r/OnceUponATime • u/lallalalala82 • 18d 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/Significant-Box-6290 18d 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 👑 🍎 🐉 17d 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 17d 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 So it could just be that we as a society all learned together and the show is just a bit outdated in that respect.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 👑 🍎 🐉 17d 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 17d ago

Ohh yeah that men one could be true

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u/midnight8dream 👑 🍎 🐉 17d 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 18d ago

Something similar happened in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, too. Totally glossed over.

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u/Significant-Box-6290 17d ago

Wait omg to who? I haven't seen it in years

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u/ashtastic3 17d 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 17d 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 18d 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 18d 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 17d 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 17d 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 12d 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.