It's Only the End if You Want it to Be

bellefrenchfries:

Damn right she goes out alone in the middle of the damn forest to shoot her damn arrows and listen to her damn rock music to relieve her damn tension because she is Snow Damn White damnit.

This pretty much immediately became my favorite scene, if you guys can’t tell. xD

I’ve come to the conclusion that Mary Margaret is basically exactly what I would be like if I were like 500x cooler than I actually am.

Y’know, and a fairytale character.

Well, darn it, Once Upon a Time…

… You actually come up with a couple I could get behind shipping, and you kill off one-half of that couple in the same episode? OUCH.

On the plus side, this week’s episode was a BIG step up from last week’s, which I found pointless and saccharine. This one felt much less silly, fleshed out Red’s character nicely, had nice friendship moments between Snow/MM, Red/Ruby, and Emma as well as a truly sweet development of the relationship between Ruby and her grandmother, and had several genuinely surprising twists there at the end. Nicely done, writers. And it looks like the next episode is going to be a goodie as well.

I just wish this show would do better when it comes to the romance. So many of their couples seem to be “one-episode wonders”, and while that might work for some people, I can’t find myself rooting for a couple unless I see a more realistic build-up of the relationship. It’s like these writers think they can just TELL us that couples are in love, and feel no obligation to actually show (or even imply) love growing over time. Red and Peter were a step in the right direction since the show at least bothered to establish that they’d been friends for a long time before falling in love. (To clarify, I don’t need couples to have known each other for years before falling in love or anything - all I’m asking for is some genuine build-up, here.)

To end this mini-review on a more positive note, though, this episode also did a LOT to rehabilitate David’s character in my eyes. I’d been pretty much hating him for the last few episodes, but his reaction to Kathryn’s death was genuinely moving (nice acting, Josh Dallas!) and then him immediately telling Emma to arrest him showed the kind of nobility and honor that this character has been severely lacking outside of the fairytale realm. Since David is clearly meant to be the show’s leading man, I’m thrilled to be able to root for him again.

Thoughts on Snow and Charming (SPOILERS FOR THE 1/22 EPISODE OF OUAT)

(NOTE: This post contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 10 of Once Upon a Time. Stay away if you have not yet watched this episode and don’t want to be spoiled.)

Right then. Let’s get started.

Tonight’s episode focused a lot on the Mary/David, Snow/Charming relationship. This isn’t surprising. Snow and Charming are basically the show’s Official Couple as of now. And up until tonight’s episode, I had been quite liking their relationship. Sure, I didn’t like David constantly waffling back and forth between Mary and his wife, but considering the situation he’s in, I was willing to make allowances. And he hadn’t actually cheated, which made it easier to excuse. Plus, their interactions were utterly adorable, especially in the fairytale world.

Tonight’s episode changed how I felt about them. A lot.

First, let’s address what we found out about the Snow/Charming side of the relationship.

Tonight’s fairytale flashback starts off with Snow unable to get Charming out of her mind, despite the fact that his wedding is approaching. She is so desperate to be “cured” of her love that she seeks out Rumpelstiltskin and makes a deal with him (never a good idea, and Snow is a smart enough gal to know that). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Charming can’t stop thinking about Snow either, so he sends her a note, telling her that he loves her, and if she feels the same way, she should come meet him and they will run away together. And sure enough, Snow sets off.

Essentially, he just proposed marriage. Not only that, Charming knows the trouble he can cause for both the kingdom and his mother by running off with Snow. He’s taking a huge leap here, but that’s (supposedly) fine because it’s in the name of “true love”. Both Snow and Charming, in fact, use the word “love”, and the amount that they’re willing to risk to be together clearly shows that they believe it’s the real deal, and the audience is supposed to believe it too.

The only problem? They’ve met each other all of exactly once at this point.

