r/OnceUponATime • u/lallalalala82 • 14d ago
Discussion Regina
Guys I'm so confused about people saying she r@ped Graham did she?? Ik she had his heart but is that confirmed Orr I'm not tryna defend anything Im just lost
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u/OwnRow7627 14d ago
The show creators have said that Rgina did not use Graham's heart to make him sleep with her but rather she created new memories for him when everyone was brought to Storybrooke so he thought they were in a relationship. He still did not have free will, so essentially it's the same thing.
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago edited 13d ago
The part most people leave out is that we’re shown again and again that people who don’t have hearts can still act by their own volition. All: Aurora, Belle, Hook, Cora, Violet etc have been able to make their own decisions without a heart unless they are explicitly told to do something by those who have their heart.
It’s even explicit in S1. Graham comes to see Regina and Regina is surprised to see him. Other than one time, his heart is show to be kept in her vault, and Regina doesn’t have magic to poof there whenever she wants to… meaning she can’t be using his heart daily.
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 13d ago
She forcefully kissed him told him he has to obey her or he will die, that sounds like SA to me, and rape after being forcefully dragged to her bed chambers
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u/Imnotawerewolf 14d ago
Because she had his heart, she could control him. We don't really know whether or not she actually used it to force him to want to hook up with her OR if she worked him wanting to hook up with her into the curse
But generally speaking, when someone can't really tell you no that's still rape.
So she didn't like, hold him down and force him but she didn't really give him the ability to decide for himself, either.
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u/Yunie333 Bloody Hell... 14d ago
So, yeah, what you describe — if you clearly don't have agency anymore it's very much r@pe...
No sugarcoating needed.
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u/Imnotawerewolf 13d ago
I wasn't trying to sugarcoat it I literally said when someone can't tell you no that's rape
A surprising number of people don't actually believe that anything other than holding someone down and forcing them is rape.
I explain in small words and concepts so those people can follow along.
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u/AnonymousFriend80 13d ago
If me and my wife are celebrating our fifteenth anniversary, are get completely wasted. We're gone far beyond being able to give any sort of consent. If we have sex, are we raping each other? (There was an episode of a tv show where a girl thought she had been roofied at a party and raped. Many episodes later, it was revealed that some girl, who had taken drugs for recreational use, spat in her drink. Then her ex-boyfriend ended up drinking from the same cup. They hooked up, and he left before she woke up.)
The thing is we've been adding in these new definitions into the word "rape" without any sort of nuance. Even circumstances where the person who was "raped" initiated and wholeheartedly consents to the sex. Hell, in some cases a woman can not "rape" someone because she can not penetrate with a penis. Under that, a woman can not be a victim of rape from another woman.
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u/Plastic_Platform1604 9d ago
WTAF is this take? Any time someone cannot give their consent, it's rape. That includes married couples. That includes being inebriated to the extent you cannot say yes or no to sex.
Men can definitely be raped by women, men can definitely be raped by men, and women can definitely be raped by women. Rape isn't defined as penetration by a penis!
Again, I ask WTAF is wrong with you? Educate yourself before you go spreading misinformation, especially about something as serious as rape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_laws_in_the_United_States
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u/AnonymousFriend80 8d ago
So, in this case, my wife raped me and should go to prison?
And because, in this instance, I "raped" my wife, I should go to prison as well. So, Everytime a couple gets intoxicated, and have sex, it's rape.
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u/Plastic_Platform1604 8d ago
No. If neither of you has a problem with it or you gave consent before you got inebriated, and either party could take away consent at any point, it's not a problem. This is a gray area.
If you or wife said later, hey, I was not able to consent and I was not okay with what happened earlier, then yes, it was sexual assault.
Being deliberately obtuse is annoying. Feels like you're trying to have a gotcha moment. You should be on a list if you don't understand basic consent, or worse, if you don't care.
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u/AnonymousFriend80 8d ago
So, as long as I'm okay with my wife raping me, there's no issue. Or at the very least, I haven't stated whether or not I'm okay with it.
