I think my most long standing and nonsensical headcanon is one I've had for over 5 years of Alice Jones being transfem. Is there anything from canon even REMOTELY contributing to this? No. Can I give anyone a single reason as to why I have the headcanon? No. Is it still something I thought of once and haven't been able to unsee for 5+ years? Yes absolutely. HOW do I see it? I don't fucking know, go time travel to 2021-22 and ask me then. The only thing I've ever done with this headcanon is come up with MORE headcanons to make it make sense 😭✌️.
once upon a time will always be goated just for the fact that the prophecy didn't start until emma swan was 28 (an actual grown person with a fully developed frontal lobe) instead of when she was 16/17 (a literal child).
I haven't technically been within the OUAT fandom for a long time. But something I have noticed with the fandom is extreme mischaracterization. Especially with mentally ill characters such as my favorite character in the entire show, Alice Jones. I've scraped every social media app I have for fan content of her and watched every panel I can find for her actress. What I can confidently say is 90% of people who enjoy her character and actually watched season 7 do not understand her at all, or at least not to the extent they think they do.
I'll start off with the popular headcanons of her being representation for ADHD or autism. To this I can see where some people are coming from, and I know it's mostly people with those disorders who have the headcanon. I also think it is EXTREMELY telling of your lack of awareness for other neurodivergencies. I've always thought of Alice as schizophrenic and while it was mostly through me vaguely remembering her from my first watch of season 7 when I was 11-12. Having recently rewatched the whole show and currently rewatching season 7 AGAIN, I can more confidently say that YES she is likely meant to be a portrayal of schizophrenia, before and during the curse. People have the misconception that being schizophrenic means being highly unstable, always hallucinating, and being violent. This couldn't be more of a harmful stereotype, not only are there three different stages of schizophrenia, hallucinations aren't always necessary to be present in any of them! Neither is aggressive behavior. I'll refrain from making this a post explaining what the actual symptoms of schizophrenia are because 1: I'm not a professional, and 2: that'd make this post a million times longer than it already will be.
What I will say, is that if you even look up the symptoms for it you will see it align with Alice's character. Even her actress has stated that Alice struggles with hearing voices 😭 THAT'S NOT A SYMPTOM OF AUTISM OR ADHD BUT I'VE SEEN NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT! Yes she is neurodivergent, no she doesn't have autism or ADHD (technically it is a possibility to have it be a comorbidity but it's unlikely.) People often forget that there aren't just two disorders that are under the neurodivergent umbrella, schizophrenia is there too.
What basically no one who doesn't do any psychological research will know, is that schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder and can have people with lower support needs!
Now, moving away from her mental illness, another way plenty of her fans mischaracterize her is by making her out to be more childish than she actually is. While yes she is chaotic and eccentric, she has several scenes showing the maturity she has and her emotional depth. People also don't consider the fact that she's a woman in her mid twenties by the time she's in the curse! We meet her years after escaping the tower, she did that at 17. And the curse is 8-9 years after she even met Henry. Yes my goat is whimsical, and joyful, but she isn't outright childlike or as immature as people make her out to be.
I've also seen several of her fans (mostly in fanfiction) make her out to be dumber than she is. And while the writers have dumbed her down for certain lines (like not knowing what candied apples are, she's always outside on the streets and frequents a deli, HOW would she not know????) She is canonically not dumb by any means. Even before the curse she is insanely good at getting out of dangerous situations, she went at least 2-3 years not knowing how to pick locks and adventuring across several realms. She FUCKING OMG. SHE KNEW THAT BEING IN STORIES THAT WEREN'T YOUR OWN WAS A BAD IDEA. SHE KNEW ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY'RE IN STORIES AND THAT'S LITERALLY OUR INTRODUCTION TO HER! The more we learn about her the smarter she gets if you pay attention and clearly not enough people did! She's a talented artist, being shown to not just paint fucking masterpieces but also play piano. And chess! CHESS is literally her favorite hobby and y'all wanna sit here and make me think she's just this chaotic doofus who's only focus is her girlfriend and running around everywhere???? Or that she's just an innocent girl who does no wrong and she can't stand up for herself??
