Once upon a Time 3.05
Oct. 28th, 2013 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we get an origin story and a case of the moral ambiguities, though not in the same plot.
I think what pleases me most about the Hook origin story - or maybe I should say the Killian Jones origin story, because he didn't become Hook until much later, courtesy of Rumpelstilskin - is that young Killian going from serving in a fairy tale marine (don't think it escaped me the King is never named - the go to evil King in this 'verse is George, but he wasn't around yet, since this is in Killian's youth and he & Rumpel have beena round for three centuries) to becoming a pirate wasn't solely because of his brother's death but because of an order he saw as immoral (and which in fact was) long before his brother died. Basically the exact opposite reasoning the soldiers in Henry V. arrive at in their nightly conversation when they decide that their duty of obedience to the king means it doesn't matter whether or not the King's cause is just. This being a reasoning that did much rl damage not only in my own country, I'm always thrilled to come across stories when someone says no, it does matter, I can't do this, and this is no longer a King worth serving.
Mind you, given that Hook next embarks on a life that eventually entails plundering a lot of people who have nothing to do with his sworn off monarch (by the time Milah meets him, he seems to have gone entirely freelance, and of course by the time Emma, Snow, Mulan and Aurora encounter him, it's a case of revenge and otherwise looking out for NO.1), this does not make him a life long martyr for principle, but it makes his origin story interesting to me in a way it wouldn't be if it simply were a case of "you killed my brother, prepare to die". (He already had that type of feud over Milah with Rumpel.)
Meanwhile, while in the current day main plot the boys are off so Hook can save David's life, the current day subplot actually is the one with the most interesting scene to me. After Emma, Snow and Regina capture one of the Lost Boys, the Lost Boy in question proves to be a bit more hardened than Edmund of Narnia fame and doesn't change sides on the lure of chocolate, presented by Regina (or the promise to be taken along home, presented by Emma). At which point Regina comes up with the smart if ruthless suggestion of using her Mother-and-Rumpel-learned ability to rip people's hearts out and make them her slave, Snow's against it and Emma sides with Regina, letting her go through with it. Several points here: a) it's a good continuity thing, Doylist wise, letting Regina use something she can do (but no one else of the group can), b) it also brings up the tricky question of ends justifying means or not (and I like that Snow isn't just arguing out of general principle here, but because she herself has done the ends-justify-means thing with Cora), and c) the episode lets it work, instead of going for the flat immediate punishment by narrative. Now what Regina did to the boy isn't final (as opposed to, say, Rumpelstilskin killing Tamara); he's still alive, she can return his heart. But neither is it something that can just be handwaved away as not mattering. I also wonder whether or not Emma, now that she has consented to the use of this particular power exercise, will be tempted to do it again (or learn how to herself). One thing I'm sure of: that Regina's remark to Snow (that Emma didn't do it, she did, and thus Emma isn't culpable) is missing the mark.
Henry's opening scene: okay, this was a Chekovian gun, err, sword, surely? I.e. the ability to change an object with your mind if you're the truest believer. Methinks Henry will have to do that again.
Soap opera alert: what I thought when Emma and Hook were kissing, because I was sure Neal would stumble on the scene at just that moment. (Having temporarily forgotten he got captured when last we saw him.) This did not happen, but given s1, I knew better than to assume the show can resist a love triangle, so it didn't surprise me when Peter Pan sprang the "Baelfire/Neal is alive!"news on Hook a minute later, leaving him a moral dilemma to chew on. At a guess, he won't tell Emma for most of the next episode but will eventually come clean, not just because of Emma but because he himself has Baelfire feelings.
PlotMcGuffin alert: so David is saved but in a way that makes it impossible for him to leave Neverland (alive). Methinks we have a new candidate for who'll take over Peter Pan's job as a way of defeating the current Pan, because I still think this will be the way things will work out. And Charming actually has the capacity for faith against the odds, albeit not under amnesia.
Speculation: the person in the other cage is practically bound to be Rumpelstilskin's father, after all the mentions of him in previous episodes. Alternate possibility: the unnamed king whose service young flashback Killian quit? (Since no one ages on Neverland.) Trying to resign myself to the inevitability of the Rumplefather's appearance, which I'm still extremely sceptical about as a plot point, I wonder which fairy tale/literary works character he could be, because I'm pretty sure he won't solely be an OC. Since we're currently in James Barrie land and the spin off is owed to Lewis Carroll, and otoh we also have Dr. Frankenstein and werewolves, I'm tempted to go for another Victorian-gone-cinematic-character: Dr. Henry Jekyll. Was there ever a Disney version of Jekyll & Hyde?
