ABC Once Upon A Time

I agree with your father. Not necessarily because I believe that Regina's gone too far to come back from it but because I don't believe in redemption without atonement.

When Regina apologizes to Snow for destroying her life and taking her daughter away from her or when she apologizes to Emma for forcing her parents' hands in sending her away or when she apologizes to all of Storybrooke for destroying their homes and their lives and when she apologizes to the families of all the people she'd killed, then we can talk. As is stands right now (and especially because they had her not regretting any of her past actions in Neverland), I don't consider her redeemed. She needs to feel sympathy and empathy for other people and she needs to recognize that other people are not just means to an end. She needs to recognize that she was wrong. She straight-up admitted she didn't regret the happily ever afters she stole from other people, so I feel like until she does, I don't care about hers.

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As to your third point, I recall Henry calling Emma his real mom exactly once, in the pilot. At the end of "Going Home," Henry tells Regina he shouldn't have gone to get Emma in the first place, which is just as much a slap in the face to Emma as the "real mom" comment was to Regina.

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philstar22.livejournal.com

Henry only said it once. But the show has made clear that Emma comes first given that she gets more time with him, even the Charmings get more time with him than Regina does, and she seems to be the one who gets to make the decisions about his life.

And as for Henry's comment, that was a comment made in the heat of the moment when he was about to lose his mom. Regina makes clear after that it was her fault, not his. On the other hand, his "real mom" comment was in line with what season 1 gave us and was much more his real feelings than his comment to Regina.

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philstar22.livejournal.com

She said that yes. But later on in the same season she recognized that she had been evil, that everything that happened was her fault (her comment to Henry), and yes she and Snow did reconcile and it read like an apology to me (the scene at the end of the episode where they find out that Snow's mother wasn't perfect).

Yes, the show does tend to rush redemptions, but that is its stick. The whole theme of Once is that no one is perfect, that redemption is possible, and that no one is pure evil. And in giving up Henry in order to save everyone, I do think Regina at least started on the path to atonement.

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Currently, I'm kinda of all over the place regarding Regina's redemption. I think the writers are ultimately going for it, and we're seeing it happen in a two steps forward, one step back way.

The device of resurrecting Marian should ultimately help this. Regina is going to have to deal with the fact that she ultimately created the problem, and I think she will have to face that aspect of it. So I'm not bemoaning Marian -- her presence in Storybrooke is making a really rich storyline for Regina.

So, for now, I'm going with yes on the redemption thing. I just don't think she's there yet.

Edited Date: 2014-09-06 02:50 pm (UTC)

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And Henry's comment to Regina about Emma being his "real mom" was also a heat-of-the-moment-type comment. He was an angry, hurt kid and he lashed out. That's what kids do. As the show's gone on, I do think it's clear that Henry considers both Regina and Emma to be his moms.

And I'm sorry, but I feel like season 1 Henry had a right to be angry with season 1 Regina because she was gaslighting the poor kid and was doing truly awful things to him emotionally. She admitted as much in the beginning of season 2: "I didn't know how to love very well."

Regina broke Henry's trust. Regina tried to poison Emma, ended up poisoning Henry instead, and then spent half a season trying to kill the kid's family. As far as I can tell, the fact that Henry was living with Emma didn't really have anything to do with Emma/the show considering Emma to be his "real" parent but the fact that Regina is/was dangerous. I wouldn't leave someone I love in the hands of someone who was trying to kill me, either.

I like Regina, I do, and I agree she's come a long way. I just don't agree that she's a complete victim, here. She's done a lot of awful things to a lot of people that she hasn't even begun to apologize for. She didn't get the Evil Queen moniker out of the blue ... she earned it, and she needs to recognize that people are going to be hesitant to trust her because she hasn't been the most trustworthy person in the past and is making no effort to apologize for what she's done to them. Without an admission of guilt or apology, there's no reason to believe that the person sees the error of their ways. She may be helping now, but what happens when their interests no longer align? Without that recognition from her that her path was wrong, there's nothing to stop them from believing she won't go down it again.

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Regina never uttered an "I'm sorry" to Snow. She allowed that it was complicated but there was no recognition of the fact that what she's done to Snow is way, way beyond what Snow (who was a child and thought she was helping) had done to her.

