Continuity, Nitpicks, Unanswered Questions and Timeline Headaches: When Did That Honeycrisp Apple Come From

[Joenigma]

 

When the book changed in last year's finale, does it mean that the Author added Hook and Emma in there?

 

This plot is so baaaad!

 

Considering what was changed occurred before the Author was trapped in the book, I think it was just how the events unfolded in the new timeline thus the book changed to reflect the new story.

[Camera One]

This plot is dependent on the characters, and us the viewers not knowing what the hell the Author is or is not capable of doing.  Look at what they had Snow/Charming say in "Best Laid Plans": "We were told that we had to guide her, that her fate rested with us. But this author... he has the power to change everything. I mean, he's going to write the villains' happy endings. Who knows what he can do to Emma?"

 

Now that we've seen "Sympathy for De Vil", we now know that the Author does indeed have great power, but those powers are still very undefined.  For example, could the writer write, "Emma is filled with anger she cannot overcome" or "Emma pushes innocent people off a cliff"?

 

If Rumple knew all about Isaac, and has worked with him before, why didn't he just have him under lock and key, and Isaac could write stuff like "Rumple shall acquire an instrument to locate his son", "Rumple shall have a magic bean", etc?  

 

Why isn't Rumple working to cleave himself from the Dagger now?  Would putting the 3 Queens of Darkness into the Hat be enough to do that?  Or does it have to be light magic that gets trapped?

[KingOfHearts]

 

If Adam, Eddy, and the writers actually had a well-thought-out plan of the series and knew where they wanted to go and paid attention to details, there would be a PDF version of Henry's story book online that the fans could look at. But since these writers like to retcon anything at a moment's notice or bring in a random villain for funzies, then we'll never actually know what's in the story book and what isn't.

Probably for the same reason they prefer "a long time ago..." over giving us exact time frames. They want no rules so they can do whatever they want. It's aggravating because it makes the audience feel stupid. Part of the fun of mystery and drama is guessing what will happen next. (Just look at the Spoiler thread page views!) When the showrunners can pull out deus ex machinas at the last second, or retcon the vague timeline, it just gets plain idiotic. No strategy or method whatsoever.

 

I'm confused - I thought the Author plot was about Regina getting her happy ending. So why is her involvement so minimal now? If Operation Mongoose's whole purpose was to find the Author, isn't it strange that neither Regina nor Henry have even met him since he got freed? If the Author had not written anything since his entrapment, doesn't that nullify the mission? Regina felt that even though she was changing her ways, bad things still happened to her because someone was manipulating the universe. We've learned that was not the case, which makes it all pointless.

[RadioGirl27]

Every new episode shows more clearly that the writers don't know what they are doing with this storyline. The Author plot is terrible, confusing and contrived, and it makes little to no sense. None of these questions about the Author have a real answer. A&E have something in mind for the finale, and they are just making time to get there, without actually caring for what they are doing to the show or the characters.

Edited April 26, 2015 by RadioGirl27

[Curio]

I'm confused - I thought the Author plot was about Regina getting her happy ending. So why is her involvement so minimal now? If Operation Mongoose's whole purpose was to find the Author, isn't it strange that neither Regina nor Henry have even met him since he got freed?

 

Isn't that weird? Regina and Henry were basically the only two people in 4A who even knew about this author plan and were secretly working on it for multiple episodes, but now that this mysterious person they've been searching for for months is finally released, they don't even get a reaction scene?

 

Okay, this might be a stupid question, but I really don't feel like going back and re-watching scenes from this half season because...yeah. Did we ever find out how Rumple got the Author's quill? Did I totally zone out during a scene in which Rumple found it and picked it up? All I remember is the Author running through the woods and trying to carve a quill out of non-magical wood, and then Rumple randomly pulls out the real quill from his jacket. I think I'm missing something from a previous episode.

[YaddaYadda]

No, we don't know how he got the quill (though he doesn't have the ink), but I'm assuming he got it from the Sorcerer's mansion where portals and super magical hats and empty story books are conveniently waiting to be found.

Edited April 26, 2015 by YaddaYadda

[Curio]

No, we don't know how he got the quill

 

Sigh. Only on This Show™.

