Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-8345449-20151128142008/@comment-8345449-20151129043644

Eskaver wrote: Regina was never one dimensional. At the start, A & E said the whole Evil is born mantra. The episode that had her kill a villaige was during season 2 and in season 2 she was starting on her path of redemption. Backslid a little but still on the path. I don't think you are getting my point. Whether or not the writers managed to successfully portray a former villain in a sympathetic light during his/her redemption arc is a different thing from whether or not they were consistent in their portrayal of the character (as a villain).

Regina has always been shown to be impulsive, prone to fits of rage and doing malicious acts for the most trivial of reasons. In this regard, she has been shown to have changed for the better - at least once she has time to think things over, she either apologizes for what she did or does not go through with it (such as with erasing Zelena from history and killing Marian). However, during her villainous days, it was not inconsistent with her characterization to slaughter an entire village because that was just how evil she was.

Take for example, Rumple. He was seen murdering and torturing during flashbacks. If during his redemption arc (which I assume is coming soon), there are more flashbacks of him killing and torturing, that may make the audience less sympathetic to him, but it is nothing new we have learnt about him before. But suppose there is a scene in which Rumple causally mentions to Belle that he broke a hundred deals in one day. How would you react to that?

During the tavern scence in the Season 4 Ariel episode, we see that Hook has a sort of camaraderie with his men. They joked and interacted with him freely (contrast this with Regina and her black knights). Smee was also never shown to be fearful of Hook during his interactions with him. But then we suddenly learn that he killed one of his crew just because he drank the captain's wine?

Hook was introduced as an opportunistic jerk that might have once had a code. He was never shown to be in any heroic light. He obviously was cruel to taunt a crippled, old man to fight him and to not at least take Bae with him. It is true he was a bully in that instance. But consider that Milah must have told him about Rumple's cowardice and negatively skewed Hook's perception of him. Being a former soldier, runaways are probably among the people Hook despised the most. Not that that makes what he did okay, but it was understandable to some extent. He could have killed Rumple easily but he did not which seems to imply that he was not particularly bloodthirsty. Remember how Rumple killed all those knights once he became the DO?

He was even a jerk with Ursula. Him killing those men seemed within his character. But Hook keeping them and being slghtly sociopathic about it wasn't. Although, perhaps the writers saw him that way, but didn't portray it correctly. He was only a jerk after Ursula's father took away his instrument of vengeance - the squid ink. This is consistent with what we know of him - he flies into a blind rage and hurts innocents in the name of revenge.