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Yup. Double standard much?
With the caveat that this is just my interpretation, it seems to me that Hook himself was amusing, not because he was fat, but because of the mismatch between appearance and hubris. It’s mainly funny because regular Hook has been framed as a heart-throb. In other words, there would be nothing funny in “aging up” a character who isn’t an arrogant playboy. Say, if they’d aged up Robin in the same way — literally, zero lulz. But I’m with you on the cringeworthiness of Emma’s commentary — first because she was pointing out Hook’s physical flaws which seems shallow, in precisely that double-standard way you’re pointing out, but also because she was taking on the role of policing real Hook’s calorie intake (ie gender stereotype about women taking on the affective labor of managing their partner’s health; and men being portrayed as helpless slobs who don’t have a clue. Insulting on both fronts).
Or this is just all still leading to EQ getting what she deserves which actually is Legit Thief Wish Realm Robin. Maybe she deserves a happy ending too. But to me, the fact Robin didn’t age means that Charming’s wish has affected why Robin’s soul is in the Wish Realm.
Oy, this makes my head hurt. But I think you’re right, though framed this way, I wonder if @onceaholic is onto something — that this will lead to heart break for Regina. It all depends on whether Regina=Evil Queen as far as the magic of the wish is concerned.
[adrotate group="5"]So, I missed the start, so this is a bit skewed/truncated
Liked: I think OUAT is at its best when it is unapologetically structuralist, with big, mythic themes that are then explored through the characters and their relationships to each other both as specific characters, and as avatars of certain archetypes. There was something of this in this episode. By making Gideon and Emma total, almost mythical antagonists, the kinship tree clicks into place, such that Snowing and Rumbelle also become mirror images of each other — as I think the show hints at from the beginning, whereby if Snowing is the couple that, by its very nature, always finds each other, Rumbelle is the couple that always loses each other (which also explains somewhat why they’re such a stable pair despite the clear dysfunctions). It also highlights the potential parallels between Emma and Gideon, which also makes them sort of mirror images of one another.
Lana’s acting is always amazing. I am not sure what they’re trying to do with AU Robin, but my guess is that they’re going to backtrack on the whole “Hades obliterated his very soul” thing. If so, even if it’s fan pandering, it’s still better than just ignoring it outright — they did such a horrid, insensitive job of Robin’s storyline that whatever they do now won’t fix that, but it might at least provide a less bitter resolution.
I liked the Rumple/Belle scene at the well. When Rumple actually said that maybe they should help Gideon not for themselves, but for everyone, my jaw dropped a little. And Belle admitting to rationalizing her flawed reasoning? Could it be actual character progress? Surely not. I’m assuming we’ll backslide, but for now this is at least somewhat encouraging.
AU Hook. Best thing ever. Kudos to Colin for going with it — he looked like he was having a hoot.
Disliked:
The dialogue between Emma and August was really clunky and the acting pretty stilted to the point of being distracting.
I am so not impressed with Charming and Hook getting all sanctimonious with Belle about giving Gideon only one chance. Seriously? What about when Emma was running around as the Dark One for half a season?
I don’t actually understand the worldbuilding or mechanics of the Wish!Realm.
It’s not allowing them to look at the show clearly now to see if they can actually see any improvements or if they fixed anything. Like there’s no way they got worse at doing everything this season. Very possible they took a step back on certain things, but they definitely have improved on some things as well. But those negative people only focus on the bad stuff and it is quite frustrating for someone who has actually enjoyed this season for the most part.
I suspect I’m one of the “negative people” that shall not be named, at least part of the time 😉 I hear you, @thedarkonedearie. It can be frustrating when someone is constantly critical of something you enjoy.