 

Okay, another question. Do we know how long Isaac (it's weird calling him that, I almost prefer calling him "The Author" still) has been doing his author job? Did he also write Rumple way back in the day? That's a couple of centuries of storytelling right there. And if he was writing way back in the Rumple/Hook days, did he also have a hand in Hook's story? Or was that a completely different author since Hook's stories aren't in Henry's story book? At least, I'm assuming they're not in there because otherwise Emma or Snow would have known who he really was when they first met him in 2A. But it's almost as if Isaac had to have had a hand in writing Hook's story because the man never dies. I wouldn't be surprised if Isaac pulled a Cruella on Hook and wrote something like, "No being can take the life of Killian Jones with malicious intent" or something about dying of natural causes. It'd be helpful to know why Rumple hasn't gone around trying to kill Hook this entire time during 4B.

[YaddaYadda]

But it's almost as if Isaac had to have had a hand in writing Hook's story because the man never dies. I wouldn't be surprised if Isaac pulled a Cruella on Hook and wrote something like, "No being can take the life of Killian Jones with malicious intent"

 

Or Killian Jones' life must always be saved by women who can also to hold daggers to his throat.

 

We don't know how long this Author has been writing the stories.  He did tell Rumple that he was the person he had the most displeasure of writing for ever.  Interesting since he probably wrote Cora and Zelena (Oz is in the book, don't know if Zelena is though).  Those three are a real piece of work.  Given his statement about Rumple, I'm inclined to think that he did not write Rumple pre-Dark One.  

 

Neverland is largely "undocumented" or could be  contained in another book and Hook was back in the EF after Regina stole the curse back from Maleficent, so who knows.

[KingOfHearts]

I want to know how Rumple never looked into the book Author, yet knew about magic quills that could manipulate destiny. In all his years, his interactions with the Sorcerer and the Apprentice seem oddly limited. For a show that draws the "Rumple knows all" card every other minute, I'm surprised that he only knew about all this from a conversation with Regina in the car. He knows how kooky she is... why didn't he question it?

 

 

We don't know how long this Author has been writing the stories.  He did tell Rumple that he was the person he had the most displeasure of writing for ever.  Interesting since he probably wrote Cora and Zelena (Oz is in the book, don't know if Zelena is though).  Those three are a real piece of work.  Given his statement about Rumple, I'm inclined to think that he did not write Rumple pre-Dark One.

There's also the questions of, what did he just record and what did he manipulate? If Rumple was a pain to write for, couldn't the Author just change it since he loves making illogical alterations to make things more fun? 

Edited April 26, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[YaddaYadda]

Maybe the Author did his job the way he was supposed to until his encounter with Cruella?

 

Also, Rumple knows shit all.  He didn't know Emma had magic, that her heart couldn't be taken, that Cora's first born wasn't Regina, where Bae ended up or that he and Hook spent years together or that he did not take that magic bean from Hook and he didn't know that the Author and Cruella knew each other or that Zelena was still alive, what any of the QoD happy endings entailed or at least not Cruella's and the list goes on.

 

What Rumple doesn't know can fill two oceans at least which makes him look so very stupid.  Rumple is a terrible seer.  I'm sure Ms. Cleo was less of a hack than he is.

[Curio]

For a show that draws the "Rumple knows all" card every other minute, I'm surprised that he only knew about all this from a conversation with Regina in the car. He knows how kooky she is... why didn't he question it?

 

Here's another question, why didn't anyone question it?? I mean, you'd think there would have been one person in the entire town who would have thought, "You know, I really don't think this mysterious author person exists. We've never heard of him before. And even if he supposedly does exist, who's to say he can grant happy endings?" Hook could have been the perfect person for that, but nope. Or why not Belle? She's a hero who lost her happy ending. And with the thousands of books she's read in her life, and the fact that she was The Dark One's wife for a bit, you'd think she'd be the most likely candidate for knowing anything about a supposed author figure. (Actually, it's pretty ironic that 4B's entire plot revolves around an author and a book, and Belle is basically no where to be found.) 

