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

[KingOfHearts]

He did do the finger-snapping in the ballroom scene with no magic clouds. This show really isn't consistent about anything, is it? Haha.

[YaddaYadda]

ETA - Never mind.

Edited September 30, 2014 by YaddaYadda

[tribeca]

Is Emma magic good for anything?

[Writing Wrongs]

My question is about how the Once world is viewed by outsiders.

 

They said that everyone knows the fairy tales and to our world they are just stories. They mentioned that Mulan had a movie based on her. So does that apply to all the characters who have had movies based on them? Where does Frozen fit in there? 

 

It's like how Sleepy Hollow doesn't acknowledge at all that there was a story by Washington Irving. It doesn't exist in their world. But Once seems to pick and choose.

[Amerilla]

It's very. ... fluid, isn't it? A&E said on several occasions during S2-3 that Once's present-day storyline is roughly in line with the actual present day. Now that Frozen had entered the story, we're told no, it's really like early 2013, before the movie comes out, just to explain why Emma and Henry, who just spent a year in "real" the world, are Frozen virgins, so to speak.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Amerilla

[InsertWordHere]

I don't know when A&E said the show is in line with our time, but I've been tracking the timeline for the past two seasons, and the latest I've ever thought the show could be is October, 2013, which would still place it before Frozen's release. Spring/Summer (the earliest I could reasonably believe that Emma and Henry would not have seen trailers for Frozen) places it a little earlier than I supposed, but I still find it pretty believable. Season 3, barring the one year jump, took place in very little time.

 

Writing Wrongs, I think we can assume that any material that was released before Emma came to town in 2011 exists in this universe. Erased memory Henry knew about Peter Pan. Henry also read comic books and had a TRON lunchbox in Season One. Gold and Belle's dance must have been Gold going a little meta on himself.

 

What I'd like to know is how these stories wound up in our world before they happened in FTL. Did the stories of our world somehow create these other worlds?

[Shanna Marie]

What I'd like to know is how these stories wound up in our world before they happened in FTL. Did the stories of our world somehow create these other worlds?

I've been wondering about that, and I doubt it played at all into their worldbuilding. There are the characters who have been around in our world for hundreds of years but who've only been around in the Enchanted Forest for about 50 or so years, like Snow White. When young Bae ended up in Victorian England, he could very easily have read or heard a story about Snow White, hundreds of years before she was born in the Enchanted Forest.

 

On the other hand, Hook and Pan are from hundreds of years back in the Enchanted Forest, but only came about in stories in our world a little more than a hundred years ago. Then there's all the Oz stuff, where in the book, Dorothy seems to be from about the turn of the century, while show Dorothy would have had to come from the early 1980s if she was pre-curse (and if her Kansas was actually our Kansas and not Storybook Kansas in another world, like Alice's Victorian England World that Isn't Our World on Wonderland). Perhaps the belief in our world made some of these people manifest in their world, where they took on lives of their own once they became real, and meanwhile the things related to Neverland may have infiltrated our world through dreams, the way Neverland is supposed to, so that JM Barrie learned about Pan and Hook that way and then wrote the play and book based on that inspiration, since Hook would have been in Neverland during the time it was written. Don't ask me to explain the Oz stuff.

 

As for the Frozen awareness, the initial trailer that I saw during the summer movie season didn't even hint at all the Elsa and Anna stuff. It was essentially a short film in which Olaf the snowman and Sven the reindeer squabbled over the carrot serving as Olaf's nose -- a scene that wasn't even in the movie. I don't recall there being much of a hint that it was a princess musical movie until right before it released when they put the "Let it Go" sequence on YouTube. So it could be fairly late in 2013 before anyone knew the slightest thing about Elsa and her powers, even if they were aware that a movie called Frozen was coming out.

[Mari]

What I'd like to know is how these stories wound up in our world before they happened in FTL. Did the stories of our world somehow create these other worlds?

With them looking into Henry's book this season, this question may actually get addressed--even though I don't think it was originally part of A&E's original worldbuilding plan.

