Is The Time Traveler’S Wife About Grooming?

The Time Travelers Wife, a new HBO adaptation of the 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger, has faced criticism for its portrayal of grooming. Critics argue that the show promotes grooming, as Henry travels back in time and spends time with Clare as a child, raising concerns about his grooming behavior. The show’s creator, Steven Moffat, has responded to these criticisms, stating that the plot is not about grooming but rather a chicken and egg situation.

The show follows the relationship between Clare (Rose Leslie) and Henry (Theo James), who have a genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his constant absence. The show stars Rose Leslie as Clare Abshire, Theo James as Henry DeTamble, Desmin Borges as Gomez, and Natasha Lopez as Charisse.

Despite the controversy surrounding the show, Moffat has defended it, stating that it is not about grooming but about the characters’ relationship. He also clarified that the show does not romanticize the situation, as it is a chicken and egg situation.

The Time Travelers Wife premiere on HBO is set to premiere on May 16, 2022. Critics argue that the show’s portrayal of grooming is too meta and that the storyline is not about grooming but about the characters’ relationship.


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How does Henry get his body back?

At Golds Pawn Shop, they plan another course of action. Gold puts a bracelet on Henry (who is Peter Pan) so that Pan will not have any magic when they swap bodies again. Gold uses the wand and switches bodies. After Peter Pan comes back to his original body, Gold stands over his father, saying he has unfinished business. Everyone leaves to find Henry and the scroll. They find Henry at the library, but as he hands the scroll to Regina, she is knocked out. At the shop, Pan wakes up. Gold taunts him, saying he wants Pan to see what life could have been like if they had just been father and son. Pan says it was horrible having a child that crushed his dreams. Gold picks up a sword and comes at Pan. Pan knows he can remove the bracelet, so he puts it on Gold, making him powerless. Then he blasts Gold across the room. Gold tries to get his powers back. He has to cut off his hand to get free of the bracelet. Later, Regina wakes up and says she knows how to stop the curse. Pan shows up and freezes them. Pan tries to kill Neal, but Gold stops him. Gold vows to Neal and Belle that he is ready to die to keep them safe. His shadow appears and hands him the Dark Ones Dagger. Gold stabs Pan in the back and himself in the chest. Pan turns back into Malcolm. He wants Gold to take the dagger so they can start over and be happy. Gold says he’s a villain and doesn’t get happy endings. He makes them disappear in a flash of light. Belle cries after they disappear. Neal asks Regina if there is a way to stop the curse. Regina says the only way to stop it is to give up Henry. As the curse approaches, Regina tells Emma that she and Henry will have to leave Storybrooke forever. Once the curse takes place, everyone will return to the Enchanted Forest. Henry was born in the Land Without Magic, so he won’t be able to go back with them. But Emma can stay with him because she’s the savior and the only one who can escape it. People gather at the town line to say goodbye to Emma and Henry. Hook says he’ll think of her every day. She smiles and says goodbye. Regina casts a spell that will make Emma and Henry happy, but they will forget everything that happened in Storybrooke. Emma and Henry leave, Regina destroys the scrolls, and the curse takes over. Storybrooke disappears. Outside Storybrooke. One year later, Emma and Henry are in an apartment in New York City. Emma makes breakfast for Henry. She gets a knock on the door. When she opens the door, she sees Hook outside. He needs her help. Hook tells Emma that her family is in trouble, but she doesn’t know who he is. Hook tries to kiss Emma, but she kicks him and slams the door in his face. Henry asks Emma who was at the door. She doesn’t know.

Did Henry groom Claire in The time Traveler’s Wife?

I thought the show might let viewers see Claire and Henry’s relationship critically. But the cast and producers’ responses to grooming allegations have made me doubt that. Instead of acknowledging the discomfort many have felt at watching Claire and Henry’s romance, the responses have suggested that viewers should not be concerned over grooming. Henry was already married to Claire when he met her as a six-year-old. He never intended to make her fall in love with him. So, there’s no grooming involved. Their unconventional relationship developed over time. The truth will be decided by whether grooming is tied to intent. The series relies on outdated tropes that pit female characters against each other. It has made many viewers uncomfortable. The series could have done without the outdated tropes that pit female characters against each other and idealize horrible life decisions made in the name of love. It’s unclear if the bad writing comes from the novel or the screenplay. The acting and production are decent. But some of the lines these actors had to say were hard to watch. I hope this review helps you avoid going through it yourself. It was entertaining at times, but mostly painful. I was looking forward to seeing Rose Leslie and Theo James on screen together, but they didn’t have any chemistry.

Did Henry groom Claire in The Time Traveler’s Wife?