 

Adding in people who didn't believe the author existed could have added some tension and drama between the people in town who were all aboard Operation Mongoose and those who were against it. But with TS;TW, they introduced this completely random storyline out of the blue, had everyone believe it immediately, and then even went out of the way to dispel any confusion by having Blue come out and say, "Yes. He exists." Like, wow. Way to ruin what little suspense you had built up around this story line.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Curio

[Camera One]

I don't know if what Rumple knows or doesn't know will be clarified in the remaining episodes of 4B, but this was his conversation with Regina in "Heroes and Villains" which supposedly kickstarted Rumple's own quest for the Author:

 

 

RUMPLE: But before I go, could you pass something on to my grandson? Tell Henry I'll miss him And his charming attempts at snooping around my shop.

REGINA: You knew.
RUMPLE: Oh, I knew. Perhaps you can tell me why.
REGINA: He was looking for the impossible my happy ending.  The Storybook has me written as a villain, and villains always lose, so He thought you might have a clue as to who the author is so I can make him change that. Intriguing idea.
RUMPLE: But, alas, I've no clue as to his identity.

 

So not only did Rumple know the identity of the Author, he has even met and worked with him before.  Riiiiiiiiiight...  And it never occurred to him to try to find this all-powerful Author?  He didn't bother asking the Sorcerer's Apprentice about him in 4B.  Did it completely slip his mind?  But now, he's positive the Author was in Storybrooke, so he had to come back?

 

And then, in NYC, Rumple said the following to Ursula/Cruella:

 

 

 

URSULA/CRUELLA: So why should I think this new plan will work when all the others have failed?

RUMPLE: Our failures in the past have been for one reason the odds were stacked against us. Now we're gonna change the odds. With this author you keep babbling on about.

URSULA/CRUELLA: His book harnesses a great power, one that exceeds anything you've ever experienced, giving villains and heroes what he deems just desserts.

 

Now that we've met Isaac, are we supposed to think his manipulations of the book are to give the "villains and heroes what he deems just desserts"?  Yes, he gave Cruella a punishment, but was he doing that to all the villains?  Are we supposed to think he tricked Snow and Charming into stealing Maleficent's egg, so he could give Maleficent her just desserts?  And he did this with all the other villains?  Why didn't he just write in his book, "Regina can't take another life.  Maleficent can't take another life.  Rumple can't take another life.  King George can't take another life.  etc. etc. etc."?  

Edited April 26, 2015 by Camera One

[Rumsy4]

Hey--maybe the Author wrote in that the stormtroopers would always miss. :-p

[KingOfHearts]

 

Hey--maybe the Author wrote in that the stormtroopers would always miss. :-p

He probably wrote in all the eagles for Gandalf too.

[scarynikki12]

What I want to know is: who finished Henry's book?  Isaac was imprisoned before it ended yet Henry was able to read about Regina killing her father, casting the Curse, Snow giving birth, Charming placing Emma in the wardrobe, getting stabbed by Regina's guards, Snow thinking he was dead and Regina standing triumphant over them as the Curse gave her her happy ending.  Who wrote all that?  I wonder if we'll ever know.

[FurryFury]

Who wrote all that?

 

Wouldn't be exactly shocked to meet Adam and Eddie in a cameo as other authors who were conveniently trapped in another world very similar to the "world without magic" on the show...

[Camera One]

What I want to know is: who finished Henry's book?  Isaac was imprisoned before it ended yet Henry was able to read about Regina killing her father, casting the Curse, Snow giving birth, Charming placing Emma in the wardrobe, getting stabbed by Regina's guards, Snow thinking he was dead and Regina standing triumphant over them as the Curse gave her her happy ending.  Who wrote all that?  I wonder if we'll ever know.

 

We'll probably find out the Book writes itself when it is without Author for 4 days 8 minutes 15 seconds 16 milliseconds.  The Ethos of the Universe directs the writing, and the Ethos has a bias towards heroes vs. villains.  In order for Rumple to force the Ethos' hand, every member of the Snow White family must eat a poisoned apple turnover simultaneously during a solar eclipse.

[Camera One]

What I want to know is: who finished Henry's book?  Isaac was imprisoned before it ended yet Henry was able to read about Regina killing her father, casting the Curse, Snow giving birth, Charming placing Emma in the wardrobe, getting stabbed by Regina's guards, Snow thinking he was dead and Regina standing triumphant over them as the Curse gave her her happy ending.  Who wrote all that?  I wonder if we'll ever know.

