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Season 1

  • Maleficent's attire and demeanor in her first appearance is entirely different than how she appears in later seasons. Blonde haired, gold crowns and pink dresses aren't what the Mistress Of All Evil is known for, but it makes sense when you think why that must be: Maleficent is dressed more softly and more femininely (and less threateningly) because she's in her maternal state. The point where meet her in the second episode she's pregnant. The only other time we see her wearing pink and with her hair out is when she has given birth.
  • Snow has a one-night stand with Doctor Whale, which she later regrets (both without the Enchanted Forest memories and with). Well, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and we all know how she feels about apples...
  • In the pilot, Snow tells Charming the Evil Queen poisoned her with an apple because she was "prettier" than her. Of course viewers learn later in the season that the actual reason is a lot less shallow than that. This might just be a continuity error or a total Retcon by the creators, but it may be because in the pilot they first show the scenes in Enchanted Forest being read from the book by Henry. The book probably contains more simplified versions of actual events than what happened in the Enchanted Forest and doesn't mention Daniel or Cora at all. It also explains why Henry is so hard on Regina because it seems that she is evil for such petty reasons. It might also be that at the time Snow says that, she does not feel comfortable going into the real reasons, which would involve owning up to the greatest mistake she ever made in her life—a mistake that still haunts her even in the present (as she demonstrates in S2 when she remonstrates with Emma over her guilt for not believing Henry).
    • The creators of the show confirmed they weren't thinking that far ahead when they gave Snow that line about Regina wanting her dead because she thought she was prettier. Which seems odd when in the next episode, Maleficent and Regina have lines that obviously hint at the real reason why Regina wants Snow dead.
  • In Episode 3, we learn that Rumple is trapped in his cell without his powers; Season Six confirms this is a lie, with Rumple stating that he's "exactly where I want to be". However, this reveal is hinted as much earlier; in Episode 1, Rumplestiltskin uses his powers in his cell to see the future to tell Snow and David when their child will come to save them. It was literally staring everyone in the face and we didn't see it for six whole seasons.
  • Red's boyfriend was named Peter. Now remember that story, Peter And The Wolf?
  • Why did Regina lock up Belle? Belle, who is one of the few characters NOT to cross her? To make Gold miserable? That's probably a bonus. But the curse of Storybrooke can only be broken by true love's kiss, and it's pretty strongly suggested that Belle and Rumplestiltskin would've had true love's kiss had he not rejected her. While we know that Emma's the savior who will break the curse, it's hinted that Regina doesn't know HOW it will be broken. Why not cover all the bases and make sure nobody who fits the criteria for True Love's Kiss is together in Storybrooke? It both makes them miserable AND is extra security that the curse will stay in effect. Furthermore, while it's fuzzy how the time frame falls, but it's plausible she was kept as a contingency plane. Seeing as how Rumple is both a stronger magic user than Regina by far, and has cut a deal to be able to recall his Fairy Tale life. Considering this is a man who does nothing without some manner of an agenda, not having an ace in the hole is foolishness at the very best. And on top of all that, itā€™s revealed much further down the line that Rumple was destined to be a savior before his mother sheared it away when he was a baby. There's a possibility he still could have broken the curse.
    • Even more fridge brilliance: if Rumple losing his savior status could be considered a "curse", who's to say True Love's Kiss couldn't break it?
  • Why is Kathryn David's wife in the real world? Because the curse keeps everyone from having a happy ending. EVERYONE. Princess Abigail was in love with Frederick while the counterparts don't even know each other, and what could prevent some one from being happy more than keeping them from their true love and thinking their husband walked out on them?
  • In "Snow Falls", Snow was able to keep up with/ outfox Charming... after "The Shepherd", it's clear why. He was a shepherd, not a trained knight.
  • Henry explains that it was Graham's connection to Emma that enabled him to remember his fairytale persona. This would explain why Henry, (who, as Emma's son has the closest connection to her) is the one who knows so much about the curse and is so driven by instinct to break it, despite him having no concrete proof.
  • Rumplestiltskin was uncharacteristically quiet during the scene in "The Shepherd" when Shepherd and his mother are about to part, and when Cinderella offered to give up her second child in "The Price Of Gold", he looks upset, particularly when she comments 'we can always have more children'. The idea of someone offering to give up their child for material gain is clearly upsetting to him, and Robert Carlyle did a great job of showing us a subtle tortured imp. When "Desperate Souls" comes around, it's revealed that there's a reason for him to be sympathetic toward a parent losing her child. This is again shown in "True North" when Gold tells Emma the curse name of Hansel and Gretel's father with no strings attached (even pretending to read it from a card when really he just knew) and in "The Stranger" when he's pushing for August to meet with his father Marco, despite the fact that August had recently deceived Gold into thinking he was his own son, Baelfire.
  • "Desperate Souls" also explains why Rump (in his magical form) would be notable for his spinning ability - it was something he did as a human. And why his favorite thing to ask for is your first born. When he gained his powers he lost (in first the emotional sense and subsequently the physical sense) his first born so in order for him to use those powers for you he takes yours.
  • Why is Rump so gloating back in Episode 2, when he tells Regina she has to kill the one person she truly loves in order to make the curse work? Because it's the perfect payback for what she did to him and Belle. And again in Episode 53. He really likes to rub in how Regina lost someone she loved, as a "see how it feels?" kind of thing.
    • It makes even more sense when you remember who it was she ended up killing. Rumple would have no doubt known who the person was who Regina loved most. There was only one person who Regina went out of her way to rescue and only one person who stuck by Regina. Henry Sr. The same person who Cora left him to marry.
  • After having taken the potion to forget Charming, Snow White begins to live up to her name a lot more; her skin is much paler and her lips - well, they aren't red, but they're still a darker pink than usual. Possibly a side effect (or an outright effect) of the potion - turning evil makes you look more peaky.
  • Mary Margaret's sudden Destination Defenestration move to Jefferson is her subconscious Mama Bear Snow White kicking in because Jefferson was threatening her daughter, Emma.
  • Combination of this and Fridge Logic. While much of what caused the fall of the Enchanted Forest was already in motion, the last three wishes that the magic lamp granted greatly helped the rise of the Evil Queen, the first 1001 are know to have caused problems, but the last 3 caused problems to everyone.
  • Belle didn't know the battle she was actually fighting when the Queen told her that True Love would break Rumplestiltskin's power: forcing him to choose her or his son. That broken teacup holds more of Rumple's sorrow than anyone knew.
  • More of a meta one but the scene where Rumple and Baelfire get separated. What does Rump use to prevent being sucked into the portal? The knife. It's a symbolic gesture that he's clinging to the power of The Dark One and that it has control of him - it wants him to be miserable and evil.
  • When Emma rescues Henry from the collapsed mine shaft, Regina greets him, not with a hug, but by stroking his face. It looks exactly as awkward as if she's imitating something from a movie. It's Regina trying to get past her Lack of Empathy to show that she cares about her son.
  • "Red-Handed" isn't just a pun on Red's name; it's a not quite title drop - after all, Granny and Snow did catch her red handed in the act!
  • How did they even know that the prints were Mary Margaret's? Because she's a teacher. It's a requirement in many states to be fingerprinted as part of the certification.
  • Regina burns down the playground, tried to destroyed the book of fairy tales, and what's her way of "making it up" to Henry? A video game.
  • August has dark hair while Pinocchio's is red. Seems inconsistent, but then again, wood darkens with age.
  • In "What Happened to Frederick" a shrine is seen dedicated to the Siren. We see a hoplite (Ancient Greek soldier) helm. Midas himself is a character from Classical mythology so it's no surprise to see remnants of that ancient culture. Also, the offerings at the shrine do more than beg for the creature's mercy. They are sacrifices functioning as a trade of sorts. A person cannot take from a deity without giving something in return or the deity will perceive it as an insult. Anyone who has read the Classical Mythos knows not paying respect to the supernatural and spirits will screw you over. So when Charming waltzes right in without leaving an offering, it's no surprise the Siren appears to kill him. But instead of being killed by the temptress, he kills the monster. Classical heroes were little more than badasses of masculine virtue, more so than the archetypical and romantic figures we view them as today. In this scene, Charming displays the attitudes of both, one resisting female evils and preferring romantic love over lust (Heroic Willpower). He's placing the emotion of love, something spiritual, as something higher than carnal desires. But by Classical standards, killing the monster shows he's "the man" for lack of a better term; conquering the monsters/supernatural instead of submitting (sacrificing) to them proves he's a badass man. However he only prevailed by applying to a higher virtue, "true love". This scene reinforces how powerful true love is in the Enchanted Forest. It allows a person to become both a badass and a hero at once, it transforms you into something more than you once were and are. It also fits into what the writers are trying to convey with their idea of true love; it can overcome everything.
  • Massive in-universe brilliance from the Season 1 finale. Gold explains to Emma that he hid his last bit of bottled True Love in "the belly of a beast", and Regina adds that it's an old friend trapped in a different form. Maleficent is the version of the villain from Sleeping Beauty used because of the added bonus she comes with - she can turn into a dragon (a beast).
  • When we first meet Maleficent she is relaxed, reasonable and forgiving, putting the welfare of her pet ahead of her ownā€¦ in a word, acting very out of character for someone who has traditionally been one of the nastiest fairy tale villains and one with the pettiest of motives. But then we find out that at that point in time she had the True Love Potion hidden inside her body. The most powerful magic of all is affecting her mind and making her nicer! This makes Regina's line to her "Love is weakness. I thought you knew that" more significant.
    • Also in season two we realize that she lived the rest of her life thinking that she had won. cause in modern day EF, Philip (with Mulan's help) had just gotten to Aurora, so Maleficent had got what she wanted
      • There is even more brilliance there after watching Season 4. Not only did she believe she had won... and have a true love potion inside her... but she was also probably pregnant at that point. The Season 4 flashback of the Queens of Darkness working with Snow to defeat Regina is implied to happen very soon after Regina stole the curse from Maleficent
  • This goes back to A Heart of Darkness. Rumplestiltskin giving Snow the bow and arrow telling her that it always hits it target and gets his wielder what they need seem to be just a simple exposition. But then when you realize that Charming was the one hit by the arrow, which then lead to True Love's Kiss between Snow and Charming, makes you realize that Rumple was playing matchmaker or in other words, Cupid.
  • Also from Heart of Darkness was the little chat between Rumple and Charming. The Dealer seems to give Charming a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, but if you remember the events of "Skin Deep", you see that he obviously sees some similarities between himself and Charming and he is most likely projecting his own anger at himself onto Charming. Then comes "The Crocodile" where Gold asks David for advice. It's obvious he knows he can trust him for advice, given their similarities.
  • No wonder Gold was so much harsher than usual with Moe French. So far as he knew, this was the man who caused the death of Gold's true love. This is what he even says during his Villainous Breakdown as he beats Moe up. "YOU drove her away! It's YOUR FAULT! NOT MINE! YOURS!"
  • Going back a while into early Season 1 but when Regina asks Gold to do something tragic to Kathryn, he chooses to abduct her and states that he finds abduction tragic. Knowing more of his backstory, we can see why he might honestly think that even if he wasn't screwing with Regina.
  • At the very moment Emma has just tried and failed to confess her lie about his father to Henry, August rides into town and into Emma's life. August happens to be not only the one who caused Henry's father Neal Cassady to leave Emma, but also Pinocchio. It's as if the lie ''summoned'' him.
  • Early one from Season 1: Why "please" for Regina's Trigger Phrase? Well, how many times did your parents tell you to "say the magic word" to get something you wanted when you were a kid? Rumple just turned it into a literal magic word.
  • It is clear from "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" that Graham is meant to be the Huntsman from "Snow White". However, there was a second layer to Graham's character that was not so obvious. The Huntsman could also be considered to be Mowgli, who was also taken care of wolves, considered them their family, and only remembered and accepted his roots thanks to a human girl (just like Emma was the one that helped him remember his true self).
  • The story of the Mad Hatter takes on a new dimension in this series. Hatters were traditionally called mad due to mercury poisoning that they used in making their hats. However, what's another definition of insanity? Repeating the same action over and over, while expecting a different outcome. That's essentially what Jefferson was roped into doing when trying to make a new hat: an endless repetition trying to get it to work.
  • The amusingly ruthless and undiplomatic way in which Regina tries to solve every problem in Storybrooke (mostly all her goes at "Miss Swan, stay away from this, stay away from that" with which she just always makes it more difficult for herself) tended to baffle me, what with her supposedly being a politician and all, until "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" confirmed that she is not affected by the curse. She's just used to being a villain who makes everyone cower in fear with her every word, she never learned to be diplomatic. Not to mention, it was pointed out that Regina pretty much has the town cowed, no one dares run against her for Mayor, no one seems to question her...she's never really been up against anyone she can't just glare into submission in this world, and it's clearly throwing her for a loop.
  • According to the Queen, "true love's kiss can break any curse." That would explain why Graham regained his memories. Since Emma is the only one who had magic and she was his true love!
  • The reason August/Pinnochio can't open his door when he was changing back to wood; he was losing all his enchantment, even the amount that allowed him to move without strings, as a result of being in the Land Without Magic.
  • In "The Price of Gold", Rumplestiltskin tells Cinderella that altering bargains is "not what I do". Come Season 2's "The Miller's Daughter", we learn why he has this rule: He did change the terms of a deal once and it came back to bite him in the ass.
  • Look at Cinderella's situation in Storybrooke compared to how it was in the Enchanted Forest before Rumplestiltskin waltzed back in her life. She had a lovely life, Thomas loved her genuinely and her father-in-law accepted her despite her past. In Storybrooke she's having to support herself while 8 months pregnant and Sean's father is the one that split the couple up - and arranged for her deal with Mr Gold. Regina was really being petty when it came to taking away Cinderella's happy ending.
  • Why is Sean having to work so much in "Skin Deep" - to the degree where Ashley can barely see him? Because he works as a mechanic. The only other mechanics in town are an aging old man (Marco), someone who might be inexperienced at best (Billy) and Ava and Nicholas's father - who's suddenly a single parent supporting two grown children. While Sean can rely on Ashley to take care of their baby, Michael is both single and running a business.
  • It makes a lot of sense that August/Pinocchio fell for many temptations over his lifetime considering the fact that Archie/Jiminy was in Storybrooke the whole time. August/Pinocchio didn't have a conscience always reminding him to choose right over wrong.
  • Snow White and Pinocchio being important figures in Emma's life makes sense when you realize that they're both the first movies in the Disney Animated Canon.
    • It can also explain why Cinderella is the first non-main character to have A Day in the Limelight. She's the third movie in the canon that's based off a fairy tale.
  • Looking at all of Rumplestiltskin's deals, you notice how almost all of them factor in to his master plan, such as getting Regina to cut her ties with King George or getting strands of hair from both Prince Charming and Snow White. Even his deal with Cora was changed to something that would benefit him. Then you get to Cinderella and he requests a baby. Just a plain normal baby. Then you realize that his game's already set. He didn't need anything out of Cinderella, but his concept of deals meant that she had to give something in return. Not only that, but scaring someone by taking away their kids is a good way to get them to conspire with people to put you in a jail, the one place where Rumple feels is exactly where he wants to be.
  • The Storybrooke identity of Cinderella is named Ashley Boyd. Seems like a rather typical name, but here's the brilliance: in the original Grimm fairy tale, Cinderella's name (in German) was Aschenputtel.
  • Something that is interestingly never remarked upon but seems obvious in retrospect once the clues are put together: in "What Happened to Frederick", Abigail reveals that the waters of Lake Nostos will "bring back what is lost"; in Storybrooke, August reveals the same thing about the wishing well thanks to what the plaque by it reads. This implies the well contains some of the lake's waters. Then, in the season finale, Gold says the same thing about the well before dropping the True Love potion in to bring magic to Storybrooke. Finally, in "Queen of Hearts", when Cora brings the last of Lake Nostos's waters out from underneath its dried-up bed, she not only also speaks of what it can do to the wardrobe ashes (and eventually, the bean Hook took from Anton), the portal this creates opens out...in the wishing well. What is never explained is why this connection exists; perhaps Regina placed it into the curse so she'd have a means to bring back magic if it became necessary; or even more likely, Rumple did it precisely so he could bring back magic as he does for his quest for Baelfire. If so, he obviously never realized what the curse would do to the town line (which may also have been Regina's doing, to ensure all the cursed people could never leave or make better lives for themselves/no one from the outside world could find the town and interfere).

