Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24589671-20150309010651/@comment-5106672-20150311183438

BlueFairy90 wrote:

In that respect, the Curse undone and subsequent missing year plot was a very clever move: they basically "reset" the show to clean or hide the mess they had made, and to me it worked… until they put everything on hold for the Frozen arc. And this, imo, is how we ended up with too much stuff all at Once (pun intended) which resulted in an excess of characters and self-focussing plots that pushed some formerly pivotal ones further and further into the background except for some random reappearances. For goodness sake! IMO things wern't put on hold so much during the Frozen arc! What would the characters have done if Zelena had been "killed" and no time portal had happened? Do you think Urusula/Cruella would be here? Would Maleficent be ressurected? No. Rumple would not have been banished. The happy ending seaching would not have happened either!

How many times? The Frozen arc was a wonderful follow up from Zelena part 1, and this current queens arc. I think the fact that they revealed Maleficent would be back before the start of season 4 made the non Frozen people just wish the Frozen arc would be over with already! That's how I felt season 4 started. I just wanted the Snow Queen out of the way for Maleficent.

I too enjoyed the "reset" in 3B. Everything was not put on hold for the Frozen arc! The Frozen people just came to the forefront. Whether or not you like it or not is up to you, But that is what happened! In fact Regina's whole sub plot of happy endings and "Saving Marion" only came about because of Frozen! Same with the hat! I'm sure Rumple would have figured out the secret of removing himself from the dagger. But remember it was Ingrid who told him that he needed Hook's heart! In fact Emma accepting her powers was because of Elsa too! So please enough of "Frozen came along and everything was put on hold" because it is NOT true. We are only where we are now because of Frozen. It was nice also how the little seeds of plots were being made in the Frozen arc. Now we are seeing them blossom! The author, the sorcerer, Rumple, etc.

Rant over.

The Frozen arc is consequent but not as tightly connected as you might think to the "portal to the past" plot. And bore pretty much no direct relevance to the Hat plot, which was a consequence of the Second Curse. I loved the Frozen arc while it was going, but in hindsight it didn't forward the general plot, nor the characters, at all. Let's analyse it, shall we?


 * Regina: starts off alone, with Robin tied to his not-dead wife (point 1). Marian gets out of the picture through the ice spell, but not entirely. Regina tries to save her. Ingrid gets defeated, Marian lives but wants to leave Robin to Regina. The ice spell lingers, so Robin ends up tied to his not-dead wife and Regina is alone (point 1).


 * Emma: is starting to open up to people, accept her place in Storybrooke and her magical heritage (point 1). Ingrid screws her up to make her lose control of her magic. She pulls and Elsa and runs from everyone. Elsa helps her. Emma opens up to people, accepts her place in Storybrooke and her magical heritage (point 1),


 * The Charmings: they have little relevance to the Frozen plot, but the Frozen plot has basically none to them.


 * Henry: no relevance to the Frozen plot, he's totally up to Operation Mangoose which has nothing to do with Elsa & co.


 * Rumple: In the past, he contributed to the Frozen crisis (so he added to the plot). In the present, he's up to entirely different things and does not interact with anyone but Ingrid, and merely in regards of his own quest (thus the Frozen plot has no real impact on him).


 * Belle: has one Frozen-related flashback, but her big turning point in present day comes from the Hat plot.

So, basically, the main cast either interacted with the Frozen plot but got little developement out of it, or didn't at all. We learned pieces of the past, sure, especially Emma, but this progression went backward and was adjusted to fit the storilyne, not forward. What drove the overall plot were the Hat and Operation Mangoose plots, and anything the Frozen plot added to them was not intrinsecally connected with its core: Rumple used Anna's tear to get the hat, but it could have been, say, Cinderella's (hello, we had a Season One). Belle went to Arendelle to get her memories and learned about Rumple from Anna: she could have gone to the Blue Fairy instead. Rumple learned the final ingredient to the spell from Ingrid, it could have been anything else. I like how they worked things out all in all, and as I said I did love the arc, but they integrated OUAT into Frozen, not the other way round: this is why I say that arc slowed the show down considreably.