 

Did we get a partial answer in "Lily"?  So this is what the Idiotic Sorcerer's Apprentice said:  "The mistake has been rectified!  [isaac] is now in the book, where he can no longer alter our world, only record what happens."

 

So Isaac was recording what happened from inside the book?  How the hell does that work?  Oh never mind...

[FormerMod-a1]

Per previous suggestions, we have merged the Questions That Will Never Be Answered Topic with Nitpicks, Continuity, Timeline... topic.  Carry on...

[LizaD]

When the Apprentice gave the scroll to Ingrid, he told her a Savior will be born and the scroll said Emma the Savior and Ingrid ended up in the LwM is July and Emma was born in October which I guess would put the timeline for Snow's pregnancy right around the time she got that unicorn mobile from Cinderella,

I don't remember the July part? I thought he sent Ingrid in 1982 which was a year or so earlier than Emma's birth. 3 months before her birth doesn't make sense because the whole Frozen stuff was placed before Snow and Charming's first meeting.

Anna met David then Rump and Belle before Rumbelle happened. Anna met Belle then literally a day later all of Arendelle was frozen by Ingrid. She then went to find the Sorcerer to make the hat deal and he sent her on her way. Unless they're saying Ingrid sat around twiddling her thumbs for at least 9 months trying to get Elsa back from Rump, before approaching the Sorcerer? It didn't seem that way to me. It looked like as soon as Rump took Elsa, Ingrid went off to the Sorcerer.

Which makes this story wonky because Emma was always destined to be the savior before Snowing got rid of her supposed "darkness." And it couldn't be that Snowing was always destined to do some babynapping and voodoo because it was the rogue author that set them and the Apprentice on that road. Unless it was always destined that the author was going to go rogue, mess with Charmings and Apprentice, so that Emma would end up as savior.

See how convoluted and crappy it gets when sucky writers start messing with stuff like destiny, magical authors, free will and swapping fetal lightness and darkness? The stupid. It burns.

[YaddaYadda]

I don't remember the July part? I thought he sent Ingrid in 1982 which was a year or so earlier than Emma's birth.

 

That is totally my bad.  My brain made that decision for me.  You can blame it.

[Shanna Marie]

I'm curious as to when in time we're supposed to be in the present. For much of 3B, there was snow on the ground that they made no effort to hide. That arc spanned maybe a week or a week and a half, at best. Then 4A took about two weeks. There was a six-week jump, and then early in 4B there was snow on the ground again. So, was 3B set in January, then there was a brief warm spell, and then snow in March? Or were 3B and 4A set in December and we then jumped ahead to February?

 

It would be a pity if they skipped over Thanksgiving and Christmas, given Henry's wish for a holiday with a big family (that he now has) and David's snark about how awkward Thanksgiving would be. We need to see a Charming family holiday. They may not celebrate in their world, but most of them have Storybrooke memories, and Henry would want Thanksgiving and Christmas, especially now that he has a family.

 

I know they're kind of hampered by the timing of when they film, combined with the fact that time passes so slowly on the show, which makes dealing with seasons challenging, but it is possible to work around it (the first few seasons of Haven were set in the same summer, and they were frequently filming July scenes while it was snowing, but you'd hardly tell from watching the show, and I'm sure they have a much lower budget). I just get the sense that they have no idea and aren't even trying to ground things in anything resembling a timeline.

[Curio]

Has that been a tricky tightrope to walk in terms of the audience’s knowledge versus the characters’ lack thereof?

 

Eddy Kitsis: Hopefully you're watching for the story. When I watch True Detective, I’m not like, "Wait, is this Thursday?" Hopefully the audience isn’t asking what date it is, because what we do is we pick up from where we ended last year, and the way we introduce the Frozen characters into the show is pretty organic. I think that the timeline isn’t really a question — what people will see is the story unfolding before them.