Season 2

  • At the beginning of the series, one might consider it rather odd that Henry - a bright, good-hearted lad who, as time shows, is genuinely fond of his adoptive mother - sets everything in motion because he thinks Regina is "an evil witch" without any visible proof or even hint except an old fairy tale book; and is adamant about being right to a degree which could be considered an obsession. Skip to the episode "Welcome to Storybrooke", where it is shown that the whole town and its inhabitants are trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Of course such a disturbing environment makes someone who is not (but appears to be the only person that ages or has a memory of the changes passing) ask certain questions, especially if the only other person not trapped in the loop is one's mother.
  • While most of the characters who embark on the quest to save Henry at the end of season two have obvious familial motivations (Emma's son, Regina's adopted son, Rumple, Snow and Charming's grandson), Hook's motivations are not as clear-cut... until one realizes that he also has a special connection to Henry. Hook is the guy who stole Baelfire's mother, who would be Henry's grandmother. And for a brief period of time, he was like a second father to Baelfire. Assuming Hook's love for Milah was genuine, Baelfire was all Hook had left of her, and now since everyone thinks Bae is dead, Henry is all that Hook has left of him. His decision to help save Henry can be chalked is keeping in line with Hook's self-serving desire to hold onto the last remnants of his lost love.
  • For all the Nightmare Fuel Rumple ripping Milah's heart out is, it actually makes a lot of sense. When you marry someone, you kinda do offer your heart to them. She broke his heart, so he broke hers. Just, in a more literal sense.
  • The inclusion of Victor Frankenstein struck many viewers as odd at first because it seemed to break the showā€™s trend of only using fairy tales and books that have been done by Disney, but then it struck me. At the time that ā€œThe Doctorā€ aired, Frankenweenie was coming out in theaters.
  • On that note, why did Victor wear thick, tinted glasses in the Enchanted Forest, when he'd never been shown wearing glasses before? Because he's from a black and white world, and the sudden explosion of colors was probably a bit overwhelming until he got used to it.
  • Rumplestiltskin cutting off Hook's hand. While yes aggravating that it wasn't Peter Pan that did so, it makes sense since Rumple tends to tinker with people as well as his association with Belle. The Fridge Brilliance increases when you realize, yes, it was not Peter Pan who took Hook's hand. It was Peter Pan's son.
  • One of the most common mistakes is to confuse Doctor Frankenstein and his monster, which is referenced in the show. But since the monster was the doctor's attempt to resurrect his brother, that means the monster is Frankenstein.
  • A major theme in the original Frankenstein novel is the doctor shirking his responsibility to the creature he has created, which views him as a parent. Here, it's the doctor himself with daddy issues. Also, the end of the novel implies that the monster essentially commits suicide by casting himself into the sea, something the doctor attempts here. These parallels lend credence to the fact that this version of Frankenstein sees himself as the monster.
  • In "We Are Both", Regina barges into Gold's shop and demands her spellbook. Gold tries to invoke his power over her by asking her to "Leave my shop, please." It might seem strange to the viewer that he thinks the trigger will still work now that the curse is gone...until you remember that Gold/Rumplestiltskin values the Exact Words of a deal over the intent of the dealmaker. The exact words of his deal with Regina were "In this new world, you must heed my every request. You must do whatever I say, so long as I say 'please'." "In this new world" as opposed to "as long as the curse remains in effect." Even though the curse is gone, they're still in the world that Regina created. From Gold's perspective, he has every reason to think that he can still control her that way.
  • Regina pushed Cora through a mirror. Where did she end up? Through The Looking Glass.
  • At first, Gold's anger at discovering that no one can leave Storybrooke seems like it's just about not being able to go find Baelfire, but there's a second layer to it if you look closely. The memory wiping is a magical property associated with the town line. As such, it requires magic to exist. Mr. Gold was the one who brought magic to Storybrooke. If he had left well enough alone, the memory wipe wouldn't even be possible. He sacrificed his son for his addiction yet again and that is what truly pissed him off. He brought magic to Storybrooke, yet forgot his own favorite words: ALL magic comes with a price. And not being able to move beyond Storybrooke to go search for his son is the price he pays for all this magic.
  • The masquerade ball in The Miller's Daughter explains everything about the aesthetic of Wonderland: Cora reshaped the place to be her playground, revising the history of the night the king humiliated her so that all those masked people are eternally bowing to her.
  • When Cora tells Rumple that he's the only man she ever loved, it's not a declaration of love. It's a declaration of truth since, without her heart, she couldn't love anyone she met afterwards.
  • Why did Cora listen to King Xavier over Rumple and take her own heart out? Because Xavier, in his manipulative words and blatant "Not So Different" Remark overtones, just went from someone she hated to a father figure. Cora had to live with a drunken, neglectful father all her life, and so she always had a void left from a lack of fatherly guidance. She'd been without a proper father far longer than she'd been without romantic love, so of course she chose the former over the latter when given the option. Xavier even calls her "daughter" when she's naming Regina, again showing just what the relationship between these two is.
  • "Welcome to Storybrooke" The story in the past with Kurt and Owen has, in fact, many similarities to classic witch stories. And there are emerging elements to Owen's story in the present, with him becoming a Witch Hunter.
    • It also has some resemblance to another Disney product from Horowitz and Kitsis. The crazy "admin" of the sterile, creepy "perfect system" entraps the Flynns, targets the son, wants the father out of the way, and tries to kill them both. The younger Flynn is pushed into the passage back to the "real" world, but can only stand and watch helplessly as his dad pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to get him to safety. Unlike Clu, however, Regina gets away with it and continues her reign of terror.
  • In "Child of the Moon", why did no-one suggest locking Ruby in the cavern beneath the clocktower, the most logical place to contain a werewolf? Because the only people who knew about it were Emma, Regina and Gold, who were all out of the way at the time. Emma was trapped in the Enchanted Forest, while Regina and Gold were preoccupied with finding a way to help end Henry's terrible nightmares, thus weren't around to find out about Ruby. One imagines everyone was kicking themselves when they discovered that the library they tried to lock her up in, actually has a dragon-proof basement.
  • King George's hatred of Snow White seems to be very extreme, however "The Evil Queen" reveals that it was Snow's kingdom that caused him to go broke, which may explain his resentment towards her thwarting his attempt to marry off Charming.
  • Ruth was trying to atone for her mistake of selling her sons to King George which ruined both boys' lives. Charming always wanted a family of his own; her dying was to atone for the mistakes of ruining the one he already had.
  • Why did Regina wait so long, just before she was ready to die in fact, to tell Greg that his father is dead? Why go through all that torture beforehand? Because she knew the moment she did, he'd kill her. The reason she tells him at the last minute was because he would kill her regardless and just like when she was on the execution block, she didn't want to look weak when she died so she taunted him with his father's death.
    • An alternative theory: she only tells him after overhearing Tamara say that Emma, Neal, Charming and Snow have entered the cannery. So perhaps the reason she didn't say anything before was because then Greg and Tamara would use the trigger after she died and destroy Storybrooke...and with his birth-mother, grandparents, and Regina herself all dead, Henry would be completely homeless and alone. Regina only talked and was willing to die when she knew people who could stop them and retrieve the trigger were on the scene.
    • It's also possible that she didn't kill him the way she said she did, and it was actually Graham who did the deed, since he was there when we last saw Kurt as well. Regina didn't want to disrespect Graham's memory so she refused to tell of how Kurt's death really happened, and when she finally had to tell Owen that his father was dead, she took full responsibility for the murder rather than drag Graham's name down.
  • Mary Margaret's willingness to forgive Regina for framing her in Season 1 makes a lot more sense after you watch "The Evil Queen." Snow's own purity of heart aside, Regina probably put that into her cursed persona in order to gain the forgiveness that Snow originally denied to her. Yet ironically now when it happens, it's against Regina's desires and only makes her feel shamed and humiliated.
  • It might seem strange at first that Baelfire bolts when hearing Emma's voice on his apartment intercom. But once it's revealed that he is also Neal Cassidy, it makes perfect sense. Who wouldn't head for the hills upon hearing the voice of the ex-girlfriend that they broke up with and left to be taken in by the cops for several counts of theft? He probably figured Emma was there for payback.
  • At first, it seems that the Oracle was only introduce to explain how Rumplestiltskin knew that he'd find Baelfire alive after waiting a couple of centuries to find him. But it explains something else too - world traveling isn't common in the old days, but it isn't uncommon either. This is before the Giants were all killed. The other Oracles found translating the images of the future to be confusing - but Rumplestiltskin was particularly focused on Storybrooke and its inhabitants. He would have found translating the future to be confusing too, but he might have gotten a few rough stories because of the additional power of the Dark One. Not sensible sounding stories - but stories that might be fun, if they were somehow transported to another world, and made it into the hands of the Brothers Grimm. Frankenstein and Peter Pan probably didn't make it into the book because he didn't focus on them when trying to find his son - their stories entered the world later.
  • Baelfire's stay on the Jolly Roger is a reference to Billy Jukes, a character in the cartoon Fox Peter Pan and the Pirates. Billy Jukes was a also a young castaway who was rescued by the pirates and made a crew member.He also bonded with another pirate but it wasn't Hook.
  • For all that it was worth, King George destroying the magic hat has actually done more good than spite. How? Remember that little rule that Jefferson stressed about how the same amount of people are required for entering and exiting the hat? Using the hat was a plan that would have crashed and burned faster than it literally burning.
  • When the previews for "The Doctor" first aired, there was a good deal of speculation that Dr. Whale would turn out to be the Wizard of Oz. While this proved to not be the case, several characters connected to him actually do fit Oz personas quite well:
    • Victor Frankenstein - the Wonderful Wizard, whose tricks seems like magic but can't really give you what you want
    • Jefferson, the patchy scarecrow-like man who lost his mind
    • Gerhardt, the cobbled-together "tin man" without a heart
    • Rumplestiltskin, the cowardly lion
    • Ruby Lucas - the girl associated with red who had her world rocked and has more in common with the wizard than it first seems. In a twist of irony, Ruby ends up in a relationship with Dorothy.

