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This article focuses on Jefferson's hats.
For the hat belonging to the Sorcerer, see Sorcerer's Hat.


Evil Queen: The Mad Hatter's hat! But, wasn't it destroyed?
Zelena: He was a hatter; he had multiples. Inside are portals to every realm.

Evil Queen and Zelena src

Jefferson's Hats are magical items featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. They first appear in the seventeenth episode of the first season.

Jefferson's hats are based on the Hatter's hat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter's top hat from the animated Disney film Alice in Wonderland, and Tarrant Hightopp's top hat from the live-action Disney film Alice in Wonderland. They are also based on the hall with doors from the novel and the Disney films.

History

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Before First Curse

A portal jumper, Jefferson, uses his magic hat to travel between worlds and procure treasures. On one assignment, he procures a crystal ball from Oz for Rumplestiltskin. As part of another favor, Rumplestiltskin wants Jefferson to trick his magic protege, Regina, into believing a Dr. Frankenstein from another realm can resurrect her dead lover. Once Jefferson brings Dr. Frankenstein to the Enchanted Forest, he fakes a failed revival of Regina's love. Afterwards, Victor receives an enchanted heart as payment for his services, and Jefferson brings him home through the hat. ("The Doctor")

Journeying to Camelot, Jefferson attempts to steal gold valuables from the king's vault, only to be usurped by another thief named Priscilla. Before both of them are caught by guards, she whisks him out the window, and in turn, he takes her through his portal hat. Soon, the pair become partners-in-crime, having many adventures as thieves, as they fall in love and marry. After Priscilla gives birth to their daughter, Grace, Jefferson decides to put away his portal hat forever. However, two years later, when their finances are dwindling, he uses the hat to travel to Wonderland, hoping to steal the Clock of Evermore and sell it for a high price. Instead, he is captured by the March Hare, and although Priscilla rescues him, she pays with her life. Honoring her last wish to return to Grace, Jefferson leaves behind his wife's body and escapes into the hat. Soon after this, he stores the hat away once more, regretting that his work caused Priscilla's death. ("Out of the Past")

While living in poverty, Jefferson is given a chance opportunity by the Queen to earn money if he brings her to Wonderland. Initially, he refuses, remembering how his job cost his wife's life. Nonetheless, after he recognizes his inability to provide for Grace with very little money, Jefferson agrees to the deal for his daughter's sake. Together, he and the Queen jump into the hat, where they reach a room with many different doors to various worlds. Before they enter through a doorway to Wonderland, Jefferson warns her that if two people go into one of the world doors in the hat, the same amount of people must come back. Arriving in Wonderland, they head through a maze and into a vault, where the Queen steals a box. After escaping from the Queen of Hearts' guards, Jefferson begins ushering her into the portal, but she stops to grab a piece of mushroom and place in the box. Suddenly, a person grows to human size after consuming the mushroom, who is actually the Queen's father, Henry. The Queen, intending to go home with her father, traps Jefferson in Wonderland. Once they are gone, guards haul him before the Queen of Hearts, who orders him to make another portal hat. From then on, Jefferson becomes consumed by his desire to return home to Grace, making thousands of hats, though none of them "work". ("Hat Trick")

On the path of revenge, Hook tries to gain knowledge about a special dagger from the Evil Queen's prisoner, Belle, but she proves to be useless for information. As he prepares to kill her, the Evil Queen offers him a chance to kill the Queen of Hearts. She informs him of a curse that will be cast, which will take all Enchanted Forest inhabitants to magicless world, and make it all the more easier for Hook to kill Rumplestiltskin. Since the Evil Queen also wants him to bring back the Queen of Hearts' body as proof of death, she sends him to Wonderland via the hat along with the corpse of a deceased guard. Per the rules of the hat, the same number of people who go in have to come out. When Hook accomplishes the task in Wonderland, he leaves the guard there while bringing back the Queen of Hearts' body to the Enchanted Forest. ("Queen of Hearts")

During First Curse
Mayor Regina of Storybrooke desperately wishes to get rid of her adoptive son's birth mother Emma. However, she cannot simply kill her since Mr. Gold created the Dark Curse to have the capability of breaking if and when Emma, the savior, dies. As such, she seeks out Jefferson's help to make his old portal jumping hat work. He states that it won't work without magic, so Regina leads him down to her vault where she drops some leftover items from the Enchanted Forest into the hat. Nothing happens, so she takes out the last item, her engagement ring. She tearfully parts with it, to which the hat is powered up enough. When Regina reaches her hand into the portal, it allows her to take out the poisoned apple that Snow White once bit into. She later bakes it into an apple turnover intending for Emma to ingest it and fall under a Sleeping Curse. ("An Apple Red as Blood")

