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priscilla9993 · 15 days ago

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Tale of Coming of Age, Not Coming Out

Sometimes, Ouat gets it right, happy accident or intentional. With its history of queerbaiting (Mulan romantically tragic) and cash grab representation (Dorothy and Red underdeveloped), Once could have rehashed a bare bones version of “queer representation” with Robin and Alice’s love story. There was a likely chance considering Tiera was originally told she’d be slated for 3 eps, Rose for 5 eps, and their eventual characters’ storylines mainly played out in s7b.

Now, I’m going to play the Devil’s Advocate and be like but wait, wasn’t Robin and Alice’s kiss in season 7 episode 10, the mid-season finale, a coming out moment, shocking to the audience that Robin and Alice were lgbtq?

Okay, you’re right, if you only watched the season or overheard at face value that the episode built up to two females aka Alice and Robin kissing as the Dark Curse loomed. However, coming out implies that initial assumption that the two are straight and happened to realize who they wanted to be romantically with, showing that to the world, family, or in this case, the audience.

Author’s Note: Yes, while I do think any coming out story or queer representation is important, I feel that the media and Hollywood use that to pander with the bare minimum, doing what sells headlines, is dramatic, or can be easily pushed into the background. Sometimes, its inclusion is played out for laughs or as a flawed foil to put heterosexual ships on a pedestal. Ouat is no exception with its history and having two white attractive straight oriented blonde actresses play into an easily accessible trope of lesbian romance compared to the rarer gay/trans/non-binary category. That said, it’s a PG fairytale soap opera that aired domestically on Disney owned ABC and internationally elsewhere. Who needs reality to be the downer when we can live in a fluffy fantasy where love and hope is all that matters? Don’t get me started on the toxic fans or parts of the Ouat fandom. Rather than rioting a personal projected attack against a dislike, make verbalizing not liking something or a ship normal again. That out of the way, it may have taken 7 seasons to have a queer love story that’s taken seriously and might even be comparable to main ships, but it’s still something by having it canon and not end in ‘bury the gays’. I’m looking at you Supernatural.

That said, into the rabbit hole we go!

Alice, since the start of her centric ep, 7x04 Beauty, winked and teased at Rumple by asking, “Are you looking for a prince?” regarding the ball and as Tilly mentioned to Weaver, “I had an ex-girlfriend who worked for [Victoria Belfrey] once.” Unless considered a blink and miss moment instead of casual on the nose comments, it’s clear Alice is queer or lesbian, cursed or not. 7x10 continues laying it on as Alice worries about her love, saying to Killian, her dad, “But Papa, if it happens, I will lose her.” He’s unfazed and responds with comfort, “Don’t say that, love, don’t! True love can win out over so much more.” Even though an act of true love has only been seen in Ouat as a magical solution to a curse when two people, familial or romantic, love each other and believe in magic, it can be taken here to validate and uplift that Alice and Robin’s love is strong enough to connect and endure. He also knows who to deliver her letter addressed ‘My Love’ to, without a mention of a name.

At the start of the episode 7x10, Robin worries and says, “If [the coven of the eight] are here, I have to warn-” to which Zelena, her mom, comforts her, “Don’t worry. Look, darling, we’ll warn everyone. We’ll protect our loved ones,” and tells Regina, “She’s got a case of young love.” Although Robin was a baby prior to s7 and we don’t get a clear look into her as a person before 7x10, it’s certain that Zelena knows who Robin wants to warn and is in love with, enough to nearly run aimlessly around the New Enchanted Forest for.

Assuming the audience is cued in on the love storyline, Robin looking for her love and Alice already explicitly hinting at her sexuality, their parents both supportive to them, the shock value should come from not their sexual orientation but rather who they're in love with. Instead of being reduced to their labels, Alice and Robin’s love story is about two people who come to know and love each other, their differing sexualities being an added bonus.

So, elephant in the room out of the way, where does the coming of age come in?

