Elle, thanks for all the responses! You are great! Many were so helpful! 🙂
I have clarification / follow-up questions on a few, listed as Capital Letters below the corresponding question numbers:
4) I am not sure if you are saying Jefferson ran back into his house after being kicked out the window.
A) If Jefferson got knocked out of a window, is he just very physically resillient (he had been beheaded after all)?
B) In the real world, should he not have either a) died/been immobilized or b) gone through the hat into an alternate world?
6) Yes, the fact that Emma felt Graham’s heart confused me a lot. I don’t understand how there are different kinds of hearts.
A) Is there a back story or mythology this is referring to – perhaps the original Snow White & Huntsman story? I am not familiar with any fairy tale unfatal heart removal rules. Regina’s father’s heart was snatched and he immediately died. Regina’s fiancee’s heart was snatched and he seemed to immediately become unconsious if I recall, and was killed when the heart was ground into ashes. Finally, Graham’s was snatched and he seemed to retain life and the ability to make his own choices.
B) If these are 3 different scenarios, how are we as viewers to really understand?
C) Furthermore, how is this kind of magic supposed to have made it to a magicless land?
D) If it is just a heart of emotion, why did Graham die when it was ground up?
E) And if we were supposed to know that the Regina would remember that she was the evil queen, why: a) does the narrator of the intro tell us this (spoiler) and b) does the show never explicitly let us know that Regina knows she is the queen – until she finally kills Graham? This seems to be poorly executed. I, for one, perceived that it was ambiguous whether she knew she was the evil queen until she finally went into the secret chamber. It seemed that the show was strongly trying to convey that ambiguity.
F) Otherwise, why not show us any proof she knew she was the queen beforehand?
G) Did the narrator in the intro not spill the beans (did they not accidentally give us a spoiler)?
8) Evil Queen saving her father was not much proof of love. Could have just as easily been about ‘winning’ against Red Queen. Either way, the writing was not strong when she plucked her father’s heart. Even though it was unexpected, I don’t think the viewers cared because we didn’t perceive the sacrifice. I still think it would have been very poetic and effective if she plucked her own heart, alla never ending story 2 – heartless can’t love or be good. She seemed to care more about her ring than her father, and more about all the curses. Her father came off as a servant so early in the series. I’m glad we saw the back-story when she was innocent and in love and seemed to care for her father, but it was strange to portray sacrifice before any of us knew it was sacrifice.
A) Why not throw away the sleeping curse she stole from Malificent, which she also seemed to care more about?
B) For that matter, it seemed that was alluding to the Sleeping Beauty mass-sleeping curse. If so, where did it go?
C) The apple was from the Ginger Bread House Witch, so was the stolen sleeping curse ever used?
D) Do we yet know what came of Cora?
9) A) I guess I really meant – why didn’t Evil Queen kill Snow White with strong magic if she intended to when hiring huntsman?
B) Why hire the huntsmen if she could have used her mirror to instantly transport Snow or the Queen to snow?
C) Was Snow White’s heart delivered supposed to be a fatal delivery or control over Snow White like over Huntsman?
D) And didn’t she threaten to execute the prince after Snow’s sleep? If she wished to kill him, why trap him in the endless forest rather than a transport and kill?
E) Or can we answer everything with Magic Comes With a Price? It just seems that Regina never is deterred by that very real consequence, so while I agree the writing suggest that all her magic backfires, why would she try so hard to zigzag? She is after all a very intelligent cunning and shrewd villain.
11) When you refer to the Creators explaining, are you referring to:
A) Inside knowledge off-the-record?
B) scripted moments discussed by characters in a specific episode?
C) Interviews with creators that explain some questions the viewers have.
If the latter, can you link us to these interviews?! 🙂
12) By virtue of her 1 lie, the Blue Fairy lied, as I alluded to the one time. It’s a very significant lie. It just seems so ironic that the fairy fairytaled to tell Pinnochio to never lie, lies for him. It would have been nice if she was uncomfortable with the ‘lie’ itself or reworded the statement to be deceptive but not a lie.
13) How do we know August didn’t write the book? Does the script provide any clues of this, or are you aware of something off the record? I thought the show implied he was the author after we realize he added to the book. Did I miss a line when he showed he wasn’t the author?
15) I’m not sure I understand what August expected Emma to experience.
A) How can you show someone their history without anything to show them?
B) Was there something about the tree she was supposed to see if she wasn’t in denial? The scene wasn’t very effective, because August (who is adept at wrapping Emma around his finger when they first acquaint) seems to have absolutely no plan or persuasive ability at convincing Emma the tree is special. I am trying to understand what he expected her to do in ideal circumstances. He couldn’t expect her to remember the tree as she was a newborn.
C) Was he expecting her to see some magical anomoly?
D) Was he expecting to travel back? Seeing that he knew she didn’t yet believe, I fail to understand how he thought showing her an ordinary tree would persuade her to believe, unless there was something he thought she would see in the tree that would prove something.
16) Emma mourns Graham for one scene and then he never comes up again in her thoughts. Seems too surgically removed and makes their romance seem unauthentic. I wish she ever had a flash-back of him, and ever reflected on any of the odd wolf stuff in her own flashbacks.
29) I meant that Rumple ends up using bottled up love to bring magic to story brooke.
A) Why does he use love specifically?
B) Is it merely because it is magic, or because of its strength?
It seems strange he would waste such powerful magic when there was so much other magic all over storybrooke (“Please”; Dragon; objects in mine; objects triggering false memories; Jefferson’s Hat, Regina’s plucked-out hearts, Regina’s Ring, Regina’s heart chambers, Regina’s trinkets) ,,, for someone knowing about everything in the town, why did he throw away ‘love’ into the well? I was saying it may have been a metaphor for throwing away his love for both Bael and Belle in trade for power.
31) But I thought all illustrations in the book were’t obvious enough to begin with to strike a resemblance, or else she would have immediately found it a coincidence. I also thought she assumed Jefferson saw the book and modeled his outfits and ‘fake neck scar’ on the illustrations. Do we have reason to believe she actually started to believe?
34) I heard someone on some forum make a distinction between the curse ‘breaking’ and the curse ‘ending’.
A) Is this distinction addressed in the show, and if not, in classic fairy tales?
B) Does the distinction explain why they remained in Story Brooke?
37) A) I meant, would Belle still be locked up if all the people who knew she was down there would remember who they were, or might we assume that only the Queen’s henchmen knew about Belle’s whereabouts and had Jefferson not freed her she may have remained hidden?
40) The part of the timeline of the prince fleeing his marriage to find Snow that I don’t remember is: A) when did he find out that she was trying to protect him after being threatened by his father? I seem to recall him seeking her out before having any new information. He seemed to be chasing down a girl he had every reason to believe didn’t love him – or did I forget a line?
B) If so, what was the line, and who said it?