Once Upon a Time (TV series)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Regina and her relationship with Henry: is he right that she's just pretending to love him for show, or does she honestly care about him as much as she's able to with the void the curse caused in her heart?
      • On one hand, she lied when she answered Emma's question ("Do you love [Henry]?") in the pilot. If she loved the little guy and meant it, Emma would been able to tell, and subsequently would have packed up and headed back to Boston, no harm or foul. But when Regina lies that she loves Henry, Emma decides to stick around for Henry's sake.
      • On the other hand, Regina might be very much debilitated by a curse that won't allow her to love. The question is if Regina loves Henry as much as the curse will allow. While she may not be capable of love in the story book fashion, it's possible she feels something for Henry that's not quite love, but not exactly devoid of any attachment. It's possible that she's even trying to fill the void the curse caused, but simply can't because the curse doesn't let her know how.
      • From the Season 1 finale, she genuinely loves Henry. Not in a particularly healthy way but genuine.
    • Rumpelstiltskin alleges Cinderella's Fairy Godmother is actually evil as she wasn't going to mention the Equivalent Exchange part of magic in the Fairy Tale realm.
      • Does that mean the Blue Fairy's one too?
      • Either that, or he's just pissy because he doesn't have a monopoly on granting wishes, which undercuts his thriving Bad Samaritan business. When it came to the Blue Fairy, Jiminy was perfectly fine with trading his humanity and undertake a geas to aid Gepetto in order to get away from a life of crime. Yes, magic comes with a price, but the fairies might actually be more willing to ask for a sacrifice that the recipient can live with.
    • Fans speculate the Dark Curse creates alternate versions of FTL's inhabitants. As for the Storybrookers themselves...
      • Kathryn: Really someone who wants David back, or is more interested in the trappings of marriage than the man himself? She wants her husband and their kids someday but it's clear the person with her is more interested in fulfilling his obligations than 'her', but is she so guilt-ridden about their earlier tragedy she ignores it?
      • Emma Swan: Giving Henry his best chance by sticking around, or a lonely woman who is clinging to the closest thing she has ever had for family?
      • David and M.M.'s affair: True love, the most powerful magic (directly stated by Rumpelstiltskin) logically overcoming the Dark Curse? A deconstruction of how harmful all-consuming passion and fairy tale fancies are in Real Life? Or two weak-willed adults refusing to act emotionally mature or responsible?
  • Anticlimax Boss:
    • The Blind Witch is billed as a vicious cannibal and powerful witch, but she's barely onscreen for ten minutes before the children/Evil Queen cook her. They even skip over the whole "Gretel is a slave and the witch fattens up Hansel."
  • Base Breaker: Mary Margaret’s one night stand with Doctor Whale. Consensual sex between two unattached adults which is being blown out of proportion by the rest of the fan base or the unnecessary sullying of a beloved classic character who is supposed to be the epitome of innocence and goodness?
  • Complete Monster: Played with in regards to Cora, who becomes a deconstruction and ultimately a subversion of the trope. Played utterly straight with Peter Pan.
    • Cora at first seemed to fit the bill because she was easily more evil and selfish than Rumpelstiltskin and Regina, the show's heinous bar setters. She proclaimed to have affection for her daughter Regina and only have her best interests at heart, but she also openly loved no one because of her belief that love was weakness: only power could get one through life. Among her vilest atrocities were her abuse of her daughter through magical force and emotional/psychological manipulation, murdering Regina's lover after manipulating information out of young Snow White, murdering Sir Lancelot and impersonating him in his place, massacring a village so that she can rip out their hearts and use them to control the corpses, and using Aurora's stolen heart to trap her enemies while she could go to Storybrooke to reclaim her daughter. She also has a large collection of hearts she's taken from people over the years, which set a dark example that Regina ended up following. However, by "The Queen Of Hearts", it's learned that Cora's heart is not in her body, which effects the way she thinks and feels in her actions. She's also shown in the flashback to have not killed Regina when she had an opportune chance, suggesting that while she's incapable of displaying love due to the lack of a heart, her affection for her daughter, while twisted, is genuine. Finally, in "The Miller's Daughter", her backstory is explored and she admits that she was truly in love with Rumpelstiltskin, which is why she chose to remove her own heart upon adopting the mentality that love was weakness from The Sociopath King Xavier, not wanting it to hold her back in her pursuit of power. She is killed when her heart, now cursed by Snow, is put back into her by an unwitting Regina, and in her final moments she displays genuine love for Regina for the first time in her life. As she lays dying, she has a Death Equals Redemption moment, realizing that a loving relationship with her daughter would have been enough to have kept her happy.
