Once Upon a Time (TV series)/Headscratchers

Did Emma's Living Lie Detector fail her in "The Price of Gold" when she sent Henry home and he did not obey her?

• Either Henry genuinely did mean to go home and changed his mind once he got outside and saw her car, or:
• Emma was so focused on talking to Ruby and finding out more about Ashley that she didn't bother to focus it on Henry, which the kid was counting on.
• And seeing as they both have the ability, maybe they cancel each other out?
• Or it's active ability and she has to concentrate when trying to tell truth from lie.
• It seems to only work when that knowledge would push her further into the plot. Almost as if someone else is controlling what she learns. Beat. WAIT A MINUTE!
• At this point, the safest bet is that she was so focused on the fact that the teenage mother was hightailing it out of town, that she didn't give much mind to Henry above "Go home."
• Or maybe Emma doesn't have a superpower and she was just saying one of those motherly things, equivalent to "I have eyes on the back of my head."
  • Considering that she's a native, however unknowing, of a fairy tale world, it's quite possible she does have the lie detection gift. Likely she was either not concentrating that hard on Henry, or Henry did plan to obey and changed his mind when he saw her car.
    • Why didn't it work when Graham told her he was volunteering at an animal shelter for the night then? I agree with the above troper, it seems to be a pretty plot relevant power.
      • Graham doesn't have a heart. Maybe he can lie ore easily than a normal human.
• I've started thinking there's something about Storybrooke (possibly related to the curse) that interferes with an ability Emma might well have found quite reliable in the "real" world she lived in until moving to town.
• It's possible that Emma's ability is on a human level not supernaturally driven. Maybe she is just really good at telling if someone lies but not perfect at it.
• She's recently began to acknowledge that she no longer knows who's lying or not, proving she is simply good at it, but not perfect.
  • Right. And the writers say her personal involvement in the situation is hampering her ability to detect lies.
• Or her ability actually is telling her the truth, but the evidence left behind is misdirecting her. The heart in a box, the short sword under the floorboards, the phone bill with a call to Kathryn, etc. The real-world rules, where the evidence and her Gut Feeling would synch up, no longer apply.
  • We also see that her denial about her status as The Chosen One and the truth about the curse is actively preventing her from seeing the things around her that would not match real-world logic, such as the enchanted tree and "August's" wooden leg.

Why couldn't the Blue Fairy bring back Geppetto's parents?

• Assuming this is the same Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, she was able to take a completely inanimate puppet and turn it into a living thing, so why couldn't she take two puppets that had formerly been people and bring them to life? Especially since Rumplestiltskin certainly implied that the parents weren't actually dead. Even if she couldn't do any more than make them into animate puppets like Pinocchio, surely that would have been better than leaving them as they were.
  • It's because Rumpel is the most powerful being in the Fairytale world, so powerful that no one can break his curses.
  • As of "The Stranger", Pinocchio was carved from a special, enchanted tree, and so the spell that brought him to life cannot be reproduced.

Shouldn't Henry be 9?

• Emma gave birth when she was 18 and just turned 28 in the pilot so shouldn't Henry still be 9?
  • Writers Cannot Do Math?
  • Same birthday?
  • Maybe she was 17 when she GOT pregnant, but had turned 18 by the time she gave birth. However, no one talked about Henry having a birthday on that very same day.

Snow going to Rumpelstiltskin for help with David rather than for help with the whole Evil Queen wanting her dead thing.

• Really? I'm sure heartbreak is legitimately terrible, but when someone is trying to hunt you down and kill you and there's someone who can help you stop them, wouldn't a person be more inclined to try to get that help?
  • She hadn't heard of him until she was seeking help with her romantic problem, so that's what was on her mind.

Why are the dwarves so tall?

• If it wasn't for the dialog, I wouldn't have thought they were dwarves.
  • The Dwarves we know of are the kind that are short, yes, but another key point of what makes them dwarves is the fact that they live in the mountains (literally, in the mountains). The fact that these dwarves are miners also goes towards the point of them being mountain-dwellers.

If "true love's kiss can break any curse", then why haven't Mary and David regained their memories of fairy tale life? If Graham was Emma's true love (and I believe he was!) then it made sense that he regained his memories, but why not Mary and David?

• Word of God says that the majority of the town must be aware of the curse and working against it before the curse can be broken. A handful of people finding true love/kissing won't be enough.
• And they're both under the curse. Graham kissed Emma, who has special curse-breaking properties.

Did Jefferson return to the Fairytale land at some point?

• Or was the Curse powerful enough to target all those originating there, even across dimensions?
• It's possible that he completed the new hat from Wonderland and went directly to the 'real' world instead of FTW (probably because the FTW was barred off by the Curse), thus allowing him to bypass the rules of the Curse.
• It's implied that if he were to forget about his FTW life it would be a mercy for him, but the Dark Curse specifically forced him to remember in order to make him as miserable as the other residents.
• Regina says that she "brought [him] here" to the real world, whether she brought him from FTW or Wonderland isn't clear.

Are Graham and Emma the only cops in this town?

