When Lucy knocked on Henry’s door, we were shown the story has come full circle. Taking a look back at the beginning of the story could give us an idea of what’s coming next.
Once Upon a Time
There was an enchanted forest filled with all the classic characters we know.
Or think we know.
The show opens on these words. The entire first season took the fairy tales that everyone knows and then showed us that we didn’t have all the information - or that in some cases we simply had the wrong information. The victor always gets to write history. Whether it’s your childhood bullies who told everyone what to think about you or your president controlling the media, no story - be it fiction or non-fiction - that doesn’t have another side to it.
The fun part was that the stories they subverted were so well-known they didn’t have to show them first. We could jump right in and our knowledge of Red Riding Hood, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty was used to challenge our thinking or surprise us with the most unexpected twists.
Six years later they can start the cycle again, except this time they can shed a new light on their own fairy tale. If there are two sides to every story, then surely there must be another side to the story we just saw. If we thought we knew the fairy tale characters of the olden days and actually didn’t, then maybe we’re about to find out that we don’t really know Emma Swan, Regina Mills, Killian Jones, Mr Gold and all their stories all that well either.
The person who didn’t get the best of deals in this story was Regina. Even if she was Emma’s personal villain, from another perspective things were a little more nuanced. We saw that Emma was finally able to distinguish between Regina and the Evil Queen in the end. After the dwarves bowed for her, we were treated to a very interesting shot. The world turned upside down, suggesting we are going to see the other side of the story next. The apple was held out to the audience. We have been under this curse along with Emma. Are we all ready for the forbidden knowledge of the apple? Ready to take a bite out of the other side of the story? Can we handle consciousness? Are we ready to get to know the real Regina and see her side of the story?
Regina has been associated with the light more than once. She was the Purveyor of the strongest light magic who defeated Zelena. She was the one who sparked Emma’s insights before she lit Prometheus’ flame, literally asking Emma if she needed a light. Regina’s weapon of choice is a fireball. Regina represents the realm of the conscious, of awareness, of seeing. Light is what you let in when you wake up and open your eyes.
Look who appears right when Emma’s mind has learned to distinguish between Regina and the Evil Queen. Lucy. That wouldn’t be significant, would it?
LUCY || ORIGIN
Oh.
Lucy’s name means light. It seems like we’ll be getting Regina’s real story through Lucy, but why is she a child?
Now that Emma has accepted her own mortality, she can continue her journey back to our world without a cold hard and sudden reality check - like the asylum represented. She accepted she was on the brink of death and incapable of living in our world because she suffered a brain injury. She didn’t run from reality like she feared she did. Instead she truly clawed her way back to life, she really fought, she really is the Savior - a hero. As a reward she can continue on her journey back to conscious reality in a gentle way. It seems like her reality and the conscious world will slowly start matching up, but we are still getting reality presented through metaphor.
Lucy is a child to represent young Regina and to symbolize Emma learning who Regina really is as they start over. Her youthfulness also represents the beginning of coming back to consciousness.
Within her journey, Emma still wants a love story like that of her fairy tale parents. Her granddaughter is the one to tell her love story, just like her son told the love story of his grandparents. Lucy’s off to a great start because all the moments of the new story were fairy tale retellings of the crucial moments in Emma & Regina’s shared past.
Let’s start with the easiest one. The scene where Lucy knocks on Henry’s door. It’s the moment where Emma & Regina became Henry’s mothers merged into one moment. The 815 is a reference to Henry’s birthday; August 15th. Lucy represents Regina who comes to adopt baby Henry. At the same time it’s a throwback to 10-year-old Henry finding Emma and taking her to - what she now considers - her family. Lucy’s line - “Your family needs you.” - is hindsight knowledge. Emma considers Henry and Regina her family, but they both needed Henry to bring their family together. The family quite literally needs Henry to exist in its current form.
A less obvious part of Emma & Regina’s past is hidden behind the story of Henry sending Lucy away with the storybook. We’ve seen this story play out twice before. Geppetto sent Pinocchio away to protect him, Kurt did the same for Owen. Now Henry is doing the same with Lucy.
