324 replies to this topic

[ElectricBoogalo]

Since magic seems like it will play a substantial role on the show, I thought it would be nice to have a separate thread to discuss all things magical.

So far, some of the magical elements we have seen/established:
* Prince Charming woke Snow White with a kiss
* the queen placed a curse on everyone in the Enchanted Forest that would take away their happy endings
* the tree that the blue boobalicious fairy brought to Snow White and the council was enchanted and could protect one person from the curse
* no one can leave Storybrooke (except Henry so far)
* time stood still in Storybrooke until Emma decided to stay

I can't wait to see the way the queen's curse plays out in specific ways and what the rules of magic are in this world!

ETA: No matter how I spell it, bibbidi bobbidi boo looks like it's misspelled! I had to check the Cinderella soundtrack to make sure I had it right (and it still looks wrong to me!).

Edited by ElectricBoogalo, Oct 26, 2011 @ 6:59 AM.

[mustbekarma]

To add to ElectricBoogalo's list, and straight from the fabulous Mr. Gold, er, Rumpelstiltskin:

*All curses can be broken.

[boltcat]

* no one can leave Storybrooke (except Henry so far)

I think he can leaves just because he is not originally from the forest. And hence, anyone from outside can leave on their own.

[Aliasscape]

*breaking deals has consequences

Dragging this over from the episode thread, but Rumple gains power over others even just by knowing their names. So this led me to several trains of thought. He knew who Snow White and Prince Charming were, so when he offered his deal,to know the child's name, did Snow White agree because she wanted it so badly or because Rumple knew her name? Snow White agreed and when Rumple asked for the name in the end, it was her not the prince who gave it to him. So then I THINK it's because of all that that Rumple gained power over Emma with his mystery favor in the real world. A measure of power over Emma is what Snow White traded for knowing how to break the curse.

Also, apparently in fairy-tale land, they have some sort of magic that stands in for an ultrasound machine. Everyone always already knows the genders of their babies!

[Samiwell]

ETA: No matter how I spell it, bibbidi bobbidi boo looks like it's misspelled! I had to check the Cinderella soundtrack to make sure I had it right (and it still looks wrong to me!).

While I know Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo is also accepted, the alternate spelling, *Bibbity Bobbity Boo*, somehow looks more right to me.

ETA Bippity Boppity Boo

Dragging this over from the episode thread, but Rumple gains power over others even just by knowing their names. So this led me to several trains of thought. He knew who Snow White and Prince Charming were, so when he offered his deal,to know the child's name, did Snow White agree because she wanted it so badly or because Rumple knew her name? Snow White agreed and when Rumple asked for the name in the end, it was her not the prince who gave it to him. So then I THINK it's because of all that that Rumple gained power over Emma with his mystery favor in the real world. A measure of power over Emma is what Snow White traded for knowing how to break the curse.

It occurs to me that Episode 6 explains why it was Snow, not Charming, who was compelled to give Emma's name to Rumpel. He didn't know Charming's REAL name (nor do we)!

Not sure he had to use the name-power on Emma though - she would have agreed to almost anything in order to help Ashley keep her baby.
***************

I hope this thread can clarify something about the apple(s). It was my understanding that Snow's apple wasn't poisoned, but rather had a "sleeping spell" cast on it - the spell Evil Queen obtained from Maleficent and which could be broken by True Love's Kiss. Do I have that right? *

Thanks!
*edited to delete speculation

Edited by Samiwell, Dec 9, 2011 @ 11:23 PM.

[The Blue Fairy]

Also, apparently in fairy-tale land, they have some sort of magic that stands in for an ultrasound machine. Everyone always already knows the genders of their babies!

Thank you! I picked up on that and it drove me nuts when both Snow and Charming and then Ella and Thomas stated without a doubt the sex of their unborn children. Who knows, maybe Doc is actually a psychic.

[Aliasscape]

There just seems to be so many issues with the curse that get brought up in the episode thread all the time but may not be episode specific. Stuff like did the queen know, which I think the writer's hoped was clear in ep 2 but most people don't feel they had final confirmation on until ep 7. I also think the "Queen knows everything!" thing keeps getting misconstrued into her knowing almost everything we know, than just adding her fairy tale world knowledge which does include her knowing the curse can be broken by Snow White's child and that that child was a girl. But not when, how, or that child's name, or that that child had a child. The queen knew time was frozen, does she know for how long?

Personally, I can't bet the continuity of the entire show on "she got cocky" and/or " bored", especially when Graham lost his life for it: that's just sloppy writing IMO.

But overconfidence and boredom are real world human issues. Is she supposed to not have real world human flaws because she's from fairy tale land and remembers it? Was she supposed to remain on high alert for 28 years...or all eternity to keep her curse from being broken? Wouldn't that get exhausting? I think many of our characters should now have real world human flaws/emotions. And emotions aren't always logical or even self (let alone curse) protective.