 

I like a couple of possibilities;

a)  They're prophecies.  It would explain how they are so simple and barebones, but usually fairly accurate.

b)  They're recurring themes and motifs.  Somewhere in the multiverse, there is always a Snow, a Red, a Jiminy . . . These just happen to be this generations'.

 

(Of course, since these are the possibilities I like, they most likely will not happen.)

Edited October 1, 2014 by Mari

[Camera One]

I wrote this in the episode thread, but for the first time that I remember, they intimated that the "Enchanted Forest" was not a world/realm by itself.  It's in the same "world" as Arendelle since Anna sailed to the Enchanted Forest on a ship.  

 

So what is the entire "world" called?  Is the Enchanted Forest considered "enchanted" because there is more magic there than in other places?  

 

Is Agrabah from "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" part of the same world as the Enchanted Forest?

 

If Arendelle is in the same world as the Enchanted Forest, then presumably Arendelle's people were also taken over with the Curse?  Or did the Curse only affect the people in the Enchanted Forest?  I expect this question to be answered, at the very least.

[InsertWordHere]

I call it "Fairytale Land." I first started thinking there were places outside the Enchanted Forest when they referred to the second curse not bringing everyone over. Then Hook sailed outside of the curse's purview. I wonder if he sailed to Arendelle?

 

They have never stated one way or the other if Agrabah is in the same realm, but Eric was planning to sail there and he did not mention the need for any portal, so that led me to believe it is in the same realm.

[Camera One]

I call it "Fairytale Land." I first started thinking there were places outside the Enchanted Forest when they referred to the second curse not bringing everyone over. Then Hook sailed outside of the curse's purview. I wonder if he sailed to Arendelle?

 

 

If that's the case, could everyone have just fled the Enchanted Forest and taken refuge in Arendelle to escape Regina's first Curse?  Or did that reduced geographical range only apply to the second Curse?  And if so, why?  And if they could reduce the geographical range, why not just restrict the range to Pointy Castle, and everyone else in the Enchanted Forest could stay put?  

[Rumsy4]

I think their headcanon on what constituted the Enchanted Forest changed. At first, it was suggested that the Enchanted Forest was completely destroyed and there was nothing to go back to (with the shot of the glass coffin in the mines in S1, and sending the wraith back in the S2A opener). They claimed that only people and places in Cora's Dome escaped. Clearly, that was not true, as places like Snow's Castle were preserved. In S3, they have clarified that people outside the Curse-zone escaped. Which begs the question as to why nobody tried to escape the first time around? Not even the peasants? They all sat around in the EF waiting for the Curse to swallow them up? 

[Camera One]

Plus A&E's clunky and impatient explanation that Zelena escaped the first Curse because she was in a Dome like Cora was.  So Zelena made her own Dome?  Why, when she could go back to Oz?  Clear as mud as usual.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Camera One

[InsertWordHere]

It seems to me that they could have all outrun the extremely slow-moving curse that took hours to get to the castle.

[Camera One]

Yeah, forget the Wardrobe.  Let's just run.

[Rumsy4]

 

It seems to me that they could have all outrun the extremely slow-moving curse that took hours to get to the castle.

 

Or had Blue poof them to Arendelle or wherever was outside the "zone" just before the Curse hit.

[ShadowFacts]

Also, what is the point of now having people from Arendelle call the Enchanted Forest by a new name, Misthaven?  Changing horses in midstream a bit.  It must have been little-known, in Arendelle, hence the need for an explanation that the inhabitants call it by a different name. 

[YaddaYadda]

I googled Misthaven and there's a book on Amazon called Misthaven of Maine and the main character's name is Eliza.  So I don't know if that's the reason they went for that, but whatever...who knows why A&E do what they do though.

[kili]

Also, what is the point of now having people from Arendelle call the Enchanted Forest by a new name, Misthaven?

 

I thought that it might have been because they didn't want to reveal that the destination was the Enchanted Forrest until the last second in the episode. They probably figured it needed to have a real name since Arendelle has a real one, so why not use the real name instead of trying to refer to it vaguely.

 

Is the Enchanted Forrest a collection of kingdoms or one specific one? Robin refers to Sherwood Forrest as being nearby. Is that a Forrest within the Enchanted Forrerst or what? Adam and Eddie should give us a map, but I'm beginning to think they don't have one either.

