Yeah, Emma's behaviour was annoying - all the more so because I think they could have played up her desire to tank Regina somehow as making her more irrational if they'd spent more time with it. Of course that starts to have the potential to become closer to the irrational woman's child-based desperation tropes, but it could have been done. But it wasn't and she didn't even get to realise that Sydney was in on it by the end meaning that we leave her in that same position which is frustrating.
It's interesting the points you bring up about the Genie. I hadn't actually clocked that because I was too busy feeling that he was subordinated and being used as a tool by the Queen and portrayed as easily manipulated than the stalker overtones. I still think the show's conscious intent was to show him as a victim of the Evil Queen, but one who made his own bed and now has to lie in it, but you raise a good point that intentional or not, the stalker/rapist overtones can be read into the situation and the rest of the show isn't good enough to merit good natured alternate readings.
When the King dies, three storylines with three separate emotional impacts are simultaneously in action: 1- Snow White's heartbreak, 2- the Evil Queen is being freed (but before she was corrupted? or apparently not?), and 3- Genie's betrayal of the King. And, to some degree, it doesn't matter how you actually feel about any of these storylines as an audience member, so much as the King's death is structured to incite vastly different complex feelings.
This is super interesting and a very good point but also a frustrating one. It recalls a lot of the issues I have with the episode - and potentially with the execution of the show in general (it's just not usually THIS egregious). Structurally and narratively there is a lot of fascinating stuff here. The fusion of the genie in the lamp with the magic mirror is fascinating in terms of bound magic, arrogance, powerful characters still limited by their masters, neutral forces most often bent towards cruelty. Similarly you show that the emotional impact of the king's death is structurally complicated in wonderful ways. But the execution wastes this - it doesn't clarify the conflicting emotions that could otherwise be validated by the tale. It leaves me confused rather than engaged because I don't feel safe enough with the intention of the show to engage in a truly formalist reading (echoes of BSG, echoes of BSG).
I guess I feel this way a little about the show deliberately contradicting the happiness of fairytaleland by showing its uglier sides. I think that they are but I'm also unwilling to fully believe it's their primary intention. Too much good is also present there, and the very nature of the show posits the modern world as purgatory. I'd adore if the show began to examine the possibility that if freed from the curse, the characters in Storybrooke might be equally happy, or happier or less happy depending on the individual, in the real world as much as in the Enchanted Forest. But I haven't seen anything yet that makes me feel the narrative has made an implicit promise to do so. A lot of the seedier underbelly of fairytaleland (the stuff that's not explicitly from evil characters, that is), can be read as a surface attempt to modernise the world and make it more "relevant", creating a sense of coolness and surprise whether that's the one-off laugh from a foul-mouthed dwarf or the more serious inclusion of edgy interkingdom realpolitik?
I'm totally indulging in cynicism here but hey, what's the internet for if not cynical whinging. ;)
Re: pt 1
It's interesting the points you bring up about the Genie. I hadn't actually clocked that because I was too busy feeling that he was subordinated and being used as a tool by the Queen and portrayed as easily manipulated than the stalker overtones. I still think the show's conscious intent was to show him as a victim of the Evil Queen, but one who made his own bed and now has to lie in it, but you raise a good point that intentional or not, the stalker/rapist overtones can be read into the situation and the rest of the show isn't good enough to merit good natured alternate readings.
When the King dies, three storylines with three separate emotional impacts are simultaneously in action: 1- Snow White's heartbreak, 2- the Evil Queen is being freed (but before she was corrupted? or apparently not?), and 3- Genie's betrayal of the King. And, to some degree, it doesn't matter how you actually feel about any of these storylines as an audience member, so much as the King's death is structured to incite vastly different complex feelings.
This is super interesting and a very good point but also a frustrating one. It recalls a lot of the issues I have with the episode - and potentially with the execution of the show in general (it's just not usually THIS egregious). Structurally and narratively there is a lot of fascinating stuff here. The fusion of the genie in the lamp with the magic mirror is fascinating in terms of bound magic, arrogance, powerful characters still limited by their masters, neutral forces most often bent towards cruelty. Similarly you show that the emotional impact of the king's death is structurally complicated in wonderful ways. But the execution wastes this - it doesn't clarify the conflicting emotions that could otherwise be validated by the tale. It leaves me confused rather than engaged because I don't feel safe enough with the intention of the show to engage in a truly formalist reading (echoes of BSG, echoes of BSG).
I guess I feel this way a little about the show deliberately contradicting the happiness of fairytaleland by showing its uglier sides. I think that they are but I'm also unwilling to fully believe it's their primary intention. Too much good is also present there, and the very nature of the show posits the modern world as purgatory. I'd adore if the show began to examine the possibility that if freed from the curse, the characters in Storybrooke might be equally happy, or happier or less happy depending on the individual, in the real world as much as in the Enchanted Forest. But I haven't seen anything yet that makes me feel the narrative has made an implicit promise to do so. A lot of the seedier underbelly of fairytaleland (the stuff that's not explicitly from evil characters, that is), can be read as a surface attempt to modernise the world and make it more "relevant", creating a sense of coolness and surprise whether that's the one-off laugh from a foul-mouthed dwarf or the more serious inclusion of edgy interkingdom realpolitik?
I'm totally indulging in cynicism here but hey, what's the internet for if not cynical whinging. ;)