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Belle is the exposition character. Every character has a job in the scene that usually goes like this: Charming/Robin: Stupid Question. Belle/character of the arc: exposition. Rumple: Loophole. Emma/Snow: optimism/pessimism. Regina/Hook: Sass.
LOL! This is so spot on.
Instead of sticking to things that seem truly derived from her goals and character, though, they’ve largely just had her fill necessary positions (google exposition, for example) as needed.
Another infuriating thing about Belle’s characterization is that Rumbelle is most on the rocks when Rumple is actually on the path to some kind of redemption. The second he’s evil again, the relationship advances. Either this is the worst timing in history, or it’s deliberate, and they’re suggesting that Belle, like her alter-ego Lacey, is subconsciously attracted to the dark side.
[adrotate group="5"].I don’t think I’d put it past Adam and Eddy to do this horrid storytelling. I think this sets the standard as our absolute worst case scenario.
Absolutely. THE worse possible scenario. But, sadly, not unlikely. I think the writers have been flailing about with writing Rumple’s since 3B, for obvious reasons. Along with Regina and Emma, he’s been one of their most complicated characters, and I think with this latest “re-evilification” they’re essentially trying to wrap up Rumple’s storyline without wrapping up the show. Making him unlikeable by, once again, making him gratuitously evil, and resetting him to be once more the main antagonist to Hook, (whom much of the fandom adores), is one way to kill two birds with one stone: 1) lead up to a situation where they can get rid of a character that’s become too complex and unwieldy, and 2) do it in a way that scores some points with one part of the audience while potentially minimizing the damage elsewhere (hence Rumple = inherently evil, since this means that some of the fans will de-invest).
Is it lazy and crap storytelling? Sure. But Rumple’s not alone. Both Regina and Emma, the other two central figures of the show, have been reduced to nothing more than their romantic pairings. All their activity on screen is directed towards the maintenance of their romances. Remember the time when Regina was mayor? Running a town? Ruling her subjects? Raising Henry? Generating crises? Averting crises? Remember the time when Emma was a kick-butt bounty hunter? Working as the town’s sheriff? Saving everyone?
Vaguely? Yeah, me too.
They’ve absolutely butchered Emma’s character beyond recognition. In fact they’ve butchered all the main characters. Wouldn’t it be funny if when contracts come up for renewal, everyone turns around and says no?
I’d laugh. But maybe that’s just me. 😉
They’ve absolutely butchered Emma’s character beyond recognition. In fact they’ve butchered all the main characters. Wouldn’t it be funny if when contracts come up for renewal, everyone turns around and says no?
Unless time passes really differently in the Underworld, they might have other problems. Is there a cryogenic chamber stashed away somewhere in SB? Unless it’s suddenly revealed that Hook has somehow achieved sainthood and his mortal remains are imperishable, of course.
About Emma’s heart — my guess is that she can take it out. But since this is the stated intent, I’m going to guess they won’t do that, since, essentially, the audience expects it. Either she won’t be able to take it out, or it’ll be revealed (likely by Hades) that it’s just not enough. My bet is that someone’s going to be sacrificed. They’ve already stated that the rules are a soul for a soul. I’m predicting another main character death in 5b. My money’s on Rumple.
Lol good question. My guess is that they have now forgotten about the Red Room, as this show is want to do. But, for the sake of the argument, I suppose that the Red Room could be the bare bones ‘mobile version’ of the Underworld. It could be a kind of encapsulated “sample” — since its provenance is presumably artificial (sleeping curse), rather than natural (a realm) it might be a little pocket that essentially has some of the same properties as the original plane, but that’s uniquely designed to serve the purposes of the curse caster.
*shrug*
But really, I think it’s just another McGuffin to add to our collection. I propose to put it right between the Crimson Crown and Squid Ink.
You would think that if the DO curse could be spread to or affect offspring, then the most reasonable way to poison the world with darkness would be to ‘go forth and multiply’. Spread your demon spawn all over the Enchanted Forest and plot to rule all with your Dark offspring by your side. *cackles* Muhahahahaha
but that doesn’t mean Belle should be denied kids with her true love just because Rumple lost his son. Or that Rumple should never have another child.
I see what you’re saying, @Keb. But I think @WG’s comment is pointing to a troubling discourse that’s been happening on this show since at least Baby Snowflake. I.e. that a) parenthood is redemptive (especially for women), and, more importantly 2) that children are fungible (i.e. they are, more or less, a commodity. If you break one, you can get a new one, and get “another shot at it”). It’s not a constant theme, but it crops up here and there. I mean it just cropped up as the motivation for why Hook flipped out and killed PapaJones — his father had “replaced” him. This, as @WG is saying, is simply not an accurate representation of how a parent feels about all and any of their children. You can have one or ten, but parental love isn’t a zero sum game — it’s not that you have some finite quantity of love that then gets subdivided between siblings, like an overstretched bank account.
Certainly, Neal’s death should not invalidate the possibility of children in Rumbelle’s future. But if that’s the core of Rumple’s redemptive arc, then that not only completes Rumple’s (and Belle’s) character assassination (not that there’s anything left to assassinate, really), but also flushes Neal’s story down the drain.
I hope @POM is right. But based on A&E’s interviews, I honestly don’t think they’ve thought it out at all. They’re usually pretty transparent in telegraphing their intentions. In the case of the Rumple twist, they called it “a crime of opportunity.” Translation — they pulled it out of their hindside with no regard to how it might play out in the future.
Seemed legit at the time.
The loss of a child is a wound that can never be healed, I can’t even imagine myself if I ever lost one of my own. You can have an entire tribe of twenty kids, but have the same level of love for all of them
PREACH! All this. Seriously. Do none of the writers have kids? Do they not have parents they could talk to? Siblings with kids? Were they raised in the woods by beasts?
