#ouat season five is about emma… it’s about love…. it’s about desperation and devotion and obsession and trauma and cycles and patterns

[livvyofthelake]

sorry all i talk about these days is once upon a time season five, whatever movie du jour is that i’m obsessed with, and how much i miss riverdale. what else is there to fucking talk about.

[ouathinktank-metacommentary]

As OUaT comes to an end (?) one can’t not wonder where did all go wrong? Was it you who criticized parallels with BTVS/JaneE transferring her penchant for writing/promoting abusive relationships and violent sexist “badboys” and their ships ruining female characters? Because Kitsowitz’s Hook boner ruined OUaT the same way Marti/Jane E’s boner for shirtless Spike ruined Buffy. And it’s sad, because both used to be shows about “strong female characters” and ended up as odes to manpain. (cont)

All that we’ve sorely missed on our TV? Riiight. As if. We’vebeen promised a “modern” fairytale, and we’ve been naïve enough to hope thatthe story about Saviour and the Evil Queen, redeemed through the power of love,family and hope would be it. Naïve to think that “Jane E was a part of Buffy,they gave us Willow/Tara, the first great non-fetishized love story between twowomen”. But all we got was queerbaiting, heteroenforcing and Hook, Hook and moreHook. (cont)

To the point of Emma Swan, former “strong female hero” being disfigured beyond recognition and fading into nothingness.  And yeah. Six years of our lives called Once Upon a Waste of Our Time, while at least in Buffy we had five great ones, you know? :(

Not really sure that this is the end of OUaT, but generaluncertainty (the negotiations, as well as talks about a ‘reset’ and the needfor change they’re evidently desperately aware of) is a clear indication how much of a deep shit they’re in. And yet when it comes to reasons, they remain either oblivious orcareless? But speaking of those stolen borrowed things that came from BtVS… well, I am not sure. Wedid compare ships in terms of how they’ve been portrayed (Spuffy allegedlydeliberately as negative and harmful, while CS openly and directlyromanticizes same things) but… it’s true. The very same can be said about both, concerning the impact ofan unexpected popularity of a posturing, vaguely thuggish minor character in ablack leather jacket, turning a once-good show–into a really bad one. Because in television, as inlife, events tend to repeat themselves, but as proven so far–Brothers Dimshowed very little originality apart from the general idea (and S1, which Istill claim–was stolen and bleached bones of the original author are goingto resurface in Nevada desert at some point) and hence we got a whole premiseruined by Spike #2–Mr. quasi-redeemed-ex-rapist Killian Jones?

Because where elsedo we place blame for general mediocrity? Was it the onslaught of random “whichiconic character do you want to see next” episodic storylines that, instead ofconnecting things from the background/flashbacks–only fragmented everything?Was it the overemphasis on irrelevant new characters, love-interests as well asvillains-de-semiseason–that they never developed enough for us to give a damnabout? Was it the decision to build entire seasons around different Disneycharacters/realms while putting on hold (at best) and backtracking on anddirectly contradicting (often even retconning, yes) the main characters that wefell in love in the first place–by creating complex convoluted storylines thatmade less and less sense? Well, that’s only part of it. Because we all agree,things were much better before that point when everything started evolving around Hook, his quasi redemption and his obsession and pursuit after Emma Swan. Which is now history repeating itself,like in BtVS where all problems could be traced to the moment when Buffyfound out that Spike, attempted rapist and current possessor of a soul, hadsomehow been killing people despite his souled status–and from that point on,the show has no longer been about Buffy and her friends, or Buffy and hermission, or anything that used to be interesting on this show–it was about Spike. It involved Buffy trying to find out why he was killing again, then she spent several pointless episodes focusing her attention on freeing Spike (instead on the impending apocalypse), then a new character had a vendettaagainst Spike so we got an entire episode devoted to filling out Spike’s backstory… and we sat through various other plot threads about Spike. Even when Spikeisn’t on-screen, characters were talking about him, so it was ALL about him. AndBuffy, indirectly, through their (fucked up, for her–character degrading) relationship.And that was about all.

Sounds familiar?

(cut, because we don’t pull parallels and metas with pretty gifs–but cold hard facts and words, which means–long textpost ahoy :)

So, yeah. The comparison… is there. Evident. Starting with potential, and… actual result. Because nothingwould’ve been as problematic if Spike got any brilliantly fascinating stories,but he never really did–despite the potential inherent in the story of an evilcreature trying to reform. Because at every turn, writers copped out on hisstory, whitewashing his past to the point of retconning with contrived nonsensethat directly contradicted all the previous vampire mythology on both BtVS andAngel (like, even when he was turned into a vampire he allegedly wasn’t initially avicious killer) and making no attempt to show that having a soulhas changed him in any way. So ‘souled’ Spike is still a wisecracking punk wholiked to hit women (he hit Buffy, Anya, Faith) as means of foreplay (he ‘pined’ after Buffy, had sex with Anya, flirted with Faith to make Buffy jealous) and isolate Buffy from herfriends. And yet we were still somehow supposed to sympathize with him, because…why, he got a soul in the hope that Buffy would forgive his attempt torape her and sleep with him again? Because except for a couple of throwawaylines, Spike has never been made to seek redemption for his crimes, he nevermade an attempt to even apologize to anyone… for anything, really. Not thatapologizing would ever go with his character (the one he had, previous to his Buffy obsession) but the assumption appearedto be that he didn’t really need to atone because what, having a soul made hima different and better person? But the writers haven’t shown us that, all they showed us was the same ‘cool punk’ frombefore, only without the viciousness that made him moderately interesting.