At least for me, part of it is what others have articulated around critique as an exciting form of intellectual and social engagement. This has probably as much to do with your background and training as with anything else. I write and critique texts for a living — so this is what I do in my fandoms as well. Lets call it professional deformation. @hjbau also wrote a post a few pages back about how thinking about OUAT’s narrative structure has helped her develop into a better writer — I think that’s another, really legitimate and productive way of engaging the show. @rumplesgirl routinely brings in her background in the analysis of myth and narrative which, for me, enriches my viewing. Many people here trade impressions of other shows and books they’re consuming. So it seems to me that there are many different focal points on this forum, and it doesn’t boil down to just people who keep complaining and people who praise the show, or people who want their ship or their character to get a happy ending — that’s a huge oversimplification of the actual dynamics of this place. Personally — and again, this is just my own predilection — I don’t find praise, especially unconditional praise, particularly generative or interesting, of conversations or of thinking more generally, though I realize that this kind of taste for pulling things apart might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find engaging other people in debate not interesting — even when we disagree, to me these conversations are fun and make OUAT enjoyable. That’s another point — not all the ‘critics’ here agree with each other, so I wouldn’t necessarily lump everyone together.
An aside: on the accusation, generally thrown around in the fandom (not necessarily by you, @thedarkonedearie) that people are just bitter about ships. The biggest problems with almost all the couples on the show except for Snowing, which is repetitive in its own way, is that the writers don’t know how to explore mature and/or maturing relationships. However one might feel about Hook (whether positively or negatively), I think CS (as well as Rumbelle) both suffer from this. You cannot keep a pairing on the cusp of commitment (whichever side of the commitment divide they fall on) for six years and make it compelling, especially in a show that’s not a procedural. And I don’t necessarily buy the argument that it’s because stable couples are narratively boring — I think that’s more of an assumption about the audience. I think it’s just poor execution and a lack of imagination and skill on the showrunner’s part. My point is this: complaints about the way a relationship is written isn’t the same thing as wailing over your favorite ship being sunk.
And on that note: it’s not just you either enjoy OUAT, or your enjoy being critical of it on a forum with like minded buzz kills. Like many others, I enjoy OUAT because of the conversations I have here, even, and perhaps especially, because they are critical conversations. Let me give you another false analogy. Say, you’re interested in cars. You might be interested in/enjoy cars because you like to get in one and take it for a spin, so you’re spending more time behind the wheel. To link it back to a show, what you enjoy is how a show makes you feel. Or you might enjoy cars because you like to try figure out how they work, so you’re spending more time digging around under the hood (if cars don’t do it for you, take any other technological analogy that separates use from function). So this is where you enjoy a show because you like to think of how it’s constructed: narrative, characterization, aesthetics… But one way is not more legitimate than another, and they are not mutually exclusive either.
It would be rather strange to accuse someone who likes tinkering with cars of not liking to drive them enough, no? These aren’t mutually exclusive forms of engagement, and one is not better than the other. In this analogy, I think what you’re complaining about is that this forum is overrun with mechanics 🙂
In my opinion, the show is at its best when (a) it develops the complicated relationships that tie the main characters together and does it in character (b) when it explores the big ideas that characterize its foundation, i.e. those we find in myths and fairytales, so my complains and praises usually fall along one of those two dimensions.
This is an OUAT forum so we stick with that show for the most part (obviously) but, to be slightly fair, the larger cultural problems that we bring up as problematic to OUAT are not localized solely and exclusively to OUAT.
Yeah, I think this is so spot on. And put in context, OUAT is probably not even the worst offender. To me, much of the frustration with OUAT is that the overall story is rudderless, and that for a show that was character driven at the beginning, it’s thinned out its characterization so much that I personally have very little investment in any of the characters beyond seeing where this is going to end up when it’s all said and done. In fact, if they wanted to keep complicated themes on the table — like problematic relationships — but had done so in thoughtful, complex, and thought-provoking ways, I would have been perfectly happy. I can’t even muster much distaste for CS at this point simply because I’m no longer invested in Emma. (And not just CS — Rumbelle is in the same boat, no pun intended).
There’s also something about the way the show shifted over the years from a focus on family (broadly defined) — and Neal was very much central to that, because he wasn’t just Emma’s love interest, but also Henry’s father, Rumple’s son and so forth…to something largely romance-centric, and this decision has gutted OUAT of whatever made it different and exciting.
