fuckyeahonceuponatime:
repketchem:
helebette:
1. portraying a man who stalks his child and spies on her through a telescope as sympathetic, is creepy. I appreciate that you had Emma smack him in the head, and Mary kick him out the window (I sure did cheer loudly), but I do hope that you’ll follow through and be a tad bit more critical of his behaviours should the Hatter return in the finale (or next season).
2. I like where you’re going with Mary and Emma, but I can’t help but wonder: does this reinforce your biology=destiny subplot silliness? I sure do hope that Regina as Henry’s mother, doesn’t get tossed aside the moment the curse really breaks.
3. when you give us a female hero, like Emma, try not to fall into the old trap of subjecting her to various forms of sexual harassment, hair sniffing, inappropriate touching, and other sexist habits that ‘madness’ and ‘angst’ do not excuse in male characters.
4. yes, Emma has a hard time believing in the curse—we all would in her shoes. so try not to have characters convince her by yelling in her face, making fun of her intelligence, or being paternalistic (I’m talking about both the Hatter and the Stranger here).
5. adoptive parents are parents as well. how many times does this point have to be reinforced? I’m guessing (and hoping) that you’re actually going to come full circle and have Emma realize this fully. Because I have to have hope that adoptive parents aren’t the show’s central villains. and that parenting is about more than biology.
1. That’s his kid. But due to the curse, he’s prevented from having her.
2. What? Technically, the people were thrown into the present when the curse was implemented, not really given a past (as they had one) or a future until Emma came. (Also, Henry’s Emma’s son, not Regina’s father. You forget that Regina ADOPTED him and gave him a name. She likely named him Henry after her father.)
3. The good part about that is that it shows that Emma’s not invincible. She could just as easily (and still could) have been a man and the same thing could have happened. Saying that those things only happen to females is sexist and wrong, just as it would be to say a woman couldn’t get into a fistfight.
4. The Hatter is the MAD Hatter. Therefore, he is mad. And angry because of the curse. He can’t have his daughter (who, if you remember, he sent to his neighbors in fairytale land). He wasn’t insulting her intelligence in a way that said she’s stupid, he insulted her intelligence in a way that says that there’s more to intelligence than facts and logic. He was telling her that intelligence comes from anywhere, even magic.
5. She did. The mine episode. Go back and watch it. They BOTH (Emma and Regina) acknowledged that the other was Henry’s mother just as much as they themselves were.
- He was still planning on fixing the hat and taking her away from her current family, even though she’s perfectly happy.
- The OP was talking about Emma and Mary becoming good friends and being a good family simply because they’re actually related, and sort of moving towards them becoming best friends here and there and letting you fill in the blanks, rather than progressing the relationship well (because like the OP said this show likes biological relationships over non-biological ones).
- The OP was talking about the Mad Hatter using those disgusting tactics on her and then having people romanticize it, instead of recognizing that, not simply that it made Emma vulnerable.
- It’s not just with the Hatter though. It’s also the case with August. Henry doesn’t count because he’s a kid. It would be interesting to see if someone actually sat Emma down and told them the truth. She still wouldn’t believe it, but it would be different then having people be rude to her about it. Because I think that the fandom is kind of impatient about Emma learning the truth. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because we’ve known the entire time, and we want the story to get rolling. But then people like the hatter or the stranger come along and kind of just flat out yell at her or act rude to her, like, “oh, how the fuck do you not know already”. Anyone would have an unbelievably hard time giving the theory even the time of day for consideration. So when the fandom cheers on people being like that to Emma like that, it just comes off as… I don’t want to say mean spirited, but misguided.
- One scene doesn’t make up for an entire season of handling the adoption story wrong.
Only want to comment on the first part. Though, I’m super keen to find other people looking at the issues of biological parenting versus adoption, because I had been rubbed wrong back in the first episode, but thought, in the end, I probably shouldn’t expect too much when the source material treats almost all step parents as evil. Such are fairy tales!
But, re: Jefferson and Paige, and my increasingly pathetic want to defend his actions… I think we were meant to find his spying creepy — as we also learn he’s been spying on Emma — but also sympathetic, and I can’t find fault with having sympathy to an extent. Fandom is definitely waaaaayy too quick to excuse him because he’s The Mad Hatter, and “hot”, and aw daddy issues and UST. It’s definitely creepy, but as that is the kid he pretty much devoted his everything to, and he hasn’t to that point done anything to jeopardize her happiness, I cut him some slack. I know I shouldn’t!! All my conflicting feelings… or at least, it’s wrong, but also understandable, because that’s all of his daughter that he can have, and she’s so happy not knowing him. I kind of like having mixed feelings, though, that it isn’t black and white… as long as people aren’t just excusing the iffy parts.
That said, his plan re: the hat, that’s where it gets really tricky. But, I’m also not convinced he would definitely have done that. Lol, OK, no, he did just kidnap two innocent women and do some questionable things just to get the hat that would take them back. So, from that perspective, no way he wouldn’t have. But, he also never approached her in person, not once over the last 28 years, because he knew that to do so would shake her happiness (and also he’d be rejected, dur).
So, wouldhe have definitely kidnapped her once sure the hat worked? From what we know of Grace, assuming she didn’t become bitter and resentful of him for never returning, she would want to remember him. That doesn’t excuse traumatizing Paige; I guess he figures once she remembers, it’ll be OK! If he can get past the part where she starts screaming at him when he grabs her. Would he do that unless sure memories would return by going through it? Has he been planning just that for 28 whole years, or is it more loopy and undefined?
Either way, when it comes to the Hatter, blanket statements of either kind don’t sit right with me (miss apologist, sob, sorry). Saying, “he planned to selfishly take her away from her happy life!” seems just as unfair as excusing everything he does because of once having been a victim, or being mad. IDK what the right attitude is, especially because as far as we can tell, the “fake” parents are terrific (there’s no way he’d stand for the slightest evidence of otherwise, so they really must be AMAZING).
If a fake life is perfect, should it be preferred to a real one that is everything but? (They’re separated back there, after all). If it was you and your kid / parent? I mean… I love my parents so much, so much. To learn that I had forgotten them, or to learn that they were fakes for someone I loved just as much… AAH CRAZY I CAN’T. So complicated ):. But the show at least introduced part of the dilemma by having him acknowledge that he couldn’t and wouldn’t try to shake her happiness. Or not yet???