Season 3

  • Pan telling Henry that lots of captives believe that their families are coming back isn't just to keep up his ruse. It actually served dual purposes: First, it allowed him to test the strength of Henry's belief. Second, and this is where the Fridge Brilliance comes in, he was probably hoping to discourage Henry from believing that. After all, this is Neverland, where belief and imagination have power. If Henry, the truest believer, remains convinced that his family will come and save him, then they will. It also fits in with Pan's entire plan - to make Henry truly believe in him enough so that he may willingly give him his heart.
  • While the specifics of how they were obtained have yet to be revealed, it's now obvious what the deal was with Greg and Tamara's Weird Science. It wasn't science at all. It was a bunch of toys enchanted with magic...Neverland's magic, which is run on the power of belief. Peter and the Lost Boys (the "Home Office") lied to Greg and Tamara to make them believe it was magic-destroying science, and because they believed in it, it became magic-destroying science. But when Greg and Tamara came to Neverland, their super-scientific gadgets back into the toys they were all along because, as is later confirmed, the belief-powered magic of Neverland doesn't work for adults when they're actually in Neverland. So in Neverland, Greg and Tamara's belief is useless since they're adults.
    • It's now been revealed that their "science" was given to them by John and Michael Darling, who Pan uses as the "go-betweens" for Neverland and Earth. They've traveled back and forth through the century, presumably via the Shadow, and formed the organization to "destroy magic" as a front for Pan's plan to get the Heart of the Truest Believer.
  • "Think Lovely Thoughts" explains so much about Rumplestiltskin.
    • His shortcomings as Bae's father can easily be attributed to the poor excuse for a role model that he had growing up. He loves to spin because his father left him in the company of seamstresses while he went to gamble his money away. He hates Pan so much because he feels that, in a sense, Pan took away the father he had loved and believe in.
    • In "Nasty Habbits", Rumple mentions to Bae how he and Pan were close when Rumple "was growing up." How they found Neverland and Pan betrayed him there. He then adds "He fooled me for a long time before I finally saw his true nature, and it's as dark and repulsive as anything you should ever be exposed to." "Think Lovely Thoughts" explains everything before that last part. The backstory ends with Rumple seemingly still loving and missing his dad. In "Nasty Habits" flashback, we see Rumple and Pan's first meeting in ages and Rumple already knows that his father is going by what Rumple named his old doll. It's also established that children can come to Neverland in their dreams but never stay. So it's entirely conceivable that child Rumple had seen Neverland and his father again in his dreams, and that's when it became clear to him that his father had absolutely zero remorse for the choice he made to abandon Rumple in order to regain his youth. That is what Rumple meant by "finally seeing his true dark, repulsive nature." It's the moment he lost all faith in his old man.
    • Also compare Rumple's behavior as the Dark One after losing Bae to that of his father before he became Pan. They are remarkably similar to each other. Most likely since he abandoned Bae for his own power, he subconsciously acted that way because he reminded himself of his own father. This explains why he thought Bae would kill him if they met back in The Return, because that's what he would do to his own father if/when they met again. Since his father was an Adult Child, it's also possible that this could represent Rumple regressing to a child-like state to fill the void of missing his own child, though keeping enough awareness of it to play it up for all it's worth.
    • Moreover, Rumple and his father are parallels yet also complete opposites. When Rumple's father received the powers of Neverland, he abandoned Rumple immediately and didn't regret it. But when Rumple received the powers of the Dark One, he almost seemed to obsess over Bae, killing anyone who so much as looked at the boy the wrong way. Rumple was deliberately trying not to be like his father, but he went too far in the other direction and ended up being just as destructive anyway. But a key difference, as Rumple points out in the episode, is that when he ends up abandoning his child in favor of keeping his power, he immediately regrets the decision and dedicates his life to finding his son and making amends. Malcolm showed no such regret after abandoning Rumple because he felt his son was better off without him as a father and, more importantly, he was better off without a son to weigh him down.
    • Rumple's fear of Bae using a magic bean to take them to a new world where they could "start over" also gains significance, for it exactly mirrors young Rumple's proposition with a magic bean to his own father. Instead of finding a new life and happiness together, Rumple ended up betrayed, abandoned, and emotionally scarred by his father. So Rumple's true fear was not that he'd lose his magic: it was that if he and Bae went through that hole, he'd end up doing the same thing to Bae that his father did to him! When he shouted "It will tear us apart!", he was referring to his and his son's relationship. And in the ultimate Dramatic Irony, his effort to avoid this outcome and cling to what he saw as "strength", his magic power, he ends up abandoning his son anyway!
    • To add to this almost all of Rumple's actions are influenced by his father's abandonment. Before Milah left Rumple for Hook she tried to get Rumple to move to another village that didn't know his reputation and so they could start over. Rumple refused to do so. At first it appeared to be because of his cowardice, but he and his dad went to Neverland in first place to start over in a new place. In that new place his father chose to abandon him. Given Milah's treatment of Rumple it makes perfect sense for him not to want to go to a new place out of fear Milah would leave him as well. Rumple's belief that he is impossible to love stems back to his father's abandonment of him. He probably subconsciously believed he was the reason Malcolm left. Milah and Cora leaving him added more fuel to the belief, which explain why he didn't believe Belle really loved him when she first kissed him.
    • Adding on to this, it is also revealed that Rumple's mother had also abandoned him and his father, also for power.
  • Another one from the same episode. Yes, Henry was an idiot for sacrificing himself. However, Pan had a point; all of his relatives have been very selfish jerks to each other for the last couple seasons. Emma lied about Neal being his dad, Neil abandoned Emma and let her rot in jail to give birth to him alone without so much as checking up on her. The Charmings and Emma openly talked about killing Regina. Snow White tricked Regina into murdering Cora. Regina has a laundry list of nasty things she's pulled against Emma, the Charmings, and the entire town in addition to Gaslighting him for years and then pulling a mind-whammy on him with the magic. They all want him, but have been willing to do nasty things to one another in order to have him all to themselves. Meanwhile, Pan has had centuries of practice in manipulating people, especially vulnerable young boys. Pan played both Henry's desire to be a hero and his doubts about his family's motivations in order to get exactly what he wanted.
  • Save Henry episode actually has a Double-Meaning Title: apart from the obvious "it's about saving Henry" meaning, it can be also read with "save" meaning "except", as in "[everyone] save Henry [comes back]".
  • Rumple's murder-suicide on himself and his father has SO MUCH of this. The reason he had kept saying that "the only way Pan can die is if I die with him" is because he had this planned from the start - he'd bury his dagger and detach his shadow to keep watch over it, and then once he was close enough to Pan, he could lock him in an embrace, call back his shadow with the dagger, and use it to skewer them both. But two aspects of this action become especially brilliant:
    • One is that initially the only reason he thought of doing this was because he believed his son had died and that he had failed at being the father he wanted to be. So with nothing left to live for (except Belle, but he wanted to be selfless and let her go, hoping she'd be better off without him), sacrificing his life to save his grandson would be both his way of making up for that and a way to die a brave hero rather than a cowardly villain. He had fully accepted that Henry would be his undoing because he was going to willingly make what he had to do to rescue him his undoing. And he also really wanted to kill his father for closure. So he was The Atoner in every sense. However, when he learned that his son was still alive, it threw everything about his plan into question. Now he had a son and a grandson AND Belle to live for, why should he still see his self-sacrifice plan through? Answer: because not doing so would be the selfish coward's way. So instead, he still pulls the Heroic Sacrifice while knowing full well that his loved ones are alive and that he could have lived a life with them. Rather than living for them, he DIES for them: he puts their lives above his own as his final actions. It's true sacrificial love and a selfless, brave thing of him to do. He finally proved himself to not be a selfish coward like his father.
    • Two is that the way in which he arranges the death makes it not only his undoing, but the undoing of the entire Dark One cycle. How does one become the Dark One? By killing the current Dark One with the dark dagger. Killing Zoso with the dagger made Rumple the Dark One after all. So by locking him and his father in a tight embrace and then skewering Pan in the back so the dagger could come out of Pan's chest and go through Rumple, Rumple was having Pan kill him with the dagger, transferring the Dark One's power to Pan. This is why darkness engulfs them and turns Pan back into adult Malcolm: Malcolm became the Dark One! Not dead yet, Malcolm pleads for his son to remove the dagger, which would no doubt have Malcolm's name on it now. Instead, Rumple twists the blade and drives it deep into his father, killing him and himself. So Malcolm killed the current Dark One and became the new Dark One only to be killed by the dying former Dark One. With both dead, the cycle of the Dark One is cancelled out: there's no Dark One left to kill for anyone to become the new Dark One. This was the undoing that the seer foretold.
      • The problem with that is that if Malcolm was made the Dark One, then he would have been revived when Neil went over to the Vault.
      • Except the twisting of the blade that killed Malcolm was caused by Rumple, thus making Rumple the Dark One again.
  • Neverland is fueled by belief. As long as you truly believe, you can do anything. Peter Pan is part of Neverland so the rules must apply to him as well. As long as someone believes in him, he will succeed. Thus, when Peter killed Felix, the only one who ever believed in him, he sealed his own fate.
  • "Going Home" seems very very very much like a Grand Finale for the whole series. It seems like everything since episode 1 has been building to this. Almost all the characters have had complete arcs, most of the biggest loose ends have been tied, there's a sense of things coming full circle, a sense that Emma and Henry's story is coming to a closure and there'll be a Bittersweet Ending. Season One had a The End... Or Is It? ending, and Season Two had a To Be Continued ending. The mid-season finale for Season Three actually feels like The End of a story. And then at literally the last minute of the episode, Hook shows up to set up a new plot. Its a literal last minute Sequel Hook - a HOOK for the sequel to this story at the last minute of said story.
  • Regina seems to be getting her arse handed to her on a semi-regular basis by Zelena. Why? Psychosomatic Superpower Outage and Redemption Demotion. Her magic is fueled by rage and now she's gone from Big Bad to Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Emma's treatment of Henry in the second half of season 3 is very similar to Regina's in season 1. She's was lying to him for his own good, screamed at him to listen to her because she's his mother, and wants to return to New York for good and not return to Storybrooke again without asking Henry's opinion. All this seems out of character for Emma until you remember she just lost Neal.Emma acting similar to Regina in season 1 because like her the lost of someone she loves has effected her in such a negative way that she's now concerned with what's good for her instead of Henry.
  • Regina's vicious reaction to Maid Marian showing up makes perfect sense. She might have been trying to pull herself out of future villainy for the sake of Henry (and, to a lesser extent, Robin Hood), but as we saw with Peter Pan, she regrets not a damn thing she did in the past; including mass murder ("The Evil Queen"), child murder ("True North"), killing a father so she could try and have a son all to herself (the Flynns), rape and sex slavery (the Huntsman), killing her dad, casting the curse in the first place, etc. It got her the life she wanted. Anything that goes wrong? Never My Fault. Someone else screwed up and has to pay for it. Emma not only trashed Regina's budding romance with Robin, but made her swallow an uncomfortable dose of karma on top of it.
  • The Thinking Tree attacks the regret inside of people. While it may seem like just a plot point used to give Regina the upper hand (Villains aren't meant to feel regret, after all), there's actually a logical reason behind it. Pan says that the Thinking Tree is where he abandoned Rumple which means these are the same trees that contain pixie dust. When the lost boys begin regretting their decision of coming to Neverland, they'd try to get some pixie dust to fly off the island only for the tree to capture them.
  • Ask yourself something: Why is there a ritual specifically to resurrect a deceased Dark One if the only way to kill the Dark One in the first place is to become the next Dark One yourself? Why would anyone be anticipating the destruction the entire Dark One line? Answer: They weren't. There had to be a first Dark One, right? The entity known as "The Dark One" had to come into being at some point in time. The ritual was probably how it was created in the first place.
  • It would make sense for the Series Fauxnale to be in an arc heavily based around the last film that the entire team of Disney's Nine Old Men made.

Season 4

  • Episode 4x03 "Rocky Road", Elsa assumed that the reason Emma was so distant to Hook was because of her responsibility: "When you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, it's hard to fully trust someone, even when they want what's best for you". Her assumption was revealed by the end of the episode to be wrong. Emma's reason is a lot more personal and emotional. This was entirely in character with Elsa's personality from the movie, she may become The High Queen by the end, but she still have zero experience with love and only speak from experience, it wouldn't make sense for Elsa to suddenly become a love Guru without any justification. This also further prove the creators' claim that Elsa is a Celibate Heroine earlier in the season.
  • "Operation Mongoose" vs "Operation Cobra". Clever name, Ms Ex-Mayor! Mongoose vs Cobra was a well-known case of nature rivalry, even This Very Wiki has examples of it. It makes perfect sense for Regina to name her own secret mission with Henry as the opposite of her "rival" Emma's own mission with him.
  • This might also cross with Fridge Horror. Why did Helga immediately freeze into ice and shatter to pieces in less than a few minutes, while in the Frozen film, Anna got hit by Elsa and only slowly got closer and closer to freezing into solid ice and not actually shatter when she finally did turn to solid ice? It's because when Helga got hit by Ingrid, it was direct. When Anna got hit by Elsa, it was from a shock wave of ice magic that struck her, and it wasn't as powerful.
  • Episode 4x07 "The Snow Queen" sheds some light on why the Snow Queen seems wary of Anna. Anna and Elsa's mother put her in the urn and when they first meet, she outright says that Anna "looks exactly like her mother". Perhaps, she hasn't forgiven Gerda's betrayal just yet?
  • Cruella De Vil might appear to be an odd choice for this show at first, as The Hundred and One Dalmatians was not a high fantasy story like many of the other tales featured in the show. However, when one remembers that the story had a lesser-known sequel which was more fantasy oriented, then she looks slightly less out of place.
  • While the town is trying to prepare for the Spell of Shattered Sight, Hook has two meetings with Rumple that further the man's agenda. He barely emotes during the first one, where Rumple orders him to absorb the fairies into the hat, but is hostile and angry during the second, where Hook calls Rumple out on lying to Belle and coveting power over her, which makes sense. Hook has been forced, by Rumple, to lie to Emma and commit actions that even his old self would find abhorrent while Rumple enjoys the unwavering trust of Belle and is easily at one of the worst points he has ever hit. Hook is basically forced to betray Emma and shoved back into the role of the villain he no longer wants to be while Rumple rubs it in his face that he is going to be seen as a hero by Belle because of his treachery.
  • When Regina and the other's release the captives from the Sorcerer's Hat, they also release the dark entity Chernabourg from the void what do these two plot points, the hat and the Chernabourg, have in common, they both appeared in segments, one right after other actually, from the film Fantasia
  • The whole plot of Snow White and Charming causing Maleficent to lose her child seems very out of character for the heroes they are supposed to be ... until we find out that the Author was meddling with stories, changing them and making people act like he wanted to make a "better" story.
  • While it does cross with Fridge Horror. The revelation that Marian is really Zelena in disguise does gives a good explanation to why Robin's kiss to cure "Marian" of the Snow Queen's freezing spell didn't work: It wasn't the real Marian.
  • The Reveal that The Author has Reality Warper powers that allow him to rewrite people's destinies helps to clear up a major Plot Hole that has been nagging at fans since season 1: The question of how Mr. Gold found Henry for Regina, despite not remembering his past or his plan to get the curse broken. The Author wrote things that way because he felt that Emma coming to Storybrooke and breaking the curse would make a good story.
  • The storyline of turning Emma dark is turned into the finest example of foreshadowing ever when the season finale comes and Emma becomes the NEW Dark One.
  • The revelation that Walt Disney was once an Author explains why so many characters seem to be based on the Disney versions. He just used the characters he saw while performing his writing duties.
  • After seeing Isaac's actions and motivations it is likely that the Author before him Walt Disney was a Good Counterpart. Walt did much the same as Isaac in using his position as an Author to create his own stories and benefit himself from doing so. Unlike Isaac however Walt Disney didn't abuse his position by interfering with people's free will, and the fame and fortune were not his main focus, just writing stories.
  • In "Operation Mongoose" Henry has several moments of Genre Savvy while Isaac has several moments of Genre Blind. This is a reflection of their natures as people. Henry has lived through these kinds of stories and knows how to appeal to the nature of the characters to get their help, showing a very hands on approach. Isaac on the other hand makes several blunders because he keeps forgetting details he wrote in but does know how to get others to help him by appealing to their dark natures, not taking any action himself because he doesn't want to alter the story too much. Henry treats the world around him as a real place while Isaac treats it as a game where he is in control of everything.
  • In Season 3 (Lost Girl), Rumplestiltskin pretends to have Excalibur, but later reveals it was always in Camelot. However, that creates the problem of why he didn't go and get Excalibur; even if he didn't want to actually give Snow the real Sword, it's exactly the kind of thing he'd be interested in. With the reveal that Merlin is the Sorcerer, it all makes sense: even if Rumple wanted Excalibur, Camelot is the one place it's not safe for him to break into.
    • Season 5 has now revealed a further reason why he wouldn't do so: because the Dark One's dagger is part of Excalibur. While rejoining the two is something Dark One Emma is being driven to do so as to be completely free of morality, it's also Arthur's goal, and we've seen how much he's willing to do to achieve it. Rumple would have wanted to get nowhere near it, even for the chance to reforge it. And while Merlin is still in the tree, his deal with Guinevere (and his warning to her which suggests he saw her future) shows he was far more interested in getting the gauntlet than anything else and, again, didn't want to get the dagger anywhere near Excalibur unless he could get it away from Arthur.
  • Even in the altered reality, some of the character's true personalities shine through. Charming is still evil, but he acts more or less as a morality chain for evil!Snow, Hook sacrifices himself to save Emma and Henry, Regina sacrifices herself to save Henry, Rumple still shows himself as a coward, even when being written as a hero, by willing to kill Henry and Regina to preserve his happy ending, and Zelena is still envious of Regina, even when she doesn't know who she is, being jealous of Regina taking Robin's attention away from her despite Regina lying on the ground and dying.
  • The reveal that August knew everything he did about the storybook, the Author, and the Apprentice because he had gotten it from the Dragon's research explains something else which had puzzled fans since season 2: how he knew Neal was Baelfire. People had theorized that the Blue Fairy told him before he went through the magic tree with Emma, but it's just as likely that Baelfire's story (being Rumple's son, going through the portal to a world without magic, even how he ended up with the Darlings and then in Neverland) was in the storybook and thus among the Dragon's research. If he had been able to track down Neal and find out he was Baelfire, that information could have been among what August discovered; even without that, August was smart enough to put two and two together and conclude that the missing boy who went through a portal could be Neal, especially with the "coincidence" of him encountering Emma, the only one who could break the curse Rumple got cast solely so he could find his son.
  • This troper found it odd that Ariel had to open a portal for Poseidon to get to Ursula in Storybrooke as it was established that 1) Mermaids could open portals anywhere and2) Mermaids could not bring people with them. So why did Poseidon need to be brought? Because Poseidon, in Greek mythology, was NOT a merperson. He was just a god. His son, Triton, was the first merman. If this show follows the same line of thought, it makes more sense as to why Poseidon is seen on legs all the time while his daughter needs magic have them. Also, Poseidon refers to himself as a deity when talking to Hook so its clear he is still a god in this canon.
  • Anna doesn't mention Elsa's powers while under the effects of the Spell of Shattered Sight. When she said she is not afraid of them, it's the truth.
  • The Chernabog chooses Maleficent as the most evil of the three. Yes she's the Mistress of All Evil, but think about it. Ursula is never shown doing anything villainous and the episode "Ariel" implies she's benevolent to her own people. Plus she's the first to get redeemed. Likewise while Cruella is rotten she cannot actually kill anyone. So Maleficent is the most evil by default.
    • The Chernabog doesn't choose the most evil, it chooses the one with the greatest potential for evil. Although Cruella is likely more evil than Maleficent, her powers aren't very extensive and she can't kill anyone, so she has very limited potential for evil compared to Maleficent, despite being more evil.
  • Why does Rumple need Ursula to grab the Dark Curse with her tentacle? It's likely that Chernabog is triggered by whoever touches the curse first, and he wanted to make sure the beast didn't come after him.
  • Two of the three Queens of Darkness are from films that were released directly after each other: 101 Dalmatians (Cruella) and Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent). What movie was released after those two? The Sword in the Stone. What's the focus of the next arc shortly after Queens of Darkness? Camelot and King Arthur.
    • While on the topic of correlating the Queens of Darkness to their films, their order of release can be inverted to symbolize their order of departure. Little Mermaid (Ursula quits after getting her ending), 101 Dalmatians (Cruella gets killed off), and Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent is reunited with her daughter and breaks away from the partnership).
  • Remember the prophecy that said Henry was Rumple's undoing. Henry is his undoing in "Operation Mongoose".

