Emma Swan

"There's no Savior in this town anymore."

- Emma Swan

Emma Swan, also known as the Savior, the Dark One, and briefly known as Princess Leia, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. She débuts in the first episode of the first season of Once Upon a Time. She is portrayed by starring cast member Jennifer Morrison, guest star Abby Ross and co-star Mckenna Grace, and does not have a counterpart.

Trivia

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Etymology

 * The name "Emma" is of Germanic origin derived from the word "ermen" that means "whole" or "universal".
 * The surname "Swan" is of Scottish origin and is derived from the Old English personal name "Swein", which was originally derived from the Old Norse name "Sveinn", meaning "boy".
 * Emma's last name is derived from the fairytale of "The Ugly Duckling". According to the show creators, her last name is symbolic of the journey they have created for the character as Emma is somebody who has had a very tough time and her journey is to become a swan.
 * Jennifer Morrison has stated that Emma got her last name from her first foster parents.  It is also a reference to ABC's Lost island Swan Station.

Character Notes

 * Likes hot cocoa with cinnamon, just like her mother and her son.
 * Has a flower tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. It is the same flower as her father's crest.
 * In "The Cricket Game", there are two swans gathered by Hook's ship at the docks.
 * When Princess Abigail and Prince Charming arrive at King Midas' castle, there is a swan swimming in the lake.
 * Emma likes the color yellow.
 * In "Mother", a white swan flies across the horizon as Emma and Hook look out onto the bay.
 * In Isaac's story, Emma is locked in a tower by her "mother", just like Rapunzel was in the Disney movie Tangled. Following the rescue, Emma is dressed in an outfit which resembles the one worn by Flynn Rider.
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Production Notes

 * The in-show inspiration for the character of Emma relates to the story of "The Ugly Duckling".
 * Fittingly enough, Henry's bedside lamp has a shadow figure of a swan, ducks and three ducklings.
 * In the original script, Emma's first name was Anna.
 * Actress Katee Sackhoff auditioned five times to play Emma. When she quit, Jennifer Morrison won the role.
 * According to show writer Adam Horowitz, Emma was supposed to have three children, which eventually evolved into just one.
 * According to Jennifer Morrison, Emma is like an overgrown teenager who doesn't know how to eat properly or take care of herself properly, because she's never had a family unit. When Jennifer does not know what to do with Emma, she thinks, "What a 14-year-old boy would do?".
 * Emma's eating habits is briefly touched upon in "Darkness on the Edge of Town", where Regina remarks that Emma eats like a child.
 * Emma claims to have an extra-special ability which is being able to tell when someone is lying to her. The show creators have stated that she has to be actually looking for a lie, and emotions cloud her ability, which is the reason why it has been failing her in her interactions with people.
 * Mary Margaret alludes to this when she points out that Emma's "superpower" has been known to be unreliable, especially when she's emotional.
 * According to Jennifer Morrison, Emma has had her wrist tattoo since she was "probably 14".
 * The scars featured on Emma's chest in the Enchanted Forest tavern scene in "Snow Drifts" are a direct result of Jennifer Morrison herself having multiple moles removed.
 * In "Pilot", one of the moles can be seen while Emma in wearing her red dress. In "The Thing You Love Most", it is gone.
 * The show creators have said that they view Captain Hook as their version of Han Solo from the Star Wars franchise. Fittingly enough, Emma's alias in the Enchanted Forest is Princess Leia, Han Solo's love interest.
 * The Star Wars connection is further alluded to in "Operation Mongoose Part 2", where Henry and Hook rescue Emma from prison, and Henry refers to this as the "Wookiee prisoner transfer" ploy. This is a reference to the scene from Star Wars: A New Hope, where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker enter the Death Star's detention area to rescue Princess Leia.
 * In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Morrison stated that Emma going to the dark side, had been planned since the end of Season Three, although it was always meant to start in Season Five.
 * In order to prepare for her portrayal of dark Emma, Jennifer Morrison did lots of research with mythology books and old fairy tale books, and read about the history of swans and the etymology of "swan". She also read about research about swans in general, and the psychology of fairy tales.
 * According to Jennifer, there is an old fairy-tale that she has been using as a reference for Dark Swan, "The Queen and the Murderer", which sort of parallels Emma's journey. This fairytale is also known as "The One Handed Murderer", and is from Italo Calvino's collection of Italian Folktales. In the story, a woman is haunted by a murderer, and her father does not believe that the murderer is threatening her, so the murderer haunts her her whole life until she finally stands up to him and actually has kill him.


