Once Upon a Time's Obsession With Redemption: Regina Mills

00:00 intro
3:16 motherhood
11:00 anti-adoption
17:40 season one
34:00 season two
43:00 season three
49:37 character decline
53:00 conclusion

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once upon a time:

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key tags (ignore)
Emma Swan, Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard, Prince Charming/David Nolan, Evil Queen/Regina Mills, Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, Henry Mills, Captain Hook/Killian Jones, Belle/Belle French, Zelena/Wicked Witch of the West, Robin Hood, Peter Pan/Malcolm, Neal Cassidy/Baelfire, Cinderella/Ella, Prince Thomas/Sean Herman, Red Riding Hood/Ruby Lucas, Granny/Widow Lucas, Jiminy Cricket/Dr. Archie Hopper, Geppetto/Marco, Pinocchio/August Wayne Booth, Blue Fairy/Mother Superior, Maleficent, Ursula, Cruella de Vil, Elsa, Anna, Merida, King Arthur, Guinevere, Nimue, Hades, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Graham

[symwinter]

Something else about Regina’s gaslighting that was pointed out in Haley Whipjack’s OUAT videos is that time was like frozen in the Storybrooke until Emma got there, which means that Henry was being told he was being delusional in a town where he was the only one visibly aging. He had to walk around town seeing Ashley pregnant for a decade. It’s entirely possible he was learning the same lessons every day for years until he brought Emma back to Storybrooke with him.

[brisebastiano]

Did anyone else notice that magic was almost portrayed as an addiction to certain characters? Rumple, Regina, Emma, all of them at their most powerful struggled with losing themselves to it and mistreating the people around them the same way addicts do to substances.

[M.M.Y.B]

I straight up hit a point where I was like "they forgot about graham" and they really did. He stopped being a thing that happened. I felt they retroactively wrote him out of the story altogether. Like they spent so much time convincing the audience that he would mean something, but he never did. And once he stopped being a factor (like it was messed up but if the writers erased him then he doesn't matter and regina can't be held responsible for what the writers erased) then her redemption makes more sense. But then Zelena goes and blackmails Robin into a relationship the exact same way and you really wonder what the writers were on.

[Mr.Compasss]

Something that really baffles me is that her "happy ending" is quite different from what she wanted when she was young: she ends up becoming the queen of the merged magic kingdoms while all her potential lovers are gone. In the end, it seems like Cora is the true winner of the series.

[dramonmaster]

Major kudos to Lana Parrilla for creating a character that OUAT fans love to hate.

[evildoesnotsleep-xb]

what keeps me from loving her is her totally inability to take responsibility for her abuse. yes, it was in the past but she didn't take steps to repair the damage she'd done to storybrooke, the enchanted forest or sincerely apologize to the families. she blamed snow's 13-year-old self for everything that happened to her. her penance was worthless cause it was insincere, it was all to appear better. then she has the nerve to call out other bad guys like zelena, as if she's done half the things regina did. her complexity made her interesting as a character and the actress did an amazing job of making her unique, but her core was rotten so her happy ending was a slap to the viewers

[FrumiousMing]

I just want to say that Lana Parilla is so brilliant in this role. The fact that I like Regina at all is a testament to how real she made the character feel. No matter what quality of writing, Lana always brought her A-game. She's so charming and was the perfect casting for this role.

And there's aspects of the writing I like about her character. Her lines are sharp and funny. She's blunt and speaks her mind, yet still able to be vulnerable at times. She's got an extremely messed up backstory, but not so dark as to be completely without any glimmer of hope (her love for Daniel, her love for Henry). You really come to understand why she is the way she is. How she was abused, how she was manipulated, how losing Daniel changed her as a person.

But to be honest, everything about Graham is just a nightmare. From like a writing standpoint, it really damages the audience's belief in Regina's sincerity at trying to be a better person. I could understand if they wanted to sweep it under the rug in service of Regina's redemption arc (even though I personally hate that). I've seen that before. But it's the fact that the writers were so careless that they didn't even recognize what Regina was doing was rape. I know too many examples of this happening in TV shows, with male SA not even being recognized as such. I'm not trying to seem overly dramatic, it just something that bugs me, even in shows that I otherwise adore.

Also I don't care how mean Graham was when he rejected Regina. Even if he didn't remember it at the time, Regina had raped him and he didn't owe her any courtesy.

