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Hmm. I don’t know, I wonder. The scene felt rushed and perfunctory, in a way that the many previous goodbyes hadn’t. In fact, it makes me wonder whether Robert Carlyle is planning to hop off the OUAT wagon, as some here have speculated, and this is the writers’ way to tie up some lose ends (one of which is Rumbelle) while throwing the fans the metaphorical bone…
While I would love to root for those two, watching that ship capsize has been like watching the Titanic in slow motion, with long camera shots of hapless passengers slowly sinking into freezing dark waters… There’s a point where you just throw up your hands and go “Fine, writers. Have it your way.”
Too much for my poor nerves.
On the other hand, I do NOT get Will and Belle. Not that it’s an outlandish pairing, I just don’t get what they’re doing together.
[adrotate group="5"]I agree…you know during all that transfer of darkness from Emma to Lily, I expected some Harry Potter ish to go down….like we see darkness coming out of Baby Emma and going into Lily, but all we saw was Lily being dragged down the portal. That didn’t necessarily look like a transfer of yin and yang to me
Yes. I’m also not so convinced that this actually did anything. Though it seems that the Apprentice believed that he did something? Unless the whole dialogue with Snowing was ad-libbed by the author, and then when the Apprentice says “How could you make me do this to a child?” he’s actually talking about separating Lilly from Mal, effectively orphaning her?
I am also wondering whether Rumple maybe set this in motion on purpose to have Emma seek out Lilly. This is probably a huge stretch, but do we know for sure that Rumple is a reliable narrator when he claims he wants to turn the Savior dark for the reasons he says he’s doing it? Could there be a different motive for bringing Lilly and Emma together, or a different reason behind BlackSwan? There are two things that seem to be going on: 1) Rumple is apparently trying to revert the carbonization of his heart, for which he says he needs the author to rewrite happy endings and 2) he seems to need Emma to go dark (or claims he does). I know there’s been speculation on the forums that he wants to outsource his own darkness to whoever has the “greatest potential” for it. But what’s the relationship between the Author and the BlackSwan? Or is this a case of gathering ingredients again?
Happy birthday, RG.
. I don’t care about “offscreen” anymore, and what “could” have happened to make things less wrong or more right. We can imagine whatever we want, and too often the writers ask us to do that but then change their minds and tell us oh no, THIS happened. That only contributes to the feeling of “retcons”. So without dialog to get to Emma’s internal state and why she did what she did, and what she believed were her options, its hard to judge this situation on the basis of what the writers think was enough for us to know….but that’s par for the course.
I think part of this is that OUAT has a Chekhov’s gun problem. (I’m sure most are familiar with this trope — the idea, originally a quip by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, is that if in the first act a gun is hanging on the wall, it should fire by the last act). In OUAT, the writers deliberately hang a number of objects, some of which may be guns, on the wall, and then “retcon” to tell us what’s a gun, and what’s not. What makes this strategy not particularly convincing is that sometimes we’ve been explicitly told that something isn’t a gun, but is, say, a hat. But then, suddenly by act 3, the hat becomes a gun because “magic”!
Regina used to be such a strong sassy independent character but the moment they’ve introduced Robin, everything about her is now all about Robin. For me, OQ is what TV Tropes calls a “romantic plot tumour”. OQ need to get together just so they can stop the will they/ won’t they stuff which is eating up precious screentime when we know they are going to end up together. It’s no coincidence that the times I’ve liked Regina least have involved a situation pertaining to OQ.
Exactly. The problem isn’t the romantic subplot, as you said, it is that it overtakes both the character’s internal conflict, as well as sidelines world building and “cosmological” conflict. In other words, it reduces the drama to a species of “he said, she said.” There’s a perfectly effective and legitimate way of doing both internal conflict and cosmological conflict through the lens of romantic subplots (Buffy is a good example of how this can be done successfully). OUAT isn’t doing it.
WickedRegal wrote: Question: Are they really going to just think that we forgot that Killian having that fake hand showed us who he really is??? I mean…that’s kind of a big deal isn’t it!
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” 🙂 In other words, if you are, as @RG pointed out, a wish fulfillment character, then lo and behold your road to redemption is an easy walk in the park. Actually, the goodification of Hook does the character no favors — at this point he’s a species of Marty Stu with guyliner.
