Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-25551215-20160315233708/@comment-4636650-20160518122504

Wonderlandian87 wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: Rockchick 19 wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: Rockchick 19 wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: Rockchick 19 wrote: CoolDudeAl wrote: Rockchick 19 wrote: Furber15 wrote: no one has seen the season yet so there is no indication wheter it is horror and like a said in my paraphase of the qoute they never go to a mental hospital the town is transformed in one giantic prison kind like in season 4 expect for an ice wall their is a giant force field Mental hospitals/asylums are often a staple of the horror genre; the setting has been used in countless films, tv series, books etc because of its potential as an incredibly creepy setting. Certainly from my point of view it seems highly unlikely that they would even refer to the setting as a mental hospital/asylum unless they were planning to include more horror based stuff, especially when they start introducing more classic Victorian gothic horror characters, namely Jekyll and Hyde. Having those two characters in the show means that they're going to at least attempt to do something concerning the horror genre, just like when they revealed that before the first curce Dr Whale was Dr. Frankenstein; if they only needed to use Jekyll and Hyde to introduce the serum that split them into two then they wouldn't have set them up as major characters for next season, they would've killed them off or stranded them somewhere with no way to escape. Yes, but the world Jekyll and Hyde were residing in prior to coming to SB was not a horror world, but if anything more of a steampunk world, or otherwise just a mishmash of a bunch of worlds. And that is the world Hyde brought people over from. So we can't really say what stories we will see in 6A. Jekyll and Hyde were residing there because their story isn't finished, that doesn't mean that they originally came from the LUS. We've seen with characters introduced in previous season finales that they usually play a big part in the first half of the following season and are usually involved in at least one set of flashbacks; since Hyde is now supposed to be in charge of Storybrooke we're almost certainly going to get to see his and Jekyll's backstory. Given the origin of the characters it would be highly unlikely, if not impossible, for them to have originated anywhere but the LWC and since that's where Dr. Frankenstein came from as well it would count as a horror world. Oh, as far as that we might get a LWC flashback, because that is probably where Jekyll and Hyde are from, I agree. I'm just saying we can't say the whole arc will be all horror characters based on the focus of the 6A seems to be characters in the LOUS, and those characters come from all the worlds. I never said that I thought that the whole arc would be horror based, my original post referred to Once's inablity to do justice to the classic Victorian gothic horror characters that they've introduced (not just Jekyll and Hyde but also Dr. Frankenstein and his monster) because it is considered to be a family show and that, consequently, in my opinion they should minimise the amount of horror in 6A. Furber 15 then assumed that I was saying that the 6A as a whole would be horror based, which I wasn't. I don't think that 6A will be completely horror based, just that given what we know it seems likely that there will be more horror in 6A than in previous seasons. As I said, personally I hope that Adam and Eddy recognise the show's limitations and try to keep the horror to a mimimum rather than trying to do it anyway and as a result 6A being absolutely awful. Tbh my faith in Adam and Eddy in regards to adapting existing stories is at an all time low anyway given the recent disastrous attempts at adaption: first departing from the traditional Arthurian legends so much that the result was barely recognisable for 5A and then completey mangling Greek mythology for 5B (I am fully aware that for 5B they were looking more at Disney's Hercules than the original myths, however, that film was so far removed from the source material that it goes past the point of being so bad it's good and is just horrendous). I like to remind people when they complain that they did not stay true to the source material, that one of the whole points of Once is to twist the stories. Things like Red Riding Hood being the Big Bad Wolf, etc. There's a difference between putting a new twist on the stories, like they have with the fairy tales and altering the stories so much that beyond the names of the characters Once's version literally has nothing in common with the source material. Check out some of the Arthurian legends and then take a look back at 5A they basically have nothing in common (if nothing else one of the central parts of Arthurian legends is the conflict between Arthur and, usually, his half-sister Morgan le Fay/their son Mordred, neither of whom even made an appearance in Once) and the same can be said for Greek mythology and 5B; as opposed to the twist with the Snow White tale where they just gave the Evil Queen more of a backstory and a different motivation (that most people didn't know about anyway).

