Memory Potions

**Memory Potions**, also known as a Forgetting Potion, are magic potions featured on ABC's *Once Upon a Time*. They first appear in the tenth episode of the first season.

## History

### Before First Curse

In the kingdom of Arendelle, the eldest princess and heir to the throne, Ingrid, hides magical ice powers which only her sisters, Helga and Gerda, know about. Since making a deal with Rumplestiltskin, she receives gloves to contain her magic as well as an urn to trap herself if her powers become dangerous. While sitting in the royal gardens, she is approached by Helga's admirer, the Duke of Weselton, who makes advances on her. In defense, Ingrid flings him back with magic. At Helga's appearance, the Duke accuses Ingrid of harming him after he rejected her feelings. Seeing through his lies, Helga stands by her sister, though he threatens to reveal Ingrid's magic to the kingdom. He claims the people deserve to know their future queen is a monster, to which an angered Ingrid fires a blast at him. The Duke, using Helga as a shield, causes the magic to hit her instead. In shock, Ingrid watches her sister turn into a frozen statue and crumble to pieces. Gerda, unable to accept Ingrid's mistake, entraps her in the urn. Grief-stricken at losing both sisters, she asks Grand Pabbie to use a memory potion and erase everyone's memories of Ingrid and Helga. *("The Snow Queen")*

* Alternate Timeline

Travelling to the past, Emma accidentally stops her parents, Prince Charming and Snow White, from meeting. Desperate to fix the mistake, she and Hook ask for Rumplestiltskin's help. When Emma claims to be the savior who will break his curse, the Dark One seems doubtful, but begins to believe her when she attests his reunion with Baelfire will happen, though his son will die. As Emma and Hook are sucked into the portal to the present, Rumplestiltskin drinks a forgetting potion to forget everything Emma told him. *("Snow Drifts", "There's No Place Like Home")*

In a desperate act to remove her own love-sickness, Snow White accepts a potion from Rumplestiltskin, which will help her to forget the man she loves, Prince Charming. Despite that Prince Charming also loves her, they cannot be together as Snow White is forced to reject him on King George's orders or else his life will be in danger. Afterwards, Snow White leaves, heartbroken, and prepares to drink the potion, but Grumpy advises against it. Eventually, Snow White's feelings for Prince Charming become too much to bear, and she secretly drinks the potion without knowing he called off his arranged marriage with King Midas's daughter in order to be with her. Becoming cold and heartless due to the potion's effects, she sets out to kill her enemy, the Evil Queen. Since committing such an act will make her evil, Prince Charming stops Snow White by taking the arrow hit that she intended for the Queen. When she questions his motives, Prince Charming states he'd rather die than see her become evil. Touched by his actions, Snow White's expression softens and she leans in to kiss him; breaking the potion's effects. *("7:15 A.M.", "Heart of Darkness")*

### During First Curse

Finding happiness after adopting a son, Henry, Regina shockingly discovers the boy's birth mother is none other than Prince Charming and Snow White's child, who is prophesied to break her curse. Regina's fears about this woman taking away the curse as well as Henry drive her to make a forgetting potion. After ingesting it, she forgets the identity of Henry's birth mother. *("Save Henry")*

