An actual line uttered in one of the OUAT sneak peeks for this week:
"She killed Graham because he was good. And you're good. Good loses. Good always loses. Because good has to play fair."
(Reliably insufferable child to Emma.)
Disclaimer: I'd theoretically cut him slack if I believed he existed as a character, but he doesn't—Henry, demonchild here, has never been anything but the show's Godvoice, the script telling us exactly what it's doing by way of an anvil in the face. So where was I? Oh yeah: NO.
No #1: Graham was good. No. We just spent an entire episode that—well, okay, that was about arguing itself into a circle over whether or not he was good, do I need to yell about that again? (warning: I CAN) but we just spent an episode with him and his history and his personal fallacies and fairytale murder catalogue, and washing his moral slate completely clean after an episode in which he responds to "I need someone who has no compunction cutting out a heart and bringing it to me for my collection" with "That's me", or in which we saw him stab a dude in the neck because he insulted a wolf, or in which he pursues a relationship he sees as sexually mercenary and then drops it and blames his lover for his emotional inadequacies IN THE MIDDLE OF DESECRATING HER FATHER'S TOMB, seems a little motherfucking simple to me.
No #2: Emma is good. No. Emma is volatile. Emma is vicious, Emma is guarded, Emma is obsessed with justice because it lets her regulate the world and find a place for herself in it; Emma is a legal bounty hunter, essentially, who's willing to get rough at least in part because it feels good to lash back out, who's willing to do anything she can't come up with an immediate reason not to do without any regard for personal safety or others' costs, be that breaking into someone's orchard to take a chainsaw to their fruit trees because why not or breaking into tombs because also why the fuck not. Not saying she's evil, but branding her with the capital G of Good seems, once again, a little goddamn motherfucking simple.
No #3: "Good loses." ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSHIT. No, I know it's going to get flipped, no, I know it's a callback to "Good always wins" in the pilot (why do I remember that) (oh right because WHAT A TERRIBLE LINE, JESUS), no, I get what they're trying to do—but what they're trying to do is create a bell curve of plot/conflict where good people think they'll win, and then they think they won't because of conflict, and then OOPS TADA at the end of the day ALL WILL BE WELL. ...You know what that isn't? Remotely deconstructive. Good. Always. Wins. Also damn kid have you ever read an actual fairytale in your life OBVIOUSLY NOT, JESUS CHRIST.
No #4: "Because good has to play fair." ...BUT HAS THIS KID EVER READ A FAIRYTALE IN HIS LIFE, THOUGH.
Here's the thing: fairytales are rough and cruel, fairytales are about tricksters and magic and blood, and their heroes are ingenuous because they know how to lie and cheat and run very fast, because they learn to be canny and ruthless without losing themselves. Grey, essentially. Fairytales come with a body count. Even the ones for children, about children: Hansel and Gretel threatens cannibalism and ends with them as murderers, a slow-cooked skeleton roasting in the oven. Red Riding Hood has to eat a bit of her grandmother or get eaten herself—depends on which one you read, and oh, by the way, if she survives she's lost all her clothes and a cat's called her a slut. And everyone lies. Lies, cheats, uses passers-by and products of the world around them to their advantage, because you can't win the story without an edge. The youngest son out of three sons doesn't win because he's the purest but because he's the cleverest, the most resourceful, or hell, sometimes just the biggest magic mooch. (Ever met Tsarevich Ivan? I think the Grey Wolf must have had a bone to pick with that fool t the end of hte day.)
And the funny thing is, the show has a cast of damnably clever, shamelessly mercenary characters who are more than capable, shown repeatedly as more than willing, to beat the world into submission until it gives them the narrative it wants. The moral imperatives don't exist in the metatext. Only in the child's mouth.
Basically, it's missed the point of both the origin stories and its own damn stories. God, this show is embarrassing to watch.
