Queen of Hearts

[seraya7]

...also consider this the place to put thoughts and spec on the other episodes between Tallahasse and Queen of Hearts: Child of the Moon, and Into the Deep. This is all stuff I wrote a few days ago; currently my brain is all about Stargate, but if I don't post it now I never will! So.

Comments

[seshathawk]

It has occurred to me that I never responded to your last set of thoughts. I may or may not respond to them; I have lots of thoughtful things to say about this set of thoughts! (Of course, you are only about Stargate right now, D:)

First of all, this is hilarious: I have done a complete 180 on new characters in general from last season.

RACH, LAST SEASON: UGH A NEW CHARACTER? Who is this person? What are they even talking about? THEY ARE SO STUPID, MAKE THEM GO AWAY. WHERE IS RUMPLE? NNNNGGGGGGHHHHHH STOP JUST EXPLAIN THE PLOT ALREADY.

RACH, THIS SEASON: LOLLL look at these people! They are so stupid/awesome! Think of all the great things they could do! If only they were doing them instead of being useless! LOLLLL HILARIOUSSSSSSS.

So, to address your points specifically:

1. I cannot take Hook seriously as a character. Perhaps that is why I find him fairly inoffensive. First of all, his real name is Killian Jones, which is obviously not a serious name. (That is like casting Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. No one takes that seriously.) Secondly, he bears a very strong resemblance to Ralph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love and that is pretty much all I can think of every time I see him. Thirdly, he is barely even an imitation of Hook. He has a hook and makes occasional references to good/bad form and that is it. Ergo, in my head, he is not Hook. (I am trying to think if there is ANY other character on this show they have done such a poor job of representing and I can’t think of one. Even Archie is pretty down on conscience and stuff.)

Furthermore in terms of Hook, I’ve said before that I find selfishness and/or vulnerability most interesting in a character: he is not exhibiting either trait. You could argue that his desire to kill Rumple is out of selfishness or vulnerability, but he kind of veers off the path a LOT. We rarely even see him mourning for Milha. He seems to be more about the ultimate goal of killing Rumple than the reasons behind it anymore. I guess it’s because of all this lack of character that I keep speculating about interesting things that could happen to him. If he fell hard for Emma (and she was completely uninterested), or if he was Cora’s secret lover/consort (notice: that was an interesting character development/vulnerability of Regina’s last season with Graham), or maybe if he fails to kill Rumple for some reason and falls into a period of intense self-loathing a la Javert!

I guess aside from his periods of dickery (which I acknowledged but didn’t feel strongly about until he screwed over Aurora WHO I LOVE), I just have no feelings for him whatsoever. He is so stupid and unworthy of my attention that all I can do is idly speculate about how he could be better.

I am genuinely confused about the “romantic villain” thing because they wrote him SO WRONG for that. He isn’t darkly alluring or dangerous or anything, he’s just…there.

LOLLLL your description of Hook going to fight Rumple reminds me of The Princess Bride!

2. I would also like more character work on this show and I think that was a lot of my frustration with last season: it was not giving me what I wanted. The characters were just good enough to keep me wanting more, but the plot usually far outweighed what people were thinking or feeling. Maybe that is what’s helped me mellow out a little about this show? Recognizing that it is always going to be plot-driven (and no show will ever be as beautifully character-driven as Heroes was) and that I just have to take what character moments I can find in there.

3. I ship pretty much anyone with anyone on this show, so I don’t even know what your problem is there. (Except not Regina/Archie, I am firmly in the Emma/Archie camp. I think he would be too scared/conscience-driven to hook up with Regina.)

4. Haha I like how you had this huge paragraph about how much you hated Hook and then you moved on to other topics and then suddenly veered crazily back to Hook. Interesting theory though! Basically what I said before-to me, he just is not Hook. It’s not even that he’s a badly written version of Hook; he literally has not shown any of Hook’s character traits so far. Hook is a gentleman.