I have a problem with ABC’s ‘Once Upon a Time.’ This problem has nothing to do with the quality of the show. The show delivers consistently week after week by introducing twists and revelations at a steady pace. My uneasiness stems from how easily many tell Regina Mills, the Evil Queen in Fairy Tale Land, that she is not Henry’s mother and are willing to hand him over to Emma Swan.
The curse that sent most of the residents from Fairy Tale Land to Storybrooke was the work of the Evil Queen. We are meant to despise her. In this week’s episode, “The Cricket Game,” Regina is shown again to be consumed with hatred and anger toward Snow White. Snow gave the Queen a chance to repent her vile ways and start on a path of redemption, but the Queen failed the test. Regina was to be executed, but Snow stopped it and decided to banish her. Regina’s actions in Fairy Tale Land are the reasons Snow and Charming and everyone from Fairy Tale Land eagerly believe in Regina’s guilt. Since Regina refused to reform before, she must be incapable of changing at all. Because they witnessed Regina’s evil deeds and not Emma’s, the people of Storybrooke, especially Snow and Charming, trust Emma to be a better mother than Regina.
When looked at through the lens of Snow and Charming, Regina is an awful person, but the show has shown viewers Regina’s past, making her a complicated person and the most interesting character on OUAT. We know her origin story, the details of the machinations behind her wretched acts. The source of Regina’s evil is her mother Cora.
Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills, the Evil Queen
Regina had the love of her father, Henry, and was fine living a simple life riding horses and being with Daniel. However, Cora’s instance on running Regina’s life set in motion a series of events that gives birth to the Evil Queen. Cora arranged for Regina to meet Snow’s father and demanded that her daughter marry a man she clearly didn’t love. Regina confided in Snow about Daniel without understanding Snow’s innocence. Snow’s mother died when she was young, so she only had one viewpoint on motherhood; to Snow, all mothers were good and loved their children. Snow, especially a young Snow, would never suspect any mother of being cruel, manipulative, or dishonest. Regina grew up with a mother who was cruel, manipulative and dishonest, and perhaps she unfortunately had to deal with the darker side of motherhood since she was a child. In a flashback on this week’s episode, Regina’s father apologized to her for not protecting her enough, suggesting that Cora’s torment started when Regina was young.
I can relate to growing up in an environment when one parent loves you unconditionally and the other parent is, well, less than stellar. I don’t speak for everyone in this situation, but it can be confusing. You know you are the product of these two people, and trying to figure out why one is loving while the other is not can be bewildering and, in my case, cause depression. Like Regina, I learned to cherish love when it happened, but I was crushed when the love disappeared. When Cora killed Daniel, she shattered Regina’s heart, devastating her. Of course she lashed out. Regina, at that time, was powerless against Cora, so she took out her anger on the one she did have power over, Snow. Yes, Snow was a child, but Regina, lacking the skills to properly deal with her anguish, became the only mother she knew, Cora. By breaking her heart, Cora transformed Regina into someone craving vengeance and the power to enact that vengeance. The love of her father wasn’t enough to stop her from spiraling into darkness; the lack of love from her mother and the loss of Daniel tipped the balance towards anger and a life of revenge.
Denied a happy ending, Regina, with the help of Rumplestiltskin, tore almost everyone away from their happiness in Fairy Tale Land, stripped them of their memories (except Rumple), and forced them to live in a land with no magic. With her memories intact, Regina controlled Storybrooke, a town suspended in time because of the curse. We don’t know what Regina was like as a mayor or as a mother before Emma came to town. The people seemed to be fine, having regular lives with the daily grind of work. If Regina was completely evil, she could have constructed a prison with harsher living conditions than a small seaside New England town, but one can argue even a beautiful prison is still a prison.
The conflict between Henry and Regina seems to have started with his claims that the town was cursed and he lived in a town full of fairy tale characters. Regina, wanting to keep her secret, put Henry in therapy. No one believing him prompted him to find his birth mother, Emma Swan, who is the child of Snow White and Prince Charming. With Emma’s arrival, Regina reverted to her wicked ways because she faced every adoptive parent’s fear: the return of the birth parents.
Jared Gilmore as Henry Mills
My father is adopted, and he has known of the identity of his birth parents since he was a child. My grandmother told me many times how she loved my father as though she gave birth to him and of her fear that he would be taken away or leave her for his birth parents. Fear of the birth parents returning and taking away the child is a valid reason why some don’t adopt. In Storybrooke, Regina didn’t have to worry about her mother interfering, but she also didn’t have her father, the one person who loved her unconditionally. She named the child she adopted Henry after her father, and I imagine that she wasn’t as bad of a mother as Cora. Emma’s arrival put Regina into protective mode; all she had built was threatened, and she didn’t want any of it, most of all Henry, taken away from her. The fear of Henry being taken away from her explains her actions. Henry is her child, not Emma’s, and she has every right to be protective of Henry.
