Emma Swan

## Media

“*As the Savior. It's a title I've thought about running from numerous times, but I never have, and what she did today reminded me why I don't run, why I fight. Because I want to protect my family and my friends and the people that I love*”
―Emma to Killian

Princess **Emma Swan**, also known as **the Savior**, briefly known as **the Dark One**, and alternatively known as **Princess Emma**, is the protagonist of the first six seasons of the ABC drama TV series, *Once Upon a Time*.

Emma is the mother of Henry Mills and Hope Jones, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, older sister of Neal Nolan, niece of Prince James, wife of Killian Jones, half-sister-in-law of Liam Jones II, sister-in-law of Liam Jones, granddaughter of Ruth, Queen Eva, and King Leopold, adoptive granddaughter of King George and the step-granddaughter and close friend/former enemy of Queen Regina.

Originally from the Enchanted Forest, Emma became an independent woman who also falls into the Real world, giving birth to a son she gave up for adoption. On her twenty-eighth birthday, Emma's wish of not being alone is answered when her son comes to take her back to her family. Finally breaking the curse after giving Henry true love's kiss, Emma fell through a portal with her mother and returning to her birthplace.

In the final battle, Emma and Rumplestiltskin restored the balance of good of evil after the Black Fairy's death.

Emma is portrayed by McKenna Grace as a child, Abby Ross as a teenager and Jennfer Morrison as an adult.

## Before birth

Fiona fears one day her son will die fighting a great evil. However, she later learns that she and her son were destined to destroy one another. However, after she cut off Rumpelstiltskin's Savior ties, it directly goes to Emma Swan. The Black Fairy eventually learns these events, and manipulates events so the Final Battle will take place. However, she does not foresee her own demise nore the fact Emma is revived by True Love's kiss by Henry.

### Rumpelstiltskin and the Seer

“*You will not cast the curse. Someone else will. And you will not break the curse. Someone else will.*”
―The Seer describing the future of Regina Mills and Emma Swan
Centuries before Emma's birth, Emma, Regina and Henry all appeared in a vision seen by an unnamed seer. Rumplestiltskin now a dark one, visits her. She transfers her powers to Rumplestiltskin. As the seer lies dying, she states that Rumple will be reunited with his son. The seer prophesied that Regina will cast the curse and Emma will be the one who breaks it

### Emma: Only Hope

“*The infant is our only hope. Get the child to safety. Get the child to safety and on its twenty-eighth birthday, the child will return. The child will find you and the final battle will begin!*”
―Rumplestiltskin to Snow and Charming
Rumplestiltskin follows the Seer's advise and makes sure that Emma and Regina will be born. He manipulates Cora into marrying with Henry and having a child. Later, Rumple plots out Emma's birth through the visions he has.

Emma’s mother and father fell in love with each other when Snow White stole David's mother's ring. Snow White was in a sleeping death, and because of Rumplestiltskin, he helped Charming and he rushes to kiss her and the spell is broken.

Snow and Charming, inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest, almost say their vows when Regina storms in, ruining their wedding. Snow says she isn't welcomed in their castle, saying she s a witch and not the Queen anymore. Regina promises that she will destroy everone's happiness in the end and there will be no more "happily ever afters" Since Snow is later depressed, David allows his wife to see Rumplestiltskin, who tells htem that Emma is destined to save them all. Just after that meeting, Snow makes a wish for Emma to have a happy ending. THe next morning,t h e kingdom are cursed to sing. However, Regina removes the song from Snow's and David's hearts, but the Blue Fairy places all the songs in Emma's heart.

When Snow and David are forced into helping Maleficent, Ursula, and Cruella de Vil, they visit a magical tree that answers to its true bravest heroes.

However, the tree rejects them because Snow is pregnant with their daughter and Emma has the potential to be a great hero like Snow and David, or the potential to be an evil witch like Cruella, Ursula and Maleficent.

## Early Life

### Birth

Emma was born on October 23, 1983 to Snow White and Prince Charming. It was unfortunate to say that the curse hit just when Emma was born for unknown reasons. Snow realizes that the wardrobe takes one and that they have to give their daughter "her best chance." Snow is sad to see her baby go and starts crying. Charming holds his daughter in his arms while fighting off the Evil Queen's guards. He finally makes it to the Wardrobe and places Emma in it. She is later crying when Pinocchio find s her. He takes her to the diner and they are both placed in foster homes. Later, Pinocchio runs away, leaving Emma to grow up on her own.

### Foster life

Emma had a tough life growing up, and could not believe that her family abandoned her on the side of a road (or she thought so). They didn't even bother taking her to the hospital. Her first set of foster parents when she was three years old only wanted her for financial support. At age six years old, n the year 1989, Emma and some children from her group home visit a movie theater in Minnesota to watch the Disney film, The Sword in the Stone.