Season 5

  • Ever wonder how Snow transformed from a sweet innocent princess to the rough and tough rougue we see her as later? It finally makes sense when we learn She was trained by Hercules.
  • Arthur chooses to hide a magical item that could allow the heroes to speak with Merlin in "Siege Perilous". "The Broken Kingdom" gives a motivation in that he plans to kill Merlin. Given that the wizard is prophetic Arthur is likely trying to avoid having his plans revealed before he is ready.
  • Emma worrying over Henry not telling her about Violet makes sense when you consider that Neal had to deal with having a parent be the Dark One, which caused was the root of almost every problem he had to face.
  • So how is it Ruby has been completely unseen, even in the background, in Storybrooke at any time in season 4? Because she wasn't in Storybrooke at the time, having left right after the events of season 3 to find her own people. Much better than "she's just off screen" to explain her absence.
  • The reason why True Love's Kiss didn't work for Hook when he kissed Dark Emma, like it did when Belle first kissed Rumplestiltskin? It was because he didn't know that he had been cursed as a Dark One as well.
    • Alternative explanation: Emma did not believe that True Love's Kiss would work due to her trust issues and wanted to carry on with her own plan to get rid of the Darkness within Hook and herself. In order to do that, she needs the powers of The Dark One.
  • It'd make sense for the Dark One's place of origin to be in Camelot on a meta standpoint. The Sword in the Stone was the last film to be released when Walt was alive. Why not give one of the most powerful beings in the universe such a tie?
  • Rumplestiltskin promising the healer his secondborn child in exchange for the potion was actually a very good deal on his part. Not only he had all the reasons to believe Milah wouldn't have wanted another child with him, but also if he didn't want another child, as his words seem to imply, they wouldn't have had another one anyway.
  • The captain of the ship Liam and Killian originally worked on is the only member of the crew not ending up in the "better place". This makes sense: even though Liam's deal with Hades is what sealed their fate, it only happened because he led the ship in a suicide course into a storm. Unlike Liam, however, he never realizes he did anything wrong nor does he seek redemption for it.
  • It makes sense that Hades had some sort of relationship with Zelena. It nicely explains how she came back to life with her powers intact (or at all). Hades is the God of the Underworld after all.
  • Hades' wife in the original Greek myth was quite a paragon of innocence. Back when Zelena was part of the sisterhood of the witches in Oz, which aspect does she represent before it all went downhill? Possible shoutout to the original myth?
  • Ruby Slippers? Okay, so the ship itself was a little sudden, but the fact it's a pair of girls - and those particular girls - shouldn't be much of a shock. Ruby was already hinted to be bisexual all the way back in the first season. As for Dorothy? The original books had buckets of Les Yay with Dorothy and Ozma, Gregory Maguire's take on Oz (one of the best known in modern times) ran on Everyone Is Bi. And then you have the LGBT Fanbase of Judy Garland and the archaic slang term "friend of Dorothy" for a gay person (gay male in particular). Heck, one theory going around is that the Gay Pride rainbow flag itself is a nod to the song "Over the Rainbow." All in all, Dorothy Gale was the perfect candidate for the first-established same-sex True Love's Kiss.
  • Why did Emma find the same jacket that Cleo had at the store where her daughter worked? Because Cleo did find her, and likely couldn't bring herself to talk to her, but did buy a jacket there.
  • Some incredible, and rather heartbreaking, parallels between Zelena and Emma. What's one of the first things we see Emma do back in season 1? Celebrating her birthday all alone with a single cupcake and candle. What do we see Zelena do once she's taken over Oz? Same thing. (And while Emma was surely wishing to have her family back, we see Zelena watching Cora abandon her and swearing furiously she gave up the wrong daughter and would be forced to change it through time travel.) Then look at their backstories: both of them were given up by their families, but while Emma lost Snow and Charming because they selflessly gave her up so she could break the curse and save everyone (a curse cast by Zelena's own half-sister, no less), Zelena lost her family due to the selfishness of both her Jerkass father (whose trickery and blackmail is what led to Cora losing Leopold and her spurning love as a weakness) and Cora not wanting to be burdened by a baby that could keep her from the power she craved. (Note the reversal of "to give you your best chance/give me my best chance.") Emma then grows up in foster care, going through a succession of families who didn't love her (or who she thought didn't); Zelena had a loving adopted mother, but she died, and her adopted father hated and feared her for her magic (something Emma also gets to experience after Ingrid makes her magic go out of control). Emma had a loving man who was forced to leave her by circumstances (August and the curse), and gave her child up for adoption to spare him what she went through; Zelena tricked Robin into getting her pregnant and was then determined to run off alone with the child so she'd finally have someone who loved her. Emma had both loves of her life die in her arms—one after being tricked into bringing his father back by Zelena, the other to save him from the darkness after Zelena restored his memories of what she had done to him; like with Hook, Zelena had to actually kill her own true love, but because he was evil and could not be saved...and because he was only using her and would never sacrifice himself or his power for her, when Neal and Hook had both done so for Emma at different points. Emma is the Savior, filled with love (even if she has been afraid for so long of expressing and trusting in it) and the embodiment of light magic; Zelena is the Wicked Witch, filled with envy and the embodiment of dark magic. Charming tells baby Emma to find him and Snow, to echo their motto of "I will always find you"; this is mirrored by young Regina to Zelena, before Cora took their memories. Emma was tempted and corrupted by the darkness; Zelena is now in the process of redeeming herself.
  • The revelation that The Land Without Magic really does have magic explains why some forms of imported magic still work.

