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themattress · 1 year

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Leora W: Queen of Bad Takes

I won’t dignify this person with any links, only responses to her numerous fallacies.

On Season 5:

I had to suffer through what I would argue was not only the worst season of the show but the worst season of any show ever: Once Upon A Time Season 5.

Not only is there no way OUAT Season 5 could possibly be the worst of the show when Seasons 6 and 7 both exist and follow it, but the worst season of any show ever? Yeah, no.

One of the major problems with Season 5 was they seemed to be bringing in characters or shiny toys for the sake of bringing them in without thinking about how they would affect the overarching plot. When that character or shiny toy didn't amount to anything, they would abandon it because they didn't think it through.

....Are you kidding me!? You say that’s a problem with Season 5, and not the whole show!? Where were you for the past three seasons or the next two? This isn’t a unique problem!

How come Killian wasn't haunted by former Dark One's in Storybrooke just because Emma wiped his memory? He was still the Dark One, wasn't he?

Apparently if there’s a mental block, the former Dark Ones can’t appear.

Or how come nobody tried true love's kiss on Emma in Camelot? And how come when she and Hook did kiss in Camelot, and she was actively trying to get rid of the darkness, it didn't work?

As wretched an episode as it is, “The Price” answered this already: by the time a kiss was attempted Emma was already thrilled by the power she wielded, which is why she waffled on getting rid of the Darkness afterward, like when she tried to justify potentially keeping it and using it for good. TLK won’t work when one party is enthralled with power; just ask Belle.

What on earth did that horse do to end up in The Underworld with unfinished business?

It wasn’t always there, it’s implied that Daniel sent it there from Heaven.

(Talks about lack of follow-through and dropped plotlines and ignoring established rules)

Again, what show have you been watching all this time!? This is sadly the norm for it.

Season 4 ended with Rumpelstiltskin's heart being scrubbed clean of the darkness and Emma Swan taking up the mantle of The Dark One. This provided many possibilities. More than anything, it seemed like an opportunity to redeem Rumpelstiltskin. He no longer had The Darkness inside him, and it allowed the heroes a chance to understand and sympathize with what made him so evil in the first place. Instead, the heroes adamantly advocate for Emma but disregard a newly pure and powerless Rumpelstiltskin worthy of their time or help. Rumple becomes a hero, pulling a sword from the stone, but he relapses to Darkness in the end.

The Darkness was never what made Rumple evil. Rumple made Rumple evil. That was the whole point being proven which was already proven in the Season 4 finale but I digress.

Killian Jones becomes a Dark One alongside Emma and embraces his newfound darkness rather quickly, despite all the character's progress throughout the series. Yet, once he is no longer The Dark One, he is forgiven, redeemed, and resurrected, despite all he did.

Because he “became a Dark One alongside Emma” because Emma forced it upon him against his will, and then tried to control him by force which naturally caused his progress to crumble and him to give in. He’s forgiven, redeemed and resurrected because of his own actions to rectify his evil actions, which are done without expecting any reward, I might add.

Worst of all, Zelena has a quickie redemption in The Underworld! So does King Arthur!

Zelena’s quickie redemption was no worse than Regina’s, and while I can see the criticism toward Arthur’s I felt it made perfect sense given his previously established character.

As for the Underworld, that plot was entirely underwhelming. Hades in the movie is a fun and charismatic villain, but his interpretation on the show was weak and meh.

No, he was still a fun and charismatic villain, just in a different way than in the movie. He’s actually a lot closer to the take Jack Nicholson, Disney’s first choice, likely would’ve given.

Megara, also, was a huge disappointment. In the movie, she was a badass. She didn't need a man, she had a complex backstory, and she was willing to sacrifice herself for love. On this show, she barely exists.

This wasn’t the Disney version of Megara, though! Unlike Hades, she and Hercules had no holdover from the Disney movie; they’re just versions of the old mythological characters.

(Complains about Rumbelle being toxic because “Rumple's story has always been about redemption” and Belle’s part in it is now ruined.)

You missed the point of Rumple and of “Skin Deep”, like so many did.

Emma, a character who we know has walls up to her head, went from not being ready for a relationship to crossing moral lines to save Killian and then literally dragging her family to hell to save him.

