This article is about the character from Once Upon a Time. For other articles that share the same name, see Snow White (disambiguation).
Snow White (currently known as Mary Margaret Blanchard) is a character who appears in ABC's fantasy series Once Upon a Time. She is one of the central characters of the series. Here, she is the daughter of King Leopold and Queen Eva and the stepdaughter of the Evil Queen Regina. This Snow White lives in a medieval realm called the Enchanted Forest.
Background[]
Snow White was born to Queen Eva and King Leopold in the Enchanted Forest in the late 1950s-early-60s.[1] Snow was born during a snowstorm, which is now she was given her name, and she grew up disrespecting the staff, especially Johanna, her handmaiden, until her mother's death, when Snow was only 8 years old.
Role in the series[]
A young Snow White meets Regina.
When she is a little girl, Regina rescues her from a runaway horse, and the two become instant friends. As a result, Leopold offers to marry Regina and provide Snow with a mother after the death of her biological one, and the kingdom with a Queen. However, Snow discovers that Regina loves the stable boy Daniel, but tries to keep it a secret after Regina explains true love. Unfortunately, Regina's mother Cora plays on Snow's feelings of losing a mother, causing the girl (not wanting Regina to suffer what she had and believing Cora merely wants her daughter's happiness) to reveal Regina's heart belongs to Daniel, leading to his death. Learning her role, Regina wanted Snow dead for revealing this secret and prevent her from having true love, as she was forced into a loveless marriage with Leopold instead. Years later, Regina orchestrates Leopold's undoing, and the Huntsman is enlisted by the Queen to kill Snow, like in the Disney film, but he spares her for her selflessness. She continues living in the forest, stealing from the nobles of the Queen's domain in the hopes of collecting enough money to move out of the realm. She meets Prince James while robbing him, and she nicknames him "Prince Charming" when he captures her to regain his stolen engagement ring, which she already sold. The pair falls in love on their journey to buy back the jewels, but he returns to his fiancée. Realizing she and James can never be together, she receives from Rumplestiltskin a potion that will erase all her memories of James. Shortly after, she gets a letter from James telling her to meet him at the castle if she loves him, so they can run away before he is married.
An adult Snow White meets Prince David, while on the run from the evil queen.
She goes to meet him, but his adoptive father, King George, catches her in the castle and forces her to tell James that she does not love him, or he will be killed in the image of a martyr. She then goes to live with the Seven Dwarfs. James breaks off his engagement, but she drinks the potion shortly before the news reaches her. The potion changes her into a mean-spirited and cruel person, and she realizes that her anger stems from the death of her father. Snow tries to kill Regina, the person responsible for her father's death, but James takes the arrow meant for the oblivious Queen. He tells her that he would rather die than let Snow become evil, and she realizes that no one else is willing to die for her. She kisses him and regains her memory. However, the pair is again separated when George's knights capture James. She and the dwarfs then set out to rescue James. Some time later, Snow is voluntarily poisoned by the Queen and James kisses her and brings her back to life. Snow and James manage to take back the kingdom from Regina with help from the Blue Fairy, banishing Regina from the realm. Snow and James are married, but the Queen arrives at the wedding and announces that she will place a curse on everyone to destroy Snow's happiness. She is soon pregnant and gives birth to Emma just as the curse begins to take hold.
Mary Margaret Blanchard.
In Storybrooke, she is Mary Margaret Blanchard. She is Henry's (her daughter's son, who was adopted by Mayor Regina Mills) favorite teacher. Noticing he's unhappy, she gives her grandson a book of fairy tales to instill him with hope. She also invites Emma to live with her upon realizing that Emma was thrown out of the bed and breakfast thanks to Regina's attempt to frame her. Mary Margaret volunteers at the hospital and reads Snow White and Prince Charming's tale to the comatose David Nolan, who is really James. He wakes up, and the pair instantly falls in love, despite David's marriage to Kathryn. Mary Margaret resigns from the hospital because of the heartache she feels from being around David and tries to start a relationship with Dr. Whale. However, she develops stalker-like behavior: she knows David's daily schedule and tries to be where he is. She finally tries to avoid David, but she and David find they cannot stay away from each other and begin a secret relationship. After the affair becomes public and David's marriage breaks down, Mary Margaret is labeled a tramp and becomes an outcast. However, some of the residents reach out to her after she sells candles to help the local nunnery pay its rent. Later, she is arrested for Kathryn's apparent murder after Mary Margaret's fingerprints are found on a box containing a human heart shortly after Kathryn's disappearance. The box is later found to be Mary Margaret's, and the heart is proven to be Kathryn.
