Spinning, Spinning
Apr. 24th, 2014 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakHaving rewatched The Miller's Daughter in light of 3.18., I take back my assessment of the later as being great despite some clunky retcons, because actually, the new revelations fit with the old ones surprisingly well and even add to some of the characters' interactions if you go back and watch it.
Like Masquerade said in a comment, the behavior of both Eva and the King actually makes more sense with 3.18. in mind. Eva, after all, in The Miller's Daughter spots Cora (Cora doesn't see her yet) and deliberately trips her. If Cora is a random peasant stranger, that's just mean, even for spoiled brat!Princess Eva. If Cora otoh is the girl who almost managed to marry Eva's fiance, it's still malicious, but in a far more personal way. Ditto for the reaction of the King, the way he not only immediately makes Cora kneel and apologize to Eva but later at the ball when she shows up masqued almost immediately cuts in to her dance with Henry and gives her the "you'll always be a lowly peasant, go away already!" speech that provokes her into her "I can spin straw into gold" boast. If he is aware of Cora as a girl who already almost got one prince to marry her and only failed because she was exposed as already pregnant, the malice takes on a vindictive "oh, it's THIS upstart again, let's show her what's what!" undertone.
One reason why I've become so fond of Cora as a character (while fully acknowledging her as the villain she is): she's the agent of her own fate. Not that other people's actions don't factor in, but especially if you compare her story to both the original Rumpelstilskin fairy tale and to other characters in OuaT in similar positions, Cora is usually the one who sets things in motion. In the Grimm fairy tale, it's her father the Miller who (falsely) boasts that his daughter can spin straw into gold, and when Rumpelstilskin shows up to offer his baby versus help bargain, she tearfully agrees. That she's able to renege on the deal is not so much due to her but to one of her servants observing Rumpelstilkin and thus learning his name. Whereas in OuaT Cora's determination to not only escape the drudgery of her life as a Miller's daughter (and the de facto miller, considering her father doesn't seem to to do any of the work) but to make it all the way to the top of her society is there from the start and causes most (though not all) of her decisions. She's the one making the boast, and when Rumpelstilskin shows up, she's the one immediately demanding an alteration of the deal he proposes, that instead of him spinning the straw to gold he teaches her how to. (Incidentally, her readiness to agree to the child as orignally specified, i.e. "your firstborn child" also gains a layer in the light of 3.18., because while at this point she has only just met Rumple and definitely has no plans for the two of them, rewatching that scene I can see her thinking "good luck finding my firstborn child, stranger, she's already gone!" when signing the contract. Of course, her weeks - months? - later suggested second alteration of the contrast does no longer contain the word "firstborn" but specifies Rumplestilskin's child, which allows for a different loophole.)
The Cora in 3.18 is still more naive than the one in The Miller's Daughter flashbacks - the later wouldn't have fallen for the "I'm a prince!" story from the gardener and also would have been better at lying to Leopold - but already very determined and ambitious. The additional work in the tavern to earn more money seems to have been her idea, and she's handling herself with the guests. Telling Jonathan she's planning on becoming a lady one day precedes his "Prince!" pretense, it's not an idea he implants in her. The impression their scene gives is that she got to like him during his week at the tavern, but the decision to have sex with him definitely is due to the princely pretense and promise to marry her. (And again, he may be conning her re: his status and hoping this would get him a night, but Cora is the one who takes the initiative and actually suggests sex.) When she finds out the truth, it's a crush on her hopes and of course an enormous difficulty since Jonathan refuses to contribute any support for their child (and again, Cora immediately takes the initiative to do something about this by calling for the guards) , but I never had the impression she got her heart broken in a romantic sense. Which fits with older Cora answering Rumplestilskin's question when he's (temporarily) dying, they're alone and she thinks she's about to kill him (i.e. she has no reason to lie) as to whether she loved him with telling him he was the only man she ever truly loved.
The King in The Miller's Daughter is chronologically the first one to use Cora's later "love is a weakness" mantra when talking to her. Rewatching, I also noticed the echoes between older Cora telling Rumple "you were my weakness" , and Rumple telling Zelena in the It's not easy being green flashbacks that he was her weakness. If you've watched the spin-off, Once upon a time in Wonderland, and the episode wherein Cora guest stars, there is a fascinating flashback scene where Cora manipulates the young Anastasia, the later Red Queen, into following her footsteps - choosing royal ambition over her lover - and one of the things Cora tells Anastasia is that even if Anastasia reconsidered her choice, no man could forgive a woman having made it in the first place. Which always made me wonder whether she speaks of experience in this regard. But whether or not this is the case, Cora makes her choices (giving up her first born, giving up her heart) - and they're all her own choices, not decisions someone else makes for her.
