Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26376853-20150514104903/@comment-24674051-20160527173026

However, despite the hype around Frozen (and to a lesser extent Brave), Once is not about "those kid stories". It's about fairy tales (and if anyone thinks Fairy Tales are kid stories, they have not read the original material). Fairy tales do no need to be set in the EF (which is really just a glorified generic setting). Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast... None of these tales occurred in "The Enchanted Forest", though they all use variations of a forest setting. Similarly with Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood, and even Rumplestiltskin.

The EF is Once's generic setting, and is just a part of FTL, which also includes Agrabah (very arabian setting), Arendelle (Like it or not, it's there, and is suitable for Nordic settings), and Maritime kindgoms (Killian's original home, and possibly related to Poseidon).

Now, getting back to the topic at hand, I still agree that they need a viable Male Villain. Hades unfortunately did not work as I would have hoped (Pan was a much better villain, imo). And I am still not convinced that Hyde (or even Jekyll) are actually villains at all (which if that is the case it is a twist that could be interesting in and of itself). They have several options left from better knows literature:

1. Dracula or Van Helsing - depending on how they want to spin this, one (or both) of these gentlemen could be a villain. Once would need to take a really dark spin to make a gothic horror story work well, though. And they would need to work on motivation.

2. Frollo from Hunchback - I like the twist of him being a Magic Hater, and it is a good way to seperate him from any potential devisiveness that might be caused if they maintained a connection with Catholicism. In this case, having a motivation of defeating witches and magic might be something in favor of this approach, since it would not amp up the Magical power, but would amp up the Magical defense so that Magic was not a huge factor. And that would level the playing field to allow for greater involvement from Killian, Snow, and David, and other Non-Magic using characters.

3. Facilier from Princess and the Frog - Or any number of other Voodoo/Witch Doctor types. Again, what is needed is motivation.

I could continue, but I think everyone can come up with their own list of other male villains. But what the writers need to consider is what is motivating the villains. Regina (as the EQ) and Rumple have (or at least had) great motivations driving them. Cora, Killian, Pan, Zelena, and Ingrid also had strong and recognizable motivations driving the plot during their arcs. But the QoD, Isaac, the Dark Swan, and Hades all suffered from complete lack of motivation.