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This article focuses on characters who have been known as "Savior".
For the Season Six episode, see "The Savior".

It's the fate of Saviors. You give and give… and give… and for what? They pick the fruit, they cut the branches, and all that's left is this... shaky stump. That's why you never, ever hear these words about a Savior: "They lived happily ever after."

Jafar to Aladdin src

The Saviors are a group of characters featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. They début in the first episode of the first season of Once Upon a Time.

History

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Before First Curse

For many years, different people have held the title of Savior. Each of these Saviors develops the ability to see the future and uncontrollable hand tremors. However, it is the fate of every Savior to be killed by a villain in the end. ("The Savior")

On the night that Rumplestiltskin is born, his mother Fiona is visited by the Blue Fairy and Tiger Lily, who tell her that her son is prophesied to be a Savior who will die fighting a great evil. Fiona becomes obsessed with stopping the prophecy, going as far as turning herself into a fairy, and then traveling around the realm with Tiger Lily in search of the great evil, who will bear a crescent-shaped mark. Eventually, she tries to gather ingredients for the Dark Curse, intending to cast it and send every child to another land as assurance that her son will never have to be the Savior and die fulfilling the prophecy. When Tiger Lily attempts to stop her, Fiona rips out the fairy's heart, and this act of evil causes her to become the Black Fairy, revealing she is actually the one that her son will strike down one day. Rather than use the Shears of Destiny to sever her own power, the Black Fairy insist she needs her magic to protect her son, and instead uses the shears to cut her son's Savior ties. ("The Black Fairy")

After Jafar starts controlling her father, Jasmine seeks out Aladdin, believing him to be a Savior destined to defeat Jafar and save Agrabah. She tells him that of a weapon known as the Diamond in the Rough that can be found in the Cave of Wonders, which can defeat Jafar. Once they enter the Cave of Wonders, they find what Aladdin believes to be the diamond balanced on a sword. After successfully removing the diamond without unbalancing the sword, Aladdin is shocked when it dissolve in his hands. Suddenly, the cave begins to shake and the pair duck to the ground. When a column begins to fall on them, Aladdin puts his hand up in fear but accidentally fires a blast of magic at the column, destroying it. Satisfied with this outcome, Jasmine explains the fact he can use magic is proof that he is the Diamond in the Rough: the Savior. Aladdin is terrified of his new role, but Jasmine begs him to help before returning to her palace. Once she is gone, Jafar appears with a red bird and tells Aladdin about a part of the Savior's job that Jasmine didn't mention: all Saviors die. To prove his point, he shows Aladdin his future with the red bird's powers. Jafar notes that the future is not set in stone and that the use of the Shears of Destiny can remove the fate of the Savior from Aladdin, allowing him to live happily. Aladdin takes the shears but later decides against using them and defeats Jafar. However, Jafar later teleports the shears to Aladdin, telling him to save them for a rainy day and that he will thank him someday for it. ("Street Rats")

Aladdin later begins experiencing hand tremors and hides away with the Oracle. A man visits to request his help, but the Oracle tries to send him away. Jafar arrives shortly thereafter, disintegrates the man and knocks the Oracle into the wall, before telling Aladdin once more that he will never be happy because of his role as the Savior. ("The Savior")

Aladdin later uses the shears, freeing himself from his fate but also taking away his magic. ("Street Rats")

During his time in the Land of Untold Stories, Mr. Hyde knew many Saviors, who all suffered the same symptoms and fate of eventual death at the hands of villains. ("The Savior")

During First Curse
Emma, a product of true love and daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, is also a Savior, destined to break the Dark Curse cast by the Evil Queen, which she succeeds in after being led to the town of Storybrooke by Henry and eventually accepting her role as Savior. ("Pilot," "A Land Without Magic")

Before Second Curse

The Savior, Emma, ends up in the Enchanted Forest with Mary Margaret after a mishap with a portal hat. Following Emma's return to Storybrooke, she and her parents face off against Regina and her mother Cora, both of whom have been causing trouble in town. Emma faces an even greater challenge as the Savior when two outsiders, Greg and Tamara, set off a trigger to destroy the Storybrooke and its inhabitants. With the combined powers of Emma and Regina, they deactivate the trigger seconds before it is set to explode, however, Greg and Tamara kidnap Henry without anyone noticing. Emma and her allies then travel to Neverland in pursuit of them to rescue Henry. ("Broken," "The Miller's Daughter," "And Straight On 'Til Morning")