But then TV falls into the same traps nearly all the time. (There will always be bad CPR! And unrealistic comas! Gun silencers that reduce the noise to a tiny blip you can't even hear right beside you.) There will be plot holes. Some things will never be explained. Some explanations will come too late for you to really care anymore. Now, I'm sure they will at some point help us with the details of the deal that brought Henry to town between Gold and Regina. I think they will explain at least one of their motivations in doing so. I do not think they will tell us why Regina bothered to risk bringing or allowing outsiders into her curse-created town. Likely because they haven't really shown us no other outsiders ever came to town. That's an assumption right now that makes "sense" but if they never make it flat out then they really don't have to explain why any specific outsiders were allowed in. I actually doubt they would because it then requires explanation of how come nobody stumbled in, how do they get new goods, is there a giant vortex/field/bubble around the town. If they come and go ,why don't they notice the non-aging of the town's residents? Do they remember the town after they leave? I think it becomes logistically more trouble than it's worth and I doubt they'll build an entire episode around, what happens to the outsiders when they come to town? It'd seem like it can't be anything super special because if they make it some big deal about how Regina drives everyone out or is suspicious of everyone or kills everyone and buries them in her backyard who comes to town then her not being more reactive to Emma becomes a glaring mistake. Maybe Regina's possessiveness over Henry has her missing the forest for the trees. More of, I'm disliking the way Emma's changing my relationship with my son and the sheriff, vs. I'm horrified by the way she's changing the entire town. (So far anyway.)

Still, even a show based on fairy tales is still written by a bunch of TV writers who at this point are young enough they grew up watching TV instead of just reading books. To me, it's basically a given, that lazy TV writing will seep in and written literary constructs will be twisted, bent and broken. No matter how much people seem to try, they can't resist that when it's not just words on a page, trying to get you to ignore icebox questions with whatever visual distraction they can manage at the time. (Squirrel! Explosion! Firefight! Pretty costume! Shirtless guy!) So I just hope that plotline and characterizations will for me, outweigh any laziness we've encountered thus far. For me so far it has. Even if I have to cover my eyes every time someone needs medical care.

But the curse is going to be a sinkhole in my opinion. The more you explain it, the more it requires explanation. And I think the only way to fully deal with it is going to make the rules and regulation of it slightly hazy, just like the town's memories. Plus it has 2 eras of "This is how it worked before Emma", and "This is how it works after Emma." So even whatever rules and regulations there were, are different now.

Edited by Aliasscape, Dec 13, 2011 @ 2:44 PM.

[Jonah5]

Great analysis, Aliasscape. I too don't mine some minor details being off but a show has to have its core mythology worked out ahead of time. The end of Alias completely pissed me off with the Rambaldi mythology and don't even get me started with the X-Files. I watched the first season of Lost and then bailed because of that same reason. I really hope they've already mapped out the rules of curse and more importantly how it gets broken.

[Dani-Ellie]

But overconfidence and boredom are real world human issues. Is she supposed to not have real world human flaws because she's from fairy tale land and remembers it?

The remembering aspect of the curse is one of the things I don't think she quite thought through. The curse is designed to allow her to remember, because really, what fun would it be to make everyone else miserable but not be able to enjoy watching them be miserable? But the fact that she remembers is a curse in and of itself.

Not only does she remember the Enchanted Forest, but the curse also doesn't affect her memory in Storybrooke. These are people that are, essentially, living in Groundhog Day. The events of the day perhaps don't repeat the way they did in the movie, but they're reliving the same twenty-four-hour period, over and over, for eternity. With Mary Margaret and Archie and Graham and everyone else, the curse eventually makes their memories hazy. But not Regina. Sure, things will get indistinct for her after a while, the way things do for all of us. But after the novelty has worn off for her, after living through 6000 days of nothing changing, I have no problem believing that she'd want something different.

My thoughts on Regina's reasons for wanting a child is a discussion for another thread, but a large part of it, I suspect, is that she's looking for some kind of fulfillment, something to fill up that "void" that the curse created. I think she thought seeing her vengeance through to the end, that watching everyone wander around for eternity with no chance of finding their happy endings, would be enough and was surprised to discover that it wasn't.

Regina can certainly put together one hell of a plan. I just think her all-encompassing desire for vengeance blinded her against the bigger picture.

[Shanna Marie]

We probably can't look for too much logic in the curse because that kind of revenge isn't really logical. There's some sense in wanting to be rid of tormentors/irritants or people who are in the way of your success -- the "ding dong the witch is dead" kind of vengeance. There's also sense in improving your life by taking something you want from your enemy -- stealing a boyfriend, sabotaging a rival to get the job/promotion/throne. But this kind of revenge, to want your enemy to suffer while keeping your enemy around so you can watch, but in a way that doesn't actually improve your situation, isn't the kind of thing you do if you think about it for five minutes. You might get a good "mwa ha ha ha!" moment out of it, but then you're likely to be left wondering if you sacrificed your father's life for this.

