Apologies Can Be Overrated
Apr. 3rd, 2014 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxI suppose fiction makes us believe that all things need resolutions, but why?
Why do all fictional relationships need to be resolved?
And why must 'redemption' hinge on offering a sincere apology to some nemesis?
There are situations where there's really no compelling reason why characters should like one another, and there's no compelling story reason why the characters should.
These issues brought to you by ongoing debates on Capt. Hook/Rumplestilskin/Belle on "Once Upon a Time" and Spike/Wood discussion on Buffyforums.
There was a multi-day discussion of whether Capt. Hook should apologize to Rumplestilskin on "Once" (as well as Hook's flippant 'sorry' to Belle and her "You tried to kill me. Twice" rejoider on last week's episode... {And truthfully, I never had the impression that Hook was actually trying to KILL her when he forced her across the memory boundary. I thought he got what he wanted there -- erasing her memory of Rumple.)
Now, Rumple and Belle are different situations. Hook probably should do... I don't know, something re: Belle. (Staying behind to protect Belle -- albeit at Emma's pointed instructive glare -- this week was a step towards that.). But, honestly, as a viewer my desire to see Hook atone to Belle is heavily mitigated by Belle's rather delusional reaction to the Hook/Rumple backstory when it was revealed to her that Rumple murdered his own wife because the woman ran off with Hook.
Erm... Belle, I know you're loyal to your Rumple/Beast and all, but it actually SHOULD have upset you to learn your boyfriend murdered his wife for leaving him. I'm just sayin'...
Which brings me to the Hook/Rumple backstory.
Yes, young Pirate Jones (formerly Lieutenant Jones ...and someday to become Capt. Hook) was a bragging jackass when he first met Rumple. Hook was a dick about Milah having left Rumple and Bae (and I wish we had had just one scene of Hook and Bae/Neal speaking honestly about that. I'd even like to believe that was part of what fueled Hook's efforts to bond with Bae on the Jolly Roger and (we assume from things they said) while in Neverland. Alas, a missed opportunity for meaningful flashback/discussion. At least Hook/Neal(Bae) parted on good -- actually affectionate -- terms.).
At any rate, just to get all feminist -- Milah left Rumple. Hook did not 'steal' her. Milah was not property. She was an adult making her own decisions of her own free will. I may hate that she abandoned her son, but she chose to leave her husband, and then she chose to hook up with Hook... who was, indeed, a complete jackass to Rumple when Rumple confronted Hook and Milah when he found them together.
But a lot of water flowed under that bridge since then, and here's the thing, from where Hook and Rumple are now, I see no reason whatsoever for Hook to feel bad about anything regarding Rumple. Rumple lost any moral soap box the moment he killed Milah. Yes, his wife abandoned him and his son. Yes, Hook fell for Rumple's estranged wife and was a cocky jackass when confronted by her aggrieved husband. But then Rumple hunted them down, murdered Milah right in front of Hook, and chopped off Hook's hand, maiming Hook for life.
Okay, I've got to say, a character forever sacrifices the right to claim his wife was wrong to leave him when he tracks her down and kills her. All that proves is that she should have run further and faster (and taken her son with her.)
The fact that Hook has decided that vengeance is futile and has decided to stop trying to kill Rumple to 'avenge Milah' is resolution enough as far as I'm concerned. (I actually rather liked Hook's epiphany that vengeance doesn't fix things and was turning/had turned him into a villain.)
Hook/Rumple -- whether individually or both on the path of redemption -- need never feel compelled to become buddies or friends. I don't need to see apologies between them. Sometimes two characters never, ever have to like one another. That's okay. They don't have to bond. They can disdain each other into eternity and that's okay.
.
Why, exactly, should Hook apologize to Rumple now? Why should Hook have high regard for Belle when she's told this story and her reaction is "poor Rumple[Beast]"? Yeah, they may all be regular cast members and fight (outside) evil together when need be, but there is no reason this trio need ever become friends. There's simply no compelling reason for them to.
Similarly, sheesh, there are still people after alllllllll these years still upset for poor Principal Wood over the fact that Spike was a dick to him after Wood ambushed and triggered the First's mindcontrol/mindrape of Spike and, once unsuccessful in killing Spike, deep down wanted an apology from Spike over Nikki death.
