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I thought Regina’s line about regret fit perfectly into her redemption arc and was not backpedaling at all. I agree completely that true redemption will require her to express remorse, but she’s not there yet. Her statement was an insight into where her progress toward redemption is at the moment.
I love the story of Regina’s redemption precisely because it has been a gradual development and not a sudden, 180 degree reversal. We’ve seen her go from full, Evil Queen mode just before she cast the curse, to showing compassion mixed with cruelty by letting Owen go just before she killed his father, to tonight choosing to keep Henry despite the risk he posed to the curse, to trying to help Emma save Henry at the end of the first season even though Gold told her that sacrificing Henry would be the price to keep the curse unbroken, to expressing remorse for what she had done to one person (Henry) in “We Are Both”, to trying to improve her behavior in order to win Henry’s approval in the first half of season two, to being willing to sacrifice her life for everyone else in the second season finale (although that was probably more out of concern that Henry not be left alone than concern for everyone else.)
The point is, all of these things are steps in her redemption. The difference between regret and remorse is significant, but even if we say she has no remorse (instead of no regret), I still don’t think she is backsliding like she did when Cora came to Storybrooke. I just think remorse is a stage she hasn’t yet reached. She is making great progress but that doesn’t mean she is there yet. It’s the slow but steady progress that makes the character fascinating. It would be unrealistic if she suddenly jumped from being so evil to being good. Likewise, it would be annoyingly bad writing if she constantly oscillated back and forth from good to evil, but a steady, two steps forward and occasional one step back progress from evil to good is much more interesting and it mirrors her earlier transition from good to evil. At least, that’s how I see it.
[adrotate group="5"]I had always assumed that Rumple procured Henry on the black market in some way and this episode seems to me to confirm that. I agree with the comments that it would have been more obvious if the agent had been depicted as a shady character meeting Regina in a dark alley, but the fact that he seemed conscientious doesn’t mean the adoption was legal. I’m assuming the agent saw all the papers he needed to see to convince him that everything was legit (home visits, tax returns, references, etc…) but I’m guessing a lot of those papers were generated by Mr. Gold greasing the palms of many people. For the right amount of money, lots of reports and court documents could be forged and misfiled. I also agree that it’s not really important that we didn’t see all of that. After all, the episode was about the growth in Regina’s character and the development of her relationship with Henry – not a Mission Impossible plot about the intricate machinations required to pull off an illegal adoption. It’s like the analogy made earlier to Emma’s stuff arriving from Boston – there are many ways she could have gotten it (call the landlord or a neighbor, hire some movers, etc…) but we don’t need to see the details because they aren’t important to the story. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there might not be more to tell about Henry’s adoption than we have seen, just that we can’t be sure that there must be more.
Incidentally, the adoption couldn’t have been legal even if Regina somehow complied with all of the requirements previously discussed in this topic, because I’m pretty sure she lied about a number of things on her application, such as:
age: 55 or so (including 18 years in Storybrooke)
previous residence: Enchanted Forest
previous job: Evil Queen
criminal record: “I was once sentenced to death for multiple murders and other crimes, but it was commuted to exile”
I ran across a fanfiction at
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9407047/1/A-Twist-In-Time
which is not exactly an example of a mirror universe, but it’s similar. It’s a story in which Henry gets a time travel charm from Mr. Gold and uses it to go back in time to the Enchanted Forest and foil Cora’s plan by preventing young Snow from taking the fateful horseback ride that would have led to her being rescued by Regina. Instead, Regina and Daniel succeed in running away and Henry returns to find a very different Storybrooke.
In this version, the Enchanted Forest was ruled by the Evil Snow Queen who had been tutored by Cora after Regina ran away, until Snow learned her lessons too well and killed Cora. Eventually, the lost princess Regina and her husband Daniel returned to overthrow the Evil Snow Queen. But Snow then vows revenge and casts the Dark Curse which transports them all to Storybrooke, where she lives as Mayor Mary White and Regina is now a timid school teacher named Virginia Regan. Realizing what has happened, Henry then goes to find Virginia, who doesn’t know him, and tells her that he is her son and she has to break the curse. From there, it’s a lot like a parallel version of the first season. It has some very imaginative parts, if you can tolerate the frequent spelling errors.
I love the idea that the spinsters might be two of the Fates. As a fan of Greek mythology, the first thing I thought of when I saw them was, “That’s Clotho and Lachesis!” So where is the third Fate, Atropos? I think there must be some kind of fairy connection since the Latin word for the Fates, “Fata“, is not only the root of the English word “fate” but also of the word “fairy” (through the French “fae“.) Since Atropos’ name meant literally “un-turnable” in Greek (because she was always inflexible in cutting the thread of time, thus limiting the lifetimes of mortals, I wonder if she might be the Blue Fairy as some of you have suggested. I haven’t bought into the idea that Blue is evil or sneaky but I do agree that she is often inflexible, so that would fit. I see her as a sort of very strict mom who insists everyone follow the rules for their own good. She may have seemed harsh with Tink, but people overlook the act that she also turned out to be right. Despite Tink’s well-intentioned meddling, Regina didn’t go to Robin.
