#ouat analysis

When Neal first sees the swan keychain, he compromises the whole heist just to steal it for Emma. As a swan, the keychain acknowledges Emma's last name, her independence and identity before she met Neal. As a keychain, it contains the keys to the Bug, their present temporary home. And together, it is a stable and meaningful gift that represents their future. Overall, the swan keychain is a symbol of Neal’s feelings for Emma and his understanding of her struggles. It shows his desire to support her, to be a part of her life, and to offer her something real and lasting.

After Neal left Emma, he gave everything he had of value (except for the dreamcatcher) to August to give to Emma. This included money, the bug, and the swan keychain. He sacrificed everything in the hopes that Emma could continue on without him.

Emma received the swan keychain when she found out the results to her pregnancy test, another sign of the family that she and Neal could have had together. Although Emma gave Henry up for adoption, she kept the Bug and turned the keychain into a locket, wearing it around her neck for eleven years, showing that she never fully let go of Neal or Henry (the family she could have had).

The first time Emma removes the keychain is when she finally reunites with Neal. In that moment, she's letting go of the future they could have shared, releasing herself from the emotional weight of holding onto him. By returning the keychain to Neal, she’s placing the responsibility on him, giving him the opportunity to rebuild their relationship with the full awareness of all the pain and history they share.

Afterwards, Neal keeps the swan keychain on his person until his death, representing his love for Emma and his profound guilt and regret over their separation. The keychain becomes a physical manifestation of his emotional state, a reminder of the love he never truly let go of.

The keychain remains with Neal as he travels across realms (from the Land Without Magic to the Enchanted Forest, to Neverland, to the Land Without Magic, to the Enchanted Forest, to the Land Without Magic again), symbolizing the unshakeable nature of his love for Emma. When Neal dies, he returns the Swan keychain to Emma, a final gesture that serves as a reminder that his love for her will never fade, even in death.

a response to @does-it-like-women's poll

The show likes women:

•in the way that it writes them as complex people (some of my favorite female characters, who I think are just as well-written as the men) and doesn't just make them a man's backstory (instead people like Regina or Ruby are the ones whose losses of partners influenced their stories) 👍

•Instead they get important storylines not centered around men (even Belle, whose presence is very entertwined with Rumplestiltstkin's, has an episode in which she saves the day far away from him)

•Their strengh and weekness is diverse: physical, social, knowledge or logic based, etc. 👌

•The female villains are allowed to do horrible things and be taken seriously instead of being reduced to mere bad girls innocent enough that all the male viewers don't feel threatened by them. 😈

The show dislikes them:

•when it comes to depicting not conventionally attractive ones (I have yet to see a recurring character on the show who isn't 👀)

•when it comes to highlighting the wrongness of something that happened to them or even romanticing it, for example not talking about the fact that Emma was a minor when she got together with adult Neal (nevermind that she was 18 when she gave birth)

•in the case of Belle: she can be an amazing intelligent character but her lines often seem more repetitive than those of others, often when she's currently together with Rumple

In total, Once Upon a Time sees women as people, acknowledging their complexities and giving them the screen time they deserve. It could've been more aware of some problematic things but at the end of the day it's one of my favorite shows, and I think that's partly due to the many wonderful female characters in it 🥰

my current most favorite characters are pan from ouat and misa amane and like. they fit so well actually bc misa is actually very similarly loyal to light as felix is to pan, but the difference between pan and light is that pan actually appreciated and valued felix’s loyalty and like yeah felix’s loyalty to pan was his downfall directly, and misa’s loyalty to light was only indirectly her downfall but still.

like i’ve often thought that misa and pan would get along well but this realization opened a whole new can of worms tbh

and another thing- we don’t canonically know the reason why felix is so loyal to pan, but i’ve often seen the reason being headcanoned as pan having “saved” felix from a worse fate/life he had before neverland and this is such a good parallel as well to misa and light bc misa also views light as her savior because he killed her family’s killer

and then there’s the aspect of self-sacrifice from both misa and felix. misa’s is definitely giving up part of her lifespan in making the eye deal for light and felix’s is getting captured and then quite literally losing his heart to pan.

