Character development is a vital and important part of any television show, which makes for great stories. Without depth, characters have no motivation or direction to go, therefore the story has no movement or progression throughout. Some pretty great television shows that involve ideal transformation are shows like Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some shows that involve fairly decent transformations, but lack character development are shows like How I Met Your Mother, House MD, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Chuck, and Psych.
As one can see, character development is not easy if not done properly.
Once Upon a Time is great at character transformation. They've been successful enough to guide slowly through the seasons, starting their characters off as they are and transforming them through experiences. Emma Swan started off as an orphan. She was an abandoned, yet tough female lead and has now transformed into a more compassionate, selfless woman who loves her family and takes big leaps of faith, believing in the ones she loves. Emma proved that by making the sacrifice she did at the end of season four when she took on the Dark One, knowing full well her family would find a way to save her.
Regina and Henry are also two successful characters with phenomenal transformations so far. As well as Captain Hook and Rumplestiltskin.
However, the characters need pivotal moments and challenges to push them in the right direction to make big decisions that affect how the audience perceives them. Aside from character development, any good television show knows to have their best kept secrets. Audiences love a good puzzle along the way!
Some of Once Upon a Time's most successful stories throughout the series so far are because the writers were able to throw some curveballs at the audience. For this particular entry, I've chosen some of the highlight moments throughout the series that are considered some of the best kept secrets revealed in the show.
10. Marian is actually Zelena.
In Season Three, Hook and Emma went through a portal that took them back in time to when Snow and Charming met for the first time. While Emma was captured by Regina and imprisoned, she met a prisoner there named Marian, Robin Hood's wife. Emma freed Marian and in an effort to save her from Regina's death sentence, Hook and Emma brought Marian along back to Storybrooke. Later on, the audience discovers that the Wicked Witch herself killed Marian and took on her face, pretending to be her the whole time. It was an exciting reveal in Season Four to find out that Zelena had been playing Robin Hood and Regina and not only that, Zelena ended up pregnant with Robin Hood's baby, which will make for an interesting story in Season Five.
9. Zelena is Pregnant With Robin Hood's Baby
Zelena might be an acquired taste for some audience members, but envy has never looked so good on an actress. Rebecca Mader came in on Season Three as the Wicked Witch from Oz, but this was no focused character on Dorothy or the Great and Powerful. Once Upon a Time does this right and brings Zelena in as an important villain, but not necessarily to Emma, but to Regina. From a standard heroes versus villain standpoint, sure, Emma Swan and her heroic parents are always fighting evil, but it was an interesting twist to see Regina had her first official enemy as a budding hero herself. In Season Four, the fans thought Zelena was dead, but as she resurfaced as Robin Hood's "technically dead wife", Marian, she also surprised Regina with another bomb in the form of a baby. Zelena is pregnant with Robin Hood's unborn child and now it puts an interesting wedge between Robin Hood and Regina, but makes for an interesting story heading into Season Five.
8. Neal/Baelfire Plot
Once fans had the pleasure of falling in love for almost two whole seasons with Michael-Raymond James. Coming into season two, audiences began seeing a back story for Emma when she was eighteen and in love with a man named Neal Cassidy, a fellow bandit type, who boosted cars and other fun items. Fans were also aware that Rumplestiltskin lost a young boy named Baelfire through a portal to a land without magic. When Emma and Mr. Gold traveled to New York City in the middle of season two to help track down Gold's son, Baelfire, fans got to be surprised just as much as Emma was when she discovered that Rumplestiltskin's son was in fact, the one she truly loved, Neal Cassidy. Fans found out that Neal hadn't known Emma was the daughter of Snow and Charming, but found out from Pinocchio while dating her and left her alone to fulfill her destiny. Neal had his memories and in fact, desperately wanted to avoid Rumple, but not only that, fans got to enjoy the whole plot twist even more when Neal also turned out to be Henry's biological father and they were reunited as father and son. Neal's story had been fun to watch unfold throughout the span of two seasons, when Baelfire experienced a lot throughout his childhood and connected with many characters. Baelfire fell through the portal to London, where he met Wendy Darling and her brothers and ended up traveling to Neverland. Baelfire met Captain Hook there, worked on his ship for a while, also discovering that Hook was the one who his mother, Milah, left with. Baelfire played an important role in season three as the one who helped get the entire group off the island in Neverland and officially freed from Peter Pan, but also the reason that the Dark One was able to return. Neal was a hero, very selfless, the moment he came back into Emma's life, but perhaps the most enjoyable dynamic was how strong-minded he was towards his father.
The dagger could control The Dark One, but fans also got to see a different side of Rumple. Neal was able to get his father to do anything out of love rather than make deals or try and trick people Neal cared about. Unfortunately, while fans had the chance to fall for this lovely hero, the writers took Neal away, but not without honor. He died saving his father's life, protecting Emma from the Wicked Witch.