My issue is if you hate all these things about the show, why do you watch it? Some people on here have literally nothing nice to say about the show, ever. It makes zero sense to me.
Obviously, I can’t speak for anyone else, but it seems to me that one should not equate intellectual engagement with uncritical approval. There are many different ways to consume a media product, and not all of them fall along the lines of “like=will watch/dislike=won’t watch.” A bit of a false analogy, but lets take the news — another kind of media product. Just because I don’t like some of the things being reported on, or don’t like the particular political “spin” doesn’t mean I’m going to stop consuming the news. Or just because I find a text (broadly defined) problematic or offensive, doesn’t necessarily mean I will stop reading it — but I certainly don’t have to like it or feel the need to praise it.
And as far as Emma and Hook go….just because you may think it has been written poorly and isn’t true love and has been unhealthy for Emma, doesn’t mean that’s what A&E think.
Right, that’s obviously true — they don’t seem to see the problems that some of the audience is pointing out. More generally, in my opinion, authorial intent is … if not entirely irrelevant, at least not particularly relevant compared to uptake.
Also, have not read 5th Season. I’ll check it out!
I think you’d find the 5th season really interesting, for all the reasons 🙂
Good to know that Grossman skirts around the low hanging tropes. I’ll put it on my reading list. Did you happen to read Naomi Novik’s Uprooted? Another book I thought you might enjoy, even though it’s pretty silly at times.
But…but… The Magicians…is great
I don’t disagree, don’t get me wrong. It’s quite entertaining, and I totally binge watched through it over the holidays. It’s just one of those shows that sort of doesn’t apologize for its flaws and ridiculousness, and I can appreciate that.
Ever read the books?
Ah, now it makes sense. Lev Grossman’s, right? I didn’t put 2 and 2 together — the books constantly pop up on my Amazon “you might like this too” feed. Are they worth it? With the show, I actually like the plot and some of the dialogues are witty, but oh ye gods, the acting is just cringeworthy and the editing is super weird and choppy. Syfy shows are kind of hit or miss, though — the Expanse works really well, though it’s also an adaptation from a book series. Also, why is it that shows about, at least at some level, grad school culture all seem to be written by high school students imagining life in college? Anyway, maybe I’ll check out the books, after I’m done with Jemesin’s the 5th Season, which I’m really enjoying so far (have you read it?).
Honestly, the break from OUAT has been really nice…
I’ve started watching The Magicians — totally brainless fun, with occasionally decent, but equally often just plain terrible acting.
Does anyone watch the OA? I’ve heard it’s really good, but weird, and starts to taper off after a few eps.
I’ve started, and it’s so far a mixed bag, though mostly interesting. You need to have a pretty high tolerance for a very particular kind of New Age rhetoric, though, and to me it became grating after a while (didn’t help that my husband kept butting in with sarcastic comments). Worth a whirl, though.
Sadly, I will be right along with you and with the bitter after taste afterwards.
I think it has less to do with A&E’s skills, if you can call it that, and more with how people watch shows nowadays. I am very reluctant to give A&E too much credit for their core audience sticking with them because I think they, more than any other show makers I can think of, are totally parasitical on how the fandom is mediated. The way many people now watch shows is so heavily refracted through social media, and the fan communities that it affords (this place a case in point), that there’s more to being “committed” to a show than simply turning it on while you’re cooking your dinner on a regular basis. In practice, this means that the threshold for abandonment is probably higher, because you are also plugged into a separate community oriented around the show, and dropping the show means, in part, dropping the community alongside it.
I say parasitical because A&E seem to pander to the fans, while very obviously winging their plot lines and world building in an inconsistent, seemingly completely ad hoc way, then put on grand airs about how they’ve planned this all along. I would frankly have a lot more respect for them if they just said “look, this is a crazy experiment where we’re totally improvising from season to season, but we have awesome actors, and have you seen our costumes?” Instead, they seem to feel that they can afford to write lazy or downright offensive drivel without a significant penalty to their pocketbooks. That’s the other “bad aftertaste” part of this for me.
