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I read the book some 10-20 years ago (I honestly can’t remember when, though I am certain it wasn’t part of any assigned curriculum). I watched the first two episodes that were free to access, though no need to hide any spoilers from me, just saying what I have seen đ
I would agree that the show doesnât have to end well. It just feels more pointless to me that way. I have watched the first three episodes and seen some of the explanation to what happen. I just find it extremely unrealistic, especially based on what is going on in the United States right now. I am quite certain people arenât sitting in a corner just letting things happen. There are constant protests. The park service. The judges stepping in on those executive orders. Though this is a different situation in the show, in that, something catastrophic has happened. People arenât able to have babies anymore which is world ending. I just think the ritualistic bizarre thing that is happening here is not what would happen. Descending into chaos, maybe, but not this. Violence, sure, but this. I just donât know.
June is basically like a person held as a patient in old-fashioned badly run asylum. She that gets very little outside information, and gets an escorted walk once a day to a grocery store, and the odd field-trip to reinforce her “place” in this society. And we know there is a war going on.
It would be very believable that some people are sitting in a corner. Maybe because they have been striped of their agency and means, or they are too busy keeping/maintaining what little agency and means they have in the socio-economic system in place (very few of us have any say in the system inherited and/or imposed on society). Very few people have learned the skills necessary to survive in the wild, or even to farm, so to have to choose between accepting a place/role you can in a society where you have access to basic necessities, taking a place/role in that society but be willing to constantly risk those things by resisting/fighting from the inside, or running into the woods/wilds and hoping for the bestâŚ. People do whatever the need to to survive.
With a war going on I sort of imagine where June in a heavily curated community where Gilead’s power is concentrated. And some people would prefer to be here, where it is “safer”, and not fighting in the war, or the dangerous jobs of cleaning up industrial waste. Presumably there are some men, and infertile women, doing the grunt labour, like farm or shelf-stocker, or other non-household service/labour, who are not dealing with quite the same restrictions of the handmaid’s (though since slavery is in the bible, maybe they do, minus the ceremony).
Minus the ceremony, is the restrictions the handmaid’s really never heard of in human society? One thing I read the author say before is that she did not want to write anything that had been unknown in human history. For example, slaves were not allow to read, women have been denied education before based on their sex. There are currently many restrictions, in either in custom or law, in many countries on women. The most well-known I would guess would be Saudi Arabia, with their male-guardianship. If this is happening right now on our shared planet, how is it so hard to imagine human rights backsliding in our corner of the globe here in North America? And human rights have backslide before in other parts of the globe, there are pictures in Afghanistan in the 70s(?) of women wearing modern clothes, going to university⌠I can’t recall what was the most proximal thing leading to the backslide of women rights in Afghanistan, it may have been related to the fall of the USSR and/or the nascent beginnings of the Taliban (probably from the power vacuum left by the fall of the USSR). Our rights are not secure just because we have them now.
[adrotate group="5"]I guess weâre just gonna ignore what the Charmingâs wanted Emma to do soâŚ
If the writing had shown some agency for Emma, and that Emma actually weighed anything firstâŚ. And Emma ignored what a dead man wanted last seasonâŚ.
It has been said by others more eloquently than I, but really, who was more in danger, two people about to fall into a coma (which makes them easy targets for villains), or a person who has capably survived in a dangerous profession for over 100 years (with very robust health that belies their age) on very familiar turf. Who as coincidentally been brought back from the dead by a god before? (probably not going to happen again, but I wouldn’t put anything past these writers).
The writers shouldn’t have broken the dead is dead rule. I don’t mean they should have left Killian dead in the first place, I mean the writers shouldn’t have made him dead in the first place.
When was the last time she did anything with Henry? Or another female who isnât part of a fandom romantic wish (ie: Regina). When was the last time Emma had a friend??
Does it have to be on-screen to count? Or can it be referenced on screen? Because if the latter, to be fair: The canoe trip. Though I am sure it is just because they needed an excuse for Emma to need to go the shed when Hook and Charming were skulking about đ and away in general for the Hook/Charming centric episode.
