The Black Fairy – ONCE297

A precursor to the Dark Curse, Father of the Year award, Regina putting her Mayor pants on, Emma and Rumple’s Saviorness, a potential another Savior, and more on our full-discussion of “The Black Fairy”!

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As far as theories go, there aren’t as many things to theorize about this episode but it does have a lot of great scenes to discuss that helped move the story along leading up to the season finale.

Many Years Ago (Past)

Seeing Tiger Lily was great, and even more awesome to see her wear tiger lilies. The lights flickering was something that happened during Henry’s birth, too. Is it the birth itself or the baby being born that make the lights flicker?

Could the light flicker at birth be because of the baby being born instead of the mother giving birth?  Maybe it is something special that happens when a baby is born from Rumple’s line.  The lights flickered at both Rumple’s and Henry’s births and they are both important to the story. I don’t think we saw Neal’s birth (correct me if I’m wrong) so we can’t know if the lights flickered then.

— Melanie

Or maybe they just hadn’t thought of the flickering yet when they made the pilot

— MatthewPaul

It was interesting that in the flashback, the Blue Fairy was seen using the same wand to banish the Black Fairy. Did Blue keep the wand that she used to banish the Black Fairy because it touched the Black Fairy?

Rumplestiltskin, as the prophecy said, will be born with great light magic and will be known as “the Savior.” What was he supposed to save people from? The Black Fairy?

Are Saviors Born or Made? The show has been fairly clear on evil being made not born, but what about Saviors? In the show, people are either born with magic, learn magic, or inherit magic in some way.  Emma and Aladdin were both born with magic and were both saviors. Elsa was born with magic and you could say she was a savior to Arendelle. Ingrid and Zelena were also born with magic; does that make them Saviors too? Perhaps it does. The book of records in Oz said the witch from the west was destined to save Oz from a great evil. Now, arguably, Zelena became that great evil but perhaps she was meant to be the savior but her choices turned her away from that path. In 6A Henry had a heart-to-heart with Jasmine where they talked about putting Emma and Aladdin on the path to become the Savior, so perhaps becoming the Savior is not automatic. The show has often emphasized that people’s choices play a major role in determining one’s fate / destiny. In “Kansas” Regina changes her destiny and in “Tougher Than The Rest” Emma changes hers. So perhaps Saviors are made and not merely born. Light magic is the birthright of Saviors but not required to be a Savior. So could Rumple still be a Savior? Yes. The sheers cut him off from his light magic the way they did with Aladdin, but it is not necessarily the magic that makes someone the Savior. Emma broke the curse before she discovered her magic. She has also overcome many things without using her magic. Aladdin lost his original light magic, but found magic again by becoming a genie and helped Jasmine save Agrabah. Rumple still has magic. It is dark magic, but perhaps if used for the right reasons, it could either become light magic again or at least be used for good.

— Gareth

It seemed from season 1 that Emma was made a Savior because she was written into the curse so that she could break the curse, however, it was also stated that she wasn’t supposed to just break the curse, but also served as a Savior. Perhaps it is the same with Rumple? Could he still fulfill is role as the Savior if he used his magic for good? Will he be willing to sacrifice himself for good?

According to The Book of Prophecy, a great evil would cover and kill him in the final battle. What else is in that book? Has Blue Fairy read the book? If not, then who else has? Tiger Lily even points it out that Fiona has read fairy-lore more than anyone, which is probably where she discovered the spell to become a fairy. Furthermore, Fiona’s motivation to become a fairy was because a fairy’s job to protect Rumple so it made sense that she take Tiger Lily’s wand to turn herself into a fairy. The Scots Gaelic that she said, however, interpreted as winged magic, which literally means “with wings power magic.”

We don’t know Fiona prior to Rumple’s birth, so we do not know if she has always been a narrow minded and impulsive woman or the circumstances made her so. Also, how easy for a mortal woman with no magic training just to grab a wand and transform herself into a fairy, Tiger Lily was right, impossible!  She is supposed to be the greatest evil yet she acts more like a retired cheerleader dressed like Lydia from BeetleJuice. Even Peter Pan was more intimidating than her. After years of great villains, we are ‘possibly’ ending the show which such a weak one, is just disappointing.

— Francisco

What was Fiona going to do had she find the baby that she was looking for? In the same scene, she mentioned about combining two ancient spells, even though creating new spells is forbidden.

