Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-4877635-20130614170253/@comment-108.49.79.202-20130619090210

Dragonmouth wrote: Utter solitude wrote: I would like to think it's more of a "Is this the right time? Can we do this well, without creating a token couple?" kind of vibe, as well. I, like many other's I've talked to/seen, would be more offended if there's a gay couple that feels forced than I would be if it never happens. I think this is why SQ is so popular with those who want to see a same-sex romance on the show. Emma and Regina are both prominent characters, which would avoid any charges of tokenism. And it would feel less forced because they already have a relationship that could, over time, evolve into a romance. Regina is a vulnerable person who is starved for love and is trying to become a better person. Emma is one of the few people who believes in her ability to change. They both share a love for their son Henry. And pairing them together wouldn't interfere with any of the established couples.

EDIT (Like, I came back and wrote this after I finished the below, I know you can't literally "edit"): You know what, writing this, I came to realize, SwanQueen is the best thing ever and it HAS to happen. So sorry. Read on anyways.

Ooh, look, it's three in the morning, I'm bored out of my mind, and you've offered me the opportunity to tear something apart.

I'm beginning to like you.

"Emma and Regina are both prominent characters, which would avoid any charges of tokenism." In a way, yes, but in a much more important way, *insert buzzer noise* WRONG. The characters themselves would not technically be token, no, but their relationship would be. SwanQueen would be entirely forced (as for why I'll get to later), alienating from other relationships on the show, and it would only be there for the sake of having an LGBT relationship on the show. BAM! Tokenism. Now let's take a look at your next sentence:

"And it would feel less forced because they already have a relationship that could, over time, evolve into a romance." Again, to the contrary, it would be very, VERY forced. Every single relationship on the show has proven to be, in essence, rather basic, or simple. That is to say-what truly brings two characters together has been compatability-them complementing each other. The show has stressed that and only that in relationships. In other words, a relationship will only happen on the show if the two pieces of the puzzle fit together PERFECTLY. Fortunately, that makes it rather easy to find compatible relationships and ones that aren't compatible, that would never work. This also relates to many characters' innate traits-traits they have that will never fully change, which is, in essence, what makes these characters feel so real and so like the characters we know and love that are 100+ years old. Again, with those innate traits being complementary, it's very easy to see what could and couldn't happen.

"Regina is a vulnerable person who is starved for love and is trying to become a better person. Emma is one of the few people who believes in her ability to change. They both share a love for their son Henry." Funny you should just graze over the exact point that contradicts your first point. "They both share a love for their son, Henry", "Emma is one of the few people who believes in her ability to change"-Emma believes in her ability to change for Henry. Everything Emma does for Regina she does with Henry in mind, first and foremost. Not Regina herself. That's not to say she doesn't believe in her ability to change, but more to say that you're making Emma's belief in Regina out to be a bigger deal than it is. For another, Snow, for years and years, believed in her ability to change-Does that put her and Regina together in the end? No.

Furthermore, the only reason Emma defended Regina when she did and invited her to that party when she did was because she is righteous. Emma's core, innate quality is justice. She puts it above everything. And when she knew that Regina was innocent, she wasn't going to let anyone blame her. When she knew Regina was trying to change, she wasn't going to let others deny her the chance. She was going to help her as much as she can. That's not because Emma has any sort of a thing for Regina, it's the same reason she defended Mary Margaret in the "murder" of Kathryn Nolan back in Season 1. Hell, it's the same reason she stuck around at the end of the second episode of Season 1. She acts for righteousness, for justice. Not because she has a secret crush on Regina, lul. There's no evidence pointing to that, and all evidence pointing towards it being because of Emma's cause to get justice. Plus, remember, all the times Regina has done something, Emma ain't let her off. Same as always.

I'll cover this last quick point before I get to my analyses of their characters and why they don't complement each other and therefore would never be romantically involved: "And pairing them together wouldn't interfere with any of the established couples." Uhm. Swanfire? Nuff said.

