Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-4839682-20131003142941/@comment-23906605-20131005041442

TNOandXadric wrote: There is a difference, though, between rage and hatred.

Yes, I agree, rage and hatred are different, but whether it was pain or jealousy and wheter or not she immediately hated Snow for telling on her and Daniel, those facts are both irrelevant. The fact of the matter is Regina did not, in any possible way, felt genuine affection for Snow following King Leopold's death. Like I said before, Regina killed him. If she felt the littlest bit of affection for Snow, would she honestly have murdered the girl's beloved father? What kind of sick twisted sort of affection is that? She had everything planned for quite some time, including Snow's death and how that would make her win the favor of the peasants. That can be proved by the conversation she had with the Magic Mirror a scene after "comforting" Snow. It goes like this:

''Mirror: Congratulations. Your revenge is almost complete.''

''Regina: One down. One to go.''

Mirror: She has no idea, does she?

''Regina: That I'm responsible for his passing? (scoffs) She sought comfort with me. Sickening. I could have ended her miserabe existence right there. Believe me, it was tempting.''

Mirror: It would have saded your soul.

''Regina: The Kingdom is still loyal to her. They would turn on me. They don't know the wretchedness inside her as I do. They don't know what she did to me. We must be delicate in this next phase. Her demise must be handled with care.''

This was not a simple "element of manipulation". She wasn't comforting anyone. She was pulling an obvious political stunt, unlike what Snow did when she saved disguised Regina (but I'll get to that later). You couldn't be more right about one thing: "It was all about public relations". She was keeping up appearances to proceed with her plan to kill Snow and win over the Kingdom. And what gap are you referring to? King Leopold's funeral is in the exact same episode Regina orders the Huntsman to kill Snow. So your argument saying that "Regina did not, at that point, want Snow gone as well as Leopold" is very well refuted by that dialog alone.

Mary Margaret did not try her very hardest to make David leave Kathryn for her. David was the one pushing and pushing, saying they were supposed to be together, saying he didn't have any feelings whatsoever for Kathryn. He convinced MM to go and meet him at the Toll Bridge. When she did and he told her his decision of not leaving Kathryn, she was heartbroken. After some mutual stalking, as you put it, and after the public kiss, they effectively started having the affair, which MM didn't feel good about and kept constantly telling David how bad she felt about hiding. She never said his marriage was unfixable (feel free to provide reasonable doubt). In fact, he did. Again, she didn't ask him to leave Kathryn for her nor did she bully him at doing anything at any point. She just wanted him to come clean to his wife. If he claimed he didn't have feelings for Kathryn anymore, if he said he wanted to be with MM, would it be right to continue sneaking around and lying to Kathryn? No. But of course, considering she was in love with a man who had another woman in the picture, it is completely understandable she wanted Kathryn "out of the relationship". Would you, by any chance, want to share your lover with his wife? Of course not. You'd want him all to yourself. If she had wanted him to keep his relationship with Kathryn and with her at the same time, I think we'd be talking about Ginnifer Goodwin's other TV show, "Big Love". And no matter what the circumstances, no matter how morally correct someone wants to be, I still think it's pretty absurd to sugest that a woman should go ahead and tell the truth to the guy's wife if she wants to be with her lover and he refuses to tell the truth. I say dump his sorry butt! Don't play the compliant submissive type. Doing that would be like almost like taking full responsibility for the affair, which is never ever the case. So, MM's feelings for David convinced her to put aside her moral standards and start the affair he wanted from the beginning; she kept constantly saying it was wrong to lie and sneak around and she asked him to tell the truth; He didn't tell the truth, he lied to both her and Kathryn; She broke things off because she felt disappointed and heartbroken. I think any person with a reasonable amount of self-respect would have done the same. And it's not like she dumped him for good. When the whole Kathryn's murder mess began, she "forgot" what David had done and she stood by him all the way. It wasn't until he started thinking she might have killed Kathryn that she finally decided their relationship could not work because David hadn't trusted her and now, she didn't trust him.

