Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

[rheasilvia]

Well, I watched it! I thought it had a lot of potential in the beginning, even though it was flawed from the start. At its best, though, it was fun and bright and crazy in an endearingly crackficcy way. Plus I loved many of the characters, and even some of the ones that didn't initially interest me grew on me.

Comments

[wyldreamer]

This is
lostdragonfound from DW :)

Personally I have this headcanon that Alice's Victorian England isn't the actual historical Victorian England but a realm unto itself. Mostly because to the obvious time travel that has to be involved with Alice and Wonderland.

The events in the show seem to take place somewhere around the second season of Once Upon a Time, which means the modern era…basically now. So if this Victorian England is the "real one" then there is some serious time travel going on and the rabbit is keeping track of when he has to time travel when crossing realms/worlds/whatever.

Because of this headcanon, I ignore the historical issues, but that's just me :)

For some reason I like the "true love" trope. Maybe because in real life I'm very much a pessimist (though I just consider myself a realist to be honest) and I consider the whole true love thing to be complete bull. But in stories…I often like it. It's weird.

I like happy endings even though I don't believe in them. Happy endings only happen because you stop the story in the right place.

But sometimes in fiction I really like to momentarily believe that love is the strongest magic and that there are happy endings and that life doesn't actually completely suck, even if it's only for a moment :)

But oh my gods, the Red Queen's lips drove me nuts. Finally by the end I started to get used to them (expect during the kissing scenes, ew).

I was glad that Jafar wanted to make his dad love him so he could know what it was like to be killed by someone he loved, but honestly I would have liked it better if he had then brought him back and done it again over and over. I think he was a little lacking in imagination when it came to revenge.

I wrote up reaction posts to several of the episodes after I watched them, here...

[rheasilvia]

You are absolutely right that Alice's Victorian England can't be considered the actual historical Victorian England - in fact, I'm sure this was never intended to be even vaguely historically accurate. It isn't as though the asylum in the first ep wasn't ahistorical enough to be a big clue. :-) I'm really just nitpicking there... I think I was too grumpy at the time of the wedding to be able to stay in my "this is an alternate universe" headspace. *g*

I am so with you on happy endings! It does depend on the story, of course, but in general I am all for them. That they aren't realistic only makes them more tempting in fiction, because where else can you have them? ;-)

I also don't mind love triumphing, not at all. In fact, I love it when love triumphs. I am a sap, and I love a good romance. :-) However, when love is presented as some kind of mystical force that repels bullets, magic, illness and ill will - that's when I balk.

For one thing, to me this simply bursts my suspension of disbelief. For another, in terms of writing, I find this trope to be lazy. Love can be the impetus behind the heroes finding a way to triumph; love can be the source of the heroes' strength; the heroes can fight for their love itself and triumph. I am willing to be enthusiastic about all of those ways (and many more) to make love empower characters to do great things. But using love itself as the winning force? That doesn't work for me any better than it would to have fear stop a bullet, or to have annoyance break an enchantment. (I make exceptions in canons that have established emotions have magical powers. *g*) Plus often the trope is presented in a way that is too cloyingly sentimental for me.

The Red Queen's lips, yikes. I was actually a little afraid that they would burst in some of the kissing scenes. And I don't understand WHY, because this is a very beautiful woman. What can be so wrong with her lips that looking like a trout is the better alternative?

Absolutely, Jafar was very disappointing in the end! No imagination at all. Which is pretty much the only reason why he lost - with the power to make everyone love him, it's actually quite a feat *not* to win. But I guess he wanted to go the more dramatically impressive route and really stretch his new magic powers...

ETA: Thank you for the link to your reaction posts! I will definitely check them out; I dont know many people who watched the show and look forward to your take. :-)