Once Upon A Time

I don't really see how its NOT lazy or bad writing. Taking on more storylines at one time than you can coherently tell is a mark of bad writing. We have a trope for that: Four Lines All Waiting. And it speaks laziness to me since it looks like the writers are far more interested in current plots or creating more plots than some of the others that they've already started; seemingly getting bored with some after a single episode (King George, Cinderella's Prince, Lacy)

There's a certain extent to which you can leave an audience waiting for more. But, Once doesn't really do that. We've seen Cinderella's Prince since Season 1 and he's perfectly fine in Storybrooke. It seems logical that, once everyone had their memory back, the first question they should ask each other is "Holy shit, where the hell were you dragged off to that night?!"

But, since its been actual YEARS since they've gotten their memories back and we've seen them perfectly functioning since, its kind of past the logical time to address that plotline. That isn't to say you can't bring it up; better late than never, but its so far outside of the plot this point that it would take a lot of effort to drag it back in.

In the case of Mulan-Aruora, she hasn't even been on set for two Seasons so it really did look like the plot was dropped and it still might be dropped depending on this season; they might be as much of a post-it-note as Will Scarlet was in Season 4. Which screams of unfortunate implications that the plot was dropped considering it was a Lesbian plotline. On top of that, I really liked the plotline because its a plot with no easy answer to it and that's where there's potential for great writing and characters to blossom. Kind of wasted potential.

With Will Scarlet, I kind of expected to get some idea of what's going on with him and never did. He's appearing out of nowhere and is suddenly in a relationship with a character he's NEVER been seen interacting with before with no explanation as to the end of his previous one that took an entire season of character development to get to??? He doesn't have any plotlines of his own in Season 4, no role in anyone else's plotlines, and there's a reason he's listed in YMMV for "Billing Displacement" and "Strangled by the Red String". It makes me question why they bothered to put him into Season 2 at all and maybe give what little scenes he had to someone else entirely. Why not have Belle not be dating at all and just simply have a really close friend that Rumple is envious of??? Why would you fill the role of "Satellite love interest for what was already a satellite love interest" with a character that's already in a committed relationship?

It does NOT help that the writers teased that he'd have a big role in Season 4 when he's barely worth a post-it note in hindsight.

On top of that, he's been demoted to a Guest Role for next season based on what I can find which doesn't sound promising at all. It suggests to me that they're not going to answer what his deal is if they're going to give him an even smaller role. They expect those of us who watched the Spin-off to recognize him, but they don't answer us when we're rightly confused by his role of 'satellite love interest'? It just... makes no sense. There's no logic to this...

One of my number one rules of writing: Do NOT do it unless you A) have a full plan on exactly where said character/plot/whatever will go and B) have the needed time allotment and circumstances to take the plot/character/whatever to its logical conclusion without the use of off screen moments or telling the audience rather than showing them (which are the most common forms of bad writing). If you cannot perform either, don't do it. Writing is about budgeting your content to your allotted length.

I swear I like this show; its been a rough journey and I've been critical, but there's a lot to like. Which is why I'm so critical because it could be even better.

Mulan and Aurora got dropped because there was a violent anti reaction to Team Princesses. Ruby and Whale ran off for different shows, King George's plans to take over the town where resolved back in season 2.

I will agree that re-hashing Will was bad, and Lacey's plotline was rushed however: the former is a case of needing someone to fill the role of "Belle's new dating partner to get over Rumple" and no one wanting to use Archie for that, the later was a crunch for time.

Can someone remind me who Lacey is? Because you're not doing a great job of convincing me that her dropped plot was important in any way when I only watched the entire series a year ago and can't remember a thing about her.

Lacey is Belle's curse persona, who turned up after Season 1 because magic shenanigans.

King George's plot wasn't resolved. I remember him watching Henry and David sword fighting in the street from a far and I don't think he's been mentioned since. I don't remember any resolution on the plotline and it's listed under Aborted Arc or something on the works page. If I'm mistaken, can someone tell me what episode it was?

Lacy was Belle's cursed persona from Season... I think it was Season 2? Belle got cursed into being a really kind of evil sadistic person (she's basically getting turned on by watching Rumple beat the living shit out of a guy with his cane) as to ruin Rumple's happy ending. She kind of exists for a few episodes as this persona and then she gets changed back without it really going anywhere. The writers said they had bigger plans for her and Ruby in Season 2, but they didn't have time so that's why the Lacy plot goes nowhere.

The problem of Will being "love interest for Belle to drive Rumple jealous" is that he's just not a logical choice. He's in a committed relationship last we see him and they've yet to explain if she's dead or they got a divorce or... ??? Which also makes it even more jarring when he's near insantly in a relationship with Belle without even a scene to establish that they so much as love eachother. It also looks awkward for Will's character if Anastasia died and he didn't really have any mourning process or much time to get over his relationship that took an entire season to build up.

Which is why I advocated for Belle to have just a close friend or two to drive Rumple crazy instead and avoid the romance issue all together. Can't imagine why Belle would be interested into rushing into a relationship after just getting an unofficial divorce for, presumably, a very long term relationship.

About King George: He attempts to rally the townsfolk into a mob against Charming and Ruby after it's learned that Ruby is a werewolf.

He murders a mechanic and makes it look like a werewolf attack after stealing Ruby's cloak so she can't control her change: Charming later makes a big heartfelt speech in Ruby's defense that wins the town over, George escapes and burns the Mad Hatter's Hat so Charming can't go rescue Snow and Emma, and the last time we see him is when Charming takes him into custody.

Presumably he's in Regina's personal asylum/prison like Zelena, since he's not in the Sheriff's holding cells and really shouldn't be.

So yeah. Resolved

Oh. That's right. I did forget about that scene. I don't remember him getting taken into custody and locked up, but I will concede on that example of a dropped plotline.