Hereâs what I donât quite get. I canât get over the fact that Emma the character is supposed to be in her early 30s. Sheâs 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 â I remember people writing about how she has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old boy â is no longer charming, but really heart-breaking and a little pathetic. None of the other characters in Emmaâs demographic cohort (which includes Regina and Snow) come across this way â they all, by and large, act their characterâs biological age.Heck, honestly, she seems to be regressing. I am not (or I hope I am not) confusing her “walls” with maturity. I don’t mind characters being vulnerable, we have seen that in all the other adult characters on the show, that is normal, and that is healthy. But she seemed more functional in her day to day life in season one/two/three. I don’t mind the odd bought of not being able to function. Someone important to one dies, I expect some time of mourning and some inability to function as one normally does. But she seems to hardly function without Hook. Look by comparison to how the Charmings were handling the sleeping curse? Heck, it seems as if they didn’t even have someone guard the one sleeping out of worry or risk of danger. I could easily imagine Snow or Charming being independent people (after a break up or a death) and becoming their former selves more easily than I could imaging Emma in those circumstances, no matter what time-frame you put on it.
I almost wish they had a proper love triangle with Emma, Hook, and someone else (for either Emma or Hook), I feel like she would have been realized she didn’t need a partner. Something it seemed she realized a long time ago, maybe in a slightly unhealthy way (the “walls”), but more healthy than a co-dependency (with near no healthy boundaries) like we see now. They actually both suggest trust or intimacy issues, they just both express themselves in different ways.
This show was about her realizing she needed and wanted a family, as any healthy human does (Not necessary a natural biological family, but just people you can trust and love, and who trust and love you back). That doesn’t necessarily equate to spouse, some people are happy single, but they still require human companionship for their socio-emotional needs. And she was willing to sacrifice the life and future of the family she found for a new family member. Unless that family was dysfunctional and immediate risk to Emma/Hook’s life, how do you justify that decision?
Happy to be of service Skyler đ
To be fair, if baby Neal put any thought to it, he’d figure out there would be lots of hate and anger to spread around. Hook, just out of jealously (justifiably so, considering he was abandoned in favour of Hook). His mother for abandoning him. His sister for compounding that decision by not over-riding Snow’s decision. His father might get off scot-free if it is clear to that Charming didn’t make this decision (whether he would have given the choice is another matter). Maybe in anger add in Evil Queen/Regina (EQ for putting them in this situation, Regina for not being able to break the sleeping curse.) Maybe Henry for not talking sense into his mother when she made that decision. And then near EVERYONE else in town for acting like Snow making a sensible decision, and no one voicing opposition to it. I think that sentiment alone would drive baby Neal out of town. Everyone in town would saintify the Charmings, because they’d buy into the myth that the reason Emma won in the final battle was because of her parent’s sacrifice to get Hook to her side. Ugh.
*laughs* Can you imagine, if Snowing were left in the sleeping curse and couldn’t be brought out of it, how much Baby Neil would *hate* Hook once the hows of his abandonment was explained to him.
Emma: “Well you see Neil, our parents felt I needed the best chance going into the final battle, and they felt I could only do that with my true love, your brother-in-law Hook, next to me. And rather than trust in their and my abilities, or feel that you needed them more… When faced with a choice between me having them next to me / figuring out a way to find Hook later / raising you, OR me having Hook next to me / them going into a permanent cursed-sleep from which they could never be awoken / abandoning you. Well, they picked the latter. They felt guilty. Oh, not about you, about abandoning me. The first time around that is. Mom didn’t even seem conflicted about it. Didn’t mention you at all. I only remember you the next day when Cinderella called and said that mom and dad forgot to pick you up from day-care *again*. So, yep, they picked me and Hook, over themselves and you. Our parents were such heroes.
HmmmâŚ..sounds like Emma ticks most, if not all, of those boxes, doesnât 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 â itâs almost as if the only way they know how to create difficult background stories for their characters is by making them all come from âbroken homes.â Is there anyone among the main characters who isnât either (1) from a single parent household, (2) hasnât been abandoned or separated from primary caregiver(s) at an early age, (3) didnât have one or both parents die at an early age and/or (4) didnât have a narcissistic, manipulative and emotionally unavailable parent?