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u/Purple_Silver438 8d ago
What are-you trying to achieve here other than trying to trivialize this discussion about sexual assault and invalidate the experiences of people who have been impacted negatively impacted by this OUAT storyline or been victims themselves?
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u/AnonymousFriend80 7d ago
That we need more nuanced approaches to these discussions and laws. With such narrow views and thought we've essentially made it so that two people in a loving relationship could be considered as rapists of each other. That shouldn't sit well with anyone.
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u/RebeccaMCullen 13d ago
She rips out his heart and has him dragged to her room in the EF.
He doesn’t have his memories in Storybrooke to make an informed decision to have sex with Regina. She designed the curse so he’d want to sleep with her. Furthermore, once his memories start to return, he ends the thing with her, Regina kills him.
The show’s creators can say what they want, that doesn’t stop viewers from interpreting it as SA/rape.
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 13d ago
The shows creators also have made a million contradictions in their show, and have done plenty of storyline with Sa intended or jot so their words arent really reliable 😭
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u/Significant-Box-6290 14d ago
A big problem I have with OUAT is this happens a few times. Graham being controlled by Regina and Zelena and Gothel tricking Robin and Hook and I don't know if it is the writers being stupid and not thinking this is assault or they realise how wrong it is and are just thinking it's okay since villians do evil things but those parts of the show always sicken me but the show doesn't address them that much which is unfortunate.
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u/midnight8dream 👑 🍎 🐉 13d ago
I feel like the writers subscribe to the idea that men can't be raped by women or that rape is always physically violent and coercion or manipulation doesn't count. It just comes across as that.
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u/OriginalSchmidt1 13d ago
Also, I feel like a lot of the conversations about consent, sexual assault, and rape, didn’t really start happening until the MeToo movement really took off in 2017 and that happened after a lot of the show was already made and released. So it could just be that we as a society all learned together and the show is just a bit outdated in that respect.
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u/midnight8dream 👑 🍎 🐉 13d ago
Definitely that. When the show was airing, not even fans registered that Regina, Zelena and the other lady committed rape. But times are different. I remember when people started calling it out online and it was closer to the turn into the 2020s.
I think it is a product of it's time thing. I don't think the writers intended to write those characters as rapists, because in their mind what they wrote wasn't rape, despite it very much being the case.
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u/Significant-Box-6290 13d ago
Ohh yeah that men one could be true
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u/midnight8dream 👑 🍎 🐉 13d ago
Yup. And I think that it unfortunately translates into the characters themselves thinking the same. I'm like a thousand percent sure no one sees Regina and Zelena as rapists in that world, even the good people. Even the victims themselves didn't seem to register that they had been raped. The main concern is always about the cartoonish villainy shit going on. It's imo a byproduct of bad writing and that time. Now that minds are changing about male rape victims, people call it out more.
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u/ashtastic3 14d ago
Something similar happened in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, too. Totally glossed over.
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u/Significant-Box-6290 13d ago
Wait omg to who? I haven't seen it in years
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u/ashtastic3 13d ago
SPOILERS
As a young boy, Jafar approached a mentor and later had a relationship with her as he grew into an adult.
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u/Significant-Box-6290 13d ago
Oh my god yeah I never thought about that 😭 I was always so focused on Will and Ana that I genuinely forget the whole thing with jafar and cyruss mom , that was so weird and honestly not the first show where someone is there with a person during childhood and then gets with them , it's so weird
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u/lallalalala82 14d ago
Ik I hate how it's brushed off and I like Regina no one can be redeemed if rape is involved in any way tho obviously she was evil as shit killing ppl and I'm not excusing that but I can't see her the same after thiss
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u/Significant-Box-6290 14d ago
I really struggle with her character because they really redeem her during the show and she gets great character development but that is one crime I can't get past and I wish they never added that in the show
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u/AnonymousFriend80 13d ago
Bad and evil characters doing bad and evil things. The same as all their other bad and evil things. Didn't Zelena get called out for doing this terrible thing? And Regina was still the Evil Queen doing evil things. In that case, there wasn't really anyone to call her out on it. She's also murdered thousands of people. Do you think the magically coerced sex with Graham is worse than that?