I don't even see how the outcome can be all that satisfying for Regina. Snow White/Mary Margaret seems to be a "bloom where you're planted" person who can make the best of and cope with any situation. Left as an outlaw outcast in the forest, she became a skilled thief (and seemed to be having some fun with that). Transported to Storybrooke without her memories, she may be a spinster schoolteacher, but she seems to enjoy her job and she's filling her spare time with volunteer work, so she may not have her true love and her family, but her life is probably happier and more fulfilling than Regina's, especially since she doesn't know what she's missing out on. You're really not likely to get your evil jollies out of watching your enemy lead a life that may not have been as great as the one she had but that's still not absolutely miserable. It doesn't even seem like Mary Margaret's life was that unhappy until Emma's arrival started moving things forward so that David woke up and Mary Margaret met him and got her heart broken. Breaking the curse may end up causing more pain than the curse itself has, since the victims are unaware they're victims. Graham didn't even become that unhappy until his memories started returning.

I can see where after a few years of watching her enemy live a quiet, not entirely unhappy life while her own life wasn't any better, Regina might have started looking for ways to improve the situation. She might not be allowed to modify the curse ("Aha! Now you'll remember what you've lost, and you'll really suffer!") but she can try to give herself the things she took from Snow White. And that might be where adopting Henry came in.

[Jonah5]

But this kind of revenge, to want your enemy to suffer while keeping your enemy around so you can watch, but in a way that doesn't actually improve your situation, isn't the kind of thing you do if you think about it for five minutes. You might get a good "mwa ha ha ha!" moment out of it, but then you're likely to be left wondering if you sacrificed your father's life for this.

I would agree with this except for the fact that Regina had oodles of time to think it through. It didn't work the first time she cast it, so she had to go see Rumple and then murder her father. Not to mention that she shows up at Snow and Charming's wedding declaring she will cast a curse but it doesn't actually happen until after their baby is born. That's at least 9 months (assuming the Charmings didn't have premarital sex). But maybe she cast it after killing Daddy and it needed 9 months to reach full potency? I don't know. Either Regina is not as bright as she seems (possible) or she is seriously emotionally unstable (likely). I think the latter is what is causing people so much confusion in the episode threads when discussing her - why she would adopt and let outsiders in, etc. Emotionally unstable people don't act logically even if they are otherwise intelligent.

Edited by Jonah5, Dec 17, 2011 @ 4:00 PM.

[Shanna Marie]

Either Regina is not as bright as she seems (possible) or she is seriously emotionally unstable (likely). I think the latter is what is causing people so much confusion in the episode threads when discussing her - why she would adopt and let outsiders in, etc. Emotionally unstable people don't act logically even if they are otherwise intelligent.

That was kind of what I was getting at, in way too many words. The effects of the curse are so illogical that most reasonable people who put any thought into it whatsoever might imagine it but then go on to do something that makes more sense and that would actually make them happier. Yeah, we may allow ourselves a daydream of laughing gleefully while things go horribly wrong for someone we envy or dislike, but then when we think further, we realize that all the effort to bring that about wouldn't actually make us any happier, and then we go on with our lives, often with the "living well is the best revenge" idea. But the Evil Queen put a lot of thought and effort into this curse, had a second chance, and still was willing to sacrifice what last remaining scrap of happiness she had into bringing it about. Based on that, I don't think we can apply logic or reason to any of her other actions, whether they're pre-curse, like whatever reason she has to hate Snow White, or post-curse, like whyever she adopted Henry. Girlfriend is seriously off her rocker.

[tgrfan23]

I would agree with this except for the fact that Regina had oodles of time to think it through. It didn't work the first time she cast it, so she had to go see Rumple and then murder her father.

But she couldn't "think it through" - since the curse never actually took effect the first time she tried to cast it, she had no way of knowing exactly how the effects would play out once she finally got it right.

[ViciousCircle]

But the Evil Queen put a lot of thought and effort into this curse, had a second chance, and still was willing to sacrifice what last remaining scrap of happiness she had into bringing it about.

She clearly put alot of effort into it, but I don't think she put much thought into it. She didn't think of it as sacrificing her happiness; she believed it was her only chance at happiness, and I don't think she put any analysis into whether that even made sense or not. I think it was more of a four-year-old's thought process of "ooh, that's a pile of candy! I NEED THAT!" and broader concepts like details and long-term consequences didn't factor in her thinking at all.

I really hope they've already mapped out the rules of curse and more importantly how it gets broken.

But the curse is going to be a sinkhole in my opinion. The more you explain it, the more it requires explanation. And I think the only way to fully deal with it is going to make the rules and regulation of it slightly hazy, just like the town's memories. Plus it has 2 eras of "This is how it worked before Emma", and "This is how it works after Emma." So even whatever rules and regulations there were, are different now.

