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

[KAOS Agent]

She tried to cast it right away, but she used the wrong heart. She first tried with her horse's heart and then I think she legit had a hard time working up to killing her father to cast the curse. They also did try to make it seem like the other ingredients were difficult to come by. Back in the day, Regina needed to gather a bunch of evil villains with very dark souls and convince them to give her a lock of their hair. When her initial attempt failed, I'd assume those villains were less than inclined to give her more. Now you just need a random collection of easy to come by ingredients and instant curse.

[Camera One]

2 minutes ago, KAOS Agent said:

Now you just need a random collection of easy to come by ingredients and instant curse.

I would suggest getting The Easy Dark Curse Kit at Walgreens.  It only takes 10 minutes and you can stir it while watching TV.

[superloislane]

5 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

She tried to cast it right away, but she used the wrong heart. She first tried with her horse's heart and then I think she legit had a hard time working up to killing her father to cast the curse.

I don't think so. She went to Rumple and told him she tried using her horse's heart and he told her to kill the thing she loved most but then she went back to her castle and her father and the mirror asked her what Rumple said which means she just came from there and then she killed her father in the same scene. So it seems like she killed the horse the day before and then the father the day after so she really did wait nine months to do it. Although like you said they did make it seem like the ingredients were difficult to get. Now you can apparently just crumble a heart of someone you didn't even love but the original version of you did?? into a pot filled with any old thing in the kitchen and you're done!

[jhlipton]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

I remember when "Lost" ended, fans were saying it would be fun to put the flashbacks in chronological order and watch the whole story unfold.

With this show, no thanks.  Yikes!   It would be a show about people with multiple personality disorder.

This is why I had to watch Memento twice!  But it would be funny to see just how badly TSTW messed up!

10 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

Now you just need a random collection of easy to come by ingredients and instant curse.

Uncle Ben's Insta-Curse.  Only 90 seconds in the microwave!

[KingOfHearts]

Alright. Let's do this.

* How does the Savior not believing make the realms disappear? She didn't believe for a full 28 years, and nothing stopped existing.
* How did a TLK wake an unconscious Charming? It was not a curse.
* How did deleting the other realms give the Black Fairy the power to break the laws of magic?
* How was the "Savior must die" prophecy broken by Rumple making the right choice?
* How did the Black Fairy have magic, but Rumple didn't?
* How did Hook survive a fall from hundreds of feet into the air?
* How did Henry's arm heal so quickly?
* How was Gideon turned back into an infant?
* How can "Evil" decide to do good?
* "Only light can snuff out the light"? How does that work?
* Why couldn't someone other than Emma kill Gideon? That wouldn't "darken the light".
* Why is Emma the only Savior that matters? What about the other Saviors?
* Why didn't the worlds shatter when Aladdin stopped himself from being the Savior using the Fate Shears?
* Was it Wish!Rumple or Clippy!Rumple?
* Why does Arendelle have its own hat door? It's part of the Enchanted Forest realm.

Edited May 15, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[InsertWordHere]

Tinkerbelle appears to be in Neverland when it's "restored," yet there was no mention of her being there when Hook was there a few episodes ago.

[Camera One]

2 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Alright. Let's do this.

At least now we know for sure these will be questions that will NEVER be answered.

[Mari]

Well, they were pointless.  :)

Fans are ridiculous--expecting answers, logic, and sense.  (Insert despondent head shake.)

[Mitch]

On 5/14/2017 at 10:39 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Alright. Let's do this.

* .

Just a few thoughts....granted a lot of this is spit balling...

"* How does the Savior not believing make the realms disappear? She didn't believe for a full 28 years, and nothing stopped existing."

I think it was basically tied to Fiona's specific curse..that the magical realms would be destroyed and she would gain their power...but granted, I am guessing as it was implied rather then specifically stated...(I wanted a scene of Fiona from SB appearing in a giant mirror in the castle, and like the Wicked Witch taunt them, and also give some exposition...."MWAHAHAHA, each time the savior falter's in her belief,...a realm disappears and I take all of its magic...soon my power will be the greatest in all of Oz, eh, all the realms..MWHAHAHA. Check back for updates on the hour..."

"How did deleting the other realms give the Black Fairy the power to break the laws of magic?"

I think she took all their magic..again...Im guessing...

"How was the "Savior must die" prophecy broken by Rumple making the right choice?"

It wasn't Emma died....for a few seconds.....or she might have just had her eyes closed dreaming of a career away from this crap...And, lets face it, even the fates are freaked out when that D*ck makes the right choice.

"Why is Emma the only Savior that matters? What about the other Saviors?"

