This is an article I’ve been meaning to type for quite a while now. It’s about some of the double standards I see within the fandom in general (not just on fanpop but also on tumblr and even youtube). I plan on comparing Gina’s actions to Gold’s and the good side to the bad side in general. I’m going to try to do so from an unbiased perspective.
Part 1: Gold & Gina
First off and probably the most widely debated is how it’s okay for Gold to rip people’s hearts out and kill them but it’s not when Gina does it, or vice versa. So to start off I’ll compare two scenes; the one in which Gina rips Graham’s heart out and crushes it because he broke her heart to the scene where Rumple rips Milah’s heart out and crushes it because she broke his heart. I can imagine everyone already sees the similarities. The actions and the motives are exactly the same. Graham cheated on Gina (so to speak) for Emma and Milah cheated on Gold for Hook. So what do they both do; resort to magic and rip their ex’s heart out and the ex dies in the arms of his/her new lover. But I observed the following reaction from the fandom; in regards to Gina killing Graham for the break up I’ve seen comments like “OMG that bitch how could she!?” “WTF that’s not okay, she’s such a horrible person.” “I know he hurt her feelings but that doesn’t excuse killing him.” (Keep in mind not all of these are from fanpop and all of them are paraphrased). And the people posting these comments are usually the same ones who, upon seeing the Rumple scene, posted the following comments; “Go Rumple, she deserved it.” “Omg poor Rumple how could she do that to him? She deserved it.” “…Well she did cheat on him…” Likewise I’ve seen Gina fans cheer her on and then go ahead and talk about what a ‘dick’ Gold was being. So why is it that two characters did the same exact thing right down to the very motive but one or the other always gets a hard time from the fandom whilst the other gets praise. It makes no sense to me; if Gold is a dick for killing Milah than Gina’s a bitch for killing Graham. If Gold is a tortured soul who served up some justice than so is Gina. My opinion neither deserve the profanities tossed at them, but they both where wrong as hell in ripping out their ex’s hearts. Yes both (arguably) had good reasons, but to rip someone’s heart out and crush it is—without a doubt—a bit much.
Now let’s take a look at two different scenes; the one in which Regina is pushing Emma around in order to keep Henry to herself and Gold turning a man into a snail and crushing him for almost hurting Bae. Both were trying to protect their sons in their eyes. On one hand I see Dearies bashing Regina because ‘Henry is only Emma’s’ and Gina’s just being selfish’ fair point, Regina hurt Emma (more so verbally) because she wanted Henry to herself. These people then go on and say that Rumple killing the man was okay because he hurt Bae. What throws me off is how people are more worked up about Gina’s insults and threats than murder. Yes Regina was being kind of a bitch, but (up until the finale) she didn’t even try to kill Emma. Unlike Gold who did. He killed a man for something he hadn’t meant to do. So Gold is praised for over-protecting his son and Gina is bashed for it.
Fair is fair, I did a more evil regal-biased example, so here’s a dearie biased one; Regina using magic vs Gold using magic. More specifically ‘it’s only cowardly when Rumple does it.’ I have seen so many evil regals jump on Gold for hiding behind magic when the fact of the matter is—Gina does it to. I love the woman, but come on--Gina herself stated that it was a problem she had (she went to Archie for it) so any evil regal claiming that Regina never hid behind magic either isn’t watching the show or is being biased. These same evil regals seem to be the ones frowning at Gold and calling him a coward for using even the most basic spells. But when Regina casts a spell that is clearly used to hide behind ‘she’s only trying to defend herself.’ Yes this is true in some cases (coughTheMobAtHerHousecough) but not all the time. Like-wise yes Gold does cower away from things using magic but not all the time. On the topic of magic another double standard a lot of the fandom seems to hold is that ‘only Regina uses magic for pure evil.’ ‘Gina totally needs to lose her magic because she only hurts people with it.’ The same group is usually the group to jump to the ‘He’s only defending himself.’ ‘Or those guys deserved it.’ Or even ‘Rumple doesn’t use his magic to hurt people.’ And surprise, surprise—it works the other way around (Gina doesn’t use her magic for evil, but bad bad bad Rumple). Another fact of the matter—both use it for evil! People will constantly argue ‘yeah well Gold/Gina had better reasons.’ They both have good reasons for doing what they do, but the actions they take are both just as dastardly no matter what the motive. Killing is killing and cursing is cursing no matter what the reasoning is. And both characters are guilty of using their magic for evil. Likewise, both characters have used their magic to do good things as well. So I don’t understand why one character gets insults or praises but the other gets the opposite.
Last but not least—for this section. I am sorry if I offended anyone. Yeah I was being a bit harsh and yeah I was being one sarcastic lil’ shizz. Don’t get me wrong guys; I’m an evil regal myself and I don’t have anything against dearies. So I’m not trying to start anything with anyone.
