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#henry ironically being the catalyst for breaking the curse
horsetailcurlers2 · 9 months
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i mentioned this in this post i made a while back about how i think regal believer is the most important relationship in OUAT, but i can’t stop thinking about how the thesis of the show is about the sacrifices parents do or do not make for their children.
like think about it: cora sacrificing regina’s safety and happiness for her own ambition, henry senior never being strong enough to protect his daughter until she is too far gone and he dies in the name of her rage, snow and david’s decision to send emma through the wardrobe and how it is so complex because they were giving her her best chance but they were also sending their baby alone to a strange world so that she could one day save them all, emma giving henry up to give him *his* best chance, rumple losing his humanity to gain the power to protect his son only to then lose his son to protect his power, and then committing unspeakable evils to be reunited with him, malcom/pan abandoning his son to stay young and powerful forever, milah leaving her little boy to be raised by a man she did not respect so that she could live her life, jefferson sacrificing his sanity just to see his daughter again, granny trying for years to shield ruby from the truth, snow and david sacrificing maleficents child for the sake of their own, cora abandoning zelena in the woods so she herself could have “her best chance”…… ugh. i could go on and on and on.
and don’t even get me started on regina and henry. first, her trying desperately to hold onto him through any means, then realizing that she can’t have him and sustain the curse at the same time. doing everything in her power to redeem herself in his eyes, even holding back a fundamental part of herself. then when she was going to sacrifice herself to save the town (that was for *him*, not for storybrooke), and then giving him up to make things right and to keep him safe and happy even if it meant him forgetting her forever.
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