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IF ABBY REWROTE IT: ONCE UPON A TIME
Specifically for seasons one and two.
So this is mostly for SageoftheSky, who’s been wanting me to write some more fanfiction. While doing so doesn’t appeal to me at the moment, I figured I’d give him something anyway and let him into how I’d rewrite one of his favorite(?) shows if I got the chance.
So the thing about Once Upon a Time is that I followed it through season one, was turned off by the season finale, nonetheless watched part of season two, and then had spoilers fill me in on the rest. What kept me coming back was the character of Regina Mills, who the writers didn’t seem to know what to do with. They tended to either make her too evil and petty in some episodes, and then way more sympathetic than the heroes in others. Now you can have a villain who enjoys doing dastardly deeds and is still sympathetic (see: Azula, who is so much more skillfully written), but in Regina’s case, she seemed like two different characters, with which one she was being dependent upon what the episode demanded of her. And this annoyed me. A lot.
Now you’re naturally going to have different interpretations of a character when you have a group of writers on board, rather than just one writer in charge. In shows where the writers share one vision and are highly collaborative, you can usually watch the episodes without noticing the differences in how each writer tells the story. The new Battlestar Galactica and various Joss Whedon shows are good examples of this. In more…let’s say mediocre shows…you get more obviously good and bad episodes, depending on who is writing them. Once Upon a Time is plagued with this problem; sometimes you have fantastic episodes (“Pilot” and “The Thing You Love Most”),but then there are others that…yeah. Sometimes they’re just pointless filler (“Dreamy”) or actually manage to hurt (“The Miller’s Daughter,” which is a powerful episode but so incredibly sick).
Once Upon a Time is simply not very consistent, writing-wise. Sometimes it has some really good ideas and potential to it, but then it drops the ball on the delivery or has some very unfortunate implications to what it’s saying (ex. the whole adoption versus biological parents issue). This is especially obvious when it comes to Regina, who, as I said, is shuffled between two extremes. So if I were to rewrite Once Upon a Time, Regina Mills - as well as her relationship with Snow White, which acts as the backbone of the show’s premise - is where I would start.
Now back when I was watching season one as it aired, I bounced some theories off of my roommate as to where it was heading. Regina’s backstory, which was hinted at more and more as the show went on, was a main source of speculation for me. Like many viewers, I theorized that Regina was connected to the original story of Rumpelstiltskin due to her last name. While this, as it turned out, was kind of true – though Cora was the miller’s daughter who had to spin straw into gold, rather than Regina – I had very different ideas of how it would have played out. I’d been struck by a Tumblr poster calling Regina’s story “the one where no prince saved her” and my ideas went on from there. The backstory I came up with was as follows (albiet with a lot more hearts involved, thanks to season two):
Regina is born into a poor household to a miller and his witch wife. Her mother’s abuses of magic - which enact greater and greater prices, until her mother is forced out of town for it - makes Regina shy away from using her own. However, need necessitates her using her abilities to keep her father and herself afloat. Since the most powerful magical catalysts are love and blood in this version (though names, too, hold power), Regina uses a bit of both to turn straw into gold. She has her childhood friend - a young man we might as well call Daniel - go to nearby towns to sell what she makes. Life gradually improves for the three of them due to this. Regina even finds a lover in Daniel, who promises to always help her when she needs it. There are whispers, of course, that Regina might become just like her mother - but these are largely ignored by the three, since Regina knows her own limitations.
The kingdom has been impoverished by the recent war, so when whispers of this gold-maker reach the king, he takes his daughter and goes out searching for Regina. The king is, notably, not a gentle man, having been hardened by the war and the death of his wife - and even before then, he was never sweet. His daughter, Snow, has been allowed to run wild since her mother’s death, having learned neither humility nor compassion in the intervening years. She delights in wandering off and getting into mischief - which is not so terrible, until it is.
Close to Regina’s town, Snow gets into a potentially lethal situation when she wanders off, which Regina uses her magic to save her from. The two strike up a sort of friendship, though Snow is rather…needy, let’s say, pestering Regina to give her gifts with her magic. The girl doesn’t understand that these gifts always come with a price. Regina, worrying about what the king will do if he finds out her secret, says she’ll give Snow whatever she likes, so long as Snow keeps quiet. Snow agrees…until, that is, the king hears that the gold-maker is a young woman. He says he will marry the woman if she steps forward, for the kingdom needs gold and he needs a wife. Snow, wanting to have a mother again, tells the king Regina’s secret and thinks very little of it. After all, who would want to stay a miller’s daughter when they could be a queen?