I think it's been mapped out fine already as far as how it works. They've explicitly stated that time was stopped. That suggests the cursees were existing without time, rather than in Groundhog Day style looped time, and the events of the show so far make sense in light of what it means for time to completely stop and what it means for it to start back up. I don't think the writers are being lazy about the curse, I think they're being ambitious. Take the time stop to its logical conclusion, and they are trying to tell a story using a concept - existence outside of spacetime - that can only be fully explained, if at all, through math. That's hard! And not necessarily a great idea, which they maybe should have learned from how well it worked for them in the last season of Lost. Still, I don't think their laziness has as much to do with it as their nerdiness. There seems to be as much thoughtful science and philosophy in the curse as magic, and I like that.

Edited by ViciousCircle, Dec 17, 2011 @ 10:18 PM.

[joanne3482]

They've explicitly stated that time was stopped. That suggests the cursees were existing without time, rather than in Groundhog Day style looped time, and the events of the show so far make sense in light of what it means for time to completely stop and what it means for it to start back up. I don't think the writers are being lazy about the curse, I think they're being ambitious. Take the time stop to its logical conclusion, and they are trying to tell a story using a concept - existence outside of spacetime - that can only be fully explained, if at all, through math. That's hard! And not necessarily a great idea, which they maybe should have learned from how well it worked for them in the last season of Lost. Still, I don't think their laziness has as much to do with it as their nerdiness. There seems to be as much thoughtful science and philosophy in the curse as magic, and I like that.

I do like the concept. I get that time was stopped, but that's what confuses me about Henry. He's clearly grown up from an infant to a child, so how did that work? He goes to school with kids his own age. I know he says that he is aware time was stopped because he pointed out if you asked a resident how long Regina's been mayor, the answer is "as long as I can remember" or something along those lines. But did Henry grow up with kids who don't grow up so he gets promoted to 1st grade and on while his classmates just hang out and keep staying their same age? If that were the case, wouldn't Henry have noticed? How would Regina notice that Henry was a baby one day and then suddenly 10? Clearly the adults aren't aging since Emma and Snow seem to be the same age. And how did the pregnant woman's pregnancy progress? Has she spent the last indeterminent amount of time just pregnant and then when time moved forward so did the fetus?

[Tzigone]

IMO, Henry did at some point become aware he was aging and others weren't. I do not know when that was, though. Really want more info on that.

Regina is not under the curse (but prevents aging or the appearance of aging via some other method, I guess), so she was always aware of Henry's aging. The other kids and adults in town just didn't notice that Henry moved forward/grew older and others did not, because of the curse affecting their minds.

Yes, Ashley seemingly stayed pregnant, without getting further along, for 28 years, until Emma decided to stay and time moved forward again - at which point everyone (possibly excluding Regina and Gold - ageless for other reasons), including the fetus, started aging again. At least, that's my understanding.

[MorninStar]

Ashley was at a similar stage of pregnancy as Ella (in Fairytale land) when Emma comes to Storybrooke, so I am willing to accept that the same child Ella was pregnant with in Fairytale is the same child (Alexandria) that Ashley gave birth to in Storybrooke. The pregnancy did not progress until Emma came to town and the clock moved.

However.. I'm trying to wrap my head around this time thing. If someone has a good explanation/example for the difference between the Ground hog day effect and time standing still, I'd appreciate it. I guess I am trying to work out how Henry (and anyone else not affected by the curse) would fit into this time warp issue. I can understand if time stood still for EVERYONE and they had false memories planted to simulate time passing.. but there is the question of Henry (if he is really Emma's son and not a construct of the curse). And if he is 'real' I can understand completely why he is convinced the curse is so real. It would be very obvious that he is growing/changing and everyone else is not.

I also question whether or not the Queen/Regina is not also subject to the time constraints of the curse herself, because by placing her happiness/her happy ending as a condition of the curse, I would not be surprised that she was subject to the time warp (for lack of a better word) conditions of the curse as well.

[joanne3482]

IMO, Henry did at some point become aware he was aging and others weren't. I do not know when that was, though. Really want more info on that.

Yes, that would be interesting, some flashbacks to Henry's childhood. Could you imagine a 5 year old Henry carrying on about how he was friends with "bryce" and now he's not because Bryce is still a baby? How do you even explain that to the kid? I'm having a hard time getting my head wrapped around this, did the kids have summer vacation? Did they celebrate Christmas or do they only think they ever did since they would have vague referrals to last Christmas we did that. Is this why Henry seemingly has no friends? And now that I'm oddly obsessed, did they receive mail from the outside? Who provides their food and electricity? How did their fashions change to more modern styles?