Honestly, I really never gave a shit that Spike didn't apologize to Wood. Why should he? Whatever Spike felt regarding Nikki or even that poor orphaned kiddo Robin was not going to surface in the aftermath of a confrontation where the man had just triggered the result of months of torture and mind-control by The First Evil so as to turn Spike into an mindless animal ...so that Wood could feel better about himself (or at least up his odds of success) while killing Spike. At that point, I'm honestly just going to shrug at Spikes angry 'screw you' response to Wood's face. I might would like to know that deep down Spike did feel something more about his history with Nikki, but I have zero desire or expectation that he would express it to Wood at the end of "Lies My Parents Told Me". And, given the thousands of other character interactions that never got adequately explored, I put the 'lack of neatly tying things up with Wood and Spike' somewhere on the list of 'not really necessary' and 'I honestly do not give a damn.'
I'm not negating Wood's reason to BE pissed. Wood has every right to be pissed and hate-filled.
On the other hand, I don't expect the person who spent months being tortured and mindraped by The First, who finds himself facing someone deliberately exploiting and triggering all of the First damage, so as to ambush Spike, steal his free will, diminish everything Spike had struggled to regain in order to kill Spike to result in Spike's being in a 'heartfelt apology' state of mind with the guy.
And I don't see any reason to ever revisit the situation to 'make it any better'.
It's okay for characters to disdain one another and it NOT be resolved.
It's okay for Wood to feel justified in hating Spike. He is justified in hating Spike.
But I don't find it necessary for Spike to apologize to the dude willingly colluding with The First to rob Spike of free will in order to kill Spike.
Hate on, dudes. I need no neat resolution here.
Why do all fictional relationships need to be resolved?
And why must 'redemption' hinge on offering a sincere apology to some nemesis?
There are situations where there's really no compelling reason why characters should like one another, and there's no compelling story reason why the characters should.
These issues brought to you by ongoing debates on Capt. Hook/Rumplestilskin/Belle on "Once Upon a Time" and Spike/Wood discussion on Buffyforums.
There was a multi-day discussion of whether Capt. Hook should apologize to Rumplestilskin on "Once" (as well as Hook's flippant 'sorry' to Belle and her "You tried to kill me. Twice" rejoider on last week's episode... {And truthfully, I never had the impression that Hook was actually trying to KILL her when he forced her across the memory boundary. I thought he got what he wanted there -- erasing her memory of Rumple.)
Now, Rumple and Belle are different situations. Hook probably should do... I don't know, something re: Belle. (Staying behind to protect Belle -- albeit at Emma's pointed instructive glare -- this week was a step towards that.). But, honestly, as a viewer my desire to see Hook atone to Belle is heavily mitigated by Belle's rather delusional reaction to the Hook/Rumple backstory when it was revealed to her that Rumple murdered his own wife because the woman ran off with Hook.
Erm... Belle, I know you're loyal to your Rumple/Beast and all, but it actually SHOULD have upset you to learn your boyfriend murdered his wife for leaving him. I'm just sayin'...
Which brings me to the Hook/Rumple backstory.
Yes, young Pirate Jones (formerly Lieutenant Jones ...and someday to become Capt. Hook) was a bragging jackass when he first met Rumple. Hook was a dick about Milah having left Rumple and Bae (and I wish we had had just one scene of Hook and Bae/Neal speaking honestly about that. I'd even like to believe that was part of what fueled Hook's efforts to bond with Bae on the Jolly Roger and (we assume from things they said) while in Neverland. Alas, a missed opportunity for meaningful flashback/discussion. At least Hook/Neal(Bae) parted on good -- actually affectionate -- terms.).
At any rate, just to get all feminist -- Milah left Rumple. Hook did not 'steal' her. Milah was not property. She was an adult making her own decisions of her own free will. I may hate that she abandoned her son, but she chose to leave her husband, and then she chose to hook up with Hook... who was, indeed, a complete jackass to Rumple when Rumple confronted Hook and Milah when he found them together.