Regina would. But before she knows it, she is taken to one of the king’s estates. There, to her horror, she is told she must turn bales of hay into gold overnight, to prove that she is worth the royal marriage she is being forced into. If she cannot do this, then she will either be imprisoned or killed - for magic, if it does not serve the crown, is of no use to the king. If Regina had a year and had far more blood to spare, she might be able to do what the king asks - but the price of this feat is too high to be met overnight. As night falls and Regina despairs of the task set before her, Rumpelstiltskin appears. He says he knows a way to accomplish this feat, but she must make a contract with him to learn it. Wary of such an offer, Regina asks him to give her a few hours to think about it. Rumpelstiltskin agrees and leaves her be.
Within the next hour or so, Daniel arrives at the estate, intent on rescuing Regina. He finds where she’s being kept and manages to break into her chamber. Unfortunately, neither of them get out. The guards, realizing there has been a break-in, quickly find them. Daniel dies in his attempt to help Regina and is taken away. Regina is left behind, in shock at what’s happened, and eventually Rumpelstiltskin appears again. With no escape in sight - because Regina still wants to live, even if it means doing so without Daniel - Regina reluctantly agrees to Rumpelstiltskin’s terms. She will give up her firstborn child - which she doesn’t realize she's pregnant with, until Rumpelstiltskin tells her so - in exchange for the chance to reclaim her freedom.
And so Rumpelstiltskin presents her with a heart - for love and blood hold the most powerful magics, and the heart of a person, freely given for the sake of someone they love, holds the most powerful magic of all. Regina knows just whose heart this one belongs to, and using it breaks her - but it helps her to accomplish the feat and live. For a while, that is enough. She is married to the king and has her child - and Rumpelstiltskin takes his payment, leaving a stillborn in her son’s place. Regina is then left alone with the king and his daughter. She loathes them both, especially Snow, who legitimately did destroy her life for selfish reasons.
All she has left is her magic (her father was not allowed to follow her to the palace, though he was compensated for the loss of his daughter). And so Regina begins to experiment more and more with that magic, finding small ways to regain control of her life with it. She first ensures that she will never have a child by the king - something that makes her marriage decidedly chilly, but then, with that start, it probably would never have turned warm. She has an affair with the huntsman, who she sometimes wants to ask to hunt Rumpelstiltskin and find out what’s become of her son. Her own attempts to discover that information have failed. As far as she can tell, her son is no longer in this world, and Regina assumes the worst. The suspicion drags her further down, and she begins to wonder if magic, which had once done the impossible, could do it again. If she made the right sacrifice, could she get back what she lost…?
Meanwhile, the wild Snow has grown a great deal since her father and Regina married. In large part due to her friendship with Red, who she met on one of her outings, she has lost her haughtiness and has learned how to be kind. She watches Regina’s downward spiral with increasing dismay, knowing that she is the one who caused it. Her remorse over this makes her strive more and more to do right by other people, earning her a reputation for being good and pure of heart. The reputation causes her discomfort, but she continues to do her best, hoping that someday she will manage to forgive herself for what she did. Regina, after all, definitely won’t. Snow’s crime against her was far too great for that.
When Snow’s father dies - and Snow suspects that Regina is behind it - Snow grieves but says nothing against her stepmother. How can she, when she views that revenge as being earned? She follows the huntsman, knowing that she, too, will soon be dead. She writes her stepmother a letter, saying that she hopes this will give Regina the peace she’s been searching for, even knowing that those words, coming from her, probably won’t reach the queen. The huntsman, at that point, takes pity on her. He knows that the queen is slowly but surely going mad, and he doesn’t think the repentant Snow should suffer for it. So he lets Snow go and takes the heart of a deer instead. But Regina, of course, knows the difference: the heart of a deer, compared to the heart of a person, willingly given, holds very little magic. It will not help her accomplish what she wants to do.