[Aliasscape]

I explain it to myself this way. I went over a few different ideas in my head such as the broken clock, which made me wonder okay, did the grass grow? Did stuff wear out and break? But I realized the clock must have been the exception and everything else wore out and grew normally. Old cars, clothes and appliances likely wore out and fell apart. The queen could grow apples from a tree. So to me, rather than the town/plants/objects being kept static, they progressed as normal. The curse is on the people, rather than the place. (I believe it does something to the people to keep them from leaving Storybrooke of course.) You can't live the same day over and over again if the wind blows different, the weather can change, the grass can grow, cars can break and food can be grown.

"The Shepherd" revealed to us pretty clearly that the curse didn't enact 28 years ago but hasn't done a thing since. The curse is self- correcting. It gave David memories when he needed them once he was out of the coma. If they remained with everything out of date then they'd realize something was wrong all the time and outsiders would note more of the oddities, so the curse allowed for enough contact with the outside world for their fashions/electronics and such to become updated.

The rest I'll repost from what I put in the Shepherd thread a couple months back:

I assume most people figure it's been like 5-10 years. Dr. Whale was so concerned when David got away and said "He's been on feeding tubes for years!" I kind of imagine the curse works in such a way that anything that happens to call their attention to it, is forgotten. So the thought process is a bit, "Wow, Henry is the only boy who is leaving my class--oh look at that lovely blue bird."

"John Doe sure hasn't suffered much muscle atrophied for someone lying in a coma for years-oh hope the cafeteria lunch today isn't Salisbury steak again."

"I feel like I've been pregnant forever--oh rats, wrecked the sheets AGAIN!" I kind of imagine Ashley might have been more absent minded than most actually since she had probably had to be kept in the deepest haze not to realize her pregnancy wasn't progressing.

And so in Katheryn's case. "Oh goodness, David left me. Why hasn't he at least called? Maybe I should get around to putting out an ad and filing divorce papers and get on with my life since it's been so many year--Wow I miss the windmill in the front yard."

I think it's a situation of the more you try and look into the haze, the hazier things will become. You can't "realize" XYZ happened to Henry and not to you. Any attempt to do so would make you completely forget what you were thinking about anyway.

[Tzigone]

However.. I'm trying to wrap my head around this time thing. If someone has a good explanation/example for the difference between the Ground hog day effect and time standing still, I'd appreciate it. I guess I am trying to work out how Henry (and anyone else not affected by the curse) would fit into this time warp issue. I can understand if time stood still for EVERYONE and they had false memories planted to simulate time passing.. but there is the question of Henry (if he is really Emma's son and not a construct of the curse). And if he is 'real' I can understand completely why he is convinced the curse is so real. It would be very obvious that he is growing/changing and everyone else is not.

Yes, I do think that was a big red flag for Henry. He's most likely told this is normal, but it isn't and the older he gets, the more he'll realize that. I would say they do get tv and electricity and deliveries from out of town, but I wouldn't bet money on it. However, we do know Emma's things were delivered, Henry has Internet, Mary Margaret has a working credit card, etc. Also, there might be a bus line that stops there. I imagine they get power and such because the curse integrated them into this world, but again, I wouldn't bet on it.

I explain it to myself this way. I went over a few different ideas in my head such as the broken clock, which made me wonder okay, did the grass grow? Did stuff wear out and break? But I realized the clock must have been the exception and everything else wore out and grew normally. Old cars, clothes and appliances likely wore out and fell apart. The queen could grow apples from a tree. So to me, rather than the town/plants/objects being kept static, they progressed as normal. The curse is on the people, rather than the place. (I believe it does something to the people to keep them from leaving Storybrooke of course.) You can't live the same day over and over again if the wind blows different, the weather can change, the grass can grow, cars can break and food can be grown.

Exactly Aliasscape. From my perspective, it's more time didn't stop, the residents did. Time progresses around them, but they don't age or change. New clothes, new fashions, new technology, but without awareness that it hasn't always been this way. As Henry said, the curse keeps them in a haze (which is also why they don't realize they aren't changing and Henry is).

[MorninStar]

Confusing, but I think I can understand that. I'll have to ponder on it some more. I have noticed that the gas prices listed are from the early 1960's, I'd guess.. but I saw prices for something else (Granny's diner maybe?) and those prices were in-line with today's prices.

[ViciousCircle]

Here's how I think everything works and how Henry, Regina, Gold and Emma fit into the time issue.

Okay, so the curse happens. Time stops for the cursees, so no space either. They don't exist in a physical Storybrooke, but their conciousness exists, and does so both in an individual sense and a collective sense. That collective consciousness IS Storybrooke for the cursees. On an individual basis, the curse causes each person's consciousness to take their memories from a time when they were particularly unhappy, and twist that memory into a new version of their pasts, like a funhouse mirror for memories. So Ashley remembers she owes Gold her kid, because that's what was her unhappy time as Ella, Mary Margaret remembers she can't have love beacuse that's what was happening to Snow at her low point, David remembers he was committed to a woman he doesn't love, as James was at his low point, etc. Because James was unconscious when the curse hit, the memory didn't take till he came out of his "coma" and it was slow to take hold, but it still worked the way it would have from the start had he not been unconscious. They have a consciousness of certain professions, but no detailed knowledge of those professions, which is why once they get into the physical world, they will suck at any job requiring specialized or modern knowledge, like medicine or law enforcement or kid-from-mine extraction. Prior to time starting, none of their interactions with each other are happening in the physical world, but instead happening on the level of extra-corporal consciousness only. It's not a physical reality, but it is a reality, and they don't know the difference anyway.

