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beccatoriaOkay, so, in my OUAT catch-up I finally got to the episode where we find out why the Queen hates Snow White. And frankly, I'm kinda disappointed. Which is frustrating because after a bit of a soft few episodes, I'm really getting caught up in the plot again and overall I'm enjoying the show. But I feel this is one place where they almost pulled of something really interesting.
See, cus, imagine this; imagine the same situation, but without Cora tricking Snow:
Regina saves this kid, this kid she adores, but the act of doing so brings destruction down on her precariously balanced life. She's trapped between these two manipulative bulldozers, her mother, who does it intentionally, and Leopold, who does it because he has such a white-knight patriarchal saviour complex, he just doesn't see that his generosity could conceivably cause harm. What if Cora just catches Regina running away with Daniel, instead of tricking it out of a child?
One could argue that the lack of direct culpability leaves Regina with no motive to hate her, but I think it leaves her with a far sadder and more believable one.
Currently, we have the really awkward way this leaves us with Regina detesting a child with a vitriol usually reserved for adults who knew full well the consequences of their actions. In this case, what makes it even worse is that Snow's actions were taken out of clear care for Regina, and she's smart enough to know this. I mean, basically it's a disproportionate enough reaction that it makes her look psychotic. And I'm actually not as much against Regina as just a flatout selfish, batshit villain as I could be, given there are many other characters to balance her against, but that wasn't how she was portrayed in the rest of the episode. And it's unbalanced. It's like suddenly the evil switch goes off in her head and she doesn't even have the good sense to direct it at the person who deserves the blame.
On the other hand, if it wasn't directly Snow's fault, then Snow is still the beating of butterfly wings that leads to a tsunami. Worse, after Daniel's death, and with no reason not to at accept the proposal out of dull resignation, and - at least partly - as a way to escape her mother, Regina is increasingly made aware of the sacrifice of living in a loveless marriage. A marriage that is more about this child she wishes had never entered her life, than it is about her husband. In that sense, she didn't trade Daniel for Leopold, she traded him for Snow. Subconsciously, and then consciously, she will start to resent her. Resent her happiness, her prettiness, the way everyone loves her and is forever unaware of the terrible things done to Regina; the way she has to smile and act like a good mother to a child who provoked her mother into taking away the man she really wanted to raise a family with. The burden of appearances, of loss, of the patronising assumption that she has been well-treated by circumstance, will eventually turn her heart to ice. Eventually, she just hates her and everything she represents and everything she had to give up to be her "mother".
And I'm sure a lot of that is still there. There's still space for that interpretation - it's not like at the end of the episode she swears bloody vengeance against a seven year old; she buttons herself up, colder, angrier, more hurt, and lies to Snow that everything is fine. But by cutting directly from that scene to Regina in the real world swearing bloody vengeance against Snow, it really does weight it towards being a direct reaction to that one false betrayal from a child. It makes her look ridiculous instead of horrifying, yet tragic.
On the other hand, I think Rumplestiltskin's reveal was more interesting. Searching for his lost son, genuine remorse at having betrayed him, is quite sympathetic. And yet, what he did to achieve it - the devastation of so many lives, the creation of a curse that destroyed a world, with no remorse, no thought to anything but his own goals, inherently includes the horror of his selfish, power-hungry perspective.
See, cus, imagine this; imagine the same situation, but without Cora tricking Snow:
Regina saves this kid, this kid she adores, but the act of doing so brings destruction down on her precariously balanced life. She's trapped between these two manipulative bulldozers, her mother, who does it intentionally, and Leopold, who does it because he has such a white-knight patriarchal saviour complex, he just doesn't see that his generosity could conceivably cause harm. What if Cora just catches Regina running away with Daniel, instead of tricking it out of a child?
One could argue that the lack of direct culpability leaves Regina with no motive to hate her, but I think it leaves her with a far sadder and more believable one.
Currently, we have the really awkward way this leaves us with Regina detesting a child with a vitriol usually reserved for adults who knew full well the consequences of their actions. In this case, what makes it even worse is that Snow's actions were taken out of clear care for Regina, and she's smart enough to know this. I mean, basically it's a disproportionate enough reaction that it makes her look psychotic. And I'm actually not as much against Regina as just a flatout selfish, batshit villain as I could be, given there are many other characters to balance her against, but that wasn't how she was portrayed in the rest of the episode. And it's unbalanced. It's like suddenly the evil switch goes off in her head and she doesn't even have the good sense to direct it at the person who deserves the blame.
On the other hand, if it wasn't directly Snow's fault, then Snow is still the beating of butterfly wings that leads to a tsunami. Worse, after Daniel's death, and with no reason not to at accept the proposal out of dull resignation, and - at least partly - as a way to escape her mother, Regina is increasingly made aware of the sacrifice of living in a loveless marriage. A marriage that is more about this child she wishes had never entered her life, than it is about her husband. In that sense, she didn't trade Daniel for Leopold, she traded him for Snow. Subconsciously, and then consciously, she will start to resent her. Resent her happiness, her prettiness, the way everyone loves her and is forever unaware of the terrible things done to Regina; the way she has to smile and act like a good mother to a child who provoked her mother into taking away the man she really wanted to raise a family with. The burden of appearances, of loss, of the patronising assumption that she has been well-treated by circumstance, will eventually turn her heart to ice. Eventually, she just hates her and everything she represents and everything she had to give up to be her "mother".