During Emma's ship ride to Neverland, she steps up as a leader in order to snap Mary Margaret, David, Hook, and Regina out of conflict, and later insists they all need to work together if they hope to find Henry. After Peter Pan tasks Emma with accepting who she truly is, she comes to terms with the orphan she has always been, despite the Savior that she is supposed to be now. When Henry is rescued, Emma and her allies return home, not knowing Pan has followed them into Storybrooke. Pan, having traded bodies with Henry, steals the Dark Curse scroll from Regina's vault and recasts the curse, intending to make Storybrooke the new Neverland. As the original Dark Curse caster, Regina is able to stop Pan's curse by undoing her curse, but the cost is everyone who was cursed must return to the Enchanted Forest. Rather than going back with her parents, Emma abides by Regina's last wish and leaves Storybrooke with Henry, with Regina erasing their memories and giving them false ones so they can start a new life together. ("The Heart of the Truest Believer," "Lost Girl," "Save Henry," "The New Neverland," "Going Home")

During Second Curse
A year later, Hook escapes the second curse after it is cast in the Enchanted Forest and returns to the Land Without Magic to track down Emma in New York. He tries to persuade her into being the Savior again because her family needs her, but Emma remains unconvinced until he provides her with proof of her lost memories. Emma then drinks a potion, which helps her remember everything, including how she became the Savior and what happened just before Regina took her memories. ("New York City Serenade")

Before Third Curse

Emma, after returning with Hook to Storybrooke which has been returned due to Snow White’s curse, she faces trials and tribulations with Regina’s sister, the Wicked Witch, as well as the Snow Queen, and Maleficent. When Mr. Gold’s heart is relieved of the Darkness, Emma usurps the Dark One powers in order to save the town from ruin. However, this leads her to be sent to Camelot, where King Arthur, obsessed with the power that comes from wishing to obtain the Dark One Dagger and merge it with Excaliber to make the weapon whole again, wounds Hook with the weapon. As no magic can heal a wound made by Excalibur, Emma resorts to the only way to save him, which is by making him into a Dark One. Lured in by the power of the Darkness and the temptation of finally getting his revenge on Rumplestiltskin, Hook casts another Dark Curse by sacrificing Merlin’s heart. However, before the curse is cast, Emma manages to remove the memories of her family and of Hook using a dreamcatcher, making them forget of their time in Camelot and knowledge of Hook being a Dark One. ("New York City Serenade," "Rocky Road," "Lily," "Operation Mongoose Part 2," "The Dark Swan," "Birth," "Broken Heart")

In time, Emma decides to return the memories to her family when they find out about Hook’s predicament. After Hook sacrifices himself in order to save Emma’s family, Emma decides to go to the Underworld to rescue him. Hook chooses to stay in the Underworld with the hopes of moving onto Mount Olympus, however, he ends up aiding Emma in defeating Hades, and as a gift for his heroic deed, Zeus gives Hook another chance by restoring him to life. While somewhat resentful over the fact that Emma got her love returned to her while hers was stolen, Regina also struggles to contain the light and dark sides of herself, which have always been at odds. Hoping to find the peace she desperately wants, she uses a serum manufactured by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in order to split herself from her darker entity, whom she kills, however, this part of herself later returns as the Evil Queen. Later on, Mr. Gold sells the town of Storybrooke to Mr. Hyde, releasing the inhabitants of the Land Of Untold Stories. ("Swan Song," "Souls of the Departed," "Last Rites," "An Untold Story")

After Third Curse

While searching the wreckage of a dirigible from the Land of Untold Stories, the Savior Emma sees a vision of the future where she is sword fighting with a cloaked figure. After this, she also starts experiencing tremors, which almost causes her to fail to apprehend Mr. Hyde before he kills Regina. As Hyde is dragged away, he informs Emma that he is aware of her symptoms, and she later confronts him for more information in his cell. He tells her to follow the red bird, which leads her to a young Oracle. The Oracle shows Emma the entirety of her vision and warns her that she will suffer the same fate as all previous Saviors and that while she may change the path to her death, she cannot stop it from happening. ("The Savior")

Needing space to process the vision she had, Emma opens up to Archie in a therapy session about the fact she hasn't told her family about it because they'd want to protect her from her fate, and she would rather protect them since she is the Savior. Archie asks her to consider who she is outside of the Savior label, but Emma is not interested in this and just wants help to stop the vision from coming true. When he tries to persuade her that she is having an identity crisis, Emma leaves the session. ("A Bitter Draught")