After First Curse

In the aftermath of the breaking of the Dark Curse, Regina finds herself the target of a Wraith that Mr. Gold sent to suck out her soul. While David Nolan is keen on letting her die, Emma objects because Regina's adoptive son Henry does not want his mother to be harmed. David, Emma and Mary Margaret decide to protect Regina and do their best to defeat the Wraith. Since the Wraith cannot be killed, Regina thinks it is a good idea to send it to another place where it cannot harm anyone ever again. Upon seeing Regina pull out the hat from a box, Emma recognizes it as Jefferson's hat, but Regina pretends not to know what she is talking about. While attempting to open a portal from the hat, Regina is unsuccessful until Emma accidentally activates it. Emma pushes Regina out of the way as the Wraith is sucked into the hat's portal before she is grabbed by the creature and sucked in as well. In horror, Mary Margaret jumps in to follow Emma. David tries to do the same, but the portal closes just in time. Afterwards, David demands to know where his family went, but Regina claims she doesn't know. The hat takes the Wraith to the Enchanted Forest, where it inevitably brands and then kills Prince Phillip. An unconscious Emma and Mary Margaret also arrive this world because of the hat's portal and are then blamed by Aurora and Mulan for Phillip's death. ("Broken")

With the hat in his possession, David goes to Regina's house to grill the ex-mayor for answers. Regina lies and says she does not remember how or where the hat came from. David then leaves to look for Mother Superior in the hopes of finding fairy dust to use on the tree trunk Emma came through as a baby, but things get chaotic when it's discovered anyone attempting to leave town will lose their Enchanted Forest memories. Eventually, Henry tells him the hat belongs to the Mad Hatter but doesn't know where he is. David heads to Mr. Gold's pawnshop for help. He keeps the hat a secret from Mr. Gold and only asks for something that can be used to find someone. Mr. Gold gives him a potion to track a person's whereabouts. After putting the liquid on the hat, it begins to move on its accord towards Jefferson and leads David to an overturned car, where he frees Jefferson, who is trapped beneath the vehicle. David mentions the hat to Jefferson, but the latter admits he can't make it work, however, he divulges knowledge about the Enchanted Forest still being in existence. David is stunned at the news as he was under the assumption their old world is already gone. ("We Are Both")

After the discovery of the diamonds in the Storybrooke mines, Mother Superior asks David if he still has the remnants of Jefferson's hat. David reveals that he does, and Mother Superior tells him to take good care of it because, with the fairy dust created from the diamonds, they should be able to create a portal to the Enchanted Forest. At some point after this, the hat is stolen by Albert, who burns it over a fire, to keep David from ever reuniting with Emma and Mary Margaret. ("Child of the Moon")

During Fourth Curse
After the Black Fairy's Dark Curse banishes Zelena back to Oz, where she notices the land is fading out of existence, she somehow finds one of Jefferson's hats and uses it to help herself, her daughter, and some of the munchkins escape to the Enchanted Forest. She then reaches Regina's old palace and brings her sister and the other heroes into the hat's portal of doors to show them that, besides Oz, various realms are also disappearing for an unexplained reason. Through discussion, they figure out the magic sustaining the worlds is dying out because Emma's belief is depleting. Later, other residents from a number of realms arrive into the portal of doors, presumably through the use of one of Jefferson's many hats. As Regina comments to Zelena about seeing an Arendelle native with fresh snow on his shoulders, Jasmine and Aladdin greet the heroes, having just escaped from Agrabah. As the Enchanted Forest begins collapsing because of Emma's fading belief, Regina teleports everyone out of the hat and to her palace so she can work on a way back to Storybrooke. ("The Final Battle Part 1")

Portal of Doors

The portal of doors are rooms located in each hat where portals to various other locations are located. It is accessible to anyone who jumps into the hat. The room is circular and rounded with red curtains containing many unique doors.

First Hat

The portal of doors in the first hat is circular and rounded with red curtains. The floor is made of a dark stone with a golden pattern laid into it.[1]

Visible doors include:

  1. Tan door
  2. Gray door
  3. Pink brick door
  4. Lime green door with a centered window/mirror
  5. Brown door with a tree design
  6. Sky blue door with four gray handles
  7. Medieval brown & gray door
  8. Light red door with logograms
  9. Dark red door with a white pattern
  10. Red Chinese door
  11. Emerald green curtain: Oz ("Hat Trick," "Heart of Gold")
  12. Looking glass: Wonderland ("Hat Trick")
  13. Glass elevator door[2]
  14. Light brown door with windows on the top and sides
  15. Pink door with a dark square mechanism in the center
  16. Dark gray door
  17. Wooden door with a stone door frame