    • Peter Pan, meanwhile, is a sociopathic demon boy who rules Neverland. He sends his shadow to take children away from their homes and families to Neverland and once there, they are made his servants who are never permitted to leave. All who try to leave he has the shadow kill by taking out their souls. He has an extreme Lack of Empathy for anyone who isn't himself, only thinks about his own interests above all else, and delights in torturing and destroying others, mentally and physically. because it amuses him. Since he was dying due to Neverland's magic leaving him, his ultimate plan that was decades in the making was to absorb the heart of the child who is the truest believer in magic, so that he can then absorb the magic of the entire island in order to become all-powerful and immortal, while the child dies in his place: and that said child turns out to be Henry. Since Henry must give up his heart willingly, Pan emotionally manipulates Henry, playing off his psyche and pretending to be his friend. On the side, he kept Wendy Darling captive for years and used her life as leverage so that her two brothers (kept alive by his magic) could do his work running the anti-magic organization on Earth. Once his initial plan fails, he swaps bodies with Henry and plans to re-cast the Dark Curse on Storybrooke so that it can be frozen in time and he can become it's ruler, making it the new Neverland. The citizens would be his to torture as he pleases, as he puts it "death is too quick and fleeting - their suffering will be eternal." The kicker? Pan is in truth Malcolm, the cravenly, negligent Psychopathic Manchild father of Rumpelstiltskin, who abandoned his son as a trade for the power of eternal youth, meaning he was out to harm his own bloodline and extended family. Unlike most villains on the show, Pan does not value family, as he emotionally abused and resented his son from day one since he hates the responsibilities of adulthood. To Pan, a baby is a "pink, naked, squirming little larva who eats his dreams alive." He even places more value and so-called love on his Psycho Supporter Felix, whom he kills without hesitation or remorse when it's needed to complete the curse, than he does for his own child and ultimately attempts to murder his entire family just because he knows how much they mean to Rumpelstiltskin. Pan ended up a nightmarish character who was feared and loathed by all, and unlike Cora, displayed zero redeeming features all the way to his well deserved end.
  • Conspicuous CG: The vines that attack Hansel and Gretel in "True North" are pretty awful.
    • Jiminy Cricket can be pretty bad too, as can the Big Bad Wolf.
    • The snakes in the episode "Fruits of the Poisonous Tree".
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Quite a few.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Rescue Me (How The Story Ends) by Kerrie Roberts is amazing
  • Designated Protagonist Syndrome: Some think Emma is a bland, uninteresting protagonist with hardly any character who is only there to bounce off of the fairy tail cast.
    • Some find her parents, Snow and Charming, to be the same from Season 2 and onward after their initial story arc is completed.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Cora kills Regina's true love Daniel right in front of her and forces her to marry the king. So, naturally, Regina blames...Snow, who's the one who told Cora about the two of them.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Rumpelstiltskin is getting this. It was inevitable really. He also actually wears leather pants.
    • Regina too, especially as the show goes on and she becomes more sympathetic as her backstory and the tragic nature of her character comes to light.
    • Also Captain Hook when he was a villain. And Zelena. Heck, there are even a few Cora fans out their who give her this treatment!
    • Averted with King George (who's not sympathetic or attractive enough to get this) and Peter Pan (whom his fans love for being such an unapologetic evil shit).
