Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-25926288-20160610032527/@comment-25926288-20160610191410

TrumpetofTheSwan wrote: This whole show needs to take a good look at itself in the mirror, and acknowledge its moral depravity/confusion. T he annoying thing is when they ignore it. They need to make their characters face up to their actions more, for longer than one or two scenes of one episode, and they need to openly discuss the issue with each other. The writers have done this a little in the past, but not nearly enough.

I don't know that they have to "fix" the characters though, because this moral ambiguity seems inevitable when you try to make a morally complex show that tries to look beyond the black and white. You're bound to get some funky answers that people will disagree on. And maybe that's a good thing, if it sparks discussion and leads to a more interesting show.

The thing is, they have to stop somewhere. Some questions can't be answered, at least not easily. If they continually tried to make the characters question their goodness/ability to be redeemed, or whatever, then we would have even more circuitous character arcs. I'd ague that we all have tons of questions! XD

The problem isn't even with the black-and-white view on a moral grey or even the characters questioning their morality. A few examples:

1. Robin learns that "Stealing for yourself is BAD. Stealing to help others is GOOD." Robin Hood's legend is always a moral grey topic. Robin helping an evil man who's dying is morally grey. But the moral of the story wasn't "This situation is hard" but this is right, that is wrong. Plus, it's a bad lesson to teach kids. "Charlie, don't steal stuff just because you want it. Steal it because I want it."

2. Regina talked about how she's suffering internally. Kind of gets brushed off, then set up for the next plot to learn that we need good and bad in us (?). Hook has esteem issues and sets up people causing himself to look down upon himself. That's just brushed away and he keeps doing that same thing to Emma (which sort of caused his most recent fall). Emma learns that she rushed headfirst into Hell, endagering others, without a real plan. Then, evryone else tells Emma how right her (non-existent) plan was when it wasn't. Emma discovers that you can't just defy nature and she should have never went to the UW because she caused pain and suffering, but no, she gets what she wanted because...........

We spent an entire season telling us tat Darkness is bad, so the moral of 6A can't be "We need both" which would be bizzare.