Some thoughts on that moment when Once Upon A Time made me surprisingly okay with mass murder

I am watching the second season of Once Upon A Time and admiring the way they set up their antagonists. Regina the “Evil” Queen. Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One. The vengeful Captain Hook. The kind of glorious, cartoonish evil that you admire to a certain extent because they’re clever, they’re gleeful about the things they’re doing, and you see enough backstory to empathise and understand why they’re doing bad things. 

I am watching the second season of Once Upon a Time and I am all about Regina and Rumples, in particular. Why every t-show is not casting Robert Carlyle as their villain. How carefully built the character of Regina has been, and how incredible Lana Parilla is delivering complex emotions in a lighthearted and often cheesy way.

I am watching the second season of Once Upon A Time and I get have feelings when the bad guys are hurting. I care about the things they care about, and live in hope that they’ll make better choices. I am aching for their redemption, the triumphant moment when they make a choice I can cheer about at the end of the seasons. 

I am watching the second season of Once Upon A Time and Regina has just ordered the death of hundreds of innocent people. This does not appear to be an isolated incident, but it’s in this episode because its a set-up for an epiphany. A scheme that will show her hope is still possible, even if it’s taken away when her mass murder is discovered.

I am watching the second season of Once Upon A Time and lo, the mass grave is discovered. Regina’s hope is taken away, her past mistakes being held against her as people reconsider their opinion that there might be some good inside her. We are a few episodes fro the end of the season. This is the darkest moment of Regina’s arc. 

I am watching the second season of Once Upon A time, at a moment when Regina is facing the consequences of ordering mass murder, and I feel bad for her because of what she’s just lost. Because this show is about her pain, her mistakes, and the possibility of redemption never being out of reach.

No-one is truly evil.

Not even the rulers who order mass murder in a fit of rage.

And the art of narrative, the slight of hand fiction does to make you care about one person’s story over the hundreds of people who barely get a name, means that you just nod and barely think about the deaths. Oh well, you think, she was evil and hurting. If I were in her position, having endured the things she’s done, it’s possible I’d do the same thing. 

It does not occur to you to question the Mass Murder, because that’s not the ethical and moral struggle this show is interested in. The nameless are dead, but Regina’s pain is ongoing. It’s the journey you’re following, the journey you’ve invested in for nearly two seasons now.

And even if you know the rules of narrative, the tricks and techniques writers do to invest you in a particular perspective and propel you towards the climactic decision that will make-or-break the story, you nod and accept that this is one of those things.

Regina is a monster, another character intones, standing on the edge of a mass grave and contemplating the horror. 

No, you think. Not really. You don’t understand why she did it.

You are on the mass murderer’s side in this. She did something bad, but it wasn’t psychotically bad. She was just hurting, lashing out, angry. She’s so alone, and so very afraid. 

And in that moment, her fear matters more than the mass murder of characters–people–who do not even have names that you know of. Who do not get enough screen time to earn your investment as people, rather than a narrative semi-colon that’s linking up all the parts of Regina’s journey.

I am watching the second seasons of Once Upon A Time, and it occurs to me that writers are awful people. They have made you okay with Mass Murder, in this moment, so long as the person who orders it gets punished or turns good in the end. 

It’s not until two days later, in the elevator at work, that it occurs to you that you’ve just shrugged off the death of hundreds of people. Even after the episode shows you the corpses, talks about the horrors of their death.