I Find It Intriguing That The Question Of Who Regina Is Was 'answered' With Two Statements Of People

I find it intriguing that the question of who Regina is was 'answered' with two statements of people around her and no statement about her.  A fact that Blue's later statement, "she is surrounded by darkness" hints at.  Nowhere here does Blue say that Regina is the cause of darkness, that her own choices and actions are suspect.  Even the wording in the one statement that could attributed to Regina's agency, to me, subtly changes this so that Regina is the least important aspect of the sentence.  Consider the difference between "her teacher is the Dark One" and "she convinced the Dark One to teach her magic" or "she is the student/apprentice of the Dark One".  In fact both statements start with "her" instead of "she".  "She" is the subject of the sentence.  "Her" is the object.  Being an object of Cora and Rumpelstlitskin is who she is, this is why she is a woman beyond help.

P.S. "So consider yourself lucky you're still alive" because the people who own the object you are trying to save are very willing and capable of killing you.

I love this show, mainly for Lana Parrilla and for Tumblr analysis.  I get really frustrated at these hints, these clever pokes into a much darker and realistic world hidden behind the fairy tale persona.  Not because I do not like these.  I do. 

Seeing the fear, hearing the "I'll be good" when Cora held Regina up was a visceral moment for me.  I know that Cora was abusive towards Regina.  That when Regina did something Cora did not like Cora would respond by physically restraining her movement, possibly restricting her ability to breathe, magically removing her from the earth and any stability that Regina could have felt that was not entirely Cora. 

I am lucky, my parents never abused me.  There may have been times they lost their temper or needed a breather.  I always knew I was safe.  My siblings, on the other hand, can not all say that.  Some of them experienced years of abuse before coming to our family.  I don`t know that if I had not been raised with such open awareness of the impact of child abuse that I would view that scene the way I do. 

In fact, I am nearly certain I would dismiss it as an overly harsh mother instead of an indication of consistent physical and emotional abuse.  I would also likely have dismissed that moment where Cora agrees to Leopold`s proposal as something that if she really wanted to Regina could get out of.  Because such a helplessness, a hopelessness wouldn`t be real to me.  In dismissing this scene as important I would then have burdened Regina with the guilt of her own helplessness for not denying a king.  A concept (and the consequences of) that modern day, democratic me, has no true conception of.

Which is why I get so frustrated at this show.  The show does a very good job at dismissing these moments and the impact of these moments.  It does a very good job at taking away the dark nature of human reality in favor of explicit morality.  Evil, according to my google definition, means profoundly wicked or immoral.  Evil, according to my inner compilation of social narratives and children`s stories, means harming others for little or no reason. 

The adult in me is disappointed that Once Upon a Time has not chosen to turn the idea of fairy tales on their head by creating an Evil Queen who is wicked with reason, who has learned immorality.  Instead, in my opinion, Once has chosen the easy way of dismissing any reason such a person would have for acting in a wicked and immoral way. 

So despite what feels to me as a very realistic and horrible portrayal of ownership, complete with effective use of language, despite providing hints and incidents where the agency in Regina`s life is clearly not her own, despite showing Regina`s importance only as it relates to another, Regina is not afforded the dignity of purpose. 

And I totally ended up somewhere I didn`t intend to go.  Mostly I meant to say yes, I agree, Regina has long been an object and not a subject within the show and I think that`s a shame.  Sorry for the rant.

P.S. Yeah, I decided to keep the rant in.  I figure if I sent the time to write it I was clearly driven by an emotion that propelled me and should honor that emotion (and your response that encouraged that emotion) by posting it.

The archetype of the witch is long overdue for celebration. Daughters, mothers, queens, virgins, wives, et al. derive meaning from their relation to another person. Witches, on the other hand, have power on their own terms. They have agency. They create. They praise. They commune with nature/ Spirit/God/dess/Choose-your-own-semantics, freely, and free of any mediator. But most importantly: they make things happen. The best definition of magic I’ve been able to come up with is “symbolic action with intent” — “action” being the operative word. Witches are midwives to metamorphosis. They are magical women, and they, quite literally, change the world.

pamela j. grossman, the year of the witch (via dearfox)

This is why I am so enthralled with witches.

(via eshusplayground)