Emma Swan-Jones (born Nolan), also called The Savior, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. A bail bondswoman, Emma is the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and, as the product of their true love, was destined to break the curse that the Evil Queen cast over the whole Enchanted Forest. Her son Henry, previously given up for adoption, brings her to Storybrooke to end the Dark Curse. She is portrayed by Jennifer Morrison, with her younger self portrayed by Abby Ross and Mckenna Grace. Emma's gallery is available here.
Biography[]
Background[]
After Snow White and Prince Charming put their baby daughter Emma into a magical wardrobe, it transports her to Earth and she escapes the Dark Curse. As a child, Emma is told the story of The Ugly Duckling by Pinocchio, who accompanied her from the Enchanted Forest, who starts going by the name of August Booth. Emma also crafts herself a surname, Swan, based on the story Pinocchio told her. She eventually grows up with a few foster parents, including a woman named Ingrid, but when she is a teenager she turns to a life of crime, eventually meeting and falling in love with a fellow thief, Neal Cassidy. The two plan to return from crime and live the rest of their lives together, but when Neal is confronted by August Booth, he betrays Emma and she goes to jail, where she discovers that she is pregnant. She decides to give her baby son away for adoption, deciding that she cannot be a mother. After serving her prison sentence, Emma becomes a bail-bondsperson in Boston.
Season 1[]
On her 28th birthday, she receives a visit from a 10-year-old boy named Henry Mills, who claims to be her son. She takes him back to his home in Storybrooke, but quickly grows concerned for the boy's well being when she meets Henry's bitter adoptive mother, Regina Mills. A rivalry quickly grows between the two mothers. When Sheriff Graham is killed, Emma becomes the sheriff of Storybrooke. Regina eventually tries to put Emma into a death-like sleep with a poisoned apple turnover. However, in an attempt to make Emma believe that the curse is real, he takes a bite out of the apple turnover and falls under the Sleeping Curse. In order to gain a potion that could save Henry, Emma goes underneath Storybrooke where she battles a dragon - the potion is inside the dragon. She gains the potion, but it is stolen by Rumplestiltskin and Henry is declared to be dead. Back to the hospital, Emma kisses Henry on the forehead whilst in tears which wakes Henry up, and breaks the curse.
Season 2[]
With everyone's memories and magic back in town, Emma and Snow are sucked into a portal which takes them to a 'post-apocalyptic' Enchanted Forest. There, they meet Mulan and Aurora, who decide to help Emma and Snow return to Storybrooke. However, they face dangers like Regina's mother Cora and charming pirate Captain Hook. The six of them have a battle at Lake Nostos, where they use the lake's magical properties to open a portal back to Storybrooke. Emma and Snow defeat Cora and Hook, and return to Storybrooke successfully. However, as they all celebrate, Cora and Hook use a magic bean to travel to Storybrooke. Cora plans to become the Dark One and tries to kill Rumplestiltskin. They all battle at Rumplestiltskin's shop, and Snow manages to trick Regina into placing Cora's heart back into her body, although Snow had cursed Cora's heart, which causes Cora to die. Emma finds Neal Cassidy in New York while helping Rumplestiltskin look for his son - and discovers that Neal is actually Baelfire. Emma also meets Tamara, Neal's fiancée. However, it is revealed that Tamara is working for an organisation known as the Home Office. Tamara and Greg Mendell kidnap Henry and take him to Neverland. However Emma and the others follow them in order to save Henry.
Season 3[]
After enduring Peter Pan's various games and mind-tricks, Emma and the others manage to save Henry and return to Storybrooke. However, Peter Pan and the Lost Boys also travel to Storybrooke and Pan creates a second Dark Curse, which causes everyone in Storybrooke to return to the Enchanted Forest. However, Regina casts a spell on Emma and Henry, who escape the second Dark Curse, and the spell causes the two of them to completely forget about everything that ever happened in Storybrooke, giving them new memories instead.