But a lot of water flowed under that bridge since then, and here's the thing, from where Hook and Rumple are now, I see no reason whatsoever for Hook to feel bad about anything regarding Rumple. Rumple lost any moral soap box the moment he killed Milah. Yes, his wife abandoned him and his son. Yes, Hook fell for Rumple's estranged wife and was a cocky jackass when confronted by her aggrieved husband. But then Rumple hunted them down, murdered Milah right in front of Hook, and chopped off Hook's hand, maiming Hook for life.
Okay, I've got to say, a character forever sacrifices the right to claim his wife was wrong to leave him when he tracks her down and kills her. All that proves is that she should have run further and faster (and taken her son with her.)
The fact that Hook has decided that vengeance is futile and has decided to stop trying to kill Rumple to 'avenge Milah' is resolution enough as far as I'm concerned. (I actually rather liked Hook's epiphany that vengeance doesn't fix things and was turning/had turned him into a villain.)
Hook/Rumple -- whether individually or both on the path of redemption -- need never feel compelled to become buddies or friends. I don't need to see apologies between them. Sometimes two characters never, ever have to like one another. That's okay. They don't have to bond. They can disdain each other into eternity and that's okay.
.
Why, exactly, should Hook apologize to Rumple now? Why should Hook have high regard for Belle when she's told this story and her reaction is "poor Rumple[Beast]"? Yeah, they may all be regular cast members and fight (outside) evil together when need be, but there is no reason this trio need ever become friends. There's simply no compelling reason for them to.
Similarly, sheesh, there are still people after alllllllll these years still upset for poor Principal Wood over the fact that Spike was a dick to him after Wood ambushed and triggered the First's mindcontrol/mindrape of Spike and, once unsuccessful in killing Spike, deep down wanted an apology from Spike over Nikki death.
Honestly, I really never gave a shit that Spike didn't apologize to Wood. Why should he? Whatever Spike felt regarding Nikki or even that poor orphaned kiddo Robin was not going to surface in the aftermath of a confrontation where the man had just triggered the result of months of torture and mind-control by The First Evil so as to turn Spike into an mindless animal ...so that Wood could feel better about himself (or at least up his odds of success) while killing Spike. At that point, I'm honestly just going to shrug at Spikes angry 'screw you' response to Wood's face. I might would like to know that deep down Spike did feel something more about his history with Nikki, but I have zero desire or expectation that he would express it to Wood at the end of "Lies My Parents Told Me". And, given the thousands of other character interactions that never got adequately explored, I put the 'lack of neatly tying things up with Wood and Spike' somewhere on the list of 'not really necessary' and 'I honestly do not give a damn.'
I'm not negating Wood's reason to BE pissed. Wood has every right to be pissed and hate-filled.
On the other hand, I don't expect the person who spent months being tortured and mindraped by The First, who finds himself facing someone deliberately exploiting and triggering all of the First damage, so as to ambush Spike, steal his free will, diminish everything Spike had struggled to regain in order to kill Spike to result in Spike's being in a 'heartfelt apology' state of mind with the guy.
And I don't see any reason to ever revisit the situation to 'make it any better'.
It's okay for characters to disdain one another and it NOT be resolved.
It's okay for Wood to feel justified in hating Spike. He is justified in hating Spike.
But I don't find it necessary for Spike to apologize to the dude willingly colluding with The First to rob Spike of free will in order to kill Spike.
Hate on, dudes. I need no neat resolution here.
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no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 04:51 pm (UTC)I don't know 'Once' at all but in the situation you describe I'd be upset by that. I would want Hook to continue trying to kill Rumple until he was successful.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 05:17 pm (UTC)(Albeit, Hook was trapped in Neverland for the vast majority of it... and then in suspended sleep waiting for 'The Curse'* to be broken).
And Hook did almost kill Rumple, only for Rumple to survive anyway.
And it resulted in Hook (temporarily) erasing Belle's memory to get her to forget that she loved Rumplestilskin (who is also The Beast)... which, honestly, I couldn't see as all that evil because Belle is so blindly in love with Rumple that she gave no credence whatsoever to Rumple having murdered his own wife. (I know, right?!) I had hoped being mind-wiped would give her a bit of objectivity... instead it just turned HER sort of evil until she got her memory back, and still left her infatuated with Rumple but no longer trying to convince him to do good.)
