Wait…. So….
Graham just…. died? Well, that was
unexpected. Seriously, it took me a
while before that final scene properly registered in my mind. The fact that they’d kill off a character so
early in the game? Dang, show. You don’t mess around, do you? Even though Graham wasn’t a regular
character, he was still a likable one, particular after seeing his Enchanted
Forest backstory, which reveals he was the Huntsman who Evil Queen Regina hired
to kill Snow White.
I am very
much fascinated by the fact that Graham’s true memories are triggered upon
kissing Emma. Henry’s theory for this is
because he spared Snow White’s life during his life as the Huntsman, and if he
hadn’t, Emma would never have been born, which meant that they shared a
connection of sorts. That’s a good
theory, but it probably didn’t hurt that Emma, as we’re told later, is The
Product of True Love. And in this show’s
reality, the whole True Love’s Kiss thing is a very potent curse-breaker. And before you ask, no, I’m not suggesting that Graham was Emma’s
true love. If he had been, I’m fairly
certain that their kiss would have restored everyone’s memories, not just
Graham’s. However, notice that Emma
seemed to be developing an interest in Graham, someone who we saw believed in
the importance of having honor during his life as the Huntsman. For those of you who have seen the show in
its entirety so far, what other character is rather big on being a man of
honor? Could this count as indirect
foreshadowing? I honestly do not know.
I might as
well start addressing the big elephant in the room now. More specifically, the relationship between
Graham and Regina. As I said before,
that relationship is disturbing and uncomfortable in general. But after this episode, it’s even more so, as
we see Regina literally had Graham’s heart in her possession. As we’re told in later episodes, possessing
someone’s heart means you’re able to control that person. The person whose heart is being held captive
must obey everything the person who holds the heart says. They have no choice. There’s only one conclusion to be made
here. The trysts between these two were
not even close to being consensual on Graham’s part. Yeah, there’s no other way to say it. Regina was raping Graham for practically
thirty years. And that fact is made even
more uncomfortable to process when you remember how, once Graham made an
attempt to break away from this relationship, Regina goes off and kills him by
crushing his heart. (Personally, I
think Regina chose to do what she did not just because of Graham attempting to
end things between them, but also because she realized that he was starting to
regain his memories and she couldn’t afford to have him informing the other
Storybrooke residents of the truth. Still, murder is murder, no matter which way you slice it.)
And this is
probably the animal-lover in me; I also feel horrible for the Huntsman’s wolf
friend. Just think about it for a
minute. This wolf had been the
Huntsman’s constant companion for who knows how long. It's even briefly hinted that they may have grown up together. When the curse hits, they’re obviously ripped
away from one another. Once the curse is broken and everyone in Storybrooke finds a way to return to the Enchanted Forest, that wolf is never going to
be reunited with his human friend. Just
think about how many stories there are about dogs who mourn the passing of
their human owners. In fact, over in Japan,
there’s even a statue dedicated to a dog named Hachiko who waited faithfully at
a train station for nine years, waiting for his owner to return home from the University of Tokyo where he worked as a professor. The poor dog never knew that his owner had died from a cerebral
hemorrhage while at work. And the bond
between the Huntsman and his wolf was clearly even stronger than that between a
dog and his human owner. Ugh, that poor
wolf!!!!!
One last
question. Gold, what were you doing,
digging around in the woods? We know you
well enough to know you never do anything without there being a reason for
it. Were you burying something? Were you trying to locate a specific
item? Seriously, do they ever explain
that, or is this one of the unsolved mysteries this show presents us with?
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