Once Upon A Time / Tropes A to D

Tropes A-D | Tropes E to F | Tropes G to H | Tropes I to L | Tropes M to P | Tropes Q to T | Tropes U to Z

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Once Upon a Time provides examples of the following tropes:

A

• Aborted Arc:
  • Season 2 suffered from this. Notably, King George's subplot to take over the town lasted for an episode before he randomly disappeared. Similarly, the fate of Dr. Whale's brother was never revealed.
  • Many wondered what Will Scarlet was doing away from his beloved in Wonderland, but apart from him breaking into the library so he could steal a copy of Alice in Wonderland it went nowhere.
  • "What Happened To Fredrick" features a few hints that Abigail and Fredrick's cursed selves will find each other which are never resolved.
  • The Camelot arc left several of these following The Reveal that Hook was a second Dark One. Guinevere being under control of the Sands of Avalon, Lancelot's mother being the Lady of the Lake, the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Guinevere and Lancelot...
  • The Land of Untold Stories is introduced in the Season 5 finale, and a large number of its inhabitants led by Mr. Hyde are brought over to Storybrooke at the end. This lasts for the first six episodes of Season 6 before abruptly vanishing altogether, with not even a mention of the Land of Untold Stories and its residents in the following episodes, though Henry does apparently use his Author Powers to write their stories conclusions offscreen prior to the climax.
  • The season four finale hinted at an arc where Lily tries to find her father. Such an arc never happened on-screen. However, the series finale reveals offhandedly that they found her father, who is none other than Zorro.
  • For more than half of season 7, Rumple has been searching for the Guardian, one being who can effectively use the dagger for good or destroy it. Anastasia is revealed as this person shortly before the mid-season hiatus. Not soon after, she and Drizella leave for the Enchanted Forest, to keep them safe, via magic bean given to them by Rumple, seemingly ending Rumple's search for the Guardian. Regina even questions Rumple letting her go after searching for so long, with him responding he will find other ways.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Regina:
    • She is at first strongly implied to be emotionally abusive in her lack of concern and involvement with Henry beyond trying to one-up Emma. Another example of her abuse is her trying to gaslight him (the show implies that she thinks that this is what is best for him, but her fear of losing him also played a part), going as far as to threaten his therapist. She even unknowingly resorts to blatant acts of violence in front of him.
    • In Season 2, however, Regina appears to be going all-out to avert the trope and make amends with Henry—though it's more to regain his affection than out of any sincere goodness. The season finale changes this drastically, though, and in Season 3, no one, not even Emma, is questioning her motives anymore.
  • Jiminy's family in the Enchanted Forest were this to him, always manipulating his desire to stop thieving to keep him at it.
  • Cora, Regina's mother. She killed Regina's true love to force her into marrying the King, because she wants her idea of the best possible life for her daughter, meaning status and power. She is extremely possessive of Regina, planning to go to Storybrooke after the curse is broken because then Regina will have lost everything and will need her. And she believes all this qualifies as motherly love. Justified in that Cora wasn't truly capable of healthy, proper love as long as her heart was kept outside of her body.
  • Rumplestiltskin himself, as much as he genuinely loves his son. He kills people in front of his child. He has massive overreactions to any injury done to Bae, best shown when a man accidentally hits Bae with a cart. Bae is uninjured and doesn't want to hurt the man, but Rumple turns him into a snail and stomps on him - in front of Bae. Bae also seems to have become afraid of his father.
  • Rumplestiltskin's wife, Milah, was of the neglectful variety. She would leave her young son home alone for hours at a time so she could go drinking at the local tavern. Eventually, she abandoned him altogether.
  • Rumplestiltskin's father as well. He abandoned Rumple for (almost) eternal youth and in season 3 taunts him and plays with his emotions.
  • Zelena's father was the one who first branded her as "wicked," even going so far as to blame her for his alcoholism.
  • Lady Tremaine from season 7 constantly bullies and dismisses Drizella, being more focused on reviving her other daughter, Anastasia. She was even planning to use Drizella's heart as a way to revive Anastasia. Fortunately, all this comes to an end when Tremaine sacrifices herself to save Drizella.
• Accidental Adultery: Snow White is married to Prince Charming, but their Storybrooke counterparts don't remember each other. Snow has a one-night stand with Dr. Whale, while Charming sleeps with Kathryn/Princess Abigail (King Midas's daughter) thinking she's his wife.
• Accidental Murder: Red accidentally kills her mother when the latter tries to kill Snow.
• Accomplice by Inaction: Regina's motivation for wanting revenge against Snow White is that she didn't keep a secret from her mother, who discovered her engagement with the family's stable boy and killed him. In fact, this became part of her bitterness against Leopold who helped her mother's plans by accepting her mother's answer to the marriage proposal instead of hers.
• Achey Scars: Granny has a nasty-looking one on her arm that aches every month on the full moon because it's the wound she got when she became a werewolf.
• Action Girl
  • Emma takes up her father's sword in order to battle a dragon, and later uses both swordfighting and general brawling skills in the Enchanted Forest.
  • The show introduces Snow White being rescued by Prince Charming in the first scene and establishes her as a kind schoolteacher in the real world. And yet, she has outright awesome scenes of badassery as her story progresses in the flashbacks, especially when she leads a small army in a full-on invasion of King George's castle in her efforts to save Charming. Never mind the time she put an arrow through the eye of an ogre about to kill Emma, or when she used an aerosol can and cigarette lighter as a makeshift flame-thrower to fight off the wraith.
  • Regina is not just an ambitious queen and career mother, she is also powerful enough to catch a crossbow bolt with her bare hand, and later curb-stomp The Wicked Witch of the West.
  • Red/Ruby, usually in conjunction with her ability to turn into a wolf, but not always. For example, her take-down of Quinn in the beginning of "Child of the Moon," which happens when she isn't a wolf, and "In the Name of the Brother" when Ruby unexpectedly displays superhuman speed when she runs to stop someone from committing suicide.
  • Granny, on a couple of occasions, generally involving a crossbow.
  • Belle, when she tracked and fought the beast that was Cursed!Phillip.
  • Mulan certainly qualifies, since she's said to have fought in many battles with Prince Phillip.
• Action Mom: As the show focuses more and more on Regina's role as Henry's mother, she helps out the heroes in fighting off ghosts, pirates, Peter Pan's Lost Boys, and anything and anyone else that threatens her kid.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jiminy's admonishment to Henry that "giving in to one's dark side never accomplishes anything" becomes hilarious once you realize where you've heard his voice before.
  • Amy Acker as a Cute Clumsy Girl who becomes especially dorky around her love interest? The only things missing are the glasses and Texan accent.
  • David makes a comment to Snow about falling through a portal to Asgard. Josh Dallas was the original Fandral in Thor.
• Actually, I Am Him: That boy that helps Henry escape from the Lost Boys? It's Peter Pan, the Big Bad of the season.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Ursula from The Little Mermaid (1989) - who is overweight, old and purple-skinned. In "Ariel" Regina impersonates her and adopts a look inspired by the movie - but is slimmer without the purple skin. The real Ursula who appears at the end is also slimmer than the movie counterpart. Ursula returns in the second half of season four as a member of the "Queens of Darkness," and is now portrayed by Merrin Dungey◊, who also fares much better than her Disney counterpart.
  • Three of the witches from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West is an old hag with one eye in the book (and green-skinned and hook nosed in the MGM film). While she retains the green skin, it makes her more of a Cute Monster Girl. The Wicked Witch of the East's appearance is never commented on (but Oz the Great and Powerful depicts her true form as a hag too) and the Witch of the North is an elderly woman. Both are played by young attractive actresses. Glinda is the only witch that is described as agelessly beautiful in the books.
  • Captain Hook too. Emma even lampshades it, telling Hook that his story counterpart has a "bad perm and waxed facial hair."
  • Merida from Brave, though this is mostly just due to the character now being a grown woman as opposed to an awkward teenager.
  • Merlin is commonly depicted as an elderly man. Fan reaction when he finally made an appearance was "wow, he's pretty."
  • Compared to his many different interpretations prior (but mainly his Disney counterpart), Hades falls under this as well. Here, he's a suave, well-dressed man as opposed to a grey-skinned, sharp-toothed being.
  • Both the Once Upon a Time in Wonderland version of Jafar and the main series version; they're played by two different actors but both are considerably more attractive than the original Jafar.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Maleficent is dark-haired in the Disney canon but is blonde in this. Rapunzel (the first one, not Lady Tremaine) traditionally has blonde hair but gets this and a Race Lift to become black-haired. Wendy is usually portrayed as a Brainy Brunette but becomes blonde. The Blue Fairy is blonde but becomes brunette. Princess Aurora is blonde but becomes brunette. Glinda is red-haired in the Oz books but turns blonde in this. Likewise the Witch of the North is older in the books and has grey hair; she is brunette in the series.
• Adaptation Expansion: The backstories shown in flashbacks go through the main beats of the fairy tales they are based on, but there is a lot that is added to both storylines and character relationships. In part this is done to tie different characters and stories together as necessitated by the Shared Universe. The writers also seem to take great care to expand on the development of relationships between characters.
• Adaptation Name Change: A few characters, that are inspired by the Disney versions.
  • Disney's Canon Name for the Evil Queen is Grimhilde. Here, her name is Regina.
  • The Prince's name is Florian or Frederick in the Disney canon. His name here is David.
  • 'Red Riding Hood' is just a nickname in the original tale. Here, Red appears to be her real name.
  • In Peter Pan, Captain Hook is the character's actual name and his first name is James. (In the original novel, "James Hook" is an alias, and the narrator refuses to give his real name, saying it's to protect the reputation of his family.) Here, Hook is just a nickname, while his real name is Killian Jones.
  • King Midas's daughter was called Marigold in mythology. Here she is named Abigail.
  • In Frozen, Anna and Elsa's mother was named Iduna, although you would only know it by translating the runes on her grave marker. Here, she is named Gerda, after the protagonist of "The Snow Queen." The Snow Queen herself had no name in her original fairy tale, and is given the name Ingrid.
• Adaptational Badass: So many...
  • Forest dweller and survivor Snow White certainly qualifies.
  • Also, Prince Charming. In the original story, he was, well, a charming prince. Here, he is a great swordsman and archer.
  • Regina as Snow White´s Evil Queen: She is a really powerful sorceress as opposed to just having a Magic Mirror and being good with poison.
  • Little Red Riding Hood is a werewolf who learns to use her powers to her own advantage.
  • Rumplestiltskin is more of a badass in the series than usually depicted. Especially since he started out a total coward (and he admits he still is - he hides behind magic... in fact he became the Dark One in order to get rid of his cowardice) and failed to even fight for his wife when she was kidnapped by Killian Jones (Hook). In his own words:
    Rumpelstiltskin: I am a coward. I have been my entire life. I tried to make up for it by collecting power and the power became so important that I couldn't let go... not even... when that meant losing the most important person in my life.
    Rumplestiltskin:... I'm still a coward. Magic has become a crutch that I can't walk without.
    • His magic powers are also far more impressive than in the original fairy tale: While all we know about the fairy tale version is he can somehow transform straw into gold, Rumpelstilskin in the series is portrayed as the most powerful magic user in canon.
  • Speaking of Rumplestiltskin, the Miller's Daughter generally doesn't even have a name, let alone the opportunity to do anything more exceptional than conveniently overhear Rumplestiltskin's. Cora, meanwhile, is pure terror both in her not-small amount of magical power and in her ability to manipulate others. She's also impressive in comparison to other representations of the Queen of Hearts.
  • Speaking of Hook, he's a far cry from the silly, fearful Disney version that most people know, not to mention more badass than he was in the original book - mostly due to it being him hunting "the Crocodile", as opposed to the other way around.
  • The Mad Hatter gets a serious boost as well - from total Cloudcuckoolander to a dimension-travelling wizard.
  • Peter Pan - pretty badass from the get go, but in the series he became a nearly omnipotent Big Bad and one of the most feared creatures in that universe.
  • Jack - from a little boy who was tricked into using his magic beans, to a tough Anti-Hero Action Girl out to slay giants.
  • Anna - not just a plucky princess with some serious heart power, but also talented with a sword. She even trained one of the best fighters in universe - Prince Charming.
  • Drizella/Ivy and Anastasia turn out to have been born with magic.
  • Mother Gothel has power over plants here and is also the leader of a coven of dark witches.
• Adaptational Heroism: Many of the villains that show up are re-imagined as Anti-Villains. Some also pull a Heel–Face Turn eventually (ex. the Evil Queen, Rumplestiltskin, Captain Hook, the Wicked Witch of the West).
  • The show splits Ursula into two sympathetic characters. The first is a sea goddess implied to actually be kind, granting the wishes of people who deserve it. The second is introduced as a villain, but later it turns out she was a mermaid fascinated by humanity tricked into a sinister deal and she makes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • The Witch of the East isn't wicked and isn't related to the Wicked Witch of West. She actually gets along with Dorothy like the other Oz witches, save Zelena.