I didn't mean MM lacked dignity because she was having an affair. I completely agree that in the situation of having an affair, if anyone is acting in an undignified way, it is the man. Perhaps I could've expressed myself a little better. I meant that specifically for what Mary Margaret possibly thought of herself during that situation. Considering her high moral standards, I think she would probably think that by giving into David's charms, she wouldn't be acting honorably or in a dignified way. And that deciding that she should be the one to tell Kathryn about the affair would be like saying "ok, I admit, I'm a home wrecker" and that -- assuming full responsibility for the affair when the man is clearly the one that should take the most part of the blame -- would be flushing her dignity down the toilet.

I don't think it's only cultural. I think one of the main points of the curse was taking away or twisting a trait all the characters valued. For example, the curse took away Rumple's magic. It twisted Red's "spiritual freedom" into "sexual freedom" (weird way to put it, I know). If David and Charming were the exact same person only in different cultural contexts, for someone who slayed an enormous fire-spitting dragon without even having held a sword once, you'd think it'd be a piece of cake for this same man to be upfront with a 110-lbs woman. And ok, I'll grant you these two situations require different kinds of bravery. But Charming never lied to Abigail. Instead, he told her the truth in "What Happened to Frederick" and he didn't even tip-toed around her feelings. He didn't care how she was going to react and he didn't care what would happen to him if her or his father found out. Charming was never a coward. He was always brave, true and always proved himself honorable by doing the right thing. Also, we all saw how Snow would always fight back Regina head-to-head. But the curse made it so Mary Margaret couldn't and wouldn't fight back. Ever. Regina puts MM through hell by blaming Kathryn's murder on her. I'm pretty sure Snow would fight back like crazy, but all Mm could do was cry and ask "Why are you doing this, Regina? I'm innocent. I didn't kill Kathryn." In "Welcome to Storybrooke", Regina even asks her "aren't you going to fight back?" clearly disappointed at MM's passiveness and MM replies "Fight back? Why would I do that?".

It is difficult finding examples of Regina helping people out of the selflessness of her heart, but it's also difficult to find those for any of the other characters. Although I ddisagree with your point that states "every time Regina hurts someone or even just lets them be hurt, it's a direct result of that person doing something to hurst her" (because she did kill her own father to achieve her own personal goals, which were getting the curse to work so she could get revenge on Snow), I do think that all the other characters can be pretty selfish, too. The only person I see in there who's acting in the most selfless way (or the least selfish way, if you will) is Hook. He has absolutely no reational reason for trying to save Henry. He has never spent anytime with him, he hates Rumple, he doesn't get along with Regina, the Charmings despise him, he loathes Neverland and I think he's aware the "hate" part is currently winning on his love-hate relationship with Emma. To me, the whole "I gave up the idea of killing Rumplestiltskin" seems a bit forced, so I wouldn't be surprised if things changed and it was reveled Hook has, in fact, an agenda. The point is, aside from Hook, all the other characters act pretty selfishly most of the time. Regina, Charming, Snow, Emma herself is one of the most selfish in there. Which brings me to my main point: I don't think it's good to be pointing out fingers and saying "This character does more selfless acts than that other one", because I think the fact that the writers mainly write scenes in which all these characters are fighting for themselves or for someone they love is completely on purpose. The show is character driven, and what better way to show character growth than to have them face difficult situations which may or may not include a person they care about?