I thought the show might let viewers see Claire and Henry’s relationship critically. But the cast and producers’ responses to grooming allegations have made me doubt that. Instead of acknowledging the discomfort many have felt at watching Claire and Henry’s romance, the responses have suggested that viewers should not be concerned over grooming. Henry was already married to Claire when he met her as a six-year-old. He never intended to make her fall in love with him. So, there’s no grooming involved. Their unconventional relationship developed over time. The truth will be decided by whether grooming is tied to intent. The series relies on outdated tropes that pit female characters against each other. It has made many viewers uncomfortable. The series could have done without the outdated tropes that pit female characters against each other and idealize horrible life decisions made in the name of love. It’s unclear if the bad writing comes from the novel or the screenplay. The acting and production are decent. But some of the lines these actors had to say were hard to watch. I hope this review helps you avoid going through it yourself. It was entertaining at times, but mostly painful. I was looking forward to seeing Rose Leslie and Theo James on screen together, but they didn’t have any chemistry.

Is the Time Traveler’s Wife book inappropriate?

The Time Traveler’s Wife is an adaptation of a popular novel with mature themes like marriage, sexual violence, revenge, and death. There is violence, including muggings, blood, and wounds. The series is also… A Lot or a Little? What you will and won’t find in this TV show. Based on Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 book, THE TIME TRAVELERS WIFE is about the complicated romance between Clare Abshire and time traveler Henry DeTamble. Henry is a librarian who disappears to the past or future, but eventually comes back to the present. When Clare is six, she meets Henry, who is already 36. He knows what the future holds for them. Clare doesn’t tell anyone about Henry, but as she grows up, she falls in love with him. She’s comfortable with the idea that they will end up together. But she must deal with the fact that Henry’s timeline is different, which makes it hard for Clare to understand their relationship and keep secrets about the future. They love each other too much to give up. Families can talk about the challenges of adapting a novel for television. How is this different from making a book into a movie? What can you do in a book but not on TV, and vice versa?

Why doesn’t Henry remember Clare?

On Clare’s 18th birthday, they have sex. Henry stops visiting her. Two years later, Clare and Henry meet in real life at the library. Henry doesn’t remember her because he hasn’t started time-traveling to Clare’s childhood yet. They fall in love and get married. They try to have a baby, but Clare has miscarriages. They have a baby named Alba, who has the same genetic disorder as Henry. The marriage doesn’t last. Henry dies when Alba is five. If you told me this news ten or fifteen years ago, I would have been happy. When I first read the book, I was a disaffected teenager. My East Coast hometown was more like Dawson’s Creek than Gilmore Girls. Think of a sleepy seaside town where girls wore black North Face fleece and Uggs; there were lots of summer tourists; and there were few jobs. However, my town was very white. My dad is Black, my mom is Filipino. I was an “other” before I knew what that meant. I always wanted to escape my reality, especially if it meant I could be with a handsome guy. The Time Traveler’s Wife appealed to my love of tortured romance and sensitive heroes. Henry needed saving. He was like James Dean, but older. He was like Marcus Flutie from the Jessica Darling series! He was like Pacey Witter, but with an edge. He smoked and drank. He liked punk but also liked classical music. Nobody like him in Connecticut. I was a teenager and thought pain meant love. I needed someone to look up to. I thought Clare was lucky to know her soulmate. He was her destiny. Was it destiny or an older man’s will?

The time traveler's wife grooming reddit
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What is the metaphor of the time traveler’s wife?

The novel has been compared to several other time travel stories, including Jack Finney’s Time and Again, F. M. Busby’s If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy, and the film Somewhere in Time. Henry has been compared to Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Terence M. Green calls the novel a timeslip romance. Unlike traditional science fiction, The Time Traveler’s Wife is not concerned with the paradoxes of time travel. Instead, the novel uses time travel as a metaphor to explain how two people can feel as if they’ve known each other their entire lives. Another obvious comparison is Robert Nathans Portrait of Jennie, where Jennie travels time in one direction.

Themes Niffenegger says the themes of the novel are mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time.16 People have talked about love, loss, and time. Charlie Lee-Potter writes in The Independent that the novel is an elegy to love and loss. The love between Henry and Clare is expressed in many ways, including through an analysis of their sex life. While the novel shows Henry and Clare falling in love, the end is darker. Time travel represents arbitrariness, transience, and bad luck, according to Judith Maas in The Boston Globe. Andrew Billen says in The Times that the book is a feminist analysis of marriage as a partnership where only men can be absent. Several reviewers said that time travel shows couples can’t communicate. Natasha Walter of The Guardian says the story shows how relationships can be different from each other.18 She points to the part of the book about Clare and Henry’s first time having sex. She is 18 and he is 41. After this, he goes back to his own time and his own Clare, who says…

Time traveler's wife problematic
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Why was the time traveler’s wife removed from HBO Max?

DEGGANS: This is about special tax breaks for companies after a merger. The company expects to write off up to $3.5 billion in content costs. To get the tax benefit, they have to remove some shows from the service, including Westworld, The Nevers, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and a few more.

MARTIN: Will people still be able to see these shows? What if you’re in the middle of a season?

DEGGANS: You better watch faster.

What is the message of the time traveler’s wife?

The novels focus on Henry and Clare’s love for each other. But Henry’s care for himself shows that self-love is more important than love for others. Henry meets himself at different stages of life. Because he is both himself and the other versions of himself he visits, these encounters allow him to give himself direct…

Time traveler's wife creepy reddit
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Is the time traveller’s wife about grooming?