[KingOfHearts]

 

Also, what is the point of now having people from Arendelle call the Enchanted Forest by a new name, Misthaven?

Probably what kili said, but also I think they wanted to sell the idea that EF was a mysterious, exotic place to Arendelle. Sort of how Oz was so mysterious that only a few people in EF knew it even existed. I found it odd that Anna said it was only a short journey away. I assumed they were super far from each other, seeing that not even Elsa had heard about it.

Edited October 3, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[kili]

I assumed they were super far from each other, seeing that not even Elsa had even heard about it.

 

Elsa was apparently raised in a box after her crappy parents decided to isolate her and teach her to fear her power.  Even the guy who was raised in a barn by a reindeer and a bunch of rocks not only knew about Misthaven, but also what the inhabitants called it.

[Shanna Marie]

Is the Enchanted Forrest a collection of kingdoms or one specific one? Robin refers to Sherwood Forrest as being nearby. Is that a Forrest within the Enchanted Forrerst or what?

I don't think anyone involved with the show has given it a moment's thought. It wasn't even a day's ride between Knifingham Castle and Sherwood Forest, and the gang ran into Robin on their way from Aurora's kingdom to Knifingham Castle. It was apparently an easy walk between Rumple's castle and Midas's castle, and neither seemed to be all that far from Knifingham Castle (though they did take a cart instead of walking). Meanwhile, King Midas was acting all deferential to Regina and calling her "my queen," though he should have been the ruler in his own kingdom (I guess maybe he was just afraid of her?). It does seem like Sherwood is a forest within Misthaven, but we'll probably meet the king of it somewhere down the line.

[FabulousTater]

I don't think anyone involved with the show has given it a moment's thought.

This. Trying to find any sort of logic, rhyme or reason to this show is futile because there is none. It's like trying to divine the future from tea leaves - you're not going to find any sort of truth in someone's backwash because there is none. There is no map, there is no timeline, there is no long term plan. The stories the show has been presenting here since season 2 are like a giant pot of overcooked spaghetti that the writers stick their hands into, grab a glob of noodles, and then hurl it at the wall, ie., Regina's altar. What sticks is the story that they frame up around Regina. That's all there is to it.

[Camera One]

I wonder if Hans and his brothers have a kingdom in the Enchanted Forest, or if they come from elsewhere.

 

I don't particularly like Misthaven as a name... it sounds too pedestrian.   Maybe the trolls could have referred to it as the Woods Across The Sea.  Plus it's just so vague.  The Enchanted Forest is a huge place, rendering the Troll's information almost pointless.  As I said in the episode thread, it's like telling someone to go to Asia or Europe to look for someone.  

[ShadowFacts]

You're right, it sounds like a subdivision name, and seems just kind of odd that no one's ever mentioned it before, including the sovereigns. 

[Rumsy4]

I want to know if Storybrooke is now visible to the outside world. Once the S1 Curse broke, it was, and that's how Groan found it. Rumple then gave Belle the cloaking device to cover it up. But now, we are in Curse 2.0, and the writers are reduced to Flying Monkeys and Ice Walls to keep people from leaving. But what about the outside world? 

[Camera One]

It was ironic that Bo Peep was the butcher, but it raises the question - why do these people continue doing their jobs in Storybrooke?  Are we to take it that Bo Beep enjoys being a butcher?  She didn't seem like the type to do the dirty work herself.  It also suggests there are a whole lot of unsavory people around Storybrooke, yet why is it so orderly all the time?  The Sheriff's office should have been busy since the Curse brought them back.  

[Camera One]

I guess it is hard to pinpoint the length of time between this episode ("White Out") and the events of "The Shepherd".  Was Snow White already on the run at the time of "The Shepherd"?  

[Aliasscape]

According to my timeline yes, because it was only a few days between the Shepherd events and him being put on the road engaged with Abigail, where an already well trained bandit Snow jumps him.