Well, in the characters’ growth and relatability as Alice and Robin both strive to be more than their past of summed up parts and the people they come from. TLDR: It’s all about finding their place in the world and discovering who they want to be rather than letting their past and others’ views define them.

Girl in the Tower vs Tower Girl

You could say it means the same thing, but like hear me out. Double meaning, Great Gatsby style. Was it intentional? In Ouat fashion, it usually is.

Taken literally, the first represents a girl that happens to be in a tower while the latter emphasizes how a tower is a characteristic of the girl. In context, when Robin first meets a spy lurking to watch a papa with a poisoned heart, she puts two and two together and curiously remarks to Alice, “Wow. So you’re the Girl in the Tower.”

Just like how Alice is known for being in Wonderland, she’s also given names by strangers who know Killian, seen as “Nook’s kid” and the “Girl in the Tower”. Robin unintentionally gives away how interested she is in Alice, the referential girl in the phrase, caring about her enough to keep track of descriptive names and stories of someone she’s never met until then.

Despite being caged in Robin’s trap, Alice rebuttals uncomfortably, “I got out of that tower years ago.”

The phrase also gives way to the way Alice thinks and feels about herself. She took notice of the ‘in’ bit, probably gravitating on the word ‘tower’, and wanted to clear the air. Alice defends and distances herself in term, separating away from any connection or fondness to the tower. By saying she got out of ‘that tower’, she claims she’s no longer trapped inside the tower and feigns indifference, as if it's a tower out of many instead of the home and her world before the Troll helped her escape.

Later on, Robin nicknames Alice as Tower Girl, in fondness, awe, and sometimes disbelief at how Alice exists, seeing and going about the world as she does. Robin only says Alice’s name in moments of sensitivity and as a grounding basis, sarcasm and jokes out the window. To give a list of Robin’s usage of the nickname, it’s after Alice: claims the Troll is her friend instead of a monster flattening villages, is led by Robin through a humorous string of homonyms regarding riding a bug and having a whole life held in a smartphone, has differing views on goals, and tackles Robin upon her aim at the Troll.

From the starting flashback in 7x14 to the Troll destroying the Tower in frustration, the tower is a part of Alice as much as she was a part of it. Being physically free of the tower wasn’t enough as it haunted her, either on the lips of others or how much she wanted her freedom to be the solution to making reality okay, happiness attainable. When Alice was trapped, she had hope that things were better outside and could be sheltered in the bubble of love her papa gave her. Alice was the girl in the tower, away from the judgement of society, unhurt by the reality outside her scope despite her imprisoned situation seeming bleak.

Surprisingly, in the last time we hear “Tower Girl” being uttered in 7x14, it’s straight from Alice’s mouth after she says goodbye to the Troll in front of the tower, confronting the things she left behind and couldn’t be free of, coming to terms with her childhood and past. At the age of 18, Alice escaped the tower and ran away to multiple realms on tons of adventures to explore more while on her quest to find a cure. However, there was nowhere she wanted to be more than back home. In the end, she inadvertently did come home, say her honest truth, had someone by her side to hear her out, and realized that the tower didn’t have to be her enemy or her stopping point. By saying, “Goodbye, Tower Girl,” to the broken tower, we get the sense that she redefines herself as not one held back or prisoner to the tower, but one that keeps moving forward in spite of her original circumstances, staying true to herself.

Conforming to Expectations vs Accepting Themselves

Imagine growing up in a small town like Storybrooke where people are larger than life and everyone is intertwined with legends. If fairytales inspired joy, I doubt they did for Robin who had bigger shoes to fill than most. Robin Hood-Mills, daughter of the powerless Wicked Witch and the deceased Robin Hood who saved the world from a vengeful god. To be a powerful witch or leading archer? Both required skills and inadvertently influenced comparisons to be made.

Of course, although her mother had a lot of talent, Robin didn’t have much nor was she allowed to practice magic except in secret. Considering Zelena probably saw what power did to their family and her lack of magic to protect them both from danger, the forbidding of magic was an extreme safeguard.

