@EdChambers wrote:
… cannot leave the boundaries of Storybrooke. And the scene we saw of August tripping was him hitting the invisible border/barrier and he could travel no further..
I agree there is something to his use of the word shin “splints”, and “I never lie”. If he is Pinocchio, would telling a lie weaken him? What did he say just before getting the shin splints? Or does it mean it is a liar generally speaking, as Emma speculated, “that’s exactly what a liar would say”.
There are always curves thrown in this show so who knows, but regarding the boundaries of Storybrooke and characters not being able to leave, seems to me Pinocchio was subjected to the same fate as the others from the get go, whereas this “stranger” is suggested to have ridden into town, and of course he has knowledge the others don’t. We didn’t see him come past the sign at the town limit, so we can’t say for sure he came from outside the town. The Mad Hatter is surely a stranger to the citizens of Storybrooke, having been encapsulated in his house for 28 years. Also, the Mad Hatter introduced us to the notion that ONCE won’t be limiting itself to Grimm or Disney popularized fairy tales by illustrating the vast array of doorways to different “universes”. So who knows, August may come from a different universe altogether. If he is from the fairy tale universe, my guess is that he is either Rumpelstiltskin’s son or the son of the miller’s daughter (Cora), hence Regina’s brother.