  • Maleficent sort of. She started out as a villain but made a Heel–Face Turn when she discovered she was pregnant.
  • Anastasia (at least the one from the New Enchanted Forest) is not a Wicked Stepsister, she is actually very kind to Ella and is one of the nicest people around.
• Adaptational Protagonist: Being a Fairy Tale Free-for-All/Massive Multiplayer Crossover, it brings together characters from different fairy tales and fantasy works in a single, continuous storyline where they influence each other's stories.
  • Beginning with season 2, the series brings in Captain Hook as an antagonist, anticipating their version of Neverland, which happens in season 3A. In their version of Peter Pan, both Pan and Hook are antagonists to the main characters, but Hook undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and falls in love with the series' heroine, Emma Swan. Pan is dealt with at the end of season 3A, while Hook goes on to be part of the main cast for the rest of the show. This is highly unusual for adaptations of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, since many of them focus on the titular puer aeternus himself, or on Wendy Darling and her younger brothers.
  • In season 3B, the series introduces Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, as Regina's, The Evil Queen, half-sister, as part of their adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. In further seasons, Zelena gets the focus whenever the series gets back to Oz and its related characters. This differs from the usual adaptations of the novel, which focus on a certain little girl from Kansas, her pet dog, and her three friends, a lion, a tin man, and a scarecrow, and their adventures. Although Dorothy does appear in some episodes of the series, the focus remains solely on Zelena.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Jack the Giant Killer is re-imagined as a selfish treasure hunter who took advantage of a naive and good-hearted giant. However, this is actually an example of an Unbuilt Trope concerning a different folk tale. Jack and the beanstalk is a separate myth from Jack the Giant Killer. Jack from the latter is the hero portrayed in most modern adaptations (though he never ascended a beanstalk) while Jack from the former is considered by some to be a Villain Protagonist who is a petty thief and liar for deceiving and stealing from the giant - much like the "hero" proposed in this series. In an interesting twist from the show's formula, audience expectations are slammed by having a character portrayed as s/he was in the original myth, rather than complete deviation.
  • The Genie from Aladdin. Here, he falls in love with Regina (who is married to King Leopold) and eventually murders the king to free Regina from a loveless marriage, unaware that Regina has manipulated him the whole time. Even after learning the truth, he remains madly in love with her, and uses one of his own wishes to always look upon Regina's face, resulting in him becoming trapped in her mirrors (making him a composite of the Genie and the Magic Mirror from Snow White).
  • Cora is a combination of the miller's daughter from Rumpelstiltskin and the Queen of Hearts from Alice. The former was a heroine and the latter was played for laughs; Cora is a gold-digging abusive parent and absolutely terrifying.
  • Peter Pan, who has apparently been sending his shadow into other realms, abducting young boys and bringing them to Neverland and never allowing them to leave, all just to locate one particular boy. He also employed Greg and Tamara who, under his orders, attempt to destroy Storybrooke and then kidnap Henry.
  • And as of season four, Bo Peep is a warlord who turns people into her "sheep" by enslaving them with magic if they can't pay their debts to her.
  • All twelve of Hans' brothers are minor antagonists, while they were neutral characters in Frozen. While it's implied the behavior of at least some of them towards Hans contributed to his villainy, they were never directly antagonistic towards Anna and Elsa, and his scheme took place without their knowledge or approval. In the series, they attack Arendelle under his leadership.
  • The Duke of Weselton was an ambitious and bigoted secondary antagonist in Frozen. Here, he is shown making unwanted sexual advances on Ingrid and cheating on Helga in the process, slandering Ingrid by lying that she was the one who came on to him, and then causing Helga's death by using her as a human shield to be blasted with ice by a distraught Ingrid after he riled her up and fleeing the scene scot-free.
  • Season 5 gives one spot on the Big Bad Ensemble to King Arthur. A quasi example is also Guinevere as she's under a spell, but still does villainous things.
  • The sons of the clan chieftains from Brave have had a Face–Heel Turn since the film (the DunBroch scenes of OUAT seem to be set some years later). Rather than accepting that Merida will decide what she decides, they're prepared to kill her brothers to force the issue.
  • The Witch from Brave is an interesting example. In "The Bear King", she threatens to turn all of Dunbroch into bears if Merida does not do as she says which is quite a difference from the Unwitting Instigator of Doom who seemed to want to help Merida in the film. This is later revealed to be a Secret Test of Character but that still leaves us with the fact that she turned Ruby into a wolf and kept her as a guard dog.
  • Dr. Jekyll killed his love in a fit of passion, framed Mr. Hyde for it, and later tried to kill Belle.
  • Drizella/Ivy is a major villain of season 7 rather an accessory of her mother, and is perfectly willing to stomp on anyone who gets in her way of revenge or did a perceived slight against her. Subverted when she eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Cruella was always a villain (and one with one of the nastiest, most unrelatable motives), but the show's version is actually worse, as she's killed several people and not just animals. It's known that she killed her father and two stepfathers and framed her mother as a Black Widow; it's also implied she is a Black Widow herself. And she'll do absolutely anything to get revenge on the Author for taking away her ability to kill; she's one of very few villains in the show portrayed as a born sociopath instead of a formerly good person who made bad choices when tested by circumstances.
• Adapted Out: Inverted. This is one of the few Oz interpretations to leave the Good Witch of the North in. She's usually combined with Glinda.
• Addictive Magic: The two main villains, Regina and Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, are both addicted to their dark magical powers. Rumplestiltskin's dark magic has made his skin turn a weird greenish gold with gold eyes after becoming the dark one. Though Regina has still maintained her looks, she has a more cruel look to her than before she turned to dark magic. Archie Hopper (Jiminy Cricket) told Regina starting the magic was always easier than stopping.
  • In one of the Season 2 DVD featurettes, it is stated outright that Regina is considered to be addicted to magic.
  • In Season 5, Emma is trying to avoid using dark magic because the more she uses it the more she'll want to. In the flashbacks, that is. In the present, she's failed.
• Aerith and Bob: The Enchanted Forest has names like Snow White, Maleficent and Rumplestiltskin alongside Henry, Abigail, and Daniel. Rumple is at least justified by being a couple hundred years older than everyone else.
• Aerosol Flamethrower: Mary Margaret uses a lighter and some aerosol to fight off a ghost in "Broken." It proves mildly effective at repelling it.
• After the End: In Season 2, Emma and Snow are sent back to the Enchanted Forest and are surprised to find that it still exists and there are still people there. Prior to that, it was believed that the Enchanted Forest had been completely destroyed, so everyone looked on Storybrooke as an After The End situation.
• Age Lift: A few characters who were younger in their original tales get bumped up a few years. Snow White and Red Riding Hood are mid-twenties as opposed to children. The Good Witch of the North was an old woman in the Oz books but is younger here. Merida was a preteen but played by a 29-year-old. Merlin is also portrayed by a younger actor, though the character is Older Than They Look.
• Agent Scully: Emma is highly dubious about the idea that she's in a town full of amnesiac fairy-tale characters. Until she's convinced otherwise. Her skepticism is later replaced by a stubborn reluctance to live among them after the curse is broken.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Many people would have been quite happy for Cora to die before "The Miller's Daughter." The way it actually happens-dying in a distraught Regina's arms after deciding that her daughter would have been worth losing all that power-is depressing.
• A Lesson Learned Too Well:
  • Regina learns the hard way from her mother, Cora, (who expects her to marry up) that love makes her vulnerable, when Cora rips her boyfriend's heart out in front of her and orders her to marry the king. She thinks that she made her daughter the perfect future queen, and afterwards, Regina tries not to be vulnerable because of her feelings. So she ends up trying to kill her mother because she doesn't want to have a weak spot when her Revenge starts.
  • Cora, in turn, had learned from Rumplestiltskin "don't stop until they are on their knees." Like Regina, she later decided the lesson was supposed to be learning involved killing the person who taught it to her in the first place.
• Aliens in Cardiff: The opening narration in the first few seasons emphasizes that this show about fairy tale characters is set in Maine.
• All Deaths Final: Double Subverted. Three different magical characters have said that they can't bring back the dead: the Blue Fairy, Rumplestiltskin, and the Genie have all said it's impossible for them. Frankenstein then brings two characters back from the dead... not quite successfully, though. Then Triple Subverted by season 3 where The Blue Fairy, Rumplestiltskin, David and Marian all successfully come back from death via magic or time travel in the latter's case. All four of these can be justified by the first four being Not Quite Dead (The Blue Fairy's shadow hadn't been consumed by The Shadow, Rumplestiltskin had a built-in resurrection as The Dark One, and David was able to share Snow's heart because of their true love). Still, it comes close to pushing them into Death Is Cheap territory.Quadruple subverted in the case of Marian, as she never actually came back from the dead; she was replaced by a shape-shifting Zelena.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Double Subverted with Belle and Rumplestiltskin. Belle has always brought out the best in Gold and is horrified by his evil side, but the alter-ego Regina gave her, Lacey, enjoys watching him beat up her other suitor with his cane and appears to be this trope personified. Perhaps as a result of "We Are Both," Belle doesn't seem horrified by his evil side anymore. She says in "Quiet Minds" that she loves his dark parts, too.
• All Just a Dream: This is commonly used as an episode opener, particularly if the dream device is going to foreshadow something in the episode. An example would be the episode in Season 4 that begins the arc of Mary Margaret and David's secret history with Maleficent, as well as their efforts to keep Emma from going dark.
• All Myths Are True:
  • At least all fairy tales are, but it's not limited to those. Classical Mythology seems to be fair game too. Historical legends, with the addition of Mulan. And with the unveiling of Dr. Frankenstein, even classical sci-fi and horror aren't off-limits either.
  • According to the showrunners, all "storybook" characters are considered fair game. There were plans to include Sherlock Holmes from the very beginning (likely dropped due to the character already receiving extensive contemporary exposure in film and TV), and an early draft of the pilot script reveals that Dracula was considered, and Dr. Frankenstein, and to a lesser degree his monster, have been featured in the show since the third episode, though not revealed as such until well into Season 2.
  • The Mad Hatter and Captain Hook both appear, with both Wonderland (the setting of a spin-off series launched in 2013) and Neverland being major locations in Season 2. The Mad Hatter is even implied to have visited Oz.
  • Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio were originally characters of an 1883 novel by Carlo Collodi, not a folktale, and were included in the pilot. However, in the series, they are based upon the Disney animated interpretation, which placed the two characters firmly into the realm of fairy tales.
  • Many Public Domain Characters as well as fairy tale characters crop up quite a lot: Wonderland and its denizens were devised by Lewis Carroll in 1865, Doctor Frankenstein and his monster are from 1818 at the earliest, The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900, and Peter Pan first appeared in 1902.
  • Arthurian legends and characters such as Lancelot have also been included.
  • Pongo, one of The Hundred and One Dalmatians, is one of the most recently created characters: the original novel was only published in 1956.
    • In the Season 3 Finale, Pongo was upstaged as the most recent character by Frozen's Queen Elsa, who technically had barely existed for six months at time of broadcast. To be fair, that character is based on a public domain fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Season Four introduced Frozen co-star Princess Anna, who also is based on a character (Gerda) from Andersen's The Snow Queen but like Elsa, is original enough to feel new. Other Frozen characters brought onto the show, though, like the Duke of Weselton, Oaken, and Pabbie were all pure 2013 Disney originals from barely a year before their Once Upon a Time debut, while Kristoff and Hans barely had traces of Andersen influence.
  • A reading of the pilot script reveals that aliens from H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds also exist in the Once-verse in some other land and to go along with Frankenstein, we apparently would have had Dracula in town. Also, according to Word of God, Emma's yellow bug? It's Herbie.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: Played with. The town's only therapist, Dr. Hopper, isn't a muggle. He's Jiminy Cricket. However, like everyone else in Storybrooke, he has amnesia and doesn't know this, so he tries to help Henry but doesn't believe what he says about the curse. At least, not at first.
• All Trolls Are Different:
  • The show's third episode features a classic trio of trolls who live under a bridge and demand a toll a la Billy Goats Gruff. They're green humanoids with long hair known for their slow wits and greed, but unusually, they're not too much stronger than an average human.
  • More unusual are the rock trolls that appear in season 4, who are purely based on the wise sorcerer trolls from Frozen. They look as close to their movie counterparts as the show could make them with the network's CGI budget.
• Almost Kiss: Snow White and Prince Charming nearly have a Big Damn Kiss several times in the real world both to tease their amnesiac reunion and the possible breaking of the curse thanks to their true love.

