities. I am horsing around, trying to point out how much work one must do in order to make sense of A&E’s shoddy world building.)
Eh gad but that’s a fine line to walk. Who decides which sin is greater in this OUATverse then? We have actual gods now but do we have GOD or some sort of universal element that oversees morality and makes judgement?
I put this in another thread, but I think they are going with a kind of Western take on the liminal state in Tibetan Buddhism. This, of course, allows them to sidestep the question of moral absolutes.
The more I think about their mythology of the UW, the more I think they are actually modeling a lot of it on the Buddhist concept of bardo where the person’s experience after death and before the next rebirth is often negative, and is the fruition of one’s karma (past actions). The Western interpretation of this concept, which is I think what they’re going with, is that “hell” is really the process of battling one own’s “demons” (some horror movies from the late 80s and early 90s used this as their core premise. Like, if anyone has ever seen Jacob’s Ladder). So “unfinished business” seems to go along this type of logic. Which of course also allows the show runners to skirt around moral absolutes. (A quick note that in Buddhism, karma isn’t morally relative, it has everything to do with how one’s actions have impacted other beings, but OUAT is kind of psychologizing it by suggesting that it’s all about the individual, and how they feel relative to their actions.)
I am just wondering how did CORA rate the LIGHT when she had killed Snow’s mother? She never repented that evil act, or any of her other evil acts so she probably should have had more UNFINISHED BUSINESS in UNDERWORLD. .
More seriously, if we consider the Hook/Liam episode about redemption, and the message Emma was peddling (that one just has to forgive themselves), then maybe Cora just didn’t feel all that bad about Snow’s mother.
On a related note, and @RG, feel free to jump in as the resident religious studies specialist… The more I think about their mythology of the UW, the more I think they are actually modeling a lot of it on the Buddhist concept of bardo where the person’s experience after death and before the next rebirth is often negative, and is the fruition of one’s karma (past actions). The Western interpretation of this concept, which is I think what they’re going with, is that “hell” is really the process of battling one own’s “demons” (some horror movies from the late 80s and early 90s used this as their core premise. Like, if anyone has ever seen Jacob’s Ladder). So “unfinished business” seems to go along this type of logic. Which of course also allows the show runners to skirt around moral absolutes. (A quick note that in Buddhism, karma isn’t morally relative, it has everything to do with how one’s actions have impacted other beings, but OUAT is kind of psychologizing it by suggesting that it’s all about the individual, and how they feel relative to their actions.)