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Ruby and Archie seem to be getting this treatment.
  • Evil Is Sexy:
    • The Evil Queen. Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold could also be considered this (depending on your tastes), but the Queen/Regina is the most clear-cut example.
    • It's also notable that in the Fairy Land flashbacks, the more overtly evil she's being, in general, the more plunging her neckline. Before her husband's death, she is show dressing demurely, by the time the curse is made, she appears to have a wardrobe consisting entirely of corsets.
    • Season 2 gives us Captain Hook, who's surprisingly way more attractive than you'd expect.
  • Fan Community Nickname: Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold's fans are called Dearies. So named by Robert Carlyle himself.
    • The Queen's fans are called Evil Regals, Snow White's are the Fairest, the Seven Dwarves' are Team 7, and Prince Charming's are Charmers. Team Emma has recently become pretty widely used among Emma Swan supporters.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • A minority like Snow and Charming but dislike M.M. and David. Weird as they're the same people trapped in different realities/personas.
      • Part of it may be since in the human world, David is married, and the affair that results from it turns out rather ugly.
    • And judging by the response of "Skin Deep", Rumpelstiltskin and Belle. Much like on Lost, side couplings end up more compelling than the show's primary romance. Lesson: OTP can't be forced.
    • Minutes after "Hat Trick", shippers wanted the Stranger to get out of town so Emma wouldn't be bothered if she decided to shack up with her other creepy stalker, Jefferson/Mad Hatter, instead.
    • One of the most popular couples among fans is the Crack Ship / Foe Yay pairing of Regina and Emma. It is second in popularity only to Belle and Rumpelstiltskin and by far the most popular possible pairing for either woman.
  • He Panned It, Now He Sucks: Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, while not completely giving Once Upon a Time a terrible score, didn't exactly give it praise with its pilot episode. So when even people who watched it with low expectations wound up loving the show, just about everyone reading his opinion piece ripped him a new one. A possible subversion, given that some of Ken's attackers already loathe him for numerous reasons, and used this as yet another reason to call him a grumpy dinosaur (despite his surprisingly wide tastes in TV).
  • Jerkass Woobie: It's hard not to feel sorry for Rumpelstiltskin after learning his full life story.
    • Ditto Regina, Hook, Greg Mendell, and even Cora.
    • While not villains, Jefferson aka the Mad Hatter, Dr. Whale aka Dr. Frankenstein, and August Booth aka Pinocchio also qualify.
    • Zelena the Wicked Witch is one in both the present and backstory of the episode "Kansas."
  • Lighter and Softer:
    • This, along with Reconstruction, may explain the show's success. After years of sexed up comedy shows, reality TV, Darker and Edgier dramas with Black and Gray Morality conflicts, and grislier police/medical/lawyer procedural shows, a straight up battle between good and evil with an intriguing mystery at the core feels so refreshing to audiences in comparison.
    • The story of Hansel and Gretel is softened by making it an accident that the children were separated from their father rather than him abandoning them.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Rumpelstiltskin. The whole first season was basically the story of his biggest Batman Gambit.
    • Regina as the mayor, particularly in the second half of the first season. It is glorious how she is always one step ahead.
    • Cora and Peter Pan pick up the slack after Rumpelstiltskin and Regina start declining in villainy.
    • Even Captain Hook has his moments as this, particularly in "Into the Deep" and "The Evil Queen".
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Regina Mills/The Evil Queen:
      • Killing her own father, admittedly the one thing she loved more than anything else. There was almost no going back for her after that.
      • Alternatively, if you were willing to accept the Sympathetic Murder Backstory on the death of her father, the repeated rape and murder of Graham certainly qualifies. Ironically, though, it's never spoken of again, thus never held against her.
      • And if you were wiling to accept even that, then the revelation that she's kept Belle (who, unlike Snow White or the Huntsman, never crossed her or did her any harm at all) shut away in a mental ward for twenty eight years, presumably either to keep her quiet or as some sort of bargaining chip against Mr. Gold might just do it.