Regina, Gold and Henry aren't subject to the time stop and therefore exist in physical space. But they and Emma each also have a connection to the cursees, either by knowing them in Fairy Tale Land or being related, so they are part of the cursees' collective consciousness. Therefore, they can slip into and out of the cursees' reality and interact with them in the realm of pure consciousness. They don't even know the difference - our perceptions are our reality. Or as Henry put it when Emma told him believing something doesn't make it real, that's EXACTLY what makes it real. Or to put it another way, the are separated from the cursees' reality by a veil so thin, they don't notice when they pass through it. Anyone who isn't connected to the cursees can't go to Storybrooke, because they can't connect to that collective consciousness. For those people, it's more of a (metaphorical) steel wall than a thin veil between the worlds.

Time starts for the cursees, and so does space, and so the cursees' reality now manifests physically. Now Ella/Ashley can have her baby. A FedEx guy can bring Emma her Sonic Youth albums. Good scotch and real Honeycrisps can be delivered. Gas prices are low, but that's a function of low demand, since the cursees still can't leave town. The curse has lost it's hold on time, but not it's hold on their psyches, as expressed through their false memories.

Gold, as the creator of the curse, he knows exactly how it works on every level, and designed it so that he could always do whatever he pleases. So he can come and go between Storybrooke, Fairy Tale Land, and our world at will and that's how Henry got there. Regina only understands the curse in broad strokes and only cares anyway if it pertains to her objectives. She could probably go to Paris if she wanted to, but it wouldn't occur to her. Storybrooke is her realm and its people her obsession. Paris isn't real to her. Henry can obviously leave, and I think Emma can, too, but she has to believe she should, and she has to keep her eyes on the damn road so she can see wolves just standing in the road. The curse has a pull on Emma to stay and play the hero role, but she could choose to reject that role and leave if she truly wanted.

Edited by ViciousCircle, Jan 13, 2012 @ 11:45 PM.

[Aliasscape]

Now it seemed according to the pilot, until Emma decided to stay in Storybrooke (grabbing the hotel room key) time did not move. So did Emma's consciousness take her and Henry's consciousness to Storybrooke and she only physically appeared there when she grabbed her room key?

[ViciousCircle]

Not the way I see it. She and Henry are always physically existing, since they were never under the curse that stopped time. Their consciousness can go into the non-physical reality of the cursees, but Emma, Henry and Gold and Regina are always in physical space. Sort of like when you slip into a daydream - your body is still fully engaged in the physical world, you're breathing and ageing etc, but your mind is elsewhere. Only for Emma and Henry, there are other people having the same daydream who ONLY exist in the daydream (pre-time restart), the line between daydreaming and not is so thin they don't know when they cross it, and the daydream is truly as real as the "real" world.

That thing about Emma needing to choose to stay in Storybrooke (take on the hero role) in order for time to restart is why I think she could also choose to abandon the role if she wanted to, and if that were her true choice, she could leave. She won't, of course. But I think she could.

Edited by ViciousCircle, Jan 14, 2012 @ 12:43 AM.

[MorninStar]

OK Vicious Circle.. I can buy most of that.. I think. Especially your first paragraph. I can understand how that would work for the cursees if EVERYONE was a cursee but I'm still not convinced how someone like Henry could exist and grow in a place like that for 10 years. And I'm not convinced that Madame Mayor is not a 'victim' of her own curse, 'warped' time-wise speaking. If the cursees existed only via consciousness (which could make sense) what/who/how would they (those not affected by the curse) be able to interact with those who are a part of the physical world?. (I'll ponder on it)

***

However, just for the sake of what the show might be trying to get us to think about...

The gas prices.. I don't buy that low demand would make the prices low. At first I thought that perhaps it was just an old sign from a closed station and no one had changed it.. but I saw the gas sign in 2 separate episodes and the price had been changed. So, someone consciously changed the price of gas.

However.. and I suppose I'll have to go back & look for it.. there was something else that had prices and it was a 'modern' price/an expected price for that item in todays world in Storybrooke. I would think the price thing would apply across the board. There certainly are some loophole issues that I doubt will be explained, as they are not really important to the story that is being told.