And YES I KNOW SHE HAS THE PUREST HEART, SHE'S THE GUARDIAN! But that doesn't mean she's innocent to no fault??? Or even in some older things that I've seen make her out to be romantically and sexually inexperienced or extremely dependent on Robin??? This is the same woman who we got introduced to because she drugged Henry, worked with and BEFRIENDED Rumplestiltskin aka the dark one, IS LITERALLY DATING A THEIF! Killed jabberwock, and outran a different beast, yeah SHE NEEDS PROTECTING?? ARE WE FORGETTING SHE'S ALSO ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC USERS IN CANON? As for the whole making her entirely experienced thing and dependent thing, SHE'S THE ONLY ONE OF THE TWO WITH A CANONICAL EX. Ignoring the fact Robin has no fucking game and she literally ran away when Alice was flirting with her (episode 18), ALICE IS CANONICALLY NOT INEXPERIENCED AND THE MORE INDEPENDENT ONE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP. She has several storylines that have nothing to do with Robin and not to mention they're a healthy couple. NEITHER OF THEM ARE DEPENDENT AND IT DEFINITELY WOULDN'T BECAUSE OF ALICES MENTAL ILLNES. ALICE JONES WHO'S BEEN TO SEVERAL REALMS, AND HAS A LARGE SUPPORT SYSTEM, IS NOT A CODEPENDENT DORK 😭🙏
There is more that I can say but my final part to say is no Alice wouldn't have sloppy handwriting or be insanely messy. And yes I'm calling ableism AND classism on that one. Okay I'm done. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
exactly because there's no way in hell the girl who had to take care of herself since she was 10 years old can take care of herself 😭✌️ mind you she's homeless in the curse and STILL taking care of herself! She's literally best friends with a corrupt detective known for mistreating criminals and people he works with and didn't have a giant target on her back. I fear she's a million times smarter and more resourceful than fans make her out to be
I haven't technically been within the OUAT fandom for a long time. But something I have noticed with the fandom is extreme mischaracterization. Especially with mentally ill characters such as my favorite character in the entire show, Alice Jones. I've scraped every social media app I have for fan content of her and watched every panel I can find for her actress. What I can confidently say is 90% of people who enjoy her character and actually watched season 7 do not understand her at all, or at least not to the extent they think they do.
I'll start off with the popular headcanons of her being representation for ADHD or autism. To this I can see where some people are coming from, and I know it's mostly people with those disorders who have the headcanon. I also think it is EXTREMELY telling of your lack of awareness for other neurodivergencies. I've always thought of Alice as schizophrenic and while it was mostly through me vaguely remembering her from my first watch of season 7 when I was 11-12. Having recently rewatched the whole show and currently rewatching season 7 AGAIN, I can more confidently say that YES she is likely meant to be a portrayal of schizophrenia, before and during the curse. People have the misconception that being schizophrenic means being highly unstable, always hallucinating, and being violent. This couldn't be more of a harmful stereotype, not only are there three different stages of schizophrenia, hallucinations aren't always necessary to be present in any of them! Neither is aggressive behavior. I'll refrain from making this a post explaining what the actual symptoms of schizophrenia are because 1: I'm not a professional, and 2: that'd make this post a million times longer than it already will be.
What I will say, is that if you even look up the symptoms for it you will see it align with Alice's character. Even her actress has stated that Alice struggles with hearing voices 😭 THAT'S NOT A SYMPTOM OF AUTISM OR ADHD BUT I'VE SEEN NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT! Yes she is neurodivergent, no she doesn't have autism or ADHD (technically it is a possibility to have it be a comorbidity but it's unlikely.) People often forget that there aren't just two disorders that are under the neurodivergent umbrella, schizophrenia is there too.