So, just taking a shot in the dark, Emma will be the only one that can draw Excalibur. 'Cause why not.

Because she's not Arthur?

She may be savior, but not of EVERY story.

My "why not" was sarcastic.

Clearly Henry will be the one.

Well he is the Author.

But the pen is mightier than the sword.

But he broke the pen...

So he is mightier than the pen?

He broke the pen because it was too powerful, so...

Eh, well in that case I'm glad they decided to stick with him being an antagonist lest he become the second coming of Sylar.

edited 17th Sep '15 6:28:36 AM by VeryMelon

Which I still find to have been a foolish move. Not saying power can't corrupt, but that doesn't mean it might not be useful later on.

That's literally exactly the kind of thinking that justifies breaking it.

I disagree. Just because one person abused its potential doesn't mean that everyone will abuse it. Regina and Rumple have abused the shit out of magic in near EXACTLY the same way as the Quill can, but no one is destroying magic; only preaching that magic should be used with caution. I'll admit its probably only something that should be used with no other option available, but that doesn't mean its worth destroying. Henry's ability to destroy it at all, in front of one of the previous authors no less, makes me question why it exists at all to be completely honest. I mean, we did just save the day only moments before because that Quill existed in the first place.

To an extent, we as an audience know that the writers of the show (hopefully) won't put Henry in a situation where the only solution is the Quill now that he's completely destroyed it, but none of the characters know what's going to happen later and none of them know that they'd never ever need that magic again.

A few things in that scene confused me. The above was one. I was then confused about the old author's comments on 'Hook died in a fiction so he could be brought back' kind of thing. That... confuses me. The Author lived in the Enchanted Forest too (seemingly) and within those stories, not to mention that Snow and Charming and Rumples are all from there too. What makes them or their actions and consequences less real and reversible? And why is Issac's 'Heroes and Villains', as awful of a place as it was, any less than the story recorded in 'Once Upon a Time'?

A second thing was his mention of the original "Once Upon a Time" book being 'the truth'. How so? Because, based on everything we've been told this entire half of the season, SOMEONE has been writing those events to happen in the first place rather than someone recording that events happened. Issac's written events of forcing Snow and Charming to kidnap the Dragon's Egg were in that book too and I don't see how that was 'truthful' at all. Apply that to everything else that's happened in every character's backstories and I don't see how anything in the book could be 'truthful'.

It also removes any responsibility of anyone's actions in the backstory... Snow and Charming stealing a Dragon's Egg? Author forced them to do it. Regina keeps doing awful things? Author wrote her that way. Zelina becoming obessed with her sister's "happily ever after"? She had no choice! It... gets really uncomfortable to think that Snow and Charming SEMI get a free pass on doing something bad because they were written to do that, but a bunch of other characters will get no such free pass even if the same circumstances still apply.

Its really confusing.

I think we're supposed to believe that the Author directly medlling in the stories is a relatively recent thing, with Snow and Charming's egg stealing as his first major interference. Regina's kept on being the Evil Queen because that actually was her choice to do so. The author says that the page with her kissing Robin Hood was a piece of experimental writing? The Author's fanfiction?

How is he medding though? If the Author's job is to write the stories with the Magic Pen and they become reality, why is his writing Charming and Snow to do a bad thing 'meddling' when he would probably write about them doing something else anyway?

The only flaw that I really see is that he wrote himself into the story, and I can understand why that could be a no-no. But, the Old!Author seems upset that he had Snow and Charming steal the Egg at all and how he's writing 'to create a more interesting story'. Isn't creating an interesting story his job? Sure, we as the audience don't entirely like his 'Heroes and Villains' story because it rewrites EVERYONE'S backstories to being a lot darker and its not a very happy story either, but that's somewhat subjective from an in-universe perspective.

There isn't much of a line drawn between how much agency Snow and Charming have over their own story vs. the Author. At the moment, it looks like the Author has written everything (because he wrote 'Once Upon a Time') and everyone is just playing the role that they've been given.

Though, its entirely possible I missed something. I'm always open to being wrong which is why I approach with confusion.

I would assume the Regina-Robin page was something the author wrote without the use of the Pen. Similar to the notion of 'Measure twice, cut once'. It was probably a test to see 'Would this plot line idea work?' before actually writing it out in a reality altering ink which could have dire consequences. Could you imagine if he made a spelling or grammar mistake? "Let's eat, grandma." vs. "Let's eat grandma!" Having a scrap notebook to write out ideas seems perfectly logical. Though, I don't know why he'd put so much effort into illustrating something he scrapped, but that's probably more for audience purposes since we're in a visual medium.

edited 18th Sep '15 3:40:07 PM by InkDagger

I see what's happening. You misunderstood what the Author's function actually is.

They don't write the stories. Their job isn't to make things happen. It's to record them.

Then why would their pen make things happen at all? If their job is to record, than allowing the pen to rewrite anything you so choose seems... irrelevant to the occupation. Wouldn't any old pen work if that's the case?

There's an element of magic to the role, although I don't fully understand why. Probably has something to do with needing to be able to record the events of all worlds.

The an object like a magic bean or Jefferson's hat would seem more appropriate than a reality writing pen. If the Authors aren't supposed to write reality, then why give them the ability to do so at all?

That is a confusing matter. The creators say we will get more of Henry as the author so we might find out for sure but my theory is that it was created by the sorcerer (or another powerful force of magic) but was too good. It was meant to link word and reality by reality —> word (so authors could track multiple interesting stories that happened at the same time and get details of dangerous situations without being in danger) but ended up being powerful enough to go the other way too. Or maybe it could alter reality with the intention being as a last resort if authors did get into a dangerous situation.

It is annoying that we weren't told as part of Isaac's story but there are possible solutions.