**great question Aliasscape.

[Aliasscape]

Not the way I see it. She and Henry are always physically existing,

What I don't follow is then WHERE do Regina, Henry and Mr. Gold physically exist AT until Storybrooke came into physical reality? I'm starting to imagine some kind of Inception mockup where you wake up inside a hangar somewhere, though you've been running around and up to all kinds of stuff within your head.

Are they in the physical location to be occupied by Storybrooke, Maine when it comes into being? And yeah, you can daydream all day, but if you don't physically get up and go eat or move around whatever on a regular basis, your body would cease to physically function. If you don't know the difference, how do you know if you really ate an apple or just THINK you ate an apple? (Basically, how do you not accidentally starve yourself to death?) Or does the curse allow them to perhaps hang out in a storage hangar or vacant field (or whatever) daydreaming for 28 years without consequence for not moving or eating?

Edited by Aliasscape, Jan 14, 2012 @ 1:02 AM.

[ViciousCircle]

Ooh, I'm glad you found the gas price change, I looked for it but couldn't find it. I was joking about the low demand, I figured props just forgot to change the price. The prices at Granny's are definitely consistent with our time now. I couldn't find a clear shot of them in early episodes that showed any prices to compare to.

As far as how Henry et al are communicating with the cursees and vice versa, it's a matter of communicating on a different level. Have you ever seen someone talking in their sleep in the midst of what is clearly a dream, and then you ask them questions and they answer while still asleep and in context of the dream they are having? Kind of like that. You are communicating with them and they are communicating with you, but you're in totally different states. Sort of, but not exactly, like that.

As far as how they wouldn't know what state they were in, and go between states without knowing the difference, I think of it like this. I regularly have dreams (and hopefully I'm not alone in this or I'm going to feel like a total freak) in which I go through a more or less normal day, but with something that didn't actually happen occuring in the dream, until finally in the dream I go to bed. When I then really wake up, it's almost impossible to tell that the thing that didn't really happen was part of the dream and didn't really happen, because the rest of the dream was just like my normal real day and the dream ended seemlessly with what I was really doing (sleeping). The line between them is super thin, so waking life and dreaming life meld together. I think of it being kind of like that for Henry (and the other uncursed) when he enters the collective consciousness of the cursees. He doesn't know it's not a physical reality and that it's only his "mind" that goes there, and since he is still always physically existing, he grows and ages normally. He's lonely, sure, like any kid who doesn't have friends his age, and once he's old enough to question how others don't age, he'd start to get very confused. At first he'd probably think there was something wrong with him - he's the abnormal one. I figure the book came into his life exactly when he needed to get some answers. He's only ten, after all. Most of his life he'd have just believed whatever Regina told him, like little kids do.

Alias, I think they'd be in the physical space to be occupied by Storybrooke. And yeah, for Henry, Regina etc, when they get the physical feeling of hunger, they physically eat. They aren't unaware of their own bodies.Maybe another way to think of it is they can span the two states of existence simultaneously because they are intrinsically connected to both. When physical needs come up, they notice because they aren't ever leaving their bodies, and they take care of those needs like anyone else. They aren't just slumped in a chair all day. For example, if Henry wants to take a walk, he takes a walk, and while physically doing so he's connected to the collective consciousness, in which, say, Mary Margaret is also taking her version of a walk and they join up. Neither he nor Mary Margaret knows she is not physically present, they experience the walk the same way, but for Henry when he gets tired it's because he's physically tired, and he'll physically go home and get some sleep, and for Mary Margaret the experience of tiredness is all in her consciousness.

Edited by ViciousCircle, Jan 14, 2012 @ 2:18 AM.

[MorninStar]

OK.. I just did a quick scan of the episodes (I know, I know.. obsess much? :P )

In the pilot episode there is no gas price on the sign. In 'The Heart is a lonely Hunter' it is .15 9/10.. and, although I couldn't find it on my 'quick' scan of the episodes, I am almost sure I noticed it being .37 or something in one of the episodes. The other price I noticed was in the laundry room when Emma met Ashley. To use the washer or dryer was $1.25 each, soap or bleach was $1.50, a more 'modern' price than the gas. Not that it's a big deal.. just a curiousity. I'm wondering if it is meaningful in some way or trying to clue us in to..?? something.

There were also a few other things I picked up that fits in with your theory Vicious Circle.. in the pilot episode Henry says,
"Time's frozen here."
Although I also noticed that Dr. Hopper noticed that Henry had missed his session (oh! This time thing is really messing with my head!)
It doesn't seem that a working credit card (Mary Margarets) would fit in with this time thing..but I suppose in a curse.. they can make it work in whatever way they wish.


In Episode 2, Emma paraphrases Henrys theory of the town curse by saying (the people of Storybrooke are) "... walking around in a haze, not aging, for decades with cursed memories." Henry confirms this is correct.

Perhaps unrelated, I also noticed that when David was in Mr. Golds shop and David asked about the windmill and where Mr. Gold got it Mr. Gold says "That old thing's been gathering dust forever." For some reason I found that an interesting remark coming from Mr. Gold, in a shop full of really old things.

