For much of the first season, the battle between good and evil is represented by the sparring of two of these mothers: The Evil Queen Regina (charismatically portrayed by Lana Parrilla) who has adopted Henry and placed the town of Storybrooke under an amnesiac fog—the result of a longstanding conflict between Regina and her stepdaughter Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin)—and Emma, Henry’s biological mother, who is drawn to Storybrooke by her son and is destined to save the town. The current battle though, is not about Regina maintaining her hold on the townspeople and ensuring her spell does not break, but rather, one to keep her son. Her love for Henry is pure, and she is driven solely by the desire to protect him, and by the jealous, irrational fear that she will lose him to his biological mother. Meanwhile, though the motherhood Emma spent years denying was initially forced upon her by Henry, she accepted it first out of a sense of responsibility but slowly, out of love for her son. Despite being a feminist’s dream come true, Emma, like the mothers of yore, is the key to Henry’s survival in the end, when he lies, dying from a poisoned apple. It’s Emma’s motherly “True Love’s Kiss†however, which cures Henry, and brings magic back to the town, and along with it, everyone’s memories of the fairytale characters that they really are.
It’s interesting to note that, while the Brothers Grimm emphasized biological connections, this is not the case in Once Upon a Time. Regina for example, had a wicked and literally heartless mother, and Regina struggles for redemption to escape becoming what she’s despised. There’s a moral ambivalence to her pursuit of love and the “happily ever after†which spares neither biological connections, nor forged relationships. For Regina, the eternal struggle between good and evil is an internal battle, not an external one against the “Othersâ€. And though Regina is the core “evil characterâ€, she is not the only ambivalent one; even the “good†characters have moments of darkness. Emma has a past as a thief, and Snow murders to save her family. There’s no blacks and whites here; the complexities of relationships are explored in depth, rather than being confined to concrete definitions of good and evil.
Is this emphasis on biological family as driven by nationalism just as important to the story of Once Upon a Time? It would seem that the answer to that is established from the very first episode, when Emma immediately takes it upon herself to fight Regina for her biological son’s sake. But perhaps Regina’s fear of losing her child is justified. After all, she raised the son that Emma had previously abandoned, and thus has a greater legal right over Henry. Similarly, Snow gave up her daughter in order to secure Emma’s future as well as the rest of Storybrooke; Emma’s resentment is clear when she reminds her parents that they gave her up and left her to face the world on her own.It’s not a simple matter of embracing your lost parents and living “happily ever after;†blood does not, and cannot always ensure loyalty and love. Indeed, blood can also corrupt, as evidenced by Regina’s mother Cora, “the miller’s daughter†from ‘Rumpelstiltskin. In the show, she is a powerful, controlling witch, and kills Snow’s mother as revenge for old slights, and to ensure that Regina marries Snow’s father, the king, and thus can never be just “the miller’s daughter†like Cora was. She’s a bully using power to keep her innocent, “good†daughter captive under her tyrannical upbringing, and why? Because she wants to use her own daughter in her power-hungry games; obsessed with escaping her past as a poor miller’s daughter, Cora’s primary concern is remaining wealthy and powerful, and if Regina’s welfare is connected to Cora’s revenge on Snow’s mother, it is only coincidence, and not a mother’s love.
