Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24271102-20150612100132/@comment-25926288-20160210192933

......

Anyhow, the fault isn't the characters at all. Sometimes you could say it is. As I presented, the characters are primarily harmed by conflicting viewpoints of the characters and presentation.

Hook, to me, seems like he knows he is a bad person and tries to seek redemption, little by little and finds that his way of viewing his redemption doesn't match the Status Quo. Hook sees himself as a villain and rightfully so and he did bad things once he felt the sting of Emma's betrayal. The only bad part isn't him, but Emma. Emma is the one telling him he's earned hero marks, he's her hero, and he's absolved of all sins (which they do to Regina and Rumple too, but after plot demands don't interfere). Emma is the one that negates all his work, so Emma is like the Dark Part of Rumple. Rumple famously said that al the good he's done is then replaced with all the bad. Emma tries the simple redemption plan that's "Forgive and Forget", but that's just stupid and Hook doesn't want that kind of redmeption, but Emma actively hinders all of Hook's acts of redmeption.

That's why Regina seems out of whack sometimes. Regina accepts the "Forgive and Forget" redemption and sometimes try harder because she sees that it can't be that simple. But the question she's faced with is: Why try the hard path, when the easy path is so...easy? Regina does a little evil, here and there because she got what she wanted.

It's also a problem with Once's view of redemption. As with Henry in 5a, he forgave Regina which had a little struggle that quickly wne t away, and Rumple, who recently tried to kill him and destroy what he held dear.

Why be good when you can seemingly just get away with anything and still be forgiven?