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Post by Jade on Nov 16, 2011 2:30:43 GMT -5
I thought that it was cool they put a "twist" when it came to Cinderella's story, but the whole idea that she'd make that deal with him came directly from HIS story (what was THAt princess's name in the fairy tales). The idea that she'd willing sign a document without even bothering to read it made it so that this version of Cinderella really didn't deserve sympathy. Exactly my point! I think it would have been better, almost, if Rumple HAD tricked her somehow...except there is something interesting about Rumple in that, conniving as he is, there's an odd measure of honesty about him, too. He was honest with the EQ about the price of the curse and the fact he'd told Snow & Charming how to break it. He was honest with Snow about how to break it. He was even honest with Ella about the price to be paid by magic...both times! He's hiding his purpose, but I don't think it would be fair to describe him as ENTIRELY duplicitous. He says, "You don't want o do this. You'll regret it." And they go, "Don't bother me with the doom and gloom! Gimme!" And he goes, "Okeyday then!" Still, Ella would have come off better if she'd been tricked about the price. Rather than essentially going, "Don't care about the price! This is what I want!" And, to be honest...I'm not sure you really got enough of a picture of the life she was in to warrant sympathy over that measure of desperation. I mean, yeah, we all know from the stories that she's treated like a servant and all that. And I'm not saying that's a happy life. But even if you use "Ever After" as an example...and she was even whipped at some point...I still can't imagine someone going to Danielle and saying, "Hey, I'll get you out of this. Just sign this contract and you'll have a price to pay but...we'll just leave that to later. Just remember magic has a price!" and her responding, "Sign me up!" Even then, I'd imagine she'd go, "When you say PRICE...gimme a ballpark estimate on what you might mean." But...again I remind myself...she was living in a world where she thought shed get a HEA and the worst that would come from it is that her stepsisters might lose some toes and a heel. (I imagine there's a Grimm bent on some of the HEAs in FTL.) And maybe some eyes or something. I can't remember which characters got their eyes pecked out. But for HER, that SHE'D get a happy ending, once her wish came true. So she'd be utterly unable to conceive of a truly bad price to pay for her wish. Except...this IS a world where people like Rumple wander around, blowing up fairy godmothers. Soooooo...yeah, I'm torn on this issue. Should probably mull it over some more before my next long, rambling post. (BTW, I don't remember if the princess in The Frog Prince actually HAD a name. Did she? I guess she must have, but I don't remember it, if so.) This is true. And although I'm nitpicking the episode and Ella/Thomas weren't my favorite characters, I do think that the episode was largely intended to get that point across, and it did its job admirably. The thing that's nice about that is that one could have just assumed that it was the EQ's curse that would have a cost. Because it was evil, because it was so powerful...because she's a bad guy and so they pay prices in fairy tales that the heroes and heroines just don't. But this episode really did make it clear - at least to me - that it doesn't matter what the magic is, it doesn't matter the intentions for using the magic (whether they be good or ill)...all magic in FTL comes with a price. So I suppose the price Charming and Snow had to pay for putting Emma in the magical tree cabinet was that they lost their daughter for 28 years of her life. But now I'm curious to know how this theme is going to play out for the rest of the show. I doubt this concept of the good guys using magic and then having unfortunate consequences is going to be something reserved strictly for this episode. I just wonder how it's going to come up again. Now to go mull over Regina/Graham and ponder how that's going to play out... |
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Post by Jade on Nov 16, 2011 2:56:08 GMT -5
Yeah, I never thought I would think that. In Episode 1 and 2, I wanted to spend more time in the Real World and away from Snow/Charming. But now? I wanted to see what those two were up to, because Snow White has more personality and awesomeness than all the other women combined. I agree. I actually remember having that conversation with you after the Pilot. But I actually REALLY love the scenes in FTL. I want to know what happened after they left each other on that road. How did they meet up again? How did Charming get Snow to admit she loved him? Because you KNOW that had to take some doing. I also wanted to know what happens next with MM and David. And that annoying not-wife. I refuse to believe she's actually married to him. Even a curse couldn't be that evil. Gah! Snow is more awesome than MM, of course, but I'm finding myself interested in MM, as well. And that's a credit to the actress, to make me care about two characters that seem so different. But after Snow Falls...I just want to know what happens! I didn't get to see the trailer for next episode. I should probably check that out at some point. |
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Post by shalimarfox80 on Nov 16, 2011 5:31:38 GMT -5
I had similar problems with Cinderella. The girl literally came off as someone who was desperate to just get rich. I mean even finding true love wasn't her priority. That just came in the package of becoming a princess. She says it all when she's watching the fireworks and says that she used to watch it from afar and now it is happening for her and then says 'for our wedding'. I just didn't buy that her prince was AOK with everything she did. I didn't feel for Cinderella and because of that, I couldn't sympathize with Ashley either.