The line-crossing was dumb, but no, she didn’t drag anyone to Hell. It was the Underworld, not Hell, and her family volunteered to go with her, they weren’t remotely “dragged” there.

Basically, they wanted to make Captain Swan as epic as Snowing, even having Emma say, "I will always find you," the Snowing motto, on her way to the Underworld. Captain Swan didn't have the juice for that, and making them epic and tragic took away what was fun about them.

No, Captain Swan did have the juice for it. This was a fine idea, it just had bad execution.

Aside from taking away from every other aspect of the series and losing their fun side, many have described Hook's behavior toward's Emma as toxic.

It was! What these fans seldom focus on is how equally toxic her behavior toward him is. They just want a simple “bad man abuses good woman” narrative in order to condemn the Captain Swan ship, which ignores Dark Emma inflicting textbook domestic abuse upon Hook.

In the case of both Rumple and Emma, when they were the Dark One, their goals were usually to protect those they loved, even if it meant crossing lines to do so. Killian told Emma he wanted to hurt her and that she was a pretty blonde distraction from his true goals of revenge.

In the case of both Rumple and Emma, they actively chose to become the Dark One to start with. Killian literally begged for Emma not to make him the Dark One and she did it anyway. And again, no mention of what Emma did to him prior to him saying those terrible things.

(Talks about Robin’s needless death followed by an awful season finale)

.....Wait, why did I even list this? She’s got me there! :P

On Redemption Arcs:

The thing is, Arthur didn't really change. He deduces that the prophecy that he would rule over a "broken kingdom" refers to The Underworld and not Camelot as he always thought. It's the destiny he's been chasing forever, so of course, he would do it.

You misread that scene. Camelot was the broken kingdom that Merlin prophesized; Merlin himself confirmed this. Arthur’s flaw was that rather than just take heroic actions naturally so that the prophecy comes to pass, he fixates on the specifics of the prophecy, particularly Excalibur, and rather than actually repair the broken kingdom he just papers over the cracks with magic sand. Hook’s actions in the Underworld showed Arthur that you are capable of making your own destiny through your own deeds, and so he accepted the Underworld as a second chance to do something positive rather than accept any sort of heavenly reward.

Making Arthur a villain was a nice surprise, but his redemption was weak. The character wasn't likable, even as a guy you love to hate. Frankly, OUAT would have been better if the characters had never gone to Camelot, but that's a rant for another time.

I object; he was totally a “love to hate” type, the issue was that he became too incompetent to take seriously, and a villainous version of King Arthur is someone you absolutely should be able to take seriously. And OUAT would have actually been better if the characters just went to Camelot and never came back to Storybrooke within the same arc. That was the problem.

Rumple's redemption was seemingly written into the series from the beginning. For the first two and a half seasons of the show, Rumple's redemption arc was picture perfect.

It really wasn’t, and out of what you mentioned only that “a half” constituted an actual redemption arc for the character...and even then, it only ended well because his son was around to inspire him to die a sacrificial death. If he hadn’t done so, he would’ve relapsed.

By Season 6, not all viewers wanted Rumple to be redeemed. He had backslid so many times. His redemption was hard to trust when it happened. His final redemption was death, which kind of fit because he had lived so long and deserved to rest. Plus, after everything he did, seeing him live would have left us questioning if he was going to backslide again.

Thanks for pointing out precisely why he just should’ve bit the bullet (again) in Season 6.

Still, it would have been better if they had leaned into his initial redemption in 3x11 and let the character grow, instead of all the unnecessary back and forth.

No, the back and forth was fine since that was a core part of his character. It only became an issue when he went forth in a specific way he couldn’t feasibly come back from, and yet the show and other characters still acted as though back was a possibility, which wasn’t realistic.

One of the unusual and refreshing things about OUAT's redemption arcs, at least the ones they did well, was that instead of going for the familiar trope of person-redeems-themself-for-lover, they did the underrated and underused person-redeems-themself-for-their-child. Killian Jones is the exception to this. (*goes on to complain about this and then say Wish Hook had a better redemption since he did it for a child*)

1. I’ve seen this bullshit logic before, and I just have to ask that if Hook is an exception, shouldn’t he be considered the “unusual and refreshing” one here since the norm on this show is redemption-for-child rather than redemption-for-lover? Did you ever think of that?