 

I personally put White Out prior to the Events of Fruit of the Poisonous Tree on my timeline. So it looks like this:

 

A Tale of Two Sisters
White Out
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Red-Handed
Child of the Moon
Skin Deep (Lacey--The Evil Queen--Dreamy--The Outsider--*)
Hat Trick???

 

Tiny
The Shepherd

Edited October 6, 2014 by Aliasscape

[InsertWordHere]

Snow's tricky. The youngest we've seen adult Snow was Fruit of the Poisonous Tree which happened immediately before Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I don't think they can go much lower with her age and not use GG's perfect mini-me, but if any future Snow appearance in a Frozen!back  is running concurrently with Charming from White Out, I don't think they would use young Snow. So I think White Out most likely takes place after or as Snow goes on the run. I need Anna to interact with more characters so I can accurately place the Frozen events on the timeline, lol. I doubt she'll interact with Snow if Snow's still living in Knifington, it would compromise her secret mission!

 

Hat Trick is tricky because that's when Regina gets her father out of Cora's vault, but he is present at the castle in Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He is also present in The Cricket Game. We don't know how long Cora had him in her vault, but I think it must have been between those two episodes, and not before Heart is A Lonely Hunter, because Regina is full on Evil Queen in Hat Trick and it's implied Jefferson has been retired for years. Also Grace did not age very much between Hat Trick and present day Storybrooke. I know they implied that Jefferson was in Wonderland for a long time, but I don't think that was the case. Add in the fact that Alice referenced meeting him and the timeline/aging issues with that show, I think it must be closer to the casting of the Curse.

 

As to Rumple's age, I subscribe to the 120ish years ago in our world=120ish years ago in EF line of thought. Neal said he would be a couple centuries old if he came straight to our world, but 300 has never been outright stated on the show. If Neal was 14 in Victorian/Edwardian London circa 1870, then I think he was also 14 in the EF's corresponding year to our 1870. Then I think he passed the rest of those years in Neverland and came out around 1991, as Camera One said.

Edited October 6, 2014 by InsertWordHere

[ShadowFacts]

How big is the town, I've never been able to tell.  There are only a few locations we see, and the same core group of people, and small groups of townspeople who run around or gather in a crisis, yet that power plant seems to suggest a bigger town/small city. 

[KingOfHearts]

 

How big is the town, I've never been able to tell.  There are only a few locations we see, and the same core group of people, and small groups of townspeople who run around or gather in a crisis, yet that power plant seems to suggest a bigger town/small city.

It's probably not worth asking, but I've wondered for a while how several kingdoms fit in a small town.

Edited October 6, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

The writers have always kept in vague.  I think Regina said something similar but I could only find King George's line from Season 2: "This town is bigger than you think. I start telling people that you're putting their lives in danger to protect your own interests? You'll have a mutiny on your hands."

 

With so many kingdoms, the town must actually be huge.  Making it all the more unlikely that there is so little rivalry in terms of leadership or villains taking advantage of situations like Zelena terrorizing everyone.

[ParadoxLost]

To throw a date into the discussion,  Anna's necklace is dated as "possibly the 1830's" on the tag from Gold's shop.

[InsertWordHere]

Hmm, but would that date be from before the Curse was broken when all the items in the shop were thought to be normal items from our world?

[Shanna Marie]

From the "White Out" episode thread:

 

The timeline drives me crazy at times too. particular the difference between time on the show and time in our world. Makes it sometimes hard to get the feeling for the development of the characters and pacing of the show.

Yeah, when it takes them months to tell a story that takes place in days, it gets confusing, and it gets even more confusing when they don't seem to be keeping track of it. There's a lot more wiggle room when they're dealing with centuries or years because it's that whole "once upon a time" thing, but when they're dealing with Storybrooke and a plot that takes place in a week, they really need one of those page-a-day planning calendars to make sure it all fits together and to keep themselves straight.

 

When you think about most of 3B, based on cues in the story, it seems like (assigning arbitrary days of the week) it went like:

Monday -- Zelena and Regina have their showdown on Main Street while Hook and Henry tie knots. Regina lets Robin keep her heart.

Tuesday -- Regina teaches Emma magic while Zelena curses Hook.