I suspect that there is a significance to the fact that the Dark Curse was created by combining two ancient spells. What two things does the curse do? It is definitely a portal, it moves people from a magic realm to a world without magic. It also creates, it created the new world of Storybrooke. New identities and forgetting appear to be add ons to the original curse. The reason I bring this up is because we have heard a lot about the Black Fairy creating the Dark Curse and something about the “darkness” coming. So what exactly is coming? What was the Black Fairy trying to do in the mines with the darkened crystals? What will killing the Savior accomplish? How will this bring a happy ending for their family? Perhaps the Black Fairy is planning to cast a new version of the Dark Curse and she needs to remove the Savior so there will be no one left who can break it. Peter Pan planned to turn Storybrooke into the New Neverland so it is possible that she plans to cast a dark curse over Storybrooke once again. Not sure how the darkness then also affects Neverland. Perhaps the curse can be altered to send everyone she wants to the Dark World.

— Gareth

Is the Black Fairy plotting to enact a new curse? Why the need for a final battle if she thinks she’s cut off Rumple’s destiny that the two of them are meant to kill each other?

It was interesting that when they were in the Sacred Vault of the Fairies and back to 1×08 “Desperate Souls” when Rumple mentioned a curse, Blue Fairy knew exactly which curse, because Black Fairy had already created it, but never cast it. Did the Blue Fairy add the need to take the heart of the thing you love most to the curse, making the Dark Curse harder to cast? The curse was designed to send the child destined to destroy Rumple to a Land Without Magic, but actually all children will be sent in, making it the precursor to the Dark Curse. On the other hand, what doesn’t quite make sense is that Fiona spent little time as the Black Fairy. The act of almost killing Tiger Lily turned Fiona into the Black Fairy. Would this happen if others tried to kill a fairy, too? Back in season 3, they said that the wand has done a lot of dark magic, but didn’t say that the Black Fairy used it. In the flashback, however, the Black Fairy doesn’t have a wand until that brief moment she’s the black fairy before getting sucked into the Dark Realm. Maybe because this is the same wand that brought dark magic into the world, which makes it dangerous?

What made Fiona evil? Was she evil because of her power? Did power corrupt? And when she uses the shears on Rumple, did she cut only the light-magic destiny from Rumple, thus leaving his destiny for only dark magic? Up until this season, the events that have happened to people was based solely on their own decisions and freewill, and only this season did they incorporate destiny pushing people in certain directions against their will.

Maybe it’s like a Star Wars thing where he is destined to bring balance to light and dark magic, but after the light was cut away it turns to his son to “bring balance ” to both light and dark

— Raymond

Rumple was still a savior in the past when he killed his father and himself to save the town. So even though it seems the shears avoided his prophesied fate he still ended up killing one of his parents and that same parent was the reason he died. So I’m wondering about the side effects of the shears.  I haven’t seen any other odd side effects like this so it is probably just a coincidence in Rumple’s case but it is still rather interesting.

— Melanie

Is Rumple still a Savior? Maybe the prophecy was originally about Peter Pan and Rumplestiltskin?

It was interesting that Malcolm named his son Rumplestiltskin because of his anger. Looking back at the story of Rumplestiltskin, part of the story of Rumpelstiltskin is that the king’s bride guesses his name correctly, and he ends up destroying himself. Did Malcolm name the baby that in hopes that Rumple would destroy himself? Knowing now the backstory of the Black Fairy, it seemed that Malcolm never knew that Fiona became the Black Fairy.

Present Day Storybrooke

Where did the rotten dragon egg come from? Is it one of Lily’s siblings? Has Rumple really exhibited anti-Savior sentiments than any other time? That said, we liked that they brought the cuff back. Why haven’t they put it than on the Black Fairy, though?

We liked getting to see trying to do normal life things without magic. It was so much fun, as well as seeing a keychain with an unwinged monkey, just like Zelena who is now an unmagicked witch. Great conversation too inside the car, but with Regina saying how she needs someone to look after Henry had she not survive the final battle, does this mean that one of them is going to die by the end of the final battle? Will Regina make it through? Will Zelena?

With Gideon tied back up at Gold’s shop, he said that the Black Fairy made it sure that he can no longer do any resisting at all. We’ve seen Regina control Graham before in the episode “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter“, which is why they had to go to the dream realm, where they could talk to Gideon without the Black Fairy interrupting. It was nice to see the Sands of Morpheus again and Emma referring to “talking donuts”, which is what Neal said in 5×12 “Souls of the Departed” when he talked to Emma on her way to the Underworld. The home that they find, Rumple said that that’s where he was born, which was actually the same set as Rumple’s later home. Accident or intention?

Down the mines when the Black Fairy took the Blue Fairy to get information about the wand out of her, was she intending to actually torture her or use some kind of magic-extractor? The way it was being set-up, it seemed the wand was a way to purposefully remove thoughts out of someone.