7. Regina's Soulmate
6. Lily and Emma
5. One Big Messed Up Family: Cora, Regina, & Zelena
4. Snow Queen was Emma's Foster Mom
3. The Savior is Dark
2.Peter Pan is Who Now?!
Cora & Regina might be amateurs when it comes to family dysfunction. The expert category goes to Rumplestiltskin and his father.
Perhaps one of the coolest secrets to reveal itself back in Season 3 was that Peter Pan was Rumplestiltskin's father. The reason I say this, and I will go personal here, my father had never watched the show before. He caught some episodes of season four, which isn't good for someone who doesn't watch it from the beginning. It gets very hard to understand when you don't know the back story of a show like this one. Since he hopped into season four, I took him back through the whole show and we recently got to the episode before Pan is killed. My father knows a few secrets about the show, but going into Season 3, I knew that telling my father that Peter Pan was Rumple's dad was too good a secret to share, so I didn't tell him how Rumple knew Pan. When the episode finally came to reveal that Pan was Rumple's father, my dad's reaction was priceless, yet again proving my theory about how most fans reacted to that big secret reveal when the show first aired the episode.
The Peter Pan/Rumple father and son relationship was one of the most exciting reveals in the series, also proving that Rumple has a really messed up personality from the beginning, not just because he became the Dark One. Rumple was afraid to tell Baelfire because Rumple didn't want to be like his father. See, now Peter Pan was a jerk. In fact, possibly one of the best villains on the show. He wasn't wicked like the witch or downright cruel like Cruella. Pan was a manipulative little ass with psychopath written all over. In the original Pan story, Hook was the good guy and Pan was bad, but Once makes Pan look like Hannibal Lector in my opinion. My father, after a few episodes, already wanted Peter Pan dead, he's just that good of a villain. Of course, Robbie Kay is a phenomenal actor.
No. The solution for Pan is not putting him in the time out corner. Rumple got to be the hero. It was a nice touch.
1.
You know what's great? A 10-year-old boy got on a bus with a fairy tale book to go to Boston to find his biological mother and bring her to a town in Maine to break a curse cast by an Evil Queen that trapped all of the fairy tale characters with no memories of their real identities.
You know what's even cooler? A boy was taken through a portal by two people to a magical land run by an evil little boy named Peter Pan and discovered that he had the heart of the truest believer and could save magic from being destroyed, make pixie dust work, and create things out of thin air simply because he believed in magic more than anyone.
You know what's absolutely phenomenal?! That boy grew up believing good always wins, true love conquers all, and hope is the most powerful thing to hold onto.
Henry Mills isn't part of the fairy tale world, but by far, one of the best characters on the show. Henry has the love of not one, but two mothers willing to do anything for him. It's Henry's ability to love and forgive and see the best in everyone that transforms the people around him. Henry is fearless and downright cool. Though for three seasons, he didn't fit in quite well into the fairy tale world, but was a part of it in a big way. I mean, how cool is that you're the grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming? Your dad was the son of the Dark One, okay, maybe that's not the best thing, but Henry is the product of darkness and light. His biological mother is the Savior, his foster mother is an Evil Queen, and Henry has the heart of the truest believer. For one little boy, could also be the undoing of Rumplestiltskin.
Yes, it's true. Henry has had a great life, but in one of my favorite episodes with Regina, Henry was worried about Emma struggling with her powers after she hurt him in the forest. Henry told Regina that "I couldn't do anything because I'm just ordinary." Little did the fans know, the writers had a way to transform Henry into an extraordinary character in the end of the season.
In season four, Henry was on a mission to find Regina her happiness. Going on this adventure, they found an author who ended up betraying the entire cast and writing his own version of fairy tales by making the heroes into villains and villains into heroes. Henry was the only one unaffected by this parallel universe because he wasn't a fairy tale, so instead of letting that stop him, Henry faced the author and found his way to the alternate realm and tracked down Regina to help her save Emma. Henry and Emma found each other with Hook's assistance, once again, proving Henry to be one of the strongest characters in the show, only to have Regina sacrifice herself for her son in the end.
Writers held onto the best kept secret in the series for probably a whole season, knowing full well they were going to give Henry a great gift. Henry picked up the pen and was appointed the new author of all happy endings. See, now if you don't follow the show or do, obviously season four became about finding out who the author was. In season one, Snow White gave Henry a book called Once Upon a Time with all of the fairy tale stories in it, but they were true. A sorcerer's apprentice appointed a new author every so often to write down these stories of truth about the fairy tale characters' lives. In the season four finale, Henry was appointed the new author of those stories.
Though Henry broke the quill, now that Emma is dark, there is no telling what season five will bring for Henry. He has a new destiny and a big influence on what happens, which I'm excited to see unfold for one of my favorite characters on the show.
So how about it then?
What were some of your favorite best kept secrets on Once Upon a Time?
Season Five of Once Upon a Time airs on September 27th at 8/7c on ABC
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