  • Snow White and Prince Charming have their wedding kiss interrupted by Regina telling everyone about the curse, foreshadowing that their attempts to stay together despite it will fail by the end of the episode.
  • Mary Margaret nearly kisses the comatose David in Episode 3 after Henry tells her she's the literal Snow White to his Charming. But before their lips can touch, David shoots awake and rushes out of the hospital in confusion.
  • Mary-Margaret and David go on a walk after a few sexually-tense hospital visits and eventually stop, coming closer and closer together... only for David to mention his "wife," Kathryn and the two to move apart.
  • Episode 10 features two near-kisses back-to-back. One is in the present, when Mary Margaret and David nearly kiss after they realize they've been mutually stalking each other, only for Mary Margaret to break it off upon the thought of David's "pregnant" "wife" (who is neither). The second is in the past, when Charming nearly kisses Snow upon reuniting with her, only for Snow to lie and say she doesn't love him as part of a deal she made with Charming's manipulative dad. The two finally seal the deal in the present at the end of the episode.

  • Snow and Charming spent the first half of season 2 on different worlds, so when they see each other again, they naturally go for a kiss. Unfortunately, they first meet again in a magical dream, so their faces move right through each other.
  • After arguing for a full episode, Rumplestiltskin and Belle nearly kiss each other at the end of "The Outsider," only for a sudden act of violence to disrupt them and leave the episode on a Cliffhanger.
• Alternate Universe: The premise of Season 7 revolves around a second Enchanted Forest where stories play out differently from the one from past seasons. There are apparently a lot of these universes.
• Always Save the Girl: Mulan's top priority is always Aurora's safety, which was made clear when she chose to give Cora the compass that will help Emma and Snow White return to Storybrooke as an exchange for Aurora. Though Mulan became Aurora's protector, in Season 3, it was revealed that Aurora is Mulan's Love Interest.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The ending theme for the Japanese version is "Once Upon a Time -Kibou no Uta-" by Shoko Nakagawa.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Even Snow White and Charming are not above mortifying their daughter, whether it's intentional or not.
  Emma: [seeing her parents passionately kiss] Okay, I'm complaining.
• Ambiguously Evil: Hook seemed like a clear-cut villain at first, but his actual role is becoming more ambiguous as time goes on. It does not help that he keeps switching sides. As of Season 3, he's now in a Love Triangle with Emma and Neal, and also plays an important role in returning Emma to a newly-cursed Storybrooke.
  • He has later moved on to becoming a full-blown good guy, albeit with a dark past.
• Ambiguously Gay: Lily from a season 4 flashback. She's a girl that Emma befriended briefly as a teenager and ran away with. Although on Emma's side they're clearly Just Friends, the episode seems to present it as a love story. If you took Emma out of the story and replaced her with a guy, it would be an unambiguous love story.
• Ambition Is Evil: Almost the entire long-term strategy of Rumplestiltskin/Gold boils down to first keeping his son safe and then finding him. With all the bad things he's doing based on such a motivation it's no wonder he's a complex character. His most deplorable actions are often aimed at people who insulted or injured him when he was weak.
  • And even Rumplestiltskin has some marginal standards. There is absolutely no one that Cora wouldn't cut deals with, manipulate, abuse, or kill to get what she wants. To provide some context, a young Cora ends up using Rumple as a pawn. When a functionally standalone story with no outside context can make Rumple look like a victim, that's saying something.
• Amnesiac Lover:
  • David Nolan is this to Kathryn, his Storybrooke wife.
  • Snow, after taking Rumplestiltskin's potion. She eventually regains her memories.
  • Mary Margaret and David, when they begin their affair, are this to each other thanks to the curse blocking their memories of life as Snow and Charming.
  • As Belle had no memories of Rumple after being locked up in an asylum for 28 years, when she walks into his shop, she is one to him, albeit only briefly before her memories were restored.
  • As of "The Outsider," Belle becomes this again, thanks to Hook. Her memories later return in the season 2 finale, just in time for Rumple to join the quest to save Henry from Greg and Tamara.
• Amulet of Concentrated Awesome:
  • Henry gets one from Mr. Gold in order to survive in and control the Netherworld.
  • Oz's Witches all wear one, which contains, concentrates and improves their powers. The downside is that losing it would also mean losing their powers as well.
• Anachronic Order: Given that the show's creators were once involved in a series infamous for this trope, it's not very surprising.
  • The scenes in Storybrooke are in order, but the flashbacks to the Enchanted Forest are not in any particular order—they serve to fill in the background of whichever Storybrooke resident is in the limelight that episode. Complicated further beginning in Season 2 when we start to also see scenes set in the present-day Enchanted Forest, and in the past of Storybrooke.
• Anachronism Stew: Storybrooke was supposedly frozen in time for more than 20 years, yet recent innovations such as the Internet and cell phones are present well before the curse is lifted.
  • This one may actually not apply; the curse probably updated itself to move with the times so as not to spark any interest from anyone under it. Either that, or Regina manipulated it to update over time. In much the same way that no one notices they never get older or that Henry is the only child in school who moves up a grade each year.
  • The scenes with Owen Flynn and his father took place in the mid-eighties (just after everyone arrived in Storybrooke), and the town is virtually the same but lacks some of the technology we see in present-day Storybrooke. The police car Graham chases Kurt Flynn in is essentially the eighties version of the present-day Storybrooke police car.
  • Considering that Henry was capable of leaving Storybrooke in the Pilot, it could be that only the Enchanted Forest characters are trapped. It's hardly unlikely that Regina might have hired some people from outside Storybrooke to help upgrade the town's technology, since even Regina seems unable to leave due to the first curse.
• And I Must Scream
  • Jiminy was given a potion from Rumplestiltskin that turned Geppetto's parents into dolls, seemingly forever.
  • Gaston is turned into a rose by Rumplestiltskin and is then clipped by Belle.
  • This is how sleeping curses work in this universe: the victim appears to be dead, but they are trapped in an endless sleep filled with "nightmares formed from their own regrets." This becomes a major plot point in Season 2.
• And Show It to You: Regina (and her Enchanted Forest counterpart) has a real thing for ripping out people's hearts.
  • This, like so much else, runs in the family. Regina's mother, Cora, did this to her fiancé, which is the main thing that caused her to turn out the way she did.
  • And it seems like they probably learned this trick from Rumplestiltskin, who used it on his wife when she told him she didn't love him.
• And Starring: Robert Carlyle.
• Animal Assassin: Regina in the fairy tale world had an Agrabahn viper sent to her room to kill herself with (à la Cleopatra) until her lover, the Genie, suggests that there's another way. He uses the viper to murder the king. It later turns out she planned the whole thing.
• Animal Motifs: In the pilot, we see a swan on Henry's night light and on the room key Emma receives from Granny. Particularly poignant given Snow White's affinity with birds and her Storybrooke-version's speech about the loyalty of birds.
• Anti-Magic: Rumplestilskin is imprisoned in a cell that prevents him from using his powers.
  • Later on, we meet an organization of Witch Hunters who "scientifically" nullify magic by injecting people with metals and nanomachines.
  • The same aforementioned organization also uses an enchanted cuff to inhibit the magic of its wearer. It turns out Peter Pan made it, making himself immune to its effects.
• Anti-Hero: Regina, Rumple and Hook.
• Anti-Villain: Given the show's optimistic take on a Morality Kitchen Sink (and willingness to woobiefy any character), three of the show's four major villains (Cora being the exception) are leaning this way.
  • Although Regina crossed the Moral Event Horizon during the first season, her backstory has been used to deconstruct the Villain trope, turning her into a Tragic Villain and a Type II Anti-Villain.
  • By the mid-Season 2 break, and especially by "The Cricket Game," Regina very well may have graduated to Type IV. She at least appears to be genuinely trying to become a better person, and in this episode it is mostly the fact that basically nobody trusts her that puts her at all into opposition with Emma and the others. Several times, most recently at the end of Season 2, she fully crosses the line into anti-hero territory, and is actually described as being a "hero" on one of the Season 2 DVD featurettes.
  • Rumple has been similarly deconstructed, not only into a Tragic Villain, but also into the clearest example of a Type II, a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
  • Hook almost runs the gamut of the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains.
    • Type I: At least on the surface. Hook's very well mannered and claims he has standards, but he's very unpredictable in applying them. Hook does not hesitate to Kick the Dog on his way toward his goals, but he will attempt to set things right in the name of fair play. He seems to be becoming a Noble Top Enforcer in exchange for help reaching his own goal.
    • Type II: He's a would-be Sympathetic Murderer.
    • Type III: The Well-Intentioned Extremist. Not only would many people in this narrative line up and pay to watch Hook skin his "crocodile," they would probably help — even without knowing his motivations. They'd disapprove of who Hook's teamed up with and what he has done to get to that point in the narrative, though.
  • Season 4 gives us two more Type II anti villains: Ingrid the Snow Queen and Maleficent.
  • In season 5 Emma becomes a Type II and Type III anti-villain.
  • Lady Tremaine/Victoria Belfry runs through the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains as well. She became a villain because she is trying to revive her beloved daughter (Type III and Type II) but she is also trying to make sure several other more dangerous villains don't get the upper hand and is somewhat appalled by their actions (Type I).
  • Drizella is also a Type II villain.
• Anyone Can Die: You wouldn't suspect it at first due to the six lead characters still being okay after three seasons, and some characters having Plot Armor due to them appearing after their flashback in the real world, but when you think about it, the body count for the show so far is staggering even for named characters. Fortunately, death does not necessarily mean gone for good in this series, as several of these characters have subsequently returned in flashbacks and time-travel scenarios.
  • While Snow White, Emma, David, Regina, Hook, and Henry have some degree of plot armor, the show is not above killing their family, friends, and love interests with impunity.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • The Evil Queen and Snow White who live in a fairy land don't believe in the goddess Ursula. She's real.
  • In "Dark Hollow," Hook is skeptical that Pan's shadow can be captured inside a coconut shell. Neal questions why, out of everything on OUAT, he draws the line at a magic coconut.
  • Lampshaded in "Witch Hunt":
  Emma: The Wicked Witch of the West? She's real too?
  Hook: Says the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.
• Arc Words:
  • "All magic comes with a price", or some variation thereof.
  • Also, "I will always find you."
  • And everyone trying to give everyone else their 'Best Chance.'
  • "True love is the most powerful magic of all."
  • Villains don't get happy endings.
  • "Believe" in season 3.
  • "Evil isn't born, it's made."
  • "Let it go" in Season 4.
  • "Ask you just one question" in Season 6.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  Snow White: Are you sure this is about protecting Henry ... and not yourself?
• Arranged Marriage:
  • The Prince was on his way to honor one for political reasons when he met Snow White. Naturally, he doesn't go through with it. It's also discovered in the episode "What Happened to Frederick" that this was an unwanted arranged marriage for the prince's would-be bride Abigail as well.
  • Belle's engagement to Gaston was this.
  • Regina's mother set things up between Regina and Snow White's father.
  • Snow White's parents were apparently engaged from birth.
• Arrow Cam: Used in the third episode when Prince Charming fires a bow.
• Arrow Catch:
  • Regina does this after she gets her magic back and Red's grandmother fires a crossbow at her. She then sets it on fire, and throws a fireball around the room. Needless to say, this cows the crowd into submission.
  • Peter Pan and the Lost Boys attempt to force Henry to shoot an apple from the head of one of the Lost Boys with a crossbow; the arrow has a deadly poison on the edge. At the last minute Henry turns to shoot Peter Pan instead, but Pan pulls one of these before it hits him. Becomes a plot point when Neal remembers Pan can do that.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to ABC's website, Rumplestiltskin is "cruel, vicious, manipulative and calls everyone 'dearie.'"
• The Artifact: After Ruby/Red's main character arc was resolved, by the middle of Season 2 the character had become an artifact in that the writers had nothing else for her to do. As a result, after a few cameo appearances the character just disappeared (Put on a Bus does not apply, given how no one leaves Storybrooke), and the actress left to work on another series. After said series ended, however, midway through Season 3 of OUAT, it was announced that the character, and the actress, would be returning, thereby reversing the trope.
  • In the original script treatment, the school Henry attends and Mary Margaret teaches at was to have been a Catholic one. This was changed in the final version, but presumably after the wardrobe department had ordered custom-logoed school uniforms for Henry, Hansel and Gretel, and upwards of a hundred extras.
• Artifact Alias: Starting with season 2, after the curse is broken and all of Storybrooke’s citizens get their memories back, they still call each other by the names they had under the curse. Especially jarring when David keeps calling his wife "Mary Margaret."
• Artifact of Doom: Pandora's Box can trap people inside and put them in a Fate Worse than Death.
• Artistic License – Biology: The apples from Regina's tree are Red Delicious apples, not honeycrisps as she claims.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: Pure gold is very malleable. A golden sword would be useless and easily bent. Rule of Cool applies.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • Coal mines in Maine. Justified since the only coal mines are in Storybrooke, a town created by a magic curse. Lampshaded by Emma.
  • Storybrooke is depicted as a coastal Maine town, but in season 1's "Hat Trick," Emma says that Route 6 runs along the edge of the forest in town. Maine's Route 6 is nowhere near the coast.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • When Emma and Sidney confront Regina for secretly misappropriating city funds, she reveals she had been preparing to build a playground. This is portrayed as a victory for Regina and Emma does not look into it further. However, misusing city funds for any secret purpose should have been considered suspicious.
  • A minor one happens when Emma decides to take Hansel and Gretel to Boston to put them in foster care before their estranged father had a change of heart and took them in. In the United States, child services are handled at the state level, meaning Emma should have been heading towards a local office within Maine.
  • Emma's background of being a newborn infant placed into foster care, then into a group home once the foster family had their own baby is theoretically possible, but improbable to the extreme. A healthy white baby with no known family is the Holy Grail of the adoption system. Family lawyers from across the state would have been storming Boston representing couples eager to take her in. In the real real world, Emma would have been adopted immediately.
• Artistic License – Physics: August's death is pretty jarring considering he was wooden at the time and the fatal attack was delivered via suped-up taser. Wood isn't a conductor for electricity, which one would think would be considered given the build-up of this particular weapon throughout the episode. Dips into Artistic License – Biology when one considers that his core is one solid block of wood just like his limbs and eyes, so even a shock powerful enough to penetrate his wooden exterior couldn't have stopped his heart because there wouldn't be one beating to start with. However, the showrunners state that it was no ordinary weapon, which might justify it. And considering who the villains' employer was, this wouldn't be entirely implausible.
  • People are seen drawing water from wells during wintertime, which would actually require lowering someone in with a hatchet, first, to break the ice that inevitably forms down there. Often gathering up snow and melting it indoors is a more sensible option, anyway.
• Art Shift: The style of the illustrations in Henry's book from late Season 1 is very different from their style in early Season 1. Possibly because of August's tampering with the pages when the book was lost mid-season.
• The Atoner:
  • Rumplestiltskin sets everything in motion to find his son, who he pushed away in a moment of weakness.
  • August (Pinocchio) seeks to atone for abandoning Emma when she was a baby.
• Audible Sharpness: The Prince's sword and the Huntsman's dagger.
• Ax-Crazy: Nature Hero Snow tries to lure a bluebird close so she can smash it, shortly after taking a potion that removes her memories of Prince Charming. She then tries to kill the queen, taking a soldier's armor in the process. Plus all the things she's done to the dwarves.

