Rule number 1 was that every story on OUAT is connected to Emma Swanâs life. (Donât worry, Reginaâs clearly important, weâll get to that.) Rule number 2 is that this is not a coma theory! (Okay, thatâs not really the rule, but itâs the best place to start to explain it. Bear with me. Pleaseandthankyou!)
This is a magical story, because the magic begins in our world.
Regina Mills: âThere's a reason they call this place the Land Without Magic.â
The Dragon: âYes, because that's how it appears. There's magic everywhere if you're willing to see it.â
The Dragon said it loud and clear that there is magic in OUR WORLD. Meaning in the physical dimension where the show starts. But magical shit is subtle af. Subtle as in hard-to-believe âcoincidencesâ. Like when you make a wish on a cupcake not to be alone and your long lost son shows up in the next second... Yeah. Always love it when that happens.
They even show the candleâs flame covering her third eye. Someoneâs ready for a magical journey. Then the doorbell rings.Â
This is the kind of magic the Dragon is talking about. It seems unlikely, but things like this can (and do) happen in our world. Anybody who has read about Law of Attraction or Synchronicity or Witchcraft or... knows what Iâm talking about. (Also letâs be friends and co-create a SQ movie with JMo and Lana, just sayin.)
The Universe knew better than Emma what she really wished for. She was tired of feeling so completely alone. Not just on her birthday, but in her life. Cause the real problem was that she was so hurt by life she couldnât really even let anybody in. So the Universe knew that to grant her wish, it was gonna take some serious magic...
Here we see more our-world magic. A spark appears when she angrily closes the door. Another weird-but-possible-coincidence...
And then another weird coincidence of real world magic... we run into Henryâs therapist. This is the universe telling us weâre about to go on a psychological journey, probably.
And only then does Emma crash her car...Â
...and the howling of the wolf makes it super clear that this is still part of magic that was set in motion in our world.
And to make it really super fucking obvious the pages they show are Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Two stories of young women who go on a magical journey, both with ambiguous setups where the authors suggested they were unconscious/dreaming.
Okay, but youâre still saying that sheâs in a coma, right?Â
Well, yes and no, because clearly on OUAT itâs more like a gateway to the realm of thoughts and stories. The show basically says âHey guys, we live in a magical universe, and there is more than meets the eye.â Like some people take drugs to get deeper insights... Many cultures have rituals that use drugs in a responsible way to go to different realms of consciousness to find deeper meaning. To find healing, to find information... And the Western world has forgotten about that wisdom, that magic... or doesnât legally let us use drugs to get there more easily. (Bastards.)
BUT THAT DOESNâT MEAN THE UNDERLYING MAGIC HAS STOPPED WORKING... So because Emma grew up without those cultures, the only way to get her to connect to a different realm and use universal stories and wisdom to heal herself, is by locking her in the world of her subconscious for a loooooong long time.Â
Think about it. âMagicâ didnât really have much of a choice. Emma doesnât sit still and deal with her shit... and honestly, capitalism doesnât really allow any of us the time off to really work through our crap, yâknow?
Okay, but if sheâs in a magical realm and the fairy tale world is real, just a different dimension, then why the fuck does it matter that sheâs in a coma?Â
Well, her body is still in the physical world and it keeps working like ânormalâ, so she does pick up whatâs going on there. This brings us to RULE NUMBER 2:Â The story is a mix of the wisdom of archetypes and fairy tales, combined with memories from Emmaâs past and new stories from the world around Emmaâs body.Â
Weâre immediately shown in the scene after the car crash. Before the car crash, everything that happened was definitely weird, but technically it could happen. BUT THEN THIS HAPPENS. Who the fuck would put a woman who was in bad car crash and hit her head in a JAIL CELL before she has regained consciousness??? Thatâs really fucking unrealistic, if you think about it. She would be in a hospital... and actually, her body is, but she is now in the world where her thoughts (âI feel trapped, my head hurtsâ) turn into things.
