Drizella and the Tremaine Family Deserved Better Writing
(Author's Note: The one writing this post is African American woman in her 20s, so no one better claim racism in this as I go!)
You know, it's 2025 and I've had a long time to think on this and really consider it and honestly: I don't care now. I'm gonna say it!
Drizella Tremaine needed better writing as well as flushing out her Fairytale World, which according to OUAT - was basically supposed to be a whole new world with different reiterations of fairytales.
Before you guys go after me defending Ella, let me make this thing clear: I am not ANTI Cinderella/Jacinda Vidrio. In fact, as far as Cinderella stories go - I'm all for interpretation in between quiet strength to badassery like anyone else. But I have one pet peeve:
With all the flashbacks from S7, it's clear the Cinderella story followed & diverted in so many ways.
Before the marriage, Cecelia and Ella were a wealthy, noble single parent household. I don't know if Cecelia was a Viscountess or a Baroness (I honestly like the headcanons about her, even from GlassBeliever blogs), but at the end of the day, they were fine and doing fine on their own.
With Rapunzel's sacrifice - when she was worthy of being a mother and wife - helped Marcus and her girls achieve a better life where Marcus could take care of them and see them well. It's not time specified, but even if he hadn't remarried, Marcus, Anastacia, and Drizella would've been okay.
Drizella was the one who had a fascination with lanterns and had the initial idea to use them for Rapunzel to help her return home.
Marcus and Cecelia meet, fall in love, and marry - and thankfully the stepsisters get along well for the next 6 years.
Drizella's 14th birthday party - where Cecelia was poisoned by Rapunzel with Gothel's prompting after watching Drizella being happy with Cecelia, Ella, and Anastacia. (And I say 14th because Anna Cathcart was 14 during this time.)
Marcus chased after Cecelia, leaving all three girls in Rapunzel's care, for a year - making it all the way to Wonderland until his half of the enchanted locket stopped glowing. After which brokenhearted, he returned home to tell Ella and the girls Cecelia isn't returning.
Clearly sometimes, a year is my best estimate, Rapunzel and Marcus rekindled the flame & the sisters' recovered until Ella and Ana fell through the ice & Marcus is only able to get Ella and Rapunzel must've swam for Ana off-screen or how else would she had gotten her to Gothel.
Then, flashforward to the Cinderella story: Marcus is dead (later revealed to be murdered and only Ella suspected), Ella is a slave in her own home, Drizella was turned into the sole wicked stepsister, and Lady Rapunzel Tremaine is running the show.
I'll give OUAT credit: They kept it interesting, and I always wondered about renditions of Cinderella where the lesser/more flawed stepsister has more of a role.
So thank God they got Adelaide Kane for the role. She killed it using what she had.
But there's so much an actress can do to save the storyline.
Why? Because all that I listed? There's so many holes in Cinderella's story and the character of Ella/Jacinda herself was great but also highlighted it.
For starters, even in the flashbacks, we never really saw Cecelia and Ella process the arrival of Rapunzel. To give credit to her, Cecelia was clearly willing and extended the olive branch to enter her life and reintegrate into her daughters' lives but there's a reason the writers' gave her a name that means "blind" - because she was blind to Rapunzel and what a woman would do if her child (Drizella) wasn't as receptive to her as her husband and eldest daughter are after being locked in a tower for years - and this cost her a happy life with her family and broke the hearts of her daughters of both blood and by heart (and all honestly, I refuse to believe she didn't figure who stood to gain the most from her absence). And back to Ella, we never saw her and her relationship with Rapunzel before everything went to hell - which is a big NO NO from an aspiring writer like myself. The writers shouldn't just assume because the viewers know the story of Cinderella that it fills in the blanks - we need to see it too. Was Rapunzel initially accepting or tolerant of Ella when Cecelia was in the picture? Had or could she'd come to care about her had Anastacia not been preserved in a frozen coma? Obviously why did she kill Marcus - I get him giving her the benefit of the doubt but your new wife leaves after the presumed dead one returns? Come on now! And what about Ella and Drizella's relationship? If flashbacks showed they were close - how the hell did Drizella go from being skeptical of Rapunzel and loving Ella to wanting Rapunzel's attention and turning against Ella (actually I do get it Maybe the crazy part is how no friends or concerned staff members or just someone on the outside to recognize the messed up situation Rapunzel made of their lives). Ella definitely deserved to get her punches in and tell Drizella off for aiding in Rapunzel's abuse over the years - no doubt about it, and I still wanna figure out when she learned swordfighting because that was a lost trove of knowledge to her adaptable, badass character (right next to stealing Henry's motorcycle). Yet, when it comes to the girl who knew life before and after the Tremaine as well as life before & after Rapunzel - something stinks. And because Adelaide and Anna did such a good job portraying both Adult & Tween versions of Drizella - they also made it so it was like Day & Night, and it's not natural.
I once said Drizella was a child who was isolated and manipulated until evildoers knew they didn't have to work hard to mold her into a pawn (there's a reason she related to Regina) - but now I question if the only thing that pushed her into Rapunzel's influence...was Ella herself. The thing about Cinderella, you know her story and know even when she's alone, she still has allies while the step family at least had each other. In this OUAT scenario, Ella and Drizella were all they had with the former being the last remnant of happiness from the past. Not with the way Ella was proven protective of her loved ones. And given the subtext that Ella was clearly more aware of things that Drizella didn't (like Marcus's death), then I have three guesses:
A misunderstanding Rapunzel took advantage of to draw the final wedge between them.