So, with small minded people in a school where everyone ages K-12 went, the deck was stacked against her. It wouldn’t be surprising if Robin was a goody two shoes initially, but learned that doesn’t build street cred or help make friends. If she was to survive school, Robin would have to fit in or stand out. And how did she do that with peer pressure and expectations to conform to? By pretending to be someone she’s not, becoming popular and cool. With that, Robin could make a name for herself, gaining attention and acceptance from her peers, leaning towards while stepping away from her parents’ shadows.

What’s cool to high schoolers in Storybrooke might be being good at magic, making things look effortless, breaking rules, and not caring what anyone thinks. Thievery was frowned upon, but getting away with lockpicking, hotwiring, and stealing earned cool points and recognition in others. Robin might not have powerful magic, but in 7x11, she gets Regina to help her and her friends practice magic in the old vault via Cora’s spellbook. However, Robin doesn’t want to be popular per say; she wants to be accepted and loved for who she is, discover what she really wants with no pretenses.

If Storybrooke wasn’t the answer, anywhere else was. Throughout the season, Robin/Margot runs away to find and be themselves while longing to be home with supportive loved ones. In 7x11, Robin makes a potion to summon Mother Nature, which whisks her away to Gothel in another realm, claiming to have run away. Robin tells her mom upon shunning her away, “I am my own person, one you refuse to let me grow into,” and “I didn’t love magic. I just felt like I was supposed to… and there’s all these things I’m supposed to be good at,” after getting saved. In 7x14, Robin admits to Alice that she hotwired and stole Emma’s yellow bug, to be away from Storybrooke and only getting away for “eight glorious minutes”.

By the end of 7x11, Robin has reconciled with Zelena; Robin trusts her mother’s good intentions while Zelena vows to support Robin on any endeavor. However, her journey hasn’t ended, even in the New Enchanted Forest. In 7x14, Robin vows to honor her father’s legacy by killing the Troll and becoming the villagers’ hero. She retreads all her mistakes in medieval fashion until she wants to defend Alice from the mob, realizing that protecting those who need it matters most to her and connects her to her dad. Making peace with her parents and her insecure self, Robin decides to forge her own path and be more honest.

Margot has a similar arc of wanting to change and see change. While less of a jerk and more open to different viewpoints as a mature traveler compared to Robin, she regressed in terms of relationships with her mom, Kelly, and never feeling like she’s treated like an adult, being in the know as equals. In 7x10, Margot is mentioned to have had a job at the bar, a ticket to Amsterdam, turned away from college at Vassar, is currently in Phuket, and never coming back home out of her mom’s lack of coolness. Lots to unpack, but the point is Margot decides to come back after 7x11 when her mom calls saying she’s changed and wants to talk, only worrying about Margot’s safety. By 7x16, Margot fights with her mom, claiming that she left in the first place because they’ve “never been able to communicate”. Hurt, Margot spills, “I am done being patient with you. All I’ve ever done is wait for you to change. You know what? I never should have come back.”

Margot hates the lies and sinking feeling inside that her mom doesn’t trust her or might be in trouble. She doesn’t give her mom a chance until Tilly suggests that Margot seems amazing and wise, but her mom might be not avoiding the truth for a good reason. They make up, Margot giving her mom a bit more time and eventually chooses to stay in Hyperion Heights regardless of anyone else’s life choices or opinions on her.

Either way, Robin and Alice go through their own arcs, dealing with things we can relate to: feeling alone or unheard, being left in the dark, craving acceptance, doubting self, running away from problems, and worrying about people’s perceptions. Luckily, both women find their way on what they want and who they want to be; they become individuals that grow and adapt to their environments while learning to stay true to themselves, accidentally falling in love during the process.

#a thought that developed a mind of its own #I love parallels and character development #when things are given time to breathe #curious archer #madarcher #otp: we'll always know each other #ouat meta #alice jones #robin mills #character analysis #ouat s7 #once upon a time #the things my brain gravitate towards #long ish post #pris rambles

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