@RumplesGirl wrote:
I don’t think THO had anything to do with it, because then they would have known about Henry for a LONG time before they even first got into Storybrooke, and it seemed to me like they came to SB to destroy magic but after that initial goal found Henry and decided that getting him was more important. I
I think there is a difference between THO’s real goal and what GOAT perceive to be the real goal. GOAT were told that their mission was to destroy magic but I see them as foot soldiers, more or less mindlessly following orders. At some point something clued them in to the fact that Henry had greater importance for THO.
Yes, this!
@StorybrookeGirl wrote:
I think that either August, in an attempt to get Emma back on the path of breaking the curse, or Mr. Gold, as part of his “procuring” Henry for Regina, convinced her.
August was already in Phuket before Henry was born, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t set foot on American soil again until he was heading for SB. Mr Gold didn’t have his memories, so wouldn’t have known to track down Emma and her baby. It was Emma’s name that triggered his memories, so he can’t have heard it at any point previously, which means he can’t have known the name of Henry’s bio-mother.
@StorybrookeGirl wrote:
Other possibility: Some outside party we’ve yet to meet (or, yes, maybe the Home Office) has been interested in breaking the curse from the beginning. This person convinced August to go break up Emma and Neal and told August that Neal was Baelfire, convinced Emma to give Henry up for adoption and then connected baby Henry to Gold when Gold was looking for a baby for Regina, and gave Mary Margaret the book and suggested that Henry might need it. I’m calling this my Mastermind theory, and I personally think that the outside party might be the Blue Fairy.
Again, we’ve had it confirmed the Blue didn’t have her memories during the cursed years. I’d had her pegged as the person orchestrating the adoption for ages, but that theory hinged on the assumption that she’d had her memories, and it turns out she didn’t.
As for August having been recruited by THO, I’d say that makes perfect sense. Owen was a boy who spoke about a magical town, and THO got wind of him and recruited him. August likely spoke of the magical land he came from, so THO could have very well recruited him too.
They could have kept tabs on him, and Emma, and Nealfire, and then came a day when someone met August and gave him a note saying, “We know you’re Pinocchio,” and gave him his mission to break up SwanFire. So maybe August fleeing the country was also in part to try and escape THO, who somehow knew who he was, and that freaked him out. But they kept an eye on him for the next 10 years, and when the time was right, THO sent Tamara to Phuket to accidentally-on-purpose bump into him.
So if we assume that THO is this involved, it stands to reason that they’re also the ones who saw to it that Emma’s baby was given up for adoption and brought to SB.