I think what pleases me most about the Hook origin story - or maybe I should say the Killian Jones origin story, because he didn't become Hook until much later, courtesy of Rumpelstilskin - is that young Killian going from serving in a fairy tale marine (don't think it escaped me the King is never named - the go to evil King in this 'verse is George, but he wasn't around yet, since this is in Killian's youth and he & Rumpel have beena round for three centuries) to becoming a pirate wasn't solely because of his brother's death but because of an order he saw as immoral (and which in fact was) long before his brother died. Basically the exact opposite reasoning the soldiers in Henry V. arrive at in their nightly conversation when they decide that their duty of obedience to the king means it doesn't matter whether or not the King's cause is just. This being a reasoning that did much rl damage not only in my own country, I'm always thrilled to come across stories when someone says no, it does matter, I can't do this, and this is no longer a King worth serving.
Mind you, given that Hook next embarks on a life that eventually entails plundering a lot of people who have nothing to do with his sworn off monarch (by the time Milah meets him, he seems to have gone entirely freelance, and of course by the time Emma, Snow, Mulan and Aurora encounter him, it's a case of revenge and otherwise looking out for NO.1), this does not make him a life long martyr for principle, but it makes his origin story interesting to me in a way it wouldn't be if it simply were a case of "you killed my brother, prepare to die". (He already had that type of feud over Milah with Rumpel.)
Meanwhile, while in the current day main plot the boys are off so Hook can save David's life, the current day subplot actually is the one with the most interesting scene to me. After Emma, Snow and Regina capture one of the Lost Boys, the Lost Boy in question proves to be a bit more hardened than Edmund of Narnia fame and doesn't change sides on the lure of chocolate, presented by Regina (or the promise to be taken along home, presented by Emma). At which point Regina comes up with the smart if ruthless suggestion of using her Mother-and-Rumpel-learned ability to rip people's hearts out and make them her slave, Snow's against it and Emma sides with Regina, letting her go through with it. Several points here: a) it's a good continuity thing, Doylist wise, letting Regina use something she can do (but no one else of the group can), b) it also brings up the tricky question of ends justifying means or not (and I like that Snow isn't just arguing out of general principle here, but because she herself has done the ends-justify-means thing with Cora), and c) the episode lets it work, instead of going for the flat immediate punishment by narrative. Now what Regina did to the boy isn't final (as opposed to, say, Rumpelstilskin killing Tamara); he's still alive, she can return his heart. But neither is it something that can just be handwaved away as not mattering. I also wonder whether or not Emma, now that she has consented to the use of this particular power exercise, will be tempted to do it again (or learn how to herself). One thing I'm sure of: that Regina's remark to Snow (that Emma didn't do it, she did, and thus Emma isn't culpable) is missing the mark.
Henry's opening scene: okay, this was a Chekovian gun, err, sword, surely? I.e. the ability to change an object with your mind if you're the truest believer. Methinks Henry will have to do that again.
Soap opera alert: what I thought when Emma and Hook were kissing, because I was sure Neal would stumble on the scene at just that moment. (Having temporarily forgotten he got captured when last we saw him.) This did not happen, but given s1, I knew better than to assume the show can resist a love triangle, so it didn't surprise me when Peter Pan sprang the "Baelfire/Neal is alive!"news on Hook a minute later, leaving him a moral dilemma to chew on. At a guess, he won't tell Emma for most of the next episode but will eventually come clean, not just because of Emma but because he himself has Baelfire feelings.
PlotMcGuffin alert: so David is saved but in a way that makes it impossible for him to leave Neverland (alive). Methinks we have a new candidate for who'll take over Peter Pan's job as a way of defeating the current Pan, because I still think this will be the way things will work out. And Charming actually has the capacity for faith against the odds, albeit not under amnesia.
Speculation: the person in the other cage is practically bound to be Rumpelstilskin's father, after all the mentions of him in previous episodes. Alternate possibility: the unnamed king whose service young flashback Killian quit? (Since no one ages on Neverland.) Trying to resign myself to the inevitability of the Rumplefather's appearance, which I'm still extremely sceptical about as a plot point, I wonder which fairy tale/literary works character he could be, because I'm pretty sure he won't solely be an OC. Since we're currently in James Barrie land and the spin off is owed to Lewis Carroll, and otoh we also have Dr. Frankenstein and werewolves, I'm tempted to go for another Victorian-gone-cinematic-character: Dr. Henry Jekyll. Was there ever a Disney version of Jekyll & Hyde?