Part 2; Good vs Evil
As I said I’m trying not to be biased, but to do this without being to repetitive, I feel like it’s easiest just to pick a side. And I am going with the evil side for two main reasons; firstly as someone who likes villains more it’s simply easier to speak from that point of view. For seconds it’s more common for people to dismiss evil acts committed by the heros and say that killing is okay for one side but not the other.
So I’ll start with the big one; murder. Prime examples; Snow killing Cora and Gina killing Graham. The common argument is always “well Snow did it for the greater good, Gina did it out of evil.” Fair point. but killing is still killing and no one can argue that killing is wrong. While Snow had the better motive and the right intentions, Gina had the better method. At least when evil makes a kill they just do it, and they do it themselves. Snow took the wimpy way out; not only did she kill Regina’s mom, but she tricked Regina into being the one to stick the infected heart back into her mom’s chest. Snow couldn’t even do it herself. Point is killing is killing. Gina kills Graham—bad Gina. Snow kills Cora—bad Snow. Neither were right. Another big example would be; Gina slaughtering a town and Snow and Charming killing Regina and George’s guards. A lot of innocent people died in both scenes. The town’s people did nothing wrong and George’s knights where just trying to do their jobs, and most likely just trying to put food on the table. One of the main arguments is that Gina killed young children and Snow didn’t. This is true of course. But looking deeper; Snow and Charming (in killing those guards) killed someone’s dad, someone’s lover. And perhaps the knight Charming killed in the pilot (with baby Emma in his arms) was the only parent a child had, the only one bringing in food. Now this kid has no means to survive. Again that’s really deep reading, but it’s defiantly a possibility. It’s also not uncommon for people to write it off as ‘well it was sort of a time of war and Snow and Charming had no choice.’ Again fair point. But (I saw something along these lines on tumblr) real-life soldiers struggle to kill the enemy. They go through crazy training sessions to block the feels so to speak. There are books about the mental struggle an army man will go through after killing a man. That being said Gina cried while crushing Graham’s heart, she cried while killing her dad. The Charming’s didn’t shed a tear for the soldiers they killed. They didn’t even show remorse. They moved on with their lives as if nothing happened. So I don’t quite get why people play off Snow and Charming’s actions. And I really don’t get how it’s fair for them to yell at ‘Regina apologists’ or claim that it’s not right when fans ‘justify’ Regina’s actions. Yet here they are doing the same thing, by writing off the deaths the Charming’s were responsible for by claiming it was for the greater good. I said it once and I’ll say it again. Killing is killing no matter what side you’re on. Both good and evil fans need to stop justifying it. Of course it’s okay to understand the motives and feel sympathy, but the motive doesn’t matter a person in the fiction world is still dead.
Now for the less extreme. The scenes I want to look at is Charming punching Whale for sleeping with Snow and Regina punching Emma. Gina took a lot of hate for hitting Emma, (this time she has the better motive) for ‘stealing’ Graham. Again the ‘bitch’ comments were dropped to the extreme. Yet no one has any problem with Charming punching Whale in the mouth for sleeping with Snow. Let’s not forget Whale was under the curse when he slept with Snow, and let’s not forget (the double hypocrisy here) that Charming slept with Kathryn while under the curse. So on one hand Gina threw a punch because she felt like Emma stole her man and on the other Charming punches Whale for something he did while under the curse. So why it is that Gina takes all the cussing and dissing and Charming gets a few laughs (because punching Whale was funny)? My theory was always that Emma is a well-loved character and Whale is not. But let’s be fair here; much like how killing is killing, punching someone in the face is…punching someone in the face. Gina was wrong, Charming was wrong.
Another thing that always got me was the fact that people physically push Gina around a lot. Emma’s done it twice (once in ‘the heart is a lonely hunter’ and once in the finale) and Charming did it in ‘the doctor’. Yes Gina pretty much started it when Emma did the shoving. But when Charming did it all Gina wanted to do was try to talk to Dan rather than just letting Charming put him down like a dog (which can certainly have been added to the paragraph about killing people). People got (understandably) really uptight when Gina threw Emma off her porch in one episode (I got up tight when Charming shoved Gina). But Charming can man-handle a crying Regina and shove Hook around and not get crap for it—because apparently Hook is a douche and Gina is a, do I even need to say it again? Charming is always shoving the bad guys around, but that’s okay because he’s a good guy. But if Gold were to shove Charming it would be ‘oh no no no no, bad Rumple. You must stop.’ As I said for all of the above though; this can happen in reverse where Regina fans will go off on Charming for pushing Gina and then not give a crap when Gina shoves Emma.
That’s really about it guys. Again, really sorry if I offended anyone. Most of the sarcasm and the ‘no no no bad *insert character* was for the sake of comic relief. I don’t have any vendetta against good guy fan nor do I have one against villain lovers. I just wanted to get all of this out. It’s kind of been sitting with me for a year now, I finally just felt like typing it.
