"Once Upon a Time" and the Bombing of Boston

We are, all of us, weaned on stories. Through them we learn where we are from and who we are. As we grow, the 'reality' of those stories becomes either discarded or reinforced by experience. When I was very little I thought a giant ran the local grocery store. Rumplestiltskin himself bent in the golden light of his electric sewing machine to mend our clothes. With age, I found that the maker of miracle cures down the street was not Merlin, but Sid the pharmacist. And the little tailor with the magical sewing machine had numbers tattooed on his forearm that told a far sadder story. 

Of course, when a new series embraced this very concept decades later, I was hooked (so to speak). Television, even with the rise of the internet, is still my storyteller of choice and "Once Upon A Time" has proven itself a worthy companion and often welcome distraction. I needed just such a remedy over this past couple weeks. First for the sheer dogged drudgery of finishing up my taxes. Then as a panacea to divert thoughts from the spectacle and aftermath of the marathon bombings. 

But when the last Boston terrorist was about to be caught, we couldn't help but leave the tv news on as we hoped that he would indeed be caught or killed. Trouble was the culprit had the face of a teenager. His name may have been foreign but his life sounded, for the most part, like an American one. No matter what his crimes, I realized that his actions were the result of the stories that he had been taught by others. He suddenly became just a trapped, frightened, injured boy. A desperate soul too dangerous to be afforded mercy. Nevertheless, a boy quite likely about to pay a terrible price for his choices. I couldn't help it, I felt sorry for him. Then I was reminded of those he conspired to kill or maim, which made me feel guilty for feeling sorry for him. My Gram, who would not willingly deign to judge anyone, not even Hitler, might have replied "hate the sin, not the sinner." Something I may admire in theory but often find hard to put into practice. 

Conflicted, my thoughts retreated to Storybrooke. But there, too, I found the same conundrum. I'd already been guilty of being as in love as Belle herself with the joie de vive with which Robert Carlyle enlivens his sympathetic villain. I was quite willing, in fact, to overlook the monster in favor of the man --to blame the curse, not the cursed. Thanks to OUAT's writers, compassion had come as a consequence of understanding evil as being "made not born." Like so many others, I have wickedly delighted in Queen Lana Parrilla's every zestful, lovelorn attempt at revenge or redress. But truth be told, most fantasy victims lack such means. Like soldiers to the ogre wars or the tradesman turned into a snail and crushed underfoot --they are (so far) forgotten. 

Back to reality...

In real life, at least as told by cable news and the internet, the Boston story began as that of the fallen. Where they were in their lives. Who they were to the people who loved them. That is as it should be. Perhaps that is how in real life, as in its fantastical reflection, retribution will not leave all eventually blind and toothless. Unfortunately, not every resentment or hate-filled scenario will end in failure as a cautionary tale. But good stories, like the good works of a well-lived life, will always triumph regardless of how they're ended. ...So long as they continue to be told.