[xavierhaddon]

Regina is my favorite character and I think her arc probably resonated a lot with people who struggle with guilt and feeling othered. You can definitely tell that redeeming her wasn't the original plan, though. Usually when a villain is going to be redeemed in the future, the writers establish early on that there are certain moral boundaries they won't cross, whereas with Regina it seemed like they were always trying to have her outdo herself with every evil action. I would have liked if they had planted the seeds earlier with moments where Regina as the Evil Queen shows that she does have a conscience even if she's not a good or likeable person.

[koelkastridder]

I was a 13 year old girl and I would sneak upstairs to watch OUAT because I thought Regina was soooo gorgeous. I basically decided she was in the right because I thought she was hot 😂

[angelwings]

Regina's redemption never made any sense to me 😂. I mean particularly when I see people ignore/disregard and/or say Hook's came out of nowhere. I saw an article that essentially called Hook diet Regina particularly because he didn't backslide or deal with 'darkness' constantly like she did which is so off base. Like, he dealt with darkness but it showed as shame and self hatred instead of constantly dipping back into villainy like Regina and Rumple. I dipped on the show when s6 opened and once again Regina was complaining and I couldn't do it anymore. Actions show character yeah, but also constantly acting like you are entitled to a happy ending when you regularly committed mass murder is just...no...stop that.

[sarahmontella]

I actually don't think it's comical that Regina ends up blaming Snow for Daniel's death. I think it's a very accurate portrayal of the effects of childhood ab*se. The psychiatrist Ronald Fairbairn's works on the subject are fascinating. His work on object relation theory specifically, I recommend you give it a read. To summerize, I'm paraphrasing here but essentially, he believed that lack of affection for a child leads them to believe they are unloveable. If their expression of love is met with hostility ("Love is weakness" 1x18), they come to believe their love is destructive. They are distrustful of "good objects" offering help ("Just like that?" 2x10) and sabotage themselves ("I'm my own worse enemy" 4x20). They also show unnatural loyalty to their abusive parent, wanting to protect them from the outside world. Last but not least, the child will take on the blame for their parent's mistreatment ("I'll be good" 1x18) in order to maintain the illusion of having their parents love but also control over situations. You've determined control is a very important part of Regina's character. Kids like this will do incredible mental gymnastics to deflect the blame. Their parent is not a terrible person, it is the child who is broken in some way and forces their hand. This often leads the kid to give up and withhold their love as a defense mechanism, shutting the world out and living in their own realities. Everything I've read of Fairbairn's work describes Regina's character so perfectly.

Honestly, Regina is so BPD coded, it's insane. The intense reactions, the anger issues, etc...

Cora is abusive, her whole thing is love is weakness, so she is very much emotionally shut down and Regina grows up chasing that love. To deflect the blame from Cora, Regina finds proxies, herself, her father, Nottingham in 4x20. It's a coping mechanism to convince herself of Cora's love and her own agency. Her mother didn't want to kill Daniel, Snow forced her to. "She ripped his heart out because of you" the phrasing shows that's exactly how she thinks. In her mind it is Snow's fault because it just cannot be Cora's. In her mind she is the hero avenging Daniel's death, it's obvious in season 1 when she's holding his ring and saying "we've got her". She's convinced herself of this to keep Cora blame-free so, for her, it's a very justified vendetta. It is very realistic and I like that the writers actually gave it a ton a of thought. Their depiction of the effect Cora's ab*se had is very well written and mostly very realistic.

I feel the need to stress this in no way justifies or excuses her behavior as she is aware of it. In 4x20, when she t*rtures Nottingham as punishment for her mother's treachery, Cora lets him go and Regina asks "Why did you let him go? Don't you want someone else to suffer for what you did? As usual..."  She is a 100% aware of this, it is her responsibility to work on it and the fact that she does nothing to tackle the issue is indicative that it cannot be used to justify or excuse her actions.

I think season 4 was meant to deal with her blame problem. It's a little disappointing they never tackle Cora's ab*se and Regina coming to terms with it but moving on. Throughout the seasons, they show various ways in which Regina sabotaged herself. In both flashbacks and present. Season 4 was about her realizing that and finally deciding to stop blaming everyone else for what she does. The universe isn't against her, she was just a terrible person before.

