The Once Upon a Time fandom were treated to a panel with some very exciting news at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday. With fun videos and the revelation of new characters coming in season 3, it was a fun panel for all.
Unfortunately, many people can only focus on certain things that came out during the panel and in subsequent interviews and tweets.
As written in the Hypable live blog of the Once Upon a Time panel, “Ed Kitsis says that they are writing Regina and Emma as strong female characters who both love Henry. There is no intentional Swan Queen action being written.”
This is fine by me as I don’t particularly ship anyone on the show, and I never saw Regina and Emma together.
Adam Horowitz then talked about and tweeted that they are not against having a gay character on the show, but they want it to fit into the show and not be forced. Again, fine by me, I think that’s the way that ships and relationships should be on the show.
After that was said, Jennifer Morrison said on the MTV live stream that, “all her ships were on the couch.” This is when everything fell apart.
As you may know, a very vocal part of the Once Upon a Time fandom is the Swan Queen shipping community. This is a portion of the fandom that ships Regina and Emma.
Once it was said that the pair would never be together romantically, the fandom blew up. I went online in order to talk to other people about what was revealed today and how the panel and the interviews went. However, what I found was people saying that they would never watch the show again, sending death threats to the writers and producers, and generalized anger about the Swan Queen fandom.
In my opinion, this is not the way to react to the news. The producers and the writers and even the actors that are a part of the show are not making a show responding to what the fans want, but rather they are making what they consider to be the best show.
If there was something unintentional happening – and that is what they said this was – then it was just that, unintentional. It is one thing to believe that the show would be better if Swan Queen became canon, but there is not a need for death threats or generalized angry tweets at the writers and the producers.
This is their show, they are creating what they want to create, and if they do not think that Swan Queen fits into their show then so be it.
I really enjoy being a part of the Once Upon a Time fandom, and really enjoy watching the show and discussing it with people afterwards. But, if people are going to react this way to news and react so aggressively towards people who are a part of this show, I do not think that they deserve to have their ship become canon. It is unfair to those who respect the writers and producers who are the ones creating the show.
This opinion piece expresses the views of the author, not Hypable.com.