Wednesday -- Zelena steals Regina's heart from Robin. They have the seance to learn about Cora. Regina kisses Robin.

Thursday -- They break the memory curse and Henry remembers Regina as his mother. Mary Margaret has the baby and Zelena steals it to carry out her spell. Regina foils her with light magic. Rumple kills Zelena, which opens her time portal, after proposing to Belle with a fake dagger.

Friday -- they have the naming ceremony for the baby. Robin and Regina have a fireside picnic. Hook and Emma travel in time and return with Marian and Elsa's urn. Rumple and Belle get married. Robin and Marian are reunited, which freaks Regina out.

Saturday -- Elsa creates a snow monster that they have to fight. Robin tells Regina he's staying with his wife. Regina frees Sidney from the dungeon and imprisons him in the mirror. Belle and Rumple go on their honeymoon. Elsa finds Anna's necklace in Gold's shop. Regina tells Henry to stay away from her because she's moping. That evening, Elsa's ice barrier knocks out power. The townspeople demand that Mary Margaret fix it. Emma gets trapped in the ice with Elsa. David talks Elsa into freeing Emma.

Sunday morning -- Henry goes to Regina's home to confront her.

 

There's a lot that gets absolutely insane when you realize that it's all that compressed. On Friday, Regina is having a date instead of spending time with the kid she just got back on Thursday (after being willing to put herself under the sleeping curse because of the pain of being parted from him). Then on Saturday, she's telling that kid to get lost because she's sad about the breakup of a relationship that started on Wednesday. The townspeople look like total jerks for demanding that a woman who gave birth on Thursday go fix a generator on Saturday. While Mary Margaret has plenty of reasons to be tired and crabby, having just given birth, she's only had the baby home for one night, so would she yet know about his "midnight shrieking" habits to complain about them? Then there's that photo in the newspaper. Belle and Rumple got engaged on Thursday night, and the article about their engagement is in a copy of the newspaper floating around town on Saturday morning. They got married Friday night, arrive at their borrowed honeymoon manor on Saturday morning, and are back working in the shop on Saturday night (though I suppose if the security system alerted them to a break-in, that might have cut the honeymoon short).

 

But there's enough stuff in the episodes to indicate that it does all happen that fast. You would think that Mary Margaret would need some rest and not be hosting a party the day after giving birth, but Rumple appears to have killed Zelena, opening the time portal, the same day they captured Zelena. It's hard enough to believe that no one noticed the giant column of light until they were in the diner the next day (no one saw it on the way to the diner?), but it would be impossible to believe that it was like that for several days before anyone noticed.

 

I think if the writers were actually charting these events and slotting them into timeslots within a day, they'd realize how ridiculous it was. It would be a minor change that would have improved things if they'd just made it clear that Zelena had sat in jail several days before Rumple came to kill her, for instance. Have her be clearly bored and put him in different clothes.

[ShadowFacts]

 

You would think that Mary Margaret would need some rest and not be hosting a party the day after giving birth,

 

Yes ma'am, she would at least be walking gingerly, I can assure you.  It's beyond silly.  Even if she had the easiest birth in history, she would not be partying the next day unless she was in a pharmaceutically-induced state.

[Camera One]

So did the Ice Cream Lady follow Elsa around and saw her make the Ice Wall, and then placed a spell to keep it permanent?  Did this happen when Charming and Hook left to go to Rumple's shop, and if not, when?  Why is she using her ice powers now and not when Zelena was around?  I wonder if this will all make sense at the end of 4A... or not.  Why did Elsa conclude someone else in town has ice powers?  She was so lacking in confidence that she could burrow a hole in it that the most plausible explanation would be her powers aren't working properly.  

Edited October 9, 2014 by Camera One

[Curio]

I don't particularly like Misthaven as a name... it sounds too pedestrian.

