#especially in regards to emma rumple belle and rumbelle from s4-s7

[gch1995]

I do think that the shoehorning in of Hook/CS and the Neverland/Peter Pan arc were a big symptom of the downfall of a lot of good things on this show, such as Nealfire’s death, and all of the painful character assassinations on OUAT to prop up Captain Fuckboy’s “redemption” arc from S4-S6, especially for Emma, Rumple, Belle, and Rumbelle.

If they had decided to not have Rumple already sacrifice his life selflessly to save his family in 3x11, they hadn’thadn’t gotten the Peter Pan/Neverland rights, they had kept Nealfire alive after finding him in Hook’s place, they hadn’t gotten obsessed with Hook and made the whole show his, they hadn’t done the stupid twist of the whole “The boy will be your undoing” prophecy to momentarily revert Rumple/have him struggle, and they had stuck to a more slow-burn character driven storyline with magic being used as more of a weapon of defense and a hobby for the characters to do it on the side, rather than ua Deus ex Machina crutch for random magical PLOT twist fuckery palooza to do the next big “SHOCKING” thing to drive the whole story, they had stuck to their own rules of magic and its limitations, they had continued discarding the whole black versus white “heroes” and “villains” set up from S1, and they had these characters develop realistic and healthy relationships with their family, friends, and loved ones, while dealing with realistic struggles of redemption in the town, then it could have been better. Instead, they kept constantly bouncing around from one big “SHINY” to the the next. If they’d slowed down with the magical “twists,” then they could have gotten Emma, Regina, Rumple, Snow, David, and Henry to the exact same character developments/endgames that they all had at the end of 3A over the course of seven seasons without ruining them or their stories with their loved ones.

As it was, they kept retreading their stories over and over again with their loved ones in increasingly OOC ways, and butchered them mostly to fit in Hook/CS to their narrative, thus, ruining them all from S4-S7 in one way or another.

I think the magic and the double standards aspects in shows is an issue about a lot of fantasy ones. The writers get so distracted by the magic and “hero versus villain” PLOTTY action/adventure elements that they forget that fans are emotionally invested in it for developing the main characters as real people, not simplistic, hypocritical, black and white archaic, and/or cartoonish one-note “hero” and “villain” tropes, not contrived Drama™️, and/or all the “SHOCKING” shit that they can come up with to use magic for on their shows with no constraints, limitations, restraints to their own initially established rules.

These writers use the magic and their magic macguffins unlimitedly to tell their stories long term, not their characters, so they usually end up burning out of juice for ideas of what else to do with their characters, even their most complex, likeable, and well-written ones, after the first three to four ish seasons of their series, and then continue the writing for the rest of the series all on PLOT by doing whatever the hell they want with magic “SHOCKING” twists because they’re too lazy to come up with anything else for their characters anymore. That’s why the characters often all start becoming more cartoonish, hypocritical, shitty, unlikable, repetitive, stagnant, regressive, unrecognizable, and just obviously very badly written caricatures in a cheap magical soap opera where they are being pulled around inorganically by the writers contrived and nonsensical external forces for Drama™️

The same thing happened to Charmed (1998) after the first three to four-ish seasons...

Even if it’s a show about magic and fairytales, people still want the main cast to have consistently realistic, relatable, dynamic, well-developed, and relatable characterizations and storylines that feel organic and well-earned. Even if we end up hating a character at the end, it will feel well-earned if the character is a well-written unlikable and/or unsympathetic fictional character who becomes that way because it makes organic and realistic sense, not because the writers suddenly start to derail a character who’s characterization originally started out as consistently and organically sympathetic and redemptive in spite of their flaws, so that they can have them fit some stupid “SHOCKING” and bizarre cartoonish magical PLOT twist, prophecy or macguffin out of nowhere that makes no sense, and/or to prop up another character that they want their audience to love an originally unsympathetic character they decide they want their audience to love without putting in any actual work and time to develop them into an organically sympathetic character in their own right, and emotionally manipulating an audience who is usually too smart to fall for that shit sooner or later.

You wonder why so many of us didn’t end up hating Rumple from S4-S6, and felt more disappointed with A&E and the writers every time he regressed to a new “SHOCKING” melodramatic low with Belle? It’s because it felt wildly OOC, contrived, forced, and unearned wasted potential for a character played by an actor who did so much better in the consistently morally gray, relatable, and sympathetic redemptive zone in the first three ish seasons, rather than the “worst” villain ever PLOT twister scapegoat to be deliberately torn to shreds along with Bae and Belle by malicious writers who wanted to inorganically prop up another less deserving character/ship that they wanted to force the audience to love without putting in any work to develop organically into a sympathetic character and/or give realistic conflict to.

Hook was originally supposed to be a temporary character. When do you think he was supposed to leave? For me it should've been at the end of 2x11 when he gets run over. Hook gets his revenge on Rumple by hurting Belle then gets mown down by a car & dies as Kharmic payback. Or after he attacks Rumple in New York in 2x15 he gets arrested & locked up for attempted murder; that way we still get the beautiful Rumbelle phone call scene.

For me they should have killed him off in season 2, but then they got the Peter Pan rights so I guess it kind of made sense that they at least kept him around for 3A, and then of course he “fell in love” with Emma out of fucking NOWHERE and we were all stuck with the CeSspool from that moment on.  Even Eddy, Hook fangirl of the highest order, said he was a “weekend in Vegas” for Emma.  He was never supposed to be the long-term guy and it showed.

Still fucking bitter that he ruined my favourite show, can you tell?