Hey, and before I forget... look who the powerful magical Universe thought Emma should absolutely, 100% meet before travelling to another realm of consciousness?
Welcome to the Swan Queen dimension! A crazy meta that explains the world building of Once Upon a Time AND why romantic SQ is canon once you understand how the rules work.
1. Maybe weâll meet in a different dimension
A general explanation of how the different dimension works and how it relates to OUAT.
2. Dimensions infographic
A visual representation of the dimension to make it easier to understand.
3. Rules of the world 1
Explanation of the first rule you need to understand to get OUAT world building: Every story is somehow about Emma Swan.
4. Rules of the world 2
Explanation of rule number two:Â The story is a mix of the wisdom of archetypes and fairy tales, combined with memories from Emmaâs past and new stories from the world around Emmaâs body.Â
(I will update this pinned post with links whenever I write a new meta.)
OTHER META
The big conversion therapy post
Why Emmaâs wedding was full of shade
The show really ended with a SQ wedding duh
Henry is a shitty author (sorry boy, love yah, you clitblocker)
Itâs SQ meta time!!! Nobodyâs doing it anymore, so I'll have do it myself! *flexes and kisses biceps*
Okay okay okay! Sooo please tell me I ainât the only one hanging out with spirits in esoteric parts of libraries?! Because seriously, all the roads of questionable pop-science lead to Swan Queen.Â
Letâs have a little chat about dimensions first. We all remember the line âMaybe weâll meet in a different dimensionâ from âDreamsâ by Ruth B. that played while we saw Emma and Regina looking at Henry and Violet dancing, right?! YOU BET YOUR ASS THAT WAS A SWEET CLUE!
Donât mind me, just throwing in some evil cleavage SQ screenshot just to remind you of the moment... I mean, who wouldnât fawn over the both of them all day long? Not caring that itâs 2020, Iâm here, still doing it.
Alright... SO... according to some esoteric traditions everything in existence is simply vibrating energy. Whatâs INTERESTING is that our thoughts are vibrations too. (More clear info here.)
So, following this logic every story ever told is real in another dimension. (Also, little side note there, did you know your brain cannot tell the difference, emotionally, between fiction and reality? Well now you do, youâre very welcome. Further proof how everything is real just on different levels of reality.)
That explains why the world of Once Upon a Time is made up of not only fairy tales (duh!), but references to One flew over the Cuckooâs nest or Terminator II or Harry Potter and Star Wars or Lost or... Anything really. Itâs a world that Karl Jung labeled âthe collective unconsciousâ. We all have our little personal dimension of thought, but beyond that is a world we all share - and theyâre not really separated.Â
If this is all a bit OUT THERE for you, donât worry about it, it kinda is; BUT FOR A WRITER, itâs enough to have a scientific possibility to set a story in a different dimension.
So basically all you have to remember is that the world of stories, whatever they may be, is literally a real physical place, it just has a lower density than our physical world, itâs in another dimension. Say, our world is solid and the fairy tale world is... gassy (LMAO, I laughed like a 5 years old). SO telling a story in another dimension isnât that different from setting a story in unexplored space.
Okay, so now that we know the story world is a real place, it gets really exciting when we know that we can travel to it through meditation or in our dreams, because thoughts are vibrations. Our mind can give us access to other dimensions by raising our vibration.
NOW BACK TO SWAN QUEEN! Remember Emma saying âYou came to this crazy world to save me.â to Regina?!
Yup.
Emma has been stuck in this other dimension, the world of stories, from the Pilot. REMEMBER HER ACCIDENT AND THEN THE CAMERA SWOOP TO THE STORYBOOK?! THAT WAS THE CLUE!Â
Henry was a kid, so he hadnât been trained out of believing in this world, so he could sorta live in both worlds more easily, even without interacting in it. He could easily travel to that higher vibrating world, where Emma is metaphorically (oof, big word) trapped.