      • Also arranging to have Kathryn Nolan, who'd seen her as a friend, killed just to frame Mary Margaret for murder so that Snow and Charming can't find their happy ending.
      • Apprehending and murdering Kurt Flynn and leaving Owen fatherless back in Storybrooke's earliest days might have put her over the line.
      • "The Evil Queen" has Regina sinking to her lowest. In the past, we see her order the massacre of an entire village just because the villagers wouldn't reveal the location of Snow White to her. In the present, we see her planning to activate Storybrooke's built-in self destruction to kill everyone in it so that she could have Henry to herself at last. And she tells Henry what she plans to do, wiping his memory of the conversation with magic after he protests.
      • In short, it's hard to pick just one moment of crossing the line for the Evil Queen.
    • Cora:
      • If you didn't already consider Cora to have crossed the Moral Event Horizon with her constant emotional and physical abuse of her own daughter, then killing Daniel in cold blood and forcing her to marry the King probably would do the trick.
      • Even worse is that she killed Snow White's mother and then later hexed the horse Snow was riding so that Regina could come to her rescue, setting in motion the events that led to the above!
      • Having killed Sir Lancelot so that she could impersonate him for who knows how long, and then later massacring everyone in Lancelot's village so that she could control their corpses through their hearts she'd ripped out definitely earns her nastiness points.
      • How about framing her own daughter for murder just so that the town could turn against her and she'd have no one left to turn to except into her open arms?
      • Oh, and throwing her hostage, Johanna, out the clocktower window to her death even after Snow had given her the Dark One's dagger! Even Regina, who was willing to uphold the bargain, was momentarily shocked that her mother did this!
  • Narm: Prince Charming on Abigail and Frederick: "Have you tried True Love's Kiss?" Admittedly they do live in a world where the power of love can legitimately break curses, but come on, he sounds like he's recommending chicken soup for a cold.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Some think that the show is relying too much on Because Destiny Says So to convince the audience that Mary Margaret/Snow White and David/Charming are meant to be together instead of building a genuinely meaningful connection between the two.
    • Or they think this in regards to Mary Margaret & David but not Snow White & Charming.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Regina is a horrible person, and that's not even getting in to the things she did as the Evil Queen. And while it's left ambiguous exactly how she feels towards Henry, it's clearly not love as we'd understand it. But what she says regarding how a woman who adopts a child and raises the child is the "real mother" and not the biological mother who abandoned the child makes a lot of sense, even if she herself is a terrible example of that.
    • Emma even accepts that point, doing her best to distance herself from Henry and only becoming involved when it becomes obvious that Regina is a terrible person. Even after Regina frames Mary Margaret for murdering a woman she had kidnapped, Emma accepts that Henry is Regina's son.
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • In Episode 9. "There are no good foster parents."
      • Fridge Brilliance: Maybe the show’s seeming anti-adoption, anti-foster care message is a nod to the fact that, in fairy tales, stepparents and adoptive parents are usually evil.
        • Further in the fact that the "anti-adoption" message is mainly, if not exclusively from Emma. You know, the girl who had a rocky trip through "the System?" It's not the writers that have an anti-adoption message. It's Emma herself.
      • Somewhat justified as Emma is basing her judgement on her individual experience in the system; the Huntsman seems to have been happy with his admittedly unorthodox foster family, and neither Gepetto nor Granny are truly Pinocchio and Red's parents but they serve that role perfectly all the same.
    • "Skin Deep" lampshades the A Match Made in Stockholm implications of the Beauty and the Beast story--the problem is that the person bringing it up is Regina in the context of deceiving Belle.
    • The only black characters (the Genie, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother) literally only exist to magically make the lives of white people better.
    • Dwarves are born to work as miners until they die without pay and are not allowed to leave, they are basically a Slave Race and are expected to be fine with it.
      • This, however, does not go without lampshading, and although the episode ends with Grumpy returning to the mines, we're obviously not suppose to be happy about it. Things are actually better for them in Storybrooke once the curse is broken, as they now have freedom of choice in which jobs to work.