What basically no one who doesn't do any psychological research will know, is that schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder and can have people with lower support needs!
Now, moving away from her mental illness, another way plenty of her fans mischaracterize her is by making her out to be more childish than she actually is. While yes she is chaotic and eccentric, she has several scenes showing the maturity she has and her emotional depth. People also don't consider the fact that she's a woman in her mid twenties by the time she's in the curse! We meet her years after escaping the tower, she did that at 17. And the curse is 8-9 years after she even met Henry. Yes my goat is whimsical, and joyful, but she isn't outright childlike or as immature as people make her out to be.
I've also seen several of her fans (mostly in fanfiction) make her out to be dumber than she is. And while the writers have dumbed her down for certain lines (like not knowing what candied apples are, she's always outside on the streets and frequents a deli, HOW would she not know????) She is canonically not dumb by any means. Even before the curse she is insanely good at getting out of dangerous situations, she went at least 2-3 years not knowing how to pick locks and adventuring across several realms. She FUCKING OMG. SHE KNEW THAT BEING IN STORIES THAT WEREN'T YOUR OWN WAS A BAD IDEA. SHE KNEW ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY'RE IN STORIES AND THAT'S LITERALLY OUR INTRODUCTION TO HER! The more we learn about her the smarter she gets if you pay attention and clearly not enough people did! She's a talented artist, being shown to not just paint fucking masterpieces but also play piano. And chess! CHESS is literally her favorite hobby and y'all wanna sit here and make me think she's just this chaotic doofus who's only focus is her girlfriend and running around everywhere???? Or that she's just an innocent girl who does no wrong and she can't stand up for herself??
And YES I KNOW SHE HAS THE PUREST HEART, SHE'S THE GUARDIAN! But that doesn't mean she's innocent to no fault??? Or even in some older things that I've seen make her out to be romantically and sexually inexperienced or extremely dependent on Robin??? This is the same woman who we got introduced to because she drugged Henry, worked with and BEFRIENDED Rumplestiltskin aka the dark one, IS LITERALLY DATING A THEIF! Killed jabberwock, and outran a different beast, yeah SHE NEEDS PROTECTING?? ARE WE FORGETTING SHE'S ALSO ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC USERS IN CANON? As for the whole making her entirely experienced thing and dependent thing, SHE'S THE ONLY ONE OF THE TWO WITH A CANONICAL EX. Ignoring the fact Robin has no fucking game and she literally ran away when Alice was flirting with her (episode 18), ALICE IS CANONICALLY NOT INEXPERIENCED AND THE MORE INDEPENDENT ONE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP. She has several storylines that have nothing to do with Robin and not to mention they're a healthy couple. NEITHER OF THEM ARE DEPENDENT AND IT DEFINITELY WOULDN'T BECAUSE OF ALICES MENTAL ILLNES. ALICE JONES WHO'S BEEN TO SEVERAL REALMS, AND HAS A LARGE SUPPORT SYSTEM, IS NOT A CODEPENDENT DORK 😭🙏
There is more that I can say but my final part to say is no Alice wouldn't have sloppy handwriting or be insanely messy. And yes I'm calling ableism AND classism on that one. Okay I'm done. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Zelena and Robin (her daughter not her sisters bf)
I know the ouat fandom doesn't really care much for season 7 but there's one really big aspect that gets ignored and misinterpreted ALL THE TIME. And that's Zelenas parenting. We all know Zelena DOES love her daughter, I'm never going to say she doesn't care for her.
With that said. She also was an awful mother to her until present day in season 7. I won't say much of the events of season 6 because I'm foggy on that, BUT I do know she was going to take Robin to live in Oz. A place that hated Zelena and would have placed a tagete on not just her, but her daughters back too. Yes she did it because of everyone in storybrooke, but the people there also cared for Robin and she would've been far safer there than in Oz.