2. Hook didn’t even redeem himself for Emma, he redeemed himself because he wanted to be better and Emma made him believe that it was possible for him to be so.

3. Wish Hook’s redemption arc wasn’t inherently better just because a ship wasn’t involved.

Later, when Killian becomes The Dark One, he gives in to the darkness entirely very quickly. He's willing to send the woman he loves and her friends to The Underworld. When he chickens out of his plan because he still loves Emma, he's called a hero. How is he a hero for sacrificing himself to stop an evil scheme that he was causing? If you want to kill someone but change your mind, you aren't a hero for saving that person's life. You're just not as bad as you were before. It's noble to turn yourself over to the cops afterward, but again, it doesn't make you a hero.

First off, notice how she’s once again ignoring how/why he “became the Dark One” and how that affected him giving in. And secondly, Regina is placed higher above Hook on this redemption ranking list, and her entire redemption was only possible because she was going to sacrifice herself to stop an evil scheme that she (and she alone, unlike with Dark Hook) was causing in 2x22! They even called her a hero for doing so! If you weren’t pissed off about that, you have no business being pissed off about this unless you have an irrational bias.

Regina's backstory was truly tragic. She was abused and manipulated by her mother her entire life, culminating in the murder of her boyfriend.

That’s a sympathetic backstory, not a tragic one. The rest of her backstory was tragic.

Regina's redemption arc was not rushed. It was drawn out as we watched the character grow, realistically backslide slightly, and then, with the support of her new family, find her way to proper redemption.

“Realistically backslide slightly”!? Did you just block out what she actually did / attempted to do in 2B? That’s why many people can’t get behind the whole “support of her new family” part; because she only got a place in that family after almost murdering them all and trying to force Henry to stay hers like a possession. This is why the whinging about what Dark Hook did that got forgiven rings false, especially when that had deeper context for why it happened whereas Regina’s only excuse for her turn is “those damn heroes dared suspect me, a known mass murderer, of murdering someone! I have no other choice but to murder them all now!”

Some have argued that her redemption is more about getting what she wants, i.e., a relationship with her son, than showing genuine remorse. She doesn't want to do better because she believes it's right. She wants to do better because if she doesn't, she loses Henry. Regina may have ostensibly switched sides, but she occasionally crosses the line, such as when she stole Belle's heart to manipulate Rumple. Whether or not Rumple deserved that is debatable, but did Belle? I should think not! There are also things she's never been held accountable for, such as raping and murdering Graham. In 5x23, Regina goes so far as to call her past evil self an alter-ego known as The Evil Queen; she attempts to split herself off from that part of herself. The Evil Queen was never an alter-ego. Regina only has one personality, and she needs to own her choices.

YES. That’s all correct! So you rank her redemption so highly why, exactly?

Say what you will about Hook and Rumple, but both of their redemption arcs had them deviating from their initial goals and giving up their ill-gotten gains in order to make things right for others. Regina kept all she gained from villainy and her mission statement from right before ripping her father’s heart out to enact the Dark Curse - “I just want to be happy” - never changed. It was still all for that goal; she merely changed her methods of achieving it.

On Rumple:

I'm not badmouthing Rumple. I actually think he's pretty great; I'm a Dearie, through and through.

And therein lies the problem - far too many Dearies accentuate the positives of the character and let that define their view of him; which is a stark contrast to Robert Carlyle’s own views.

The show had a family of protagonists and two big, scary antagonists. One was The Evil Queen, the main villain of the Snow White story. The other was Rumpelstiltskin, a wild-card that left the audience scratching their heads. He was a mystery. Both characters had the potential to be the great villain of the series. Then we learned the key differences between the two. (*proceeds to say Rumple was doing it all for his son while Regina was doing it for revenge*) Given those two descriptions, if you had to pick someone for the big bad of the series, who would you pick? I think it was supposed to be The Evil Queen, and I think the show was written with that intent.