 

Yeah, they could give two shits about their timeline.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Curio

[Shanna Marie]

Then he's not a very attentive viewer and is a very shoddy writer because time matters. One of the issues with the way the characters behave is that the show timeline doesn't match the real world timeline, and yet the characters are acting like it does. If you look at the way events are unfolding on the show, Robin and Regina were together for maybe two days. But Regina was acting like their relationship spanned the amount of real-world time it took -- 3-4 weeks plus the summer hiatus.

 

People act differently when things are happening one after another, all on the same day, than they do if those events take three weeks. If you haven't figured something out in six weeks, you might look stupid, but if it takes you two days, you look smarter. There are logistical challenges that come with the seasons. I think it matters if Elsa was there in the summer, and so the ice wall was a drastic change, vs. in the winter, where the ice was just in a different configuration. Elsa was there literally three days after there was heavy snow on the ground (the scene in which Hook was trying to run away with Henry, which was just before the baby was born, and the day before the time travel adventure). That should have made a difference in how her initial effects were noticed or perceived.

[YaddaYadda]

Yeah, they could give two shits about their timeline.

I wonder about them sometimes.  When you have in dialogue a day ago, two days ago and 9 weeks ago and 30 years ago and a "long" time ago or sometime in 1982, then yes, I will look at the timeline.

[Camera One]

Has that been a tricky tightrope to walk in terms of the audience’s knowledge versus the characters’ lack thereof?

Eddy Kitsis: Hopefully you're watching for the story. When I watch True Detective, I’m not like, "Wait, is this Thursday?" Hopefully the audience isn’t asking what date it is, because what we do is we pick up from where we ended last year, and the way we introduce the Frozen characters into the show is pretty organic. I think that the timeline isn’t really a question — what people will see is the story unfolding before them.

 

Wow, what a dismissive response.  What a dumb analogy trivializing the importance of time passage.  The timeline determines whether a character's reaction actually fits with where they would be in a particular point in time and the knowledge that they have.  A character's response needs to make sense given the time frame.  A story loses believability if the timeline is not clear.  Especially on this show where there are flashbacks and different characters know different things, this is even MORE important.  So much for putting more care into a show as a showrunner.

[Shanna Marie]

And then there's stuff like them putting things in dialogue like "last night" or "yesterday" or making things happen that have to have been recent -- like the time portal pillar happening at Zelena's "death" on the night the baby was born making it mean that the naming ceremony had to have been on the next day, which meant that the townspeople were bitching at Snow to fix the electricity two days after she gave birth. When you do stuff like that, people notice the timeline.

 

If you're doing your job, people won't notice so much because it won't take them out of the story. That's why you might not notice on a show like True Detective (I haven't watched, so I have no idea). It only becomes obvious when it's a "does not compute" or something like "Hey, didn't Snow just give birth two days ago?"

[YaddaYadda]

So much for putting more care into a show as a showrunner.

 

Maybe he should take some lessons from the writers and showrunners of True Detective.  

[scarynikki12]

The thing about True Detective, to use his example, is that the story encompassed more than twenty years.  So, no, it wasn't important if the present day interviews were on a Thursday but knowing specific details like day of the week and time of day would be important when determining if a suspect had opportunity to commit the crime.

 

I freely admit to being anal about television timelines already but this show really only rivals The Vampire Diaries when it comes to making my head explode.  The first four seasons of TVD took place over two years, and it was frustrating the entire time.  And my timeline issues with that show are the same as this one: all these horrible things happen, usually by one or more of the main characters, and the victims are expected to get over it the next day.  These events need to breathe so that it's more believable that the characters work through the trauma and, yes, find a way to forgive the perpetrator if it comes to that.  The Charmings drop a bomb on Emma, destroying her trust and the next episode she's being told to get over it.  A week had gone by for the audience but a mere twelve hours had elapsed for Emma.  Let her feel her anger and sadness at their betrayal for a few days before trying to get her to consider moving past it.  Snow didn't even get maternity leave since she was in the Mayor's office and then her classroom mere days after Snowflake was born.  Snowflake himself is, what, 2-3 months old?  At this point the show will end and he'll still be too young to walk.  A timeline that follows real time would work wonders for this show.