More rewatch inspired thoughts about both episodes: you can see Rumplestislkin very carefully arranging a situation where Emma, Neal and David are busy elsewhere so he can make his pitch to Snow re: killing Cora in a manner that will save his life, and then later, once they're back, addressing every remark to her even when he's ostensibly talking to Emma. But, and here's, as with Cora, another reason why I love Snow, the show never has her being a victim manipulated by him into killing Cora. It's her decision. She has her eyes open. She knews what he's doing. And she calls him out on it. Also, she's both smart and hardcore enough to point out there is an alternative to using the candle on Cora - take Cora's heart to control Cora, thereby removing Cora as a threat to her family, and let Rumplestilskin die. To which our Mr. Gold doesn't say "but you're a hero, you' d never do that!", no, he points out how that would look to Henry, what with him being Henry's grandfather. (Given that at this point he's in the stages of seriously considering to off the kid, this is particularly rich.) That Snow is able to successfully talk Regina into putting Cora's heart back inside Cora is due to the same reason why Snow in 3.18 in the final scene gets through to Regina with her "you feel things deeply" pep talk in the last-but-one scene; most of the time, Snow actually is really good at emotionally reading Regina.
Cora's death is also brought about by her choices, though, in every detail: the lethal life exchanging candle is her own creation, something originally used to torment/tempt little Snow White with; Regina and Regina's deep insecurity about whether or not her mother loves her that Snow uses is the result of Cora's life long need to have Regina live a life that justifies Cora's own choices; Snow's readiness to kill her is the result of a whole variety of Cora decisions, killing Eva (which Snow only found out about in the episode preceding The Miller's Daughter) being but one of them, and they definitely include the original manipulation of child!Snow into revealing Regina's secret, where Cora used truths to deceive about her intent in pretty much exactly the same way Snow does when tricking Regina. Which makes it so fitting that Snow and Regina find out the truth about the family feud (and Zelena's goal) via ghost!Cora giving Snow her memories. Snow may have looked up to Eva as an idol (not surprising, given that her own early childhood memories of Eva were genuinely good ones and Leopold thereafter extolled Eva's memory at every chance he got), but the irony is that Regina and Cora shaped her far more than Eva ever did, and she knows more about them than she does about Eva.
Lastly: as I said in my 3.18 review, yep, that line of Snow's about wondering what made Eva change for the better definitely sounds like the set up for a future story for me.
Like Masquerade said in a comment, the behavior of both Eva and the King actually makes more sense with 3.18. in mind. Eva, after all, in The Miller's Daughter spots Cora (Cora doesn't see her yet) and deliberately trips her. If Cora is a random peasant stranger, that's just mean, even for spoiled brat!Princess Eva. If Cora otoh is the girl who almost managed to marry Eva's fiance, it's still malicious, but in a far more personal way. Ditto for the reaction of the King, the way he not only immediately makes Cora kneel and apologize to Eva but later at the ball when she shows up masqued almost immediately cuts in to her dance with Henry and gives her the "you'll always be a lowly peasant, go away already!" speech that provokes her into her "I can spin straw into gold" boast. If he is aware of Cora as a girl who already almost got one prince to marry her and only failed because she was exposed as already pregnant, the malice takes on a vindictive "oh, it's THIS upstart again, let's show her what's what!" undertone.
One reason why I've become so fond of Cora as a character (while fully acknowledging her as the villain she is): she's the agent of her own fate. Not that other people's actions don't factor in, but especially if you compare her story to both the original Rumpelstilskin fairy tale and to other characters in OuaT in similar positions, Cora is usually the one who sets things in motion. In the Grimm fairy tale, it's her father the Miller who (falsely) boasts that his daughter can spin straw into gold, and when Rumpelstilskin shows up to offer his baby versus help bargain, she tearfully agrees. That she's able to renege on the deal is not so much due to her but to one of her servants observing Rumpelstilkin and thus learning his name. Whereas in OuaT Cora's determination to not only escape the drudgery of her life as a Miller's daughter (and the de facto miller, considering her father doesn't seem to to do any of the work) but to make it all the way to the top of her society is there from the start and causes most (though not all) of her decisions. She's the one making the boast, and when Rumpelstilskin shows up, she's the one immediately demanding an alteration of the deal he proposes, that instead of him spinning the straw to gold he teaches her how to. (Incidentally, her readiness to agree to the child as orignally specified, i.e. "your firstborn child" also gains a layer in the light of 3.18., because while at this point she has only just met Rumple and definitely has no plans for the two of them, rewatching that scene I can see her thinking "good luck finding my firstborn child, stranger, she's already gone!" when signing the contract. Of course, her weeks - months? - later suggested second alteration of the contrast does no longer contain the word "firstborn" but specifies Rumplestilskin's child, which allows for a different loophole.)