Um, no. Absolutely not. Rumple, no matter how sympathetic you found him compared to Regina, was clearly set up as the Big Bad of the series from the pilot and subsequent episode. He was the true mastermind behind the Dark Curse, and 1x02′s end scene screamed “this guy’s even worse than Regina”, something even Henry acknowledged in 1x08, an episode that officially revealed Rumple’s status as the Dark One. Why on Earth would some random evil queen with magic powers be a bigger villain than the Dark One?

He was willing to ruin and corrupt others to do so, but he also made David a prince, and helped him wake Snow White from a sleeping curse. He was always interfering in people's lives. Sometimes he did nasty things. Sometimes he helped. He was morally ambiguous, but the story could not unfold without him. He was deeply tied to all of their lives, and many of them might never have been born nor found love without his interference.

No. There is no “moral ambiguity” to Rumple. All of his helpful actions were motivated by his own self-interest that was ultimately going toward the evil objective of getting the Dark Curse cast, which would screw over all those characters he helped be born or fall in love. And while he was behind the Savior clause, this also came along with his plan to bring magic to Storybrooke, which further screwed everyone over just so that he could get what he wants.

Well, the rumor is, Regina was supposed to be the big evil on the show. She was meant to be sympathetic, but it had not been planned to give her a redemption arc. Then, the show got a lot of flack for being "anti-adoption." They didn't want to send that message. Lana Parilla fought for Regina to get a redemption arc on Season 2, and the trajectory of the show was changed forever.

This rumor has been thoroughly debunked by now. Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis actually created the show through the viewpoint of the Evil Queen, and her getting her happy ending was the true core objective from the beginning. They even called making viewers forget about all of her crimes and be furious at the heroes for not easily accepting her redemption as they logically should a “victory” and “the greatest thing ever”. Lana Parilla fought for a better relationship between Henry and Regina in Season 2; the redemption arc was always planned regardless of that happening because Regina is A&E’s pet character.

Rumple prophesized this big, Final Battle to come when the curse breaks. This was more or less forgotten after the curse, until Season 6, when the battle is fought between Emma, Rumple's mother, and Rumple's son. Basically, the Final Battle comes back around to Rumpelstiltskin. And he gets redeemed! Yea! Except that this wasn't the first time he was redeemed, nor would it be the last.

It should’ve been the last, though. Also, the Final Battle was a retcon; in its original context he was clearly talking about the final battle against the Evil Queen, which thanks to his own interference in bringing magic to town would also draw in him, her mother, and his father!

The fact that Rumple exited the show a hero, combined with what we know about his actions and motives from the beginning would imply his character was always expected to be redeemed. And if Zelena can be redeemed, why not Rumple?

This notion she has that Zelena is more heinous than Regina and Rumple is hilarious.

Maybe because he was, in fact, redeemed. In 3x11, Rumple sacrificed himself to save the town. He'd found love with Belle, and he'd reconciled with his son. He gave his life for them, his grandson, and everybody else in Storybrooke. Yea! He's redeemed. But wait, he's dead? Noooo!!!!That was my reaction, and likely the reaction of many fans. Rumple was a very popular character, both for those who loved him and for those who loved to hate him. He was also very useful. He was powerful, and he was clever. He understood magic, and he had pertinent information about nearly every character the leads ever came across. The show couldn't function without the man who had been puppeteering things for 200 + years, and they knew it. They needed to bring him back.

All of this is true; just felt like throwing her another bone.

Prior to his death, it seemed that Kitsis and Horowitz were setting Neal up to be Emma's True Love. It made sense from a story perspective. However, Killian and his flirtation with Emma were very popular among the fans. The fan theory is that due to that popularity, the idea was to get Neal out of the way so they could give fans what they wanted. They didn't think Emma could end up with Killian if Neal was alive, so Neal needed to die.

Again, a thoroughly debunked theory. Neal was never being set up as Emma’s True Love, just her old flame, and the decision to kill him off had nothing to do with Emma/Hook and everything to do with Rumple and how to bring him back and spark his relapse into villainy, plus the fact that Michael-Raymond James just wasn’t feeling the show and wanted out.

