Board Thread:Show-Related Questions and Answers/@comment-1758442-20130915084147/@comment-22525977-20130922234923

Of course I don't know for a fact that FTR marriages have to be consummated, nor am I claiming that I do. What I am saying is that it's a possibility, and not even a far fetched one (Unless you want to argue that the FTR is more progressive than a world where things like, for example, the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1973 exist).

" And secondly, there are other things at stake from Leopold locking Regina up after he thought she was having an affair. Such as reputation of the royal family. Gossip. Rumors. How were things going to be if something like that got out to the public?"

Even if he is locking her up strictly because he doesn't want his peasants to think she's being unfaithful in a marriage that is obviously loveless and not because she's his wife and therefore belongs to him? That's still really, really terrible; he's placing his own reputation and the possibility of gossip above Regina's happiness in terms of importance—this in the same episode where he talks about how he wants everyone in his kingdom to be happy!

Obviously, rulers can't do whatever they want; even a tyrant has to appease en's population enough that they won't rise up and depose en. That being said, it's pretty clear that Leopold's reputation was doing fine without Eva around. The only reason he wanted a new queen was because Snow was unhappy. He absolutely did not have to marry Regina.

A king so concerned with his subjects' happiness can reasonably be expected to pick up on the glaringly obvious signals Regina was sending that she did not want to marry him. Leopold chose to ignore them and marry her anyway. He treated her like a present for Snow, basically, not an actual person in her own right. That is not speculation; that's what we're shown in canon.

What I'm saying is, Regina's marriage to Leopold was inherently unbalanced in power and outright abusive from the very beginning. Rape is not that much of a stretch from what we see in the show itself.

And yes, if Leopold has the power to lock Regina up on a whim, he also has the power to rape her. That is not the question here; the question is whether he chose to exercise that power or not. I think he did; you think he did not. (Consider it like this: Jane has a puppy. The puppy is dependent on Jane for food, shelter, and cuddles. Jane is not dependent on the puppy for anything. Therefore, Jane is the one with the power in this relationship and she has the power to lock the puppy in the garage and ignore it all the time. This does NOT mean that Jane locks the puppy in the garage and ignores it; it means that Jane could do so. Nor is she a bad person for simply having this power. If she does exercise this power and neglects the puppy, then that would be bad. If she doesn't exercise this power and chooses to take care of the puppy properly, then the fact that she has the power is a nonissue. Obviously it gets more complicated than that when you substitute another human for the puppy, because in a perfect world the kind of power imbalances that let abuse in any form happen wouldn't exist, but the basic idea is the same.)

As an aside, I'm not sure why you object to my hypothesizing about the minutiae of the FTR's worldbuilding? I'm not saying anything that contradicts canon and I'm not trying to say that my theories are fact. Do note that I say it's possible that marriage works this way (because there is historical precedent for it in our world and what we see of the FTR looks pretty patriarchal in set up) and that it's plausible that if it does work that way then the characters react to it like this.

What I'm doing is extrapolating theories from the things I see in the show of how the OUaT universe functions. It's no different from how I saw Leopold trampling over Regina's wants and needs because, well, his baby girl wanted a mother, and from that I can very reasonably guess that Leopold is not a good man and not as concerned with his subjects' happiness as he likes to claim. And I don't see how either of these ideas (that Leopold is an egocentric jerk or that consummation might be a requirement for legal marriages in the FTR) are a problem when the question we're talking about is, by nature, about speculation on a point that is left undiscussed on the show itself.

(That being said, not everything I'm arguing is hypothetical. That there would have been terrible consequences for Regina if she attacked or killed Leopold is fact; it's why she used the genie to assassinate him rather than just doing the deed herself. And it is absolutely a fact that she would have known this, as demonstrated by the fact that she used the genie. Point three, in fact, is the only part of my argument that relies solely on fanon.)