Captain Swan and “ONCE UPON A TIME” Fandom
CAPTAIN SWAN AND "ONCE UPON A TIME" FANDOM
Ever since the Season Five episode (5.08) "Birth" aired on "ONCE UPON A TIME" last fall, I have come across a barrage of posts explaining why the Emma Swan/Killian Jones aka Captain Hook relationship is poison. Worse, most of these posts seemed to blame Killian for what was wrong with their relationship.
Eventually, I found myself wondering . . . was this supposed to be some perverted attempt at feminism by those fans who disliked Emma's relationship with Killian? Was this a case of "Let’s blame the guy for what is wrong with this relationship"? Are these fans so determined to ignore what led to . . . or who was to blame for Killian’s transformation into a Dark One and his desire to seek revenge for what happened to him? Namely one Emma Swan? Was it really that difficult for these fans to merely accept that Emma's decision to transform Killian into another Dark One in order to prevent his death, after King Arthur managed to cut his neck with the Excalibur sword . . . was wrong?
I am not condoning Killian’s desire to seek revenge. It was wrong. And it was ugly. It was just as ugly as his centuries' long pursuit to seek revenge against Rumpelstiltskin for the murder of the latter's estranged wife (and Killian's first lady love), Milah. Do you know what I found even uglier? Fans screaming over Emma’s intention to travel to the Underworld in order to resurrect Killian’s life. In (5.11) "Swan Song", Killian had decided to sacrifice his plans for revenge and his life in order to spare Emma and the others from the other Dark Ones and death. This decision came about, following Nimue (the first Dark One)'s attack upon Emma.
So many fans were busy screaming about Emma's decision to journey to the Underworld in order to save the man who tried to kill her son, they were ignoring the fact that in the end, he had given up his plan for revenge . . . and his life . . . in order to save the other citizens of Storybrooke from the Dark Ones. Even worse, these same fans managed to conjure up this negative campaign against Killian in order to turn a blind eye to the obvious - that Emma was the one responsible for transforming Killian into a Dark One in the first place out of her own selfishness.
One or two episodes after "Birth", Emma eventually learned to accept responsibility for what she had done to Killian. But apparently those fans who disliked the Emma/Killian relationship did not. Instead of acknowledging that Emma was the one who was responsible for initially tainting her relationship with Killian, they have been solely blaming him for what went wrong. They seemed hellbent upon brushing this relationship with the taint of anti-feminism.
I really found this . . . propaganda campaign rather ugly and despicable. If this is their idea of feminism for "ONCE UPON A TIME" - in which the woman protagonist is held responsible for her own actions - they can keep it.