And I'm sure a lot of that is still there. There's still space for that interpretation - it's not like at the end of the episode she swears bloody vengeance against a seven year old; she buttons herself up, colder, angrier, more hurt, and lies to Snow that everything is fine. But by cutting directly from that scene to Regina in the real world swearing bloody vengeance against Snow, it really does weight it towards being a direct reaction to that one false betrayal from a child. It makes her look ridiculous instead of horrifying, yet tragic.
On the other hand, I think Rumplestiltskin's reveal was more interesting. Searching for his lost son, genuine remorse at having betrayed him, is quite sympathetic. And yet, what he did to achieve it - the devastation of so many lives, the creation of a curse that destroyed a world, with no remorse, no thought to anything but his own goals, inherently includes the horror of his selfish, power-hungry perspective.
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Date: 2012-05-09 08:15 pm (UTC)I also thought the degree of Regina's flip was kinda psychotic, but I was still impressed that they managed to surprise me with what Snow had actually done. I was totally braced for something really stupid, something that only a crazy person could hold against her (maybe I have been watching too many Jdramas...) or a 'misunderstanding'. This, while clunky, was much better than I'd expected, because Evil Switch aside, at least the basic grudge is legitimate.
I took a break from watching before all these Rumplestiltskin reveals, but now you're getting me intrigued again.
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Date: 2012-05-09 09:01 pm (UTC)The Rumplestiltskin stuff was in the very next episode so you're not too far behind. I also just watched the two (I think?) episodes after that and am now caught up and in the most recent one, the Queen actually says something that seemed to be evidence that in that last scene with Young!Snow when Regina realises that she told her mother, she lied to her about Daniel running away out of a sort of kindness which would imply that the transformation to total batshit murderous grudge took SLIGHTLY longer than twenty seconds. Though I stand by my assertion that the episode as it stands makes it pretty literal, and I'm not sure the line in the most recent episode was meant to totally retcon that.
Or rather, I still think that the face-value interpretation of the episode is intended to be both true and more nuanced than I really feel it was, but I approved of the preservation of space to...think other things?
The show hasn't been spectacular but has been pretty solid. It's pulled quite a few twists I enjoyed and didn't see coming and while the overall arcs of some storylines (particularly Mary Margaret/David) can be a little soapy they're also usually giving way to some pretty nifty scenes or character beats, where they take just one thing and turn it off-key or do it in a way I wasn't quite expecting. Mary Margaret's particular brand of verbally beating the shit out of people while remaining utterly emotionally sincere and primarily concerned about how sad it is that it's come to this, in particular, reminds me of a...more innocent President Roslin if I'm honest. They also did some interesting stuff with Emma about how even if she were confronted by incontrovertible evidence of the truth she might not want to believe it because that would mean everyone was counting on her and she owes them which is pretty much the most terrifying thing she can imagine.
Soooo, yeah. Like I said. Not every moment is great, but the moments that are great...are?
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Date: 2012-06-02 02:58 am (UTC)me, Regina's backstory was as much about her abusive mother as her betrayal by Snow. When she loses her love (although seriously? him?) and runs out of options, the trauma pushes her to step into her mother's role -- I read the tragedy as "Snow only understands good mommies and Regina only understands bad mommies." She's just so obviously displacing her rage at her mom, who actually did this to her (but who she's forced to identify with), onto Snow, who she actually has some power over (and can place in opposition to herself). So it totally worked for me, but only through this (femslash/kink-colored) filter that admittedly is a scaffold I had to build for the show.
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Date: 2012-06-03 07:55 pm (UTC)I did like that later in the series, we actually see Regina admit to Snow that Daniel died, and she says she didn't tell her, as a child, out of some sense of mercy, which does imply that it wasn't strictly at that moment she did a 180, but also...that wasn't as clear as it should have been in the episode?
THAT SAID, I was pretty pleased with the finale - I need to catch your thoughts on that at some point!
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Date: 2012-09-22 07:37 am (UTC)(Would you mind if I quote you on Tumblr re: Regina and Snow?)
I didn't hate the reveal about Regina's Start of Darkness as much as most of fandom seem to and for me it added a layer of interesting in their story. I find Regina and Snow's relationship so interesting... it seemed like Snow wanted Regina to really love her instead of that happening Regina's resentment against grew.
Almost everything Regina ever did was in effort to destroy Snow's happiness, she would destroy their whole world just to do so.
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Date: 2012-09-22 09:36 am (UTC)I definitely think that Snow always wanted Regina to love her, yeah. I also don't hate it, as you see. I did like that in the finale, Regina actually clarifies to Snow that the reason she lied about Daniel at the end of the episode was that she was trying, in her heartbroken, angry state, to be kind and spare her knowing. So it does sound more, in that context, like it was a gradual thing, her development of this psychotic hatred? I still wish they'd handled the transition in the episode differently though. It was just SO close to being really subtle and devastating.