Besides, in the case of characters like Jekyll and Hyde it's more the fact the the format and target audience for Once doesn't allow the writers to do the characters justice; with a family audience in mind they simply cannot imbue the characters with the appropriate level of, for lack of a better phrase, scariness, it's simply impossible, as evidenced by their attempt to include Dr. Frankenstein in Once (somehow even worse than the versions where people attempt to turn the story into a comedy). If you want to better understand where I'm coming from in regards to the issues with Once's adaptations go and take a look at some of the source material, or in the case of the gothic horror characters something like Penny Dreadful (TV-MA)(which has Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature as main characters, has recently introduced Dr. Jekyll and it seems that Mr. Hyde will be making an appearance later this season) shows just how much potential these characters have if they are used correctly.

If I genuinely thought that Once was capable of doing decent adaptations of these characters then I would have no problem with them introducing them, unfortunately there is no way that Once can adapt these characters in a way that does them justice without having to either raise the age rating of the show to start targeting a difference audience demographic. Like Esk said, it is all a matter of opinion. I've watched the same show you have, and I thought all the adaptations were totally fine, and fit the source material well enough. You might like for horror characters to be more intense, which is fine, but it doesn't mean it is the only valid inturpetation of those characters. Once can do them, and it will be fine, maybe not exactly how you would like to see them, but again that is an opinion. Totally agree! These stories were not targeted at adults when written. The level of intensity in Shelley's Frankensten and Stevenson's The Strange Case... are just as if not less intense than what we have already seen in OUAT. I don't see how adding these characters would require the show to change ratings. It is the sex, nudity, and language that requires the higher rating, from what I've read. Any violence perpetrated by these characters should be no different than what we've already seen on Once. Rumple is pretty sadistic and the act itself does not have to be shown. Cruella forced Dalmatians to kill her mother for goodness' sake, while Cruella watched in fascination and the audience listens to her mother scream. I'm sorry, but Cruella has been the most evil character on the show to date. Her happy ending would have been to be able to kill people again. How much more sadistic can you get? For starters the stories would've been targeted at adults because at the time the stories were published you basically would've only had four genres; stories aimed at young children (most definitely not noveal), stories aimed at adults, non-fiction and poetry. Grimm's fairy tales (and other fairy tales for that matter) were/are aimed at children because most function to give some sort of message or warning about how children should and shouldn't behave, hence why so many feature a polite sibling who gets rewarded for that quality and a bratty sibling who is punished for their obnoxious behaviour.

There is also the fact that while more modern horror often includes sex, nudity, language, gore etc none of the are actually necessary when writing horror; a lot of the time it's more about atmosphere, suspense and the fear of the unknown. Victorian gothic horror may seem comparatively tame to modern readers but they weren't intended to be that way, as a society we've become immune to many of the stories because the ideas contained within them and the fears that they express are very much of the their time and as such aren't as relevant to us. Not to mention the fact that the iconic gothic horror novels have been badly adapted so many times that in many ways they have become almost like comedy pieces rather than horror; unless they're done in a way that takes them to the next level and manages to takes the issues presented in the book and elevate them to a point where they are still relevant today, something that is particularly difficult as we don't have the same preoccupation/fear of the supernatural that the Victorians did, nor does it conflict with science and faith in quite the same way or to the same extent.

In regards to Once it's more that it seems rather pointless to introduce iconic horror characters when the show's limitations mean that the writers will either be incapable or unwilling to portray these characters in a way that respects and honours their literary origins simple because they have to dilute the characters in order to make them more palatable to the network who insist that Once is a family friendly show. Once is at best a light, family friendly, urban fantasy; if the show was dark fantasy or even a darker urban fantasy then horror characters would probably work well in the show, as it is they clash with the very nature of the show.

Also CoolDudeAl I would be genuinely interested to hear which of the previously adapted source materials (other than the fairy tales) you're familiar with that you thought that Once adapted particularly well :)