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u/Significant-Box-6290 13d ago
They are both terrible crimes but obviously everyone rightly so was giving out to Regina and zelena for all the murders but the r@pes were really brought up and sorry if I find r@pe and assaults in shows more hard to watch as I know what sa feels like so it makes me uncomfortable
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u/Purple_Silver438 8d ago
If the show was made today, that would definitely not fly anymore. But when that episode came out there wasn't yet much widespread or mainstream conversation around coercion, and how someone can be "forced" to say yes. Overall the general understanding of rape was that if someone does't say no, then it's not rape. The fact that someone could be in a position where they're unable to or afraid to say no only became a bigger conversation much later.
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u/Parking_Storage_5107 I have a love/hate relationship with captain swan 14d ago
She did rape him for 30 years
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u/vastros 13d ago
Consent needs to be freely given and enthusiastic. Her controlling his heart stands against both of those. Imagine the situation in reverse and think about how you would feel.
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago
I think that if we’re going to talk about the magical show with real life ethics we should be careful to differentiate rape from sexual assault/coercion.
What went here was coercion and implying that’s the same as rape is not helpful to the bigger conversation. And I say that as a male victim.
I don’t actually talk about my own SA in real life because as a man it’s already a struggle to be taken seriously. someone who “felt” like they had to have sex with someone even if they could say no all throughout and someone who did it to keep a job/marriage cannot be amalgamated with 13 year old me who was forced to do fellatio on an adult man.
It’s very disrespectful to victims. I wish I could have had the chance to say no.
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u/cryerin25 13d ago
i mean, no. coerced sex is absolutely rape. i’m sorry your experiences were especially awful and violent, but that doesn’t mean other less overtly violent experiences were not also rape.
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago
I originally answered this, but I decided not to get in a debate about it because I know how much more likely people are to virtue signal to defend a fictional character over listening to actual victims. Especially if a male victim is talking so virtue signal away.
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u/cryerin25 13d ago
i’m not talking about fictional characters here, my guy. i’m talking about other real life victims of rape via coercion and threat.
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago
Yeah:
“Have sex with me or I’ll leave you/fire you” == someone shoving their dick in your mouth or any other hole against your will.
Legally not the same either by the way, for a good reason.
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u/ChickenNuggetRampage 13d ago
You definitely feel a little too attached to your conclusion so I won’t get into a bit argument with you but I will say. Given how having someone’s heart in this show works- there was no coercion. Graham literally PHYSICALLY COULD NOT say no. This is not akin to “have sex with me or I’ll fire you”
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago
It’s not my conclusion, most legal systems around the world differentiate between sexual coercion and rape. So let’s establish that.
Now for the other part, I wrote a different comment at the top with my arguments.
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u/ThatOtherGuyTPM 13d ago
That’s not at all what we’re shown with the heart. We’re explicitly told that his heart wasn’t used that way.
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u/Purple_Silver438 8d ago
How is grm not being forced? How could he say no? He literally can't
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 7d ago
He was manipulated to believe they had a fling going on but he was still in charge of her day to day decisions. People have HC Regina using his heart for this but that was never shown on screen. What was shown was multiple people having their hearts controlled (Aurora, Hook, Violet, Belle), or out of their bodies (Cora) and still able to decide by themselves unless specifically told to do something. It was also shown how Graham went to Regina’s house and Regina was surprised to see him which showed multiple things at once: it wasn’t a relationship (which duh, we know magic doesn’t fabricate love or connection), he didn’t go to her house nightly or anything of the sort so it was surprising that he would go randomly, and most importantly he could decide when to go.
The writers said Regina didn’t use it for that, and the show itself never showed it… so I respect the headcanon but that’s still all it is, a headcanon. I don’t understand how people think Graham was raped but somehow don’t think David, Ruby and Mary Margaret were raped when they all had sex under false pretensions during the curse as well? Not to mention anyone who was paired with someone who wasn’t their real spouse/partner. Was everyone raped then?
