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Well I am not a CS fan. And I’m not a SF fan. I am an Emma fan and I’m a fan of whomever she feels she loves.
@AKA’s response was to the discussion about whether the audience interprets RB vs CS in a way that is inconsistent, in the sense that similar actions get surprisingly different reactions, and what’s responsible for the apparent difference (which indeed brings up the question of whether the network considers Colin marketable as a heart-throb and invests accordingly). I don’t think that’s necessarily reducible to a shipping question (are you CS or RB or SF), but to a question of different interpretation of seemingly similar messages, and what structures these interpretations aside from fan loyalty.
But prior to that, the conversation was actually about Emma and how Emma is portrayed (by JMO, by the writers, by the aesthetics of the show etc) in her relationship with Hook. I think the convo was not just about the writing, it’s about the whole aesthetic package of Emma in the last few seasons. That was one of @Slurpeez ‘ points up-page with that screen shot, and I am pretty sure other people have noticed it too because I remember similar convos from some time back. Emma looks unhappy, pale, with shadows under her eyes that are accentuated by her make-up, her expressions are always kind of tortured, and it’s not just JMO’s portrayal, it’s also the aesthetic choices they make for her costumes and make-up, the choice of music and lighting that seem to be signaling a particular… mood, if not message. That’s why we’re still debating this question of whether the show runners have a unified front on how they are interpreting this couple, or if there’s a kind of double-voicing happening. Taken cumulatively, it’s hard not to feel that there’s something unhealthy about Emma, that something is off. Now, is this a message about CS, or is this a message about Emma more generally — I think @Slurpeez’ point, and I tend to agree with her, is that it’s actually Emma herself. Like, there’s something deeply wrong with her, and so what she brings to the relationship with Hook — totally bracketing out how one might feel about Hook in this instance — isn’t quite right either. In other words, just because she loves Hook, as you say, and that this is her choice (which of course it is) doesn’t mean the relationship is necessarily healthy.
It’s hard to deny the show’s trying to communicate something about Emma’s state of mind. CS is affected by this — it might not be its cause. But you know, next thing you know, and this happens:
[adrotate group="5"]Now Hook and Emma have been shown to have true love (a la pixie fower, dumbest magical MaGuffin ever), but then again, so have Rumbelle, the other bad-boy/good-girl couple on the show, who’ve also been shown to have an unhealthy power dynamic and similar history of lying, deception, and betrayal.
Here’s how I’m reading the show’s intended audience reaction for these two couples:
Rumple: *lies about something; it surfaces*
Belle: You are a horrible person, a true villain and I don’t care whether you live or die.
Audience: Yeah! Right on! Boom!Hook: *lies about something; it surfaces*
Emma: We’re cool, I would have done the same thing.
Audience: Awww, it’s true love, please have babiesBelle forgives Rumple
Audience: Stupid girl! That’s so unhealthy!Emma forgives Hook
Audience: Awww, it’s true love, please have babiesI think it might be a pattern.
Yeah I think Robin is likely the only character who didn’t and that’s because of his lack of development, most likely. Had they not killed him I’m sure they would have made him have daddy issues.
I can think of one. Well possibly. We never got his childhood story told, as I understand it. And I don’t know the cannon from the original tale. Robin.
Yeah I think Robin is likely the only character who didn’t and that’s because of his lack of development, most likely. Had they not killed him I’m sure they would have made him have daddy issues.
And arguably, the late Robin, aside from his thieving ways, was a remarkably decent, mentally stable, loyal, and relationship-capable human being. So of course, they had to kill him off, because what could possible be compelling about that?
Re: Emma. I’m just totally puzzled by what the audience is supposed to see. If this were a YA story, and therefore didactic, you would expect a cathartic fight with the main female character’s best (preferably male) friend who, after weeks of pouting, finally blows up with a “I don’t like the person you’re becoming!” thereby articulating the audience’s discomfort and suspicion that maybe this isn’t how a healthy relationship should look. But the fact that Charming forgave Hook makes me think the writers are completely oblivious to how Emma is coming across.
Here’s what I don’t quite get. I can’t get over the fact that Emma the character is supposed to be in her early 30s. She’s a grown up woman, for crying out loud, but her emotional development seems so stunted that what seemed like a charming character flaw in the early seasons — I remember people writing about how she has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old boy — is no longer charming, but really heart-breaking and a little pathetic. None of the other characters in Emma’s demographic cohort (which includes Regina and Snow) come across this way — they all, by and large, act their character’s biological age. Even Regina’s affair and the relationship with Robin felt completely mature to me. The only other one who seems to be similar, is Gideon, but from what we know of BF, he was literally brought up by Sauron in a corset, and is heart-contolled, so I think he gets a pass. At this point, Emma’s had the time and emotional support to grow and develop, but it just seems like she’s gotten worse, not better. So what gives?
Hmmm…..sounds like Emma ticks most, if not all, of those boxes, doesn’t it?
Great analysis, @Slurpeez. I think more generally, Emma, along with most of our mains, all seem to be suffering from some form of attachment disorder. One does have to wonder about the writers — it’s almost as if the only way they know how to create difficult background stories for their characters is by making them all come from “broken homes.”
Is there anyone among the main characters who isn’t either (1) from a single parent household, (2) hasn’t been abandoned or separated from primary caregiver(s) at an early age, (3) didn’t have one or both parents die at an early age and/or (4) didn’t have a narcissistic, manipulative and emotionally unavailable parent?
And Emma has done stuff for Belle too. It’s not like she snubs her constantly. I just don’t think she’s good enough friends with her where she should feel obligated to tell her that her husband took back the DO power. She is the “Savior,”I get it. But Emma has to look out for Emma sometimes too.