General

  • At first this troper thought that Henry believed in the curse because he's a kid, but if you think about it: he's Emma's son, and was brought into Storybrooke, an ordinary kid who was never put under the curse. He mentions in the pilot that time didn't used to move before Emma got there. So for ten years he was raised in a town where no one ever changed and time never moved, and this is including Ashley being pregnant for that amount of time too. If he got a normal education where he learned about how time was supposed to work, of course he would eventually wonder what was going on. Being raised in a place where time never moves suddenly makes curses a lot more plausible.
  • Rumple's power lies not in his magical abilities (he rarely seems to rely upon them in any sort of direct confrontation) but rather in his deal making. He's seen everyone's dark sides and knows their secrets and desires and weaknesses. This is how he's able to predict and control them without so much as lifting a finger. This is how he can wield so much influence even within a jail cell. And this is why he became the town landlord/loan shark in Storybrooke as opposed to simply a wealthy businessman or some such.
  • Why Rumplestiltskin and Belle are the One True Pairing. Their true love has yet to overcome their external faults and conflicts, (Rumple's a coward, and Belle will not love him while he's inflicted with a curse), which leads to a romance that audiences can identify with as something more real and raw because despite our best intentions our personal demons and flaws can ruin our chances of romantic happiness and familial success. Belle is also quite relatable to Rumple's fangirls. Rumple is not "attractive" by Hollywood standards; but many female viewers are drawn to him. Which ones? Probably the oddballs, quiet bookish eccentrics, who are drawn to "dark" and unusual guys; girls who most easily identify with Belle. In short, the "Belles" out there are the ones who like Rumple, and the writers probably figured that out.
  • The story of Red Riding Hood takes on a different interpretation with the reveal. Red comes home as a young child to Granny starting to transform. This is also about when Red herself transforms for the first time. The woodsman (the wizard in Granny's telling) was near by and turned them back. Thus the wolf 'eating' granny is Red becoming like her while the cutting of the two from the belly of the wolf is about transforming them back.
  • Red being sexually aggressive/promiscuous becomes this. The first reason is perhaps a reflection of the original fairy tale as mentioned elsewhere in in these pages. The other is a reflection of her wolf instincts to hunt down people.
  • Combination of brilliance and horror, with the revelation of Regina's one true love having his heart ripped out by her mother before her eyes, the Evil Queen's fixation on taking hearts becomes not only (what she sees as) karmic (with her intent to take Snow's heart being a sick form of retribution), but a sign of psychological trauma and an inability to escape the cycle of abuse. Pretty much outright stated in "The Doctor". When she takes Whale/Frankenstein into her mother's vault, Whale marvels at how many there are. Regina says her mother was a monster. Later after mentioning her own heart vault to David/Charming, he asks whose it is. Regina says, "I don't know. I took so many I couldn't keep track."
  • Regina finds it hard to forgive Snow because she still sees Snow as a pawn of her mother (unwitting as it was but she doesn't know that). And not only that but part of being a pawn was the sadness and tears - so she also finds it difficult to take Snow's emotions as anything but fake. Not only that but Snow's intent was to ensure that Regina didn't lose her mother... but Cora was perhaps the one person Regina did want to lose. Regina's warped mind cannot comprehend that Snow had any good intentions when she broke her promise and spilled the secret to Cora. So she chooses to see Snow as a wicked girl who deliberately got Daniel killed so that Regina could marry King Leopold and Snow could have a new mother. That's why Regina sincerely thinks Snow deserves to suffer.
  • Why does Rumple like asking for your first born? When he gained his powers he lost (in first the emotional sense and subsequently the physical sense) his first born so in order for him to use those powers for you, he takes yours.
  • Why does Ruby (Little Red Riding Hood) work at a diner in Storybrooke? Because in the original story, she's known for bringing a picnic basket to her grandmother. Underscored in the series itself, when Red is shown bringing food to Snow White while Snow's in hiding.
  • Also on the topic of Red Riding Hood bringing Snow White food...one of the original fairy tales starred two sisters, Snow-White and Rose-Red.
  • Rump as the beast in Beauty and the Beast? Now, that bell that rings whenever anyone enters Gold's store? That's nothing unusual for a store but: bell, Belle. Subtle. "Do hope you're not going to break my little bell(e)." That line has been superimposed on many a piece of fan art.
  • Debatable whether the writers had this in mind or not: Everything is Medieval Europe is because that they are eternally suspended in the Dark Ages because of "magic". There hasn't been scientific revolution nor an Age of Enlightenment because their hasn't been a need for it. Living in an enchanted land means they can rely on fairies and Rumplestiltskin to solve their problems. People aren't being "pushed" towards building a better civilization for themselves as a result. That's why everything is so crappy. But since only a few humans have magic, this creates a system of haves and have-nots. Notice people with magical power (Midas, Evil Queen, and Rumplestiltskin) do economically and socially better than those who don't.
  • Mr. Gold is Bored with Insanity. We have no clue how long ago Rumplestiltskin came into being, though it looks like it happened several centuries if not a millennium before Snow and Regina came around. And through that time, he only acted loopy to keep people unnerved when in truth, he had been done with his insanity not too long (a few decades) after Bae left him. This is why as Mr. Gold, he can be so normal and Jefferson ... isn't. He simply doesn't care about his various memories. A flashback in Episode 55 seems to support this. On his son's birthday, Rumple is sitting alone in his estate and talking to himself in his normal voice. When Belle comes in, he pitches his voice up a bit. His way of covering his pain, weakness, and cowardice is essentially to take on a demeanor that is, ironically enough, similar to his father's.
  • Why is Snow White a teacher in Storybrooke? The Evil Queen wants her to suffer, due to the connection of teachers and apples, and we all know why Snow White doesn't like apples...
    • Also, Snow White has always wanted a child and now is always around them but can never have one.
  • Henry has a lot of TRON swag, but it makes sense when you think about it. The curse brought everybody into Storybrooke in 1984, when Flynn and ENCOM would have been marketing the TRON game (in-universe, assuming it's the same world as TRON: Legacy) for all it was worth. Also, what's the plot of TRON? A self-interested man falls into a world not his own and teams up with a noble, faith-based hero to defeat evil and return home. A perfect story for Henry to identify with. It's also a massive middle finger when it comes to Regina's idea to get him hooked on video games so that he doesn't pay attention to fairy tales. TRON's an Internet Age fairy-tale.
    • Given the fandom guess that Kurt and Owen Flynn are related to that Flynn family, this also makes Regina's choice deliciously ironic and more than a little sick. She hands Henry a toy that was probably made by the "uncle" Owen was sent to contact, and did exactly to Kurt what Clu did to Kevin. But unlike Clu, she actually got away with it with and, of course, no one mentions this incident or holds it against her.
  • Henry's Genre Savvy might just save him when it comes to the (poisoned) apple turnovers. The sleep of living death traps the victim with their regrets. Henry's a kid and has a conscience that's clearer than anyone's on the show. He hasn't got a lot to regret at all.
  • Running away from your responsibilities to an island of pleasures, only to be abruptly and horrifyingly transformed? Don't you know what they say about what happens to people who don't learn from their mistakes, August? They make a jackass of themselves...again.
  • August is a writer. Writers tell stories. "Telling stories" is often used as another way to say "lying." What is Pinocchio famous for?
  • Why is Emma so good at finding people? Because the last thing her father whispered to her in the magical world was "Find us."
  • Snow for all intents and purposes was kidnapped by her negatives emotions toward Regina, Prince Charming went after her with some help from some new friends and end up saving her from herself. Now think about the fact that there is a magic mirror (if not necessarily appearing in said episode) involved in the story of Snow White and the entire episode has several interesting parallels to the tale of The Snow Queen. Make you wonder if it's some contrived coincidence.
  • Henry is clever, just like Regina. He is determined and persuasive, just like she can be. Their music themes are often similar, and his behavior is sometimes very reminiscent of his adoptive mothers', which makes sense, since she raised him. They're also very similar as children. Naive, super optimistic and idealistic. With similar parents as well. Though Henry may be Emma's son, he's Generation Xerox of Regina. They also share the same obsession with change and revenge. Both have a very clear and idea of how things should go ("My past should be preserved." and "My future should be saved."). They both showed that they are able to focus on people's mistakes (Henry demonizing Regina and not trusting Emma after Manhattan, Regina demonizing Snow and not trusting Emma) hold grudges (as Henry's cold quips show) and are partly driven by a need for revenge (Regina on Snow and Henry on Regina) on someone who only wanted the best, but failed to achieve the results they wanted.
  • August/Pinocchio ran from helping Emma because of temptation, which is a very Pinocchio thing to do. But even now as an adult he wanders around on his motorcycle and hangs out in Phuket "losing himself". In other words, trying to live with No Strings Attached.
  • There are quite a few similarities between Snow and Henry. Both had Regina as a maternal figure. Both knowingly ate (the same) poisoned apple created by Regina to save someone they loved (Charming & Emma respectively). Both of them received True Love's Kiss from those specific loved ones to awake from their sleeping curses. Like grandmother, like grandson!
  • Emma's reaction to finding out that Snow and Charming really are her parents. Sure, yeah, in her situation (adopted kid meeting birth parents), some confusion and surprise and such is expected. But remember also that Snow and Charming are to Emma, fairy tale characters as well as a prince and princess. How many children imagine that their real parents are such things? Now imagine that something you grow up learning is basically a silly foolish idea is actually true! This carries on into S2, when Emma gets to see Mary Margaret's Snow White side in action when they're trapped in the Enchanted Forest and spends much of her time staring in amazement that the woman she knew as a more-than-slightly neurotic Shrinking Violet schoolteacher has turned into such a Action Mom.
  • Belle and Rumple. They seem so different at times. But remember this: Belle went with Rumple initially to be a hero and to be brave. Rumple is also characterized by his desire to prove his bravery. Even more striking when you examine this alongside Milah's character. Milah and Belle both wanted to see the world and go to far-off lands. Milah disappears, leaving Rumple and Bae behind for her own happiness. Belle willingly gives up the same chance to save her family and village, sticks to her promise, and is able to see the good in Rumple and her situation despite everything. That went a long way in earning Rumple's respect for her. Also, Milah is wearing blue and white just like Belle in "Manhattan", during the time when she and Rumple still had a happy marriage. Belle reminds Rumple of Milah back when there was love between them, so that's another reason he's so attracted to her.
  • Jefferson was a weapons-grade Jerkass back in the day, very unlike the man we were first (episodically, if not chronologically) introduced to in Hat Trick. The why of his character development struck me so suddenly that it seemed obvious afterwards: we forget because they use the same actors for Regina, Jefferson, and Rumple (especially Rumple) regardless of the 'when' in the Enchanted Forest, but the next time we see Jefferson (chronologically) in Hat Trick, enough time has passed for Snow White to have aged from Bailee Madison to Ginnifer Goodwin. The Jefferson we see in The Doctor isn't a father yet. No wonder he was acting so Graceless. Related: to become a father required a wife, and Jefferson flat-out says in Hat Trick that "his line of work cost Grace's mother her life". If finding love and having a child together with her didn't make his Heel Realization fully sink in, that would certainly do it.
  • Another Jefferson one: His actions in the Doctor explain why Regina is so... poisonous to him. And her distrust in anyone being an agent of Rumple (and vice versa). And her distrust of everyone, Emma included. Jefferson betrayed her to Rumple for little more than gold. Snow (seemingly) betrayed her to Cora. Everyone at this point was an agent for someone else, using her to get what they want. Of course, she'd naturally just start assuming everyone had an agenda and that whatever they were doing was just a way to get HER to do what they want.
  • You know how the curse keeps the Fairy Tale people in Storybrooke? It is working in so many ways that it is quite thorough and subtle: Ashley is kept in there with her pregnancy and Sean; Mary Margaret stays there in the hospital and the school because she has no one else, and prefers to stay with what she knows is safe; David is kept in a coma, and this also ties Kathryn to Storybrooke, because she is waiting for news from her husband; Ruby has to take care of her Granny... It even continues after Emma arrives, with many characters being prevented from leaving the town just at the limits: Ashley goes into labor, Nicholas and Ava reunite with their father, Kathryn is abducted, Mary Margaret crashes and is kidnapped by Jefferson...it's even arguable that Emma's wolf-inflicted crash into the town sign was caused by the curse realizing she "belonged" there.
  • When Rumple told Regina that she looked/didn't look like Cora at various times, he wasn't talking about appearance. He was talking about their innocence/goodness.
  • Though this one is a bit of a stretch: The Ogre Wars. Why Ogres? They could've chosen any mythical beast. Well, what company is Disney constantly in competition with? (besides Warner Bros., their rivalry is kind of dead) And what movie of said rival company is constantly taking jabs at Disney? Perhaps the writers thought it was time to take a jab back?
  • In the original story, Peter Pan sliced off Hook's hand and fed it to the crocodile, who then chased Hook to get the rest of him. Here, the crocodile (Rumplestiltskin) took off Hook's hand, so now Hook chases the crocodile to get revenge for both his hand and Milah. Does a captain pursuing the beast that dismembered him sound familiar? Captain Hook is also Captain Ahab! Which is even more fitting since J.M. Barrie stated that he originally based Captain Hook on Ahab.
  • Cora being the Queen of Hearts explains a great many things are explained about Henry I's behavior: he's Disney's portrayal of the King of Hearts, incapable of stopping his wife from doing anything. It also explains why he was shrunken in Wonderland: Disney's Alice in Wonderland portrays the King as quite tiny.
  • If Red could control her wolf form, why did she tell Prince Charming to run? Because, the control requires a lot of CONCENTRATION...if it slips up for a moment...she goes berserk. Her action at that time? Killing a bunch of soldiers.
  • I've heard several people complain that Emma "abandoned" Henry or that she did exactly what she thought her parents did to her, but then I realized: Emma was actually keeping Henry out of the foster care system. She was in prison at the time of his birth and he would have been taken into foster care after he was born. It would have been hard for her to get him out of the foster system once she was released, and even if she had, she couldn't provide a very stable home for him. So she put him up for adoption, knowing his chances for a healthy, normal childhood would be much, much higher.
  • In "The Cricket Game", Emma notes that someone has been framed for murder in Storybrooke before, which is part of what leads them to Gold. It also foreshadows the fact that, just like last time, the victim is merely kidnapped.
  • Lots of characters like to wear leather in the series. It makes a lot of sense in that they would have worn boiled leather armor in the Enchanted Forest (or in Emma's case, that clothing preference in the Enchanted Forest is probably In the Blood). August/Pinnochio is no fighter but also wears leather even though he drives a motorcycle. This could also represent him wearing skin as opposed to wood. His hairstyle, leather jacket, and motorcycle also cast him as a "bad boy." It's because, as he tells Henry later, he failed to be a good boy.
  • Grace's name seemed random to me until I remembered it was Grace Potter & the Nocturnals that covered the Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit for Alicein Wonderland 2010 in 2010. Or... potentially... Glace Slick of Jefferson Airplane who sang the song? The band name is also where Jefferson got his name from.
  • It's VERY possible that the Seer and Rumple mixed Henry up with Peter Pan. Rumple and Bae officially reconcile during their fight against Pan when Pan had kidnapped Henry, and the Dark One cycle is broken when Rumple and Pan die together, thus Pan caused the Dark One's undoing. Where was Pan right before his and Rumple's last moments? In Henry's body.
  • Regina intentionally killed her father by pulling out his heart. She accidentally killed her mother by putting back in her heart.
  • Crosses over with Running Gag but it seems like Snow and her daughter sure like to crash into/run into their love interests a lot. See "Manhattan" for Emma's version.
  • Why Henry I dotes on Regina and patiently listens to his daughter's every rant: since neither his wife or his father loved him, at least he could show his daughter love and it's clear that Regina loved her father in return.
  • Everyone calls Graham "The Huntsman" because, being raised by wolves, he was never given a name.
  • August never actually lies to Mr. Gold about being Baelfire. He's said he's been looking for his father and recently found him again, and that their separation was difficult. These things are all true, they're just are not about Mr. Gold. Likewise, he calls him Papa because Mr. Gold is a Papa, he's just not his one! He was drowning out Gold and imagining the reunion with his own father the whole time. THAT is why he was so effective at acting that he fooled Gold!
  • Rumple wanting first borns. Okay, sure, there's the obvious Baelfire angle but he's smart enough and emotionally connected enough to Bae to understand that any old child would not really accomplish much. What he was really after is control. That is, by having a child from birth, he can also manipulate them from birth in order to achieve his end goal. He can arrange for love and marriage, ensure their safety, draw them into danger only to save them, and otherwise use them. And he can do so without magic (at least, not directly) which he is well aware can be rather volatile.
  • Ruby being initially a scantily clad woman who attracts all eyes upon to her. There's a level of animal magnetism involved, sure, but also consider her FTW persona as well as her persona post-Cure. As a werewolf and particularly as this demure (relatively speaking) woman who mostly just wanted to avoid attention to herself/avoid getting close to people (afraid of harming them as a wolf/afraid of others wanting to harm her for being a wolf), what would be more miserable (other aspects of her Storybrooke history aside) than being in a position where everyone is constantly paying attention to you.
  • Charming's real name being David: At first glance, it's just a throwaway line, but when you look closely, you realize it was actually a Brick Joke. Recall the opening line from his speech to the townspeople in We Are Both: "David, Storybrooke David was - is weak, confused, and he hurt the woman I love." Later in the speech, he also says "that David reminds me not only of whom I lost, but who I want to be." Did you hear it? In both of those sentences, Charming was drawing a distinction between Storybrooke David and another David. Props to the writers for the clever Foreshadowing.
  • Gold's distaste for nuns in the Season 1 episode "Dreamy" makes a lot more sense after "The Return": The leader of the nuns is the Blue Fairy and Rumple blames her for separating him from his son.
    • In Season 6 we also find out an even stronger reason for him to hate fairies. His mother was one and she abandoned him before she even gave him a name
  • Why is Emma's ability to detect lies apparently disappearing? According to Word of God, her ability is unreliable when she is emotionally involved. Towards the beginning of the series, Emma has virtually no emotional ties to anyone or anything, meaning that this is when her ability is the most effective. But Character Development gets her to care about her son, her family, and her town. Pretty soon, nearly every problem she encounters is one that she is emotionally invested in, making her ability weaker.
  • The writers all but literally beat the audience over the head with the fact that Bae and Belle bring out Rumple's lost humanity and while he does have a number of sympathetic and heart breaking moments with them, episodes involving them are also the ones where he acts the most violent, unstable and downright scary. Fridge Brilliance: who ever said human nature was all butterflies and rainbows? Becoming more human would naturally bring out his worst side as well as his best.
  • How did Gold get Regina's tears? Her mother died in his shop. They were probably really easy to get.
  • When Emma told (actually lied to) Henry about his father, she said that he was a fireman. The next season we find out that Henry's father is actually Baelfire, which she didn't even know at the time herself. Not the biggest bit of brilliance, but I thought it was pretty neat, and now I'm wondering if the writers made him a fireman in her lie on purpose as a subtle, sneaky hint...
  • We know Rumplestiltskin's name in the Fairy Tale World, but we have yet to know Gold's first name in the Land Without Magic. Why? He never tells anyone, because, when you know someone's name, you have power over them.
  • In the pilot, when Emma makes her birthday wish with the cupcake, the candle she used was shaped like a star. She wished "upon a star".
  • Storybrooke itself looks off in a lot of ways. The architecture is more Pacific Northwest than New England, an awful lot of '70s cars are pretty cherry after 30-plus Maine winters, even things like the elementary school having uniforms. Clearly Regina didn't spend a lot of time sweating the details before casting her spell.
  • Emma is the Ugly Duckling. The first clue is her name, Swan. Then there's her back story. She grew up an orphan, implied to be abused and rejected to an extent we don't know, and by at least 17 she was a criminal. Anyone who knew her probably thought she wouldn't amount to much. This connection is made even more explicit in the second half of Season 6 when we learn that August found her as a child living on the streets, and part of how he got her to go to social services was by keeping her from burning the tale of "The Ugly Duckling" and telling her that if she only believed, she could change her life and prove to everyone she was a swan, not a duckling. And so when the social worker asks her her name, what else would she choose but Swan? But throughout the series she finds her family, her home, and accomplishes many great achievements. As the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who were to be king and queen of their kingdom, she's also The Swan Princess.
  • Rumple and Milah:
    • After seeing Rumple's father abandon him to pursue his own dreams and desires, is it any wonder he was so truly pissed at Milah for doing the exact same thing?
    • Also, while he's angry about her abandoning Bae, much of that is also his own self loathing being projected onto her, since he abandoned Bae as well. The real thing that triggers him killing Milah is her saying "I never loved you"...just like his father never loved him. That is what gets Rumple to snap.
    • Earlier in the episode, Milah has a Pet the Dog moment where she tries to salvage her relationship with Rumple by suggesting that they take Bae and go somewhere far away where nobody knows them and make a new start. Rumple botches things by refusing, but now we know why: that's the exact same offer that he made to his father...and look where that got them!
    • Milah declares "I never loved you!" But in "Manhattan", we see that she clearly did love Rumple before he returned from the Ogre Wars, so this is confusing at first. But think about what she's saying to Rumple in "Manhattan" in both her scenes: when she was loving toward him, she encouraged him and told him he wasn't a coward like his father. But after he came back, she turned on him and said the opposite. It's because to her, he wasn't the man she thought he was. She fell in love with a man who she was convinced wasn't like his father, and being apparently disproven in this notion has made Milah believe Rumple was fooling her all along. That the man she loved was a facade and the true Rumple was, in fact, the same kind of self-centered coward his father was. And in that light, she never loved Rumple, never loved what she believed was "the true Rumple", she had only loved a "false Rumple". That this isn't actually true (the Rumple she fell for was sincere and only fled the Ogre Wars due to the Seer's prophecy about him leaving Baelfire fatherless) just makes it all the more tragic.
  • William Smee becomes Hook's right-hand man rather quickly despite being the newest addition to his crew. Then it is revealed that Hook's crew is mainly composed of sailors who've mostly never experienced the criminal life while Smee is a already a well-known, seasoned thief. He won Hook's favor out of experience.
  • Coupled with the Fridge Horror below, Parental Abandonment is one of the keystones of the plot, and as mentioned below, there were 4 generations of it over the course of the show. However, the brilliance comes in when you consider why the Charming Family motto is so important (and it can be borrowed so many times by others. Heck, Rumple used it after his accidental abandonment). "I will always find you" is the promise made that no matter what happens, no matter how bad or how far you're separated from those you care about, the will to find them and hold onto them is what allows you to Earn Your Happy Ending. It's an acceptance of the bad times, and a promise to yourself that good times will return.
  • Of all the people she could have left her removed heart with (Emma, Snow, Charming, all capable fighters in their own right), why did Regina pick Robin Hood? Because she'd been told he was her True Love: Who better to give your heart to than your True Love?
    • The dialogue in this is even kind of a Literal Metaphor. Robin asks Regina why she would give her heart to a known thief, then she replies you can't steal what was given to you. You can interpret this as robin asking why regina would open up to him and her replying he can't steal her heart because she giving it to him.
  • Tragic as it is, Rumplestiltskin slipping back into evil despite his love for Belle and Henry actually makes a twisted kind of sense. Yes, Rumple loves Belle and he loves Henry, but his relationship with Baelfire went much deeper than any of that. All the evil stuff he did: Corrupting Regina, The Dark Curse, even his manipulation of Cinderella, it was all part of the plan to make up for abandoning his son. For three centuries (according to Robert Carlyle), he worked to find his son again and in the end, he lost him again...and in a way that reversed Rumple's own Heroic Sacrifice (i.e. the final proof of his redemption). He tried to be good, to make amends for not being a good father, and it amounted to nothing, at least from his perspective. It's no surprise that he decided "Well, screw it. If being good isn't going to work out, Then Let Me Be Evil."
  • The reveal that Marian is actually Zelena in disguise came as a surprise to fans, but if you look back on Season 4, it actually explains a lot: For one thing, anyone who's ever watched a time-travel movie can tell you that meddling in history tends to be problematic, especially when you save someone who was supposed to die. Emma bringing back Marian should have had some serious consequences, but the initial outcome didn't turn out that badly. Why? Because the real Marian died, just as history dictated. Emma didn't really change anything. It also explains why Robin couldn't use True Love's Kiss to cure Marian of her frozen heart. That quite literally wasn't the woman he fell in love with.
  • The fact that Marian was Zelena in disguise also might explain why of all people Ingrid chose to freeze her. It seems a tad coincidental that out of everyone she could have frozen to frame Elsa it would be her. However if Ingrid knew who Zelena was and what she was capable of, there would definitely be good reason to freeze her. Not only is Zelena a loose cannon but she's the strongest magic user in town after Rumple. Ingrid is about to cast a spell that will cause everyone in town to turn on each other. Elsa and Emma are immune to the effects of the spell itself but they are not immune to being attacked during it.
    • If Zelena had not been out of action she would have no doubt revealed herself and immediately gone after Regina. Which would put Elsa and Emma in the crossfire, especially as Regina is Emma's friend and she would do her best to protect her. With Zelena in an icy coma and Rumple being immune due to virtue of being the Dark One... the only powerful magic user left is Regina herself. Ingrid must have been fairly confident the blonde duo could handle Regina if she got out. Freezing her eliminates a wild card that could have derailed Ingrid's plan.
  • The Author wrote that Cruella can't take another life, right? If Lily had died as a baby, Cruella and Ursula would be responsible for her death because they abandoned her, but Lily survived. Cruella can't kill another person even through passive means!
  • As of the season 4 finale, Emma Swan is now both the Savior and the Dark One at the same time. You might say this makes her the White Swan and the Black Swan.
  • Cruella is the only one of the witches who isn't shown as even having the option of a Heelā€“Face Turn. The reveal that the Author stopped her acting on her evil desires actually fits in quite nicely with that and the way OUAT presents redemption. If an external force is preventing her from doing evil, she can never be in a position where she decides not to.
    • She can still do evil stuff, she just can't kill/let people die.
  • Asspull and creator's pet aside, there is a subtle reason for Rumple's revolving Heelā€“Face Turn and Regina's seemingly permanent change from villain to hero. Rumplestiltskin's reason for becoming the Dark One was for his son and his own feeling of being useless and Regina became the Evil Queen for revenge on Snow. Snow and Regina have gotten beyond their past and become friends(ish). Meanwhile Rumple has lost his son due to events that he couldn't control and Emma forces him to become a hero and when he's not the Dark One, he's being used by both of his successors.
  • Another 'OK, Rumple's increased villainy makes sense' point. Rumple's sudden descent into full-on evil comes after he's freed from Zelena's control. He spent over a year as a slave, tormented constantly, his mind being broken, watched his son die in his arms and wasn't even able to attend the funeral, and forced to hurt people he didn't want to hurt. And this was after what he went through in Neverland and dealing with his father. Rumple's likely dealing with some pretty bad PTSD and he's not had anyone who can really help him with it, so of course he's going to be in a really dark place. It becomes more obvious when you remember that the thing he was trying to do was separate himself from the Dark One Dagger, which after everything with Zelena would be a constant reminder of what he went through, and how horrible it is when someone has such control over him.
  • Rumple reverting to villainy also makes sense when you consider that the dagger and the control it had over him was the primary reason Zelena was so powerful and a threat. The easiest way to prevent such a thing ever happening again is to cleave himself of it.
  • An application of "Magic always comes with a price" often seems to only show up when a plot requires it but it shows up in many subtle ways. It is mentioned that Henry eating the apple turnover with the Sleeping Curse is the price for using that curse in the first place; Rumple also mentions that giving up Henry could be a price for making sure the Dark Curse stays unbroken. Several of the villains have magic and, for many of them, learning how to use magic or getting exposed to magic is the first step into villainy. Season 4's Frozen arc shows that magic is feared and people with magic fear their own powers as well. Even the destruction of magic in Season 5 comes with a price; the Charmings are separated across two realms. Restoring it undoes this price but it comes with a new price, Mr. Hyde and the Evil Queen.
  • Moments before Nimue gained immortality, she told Merlin how great it'd be to use his powers to help others seek revenge. Now look at all the people that Rumplestiltskin taught his magic to. They have strong desires to seek revenge. In short, the Dark One is doing what Nimue was thinking of what Merlin should do: teach others how to seek revenge.
  • In a sad twist of irony, Tamara and Neal actually would have made a good couple given that the penultimate episode of Season 5 revealed that Neal too was on the warpath to wiping out magic.
  • While the show loves its Composite Characters, Mr. Gold is considered the most significant example because while his official fairy tale counterpart is Rumplestiltskin, he's played so many roles in so many stories people say it's easier to name what fairy tale characters he isn't. In other words:
    Am I Mr. Gold, or Am I Weaver
    Am I The Beast, or Am I The Fairy Godmother.
    Am I Carl Fredricks, or am I Tick Tock the Crocodile
    Or am I Rumplestiltskin.