At any rate, Hook's calling off vengeance has never been that he forgave Rumple. It was that Hook realized that the vengeance had turned him into a villain, that it made him do terrible things, and that that's no way to live if you ever want to be happy.
Then Rumple killed himself (and Peter Pan... who in the Once-verse is evil) in order to save everyone else.
Thus it became a moot point until Rumple's resurrection (and Rumple is kinda crazy and grief-stricken at the moment since his son -- who had been one of the Lost Boys and who Hook had affection for -- died.)
Eeeeeeeeveryone is related on Once.
* The premise of "Once Upon a Time" is that in order to find his long lost son, Rumplestilskin manipulated The Evil Queen (of Snow White) into enacting a curse that would send The Enchanted Forest into "a world without happy endings" (aka 'the 'real'/modern world') where they were trapped in a 30 year fugue state, living out an unhappy, unchanging alternative existence until Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter Emma(sent ahead through Narnia's wardrobe as an infant) would return to them to break The Curse (which she did in Season 1)
So the little town of Storybrook, Maine in 2014 happens to be populated by the likes of Snow White, Prince Charming, Red Riding Hood, Belle "Beauty", Rumplestilskin (aka "Beast" aka "The Dark One") ...and these days Captain Hook, Robin Hood, Tinkerbell, The Wicked Witch of the West, etc. -- turns out ALL the fairytale lands are 'real'.)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 05:08 pm (UTC)*nods*
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 05:35 pm (UTC)Is it sad that Wood lost his mother, hell yes, was she a good person who had a right to live, hell yes.
But you know what else she was? She was a vampire slayer. She was a warrior in a war who went out intentionally to hunt down and kill vampires.
Fighting Slayers is the closest Spike came to having a fair fight, since Slayers are stronger and more powerful than vampires.
They were both in a war and that night, Nikki lost the war.
It's sad, but as far as Spike's sins go, killing a Slayer is one of the least bad things he did.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 06:28 pm (UTC)With you here, all the way. And please don't tell me that if Spike DID apologize to Wood it would make Wood feel any better about losing his mom or about Spike. Would make ME feel better about Spike, but I get both of them here, Wood's hate and Spike's anger at being betrayed and used like that.
And how come nobody rages about Wood never apologizing to Buffy? He betrayed her to the First, and she did nothing bad to him, ever. And not just her, he betrayed their cause, all those Slayer girls. The First was going to destroy all the Slayers and the world, and Wood went and consorted with it and did its bidding,
I was saying before, if Buffy were a real general and if it were a real war, Wood and Giles would've been court-martialled and shot against the wall, in all probability. They were at war for the sake of all humanity and Wood was dealing with the enemy out of personal grudge.
And Buffy forgave him and even went and apologizes to HIM, for being hard on him. She was just extraordinary kind. So in all this, I get Wood, Spike and Giles, I get where they are coming from, and I don't like it. But I love Buffy there. Here goes. :)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 06:37 pm (UTC)It's okay for characters to disdain one another and it NOT be resolved.
It's okay for Wood to feel justified in hating Spike. He is justified in hating Spike.
But I don't find it necessary for Spike to apologize to the dude willingly colluding with The First to rob Spike of free will in order to kill Spike.
Hate on, dudes. I need no neat resolution here.
I agree. Whatever our feelings on how the situation played out between these two, the messy non-resolution of it was more like real life, which is messy and often unresolved despite what we would like.
ETA: the latest round of Spike/Wood discussions are especially irritating because they're occasioned by words put in his mouth by comic book writers who probably don't think any more of it than, "Boy, wasn't Nikki a cool character and wasn't that a cool fight on the subway car?", which is pretty much what I think Doug Petrie/Joss were thinking when they invented Nikki and wrote the subway fight scene.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 06:49 pm (UTC)The sum-total of Spikes words was that he was on the NYC subways in the 1970s.
I'm pretty sure that he was on them more than just the one time. And they were pretty notoriously dangerous during that decade as well.
It's a STRETCH to claim that this should then send Spike on a maudlin re-think of Nikki. He was talking about subways!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 07:48 pm (UTC)No, but is apparently not allowed to mention the subway anyway.