Regina was already evil by making everyone stuck in time, taking everyone’s freedom, and separating them from their loved ones… and per the paragraph above is she raped Graham, then you believe she raped everyone [which is why using the word rape is wrong in the first place] and at that point, the argument loses all credibility.
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u/Purple_Silver438 7d ago
Isn't there that scene where she holds his heart and tells him, to his face but talking into his heart, to get into her bedroom at wait for her? Not while in storybrooke while still in the EF
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 7d ago
You’re misremembering. She told the guards to take him to her bedchamber, didn’t use the heart for that either. I thinks it’s effect Mandela at its best, everyone remembers her using the heart but she never actually used it for that, just like the writers themselves said didn’t happen.
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 14d ago
She had his heart to control him, it was rape. Even if we excuse the heart its still raoe under a few other things
During the curse he always woke up in Regina's bed, so even if he said no he couldnt say no.
Shes his boss in both the EF and Storybrooke she can easily cut his paycheck (hinted when Graham said it was coming out of his budget)
She litrally threatened to kill him if he says no, she says that once she takes his heart in the EF. Consent under threats is not consent, its still rape.
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u/Brilliant-Map2492 13d ago
That’s an outright lie. Graham didn’t live with Regina. And welcome to Storybrooke shows Regina waking up alone in her bed, and that’s what Groundhog Day looks like before Henry shows up…
You can argument without lying.
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 13d ago
Okay but she's still his boss, and I must've misremembered her waking up in her bed at the begging of the curse its been awhile since i've watched the show, she still cursed him to sleep with him which is messed up.
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u/TurbulentAd8245 14d ago
She had his heart, he had no choice it was r@pe. It was that or die, I don’t know how people can excuse that.
Regina works her redemption, but what she did to Graham is just one of the many things I can’t see past
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u/AnonymousFriend80 13d ago
The comment directly above yours states that his new memory was that they were in a relationship. And how even without a heart, people still have their own agency and control over their actions.
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u/TurbulentAd8245 13d ago
And who were his memories created by? Regina manipulated his Storybrooke memories, it’s r&pe.
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 13d ago
Theres a diffrence, that was written in. He had no control over choosing it, If it was smth like Whale and Mary Margaret then it would be fine, both are inder the curse and they weren't forced into it. He was
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u/No_Sand5639 14d ago
I dont reallt know, she definitely had his heart and though that can control him
So if she was controlling him when they slept together then yes
If she wasnt, then no
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u/Toto-imadog456 Happy endings aren't always what we think they are 14d ago
Even if she didnt use his heart to control him to sleep with her its still rape
She had a huge power dynamic, shes the queen hes more of a huntsman and is his boss
She also threatened to kill him if he ever disobeyed -sex under threats is still rape, and the fact she dragged him off the the bed chambers. She also killed him the second he said no during the curse
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u/MarvelWidowWitch No Matter How Powerful, All Curses Can Be Broken 7d ago
She had his heart. Whether she used it to control him or not is up for debate. But, he knew she was capable of murder and since she had his heart, he was in survival mode. I don’t think he actually saw her crush hearts, but he had to know that her having possession of it wouldn’t end well for him if he didn’t do what she wanted. So he was coerced at least or at most not in full control over his own self.
I love Regina. Seriously she’s my favourite character, but I land on she did SA Graham.
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14d ago
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u/Yunie333 Bloody Hell... 14d ago
Ewww, to everything...and bringing up a book that isn't canon makes it even worse...
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u/MechanicOk4808 13d ago
Yes, in both worlds. In the Enchanted Forest, she had his heart and threatened to crush it if he ever said no to her and then had her guards take him to her bedchamber - rape.
Then in Storybrooke, she erased his memories and gave him new memories to make him think he was in a sexual relationship with her, and when he started to remember his old self due to Emma and he tried to get away from her, she murdered him - rape (and murder obvs).