**Due to recent misinterpretations of some one post
from this blog, a disclaimer is now apparently necessary. If this is your first visit to The
Scratched Camera, please read the introductory post and discover, for yourself, that every typed word that
follows is unabashedly my opinion and mine alone. In said introductory post, which,
shockingly, I did not simply type up for my own good health, I state that we
all read events and characters with our own baggage in mind; no one observes
with a perfectly clear lens—hence the
name The Scratched Camera.
Therefore, it is completely your will to disagree with any material that
follows, just as it is my will to agree and advocate for what is mine.** ~End, irritating obligatory disclaimer~
Emma Swan—Change Things For Yourself, Because There are No
Fairy Godmothers
Emma
Swan may be hesitant to believe, but once you have gained her trust, she would
go to any number of ends to protect you.
She believes in very little, other than her own instincts, which, to her
credit, very rarely do fail her; this results in a steadfast stubbornness and
straightforwardness that permeates through her every action. It allows her to be loyal to those she
cares for, while still maintaining her independent edge.
The
Pilot of Once Upon a Time designed the introduction of Emma Swan to prepare
us to shatter any preconceptions we may have towards her character. When she arrives, her hair and make-up
is perfectly done; she’s in a stylish dress, adorned with an accompanying
painfully hindering high heels as she makes her way to what is obviously a
date.
However,
it is quickly made glaringly clear to us that this is not a typical date. The audience expects a romantic
interlude to occur between the couple, which is what the conversation
originates as. Just as quick as it
started, the kind chatter is brought to a close as Swan shockingly starts
tearing into her date, accusing him of various crimes, which causes him to
run.
It
was her obstructed and awkward gait as she crossed the road that won me
over. Any woman who can openly
admit that she hates high heels immediately earns my interest. Her following display of forethought as
we see she has placed a boot on the car was my second sign that this was a
character I would quickly grow to love.
Finally, as she jerks the jerk’s head into the steering wheel and
mutters her confirmation that she does, in fact, know nothing about family, the character is instantly affirmed in my
mind as having a distinct potential as a role model figure.
Emma
Swan has a very rough side. She’s
suffered a lot of loss in her life, which has developed a defensive
demeanor. This leads to a
no-nonsense attitude and a firm belief in herself, if in no one else. However, as time goes on, and certain
characters crack through her hardened shell, we get to see a slight
vulnerability revealed in her, which will eventually help to allow the audience
to relate to the character on a deeper level.
Emma’s
default setting, however, is defensive, almost antagonistic in her need to
argue and be right. When she
believes she knows someone is lying and everyone, as usual, fails to
listen to her, she continues to argue until it is typically revealed that she
was correct in her assumptions. The
bulk of the first season is spent this way, as Emma insists that Regina is
evil, if not necessarily an evil queen,
an opinion which eventually proved to be correct. Again, towards the end of season two, Emma’s instincts don’t
let her down as she suspects Tamara of no positive motivations—yet another
insistence that goes disregarded until it is proven to be right.
Her defensiveness also leaves very few
things Swan hates more than being told what to do—a trait we see plenty of in
season one. Every issued demand
from Regina that Emma leave Storybrooke only serves to convince Swan that she’s
making the right decision to stay.
At
first, Emma uses this tenaciousness as her defense for her choice to stay in
Storybrooke, as she rebelliously saws the queen’s apple tree to bits out of a
vindictive need to continue their war—coincidentally, this is also the very
moment that I decided Emma Swan was to be one of my personal role models, as
she had the moxy to do what I always wished I had the courage to do. However, as season one progresses, it
becomes clear to the audience that she is genuinely worried about Henry,
particularly in his convictions that every townie is secretly a storybook
character.
As
this concern grows, Swan’s intense capability towards loyalty is revealed. We see it first with Henry, as she
grows close to the boy and protects him from his evil stepmother. However, we also see it develop toward—awkwardly
enough—her mother, Snow White/Mary Margaret. When everyone else abandoned the nun-like schoolteacher and
accused her of murdering Kathryn Nolan, Emma was the only one to stay by her
side and advocate for Mary Margaret’s innocence. The Sheriff even goes so far as to seek out Mary Margaret
after her escape, agreeing to hide the fact from the rest of the town to prevent
any further punishment from coming to her friend.