Meanwhile, everyone else was at the heart of Storybrooke, which was Granny’s. When the Black Fairy showed up, she claimed she created the town. Was the town actually part of the curse? She also did some other magic thing on Regina just before Zelena run her over with the car, anything significant? After all, she did say that Regina will regret doing it.

Back in the dream world, Rumple and Emma kept having great, vulnerable, relatable Rumple moments, until the end of the episode. It’s one of the scenes that we really respected about the show managing to place vulnerable moments and executing them well, like when Emma told Rumplestiltskin about finding out why he was abandoned and both of them being bad at being vulnerable.

When nap time is over, Gold did some magic to the wand, did he simply mend it or protected it? What kind of magic did Gold do to the wand? Did he poison it and set a trap, because at the end of the episode, it seemed that the Black Fairy is holding the said wand.

Was the Black Fairy’s secret about why he abandoned Rumple or her own son being the one who can defeat the Black Fairy? And if that’s not actually the Black Fairy’s heart that Rumple delivers, then whose is it? It was nice that the Black Fairy asked for forgiveness, however, true repentance requires change, not only a request. If the Black Fairy was doing anything to get back to Rumple, why the need to take Gideon away from his parents and other children as well?

Rumple said that the Black Fairy will “never be again a problem for us” pertaining to Belle and Gideon. He even said that everything he does is to keep his family safe, but who’s side is he really on? Is he playing a double agent to keep his family safe or had he actually joined forces with his mother? It seemed like all the stuff about him being the Savior came as a shock to him but also awe-inspiring.

It was cool that Hook asked Henry to be the Best Man, as well as the Ringbearer. And it was funny that, for once, someone walked into a conversation and did not hear everything!

It was interesting that the writing in the background says, “DO NOT BLOCK GATE EVER,” as well as the moon shape the same as the Black Fairy’s scar in the background. In the same scene, Rumple said that both Belle and Gideon are asleep, did he put them under a spell? The Black Fairy also said that the final battle is a happy ending for them, what does she really want? Destroy anyone with light magic so that no one could possibly separate their family?

When the Black Fairy said that tomorrow is the day Emma marries and dies, she was shown holding a wand. Which wand is she holding?

I believe that the prophesy for Rumple was already fulfilled when his mother (the dark evil) cut his destiny away, having destroy the Savor. Therefore, I think that Rumple is the dark evil that will show up in the final battle. (This idea comes from the interview given a few years ago that Adam and Eddie already knew how they would end the series if season one did not take off… before any mention of the Black Fairy).

This leads me to believe two possible endings. 1) the Final Battle will be between Emma and Rumple, not Emma and the Black Fairy. or 2) the Final Battle will be between Rumple and Henry, while Emma has been the decoy this whole time. After listening to the Initial Reactions for this episode, it occurred to me that it was Henry that had the funny light flicker happen, not Emma. It was Henry that really came to the rescue for Storybrooke by bringing Emma to the town and making her believe. The show focuses a lot on Emma, but really the show started out about Henry bringing people to believe the impossible. Would Henry then be the real Savior in disguise and not Emma? Remember in Season 2 that horrible thought Gold had about killing Henry on the swing because he knew the great danger he posed for Gold? Now Henry is starting to embrace more of his author powers… powers given by Merlin the greatest possessor of Light Magic. It is possible that Henry is meant to be the Savior in this final battle and not Emma.

— Nathaniel

Is that why Henry couldn’t write Emma winning the final battle, because she wasn’t the one who was supposed to fight the final battle?

The fact that Rumple was destined to be the Savior shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise, since the show had been foretelling it in various ways over the seasons.

First, having true love with Belle, then in the S4 Finale, Rumple is the Light One in Isaac’s alternate reality. Also, in the S3 mid-season finale, when Rumple kills his father, there is a gold/white light shooting out as he plunges the dagger into Pan, as well in S5, he is the only one worthy enough to pull the Camelot sword out of the rock. Not to mention the fact that throughout S5, the references that Rumple might be the one that Merlin “prophesized” to wield both the dark/light magic

Also, in keeping in the Savior requirement so to speak with Emma saving people, Rumple saved all the children from the Ogres War as well as saving Belle/Neal and the town in the episode Going Home.

So, looking back, the hints were there about Rumple being potentially full of light, I’m just surprised that the writers kept continuity with this part of the storyline.

— Andrea from Los Angeles, CA

Rumple’s and Emma’s history is sketchy, but they get each other. And in that dream realm, it was the first olive branch she’s extended. So no. I don’t think he’s going to choose his mother who tortured his son over the savior who he’s watched succeed over and over again. He watched his mother make the same mistake he did; choosing power. That, and knowing he was supposed to be born for something good.  If that doesn’t jolt his mixed morality, then nothing will.