    • Red and Granny turn into monstrous beasts once a month (well, Granny used to, when she was younger), and only the power of a magical red cloak can stop Red from slaughtering everything in her path.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: In the season one finale, the dragon form of Maleficent is outstanding for a television production.
  • Wangst: Ashley and Mary Margaret complaining how love isn't what they thought it would be in "Skin Deep". Both are complaining how hard it is. To elaborate: Mary Margaret is dating an adulterer and Ashley's baby's daddy works all the time. Ashley's boyfriend is a nineteen-year-old supporting a cleaning lady and newborn daughter!
  • What an Idiot!: The Genie in "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree". After meeting Regina for two minutes he decides he's going to not only kill for her but kill the man who freed him from eternal slavery. Then when he finds out she set him up he refuses to flee and instead boneheadedly uses a wish (wishes he knows hardly ever turn out well) to be by her side forever. This for a woman who purposely led him on, used him and then set him up for murder. What an Idiot! indeed.
    • Cinderella also counts as this. While it is justified in how she was desperate to escape from her rather crappy life, she decides to sign a contract without even reading it with someone who is Obviously Evil.
    • Snow in "An Apple Red As Blood". Snow agrees to eat a poisoned apple because the Evil Queen says that if she eats it, then she won't kill him. Snow doesn't have any reason to believe that the Queen will keep her promise, but she eats the apple anyway. Naturally, the Evil Queen tries to execute him shortly afterwards.
    • Jefferson, also in "An Apple Red As Blood". Jefferson agrees to help Regina, even though she screwed him over last time he worked with her. He makes a deal with her that if he helps her retrieve what she needs, then she will wipe his memory of the Fairy Tale world, make Grace remember that Jefferson is her father, and set them up for a good life. Regina agrees to this, but insists that he help her get what she wants first, which he does. After Regina has the apple, she refuses to hold up her end of the bargain. She has no reason to do anything for Jefferson after he gets her what she wants, since he has no leverage. Also, if she wiped Jefferson's memories, he'd have no way to know if she had upheld her end of the bargain or not, or even that there was any sort of bargain to begin with.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: You know! Fairy tales!
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: Regina tearing down Henry's wooden fortress is regarded as a breath-takingly evil act by just about everyone. While it was certainly unnecessary and mean-spirited, the reaction seems... excessive, especially in comparison to her many more legitimately heinous deeds.
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: "Hat Trick" is a bit strange already, but about the time a giant blue smoke-blowing caterpillar appears, well...
  • The Woobie:
    • The two unloved kids: Emma and Henry.
    • And the sad but very sweet Miss Mary Margret Blanchard, and her oppressed fugitive alter-ego Snow White.
    • Don't forget Dr. Archie Hopper/Jiminy Cricket.
    • Shepherd David being forced to never see his mother again and having to call the man who threatened her "father" for the rest of his life all in the name of duty.
      • And later, said father seems to have ended up resenting him anyway and declares to Snow White that he isn't his son. Only the king's pragmatic nature and desire to preserve his kingdom keep him in check.
    • Graham/The Huntsman. Because he spared Snow White, the Queen ripped out his heart, condemning him to never feel anything again, then made him into her Sex Slave. Then, when it looked like he might finally get free of her, she crushed his heart and killed him.
    • Belle. Dear God...
    • Abigail/Kathryn. Kathryn is easily sympathetic, but Abigail becomes this as well once her backstory is revealed.
    • Red. See... Granny was bitten by the original Big Bad Wolf who, as it turns out, was a werewolf. And Granny's husband. In turn, this meant Granny's daughter would become the 2nd Big Bad. And in turn, Red herself is the 3rd Big Bad. Who happens to eat her love.
    • Really, most of the cast whether due to the Dark Curse or otherwise, have gone through some pretty terrible things.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Rumpelstiltskin. He literally "destroy[s] this world for the next."
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