Rumple had Belle, but nobody else seemed to give a flying monkey about him. All the other leads were then heroes, and he was a man who had just lost nearly everything. As the story moved forward, Rumple had fewer and fewer reasons to be good.

Oh boy, here we go. Let the Draco in Leather Pantsing commence!

Hook chose to blackmail Rumple. He threatened to tell Belle that after months of being enslaved by Zelena, the woman who killed his son, Rumple didn't give up his freedom again. And he killed Zelena. Rumple struck back, and all hell broke loose because, of course, those children couldn't play nice for five minutes.

The blackmail choice happened because Rumple was already refusing to help his supposed family and their new friend Elsa out when they needed it, and Rumple easily could’ve avoided it by just being honest with Belle. Of course, then Hook got cocky and stupidly tried to garner a second, more personal sort of favor from the blackmail, and he rightly paid the price for it.

Once the truth came out, everyone conveniently forgot that Rumple died for them, lost his son, was a slave, and that he was "family." He was in mourning, suffering from PTSD, and he had almost no support. Hook goaded him, and Rumple backslid. Instead of hearing his side or considering there may be more to the story, the heroes cast him as the villain in their lives.

First off, Rumple had backslid before Hook blackmailed him - he already had sinister plans for the Sorcerer’s Hat, and was immediately willing to cooperate with the Snow Queen. Secondly, they did not forget about any of that; Emma brought it all up in 4x08 to show support and trust for Rumple - as he was in the process of tricking her into walking to her doom, mind you. It was Rumple who showed he didn’t care about them (aside from Henry purely due to the connection to Neal); there’s no “hearing his side of the story” after learning he colluded with someone out to kill them all and had responded to his PTSD from being enslaved by gleefully enslaving someone else, Hook, and ultimately trying to murder him on top of that, which is as disproportionate a response to Hook’s initial blackmail as you can get and is going back on the terms he had already set for the blackmail he put on Hook in turn. Rumple cast himself as the villain in their lives because Rumple chose to be a villain again.

As the show continued, they continued to take that attitude with him. When something went wrong, they either tried to blame him for the trouble, or they tried to bully him into fixing it because, after all, they're "family."

Lol, most of the time he was in fact responsible for the trouble, and it’s laughable to say they tried to “bully him” when he’s the one who had all the power...again, all by his own choice.

In the end, he sacrificed himself to save his former enemy and finally got to die. It's the ultimate redemption. And it was great to see. But you know what would have been better? If he could have come back from his first redemption and been brought back to life without losing his son, one of his main reasons to try. Then we could have seen him try, and succeed, to be better, for more than just Season 7.They could have made that happen if they really wanted to.

Sure, but they didn’t because for most of the writers and for Robert Carlyle, that wasn’t in the nature of the character. They didn’t want him to try and succeed to be better. To them, it’s like if Walter White stopped breaking bad. Given all that he’s said about the character, I doubt Robert Carlyle was even personally on board with his Season 7 redemption arc. He still played it well since he’s a professional, but if were up to him it wouldn’t have happened.

They could also have left him dead. Let him die as a hero instead of backsliding as a villain.

Admittedly, that would have been great too. Alas, it was never to be.

Even when Rumple got his final redemption, it was in defeating a version of himself from the WishRealm. Rumple was still expected to play the villain, even when he was also the hero. This character, who was built for a redemption arc, deserved better than being tossed back into the villain pile because they needed a bad guy. Sadly, it seems like that is what happened.

No, that’s not what happened. He was not “built for a redemption arc”; that was you seeing what you wanted to see. He was always supposed to be the main Big Bad and ultimately the Final Boss, regardless of how that happened. A&E did, in fact, screw him up, but not in the ways that you’re positioning. They screwed him, and many other things, up by not having a solid plan and ending point in mind, not because they didn’t have him do what you wanted.

From this book:

And there you have it...dearie.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #Fandumb #Stupidity #Objection #Correction #Defense #Redemption #Hypocrite #Double Standards #Draco in Leather Pants #Ron the Death Eater #This has been a PSA #Anti-OUAT #Anti-A&E #Anti-Regina #Anti-Regina Mills #Anti-Rumple #Anti-Rumpelstiltskin

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