— Meredith of Everett, WA

With the final battle coming up, will Emma and Rumple join together to fight the Black Fairy? What does the Black Fairy have in-store for Emma and Hook’s upcoming wedding?

What did you think?

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Spoilers

• In 6×20 “The Song in Your Heart,” Snow and Charming make a special wish that Emma will be protected in flashback
• Meanwhile in Storybrooke, the Black Fairy announces her plans to unleash another curse on the town
• Emma and Hook, on the other hand, prepares for their wedding
• “The Song in Your Heart” was written by David H. Goodman and Andrew Chambliss and directed by Ron Underwood.
• Music written by Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary and Mark Isham composes.
• Guest starring are Lee Arenberg as Leroy/Grumpy, Tony Amendola as Marco/Geppetto, Keegan Connor Tracy as Mother Superior Blue Fairy, Raphael Sbarge as Archie/Jiminy Cricket, Beverly Elliott as Granny, David Avalon as Doc, Gabe Khouth as Mr. Clark/Sneezy, Faustino Di Bauda as Walter/Sleepy, Michael Coleman as Happy, Mig Macario as Bashful, Giancarlo Esposito as Sydney/Mirror, Christopher Gauthier as William Smee, Jaime Murray as Black Fairy, Jack Davies as Young Pinocchio, McKenna Grace as Young Emma and Ari Guzhel as Older Girl.
• Promo for “The Song in Your Heart” starts of with Snow White in the balcony wishing on the star
• Evil Queen was also seen breaking into a song, as well as Snow and Charming sharing a duet
• The promo ends with Hook and Emma’s wedding
• The spell that was cast by Snow and Charming in the flashback will carry out til the present day
• Majority of the singing will be done in the Enchanted Forest during flashback, with a few numbers in present day Storybrooke
• First Sneak Peek for the musical episode focuses on Snow White and Charming walking into a pub and bumping into Smee, and then breaking in to Hook’s song
• Second sneak peek shows the Evil Queen from season 1 in her castle and very upset, pacing in her mirror room wondering why everyone is bursting into song, with Granny, Geppetto and Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, Grumpy in the mines with his fellow dwarves, and Snow and Charming all seen in each mirrors singing
• Behind the scenes photos for “The Song in Your Heart” focuses heavily from the first sneak peek, including Hook standing in the altar behind Archie, as well as a lot of Hook with Snow and Charming in the pub
• Adam Horowitz shared a script tease of one of Snow and Charming’s line from the episode “The Song in Your Heart”
• First track for the musical episode is entitled “Powerful Magic” sung by Snow and Charming
• Album for the musical episode will be released on Friday and will include 8 tracks, with vocals by Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas, Colin O’Donoghue, Lana Parrilla, Jennifer Morrison, Rebecca Mader, and Jared S. Gilmore
• Robert Carlyle and Emilie DeRavin won’t be singing in the musical episode
• Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis sat with ETOnline and revealed that Snow and Charming’s song will have a “very Pilot feel to it”
• ABC released some featurettes about the musical episode, opening with Rebecca Mader in the studio recording her solo.
• The featurette also showed a scene between Emma, Henry, Snow and Charming and Hook inside the Mayor’s office with Emma emotional and singing about being hopeless.
• The featurette also features the Black Fairy in the same scene in what seemed like holding Emma’s heart but could not kill her.
• The featurette also shows a rehearsal of a what looks like a ball scene, and the orchestra performing the music
• A couple of the casts sat with TV Guide, in which Ginnifer Goodwin says they have been wanting to do (the musical episode) for years.
• TV Line also sat with Kitsis and Horowitz, where they revealed that after letting the cast know (about the musical), “they got together with the composers, to tailor all the songs to each actor and their character specifically.”
• There was a screener last night and Kitsis and Horowitz told EW that while OUAT is a near-lock to return, the drama has been heavily hinting at providing resolution to many stories this season.
• Kitsis also added that if this is the series finale, then fans will “have the usual opinions on a series finale ranging from the best ever to the worst ever, because that’s the internet.”
• We are expected to get an announcement regarding a possible 7th season some time next week, including which of the casts will stay or bow out
• The basic plot of the musical includes Snow White being given the power of song, but the actual wish that Snow White made was for her daughter to be protected not against the Dark Curse or for the Evil Queen to be defeated.
• Also in the musical episode, Emma needs the power of song to defeat a much worse foe later on.
• By the end of the episode, Emma uses the power of song against the Black Fairy in the showdown, which only slows her down.
• Emma and Hook will, in fact, do get married in the episode
• The Dark Curse will happen seconds after Emma and Hook’s first dance as husband and wife
• The final moments of the episode will be Emma and Hook looking on as the Dark Curse comes