Emma later spots a woman sitting down and steals the Apollo stealing the bar. She later sees Arthur pulling out the Sword in the stone. An usher tells her not to do it, and Emma thinks he is referring to the bar she stole. Merlin says he is talking about the sword, and cautious her to not pull Excalibur from the stone, no matter how tempted she is to do it. Emma looks at the screen and the usher again, only to find that he is gone. Thinking it was part of her imagination, as an imaginative six year old, she brushes it off ("The Dark Swan").

Later on, a girl named Cecilia walks into her newly adopted parents and Emma sadly watches the
car drive away ("No Place Like Home"). Later after many foster homes, Emma could not take it anymore, so she ran away to Hopkins, Minnesota where she befreinded a young girl named Lily, the unknown daughter of Maleficent. The two fo them promise to be best friends no matter what. Emma later loses faith in Lily when she learns she was lying to her the entire time. She later walks away ignorin g Lily. In adult hood, Emma would regret leaving her best friend.

Emma, at fifteen is later living in a foster home when her foster brother Kevin steals her camera. Emma is angered by this and wishes to leave. Ingrid stops her from leaving when she says Kevin is afraid of spiders, even the plastic ones. Emma says she'll stay awahile. After while in a carnival, Emma shows magic once winning the crane. She believes that she is being sent away to another foster homebut Ingrid says she is adopting her. One night, Emma wishes to have magical powers, but Ingrid goes to far and pulls her in front of a car, imploring for the girl to use her magic. She believes Ingrid to be crazy and leaves her for good ("Pilot", "The Stranger").

#### Relationship with Neal

At age seventeen, Emma is later stealing the care from the streets. She meets Neal Cassidy, the son of Rumplestiltskin.
Unfortunatley Neal abandons her and unknowingly his son.

## Season 6

Emma and Killian both return home , intending on consummating their relationship. However, just as they are together, a blimp appears full of individuals from the Land of Untold Stories. However, during their helping the people from the other world, Emma begins seeing herself fighting a hooded figure and her hand continues to tremble. Later, she follows the red bird as Mr. Hyde advises her. She finds an oracle, who reluctantly showed Emma the full vision: she dies fighting the great evil. The young woman tells Emma that no matter how many times she tries to find another way, she cannot stop her future.

## Personality

As a product of true love, Emma has a pure heart, both physically and metaphorically. She is a deeply damaged and a very conflicted woman. Growing up, Emma had become conflicted. At the start of season 1, she is a loner, having no friends until her son shows up after ten years to help her save their family. Despite the fact she doesn't believe, Emma still cares about the other people around her. Like Mary Margaret, she grows to realize she is her family (while both of them were unaware of their relationship as mother and daughter. She later grows to be protective of her son Henry and played along with his curse because of her believing he had an overactive imagination. . Sometimes she is distrustful of those around her, because Lily Page had lied to her while they were friends hiding away.
She does not like being lied to and later becomes to trust her other friends.

## Physical Appearance

Emma has wavy blonde hair and hazel olive eyes. Her skin is as pale as her mother's white skin but crossed over with her father's skin tone. She is also very beautiful. Her signature clothes are black tank top, red leather jacket, blue jeans and boots,
Emma has her mother's facial structures and she inherited her hair from her father and eyes from her mother. As the Dark One, her skin is paler than her natural and she also has white hair. Emma also has worn dark clothes, undergoing hardly any physical change. After the darkness is removed from her, Emma then reverts back to having her blonde hair, red jacket, white shirt and jeans.

## Powers and Abilities

Emma has the Magic of True Love, which is one of the most powerful forms of magic of all. She exhibited true love's kiss by kissing Henry, breaking the curse instantly out of her maternal love towards her son. If any witch rips out Emma's heart, they will not succeed and only be blasted with an energy of magic. Because of her inexperience with magic, Regina becomes her magical mentor. Emma can also create fire by making fireballs and lighting candles of her own free will. She also had a powerful ability of lie detection due to the fact Emma had no magic until Storybrooke had been infested with magic.

### Weaknesses

* **Laws of Magic:** Emma is limited to the Laws of Magic. The laws of Magic state you can not bring back the dead, you can't make someone fall in love with you or time travel (though Zelena almost succeeded in breaking this law.
* **Leaving Storybrooke**: if she left Storybrooke, Emma would become mortal and then she would be powerless and lost all her magic. However, Emma can still leave Storybrooke more than most people

#### Former weaknesses

* **Dark One's dagger:** During her reign as the Dark One, Emma's weakness was her own dagger. Anyone who possessed it could control her every thoughts or actions. Whoever killed Emma with her dagger, she lost her title the Dark One and she would be predecessor of the new Dark One.