like felix and misa have so many similarities. it makes so so so much sense that i always ahd that feeling that she’d get along well with pan bc she is so similar to the literal person pan loves most in the world.

however, now that i’m thinking about it- misa could *not* fill felix’s role in pan’s story. she is very loyal and could be equally devoted to pan, and she would want to be useful- but where felix does exactly as told and never disagrees and doesn’t seem to expect anything in return, misa very much does demand things in return- for her it’s always been pretty transactional with light, like she will be loyal to him and let him use her as a pawn, but only if he pretends to be the boyfriend she wants. and then even outside of that, misa is a much more active person- even if she was shelved in some parts of the story, there were quite a few times when she took initiative and acted on her own to influence the plot. felix’s actions are not that independent; there are a few things that could be argued to be his choices, but i doubt that they weren’t influenced by pan at all. everything felix does always directly ties in to pan’s plans, he doesn’t disrupt them like misa disrupts light’s plans when she feels like it.

and then on top of that, felix and light would not mesh well at all. light is too cold for felix to project such savior thoughts onto him and light probably would not want another person to be so heavily devoted to him (he already didn’t want misa). however, light might’ve liked felix more than misa- felix didn’t ask for anything in return for his loyalty and he didn’t go out and do things he wasn’t “supposed to” ever. in that regard, felix reminds me more of mikami- but mikami wasn’t really loyal to light, he was loyal to kira (who just so happened to be light. if you know what i mean-) and also mikami still didn’t do everything as light wanted. felix never so much as even questioned pan, never had a shred of doubt. mikami did doubt kira and that’s (imo) a big part of why they failed (ofc i’m not trying to discredit near here, if it hadn’t been for him and mello, light couldn’t have been stopped)

anyway. another difference between light and pan: light was after his idealistic goals, pan was after immortality and power; yet it was light who had a god complex, not pan, even though pan’s goals are frankly much more like trying to become a god- especially since gods in ouat are exactly that: basically immortal and very powerful.

and then light was always so cynical and critical of everything and everyone around him (with very few exceptions like sayu), meanwhile pan was mostly just having fun and messing with people both just bc he can and to literally move his own plan forward.

they both strategized a lot and imo seeing a mind game between light and pan would’ve been incredibly interesting- even if light would’ve lost very quickly for many reasons (like obviously, pan has an advantage because he has magical powers and pan is very good at taunting people and pushing their buttons and light tends to make more mistakes when he's angry or getting cocky when someone challenges him).

also another aspect actually- light is at the start of death note just a high schooler, he's 17 and yet he always feels like he's above everyone around him and like he's smarter and more wise and stuff- meanwhile pan is hundreds of years old and used to be very well into adulthood before he came to neverland and became pan and embraced youth- he actually was older and did actually have more experience than most of the people he was up against- technically all of them since he’s obviously also older than rumple, but rumple and neal and hook were at least in a similar age range, but pan never actually showed any feelings of superiority because of that. he did get cocky and overconfident sometimes, just like light, but it was never about his age. isn’t that such an interesting parallel? the teen who feels more wise than everyone around him and the centuries old trickster who doesn’t even really acknowledge that his experience could be an advantage

and one last thing. their downfalls: light’s makes sense and it was because he was outsmarted in combination with one of his pawns making a mistake - pan’s was out of character because he was previously shown as much more capable than he suddenly acted whenever the heroes got the upper hand. (i’ll write a post on that soon, maybe on my sideblog but i’ll link it here when/if i do)

anon i am literally in love with you for sending me this ask. honestly why have i never done a post on this before!!! this is SO interesting to me!! clothing is definitely a hugely important part of regina's character and journey over the course of the show.