RumplesGirl wrote: Yes, they are really going to forget that. It would help if Will wasn’t the single most wasted character ever on this show. Their treatment of Will might be worse than Ruby’s and Belle’s and Neal’s combined.
And that, here, makes me uniquely sad. Although I think you’re absolutely right. It’s a form of “greed” of sorts if they’re not going to use him. I would guess that this sort of placeholder character prevents the actor from taking on more interesting, rewarding roles, and doesn’t help them with developing their acting CV.
In this land it could be a crapsack world where no one gets their happy ending. Just a theory. I think the real world is crap but happy endings are possible….in the land without magic, they may not be.
There’s something to this, actually. Not that I think this is a different world from ours, but maybe what we think when we invoke “happy endings” isn’t at all what it’s in fact supposed to be for the fairytale characters. In fact, if their realms are stuck in time, then no wonder there can be no “happy endings” in our world: things keep morphing and changing. On the other hand, the idea of a happily ever after as a static, never changing state seems pretty disturbing — but who knows, if they’re fairy tale characters, maybe that’s what they’re in fact after. And the reason they can’t get there (or be satisfied with the happy endings they DO get) is because they’re now living in linear time, which they are profoundly unprepared for? (This would echo the whole time=4th dimension in Lost.)
On the other hand, Regina’s original curse actually stopped time in SB, which is how I think that whole happy endings being stolen thing came about. So it looks like time is going to be an important theme (as it was on Lost), I just suspect it’ll take some pretty dramatic retconning.
I think the thing with Hook is that A&E used him as the “bad boy redeemed by love” cliché but with all the Neverland stuff now done, Hook literally has nothing to do other than being Emma’s love interest. His rivalry with Rumple was based off of revenge and avenging Milah’s death, but with Hook now moved on from Milah, that plot point is no longer relevant which is why it’s not meaningful when Hook starts antagonising Rumple again. It’s literally the writers needed something for Hook to do.
I think that’s right — and like others here, I suspect the writers won’t explore what it might look like for Hook to “relapse” into his old ways. I think the other problem of what has been done to Emma — and, come to think of it, to most of the lead female characters — is that they have become profoundly defined by their romantic relationships, such that there is no generative conflict outside of the “will they get/stay together” problem (Emma going dark isn’t a character-driven, interesting conflict, IMHO. It’s the equivalent of some kind of perverse laundry experiment where you want to see what will come out in the wash when you toss something “dry clean only” with different colors, fabrics, and color-unsafe bleach on a “hot” cycle — with plot being the washing machine in question).
For a show that started off (and prided itself) on strong, independent female characters with complex inner lives that have little to nothing to do with their romantic aspirations, OUAT is progressively returning to the predictable status quo. If the drama of Emma going dark ends up rotating around the resulting seaworthiness of CaptainSwan, the process will be complete.
Which reminds me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqJrJ0n9oaM
I may be a Once fan, but Dahlia makes OUAT Villains look like child’s play compared to what she’s doing.
Wait wait… she looks familiar! Has anyone here ever watched Farscape?
When I watch a drama show, I keep two things in mind: 1. It’s only what we see on screen during an episode that’s authoritative. 2. Characters lie to each other. OUAT is heavy on exposition, which I find dull and annoying, so I like to think about how the characters could be scheming to gain advantages over their adversaries.
LOL to the exposition comment. Truth.
I agree in principle, but this particular theory seems overly convoluted and inconsistent with Belle’s character and with Regina’s (presumed) current motivations and state of mind, as I discussed above. Primarily inconsistent with Belle’s character, actually. Not that I can’t imagine her saying something hurtful to Rumple, whether in a moment of deep anger, or to drive a point across – he’s had it coming and then some. I just don’t think (1) it would be in this particular vein, and (2) I don’t think a pre-scripted bait-and-switch of the sort is consistent with someone who was recently shown in turmoil over the relationship.