The Cora in 3.18 is still more naive than the one in The Miller's Daughter flashbacks - the later wouldn't have fallen for the "I'm a prince!" story from the gardener and also would have been better at lying to Leopold - but already very determined and ambitious. The additional work in the tavern to earn more money seems to have been her idea, and she's handling herself with the guests. Telling Jonathan she's planning on becoming a lady one day precedes his "Prince!" pretense, it's not an idea he implants in her. The impression their scene gives is that she got to like him during his week at the tavern, but the decision to have sex with him definitely is due to the princely pretense and promise to marry her. (And again, he may be conning her re: his status and hoping this would get him a night, but Cora is the one who takes the initiative and actually suggests sex.) When she finds out the truth, it's a crush on her hopes and of course an enormous difficulty since Jonathan refuses to contribute any support for their child (and again, Cora immediately takes the initiative to do something about this by calling for the guards) , but I never had the impression she got her heart broken in a romantic sense. Which fits with older Cora answering Rumplestilskin's question when he's (temporarily) dying, they're alone and she thinks she's about to kill him (i.e. she has no reason to lie) as to whether she loved him with telling him he was the only man she ever truly loved.
The King in The Miller's Daughter is chronologically the first one to use Cora's later "love is a weakness" mantra when talking to her. Rewatching, I also noticed the echoes between older Cora telling Rumple "you were my weakness" , and Rumple telling Zelena in the It's not easy being green flashbacks that he was her weakness. If you've watched the spin-off, Once upon a time in Wonderland, and the episode wherein Cora guest stars, there is a fascinating flashback scene where Cora manipulates the young Anastasia, the later Red Queen, into following her footsteps - choosing royal ambition over her lover - and one of the things Cora tells Anastasia is that even if Anastasia reconsidered her choice, no man could forgive a woman having made it in the first place. Which always made me wonder whether she speaks of experience in this regard. But whether or not this is the case, Cora makes her choices (giving up her first born, giving up her heart) - and they're all her own choices, not decisions someone else makes for her.
More rewatch inspired thoughts about both episodes: you can see Rumplestislkin very carefully arranging a situation where Emma, Neal and David are busy elsewhere so he can make his pitch to Snow re: killing Cora in a manner that will save his life, and then later, once they're back, addressing every remark to her even when he's ostensibly talking to Emma. But, and here's, as with Cora, another reason why I love Snow, the show never has her being a victim manipulated by him into killing Cora. It's her decision. She has her eyes open. She knews what he's doing. And she calls him out on it. Also, she's both smart and hardcore enough to point out there is an alternative to using the candle on Cora - take Cora's heart to control Cora, thereby removing Cora as a threat to her family, and let Rumplestilskin die. To which our Mr. Gold doesn't say "but you're a hero, you' d never do that!", no, he points out how that would look to Henry, what with him being Henry's grandfather. (Given that at this point he's in the stages of seriously considering to off the kid, this is particularly rich.) That Snow is able to successfully talk Regina into putting Cora's heart back inside Cora is due to the same reason why Snow in 3.18 in the final scene gets through to Regina with her "you feel things deeply" pep talk in the last-but-one scene; most of the time, Snow actually is really good at emotionally reading Regina.
Cora's death is also brought about by her choices, though, in every detail: the lethal life exchanging candle is her own creation, something originally used to torment/tempt little Snow White with; Regina and Regina's deep insecurity about whether or not her mother loves her that Snow uses is the result of Cora's life long need to have Regina live a life that justifies Cora's own choices; Snow's readiness to kill her is the result of a whole variety of Cora decisions, killing Eva (which Snow only found out about in the episode preceding The Miller's Daughter) being but one of them, and they definitely include the original manipulation of child!Snow into revealing Regina's secret, where Cora used truths to deceive about her intent in pretty much exactly the same way Snow does when tricking Regina. Which makes it so fitting that Snow and Regina find out the truth about the family feud (and Zelena's goal) via ghost!Cora giving Snow her memories. Snow may have looked up to Eva as an idol (not surprising, given that her own early childhood memories of Eva were genuinely good ones and Leopold thereafter extolled Eva's memory at every chance he got), but the irony is that Regina and Cora shaped her far more than Eva ever did, and she knows more about them than she does about Eva.
Lastly: as I said in my 3.18 review, yep, that line of Snow's about wondering what made Eva change for the better definitely sounds like the set up for a future story for me.
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Date: 2016-11-27 03:33 am (UTC)