PSA: this turned into a literal play by play biography of regina's life through clothing. ur welcome. also this is totally unedited, we die like men

I think clothing means a lot of different things to Regina. I think she both revels in and resents the glitz and glamour, uses it as her shield, weaponry and armour but also it can be very vulnerable for her... it's a lot

and I agree that, unfortunately like many things with Regina, we have to start by tracking back to her childhood and how Cora raised her

Regina is a young noblewoman in the enchanted forest, and much of her 'value' to her family would lie in making an advantageous marriage. Layer on top of that Cora's absolute single minded determination for success, social climbing and for Regina to become queen one day and you just KNOW appearances were a huge deal when Regina was growing up (we see this threaded through canon too, in Cora magically changing Regina's clothes/hair/makeup for her)

to Cora, Regina's beauty was always a valuable tool she could use, but her brutal ambition would have led to absolute perfectionism.

After all, sweetheart, queens have to be perfect.

I think even when Regina was a very young child, a huge amount of weight was put onto her clothing and how she was presented.

I can imagine Cora choosing elaborate outfits for her infant daughter, dressing her up like a doll and making sure the ribbons in her hair matched exactly, being absolutely critical of everything to ensure her child was the best dressed, the most perfect

And I think this hugely impacted Regina's childhood. Cora would have allowed Regina very little freedom, partially because she was conditioning her to behave like a queen (or just like an obedient pawn for her to do whatever she wanted with) but also partially because Regina literally could not risk getting messy or dirty.

Image is everything, darling.

As child, Regina couldn't really play because she would ruin her dress, or her hair, or scuff her shoes. She had no choice but to occupy herself with the 'proper' pursuits that her mother approved of, because she physically couldn't do anything else. No running, tree climbing, flower picking etc for tiny Regina. Lots of sitting quietly and looking pretty, even as a child.

I can definitely see Cora showing Regina off from an early age, dressing her up like a doll, inviting other noblewomen for tea and dressing Regina better than any of their children, making her sit nicely and quietly.

If Regina were to be 'bad' and accidently dirty her dresses, mess up her hair etc. I think Cora would definitely punish her quite severely. because from day one, Cora was drilling into Regina that her appearance was one of the most valuable and worthwhile things about her. Queens have to be perfect.

And of course, little Regina doesn't want to be a queen, she just wants to go play in the meadow with the other children, but she wants to be a good girl more than anything, because mother hurts her when she's not.

As Regina grows older, I think Cora becomes far more critical of her appearance. A doll like, cute child is far easier to keep 'perfect' than an adolescent girl, and it's also all a huge control tactic for Cora to keep Regina affection starved and desperate to please her. So there would be backhanded comments, the constant pressure to be more beautiful. The feeling started to grow in Regina that she was pretty, just not pretty enough, never enough.

Ik I've talked about this before here (TW for EDs) but I headcanon Cora as absolutely fucking up a young Regina's body image and relationship with food too, controlling/restricting her diet. So I can imagine that dress fittings became a source of enormous stress and pain for an adolescent and teenage Regina.

In the enchanted forest, as a noble, all of Regina's clothes were likely hand made from expensive fabrics. Cora would spare no expense for making her daughter the most fashionable, beautiful, ideal young lady. So there was enormous pressure on Regina to 'wear the clothes well' and to keep them pristine. But these fittings would have been hell, because Cora definitely was stood in the corner, never ever asking Regina's opinions or how she feels in the clothes, but only ever criticizing the fit, asking if her corset could be laced tighter, and despairing over tiny mistakes.

Despite all this though, I do think a young Regina enjoyed clothing and fashion in a way. As much as her mother made it absolute hell, Regina really did like the few dresses she was allowed to have a say in and I think she always liked pretty things, she just wished she was allowed to like them on her own terms.

I think the white dress we see her wearing in a lot of her early EF flashbacks was one of her favourites because it's pretty but also simple and comfortable, something she would have chosen herself and just luckily happened to be considered suitable by her mother.

I've written about it in this fic but I also think Cora would have been actively sexualising Regina from a young age, trying to make her as appealing to suitors and other noblemen as possible to get more power and advantage. This would make Regina very uncomfortable, and I think at this point she really resented all this elaborate clothing and heavy jewelry.