And since this thread deals with magic/curses/enchantments.. in my run-though I found the exchange between CinderElla and Mr. Gold (when he 'kills' Ella's fairy Godmother & retrieves her wand) very interesting in light of Rumpelstiltskins transformation to the dark one. He tells Emma that she cannot handle the magic of the wand & that she wouldn't know how to use it. He seems as if he is going to leave but Ella begs for help.. that she'll do anything. He warns her that magic comes with a price & that she'd be better off without it and to do what she can to improve her own life for herself (words that Emma echoes to Ashley in Storybrooke). Rumpel did not seem to feel that the 'fairy Godmother' was really doing Ella a 'favor' at all. Is Rumpel trying to collect all of the items of magic in Fairytale land?

[ViciousCircle]

OK.. I just did a quick scan of the episodes (I know, I know.. obsess much? :P )

HAHA. I just spent twenty minutes googling "cinnamon" in search of a deeper meaning to a freaking SPICE so I know what you mean. It was used in the holy annointing oil of biblical kings, btw, which could be referencing... Oh my god. Stop, me.

I don't know about the credit card thing. I suspect Gold of engineering that whole thing. It's really stretching credibilty too far for me to think the curse worked on such a level of detail as to give these people valid social security numbers and credit histories, so how could there be real credit cards?

Rumpel did not seem to feel that the 'fairy Godmother' was really doing Ella a 'favor' at all. Is Rumpel trying to collect all of the items of magic in Fairytale land?

Oooh, I like that. It ties in very well to something posted in spec about Rumpel creating the curse to end all curses in order to literally end curses - eliminate magic. Like he started out just trying to eradicate magic one piece at a time, but then came up with the curse to do it all in one big final stand.

Edited by ViciousCircle, Jan 14, 2012 @ 3:04 AM.

[MorninStar]

Rumpel did not seem to feel that the 'fairy Godmother' was really doing Ella a 'favor' at all. Is Rumpel trying to collect all of the items of magic in Fairytale land?
*****
Oooh, I like that. It ties in very well to something posted in spec about Rumpel creating the curse to end all curses in order to literally end curses - eliminate magic. Like he started out just trying to eradicate magic one piece at a time, but then came up with the curse to do it all in one big final stand.

I saw that theory.. and I like it.

As for cinnamon.. (bahahahaha!) I think it is supposed to give us a feel for a true familial connection between Emma, Henry & Mary Margaret.. to 'solidify' that it's a 'real' connection.

OOooooh!!! Look what I found about cinnamon!!!!

Cinnamon
There are two kinds of cinnamon. Cinnamomum zeylanicum is called true cinnamon and is native to Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon. The other is from the cassia tree, which grows in Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Central America. This is the cinnamon used in North America. It is more bitter than Ceylon cinnamon.
Cinnamon was used in ancient Chinese medicine for the treatment of fever, diarrhea and menstrual problems. It was also used as incense in Chinese temples. When the Egyptians discovered it, cinnamon was included in their embalming process. Its oil was used in ancient Hebrew anointing rituals. In biblical times, cinnamon was used as a perfume, a spice and to treat indigestion.
In the Middle Ages, Arabs brought cinnamon and other spices from Asia to Egypt on caravan trade routes. They concocted stories to hide the source of the cinnamon to justify its scarcity and cost. The mythical cinnamologus bird originated from this practice. The Arabs claimed that the bird made its nests of cinnamon sticks in Arabia, but they didn't know from where the bird brought them. Obtaining the cinnamon required dislodging the birds from their perilous, cliff-hanging nests by various heroic means.
At the start of the Middle Ages, Pliny the Elder wrote that 350 grams of cinnamon were worth 5,000 grams of silver. Only the wealthy and powerful had access to the spice.
In 65 A.D., Roman Emperor Nero is said to have burned a year's supply of cinnamon at his wife's funeral, possibly in remorse for having caused her death.
Cinnamon was once used to help preserve meat, and to mask the odor of its aging.
Cinnamon, along with grape vines and ivy, is a sacred plant of Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstasy. The Phoenix, the bird that rises from its ashes in mythology, uses cinnamon, myrrh and spikenard to build the magic fire in which it is reborn.
Medicinally, cinnamon has been used at one time or another as a remedy for coughs and sore throats; for the common cold and flu; for uterine problems; and for what 12th century German abbess/herbalist Hildegard of Bingen called "inner decay of slime."
The Egyptian queen Cleopatra was famous for her use of seductive oils and scents, and no doubt employed cinnamon oil in her arsenal. It has had its uses in love potions as well.

Henry was born in Phoenix. Some feel that Henry (son) is reborn from the ashes of Henry's (Queen's Father) heart.

Edited by MorninStar, Jan 14, 2012 @ 3:11 AM.