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Props Notes

 * Emma's trademark leather jacket was originally supposed to be black, but the day before shooting started, Edward Kitsis asked if it could be red, to allude to Prince Charming's red outfit in the Enchanted Forest flashbacks.
 * In the first two episodes of season one, Emma's jacket was a cheap jacket tweaked by the costume department. By episode three, the costume department replaced it with custom made leather jackets by Vancouver's Ocean Drive Leather. Five have been created for the show.
 * The producers have stated that Emma represents color coming into the drained world of Storybrooke, as seen in her yellow car and red jacket.
 * Henry's bedside lamp has a shadow figure of a swan.
 * The inn room key Granny hands Emma has an ornament with an engraving of a swan.
 * Based on her mugshot on the cover of the newspaper, Emma is approximately 5'7".
 * Possesses a star charm keyring.
 * Owns a cup which says "I ♥ Boston". She brings it with her to the sheriff's station when she takes over as sheriff.
 * Wears a shoelace from Sheriff Graham's boot around her wrist. She keeps his boots, missing one lace, in her office at the Storybrooke Sheriff Department.
 * The mobile over Emma's baby crib at the Boston foster home has two wooden pieces with a crown and a castle.
 * Used to wear glasses as a young adult.
 * Young Emma's floral dress in "Tallahassee" is the same one Mary Margaret wears for her date with Dr. Whale in "Snow Falls".
 * Dons a necklace with a small swan engraving on it, which she fashioned out of a key chain that was given to her by former boyfriend Neal.
 * The necklace is a jewelry piece called a "Swan Talisman Necklace" and can be purchased online.
 * Emma's secondary necklace, in the shape of a circle, was chosen specifically by Jennifer Morrison herself. She states the circular shape draws symbolism to ancient Celtic art of swans, which "are pictured with rings around their necks to represent the connection between divinity and humanity".
 * The day after the curse, the newspaper Regina reads is dated October 23, 1983 (the show premiered on October 23, 2011). This means Emma's birthday is either October 22, or October 23, depending on whether she was born before or after midnight.
 * Adam Horowitz has stated that Emma's birthday is October 23. However, the show itself indicates that her birthday on October 22. In "Pilot", Emma celebrates her twenty-eight birthday on this date; the day she arrives in Storybrooke (which was the day before she spends the night behind bars and decides to stay; she even says to Regina that "yesterday was my birthday"). This is further confirmed when August's wooden state is triggered in Thailand at 8:15 A.M. on October 24—the very same moment that Emma accepts the room key at 8:15 P.M. (the time zone in Phuket is twelve hours ahead of Maine's timezone).
 * In the close-up of Hook's hand as he clutches the magic bean aboard the Jolly Roger, the ring on his index finger has a heart design on the side with an engraving of a silhouette of a swan's head.
 * There is a swan-shaped fruit bowl on the table of Emma's New York apartment.
 * The lounge of Granny's Bed and Breakfast has two porcelain figurines of a swan—a small one and a big one.
 * The dress Emma wears in Prince Charming's nightmare in has swan-like feathers.
 * At King Midas' ball, Emma is wearing the same headpiece from her father's dream in "The Tower".
 * The pink dress Emma wears in Snow White's vision of the Jungle Dimension is the same one Violet wears for her date with Henry in "Dreamcatcher"; minus the long sleeves.
 * Jennifer Morrison helped create her Dark One's signature outfit.

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.


 * Emma appears in Henry's storybook in "The Thing You Love Most", "Going Home", "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home".
 * Emma is mentioned in the storybook in "The Snow Queen".
 * Emma appears in a photo in "The Crocodile".
 * Emma's name appears on the squid ink parchment in "Queen of Hearts".