By Christal Veras

“Once Upon A Time” is a show on ABC about famous fairytale characters from all the well-known stories of childhood who are actually real and living in the modern world. A curse has trapped these fairytale characters in the modern world, in a town called Storybrooke.

This fairytale land is not for youngsters though. The plot of the story goes between the fairytale lands of “Once Upon a Time” and the modern world fictional story land of Storybrooke.

While some characters have powers  in the fairy tale land, others do not, and they all differ in strength. There are powers like light magic dark magic or fairy tale magic. There were some dark magic people who later on changed to light magic such as the evil queen Regina. Some powers translate better to the modern world and offer, dark magic works in Storybrooke better than the light.

Good and evil is not so easy to differentiate in the real world of Storybrook, just like in real life. There are other characters like Rumpelstiltskin, played by Robert Carlyle, who pretended to change to good, but in fact stayed evil. Many think that Rumpelstiltskin does actually care about others, but actually, he only cares about himself.

There is the first real antagonist, Regina Mills, played by Lana Parrilla, who is conflicted about the differences between the new and the fairy worlds. However, when her adopted son Henry Mills, played by young actor Jared Gilmore, who discovered the story book that outlines all of the lives of the characters.

Henry’s real mother Emma Swan, played by talented actress Jennifer Morrison, is known as the savior of Storybrooke, who saved all the storybook characters from losing their memory of who they really are.

There is Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) who are Emma’s parents. They saved Emma from losing her memory by sending her into the new world with magic knowing she would be the one to bring their memories back.

Emma falls in love with a pirate, Captain Hook, also named Killian Jones, The Dark One, and Prince Charles, (played by Colin O’Donoghue). Like Rumplestiltskin, Hook also changes between good and bad and keeps the audience guessing his true intentions.

Throughout the series all of the characters switch back and forth from what happened before in their fairy tales, to where they are now. The writing is so good that episodes flow smoothly and the audience is never left confused about the plot. The characterization is excellent and all the characters come to life. This show is truly not the typical fairy tale portrayal, and is definitely not intended for younger audiences.

Trying to explain this complex story is harder than just watching it While telling the story they would leave out some parts and then bring it up lter which ends up tying some parts of the story together. This helps the viewer make an understanding with the things that use to be confusing. The fairy tale characters continue fighting battles of darkness and lies trying to fix the world of magic and create a happy ending for all.