One year later, Emma is confronted by Hook, who tells Emma that her family is in danger. She refuses to listen to him until he manages to convince her to drink a potion, which restores her memories. Wanting to return to Storybrooke, Emma decides to give up the life she had for a year and turns out a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Walsh. However, it is revealed that Walsh is actually a flying monkey, and he attacks her but she defeats him and takes Henry before going with Hook back to Storybrooke to discover that someone has cast a third Dark Curse which took everyone back to Storybrooke but erased their memories of the past year in the Enchanted Forest. They eventually find out that Zelena is behind all this. Regina teaches Emma how to use and control her magic so that she and Regina's magic together might be able to defeat Zelena. Regina manages to use light magic and defeats Zelena, removing her pendant and leaving her powerless. However, after Zelena's death, the time-travel portal that she tried to open is activated. When Emma and Hook investigate it, they are sucked into the time portal and are sent to the Enchanted Forest of the past. However, they eventually return. Emma goes to her parents' coronation celebration for their newborn son and Emma's baby brother, and discovers that they have called their son Neal, in honor of Baelfire. Afterwards, Emma and Hook eventually kiss.
Season 4[]
When Marian, who Emma brought from the Enchanted Forest, falls prey to a lethal icy spell, Emma denies that Elsa did it. The frozen attack on Marian and the ice wall around Storybrooke are revealed to be Ingrid's doing. Emma and Killian eventually go on a date, which is nearly ruined by Will Scarlet, who had previously evaded Emma while she was searching for Ingrid, but overall the date is a good break from work. They manage to capture Ingrid, and Emma interrogates her at the sheriff's station. However, Ingrid manages to work up Emma's emotions so much that Emma loses control of her powers. Scared for her family's safety, Emma runs to Rumplestiltskin for help, who offers to perform a spell that will take Emma's magic away permanently. Rumplestiltskin however fails to mention that the Sorcerer's Hat will also suck Emma into its vortex, fueling the Hat with enough magic. He almost tricks Emma into using it, but she changes her mind with Elsa's help, who manages to get Emma to accept that her magic is apart of who she is. Emma manages to gain control of them.
Ingrid unleashes the Spell of Shattered Sight, but eventually regrets her actions and sacrifices herself to stop the Spell, giving back Emma and Elsa's memories of her. Elsa hugs Emma goodbye as she goes back to Arendelle with Anna and Kristoff. Emma decides to help Regina search for "The Author", although that ends with the Author joining Rumplestiltskin and Emma being forced to kill Cruella, who held Henry hostage. Maleficent eventually enrols Emma on a mission to locate her daughter Lily, who turns out to be Emma's childhood friend. She finds Lily, who agrees to go with her and Regina. But of course she failed Maleficent after they returned to town, because Lily leaves her for not wanting to help seek revenge on the wrong people. So Maleficent enrolls Emma's parents help instead of her, and they both were successful in reuniting mother and daughter, regardless of how Lily almost killed Snow as a dragon. Emma came to Snow to recover her, and apologize for how she insidiously treated her mother. When the darkness in Rumplestiltskin's heart takes an almost-fatal turn, it is exorcised out of Rumplestiltskin, leaving him in a comatose state. The darkness becomes uncontrollable until Emma takes the Dark One's dagger and absorbs the darkness, becoming the Dark One.
Season 5[]
Emma spawns from the Vault of the Dark One, guided by a manifestation of the darkness inside her, in the form of Rumplestiltskin. She meets Merida while searching for a Wisp, but when Merida refuses to hand the Wisp over, Emma rips out her heart and threatens to kill her. However, her family and friends arrive just in time to stop her, having travelled to the Enchanted Forest to find her. King Arthur and his knights arrive and greet them, and they all go to Camelot. Emma and Regina are determined to free Merlin from his tree form, which causes Emma to rip out the heart of a girl named Violet who Henry has a crush on, and command her to break his heart so Henry can wield a tear of lost love which frees Merlin. Somehow, during an altercation with King Arthur and Zelena, Hook is fatally wounded. Emma heals him by tethering him to Excalibur, making Hook the Dark One. However, Hook becomes darkened and does the bidding of the previous Dark Ones by killing Merlin to cast a fourth Dark Curse which takes them all to Storybrooke, although Emma takes everyone's memories away.
Back in Storybrooke, Emma pretends to have embraced the darkness, while training Rumplestiltskin to pull Excalibur from the stone to bind it with the dagger to make it whole again, so that she can remove the darkness. When all their memories are restored, Hook remembers he is a Dark One, and Emma reunites with her family so they can stop him. The darkness is taken out of Killian and Emma, although it results in Killian's death. Distraught, Emma decides to go to the Underworld and retrieve Killian, and Emma's family decide to go with her. Despite their best efforts, Emma and her family are unable to resurrect Killian and have to leave without him. However, Zeus decides to revive Killian instead due to his part in defeating Hades, and reuniting him with Emma.