A fight broke out between Ella and Drizella, and Ella said something she regretted that pushed Drizella into Rapunzel's grasp.
(Literally just came to me now) Marcus's death. The final straw, the man that raised them, and now that I think about it - it's never stated HOW he died. But Ella suspected murder and there's nothing about Drizella's
So either a serious misunderstanding
Now, note this: I'm not blaming Tween!Drizella for Rapunzel's actions. In fact, if the narrative had built on that - the fact Drizella was the only one skeptical and distant about Rapunzel's presence when she's clearly bonded to Cecelia + Rapunzel's choice to act on poisoning the woman who raised Drizella in her absence ON Drizella's birthday. Yes, it was a moment's choice and opportunity - but I wouldn't put it past Rapunzel had done this aimed at Drizella back then either! As the saying goes: Hurt people hurt people - and I'm never not denying Drizella's actions towards Ella, but I have to say that there's so much UNSAID that it makes me wonder just what happened besides losing Ana, Cecelia, and Marcus + Rapunzel's manipulations.
And notice I don't have a specific section about Anastacia. Why? Because compared to Drizella, I should be more of a fan of hers by principle. She loved all three of her parents, she loved being a part of a trio of sisters (a girl her own age and her baby sister). There was nothing wrong with her holding out for Rapunzel and clearly she bonded with Cecelia over the years. She was the happiest of them all and clearly balanced out on what was important. But now imagine the last thing she remembers is falling through ice and plunging into a frozen lake and the next thing: she's waking up in a world that's not her own, her mom is older and her little sister is OLDER THAN HER (and apparently hates her) and she's asked to undo magic on someone having no idea it's her step-niece and being used in what? 24-48 hours give or take (that you can correct me if I'm wrong). I agree the writers having Drizella say Anastacia has more reasons to hate her than Ella is wrong - because the real person who should have lived to say that is Rapunzel, who destroyed the happiness of Anastacia's childhood and broke the relationship with her sisters all for what? To claim her "rightful" place when she could have learned to share? Yeah, Anastacia is gonna have issues I sympathize with. I stand with the idea that eventually Drizella and Anastasia would return, and she'd make it her business to fix what her mother broke like Henry at the beginning of OUAT.
And one more thing that I'm not gonna leave unattended: I ship StepBeliever. Yes, I understand what Drizella did and I said before, I held her to it. And do I think Drizella could be a lesbian? Honestly, I always pegged her as bisexual back then, closeted due to Rapunzel, But this is Henry! Henry Mills - the literal end product of two generations of heroes and villains and literally carried the title of Author - so he can change the fate of fairytales. He was born as the child of the Savior and the son of Rumplestilskin. My biggest gripe on him was his search for a love story like his grandparents - and that got old as soon as I heard it because that's no way to start a love story. Or maybe strictly speaking: Going for a "classic romance" for a guy who's descended & raised by them and has the power to literally alter storylines of "classic" tales? That was almost painful to listen to. With that potential, Henry could really just fall in love with anybody because he brings out the best of anybody. The fact that his wife ended up being Cinderella could have been charming if it wasn't for the fact my SHIPPER antenna wasn't picking anything up for nearly the entire season. As friends or co-parents, what was seen before and during the curse between Henry and Ella didn't inspire me as a writer or a shipper - and I'm very critical about that, for example, I'd never have put Nick and Adalind together in Grimm, so for all you OUAT fans that are stickler on rape culture? Look at them! - and the only thing connected to them that I hated was Lucy Mills herself (Too long to talk about!) Ella alone as a character was fine, great, she just should have had her own story to herself and the writers' should have kept it to her given the lack of flashbacks to memories we hear about but don't see & context pointing to unspoken moments in her story. Henry could have easily been that wildcard best friend to Cinderella and I still would've enjoyed it - but the romance angle...CRINGE! If you wanted me to see Drizella as just a layered but still wicked stepsister that I'd enjoy watching but not root for? The writers failed. Instead, while also lacking flashbacks to memories we hear about but don't see & context pointing to unspoken moments, we still get more scenes with her, which all leads up to...The Bench Scene. That one scene and set of dialogue that had my SHIPPER antenna blaring and I wasn't even expecting that! And I think it hit me because that scene was Drizella's most honest at her situation. It didn't need specific or mention of magic, they got to the core of her situation in a casual setting and Henry's moment with her that felt real, it was real. And kept me thinking it would've been her when Henry did that coin toss to see which "true love" would walk through the door of that bar and even when Drizella was having hot chocolate at his apartment before going to make things right with Anastasia (and even she's pushing him towards Ella in this scene) because she's right - Ella makes sense and is good for Henry and given the entire post above - it's not to say Ella didn't deserve Henry either. But Drizella is also right: Have he arrived in her life sooner, then he might have made all the difference in her choices had they met first.
I RESPECT Adelaide's opinion that Drizella and Henry would never happen... Yet I'm just not sure after purposely watching Henry with Drizella and Ella multiple times over the years and finding my antenna still leaning towards Drizella (and growing fonder of Ella/Jacinda).
Henry wants a "classic" character? With his history, a wicked stepsister with baggage - and crimes - made sense. (And let's be clear, she was clearly attracted to him but if she REALLY wanted him, Henry would've been cursed beau instead of thinking his family died).
And on the premise that Drizella likes girls? I definitely agreed, just don't think Henry and his positive influence should be ruled out regardless of any or type of relationship they have.