I know, I know. Love at first sight is hardly unheard of in fairy tales. Love at first sight is, in fact, what happened between Snow and Charming in the original fairy tale. But, let’s face it, OUAT hasn’t exactly felt compelled to stick precisely to the original stories. And that’s a good thing - we all know the basic forms of these fairy tales. The fun comes with the unexpected twists and original interpretations. But in addition to adding interesting twists, some of the changes the show has made have very been clearly been done so as to make the story more appealing and accessible to a modern audience - making Snow a much stronger, less passive heroine, for example. While I can hardly speak for modern civilization as a whole, for my part, one of the changes I would have wanted them to make in that vein is establishing a connection between Snow and Charming based on the two truly getting to know each other and falling in love over time, rather than falling in love based on one meeting alone.

The show’s decision to do otherwise is especially baffling considering that they specifically altered the original story by having Snow White and Prince Charming know each other before the scene where he wakes her up from the poisoned sleep. When I saw the first episode, this was one of the things I liked the most, as I thought it meant that the show meant to establish a genuinely deep and meaningful relationship between Snow and Charming, as opposed to falling back on the tired old “love at first sight” cliche. Yet here we are ten episodes later, and we find out that they supposedly fell in love after meeting only once after all. I find this unrealistic, and frankly disappointing. To me, love is about truly knowing the other person, inside and out. It’s about knowing their good sides, their bad sides, and the little things that make them unique. It’s about being able to trust the other person completely, to confide in them, to support them and get support back. Snow and Charming had not known each other long enough to have that.To be sure, their first meeting had laid a strong foundation. They had learned important things about each other, found themselves able to trust each other and be honest with each other, and worked together as a team. They might well have started to fall in love, but the process was just beginning. They hadn’t yet formed a real relationship. One meeting, no matter how much it affected them, is simply not enough for me to find the supposedly deep and powerful love between them believable.

Now, on to the Mary/David side of things.

First of all: I hear a lot of people saying that it isn’t really cheating because Snow and Charming were married in the fairytale world, and David isn’t really married to Kathryn. This is invalid, IMO. I judge people’s actions based on the information that they have or don’t have. David thinks he is married to Kathryn. Mary thinks he is married to Kathryn. Kathryn thinks he is married to her, and will be genuinely hurt and betrayed if she finds out about his affair. Furthermore, David chose to go back to Kathryn. He could have separated from her (if not actually divorced her) until he figured things out, but instead he chose to go back to her, and promised to try and make things work. That promise was not something he was forced into or a circumstance beyond his control. It is a choice that he made of his own free will, and, as such, he is obligated to honor that commitment to Kathryn. If all the relevant parties think that David and Kathryn are married, and David and Kathryn have promised to be committed to each other and try to make things work as a couple, then, for all intents and purposes, they are married. Legalities aside, it’s cheating, plain and simple.

There’s also the fact that, as in the fairytale world, Mary and David are claiming to be in love despite the fact that they barely know each other. This is somewhat more excusable since they subconsciously remember the relationship they had in the fairytale world and what they meant to each other, but for the most part, it once again feels like the show is simply trying to tell us that these two people are deeply in love, without taking the time to establish a genuinely meaningful relationship between them.

Possibly the most aggravating aspect for me, though, was Mary and David acting as though the two of them having an affair would be fine (or at least less wrong) as long as David’s wife wasn’t pregnant. Uh… what? Since when is adultery okay as long as your spouse isn’t pregnant? I get that the thinking was that if Kathryn was pregnant, it would be that much harder for David to leave her for MM, but the fact remains that either way, David hasn’t left her, and he doesn’t seem to really show any signs that he intends to leave her. Instead, he reassures her that he’s committed to her and intends to make their marriage work whenever she questions him. And then he goes and pines after Mary Margaret, and tells her about how he has all these feeeeeelings for her, and tries to kiss her. This is monumentally unfair to both women, although of course Mary does her part in this tango too. In any case, if David intends to explore his feelings for Mary Margaret, then he’s obligated to do the honorable thing and leave Kathryn first. And if he isn’t going to leave Kathryn, then he and Mary Margaret have to keep their hands off each other and let it go. It’s as simple as that.