There's also something really interesting in canon ouat costume design I want to discuss because I've never seen it discussed before: in 2x015 The Queen Is Dead, we get a glimpse of the fashions in Leopold's kingdom around the time Regina and Snow were about to meet for the first time. We see Queen Eva, clearly an empowered adult woman, wearing a tightly fitting deep red dress covered in jewels. Meanwhile the ten (ish?) year old Snow White wears a more appropriately girlish frock with puffy sleeves, a simple bodice and full skirts. Around this time, we mostly see Regina dressed in the latter style, implying she is still being dressed and presented more as a young lady/maiden than an adult. The blue dress Cora puts her in to meet King Leopold is a very similar design to Snow's, with full sleeves and skirt; her riding coats are also loose and puffy sleveed; the dress she wears at dinner when married to Leopold is full sleeved and skirted too; the white dress we see her in several times is the exception, but looser still than Eva's style.

I believe the earliest we see Regina in that adult style dress is in Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, when she's years into her marriage and about to kill her husband and seize power. This is a moment of empowerment for her shown through costume, and a clear shift she's gone from girl to woman, which is actually disgusting considering this is at the end of her marriage to the elderly king.

My point here is that I think throughout her marriage the world still saw Regina as a child to a degree, a poor replacement for Eva, and Regina was still very much a young woman, who did not feel any older or freer. Her marriage kept her trapped and unempowered, just like her mother had.

She always had to be beautiful and perfect, and this pressure was amped up even more as queen. I can see a newly married Regina trying so hard in the first few years to always be perfect, constructing elaborate outfits, hair and makeup just like Cora taught her, to try and be good enough for Leopold, to make him more kind to her, to make anyone at court notice her at all, but it never works. She is still only ever objectified or sidelined or both.

When she begins training with Rumple, we start to see Regina developing a new sense of style: she begins wearing darker colours, to mimic her mentor in a way. I think this is very indicative of her mental state, how easily influenced she was, how much she wanted to latch onto this one source of potential hope and power in her life.

As Gold's character progressed and they started to make him more sympathetic, Belle was a constant reminder of what he could have if he were as good on the outside as Belle saw him on the inside. Here is the payoff of that. Belle devotes her life to breaking Gold's curse and never telling him the darkside of it because she knows that if she does, he'll give up on their plan and find another way to break his curse, spending more time as the dark one and giving him more chances to fall back into his old habits. Belle is doing what she always does: preventing Gold from going back to being the dark one.

Then the voice over, when she literally isn't present enough to be anything more than a disembodied voice reminding Gold to be good... are you kidding me. This is such a heavy-handed metaphor and it isn't even on purpose.

It's also telling that he goes right back to, well maybe not full evil but still a very immoral "my ends justify the means" sort of person. In the episode I just mentioned, he is seconds away from letting Alice- who is in her early 20's, just regained the ability to see her father again, and has a budding relationship after spending at least a full decade alone- take on all of the darkness a dark one has while she doesn't fully understand what it does. Like he's ready to burden her with that and almost would have if not for Belle's last words being a desperate bid to get the audience to agree that Gold is a "good man"

Lastly, Belle appears after Gold sacrifices himself to defeat the Dark One and save Wish!Hook. *sigh* I feel like Gold has already learned the lesson of self sacrifice, no? Anyway, his sacrifice is rewarded with an eternity with Belle by his side, much like how Belle's favor was basically a reward for being good throughout their entire relationship.

Yikes, sorry I didn’t see this sooner. It’s been a long day at work. Anywhooo, I have to admit I’m not that familiar with the Harry Potter world. I’ve seen a few of the movies, but that’s it. (Please don’t hate me. I’m old.)

As far as Belle: Yes, she did that. She overlooked all the Herocrites’ faults and wanted to be part of that in-group, desperately. She was way too hard on Rumple after season 3, in my opinion (I mean, look what happened to him in S3! Death, enslavement, and losing a son--no big!), and it was a big turnaround for her character. She used to be loving and forgiving, curious and a problem-solver, delving into the things that Rumple hated to divulge about himself . . . until she wasn’t that way, of a sudden. It made for a heartbreaking plot point or two or several, but it didn’t seem all that in-character, from what we had seen, before.