B

• Back-Alley Doctor: Doc is the harmless type. Lampshaded in "Dreamy".
  Dreamy: Maybe I should have Doc look at me.
  Bossy: You're gonna trust a doctor who got his medical degree from a pickaxe?
• Back for the Finale:
  • In the first season, the Huntsman and Maleficent appear in the Enchanted Forest and Belle appears in Storybrooke.
  • Prince Phillip in the season 2 finale, without any explanation as to how exactly Aurora and Mulan were able to save him from the wraith.
  • Red, Aurora, and Abigail of all people in the season 3 finale.
  • Pretty much everyone to some extent in the season 7 finale, most notably Charming, Snow, and Emma.
• Backup Twin: The Prince Charming we currently know turns out to be this for his twin brother who had been adopted by the king.
• Badass and Baby: Charming is forced to fight his way through an army of mooks while he's holding and protecting his newborn daughter, Emma.
• Badass Boast: Usually Regina.
  "I don't run from monsters. Monsters run from me."
• Badass Family:
  • Most of the main characters are part of the same large Badass Family.
  • Henry, at the age of ten, goes on a quest to find his mom and bring her back to break the curse.
  • Henry's mother, Emma, shows off her badassitude in her first five minutes.
  • Emma's mother is Snow White, an Action Girl in her own right. Emma's father, Charming, went from shepherd to dragonslayer in days, and Charming's twin brother James is no slouch either.
  • Henry's adoptive mother, as well as his maternal step-grandmother via Snow White, is Regina, who has, at various times, been one of the most powerful and feared people in both Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest.
  • With the relevation that Henry's father is Baelfire, the family tree becomes even larger, and includes Baelfire, known to be the only person to escape Neverland (prior to Season 3 that is) and the consumate survivor. Baelfire's father Rumple is yet another one of the most powerful people in both Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest.
  • Rumple's part of the family doesn't consist of Average Joes either. His father, Peter Pan, is the Big Bad for the first half of Season 3. His Mother, the Black Fairy, is the Big Bad in the second half of Season 6. And his second son, Gideon, is a major antagonist throughout Season 6. And since Rumple is Henry's biological grandfather, that makes Pan, the Black Fairy, and Gideon (and by extent, Belle) part of Emma's outrageously complex family tree.
  • Little Red Riding Hood comes from a long line of werewolves. Her granny, while no longer able to transform, is still a crack shot with a crossbow.
• Badass Longcoat: Several characters including, but not limited to, Rumplestiltskin, Jefferson and Victor.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Rumplestiltskin, of all characters. Against Prince Charming. And he does the two-fingered version.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold seems to be running one on everyone. He seems to be behind the actions of both the good and bad characters.
    • When Emma was running against Sidney for the position of town sheriff, Gold pulls one in order to get Emma to win. Doubly so: He set Town Hall on fire with her and Regina inside, making her look like a hero for rescuing Mayor Mills. But he also made sure to leave evidence that would lead Emma back to him, knowing she'd feel guilty and expose him to the entire town. They're more impressed with Emma's standing up to Gold than scared of Regina, so she gets the post.
    • Everything Gold does is part of one big gambit. No, really, we are not kidding. His plan is to have Regina enact The Curse, but with secret loophole that will guarantee it is eventually broken no matter what (Emma), so he can go out into the world to find his son. Making this happen takes hundreds of years and various sub-gambits.
    • As mentioned, his plan for Regina is to mold her into the type of person who can enact The Curse, then push her to the brink until she does. This involves conspiring with Jefferson and Frankenstein to make her think returning her True Love from the dead was impossible so she remains unhappy and vengeful, and thwarting all her previous attempts to destroy Snow White and Prince Charming's happiness till The Curse is the only option left.
    • His True Love potion: Prepared over extensive time in the Enchanted Forest and hidden in Dragon!Maleficent. Comes into play in Season 1 Finale when he calls on Emma to retrieve it, and uses it to bring magic to Storybrooke.
  • The Evil Queen also pulls off several gambits.
    • Manipulating the Genie.
    • As Regina, arranging to steal Mr. Gold's most prized possession, Belle's chipped cup. Her confidence that he will do anything to get it back leads to her discovering that Mr. Gold remembers he's Rumplestiltskin.
    • A multi-gambit with Mr. Gold to convict Mary Margaret of murder. Too bad for her, Mr. Gold has his own agenda.
  • It seems to run in the family. Cora ran one on Regina in "The Stable Boy": she spooked Snow's horse with magic, knowing Regina would help the girl, which leads to the King showing up at their doorstep and proposing to Regina so she can be Snow's replacement mother.
    • This becomes even more impressive when you learn the reason Snow needs a replacement mother to begin with. Cora arranged that as well.
    • Cora does it again in "The Cricket Game" by posing as her daughter and staging Archie's death so that whatever new found trust that Regina has built with the Charmings will be destroyed and Regina will give up on redemption and seek her mother out for help for revenge. It works, and she even gloats about it to Hook.
  • Heck, even Captain Hook gets one in "The Outsider." He attacks Belle knowing that Mr. Gold will come to her rescue. This leaves Gold's shop open so that he can have Smee sneak in and take Baelfire's shawl, the talisman that Gold needs to leave the town.
  • Snow herself uses one in "The Miller's Daughter." She secretly curses Cora's heart which needs to be re-inserted into Cora to kill her. When she's caught by Regina, she appeals to Regina's desire for her mother's love and gives it to Regina, counting on the (very likely) possibility that Regina would put the heart back into Cora.
  • Zelena manipulates Belle and Neal into resurrecting the Dark One in a manner that ended up with Rumple losing his dagger to Zelena, giving her control over him... not to mention killing his son in the process.
    • Later, she tricks Hook into invoking his love for Emma so she can curse his kiss such that kissing Emma would rob her of her magic.
  • "A Curious Thing" reveals that the new curse that returned everyone to Storybrooke was this courtesy of Snow, Charming and Regina. After the Charmings learn that Emma is the key to defeating Zelena, they use the Dark Curse to make their way back, with Snow being the one to sacrifice Charming's heart.
  • During Season 6, the Black Fairy pulls a particularly insane one on Zelena. She comes to her house, threatens her baby Robin, and asks her to join her side in the Storybrooke mines. Zelena goes there with the intent to kill her (as the Black Fairy anticipated), attacks her, but accidentally charges the fairy crystals in the mines with her unstable dark magic. She has to destroy her own magic to fix that particular mistake.
  • Jafar pulled one on Jasmine; knowing she'd do anything to save the city of Agrabah, he says he'll destroy it unless she marries him. She agrees, at which point he reveals that he was bluffing—he couldn't destroy Agrabah because it was under a protection spell. Contained in the ring Jasmine just gave him.
• Battle Couple: Charming is a badass with a broadsword. Snow White used to rob carriages and led a raid on a castle.
• Battle of Wits: Regina and Rumple seem to be having one constantly.
• Beast and Beauty: Rumplestiltskin, in his nonhuman form, becomes romantically involved with the beautiful Belle and, temporarily, a young Cora.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Rumplestiltskin, who began his life as a kind, meek and fearful man, and turned into the ruthless and hyperconfident puppetmaster we all know. And later, we see kind Regina got started on her own evil path trying to protect herself from her magical mother Cora, who bears a striking resemblance to an older Regina. (By midway through Season 2, Cora is way worse, although this is mostly due to Character Development on Regina's part rather than due to any change in Cora).
  • Snow White may be heading this way after casting a death spell on Cora's heart and tricking Regina into putting it back, killing Cora. It's even revealed that her heart has begun to darken as a result. For comparison, Regina's heart is almost entirely black.
  • As of "The Jolly Roger", Hook is beginning to regret his past as a pirate, even admitting that what he did to retrieve his ship during the past year was not worth keeping Ariel apart from her prince. "There's No Place Like Home" reveals Hook traded the Jolly Roger for a magic bean that would help him get to Emma in New York.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: All magic has the tendency to backfire, as per the arc words "All magic comes with a price."
  • Emma confesses that when she lit the candle on the birthday cupcake she bought herself, she wished not to be alone on her birthday. Henry showed up at her door. Subverted in that while she did not initially want to be found by Henry, she quickly grows attached to him.
  • All of Rumplestiltskin's deals are implied to be this:
    • Ella took Rumplestiltskin's deal because he killed her Fairy Godmother, expecting he would want his share of the riches from her new life as princess. But what he really wanted was her firstborn.
    • To ease her broken heart over hearing that Prince Charming's Arranged Marriage to Abigail will happen in two day's time, Snow White gets a cure from Rumplestiltskin that will make her forget that she ever loved him. She nearly uses it, but Grumpy and the rest of the dwarves persuade her not to use it yet. But just when Prince Charming leaves his wedding to find her, Snow has already taken the potion.
  • Snow White's father tries to circumvent the inevitable backfiring of wishes granted by the Genie by setting the latter free, then using his second wish to give his third wish to the Genie, who says he will never use it. Because of this, the Genie meets the Queen, falls in love with her and is convinced to kill the king in order to "save" her. Turns out she never loved him in the first place. Then the Genie uses his last wish to remain at the Evil Queen's side forever. For this, he is trapped inside the mirror. In general, the genie mentions that he has granted 1001 wishes and 1001 times seen it end badly.
  • Even the Blue Fairy is not immune: her "help" separates two families: Snow and Charming from Emma and Rumplestilskin and Bae.
  • In "Ariel", in the Echo Cave scene, when confessing her darkest secret, Emma wishes that Neal were dead. In "Quiet Minds", he dies in her arms.
  • All over the place in "Wish You Were Here". Emma's wish several episodes earlier is used by the Evil Queen to trap her in a parallel world. Charming's wish to give the Evil Queen "what she deserved" did nothing because it gave the Queen what she thought she deserved (and by that point, had already gotten) and is implied to be the thing that brought Gideon, the one destined to kill Emma, to Storybrooke. Finally, Regina wished that Robin was still alive; by seeing him, she hesitates in going through the portal to Storybrooke, leaving her and Emma stranded in the fantasy world where there is a very angry Henry after Regina's blood.
• Bedmate Reveal: Regina and the Sheriff, although this is shown after she leaves his apartment. Then revealed in-universe to Emma when she catches him sneaking out of Regina's house.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: It's heavily implied by August and Merlin's Apprentice that Walt Disney was the Author preceding Isaac.
• Being Evil Sucks:
  • According to the showrunners, the Evil Queen's reason for choosing to get revenge on Snow White by casting a curse on the entire, multiple worlds is to create a place where she can "win for once."
  • Taken a step further in Season 4 when Regina decides she must find the creator of the storybook so she can stop being written as a villain and receive a happy ending.
• Being Good Sucks: It's repeatedly shown that it's hard to be good: Doing the right thing can come with a high price and those who insist on it often suffer. However, it's the ones who endure the suffering and persist in doing the right thing that ultimately find their happiness, while those who give into darkness can never find a happy ending.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Or, should that be Beware The Dark One? There's a moment in Season 2, when Belle is about to be sent across the town line to lose her memory and Mr. Gold saves her. The look on his face as he violently and viciously breaks open the handcuffs. Ouch.
• The Big Bad Shuffle:
  • Season 5A starts with Emma Swan as the Dark One as the villain of the present-day storyline while King Arthur serves the role in the flasbacks. Both turn out to be secondary to Dark Hook and Nimue, the Final Boss of that arc.
  • Season 6 starts with Mr Hyde and the Evil Queen as the main antagonists. Both turn out to be small fry compared to Gideon, the one destined to kill Emma Swan, who is himself a pawn in the hands of the Black Fairy, who is a Greater-Scope Villain for the whole show.
  • Season 7 gives us Lady Tremaine as the Big Bad, except her daughter is even more dangerous and both are working with Mother Gothel as part of a Big Bad Ensemble with all three swapping between Big Bad positions throughout the first half of the season. The true antagonist is Gothel and her Coven of Eight, and even then Dr. Facilier and the Candy Killer prove to be persistent threats as well, only for the True Final Boss to be Wish!Rumple.
• Big Bad Wannabe:
  • Prince George is only a threat when Regina or Rumple are not around. Best shown in "An Apple Red As Blood" where it looks like Snow needs to deal with him to save Charming, then Regina shows up and George becomes secondary.
  • Zelena ends up as one in season 4 and 5. The only reason she is ever a threat is because she is working with someone who is a much bigger problem. As soon as she tries to do something by herself, she is defeated with ease. Even her defeats are considered something that needs to be done to get it out of the way and focus on the actual problem.
  • King Arthur starts off as a major threat. But Emma as the Dark Swan is clearly the biggest problem around and even in the flashbacks he is only a threat because Zelena is helping and Dark Hook and Nimue soon make him completely irrelevant.
  • Lady Tremaine/Victoria Belfry is a major villain right up until it turns out Drizella/Ivy is the one who cast the Dark Curse that made Hyperion Heights and she has her own plans. Even though she manages to succeed in her plans, it was only because the actual antagonist allowed it.
  • Drizella/Ivy is set up as the Big Bad of Season 7. And she is in the first half. Just like her mother though, she was just a puppet for Gothel, the real main antagonist of Season 7.
• The Big Bad Wolf: Snow and Red track it down in Episode 15. The two come to the conclusion that Red's boyfriend Peter is the wolf. This is later proven false as it is revealed that Red is the wolf.
• The Big Damn Kiss: David and Mary Margaret in Episode 10.
  • Hook and Emma in "Good Form".
  • Regina and Robin Hood at the end of "Bleeding Through".
• Bigger on the Inside: The town of Storybrooke, as hinted by Regina in an early episode. It should be, if it holds the denizens of a whole other world. Hinted at in "Hat Trick" since Jefferson's telescopes can see suspiciously far such as into Emma's office despite being at the edge of the woods.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Exaggerated in "Manhattan". While we could deduce from the first episode that Regina was Henry's adoptive mother and his step-great grandmother, there's the added fact that Baelfire is his father, which adds him and Rumplestiltskin to the happy family tree with the Charmings and Regina. With the revelation earlier in Season 2 that Rumplestiltskin used to date Cora...
  • By extension, Milah is Henry's grandmother. Assuming she actually married the man who would become Hook, that'd make Hook Henry's step-grandfather also, through Baelfire. This would also mean that every person who left on Hook's ship at the end of Season 2 has a familial stake in Henry.
    • Hook had developed feelings for Emma revealed in "Ariel", so he technically was romantically interested in both Baelfire's mother and love interest.
    • And Baelfire was kind of an adopted son to Hook during their time in Neverland, meaning Hook was involved in a Love Triangle with his stepson/adopted son.
  • If that that isn't more screwed up, as revealed in "Think Lovely Thoughts", Peter Pan is actually Rumplestiltskin's de-aged father and by extension Baelfire's grandfather, and Henry's great-grandfather.
  • It's further revealed in "Changelings" that The Black Fairy, an evil, powerful fairy who steals babies, is Rumple's mother, and by extension, Baelfire's grandmother, and Henry's great-grandmother.
  • And Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, is Regina's half-sister, making her Snow's step-aunt, Henry's step-great aunt, and Henry's adoptive aunt.
    • Adding to the twisted family tree, we learn toward the end of the third season that Cora was briefly engaged to Leopold, Snow's father and Regina's eventual husband. That engagement was broken off because she was already pregnant with Zelena.
    • We also learned that Zelena was one of the women to be taught by and fall in love with Rumplestiltskin, like her mother.
    • Zelena's daughter, Robin, is also the daughter of Robin Hood.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Emma to Ingrid, because the latter Is trying to convince Emma her family doesn't love her and that she is a monster, so Emma should give up her family and become a "sister" of Elsa and Ingrid. This then causes Emma's powers to go haywire, knocking a major chunk out of the sheriff's station where she was interrogating Ingrid.
• Big Storm Episode: In "7:15 AM," the town prepares for a large storm. Mary Margaret's attempt to reunite an injured bird with its flock despite the storm warnings brings her and David together.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Regina" means Queen in Latin.
  • Zelena means 'green' in Bosnian, Bulgarian, and several other Slavic languages.
• Birthday Beginning: Almost the first thing we learn about Emma on her Internet date in the pilot is that it's her birthday. And her birthday wish turns out to be a catalyst to the events that bring her to Storybrooke.
• Black Comedy:
  • While Rumplestiltskin was telling Belle what she would have to do for him, he also told her she would have to skin the children he hunted. That one was apparently a quip; however, it still shocks Belle enough to make her drop the teacup she was holding, causing it to get chipped.
  • Grumpy telling Red Riding Hood she has a little "someone" on her chin.
• Black Magic: The Dark Curse is said to be the darkest kind there is.
• Black Vikings: Lancelot.
  • Older Than They Think: While Lancelot isn't typically one of them, Moorish/Saracen Knights do show up in stories about King Arthur's Court. Sir Morien is explicitly black.
• Blame the Paramour: When David and Mary Margaret's affair is discovered, she faces far more backlash and ostracization from the townsfolk than David. She even gets the the word "tramp" painted on her car (though that was implied to have been done by Regina herself) and also gets slapped by David's wife Kathryn.
• Blatant Lies: The Queen telling Rumplestiltskin that Belle killed herself.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Jefferson can remember the other world. But not only is he more than slightly mad, his real daughter is with some other father and doesn't even know him.
  • Perhaps she deserves it, but this definitely seems to apply to Regina since towards the end of Season 1 and noticeably during the early weeks of Season 2. Young (pre-evil) Regina also had a dollop of this.
  • Zelena seems to feel this way, despite her magic being regarded as far more powerful than Regina's, since neither her mother nor Rumplestiltskin wanted her.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Cruella has a pistol that is adorned with engravings, ivory grips, and gemstones.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • Blood isn't absent from the show but given the hack-and-slash way Prince Charming fights (especially against those without armor) there should be a lot more blood and maiming present in his fights than there is.
  • In Episode 21 of Season 1, Grumpy pulls a perfectly clean pickaxe out of a guard's back during Snow's raid on the castle to rescue Charming.
  • Surprisingly played straight in "The Crocodile" when Rumplestiltskin hacks off Hook's right hand. Though it's not entirely bloodless, what little blood is actually spilled is incredibly disproportionate to the inflicted injury.
  • Averted with the death of Prince James, the wolf slaughters, the discovery of Gus' body, Daniel's blood-stained hands after his rampage, and the death of the Siren.
• Blood Magic: The Dark Curse needing a heart of a loved one to work.
  • The candle Cora gives to Snow White that siphons away one life to save another.
  • The magic that enchants Rumplestiltskin's old cane in "The Heart of The Truest Believer" is called Blood Magic, but it doesn't refer to the spilling of blood. Instead, it refers to magic that only works for members of a specific bloodline, in this case, Rumplestiltskin's. When Baelfire wields it, it reveals a secret cupboard in Rumplestiltskin's castle.
    • How the Wicked Witch of the West is able to enter Regina's crypt despite the latter sealing it with blood magic. The Witch claims that she's Regina's half-sister, Cora's elder daughter.
• Bluffing the Authorities:
  • Sheriff Swan finds out that the mayor (previously known as the Evil Queen) has embezzled public funds in "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree." Swan confronts the mayor, but she turns it around by claiming she took the funds to fund a playground for the school without bringing attention to herself. This ultimately ends up doing wonders for the mayor's reputation, just as she intended, since she sent the informant that made Sheriff Swan aware of the funds in the first place.
  • After the Wicked Witch is presumed dead in the season 3 finale, the sheriff, Prince Charming, immediately assumes Rumplestiltskin is behind the murder. Thankfully, Rumple has given his wife, Belle, a knife that forces him to tell the truth. She uses the knife and under its power, Rumple reasserts his innocence and suggests the Witch managed to retain a bit of her magic and used it to destroy herself to activate a curse. His bluff? The knife was a fake Rumple planted so he could gain his wife's trust without having to change his nefarious ways.
• Bodyguard Crush: Mulan, who became Aurora's protector when Phillip's soul was sucked out by the Wraith, developed feelings for her as seen in "Quite A Common Fairy" when she almost confessed her love to Aurora.
• Book Ends:
  • The Dark Curse begins and ends with Regina losing someone named Henry.
  • The clock tower is stuck on 8:15 when Emma arrives in town, and stops at 8:15 again in the very last shot of the season finale after magic has returned to Storybrooke.
  • The first season begins and ends with a curse-breaking True Love's Kiss.
  • The second season begins and ends with people being kidnapped into other worlds. It also ends in a compressed version of the way the series began, albeit with some changes and additions. Bae (and Henry ) gets sucked into another world. An evil figure becomes determined to find them again. A couple is split but one is determined to re-find the other. Etc.
  • The first half of the third season begins and ends with a flashback to Emma giving birth to Henry. The second reprise of this, however, is a rewrite of Emma's memories, where she took Henry in and they lived happily together.
  • "The Apprentice" opens with an old man wiping the floor with a broom and ends with Henry doing the same in Rumple's shop.
  • The Arendelle arc in the first half of Season Four: the very first shot of Elsa and Anna shows the two sisters holding hands as they prepare to place flowers on their parents' memorial stones. The last shot of them at the end of their arc shows Elsa taking Anna's hand in hers again, escorting her to the church for Anna's wedding to Kristoff.
  • Season 6 ends with an almost exact recreation of the beginning of Season 1: a young child using public transportation to track down their long-lost parent, while holding a "Once Upon a Time" book. Except this time the child is a girl named Lucy, the parent is a grown-up Henry, and the child appears to have traveled here from the Enchanted Forest.
• Boredom Montage: Done in "Welcome to Storybrooke", where, in a flashback to 1983 when the curse began, Regina walks the same way every day, always passing Ruby wearing a skimpy red outfit and being chastised by her grandma, Dr. Hopper walking his dog and wishing her a good morning, and Mary Margaret accidentally running into her. Eventually, it gets to the point where she tells Hopper to "save it", and actually tells Mary Margaret she herself should be sorry for not watching where she was going.
• Born as an Adult: Dwarves hatch fully grown.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Rumple describing Belle's duties around the castle. She'll have to serve him his meals, keep the place clean, bring him straw when he's spinning at his wheel and skin the children he hunts into pelts.
• Break His Heart to Save Him:
  • King George threatens Snow to do this to Charming or he'll kill him.
  • Grumpy does this to Nova after being convinced by the Blue Fairy that they should not be together.
• Breakfast in Bed: In the Season 4 episode, "Heroes and Villains", Rumplestiltskin wakes Belle up to present her with breakfast in bed and tell her they are going on a honeymoon in New York. It's the last peaceful romantic scene they get to share in a very long while, since just a few minutes later, she finds out about his Evil Plan and banishes him from the town.
• Born as an Adult: The dwarves. Actually, they're hatched.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Ruby/Red, who starts out as the show's/town's eye candy and apparent "town bimbo" until her dark backstory is revealed and we learn she's a werewolf, at which point the show's depiction of the character turns in a new direction. Season 2 provided further BTC potential in "Child of the Moon", though she ultimately prevails, both in the present and the past.
  • Belle who, after being initially scorned by Rumple, is next seen drowning her sorrows in a pub and institutionalized in Storybrooke. In Season 2, the trope is taken a bit literally when she is shot by Hook and loses her fairy tale memories at the same time. Thankfully, her memories are restored as of the season finale.
  • Mary Margaret, in the middle of Season 1, when she is shunned by the entire town and subsequently arrested for murder.
    • And again late in Season 2, when she lets Rumplestiltskin talk her into murdering Cora.
  • Tinker Bell in Neverland, stranded there due to losing her wings and magic powers.
  • Young Regina. In fact the trope - mixed with Break the Haughty - pretty much sums up the Evil Queen's entire raison d'etre.
  • Lieutenant Jones (the future Captain Hook) in "Good Form".
• Break the Haughty: Regina suffers this again and again. But it finally seems to be sinking in when she realizes her actions have doomed Henry. For once, she doesn't attempt to pass blame and teams up with Emma in an effort to make it right. Her tearful plea for Henry to realize she loves him before fleeing is heartwrenching. Season 2 has continued this theme, to the point of Regina actually undergoing therapy—and eventually having her kill her own mother by restoring her cursed heart.