Part 1: Gold & Gina
First off and probably the most widely debated is how it’s okay for Gold to rip people’s hearts out and kill them but it’s not when Gina does it, or vice versa. So to start off I’ll compare two scenes; the one in which Gina rips Graham’s heart out and crushes it because he broke her heart to the scene where Rumple rips Milah’s heart out and crushes it because she broke his heart. I can imagine everyone already sees the similarities. The actions and the motives are exactly the same. Graham cheated on Gina (so to speak) for Emma and Milah cheated on Gold for Hook. So what do they both do; resort to magic and rip their ex’s heart out and the ex dies in the arms of his/her new lover. But I observed the following reaction from the fandom; in regards to Gina killing Graham for the break up I’ve seen comments like “OMG that bitch how could she!?” “WTF that’s not okay, she’s such a horrible person.” “I know he hurt her feelings but that doesn’t excuse killing him.” (Keep in mind not all of these are from fanpop and all of them are paraphrased). And the people posting these comments are usually the same ones who, upon seeing the Rumple scene, posted the following comments; “Go Rumple, she deserved it.” “Omg poor Rumple how could she do that to him? She deserved it.” “…Well she did cheat on him…” Likewise I’ve seen Gina fans cheer her on and then go ahead and talk about what a ‘dick’ Gold was being. So why is it that two characters did the same exact thing right down to the very motive but one or the other always gets a hard time from the fandom whilst the other gets praise. It makes no sense to me; if Gold is a dick for killing Milah than Gina’s a bitch for killing Graham. If Gold is a tortured soul who served up some justice than so is Gina. My opinion neither deserve the profanities tossed at them, but they both where wrong as hell in ripping out their ex’s hearts. Yes both (arguably) had good reasons, but to rip someone’s heart out and crush it is—without a doubt—a bit much.
Now let’s take a look at two different scenes; the one in which Regina is pushing Emma around in order to keep Henry to herself and Gold turning a man into a snail and crushing him for almost hurting Bae. Both were trying to protect their sons in their eyes. On one hand I see Dearies bashing Regina because ‘Henry is only Emma’s’ and Gina’s just being selfish’ fair point, Regina hurt Emma (more so verbally) because she wanted Henry to herself. These people then go on and say that Rumple killing the man was okay because he hurt Bae. What throws me off is how people are more worked up about Gina’s insults and threats than murder. Yes Regina was being kind of a bitch, but (up until the finale) she didn’t even try to kill Emma. Unlike Gold who did. He killed a man for something he hadn’t meant to do. So Gold is praised for over-protecting his son and Gina is bashed for it.
Fair is fair, I did a more evil regal-biased example, so here’s a dearie biased one; Regina using magic vs Gold using magic. More specifically ‘it’s only cowardly when Rumple does it.’ I have seen so many evil regals jump on Gold for hiding behind magic when the fact of the matter is—Gina does it to. I love the woman, but come on--Gina herself stated that it was a problem she had (she went to Archie for it) so any evil regal claiming that Regina never hid behind magic either isn’t watching the show or is being biased. These same evil regals seem to be the ones frowning at Gold and calling him a coward for using even the most basic spells. But when Regina casts a spell that is clearly used to hide behind ‘she’s only trying to defend herself.’ Yes this is true in some cases (coughTheMobAtHerHousecough) but not all the time. Like-wise yes Gold does cower away from things using magic but not all the time. On the topic of magic another double standard a lot of the fandom seems to hold is that ‘only Regina uses magic for pure evil.’ ‘Gina totally needs to lose her magic because she only hurts people with it.’ The same group is usually the group to jump to the ‘He’s only defending himself.’ ‘Or those guys deserved it.’ Or even ‘Rumple doesn’t use his magic to hurt people.’ And surprise, surprise—it works the other way around (Gina doesn’t use her magic for evil, but bad bad bad Rumple). Another fact of the matter—both use it for evil! People will constantly argue ‘yeah well Gold/Gina had better reasons.’ They both have good reasons for doing what they do, but the actions they take are both just as dastardly no matter what the motive. Killing is killing and cursing is cursing no matter what the reasoning is. And both characters are guilty of using their magic for evil. Likewise, both characters have used their magic to do good things as well. So I don’t understand why one character gets insults or praises but the other gets the opposite.
Last but not least—for this section. I am sorry if I offended anyone. Yeah I was being a bit harsh and yeah I was being one sarcastic lil’ shizz. Don’t get me wrong guys; I’m an evil regal myself and I don’t have anything against dearies. So I’m not trying to start anything with anyone.