Now. Why aren't they compatible ever in all the holy lights of the lord savior that I don't actually believe in regardless of all the knocks I've gotten on my front door at 10AM on a Sunday morning by well-dressed, nametag-clad men wielding books and pamphlets? Well, to first understand why Emma and Regina aren't compatible, we have to understand what has made every other couple on the show compatible. What they all have in common that Emma and Regina don't have.

I'll try this with three examples. I figure that'd be enough to prove my point, it's not like I'm going to go through every single relationship on the show ever.

I'll start this with Regina and Daniel, which not only will help show what makes the pieces of the puzzle fit together so well with their couple and the other two, but also later serve to show what Regina needs from a partner. Regina, in her youth, when lovestruck with Daniel, was trapped. Trapped in a cage whose lock was her status and whose key was her mother. Cora was very, very controlling of her daughter, and, as we can see at least to a certain extent, of her husband as well (I think it fair to say that she is the dominant one in the relationship). She wanted things for Regina that she herself didn't want. And she wanted these things because she was never truly happy. Regina could see that-she could see that her mother wasn't truly happy, and that's why she was controlling her life-because power was her drug, Cora's drug, and now that she had a way to get more power-Regina-she had to use it. It can also be assumed that Regina knew her parents were never truly in love, because their marriage was arranged. From this, we can deduce that Regina knew that, were she not to seek for and fight for love, she may end up like her mother-which, I shouldn't have to say, was the last thing we wanted. Furthermore, Regina also saw her father, and how controlled he was by Cora as well. Regina being controlled herself, not being able to make any choices for herself, could therefore not only relate to her father, but also make the connection that because she didn't want to be controlled, she wanted freedom, freedom of choice, and for that, she would need someone who wouldn't take that away from her. And Daniel has that-he has that exactly. Because he knows exactly what it's like not to have many choices-and that's because of his status. He needs someone who can understand that-understand not having many choices, and being held down to what you are, in his case, a lowly peasant (I say that because it would make no difference if he quit his job as a stable boy and became something else in his class), and in her case, the pawn of a power-hungry megalomaniac. Also, on the flipside, due to his status, if she were to marry him, she'd be free of her mother's control and decisions, she'd have the freedom of choice with no status-related bonds chaining her down. He is exactly what she needs in someone, and she is exactly what he needs in someone.

Now, let's analyze Emma and Baelfire's relationship, also for the benefit of later on proving what Emma needs that Regina doesn't have, but also proving my point that all relationships in OUaT exaggerate this one quality-complementation. Emma and Baelfire have both always been, essentially, free spirits. They've both been matched up against the odds and beaten them. They both survive, in their core. They've both, therefore, been through a lot, and, in the end, come out loners, because they've always had trust issues due to their odds they were matched up against being those they once trusted (in many cases. Because you'll demand examples, Bae trusted his father, Rumple, to come with him, and needless to say, he didn't, and Emma trusted her fist adoptive parents to keep her, but they spit her back out once they had their own kid). Their being the way they are makes them both desparately need someone they can trust, and have not break that trust. Someone they can confide in, someone they can say everything to, and have them still be around. They're both carrying around gargantuan amounts of baggage, and that has to be shared. They both need someone they can trust, and they've each never broken others' trust but they have had their trust broken before, and they know what the consequences are, so they're unlikely to do it to someone else (admittedly, without good reason, considering Neal and August...yeah. But that's not relevant here as that was, in the end, an act Bae believed to be for the greater good, and that August influenced it). They're both survivalists, so they both need someone who isn't going to hold their ability to survive back.