  • And her reaction in Season 3 when she discovers her loving son was in fact Peter Pan in disguise, otherwise why else would he want to stay with her, verges on heartbreaking.

  • Cora was always bitter, haughty, and had a nasty streak a mile wide. But a childish prank by some royals humiliates her, and this becomes her entire reason to exist - to make everyone else (especially anyone of royal blood) get down on their knees before her. "Bleeding Through" shows that her personal vendetta against Eva began when she ruined Cora's chance at marrying into royalty by revealing her secret pregnancy to her would-be husband, Prince Leopold.
• Brick Joke: In "Red-Handed", Henry suggests several jobs to Ruby, all involving carrying a basket, as a way of hinting at her past life as Red Riding Hood. Flash-forward to the next season, after she remembers her identity as Red, and what does she use to carry food to the miners in "The Crocodile?" A basket.
  • In "Child of the Moon," Granny admits her lasagna is frozen when she cleans out the freezer to lock up Ruby. Cut to "Lacey" where Gold tells David he didn't come to Granny's for the "overpriced lasagna."
  • When word got out that Mary Margaret and David were seeing each other while he was still married to Kathryn (who was missing at the time), the whole town turned against her and someone even spray-painted "tramp" in red on the side of her car. Later in the episode, Regina is looking for something in her office and we casually see a used can of red spray-paint in her desk drawer.
• Bridal Carry: Rumplestiltskin unwittingly saves Belle in this fashion when she falls off of a ladder.
  • Past!Hook carries Emma like this on the Jolly Roger in "Snow Drifts".
  • Hook with Emma again in "White Out" after getting her out of the ice cave.
• Bright Castle: The site of Snow White and Prince Charming's wedding in the first episode, and occasionally seen in flashbacks since then.
  • In the third episode of Season 2, they show the interior of the castle after the curse to find everything wrecked. Snow has a slight imagine spot of the ruined room still being intact to show what she had envisioned their life to have been like if the curse had not happened.
• Broken Aesop: The message "Evil isn't born. It's made" is a bit undermined when we learn Cruella's backstory where she was already evil as a little girl and had no Freudian Excuse.
• Broken Bird: Rumplestilstkin/Mr. Gold and The Evil Queen/Regina Mills (and Cora) would not be constantly taking things from and wielding power over others had they not both been betrayed, abused, and traumatized in the past, as the flashbacks reveal.
• Brought Down to Normal: What the Dark Curse did to anyone who had magic or wasn't human or both. The Evil Queen lost her ability to use magic, Rumplestiltskin went back to being human (his old limp and all), the fairies are all powerless nuns and the Magic Mirror is no longer stuck in a mirror. Also, Red Riding Hood is no longer a werewolf, nor is Granny.
  • Slowly graduating up from normal is Pinocchio, as he has been slowly turning back into a puppet since Emma decided to stay in Storybrooke. The curse works differently on him, though, as he actually escaped the curse before Emma; the real reason he's been reverting to wood was because his actions were going against the conditions inherent to him remaining a real boy, and Emma's return caused magic to return to our world.
  • In some cases, being brought down to normal means being changed into human form. Billy was previously a mouse, and Archie was Jiminy Cricket. So for them, it's being brought UP to normal.
  • The giant, Anton, originally seen in post-curse Enchanted Forest, was turned small by Cora, who brought him to Storybrooke to force him to grow magic beans for her.
  • In "Kansas", Emma is forced to sacrifice her magic powers in order to resuscitate Hook. She suddenly gets them back in the season 3 finale after voicing out her desperation to return to the present while holding a magic wand.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Kathryn Nolan reappears in the Season 3 finale.
  • Sidney also returned in Season 4.
  • August returned in Season 4 for the Author arc and made a few appearances in Season 6 as well.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Rumplestiltskin can't remember turning a butcher into a pig, but apparently that guy's son does.

C

• Call-Back: When Belle learns Hook's going to protect her in "Quiet Minds", she's not impressed:
  Belle: You do know he tried to kill me? Twice.
  • The Season 6 finale is full of these. When the fairytale characters are sent to The Enchanted Forest, Hook is wearing the same Badass Longcoat he wore before his Heel–Face Turn. The Clock Tower is stuck as 8:15 until the Dark Curse is broken, just like it was in Season 1. When Snow finds Charming unconscious in the forest, Charming says "You found me", to which Snow replies "Did you ever doubt me?". The exact same dialogue between the two takes place in the very first scene of the pilot, only they flipped it (in the pilot, Snow said "You found me" and Charming replied "Did you ever doubt me?"). Hook and Charming point out that Hook has climbed the beanstalk before, although the last time he did, he tried to kill Emma. This is a reference to Season Two, where Hook was a minor villain. The last scene, where Lucy seeks out Henry is a huge Call-Back to the pilot, to the scene where Henry seeks out Emma, right down to the dialogue with the only difference being the characters present in the scene.
• Call-Forward: In "Red-Handed", during a flash back to the Enchanted Forest we see Snow White trying to come up with different aliases for herself while she$s an outlaw. She spits out Frosty, Margaret and Mary, in that order.
  • Since Rumplestiltskin has the Blind Seer's foresight, he's usually the one to lampshade this whenever some characters make throwaway comments which fit this trope.
  Cora: Brides have to be snow-white.
  Rumplestiltskin: When you can see the future, there is irony everywhere.
  