They keep hearing “Give us more [favourite character] and [favourite relationship]; show us our fanfic”, so I think they end up feeling that they ought to write something for those parts of the audience, but it seems to just divert resources into episodes and plotlines that fail to rise above the level of “watchable, sort of”.
Adam and Eddy are trying to please everybody, and that’s just not possible. I understand they don’t wanna step on any toes, but if you’re going to try to be a great show running it the way you want to run it, you can expect to rub some people the wrong way. To put it simply….the fandom has been writing Once Upon A Time since Season 3.
I wonder how representative that portion of the audience is of the OUAT fandom more generally. I mean, it strikes me that it’s the part that’s first and foremost invested in ships? Not even specific characters which may or may not, as part of their character development, be part of a romantic pairing, but specifically, ships (and only specific ships). I just can’t imagine that this is the majority of the OUAT audience, but I might be wrong — and it might also be the more vocal portion.
But you guys are right. Emma’s story has been sacrificed in favor of floating the popular ship. I wouldn’t necessarily even object to the ship itself if it were done well — but at the expense of totally ruining Emma’s character, rebooting her to S1, and then making her story a derivative of her male romantic interest’s redemption arc? That’s just insulting.
They’ve routinely thrown Rumbelle under the bus, and just flipped a large birdie to all Rumple fans who liked the complexity of the character. Their reluctance to step on toes seems rather selective to me. Some toes are more equal than others 😉
^^ All this.
The problem is that A&E and crew seem to think that their audience are rats in a Skinner box. For those unfamiliar, here’s one possible set up:
This, folks, is us.
Rat presses lever, gets positive stimulus, rat presses lever again, and so on ad infinitum. The rat, as you can imagine, doesn’t think to itself “wait, I appear to be sitting in a box, with an electrode attached to my head, and when I press this lever I get a reward which is keeping me docile and preventing me from questioning the fact that I’m stuck in this cage, and am actually starving.” The rat thinks “press lever – feel good! – press lever…”
I think this is the kind of cognitive activity A&E seem to be attributing to us, their show’s audience. They are assuming that if a storyline or character arc worked before, it’s enough for this audience to simply repeat it ad nauseum, like the positive stimulus for the aforementioned rat, because we’re all dumb as goldfish, and don’t remember what they showed us in the previous seasons. This combined with A&E’s notorious inability to take criticism sounds to me like what they’re saying is this:
“Shut up, stop thinking, and give us your money. Keep paying your overpriced cable bundle to get ABC or keep downloading the show from ITunes — and don’t forget to buy the more expensive HD version — because that’s what you’re here for. Don’t like it? Hater! Quiet down, now. Press the lever. You know you like it.”
Ugh. No words.
LOL No hope. But sure, I’ll play.
1) Undo this nonsense with Rumple. Say, the dagger was actually a glamour spell, and Rumple’s only acting super evil while bluffing the whole way about being the DO. Extra points for not once using any magic, and yet making everyone believe he’s very powerful through sheer wit. Why? I’ve no idea. But it would be a lot more interesting than this load of bologna they just sprung on us.
2) Belle hooves it out of town and leaves them all to rot. We get an occasional postcard of her in front of some famous landmark, à la the garden gnome in Amelie. She’s eventually joined by a redeemed Rumple, and the last we see them is them driving off into the sunset in some remote and exotic location. All of RC and/or EdR fans breathe a collective sigh of relief, wish them well on their future projects, and tell A&E and their lazy writing to go take a running jump.
3) No more pointless crises and walking in circles. Newly introduced McGuffins are intelligent, intriguing, and work well with character development (Yeah, right)
4) Storylines are well-thought out and come to a satisfying conclusion. The writing team hires serious beta-readers to help weed out the self-indulgent, first draft garbage. They learn to edit. They learn that self-plagiarism is unethical and makes for bad entertainment.
5) Secondary characters have a significant presence, and mini-arcs of their own that are not lazy, throw-away fillers.
6) A season has an actual overarching plot, and half-seasons are subordinate to it in a way that’s organic and makes sense. The writers go back to Creative Writing 101 and learn how to set up effective trial-fail cycles for their characters that advance both plot and character development.
7) No more introducing pointless realms that won’t be explored and utterly uninteresting flashbacks that don’t add any significant depth to the characters.
8) The show goes and “checks its privilege,” as they say nowadays
9) Main characters aren’t reset to 0 every season. That might mean that the writers need to think for more than 30 seconds about each character’s overall show arc. If they aren’t capable of it, they hire some fresh blood/help. Because at this point, the characterization is worse than mediocre — it’s nonexistent.
10) A&E stop claiming that they are creating a “feminist” show. It’s now abundantly clear that they are utterly incapable of doing that, so lets all please drop the pretense.
The baby conceived when he was decieving the woman he allegedly loves. Such a twu wuv baby, is it any wonder it’d have magical, redemptive, soul healing abilites. Isn’t it just the sweetest, most heartfelt story ever.
^^ This. Times 100.
Also, is anyone else ever so mildly concerned that a DO can, ahem, beget a child? Maybe I watched too many Rosemary’s Baby spinoffs when I was a teen. I have a bad feeling about this.
Oy, wouldn’t that make for an awkward 1st pediatric visit. “Don’t worry, dear. That skin condition is probably just a very bad case of cradle cap. Oh, the glowing eyes? Well, it’s likely just the mom’s hormones still in the baby’s system. It should resolve itself by your next appointment, but if it doesn’t, there are very good cosmetic option these days. Dark Curse, Glamour…”
I’ll be over there, #headdesking
