Prince Charming (Once Upon a Time)

Prince Charming (currently known as David Nolan, formerly known as Prince James) is a character who appears in ABC's fantasy series Once Upon a Time. He is one of the main characters in the series and is the son to Ruth and Robert, who grew up on a farm while his twin brother James, was seperated from the family when he and David were babies. This Prince Charming lives in a medieval realm called the Enchanted Forest.
==Role in the Series==
Prince Charming appears as a main character in ABC's Once Upon a Time. In the series, his real name is David and he is played by Josh Dallas.
David was originally a poor shepherd whose identical twin brother James was given to King George as an heir in a deal with Rumplestiltskin.
Additional backstory was revealed in the series' fourth season, where David was shown under the strict rule of his landlord, Little Bo Peep. Though too intimidated by the witch to escape his slavery, David is taught the skills of bravery and battle by the traveling Princess Anna, who he provided shelter for, as she was the fiancée of his good friend, Kristoff. Through Anna's wisdom, David is able to fend off Bo Peep, and he uses such lessons for the rest of his days, as seen in the current timeline.
When James is killed in battle, David takes his brother's name in exchange for the prosperity of his mother Ruth's farm. King Midas declares David fit to marry his daughter Abigail and unite the kingdoms. However, David wants to marry for love, but George vows to kill his mother Ruth if he declines. Before his marriage, he falls in love with Snow White, who nicknames him Charming, later inviting her to run away. After continuous interceptions by George, the Evil Queen Regina captures him to convince Snow to willingly eat an apple containing a sleeping curse. He later awakens her and the pair marry before Regina announces that she will cast a curse to destroy their happiness.
Once Snow and Charming return from their honeymoon, they are met by the Queens of Darkness, Maleficent, Ursula, and Cruella De Vil. They learn of Regina's plan to cast the Dark Curse and the Queens inform them that there is a tree known as the Tree of Wisdom that can tell them how to escape Regina's Dark Curse, but it can only be accessed by two of the most valiant heroes. The five travel, but when Snow and Charming try to access the tree, it doesn't work, and the reason why is because Snow is pregnant, with a child with the potential for great darkness.
Rumplestiltskin informs them that their expected child will break the curse in 28 years.
Snow and Charming then go to a unicorn, which can give visions of a person's unborn child. Charming sees and innocent baby, but Snow sees an evil teenage version of her daughter who rips her heart out. They then meet the Apprentice who tells that there is a way of ridding their child's darkness. They have to transfer it to another child. Snow and Charming realize that they can't do this to another child, but a peddler they meet, informs them that the sorceress Maleficent has turned into a dragon and laid an egg. They confront Maleficent and steal her egg, even though she begs them not to. Snow states that they'll give her the egg back after they're done with it. They give the egg to The Apprentice who then manages to transfer Emma's darkness into the egg, however, being the child of Maleficent, along with Emma's darkness it too much of a great risk, and he decides to banish it to A Land Without Magic. The pair is even further horrified when they discover that Maleficent's egg contained a human baby and not a dragon and now they cannot return her back to Maleficent.
Emma is born shortly before the curse takes hold, and Charming places her in a magical wardrobe to protect her from the curse, before being fatally wounded by the Queen's knights.
In Storybrooke, he first appears as a John Doe, who has gone unidentified for years. He awakens after Mary Margaret reads him their story. He reunites with his wife Kathryn and is identified as David Nolan. David suffers from amnesia and cannot remember his fake life with Kathryn. He falls in love with Mary Margaret and begins an affair with her, ending his marriage to Kathryn, who is soon reported as being murdered - a plan arranged between Regina Mills and Mr. Gold. David becomes a suspect in her disappearance until the evidence against Mary Margaret is found. Kathryn is found alive, though David's relationship with Mary Margaret becomes strained, as he did not believe her innocence. He decides to move to Boston, though the curse is broken shortly after, and he reunites with Snow and Emma. David agrees to send a wraith released into Storybrooke through a portal, though his wife and daughter are dragged with it. David looks after his grandson while Emma and Mary Margaret are absent. After failing attempts of transportation, David falls under a sleeping curse to communicate with Mary Margaret. He is awoken by true love's kiss when the two return. When Henry is kidnapped to Neverland, David travels with Mary Margaret, Emma, Regina, Mr. Gold, and Captain Hook in order to rescue him from Peter Pan. In Neverland, David is poisoned by Dreamshade, though Hook partially cures him and the group successfully returns to Storybrooke where Mr. Gold fully heals him. After Pan enacts the original curse once more, David is returned to his original world with the remaining inhabitants, while Emma and Henry escape to New York City.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, David learns that Snow is pregnant but also discovers that Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West wants their baby. The two realize they must enact a new curse to return to Storybrooke and make Emma stop Zelena. A reassuring David lets Snow crush his heart, though she later asks Regina to split her heart in two to give to both of them. Zelena then adds a forgetting potion to the curse, removing their memories of the past year. A year later, Emma returns to Storybrooke, and David and Mary Margaret reveal they are having a baby. Zelena poses as the couple's mid-wife, stealing a symbol of David's courage from him. Zelena is ultimately defeated and Mary Margaret gives birth to a son, whom she names after Henry's father and Rumplestiltkin's son, Neal.