Season 6

  • When Jasmine hands Aladdin the scarab, he says that she can't bribe him. Later in the episode, Jafar tries to convince Aladdin to abandon his Savior role by appealing to his self-preservation and bribing him with the treasures in the Cave of Wonders. Aladdin still chooses to save Agrabah despite knowing what will happen to him. He was right. You can't bribe him.
  • Belle connects with the consciousness of her unborn son through a red cord, like a metaphorical umbilical cord.
  • The title of 6.09 — Changelings. A changeling is the child of a fairy that's secretly swapped with a human child, often for malicious reasons. Rumple is the son of the Black Fairy and she abandoned him, making him the eponymous changeling. And at the end of the episode the Blue Fairy takes Belle's son at her request to protect him and let him live a normal life, an inverse of the usual legend.
    • It also makes a lot of sense given how a Changeling and Rumplestiltskin are so similar in stories: both are baby snatchers.
  • Isaac's request for tickets to Hamilton may seem to be a sort of nod to the fact that the playwright of the musical also did music for Moana, but consider that one of Hamilton's major traits is his ability to write, with one of his feats being him writing fifty one pages of the 85-paged Federalist Papers. As an author, this is one trait that Isaac would most definitely sympathize with.
  • The last line about how the final battle is won is definitely a confuser, especially with "evil" doing what's "right". However, think about the Dark Fairy's clever trap: She can get darkness by the murder of the Savior or force the Savior to kill an innocent. A double-cross situation. Therefore, it only makes sense to counter-back the final battle with light double-crossing as well. While Emma is good by fulfilling the role of the Savior, Rumplestiltskin was crucial to the success of the light by ultimately choosing love over power. That is the light's version of a double-cross that darkness cannot win against, because Rumplestiltskin has no reason to be a villain when he loves his son over choosing power.

Season 7

  • Of course there's more than one Enchanted Forest. In real life, stories are retold in varying ways by different authors, with changes ranging from mild to drastic. It would make sense for the Fairy Tale Land to reflect this.
  • It'd make sense for Gothel and Facilier to work together, as not only were their films were released side by side, but they hold significance, being the 50th Disney film and the last Disney film to be 2D animated (save for Winnie the Pooh) respectively.
  • It'd make sense that Wish!Rumple would try to kill Cinderella by making her and Lucy freeze to death, given that she also had a similar near-death experience before as shown in "One Little Tear".