Niffenegger knew her stories were weird and sad. It’s strange that after the movie was made in 2009, Steven Moffat decided to make a series on HBO Max. You know that Bachelor show where all the relationships start with talking about relationships? How every date is spent comparing where they started (a driveway in Agoura Hills) versus where they are now (a bench outside their childhood home), and how they’ve changed. The love story in The Time Traveler’s Wife is like that, except one person can travel through time. The overall effect is even less romantic than in The Bachelor. This is because the other member of the relationship is a child. The Time Travelers Wife is a story about grooming. Henry first starts time-traveling to visit Clare when she is 6 and he is in his late 30s. He visits her 152 times before she is 18. Adult Henry becomes Clare’s best friend and the most important person in her life. Henry knows this child is his future wife. He teaches her about things he knows she will love and care about: art, poetry, and him. Henry tells Clare he’s going to marry her. Clare is 15 and immediately falls in love with him. She later meets him again when she’s 28. Current Clare soon finds out that current Henry is a jerk. Future Henry comes in to tell her that current Henry is a jerk because she hasn’t shaped him into the man he’ll become. It’s mutual grooming. One instance is with a child, and the other is just a woman being told that she must fix an emotionally stunted adult man. Many women may also recognize this as a normal Tuesday. Henry says he has no control over time and can’t change the loop he’s in. He tries hard to meet Clare as a child and shape her into the woman he’ll marry. But…


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Is The Time Traveler'S Wife About Grooming
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Christina Kohler

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6 comments

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  • Hay, thanks for the article! Totally on point! I think your comments on the depiction of gender roles was really interesting and not something I have picked up on before. The grooming is so problematic! And even if we take it the chicken and egg argument, which I do agree with, it doesn’t take into account the massive power imbalance of a young girl and older man vs two young adults meeting. Given the book was written by a woman, I suppose I wonder whose fantasy it is! I completely agree that Claire is the ‘ideal woman’ and he has moulded her into that, which is evident in the way she finds him, madly in love with him and happily throws herself into his bed. So is this a male fantasy of finding the ideal woman as an unspoiled, delicate flower you can form and eventually marry? Or is it a female fantasy of finding that one man as a child and him patiently waiting for you to mature while he loves you and teaches you and eventually marries you? Or is it both? I find it interesting that Steven Moffat from Dr Who did the tv remake of the time traveler’s wife and gave voice to the storyline of grooming in the series, because there was a similar feeling story in Dr Who of The Doctor and Amy Pond (have you seen it?). I just find it so concerning to see this storyline repeated in different ways. (I also think of the Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough). Even when it stays as just a friendship (say like in the horse whisperer) we need to stop romanticising children and older men.

  • In a way, the entire abstinence-only movement is about older powerful men grooming young people to fetishize virginity. Regardless of the intentions, that seems to be the effect: it created generations of men obsessed with virginity and body count. I became a teen in the 80s, which had its own weirdness around sex. The “value-neutral” basically sent the message that sex is morally neutral. That can have its own problems if you don’t discuss consent and emotional readiness. But it also reduced the double standard around sex and gender.

  • As good intentions go, your analysis in the subject of grooming in this film, or this particular story for that matter, is misplaced. Your specific choices of words misrepresents the intentions of the characters, particularly Henry. As I looked up the definition of grooming, it states that “a person practices in preparing or training someone for a particular purpose or activity. ” In the film, it makes it very clear that Henry doesn’t have intentions to manipulate Clare. For one, as you stated, he has no control where he travels to. It’s not like he’s being a creep or a child predator. And throughout the times when he travels to the meadow when Clare is a child, he tries not to reveal the future, because by doing so, he knows he would be grooming her. Bottom line, it seems your current societal perception (your modern filter) infringes on the an era where such situations looked upon were completely innocent, particularly in the context of this story and it’s protagonists.

  • WB Discovery made a mistake canceling this show. It’s one of the most well put together series that I’ve seen in a long time. The writing is intelligent, chopped full of drama, humour, and a splash of action. The world needs entertainment of this caliber, because let’s face it, there isn’t enough of it. And selfishly, I want to see what happens next to the characters. After this, I won’t be dedicating my time to any new series HBO Max content unless it has a proven track record with at least 2 seasons worth of material. If anyone here knows of a fan petition to bring back The Time Traveler’s Wife, then please reply with the details so I can sign it. Thanks.

  • It’s already better than the movie which barely skimmed the surface of the book. IMO the movie was just ok. Wouldn’t see it again. And certainly not after perusal these first episodes. The quality of acting, the writing, the fidelity to the book—all much better than movie. And wow James&Leslie’s chemistry!

  • Sick stuff. I defended it right up to episode 2. The scene the father stumbles upon is stomach churning. Nobody settles down in front of the telly demanding to see such twisted material. Theo James is human bait. Rose Leslie his powerless accomplice. No amount of elegant conversation on the red carpet can provide sufficient damage control.