Once Upon a Time

Jeremy Pierce recently did a post on the TV series Once Upon a Time:

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2012/01/once-upon-epist.html

I’d like to develop this in a different direction. I didn’t see the show when it first aired. But from what I can tell, the core of the story involves a vengeful evil queen who curses the fairy tale characters by banishing them from the enchanted forest to modern Storybrooke, Maine, and afflicting them with amnesia. The action alternates between their prelapsarian life and their postlapsarian life.

The evil queen’s chief antagonist is Rumplestiltskin. Both he and the queen wield black magic. Rumplestiltskin is a Mephistophelean character who finagles Faustian bargains with other characters. However, he’s also a tragic character who wasn’t always evil. And he’s conflicted. Because he wrote the curse which the Queen used, he himself is immune to the curse. He remembers everything. Still, he seems to be trapped in this postlapsarian world.

A challenge for the evil queen is some characters begin to remember their former life. They have flashbacks. And there’s also a book of fairly tales that tells the real story behind the illusory world of Storybrooke.

It’s nice to see Robert Carlyle in a juicy, psychologically complex role. It’s also nice to see Jennifer Morrison so spunky and ravishing after the rather demure and mousey part she had in House. But I’m afraid Snow White is a wet blanket.

However, my aim is not so much to comment on the TV show, but to consider how you could work similar elements into a parable of the Fall.

The evil queen would be the “god” (or goddess, as if were) of this world, who blinds fallen characters to reality by casting a spell (2 Cor 4:4). They’ve been banished from the Garden. They live in exile.

They’ve forgotten who they are. They’ve forgotten where they came from. They’ve forgotten their prelapsarian origins.

However, a book is discovered (i.e. the Bible) which tells the backstory. The deluded characters attack the true story and defend their spellbound illusion. Under the spell of the evil queen, they are charmed by The Origin of Species. They mistake the evolutionary fairy tale for reality while they relegate the true story to a fairy tale.

However, the Comforter has broken the spell and lifted the curse under which some characters labored. They begin to remember their true identity. They begin to remember where they came from. They begin to remember their former, prelapsarian existence. Although they remain stuck in the illusory world, they now know it’s just an illusion. They believe the book. And they share their insight with other characters.