When Elsa arrives into Storybrooke looking for her sister, Mary Margaret and David help her try to find her sister. Once Ingrid casts the spell of Shattered Sight all over Storybrooke, everyone turns into their worst selves including Snow, David, and Kristoff who are all locked up within the sheriff station. David and Mary Margaret are locked inside prisons are limited to verbally abusing each other, but Ingrid sacrifices herself and the spell of shattered sight is finally broken. The shards turn into snow and Storybrooke returns to normal, including David. Mary Margaret and David run-up to Emma to hug her. As Neal begins to wake up, David tells Mary Margaret to forget what happened under the curse, then the couple kiss.
Emma, Mary Margaret, and David then arrive at a mansion in which Hook found a portal. They go to make sure Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff make it back to Arendelle through the portal door. As they go through the portal, they thank the three, and Anna tells them that she wanted to thank Hook and Gold, only to have David mentioned that Gold was once Rumplestiltskin, and Anna tells them that she knows of him from their past encounter.
Upon entering the town, Cruella and Ursula meet with David and Mary Margaret, who swear the twosome into never revealing their pasts with each other in the Enchanted Forest. Ominously, Mary Margaret promises to tear out their hearts herself if they don't comply. When they discover Cruella and Ursula's plan to resurrect Maleficent, Snow and David travel underground to get rid of her ashes to prevent the plan, but it is there, they are ambushed and knocked unconscious by Ursula. To fully resurrect Maleficent, Cruella then obtains the blood "of those who wronged her most" which is Snow and Charming's and spills it on Maleficent's ashes who is then resurrected. Maleficent informs them she will cause them suffering and pain like they caused her. Snow and Charming decide not to tell Emma their secret.
David and Mary Margaret are then informed that Gold plans to use The Author to turn Emma dark. When Maleficent casts a sleeping curse upon the whole town, they discover they are immune as they have been previously under the curse. They realize that Maleficent, Cruella, and Gold are trying to obtain the page in which The Author is trapped in. The pair meet with Henry and take the page from him, but Mary Margaret convinces David that they should stop lying and tell the truth to Emma. After they tell them, Emma refuses to talk to them, distraught over their evil actions and their lies. They decide to free The Author and discover that he is the peddler they met, on the day they banished Maleficent's child.
David and his family soon learn from Maleficent that her daughter alive. While Emma tries to locate her and bring her back to Storybrooke to redeem her parents, David and Mary Margaret beg for Maleficent's forgiveness, which she refuses to do so. Eventually, Emma finds Lily and is able to talk her into coming to Storybrooke to meet her mother. When Lily arrives, Maleficent has trouble connecting with her and comes to David and Mary Margaret for support and help as they dealt with a similar situation when Emma arrived in Storybrooke. The trio go out to find Lily, but find that she has turned into a dragon and is unable to control herself.
After Mary Margaret is almost killed by Lily, Emma reunites with her parents, although this is short-lived when Emma sacrifices herself to become the new Dark One. With the other residents, Mary Margaret transports to the Enchanted Forest, taking Emma to Camelot in order to find Merlin and remove her darkness. However, weeks later, they return to Storybrooke with missing memories as to how they failed. In "Siege Perilous", David is knighted by King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) and bestowed the Siege Perilous seat at the Round Table. But later gives this up when he learned of Arthur's deception, which would later result in David having Arthur arrested in Storybrooke.