As I recall, Hook, of all people, has done more for Belle than the entire Snowing scoobygang combined, Emma included. I don’t recall a single interaction between Belle and Emma where Emma wasn’t either using Belle for leverage, putting her in danger, or not giving her the time of day. I think we can safely say that Belle is not in Emma’s clique by any stretch of the imagination, and Emma will happily throw her under the bus if it serves her needs.
Anyway, all of this would be just fine, as long as we, the audience, don’t buy into the in-universe hero/villain ideology. It’s just another example of OUAT’s confusion about whether villains/heroes is an in-universe “culture”, or an out-of-universe meta narrative. If it’s ideology, as the show seems to be hinting with Gideon this season, then all we can do is measure Emma by in-universe standards. One problematic thing is that heroes in the show get to decide who is and is not a villain/hero, and deciding that those associated villainy are, by and large, less-than-human and disposable.
People crack jokes at inappropriate times.
They do, don’t they? Next time the local law enforcement representative cracks a joke about carrying out an extra-judicial execution and/or revenge killing, I’ll make sure I remember to laugh…
So on a less uncomfortably horrified note, I think I’m with you on the heroism part. I don’t know if Emma’s being unheroic. The idea that the hero of a fairytale (which is what OUAT’s self-presentation is) is this saccharine, non-violent, compassionate, rational being seems to me to be a pretty recent, Disney interpretation. Most of the mythological canon we know is full of horrid, duplicitous, impulsive, rape&pillage “heroic” types, whose heroism is precisely the result of their horridness and successful duplicity, it’s just that the story is written such that they are on the audience’s team, as it were. I think here OUAT is trying to come back to the theme that heroes are not always 100% good, and villains are not a 100% evil, and that this is a naive simplifcation — though the writing is lumpy and cringe-worthy. Where this gets dicey is with the status they’ve give Emma — she is “The Savior”, and it’s hard not to take it in its Christian connotation of compassion and self-sacrifice, considering the audience’s likely cultural baggage. Or the fact that she’s the Sheriff.
There’s always been 2 themes to Emma. Walls TM, and her tendency to emotionally fixate. We’re done with Walls TM, so now we’re on the second issue. Emma’s psychological neediness, which focused mostly on her parents in the first couple of seasons, and later transferred to Hook, seems to be the current core of her character. If you notice her voice work in this episode it sounds an awful lot like Dark Swan, and I suspect that’s on purpose. There is a ton of moments in the writing where Emma reframes her own anxieties and problems in relation to Hook (often at her own expense), like that line about robbing him of his happy ending if she dies — and to be fair, that’s not on Hook, that’s because the shape of Emma’s emotional attachment is extremely, absurdly insecure.
But that’s not the same question as heroic/unheroic.
Well, here’s the thing. Rumpel had the power to get rid of the ogres, as we know. That means Zoso has that power. The Duke could have ordered him to get rid of the ogres, but instead, he used him to keep his subjects in-check.
I was just thinking that the other day — if Rumple could just blow up the Ogres, then why didn’t the Duke when he had the dagger? I’m guessing the war was politically expedient.
I can’t remember now, but weren’t the Ogre wars about human encroachment / (or, essentially, colonialism) — I have the feeling we learn this in one of the Belle/Gaston episodes? Or is that the 2nd Ogre War, and the first one has other reasons?
he puts him in a terrible position? What a ridiculous thing for JMo to say about what happened.
What on Earth! She is essentially saying that it’s Emma’s fault that Hook didn’t own up to his past and do the ethical thing. “Because she put him in a terrible position.” So what, she had it coming? I sometimes get the distinct impression that JMo’s interviews are completely ghostwritten for her, or that she is being serious gaslighted by the show runners.
That’s a loaded statement though. If Baelfire was manipulated by the darkness of the dagger, which has shown it’s influence before, it’s hard to say that it was Baelfire’s fault, or even that Rumple was wrong for saying that about his son.
So, shockingly, I think I agree with you. 😉 I have no problem believing that Rumple, in that moment, believes it with all his heart and by and large he’s not wrong. First of all it’s hard not to think of one’s child as essentially good. Sometimes that’s just willful obliviousness and refusal to acknowledge the facts, but I don’t think this is the case here. Except for this instance, Nealfire always leaned towards being a good, compassion, courageous person. If we liken the dagger/dark magic to a drug — as they’ve always done on this show — then we have to assume that the decisions made under its influence are not necessarily in line with a person’s character. In other words, if, like a drug, dark magic profoundly alters a person’s brain chemistry, then it’s not hard to believe that their actions might be grossly different from their ‘usual’ selves.
I hate the Baelfire retcon, but it doesn’t ruin the character for me because I still think he was a good person. The problem is that I have to do a lot of work to explain to myself what they’re trying to do. As I see it, there are two main problems: sloppy worldbuilding and consequent retconning of the dagger, and Baelfire ordering to kill Beowulf. This part especially is either just lazy, sloppy writing, or a conscious effort to take the character off the “pedestal,” or a combo of the two. Much like what they did to Snowing at one point.
PLOT PLOT PLOT got in the way of a better CS proposal. And not to mention Hook was drunk! He had like 5 shots at Granny’s.
Wasn’t that in the morning, and the proposal was in the evening? If so, he might have sobered up. But yes, CS falls victim to plot — I suppose it’s their turn under the plot bulldozer.
Forgot to mention this in my likes as well. We’ve had villains who emotionally torture their children but I don’t think we’ve had someone who physically beats them. So, I’m glad that the Black Fairy is getting a different layer than villains of the past.
Ok, why does the scenario that Gideon describes sound extremely familiar? Am I the only one? I feel like I read this exact plot/description somewhere else. Help me out, here — I’m pretty sure they lifted this from somewhere, but can’t think of where from.
