Questions for A Land Without Magic
May. 17th, 2012 04:09 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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abc_onceuponIt is time for my post on A Land Without Magic and it is my last one of the season! It's been fun and interesting getting different viewpoints and I hope to continue these next season.
1. Okay, let's start at the end. What is Rumpel's purpose in bringing magic to Storybrooke? This wasn't anything spur of the moment, nor could it have anything to do with Belle, so why? Simple lust for power? Or are we seeing the next step in his 'Find Bae' project and power is more of a tool than the central point? After all wandering about looking for a person of indeterminate age, name, and place of origin is not going to get you far in a population of nearly 7 billion. And why would Belle showing up change his plans? I don't think it would but it seems many have a perception that it should have. His vow to find Bae is always going to be more important than anything or anyone else.
2. As for why he didn't use the well to bring back Bae directly, if it was that easy to do I believe he would have. This was a long, thought out plan and I doubt he forgot to research the water and what exactly it could return. He was willing to give up power when he thought he had his son but not if he still needs to find him.
3. Is bringing magic necessarily a bad thing? He did use the power of true love not an evil curse so it is likely that, at worst, the magic itself is neutral. Also, if the curse breaking meant going back to FTL as expected everyone would have had access to magic anyway.
4. Did you expect Emma to believe so quickly in the episode? She has been fighting against the idea very hard but that doesn't mean she wasn't believing on one level while pushing against it on another. What she needed was a reason to believe which was stronger than her fear.
5. And Regina gave up ALL the info very quickly! Was it that there was no longer an advantage in pretending or that love of Henry trumped her desire for revenge? For a while at least. We will have to see if love of Henry will hold her back at all next season or if it turns to hate and bitterness.
6. Did Gold know that all Emma needed to do was believe and kiss Henry to save him (and break at least part of the curse)? I vote yes since he wrote it and specifically gave Emma power over the curse. In fact I think he depended on it and needed her to break the curse before he could start the next phase. Would the kiss have worked while Henry was still alive or did he need to 'die' first?
7. Would Regina's kiss have worked to save Henry? Does Regina truly love Henry or is it more that she WANTS to love him and needs to love him in order to have her happy ending?
8. How did Jefferson know about Belle and exactly where she was kept? All that watching he did paid off? Or perhaps Regina came to visit and chat during those 28 years? Or was he involved in grabbing her in the first place?
9. Will anyone notice that Sidney is in the asylum now too and let him out?
10. Rumpel has some VERY LONG cons that depend on a whole series of steps to pay off. Is he just that good at playing everyone or do you think he has plans A through Q and sometimes all the way to Z? At the very least he knew Regina well enough to know she would bring Maleficent over as a dragon even if he may have had a variety of plans to get the potion out of her. Now, why would she do that to her only friend? It's more dangerous to be her friend or family than it is to be her enemy.
11. WHAT are we going to call these characters next year to distinguish Storybrooke from FTL? Mary Margaret will be no more but will she be all Snow White or a mixture of the two? Will the economy of the town fall apart and end in chaos or will everyone still go to work? Come to think of it, all those rental agreements and loans are contracts and NO ONE breaks contracts with Rumpelstiltskin so they may have to go to work no matter what. Hmmmm...setting things up so Rumpel owns the town might have been a rather bad plan.
12. And then there is the issue of the favor Emma owes him. Now that magic is back I doubt she can say no without there being serious consequences no matter how she feels about him. Consequences such as him taking the baby that was owed him in the first place and perhaps even any second child they may have. (Since they did agree on two children.)
13. Where will the battle lines be drawn next year? Will it be a three-way fight with the Charmings, Regina, and Rumpel all on their sides? Or will Rumpel be against Regina but also a sometimes, untrustworthy ally to the Charmings depending on what he needs to continue his own plans? I have trouble seeing Rumpel as the Big Bad of the season since I don't think he cares enough about everyone else to want to fight them. He will have his own aims as usual and whether he helps or hurts is all going to depend on where you intersect with them. However, his anger for Regina may move him more towards actually helping those against her rather than the 'help' he usually provides.
14. How will Belle affect his plans going forward? She didn't make any difference in the magic issue (other than perhaps giving him more reason to do it so he can protect her as promised) but that is a dazed and confused Belle. But once she gets her bearings I have no doubt she will have an opinion.
1. Okay, let's start at the end. What is Rumpel's purpose in bringing magic to Storybrooke? This wasn't anything spur of the moment, nor could it have anything to do with Belle, so why? Simple lust for power? Or are we seeing the next step in his 'Find Bae' project and power is more of a tool than the central point? After all wandering about looking for a person of indeterminate age, name, and place of origin is not going to get you far in a population of nearly 7 billion. And why would Belle showing up change his plans? I don't think it would but it seems many have a perception that it should have. His vow to find Bae is always going to be more important than anything or anyone else.