[KingOfHearts]

Time is a storytelling element. As a hypothetical, you could have a character stranded on an island and subsequently rescued. Was he/she there five days or twelve years? That matters because the length of time affects what their emotional response would be to being saved. It also counts in relationships. Like what Shanna Marie said - Robin and Regina were only together two days. If they had been an item in the Missing Year, or even longer in Storybrooke, their angst would have been far more buyable and Regina would gave gained quite a lot more sympathy for her loss. Without that extra span of time, the relationship comes off as superficial and Regina appears to act like a whiny teenager.

 

It's startling that writers from Lost, which had an extremely tight timeline, wouldn't think twice about such an important mechanic. It's lazy and unrealistic which does not make for an engaging story.

Edited April 29, 2015 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

One place where they may have actually fixed some timeline issues comes in "Poor Unfortunate Soul." As far as I can tell, they've been pretty vague about the amount of time actually spent in Neverland and Hook's age. In interviews they've been all over the map, calling him more than 300 years old at one point or talking about spending 200 years in Neverland at another point. The closest they've come on screen is Hook saying his age is closer to 200 than the 1,000 that Emma snarkily mentions. But in this episode, Hook tells Ursula in the flashback that it's been nearly a century since he lost Milah.

 

Assuming that Ursula aged somewhat normally (since she did age), I'd guess that the next time we see Ursula is maybe 20 years later. That's probably a couple to a few years before he returned from Neverland for good. That would mean he spent about 120 years in Neverland. Add to that a couple of years before the curse and the 28 years of the curse, and if we go with him being about 30 when he went to Neverland after Milah's death, then that puts him at just over 180 now, which would fit his "closer to 200" comment.

 

And then that makes Bae's timeline make more sense. He spent maybe five or six years longer in Neverland than Hook did, since he had to have arrived in our world during the curse and Hook left before the curse, and to fit with Emma's timeline he had to have arrived in our world in the late 80s. And about 125 years before the late 80s would still have put him in Victorian England. With this timeline, we don't have to handwave huge differences in the passage of time between our world and Neverland.

[KAOS Agent]

Not really. Neal himself contradicts this shortened timeline.

 

From "The Queen is Dead,"

 

Neal: It’s a long story. Short version, is this world wasn’t my first stop when I left home.

Emma: No?

Neal: If it was, I’d be a couple hundred years old by now.

[Shanna Marie]

Neal: If it was, I’d be a couple hundred years old by now.

It still might fit some with rounding up. Since it looks like there was some time between Rumple becoming the Dark One and Bae going through the portal (given the Pied Piper flashback), he could have been in the neighborhood of 15 or 16, which makes him only about fifteen years younger than Hook, so he's still more than 150, so subject to rounding to 200.

 

But that's about the only way I can stretch it. And there's some leeway with that "this world wasn't my first stop," if he went somewhere else before going to Victorian England. If Victorian England was where he went through the portal, this world would be his first stop. But then what about the portal sending him to a World Without Magic and all Rumple's scheming to get the curse to come to this world? ARRRGGGGHHHH! This show is not for the detail-oriented.

[woolmintons]

The video footage of Lily's Tom Thumb robbery actually has the words “Pawtucket Mini-Mart and Deli” in the corner, when they’re in Minnesota, not Rhode Island.

 

And in “Heart of Gold,” the actual filming date (24 Dec 2014) was on the top of Rumple's heart monitor in the hospital.

[Rumsy4]

But that's about the only way I can stretch it. And there's some leeway with that "this world wasn't my first stop," if he went somewhere else before going to Victorian England.

I'm guessing Neal meant Neverland to explain his age. There would be little point in explaining to Emma that he first landed in the real world, went to Neverland, and then came back.

[KAOS Agent]

 

And there's some leeway with that "this world wasn't my first stop," if he went somewhere else before going to Victorian England.

 

I should also clarify that Wendy and her family were in Edwardian England (which is post-1900), not Victorian England, which makes Neal's time in Neverland less than 100 years.

Edited April 29, 2015 by KAOS Agent

[KingOfHearts]

 

And in “Heart of Gold,” the actual filming date (24 Dec 2014) was on the top of Rumple's heart monitor in the hospital.

As if things couldn't get more confusing.

 

 

I should also clarify that Wendy and her family were in Edwardian England (which is post-1900), not Victorian England, which makes Neal's time in Neverland less than 100 years.