Season 6[]
Emma worries when she notices her hands starting to tremor and starts getting visions of her own death. When the Evil Queen forces Emma into revealing this to her family, Henry starts feeling guilty for bringing Emma to Storybrooke in the first place. Emma desperately seeks out Aladdin, another Savior, hoping to prove the Oracle false on her claims that all Saviors die. When Aladdin gives her shears that can sever her destiny, she becomes so tempted to use them that she entrusts them to Killian so he can get rid of them. Emma and Regina are briefly trapped in the mirror world by the Evil Queen, but the Dragon and Henry free them. After Emma finds the sword destined to kill her in her visions, the Evil Queen banishes Emma to the Wish Realm where she becomes "Princess Emma" until Regina helps her remember who she is. However, the pair of them are trapped there, until Emma gets Pinocchio to craft an enchanted wardrobe that takes Emma, Regina and Robin back to Storybrooke. When Emma finds an engagement ring in Killian's things, she realizes that he is going to ask her to marry him.
However, she discovers that Killian was reluctant to propose when he discovered he was the murderer of David's father. Gideon traps Killian in the Enchanted Forest, before using this to try and blackmail Emma into helping him kill the Black Fairy. Emma agrees to help Gideon, which nearly gets herself killed, as Gideon is actually in league with the Black Fairy. Although she survives Gideon's attack, enough of Emma's life force is used to open a portal, releasing the Black Fairy into Storybrooke. Emma is later confronted by the Black Fairy, who tells her that they have been destined to battle since the dawn of time. She is among those used to dilute her parents' curse. Emma and Killian eventually get married in front of their family and friends, before all of them are consumed by the Black Fairy's curse which confines Emma to a mental hospital until she escapes. The Black Fairy, just before Rumplestiltskin kills her, sends Gideon to kill Emma once and for all. Emma and Gideon battle, until Emma gives up and Gideon stabs her. Instead of dying though, Emma's light restores the realms.
Season 7[]
Emma briefly reunites with an adult Henry in another realm, where Emma reveals that she and Killian are expecting a baby. The Killian from the Wish Realm initially tries to replace the original Killian, but decides against it when he realizes that Emma is pregnant, and allows Emma and Killian to return to Storybrooke. When the Wish Realm version of Killian, cursed as "Rogers" in Hyperion Heights, goes through Lucy's storybook, he finds an illustration of Emma Swan vaguely familiar.
Later, Emma gives birth to hers and Hook's newborn daughter, Hope, Later, Emma attends Regina's coronation as Queen of the United Realms with her daughter and husband.
Alternate Timeline[]
In the Enchanted Forest of the past, Emma accidentally interferes with the time that Snow and David first met, changing it so that they didn't meet. Realizing the catastrophic effects that would follow, Emma and Hook go to see Rumplestiltskin, who is able to recreate a portal that will send them back to the future, but Emma must recreate the time that Snow and David first met. That night, at a ball celebrating the engagement of David and Abigail, Emma and Hook disguise themselves as royalty, introducing themselves to King Midas as "Prince Charles and Princess Leia". Snow sneaks into the castle where the ball is held in an attempt to thieve some treasure in order to be able to pay to escape Regina's wrath, and she and David meet, but Snow escapes just as Regina arrives at the ball. Abigail walks in and catches a glimpse of Snow, reporting it to her father Midas, who tells Regina. Regina's knights spread out and bring Emma to Regina. However, she escapes and after Snow and David fall in love, Emma and Hook return to Rumplestiltskin. Emma uses the Black Fairy's wand to reopen the portal and they return to Storybrooke.
Alternate Universe[]
Emma is imprisoned by Snow White on an island, guarded by Lily. Henry and Killian allow Emma to escape.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland[]
Emma is seen driving in her car when Will Scarlet is wandering the streets, and swerves to avoid hitting him.
Magical Abilities[]
- Light Magic - Ability to control the purest and lightest of all magic. (Limited to Saviors and good and powerful beings.)
- Belief - Ability to mildly alter reality (usually in Neverland) by believing strong enough.
- Foresight - Ability to see the future in bits and pieces.