I am pretty certain the story is not going to revisit this issue again. Whatever people may feel about Spike putting the coat back on the reason why he did so was dealt with in GiD. Some people may not like it (and I understand why it upsets people and don't blame them for being upset - though I think the particular poster we're probably both thinking of who started this discussion again isn't upset for those reasons, given their whole 'men are so discriminated against by those awful feminists' POV), but his reasons for putting the coat back on were valid in-story and what was required of him to fulfil his massive, massive obligation to Buffy.
Also, I think-leaving Wood aside, because there's no resolution to be had there, Damage in AtS season 5 did deal with Spike's cavalier attitude to killing Nikki and made him realise that the whole 'she was a slayer, I was a vampire' argument wasn't really good enough.
The original coat being destroyed in TGiQ was meant to deal with the bad associations it held while enabling Spike to continue to wear it (or its exact replica), which is the image the character's stuck with for better or worse. Maybe it would have worked better if it hadn't be done in a comedic fashion? I dunno.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 09:19 pm (UTC)Look, I'm not for the Twangel kills Slayers argument that if it's inevitable that someone will die that means it's okay for someone to kill them right that day (Funny how this isn't a deal breaker when it's Angel. Huh.)
But, given the circumstances under which Robin revealed himself, I'm not expecting Spike to offer Robin an apology in the aftermath of a fight to the death (where Spike didn't kill Robin). It's just...You want an apology? You kind of ruined the moment, dude.
And for the love of... the coat is an article of clothing. It is not literally nor metaphorically Nikki's SKIN. It's a leather duster. And he's wearing a replica. I own three pairs of Sketcher Go Walks...these are not all the exact same shoe despite the fact that they are identical.
Let it go, guys. They aren't going to change Spike's look (though they didn't have to copy it quite so much for Capt. Hook. Come on, Jane E. couldn't have failed to have noticed that, right? )
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 07:32 pm (UTC)It's okay for characters to disdain one another and it NOT be resolved.
It's okay for Wood to feel justified in hating Spike. He is justified in hating Spike.
And if Spike had apologised, what exactly would that accomplish? That's another thing that bothers me about The Big Apology - in fiction and in real life as well. Yes, a sincere apology is a wonderful thing, but a lot of time it's treated as if if person A apologises for something, person B is now required to accept the apology, and if they don't they're the ones who are at fault. "Geez, I said sorry, what else do you want?" And when you're dealing with the really heavy stuff, that's a lot to ask of someone. For the most part, I think the Buffyverse handled those situations in an honest way, including the Spike & Wood scene.
FAITH: Buffy... I'm so-
BUFFY: If you apologize to me, I will beat you to death.
WILLOW: Dawnie! Dawnie, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, it was an accident! I didn't see, I'm so, so sorry.
DAWN: *slap*
Forgiveness is a wonderful thing to give. Especially if someone hasn't earned it. But asking it of the guy whose life you ruined, and who you were just in a fight to the death with, isn't an easy proposition. As Spike told us earlier in the season.
BUFFY: Skittish? That's not a word I would use for it. You tried to rape me. I don't have the words.
SPIKE: Neither do I. I can't say "sorry." Can't use "forgive me." All I can say is: Buffy, I've changed.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 08:36 pm (UTC)It was one of those fandom situations where you read a post and go "Wha...?" when I saw someone state that they couldn't take Hook redemption seriously until he apologized to Rumple.
Seriously? Of all the things Hook has done that is the litmus test?
If I were Hook, hell would freeze over before I apologized to Rumple. And here I was applauding Hook for his epiphany that his quest for vengeance had turned him into a villain and that it would never fix anything anyway. Milah would still be dead, and he didn't like who he had become. (He's never seemed to hold a particular grudge for having been maimed... which is a bit odd.)
Now, see, THAT is a reaction I can understand.
Which really is the only thing anyone can do. You can't undo what has been done. There's only going forward. The question is in which direction.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 09:49 pm (UTC)I don't watch OUAT, but agree 100%. To go along with it, I don't need everyone to be friends, either. Sometimes you just don't like someone and that's perfectly fine. Sometimes there are no reconciliations. Some things *are* irreparable. Sometimes love dies, yada, yada, yada.