How do you know it was post-1900? 

[Amerilla]

Barrie's novel and play are Edwardian era, and the show stuck close to that with costuming and set decor in S2.

[ParadoxLost]

Barrie's novel and play are Edwardian era, and the show stuck close to that with costuming and set decor in S2.

 

But now some realms are timeless so we can't pinpoint anything from Hook's home or Wendy's.

[kili]

But now some realms are timeless so we can't pinpoint anything from Hook's home or Wendy's.

Wendy's home is our own, though. When the Darlings left Storybrooke, they were going back to their home in the UK. Time has passed since we first met them because they spent time in Neverland, but the scenes we see in their Flashbacks are of Earth and are of Edwardian England.

 

I agree that we can glean nothing from the costumes and sets in Lt. Jones's flashbacks.

[YaddaYadda]

I should also clarify that Wendy and her family were in Edwardian England (which is post-1900), not Victorian England, which makes Neal's time in Neverland less than 100 years.

 

Which in the show's timeline doesn't really make sense (imo) seeing as Hook was maybe 20 years older than Bae when he first encountered Milah in that tavern.  Bae must've been 7 at the most?  Hook went to Neverland some 10 years later and Bae went into the portal to the LwM some 5 years after his mother left.  Bae arrived in Neverland after Hook was already there, he was about what?  14-15 at the most which means he arrived there something like 3 years after Hook did, but he left Neverland before Hook did if I'm not mistaken though I'm not sure it was really established in the show, I guess it's just an assumption because I'm having some doubts that Hook would leave Bae in Neverland.  Hook was back in the EF by the time Emma and future him traveled in time, some 2 years before the curse, plus 28 years in Cora Dome.

 

Actually, didn't they give a date in the late 1800's when Bae landed in the LwM.  I'd go look for it, but I don't really feel like it.  Not that it changes anything because according to Eddie, we nitpick too much when it comes to timeline.

[Trini]

...

I freely admit to being anal about television timelines already but this show really only rivals The Vampire Diaries when it comes to making my head explode.  The first four seasons of TVD took place over two years, and it was frustrating the entire time. ...

Prison Break - Season 2; in which nearly everything happens in the daytime, which wouldn't be a problem except that there was (usually) nothing in the writing to say that a night had passed, so in the middle of the season there were 3 episodes in a row where everything happened in one(1) impossibly long day. Oh, and the show had 4 seasons (over 4 years) but the sum of everything only took up about 9 months. Then again, head-exploding implausibilities was that show's trademark!

 

I applaud you all who try and make sense of the timelines on Once. 'I can't' with this show.

[Shanna Marie]

Which in the show's timeline doesn't really make sense (imo) seeing as Hook was maybe 20 years older than Bae when he first encountered Milah in that tavern.  Bae must've been 7 at the most?  Hook went to Neverland some 10 years later and Bae went into the portal to the LwM some 5 years after his mother left.  Bae arrived in Neverland after Hook was already there, he was about what?  14-15 at the most which means he arrived there something like 3 years after Hook did, but he left Neverland before Hook did if I'm not mistaken though I'm not sure it was really established in the show, I guess it's just an assumption because I'm having some doubts that Hook would leave Bae in Neverland.  Hook was back in the EF by the time Emma and future him traveled in time, some 2 years before the curse, plus 28 years in Cora Dome.

It gets complicated because they don't give us that many age/date stamps, and the characters aren't necessarily the same ages as the actors playing them (like JMo is actually older than Colin), especially since time moves so slowly in the present.

 

One thing we do know is that Bae was 14 when Rumple became the Dark One because one thing that spurred that was Bae being drafted into the army. We don't know how long Rumple was the Dark One before Bae got fed up and tried to get him to leave with him to the World Without Magic. In the initial episode showing that, it didn't seem like too long, but then they added the bit with Pan as Pied Piper, and it does seem like Rumple had the castle before Bae bailed, which helps explain how Neal knew how to find the castle and knew his way around. So it could have been a year or more.