- True Love - Ability to kiss one's True Love and break a curse.
- Witchcraft - Ability to cast spells and/or curses.
- Age Manipulation - Ability to accelerate or reverse the aging process or a pregnancy.
- Conjuration - Ability to conjure objects out of the blue.
- Energy Blasts - Ability to create magical blasts to harm the enemies and the objects in the most effective way.
- Healing Spells - Ability to magically heal injuries and/or diseases.
- Heart-ripping - Ability to rip someone's heart out in order to control/kill them, among other purposes.
- Locator Spells - Ability to cast a spell that will aid in finding something or someone.
- Magical Immobilization - Ability to magically immobilize something or someone.
- Mirror Enchantments - Ability to see through mirrors and travel through them.
- Protection Spells - Ability to magically protect a location, an item or a person through various ways.
- Pyrokinesis - Ability to conjure and control fire.
- Shapeshifting - Ability to alter the appearance of oneself or others.
- Telekinesis - Ability to control the movement of the environment. Additionally, she has the ability to strangle her enemies without touching them.
- Teleportation - Ability to magically teleport oneself and/or others from one location to another.
Former Magical Abilities[]
- Dark One - Ability to use the powers of Darkness acquired with the Dark One Dagger.
- Enhanced Traits - Augmented strength, agility, durability and fighting skills.
- Immortality - Eternal unaging life.
Family[]
Alive:
- Snow White (Mother)
- David Nolan (Father)
- Neal Nolan (Brother)
- Henry Daniel Mills (Son)
- Henry (Wish Realm) (second son)
- Hope Swan-Jones (Daughter)
- Ella "Cinderella" Mills (Daughter-in-law)
- Lucy Mills (Granddaughter)
- Killian Jones (Husband)
- Liam Jones II (Brother-in-law)
- Regina Mills (Maternal Step-Grandmother; via Leopold)
- Zelena Mills (Maternal Step-Aunt)
- Robin Hood (Maternal Step-Cousin)
Deceased:
- Neal Cassidy (Ex-boyfriend / Henry's father)
- Ingrid "Snow Queen"(Foster mother)
- Ruth Nolan (Paternal Grandmother)
- Robert Nolan (Paternal Grandfather)
- Queen Eva (Maternal Grandmother)
- King Leopold (Maternal Grandfather)
- Cora Mills (Great-Step-Grandmother; Regina's mother)
- Henry Mills Sr. (Great-Step-Grandfather; Regina's father)
- James (Uncle)
- Brennan Jones (Father-in-law)
- Mrs Jones (Mother-in-law)
- Liam Jones (Brother-in-law)
Status: Alive
Trivia[]
- Emma is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming from the fairytale Snow White.
- She also alludes to the swan from the fairytale, The Ugly Duckling.
- Like her mother and her son, Emma enjoys cinnamon on her hot cocoa.
- Emma has had four love interests throughout the series: Neal Cassidy (Henry's father), Sheriff Graham (who was killed by Regina), Walsh (who turned out to be a flying monkey), and currently Killian Jones (her true love, husband and father of their daughter).
- The relationship between Emma and Killian is known by the fans as "CaptainSwan".
- Emma was possibly born on October 22th, 1983, which was the day before the creation of Storybrooke. This would make her a Libra.
- Due Snow White and Prince Charming being cursed, Emma wasn't a princess. Although not truly because of her mother being born into royalty, Emma was born to be a princess in her kingdom.
Appearances[]
- S1, E01: "Pilot"
- S1, E02: "The Thing You Love Most"
- S1, E03: "Snow Falls"
- S1, E04: "The Price of Gold"
- S1, E05: "That Still Small Voice"
- S1, E06: "The Shepherd"
- S1, E07: "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"
- S1, E08: "Desperate Souls"
- S1, E09: "True North"
- S1, E10: "7:15 A.M."
- S1, E11: "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree"
- S1, E12: "Skin Deep"
- S1, E13: "What Happened to Frederick"
- S1, E14: "Dreamy"
- S1, E15: "Red-Handed"
- S1, E16: "Heart of Darkness"
- S1, E17: "Hat Trick"
- S1, E18: "The Stable Boy"
- S1, E19: "The Return"
- S1, E20: "The Stranger"
- S1, E21: "An Apple Red as Blood"
- S1, E22: "A Land Without Magic"