Why I Love Swan Queen
To be honest I don’t know why I love Swan Queen. All I know is one day I was watching season 3A and suddenly I went “Wait, what?”
It’s just a thousand little things that amounted to these two belonging together.
It’s them putting aside their differences to work together to find their son, because they both love him. It’s how it was a lot easier for them to actually work together than I would have expected.
How Regina, Regina who doesn’t ask anyone for help with anything, asked Emma to put their magic together to get results because she knew they’d be great together. And looking hurt when Emma refused. It’s Regina asking Emma to back her to be able to talk to their son. It’s Regina doing the dark, dirty work to find their son so Emma doesn’t have to. Because they’re one happy family. It’s this comment that even out of it from being tortured Regina absorbed everything she overheard and was told, like Emma coming to find her and the fact tat Snow and Charming actually did and then told her that it was because she’s family. It’s Regina expressing jealousy in hurtful comments toward Emma when Emma backs what she sees as Hook’s plan and not hers. It’s how Regina relates this to Emma feeling something for Hook. As if she’s miffed that Emma doesn’t feel anything for her and that that’s the reason she doesn’t get Emma’s support. It’s in the way Regina stays with the Charmings, working with them instead of the way she’s always worked, alone. It’s how she chooses to follow Emma’s lead, a kind of respect she grants no one unless she’s trying to fool them into thinking she’s on their side when she’s not. It’s in how she pleads with Emma not to go after Neal, which she thinks is Emma going on a goose chase.
It’s Emma rushing in to save Regina (backed by the entire team) from Tinkerbell because she’s “a pissed off mother.” Because that’s what Emma does, she’s good at convincing people to back her cause and she did it to save Regina. It’s Emma backing Regina’s plan to talk to their son. It’s Emma trusting Regina to teach her magic in a way that won’t turn her dark. It’s the jealous way Emma reacts to Regina and Robin being together instead of the supportive and happy way a friend who is happy you’re happy should. It’s Emma fighting for them, not giving up on them and all they can be.
It’s them literally working to save each other’s souls.
It’s basically every interaction between Emma and Regina and even some interactions between either Emma or Regina and others or between Emma and Regina with others present and how they react to them. Telling me that I’m not alone in what I’m seeing.
It’s the entirety of seasons 4 and 5 where Regina and Emma spend so much time worrying about each other even as they’re with and worrying about their respective partners and their problems.
It’s how they follow each other to the ends of the earth to support each other no matter what it means for both of them or their respective partners. No matter if those partners choose to follow them or if they even think to ask.
It’s how they look at each other like they couldn’t imagine their lives without each other. Like the other person hung the moon and stars specifically for them.
It’s because the best kind of romantic relationship, the kind of love that lasts, is the kind that grows from friendship combined with mutual attraction.
It’s because according to their world and ours they fit the recipe for true love
-magic
-sacrifice
-trust
-honesty
-hard work
and most importantly, love
It’s because they see and understand each other clearly even when they don’t see and understand themselves clearly.
It’s because they actively work to make each other happy. How they’re never truly happy unless they both are. It’s because they’re the best, most honest versions of themselves when they are with each other.
And isn’t that whom you should be with? The person who brings out the best, happiest, most honest version of yourself?
Oh, look at that. I guess I do know why I love Swan Queen.
And it’s not because they share a son they both love that brought them together. Or that they’re two women. Or that representation is important. Because while all of that is true and important,
it’s because when I started watching this show it was because I was looking for or at least expecting a mainstream fairy tale love story between a man and a woman. But after three seasons, what I found instead was this epic, slowly and beautifully developing love story between two flawed and real, relatable women with all the elements that make a fairy tale great, like magic and dragons and curses and all kinds of adventure, thrown in. What I found instead was a love story that took fantasy and reality and married them to create something unique. Something special. :)