I agree that Regina giving Henry up was a great step, but atonement isn't just "okay, I will sacrifice for you all now." It's attempting to make up for past mistakes (which I will agree was what Regina was doing by tearing up the scroll ... but that wasn't just Regina's price, it was Snow's and Charming's and Neal's and Hook's and Emma's and Henry's. And not only that but Henry eventually remembered her, so that sacrifice of "I can never see Henry again" was rendered moot). It's admitting wrongdoing. It's saying "I'm sorry." It's saying "I was wrong."

Regina has started that, but she's not there yet.

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I haven't seen Season 4 yet; I probably won't until it reaches Netflix. I hope you're right about a Regina/Marian story line; it gives me another thing to look forward to.

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Thank you for your comments. I guess Regina does have a way yet to go, but this progression is making her the most interesting characters in the show for me.

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I haven't seen any of season 4 yet, either. It's debuting this month and I'm so excited about that! My comments are just projecting forward from how things were left at the end of the season 3 finale. There were a lot of exploding heads in the fandom over Regina getting cheated, and I've always seen it as a great stepping out opportunity for her.

Personally, I like Regina more and more as the story progresses. I think she's going to get there some day...

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ctrent29.livejournal.com

She didn't get the Evil Queen moniker out of the blue ... she earned it, and she needs to recognize that people are going to be hesitant to trust her because she hasn't been the most trustworthy person in the past and is making no effort to apologize for what she's done to them.

When one considers her comments to Rumpelstiltskin in "Kansas", when she prevented him from getting revenge on Zelena and her comment to Emma, when the latter was about to introduce her to Marion, who was wary of meeting the Evil Queen; I think that Regina more than understands how people are reluctant to trust her. I think she understands a lot more than Rumpelstiltskin does about the others' mistrust of him.

So far . . . I believe Regina has redeemed herself a lot more than Rumpelstiltskin has. And yet, many fans seemed to express more doubt about her redemption than they do about Rumpel.

Edited Date: 2014-09-07 06:31 am (UTC)

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limbomonkey.livejournal.com

For me, what I liked best about the show wasn't the story arcs of redemption but the morally ambiguous characters. So I look at Regina, in part, as someone who allows the ends to justify the means. I don't think redemption is a black and white thing. I don't think she is all of the sudden going to be good. I think she (and others on the show) are always faced with choices. Being treated well allows her to make kind choices, and being treated poorly allows her to make ruthless choices. I like the show best when some of the characters (Rumple, Regina, Hook, Emma) are struggling to make choices when they feel they have been wronged.

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Rumpel's not redeemed in my eyes, either, so I'm not sure where the Rumpel comparison is coming from. I was just saying, Regina's not a White Hat yet. She's not on Team Good Guy yet. She's on the path to Team Good Guy but she has a lot of work ahead of her still.

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Ah, I see. I only found out about the show a couple of months ago so I've seen all of it over this last summer. I'm not even sure which channel is making it.

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Rumpel does seem to cling to power more strongly than Regina, I think because his primary motive for magic is fear, while Regina's is anger. It might be easier to let go of anger than fear. Rumpel also has a moral crutch, his deals; as long as he keeps his deals, he can tell himself he is an honest man.

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I think that's a very good point; one of my favorite things about the show is the connection between magic and choices. The episode about the king and the genii of the lamp is the perfect example of why people avoid using magic in the magical land.

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I have to admit, I got a chill when a villain asked Regina if she was a good guy or not, and she said, "Today."

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Exactly. If she's going to be a good guy only when it's in her best interest to be, that's not exactly being a good guy. I'm not dismissing the good she has done, here, but I think the very fact that there's confusion at all as to whether she's redeemed proves that the story presented is problematic. If people are going to be walking around afraid of doing something to Regina lest she slip back into Evil Queen mode again, how much has she really changed?

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It's kind of funny to even say there IS a Team Good Guy. The 'Good Guys' are far more grey than anything else.

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I've never really understood the obsession with the actual words 'I'm sorry'. Various characters have said it multiple times and it's been meaningless almost every time.

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An actual "I'm sorry" is supposed to be an acknowledgment that the person issuing the apology understands that he or she has hurt/done bad things to the person receiving the apology and that he or she regrets it. That he or she would not like to have those same things done to them and understands how awful it was to do it to someone else.

I've seen the argument that "I'm sorry" is not going to change anything, and it's not. But the point of the "I'm sorry" isn't to change anything in the past. It's an acknowledgment of the heartache someone caused. When someone hurts you, don't you like to hear an apology?

I don't buy into the "sorry is meaningless" argument at all. Maybe for some people it is, but for some people, it makes all the difference. For me, the decent thing for Regina to do is suck it up and offer her victims that bit of sympathy and acknowledgment.