### After First Curse

With the curse broken by Emma, Mr. Gold uses a true love potion on the wishing well to bring magic to the town. As a price, anyone who leaves Storybrooke will lose memories of their Enchanted Forest selves. Mr. Clark, chosen out of all his dwarf brothers as a test subject, crosses the town line only to lose his memories. *("Broken", "We Are Both")*
Mr. Gold plans to leave town in order to search for his son, but is afraid of losing his memories while doing so. After some work, he manages to create a potion to keep his Enchanted Forest identity. The potion must be poured on one's cherished possession. Mr. Gold uses Smee as a test subject. The test is sucessfull and Mr. Gold goes to his shop to share the news with Belle. She asks to join him in his trip, but he states there's only enough potion for one. Back at the town border, Mr. Gold pours the potion over Baelfire's shawl and Belle places it over his shoulders. He then crosses the town line with his memories intact. The couple bend towards each other in a kiss over the town line when Hook shoots Belle in the back. She falls over the border, thus losing her memories. In retaliation towards Hook, Mr. Gold prepares to hurl a fireball at him when a car crashes into town and runs over the pirate. Later on, Mr. Gold uses the shawl and leaves Storybrooke with Emma and Henry. *("The Outsider", "Tiny")*
As a dangerous trigger activated by the outsider, Greg, and his ally Tamara, threatens to destroy Storybrooke and all its inhabitants, Mother Superior finishes making a memory potion, with one of the ingredients being a strand of Pinocchio's hair, and gives two bottles to Leroy. Since the dwarves wish to restore Mr. Clark's memories, she instructs them to find an item that once belonged to him. Then, Mr. Clark should drink the potion from the item. After finding Mr. Clark's beer stein in the pawnshop, Leroy gives Mr. Gold a second dose of the potion for Belle. As the dwarves leave, Belle's cursed self, Lacey, comes out from the back of the shop. Mr. Gold does nothing with the potion until Lacey accidentally uses his son's shawl as a wiping rag, which upsets him greatly. Still not over Neal's death, he realizes Belle, not Lacey, would understand his pain. Taking out the the remains of the teacup from the cupboard, Mr. Gold magically repairs it with the flick of his wrist. After pouring the potion into the cup, he offers it to Lacey. With one sip, Lacey remembers her past as Belle. The two kiss, and Mr. Gold apologizes for letting her remember right before the trigger is set to destroy them all. *("And Straight On 'Til Morning")*

### Before Second Curse

As a second curse is cast by someone, the Wicked Witch of the West creates a forgetting potion to add to the curse mixture and cause everyone to forget their memories from the last year in the Enchanted Forest. Flying back to the castle, she creates an antidote to keep her own memories. She then passes the vial to Rumplestiltskin. Left alone, he prepares to ingest the liquid, but suddenly passes out after Neal, who has been possessing his body, temporarily takes control over him. Using his last bit of strength, Neal writes a note, without disclosing himself as the sender, to Hook asking him to give the potion to Emma, and he then attaches it to a messenger bird. After receiving the letter, Hook manages to trade his ship for a magic bean and goes to New York in search of the savior. *("A Curious Thing", "There's No Place Like Home")*

### During Second Curse

Hook shows up at Emma's New York apartment to tell her that her family in trouble, though she does not recognize him. He attempts to give her true love's kiss, but it has no effect and she eventually shuts the door on him. On another attempt to shake some sense into her, he gives Emma a written address of an apartment that she must see in order to know the whole truth. Later, she confronts him about the camera strap she found at the written address—Neal's apartment—which has Henry's name on it. He tries once more to talk about her parents and the curse, but she brushes it off as nonsense. Hook exemplifies the camera strap as proof Emma was once at Neal's apartment a year ago except she doesn't remember it. She demands answers, so he offers a potion to restore her lost memories. Instead, she cuffs Hook and has him arrested for assault and criminal harassment. While jailed, he is later bailed out by Emma, who presents him with copy of the photo from the camera, which shows herself with Henry in a town called Storybrooke. He pushes Emma into taking the potion, despite that she will have to give up her life in New York, because knowing the truth is important. She ingests it and regains her memories. That night, Hook explains that her family has been re-cursed and the couple, as well as Henry, lead to Storybrooke. *("Going Home", "New York City Serenade")*

Returning home to Storybrooke, Emma quickly teams up with Regina to sleuth out the caster of the second curse. While swaying the townspeople into believing Regina is responsible, the two women work in secret, using the last bit of potion that Emma was given by Hook, to create a substance capable of reviving memories from the missing year in the Enchanted Forest. It fails, so in an alternative plan, they publicly spread a rumor that Regina is nearly finished making a memory potion, and whoever drinks it can recall who cast the second curse. Afraid of exposure, Wicked Witch, Zelena, breaks into Regina's mayoral office in the middle of the night to steal the potion. Seeing as their culprit has taken the bait, Emma and Regina charge into the office to capture the villain, but she disappears in green smoke without being fully seen. *("Witch Hunt")*

## Ingredients

* The Wicked Witch of the West used wolf’s blood and a dragon scale for her Memory Potion. *("A Curious Thing")*

## Appearances

 "Archive" denotes archive footage.

* A memory potion is featured in *Once Upon a Time'*s Season One novelization, *Reawakened: A Once Upon a Time Tale*.