Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-25491743-20161109164436/@comment-24667994-20161125160718

I gave up trying to figure this out ages ago.



Season One: People like Rumple and other characters whose magic produces physical manifestation do not display those manifestations in Storybrooke for the obvious reason that they are in the Land Without Magic. Simple enough.

Season Two: Gold brings magic into Storybrooke. However, he and other magic-characters retain their normal/human forms and appearance. The episode “We are Both” probably comes the closest to explicitly explaining this. Storybrooke has magic, yes, but people retain their curse-appearances: because they are both.

Season Three: When characters like Archie and Rumple are sent back to the Enchanted Forest in the aftermath of the second curse, they revert to their pre-curse selves: Archie returns to being a cricket and when Rumple is resurrected he regains his goldish complexion. In the LWM, Zelena chats with Rumple and is enthused by the fact that “what they carry within” does not show on the outside, as it would in the Enchanted Forest. Referencing her lack of green skin and Rumple’s goldish skin, further cementing the explanations given in season two. All still makes sense.

Season Four:   When we learn that Zelena did not really die at the end of season three we see a flashback of her returning to the Enchanted Forest via the time portal. Her skin is once again green. Again, this is consistent with what has come before. When she returns to the Land Without Magic, she reverts to a normal appearance again—with glamours to look like Marion notwithstanding. In the finale, we see Zelena in the Enchanted Forest but with normal skin, but this can be put down to the Author’s powers creating a world where Zelena is not jealous of her sister. When that jealousy resurfaces, we see her reverting to her green self.

Season Five: This is where the inconsistency begins in earnest. Zelena goes to Camelot, a land that quite clearly has magic and plenty of it. Unlike when Zelena returned to the Enchanted Forest as shown last season, she retains her Storybrooke appearance. One could argue that perhaps Zelena is no longer jealous of Regina, but that doesn’t really track with how the Camelot arc plays out. Why this is so is never explained. Emma Swan as the Dark One is also wonky here. All other Dark Ones are shown to gain the goldish skin as soon they become the Dark One. Nimue and Rumple are shown turn goldish immediately. Zoso instantly reverts to a normal skin tone once he loses his Dark One powers. But in Camelot, Emma Swan still looks normal. A later episode shows the goldish skin beginning to show briefly, which the Darkness explains is a sign of Emma accepting her Dark One-ness. But when Emma does embrace her Dark One-ness, while she does gain a new wardrobe with weird hair, she does not gain the trademark Dark One skin. When she goes to Storybrooke, this is less of an issue, but that she does not gain that look while in Camelot is still a bit confusing.

Season Six: Zelena briefly begins to turn green in Storybrooke after catching the Evil Queen and Gold in a tryst. That outright contradicts what was established in season two, her very own claim made in season three, and re-raises the question of why Zelena did not revert to green while in Camelot during season five.



It’s particularly vexing because there was some degree of consistency up until Season Five. Since then, continuity on this issue seems to have gone out the window. Maybe it’ll get explained, but any explanation would call for some sublime convolution.