Bottom line: I get it. David and Mary Margaret are Snow White and Prince Charming. They’re soulmates. They’re destined to be together. I get it, I really do. But this is quickly turning into a case of Strangled by the Red String. You can’t just tell me that they’re meant for each other, and expect that to be enough. You have to make me believe it. You have to make me want them to be together. Ginnifer and Josh’s chemistry and acting talent helps in that regard, but it’s not enough. You have to establish an actual relationship between the two of them, you have to create a genuinely deep bond, not just try to convince me that such a bond already exists between two people who barely know each other. Show, don’t tell.

Bill Willingham on “Once Upon a Time”

As I noted a while back, ABC’s new TV series Once Upon a Time bears quite a resemblance to the awesome comic-book series Fables, written by the amazing Bill Willingham. Both stories revolve around classic fairytale characters (Snow White, Prince Charming, Cinderella, etc.) driven out of their home world and into our world by an enemy, where they are living in hiding in a secret community. 

I was far from the only one to notice the similarities (though there are also many differences between the two, both in terms of plot and characterization), and apparently some hardcore Fables fans have taken it beyond mere observation and declared “war” on ABC’s new show, to the point that Fables writer and creator Bill Willingham felt he needed to address the issue.

Here’s what he had to say (written in a Q&A style format, although Willingham played both “roles”. Source here):

So let’s dive right in to the deep end. Is “Once Upon a Time” (which we should now refer to as “Once” for brevity) a rip off of “Fables?”

My best guess, based upon the scanty evidence, is probably not.

Is “Once” influenced and at least in part inspired by “Fables?”

My best guess, based upon the same scanty evidence is, yes, it probably is, but perhaps not on more than a “this is the type of thing that’s in the air these days” level.

Why do you say that? The characters from “Fables” live in modern times, in a secret community called Fabletown, more or less hiding in plain sight, and the characters from “Once” live in modern times, in a secret community called Storybrooke, more or less hiding in plane sight. That seems pretty close to me.

That’s hardly damning. Our fantastic literature is rife with “they’ve been hiding amongst us all along” scenarios. There were plenty of such tales long before “Fables” came along. There will be scads of them long after “Once” has aired its final episode and “Fables” shipped its final issue. If you start with the notion of fairy tale characters still alive in the modern world, the next step of placing them in a secret community seems almost axiomatic.

What about the network? Long before “Once” was aired from ABC, didn’t that same network have a deal to produce “Fables” as a TV series?

Yes, but that by itself doesn’t prove anything. First of all, I am and always was on the outside of any deals between DC/Warner and any studio regarding a “Fables” adaptation. DC didn’t want me as part of the deal making and paid handsomely not to have me directly involved. So it was their baby all along. As such, I was never privy to the details of that supposed deal with ABC. I heard the same rumors you did, that the writers of that project weren’t supposed to have made the big announcement when they did. In any case, the ABC “Fables” project went no further than creating an unproduced pilot script. I eventually got to read that pilot, and it was a far cry from anything to do with “Fables.”

So there was no actual deal for “Fables” at ABC?

Who knows? There was something, but my limited experience with the imaginary place called Hollywood is that there are levels of deals, always including plenty of opportunities to kill a project. Judging entirely by my admittedly biased take on that proposed pilot, this was a deal worth killing.

So how did that lead to them doing a different but similar fairy tale project?

I can imagine many scenarios that don’t involve anyone at ABC or the “Once” camp doing anything nefarious. In fact, one would have to be mightily conspiracy minded to suspect some sort of attempt to do a “Fables” knockoff so as not to pay for it. It’s much easier to presume a situation where, since the “Fables” deal fell through, for whatever of so many possible reasons, some of the folks at ABC still wanted to do something in that subgenre and found a way to do it. No villains needed in this version. No smoking gun. Remember, this is the age where fairy tale and folklore based stories are in the air. “Fables” didn’t start it. In that light, it would be harder to imagine situations where there weren’t plenty of similar projects making the rounds.