Now, onto the things people entirely gloss over in season 7. #1: Robin ran away not just once with Gothel, but ran away roughly up to 2 years as well. She says in ep14 to Alice that she got fed up with the town and found it so insufferable that she stole Emmas car and started driving out of town. The minimum age to get a driver's license in main during 2017 (not when Robin would've been 16 but when the season aired) was 16 years old. That is the absolute youngest that she would've been attempting to run away to New York to. Obviously I know she was mostly talking about Storybrooke as a whole when she revealed this. But no one who's happy or okay at home goes out of their way to steal a car belonging to an important town figure and leave the state.
As for #2: It's repeated not just by Robin but also by Margot when she was cursed that Zelena/Kelly have never allowed Robin/Margot to be their own person. I mean hell Zelena never even let Robin practice magic that she was born with and drove her to doing so in secret which is HOW she ended up almost dying by Gothels hands in the first place.
#3: Robin also says she was a mean girl, that only cared about popularity, and found social attention/validation addicting. HOW on earth am I supposed to think all of this adds up to Zelena being a good mom? I've literally never heard of a teenager who gets that focused on reputation and social validation while also having good parents??
There's more I could say but this is the most explicitly shown things of Zelena being a shit mom until she actively tried to get better at the end of her and Robin's backstory/flashback episode in season 7. Because she DID get better and more supportive, it just wasn't anywhere close to when people say she did.
I’ve just finished watching the Season 7 finale of Once Upon a Time for the first time. I began the show this January, and I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I now do, my mind was blown by plot twists, I cried at the deaths of characters that I didn’t initially care about, and I’ve laughed so hard at so many jokes across seven wonderful seasons. It was an ending I actually didn’t mind, I wish Rumplestiltskin didn’t have to die for us to get there, and I wish his son Gideon was onscreen for the coronation, but it was such a happy ending. I think I’ll rewatch the show, and I still need to watch the Wonderland spin-off, but I just want to say thank you to everybody who’s interacted with my OUAT posts this year because it’s much more fun to explore this madcap show with others than it is alone ☺️.
Right so I think that Robin was lowkey a fangirl of Alice before she even met her. Like, I think Robin aka Miss Too Cool For Everyone is probably more invested in the infamous “girl in the tower” than she is in most of the actual people around her. ‘Where are you getting this from?’ I hear you ask. Well, from little pieces of dialogue such as “I’m sorry, I know he misses you” (you would think Robin is a little self absorbed to say this to anyone in general) “it must be hard for you being locked up again” (someone’s clearly been wondering how it has been for Alice) “I thought Henry and Ella left you in Wonderland searching for a cure” (fact checking her fangirl knowledge) and of course “wow, so you’re the girl in the tower” (can’t even hide the fact she is woke to meet the girl in the flesh). And this is highlighted further when Alice is like “how do you know my papa???” bc she’s a little concerned at how much information this woman knows about her (so she must be close to Nook…. Or rather to the stories he tells of his Starfish). And finally, let’s not forget the very nickname “Tower Girl” comes from said stories!
Just a reminder that Alice was the guardian, has a hella ton of creative magic, a pure heart AND is Mother freakin Nature and doesn’t even think herself powerful
I love that Tilly and Margot are the functional lesbians, like, it literally takes them talking to each other like three times before going on a date. Meanwhile, Alice and Robin are 100% the disaster lesbians - you can just guess that Robin has been visiting Alice in her cabin for weeks for friendly tea, and that they are just too dumbasses to do anything about it/assume the other feels the same. I could easily believe Henry and Lucy had a “Dense and Oblivious” operation going on in the Enchanted Forest because no one else knew how to deal with the mutual pining anymore. After all, everyone knew how they felt about each other… except for themselves, of course.
So like I know the shows been over a hot second but I need to talk about Robin and Alice??? They’re so cute??? I literally cried so hard at the emotion in episode 20???? What do I do with these feelings besides reboot gifsets of them????