But,
therein lies the key. The moment
Mary Margaret became Emma’s friend, the blonde couldn’t help but put her faith
in the brunette. Previous to her
arrival in Storybrooke, Emma had faith in no one but herself. Tallahassee
shows us exactly why that is the case.
Emma, young and impressionable, had been quite clingy and dependent upon
Neal Cassidy, who she quickly fell in love with. They debated starting a life together, with the money earned
from various crimes of thieving, before August catches up with the pair.
August—who
is really the one who dropped the ball here, but whatever—convinces Neal he needs to let Emma go, so she will be
able to complete her destiny as the savior. Neal becomes indignant, insisting he can’t simply allow her
to take the fall, to suffer the consequences for his stolen watches.
August insists that Emma’s time in jail will straighten her out, get her
back on the proper path to hero-dom.
Eventually, Neal caves—far too easily, I think—and allows Emma to go to jail, where she is left alone
and pregnant.
Emma
had trusted Neal one hundred percent.
The very concept of his betraying her hadn’t occurred to her in the
slightest, which only makes the sting all the more keen. She survived jail and, just as August
indicated would happen, she developed a very tough exterior, to the point where
she trusted no one for the next decade; I suppose you could say his plan
backfired, working a little too
well. It is a price he pays highly
as season two comes to a close, where he learns that Emma has closed herself
off so much that she is unable to even see his wooden leg.
However,
Neal and August are not solely to blame for Emma’s struggles and corresponding
lack of faith and motivation to believe.
Her mother and father, however inadvertently, are still forced to hold
some form of accountability. In Lost Girl, Emma’s life in Neverland
becomes increasingly easier once she is able to come to grips with her
abandonment issues. Until this
time, she has simply shrugged off the issue, choosing not to focus on the
situation or the resounding affect it had on her character. However, here Pan forces her to
acknowledge it, in order for her to find Henry and prevent the same damage from
being done on her own son. Mary
Margaret, of course, attempts to defend their actions and her inability to predict
the results at the time. It
doesn’t matter, though, as Emma’s suffering at the hands of the system has
already done its damage—she may have her parents now, but she spent the first
twenty-eight years of her life believing someone had actively made the decision
that they didn’t want her, didn’t care about her.
This
lack of supportive family structure—from both her parents and Neal—has imbued
in Emma a belief that she can only trust in herself; everyone else has
abandoned her and, therefore, it is simply safer. An exception is made when Henry crashes back into her life,
reinvigorating that strong sense of loyalty the audience saw her apply to
Neal. However, as it’s a decade
later, her loyalty can be applied sans the dependence evident in Tallahassee, showing a strong sense of
growth for the character.
This
growth only continues as Storybrooke broadens the group of people she
trusts. By the time she breaks the
curse at the end of season one, she has earned the support of the bulk of the
town—for evidence of this, see the results for the race for Storybrooke’s new
Sheriff. However, Emma still is,
at her very core, a realist. She’s
incapable of believing in magic, until Henry gives her no other option.
A Land Without Magic was revolutionary
for Emma’s character. It allowed
her to really believe in something
for the first time in over a decade.
It allowed her to confess that she did love her son. Gone are the days of running for
Sheriff just to prove Regina wrong, to prove that good can win just by being good,
to prove to Henry that she’s worthy of his role as the savior, even if she
refuses to believe in the nonsense.
Now, she can be motivated entirely by a desire to keep her son safe and
loved. But, make no mistake. Emma is still steadfastly stubborn—she
shrugs off her mother’s wishes for a group hug, insists on waving her gun
around, and scoffs at the possibility of using a sword. In short, just because she wants Henry
to depend on her as his mother, doesn’t mean she loses her own defining sense
of independence.