What about some of the inconsistencies of the “Once” creators talking about their series in public?

What about them?

Hasn’t it been stated that at first the “Once” creators denied ever having read “Fables,” and then later admitted it? That seems a bit suspicious.

But that wasn’t actually the way it happened. There were two creators of “Once.” At the time (2003 or 4) they were coming up with the ideas behind “Once,” one had not read “Fables” before and one had.

How do you know that?

I asked them.

Oh. Well —

It’s perfectly reasonable to assume it happened as stated. I am the world’s best example that the human mind is far from a computer with perfect memory. Offhand, I can list (as I’ve mentioned many times before) a dozen projects that came out in my lifetime that influenced the creation of “Fables.” They include the “Fractured Fairy Tales” cartoons, “The 10th Kingdom,” “The Charmings” (which I never saw in its short run, but I knew about), “Into the Woods,” “Castle Waiting” and so many more. “Fables” was inspired in part by all of those things, but ripped off not a one of them. And here’s the rub: I’m certain there are just as many more stories and properties that I read, or watched, or heard, or heard of, that I couldn’t recall now to save my life, but which also went into the idea-mix that eventually spawned “Fables.” I know this because all too often I reread a beloved old book, or rewatch an old movie and realize, “Ah ha, that’s where I got that idea that I used in (fill in the name of the story), and thought I’d come up with entirely on my own.” It happens.

I have no trouble imagining the harried creators of “Once,” tired of being badgered from the audience every time they talk about their series, finally taking a look at the “Fables” comics they were accused of stealing, and realizing, “Oh yeah, one of us did see some of these books before,” among the many stories that slowly helped build the idea for “Once” in their minds.

That’s the nature of the beast. Storytellers get much of their ideas and inspiration from other stories. If handled in a non-sinister manner, those stories are not immediately copied, in whole or in part, but instead sent down into the mind’s basement kitchen, to stew and simmer, along with all of the other stuff already down there, filtering out the good from the bad, the better from the good, adding in a dose of “yes, but I would have done it differently,” until something new and original, and absolutely not a rip off, rises out of the cauldron, ready to become one’s own stories. It’s this same process that makes it so easy to forget where all the individual bits came from.

You seem awfully willing to take them at their word.

Of course. Writing is tough. I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who’s able to go through to endless soul-grinders along the path to becoming successful at it. Who knows? Maybe they did remember reading “Fables” back then, but didn’t want to mention it because we’ve become a very litigious people. We can and will sue anyone about anything, and the only practical way to protect oneself against such mischief is to always deny everything as our standard default setting. This may not be an admirable practice, but it’s perfectly understandable. All it proves though, if true, was that “Fables” played some part in inspiring what eventually became their show. As I stated above, I suspect that’s so, but that’s a far cry from theft — not even in the ballpark.

So, if there’s no problem between “Fables” and “Once,” why concoct this interview?

Partly as a call to arms — or more accurately, a call to disarm. As grateful as I am to discover so many loyal “Fables” readers, willing to man the barricades, to help protect a story they love; as much as it moves me to realize I’ve been part in creating something that clearly moves you, affecting your lives in ways only a good story, well-told can, I think it’s time to lay off. Perhaps it’s time to quit rising up in public venues to accuse these folks of Grand Theft “Fables,” even if you still think it’s so.

One of the wiser men to enter my life was a humble but impressive itinerant history professor, who taught satellite college courses to soldiers stationed in small bases, scattered throughout Western Germany (back when Germany was still divided). He once gave me very good advice I’ve tried to live by ever since. “Choose your causes carefully,” he said. “If not, if you try to champion every good cause that comes along, you’ll wear yourself out, at best, and worse, become a dilettante — an ineffective dabbler. Pick a few that are the most near and dear to you, and give them your all, trusting that others are out there handling the other causes with equal fervor.” So let me pass along his wisdom by urging you to choose your causes carefully, and in this case, champion better causes than trying to prove that one unimportant (in the grand scheme of things) entertainment story might owe too much to another. There are worse crisis and better things for which to boldly take up arms.