• I know it's a really small town, but you would think there would be more police officers around.
  • Perhaps, but given low crime rates and especially considering few would want to piss off Mr. Gold by doing anything on his land (ie the town), there may not have been enough work to actually justify more. Besides, the Dark Curse seems to gloss things like that over so that no one really notices or cares.

When did Regina figure out that Emma's the Savior?

• I'm confused on how long Regina's known the truth about Emma. When she did she figure it out?
  • Ever since she saw the clock tower moving, she suspected something, and that something was Emma.
    • Yeah, she'd have to be dense not to have put all the clues together. I was just surprised, like the original poster, because she hadn't said it outright until "An Apple Red as Blood", and because Henry and Emma had tried to hide it from her. I guess we're meant to view her conversation with Gold about how he procured Henry for her as when she had her suspicions confirmed, despite the fact that he refused to give her a straight answer.

All this talk about how Regina took away everyone’s happiness.

• She might have taken Snow White and Prince Charming’s happiness, but finding out you’re a werewolf and you ate your boyfriend? Being forced to accept a miserable, loveless life? Some people are better off in Storybrook.
  • Being unable to find any ending, living a lie where there is neither joy or sorrow, and having no freedom to better your circumstances can be much worse. Granny and Red might be freed from their lycanthropy, but they don't have their memories or their freedom. We've already seen that Ruby is going stir crazy and can't do anything about it.
  • In addition, not knowing who you are takes away your ability to define yourself and to be who you want to be. Sure, by the time the Dark Curse was cast, Red had lost her true love but she had also come to understand, grow, and accept what had happened. She had the freedom, power, and responsibility to become more than just a sheltered girl. Her lycanthropy helps define her - just like Grumpy's grumpiness helps defines him. It may hurt to have those memories, but being able to deal with them constructively makes you a better person. Contrast the Evil Queen who is unable to do so.

Regina has something Mr. Gold wants!

She knows Belle is locked away, and given that she went to the trouble of having the cup stolen and knows the sentiment behind it, she must know just how much she means to Mr.Gold. So why, why, WHY, doesn't she use that knowledge to get him to help her?

• • That is the absolute last trump card she has and will ever have. She'll exhaust everything else before it. Because if Rumple is going to beat the stuffing out of French for thinking that he killed Belle, there will be hell beyond words to pay over the imprisonment once Rumple has Belle back.

Where'd the poison apple come from?

I know that Hansel and Gretel retrieved it from the Blind Witch, but in the second episode we saw Regina complaining to Maleficent that the latter's sleeping curse didn't work. So did the sleeping curse come from maleficent or the Blind Witch?

• Based on later dialogue, Rumple seemed to have been behind that one, or at least could make them. Why he did it? Only he knows.
  • What later dialogue? If you mean the solution Regina was asking Gold for with Emma, that wasn't it.

How did Jefferson come back in "An Apple Red as Blood"?

I thought that he fell into the hat, after Emma had made it. Mary had kicked him out of the window and he had disappeared, so shouldn't he have gone into the hat and into Wonderland?

• I think he landed and got up running away until Emma and Mary left.
  • Or he just took the door back to Storybrooke, since he still wanted his daughter.

Just how far-reaching are the effects of Rumplestiltskin's actions at the well?

• The well is supposed to return that which was lost. So, is it returning magic to all those in Storybrooke who once had it - or did our whole world once possess magic, which is being restored to it?
  • I suppose we'll find out in season 2. I would guess only Storybrooke, but it's not too out there to assume that it's affecting the whole world.

So, why Mode Lock Maleficent?

• Why keep something so blatantly magical and out-of-place in Storybrooke? What if someone saw? What if Maleficent made too much noise? What if she got loose? Regina's magic supply is so low on Earth, I doubt she could ever hope to control her or anything like that. And I'm not sure why Maleficent would deserve such a unique punishment to begin with. Seems like kind of a weak excuse to squeeze a battle with her dragon form in there.
  • What do you think the earthquake was?
  • If she got loose, while she might slaughter everyone in town, ultimately, the Dark Curse would prevent her from going anywhere. Heck, the Dark Curse might even erase that if it had occurred. As far as why Regina did it... well, she doesn't think she has any friends and is paranoid as all get out. Maleficent is/was a powerful sorcerer so it's possible she was also worried that if Male was human, she'd be powerful to interfere.

Henry

• Why is Henry not at all conflicted about his adopted mother? Okay, she's "The Evil Queen"... but she raised him. Regardless of whether or not she did a good job, that kind of thing matters to kids.
• Not when that parent is emotionally and mentally abusive like Regina is. Trust this troper. She knows.
  • Seconded by this troper. Also, Henry may be single-mindedly focusing on her "evil queen" status so he doesn't have to deal with the basic, painful question of an emotionally abused child: "If she loves me, why would she treat me like this?"

Henry's initial search for Emma

So, when Henry was looking for his mother, did he know that his mother was the baby Emma from his book, despite not knowing her name? Or was it a coincidence that he caught on to all too quickly?