The choices we make are not the same.
[7x20] : "You chose hatred. I choose love." Maybe that there was a part of Gothel, the one not consumed by her hatred and her anger, that was proud of her daughter's choice. Curious Archer. KnightRook. One sided Gothel/Seraphina. Aromantic Gothel.
She looks at her and she sees someone who is nothing like her.
She sees a proud and strong girl, standing up for herself, for her family.
But what Gothel wants to tell her, is that people took her family from her, that there was a time where she was good, and happy, and all these things her mother wanted her to be.
But that everything had been destroyed.
Except that she can't, because in Alice's case, she is the monster, she is the one who tried to take everything she cared about.
She is the evil one, she is doing to her daughter what other made to her.
It happened a long time ago, but she still feels the rage, the hatred, the anger, here, burning in her chest, and years, centuries, millenarian didn't change everything about it.
She saw her mother die in front of her, in her arms, she saw her die because she was a bloody naive little girl, who just wanted to be accepted.
Was it too much to ask ?
Yes, apparently, it was, because they didn't accept this to happen.
She was broken, alone, destroyed, and yes, the one who hurt her were dead. But something was now broken in her, something which would never be fixed.
So she swore she would make them live the same thing.
She would destroy them, all of them, even the innocents.
(Except that there were no innocents. Innocence didn't exist. Not in her world.)
And now, she was facing the girl, now woman, her daughter, that she put into pieces, that she separated from her father, from her loved one, from her True Love. That she traumatized, forced to be alone, that she let think she was crazy.
She made her become the girl of the tower, just as she was, as Rapunzel.
But unlike them, Alice never fell, and Gothel felt despite herself a mix of love and pride, as she was looking at her daughter.
Her daughter, that she broke, or tried to break, and who fixed herself then.
Her daughter, that she truly loved, in an evil, toxic and twisted way, that she loved because she was her way to destroy the world, indeed. And you couldn't deny that she was not indifferent to her.
But Gothel admitted it.
She never was a mother for Alice.
And now, here she was, facing her, and strangely not becoming like her, refusing to go on her side.
Yeah, Alice definitely was the True Guardian, and had the curse lasted a little longer, it would have been a true pleasure for Gothel to try to corrupt her, as she was doing it, forcing her to cast the spell to erase all humanity from the earth, in order to save her dear and precious father.
(She would have done the same for her mother or her sister, she knew it, a long time ago, when she was still pure and innocent.)
And, as the witch was looking at the young woman, a certitude began to appear in her.
Alice would never be like, she would never become as she was, for one simple reason.
Not because she was stronger than her, no, indeed, anyone could be broken, and Gothel knew that in other circumstances, she would have done it more easily.
It was because of this.
She was not alone.
She had been, yeah, for a time, but during the ten first years of her life, she hadn't been.
When she was in the Enchanted Forest, Gothel sometimes asked herself how it could be possible that her and Hook, two people who used to be devoured by darkness, anger and bitterness, were able to give birth to one of the most noble and pure people who ever lived in the Enchanted Forest.
The answer was simple : Hook was less worst than her.
When Alice was born, he hadn't lost all his humanity.
He could make the difference between what was bad and what was good, and he knew that to give up a baby into a tower was something terrible.
Unlike Gothel.
After all, she was alive since millenarian, while the pirate was there just since some centuries.
(Amateur…)
He did what Gothel could have never done : he became a father, a parent, he took care of the child.
"How is it possible that she never turned dark ? Gothel asked one day to Rumpelstiltskin.
The imp just smiled, and said :
- Well… she had a good a father to show her the way."
And the most ironic thing in this sentence, was that it was totally true.
Unlike Gothel, Alice always had a good reason to fight, and something to fight for.
While Gothel just had her revenge for her, her useless revenge, against people who never did anything to her.
Gothel had chosen revenge, hatred, anger, because it was what she knew since her family died.
She chose death.
Alice was choosing birth, life.
"You chose hatred. I choose love." Her daughter told her, with this voice full of determination, with this assurance, with her girlfriend on her side, who was looking at her with so much pride and love, and Gothel almost regretted that she never got it for herself.
(She thought about Seraphina, some seconds, remembering that the other witch used to love her, at a time, a love that Gothel never returned.
She never loved anyone, except her family, and always considered her as a friend.
She almost regretted that she sent the other woman to death, that she was sacrificed her.
But it was what for the better, for the greater good, to let the spell happen.)
Maybe that there was a part of Gothel, the one not consumed by her hatred and her anger, that was proud of her daughter's choice.
During a second, she realized what her own mother wanted to tell her, all this time ago, asking her to choose something else than revenge.
And she understood that her daughter was doing the choice she should have made, all those years ago, choosing love and not hatred or revenge.
And the witch had a last smile, before Alice's spell hit her.
They certainly didn't make the same choices.
For a second, she regretted what she did, realized how terrible her choices had been.
But there would be no going back, her daughter was going to fight her, forever, for the better, for her family.
She was going to do what Gothel never did, she was going to protect her family against the great evil threatening them.
My mom would have been so proud of you, was her last thought before she was turned into a tree.
Indeed, she would have been.
(And her thought meant too :
I am so proud of you.)