Cause she is the Super Savior...Aladdin nice as he looks in his genie vest, is just kind of second string players. And she was the Savior made to break that specific curse.

"How can "Evil" decide to do good?"

Evil deeds are a decision that someone makes, and despite this shows tired mantra of "Heroes and Villains," it has always come out that good and evil are choices we make.

"How was Gideon turned back into an infant?"

He said to Emma, "I was hoping you could save us both" and she did, her super powerful burst of light magic restored the realms and changed him back to a baby, so he gets a start over..though no doubt having Rump and Belle as your parents is going to screw him up just the same.

"Why does Arendelle have its own hat door? It's part of the Enchanted Forest realm" 

Another case of sloppy writing! (though it was dumb that Arendale was part of that realm...)

"How did a TLK wake an unconscious Charming? It was not a curse.
* How did Hook survive a fall from hundreds of feet into the air?
* How did Henry's arm heal so quickly?"

Lazy incompetent writing.."surprise"!!!!

[Kktjones]

9 minutes ago, Mitch said:

* How did Henry's arm heal so quickly?

This one made me actually laugh out loud. At some point he just ripped off his sling like it was fake. Made about as much sense as a TLK waking someone that had been run through by a sword...

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Evil deeds are a decision that someone makes, and despite this shows tired mantra of "Heroes and Villains," it has always come out that good and evil are choices we make.

In Henry's book it said "When both Good and Evil did the right thing, faith was restored." It's just poorly worded, because it sounds like Evil itself did the right thing. It makes about as much sense light snuffing out the light. ("Can Satan cast out Satan?" sort of thing.)

Quote

Another case of sloppy writing! (though it was dumb that Arendale was part of that realm...)

Agrabah is also confusing. It's clear it's part of the Enchanted Forest realm because Eric sailed there. Yet, in OUATIW, it's almost implied that Wonderland and Agrabah are neighbors. But, Cora needed portals to get from Wonderland to EF...

Edited May 17, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 5/17/2017 at 1:52 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Yet, in OUATIW, it's almost implied that Wonderland and Agrabah are neighbors.

I didn't get that impression -- didn't Cyrus get to Wonderland from Agrabah because of the wish to send him as far as possible from Jafar? And then it took Jafar a long time to track him down there, so it could have been in another realm. If he'd been in the same world, Jafar would have found him easily.

On an entirely different nitpicky note, this just occurred to me: In the season 5 finale, Regina rips out and crushes the Evil Queen's heart, but the Evil Queen doesn't die because Regina is still alive (as we later learn with Jekyll's death, killing the "original" kills the evil version, but the evil version can't be killed otherwise). That would suggest that the Evil Queen has no heart and is maybe functioning on Regina's, that she stays alive as long as Regina has a heart that is beating. So, how did she stay alive after severing herself from Regina, and how did Regina rip her heart out to do the heart meld thing when her heart had already been ripped and crushed? Did she spontaneously regenerate a heart that was just as full of evil as her original heart?

[Camera One]

16 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

On second thoughts, Red and Abrasive 2.0 went to the Underworld and liberated all the poor souls in the River.

Where did all the people go when the realms were swallowed by the darkness in the Season 6 finale?  Was the Underworld suddenly flooded with them?  Presumably not, since at the end, everyone just reappeared where they were before.  So what happened to them in the interim?  

[Rumsy4]

The Underworld is a "Realm" like any other, apparently. So it probably disappeared too. The people who disappeared were all temporarily obliterated like poor Robin. But not to worry--part of their souls escaped obliteration and so they were all able to come back. Any personality changes due to that may be observed in Season 7.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Rumsy4

[KingOfHearts]

Maybe there's a completely logical answer to this. But if King George threatened to kill Charming's mother if Charming stepped away from his royal duties, why did the prince defy him to run after Snow? Why didn't King George go kill Ruth and burn down the farm before executing Charming? Once the man decided to fight for Snow, his mother's safety didn't come back into question until him and Snow were engaged and waging the war.

That just occurred to me while planning a fanfic. It just seemed odd for Charming to dump his mother for Snow.

Edited June 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

I'm still curious about the origins of the Dark Curse. Yes, Fiona designed it, but she combined two pre-existing spells. Plus, the Blue Fairy had wolfsbane on hand, an ingredient only used for dark spells/curses. Did they abandon Rumple and banish Fiona to cover their tracks? Why the heck didn't they ban Fiona to the Land Without Magic?

Edited June 19, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

Going back to early season one, the Dark Curse makes even less sense in context of the whole series. It apparently took Regina about nine months to pull it together, based on the fact that she went straight from Snow's wedding to Maleficent's castle to get it, but she didn't get it cast until Snow was going into labor. Regina had to gather all the "darkest souls" in the kingdom to get a bit of their hair to go into the curse.