I could also see the suggestion that Atropos might have been Rumple’s mother and she died in childbirth because fairies aren’t supposed to fall in love. That would also fit with the fact that before the name “Fata” caught on, the Romans initially changed the Greek name of the Fates (“Moirai“) to “Parcae“, after Parca, the goddess of childbirth (this fit since they believed your fate was assigned at birth.) Since the word “fairy” comes from the French word for the Fates, could there also be a connection to Belle, since her story is French? Maybe that’s why Belle is the one who can see the good in Rumple.
Very clever – I love it! But can I offer my own alternative teams? Since the Seven Dwarves tend to do everything together and they already have enough for 7/9 of a baseball team, I propose the following teams:
Announcer: Felix
Umpire: Archie
Team One: The Storybrooke Miners
Coach: Emma
Team Doctor: Doc
Batboy: Henry
Pitcher: Charming
Catcher: Grumpy
1st Base: Snow
2nd Base: Neal
3rd Base: Sneezy
Shortstop: Bashful
Left Field: Dopey
Center Field: Happy
Right Field: Sleepy
Team Two: The Enchanted Forest Knights
Coach: Granny
Team Doctor: Dr. Whale
Batgirl: Grace
Pitcher: Regina
Catcher: Hook (He could have a custom glove fit to his hook)
1st Base: Ashley
2nd Base: Rumple
3rd Base: Thomas
Shortstop: Belle
Left Field: Red
Center Field: Jefferson
Right Field: Blue Fairy
Since this show is all about hope and dreams, I suggest the following development. In the ninth inning, one of the Storybrooke Miners has to leave the game (Perhaps Sneezy suffers such a violent sneezing fit that he rips his pants and has to leave as Felix announces to the crowd, “What a RRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIP!”) Then, Henry gets to come in to take his place. We gotta let the kid play! As for the other kids, Hansel, Gretel, and Pinocchio are watching the game while Gepetto fills them up with lots of candy.
Furthermore, since we’ve seen fictional characters other than fairy tale characters (like Dr. Frankenstein) can show up, how about if Mighty Casey and the rest of the Mudville team show up to play the winner of the match between the two previous teams?
Even though it’s probably just a coincidence, I just recalled a Pegasus reference in Shakespeare’s Henry IV:
“I saw young Henry with his beaver on,
his cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed,
rise from the ground like feathered Mercury
and vaulted with such ease into his seat
as if an angel dropped down from the clouds
to turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
and witch the world with noble horsemanship.”Ursula is free to rule her kingdom how she sees fit and if Trident doesn’t like it, he could have just gone to war to conquer her kingdom rather than just snatch her crown and kick her out. Cinderella should have just read the darn contract before agreeing to it and can’t get mad over agreeing to something she didn’t take the five minutes to understand, and the witch of the west, yes a bit more tricky, SHOULD have been given the shoes, but defeated when she actually tried something evil. That’s what I feel v.v
I must respectfully disagree. No monarch is automatically entitled to rule. I’m at a disadvantage here because I’ve never seen the movie, but the authority to rule can only come from the people and if the people are being terrorized by Ursula, it’s a safe bet they never authorized her to do that. As for Triton’s response, how is it better to slaughter thousands of innocent peasants who probably don’t even want to leave their homes to fight a war, than to take action which only harms the tyrant herself? Of course, as I said in a previous message, if you’re talking about what was “right” by the standards of medieval law, that’s a very different question than what is right by modern standards. To be clear, I’m trying to apply modern (i.e. post-Enlightenment) standards.
As for Cinderella, I do agree with Watcher that she should have read the contract and she has no grounds for complaining. Caveat Emptor. The only exception I can think of, which doesn’t really apply here since Rumple never really wanted the baby in the first place, would arise in a case where the deal would have caused future hardship to the baby, who is an unwilling participant in the contract. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The Earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.” So Cinderella has no power to make a deal that would in any way bind the baby’s future actions. People have a right to keep a child or to give it up for adoption and no one (except Rumplestiltskin!) can foresee the future and know which choice will be best for the baby in the long run. So giving up the baby is one thing, but Cinderella couldn’t make a deal that would for instance, sell the baby into life-long slavery, just as your great-gradparents couldn’t take out a loan with the promise “Our great-gradchildren will repay it.”