 

I don't get the impression that Hook was as much as 20 years older, though. He was likely in his early 20s when he initially met Milah. It seems as though Hook wasn't really old enough to have been Bae's father unless he got a really, really early start. Hook has to have left Neverland before Bae did unless Neal was a lot older than the 24 on his wanted poster when he was with Emma, since the curse started at Emma's birth and we know Hook was back in the Enchanted Forest at the time the curse was cast. His presence around the time Snow and David met, when Emma seduced him and his future self punched him, may have been a temporary visit on an errand for Pan or may have been a permanent return, but we know he was back in time to get Cora out of Wonderland before the curse was cast. Emma was 16-17 when she was with Neal, so unless he was close to or even over 30 then (making him even more icky and predatory), he had to have arrived after the curse was cast. I suppose one reason Hook might have left without Bae was that Hook wanted to get back to the Enchanted Forest so he could kill Rumple, and Bae didn't want to go back to the Enchanted Forest because he was trying to avoid Rumple. So even if Bae wanted out of Neverland, he would have refused to leave with Hook. I wish we could have seen that scene.

 

As for the setting of the Darling household during Bae's visit, I know that in the book/play it's Edwardian England, but they've played loose with time periods before, so I'm not going to make any assumptions with this show.

 

I've decided that the Enchanted Forest is the World of the Late 1700s, like the Victorian England World of Alice or the 1920s World of Cruella. There's some more medieval-esque costuming and technology (they're still primarily using bows and arrows and swords), but the bulk of the costuming for the upper crust is kind of Georgian, and it doesn't seem to have changed much over the centuries. That would fit as the time period when the Grimms were compiling stories. And that's why the world doesn't change between Rumple's era and the present.

[KingOfHearts]

When people say things like "a couple hundred years" or a "few days", I don't take it too seriously. It's a rough estimate to keep the audience up to speed. In Neverland's case, the citizens there could not keep a good track of time. They didn't age, didn't mature, and there weren't even days to watch go by. For this reason I think the "200 years" is just what Neal thought it had been.

[KAOS Agent]

Neal was counting days though, so he was obviously able to mark time in Neverland. I don't consider anything to be exact, but they actually showed us some his counting on the wall. It's one thing to think he was wildly guessing and another to have actually shown us that he was quite aware of the passage of time and was actively keeping track of it.

[Shanna Marie]

But they also mentioned that Neal stopped counting, didn't they? It was supposed to be a sign that he'd lost hope. He might still be estimating. Even ten years of counting 365 days would give you a wall full of tick marks. Anything beyond that would be a wild guess.

[KAOS Agent]

I kind of assumed that he was counting years. The thing is that there's missing a decade or two and then there's missing by an entire century. Not to mention that if Neal was in England (and it was definitely implied that it was our London since the Darling Hipsters planned to return there), he would have known the year he was first there and obviously the current year. Simple math would make for less wild guessing and a much more accurate assessment.

[Shanna Marie]

So, basically, the timeline is all kinds of screwed up. :-)

 

One possible fanwank for the discrepancies in Neal's timeline, in particular, is that time moves differently in Neverland. It was fairly synched up during their recent trip because magic was dying out, so maybe the land had started acting more normal, including the passage of time, but during much of Neal's stay there, time did some crazy things.

 

Or maybe there's a bit of slippage and they weren't perfectly in sync, but in the short time they were there the difference was only hours, but over a century or so it really got out of whack.

[KAOS Agent]

Well, Wendy did return home after one night and say she was gone longer. She even remarked that time works differently in Neverland. So there you go, Bae was there for roughly 80 years of our time, but much longer in Neverland time.

 

Incidentally, I watched the clip where Bae arrives in our world. He falls into Kensington Gardens, the chyron reads "London, England" and Big Ben is the animation in the title card, so it's pretty clear he was in our London and the costuming and set design are consistent with the Edwardian times depicted in Barrie's novel and play. I get that this means nothing, as in the episode, they handwave the timeline issues by talking about time working differently, but it is a point of clarification for where Bae first ended up.

Edited May 1, 2015 by KAOS Agent

[Writing Wrongs]

So in the flashbacks for Emma and Lily, isn't Emma close to the age she is when she met Neal? If Emma was born in 1983, she would be 16 in 1999. She met Neal when she was what, 17 or 18? It's even more glaring having JMo playing the flashback scenes in Tallahassee.