Finally, let's look at Rumple and Belle. Rumple needs someone who will support him. Someone who will give him a reason for what he is doing beyond just his own pure, selfish goals. Someone who will believe in him and his strength. Milah was that to him before Bae was born. We can see that from the little we know of that time-we can see that they were fairly happy together, and at least that she worked for him. We see that because it's mentioned that Rumple's father was a coward, and how he didn't want to end up like him because everyone said he would. Milah responds by telling him he's not, and she believes it, and she wants to show it to the world when he gets drafted. He needs that, he always needs that. Someone who believes in him, and believes in his strength, and not in his cowardice. As long as we can see, he has had an arguably sick need to prove that he is not a coward, that is his most innate quality. It defines pretty much all of his actions. Now, Belle was that to him because she saw the good in him, and she believed in his good. She gives him strength, the strength to do the harder things, what isn't so easy, what truly makes him not a coward. Lacey also complements him-his darker side, however. She encourages all the things her alter-ego, Belle, is against. She sees, in his dark side, a man who takes what he wants, does what he wants, and she's very much so turned on by it. She doesn't see him as a coward and believes in him because she sees him as a bold, strong man. In the end, both of Belle's personas' working with both of Rumple's sides/dimensions boil down to her not seeing him as a coward, and him doing the things that makes him strong in someone else's eyes, that assures his strength in another person's eyes. Belle, in contrast, needs someone who will let her show her strength, someone who will let her bring out the good in them. Someone who isn't going to hold her back, someone who will let her be the hero, who will work together with her. We see this based on the fact that her father is very, VERY controlling of her, much like Cora was to Regina, and doesn't let her off her leash. The difference, however, is that his control is very protective, while Cora's was very...well, controlling. This made Belle need to prove herself capable on her own, someone who will believe in her, let her be the Hero, let her be involved and do things to help. Rumple is that to Belle because he will bring her along to things, he will involve her, keep her in the loop, and let her help where possible. Furthermore, he lets her bring out the good in him, and in others. He lets her try things, take risks, and prove herself. He encourages it, helps her, and gives her the opportunities. Her father, being protective of her, did none of these things, making it what she most needs.

Now that we've seen what it is exactly that OUaT ships ALL have, what exactly that puzzle-fitting and complementing and compatability is all about, let's see why Emma and Regina won't have it.

They would, in theory, need something just as perfectly fitting, right? Their puzzle pieces would have to fit together just as well as Rumple and Belle's, or Regina and Daniel's, or Emma and Neal's. Well, that would mean that they would each get things from one another. That they each have things the other needs. And they don't. As stated, Emma has tons of baggage she needs help carrying and bearing with. At the same time, she can't have the entire world knowing, as she's got serious trust issues and it would tear her apart. She needs someone who will discretely carry all this with her, but also be able to relate to it. Regina is not that because not only is she always in a position of leadership-Queen, Mayor-which takes away a LOT of privacy, but she wouldn't be able to relate to it, because not only has her shit always been very public, but she hasn't exactly come out of it unscathed. She wouldn't be able to relate to Emma's survivalistic attitude, and she'd hold it back within Emma. Regina has many times come to the brink of death and barely escaped. Emma, aside from the Ogre incident which is irrelevant considering she didn't know what she was doing, would never allow herself to get anything short of pure survival. And she does that by often boxing in her feelings, and not letting them affect her actions. Regina is very much so the opposite-she lets her feelings get to her, and in the end they turn her into someone who is very naive and ignorant, and she doesn't weigh the consequences of her actions the way Emma does in her calculating-for-survival manner. Emma can't have that, can't have someone that holds her back. Furthermore, Regina needs someone who will give her pure freedom of choice and decision in her life, like she could get from Daniel. Emma can't give her that. Giving Regina the freedom to choose whatever she wants to do would hurt Emma, because again, Regina is not someone who calculates consequences, and in the end it would hold Emma's survivalistic nature back. Additionally, Emma couldn't give her that because Regina's aspirations will always be high, and Emma can't relate to that at all. Emma's never cared for high aspirations, nothing like that, because she never could. She could never ask for luxuries or anything like that, she always had to put surviving first. And it became who she is-in always being a survivor, Emma has learned not to care about most other things. She sees no value in power or position, for example, which Regina will always seek (and not necessarily always in a bad way, think about when Regina tried to gain Henry's favor by putting down magic, that's still in a way seeking position, seeking power), and she couldn't relate to that. Regina, additionally, also probably couldn't relate to Emma's overpoweringly strong sense of survival.

None of the niches of their puzzle pieces fit together. Swanqueen is impossible and will never happen. Now stfu about it.

It's been two hours, whew. Thank you, going to bed. Never doing that again.

LOL YOU BELIEVED ME DIDN'T YOU. Had to pull that one. SwanQueen will never happen.