Regina at first just thought Emma was gone and dying, so she was ready to give up on her and let someone have her organs, basically (I mean, itâs a whole thing, Iâll explain in another post). Hence. Evil. Heart. Ripping. You know, organ harvesting. Emma sort of understood all this, but it was translated into the language of her dimension: the dimension of shared thoughts and stories.
And then Regina - first for Henryâs sake, later cause she cared awwww - managed to be in touch with Emma through this dimension that Emma was trapped in. Probably in shared dreams and then deliberately through meditation and stuff.
WHICH IS WHY THIS DREAM METAPHOR IS IMPORTANT, IT IS THE WAY THEY CONNECTED IN THE âREALâ WORLD. Also, remember THAT WAS THE EPISODE IN WHICH THEY WERE TRAPPED TOGETHER IN ANOTHER DIMENSION (the mirror dimension) AND THEY COULDNâT CONTACT THE REAL WORLD (except Henry).
I think maybe their shared magic is about them being able to communicate. And also... a realm is just another word for dimension. True love transcends realms. đÂ
Previous post: Maybe weâll meet in a different dimension
Now that we agree that Once Upon a Time (mostly) takes place in a realm where all of our human thoughts (art, stories, music) are physical, touchable things, the show makes SO much more sense.
Youâve been sayinâ plot holes, I say WRONG! Itâs world building, bi*tch! Seriously though, when we said âEVERYBODY HAS THE SAME BACKSTORY THEYâRE SUCH LAZY WRITERS!â we were actually so close to getting it! Hear me out.
I know what you all do at night. Donât lie.
Thatâs right, you go over the same thoughts over and over again. Every trauma and every issue is brought back over and over and over... to be looked at from every angle. No mercy for yourself.
Yeah, I thought so.
HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS? The repetition of car crashes, abandoned & abandoning/sold children, killing of fathers, shitty dudes, references to conversion therapy, ... over and over and over again was SO on purpose. We do it all the time, except we donât live in the nightmare where THOUGHTS TURN TO F*CKING THINGS like Emma Swan does! Seriously, imagine all that sh*t from the past in your mind suddenly become personified.
Yup, you got it. Indeedio, when Emma crashed her car, she got stuck in a dimension where all of her issues became real all around her, played out by both her and other characters. Now you imagine facing an endless version of your night. Not fun. Does that make us sadists for watching? Guess I always knew this fandom was full of kinky bastards.
Anyways, I think thatâs enough for now. So to sum it up;Â rule number one is:Â
âEverything story on Once Upon a Time is connected to the present and the past of Emma Swan.â
And I pinkie promise weâll get to SQ, but I gotta get through all this stuff first.
This is a little extra info to explain the first SQ dimension meta post which you can find here. Wrote it as a reply, but hey, I did the work, so now it gets its own post. Lazypeoplehighfive!!!
I get that it can be confusing, because Iâve needed time to be comfortable and familiar with all these ideas before presenting them! Basically, the theory is that our thoughts form another dimension (or another level of reality if you will).
We have the physical dimension, which is our bodies and everything we see. Then there is another dimension made of our thoughts. Our thoughts vibrate âfasterâ so we donât see them (kinda like vapor compared to ice) when we are not dreaming/meditating.Â
The world of thoughts is divided into two parts. One is personal, but another part of the world of thoughts is shared by all humans. And thatâs basically where most of Once Upon a Time takes place.
I made this pretty kick ass info-graphic up there to help, sometimes itâs clearer visually than with words. I know, Iâm just too nice.
The easiest way to really imagine it is actually by thinking of the physical dimension as ice. Itâs solid, you can hold it. The personal dimension (your own thoughts and memories and traumas) is more like water. You can still see it, but you canât really take it in your hands, itâs fluid. And then the shared dimension (which is where all stories are, in our collective memory) is like a gas, like vapor. We know itâs there, it occupies the same space as we do, but we canât really see it.