  Rumplestiltskin: (stumbling into Regina having dinner) Roast swan... That's amusing! You'll get it later.
  • In "Bleeding Through", Eva describes to her future husband the child he deserves: "A child... pure as snow."
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • Henry to Regina after disposing of the wraith with Jefferson's hat traps Emma and Snow in the Enchanted Forest. He says she has to figure out how to bring them back or she really is the Evil Queen, and he'll never see her again. He leaves with Charming.
  • Belle to her father after he tries to have her memories wiped.
  • Neal/Baelfire to Rumplestilskin for breaking their deal and and abandoning him. He calls Rumplestilskin out again for never bothering to come see him once he came to Storybrooke. This is made all the more tragic when Neal is shot and falls into a portal, critically injured.
  • During Peter Pan's "Not So Different" Remark to Rumplestiltskin, Rumple points out that he spent centuries trying to find Neal while Peter sat back and enjoyed his youth in Neverland, not buying his "be a family again" line.
• Cannot Spit It Out: A number of times characters try to make confessions to others but are unable to finish.
  • David's unsuccessful attempt to confess to Kathryn that he and Mary Margaret were having an affair.
  • Emma tries to take back her lie to Henry about how his father died, but can't bring herself to do it.
  • In the season 4 finale, Emma only realizes that she hasn't confessed her love for Hook when Hook dies trying to help her undo the Author's retelling of their stories. Even after they save the day, it takes her committing herself to saving Regina from becoming the Dark One for her to finally tell him.
• Canon Welding: All of the fairy tales are melded together into a single universe that share aspects of each others' stories:
  • The poison apple given to Snow White was made using the same curse Maleficent used on Sleeping Beauty.
  • The mother of the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the Queen of Hearts and is the miller's daughter from the Rumpelstiltskin story, too - albeit with a twist. To add to this, the Queen's half-sister from her mother is The Wicked Witch of the West.
  • King Midas doesn't turn his daughter into gold. Instead, he tries to marry her off to Prince Charming. He does however accidentally turn his daughter's True Love into gold.
  • The Genie from Agrabah becoming the Queen's Magic Mirror.
  • Instead of giving up her freedom to save her father, Belle does it to save her town from the Ogre Wars. And Rumplestiltskin takes the place of the Beast.
  • Rumplestiltskin also turns out to be the "crocodile" that took Captain Hook's hand.
  • Wonderland is accessible from the Enchanted Forest by way of a magic hat. Cora is revealed to be the Queen of Hearts.
  • Lancelot, of Arthurian Legend, makes his debut in Season 2, bringing with him mentions of a lake he grew up next to, and a goblet that would give the drinker eternal life.
  • The end of season 2 also reveals that Neverland is connected to the other worlds, although Captain Hook's appearance had already implied it.
  • There are also hints that Oz is connected to these worlds - the Mad Hatter implies that he has been, and the showrunners have pointed out that there is a picture of flying monkeys visible in Henry's book in the pilot. This is outright confirmed as of the second half of Season 3, with the appearance of a new Big Bad: The Wicked Witch of the West.
  • Belle, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Snow White have a night on the town together.
  • Snow White has a one-night stand with Doctor Frankenstein.
  • And then you have to add the universe created by Frozen, with the appearance of Elsa at the very end of the third season, followed pretty much every character from that movie, sans Olaf, when the fourth begins.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: No one seems to be able to grasp the concept of Gold's shop being closed.
  Gold: It seems when I bought that "Closed" sign, I was just throwin' my money away.
• Capital Letters Are Magic: The subtitles for hulu.com has many of the words like Truth (and oddly, some seemingly arbitrary words like Office, which later turn out to be meaningful) capitalized—and Mr. Gold's surname uncapitalized. Though, maybe it's just hulu.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Played straight to a degree. Several of the villains in the series refer to themselves as villains (Zelena refers to herself as "wicked"), and a significant part of Season 4 involves a plot by several villains to change the trope that villains don't get happy endings. There are a few caveats, however: (1) Regina insists that although she's acquired the name "The Evil Queen," she doesn't see herself as evil (2) Several of the villains are actually Anti-Villains and some of them even do a Heel–Face Turn, so that even as they describe themselves as villains, ironically they are not in fact pure villains.
• Cassandra Truth: No one believes the precocious little kid who insists that everyone is a fairy tale character, except the people who already know it's real.
• Catapult Nightmare: Belle has one in "The Crocodile". Graham has a significant one when spending the night with Regina.
  • Rumplestilskin has one in "Lacey".
• Catchphrase:
  • Rumplestiltskin's "Magic always comes at a price."
  • Prince Charming's "I will always find you."
  • Emma's "Really?" Even said once by Snow White in a flashback!
  • "Dead is Dead" and its correlate:
  • "Magic can do much, but no' that."
  • "I'm sorry" attains the proportions of a catchphrase.
  • Captain Hook and "good form". Which is also the title of his flashback episode in Season 3. This is carried over from the original book, where Hook is satirically revealed to be an Old Etonian.
  • Jiminy Cricket's "Giving in to one's dark side never ends well". This, combined with Rumplestiltskin's "magic always comes at a price" comes back to bite Regina, Cora, and Rumblestiltskin hard.
• Cat Fight: In "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", Regina and Emma finally stop being passive-aggressive and go at it in an all-out fist fight, forcing the Sheriff to break it up.
  • Another one happens in "Second Star to the Right." This time, it's between Emma and Tamara.
• Caught in the Rain: In Episode 10, Mary Margaret and David get caught in the rain, take shelter in a cabin and Almost Kiss. They kiss for real at the end of the episode.
• Central Theme: Almost every character in the show experiences the loss of a parent. It's very likely that Emma and Henry are the only main characters whose parents are both living, and they still "lost" their parents in the sense of growing up without knowing them. In Henry's case, his father Baelfire was missing until "Manhattan," but he later loses him for good in season 3's "Quiet Minds".
• Character Focus: Most episodes focus on one specific character.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Everything from the Dark One's dagger and a crypt full of still-beating hearts to the drink order of Clan Charming gets used in a plot-relevant fashion. That "wolf-thingy" on Ruby's car? Relevant. That cup Belle chips? So much more than just a Shout-Out to a classic Disney movie.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The dagger of the Dark One. (Or, possibly, just a Chekhov's gun twice...since it's reintroduced in the episode where it becomes important again.)
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Archie's umbrella in Episode 5. He hooks it onto a rocky outcropping to keep from falling to his death.
  • The poisoned apple from the Snow White fairy tale is reused by Regina to make a poison apple turnover.
  • Rumplestilskin's potion of true love is what makes Emma the Saviour.
  • Cora's candle that can take the life of one person and exchange it for someone else’s is used by Snow to kill Cora and save Mr. Gold.
  • The storybook that Henry carries with him keeps introducing more elements of both the Enchanted Forest and the curse itself.
  • Anna's necklace. When it's finally recovered it's used in a locater spell, and later revealed to be the wishing star and what ultimately saves both Anna and Kristoff.
  • The letter Anna and Elsa's mother writes in the fourth season premiere. It reveals what happened between her and her sisters, her regret over sealing Ingrid away, and her final apology for everything she'd done. It resurfaces in "Fall", but isn't fired until the end of "Shattered Sight".
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Frederick is mentioned in passing in "The Shepherd". He is later revealed to be Abigail's true love seven episodes later. Similarly, his Storybrooke counterpart bumps into Kathryn several scenes before the audience discovers who he is.
  • Neal was first introduced in the first episode of Season 2. We don't find out who he is until Episode 6. He is Henry's father who left Emma at the request of August. Let's not forget he's also Rumplestiltskin's son Baelfire and the whole reason Rumple orchestrated the Dark Curse.
  • Emma's childhood friend Lily. She's Maleficent's daughter, and the child who was given Emma's potential for darkness.
  • The Black Fairy is first mentioned in "Going Home" when her wand becomes necessary to stop Pan. She shows up in "Changelings" where she turns out to be Rumple's mother. Then she kidnaps Rumple and Belle's son and turns him into the villain destined to kill Emma Swan.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Prince Charming's skill in shepherding animals comes in handy when he lures the dragon into a trap.
  • Ruby's skill at finding things through instinct makes sense when we learn she's The Big Bad Wolf.
  • Peter Pan is fast enough to catch arrows fired at him before they impale him. Neal takes advantage of this by coating the shaft with an immobilizing ink instead of the tip.
• The Chess Master: Rumplestilskin. He has his hand in every plot that's going on in the show.
  Regina: I assume this was all your doing.
  Rumplestilskin: Most things are.
• Chess Motifs: Regina often refers to other characters as "pawns" or "playing pieces".
• Chewing the Scenery: The Evil Queen absolutely devours the scenery. Regina the mayor on the other hand is far more reserved.
  • Likewise, Robert Carlyle's tooth marks are all over any scene involving the Dark One version of Rumplestiltskin.
  • Rebecca Mader (Zelena), Elizabeth Mitchell (The Snow Queen) and Victoria Smurfit (Cruella De Ville) give Regina and Gold a run for the money when it comes to chomping on the scenery.
• Childhood Home Discovery: Subverted when Snow and Emma get trapped in the Enchanted Forest. Snow and Emma stumble upon the room Snow and Charming had decorated as Emma's nursery, but Emma didn't actually spend any time in. The memories are Snow's, and she laments the memories Emma should have, of that room and their family, but doesn't.
• Children as Pawns:
  • During the first season, Regina would take any steps necessary to convince Emma to leave Storybrooke, and that includes manipulating their son, ten-year-old Henry. For instance, in the second episode Regina arranges for Henry to walk into the room just as Emma says she thinks his belief in magic is crazy, in order to drive a wedge between them. As time passes and Regina undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, she stops doing this.
  • Regina's mother Cora used a young Snow White in order to marry off Regina to Snow's widowed father, King Leopold. First, she spooked Snow's horse when Regina was nearby so Regina would feel impelled to save her, leading King Leopold to give her the Standard Hero Reward of a chance to marry him. When Regina resisted, Cora then played on Snow's grief over her mother's death to get Snow to tell Cora what Regina was hiding (pretending to do it out of loving concern). When Snow revealed Regina's plan to elope with a stable boy, Cora killed him so she would have no choice but to marry the king. Regina, so abused by her mother that she cannot blame her, turned all her rage on Snow, starting the years-long crusade for Revenge against Snow that led to the Curse. Snow herself later brings up that she was just a child and had no idea what Cora would do with that information.
• The Chooser of the One: Henry is the one to deliver Emma's Call to Adventure.
• The Chosen One:
  • A prophecy named Emma as "The Savior", and as much as she rues the title, it applies long after she breaks the first curse.
  • Henry is revealed in season 3 as "The Truest Believer", the one who will save magic. It's actually subverted: Peter Pan was lying to him.
  • As it turns out in Season 6, Emma is not the first Savior. Both Aladdin and Rumplestiltskin have been the Savior before Emma got stuck with the title.
  • The Black Fairy becomes an evil version of this, since she became the very enemy a prophecy foretold that her son umplestiltskin, the Savior at that time, would die in order to destroy.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Due to the "closed campus" nature of the Storybrooke setting, the series is prone to this trope whenever a recurring character suddenly disappears without having been killed off or sent to another world (due usually to an actor being cast in another series or only contracted for guest appearances), and situations later emerge where the absence of that character is very noticeable.
  • Kathryn Nolan is absent in Season 2 as her actress (Anastasia Griffith) is now in the Copper series. After disappearing for about the length of two seasons, she reappears in the season 3 finale.
  • The character of Ruby/Red disappears from the series suddenly, several episodes prior to the Season 2 finale. Due to the creators deciding to drop the character and the actress (whose role had been reduced substantially since completing a major character backstory arc midway through the season) being cast in another series. The absence of Ruby is particularly noticeable in the closing episodes of Season 2 when Emma and the others are frantically searching for the kidnapped Regina, yet for some reason do not employ Ruby's previously well-established ability to track people. She reappears during the second half of the third season, but only as a cameo and disappears AGAIN in the fourth season. She finally shows up again in "The Bear King" more than a season after her last cameo and with most thinking she was gone for good.
  • Mulan joins the Merry Men early in season 3. When the company returns in the second half of that season, Mulan is nowhere to be seen or heard. As with Meghan Ory's case, Jamie Chung was also cast in another series at the time. Incidentally, both series lasted only one season.
  • The ex-giant Anton disappears after Season 2.
  • Will Scarlet is especially glaring for being a Canon Immigrant from Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, immediately promoted to series regular in Season 4 after the conclusion of the spinoff series, having a brief scene hinting that he was somehow searching for or grieving his lost love interest from that series, then having him hook up with Belle for about half a season, and then being written out of the series entirely in Season 5, with no attempt to resolve any of those plot threads.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Not actually used all that much with magic in general, but In Neverland, the land runs on this, with pixie dust to fly and magical weather being side effects of a person's beliefs. A significant part of Tinker Bell's backstory is her losing her magic due to the Blue Fairy no longer believing in her.
• Clear Their Name: Emma spends several episodes in the last bit of Season 1 trying to do this for Mary Margaret. She kind of succeeds, but only because Kathryn Back from the Dead turns up again after Mary Margaret supposedly murdered her.
• Cleavage Window: Ingrid the Snow Queen sports quite a big one in her sparkly white dress that doesn't leave much to the imagination.
• Clock Tower: Storybrooke has one which features not only as an important landmark but a symbol of the curse, since its hands are eternally frozen at 8:15, until Emma comes to town and decides to stay. On top of that, everything seems to focus on it and it becomes a set piece for a number of important confrontations: Maleficent is kept beneath it in dragon form, Gold originally had the Dark One's dagger hidden here, Regina had the spell trigger hidden here, it's where Snow and Charming face off against Cora and Regina and Johanna gets killed, it's where Regina and Zelena have their witch fight, it's where Gold tried to use the Hat while killing Hook to free himself from the dagger, it's where the Snow Queen planted her fake mirror, it's where Dark Hook hid the dreamcatchers with everyone's memories, it's where Gold tried to use the Olympian Crystal... In general it also figures in a lot of shots and tends to be a place where villains lurk, plot, or otherwise literally look down upon their planned conquests. Very much a modern version of The Tower of a dark wizard.
• Coincidence Magnet:
  • Every major event in Emma's life has been in some way related to the Enchanted Forest or Storybrooke, even if it didn't seem that way at the time.
  • The only people to come to Storybrooke from outside in the show's present-day period have all had ties with its past or some other ulterior motive for being there.
• Color Motif:
  • Emma is first introduced wearing red and continues to often wear a scarlet leather jacket throughout the series.
  • Ruby always has red in her outfits, whether it's red highlights, red clothing or driving a red car, which is fitting since she is Red Riding Hood.
  • Mary Margaret often wears white as her counterpart is Snow White.
  • Belle usually wears some shade of blue or yellow.
  • Regina's love of black is even lampshaded.
  Genie: Are you still mourning?
  Regina: The time for mourning is ended. I just find that black suits me.