2. As for why he didn't use the well to bring back Bae directly, if it was that easy to do I believe he would have. This was a long, thought out plan and I doubt he forgot to research the water and what exactly it could return. He was willing to give up power when he thought he had his son but not if he still needs to find him.
3. Is bringing magic necessarily a bad thing? He did use the power of true love not an evil curse so it is likely that, at worst, the magic itself is neutral. Also, if the curse breaking meant going back to FTL as expected everyone would have had access to magic anyway.
4. Did you expect Emma to believe so quickly in the episode? She has been fighting against the idea very hard but that doesn't mean she wasn't believing on one level while pushing against it on another. What she needed was a reason to believe which was stronger than her fear.
5. And Regina gave up ALL the info very quickly! Was it that there was no longer an advantage in pretending or that love of Henry trumped her desire for revenge? For a while at least. We will have to see if love of Henry will hold her back at all next season or if it turns to hate and bitterness.
6. Did Gold know that all Emma needed to do was believe and kiss Henry to save him (and break at least part of the curse)? I vote yes since he wrote it and specifically gave Emma power over the curse. In fact I think he depended on it and needed her to break the curse before he could start the next phase. Would the kiss have worked while Henry was still alive or did he need to 'die' first?
7. Would Regina's kiss have worked to save Henry? Does Regina truly love Henry or is it more that she WANTS to love him and needs to love him in order to have her happy ending?
8. How did Jefferson know about Belle and exactly where she was kept? All that watching he did paid off? Or perhaps Regina came to visit and chat during those 28 years? Or was he involved in grabbing her in the first place?
9. Will anyone notice that Sidney is in the asylum now too and let him out?
10. Rumpel has some VERY LONG cons that depend on a whole series of steps to pay off. Is he just that good at playing everyone or do you think he has plans A through Q and sometimes all the way to Z? At the very least he knew Regina well enough to know she would bring Maleficent over as a dragon even if he may have had a variety of plans to get the potion out of her. Now, why would she do that to her only friend? It's more dangerous to be her friend or family than it is to be her enemy.
11. WHAT are we going to call these characters next year to distinguish Storybrooke from FTL? Mary Margaret will be no more but will she be all Snow White or a mixture of the two? Will the economy of the town fall apart and end in chaos or will everyone still go to work? Come to think of it, all those rental agreements and loans are contracts and NO ONE breaks contracts with Rumpelstiltskin so they may have to go to work no matter what. Hmmmm...setting things up so Rumpel owns the town might have been a rather bad plan.
12. And then there is the issue of the favor Emma owes him. Now that magic is back I doubt she can say no without there being serious consequences no matter how she feels about him. Consequences such as him taking the baby that was owed him in the first place and perhaps even any second child they may have. (Since they did agree on two children.)
13. Where will the battle lines be drawn next year? Will it be a three-way fight with the Charmings, Regina, and Rumpel all on their sides? Or will Rumpel be against Regina but also a sometimes, untrustworthy ally to the Charmings depending on what he needs to continue his own plans? I have trouble seeing Rumpel as the Big Bad of the season since I don't think he cares enough about everyone else to want to fight them. He will have his own aims as usual and whether he helps or hurts is all going to depend on where you intersect with them. However, his anger for Regina may move him more towards actually helping those against her rather than the 'help' he usually provides.
14. How will Belle affect his plans going forward? She didn't make any difference in the magic issue (other than perhaps giving him more reason to do it so he can protect her as promised) but that is a dazed and confused Belle. But once she gets her bearings I have no doubt she will have an opinion.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-18 10:01 pm (UTC)Let's be clear about the curse: it doesn't specify that they'll go somewhere, just that time will be frozen and memories submerged.
And Rumplestiltskin never said that he made the curse to find Bae; I think that's what we construe from the fact that Bae was lost to another realm-- that episode never said he came to our world, either-- just that he went to a place with no magic. That doesn't necessarily mean our world or indeed, our time period.
When I re-watched the episode, he never gave a reason for creating the curse, just that he'd created it and used a drop of true love on the parchment. I think the reasoning for creating that curse is still unknown.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-20 03:09 am (UTC)This episode doesn't go into why he made the curse but the The Return does lay it out fairly well. In The Return he vows to do nothing else and love nothing else until he finds a way to find Bae. He also gets the idea of a curse from the Blue Fairy then. It is not explicitly stated but it is certainly implicit from those scenes that he made the curse to go to the world where Bae went. And, yes, a world with no magic doesn't have to mean ours or the present time but I don't believe Rumpel would spend centuries at this and not get it right. That would not be like him at all.