Board Thread:Show-Related Questions and Answers/@comment-26569765-20171118234222/@comment-31931060-20171119115937

Well, Wish Realm id definetly a bad writing, I think it still can be explained by in-universe rules.

For me, past of Wish Universe divides on two parts, one is the same history which EF had, the second is different. Wish Realm is the EF, whose history was altered at some points. Let's call it the moment of the change. Everything before were fake, hole wish world(s) came into existence in that moment, but they were made to beleive that theirs backstory was real. Everything after the moment of change is definetly real.

From MErlin in season 5 we know, that there are different paths of fate, but theirs number is limited. So, Wish realm is variant of Emma's life is path, which hadn't been chosen, but was brought into existence by genie power