Demon Clown Baby

Ticketmaster may suck, with all their stupid fees, but this show was worth attending. I’m sure any seat in the house would be good, but we ended up getting row 4 which was actually the front row because the first three were blocked off. We got a GREAT view of the dragons. We were also on the side, instead of the “front.” In my opinion, it is far better to sit on the side in the middle because of the way the stage is set up.

If you sit in the “front” at the end, you will probably have the best view of the two major “flying” scenes. But all the rest of the show is probably best from the side.

No technical missteps at all. The guy that played Hiccup was a little whiny for my taste, but the humans are not the stars of this show.

My five-year-old daughter was scared at the initial blast of (real) fire that was 10 feet right in front of us. Very hot on the eyeballs. But after that fright (and who could possibly blame her? It makes sense to be afraid of surprise fire!) she just LOVED the show. She loves the film and loves Toothless and Meatlug (the Gronkle dragon).

My wife had never seen the movie but she also loved the show.

I ponied up $10 more for the program, and that was worth it, because she really got a lot of enjoyment out of that as a souvenir.

There’s some cool merch, toys and such, for sale, so if you bring your kids, either expect to spend another $20 each on a toy (yes, pricy!) or make sure you get them some merch somewhere else FIRST so you can say, “Honey, you already have a Toothless toy! You don’t need another one!”

Spoilers up through season 2’s “We Are Both.”

So first let’s list Regina’s crimes and character flaws. Just off the top of my head (feel free to chime in with more):

She lied to Snow about Daniel leaving, but then had murderous thoughts about a girl that, while dumb, was honestly trying to help.

She conspired to murder the king (Snow White’s father, Henry’s great-grandfather!) and got her father to be complicit.

She seduced a patsy and got him to murder the king.

She betrayed her patsy.

She tried to have the Huntsman murder Snow White.

She ripped the Huntsman’s heart out and enslaved him.

She REGULARLY raped the Huntsman.

She sent an unknown number of children to their deaths in the Blind Witch’s house.

She tried to kill Snow White with a poisoned apple.

She murdered her father.

She attacked the Enchanted Forest with armed guards, unknown death toll, but the Prince was seriously wounded.

She placed a curse that enslaved everyone for 28 years with permanent false memories.

She murdered the Huntsman.

She psychological abused her son by lying to him and manipulating him.

Even after the curse is broken, her victims retain the memories of any soul-crushing deeds they did while not in their right minds. E.g. Snow remembers committing adultery on her husband, and Charming remembers committing adultery on his wife, neither knew what they were doing, but they will forever carry the memory of those actions, even if they understand they were not culpable. That is lasting and permanent psychological damage.

The curse victims remain stranded from their homeland.

Snow White and Charming lost their daughter, forever. They saw her as a baby, and now she’s 28 and they will NEVER get to raise her, see her first step, teach her what they would have wanted to teach her. That cannot be undone and is wholly the fault of Regina.

There’s probably more.

Now, it seems like the character of Regina is being setup to possibly try for redemption. I don’t believe anyone can NEVER be redeemed, IF they actually want to be. I do believe people get so evil that they will never be willing to do the things necessary to actually achieve redemption though.

Considering that she’s a rapist, murderer, torturer, kidnapper, and dictator, she has a lot to answer for. If she wants redemption, wouldn’t she have to:

Admit her crimes, without trying to justify them.

Acknowledge that was evil and hurt people that cannot be undone.

Nevertheless attempt to make restitution to all her victims. She can’t bring back the dead but she could do everything in her power to help heal the harm she has caused.

Accept that she would need to spend the rest of her life in prison and all her power and worldly goods would be used to mitigate the damage she has caused.

Now, do you see Regina doing this? I sure don’t. If she wants redemption but tries to justify her past actions, if she thinks she can say “sorry” and then get let off to live her life happily, well, that is not redemption either.

So no, she will not be redeemed. If the writers of the show have a horrible idea of redemption (like Darth Vader being “redeemed” from countless murders simply because he saved *his own son*), then they may go that route, but I doubt that many viewers will be convinced!

Does Regina really want redemption? I doubt it. She’s a sociopath at this point, she doesn’t care about anyone but herself. She is only making noise about redemption for two reasons:

1. She doesn’t want to be her mother.

2. She wants Henry to love her.

Everyone else can go hang, she doesn’t care about them. If Henry would love her, she’d be able to shuck off point one, and continue being evil. She likes being evil. She hasn’t developed a conscience.

Now, the danger: since she remains utterly selfish and sociopathic, it is ONLY her desire to be loved by Henry that is restraining her at this point. If she ever realizes that Henry is NOT going to approve of her unless she goes the WHOLE redemption route (which she won’t do), she may consider obtaining Henry’s love as a “lost cause.”

In other words, Henry could snap and say “I hate you! You’re not my mom! I will never love you! You murdered my great-grandpa! You’re evil and I never want to see you again!” And she could lose the last thing worth faking redemption for and even turn on Henry and not care anymore about *him*.

Plenty of mothers are capable of behaving evilly and abusively to their children. It’s no stretch at all that a sociopath like Regina could feel betrayed by Henry and consider him her enemy. If that happens, watch out Henry, and watch out citizens of Storybrooke.

I take my daughter to the park, I play on the equipment with her, sometimes I play on the equipment by myself while she is clear at the other end. If I want to talk to a kid, I do so.

Ditto for the toy store, little girls underwear section of the department store, I don’t care, and I don’t care whether my child is nearby or not even with me on that trip.

I know I’m not doing anything wrong and I really don’t mind if some over-paranoid person sees me and thinks “Oh noes! An adult male in the 5T underwear section! He must be a pervert!” Think what you want, paranoid people.

And guess what? I radiate “I don’t care what any of you think” rays in all directions and have never ONCE been approached by anybody. I think the confidence with which I carry myself makes even the paranoid people figure I’m harmless, whereas if I were all timid and nervous maybe they would have the guts to report me for Suspicious Behavior or talk to me or something.

I wish more people could be as awesome as me. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, then just keep doing it and don’t worry about what other people might do. I am tired of hearing “I stopped to watch the kids play basketball but then I realized how pervy it looked so I walked away.” You can watch kids play if you want to. Just because it may be something a pervert does doesn’t mean the act itself is perverted! Society needs to grow up and stop being so afraid all the time.