Regina views happiness as a reward so much so that any hiccup is experienced as punishment. At the end of season 3, she very much believed she was being rewarded for working on herself and becoming a better person. In her mind, Robin was a reward for not being a homicidal maniac. So to her she's worked hard and she was being rewarded until Emma ruined it. She believed Emma was punishing her until it finally clicks. Emma hurting her was a honest mistake born of good intentions and she's apologetic about it. Emma feels really bad about hurting her but she'd do it again because her goal was always saving Marian, not hurting Regina. It helps Regina compute it wasn't punishment.

Her whole life, Regina has lived in this state of awaiting disaster but when she is accepted into the Charming fold, she lets go of that mindset a little and starts to believe maybe, just maybe things don't have to go wrong all the time. It blows up in her face with "Marian" returning. However, to her, she had done everything right. She was being a very good reformed tyrant. Regina's then convinced she truly is not the problem. You see it's not that she makes bad decisions that have consequences, it's just that she's doomed and no matter what, nothing will ever work out for her. It's that mindset she needed to lose. Her situation is of her own making and happiness is not a reward for good behavior. Happiness is not something good people are owed that just falls in their lap, it's something they build.

The execution is not good but the concept was great. Regina needed to recognize her own responsibility in any given situation. She wasn't the only character to be dealt a bad hand, she needed to own up to what she did with it and stop expecting happiness for displaying basic human decency. Season 4 got her there but that journey was all over the place so it kinda felt like her reaching that point comes out of nowhere when it was the logical conclusion of that arc.

I think Regina's compulsive need to blame everyone else is actually so interesting in regards to the regret thing. People often confuse regret with remorse. They're only synonymous to a degree but people use them interchangeably when they are not the same. Regina didn't regret anything but she did feel remorse.

Regret is about PERSONAL feeling of loss like missed opportunities and unpleasant consequences. Regret is a rather selfish emotion as it can only be felt in relation to the bad outcome of a situation for the person experiencing it. It involves self pity and bemoaning the negative effects experienced by that person without taking anything else into account. Additionally, regret isn't tied to morality as people can regret having done the right thing if it had terrible consequences for them. It is also entirely possible to feel regret over something outside of their control.

Remorse is about pain a person has caused to others. It is impossible for people to feel remorse over something they didn't do. It is about how a person's actions have affected others. In that regard, remorse is selfless because it doesn't account for personal loss. It is heavily tied to empathy and requires a feeling of personal responsibility. As such, morality matters a lot in remorse because the feeling comes from the perception of having wronged others. Right and wrong directly influence this.

Both feelings are associated with guilt, sorrow and shame but they're different. Regret is what you feel when you've hurt yourself through action or inaction and remorse is what you feel when you've hurt others always through actions.

I think it was such an interesting choice to have this character especially not have any regrets. It felt like if any character was going to bemoan any and every personal loss, it would be her. She did express regret right after Daniel's death, stating that she should have let Snow die on that horse and I think she simply realized after that: regrets get you nowhere in life. What is done is done.

All in all, Regina is a self fulfilling prophecy. She holds a lot of love within for fear of it being destructive if let out. When she does decide to express it, it's clumsy and creepy and therefore ends up being destructive proving her right and furthering the cycle. It leads her to make the incredibly shortsighted decision of adopting Henry. She was so lonely that she didn't think about what it would mean to have a growing kid in a town where no one can age. He was bound to notice no matter what. In this situation I don't think Emma was wrong or that any of it can be held against her. Henry looked for her and kept going to her. Even if she had tried to dissuade him, I don't think he would have listened. He was desperate so her best bet was to be there and make sure he had what he needed. Emma was always willing to make it work and it's Regina's antagonistic nature that prevented any kind of common ground from being found.

[ohhmangos]

Regina, while she has done some messed up things, truly had the best arc of the show. Plus... her OUTFITSSSS

[GGthegenius]

This was a fantastic analysis of Regina's character, and I completely agree with you.

When this show started airing, I remember that my interest was mainly focused towards Regina.
She's an amazing villain and whoever did the casting made a choice of a lifetime by choosing Lana.
I don't think that character would work that well without her playing the role.
Lana Parilla brought a captivating theatricality to the character, elevating every scene she was in.

I admit I was not very pleased with the redemption arc for Regina, although she remained my favorite throughout the series.
And it took me awhile to accept that they're going to keep her 'good' instead of 'evil'.