    Fridge Horror 
  • Apart from all the usual horrors that come with being immortal, we learn that Dark Ones cannot sleep, hear constant whispers from the dagger, and are plagued by invisible spirits of the past Dark Ones urging them to do the bidding of the Original Dark One, Nimue. While this would extremely bothersome for awhile, Rumple has had to deal with this for CENTURIES. Suddenly, his compulsive desire to spin straw into gold makes sense. Its how he tries to quite the voices.
  • Cora manipulated Snow into betraying Regina. Snow manipulated Regina into betraying Cora. The only person who got screwed in both of those instances is Regina. Compounded by the fact that in both instances, the betrayal stemmed from Regina putting her trust in Snow. History repeated itself with a few details switched around, and considering putting her trust in Snow has failed spectacularly both times for her, will Regina ever be able to trust her step-daughter ever again?
  • Jiminy was told by the Blue Fairy that he would live for as long as he needed in order to help Geppetto. What happens when Gepetto dies, does he die too? Though note that Jiminy probably already knows this, and has accepted it as his punishment. As Gepetto tells him, his debt to him can never truly be repaid in life.
  • Speaking of Geppetto, his becoming a toymaker/puppeteer who wishes his toys could have life has taken a SERIOUSLY darker Freudian meaning—he was wishing for his parents to turn back into people.
  • The town has been frozen in time, which means that Cinderella has been pregnant for 28 years.
  • If Snow White had stepped into the enchanted tree while pregnant, and the enchanted tree could only transport one person, that could mean it would either teleport Snow to our world leaving an unborn baby in the tree, or vice-versa, if it considered the soon-to-be-born Emma a separate person. It's a pretty good thing Snow gave birth before they had to use it.
  • Henry grew up in Storybrooke. Presumably, he grew up normally... while everyone else was frozen in time, not aging. Including the other children in town (the Hatter's daughter, Hansel and Gretel, etc). He'd have different classmates every year because he'd get older and they wouldn't...that very well could have triggered the kid's BS detector and tipped him off to how strange that place really is. Not to mention that since Henry is the only person aging there, what would have happened if the Queen's plan actually continued for all eternity? And how exactly would Regina explain why Henry's aging and no one else is, and what would happen if Henry shares this fact with the world? Confirmed by Word of God as of the Paleyfest 2012 Once Upon A Time panel discussion.
  • Think of where Evil Queen Regina keeps the Magic Mirror/Sydney. He most likely would have witnessed her repeatedly raping the Huntsman. Of course, knowing him, he'd likely be more jealous than horrified.
  • That book of Henry's probably isn't subject to Disneyfication. That kid probably learned more than he ever wanted to about his adopted mama, including the part about keeping the Huntsman as a Sex Slave. (Though it seems that part went over Henry's head). The only thing the book did not include was the Evil Queen's exact origins.
  • In 'An Apple as Red as Blood' Regina appears to be coming on to Charming before she goes to poison snow and even quips about him possibly not being quite so incorruptible once Snow is gone. Take into account that we have no idea how much time passed between his capture and his escape, the fact that she tried to seduce him in Storybrooke and that she was quite willing to force Graham into being her sex slave...
  • In Season 1, episode 12, Rumplestiltskin turns Gaston into a rose. In the following scene, Rumple gives Belle the Gaston-rose (unknown to Belle that the rose is her ex-fiance) that she proceeds to cut off the stem. The lower anatomy of the rose.
  • Belle has been imprisoned in a psych ward for up to 28 years.
  • In a combination of horror & brilliance, the curse is most focused on making Snow White miserable. So no wonder everyone is ganging up on her alone for the affair- it's what will make her most miserable. And it seems to be working...
  • Red having Granny as her only living relative. We hear that Red's mother was the 2nd Big Bad Wolf. We can only guess what might have happened to her father...
    • Even worse in Season 2 once we meet her mother. Knowing how Anita is, it's likely she killed him for not going along with her plans.
  • Granny was bitten by the first Wolf when she was young, and the more you really think about it, there's only one way that Granny had a daughter at all. According to Jane Espenson, who wrote the episode, Granny was actually married to the werewolf that was Red's grandfather. In Jane's mind, at least. As many viewers have pointed out, that doesn't make it any less creepy. He stalked, marked, and turned a child whom he later married. Do you really think he turned her for kicks and then just happened to fall for her when she got older?
    • I think it's more of a case that she was probably 16/17 odd - she described her siblings as "huge". This either means she was REALLLLLLLY tiny or they were just really big. Or, maybe the wolf only married her because she'd been marked - one wolf can, presumably, hold back another. It's keeping more people safe.
  • Snow's relationship with Regina. Imagine as a child you are saved by a kind and gentle person who you really like and connect with. And then, over time, due to something you know nothing about, you watch said person become horrible and terrible and hate you and nothing you do seems to fix things. That has to be kind of painful as a child and a person. And then later, we learn that initially, Regina told Snow that Daniel had run away to spare Snow's feelings. It's clear that at that point in time, she still had some decency in her and wanted to protect Snow. But by the time we (and Snow) learn of this, Regina's past the point of no return.
  • Regina has been working to make Mary Margaret's life a living hell. So, framing her for murder is just cinching things, as far as Regina is concerned. This leads to some big Fridge Horror for Mary Margaret herself, when Regina practically tells her that yes, she is actively trying to frame Mary Margaret for murder, and that Mary "deserves it". Topping this off is the fact that Mary Margaret remembers nothing of her life as Snow White, so couldn't even begin to guess what Regina would be holding such a deep grudge for.
  • In universe horror for Emma during the season finale: Regina tells her that Mr. Gold is Rumplestiltskin. Emma has read Henry's book enough to know who Rumple is as far as fairy tales go, and she's made a deal with Gold in the past.
  • With the curse removed (at least, to the extent that everyone has their old memories back), Grace presumably finally remembers everything and gets to be with her father, Jefferson. Awww, a happy ending for the both of them. But wait, Grace has been raised by another family this whole time. I can't imagine what it would be like for any of them involved: for Grace to realize that she's been kept from her father this whole time and raised by people that aren't her real parents; for her Storybrooke parents to realize that Grace isn't their daughter; and for Jefferson to finally get to see his daughter again, except with tons of memories of a fake family. I imagine that it would be hard for Grace to leave her Storybrooke parents for her real father, and it'll be just as hard for them to lose someone they thought was their daughter, even if they have their real memories back. Though we also don't know who her new family is. Perhaps the family is the ones who took her in after her father vanished into Wonderland and couldn't get out. She may still be angry with Jefferson about breaking his promise and leaving her.
    • Saved by the Season 2 episode "Lady of the Lake". Grace reunites with Jefferson and is merely happy to be back with her father. It's probably very likely that the family she had in Storybrooke were the neighbours Jefferson entrusted her to before he left.
  • Regina's addiction to magic. Before Regina learned magic she was an emotionally abused girl tormented and imprisoned by her own mother. Magic allowed her to get rid of her mother. Afterwards, she found for the first time in her life she was free by means of magic. Her use of magic isn't that it corrupted her so much as she sees it as a means to stay in control of her life. She's paranoid that without magic she'll have nothing again. She's not so much a wicked witch but an uber-control freak. It's essentially an allegory for parental abuse. Without magic, she's worried she'll be trapped and helpless. That she'll be a victim. Even worse, the means by which Cora abused Regina was magic. The allegory for parental abuse being a vicious cycle is all the more stifling.
  • Emma told Cora about Henry. Cora, Regina's mother who murdered Daniel and screwed up her daughter so badly she became the Evil Queen, and who Regina must have seriously pissed off when she shoved her into a magic mirror, knows about Henry. If Daniel is a weakness, what does that make Henry? An heir. Considering Cora's treatment of Regina...and as explained elsewhere, he's first in line to inherit both George and Leopold's kingdoms and titles. This makes him not just an heir... but THE heir. Cora can skip right past Regina, Snow, Charming, and Emma and go straight for Henry. He's The Target.
  • One that goes in the meta-fiction or Crack Fic category. When Charming was addressing the confused and terrified townsfolk in "We Are Both", he started making suggestions of how they could fuse their identities, including "writing software" if they wished. Considering Henry's game of choice, writing software in Storybrooke would probably be a bad idea.
  • Rumplestiltskin spent at least thirty years creating an abused child because he needed someone very powerful but damaged and broken enough to be willing to enact his curse. He gave Cora the power, allowing her to abuse Regina, gave Regina power and corrupted her as much as he could, then gave her the curse and explained exactly how to use it. In other words, Regina's entire life, just like Emma's, has been completely controlled by Rumplestiltskin's plan - both of their lives were carefully shaped by him so they would fit what he needed them to do in his plan to get his son back. There's just something extremely disturbing and dark about someone deliberately setting up a child to be abused and damaged, especially considering he's a parent himself.
    • Made even worse when you find out that she wasn't his only apprentice. And, really, he never groomed anyone to enact his curse. He has just been looking for broken people and guiding them towards his goal. If you seem to suit his needs, he keeps working with you. If you don't, he drops you.
    • And even worse when Zelena comes along. Rumple created the Wicked of the West and condemned Oz to her tyranny after he rejected her - not to mention Glinda getting eternally banished to the frozen north.
  • Consider the ramifications of Moe's plan to mind-wipe Belle. Her Storybrooke persona is virtually non-existent, consisting of nothing more than being a shy, mentally ill girl locked in a cell for twenty-eight years. If the plan had worked, she would have woken up handcuffed in a mine cart, totally amnesiac and with a complete lack of functional twenty-first century skills. Only the fact that Rumple would take care of her regardless lessens that potential fate. Though there'd be very little stopping him from making Moe... suffer.
  • In "The Cricket Game", Cora killed someone and made the body look like Jiminy's. So who did she kill?
  • Archie's now safe and sound. There's no reason in the protagonists' minds to continue investigating. Someone in Storybrooke is probably going to have to spend the rest of their life wondering what happened to their loved one, assuming they were even able to find each other after the Curse broke. However, now that they know Archie is alive, maybe they'll start wondering who they buried and look into it a bit.
  • Dr. Whale/Frankenstein told Ruby/Red that his brother was still in his land. That means that Whale kept his brother alive in secret for years (since only a little while after Regina married King Leopold), and that either his brother has been locked away in secret and utterly alone for the past 28 years, or he's been on a homicidal rampage throughout his land. Remember how David was after a few days? Twenty-eight years. Though as far as we know, Frankenstein's assistant Igor wasn't affected by the curse so it could be that he's been taking care of Gerhardt.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Dr. Whale wanted to help save lives in saving Greg. It almost does the opposite.
  • With Regina's curse allowing her to pull Whale from his land, his land's state for the past 28 years is in question - has it, too, been frozen in time, or not?
  • If Cora has impersonated the Blue Fairy before, what if some of the things the Blue Fairy has done was really of Cora's doing?
  • "Do you remember turning a butcher into a pig ... It was his father." Given the family trade, it's likely the son then proceeded to unknowingly cook and eat his own father. No wonder the poor chap's so mad at Rumple.
  • Whenever Rumple's spinning gold, he's imagining ripping out the throat of the man who made him kiss his boot. Now think about how much this guy spins - that's a lot of bottled up anger.
  • Rumple's immediate accusation of Cora never loving him is harsh enough on its own, but then you remember that Milah told him the same thing. He probably immediately thought of that when Cora told him she wasn't going with him. Both these experiences explain his Freak Out when Belle first kisses him, and his insistence that "no-one could EVER love me!" It runs even deeper than romance when you learn his father never truly loved him. Due to this and all the self loathing issues that piled on, Rumple considers himself unfit for ANY love.
  • Cora didn't originally want to become the Dark One, she only decided to kill Rumple because he was dying anyway. If she'd gotten her way she would have forced him to kill Snow, Emma aka the mother of his grandson, Charming aka the closest thing he has to a friend and in all probability given Henry's parentage he would probably have been forced to kill his own child who he just spent 300 years looking for. Not to mention the rest of the town. Then, given that he was 'the only man she ever loved', it's possible she would have ended up doing to him what Regina did to Graham.
  • If Snow ever pulls a full-blown Faceā€“Heel Turn, everyone else had better watch out. Because with the numerous people on the show who have been running around trying to get their revenge, she actually succeeded. By succeeding in taking her revenge, she actually helped Cora succeed in her revenge on Queen Eva. Cora had promised Eva - er, Eva's corpse, that she would corrupt Eva's daughter and thus corrupt her legacy, wiping out her light forever. And seeing as Snow's desires for vengeance against Cora for her actions darkened her light heart, this is exactly what happened. The part that's cruelly ironic for Cora is that her success in this directly led to the failure to become the Dark One and have ultimate power - and to the end of her life. In taking a twisted revenge, Cora brought upon her own demise.
  • Assuming that Sidney is Aladdin's Genie, why wasn't he freed before meeting King Leopold? Did Aladdin die before he could free the Genie with his third wish? Was the Genie freed and then imprisoned again? Was Aladdin just another jerk who used his wishes for himself? Or maybe the "Jafar" of the series stole the lamp and it was lost in the sea during a struggle? None of these possibilities are very appealing.
    • Word Of God has confirmed multiple times that Sidney is/was not the Genie of the Aladdin tale.
  • Belle always brought out the best in Gold, and continued to even when she didn't remember who she was. Lacey, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Instead of inspiring good, she's encouraging Gold's dark side.
  • This is an issue for pretty much everyone in Storybrooke, but most notably with Lacey: Regina has essentially been committing rape-by-proxy on everyone for twenty-eight years. Think about it for a second. David and Kathryn were having sex, something neither Abigail nor Charming would have chosen. Presumably there were a number of other such pairs, and now Lacey is going around sleeping with people (it's implied) whom Belle would never have even considered.
  • Tamara is in a world-class ball of hurt once word gets to Rumple. This is a guy that makes most Knight Templar Parents look reasonable and well-mannered. Tamara cost him his boy again. Tamara lied about loving his son from day one to try and destroy magic. And Rumple got burned by both Milah and Cora, so having a faithless woman pull one over on his boy? That's not going to go over too well. Worse, Regina decided to Mind Rape and twist Rumple's last remaining Morality Chain. And unlike Regina, Rumple is patient and might not even need magic, considering how good he is with the Xanatos Speed Chess. Tamara might as well have a will made out and spare herself the trouble. And then she went beyond messing with Bae/Neal's heart and shot him before letting him go through a portal. Now that everyone thinks he's dead, there is nowhere that Tamara can hide and nothing that she can do to keep Rumple from making her suffer.
    • As of the first episode of S3, Rumple tore out her heart and crushed it. It really makes you think when you realize that was most likely him showing restraint due to being mellowed by Belle. Otherwise, he would have killed her in a more more painful manner. That it's the same fate he gave to someone he used to love (Milah) indicates it's the mildest way he could possibly kill her.
  • In "True North", the Queen mentions that Hansel and Gretel are not the first children that she sent to the Blind Witch's house, but they are the first to have managed to get out of the house alive. The floor at the Blind Witch's house is full of bones. How many children did the Queen send into that house just to get the apple back?