Emma should not be criticized for giving her son up for adoption. She felt she could not be a good mother to her son, so she believed someone else could give her baby the life he deserved. Because she grew up in foster homes and went the wild child route before becoming a bounty hunter, she is reluctant to be Henry’s mother. She broke the curse by realizing how much she loves Henry. With their memories restored, punishing Regina in any manner is acceptable to the people of Storybrooke, including denying her status as Henry’s mother.
This eagerness of everyone’s willingness to deny Regina motherhood and bestow the mantle to Emma is disturbing. Even Henry has waffled from telling Regina that she is not his mother to encouraging her to change so she can be part of his life. Emma is a stranger, but because she is the product of true love and the breaker of the curse, she is deemed to be a fit mother. Her misdeeds (stealing cars, conning people) are forgivable. Snow and Charming tell their daughter that she can be Henry’s mother, and they want her to be. The town agrees. No one reprimands Emma for telling Regina that Regina is not Henry’s mother. This mass approval of Emma’s qualification is more about punishing Regina than determining what is best for Henry. As long as Regina isn’t happy, then the town is happy.
Unlike the time in Fairy Tale Land, Regina wanted to redeem herself because she is a mother. The love she has for Henry encouraged her to change and show everyone that she is worthy to be Henry’s mother. Henry’s love is Regina’s anchor, and without Henry, she will break. When you are trying to change and become a better person, having someone believe in you is essential. The events of this week, being accused of the “death” of Archie, have derailed Regina off the path of redemption. Cut off from everyone, denied Henry’s love, Regina will likely revert to her old ways, which is what Cora wants. The fact that the town approves of invalidating Regina as Henry’s mother is an act as cruel as anything Cora has ever done to her.
I admit that Regina is not the best mother; her overreaction to the threat of Emma did cause the accidental poisoning of her son, but Regina acted out of fear of her son being taken away, a fear that has come true. For some reason, Regina, a woman who is supposed to be the embodiment of evil, adopted a child and raised him the best she could. Henry Mills is Regina’s son, and anyone denying this troubles me. As someone who is the daughter of an adopted child, when Henry tells Regina that she is not his mother and no one reprimands him, I get angry. No one, not Snow, Charming, Emma, or Henry, should tell Regina that she is not a mother. Regina Mills is a mother, and just because Henry is currently in Emma’s care doesn’t mean Henry is not her son. Henry is her son, and he always will be.
You called it. Looks like she’s going evil again.
I know a few people who LOVE this show, yet I’ve only watched one episode. Perhaps I’ll have to try to catch up at somepoint to see how I feel.
Word. This is pretty much why I stopped watching the show.
(I was also not thrilled about the message they’re sending with the whole ‘Emma’s parents love each other and therefore she’s better than everyone else’.)
Oh I know. Emma’s made mistakes, but everyone loves Snow and Charming, and since they’re good, Emma is good. And in last week’s episode, Snow told Regina that Emma didn’t have to tell Regina that she took Henry out of town. I’m like, “Uh yeah she did. Regina is Henry’s legal mother and Emma could be charged with kidnapping.”
Oh, I read about that. Grrrr. I found myself wanting to write a fanfic where Henry has a medical emergency in NYC and Emma is forced to just stand there and watch him suffer because she can’t approve any procedures he needs (or knows anything about his previous medical history, for that matter, which might get them suspicious, and maybe Social Services get involved, and… so on and so forth). Which sounds mean, to do that to an 11yo, but considering Henry has little personality or any recognizable human traits (such as inner conflict, or a need for familiarity and comfort) most of the time and is primarily used as a plot device to prove (stupid) points about how evil Regina is and how good Emma/The Charmings are, I figure I might as well take my cue from the show and use him as a plot device to show how illegal (and just wrong) Emma’s actions are.
(Over the top? Maybe. But really, this show still pisses me off, because darn it, I liked it so much at first!)
This is really, really bothering me as well. The actions that Henry has taken are not those of an abused or mistreated child. Abused and mistreated children at ten do not disobey their parent(s). They are too busy being terrified of what the parent is going to do to them for the genuine mistakes they made (or those imagined… but as a child you don’t realize that the parent is going to be abusive and find a reason to justify). Henry’s actions are those of a child who is very confident and secure in his place at home and his mother’s love. For all that he says she doesn’t really love him. I think that is more normal, about to hit puberty hormone crud.
It is really really bothering me the way this situation is being handled by the show. I am all for open adoptions and relationships. But one, Emma herself chose a closed adoptions. Two, Emma is not exactly good past material herself. Sorta pot calling the kettle, right? I mean, yeah Regina did a lot worse… but Regina also had a lot worse done to her to cause it. Emma may have been screwed by the system and in and out of homes, but Regina was raised by a murderous, controlling sociopath.