Here’s, I think, the other problem. Lets do a thought experiment, and reverse the genders in the particular piece of dialogue that folks seems to be debating here (so, similarly to @RumplesGirl comment on Graham here). Should a man make a disparaging comment about his (ex) girlfriend or wife’s skill as a lover (or, say, about her physique) — you know, “she is a much better kisser” (or whatever this stands in for on a family friendly show) — I suspect many people might call it out as, at best, vulgar and misogynist, and at worst, pathetic. I certainly wouldn’t think to myself “Wow, good on him, now that was empowered, that really showed [the ex] who’s boss.” Which is why I’m a bit puzzled when people seem to be cheering at the idea that this is Belle’s. We’ve been led to believe that she is better than that. On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time that her characterization got thrown under a bus for the sake of plot, so what do I know…
And…To what end? What would be the point of it being “omgosh surprise! Wasn’t Belle’s heart all along! It was really Belle acting that way!” It’s disjointed. They couldn’t show Regina taking Belle’s heart because that ruins the BAM when Regina walks out into the woods with the heart. That’s the narrative surprise here, not that it wasn’t Belle’s heart.
Oh, dear lord, THIS! I don’t get what the problem is. Why the elaborate scenarios for how Belle might be in on it that make little sense with either the ABC party line, or the episode itself? Is it out of a undying devotion to Regina, or out of some kind of deep loathing for Rumbelle, or a combination thereof?
Regina’s redemption isn’t going to be a linear process. There will be setbacks — if it were easy, there’d be no villains. We only just saw her bully (young) Pinocchio. Yes, she apologized for it (to Geppeto), that’s progress, but that doesn’t annul the fact that she flew off the handle at a little kid (unless we’re going to argue that “the rug rat had it coming”?) Seriously, she stumbles, screws up, and makes questionable moral decisions — as do most of OUAT’s characters. Trying to reinterpret the entire show such that Regina can come out light and fluffy out of every situation does her otherwise interesting, layered character a disservice.
We acknowledge full well the evil Regina has committed, but we also know that her particular evil could have been well avoided had Rumpelstilskin left her alone, and not showed up to stop her. And Regina has acknowledged that she was a terrible person, hence she confessed her sins in 3×09 Saving Henry, she just doesn’t feel regret for them because she knows that would be the same as saying she regretted ever gaining Henry. So it’s not passing the blame, it’s giving a portion of the blame where it rightfully belongs, which is to Rumpelstilskin, who is even still quite proud of the monster he created.
Sure, Rumple is partially responsible for what Regina became. But then we can play this blame redistribution game until the chickens come home to roost. We could say, for example, that had Cora not reneged on her relationship with Rumple by choosing to marry the king, they’d be off happily villainous somewhere, Regina would have never been born, and this whole mess would have been avoided altogether. Sounds pretty absurd, right? We might say that Rumple would have never been content until he found his son etc — which is probably right within the parameters of the character, but pure speculation, as is the speculation that Regina wouldn’t have found some other path that lead her to EQ. Ultimately, they all made their choices between several possible alternatives — to say that, when a character arrives at a moral fork in the road, they could have taken the more virtuous path had the road not been forked is a logical fallacy.
We saw Lacey enjoy a spot or two of cruelty. Lacey didn’t go away, and Belle has reason to hate Rumpel. The cruel taunt could have been a way to get a bit of revenge while also convincing Rumpel that Regina was in control.
I’m sure the vault held hearts of dangerous bad people, too, and not just of heroes. Just hide the rotten part while showing the heart to Rumpel. Or get a volunteer donor; Killian owes Belle a few favours.
It seems like it would be somewhat out of character not just for Belle, but for Regina — she’s presumably in a hurry to get the heck out of dodge and go rescue Robin from Sister Dearest. Why would she bother putting up this elaborate charade, including convincing Belle to choreograph this three act play (heart to heart; cruel; amnesiac); go fetch some spare heart from the vault; and then bring this all together for Rumple’s benefit, hoping he won’t pick up on the deception? And what if he does? What’s the pay off? Regina has always been a pretty impulsive character — I don’t think that’s going to change whether she’s evil or not. That’s just who she is. And she’s in a hurry to get on the road and save her TL. It seems much more efficient to use Belle’s heart and get on with the program. This theory of the fake heart seems like a lot of convoluted mental gymnastics to absolve Regina of any questionable behavior. Sometimes the simpler solution is the correct one, even on OUAT.
