Compasses
Not sure if the compass portion of my post was ignored or didn’t make sense or what, but I honestly think it’s *really* important, so I want to go back and revisit it.
As GA, the first time I remember an important compass is in Tallahassee. Yep, in the Hook/Emma scenes… that were built around her history with Neal. Anyways, she was on a search for a compass, to get her home. Hook, being Hook, hits on her, and Emma, being Emma, rolls her eyes in annoyance and says, “Let’s find the compass… and go home.” Compasses lead home. Ok? Ok.
When we did our rewatch a few months ago, we came to True North and I groaned. When it first aired, it was one of my least favorite episodes of the series. Perhaps my singular least favorite. I didn’t mind it quite as much the second time through – apparently the blind witch was less terrifying to me, or I’d been desensitized or something. Anyway, I still didn’t “get it,” until I saw Tallahassee the second time, and it dawned on me that there were compasses in both episodes. Since things like that on Once are usually related, I went back to TN to see if there was a connection, and um – yeah.
I had always seen TN as important for Emma because she could see herself both in Nicholas and Ava, as kids who were missing their parents and in their system, and as their father, who was very much her the month prior – parent ambushed with parenthood. But the interesting thing is, I think part of the reason she is so drawn to Nicholas and Ava, and so intent that they are not separated, is that she sees them less as “her” and more as “her and Neal.” Robbing convenience stores to survive? And of course, they drew Henry into it, with the stolen items in his bag – because one of the things Once does is uses Henry to tell his parents’ story. From 1×01 to 3×20, Once uses Henry to tell his parents’ story.
Anyways, Emma has her blanket, and Ava and Nicholas have their fathers’ compass. There are some interesting dialogue moments regarding this compass –
(The Father removes the compass from around his neck and places it over Gretel’s head.)
Father: Take this.
Gretel: Your compass?
Father: So you don’t get lost. A family always needs to be able to find one another.
Okay. The compass is a necklace, and also, families will “always find you.”
The EQ says, about Ava and Nicholas in the EF, “Two helpless children. Lost and alone. A family torn asunder. Such a sad and moving story.”
Lost boy. Lost girl. Family torn asunder. Parallel, check.
Then Emma, looking for their father –
Emma: I want to look for their father. They don’t know him. He may not know they exist.
Mary Margaret: And you think if he knows, he’ll want them?
Emma: I don’t know. But what I do know, is it’s hard enough finding foster families to take one kid that isn’t theirs, let alone two. It’s their best shot, or-
(Ava, who was eavesdropping, interrupts. She is in tears.)
Ava: We’re going to be separated?
Emma: No. That’s not going to happen.
Parallels in this scene are obvious… Dad doesn’t know kids exist. Emma wants kids to have their best shot. And Emma is VERY adamant that kids not be separated.
What does she do? She asks the kids for something of their father’s –
Ava: I might have something. But if I give it to you, you’ll make sure we stay together, right?
Emma: Right.
(Ava pulls a compass on a chain out of her pocket and hands it to Emma.)
Emma: A compass.
Ava: Our mom kept it. She said it was our dad’s.
This episode also features the Great Neal Lie… firefighter and pumpkin pie. At the end, Henry asks, “Do you have anything of his? Something you can remember him by.
Something I could see.” Emma declines, but throughout this whole scene, we can very clearly see the pendant, on a chain, around her neck. (Just like the compass… on a chain, around Ava’s neck.)
As the episode draws to a close, Emma has taken the compass to Rumple (of course, we couldn’t make this happen without Rumple!) and found the Zimmer twins’ father, working at a garage. He denies her request to take the kids, so she heads to Boston to take them to the system, defeated. Her car sputters out, and she calls a tow – and their father shows up. As soon as he sets eyes on them, he agrees to keep them – not unlike how it was said, this season, that if Emma had looked at Henry, she would have kept them. Ultimately, it was indeed the compass that led the twins home.
Last tidbit? “They said their mother was a woman named Dory Zimmer.” Dory? Dorothy? Perhaps.
All right. So now, we’ve had compasse-y things, leading lost kids home, two episodes. One a SF parallel and one a, well, S (lol.) Emma just wanted to get home to her kid, and the magical compass helped get her there.
Fast-forward to 3×20. Compasses, compasses, everywhere. The table in the witches’ hall. The chairs there, too. The barn floor – compass. As Rumple is drawing the compass on the floor, Zelena is holding a compass. Eventually the center of the compass opens, creating a portal, which will eventually draw in Emma… and lead her to find her identity of home. A lost girl… and a lost boy… find their way home. Because, you know, there’s no place like home.
They don’t have threads like that on this show on accident. It’s A Thing, and I choose to look upon it optimistically. 🙂
And to end, a funny. Not sure if it’s nationwide, but around here, we have a chain of convenience stores… called True North. Can never drive past one without thinking of our protagonists. 🙂
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...