Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-34924658-20171024194401/@comment-1826156-20180221180024

If we're still voting, I'd say Anastasia from WL is more than just an allusion. People have gotten so heated in this discussion which should be more fun than serious. It's definitely an annoying thing the writers have done here.

My theory on what happened was she was 100% supposed to be Anastasia Tremaine. Ashley showing up like she did in WL makes me believe that. They decided to add in bits in WL like signs of the Wraith attack and then wrote out Anastasia's backstory dropping in the Cinderella snippets and then realized "Uh oh! Timeline doesn't match up for her to be Ashley's sister!) so they tried to wave it off as a coincidence. Really writers...we are not that stupid. Later, others confirmed she was in fact a version of the stepsister, but for another story besides Ashley's. I feel like they should have just did what they've done since season 4 and disregard their own rules for how these worlds work and say, yes, she was Ashley's sister, but we acn't get Emma Rigby back...so she's just not going to appear...and give Drizella the redemption arc Clorinda had. The Clorinda and Tisbe thing was just so annoying to me. Though I did love Clorinda's actress, it seemed unecessary and a way they could distance themself from the whole thing they'd built up in WL. I believe if WL hadn't ended as soon as it had, or if it had done better and been seen by more fans, then Anastasia would definitely have been Ashley's stepsister.

However, in universe, she is not. Though I do still believe she is based on Anastasia Tremaine and should be considered based on the stepsister from Cinderella, making her more than just an allusion, by far, even as we know she is most likely not a Tremaine in EF.