Sometimes, Ouat gets it right, happy accident or intentional. With its history of queerbaiting (Mulan romantically tragic) and cash grab representation (Dorothy and Red underdeveloped), Once could have rehashed a bare bones version of “queer representation” with Robin and Alice’s love story. There was a likely chance considering Tiera was originally told she’d be slated for 3 eps, Rose for 5 eps, and their eventual characters’ storylines mainly played out in s7b.
Now, I’m going to play the Devil’s Advocate and be like but wait, wasn’t Robin and Alice’s kiss in season 7 episode 10, the mid-season finale, a coming out moment, shocking to the audience that Robin and Alice were lgbtq?
Okay, you’re right, if you only watched the season or overheard at face value that the episode built up to two females aka Alice and Robin kissing as the Dark Curse loomed. However, coming out implies that initial assumption that the two are straight and happened to realize who they wanted to be romantically with, showing that to the world, family, or in this case, the audience.
Author’s Note: Yes, while I do think any coming out story or queer representation is important, I feel that the media and Hollywood use that to pander with the bare minimum, doing what sells headlines, is dramatic, or can be easily pushed into the background. Sometimes, its inclusion is played out for laughs or as a flawed foil to put heterosexual ships on a pedestal. Ouat is no exception with its history and having two white attractive straight oriented blonde actresses play into an easily accessible trope of lesbian romance compared to the rarer gay/trans/non-binary category. That said, it’s a PG fairytale soap opera that aired domestically on Disney owned ABC and internationally elsewhere. Who needs reality to be the downer when we can live in a fluffy fantasy where love and hope is all that matters? Don’t get me started on the toxic fans or parts of the Ouat fandom. Rather than rioting a personal projected attack against a dislike, make verbalizing not liking something or a ship normal again. That out of the way, it may have taken 7 seasons to have a queer love story that’s taken seriously and might even be comparable to main ships, but it’s still something by having it canon and not end in ‘bury the gays’. I’m looking at you Supernatural.
That said, into the rabbit hole we go!
Alice, since the start of her centric ep, 7x04 Beauty, winked and teased at Rumple by asking, “Are you looking for a prince?” regarding the ball and as Tilly mentioned to Weaver, “I had an ex-girlfriend who worked for [Victoria Belfrey] once.” Unless considered a blink and miss moment instead of casual on the nose comments, it’s clear Alice is queer or lesbian, cursed or not. 7x10 continues laying it on as Alice worries about her love, saying to Killian, her dad, “But Papa, if it happens, I will lose her.” He’s unfazed and responds with comfort, “Don’t say that, love, don’t! True love can win out over so much more.” Even though an act of true love has only been seen in Ouat as a magical solution to a curse when two people, familial or romantic, love each other and believe in magic, it can be taken here to validate and uplift that Alice and Robin’s love is strong enough to connect and endure. He also knows who to deliver her letter addressed ‘My Love’ to, without a mention of a name.
At the start of the episode 7x10, Robin worries and says, “If [the coven of the eight] are here, I have to warn-” to which Zelena, her mom, comforts her, “Don’t worry. Look, darling, we’ll warn everyone. We’ll protect our loved ones,” and tells Regina, “She’s got a case of young love.” Although Robin was a baby prior to s7 and we don’t get a clear look into her as a person before 7x10, it’s certain that Zelena knows who Robin wants to warn and is in love with, enough to nearly run aimlessly around the New Enchanted Forest for.
Assuming the audience is cued in on the love storyline, Robin looking for her love and Alice already explicitly hinting at her sexuality, their parents both supportive to them, the shock value should come from not their sexual orientation but rather who they're in love with. Instead of being reduced to their labels, Alice and Robin’s love story is about two people who come to know and love each other, their differing sexualities being an added bonus.
So, elephant in the room out of the way, where does the coming of age come in?