The characterization of Cinderella disappointed me also because she's what the most iconic of all fairy tale heroines. Hers is the story of the ultimate underdog winning everything in the end. She doesn't start off as a princess but she ends up becoming one and she has a hard life. We needed to see more of that. After seeing Snow White's back story and basically her being a smart kick-ass girl instead of the damsel in distress had given me high expectations on the writing for Cinderella. I was mistaken.
Has anyone of you seen Drew Barrymore's Ever After? It's such a wonderful take on Cinderella's story. Off course it presents the fairy tale in the real world 16th Century France with no pumpkins and fairy Godmothers around, but Danielle's (Cinderella) character is an amazingly strong and well written one. That's the kind of characterizations I'm talking about because OUAT has mixed FTL (borrowing Jade's abv) with real world, and this is their own take so I expect them to show a lot more substance and complexity to the characters. Snow White hasn't so far disappointed me on that front but Cinderella was definitely a major disappointment.
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Post by Jade on Nov 16, 2011 13:12:08 GMT -5
Has anyone of you seen Drew Barrymore's Ever After? It's such a wonderful take on Cinderella's story. Off course it presents the fairy tale in the real world 16th Century France with no pumpkins and fairy Godmothers around, but Danielle's (Cinderella) character is an amazingly strong and well written one. That's the kind of characterizations I'm talking about because OUAT has mixed FTL (borrowing Jade's abv) with real world, and this is their own take so I expect them to show a lot more substance and complexity to the characters. Snow White hasn't so far disappointed me on that front but Cinderella was definitely a major disappointment. Yeah, I mentioned that story in another post. I wish Ella reminded me of Danielle in that story, too. She had a pretty sucky life. She was even whipped at one point. But even so, if someone had come to her with a deal like that...well, I could actually somewhat imagine her taking a deal to save her family's farm. But in the movie, she wasn't just concerned about herself and her happy ending. She wanted to help her fellow servants. Heck, she got some money and spent it freeing one of the other servants from being sent off as slave labor to the Americas. And even if she took the deal to save the farm, I could see her being more cautious about the price to be paid. Even if she DID end up being willing to take the gamble. She was smart and sassy and strong. Heck, at the end, she didn't need the prince to save her. She seemed fully capable of slicing that guy from navel to nose if he didn't let her go. (And more power to her if she had!) But of course that movie had more time, able to spend it focusing on Cinderella and Henry and why you should root for them. And OUT has other priorities, other characters, and - frankly - other motives. I went to bed last night and wondered why there was such a disconnect with me and Ella, beyond what I wrote here. And I think...Snow's been written (in FTL) as a fairy tale princess who's wrapped up in this fairy tale but really doesn't realize it. I mean, when she meets Charming for the first time, the two don't break into song about how the've found the one to finish their duet.  It's more that...she's just living her life, and she doesn't realize that her life is a fairy tale and she's got a HEA coming her way. Ella acted like she knew there was a HEA coming her way from the moment the fairy godmother showed up. Now, they live in a world where fairy godmothers, you know, EXIST, so I guess I can see that she'd have heard stories. But she acted like it was granted that she was on her path to her HEA and didn't really stop to even think about the fact that - in FTL - there are also wolves who dress up like grandmothers to eat a gal. There wasn't some "real world common sense" injected into the situation, so to speak. She didn't take a moment to consider whether the guy in front of her could secretly be a wolf. But, again...she was young. And I wonder if some of that wasn't intentional. I read some interviews with Ginnifer Goodwin where she said that, when she