Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-24304025-20150202171011/@comment-1894786-20150331015348

GothicNarcissus wrote: I think people tend to dislike her because she gives Regina a hard time, at least at first. But when you give her a chance as a character on her own, she's just amazing. At first I loved to hate her and hated to love her, but now she's one of my favourites, even though I'm an Evil Regal to the bone. There could be a bagillion beautiful dynamics to explore between her and Regina.

As for her backstory, yeah, I would have preferred if they had focussed more on the hardships she had to endure as a peasant in Oz, rather than yet another daddy issue (come on, after Ursula I'm really wondering what issues Cruella had with her own dad, which made her a villain). Focussing more on the deprivations she had to suffer would have added credibility to her hatred for Regina… because let's face it, no one would ever envy Regina's murderously disfunctional family history. See, I liked her backstory. I just think they rushed to her going to the Emerald City far too quickly. It seemed like she truly loved her adopted mother, but after it was mentioned she died, she was never brought up again. We didn't see all the crap she went through with her father to make her so abused, nor did we see how she lived to the point where she was deadly envious.

If they had expanded upon the (presumably) 20-ish year gap between the first scene of her arriving and the scene of her leaving her father (did she just walk out and that's that? I would imagine she went back and turned him into a monkey...), I think more people would've liked her.

I felt completely underwhelmed by her until Rumple killed her. I hadn't realized I was rooting for her redemption until Rumple sunk the dagger into her and made her shatter. Then I loved her. Same with Ursula, I put up with her, then her backstory episode came, and I was still underwhelmed, but I liked her slightly better.