  • However, Regina makes magic with big clouds of violet-colored smoke, which complements her black motif nicely.
  • Wicked Witch Zelena has green skin, is dressed all in green, and makes magic with great gusts of green smoke. Not only that, but her name itself means 'green' in Bosnian, Bulgarian, and several other Slavic languages.
  • The color of true love (Snow and Charming's) is red and yellow. These are also the colors of Emma and Regina's magic by season 4.
• Colorful Theme Naming: "Quite A Common Fairy" reveals that some of the major fairies are named after the dominant color of their dresses besides having more elaborate, unique names. Tinker Bell was referred to as "Green" by the Blue Fairy until she requested otherwise.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • Rumplestiltskin turns Gaston into a rose. He gives it to Belle... who trims the stem before putting it in a vase.
  • Regina and Hook end up on screen at the same time. Naturally, this conversation occurs.
    Regina: You remember Claude.
    Hook: Can't say that I do.
    Regina: You killed him in the cell block.
    Hook: Ah, yes. I didn't recognize him without my hook in his neck.
• Commuting on a Bus:
  • Ruby/Red as of Season 2 (after becoming part of the main cast!), due to Meghan Ory playing the female lead on another series. However, she returns as a guest-star during the second half of season 3. And in light of said series' cancellation, there's no reason not to assume she may return to this series once more.
  • Both Ruby and Mulan make their return in the first half of season 5, where their disappearances from the series after season 3 are explained: Ruby felt like she didn't fit in Storybrooke anymore and chose to go back to the Enchanted Forest to search for her wolf pack, and Mulan ran off after getting her heart broken by Aurora and became an honorless mercenary for hire.
• Composite Character:
  • Cinderella has elements of the Miller's Daughter from Rumpelstiltskin.
  • Prince Charming of "Snow White" also has elements of The Prince and the Pauper.
  • The Magic Mirror is also the Genie from Aladdin.
  • Rumplestiltskin turns out to also be the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and the Crocodile from Peter Pan.
  • Little Red Riding Hood is also the wolf, and her friendship with Snow is suggestive of Snow-White and Rose-Red; although Ruby apparently has only one name.
  • In addition to being himself, Hook's charm, attitude, Wild Card status, rum, and being handcuffed and left behind by the heroine is pretty obviously intended to recall another fictional pirate. Emma naturally lampshades this resemblance on occasion.
    • Not to mention how he tells his love interest "As You Wish", like yet another famous pirate.
  • Cora is both the Miller's Daughter from Rumpelstiltskin and the Queen of Hearts.
  • Turns out, Peter Pan is also The Pied Piper.
  • Blackbeard gives us combining incarnations of a character. While based off a real individual his appearence in this show are clearly drawing from Peter Pan where in the book version it is mentioned Captain Hook once severed under him and here that connection is played out more. There is also a connection to the book version of On Stranger Tides where Blackbeard is used as a character with interests in supernatural treasure such as leading the main character to the Fountain of Youth. The Once version of Blackbeard is utilized more than once as a character who has or knows about magical items (such as the wishing star or a magic bean).
  • Zelena is the Wicked Witch of the West and Persephone from Greek Mythology.
  • Lady Tremaine in season 7 is also Rapunzel.
• Compound Title: The last two episodes of the second season, "Second Star to the Right" and "And Straight On 'Til Morning" respectively. Fittingly, they deal with Neverland.
• Confidentiality Betrayal: In the first season, it is revealed that when Regina was younger, she was in love with a stableboy named Daniel and planned to run away with him. After getting betrothed to young Snow White's father, she tells Snow White the truth and swears her to secrecy. However, Snow White is then manipulated by Cora, Regina's mother, into telling the truth. Cora then confronts the two lovers and kills Daniel, kickstarting Regina's path to the dark side.
• Conflict Ball: When Emma is about to climb the beanstalk, she tells Mulan to cut the beanstalk down if she's not back in ten hours. No clear reason is given for this arbitrary time limit; it serves only to set up a fight between Mulan and Snow about whether to follow through on Emma's instructions. Emma was already on her way down and within easy shouting distance when the fight occurs.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Of all the kids Regina could've adopted, she picks the son of the woman with the power to break the Dark Curse she cast, not to mention the grandson of her worst enemy. Both of them. Emma even lampshades the coincidence that is her meeting Henry's father, who is one of the two other people from her world not to have ended up amnesiac in Storybrooke. The flashbacks of the Season 3 episode "Save Henry" elaborate on these particular events, and even give a nice contrast between Emma's reluctance to accept her newborn son and Regina's last-minute decision to keep Henry despite finding out his real parentage. It turns out that had Regina returned Henry, Pan would've won 11 years early.
  • The car accident victim that's doing an epic Agent Mulder impersonation and documenting the broken masquerade? He was almost kidnapped by Regina and did lose his dad to the town curse.
  • Come on, what are the chances that Emma, Snow, and the wraith would be transported to the exact location of Aurora and Phillip RIGHT AFTER they reunited with each other?
  • All that said, Rumple doesn't believe in coincidence. Whether or not he's right is debatable, considering he's personally manipulated the last few centuries of FTW history. And of course post-Curse breaking, his foresight into the future ends so he's as clueless as everyone else.
  • Early on, Tamara ends up in a lot of right places at the right time for her plans (only some of these are later explained).
  • Also, the one person that Emma saves in the Season 3 Finale just happens to be Robin Hood's late wife Maid Marian, or so it seems.
  • Providence must be at work.
• Convenient Coma: The Sleeping Curse in a nutshell.
  • Prince Charming/Prince James/Shepherd aka John Doe/David Nolan.
  • Henry went in one after eating Regina's apple turnovers.
• Coordinated Clothes: Regina and Rumplestiltskin both wore black and blue for an episode after they started a sort of Heel–Face Turn and tried to redeem themselves for their loved ones. They are still as antagonistic as ever, and end up disagreeing on the best way to carry out this plan.
• Correlation/Causation Gag: At the exact moment Emma first puts on her deputy sheriff badge, Storybrooke is rocked by what seems like an earthquake (actually a coal mine shaft collapse), seemingly underscoring the importance of her accepting a role in the community. However, considering the curse, her being the savior, and other moments of genuine causation (her accepting the key at Granny's bed-and-breakfast coincides with the town clock starting running again), this might not actually be a coincidence...
• Costume Porn: Mostly in the Enchanted Forest but some of Ruby and Belle's outfits in Storybrooke.
• Couch Gag: A different plot-relevant creature, character or item appears in each episode's title card. As for the Season 1 finale... the ominous cloud that features is a reference to both how the finale shows how the end of the Enchanted Forest joins in with the start of Storybrooke... and how Rumple just brought magic to Storybrooke or so it would seem.
• Cousin Oliver: Despite the popularity of the film, some fans and TV critics have been critical of the parachuting in of characters from Frozen to dominate the first half of Season 4. For example, see Zap2It.com's list of OUAT characters that have been "frozen out" by the arc.
• Cowardice Callout: Rumple/Gold/Weaver has been on the receiving end a few times, and it's not unjustified — cowardice is a big theme with his backstory and character. Even his own son, who was young and was just about the only person who Rumple wasn't hostile or threatening towards at the time, called him a coward in frustration for being too afraid to accompany him through a portal as Rumple previously promised (this act of fear led to them getting separated across realms for a long time).
• Crapsaccharine World: Storybrooke. When Emma first enters, it seems like a nice normal town and everyone appears content. But nobody can actually leave and people are forced to stay suspended in time and must play the roles that were assigned them, never truly moving forward in their lives. What keeps this from being an outright Crapsack World is that the entire town is oblivious. One wonders how Henry has apparently been content to see the entire town stuck in time for 10 years as he grew up there.
  • In Season 2, post-Curse, the town has slowly been transitioning between Crap Saccharine and full Crapsack as residents grow tired of being trapped, and also (as of mid-way through Season 2) begin exhibiting paranoia about the outside world discovering their true nature.
  • Suggested in the made-for-DVD minisode Good Morning, Storybrooke, a non-canonical example of how a breakfast TV news show broadcast in Storybrooke might work.
• Crapsack World: Although real-world locations are depicted as being OK places, they are still said to exist in "A World Without Magic" which presumably makes the real world "crapsack" for characters with magic.
• Create Your Own Villain: Rumplestiltskin had a hand in the creation of every single villain we've seen. And also apparently all the heroes as well! So far the only people we've seen who he hasn't manipulated into their current positions are those who are from our world.
  • It turns out that the Muggle tourist was a little boy camping with his dad when Storybrooke appeared over their campsite. Regina got it in her head that she wanted the little boy for herself. The boy got away, his dad did not. Thirty years later, he's back, and really pissed off about the whole thing, enough to destroy not just Regina, but the whole town and Henry.
• Creepy Doll: Unfortunately, this is how Geppetto's parents are currently spending their time.
  • The season 3 episode "Lost Girl" has one of these in store for Rumplestiltskin, as a doll from his childhood given to him in the previous episode continues to appear despite his attempts to get rid of it. It's later revealed that this was a memento from his father, who then took the name Rumple gave it, Peter Pan.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: The beginning of Snow and Charming's love story is depicted in the episode "Snow Falls". The episode where the events of the aforementioned episode are undone by a time-traveling Emma (with Hook in tow) is titled "Snow Drifts".
• Crossover Relatives:
  • With the Season 2 reveal that Rumplestiltskin's son is Henry's father, Rumplestiltskin is "in-laws" ^note  Henry's parents never married, so the exact relationship is a gray area with Snow White and Prince Charming, Henry's biological grandparents, and the Evil Queen, Snow White's stepmother and Henry's adoptive mother. Once Belle from Beauty and the Beast marries Rumple and Snow White's daughter marries Captain Hook, the web of in-laws gets... extensive.
  Charming: It's a good thing we don't have Thanksgiving in our land because that dinner would suck.
  • The Evil Queen's mother would go on to become Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, and was also the Miller's Daughter from the Rumplestiltskin fairytale. The Wicked Witch of the West is later revealed to be the half-sister of the Evil Queen via the Queen of Hearts.
  • Peter Pan is Rumplestiltskin's father (though he didn't really become Pan until after Rumple was born).
  • The Snow Queen from the original Hans Christian Anderson fairytale is not only Elsa and Anna's aunt, but Emma's foster mother.
  • After the Season 7 Time Skip, Henry has married and had a daughter with an alternate version of Cinderella, making Snow White and the Evil Queen this Cinderella's in-laws.
  • Also in Season 7, an alternate version of Rapunzel is revealed to be the Evil Stepmother to Henry's wife Cinderella, and an alternate Alice is revealed to be the daughter of the alternate Captain Hook.
• Crucial Cross: The earliest episodes of the show give the "real world" version of Snow White a cross necklace, a visual sign of the great love she feels for everyone. In fact, her true love and the sacrifices she made for her love are key in stopping the evil curse that provides the series's conflict.
• Cruel Mercy: Regina's sparing Snow after removing her heart. The same scene has Get It Over With just before. The cruelty lies in how it's revealed that her hand in Cora's death has caused her heart to begin to darken; and instead of dying with a still-relatively-pure heart, Regina would rather see Snow become as evil as her.
• Cursed with Awesome: Ruby muses on this with the awesome being the loss of the Fairy Tale memories. Many people, including her, had things they wish they could forget, like her eating her boyfriend and Whale's failure to save his brother. Add to that, the Curse not only made them forget such things but now has given them a chance to live new lives with fresh starts.
• Curse Escape Clause: The entire town of Storybrooke is cursed with Laser-Guided Amnesia, but Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter was smuggled out and is slated to break that curse Because Destiny Says So. It's later revealed that the wardrobe that spared Emma from the curse was actually for two people, but Geppetto insisted on Pinocchio being the first one out.
  • The original Dark Curse becomes this for Peter Pan's new curse, having the opposite effect of returning everyone to the Enchanted Forest, except for Emma and Henry, who weren't born there.
  • In-universe, True Love's Kiss acts as a universal cure for all manner of curses.
• Cutesy Name Town: Storybrooke, Maine.
• Cycle of Revenge: So, Cora is slighted by Snow's future mom and kills her. Then after Cora kills her daughter's lover and forced her into a marriage with the widowed king, Regina decides to take revenge on Snow White for telling Cora (because she's unable to stand up to Mommy). The revenge leads to the curse. The curse leads to Cora returning and once again playing Regina like a cheap flute. Together, they kill Snow White's childhood nanny, try to kill Rumplestiltskin, and Snow realizes Cora was behind her mother's death. Part out of desperation, part out of revenge, Snow kills Cora. Now, Regina's blood feud leads her to almost kill Snow White again. Henry intervenes, but when Snow shows up to surrender her life to end the feud, Regina rips out her heart, then spares her life by putting it back, declaring Snow's Start of Darkness is all the leverage she will need to finalize the revenge. As of the end of Season 2, the cycle begins to break as Henry gets kidnapped by Peter Pan's goons, and Regina is forced to cooperate with the Charmings and Rumplestiltskin to save him. By the first half of Season 3, it appears that Regina has finally chosen to let go of her need for revenge, seeing as how the Curse that created Storybrooke became necessary to save all of them. She even allows Emma's new memories to be good ones.

D

• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You:
  • The Evil Queen cast a curse on Fairy Tale Land, forcing Snow White and Prince Charming to put their baby daughter Emma into a portal that carried her to the real world in order to save her from the curse. Emma herself has very mixed feelings on the matter. The original plan was for them to go with her, but circumstances and another character's motivations led to neither of them making it.
    • With Emma, the trope occurs with both parents, and it's probably one of the straightest examples ever written. Emma accepts her parents into her life, but vacillates on how she feels about this.
    • Unlike some depictions of this trope, much of the story takes place after Emma is reunited and both Emma and her parents are major characters in their own right, so we have plenty of time to explore the implications of their "abandonment," including the fact that Emma's trauma and resultant hangups do not simply go away because it turns out her parents really did have a good reason to abandon her.
  • Peter Pan claims this to his son Rumplestiltskin, but he's lying through his teeth.
  • Turns out, however, Rumple's mother had a good reason, with being sealed away in a different dimension.
  • Subverted with Rumple himself, who did not have a good reason to leave Bae, but spent the next century or so of his life trying to get back to his son, much to his son's surprise. Direct parallels are made between Rumple's momentary lapse in judgement and his father Peter Pan's remorseless abandonment, largely because Peter Pan simply disliked being a father.
  • With Henry, it's Mommy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You. Henry goes back and forth between understanding/forgiving Emma and questioning or being angry about this.
• Daddy's Girl:
  • Merida, very much so, to the point that she is determined to avenge the person who killed her dad.
  • Regina is a darker example; in fact, she somewhat subverts it because she rips her dad's heart out to enact the Dark Curse. She goes back to playing it straight in Season 5, though.
  • Belle is a subversion. She clearly loves her father but here, unlike in the Disney film, she does not sacrifice herself for him—she does it for the good of her kingdom and the opportunity to be heroic. Additionally, Daddy himself is a big subversion sincehe tries to send Belle across the Storybrooke line to wipe her memories.
• Daddy Issues: It's probably easier to name a character who doesn't have some issue with one parent or the other, or both.
• Danger Takes A Back Seat: Played with. Emma tells Henry to go home so she can track down Ashley before it's too late. Henry obediently goes. But he pops up a few minutes later in the back seat of Emma's Volkswagen and sensibly points out she'd waste too much time taking him home and let Ashley's head-start get longer.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Invoked by name during the sheriff election. Regina dug up Emma's past, including juvie records that were supposed to be sealed and smeared them across the front page, along with a very unflattering mugshot.
  • And, obviously, the fact that almost everyone has some dead/missing relative or lover as a part of the backstory.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Much of the series following the first season, particularly the second half of Season 2, the first half of Season 3, and all of Season 5.
  • Lacey is this to Belle.
  • Also, Neverland and Peter Pan is this compared to the version from the original novel and the Disney film.
• Darkest Hour: "An Apple as Red as Blood". August is dying, Emma won't believe no matter what.
  • Henry mentions this trope specifically, only for it to be subverted:
    Henry: In the book, things always look worst right before there's good news!
    The dwarves: (run up shouting) Terrible news! Terrible news!
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget:
  • Subverted with Rumplestiltskin when he jokes to Belle that he forgot his past (it turns out he remembers it well).
  • Inverted with Snow White. After she takes the memory loss potion, she almost turns evil.
  • In the "real" world, it's also inverted. The two wicked characters, Regina and Rumplestiltskin, are the only ones who recall exactly who they were.
  • Save for Jefferson—although he has gotten more than a tad sadistic over the years.
• Dark World: Season 5's Hades is a Dark version of Storybrooke.
• A Day in the Limelight: Generally, each episode will revolve around one or two characters and the viewers would be able to see what happened to them in their past before living in Storybrooke.
• De-aged in Death: Elsa and Anna's aunt, Ingrid the Snow Queen, serves as the Arc Villain of the first half of Season 4. The discovery of her powers by her and her sisters Gerda^note Elsa and Anna's mother and Helga occurs when they're playing as little girls on a hill with Ingrid catching up to them. They promise to stay as loving sisters. Circumstances align and cause the sisters to divide, with Helga dying accidentally by Ingrid's hand, Gerda sealing her in an urn, and then Gerda herself dying at sea, resulting in Ingrid believing she had no sisters and her villainous turn is her trying to find new ones. Once Ingrid realizes that Gerda profoundly regretted her actions, Ingrid sacrifices herself to stop her own villainous plan, proclaiming that she'd be Together in Death with the sisters who she now knows truly loved her. This is visualized with the same scene of them running over that same hill with Ingrid catching up to her sisters.
• Dead All Along/Dead Person Impersonation: Lancelot, in "Lady of the Lake". It is actually Cora in disguise, after she killed the real Lancelot.
  • In "Heart of Gold", it is revealed that Marian is actually Zelena in disguise. The real Marian was killed by the witch in the Enchanted Forest.
• Deader than Dead: An Olympic Crystal will destroy your soul. No afterlife for you. ^note At least until Word of God subverted this into just Killed Off for Real, as a way to avoid too much Angst Aversion over Robin Hood being killed this way.
• Dead Guy Junior:
  • Henry was named after the Evil Queen's father. He even gets to see his namesake's coffin when he goes poking around in Regina's shed. There's a nice little pause so you don't miss it.
  • David and Mary Margaret decide to name their son after Neal who died to protect them.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Emma, with a heavy dose of Stepford Snarker.
  • Snow White in her Fairy Tale past had her moments.
  • Charming also had his moments in the Enchanted Forest.
  • Mr. Gold is the main supplier of this trope. Some of his gems:
    "You're a smart woman, Your Majesty. Figure it out."
    
    Regina: Are you really going up against me?
    Mr. Gold: Not directly.
    
    Emma: Gold? You in here?
    Mr. Gold: Well, it is my shop.
    
    "Not if I catch him first."
    
    Mr. Gold: You have your mother's chin.
    Emma: We know you killed him.
    Mr. Gold: And your father's tact.
    
    Charming: If anything happens to them...
    Mr. Gold: Then you'll what? Cross the town line? And David Nolan will hunt me down in his animal rescue van?
    
    Regina: This is all your doing, isn't it?
    Mr. Gold: Most things are.
    
    Regina: My tree is dying.
    Mr. Gold: Then perhaps you should fertilize it.
    
