Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-23962251-20131206041225/@comment-5106672-20131208025220

Utter solitude wrote: GothicNarcissus wrote: Utter solitude wrote: Yes, they do. I know better than I'd like to how a bad father or a bad relationship with him can affect people even into adulthood, but at some point they do move on and focus on picking up their own pieces rather than putting their whole life on hold waiting to get the affection they didn't have. Especially with an abusive father like the Sultan.

I have a friend in an Alice-Edwin situation, I am in a somewhat Regina-Cora one, and have more friends than I can think of with severely stained relationships with their fathers. While we're all affected on levels we can't probably really comprehend, I don't see anyone going above and beyond to make up for the past. Alice's reaction in the latest episode is far more sensible (going her own way but taking the chance she gets to be reconciled), Regina's with Cora (giving in when the latter starts showing her affection) or Rumple's with Peter Pan (screw you, I don't need you in my way – which is what I do) are too. Jafar's is just plain unrealistic.

Of course real people move on and Jafar is unrealistic, but Jafar is not a real person. And it isn't as simple as getting Daddy to acknowledge him; Jafar wants the Sultan's throne. The best way to do that, and get at his father, is to have the man legitimize him. The man also tried to drown him, and he lives in a much different world than our modern one.

Besides, this is a television show. If these people acted the normal, rational way, it would be boring.

I find Jafar's actions to be extreme, but logical given the situation and his personality. Maybe you're right, but to me the greatest magic of the show was indeed how they took over-the-top fairytale characters and turned them into deeper, more plausible people – which is the word I should have used instead of "realistic"; plausible, in the fictional context they live in. And this happened to pretty much everybody except, so far, Jafar, Ariel and Eric (the "Hey, I just met you and this is crazy" couple).

With this said, it's true, it's difinitely a very extreme situation which would hardly have a chance happen in the real world, so the comparison is hazardous to begin with. But for one thing, look at how the Sultan has aged between the latest flashback and present day and guess how many coup d'état Jafar could have done in the meantime and with the resources he's been spending to try and retrive the three genies, if his point was the throne. And GREGalicious, when you mention people breaking because of bad situation, read what examples you did? A violent outcome.

See my point? It is plausible, for an Enchanted Forest wizard who was nearly killed by his abusive and neglecting father, then kept by an abusive employer, then raised by a malevolent practitioner, to seek revenge over the Sultan by killing his legitimate son, overthrowing him, downright killing him, torturing him into legitimising him, or putting him in a cage to have him suffer for as long as possible. But really, spending years and having no other point in your life than casting a very difficult and time- and resource-consuming spell which will make a father who didn't love you god knows how many decades ago love you at last? Haven't you grown past the miserable little children stage? That's why I think it's the flimsiest storyline in the whole OUAT multiverse, all the other characters, especially the villains, have more plausible agendas.