Jefferson's Houses

Jefferson is and (barring any disastrous falling out between Mr Stan and Marvel) likely to remain a mysterious figure. He appears to possess a rare ability, one that can't be easily learned by other magic-users (Regina can operate the hat, but doesn't seem comfortable with it).

At one point he used this power in a mercenary fashion, taking commissions from Rumplestiltskin to collect magic items. This employment somehow led to his wife's death. After Regina leaves his house, the camera lingers on what appears to be a memorial.

 

 

Granny's Diner/B&B

Original post title: Where Everybody Knows Your Name (originally posted 24 Feb 2015)

We come into the home stretch of the hiatus with one of the most forthright uses of place as symbol in OUaT, with the result that this one is going to be short. Granny's might just as well have been called The Community Diner. Scenes are generally set there to highlight issues that pertain to group belonging.

We see this as early as 1.04, when Regina sits down to tell Emma that, "People don't change, they only fool themselves into believing they do" and that Emma is the sort of person who will never put down roots. It is here that Emma meets Ashley, the first person besides Henry who involves her in Storybrooke affairs. In S2, Mary Margaret and David argue about whether to return "home" to the Enchanted Forest in the diner, not their own dwelling.

Emma's Apartment (Boston)

(This was the first one I wrote in this series when originally posted to Tumblr.)

To celebrate my return from the Land of the Virally-Stricken, and to dip a toe into the kind of thing I'm going to be doing long-form during the hiatus, here's the first of many potential posts on the spaces that make up Once Upon a Time.

We'll start with Emma Swan's apartment in Boston, or what we see of it.

It's a starting point, briefly viewed and never seen again, but it does have things to tell us.
We know there's a bathroom and presumably a bedroom, but otherwise -- this is it. Judging from the view, this is not a cheap place even for its limited square footage, but the contents? Even if those were all bought new, the visible furnishings are both spare and inexpensive (yes, that's her baby blanket thrown over the chair). There's nothing at all on the walls. Like Snow's bandit hideout or Tink's treehouse, it's a place to sleep, and not much more. It is pretty close to spotless, but there's nothing in it to create a mess with other than some junk mail.

What we know of Emma before we see the apartment is that she is a bail bonds-person, "the sexiest friendless orphan" Ryan has ever met, and she has a bit of a short fuse on the topic of family. Emma is in many ways a classic audience stand-in character. She's a bit of a blank slate herself, and she goes into the world of adventure with no idea what the rules are. We learn the story along with her.

What gives this particular story some heft is that it's also her own history that she's learning, even if she doesn't know that for most of S1. If Emma was a random person plucked off the street and whisked off to a life of adventure, the stories wouldn't be nearly so compelling. Knowing that all of these characters and their individual pasts come together in the curse and in the present world of Storybrooke provides reason to keep track of it all.

Cora Mills' House

Full disclosure: I have a huge problem with the way they wrote Regina's early life and her relationship with Cora. For someone who spent half her life hell-bent on making her daughter queen, Cora did a downright terrible job of educating her for the position, and I have a difficult time bridging the gap between Regina's evolutionary stages. This entry consists of more questions than answers.

 

A Theory of Justice in OUaT

(Cross-posted from Tumblr, an anonymous ask)

Your recent Regina post got me thinking about theories of justice. What do you think is OUAT's philosophy of why/who/and how to punish someone? I feel like there's a fair amount of karmaic punishment by the show universe ("villains can't get their happy endings...[because they] always go about getting them the wrong way" i.e. Hook vs Oncoming Car), but less direct punishment by wronged characters (Belle sending Rumple over the town line). Would love to hear your take!

Oh Nonnie, what a delightful question this is! I hope I'm going to answer this well for you, because I had so much fun thinking about it while I was away. :) This is officially my favorite thing.

OUaT is a fairy tale; that's the language it speaks, the symbolism it uses. Fairy tales are, to a large extent, concerned with rules. Do this, or a wolf will eat you. Don't do that, or the fairies will get you. Be polite to old women, or don't come crying to me when you get cursed.

So what are the "do this or elses" of the Once-verse, what is the "else," and who deals it out?

Cinderella's Castle

This is a quick post, really just a reference, since this castle is not a site for significant action in the story. There is a lot of detail to the ballroom, though, particularly given that it's a one-off.

Being the site for weddings is one of the two main roles for castles in OUaT, the other being to host human vs human conflicts; this episode is the one in which we start getting to know Rumplestiltskin. His casual ability to appear anywhere he likes is a key character aspect introduced here, and is mirrored in Storybrooke as his "ownership" of the town.

Beanstalk / Land of Giants

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk has been rendered hundreds of times. Jack trades his cow to a Mysterious Stranger for a magic bean, which grows a massive beanstalk. He climbs it, encounters a giant, steals the fairy  tale-standard three items, and after the third encounter chops down the stalk.

Aurora's Castle

This setting has not had much of a role in the story, and the castle is only seen as a ruin, but it's interesting to me because of the sharp difference in landscape and building style between this and the other castles we've seen.

 

The Apprentice's House

Located at the foot of the Dark Mountains and within the Infinite Forest (and not too far from Rumple’s castle, although since nothing is far from anything else in the Enchanted Forest we can’t make much of this), the house looks pretty EF-standard from the outside.

Ahem.

This is a blog I'm thinking about using to archive my Once Upon a Time stuff in case Tumblr goes under. Nothing to see here... yet.