  • Rumplestiltskin's joke: "Congratulations on your little war," (where the last word sounds very much like the one meaning "a woman who sells herself") comes back to haunt him when Regina makes him believe the lie that Belle's father tried to purify her by tormenting her, and ended up killing her.
  • This is kind of Fridge Sadness, but what must have happened in between turning pirate and meeting Milah that turned wide-eyed young Lieutenant Jones into the man who would taunt Rumplestiltskin about his wife being a 'companion' for a shipful of pirates? Turning pirate alone wouldn't do it, not with Killian's reasons for doing so, which suggests there was something deeper and nastier at work there that blackened his heart. In "Good Form", Pan mentions Jones having had worked for him before. Also, at the end of the backstory, Jones vows he'll never go back to Neverland. Yet he's perfectly eager to go there in the backstory shown in "The Crocodile." It's possible that before meeting Milah, he did go back, and that corrupted him.
  • So... that moment when Ursula warns Regina about pretending to be her ever again? Where her tentacles come through the mirror and wrap around her? It looks a lot like what Cora used to do with the tree branches. And, by the look on Regina's face, she's thinking just that. The chances of Ursula not doing that intentionally, to intentionally flash her back? Yeah...
  • After learning how much Malcolm, the man who became Pan, resented his child since the day said child was born, it becomes easy to imagine what his "lovely thoughts" would be when he thought them before going to Neverland with his son - A life without the son, free from the responsibilities of adulthood and parenthood.
  • No one is going to dispute that ripping through her bonds and dropping Pan wasn't a Moment of Awesome for Regina. However, think about what she said and just proved. She regrets none of the horrible things she did up to the point of getting Henry because they led to her getting Henry. She doesn't regret murdering her father. She doesn't regret cursing the town. She doesn't regret trying to murder her stepdaughter and all her friends. She didn't regret slaughtering and terrorizing her way through entire villages or running away when she had a chance to love again. She did not regret sending dozens of children (younger than her boy is now) to their death at the hands of the Blind Witch to get that apple. Or trapping the Flynns and murdering Kurt. She might and probably does regret the things she did following getting Henry, but even then she's able to push them out of sight and out of mind, for better or for worse.
  • When re-casting the Dark Curse requires Peter Pan to sacrifice the heart of the thing he loves most, Felix suggests it might be Pan's son, Rumplestiltskin. Pan casually responds with "Nah. I never loved Rumple." This is of course a simplification of how he really feels about his son, which is actually MUCH nastier and more twisted. Then he proceeds to tell Felix that there are different kinds of love beyond romantic or familial love. Love born of loyalty is one of them, indicating that he loves how Felix is such an unconditionally loyal follower of him. So he kills Felix, throws his heart into the well...and it works. The curse is cast. If Felix truly was the thing he loved most, that means he loved and cherished a loyal minion more than he ever did his own son. That's how little he values Rumple.
  • Three episodes ago, Pan told Rumple he DID care for him and made him the offer to join him rather than seal him in Pandora's box. At the time, people wondered if he was sincere or if it was another con like with Henry. In "Going Home", it is proven to be the latter. Pan was running out of time back then and his power was weakening, he needed to distract Rumple long enough to make the box switch. His line of "put down that box and you'll see (just how much I care)" and his smirk after trapping Rumple while saying "the choice was yours" hint that he would have sealed Rumple in anyway had he accepted his offer. But now, Pan is on the cusp of victory: he's cast the curse already and he sees that he's been slapped with an anti-magic cuff he knows can't work on him. Unlike last time, Pan has nothing to lose...which means that what he tells Rumple now is his actual sincere feelings: he always resented his son and just wants to be rid of him.
  • Wendy Darling, never aging beyond being a young girl, is shown to spend her extensive time in Neverland in a small cage. She is a hostage by a group of wild boys with no moral authority figures, the leader of which is revealed as a rejuvenated adult man without any morals whatsoever. Some of the Lost Boys, and especially Pan himself are teenagers biologically, which means they have a sex drive. And apart from Tinkerbell, who avoided them, Wendy is the only female around, looks gorgeous, and she happens to live in a cage... how do you think she spent most of her very, very long time there?
    • Y'know not all males are capable of rape. Neverland is a place for children, and sex is a very adult desire. Most of the Lost Boys can't be older than twelve or thirteen and they go to Neverland specifically to escape the things associated with growing up. Pan as a villain seems pretty asexual and there's no reason to believe he encouraged his Lost Boys to do anything to Wendy. He did need her as a bargaining tool and allowing the Lost Boys to have their way with her does risk her getting killed or escaping.
  • Many tropers/fans think Rumple tricked Regina into killing her father for the curse as revenge for his own rejection by her mother (and Cora's breaking of the deal to have a child with him) - he looked very pleased when he mocked Regina after she'd done the deed PLUS he's been personally training her for years and we've seen him manipulate/play her countless times, he's obviously got a good handle on how she operates to the point where he's been manipulating her pre and post-curse rather easily.
  • The show has a series of childhood abandonments that have escalated the plot - Peter Pan abandoned Rumple, who grew up to be a sad, dejected man who leaned on magic so heavily and the power it gave him that he ended up abandoning his son Baelfire - and through the need for a curse to return to the Bae's land, he lead Regina into casting her curse, which made the Charmings send Emma away, which led to her having an unstable childhood and giving up Henry... that's four cases in that one family, alone.
  • Rumplestiltskin's resurrection was only made possible because his son Neal sacrificed his life to bring him back. Rumple died in the first place to save his family from Peter Pan. A father died so that his son could live and get a happy ending in the form of Emma and Henry. Now that was horribly undone because said son was tricked into sacrificing his life to bring said father back from the dead. Rumple has to live the rest of his life knowing he owes every breath to his son's sacrifice. His efforts to give his son a happy ending were in vain and worse yet it was the catalyst for Neal's tragic demise. Even when Rumple tries to make a selfless deed it goes horribly wrong.
  • Emma, Charming, Hook and Regina are fighting the flying monkeys and actually killing them. It looks like typical fight with mindless Always Chaotic Evil creatures, so we are not supposed to worry about that. But fridge horror comes, when you realise, that these are people turned into flying monkeys by Zelena.
  • Robin Hood just found out that his Second Love is his wife's killer. Worse, Marian appears to be a case of But for Me, It Was Tuesday for Regina.
    • However he takes this revelation extremely well.
    • There is the possibility there was a Retcon done as a result of the time change. Marian was executed in the original timeline - which likely would have been public. Since Emma rescues her here, she's only known as missing now. So while Robin may have known her as dead before, now he may only have believed her to run away or have died along the way - since she most certainly wasn't publicly executed by the Queen.
  • So when Regina cast the dark curse, it wrecked most of the enchanted forest, and only Cora's defensive spell prevented its total destruction. She also said that she "brought who she wanted", hence how Jefferson and Whale were in storybrooke. So if that's the case, what happened to their worlds? The world without color hasn't been seen at all, and while Once Upon a Time in Wonderland seems to take place after the dark curse, you still have to wonder how Regina's vengeance might have ruined not just one, but three worlds.
  • 4x03 episode "Rocky Road" and the 4x04 promo are full of Fridge Horror to me, most involve Elsa.
  • Well, at least now we know why the Duke of Weaselton has a problem with magic...
    • It's Weselton!
  • Everyone is instructed to separate themselves from their loved ones so they don't harm each other when the curse of Shattered Sight hits. Snow even hands over baby Neal to Emma, who won't be affected, to make sure he's safe. While that's great for Neal, that's not so great for those other babies we saw a few episodes ago. If even Snow was worried about her child being in danger with his parents, that doesn't bode well for Cinderella and Aurora's kids.
    • Even worse is that the parents can't leave their babies alone, cause no one in their right mind would expect a bunch of babies to be able to take of themselves or appoint a guardian since he'll just be affected by the curse and try to harm them.
  • Rumple and Hook attacked an Old Man who once was the Sorcerer's Apprentice whom Rumple had turned into a Mouse in the enchanted forest and sucked him into the void within the Sorceror's hat. Given that the creators like to use the Disneyfied versions of characters, (Ariel instead of the Little Mermaid, Maleficent instead of the Evil Godmother, Belle instead of Beauty) and that the Sorceror's Apprentice in Fantasia was played by a beloved childhood icon then does that mean that they just killed off...!?!
  • Anna, Kristoff, and everyone in Arendelle was frozen for 30 years this isn't bad for most people because everyone they know is frozen with them but what about Hans and his brothers for all they know their parents both could have died (having 13 sons with the youngest being in his early to mid-twenties they are probably pretty old by now) and any wives or children they had grown old.
  • Couples as a Fridge Tearjerker. It's shown in this series that Gerda, Elsa and Anna's mother, came to accept Elsa as she was just before she died. Her final letter she left for them showed that. What if they were on their way home to let Elsa know that and that she doesn't have to conceal her powers?
  • Though it's presented in-universe, Rumplestiltskin could have escaped at anytime by using the Squid Ink to destroy the bars. If being in jail wasn't "where he needed to be", imagine just how easily he'd escape.
  • It's pointed out in the Recap page, but the implications of what The Author can do are absolutely terrifying. Most authors are perfectly fine to simply tell the story as it unfolds, respecting the wills of all their characters. But the author who wants to write his own story? Absolutely terrifying. If he writes it, he can create a story filled with utter hell for any involved. Hell, he could just write "And then a meteor destroyed their planet. The End." and that would be the end of the world with only the stroke of a pen. It's no wonder the apprentice banished him the moment he realized what the current author was doing. ANY misuse of that kind of power is Deadly and horrible to think about.
    • Thankfully, the Author's power seems to be limited by the properties of the ink. Unfortunately, what the Author can do is Ascended Fridge Horror in "Operation Mongoose".
  • Zelena basically committed rape by fraud Robin by pretending to be Marian when they slept together. It also draws pararells between her and season 1 Regina. Remember, what Regina was doing to Graham? Using his heart to influence him into sleeping with her. Zelena is doing another version of this.
    • This has borne further fruit in the fact that Zelena is now pregnant, trapping Robin with her because of his honor. And the parallel with season 1 Regina is even underscored because of the re-appearance of the wolf that ran Emma off the road. (Though naturally this didn't lead to a certain discussion between Emma and Regina...)
  • It's revealed that Rumple's blackening heart meant that he would lose the ability to love, in "Mother" we learn the full implications of this: while the Dark One can't die in this manner, the man Rumple was "can" essentially becoming a powerful black-magic wielding psychopath. As bad as he was before, everything he did was in some way part of the long range goal to find his son, and thus in some ways his humanity and ability to love is what held him back. Now, imagine what the Dark One could be without that that one thing from holding him back from unleashing all manner of hell on the world.
  • The Neverland Arc has shown us that it's a good thing for Rumple that all those other methods of getting to Bae (i.e. getting the bean from Hook or allowing Zelena to be his apprentice) ended badly for him, because had he got those other methods, he would have either ended up in the real world unable to find Baelfire (due to him being lost in Neverland for a good chunk of his life) or ended up in Neverland and be forced to confront Peter Pan. Neither option sounds good for him.
  • Let's see... Malcolm neglects his son, is shown to have be a workaholic (goes over to the bar and plays Follow The Lady a lot) and experienced Neverland once before. It can take quite a bit of thinking to realize that Malcolm might have been an evil version of Peter Banning.
  • In Storybrooke, Guinevere is shown still in love with Arthur and presumably supporting his quest to reforge Excalibur. Which means the enchantment caused by the Sands of Avalon haven't faded. In "The Broken Kingdom", Arthur cast the same enchantment on both Snow and Charming. Whose to say that they're not still under it and don't even know it?
  • In "The Bear and the Bow" we're shown that Merida's arrow missed. We're shown that Merida sees The Black Knight's sword pierce into her Father and kill him, and she's dragged away screaming. Is Elinor aware of how much of Fergus' death Merida actually saw?
    • Merida also comments to Arthur that he has no idea of the "dark path" that blaming herself for her father's death sent her on. It's likely that she still blames herself for Fergus' death.
  • In season 5, when the gang visits The Underworld to save Hook, they find Milah working as a crossing guard helping large crowds of school-age children cross the street. Considering everyone in the Underworld died in the real world and the majority of the inhabitants have some connection to the Enchanted Forest or Storybrooke, where did all these kids come from and why did they die so young?
    • Regina has murdered at least one village (as shown in season 2, episode 12 flashback) which clearly had children, and she also sent a few kids to die at the hands of the blind witch before Hansel and Gretel got her what she wanted. So, Regina would hurt a child. The entire plot started with her trying to kill a 10 year old afterall. We also know Cora has murdered at least one village of people when Hook was working with her. So maybe that too. Also, its not unnatural that kids die for other reasons. Death doesn't tend to wait until someone is 18.
  • The finale of season 5 reveals that the magic which exists on Earth, if it is believed in, enabled Henry to make a wish for his family to be together again, and that this is what led to Hook's return at the start of season 3B. But does this mean his wish just gave Snow, Charming, and Regina the means to recast the Dark Curse, and Hook the message for Emma, so that the fairy tale characters could return...or did his wish retroactively create Zelena so there would be a conflict needing resolving and a reason for his family to come back to him? If the latter, that means everything which has gone wrong since then (Neal's death, the time traveling, Ingrid, the Hat, Gold's darkening heart, the Author, the Dark Swan, and so on) would be all Henry's fault. (Even assuming his wish didn't create all those developments, many of them could never have happened or been resolved in the manner they were if not for either Zelena and her time-travel spell or the second Dark Curse.)
  • It seems rather idiotic that Belle would keep going back to Gold, no matter how much he lies, manipulates, or proves that he won't change, but what if she was magically-inclined to keep returning to him? In "Skin Deep", she makes a deal with Rumple to "go with [him] forever" as long as her family and friends live, and despite Gold trying to kill them many times, her friends and father are still alive, meaning the deal could still very-well be intact.
  • If you think about it... Tiger Lily is indirectly responsible for every single atrocity committed by The Black Fairy, Peter Pan and Rumplestiltskin.
    • If she hadn't given Fiona those books of fairy lore Fiona wouldn't have gone over the deep end trying to protect her son.. and become the Black Fairy. Resulting in her banishment by Blue and separation from her family.
    • Then Pan wouldn't have spent all Rumple's childhood bitter over the loss of his wife and resenting his son for indirectly causing it. Which led him to abandon his son and become Pan so he could have power and stay young
    • And of course if Rumple hadn't been abandoned by both his parents after growing up with a father who resented him he wouldn't have so fiercely protective of Bae to the point where he was willing to become the Dark One to save him
    • Hell you can probably add Cora, Zelena and Regina to the list of villains indirectly created by Tiger Lily's actions as Rumple taught them all, rejected Zelena... and molded Regina into the woman he needed to cast the curse
  • While we know what happens to Isaac, it's horrifying to imagine that someone went missing after taking up a job offer from a publisher, then turn up missing for many decades until he returns to society after being held prisoner in a small town in Maine that is so obscured to the human eye by magic that it might as well be a ghost town.

    Fridge Logic 
On the Headscratchers page.

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