Part 2; Good vs Evil
As I said I’m trying not to be biased, but to do this without being to repetitive, I feel like it’s easiest just to pick a side. And I am going with the evil side for two main reasons; firstly as someone who likes villains more it’s simply easier to speak from that point of view. For seconds it’s more common for people to dismiss evil acts committed by the heros and say that killing is okay for one side but not the other.
So I’ll start with the big one; murder. Prime examples; Snow killing Cora and Gina killing Graham. The common argument is always “well Snow did it for the greater good, Gina did it out of evil.” Fair point. but killing is still killing and no one can argue that killing is wrong. While Snow had the better motive and the right intentions, Gina had the better method. At least when evil makes a kill they just do it, and they do it themselves. Snow took the wimpy way out; not only did she kill Regina’s mom, but she tricked Regina into being the one to stick the infected heart back into her mom’s chest. Snow couldn’t even do it herself. Point is killing is killing. Gina kills Graham—bad Gina. Snow kills Cora—bad Snow. Neither were right. Another big example would be; Gina slaughtering a town and Snow and Charming killing Regina and George’s guards. A lot of innocent people died in both scenes. The town’s people did nothing wrong and George’s knights where just trying to do their jobs, and most likely just trying to put food on the table. One of the main arguments is that Gina killed young children and Snow didn’t. This is true of course. But looking deeper; Snow and Charming (in killing those guards) killed someone’s dad, someone’s lover. And perhaps the knight Charming killed in the pilot (with baby Emma in his arms) was the only parent a child had, the only one bringing in food. Now this kid has no means to survive. Again that’s really deep reading, but it’s defiantly a possibility. It’s also not uncommon for people to write it off as ‘well it was sort of a time of war and Snow and Charming had no choice.’ Again fair point. But (I saw something along these lines on tumblr) real-life soldiers struggle to kill the enemy. They go through crazy training sessions to block the feels so to speak. There are books about the mental struggle an army man will go through after killing a man. That being said Gina cried while crushing Graham’s heart, she cried while killing her dad. The Charming’s didn’t shed a tear for the soldiers they killed. They didn’t even show remorse. They moved on with their lives as if nothing happened. So I don’t quite get why people play off Snow and Charming’s actions. And I really don’t get how it’s fair for them to yell at ‘Regina apologists’ or claim that it’s not right when fans ‘justify’ Regina’s actions. Yet here they are doing the same thing, by writing off the deaths the Charming’s were responsible for by claiming it was for the greater good. I said it once and I’ll say it again. Killing is killing no matter what side you’re on. Both good and evil fans need to stop justifying it. Of course it’s okay to understand the motives and feel sympathy, but the motive doesn’t matter a person in the fiction world is still dead.
Now for the less extreme. The scenes I want to look at is Charming punching Whale for sleeping with Snow and Regina punching Emma. Gina took a lot of hate for hitting Emma, (this time she has the better motive) for ‘stealing’ Graham. Again the ‘bitch’ comments were dropped to the extreme. Yet no one has any problem with Charming punching Whale in the mouth for sleeping with Snow. Let’s not forget Whale was under the curse when he slept with Snow, and let’s not forget (the double hypocrisy here) that Charming slept with Kathryn while under the curse. So on one hand Gina threw a punch because she felt like Emma stole her man and on the other Charming punches Whale for something he did while under the curse. So why it is that Gina takes all the cussing and dissing and Charming gets a few laughs (because punching Whale was funny)? My theory was always that Emma is a well-loved character and Whale is not. But let’s be fair here; much like how killing is killing, punching someone in the face is…punching someone in the face. Gina was wrong, Charming was wrong.
Another thing that always got me was the fact that people physically push Gina around a lot. Emma’s done it twice (once in ‘the heart is a lonely hunter’ and once in the finale) and Charming did it in ‘the doctor’. Yes Gina pretty much started it when Emma did the shoving. But when Charming did it all Gina wanted to do was try to talk to Dan rather than just letting Charming put him down like a dog (which can certainly have been added to the paragraph about killing people). People got (understandably) really uptight when Gina threw Emma off her porch in one episode (I got up tight when Charming shoved Gina). But Charming can man-handle a crying Regina and shove Hook around and not get crap for it—because apparently Hook is a douche and Gina is a, do I even need to say it again? Charming is always shoving the bad guys around, but that’s okay because he’s a good guy. But if Gold were to shove Charming it would be ‘oh no no no no, bad Rumple. You must stop.’ As I said for all of the above though; this can happen in reverse where Regina fans will go off on Charming for pushing Gina and then not give a crap when Gina shoves Emma.
That’s really about it guys. Again, really sorry if I offended anyone. Most of the sarcasm and the ‘no no no bad *insert character* was for the sake of comic relief. I don’t have any vendetta against good guy fan nor do I have one against villain lovers. I just wanted to get all of this out. It’s kind of been sitting with me for a year now, I finally just felt like typing it.