Speaking of... do we have an official spelling for it yet? I figure it's got to be one of four options:

 

• Misthaven
• Mist Haven
• Mysthaven
• Myst Haven

 

I kind of like the spelling with the 'y' in it, only because it looks like 'myth' ( Mysthaven ) is a part of the word. But I guess that could also lead people to pronouncing it like they have a lisp.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Curio

[regularlyleaded]

Okay, so in "White Out" they just established that the electrical power for Storybrooke comes from outside the town limits. So, Storybrooke is getting it's power from a power grid in the real world. Did no one at the real world Maine Power Company notice a huuuuuge jump in energy consumption when Storybrooke suddenly poofed into existence (twice!) and if they did, did no one go investigate? Also, why do I bother thinking about these things when I know there's no good answer?

Edited October 9, 2014 by regularlyleaded

[Camera One]

That's the thing... the longer this show goes on, the more the holes in the worldbuilding, or lackthereof, will show.  Maybe the Curse changes all the data at the Power Company so that no alarm bells would go off?

Edited October 9, 2014 by Camera One

[regularlyleaded]

That's the thing... the longer this show goes on, the more the holes in the worldbuilding, or lackthereof, will show.

I know and it's so damn frustrating. Even though I should be used to it because I've been watching this show for 3 seasons, I still manage to get annoyed by the holes in their world-building.

 

Maybe the Curse changes all the data at the Power Company so that no alarm bells would go off?

Maybe, but I would think a huge sudden power spike like an entire town coming online all at once would very likely cause a short areawide brown-out that someone would notice. I guess if it did cause the power to waver they just thought,"Meh, it happens." But still, a comparison of power usage year to year would expose the huge change and I would think someone in a power company looks at that stuff. I think they have to because no matter the source of their power (oil, coal, geothermal, nuclear) they have to look at that data to get an understanding of the performance of their power grid -- what their supplying versus the demand.

 

And when Storybrooke disappeared someone should've been like "What the hell?" when they saw the power usage data. Or did the disappearance of Storybrooke set the power usage data logs back to "normal" and even tweak the previous years numbers (so there wouldn't be such a large discrepancy) recorded everywhere across the company databases, spreadsheets, etc.? But how does magic that can't go past Storybrooke city limits affect a power companies data logs possibly hundreds of miles away? Gah! It just bugs me. I need to turn my brain off.

 

...."Stop asking questions. Stop asking questions..." *I repeat to myself*

[Rumsy4]

So, how are the people brought over by the new Curse coping? They don't seem to have fake identities or memories, and judging from the Merry Men, have been plopped into Storybrooke with modern clothes. Little John stole a cross-bow in order to hunt. What happens to people like Aurora? Will we even find out??

[Camera One]

The same way Marion is coping... off-camera.

[KingOfHearts]

 

The same way Marion is coping... off-camera.

 

Argh! I'd love to watch this stuff. Fairy tales living in the real world itself is a super cool premise. There are so many kinds of scenes you could make with that. Just the adjusting and getting along with each other should have plenty of sustaining material. The town affairs have to be more interesting than what we saw in White Out. I'm surprised the town, minus the overarching threat, functions quietly every day.

 

The We Are Both concept has a million different intriguing implications!

Edited October 10, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Curio]

The We Are Both concept has a million different intriguing implications!

And yet we got the anomaly that is Season 2...

[Rumsy4]

Apparently, Killian's been staying at Granny's all along. http://onceuponamirror.tumblr.com/post/99771433761/mindyourhelm-finally-now-we-know

 

Well... one answer at least... ;-)

[YaddaYadda]

Speaking of Hook, we know he pays with doubloons, did he bury a whole chest of those somewhere in Storybrooke?

[stealinghome]

Does Granny even accept doubloons? What's the exchange rate here?

[retrograde]

My headcanon is that Hook visited a "cash for gold" place in NYC. I have trouble believing that he got along as easily as he did in this city, but I have no trouble believing he'd have seen plenty of stores offering to buy gold if he walked through certain parts of Midtown (which is not that far from Central Park Zoo).

 

Though at the same time, I wish there was a dual currency in Storybrooke. I also wish more characters chose to wear their fairytale outfits, or hybrid outfits (I guess Robin and Roland kind of do) and there was way more stuff like sword fighting and balls and other fairytale hijinks going on in the town in general. I think it would make sense for the characters to act more like many regular immigrants (and I say this as an immigrant) in that you live a kind of dual life with traditions from both cultures