* **True love's kiss:** Another one would be true love's kiss, but it will not work unless she enjoyed the magic or if both Dark Ones are involved with each other.

## Relationships

### Family

* Henry Mills - Son
* Hope Jones - Daughter
* Lucy Mills - Granddaughter
* Prince Neal - Younger Brother
* Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard - Mother
* Prince Charming/David Nolan - Father
* Killian Jones/Captain Hook - Husband
* Queen Eva - Maternal Grandmother
* King Leopold - Maternal Grandfather
* Ruth - Paternal Grandmother
* Robert - Paternal Grandfather
* Prince James - Paternal Uncle
* Queen Regina - Step-Grandmother and Former Enemy turned Close Friend
* Cora - Step-Great-Grandmother and Enemy
* Prince Henry - Step-Great-Grandfather
* Xavier - Step-Great-Grandfather
* Zelena - Step-Great-Aunt and Former Enemy
* Robyn - Step-Great-Cousin

### Allies

* Neal Cassidy - Ex-Boyfriend, Love Interest, Father of Her Child
* Cleo Fox - Former Captor
* Fairy Tale Land
	+ Enchanted Forest Residents - Friends and Subjects
		- Little Red Riding Hood/Ruby Lucas
		- Widow Lucas/Granny
		- The Huntsman/Sheriff Graham Humbert † - Love Interest
		- Seven Dwarves
			* Grumpy/Leroy
			* Doc
			* Dopey - Former Cursed Victim
			* Bashful
			* Sleepy
			* Happy
			* Sneezy
		- Blue Fairy/Mother Superior
		- Aurora - Former Companion
		- Mulan - Former Companion
		- Pinocchio/August Booth - Close Friend
		- Jiminy Cricket/Archie Hopper - Former Therapist, Family Friend
		- Gepetto/Marco
		- Cinderella/Ashley Boyd -Family Friend
		- Hansel/Nicholas Zimmer
		- Gretel/Ava Zimmer
		- The Evil Queen/Regina Mills - Step-Grandmother and Enemy turned Ally and Close Friend
		- Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold
		- Marian † - Friend
		- Elsa - Close Friend
		- Lily - Former Best Friend
		- Merry Men
			* Robin Hood - Companion and Friend
			* Little John
		- Ursula - Former Enemy
		- Maleficent - Former Enemy turned Ally
	+ Wish Realm
		- Robin Hood (Wish Realm)
	+ Arendelle
		- Anna
		- Kristoff
		- Ingrid † - Former Adoptive Mother and Brief Enemy turned Ally
	+ Camelot
		- Merlin † - Mentor
	+ DunBroch
		- Merida - Former Enemy turned Ally
	+ Agrabah
		- Aladdin - Former Fellow Savior
		- Jasmine
* Evil Regina - Former Enemy turned Ally
* Killian Jones (Wish Realm)
* Neverland
	+ Lost Boys - Former Enemies turned Allies
	+ Tiger Lily

### Enemies

* Enchanted Forest
	+ Cora †
* Neverland
	+ Peter Pan †
	+ Felix †
	+ The Shadow †
* Tamara †
* Greg Mendell †
* Walsh/The Wizard of Oz †
* Magic Mirror/Sidney Glass
* Marshmallow †
* Merry Men
	+ Will Scarlet
* Cruella De Vil †
* Arthur Pendragon †
* Nimue †
* Hades †
* Cerberus †
* Mr. Hyde †
* Dark Realm
	+ Black Fairy †
	+ Gideon - Former Enemy and Former Killer
* Oz
	+ Flying Monkeys

## Character development

Emma was originally a girl named "Anna Swan" before her name was changed to what it is today. Also, Emma was originally going to have three children as opposed to one. Her iconic red leather jacket was originally black before it was changed back to her red color. Also, Emma was derived from two fairytales: "The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Andersen and the Black Swan, Odile from the play "Swan Lake".

### Fairytale Origin

Emma derives from the fairy tale "Snow White" and the Disney film, *Snow White and the Seven Dwarves* because her parents are Snow White and Prince Charming respectfully. Her fairytale alias, the "Dark Swan" comes from the Black Swan from the ballet, *Swan Lake* .

***Main Article: Ugly Duckling (character)***

She also comes from "The Ugly Duckling" in a way because the Duckling turns out to find no family because of his ugliness. He later finds his true family, like Emma does finding her true family and who she really is like the Duckling in the fairytale figured out of.

## Notes and references

1. ↑ https://oncepodcast.com/forums/topic/and-baby-swans-name-is/
2. ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/13/hot-seat-once-upon-time-bosses-answer-your-burning-questions
3. ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/13/hot-seat-once-upon-time-bosses-answer-your-burning-questions