From Bella to Katniss:
Is Emma a good role model? Emma
Swan is tougher than most females are allowed to be. Typically, girls are either meant to cry excessively or
refuse to cry at all; Emma falls somewhere in the middle, although she’s
definitely inclined towards the less emotional end of that scale. A tough exterior can sometimes grate on
my nerves in female characters, just as the exact opposite end of the spectrum
can certainly cause some chaffing in me as well, as both extremes seem
inherently unrealistic. However,
with Emma Swan, she has very clear reasons for being so closed off, which
allows me to forgive any crassness on her part. Typically, Swan is a hard shell to crack, but few do
succeed. Mary Margaret worms her
way into Emma’s heart early on, despite the brief period they have known each
other. Graham really was the first
to open her eyes to what trust could mean in terms of an adult male since Neal—a
fact which makes me still angry that
they killed him off so early and brought no resolution to the potential for
character development inherent in that situation. August followed in Graham’s footsteps, as he played the
mystery card in hopes of hooking her attention long enough to earn her trust. As stated earlier, though, he pays here
for his earlier play, as he pushes her to the point of an actual breakdown—a
strength of emotion the audience had yet to see from Swan previously, finally showing us that even very
strong females do occasionally feel compelled to cry. She’s honest, never settling for passive-aggressive behavior
when she could simply tell you what she is thinking. The audience sees an excellent example of this as Neal and
Hook bicker for her affections in season three, only to be royally (get it?)
shut down each time, as an impatient Swan not-so-kindly reminds them that she
sees no value in the diversion, which is only persuading her to dismiss both of
them for the idiots that they really are.
Her aptitude to read people and situations is impressive—Swan’s ability
to trust her instincts in the face of opposition from all surrounding sources
is admirable and sets another exceptional example. Emma also has an inherent inclination towards supporting
underdogs, particularly those who suffer at the pushing of others. She tells Ashley in The Price of Gold that “people are gonna
tell you who you are your whole life.
You just gotta punch back and say, ‘no, this is who I am.’ You want people to look at you
differently? Make them! You want to change things, you’re gonna
have to go out there and change them yourself, because there are no fairy
godmothers in this world.” All her
life, Emma has faced people repeatedly telling her what she is and is not
capable of. She had no support—no
parents whispering to her that she can do whatever she sets her mind to. Her motivation has always needed to be
inherent. Regina may think Swan
hasn’t achieved much, but the mere fact that the Evil Queen believes as much means
that Emma will stop at nothing to prove her wrong.
Role Model Rating:
10/10
From Lorelai to Wonder Woman: Is Emma relatable?
Were Emma simply a closed-off character with an impenetrable exterior,
it may have been difficult to relate to her. Fortunately for Swan, she has two saving graces—her ability
to show peaks of a vulnerable side, and the humble origins from which she
comes. Her various touching
moments between Mary Margaret, Charming, Graham, August, Neal and, of course,
Henry, provide us with an undercurrent to Emma’s character. We never see much more than a snapshot
of what resides there, but it is enough to reassure the audience that Emma
isn’t merely self-assured and strong.
Before I first saw Tallahassee
last year, I would’ve never predicted Emma Swan—arguably one of the biggest
female bad-ass on television to date—was once a clingy teenager, dependent on
her fellow criminal boyfriend, ready to steal a home and settle down in Florida. I spent the majority of the episode
staring at the T.V., jaw dropped and flabbergasted. The episode showed me that Emma Swan, independent rebel to
boot, wasn’t immune to stupidity brought on by a boy. Every girl has that one guy she went completely stupid
for—in the process, losing her entire sense of reason and independence. It would appear even Emma Swan is
capable of such travesty. The idea
was oddly very reassuring to me and allowed me to relate to the character even
more than I had previously. I,
too, have grown since my one-boy-induced stupidity of high school, but I cannot
admit that I am in quite the same league as Emma Swan. The episode gave me—and, I hope, the
bulk of the audience—assurance that no matter where we start, no matter what
trials or tribulations we bring upon ourselves or are forced upon us, our fate
and our temperament is in our own hands.
Relatability Rating:
9/10