As the Evil Queen, Regina's dark doppelganger, continues to stir up trouble in Storybrooke, she aligns with Lady Tremaine to hurt Ashley and prevents Emma from rescuing her to prove that by taking the Savior out of other people's stories, no one gets a happy ending. With Emma's tremor acting up at random times, her confidence lessens because she can't depend on her own magic to help people. After being teleported by the Queen to a remote location to stop her from tracking down Ashley, Emma receives encouragement from Hook and Henry about her ability as a bail bondsperson to find people even without magic. Upon reaching Ashley, who has been stabbed by Lady Tremaine, Emma's hand starts to tremor again as her magic refuses to work. Again, Hook and Henry provide the support she needs, helping her to calm down enough to focus on healing Ashley. ("The Other Shoe")

Emma learns about Aladdin and that he is also the Savior while interrogating Jasmine, who was arrested for her apparent murder of the Oracle, though she is innocent. Hoping that Aladdin being still alive is evidence that she may also be able to escape her fate as well, Emma begins desperately searching for him. The Evil Queen, while disguised as Archie, learns of Emma's fate as the Savior to die, and later reveals this fact to Emma's family, who are shocked by the revelation. Jasmine, having never heard that all Saviors die, is heartbroken when she learns the possibility that Aladdin may have been killed long ago, believing it to be her fault as she forced him into being the Savior. After hearing her fears, Henry, Emma's son, starts to worry that Emma's inevitable death is his fault since he was the one who forced her to embrace her role as the Savior. Regina is able to develop a unique spell in the form of a potion that, when ingested by Emma, will lead her to a being with similar magic: Aladdin. However, when they reach a forgotten crypt, where they find a corpse with a token that Jasmine once gave Aladdin, they assume that he has died. Although Emma asks for time alone to accept her fate, Henry returns to apologize for bringing her into this, though Emma insists that it's not his fault. Overhearing their conversation, Aladdin reveals himself and admits that he was hiding because he is ashamed about using the shears to avoid his own death and doesn't want Jasmine to know he ran from his fate. He gives the shears to Emma so that she can also escape her fate, but she encourages him to go to Jasmine and tell her the truth because she could have helped him carry his burden. Emma decides against using the shears, hoping that they can find another way to save her from her fate, but even if they can't, she affirms her decision to accept whatever happens. ("Street Rats")

Despite that Emma entrusted Hook to throw away the shears so she won't be tempted to use them, he keeps them as an alternative for saving Emma's life. Henry, upon finding this out, is furious at Hook for wanting to get rid of Emma's Savior ties and what makes her special. In the end, Hook gets rid of the shears after choosing to believe there is another way to save Emma. ("Dark Waters")

While Emma's parents search for a true love sapling to defeat the Evil Queen, Emma becomes frightened of what will happen if their mission fails, but Hook calms her down by reminding her of the story of her parents Snow White and Prince Charming, and how she was born from true love, the most powerful magic that enables her to do anything as a Savior. Later, Emma prepares to attack the Queen by combining powers with Regina, but before she can, her parents arrive to save the townspeople by forfeiting their hearts to the Queen. ("Heartless")

As the Savior, Emma continues to combat the Queen with Regina's help. They plot to trap her in a enchanted mirror, but the Queen puts them within it instead, although the women eventually escape when Henry breaks them out. ("I'll Be Your Mirror")

Upon learning about Mr. Gold's plans for Belle's unborn child, Emma works to keep Belle safe from him. She attempts to retrieve the aging potion that Mr. Gold intends to use on Belle, but while searching for it in the pawnshop, her hand tremors act up. Emma also gets another glimpse of her vision, except this time, she sees the blade that kills her has a jewel on its handle. Later that night, Emma returns to the shop with Hook, and they find the sword from her vision. ("Changelings")

After Emma discovers she is able to injure the Queen with the sword without hurting Regina, she decides this is her chance to get rid of the villain for good by killing her with the weapon. Henry fears she will die like in her vision, but Emma insists on doing it even if this fight is her last because she needs to be the Savior. The plan falls through when the Queen reveals she now possesses the genie lamp and uses it to grant Emma's wish of having never been the Savior. Emma disappears to an another realm, where she lives as a sheltered princess, with her parents already defeating the Evil Queen before she could cast the Dark Curse. Regina comes to this realm to push Emma into becoming the Savior again, and to do this, she disguises herself as the Evil Queen and kidnaps Emma's parents. Out of sheer frustration when Emma continues to be meek, Regina crushes her parents' hearts, but even this is not enough to jolt Emma back into reality. Only after Henry attempts to kill Regina as revenge for his grandparents' murders, Emma remembers her true self in time to freeze him with magic. ("Wish You Were Here")