But Pan was able to just throw it together after reading the scroll, using the heart of the person he hated the least, and Regina was able to do it easily the next time, with the heart being the biggest obstacle. Did Regina bottle some concentrated curse essence -- just add water, and instant curse! -- from the first one that Pan found in her vault and she was able to pull out again for curse 2?

That wouldn't explain NimuHook's curse in season five. Hook had been Dark One for about five minutes, so he didn't have the prep time. Merlin had only been out of the tree for a few days, at most, so he didn't have a lot of prep time, either, if he was the one prepping it. It was clearly brewing in the background when he left his voice mail, so why was he brewing it? And did he collect hair from all the darkest souls? Or was he brewing something different, and throwing Merlin's heart in turned it into a Dark Curse? I might have said that Nimue as the original Dark One would have known all about the Dark Curse, except now we know that Fiona created it during Rumple's lifetime, so Nimue was probably long-dead before the curse was created, and Merlin was a tree at that time.

Did Fiona go around getting hairs from the darkest souls to brew her initial batch?

Rewatching the beginning of the series makes all the continuity issues even more glaring, and in some cases, they just destroyed their own continuity for no real purpose. Like, it was a plot point in season one that Sidney was able to scheme to get Emma's juvenile record, so he knew she'd got into some trouble as a kid but was clean since then. But then, wouldn't he have found that she had a bounty hunter after her two years earlier? All for the sake of a pointless flashback, they ruined their own continuity. There was an intriguing line to Mary Margaret about how Emma got into skip tracing because of looking for people, with the implication that she'd been trying to find her parents (and, likely, Neal). But instead of following up on that, they went off on a pointless tangent that didn't fit what they'd established.

[jhlipton]

8 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

a pointless tangent that didn't fit what they'd established.

Here, in essence, is the show's credo.

[Rumsy4]

It's like the writers drink memory tea before writing each episode, and only read a wikipedia article summarizing the main bullet points. 

[Camera One]

Next year, they're making do without their "continuity expert".  Though why they couldn't be bothered to use "search" or even Google is beyond anyone's guess.  It's not like they don't have a copy of scripts (sometimes scripts they wrote themselves) on their computers.

[KAOS Agent]

Eh, they can't even be bothered to check to see whether the dialogue in the script teases is actually in the episode. Why would we think they'd check what actually occurred in the episodes when writing new ones? 

[Shanna Marie]

Something just occurred to me: at the beginning of the pilot, when Charming shows up to find Snow in the glass coffin, the dwarfs are surprised at his request to open the coffin, and he's kissing her because he wants to say good-bye, not because he's trying to break the curse with a True Love's Kiss. But in other flashbacks that take place before this event, everyone knows about a TLK as some kind of magical cure-all. Charming tries the TLK when she takes the "forget love" potion, and when he's trying to help Abigail save Frederick, his first question is whether she's tried a TLK. They treat it like a magic aspirin.

So it's funny that apparently no one thought to try a TLK on Snow. Charming wasn't even trying to save her, just saying good-bye. I would say that it's just a pilot thing, but the TLK is so woven into the mythology of the show that it's weird that they don't seem to have thought about what role it played in their society. You know they'd already planned that Emma would use a TLK to break the curse, but did they think about whether people knew about TLKs?

[KingOfHearts]

Maybe it was because they thought Snow was dead-dead, not simply cursed? They didn't know that Regina had cursed an apple. They just saw that Snow had lost all breath.

[Camera One]

After 5B, dead-dead has a whole new meaning, since there's also obliterated-dead.

[jhlipton]

She's getting better!

[Writing Wrongs]

I'm still trying to figure out how David went from being a shepherd to a proficient swordsman and fighter. And don't give that "Anna taught him" crap. Also, it was weird that King George didn't want Midas to know David wasn't his son, but later he pretty much shouted it to the kingdom. Everyone knew anyway.

[Writing Wrongs]

I just remembered after watching Child of the Moon (ugh), that they never explained why the symbol on Anita's grave was the same as the necklace Gold gave Henry.

[Camera One]

What happened to all the children in the Dark Realm?

[KingOfHearts]

13 minutes ago, Camera One said:

What happened to all the children in the Dark Realm?

They dug up and found themselves in Neverland?

[Camera One]

Where they turned into the Evil variety of Lost Boys.

[KingOfHearts]

In the episode, "Page 23", why didn't they make Clone Queen look like Regina in the illustration of page 23? Wouldn't that have made more sense given the title of the episode? Having her waltz in with full EQ garb was stupid. The tavern folk would have run away.

Edited August 2, 2017 by KingOfHearts