And so the struggle begins between the princess and the queen. Time and again, Snow gets the chance to kill the queen, and time and again, she can’t bring herself to do it. Time and again, Regina makes others pay the price of Snow’s crime, and time and again, this fails to bring Snow out of hiding. Neither of them reveal the truth of what happened between them; Snow cannot speak when it’s suggested that the queen was jealous of Snow’s “beauty,” which is what the people come to accept as the truth. Things come to a head when Snow falls for the prince of the neighboring kingdom. When Regina captures him, Snow finally goes to her, offering up her heart for his freedom…but Regina, struck by this action, refrains from taking what she’s so desperately been wanting.
Why finish their struggle now, when waiting would make the price of her miracle so much sweeter?
She tells Snow that she’s proven she’s no longer the person she was. Nonetheless, the debt must be paid. So she puts Snow into an enchanted sleep which has the appearance of death. Regina prepares to return to her father’s estate while the kingdom grieves; she disappears when the prince wakes Snow with a kiss and the kingdom rejoices. She leaves the throne empty; it was never what she wanted anyway. The stories say she was overthrown, but then, the stories are sometimes wrong about these things. Snow and her prince are crowned, with Snow thinking that she’s finally earned Regina’s forgiveness. She allows herself to be happy - to believe that her heart is as pure and white as her names suggests. She marries her prince and is soon with child. It seems like she’ll live happily ever after.
And this is precisely what Regina wants her to think. Her father, after hearing everything his daughter has gone through, agrees to give up his heart so Regina can take her revenge. He failed her when she needed him, so this is the least he can do for her now. Regina activates the Dark Curse, which will both punish Snow and bring Regina to where her son is. She goes to Snow’s palace as the Curse gains ground, stepping over the fallen prince but not finding Snow’s daughter (Rumplestiskin forewarned them of the curse and Emma’s part in breaking it). This does not concern Regina overly much. Snow has still lost her lover and her child and will soon her freedom as well. That should be enough.
When Snow asks her why she’s doing this, Regina says, as in canon, “Because this is my happy ending.” And Snow just closes her eyes and bows her head as the Dark Curse engulfs them.
In the land without magic, Regina spends nearly thirty years among a people who have no idea who they once where, or that they spend their days without ever aging. Time does not pass for the people from storybooks. Eventually, though, her satisfaction fades. Hatred cannot fuel a heart forever. So she searches again for love - at first with the huntsman, but that is for naught. He has to do whatever she says, and Regina is repulsed by that, given her own history with the king.
She decides she will adopt a child instead, since she cannot leave to find her own. She chooses a baby boy, who she hopes will help fill the hole in her heart. And he does, though Regina struggles with the role of motherhood. Years without love makes her want to hold onto him too tightly, and her own mother was hardly a role model she can look up to. Nonetheless, she does the best she can for him and he understands that….
Which make it all the harder when he looks at her one day and tells her that he knows the truth: that, among other things, she’s the evil queen. Regina becomes sterner with him after that, mostly out of fear of losing control, and this backfires when he goes out of town - something she and the others cannot do, much to her frustration - and brings back his biological mother. And then the series proper begins.
I would change other things along with this. Any character who is not a part of the old European fairy tales would be striped out (as much as I love the Aurora/Mulan interactions in season two, I like internal consistency more). The cast would probably be shrunk down a little, so more attention could be given to the characters who are actually important. I mean, the Cinderella thing? That went all of nowhere. Snow and Charming would not have that affair, because how they handled their situation was just…repulsive. The Huntsman would not die - or be raped by Regina, what the hell, writers? - but would stay on as Emma’s love interest (instead of her getting three others). Rumpelstiltskin would call in Emma’s favor on something important. Belle would be unhinged from her nearly thirty years in captivity. Aurora’s buddy could be a badass Rapunzel, who wandered the wilderness looking for her prince after he was cursed by a witch. He would be the same as Aurora’s prince, who they’d then both decide to ditch in favor of an Utena and Anthy lifestyle. The Cora story arc would actually treat Regina’s relapse sensitively and not exploit it for drama. The Dark Snow concept would be explored instead of barely touched on. Emma would take much longer to believe in magic. And names would actually have power, among other things.
So that’s what I would have changed if I got the chance. Naturally, this would also change the direction of the show, but I’d like to think the results would have delved more into the show’s existing themes (concerning abuse, corruption, and redemption narratives, mainly) and would have had a tighter focus on the core cast. So there you, go, Sage - this is as close as you’re getting to fic from me for now.