Moreover, some of the destinations to which these doors lead have been revealed, even if it remains unknown which door leads to which location:

Second Hat

The Portal of Doors in the second hat is circular and rounded by black wallpaper with a white pattern. Between each door is a candle sconce with two candles. The floor is black with a white geometric pattern in the center, surrounded by the symbols of playing card suits at each quarter of the circle: diamond, spade, heart and club.[3] ("The Final Battle Part 1," "The Final Battle Part 2")

There are a total of twelve doors located inside the second hat:

  1. Archway door with a porthole
  2. Giant Tiki mask door with a grass canopy
  3. Golden curtain portal: Oz
  4. Layered stone door with Egyptian symbols at the top
  5. Red Chinese door with black beams and a golden or Shòu insignia
  6. Wooden door with iron frames and the DunBroch insignia
  7. Door with icicles: Arendelle
  8. Triangle pattern door
  9. Golden swirls door
  10. Fire pentacle door
  11. Gray metal door with rounded or bowed-out sides and two squares
  12. Carved wooden door with ornaments[4]

Moreover, some of the destinations to which these doors lead have been revealed, even if it remains unknown which door leads to which location:

Trivia

On-Screen Notes

  • The walls and floor on the storybook page with the door,[5] which Henry finds, have the same design as the inside of the first hat.[6] ("Unforgiven" et al.)
  • The edges of the floor in the second hat is decorated with traditional playing card symbols;[7] a reference to the living playing cards in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. ("The Final Battle Part 1," "The Final Battle Part 2")
  • A red door with rows of golden studs and large golden door-knockers in the first hat resembles[8] those used as gates for Chinese temples, such as the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City in Beijing. ("Hat Trick")
  • A red door with golden studs and bearing the or Shòu character in the second hat[9] resembles those used as gates for Chinese temples, but with added black bars. ("The Final Battle Part 2")
  • The designs of the doors in the second hat have some similarities with other worlds and realms:
    • A door features the same motif as the floor in Hades' lair:[10] a pentacle with pitchforks at the edges.[11] ("The Final Battle Part 1")
    • The triangle pattern door[12] greatly resembles the triangle patterns on the domes and walls of Jasmine's palace in Agrabah.[13] ("The Final Battle Part 1")
    • Another door[14] carries the same insignia as the thrones in the DunBroch castle.[15] ("The Final Battle Part 2")

Production Notes

  • The hat was made by a Canadian-based fine headwear maker Kelly Dunlap, who is also known as The Saucy Milliner. For the episode "Hat Trick", Kelly created several duplicates of the hat. One for when the hat is opened into a portal to Wonderland, another that Emma made in Jefferson's house in Storybrooke, third which Jefferson was making while trapped in Wonderland and a fourth for Sebastian Stan's stunt double in the scene Jefferson is shoved out the window by Mary Margaret. She made additional hats in various states of production as well as a hat that served as one Jefferson was working on in Storybrooke.[16]
    • In the second season, at the request of the show production team, Kelly fashioned more duplicates of Jefferson's hat. These hats were used for filming the episodes "Broken" and "We Are Both".[17]
  • The liner inside the actual hat prop is the same design used for the floor in the portal of doors.[18] However, this has been removed (either manually or with computer effects) from the final version, where it looks plain black.[19]
    • However, it can be seen inside the prop used for the hat that Jefferson is wearing when he threatens Emma with a gun and falls out the window of his mansion.[20] ("Hat Trick")

Fairytales and Folklore

  • The Alice's Adventures in Wonderland novel does not specifically mention what kind of hat the Hatter (the term "Mad Hatter" is never actually used in the novel) wears. In Chapter XI, the King of Hearts orders the Hatter to take off his hat, and when the Hatter states that the hat isn't his, the King of Hearts concludes that it must be stolen, prompting the Hatter to explain that he keeps his hats to sell and has no hats of his own. The character's signature top hat comes from John Tenniel's illustrations from the first edition of the novel, in which the Hatter wears a large top hat. ("Hat Trick" et al.)
  • In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the room of doors is found at the bottom of a rabbit hole. In Once Upon a Time it is found in the hat, whereas the rabbit holes are an entirely different kind of portal. ("Hat Trick", "The Final Battle Part 1", "The Final Battle Part 2")

Set Dressing

Script Notes

  • In the original "Hat Trick" script, an emerald brick door was supposed to be among the others. This might have been replaced by the pink brick door, or by the emerald curtains that lead to Oz. ("Secrets of Storybrooke")

Appearances

Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.

References

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