Having said that, I still disagree on what you said about Snow's reasons for savind disguised Regina. It's only obvious to you because your interpretations of some facts are clearly affected by how you feel for determined characters. You basically justify almost everything Regina does by blaming it on her miserable past of being raised by someone like Cora. As for Snow, almost everything she does you read too much into things and twist them all into some selfish cunning act. If the original idea was to simply make Regina look bad on the eyes of the peasants, wouldn't it have been so much easier to just let the girl die and then appear to the villagers and say something like "look how horrible the Queen is for executing violent dissenters who are rallying people to attack her in effigy"? It would. But Snow was not pulling a political stunt. Like I said, the people already despised the Queen and they already wanted Snow as their queen. And if Snow knew that, why would she risk being caught by the Queen's knights just to pull a political stunt to people who already wanted her as their political leader? It was nothing like "Hey, the Queen is horrible. See? I just saved this woman who was about to die at the hands of her men! Vote for me to be your queen!". She saved Wilma because she knew how ruthless those knights were and because she knew they'd execute the girl for a completely unfair motive. I emphasize that if it were merely political, Snow would not have taken the girl to her hiding spot, she wouldn't have cared to tend to the girl's wound and fever and she definitely would have parted ways with the girl as soon as she could, instead of having taken her along through the forest. Another thing that ensures Snow did save Wilma out of selflessness is when Wilma says "It's dangerous for you to be here. Why are you helping a perfect stranger?" and Snow tells her the whole story of when Regina saved her from the speeding horse without even knowing her. She states Regina risked her own life in order to save hers and says that situation changed her [Snow]. She finishes her explanation by saying "My mother always told me to keep goodness in my heart and this woman [Regina] proved that she was right. This taught me that there can be this genuine selfless connection between people. Even strangers." Well, and if you still don't believe Snow saved Wilma out of kindness after all that, at least it's pretty clear for everyone to see in that scene that Regina does believe her.

Regarding your view on Emma's desire for parent figures, I think you made yourself more clear now. I also don't think Snow or Charming should be bossing her around, implying that by sharing their wisdom they know how to be parents and she doesn't. Emma definitely doesn't need that, specially now. Maybe I, too, wasn't explaining very well before. What I have been trying to say is that we shouldn't crucify Snow and Charming for doing things wrong, considering they don't have a clue on pareting. I'm sure they'll eventually get it right. And so will Emma. After this last awkward yelling moment, I'm pretty sure Snow will never try to pull something on the likes of "let us share our wisdom with you" again. They will all get the hang of things, but that will take time and effort, of course.

Henry does set high standards and that condition he sets for loving Regina annoys the hell out of me. But like you said, I'll blame it on his rigid black-and-white morality system. He sets standards for Emma and the Charmings as well, like by pushing Emma away after she lied to him. But of course, his standards for Regina are way higher. I think it obviously has to do with the fact he knows of Regina's dominant evil side while he sees Emma and the Charmings act mainly in upstanding ways. Hopefully those black-and-white ideals will evolve into "colorful" ones after his experiences in Neverland.

I think Regina only wants or believes in redemption when someone gives her a reason to. And that's what I mean when I say she doesn't want it for herself yet. That's also why I think she keeps "relapsing". Like you said, Henry made her realize she wants redemption on various occasions. When he stops giving reasons for her to keep trying, she just stops. I'll bring up the example of disguised Regina again. When Snow tends to her wounds, tells her the story of how young Regina saved her and eventually says she believes evil Regina still has good inside her, disguised Regina tears up and starts to believe what Snow is saying. And that is what brings up the "if she wanted to change, if she wanted to be a family again, if she wanted to be good, would you forgive her for [everything she's done], would you let her back in?" dialog. Later that same episode, Snow sees Regina had ordered to murder everyone on the village and says "I was wrong. It is too late for her." If Regina truly believed in herself, if she truly wanted to find the path for redemption, she would'vc done more than just say "There is good in me" and run back to Rumplestiltskin. But I do agree she needs more people showing her that she can still find and go down that path. I also believe she is definitely going to find it eventually.

Again, the "we're not killers" was something said specifically for the mermaid situation. She said it to Regina, including Regina on the "we" part, after Regina threatened to kill the mermaid. Snow knows she was responsible for Cora's death just as she knows Regina was responsible for countless others. If Snow were ignoring the fact that she had been responsible for a death, I'm sure she would have said something on the likes of "killing is wrong!".

I will agree that Cora was already power-hungry, but that was only because her father was a deadbeat good-for-nothing man who couldn't provide a (good) life for her. However, she didn't say "I want their necks to break from bending" until she actually started learning Rumple's dark magic. Before that, she wanted them to simply kneel before her, which is "comprehensible" considering they made her kneel for all the wrong reasons. I'm aware Regina is different from Cora. And she may not have embraced it to the extent Cora did. But Snow is trying to follow her mother's footsteps. And I'd like to see Regina stop following her mother's. I'd actually like to see her run to the very opposite direction.