Once Upon a Time cleanup

• Subverted with Peter Pan in "Save Henry". He goes down surprisingly easily twice, and both times it turns out that he isn't finished after all. Further subverted two episodes later, when he's defeated for good: as it happens when he's showcasing just how powerful he truly is and his death is only brought about by the ultimate sacrifice from Rumpelstiltskin. Later played straight with him in the Underworld, as he underestimates just how much more clever and ruthless his son has become, with his manipulations failing miserably.
• Played painfully straight with the Shadow in "Going Home". After all its menace throughout the season, Tinkerbell has a ridiculously easy time taking it out for good.
• The Evil Queen is not much better. She is turned into a snake by Gideon, the son of Rumpelstiltskin, as he establishes himself as the main antagonist of Season 6B. Gets subverted when she returns in the second half and receives a better defeat.
• Jafar, after being built up by the wonderful talents of Oded Fehr, is easily defeated by Aladdin in the fifth episode. Also subverted when this defeat turned out to be short-lived as he returns in the second half, it's revealed how he bested Jasmine and conquered Agrabah, and he has to be faced down by her (not Aladdin) once and for all, again much more satisfyingly, although fans of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland still consider it this trope since they had long expected more from him once he was released from the bottle he was imprisoned in.
• Played with in the case of Drizella. Although Regina and Zelena defeat her easily in about three moves in the New Enchanted Forest and Drizella doesn't get to attack once, she then reveals that she isn't there to fight back but to ensure that Regina casts the Curse that she will dictate. Plus, she wasn't the actual Big Bad anyways. However, it gets played straight for her when Gothel ends up defeating her by removing her magic and giving it to Anastasia before knocking her into a well and taking her place as Big Bad. Poor Drizella can't catch a break.

• Crack Ship:
  • Subverted by the context of the show, but try telling someone who's never watched an episode that Rumplestiltskin and Belle are a couple and you will get weird looks.
  • Snow White and Victor Frankenstein definitely count.
  • "In the Name of the Brother" shows that Red Riding Hood and Victor Frankenstein are also a possibility.
  • Before Rumpelstiltskin was with Belle, he was going to run off with the Queen of Hearts/the Miller's Daughter, and his son has had a child with the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.
  • Prince Charming has been engaged to the daughter of Midas.
  • Tinkerbell is trying to get the Evil Queen and Robin Hood together because they're soul mates.
  • Based on their interactions in the mid-season 3 finale and the fact that they met in Neverland way back when, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook may have had something going on.
  • And Emma with a flying monkey/the Wizard of Oz and then Captain Hook beats them all.
  • Probably one-sided, but Mulan and Aurora. There is a Disney Princess out there who's in love with another Disney princess.
  • As of Season 4b: Belle and Will Scarlet, who have never even been on-screen at the same time up until their out-of-the-blue kiss.
  • Red Riding Hood and Dorothy Gale are canonically a couple, and had True Love's Kiss together.
  • The Wicked Witch of the West and Hades were together for a while.

• The trend has mostly been subverted with Peter Pan, who has received a large amount of adoring fangirls who love him because he's such an unapologetically evil little shit and they embrace this rather than try to excuse all of his sins. However, there are still a minority of fans who do attempt to justify or woobify him, despite all evidence to the contrary.
• Subverted with Zelena the Wicked Witch of the West, as well. Although her past is tragic, she acts in a very bratty way and takes it out on people who really had nothing to do with how her life turned out.
• Also subverted, in a different way, with the Snow Queen. She is very beloved, but the majority of her fans (and the character herself in the end) make peace with the fact that her woobie backstory didn't justify her evil deeds and that her Redemption Equals Death was necessary for everyone, including her.

• Subverted in the Season 3 Winter Finale: Rumplestiltskin died to kill Pan, Storybrooke disappeared forever, everyone's back in Fairy Tale Land except Emma and Henry, who now have memories of growing up together in New York and don't remember their lives in Storybrooke, and the show is basically restarting with something completely different. Though whether it'll stay that way is anybody's guess.

• The Caterpillar and the Queen of Hearts. Pretty much everyone in Wonderland, actually, which led to the creation of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. Subverted when the Queen of Hearts shows up again and is revealed to have been Cora all along.

[[folder:Take That, Scrappy!]]

• In "The New Neverland", Peter Pan's shadow rips the Blue Fairy's shadow and kills her. This is hilariously subverted with the shadow's death reviving her in the very next episode.

• Several flashbacks subvert this by having a thematic link between them and the present storyline (Lost Girl), by becoming relevant latter (Broken), or by filling in history that needed filling in (Souls of the Departed).