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And that makes it okay for Regina to murder and torture and destroy other people's lives and not regret any of it? Everyone is responsible for their own actions, in my opinion. Regina doesn't get a free pass from me just because others are more or less corrupt than she is.

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...I think you're confusing an argument about how Team Good Guys on OUAT is non-existent because they're all pretty repugnant and selfish people with 'free passes'

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When someone hurts me I'd rather they prove that they're not going to do it again. There's just a lot of hypocrisy involved in the 'you've done all this stuff and proven yourself but you didn't SAY YOU'RE SORRY'. With the depth of the acts involved in various seasons it's a very immature quibble that actually just diminishes a lot of characterization.

Like, Emma hasn't apologized for abducting Henry multiple times or planning to do it again, that doesn't mean the characters haven't moved past it.

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The show wants to claim Regina is redeemed. All I was saying is that to me, she's not yet. She hasn't earned it, in my estimation.

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Does the show? Because that's not what I'm getting at all because despite the whole bullshit about Snow's heart 'repurifying' or whatever that garbage was, Regina's not supposed to be at that point. I'm also highly suspect of people saying you can somehow 'earn' redemption, like you'll somehow be all 'I'm redeemed!' and that means everything is good. So ridiculous. There's no such thing as redemption as a point or place, it's a continuous journey that never ends.

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But for me, the very first indication that someone recognizes that they were wrong is that acknowledgment. If I don't have that indication that the person understands that their actions had detrimental effects on others, I don't know that they're not going to do it again.

This season ended with Regina angry with Emma for bringing Marian back, telling her she was "just like her mother," with the implication being that Regina is now going to go on the warpath against Emma, the same way she did Snow. If she'd truly come far enough for the audience to believe she's not going to revert now that her new love is threatened, just like before, that threat in the cliffhanger wouldn't have worked.

Like I said downthread, the very fact that there's even a debate about whether or not Regina is redeemed proves there's something off about the narrative. People can point to things and say, "Here, this proves she is!" and just as many people can point to just as many things and say, "Here, this proves she's not!"

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You're making two very different points in two different threads here.

Again, there's no such thing as 'redeemed'. Regina will always be a murderer and ave to atone for that forever. Just like Snow and Charming and Rumple and Hook will always be murderers.

Ultimately, Snow seems to think that protecting her life and her family's lives at the possible expense of Regina's own multiple times is quite possibly BETTER than a few words of apology.

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I agree that Regina's not at all at that point. Where I'm getting that the show seems to think she is is that they gave her True Love's Kiss and allowed her to perform white magic all without a heart.

One of the big things of the heart-ripping is that the person whose heart is gone doesn't feel anything. That was Graham's whole problem. He didn't feel anything. Yet Regina feels enough to have True Love's Kiss with Henry without her heart? And she's come far enough on her hero's journey to use white magic (which is supposed to be based in emotion, which again, she shouldn't be able to feel without her heart), when she's never done so before? It just doesn't track, to me.

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I don't really think we're agreeing because I'm saying there is no 'point'.

Your entire logic is flawed though because a) their heart mythology is utter garbage and b) Graham COULD feel, that was the entire point of that episode. The idea that you can't feel has been debunked and explained. Hence why Snow was so emotional without her heart. Why Aurora was as well.

Why would it matter that she can use white magic? It's about intent. She's not using anger as an anchor, it becomes white. Emma's supposed to be white magic but she's a pretty garbage person and has used anger in magic before, that means she shouldn't really be using white magic by your estimation.

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I agree that Regina will always be a murderer and should have to atone forever. There's no magic point at which those past misdeeds become erased. I just don't agree that the show sees it that way.

Even still, I'd like to see some indication that Regina understands that her path was wrong. 3A was great in terms of giving her some self-awareness and then they completely obliterated it for me with Regina saying she didn't regret any of it because it got her Henry. To me, she was saying all her murdering and torturing and cursing was worth it because she got something out of it, unexpected though that something may be. So to her, the ends justified the means. It was okay that she'd destroyed countless other people's happily ever afters because she got her own. Which is a notion I completely disagree with.

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I don't think you understand the difference between remorse and regret. They're two different things.

Almost ALL the characters are like you describe. Snow doesn't care how many people die, including her children, as long as she's with Charming, because the end is what she wants.

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I understand remorse and regret just fine, thank you. If you look them up in the thesaurus, they're synonyms. Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regret) defines "regret" as "to feel sorrow or remorse for."