Do you like “Once?”

I’ll give you a general and then a specific answer to that. I like anything that raises the awareness of fairy tales and folklore as the raw stuff from which some of our best stories are being told today. The mercenary part of me hopes that every single fan of “Once” will also check out “Fables.” Remember, stories aren’t automatically in competition with each other. If I like Batman, it doesn’t mean I have to dislike Captain America. I’d hate for “Fables” to be the only fairy tale-based story out there. If that were the case, I’d have nothing to read or watch for pleasure in this genre I love. I want more of what I want. Snacks are nice, but a feast is better.

And specifically?

It’s not often a TV is known for subtlety, but to have Riding Hood, for example, whose original tale was all about food delivery to Grandma, translated into a waitress in a diner in the modern world, still bringing the goodies to — well the customers tables in this case — that was clever. But they didn’t shine a big light on it, they trusted the viewers to catch that for themselves. And the wink at CS Lewis by making their version of Geppetto carve a magic wardrobe as the way to transport Snow and Charming’s daughter away to safety — and to an alien world — that was nicely done.

As a writer toiling in the same vineyards, there are some things that I would have advised doing differently. The use of modern attitudes and colloquialisms in the flashback scenes to a medieval(esque) past was not a choice I would have made, but it’s not a deal-killer for me.

The real proof of a story is, does it draw you in? In books, does it keep you turning the pages, and then inspire you enough to make that effort to get the next issue? In TV, does it bring you back next week for the next episode? “Once” does that for me. I want to know what the evil queen is up to. Why did she craft a curse that imprisons everyone in the future, but leaves them unaware of their punishment? And what value is it to her, if she has to stay in town with them, working her ass off to keep them contained? So far, it seems more of a punishment to her than to them. This makes me suspect many things. One possibility is that she somehow fell victim to her own curse, and the show’s other villain, Rumplestiltskin, is the one playing the more complex and manipulative game. Who knows? But apparently they’ve hooked me long enough to want to find out. There are other things worth mentioning, but I’ve babbled on too long.

What about the scruffy sheriff in “Once?” He seems awfully close to —

Yeah, if it turned out he was actually the Big Bad Wolf, I might have started to get a wee bit territorial. But he’s not.

How do you know?

I cheated. I asked them.

So who is he then?

Sheriff Graham is exactly who I guessed he might be. But I won’t give that away.

Anything else you want to add?

Just to reiterate that there’s no war here. If you like “Fables,” you needn’t dislike “Once,” and vice versa. Join me in wallowing in all of it. And then take a look at all the other grand stuff out there right now, or coming down the pike. Along with “Fables,” read “Kill Shakespeare” and “The Unwritten,” “Memorial,” “Mice Templar” and “Mouse Guard.” Read “The Stuff of Legend” and “Castle Waiting” and all the other gems in the same general category. It’s the new age of old time stories. Along with “Once,” I’m looking forward to “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Mirror, Mirror.” There can’t be enough different takes on this character, which very much mirrors the way it worked in the olden days. The Brothers Grimm didn’t collect one version of every folktale; they discovered dozens of versions of each one, because it’s the nature of folklore to be altered to suit every different folk who wants to make use of it. Why should today be any different?

What a classy guy. Bill Willingham was already one of my favorite comic-book writers, and this only reinforces that opinion. I respect his humility here so much, that he doesn’t act as though he owns the idea and anyone who does something similar is “copying”. I love even more that he acknowledges those who came before him and influenced his own writing. As a fan of Fables, and now of Once as well, I hope fans will heed Willingham’s “call to disarm” and not hesitate to give Once Upon a Time a try. Fables is awesome, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for Once in the world as well.