So a while ago I wrote a post about all the things it would take for me to believe King Leopold was just some sweet old guy who only married a teenager to parent his teenager out of obligation to the kingdom and to have a sitter (which still sucks).
One of the things I listed that would make me like him was if we saw he was under spells during certain events…like the proposal and being a creep reading Regina’s private journal THEN sharing that shit with someone who essentially a stranger.
Turns out that during the flashback to the proposal we saw Cora manipulate a lot of events….but those events playing out how she wanted hinged on certain people reacting certain ways. Cora had to know that Regina had a big enough heart and sense of “good” that she would save a stranger (snow screeching by on a wild horse) for no other reason than she had the ability and means to do so.
Cora also had to know that the King had no qualms marrying a teen, that something else besides just a beautiful wife would motivate his proposal (but being a beauty was a requirement as well duh).
When it came to the journal I thought well maybe Regina turned into Leopold (possibly maybe) to talk to the genie….because Leopold is supposedly sooooooo nice and he did just rescue a random stranger….so he can’t possibly be treating his wife bad and invading the smudge of privacy she had..right? WRONG Regina didn’t know transformation spells. We found that out for certain when she had to go to Rumple begging to be turned into a peasant AFTER Leopold was dead and Snow was on the run.
But like mother like daughter Regina learned to read the fuck out of people and manipulate emotional heart strings, her survival depended on it. Regina certainly emotionally manipulated the genie …and hell the King too.
How did she know her husband would read her journal? How did she know her husband would react by having guards stationed outside her door and by being jealous of a woman he didn’t love ? This is fairy tale land right? Everyone deserves a chance at happiness right even if it means letting someone have the freedom to be happy with another?
Regina didn’t ask the genie to kill leopold, the genie decided that shit on his own because he was trying to protect the woman he was in lust with. Regina knew this shit but hell to be honest I think she seems a bit ready to go. The villains are ride or die, so the snakes could have actually been for the freedom from her marriage or suicide (its not a stretch of the imagination with the levels of hopelessness and prep for meeting the maker we’ve seen from Regina).
One more thing that bugged me.. .Regina had no loyalty from the kingdom, they hated her before she even started doing shit really. Which means for them to be that quickly bitter there was no loyalty built up…which would make sense if the King is constantly praising the dead queen and only big upping the princess….
Sigh fuck you king leopold
Remember when we were all talking about marital rape and a few folks were all, “Maybe he didn’t have sex with her because he knew she didn’t want it, and he only wanted a mother for Snow”?
Yeah.
Remember how Johanna was pretty much Snow’s mother figure after Eva died?
Yeah.
And remember how Johanna herself told Snow the kid-friendly version of “Your dad is horny, sweetheart”?
Yeah.
Tell me again how good a man Leopold was.
Arranged marriages happen, fairy tale land was no different. But at least when the arrangements are made you don’t have to watch the bride to be face go from humble appreciation of the king to gawking horror at the prospect of marriage to said king.That would give me pause.
He is shown to be a loving father , he doesn’t seem like a dense man. I think having empathy for the young woman who doesn’t know you nor you her, its not asking a lot. He could have even put snow in the woman’s place and thought “hmmm would I want this arrangement for my daughter or would I at least make a man court her or have a couple of dinner nights at the castle.”
What would have made that situation better for me is if it comes out that king leopold had a spell on him that made him ask Regina for her hand in marriage. Magic would make that awkward selfish ass proposal understandable for me. Dude could have stayed in his own shit just to marry Snow’s nanny, I’m sure she was a woman who cared for his daughter for years….but she probably didn’t look like Regina.
He marries her but I want to know what those years of conversations were like, what the fuck did they talk about. This is the thing, Regina can put on masks but when she gets to a subject near her heart she gets emotional. She may have “manipulated” the genie (which is debatable, someone willing to kill their best friend who granted them freedom just to get to their wife even if said wife is regina has questionable ass morals from jump I distinctly remember the murder suggestion being his not hers)but those tears he walked in on were real. The pain she was expressing was authentic even if the love wasn’t. The entire genie episode her eyes shown with tears even after the “gig was up” and the genie realized he simply was a means to an end.
So how could the king not recognize the pain a stranger picked up on. Oh wait, the king did notice her unhappiness…oh and he also realizes he is unable to love her …a love that he realizes the queen yearns for
Let me repeat that, King Leopold is unable to love his 2nd wife properly because even in death his love for his first wife burns away. He realizes his 2nd wife yearns for that type of love but the heart wants what the heart wants. Ok Regina raises snow, the king got the nursemaid…why didn’t he give her some money and land and release her from the marriage.
As soon as he found the diary why didn’t King Leopold immediatly go to Regina and say “thank you for your loyalty despite this marriage never fulfilling you with the true love you deserve because love is kick ass in fact my love still warms my heart even with her death, you can be free to go travel as you desire, you have stepped up as a mother to snow, please find love as I once experienced it.”
No….this motherfucker finds the diary, gets jealous that the Queen is in love even though, once again he knows he is unable to give her the love she needs. In the journal it doesn’t say shit about running away….but that she finally found love but she’s trapped and can’t act on it.
Why was this dude in her private journal anyway? Also the king wants to know who the man is….the pissed off face tells me at the very least the man who has the queens heart will be exiled. How cruel is that….to wish for happiness of everyone in the kingdom…to believe that your wife’s happiness is in another but not giving it to her. I could understand if the King grew to love Regina over time but she is nothingness. That whole dinner speech with Snow was nice…but how do you not notice the Queen is gone. Yeah you can thank your dead wife for Snow’s looks but how about shouting out the current queen for rescuing her and raising her? At the very least that shit was tacky.
In order for me to view king leopold differently….there would have to be a scene showing him writing in his own journal saying he really was asking for the mystery man to grant the queen her freedom or that he was under a spell making him incapable of consideration to regina specifically…
…..
King Leopold gives out condoms to the Halloween trick-or-treaters, because you never know when he might need another young wife.
So if something happens, the woman clearly didn’t try hard enough.
“I know she’s not happy. I keep a vial of her tears so Rumplestiltskin can make potions out of them.”
King Leopold thinks that Regina is EVIL but Rumple is ‘a man who makes bad choices’.
(via eshusplayground)