True Love: Tracking the Durable Relationships of Once Upon a Time

It's not even close to Valentine's Day, but after re-watching episodes from seasons 1 and 2, and after reading up on the news for the upcoming season, I wanted to reflect back on the progression of the show's two most emphasized romantic relationships.

My purpose is two fold: First I want to take a brief look at the span of the show's two main romantic relationships to try to get an understanding of where they are now, as watching the seasons play out can get a bit confusing. Second, by looking at these these relationships, I also want to find fodder for understanding the show's concept of True Love.

So, with that in mind, I'll take you through a recap and brief analysis of the three biggies: Snow and Charming (Snowing), and Belle and Rumpelstiltskin (Rumbelle), and in my next post I'll include the triangle that is Emma, Henry, and Regina (which doesn't have a cute name...but you can make one up if you want).

Archetypes: Once's Heroes and Villains

South African site (blog?) WritersWrite has reposted the following explanation of typical fantasy archetypes from its original version on the popular site TVTropes: Eight Archetypes for Heroes and Villains. I would like to use this to explore the typical and not-so-typical characters of Once Upon a Time.

First, please note that I use the term "hero" as an indication of the character's leanings, not necessarily as a description of the character's actions. Villains can be heroic, and heroes can be villainous, but as a rule (at least in shows like Once) characters tend to ally themselves with one "side." When appropriate, I've tried to include villains before they were villains (in other words, to include their "good" side), and heroes when they weren't heroes (in other words, including their "bad" sides).

I've seen several attempts to use personality and story-inspired archetypes to categorize Once characters, but none that I really agreed with so far. After deliberation, here's how I think the characters fit in: