Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20160418145853/@comment-1916997-20160418174212

Hmcooper4 wrote: Ok, I'll bypass my personal feelings on the LGBT subject. They are irrelevent to the subject at hand.

But, by any standard, the relationship between Ruby and Dorothy was rushed. Someone mentioned (I belive it was CDA) that they showed other couples falling in love in the same time span. However, Cinderella and Thomas is probably the only other one that actually occurred that way. And that is the way the Cinderella story was written many years back by the original author. We never see Philip and Aurora's meeting or romance, so we can't say they fell in love in a day, they had plenty of time. And even Ariel and Eric, though somewhat rushed, did not have them falling in Love, though both were interested in spending time with each other. In these cases, we (as the audience) are predisposed by the original fairy tales (or Disney adaptations) to accept that the couples are, or will, fall in love and "live happly ever after". Even Rumpbelle did not happen in a day, as the relationship did not start to really grow until Belle had been at Rumple's castle for a couple of months.

Someone also mentioned Hades and Zelena. that relationship is also not falling in love in a one day time frame. The reason that I say that is that, while they may have felt the initial attraction quickly (which is not uncommon irl), Zelena put the brakes on quickly, and both parties have had time to reflect on their feelings. Hades seems sure of himself (and while his motives may be suspicious even yet, I'll give the benefit of the doubt), but Zelena is unsure. Maybe not unsure of her feelings for Hades as much as unsure if a relationship is the right way to go. I personally think that Hades and Zelena, despite both being villains, may represent one of the healthier relationships in terms of allowing time for feelings to grow. All it needs now is for them to actually spend at least a small amount of time hanging out together to get to know each other.

Ruby and Dorothy literally in one day met and fell in love. I won't say that things like that can't happen, but it just felt rushed the way that Once presented it. And Once does not even have the argument of "But the original fairy tale makes them a canon couple" to bolster their rushing the relationship. This story line should, seriously, have been a B or C plot line for several episodes at least, to build the credibility for the relationship.

Another thing that I personally did not like was all of the parallels that they tried to draw to Snowing. Dorothy under a sleeping curse, surrounded by a group of diminuative people, Ruby coming in and delivering TLK, and even Ruby's line which was very much "I will always find you" reeked of poor and unimaginative writing. I would think that taking on such a controversial subject such as LGBT would be better served by finding an ORIGINAL approach.

Had Once taken more time to actually build the relationship, I still might not like or approve of it (that is just my personal opinion on the matter), but I might be more accepting of it. Mulan and Aurora as a relationship was, imo, better architected, in that there is an implication that Mulan and Aurora had spent time together (their search for Philip), and at least from Mulan's perspective she had feelings that grew naturally, it wasn't just an infatuation or lust. Ruby and Dorothy just feel like a semi-random couple thrown together to meet some demand of having a particular type of relationship.

You have some valid points, regarding that we could have stretched this over more episodes, to make it seem more organic or natural, and others have pointed out that having Red and Mulan be the couple would have accomplished this as well, because at least we know they have been traveling together for a bit. The parallels to Snowing were definitly intentional, and the point was that this relationship is just as normal and valid as Snow and Charming's. I get that you and others may have trouble wrapping their brains around that, but that is the message that should be sent, and I am glad they did it. People have suffered in the shadows long enough, it's finally time to let them come into the light.