It struck me as weird that Regina never truly repented for her actions, particularly regarding her father, and then Graham. There were numerous opportunities for her to reflect on her past misdeeds and confront the consequences, but these moments were consistently overlooked.
I thought that perhaps that was all part of a plan to push Regina back towards the dark side, show that she cannot get her redemption and happiness by selfishly fixating on finding her own happiness, almost obsessively so.

I was hoping that they would maintain her status as an antihero: someone who strives to be a part of the community and in the meantime helping them in order to prove herself worthy, but but somehow always reverting back to her old ways, just because she never learned how to actually deal with her motivations and internal fears.

That would be so fun to watch.

[ProPinkist]

The OUAT resurgence on youtube lately has been so fascinating to me to see. This is one of the only live action shows I've followed as it aired, like... ever; I never finished it, I stopped a little into season 5 iirc, but oh how it pains me whenever I think about it at all the wasted potential. :' ) I love so many aspects of it dearly, but I'll never not be bitter at how absolutely destroyed Rumple's character was, since he was my favorite and could have been the best character in the show imo (and often was, in isolated moments). Regina was amazing to watch, but imo just like with Robert Carlyle, I mostly attribute her greatness to Lana Parilla's acting. I loved seeing her more sympathetic moments, but I never got over Graham either, yeah 🫠🫠🫠

I don't know if you ever watched it, but if you did, I'd love to see you do a video talking about Once Upon A Time In Wonderland. That show, while only having one season, ended up being the VASTLY superior story in the end, and I desperately wish people gave it the same amount of attention they do to main OUAT 😭

[anniebonus]

I think we took Hook's line about wasting his life very differently. You said that it means he and Regina don't see themselves as villains. I read it as him saying that they wasted their lives being villains and all that it got them was the inability to get their happy endings

[joannawinters]

Look how its even framed in the article. They worry how foster parents will feel, NOT about the kids. It's all about ego of those who adopt.

[tannerbancroft]

I get that point of view, and I agree a lot. Yet, another view I notice is Regina even says they are going to a place where there are no happy endings and no magic. So basically, she wanted to not kill these people but force them into a place where they 'won't' get these happy endings, or so she thought. Sure, she also says she wants to have a sense of community. Yet, another character I think we tend to forget is Regina's father. She had to kill him to get this curse to work. So yes, she was so dark from the beginning. She could have chosen to not enact this curse and save the only person left in her life who loves her. She had a love, but she destroyed it for revenge.

[Mini-Toast_]

Thank you for this! The fact that they demonized anyone who rightfully wanted revenge aggravated my last nerve.

[Thewrldacctodee]

This was an interesting video to watch, though my biggest critique is framing Regina’s relationship with Henry as being emotionally abusive for years. Snow mentioned in one episode that Henry was a relatively normal child up until he found out he was adopted. Also, in season 4 Regina talked to Snow and Charming about how much she regretted lying to him. My other critique is that I feel like a lot of people downplayed the trauma she faced at the hands of Cora and then later Rumple as well as being forced to marry Snow’s father, a man twice her age who previously dated her mother. Your analysis of her not thinking she’s lovable and the point you made about her curse being about her wanting community was spot on.

[icomeandgobybubble]

I hate the hate people throw at Emma. It's ridiculous. I stand with Emma and I don't think she was in the wrong. Regina was abusive and Emma had every reason to want to stay and reasons to even take Henry away. Henry found his biological mother because he was terrified of his adopted mother. Regina was abusing him. People have to take the child's well being into consideration. If there was a custody battle, Emma would had won because Regina being the way she was. Henry wasn't safe with Regina. Emma stayed because she wanted to protect him knowing that he was being abused. I never liked Regina, honestly. Emma also suffered a lot and more than any character because of Regina. Also, Regina raped and murdered Graham, and attempted to murder Emma multiple times. She was a horrible person.
Might I add, No, not all foster systems are bad, but Emma notably grew up in the worst ones. I truly understand and feel bad for her.
People also hate her because she's straight and not with her step grandmother.
I think fans need to get a grip. Cut the crap and stop the hate. Leave her alone.
Yes, it's sick that the writers had Regina be a rapist because it's "sexy" and they didn't see it as problematic. I don't feel like she suffered any repercussions for all the sick. creepy, and down right horrible things she did. Yet everyone pities her and pin her as a victim when she wasn't.