was getting into the character of Snow White, she thought about her vanity. The fairy tale focuses on the Queen's vanity, but if you look at how Snow takes the stays, the comb, and the apple, you see that she suffers from it as well. And she really pondered that as a jumping off point for the character. You haven't really seen that with Snow, but I saw it in Ella. That these princesses may suffer from some of these fatal flaws that the evil Queens/Stepmothers/Etc. are brought down by. So these fairy tale princesses aren't intended to be shown as pure as the driven snow. Er...so to speak. Wow, just realized how problematic Snow's name can be... I also wonder if she wasn't written that way because they WERE setting up a parallel between herself and Emma. And I wonder if maybe we'll find out that Emma (back then) had more in common with Ella than just being a teenager who got pregnant and faced giving it away. Maybe she, too, was rather immature and short-sighted and all of that, and the moment she decided to give Henry away to give him his best chance is the moment she started to grow up. Because that WAS the purpose of her whole speech to Ella, wasn't it? Hmm... Well, Cinderella wasn't my favorite of the characters thus far in OUT, but that's actually okay. I really loved Ever After, and I doubt I'd have ended up loving Ella in OUT more than Danielle anyway. (Or, for that matter, Thomas above Henry.) I DO hope that the rest of the fairy tale princesses they introduce are more in the vein of Snow than Ella, though. |
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Post by sanalayla on Nov 21, 2011 13:08:38 GMT -5
I had similar problems with Cinderella. The girl literally came off as someone who was desperate to just get rich. I mean even finding true love wasn't her priority. That just came in the package of becoming a princess. She says it all when she's watching the fireworks and says that she used to watch it from afar and now it is happening for her and then says 'for our wedding'. I just didn't buy that her prince was AOK with everything she did. I didn't feel for Cinderella and because of that, I couldn't sympathize with Ashley either. Yeah. And then when she finds out that she's losing her baby, her first thought is, "I've lost it all. I have to go back to THAT life." She doesn't think, "Oh no, my poor baby!!" She's a total gold digger in this version. Yes, I love it. One of my favorite movies. |
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Post by sanalayla on Nov 21, 2011 13:11:48 GMT -5
I went to bed last night and wondered why there was such a disconnect with me and Ella, beyond what I wrote here. And I think...Snow's been written (in FTL) as a fairy tale princess who's wrapped up in this fairy tale but really doesn't realize it. I mean, when she meets Charming for the first time, the two don't break into song about how the've found the one to finish their duet. It's more that...she's just living her life, and she doesn't realize that her life is a fairy tale and she's got a HEA coming her way. Ella acted like she knew there was a HEA coming her way from the moment the fairy godmother showed up. Now, they live in a world where fairy godmothers, you know, EXIST, so I guess I can see that she'd have heard stories. But she acted like it was granted that she was on her path to her HEA and didn't really stop to even think about the fact that - in FTL - there are also wolves who dress up like grandmothers to eat a gal. There wasn't some "real world common sense" injected into the situation, so to speak. She didn't take a moment to consider whether the guy in front of her could secretly be a wolf. Yeah, that's a really good point. I think, though, that was a failing on the part of the writers. I feel like they approached this episode like, "Everyone knows the story of Cinderella and what she's about, so no need to really flesh this out." It's like they wanted the audience to just fill in the blanks from other Cinderella stories and the focus was really Emma and Mr. Gold. So they ended up screwing up a pretty iconic fairy tale princess's story. |
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It's more that...she's just living her life, and she doesn't realize that her life is a fairy tale and she's got a HEA coming her way.