After returning back to Storybrooke, Emma faces against Gideon and wins, but he swears that it is not the end and disappears. After Emma discovers the truth that Hook murdered her grandfather, she breaks off their engagement, hurt that Hook withheld the truth from her instead of telling her so they could deal with it together as a team. Gideon uses this opportunity to separate them forever by sending the Nautilus, while Hook is in the vessel with Captain Nemo, to another realm. Thinking that Hook left her, a despairing Emma confides in Gideon, who is disguised as a bartender, and she cries into her napkin. Even though she later finds out that Hook never meant to leave her, Gideon uses her tear as a magical ingredient. He then admits to Emma that he needs help in order to destroy the Black Fairy, otherwise known as Rumplestiltskin's mother, who kidnapped him during infancy. Emma agrees, but unbeknownst to her the Black Fairy has control of Gideon's heart, and she uses Gideon to entrap Emma, whose life force she siphons in order to open a portal to cross into Storybrooke. ("Tougher Than the Rest," "Page 23," "A Wondrous Place," "Mother's Little Helper")

While trying to regain Gideon's heart from the Black Fairy, Mr. Gold takes his son into the dreamworld in the hopes he can tell him there where the heart is hidden. However, they end up in Mr. Gold's dreamworld instead, where they see into a fragmented memory that reveals Mr. Gold was prophesied to be a Savior who would kill the Black Fairy. After leaving the dreamworld, Mr. Gold is given the Black Fairy's wand so he can fulfill the prophecy. Mr. Gold confronts his mother, who shows him the rest of the memory, in which she severed his Savior ties rather than forfeit her powers, which she insists she needed to protect him. Later, he goes back to the heroes to present them with a blackened heart that purportedly belongs to the Black Fairy, however, it is just a ruse as he is working with his mother for his own ulterior motives. ("The Black Fairy")

Gathering large amounts of fairy dust, the Black Fairy accumulates enough to cast the Dark Curse that prepares Emma for the final battle. ("Awake," "The Song in Your Heart")

During Fourth Curse
Under the Dark Curse's influence, Emma thinks she is a recovering patient in the hospital who is trying to move on from the fairytale delusions and her supposed role as the Savior that Henry persuaded her to believe in when she first came to Storybrooke. Henry, knowing this is actually part of the final battle to test Emma's power of belief, desperately tries to make her believe again by giving her a storybook retelling of the brave and heroic person she was. Emma, while still not able to remember the things Henry wants her to recall, admits she wants to be the courageous and fearless person he depicted in the story. She then prepares to face the Black Fairy, Fiona, when the curse is suddenly broken after Mr. Gold kills the Black Fairy. ("The Final Battle Part 1," "The Final Battle Part 2")

After Fourth Curse

At the conclusion of the final battle, the Savior Emma defeats Gideon, who is reverted back into a newborn. ("The Final Battle Part 2")

Years later, after Henry has left to the New Enchanted Forest, Emma returns to him with Regina and Hook. After finding out that she is pregnant, Henry wishes her the best as Emma admits that her days of fighting are long over. She then leaves with Hook, and together they go back to Storybrooke. ("A Pirate's Life")

After Sixth Curse
Emma bursts in through the door with a carry-on bag as Killian follows her in with their new daughter Hope in his arms. She apologizes for being late before proceeding down the aisle and telling Regina that she wasn't going to miss her coronation. As Emma greets Henry, she asks him to give Killian a hand with the baby, while she slips off her red jacket, unveiling her white gown. Upon being crowned by Snow as "the Good Queen", Regina shares a few hugs with members of her family: Sir Henry, their granddaughter Lucy, and daughter-in-law Jacinda, and Henry. When Regina gets to Emma, the blonde greets her as "Madame Mayor". Killian suggests "Your Majesty" is more apt, though Emma jokes that Regina will always be Madame Mayor to her. Emma congratulates her on getting her happy ending, which Regina prefers to think of as a second chance since she doesn't like endings and everyone's stories are far from over. As the crowd gives a resounding applause to Regina's speech about the wonders and losses that are a part of life and make people who they are, Emma cradles Hope as she and Killian watch on. ("Leaving Storybrooke")


Known Saviors

Trivia

On-Screen Notes

Appearances

Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.

References

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