Spike doesn't need to apologize to Wood for a multitude of reasons, but even if he did, as other have mentioned, it wouldn't have changed anything. Hell, Wood says so when he thinks Spike *is* apologizing. What bothers me about it is Fury's crap about it all proving that Spike is 'morally ambiguous'. Because threatening someone who just tried to kill you is totally unscrupulous.
And that goes with many of the scenes listed above too. We *are* supposed to think Buffy is big ol' meanie in Sanctuary and a bitch for expecting her orders to be followed. We are supposed to think Spike is shady in LMPTM.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-04 02:45 pm (UTC)They're also developing a slashy subtext with Prince Charming/Capt. Hook {I kind of think they stumbled into that one, but have now noticed it and give it the occasional nudge.)
Charming/Snow White is the show's official unquestioned OTP.
...but Hook/Swan is looking hopeful, and they've been trying to start up Queen/Outlaw(Robin Hood... Poor Maid Marion died it after the birth of her son)
As to what is going on... *snort*
I've just been reading spoilers for the season finale and someone posting that even after reading the spoilers they have no idea what the heck is going on! The spoiler pictures all look AU. No one has any clue what they mean.
The first part of the season was a rif on Peter Pan (turned out Peter Pan literally had Peter Pan syndrome. *heh* He was Rumplestilskin's Dad who discovered that he could acquire not-quite-eternal youth by sacrificing kid-Rumple (i.e. abandoned kid-Rumple). But even Pan's time was running out (It's been several hundred years) so to retain his youth, he'd have to kill his 12 year old grandson Henry to keep it going.
The show is so incestuous that everyone is related. So when Henry was stolen by Pan, heroes (Snow White, Prince Charming, Emma) and villains (Rumple, Hook, Regina/The Evil Queen) all worked together to rescue the boy (virtually everyone has connections to Henry). The only way to kill Pan was for Rumple to sacrifice himself and to thwart Pan's plan the Queen/Regina had to reverse the curse that had created Storybrooke, Maine in the first place.
The curse reverse would send everyone 'back from where they came'. The problem being that 12 year old Henry was born in this world, not the Fairytale one. He would be left behind. Regina/Queen found a loophole where Emma Swan (Henry's biological mother) could stay behind with Henry, but she and Henry would forget all about their fairytale connections, requiring that their memories be re-written.
Flashfoward 1 year (it was a flash-cut midseason cliffhanger): Capt. Hook arrives at door Emma and Henry's NYC apartment saying that Emma's parents (Snow White and Prince Charming!) are in grave danger and only she can save them. Then he attempts a 'true love' kiss to see whether it would restore her memories (It didn't). She slammed the door in the face of the crazy man.
But, Hook persisted and convinced her to drink a potion that would restore her real memories (Dodgy? Yes. Still don't know where he got that potion...) It worked, but Hook didn't have enough potion to restore Henry's memories.
Emma returned to Storybrooke, which has been re-cursed, so it's back but no one knows how. They can't remember. No one remembers what happened in the missing year (but they know that time actually passed because Snow White is now ginormously pregnant [because so is the actress], but the writers assure everyone that the baby is 100% Prince Charming's so it's not going to turn 'ew').
And now it's turned out that it's some sort of rif on The Wizard of Oz, that the villain behind the new cursing is the Wicked Witch of the West, who claims that she's Regina/Evil Queen's sister (that Regina never knew about). And they've begun parallels that Rumple = The Scarecrow, Prince Charming = Lion... the other's are still unidentified with guesses being Emma = Dorothy, Snow, Hook, or Regina(?!) being the Tin Man, Henry being Toto...? At this point it's totally unclear.
But the Wicked Witch is the new Big Bad with everyone -- 'heroes' and 'villains' -- again teaming together to vanquish her (especially now that Wicked has killed Rumple's son/Henry's father).
So Emma, Charming, Hook, Queen Regina, Belle, and Robin Hood have been working together. Rumple has been unwillingly enslaved to the Wicked Witch (and is rather broken by the death of his son). And Snow White's unborn baby has become Wicked's new obsession (we don't know why).
...And Henry is still clueless that everyone around him is the AU identity of a fairytale character.