Well, in the characters’ growth and relatability as Alice and Robin both strive to be more than their past of summed up parts and the people they come from. TLDR: It’s all about finding their place in the world and discovering who they want to be rather than letting their past and others’ views define them.
Girl in the Tower vs Tower Girl
You could say it means the same thing, but like hear me out. Double meaning, Great Gatsby style. Was it intentional? In Ouat fashion, it usually is.
Taken literally, the first represents a girl that happens to be in a tower while the latter emphasizes how a tower is a characteristic of the girl. In context, when Robin first meets a spy lurking to watch a papa with a poisoned heart, she puts two and two together and curiously remarks to Alice, “Wow. So you’re the Girl in the Tower.”
Just like how Alice is known for being in Wonderland, she’s also given names by strangers who know Killian, seen as “Nook’s kid” and the “Girl in the Tower”. Robin unintentionally gives away how interested she is in Alice, the referential girl in the phrase, caring about her enough to keep track of descriptive names and stories of someone she’s never met until then.
Despite being caged in Robin’s trap, Alice rebuttals uncomfortably, “I got out of that tower years ago.”
The phrase also gives way to the way Alice thinks and feels about herself. She took notice of the ‘in’ bit, probably gravitating on the word ‘tower’, and wanted to clear the air. Alice defends and distances herself in term, separating away from any connection or fondness to the tower. By saying she got out of ‘that tower’, she claims she’s no longer trapped inside the tower and feigns indifference, as if it's a tower out of many instead of the home and her world before the Troll helped her escape.
Later on, Robin nicknames Alice as Tower Girl, in fondness, awe, and sometimes disbelief at how Alice exists, seeing and going about the world as she does. Robin only says Alice’s name in moments of sensitivity and as a grounding basis, sarcasm and jokes out the window. To give a list of Robin’s usage of the nickname, it’s after Alice: claims the Troll is her friend instead of a monster flattening villages, is led by Robin through a humorous string of homonyms regarding riding a bug and having a whole life held in a smartphone, has differing views on goals, and tackles Robin upon her aim at the Troll.
From the starting flashback in 7x14 to the Troll destroying the Tower in frustration, the tower is a part of Alice as much as she was a part of it. Being physically free of the tower wasn’t enough as it haunted her, either on the lips of others or how much she wanted her freedom to be the solution to making reality okay, happiness attainable. When Alice was trapped, she had hope that things were better outside and could be sheltered in the bubble of love her papa gave her. Alice was the girl in the tower, away from the judgement of society, unhurt by the reality outside her scope despite her imprisoned situation seeming bleak.
Surprisingly, in the last time we hear “Tower Girl” being uttered in 7x14, it’s straight from Alice’s mouth after she says goodbye to the Troll in front of the tower, confronting the things she left behind and couldn’t be free of, coming to terms with her childhood and past. At the age of 18, Alice escaped the tower and ran away to multiple realms on tons of adventures to explore more while on her quest to find a cure. However, there was nowhere she wanted to be more than back home. In the end, she inadvertently did come home, say her honest truth, had someone by her side to hear her out, and realized that the tower didn’t have to be her enemy or her stopping point. By saying, “Goodbye, Tower Girl,” to the broken tower, we get the sense that she redefines herself as not one held back or prisoner to the tower, but one that keeps moving forward in spite of her original circumstances, staying true to herself.
Conforming to Expectations vs Accepting Themselves
Imagine growing up in a small town like Storybrooke where people are larger than life and everyone is intertwined with legends. If fairytales inspired joy, I doubt they did for Robin who had bigger shoes to fill than most. Robin Hood-Mills, daughter of the powerless Wicked Witch and the deceased Robin Hood who saved the world from a vengeful god. To be a powerful witch or leading archer? Both required skills and inadvertently influenced comparisons to be made.
