Skip to main content

Once Upon a Time seasons 1-4 | Review

First of all, if you haven't seen Once Upon a Time and want to go into the show blind, then please minimise this, go watch it all and come back. While there are no ground-breaking spoilers here, I do touch on parts of the plot, and characters that may be considered of a spoiler-y nature.

Back in 2010, I was babysitting for an old neighbour when what to my wandering eyes could appear but an advert. The advert was to become the beginning of an adventure in my life, spanning right up until this very day. It has indeed taken me since that dreary, dark night in 2010 until this very day to get up to date with Once Upon a Time (IMDB here), and my what a journey it has been.
What drew me to the show initially was the basic theme of fairytales (I’m a sucker for a good story), and the added twist of modern day America meets the fairytales was just my cup of tea. Over the years we have seen a group of characters, once (upon a time *sniggers*) defined by their stock stereotypes of ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ be uprooted, thrown about, taken apart and put back together again in a very charming way.


The roller-coaster ride that was season one established Emma Swan in my heart as a defiant, sassy and fiercely loyal young woman. I loved her stand-offish nature and as the series has continued, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning her back story. I relate so much to Emma Swan in as much as she gives as good as she gets, but she has flaws; she gets scared and runs away and is overly defensive and won't open up. Over the four years the show has been on, Swan has grown and blossomed and fallen in ways in which no follower of the show could have imagined. Her relationships with other characters, particularly her close family: Henry, Regina and her parents. The fact that Emma is given the stereotype of 'the saviour', yet isn't always good and hasn't had the most perfect past is really refreshing. 

Regina, whom I adored from the beginning, manages to grow into a complex character. According to the show's IMDB page, this is largely due to the character's actress, Lara Parrilla asking them to make her more multi-dimensional. Her relationship with her adopted son and her motivations for her actions lead us to grow to love Regina (there isn't a single person who watches OUAT that I've spoken to that dislikes her). I think part of the draw to Regina is that she is an outcast - she's stereotyped as a 'villain'; much in the same way many viewers may have felt cast out by being labeled by society as 'woman' or 'black' or 'gay' or 'bisexual' or 'trans'. 

One of the things Once Upon a Time does so compellingly, use the tropes of fairytales to look at our society and our lives. While there are these sociological aspect to it, it maintains an active plot, brilliant writing and beautifully complex characters. Once Upon a Time succeeds simply because it is passionate; passionate about stories, about people, and about life. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Teens don't read"

Earlier today Maureen Johnson pointed out that the view of "teens don't read" in the UK is deeply entrenched (which is a word that I now love  and had never heard before). As a teenager in the UK, the stigma around reading seems to be - to me - it's "uncool", it's "geeky", there "aren't any good books out there". I think the fact that a lot of teenagers in British schools are exposed to older literature or, perhaps, not that popular literature in lessons and forced into over-analysing and spending countless hours on 'what the author meant'. A point that was raised in this twitter discussion was that people didn't want to be seen reading, or didn't want to be seen reading certain books. It's made me realise that I never   ever ever  see people reading in the older years in my school ( ever ). Perhaps the odd year 7 (12 year old) or year 8 (13 year old) will read, but - from experience - they will probably be ...
4 comments
Read more

Ask FML

Ask FM infuriates me. I'm not going to take a moral high-ground and say I've never asked a question on it, because that would be lying but it still makes me angry. (Note that you can in fact dislike something that you have partaken in previously...) I can understand the appeal to both asking and answering questions - yeah, it can get some good conversation going. What I don't understand is that those two people could have that perfectly civilised conversation about all those deep and meaningful questions without the anonymity. Furthermore, why does someone immediately think "oh, I'm bored I KNOW let's post a link to ask.fm on my facebook/twitter page"? If you're bored go and do talk to people (text, phone, family, skype DO IT), read a book, make a video, write a blog post. Why ask people ask you questions? I just... I guess I don't get it. I have seen people horrendously bullied on formspring and ask fm and yet they continue to allow themselv...
2 comments
Read more

Ten books that have shaped my decade

As this decade draws to an end, I’ve decided to take a look back at the last ten years and see what books have truly impacted my life. Choosing these was hard – for one thing, I’ve read a lot of books (663 since 2011) and for another, it’s harder to distance yourself from the ones you’ve read most recently. Ask me in five years, and this list may have changed! Books have fundamentally shaped me, from the ages of 14 to 24. So much has changed, including myself. Without these books, times would have been darker, more difficult to overcome, and I definitely would have felt a lot more alone. Books have brought me closer to people, they’ve made me friends, they’ve given me something to talk (gush) about, and they’ve eaten up a whole lot of time and money (not one moment or penny do I regret!). This year I fell back in love with going to the library, a habit I seemed to forget to do as a teenager/young adult. I urge you to go there, see what they have waiting for you on the shelves (...
Post a Comment
Read more