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.
Well, yes, he, or at least the original Robin, is dead now, but I would consider him a main character of the show, like I would Neal. Neither were just a half-season hero or villain character, and were more than just reoccurring too.
I get the impression Billâs foster mom doesnât know/refuses to acknowledge that Bill is a lesbian. In the same scene you mention, Bill responds with something like âmen are not what Iâm looking atâ or something. I donât think sheâs bisexual and in the press leading up to the premiere both Pearl Mackie and Steven Moffat say that Bill is the first openly gay character in the Whoverse.
How narrowly are they defining gay, or Whoverse? Captain Jack Harkness, and one of the characters from Class. Not really important, it is just a little of a curiosity to me.
And I think there are several indicators that Bill and her foster mom are not tight at all. The foster mom kept all those photos and never bothered to given them to Bill, even though Bill tells the Doctor in the scene before that sheâs never seen a picture of her mom.Â
I thought the Doctor inserted the pictures in their flat recently, but it is equally plausible either way.
Then thereâs the Xmas incident where Bill gives her foster mom a really nice scarf and the foster mom gives Bill an envelope and some cash, as if thereâs no thought involved and even Bill says something like âthis should cover itâ meaning the scarf. So clearly Bill put some thought and time and money into the scarf and the foster mom is just doing her due diligence.
I just shrugged at that, but probably because I hate shopping for myself, much less other people, and I have always had trouble with understanding, much less navigating, our cultural social expectations. I have joked to my family about converting to become a Jehovah Witness before to avoid the whole ratchet. So, my perception comes from a difference place than yours, but you are probably right. Obviously they showed that, and the juxtaposition of their gifts, on purpose. If they wanted to show that she was the sort of person who sort of sucked at such things they could have had her boyfriend in that scene getting something similar.
Then thereâs the night the foster mom is at the bar and says âI think we both know itâs about time I treated myselfâ as if sheâs been burdened for a long time. Taken separately they donât add up but taken together they make for a less than ideal home life.
I was looking at these things separately. I did wonder watching that scene if the foster-mom did this on the regular, and wasn’t as rare as the foster-mom seemed to imply. Other-wise I just saw it as her taking care of her own needs, which I think we’d both agree parents are allowed to do occasionally.
I think my honest take-away, before your post anyways, was that they were trying to make Bill’s foster-mom some-what annoying. The first part (X-mas gifts) were too similar to my feelings on the wretched holiday đ for me to see it otherwise. I just saw it as more impossible expectations on mother-hood *laughs* Though I know foster-care is almost certainly by default less-than-ideal. I know people who have been in that system. We take kids out of one less-than-ideal situation, and put them in one that is less less-than-ideal, hopefully.
The Blue and Black fairies could be sisters if the writers wanted to drag Blue into the family tree. Though who knows how biological sisters would happen in a group that is not permitted to fall in love, we still don’t understand the genesis of Fairies.
Maybe Blue is Black’s mother, and that is why she is so strict on the love thing đ
I thought the show handled Billâs homosexuality well. It was no muss, no fuss. It didnât turn into a Very Special Episode with Bill having to come out to the Doctor and the Doctor reassuring her or any other suck dreck. Instead, the show just makes it part of Bill along with her other traits.
It wasn’t clear to me she was a lesbian. IF she is a lesbian, as opposed to bisexual, is she not out to her foster-mom? Her mom said Bill had to be careful of men or something, and made a big deal out of the Doctor being her “foster-teacher” implying her mom thought something improper was happening (or pending). And I assume they are sorta-tight, considering it is strongly implied Bill is college-age, meaning over 18, and she is still living with her foster-mom.
Some Children/Family-Aid agencies in some jurisdictions will help with a transition period, and/or post-secondary education, I have no idea what it is like in the U.K.
I wonder what the story of the Doctor and Bill’s mother was. (I don’t think the only time her met her was to take photos for Bill, what the heck were The Doctor and whats-his-name talking about when Bill eavesdropped?).
