god sometimes i just think about wonderland && once upon a time and. idk.
i’ve never been satisfied with the way ouat handles the question of heroes && villains, especially w/ the whole author plot arc in s4, like. the entire show is built on this foundation of. if you’re not a hero, you’re a villain, && if you’re not a villain, you’re a hero. and those aren’t very well defined categories w/i the story, mainly because the distinction is (canonically!!) nothing but authorial fiat: if you’re a hero, u can do literally anything && still be a hero, && if you’re a villain u will always be a villain no matter what u do.
heroes kidnap innocent babies, curse them w/ innate darkness && ship them off to unknown lands w/o even bothering to apologize to the mother, && they’re still heroes afterward. or u might be ursula, whose biggest crimes appear to be escaping from her cruel, controlling father && hanging out w/ cruella && maleficent.
&& obviously most of ouat’s villains do an abundance of nasty things && the heroes are by no means categorically bad, but that’s kind of what i’m getting at here. ouat’s characters are all shades of grey, but in-universe there’s only two moral categories you can fall into, && your choices don’t have any influence over which one you fall into.
i think there’s something to be said for the idea that this is all a fucked-up self-fulfilling prophecy, && certainly that would explain why all the antagonists seem so eager to announce that they are [villains/evil/wicked]. but. at least up until the end of season four, that canonically isn’t the case bc isaac made the hero/villain dichotomy a tangible reality.
i’m not sure whether s5 addresses any of this in a meaningful way ( although from what i hear... no. ) but like. the morality of ouat is blatantly a question of black & white. it’s very fatalistic. choices don’t actually seem to matter, in the end.
so any story ouat tries to tell about redemption, or about corruption, don’t feel, to me, like they really have any weight.
regina can try her goddamnedest to become a better person and let go of her grudges and heal her own woulds and make restitution for the wounds she gave to others, but she’s still a villain.
emma can be a magical special child of true love with incredible powers of light and, more importantly, immense reserves of determination and willpower, and she can be utterly sickened and appalled by the idea of giving into the darkness, but it doesn’t matter because the dark one can apparently just make her do stuff mere minutes after she binds it to her soul.
snow and charming can be so, so, so selfish and self-righteous and treat “villains” as if they’re not even human, and they can let this arrogance carry them down paths they know to be wrong, but they’re still always going to be heroes who’ll get their happiness in the end.
&& then there’s wonderland, which is like. diametrically opposed to ouat in it’s stance about good and evil. superficially it ?? looks similar. you have alice, who is good; you have jack, who proclaims himself a hero and does traditionally heroic things; you have hatter, who is evil.
jack’s obsession w/ being a hero is as annoying and unhelpful and childish. ( not explicitly enough, imo, but there is definite narrative condemnation going on in ‘one knight’ and alice calls him on caring more about Being A Hero than he does actually helping her. ) he’s flawed, and portrayed as such; he isn’t truly a hero until he stands up and acts the part.
and alice && hatter... they’re each other’s might-have-beens. i use the comparison to jekyll && hyde a lot bc hatter is. explicitly the id to alice’s ego. and as evil as hatter is ( and, i mean, she strips ppl of free will && uses them as slaves && tries to muder the entire cast, including a ten year old lol ) alice. tries. so very hard to give hatter a shot at redemption. her forgiveness is immediate and complete, and she doesn’t ?? even think twice abt reaching out to hatter and offering her a second chance.
because, i think, alice—-and the narrative as a whole-—recognizes that people always have a choice, even when they don’t feel as if they do. hatter is the way she is because she chose to be, that is made very clear, but it’s made equally clear that she hasn’t condemned herself to always be that way. she refuses to take that chance, but there is absolutely nothing predetermined about her choice.
idk, i have a lot of feelings about the relationship between hatter and alice. what it really comes down to, though, in terms of wonderland’s stance w/r/t good and evil, is that people are complicated, and heroes are flawed, and everybody has the capacity for unspeakable evil, and that choice is important but circumstances are important too.
there is no ‘ triumphing ’ over evil in wonderland. there’s an outstretched hand && a choice not to accept it. good doesn’t win in the end. evil isn’t vanquished. in the end, hatter is presented as a part of alice’s psyche no more or less important than any other.
&& idk, i think that’s the main reason i’m so interested in crossing over ouat with wonderland. the strict dichotomy between hero and villain in ouat doesn’t allow for characters to truly be forgiving and actively sabotages any attempts at redemption; alice stetson’s keen awareness of her own flaws && capacity for evil lead her to be too forgiving for her own good.
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
