Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20160509005929/@comment-25926288-20160509151331

DatNuttyKid wrote: Eskaver wrote: If Hades didn't turn into Nimue this episode, I wouldn't know how else it would have turned out like. Well, let me see if I can come up with something.

Throughout the arc up until the last two episodes, Hades has consistently wanted Zelena happy and nothing else (besides the couple scenes before he falls in love with her). You could even explain Firebird away by saying that he thinks he knows what makes Zelena happy better than she does, and even though she now likes Regina and gang Hades still thinks that they're going to betray her or treat her poorly, so he gets rid of them so that that can't happen.

So picking up in this episode with him staying as "Zelena must be happy, the others will mistreat her", the discussion between them at the beginning would probably be changed to be more like "I hope Regina and the others are okay." "Zelena, I know that she's your sister and that you care about her. But you seem to be forgetting all the horrible things she's done to you! Are you just going to forget all of that for one sentimental memory?" Zelena isn't sure how to respond, so she changes the topic to be "Why don't we go back into town?" and then we have Hades remind her that Snow still thinks he's a villain, she gives him the baby and wanders off. When Arthur appears, he has a similar conversation with Hades, but instead of Hades just killing him for the lulz, Arthur starts threatening him or something when he finds out who he was. Hades gets annoyed, Arthur is dead.

Scene where we find out how Arthur escaped goes unchanged, but when Regina and Robin meet up with Zelena to get the baby back, Zelena is a little bit more willing to listen because of what Hades had said to her earlier. But she insists "He just doesn't understand. I can show him! I can change him!". Regina responds something to the effect of "You've tried that. It didn't work. He still tried to kill us. Where is he?" And then the scene ends like it did.

When Zelena arrives at the mayor's office, she instead says to Hades "You were right. Regina doesn't trust me. She still won't listen to me. She threatened you to my face!" Hades does the whole turn himself in deal, but Zelena won't let him still, etc. When he explains what the Olympian Crystal is, he tells her that he took it in hopes of using it on Zeus to take Mount Olympus. He wasn't going to use it now that she's changed him, but if Regina and her friends are going to try to attack them... they have to fight back.

Emma still wants to kill Hades for Hook, so her plot goes unchanged. Hook and Arthur are similarly unchanged. The dialog between Regina and Robin in the tunnel would be changed a little, where after apologizing instead of defending herself Regina starts talking about how they could just trust Zelena and maybe it will all blow over. Robin then gets upset not because he doesn't feel that the apology is legitimate, but that Regina would risk his baby's life because she thinks that Zelena might be right and have really changed despite everything she's done.

When OQ then gets to the office, the scene begins the same way, with Zelena going off to stop Emma while Hades goes to see if anyone else broke in. However, when Hades catches them, instead of just being weird about how "YOU HAZ TO DIE BECAUSE I IZ HADES", he talks about how Zelena thinks that they care about her, but he knows better. So we actually get to see him not only stick to his old motivation, but be bad to Zelena in a slightly different way. Regina asks him "You could kill us with a flick of the wrist. Why would you go through all of this?" and Hades responds "Because you don't deserve a chance at the afterlife." Then he kills Robin, Zelena appears, Regina tells her that Hades doesn't trust her and that he killed Robin. Hades insists that Robin threatened Zelena, and Zelena gets the crystal with the same internal debate, but instead of ending with "Hades doesn't love me" and that's it, she instead realizes "I've always wanted love. But it's always been right here with my sister. Not you!" Hades is killed.

Episode ends just like normal. I think Zelena's motive to kill Hades was good enough. Hades wants more than just her and isn't willing to give up anything (like Rumple). Otherwise, love it. Better than Hades no snapping everyone's necks.

I would say that Hades was doing a lot of projection, but the issue is he wasn't really that kind of guy. I don't think the writers had a clear cut thing for Hades. I guess he was suppose to be Rumple (well, his dark side) in how love isn't enough.

Hades sort of drifted around like Ingrid. He was literally Ingrid. Calm, soft/whispery, trumping Rumple one or two times, getting shown up by Rumple at the end of the arc, etc. The biggest question left over is why? Why everything? Hades had no real motivation or at least no sensical one (before reading the storybook pages which the general audience won't care to stop and zoom in).

A flashback would have helped Hades' motivation.