    Regina: I want to have a baby.
    Mr. Gold: I'm flattered, but uninterested.
    Regina: Not like that!
  • With season 2's introduction of Captain Hook, Gold now has quite the rival for the snark throne.
    "Ooh, sparkly dirt. Wonderful."
• Deal with the Devil: Making a deal with Rumplestiltskin will usually be such a deal.
  • It's even worse to make one with Hades.
• Death by Adaptation: The show has no problem with killing off a few classic storybook characters: Peter Pan, Cruella DeVil, and even the Fairy Godmother, to name a few.
• Death Equals Redemption: August finding he is turning back to wood leads him to seek out Emma and try to get her to break the curse.
• Death in the Limelight:
  • In "The Queen Is Dead", Mary Margaret reconnects with Johanna, the now-elderly former castle servant who sent her her old tiara for her birthday. Towards the end of the episode, Cora threatens to kill Johanna unless Mary Margaret gives her Rumplestiltskin's dagger - then she flings Johanna through the clock face and sends her to her death anyway.
  • The only episode to center around Graham ("The Heart is a Lonely Hunter") ends with his death.
  • Same goes for Cora ("The Miller's Daughter").
  • Also, August, sort of. (He didn't die so much as get reset back to childhood, but either way it was the end of the character August, save for in flashbacks.)
  • Same for Zelena in "Kansas". At this point, a good rule of thumb is just to say you have a 50% chance of dying in your spotlight episode if you're the season villain. She got better.
  • Neal gets one in "Quiet Minds".
  • Appropriately enough, the season 4 episode "Sympathy for the De Vil".
• Death of the Hypotenuse: Emma in season 3 is torn between Neal and Captain Hook. Neal dies in the second half of the season which makes way for Emma and Hook.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Subverted, with the exception of one example and one example only: Jiminy's parents. Then, double subverted when his efforts to kill them results in Geppetto losing his parents.
  • This is even subverted with Cora, the unanimously considered most evil person in the show. Even she is immune to this trope; Regina still loves her mum.
• Declaration of Protection: Done multiple times by Mulan (who's Aurora's protector) throughout the first half of the second season. Mulan also claims she failed to protect Aurora when they learn that Aurora's heart was taken by Hook when she was held captive by Cora.
• Decomposite Character: Peter Pan is an inhuman monster. The young boy who was found in Kensington Gardens and befriended the Darlings was Bae. And the one who took Hook's hand was Rumplestiltskin. It's basically a family trait.
  • In Season 4, this is the case with the Snow Queen. While Elsa from Frozen was based on the Snow Queen, they're separate characters here, with the Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale being Elsa's aunt.
  • Ursula is split over three characters. There's the original Ursula, who is the famed Goddess of the Sea. Her role as an antagonist for Ariel is given to Regina when she impersonates the goddess Ursula, and then there's another Ursula, a mermaid who was named after the goddess and later styled herself in her image (and whose backstory seems to be partly based on that of Ariel—almost more so than this universe's Ariel herself).
  • In Season 5, Merlin's love Nimue the first Dark One and the Lady of the Lake are separate characters, whereas they are the same person in Arthurian legend.
• Decon-Recon Switch: The fairy tale portion of the show often gives classic fairy tale characters very dark origins and somewhat more realistic treatments, to explain the rather simplistic or extreme behavior found in our storybook version of the fables. However, many of these characters also undergo significant Character Development to become something that matches the uplifting spirit of their stories, if not the letter. The first episode of the series establishes the Foregone Conclusion that many fairy tale characters have reached their happy endings and are otherwise content with their lives, despite their gritty retellings.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Emma is the Agent Scully, but her skepticism is borne of lack of trust due to past abandonment issues.
  • Henry aspires to be a Kid Hero but his need to live a more exciting life causes him to needlessly risk his life.
  • Regina is a "Well Done, Son" Guy who is never able to free herself of wanting to please her mother Cora. She blames Snow White for the death of her first love even though it was Cora who killed him.
• Deconstruction Crossover: For fairy tales in general and the Disney versions in particular.
• Decoy Backstory: The show intersperses the characters in the present with flashbacks of their fairy tale selves, and one of the characters is Prince Charming (first name James) and his Storbybrooke equivalent David Nolan. One episode starts out with a flashback to James acting like a jerkass Royal Brat, very much at odds with his established character, and recklessly enters into a duel. James is killed in that duel, and it turns out that the guy who became Prince Charming was a Farm Boy named David who was a Back Up Twin forced to do an Emergency Impersonation. As shown in a later episode (and chronologically earlier flashback), the "real" James was the Evil Twin.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The world that Frankenstein comes from.
  • Splash of Color: As a visitor to that world, it doesn't apply to Rumplestiltskin (or to his gold); he seems to have decided to wear a bright red cloak just for the occasion.
  • Storybrooke itself. According to the other wiki, "...all flowers and other objects with bright colors are temporarily concealed or removed [from the town used to film the exterior shots] to preserve Storybrooke's somberly enchanted nature."
• Denser and Wackier: The weirdness kicks into high gear after season 1. Magic returns to Storybrooke, the townsfolk recover their memories, Emma's really complicated family tree is steadily revealed, etc.
• Department of Child Disservices: Emma has very bitter feelings about her time in the foster care system, even telling Mary Margaret that all foster parents are just after "a meal ticket" and don't care about the kids. It's also implied to be a horrible fate for Nicholas and Ava (Hansel and Gretel), even worse than leaving them to fend for themselves.
  • August (Pinocchio) and Emma were also subject to an Orphanage of Fear. When given a choice to run away, August chooses his freedom and abandons Emma to her fate in the hellhole of "the system."
• Destructive Romance: Discussed in Episode 13 between Mary Margaret and David after David told Kathryn that he was leaving her, but didn't tell her that he was involved with Mary in order to spare her feelings. Instead, Regina spills this to Kathryn, leading her to confront Mary in public and revealing the affair to the whole town.
• Determinator: And how. A whole family of them. From Henry all the way up the line to Charming's mother, this family simply will not quit, ever. If they think it needs to be done they WILL get it done, often regardless of personal cost. And as we find out, this also applies to his father's side all the way up.
• Did Not Die That Way: Granny told Ruby that hunters killed her parents when Ruby was a baby. In reality, Ruby's father is dead as far as we know, but her mother Anita is still alive and living with a werewolf pack in a secret hideout.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?:
  • The usually very closed off Emma shows she very much can feel when she finally opens up to Graham.
  • At one point Rumplestiltskin is talking about the power of True Love (of which he happens to be holding a bottle). Prince Charming, rather dismissively, asks what he could possibly know about true love. Rumple is not amused: "Well, not so much as you, perhaps, but not so little as you might think."
• Did Not Get the Girl: Mulan tearfully walks away from Aurora without revealing her love because Aurora is happily pregnant by Phillip.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight:
  • Cora to Regina, thanks to the cursed candle and the fact that Rumple was inches from death when Cora got her heart back.
  • Milah to Killian after Rumple rips her heart out.
  • Pinocchio to Geppetto, before the Blue Fairy arrives just in time.
  • Graham to Emma after Regina crushes his heart.
  • Neal to Emma, after he and Rumplestiltskin are finally separated.
  • Liam to Killian, after leaving Neverland negates the effects of the former's poison cure.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Prince Charming to Emma, due to the plan to save her from the curse.
  • Prince Thomas might count with him being kidnapped by forces unknown while Ella is still pregnant. Averted with his Storybrooke counterpart when he decided to do the right thing in the end and come back to Ashley despite his father's wishes.
  • Henry's biological dad, whom he was told was a fireman who died during a rescue. In reality he's Neal Cassidy, a thief who was forced to leave Emma behind before even knowing that she was pregnant with his kid. It also turns out that he's Baelfire, Rumple's son, and was forced to stay away by August so that Emma can fulfill her destiny of breaking the curse on Storybrooke. After that was done and Neal found out that he had a son, he did move into Storybrooke so that he can be with Henry. Shortly after, he was shot and was transported through a portal, thus disappeared for a second time. He is, however, saved by Mulan and Robin Hood in the Enchanted Forest, and later joins the quest to save Henry from Peter Pan.
  • Hansel and Gretel's father. The same goes for their Storybrooke counterparts, Nicholas and Ava. However, they end up reunited with him in Storybrooke.
  • Grace's father never returns from his trip because he is trapped in Wonderland and becomes the Mad Hatter. They finally have their happy ending in Storybrooke after the curse is broken.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Several Big Bads actually:
  • Regina and Emma enter an Enemy Mine to save Henry in the Season 1 finale with the Final Boss (in both Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest storylines) being Maleficent.
  • After spending most of Season 2 as the villain Cora is defeated several episodes prior to the end and two new villains, Greg and Tamara, take over for the rest of the season.
  • Zelena is defeated in the episode before the two-part finale of Season 3; the finale is a Back to the Future Whole-Plot Reference that she has nothing to do with.
  • Ingrid in Season 4A is also defeated in the episode before the finale with Rumple as the Final Boss (though he was part of this season's Big Bad Ensemble, Ingrid had priority for most of it).
  • Thought Rumple or the Queens of Darkness were the Final Boss of Season 4B? Nope! Zelena? Not her. The Author? Not him, it turns out to be the Darkness, a sentient force of evil that inhabits all Dark Ones.
  • Emma / The Dark Swan and King Arthur are pushed aside in Season 5A to deal with Hook as a Dark One and Nimue.
  • Hades is destroyed by the only weapon in existence that can kill him before Season 5's two part finale. The finale's main antagonists are Rumple again and Mr. Hyde, believe it or not, however it comes off as a Post-Final Boss ensemble seeing as none of them are anywhere near Hades' power level and the finale has nothing to do with the story arcs in Season 5, instead acting as a preview for Season 6.
  • Hyde was built up as part of a Big Bad Ensemble in Season 6. How long does he last? Four. Episodes. And he was only a major threat in the last one.
  • The second half of Season 6 builds up Gideon as the new villain. The Black Fairy soon turns out to be the bigger threat.
  • In season 7, Lady Tremaine is brushed aside when Drizella starts planning behind her back. Drizella herself is also one to Mother Gothel.
• Disney Owns This Trope: The reason many of the fairy tale characters share the names of classic Disney characters. (The series is in fact made by ABC Studios.) And the fact they are allowed to use characters created or as reimagined by Disney. For example, it was the Disney movie that named Snow White's 7 Dwarfs, while Belle and Mulan are based on the Disney film versions of the characters.
  • In Season 1, at various times Henry (and, strangely, Regina) are seen buying comic books at the corner store. Of course, they're all Marvel Comics - another Disney property.
  • The Season 2 episode "In the Name of the Brother" has a very funny meta example of this trope; a character's cell phone plays the Star Wars theme as its ringtone over and over again (that franchise was recently purchased by Disney and Word of God confirms the in-joke was added to reflect this).
  • The original TRON has also been referenced by way of Henry owning a handheld version of Space Paranoids; and later, a lunchbox.
    • Given the cross-fictional-universe aspect of the series, it is not 100% certain that OUAT is not set in the same universe as Tron (given that Tron marketing like lunchboxes and the Space Paranoids game exist in-universe for Tron too).
  • Best exemplified in the season 3 finale, which features, among other things: a Mickey Mouse doll, Emma assuming the alias "Princess Leia" while trying to remain inconspicuous in the past, and finally, the surprise appearance of Elsa.
  • Hook and Henry use the Wookie Prisoner Trick once, which Hook later mentions in Season 6.
• Disney Villain Death: In "Sympathy for the De Vil", Cruella De Vil falls to her demise after Emma uses her powers to push her off a cliff, Interestingly enough, she subverts this trope in her respective Disney film.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Cora kills Regina's true love Daniel right in front of her and forces her to marry the king. So, naturally, Regina blames... Snow, who, when she was ten years old was tricked by Cora into revealing their relationship.
  • Also, while you can understand Rumplestiltskin getting angry over Baelfire getting hurt, turning the man responsible into a snail and stepping on him is a bit excessive. Even his son thinks so.
  • Rumplestiltskin ripping Milah's heart out may or may not be an example of this, depending on how selfish you think she was for leaving her family to pursue her own desires. But disproportionate or not, it was certainly a DUMB thing to do, since if had just let her live and take the magic bean, he'd have reunited with Baelfire without screwing the world over with a curse.
  • The actions of a spoiled princess cause Cora to become one of the show's biggest Big Bads, even manipulating Rumple in the process at a time when he was a little more sane and a lot more vulnerable than we've normally seen him.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • After Snow White's personality is radically altered by the anti-Love Potion that Rumplestiltskin sold her, Jiminy Cricket and the Seven Dwarves stage an intervention.
  • Also, the fact that Sidney - the ex-editor of the Storybrooke Daily Mirror - is involved with wiretapping will not go unnoticed by UK fans.
  • Regina's attempts to stop using magic are akin to a recovering addict.
  • Mulan returning Aurora's heart plays out an awful lot like a "first time" sexual encounter.
  • Watch the scene where Rumplestiltskin teaches Cora to use her emotions to turn the straw into gold then think about it.
  • When Regina is looking for her lost book of spells, Mr. Gold says: "Do you really need the smell of the written word to get the magic flowing again, dearie? Maybe if you relaxed, it would just happen."
• Don't Explain the Joke: The sheriff tries a joke about how Emma broke the town sign.
• Don't Split Us Up: Ava (Gretel) begs this of Emma for her and her brother. They don't and are reunited with their father.
• Don't Think, Feel: How magic is wielded by its practitioners in this universe.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Invoked in "The Shepherd", when Sheriff Graham offers Emma (who has just become his deputy) a box of donuts to persuade her to work a late shift. As he presents them, he quips that some cliches are true.
• Doomed by Canon:
  • Stealthy, the eighth dwarf.
  • Queen Eva, Snow White's mother.
  • King Leopold, Snow White's father.
• Double Standard: After David and Mary Margaret's affair is revealed, the town mainly shuns Mary Margaret while David only gets anger from Kathryn and Mary Margaret. Partly justified since David has much less interaction with the rest of the town while Mary Margaret was a well-liked middle school teacher and active community member who had been known as practically a saint up until that point.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Subtly inching toward being played straight in-universe; it remains to be seen if anyone will express anger over or even acknowledge what Regina did to Graham. Up until the curse breaking in the finale, the in-universe glossing over of the situation has been justified by the fact that a 10-year old is the only person (semi)-aware of it, but it's quite egregious that Regina never gets any punishment for raping Graham at least once by forcing him to have sex with her under threat of crushing his heart, and then sleeping with him while the Curse makes him think he's willing for twenty-eight years.
  • Also, Zelena raping Robin Hood in Season 4 by disguising herself as his late wife Marian, while not treated as a good thing, is never actually called rape. And the Evil Queen being on the verge of forcing herself on Aladdin in "Wish You Were Here" is Played for Laughs.
  • As of "Eloise Gardener", we have yet another example: Gothel disguising herself as Rapunzel and tricking the Wish Realm version of Hook into sleeping with her to produce Alice, needing someone of her own bloodline to take her place as the tower's prisoner.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: In the finale of Season 4, Rumple has the Author create a new reality where Rumple and Belle are reunited in a happy marriage. It's not acknowledged as rape in-universe even though the Author took away Belle's knowledge of the fact she and Rumple were estranged.
• Dragons Versus Knights:
  • In "The Shepherd", David's first task as a prince is to lead a group of knights in a battle against a dragon. Through his cleverness and care for his men, David fells the dragon, is accepted by his father as a rightful heir, and is engaged to a beautiful princess of a wealthy kingdom.
  • The first season finale also plays off the classic knight vs dragon trope by pitting Prince Charming against a dragon on his quest to free Snow White from the sleeping curse. His daughter takes up his sword and has to fight the same dragon in the present day.
• Dramatic Deadpan: Snow in "Heart of Darkness".
  Grumpy: Where are you going?
  Snow: To kill the Queen.
• The Dreaded:
  • The Dark One, even before Rumple took the mantle. Zoso, his predecessor, was seen as such, as was the knight who enslaved him.
  • The Dark Curse.
  • Peter Pan.
  • Hades.
  • The Black Fairy.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Milah does this after her marriage falls apart, and Belle goes drinking after being rejected by Rumple.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Justified for those under a Sleeping Curse. They can only be woken up by the kiss of one who loves them truly. A motherly love works just as well as romantic.
  • But when Belle loses her memory and Gold tries to reverse it by kissing her she rather unsurprisingly starts screaming due to being kissed by a creepy guy she doesn't even recognize.
• Dying as Yourself: Several examples during "And Straight On 'Til Morning". The town is on the verge of destruction, and Mother Superior manages to devise a cure for Belle and Sneezy's amnesia, so that they can at least die as themselves with their loved ones. A different version is shown when Regina resolves to slow the trigger and buy the townsfolk enough time to escape, knowing that she'll die, but at least she'll be saving everyone.
  Regina: Everybody sees me as the Evil Queen. Including my son. Let me die as Regina.
• Dying Declaration of Love: When Mr. Gold is poisoned by Hook's poisoned hook, he calls the amnesiac Belle and, without going into the the history of the Enchanted Forest, tells her that she may not remember who she is but he knows her to be a wonderful, beautiful, wise, and heroic woman. To him she will always be that. And at the time, he honestly thought he was going to die, either by poison or Cora stabbing him with his dagger.
• Dysfunction Junction: Emma, Henry, and the entire family (Regina included) need a lot of therapy.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means:
  • Regina's apparent goal is for everyone else to suffer. She uses the Dark Curse to take everyone to a world where "No one gets their happy ending."
  • Cora may be worse. She states in her origin that she essentially wants everyone to bow to her to the point it destroys them.

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