Of course, although her mother had a lot of talent, Robin didn’t have much nor was she allowed to practice magic except in secret. Considering Zelena probably saw what power did to their family and her lack of magic to protect them both from danger, the forbidding of magic was an extreme safeguard.
So, with small minded people in a school where everyone ages K-12 went, the deck was stacked against her. It wouldn’t be surprising if Robin was a goody two shoes initially, but learned that doesn’t build street cred or help make friends. If she was to survive school, Robin would have to fit in or stand out. And how did she do that with peer pressure and expectations to conform to? By pretending to be someone she’s not, becoming popular and cool. With that, Robin could make a name for herself, gaining attention and acceptance from her peers, leaning towards while stepping away from her parents’ shadows.
What’s cool to high schoolers in Storybrooke might be being good at magic, making things look effortless, breaking rules, and not caring what anyone thinks. Thievery was frowned upon, but getting away with lockpicking, hotwiring, and stealing earned cool points and recognition in others. Robin might not have powerful magic, but in 7x11, she gets Regina to help her and her friends practice magic in the old vault via Cora’s spellbook. However, Robin doesn’t want to be popular per say; she wants to be accepted and loved for who she is, discover what she really wants with no pretenses.
If Storybrooke wasn’t the answer, anywhere else was. Throughout the season, Robin/Margot runs away to find and be themselves while longing to be home with supportive loved ones. In 7x11, Robin makes a potion to summon Mother Nature, which whisks her away to Gothel in another realm, claiming to have run away. Robin tells her mom upon shunning her away, “I am my own person, one you refuse to let me grow into,” and “I didn’t love magic. I just felt like I was supposed to… and there’s all these things I’m supposed to be good at,” after getting saved. In 7x14, Robin admits to Alice that she hotwired and stole Emma’s yellow bug, to be away from Storybrooke and only getting away for “eight glorious minutes”.
By the end of 7x11, Robin has reconciled with Zelena; Robin trusts her mother’s good intentions while Zelena vows to support Robin on any endeavor. However, her journey hasn’t ended, even in the New Enchanted Forest. In 7x14, Robin vows to honor her father’s legacy by killing the Troll and becoming the villagers’ hero. She retreads all her mistakes in medieval fashion until she wants to defend Alice from the mob, realizing that protecting those who need it matters most to her and connects her to her dad. Making peace with her parents and her insecure self, Robin decides to forge her own path and be more honest.
Margot has a similar arc of wanting to change and see change. While less of a jerk and more open to different viewpoints as a mature traveler compared to Robin, she regressed in terms of relationships with her mom, Kelly, and never feeling like she’s treated like an adult, being in the know as equals. In 7x10, Margot is mentioned to have had a job at the bar, a ticket to Amsterdam, turned away from college at Vassar, is currently in Phuket, and never coming back home out of her mom’s lack of coolness. Lots to unpack, but the point is Margot decides to come back after 7x11 when her mom calls saying she’s changed and wants to talk, only worrying about Margot’s safety. By 7x16, Margot fights with her mom, claiming that she left in the first place because they’ve “never been able to communicate”. Hurt, Margot spills, “I am done being patient with you. All I’ve ever done is wait for you to change. You know what? I never should have come back.”
Margot hates the lies and sinking feeling inside that her mom doesn’t trust her or might be in trouble. She doesn’t give her mom a chance until Tilly suggests that Margot seems amazing and wise, but her mom might be not avoiding the truth for a good reason. They make up, Margot giving her mom a bit more time and eventually chooses to stay in Hyperion Heights regardless of anyone else’s life choices or opinions on her.
Either way, Robin and Alice go through their own arcs, dealing with things we can relate to: feeling alone or unheard, being left in the dark, craving acceptance, doubting self, running away from problems, and worrying about people’s perceptions. Luckily, both women find their way on what they want and who they want to be; they become individuals that grow and adapt to their environments while learning to stay true to themselves, accidentally falling in love during the process.
