To me, Swan Queen truly is about hope. It’s about having a sense of belonging, feeling worthy of love, and believing in happy endings. It’s about knowing that I’m not alone, that I’m not broken, or beyond redemption. These truths have never felt so tangible to me as they do when I think of this ship. It gives me hope. It’s one thing to understand such concepts to be right and another thing entirely to see them, to feel them, and genuinely believe them. Swan Queen does that for me. It extinguishes that last lingering doubt and sets it aflame with an unwavering belief, the indisputable and intrinsic knowledge that, by merely existing, I deserve happiness, just like everyone else.
This was a two-hour season finale focused on Emma realizing where ‘home’ is, and yet we were robbed of the significant Emma/Henry/Regina scenes that are usually at the core of OUAT’s narrative (the narrative that has led us to believe all these years that Emma’s home is in fact with Henry and, by extension, Regina, because they’re both his home).
After a season that had episodes like Save Henry, Going Home, and Witch Hunt… to be given that as a ‘reward’? Not only does it feel like the story went off the rails from where it was initially headed, it just plain hurts. I get how people might feel unwelcome and unwanted by this show, and I don’t blame anyone for being angry and/or quitting.
All that being said, I don’t think anyone is wrong for being optimistic either! I truly feel like I can empathize with every reaction I’ve seen to this finale, it’s all justified and I think it’s important that we acknowledge that, embrace it, and not bicker amongst ourselves about how anyone ‘should’ feel. It’s all valid and that’s what makes SWEN so strong. We’ve got so many different perspectives, we can instantaneously offer up every angle all at once so when, for instance, the official OUAT twitter uses the term “Swan Queen” they can see both how much we appreciate recognition and how much more it’ll take if they want to truly win back everyone’s trust. I think it’s kind of awesome that we’ve got all bases covered and can send TPTB complex and varied feedback just by allowing people to feel what they feel. I hope we can all turn our attention to more constructive areas than policing each other’s emotions.
I often hear naysayers say that Swan Queen won't work because of their long list of fucking absurd reasons to oppose to SQ age difference. I bet that's the best that those people have got? Well, of course, not to mention that Rumbelle has the greatest age difference but being one of the most popular ships in the fandom. So by the process of verification and rough calculation, we shall see. This post is inspired by a text post saying that Regina is the youngest of the triangle suitors.
Just to make things clear here is an order of events
Rumple born
Rumple married to Milah (both age known)
Baelfire born (It is unknown how old are Rumple and Milah when Bae was born) [assuming R is <50 M is <40]
Milah ran away to be with Hook [Bae years old] [assuming Hook <30/=30 and at least 5 years younger than Rumple](s02e04)
Rumple became the Dark One when Bae is 14 because of the enlistment (s01e08)
Rumple started killing off people, Milah deceased , Hook fueled with fire of vengeance
Hook off to Neverland [according to s3 pilot, it takes less than/apporx. a day to get to Neverland through a portal]
Baelfire gone to the Darlings', then to Neverland then met Hook then Pan [Bae must be under 18 by that time because you can’t be a lost boy if you are an adult]
{Bae’s and Hook’s age froze for an unknown period of time because in Neverland you don’t age} [Bae </= 18] [Hook <40]
{An unknown but surely a long period of time passed} [According to Pan in s3e11, Rumple should be approx. a couple hundred at the time of 2013] [Make it 200 hundred ,from calculation, this period should at least last about 125 years to make Pan’s statement stand.]
Rumple met young Cora (s02e16) [assuming Cora <25-30]
Cora became Queen, Regina was born a year or two later
Snow was born [assuming only older than Regina max. 4 years, min. 2 years]
Regina and Snow met [Regina <20,>13] [Snow <14] (s01e18)
Hook and Regina met, Regina was Queen already [Regina <30/=30] [Hook <40]
Emma born, transported to New England [Regina should be 30, I can’t remember where I read about it but Regina is thirty when she first got to Storybrooke] [Snow <30]
The cursed worked, everybody’s age froze in Storybrooke for 28 years [Snow should be freezing at 28 that time, according to Emma in (s3e01), “We are the same age, we have the same amount of wisdom”] [Belle should be freezing at >35 since she was a full grown woman when Regina captured her in the Enchanted Forest]
16/7 years later, Emma met Neal/Bae [Emma 16/7] [Neal precisely 24(minus the time stuck in Neverland) according to his wanted poster, born 1977 March 23(s02e6)]
Emma should be precisely 17 years old when she gave birth to Henry because he found her on her 28th birthday when Henry was 11 years old [Emma 17]
11 years later, Henry found Emma [Emma 28] [Henry 11]
Hook and Cora reached Storybrooke [Hook <56]
Rumple was a couple hundred according to Pan (s03e11) [It is not known whether Pan’s words are accurate]
So, it gives us the conclusion of the day
l Hook max. actual age: 39+{unknown time stuck in Neverland}+3 years max before the curse(well he ages)+28= 70+{unknown time} & must be older than Neal/Bae
l Neal/Bae max. actual age: 17+{unknown time stuck in Neverland +time spent with The Darlings}+7 years til meeting Emma+11 years = 35+{unknown time stuck in Neverland} & must be older than Regina no matter what because he was born before her
l Regina actual age: 30+28 = 58
l Snow actual age: 28+28 = 56
l Rumple’s max. actual age: 50+17+{unknown period of time until meeting Cora}+30 = 97 but because of Pan’s statement, Rumple’s total age should be older or approx. equal to 200.
l Belle’s max. actual age: 35+28=63
Hook>Bae/Neal>Regina, THREE CHEERS FOR REGINA BITCHES!
Regina is three decades older than Emma, and Neal older than that, Hook even older than that
Rumple is at least a century older than Belle
So well you tell me what kind of relationship works or doesn't, it's not the age difference that matters people.
*please note that assumptions of age are not made by simply applying the actor/actress’ age because very often a person can play a role much older/younger than his/her own age, and time is a magical thing in the Enchanted Forest
*and please pardon me if there’s any miscalculations, I am not an expertise in mathematics
We should make a giant bouqet for Calculaic and send it from SWEN. Cause she deserves it. After every sad episode she managed to build our hopes up again and made us happy. So yes thank you Calculaic for helping me when I feel hopeless about SQ.
I feel like there's a lot of new Swan Queen shippers lately, especially after 3x11. So for all the newbies, I want to recommend that you follow calculaic's blog. It's one of the best Swan Queen blogs in my opinion because they are insightful, always keep it positive, and their posts always cheer me up when my hopes are down. They rarely tag their posts in the tag though, so I thought a little PSA was in order :)