In all three cases, the child is given something to look after. In Pinocchio’s case it’s baby Emma, Owen gets a scoubidou keychain and Lucy gets the magical book. Now that Emma has accepted consciousness, she’s finally allowing the truth. The 7-year-old-boy that found her, the one she had been looking for her entire life was… a girl. Lucy represents young Regina who was the one to save baby Emma - as we’ve talked about here. All of Emma’s memories are stored in her subconscious mind, even the ones from when she was a newborn, a mechanism that was explained when Gold remembered his mother. Emma remembers Regina being abandoned by her father because she was there. It would also explain why we saw the Evil Queen crush Henry Senior’s heart early on. Emma’s subconscious put the pieces together right away, as on some level Emma already knew Henry was named after Regina’s father.
Tiger Lily tells Lucy she ‘just needs to learn the lesson imparted by this book.’ Emma literally is the book during The Final Battle. The realms fall apart while the book burns and as Emma is resurrected the book returns. All this time Emma’s life has been much like a story Regina & Henry had to piece together through research and by talking to people. Regina learned the lessons imparted by Emma’s life stories. Emma’s presence was a catalyst for change. They made Regina a better person. Tiger Lily represents the future that has already happened. While losing her father was one of the most traumatic moments in young Regina’s life, the baby her father asked her to take care of grew up, gave birth to her son and changed her life.
Another shared element between the stories is the destroyed campsite. Kurt & Owen’s story canonically takes place on the day Emma was born. Owen’s keychain looks like a strand of DNA and it was passed on through generations. Emma’s DNA plays an important role throughout the story.
‘Welcome to Storybrooke’ takes on a new meaning if it represents Regina walking around in her own past, remembering her father and unable to save her younger self.
So here we are, ready to tell the story of consciousness. Ready for the next chapter, for a new book. Emma crossed back into our world, we’re going to the city. We’re ready to put the pieces of the past and the present back together. She’s crossed the threshold. Consciousness is awareness. She is finally aware of her own reality, she is ready for the truth.
It’s in that light we need to see the image of the Last Supper. It’s the night before the Saviour is betrayed and killed. It makes sense for Emma to disappear from her own story for a while. She is aware of the fact she is coming out of a vegetative state. We may see her under a sleeping curse, stuck in a world of fairy tales in this new story because she has that accepted reality. Lucky for us, though, Saviours tend to be resurrected…
158 Notes/ Hide
- emma-danvers liked this
- hyakumamipipupopu liked this
- r-rk liked this
- atacarejo liked this
- gay-garbage-fire liked this
- mycurly262 liked this
- ofmelandtippi liked this
- nore-madison liked this
- satansfavoritedyke liked this
- jerriemebabe liked this
- evenwolvesdream reblogged this from operation-out
- evenwolvesdream liked this
- crmsncrwndknght reblogged this from operation-out
- vileplumedances reblogged this from operation-out
- vileplumedances liked this
- cinnimonspider liked this
- jatz13 liked this
- swan-mills-charmings liked this
- still-worship-this-love reblogged this from anothershadeofpurple
- onceuponagreatrunner reblogged this from operation-out
- sweetradiantqueen liked this
- pressuredrightnow reblogged this from crmsncrwndknght
- xdiogar liked this
- uhm-uhhhhhhhhhhh liked this
- nobodys6irl liked this
- crmsncrwndknght liked this
- mygirlfriendhasthebestback liked this
- junetree44 liked this
- anothershadeofpurple reblogged this from operation-out
- a55555jo said: this is amazing!
- occullta-blog liked this
- mizhuin liked this
- wolfie-bee reblogged this from anothershadeofpurple
- wolfie-bee liked this
- diamond-out-of-hell liked this
- rosaparksismysoulmate liked this
- trinityraven99 reblogged this from swanqueenisendgameyo
- operation-out posted this
- Show more notes