And anyways… none of that matters. Regina is Henry’s mother. Period. Emma is not. Emma can be his relative, can be the woman that gave birth to him, can be so much more. When my husband said that he thought the code word was going to be ‘mom’ I said, surely not. No show would be that insensitive to a major controversy going on right now.
I was wrong, and it’s very nearly ruined what is otherwise a fantastic show for me. I’m hoping soon that something changed (I’m a bit behind the current episode, just watched the Episode where Cora framed Regina). If something doesn’t alter I will not be continuing to watch this show. It’s just too big of an issue for me the callous way this situation is being handled.
Abused children don’t rebel? Really?
I think your broad generalization just to suit your own argument on a fictional show just made me want to vomit.
Having just finished season 2, I’ve been super conflicted about this issue. When I first started, I loved the show but had a really hard time with them casting the adoptive mother as the Evil Queen and the birth mother as the Hero. Yikes. I’m a big time adoption advocate, and that just seemed to reinforce the unfortunate stereotype that adoptive parents aren’t the child’s “real” parents.
But then, to make it even more difficult, Regina has literally killed people and emotionally abused/manipulated Henry to get what she wants. I don’t believe her adoption of Henry is legal (technically Storybrooke doesn’t exist, so I find it hard to believe the adoption was completed in the normal, legal way), so I don’t think the argument that Emma could be “charged with kidnapping” is actually valid. I doubt there’s any paperwork filed anywhere that officially states Regina is Henry’s mother, I think Henry was effectively “purchased” via some sort of black market transaction. However, if it WAS legal, I don’t think any social worker in the world would have allowed her to keep Henry in her home after the things she’s done.
So, on the one hand, I *don’t* think she has the privilege to keep Henry because she has proven herself to be an unfit mother. On the other hand, I hate the idea of spreading an anti-adoption message. Ugh.
I hear a lot of talk about Regina, but not really a lot about Henry.
It IS about him after all and well before he got that book his mother made him feel unloved and unwelcome.
But sure, despite her evil past and her coldness she is the right choice because SHE changed his diapers.
Mk.
Rottlez – how do you figure that his mother made him feel unloved and unwelcome? Towards the end of season one we see Emma have a conversation with Archie in which he asserts that Regina would never hurt Henry. He doesn’t have a problem with Regina as a mother to Henry, but he also thinks that Emma should be a part of Henry’s life, and that’s what his objections are based on, ultimately. That their fighting is hurting their child, not that Emma should take her son back because his adoptive mother is abusing him.
[“By breaking her heart, Cora transformed Regina into someone craving vengeance and the power to enact that vengeance. The love of her father wasn’t enough to stop her from spiraling into darkness; the lack of love from her mother and the loss of Daniel tipped the balance towards anger and a life of revenge.”]
Cora had help from Rumpelstiltskin, Jefferson and Dr. Whale. Even after Daniel’s death, Regina was not interested in seeking revenge against Snow. But after Rumpel and the other two manipulated her into making a desperate attempt to bring Daniel back from the dead . . . she was broken. After that, she had only one thing in mind – namely seeking revenge against Snow White.
[“I hear a lot of talk about Regina, but not really a lot about Henry.
It IS about him after all and well before he got that book his mother made him feel unloved and unwelcome. But sure, despite her evil past and her coldness she is the right choice because SHE changed his diapers.”]
It was Henry who became cold to Regina after he learned the truth about the curse from the book. It was his coldness that led Regina to suspect that he might know the truth about the book.
Henry reacted in a similar manner to Emma, when he realized she was lying to him in late Season 3.
I’ve gone back and forth myself, but I think you overlooked a few key events that Regina had complete power over. Emma was 100% prepared to leave, but Regina realised the fear of the birth parent: that the “best chance” they gave their child up for wasn’t that at all. When she asked if Regina loved Henry, Regina lied, and Henry’s efforts to get to know Emma caused him to climb under her skin in a way she never imagined.
I actually admire the show for the way it’s tackled both perspectives on the issue. It never takes away Regina’s place as mother. At every turn everyone refers to Regina as Henry’s mother, even Emma and Snow, and Henry himself. But you also have the child’s desire to know where he comes from, the birth mother’s desire (over time) to know him, and Regina’s underhanded methods to get Emma to leave town.
Here’s the other part of the equation: Snow and Charming are predisposed to forgive Emma her decision not just because they’re her parents or because they’re good. They put Emma in a freaking wardrobe to an unknown place where they didn’t even know what would happen to her or how she would grow up.
What I love is that the show has legitimized everyone’s intentions, and at the same time forced them to deal with the consequences of their actions.
Henry’s poisoning was not accidental. He deliberate ate that turnover instead of destroying it so that Emma would be forced to stay and break the curse.
