History Recap / OnceUponATimeS6E17Awake

* StatusQuoIsGod: Because changing the past and undoing the entire show at this point would be far too major a shift, Snow and Charming being woken from the curse in Season One and trying to get back to Emma is undone--they choose not to do so, trusting that Emma will find her way to them as destined to and thus save everyone, and they (and Gold) take a potion to put them back under so nothing is changed. The point of the past segments is instead to provide the means to get Hook and Emma back together, and to inspire everyone in saving Snow and Charming.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: More downplayed than most, but it turns out it isn't just referring to the attempt to break the Sleeping Curse on the Charmings but that, unbeknownst to us, there was a point during the first season when they had already come "awake" from the Dark Curse and needed to decide whether to go to Emma at the expense of everyone in town or go back "asleep" until she came to save them all.

* AbsenteeActor: Creator/MeghanOry is excused in the flashback by Ruby being hung over.

* AbsenteeActor: Meghan Ory is excused in the flashback by Ruby being hung over.

-->'''Gold''' ''(after being told facing the Black Fairy will leave nothing left of Storybrooke)'': That's a risk I'll just have to take.

** After the first attempt to break the Sleeping Curse only weakens their hearts so they will both sleep, the message Snow gives to David about it on his smartphone just so happens to catch an image of a Pixie flower in the forest behind her, giving them the key they need to break the spell.

* AdaptedOut: The rest of the Piccaninny tribe, presumably, since in this version Tiger Lily is an ex-fairy rather than the daughter of a chieftain. Considering ValuesDissonance, this is probably for the best.

** An even bigger plot hole is the pixie flower itself. Crossing realms is very difficult, especially to the Land Without Magic – that's the premise of the show. The only ways to do so were the magic beans, the Dark Curse, the magic wardrobe, the Sorcerer's powers and Peter Pan's shadow. Other portals, such as the hat, mermaids and so on, were only shown to work ''within'' Storybrooke ''after'' magic was brought to town. Yet, the pixie flower opened a portal to the Land Without Magic outside of Storybrooke even before magic was brought to town; the flower is described as being able to bring true loves together "no matter what separates them", but for that to apply even to a lack of magic strains credibility a bit. [[spoiler:Granted, we not only learned there was a little magic on Earth in the Season Five finale, but Season Seven reveals Earth used to have magic before the destruction of Gothel's magic grove.]]

** An even bigger plot hole is the pixie flower itself. Crossing realms is very difficult, especially to the Land Without Magic – that's the premise of the show. The only ways to do so were the magic beans, the Dark Curse, the magic wardrobe, the Sorcerer's powers and Peter Pan's shadow. Other portals, such as the hat, mermaids and so on, were only shown to work ''within'' Storybrooke ''after'' magic was brought to town. Yet, the pixie flower opened a portal to the Land Without Magic outside of Storybrooke even before magic was brought to town; the flower is described as being able to bring true loves together "no matter what separates them", but for that to apply even to a lack of magic strains credibility a bit. [[spoiler:Granted, we not only learned there was a little magic on Earth in the Season Five finale, but Season Seven reveals Earth used to have magic before the destruction of Gothel's magic grove. But the small amount of magic left behind wouldn't seem to be enough for the Pixie to focus on.]]

** An even bigger plot hole is the pixie flower itself. Crossing realms is very difficult, especially to the Land Without Magic – that's the premise of the show. The only ways to do so were the magic beans, the Dark Curse, the magic wardrobe, the Sorcerer's powers and Peter Pan's shadow. Other portals, such as the hat, mermaids and so on, were only shown to work ''within'' Storybrooke ''after'' magic was brought to town. Yet, the pixie flower opened a portal to the Land Without Magic outside of Storybrooke even before magic was brought to town. One would wonder why Rumplestiltskin even needed the Dark Curse in the first place, given how those miracle flowers had the power to reunite him with his son (and they also should have grown in his proximity, given he's the freaking Dark One). No explanation is ever given for why he didn't think of that.

!Tropes

* {{Retcon}}: 18 years before the start of the series, dust from a pixie flower woke Snow and Charming from the dark curse. However, they had to put themselves back under and sacrifice their chance to find Emma, in order to ensure she could one day break the curse for everyone else.

** An even bigger plot hole is the pixie flower itself. Crossing realms is very difficult, especially to the Land Without Magic – that's the premise of the show. The only ways to do so were the magic beans, the Dark Curse, the magic wardrobe, the Sorcerer's powers and Peter Pan's shadow. Other portals, such as the hat, mermaids and so on, were only shown to work 'within' Storybrooke 'after' magic was brought to town. Yet, the pixie flower opened a portal to the Land Without Magic outside Storybrooke even before magic was brought to town. One would wonder why Rumplestiltskin even needed the Dark Curse to begin with, given how he could have apparently been reunited with his son with those miracle flowers (which should have grown in his proximity, given he's the freaking Dark One). No explanation is ever given for why he didn't think of that.