Same goesfor Hook. He could’ve had fascinating stories, but he isn’t because all that heis–is a selfish douchebag who is now trying to be a ‘hero’ because he sees Emma ashis reward, his happy ending. And as BtVS did, at every turn OUaT cops out onhis story–whitewashing his past (it was always an ‘unfortunate set ofcircumstances’, not the fact that he was spoiled privileged daddy’s boy whobecame pirate out of… spite, really?) and making no attempt to show us thathe’s really trying to redeem himself, that he wants to. You know, the way they showed us that they can write redemption storylines–on Regina’s example? So he’sstill doing things behind everyone’s back, especially Emma’s (the shears) andof course lying (yeah, omitting to tell the truth is still lying–and not a solid foundation for a well-balanced relationship, but tell that to Tweens and Twimoms) andisolating Emma from her family, her son, her friends, her destiny… by means of emotional blackmail, via suicide attempts toget her to ‘save’ him–all the way to leaving her now to show that he ‘feels’ theweight of the ‘guilt’ and… yet we’re still somehow supposed to sympathize with him, because… why?Because he didn’t hightail in order to leave the site of his devastating loss, not to punish Emma–but he… went on aquasi-quest (that he didn’t really want to go on, it was a childish ‘twist’ tokeep them apart) just to realise that he didn’t really want to leave her? Lol.Ooo-kay. But hey, when he comes back (by means of some random MacGuffin of sortsthat will inevitably happen) he won’tcome back as a changed man, he’ll still be the same self-serving douchebag who,except for a couple of throwaway lines (to… Belle, only? Because they made themsuch ‘solid’ friends too, at the cost of her intelligence–trusting him and all,to further whitewash him) has neverbeen shown to seek redemption for his crimes, he doesn’t even apologize fortrying to kill ANY of them for cryin’ out loud, let alone… persistently endangering Henry? The assumption appears to be that he doesn’tneed to atone because… being with Emma apparently makes him a different andbetter person? Only, we haven’t been shown that either, all that we keepgetting is the same self-serving pirate, only without gang/rape jokes, beatingwomen up and shooting them, which… made him moderately interesting because assexist/misogynist as it was–he was a villain with some personality, after all?

And thoseare only some parallels. Captain Swan gaveus absolutely nothing that we haven’t seen eleventy kazillion times before. Samelike any interesting stories about a vampire with a soul have alreadybeen told on both Buffy and Angel, and with Spike all we got is a lotof half-naked posturing. Like Killan Jones gave us only… quasi brooding and love shown as obsession.

But it wasn’t an overemphasis on Spike (as a character, or aLI… no matter how wrong and fucked-up as their ship has been portrayed, because‘feminist’ Whedon gave us a story of an abusive relationship meant to be assuch–only it supposedly wasn’t sexist and misogynist because Buffy was ‘abusive’ towardsSpike, too?) that was the problem. This was brought up numerous times before, it was the way this emphasis has betrayedone of the most appealing themes of the show: that it’s OK to be uncool. It wasabout social outcasts fighting symbolic representations of twisted embodiment ofhigh school coolness, because monsters on the show were often portrayed assuch. While Spike, the way he was introduced (as villain, mind you–before beingshoehorned into a role of a hero, never meant for him) was exactly the kind ofsmartass punk who makes high school a miserable place for geeks. Arrogant,cocky and contemptuous of anyone who wasn’t equally cool, he was a superficial,self-confident and deserved to besmacked down by awkward heroes–who arereally the coolest and most heroic of all? And similarly in OUaT, with the transformation of Hook intoa ‘romantic hero’ (not even a ‘lovable antihero’, like Spike) they stoppedcelebrating female empowerment, strong self-reliant women who despite comingfrom an extremely broken and fragmented past… showed us how to punch back andfight for ourselves. Strong individuals with a lot of self-integrity, asdamaged as they were? And the show started celebrating the cool pirate with‘roguish charm’, rape-culture personified who gets what he wants, because he’shandsome and white, and… needs to be saved from himself by the love of a ‘good’woman–Christian Grey style?

Bringing us back to the original point we’ve all been repeating ad nauseam. Watching season afterseason about Craptain Swan and Hook’s warped journey of ‘redemption’ where Emma has become a selfish arsehole who blatantly disregards even her son, where Regina became a trusty sidekick whose only role is to follow Emma to hell and back, repeatedly (and quite literally, what subtext has been abundantly abused for, too?) to help her “get her pirate back”, and I don’t know agoddamn thing about what Snow or Charming or Henry are thinking, or even who they areanymore, and what the ever loving fuck is Rumple doing now, chasing the new son because he lost the one everything started with because of Hook, again, and… we will likely never find out, and it kind of breaks my heart. The bond between these characters, as FAMILY was supposed to be the heart of theshow, more than anything else–wasn’t it? But now it seems that on a show where an unrepentant self-serving prick can be a hero, a ‘romantic’ hero at that–there’s no more room for a celebration of the power offamily, love, hope–or the nobility of strong female characters who didn’t need men to find their inner strength or sense of identification.

So, yes. Buffy was a better show in the first four years, beforeSpike fell in love with Buffy, before Spike started taking his shirt off inevery episode, and when the focus was on four uncool people and their quest torid the world of… well, of characters like Spike. Same like OUaT was a better show when it was about mothers and daughters, about finding your family and coming back home to it. And I daresay that yes, it was an infinitesimally better show when we had a glimpse of hope that it was going to be that ‘modern fairytale’, about two mothers being connected through their love for their son. But again… tell that to the two idiots.