Exactly Rosie. Henry knew the thing was almost certainly poisoned. He chose to eat it to prove a point. Emma’s allowing it, even if she didn’t believe, proves her no mother.
I agree and don’t. While it breaks my heart a little when Henry yells that she is not his mother.
When Regina goes to that party trying to be a better person, and she leaves and says to Emma how she would love to visit Henry and maybe have a sleepover soon and Emma says no, i get truly MAD. But then I remember how Regina killed her own father (someone she loved more than anyone) and sent countless children to be eaten. And was the reason Emma grew up without any parents at all. In the end I don’t feel so bad for her..
It doesn’t really matter whether the events in the show support or oppose a major social issue. It’s true that well-meaning adoptive parents fear the birth parents trying to claim back the child, and well-meaning birth parents fear that their children will fall into the hands of bad adoptive parents. Sometimes birth parents do try to reclaim the kids, sometimes the kids do fall into the hands of bad foster or adoptive parents. Sometimes the birth parents are right to try to reclaim, sometimes bad birth parents can wreck a happy adoptive family. You can find good and bad instances of all of it in reality.
In Regina’s case, there is much good and much bad that must be said about her raising of Henry Jr. On the bad side the bad is obvious. She gaslighted him, tried to murder his birth-mother, murdered her lover when he changed sides, the whole entire nightmarish situation is her doing from the get-go. We’ve seen what she did to bring that about, but one thing is critically important, she murdered her father, who she manifestly loved, to create the Dark Curse. Think about that, because it’s important. If she didn’t actually love Henry Sr., _the Dark Curse would have failed_. So we know she did love him…and she still murdered him.
OK, there’s also the issue of what she had in mind for Henry if Emma had never come. You see, I think the real start of the trouble between Regina and Henry wasn’t Emma, it wasn’t even the book, it was the fact that as Henry grew older, he started to notice that he was the only one getting any older! Everybody else is frozen in time. There’s no way he can _help_ but notice this as he gets older, and we don’t know what Regina had in mind doing about it as it became critical, because Henry and Emma broke the curse.
On the plus side, Henry actually shows a moral sense and a preference for good over evil. The only realistic source of that other than his own innate nature is Regina. The master villainess raised her son to lean heroic. That says something, too, even if that very tendency turned him against her as he began to grow up, because she _is_ a villainess.
But everybody preferring Emma vs. Regina? Especially at first, that’s _inevitable_. Emma is the only other candidate handy for the role of ‘mother’, and Regina is patently unfit. Self-evidently unfit. The few redeeming elements of her story are mostly not known to the town, only Snow knows a few of them. Further, even if it’s not entirely Regina’s _fault_ that she is the way she is, she still is the way she is. It’s not just stuff she did 28 years before, she’s spent the time since tormenting her victims psychologically, and she mind controlled/murdered Graham just shortly before the curse breaks. And yes, it’s Regina’s fault, 100%, that Henry got poisoned by that turnover, not Emma’s. To her credit, I think seeing Henry lying there in that coma was a major turning point for her, but note that it still wasn’t enough, not yet, to turn her completely around.
As for Emma’s attitude, she has the birth mother’s fear confirmed: her child in the hands of a monster. Bad deeds count for more than good. The fact that Regina actually did a good job of raising Henry for a long time, and clearly cares about him, does not negate her later actions, if anything, it’s the other way around. So under those circumstances, it’s entirely natural for Emma to assert that Regina has forfeited all rights, at least morally.
Further, before we condemn the town or the royals too hard, we should keep in mind something, they do care about Henry and it’s proven by an interesting fact: Regina lives. As David pointed out to her in season two, with her magic out of commission the one and only thing keeping her alive in a town full of people with ample reason to hate her is “that Henry wishes it”. They were willing to take the risk of letting Regina live, and even remain free, for the sake of Henry’s love for her.
And it _was_ a risk, as we see toward the end of the season, because Regina was ready to blow the town out of existence. Regina is a standing, living, breathing _threat_ to the people of the town. She might not be as bad as she once was (in fact we can be sure she wasn’t, Regina even in Season One was less intensely nasty than the Evil Queen had once been, she had already changed some while raising Henry), but she’s still dangerous.
Nor did they entirely ignore her efforts to change. David, esp. showed signs of cutting her some slack in Season Two, such as when they worked together while Henry was communicating with Aurora. But it’s no use trying to portray Regina as any kind of a victim in the early seasons.
Deep down, even she knew it. Remember the nightmare she had where the town comes to execute her, and Henry screams that she did this to herself. That wasn’t Henry talking, that was Regina’s own conscience waking up.
[“Her misdeeds (stealing cars, conning people) are forgivable.”]
Along with enabling Snow White’s murder attempt of Mulan?