Oh, and believe you me, I have my issues with Snow, too, so this isn't just Regina, either. I just wasn't bringing her into it because the debate was about Regina.

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Well, then you just didn't understand the entire point of the scene. I guess it wasn't as clear as I thought.

Then why did you bring up how Regina needs to say she's sorry to Snow if you didn't want to bring up Snow?

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I brought up Regina needing to apologize to Snow because I believe she does. For killing her father and for stealing the first three decades of her daughter's entire childhood. The point you brought up, with Snow being willing to sacrifice others, up to and including her children, to keep Charming, is a completely different point, and one for which Snow should apologize to those she hurt.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Neither one of us is going to change the other's mind.

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Not really in favour of people needing to apologize for killing their rapists but sure, lots of stuff Regina should 'apologize' for in a really meaningless way when compared to the actual way it's played out. I mean, there's absolutely no proof that she HASN'T because they lived together for a year plus much more meaningful things that mean a lot more than a few words.

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ctrent29.livejournal.com

Regina is going to have to deal with the fact that she ultimately created the problem, and I think she will have to face that aspect of it.

The problem is about Marian being in Storybrooke and not about Regina's efforts to kill her back in the Enchanted Forest.

The problem is that Rumpelstiltskin had failed to let go of his desire for revenge against Zelena .. . and about Emma's inability to let go of her savior complex. I never understood why she and Hook found it necessary to bring Marian to Storybrooke in the first place. They had assumed that because Robin and the others believed her to be dead, she should be brought to the future. Emma and Hook could have easily allowed her to go on her own way. I don't know if Marian would have found Robin in the Enchanted Forest, but there was always that possibility. And even if she had, I doubt that the foundations of the world would have been shaken if Marian and Robin had reunited back in the EF.

If and when Regina has to face Marian's hostility about the attempted execution, THEN one can say that this particular problem was of Regina's creation.

And if many believe that Regina has failed to achieve redemption, then one might as well say the same about Rumpelstiltskin, Dr. Whale, Jefferson . . . and Snow White. One can even say the same about Emma. She may have given up her past as a thief. However, she is still driving a vehicle that she knows is stolen. And she has yet to really face the consequences of breaking the law when she stayed in contact with Henry.

And that makes it okay for Regina to murder and torture and destroy other people's lives and not regret any of it?

But she has expressed regret for her past. She's been doing this ever since she allowed Henry to go live with Charming, while Snow and Emma were in the EF. She expressed regret when she was willing to sacrifice her life by preventing the fail safe she had created in the Season 2 finale to kill Storybrooke's citizens. She has expressed regret when she confronted Tinkerbelle about giving in to anger and revenge. She had expressed regret when she prevented Rumpelstiltskin from killing Zelena for the first time.

Edited Date: 2014-09-12 01:27 am (UTC)

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Yes! Total agreement! Watching the characters go around apologizing to each other does not appeal to me as a viewer. On the other hand, showing the growth and change of these characters, and the repentive acts that arise from that is something that appeals a lot to me. I think this is what the show is giving us.

The end of season 2 gave us these scenes:

Hook didn't come back with the magic bean he'd stolen and hand it over with an apology, but he offered his ship and went along for the ride to rescue Henry.

Regina was willing to die to save the town from the crystal that had been triggered.

Snow was far more accepting of Regina after her role in the death of Cora.

I love all of these developments, and look forward to more of the same.

Edited Date: 2014-09-12 09:49 pm (UTC)

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I view Regina's redemption as forward and then back. It's continually happening and she has a way to go. But she is firmly on that path.

Her relationship with Henry has grown leaps and bounds and I think will serve to keep her trying.

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And if many believe that Regina has failed to achieve redemption, then one might as well say the same about Rumpelstiltskin, Dr. Whale, Jefferson . . . and Snow White. One can even say the same about Emma. She may have given up her past as a thief. However, she is still driving a vehicle that she knows is stolen. And she has yet to really face the consequences of breaking the law when she stayed in contact with Henry.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. Nobody is all good or all bad. When the show first started, I thought that was going to be the case, and I was pretty detached when watching it at that point. Once the shades of gray started appearing around all of the characters, the story became much more enthralling.

The fact that life in the Enchanted Forest really wasn't a fairytale is what it's all about. Nobody had a perfect life there. I'd actually say that their lives in Storybrooke are better. So I really wasn't picking on Regina in favor of another character. I just find her to be probably the most conflicted character. That's not a bad thing.

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