After Emma restored his memory, David follows his daughter to the Underworld to help rescue hook, only to learn that his late twin brother James is the Sheriff in this realm and discovered from Cruella de Vil that James has resentment against David over being raised by their mother and having a family that James envies. When the two finally meet for the first time, David attempted to explain to James (who still believed he was "Prince") over what happened back in the Enchanted Forest, but James cut to the chase and used a stun gun on David. He played "Shepherd", taking his brother's place in a scheme for him and Cruella to leave the Underworld with Hades' help by tricking Emma into finding the location of where Robin Hood was keeping his and Zelena's baby. When James attempted to send his niece and Robin to the River of Lost Souls at the harbor, David stopped James and tried to convince him that he can be at peace and move on, but James continued to believe that killing David was his unfinished business. James attempted to pull a knife to kill David, but he missed and is sent into the water, where he was consumed by the lost souls. As David watched this unfold, Emma told her father that despite his effort to save him, it was already too late for James anyway.
David and his family eventually make their way back to Storybrooke but with Hook and he tries his best to help Emma grieve her love, but she is so desperate to save the man she loves by defeating Hades. Once Hades is destroyed, Hook is brought back to life and David welcomes him home with a hug. In the sixth season, David is haunted by the ghost of his father so he is determined to find the man who killed his father, believing it to be King George. Killian helps David, but eventually learns he is the one who killed his dad, which Killian keeps a secret as he wants to propose to Emma. Down by the docks, David watches the sea as he has made peace with his father's death and gives his blessing to Killian who asks his permission to marry Emma. 
However, Emma eventually finds out that Killian killed her grandfather and tells David, who comforts his daughter as she is sad her boyfriend left Storybrooke and that her relationship with Killian is now strained. During this time, David and Mary Margret are put under a special sleeping curse by Evil Regina, who places the curse on the heart that David and Mary Margret share, which means while one of them is awake, the other is forced to sleep. Once Emma locates Hook in Neverland, she saves him and the family are reunited with Hook, who proposes to Emma properly, who accepts. Regina manages to find a way to break David and Mary Margret's sleeping curse by getting the residents of Storybrooke to drink part of their curse, which breaks it and wakes them both up. Killian then apologises to David for not telling him the truth about his father. David instantly forgives Killian, saying it happened a long time ago and he has become a better man since his pirate days. David and Mary Margret then walk Emma down the aisle on her wedding day, just as the Black Fairy's curse arrives. After the curse is broken and Emma is revived by Henry's kiss of true love, David joins his family and the rest of Storybrooke for dinner to celebrate the happy endings and that the final battle has been won. 
David and Mary Margret eventually move out of the Blanchard loft as Emma and Hook go on their honeymoon and along with the rest of the town, the Charming's are able to live their lives at peace for years. Years later, David and Snow crown Regina the Good Queen and the ruler of the United Realms, which includes every town within the Enchanted Forest and beyond, so that all fairytale characters can be together. 
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*David is one of the few characters from the first curse who is confirmed to have the same real name in Storybrooke as his Enchanted Forest counterpart; the others being Regina, Jefferson and Mother Superior.
*Despite being the live action version of Snow White's prince, David is known as Charming and not The Prince. The name The Prince is the name to Snow White's love interest in the 1939 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, while Charming is the name of Cinderella's prince from the film of the same name.
**Snow White was the one who gave David the nickname Charming, when they first met in "Snow Falls".
*The name "David" is of Hebrew origin derived from the word "dwd" that means "beloved."
*David is one of two characters Josh Dallas portrays in the series, the other is Prince James, who is David's identical, late brother. Dallas also played a figment of David's fear, in the episode "The Tower".
**David and James never met as James died in battle after he and David were separated at birth, until they finally meet in the Underworld, in the episode "Sisters".
*With their names put together, David and James make the name "David James", who is a famous musician. 
*David and Snow's portrayers, Josh Dallas and Ginnifer Goodwin, are married in real life. They got together and married during the series' production.
*During the first curse, David is referred to as John Doe while in a coma. That name is often used in mystery cases, mostly murder cases, when a body is found but nobody knows the real name of that person, until proof is found. The female placeholder's name is Jane Doe.
==See also==
*The Prince
*Flynn Rider
*Jonathan (Snow White)
*Prince Thomas
==External links==
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Category:Princes
Category:Heroes
Category:Males
Category:Lovers
Category:Orphans
Category:Protagonists
Category:Once Upon a Time characters
Category:Characters Under Spells
Category:Live-action characters
Category:Spouses
Category:Nobility
Category:Those brought back to life
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Category:Grandparents