Emma believes that Mary Margaret is being framed and asks her to wait and to trust Emma until she can be proven innocent. However, Mary Margaret finds one of Regina's skeleton keys in her cell and uses it to escape. It is later revealed that after her escape, she was captured and held captive by Jefferson. She is found by Emma, and the pair is able to escape when Mary Margaret kicks Jefferson out a window. Then Mary Margaret willingly returns to her jail cell to face her trial. When Kathryn reappears, Mary Margaret is released. Consequently, her relationship with David becomes strained since he did not believe she was innocent. He eventually decides to leave Storybrooke when Mary Margaret does not give him a reason to stay. They are reunited when the curse is broken, and they regain their memories.
The two find Emma, only for Mary Margaret to be transported with her back to the remaining Enchanted Forest through a portal, though they manage to return to Storybrooke. After Regina and her mother Cora attempt to gain power by killing Mr. Gold, Mary Margaret curses Cora's heart with the same candle that Cora offered her to heal her ailing mother Eva (learning her mother's death was Cora's doing to make Regina queen) and tricks Regina into killing her. She pleads for Regina to kill her when she cannot deal with what she has done, but she instead tearfully taunts her after realizing that her heart is starting to turn dark.
When Henry is kidnapped and taken to Neverland, she travels with Emma, David, Regina, Mr. Gold, and Captain Hook to rescue him. Upon returning to the town with Henry, Peter Pan enacts Regina's curse again, leading Mary Margaret to be returned to the Enchanted Forest with the other inhabitants, while her daughter and grandson escape to New York City with new lives.
Snow and Charming return to the Enchanted Forest.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, Snow learns she is pregnant but discovers that Regina's half-sister Zelena the Wicked Witch of the West wants her baby for nefarious purposes. Snow and Charming realize they must enact a new curse to return to Emma and stop Zelena. A reassuring David lets Snow crush his heart, though she later requests Regina split Snow's heart to give to both of them. A year later, Emma returns to Storybrooke, learning her mother is pregnant. Zelena plots to steal the baby by becoming her midwife, as an ingredient in her spell to open a time portal. She is able to abduct Mary Margaret and David's newborn son, but Zelena is ultimately defeated thanks to truly reformed Regina. David would return the child back into Mary Margaret's arms. Emma, however, says that she and Henry are leaving Storybrooke for New York, which everyone, even Henry, is opposed to.
Mary Margret helping Elsa.
Emma would wind up being sucked into Zelena's reopened time rift. Followed by Hook, Snow White's daughter is able to witness the moments leading up to her parents' first meeting. Unfortunately, Emma mistakenly distracts Snow just when she is about to descend upon Princess Abigail's carriage. After checking the book, they find that all the story's in Once Upon a Time have been erased. Together the two work to reunite her parents. In this new past, Snow appears to be killed by Regina, but she quickly uses the Fairy Dust to turn herself into an insect. Emma is overjoyed to find her mother alive, but Snow understandably doesn't recognize her, breaking her daughter's heart. She and Charming set eyes upon each other once again and finds the two falling in love just like before. Emma and Hook check Once Upon a Time and find Snow White's wedding to Prince David in one of the illustrations. Emma returns to Storybrooke and lets her mother know she is there to stay. Mary Margaret lets Emma know that they are naming her brother after Henry's father, her former lover, and Rumplestiltskin's son, Neal, who sacrificed himself to save everyone.
Mary Margaret later becomes Mayor of Storybrooke, since she cast the curse that returned the residents of the Enchanted Forest back to Storybrooke and Regina's temporary abdication. After meeting three residents from Arendelle and stopping threats from the Snow Queen and Gold, Mary Margaret goes back to teaching. Following the Queen's of Darkness' arrival in Storybrooke, Mary Margaret and David battle to keep their secret (being the reason Maleficent lost her child) from Emma. However, they eventually tell Emma the truth, who finds it hard to forgive them. After Mary Margaret is almost killed by Maleficent's daughter Lily in dragon form, Emma reconciles with her parents and apologizes for her bad behavior for what she did and said to her mother. However although this is short-lived when Emma sacrifices herself to become the new Dark One.
With the other residents, Mary Margaret, is transported to the Enchanted Forest, taking Emma to Camelot in order to find Merlin and remove her darkness. However, six weeks later, they return to Storybrooke with missing memories as to how they failed. She would later have her memories restored after Emma transfers her powers of the Dark One to Hook, who then sacrifice himself.
Mary Margret in the underworld.
Mary Margaret later joined Emma in the quest to rescue Hook in the Underworld, where she encountered her old friend Hercules, who helped her back in the Enchanted Forest to become an archer. When she realizes that he needs to complete his unfinished business, she returns the favor by helping him defeat the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, and in the process allows him to move on to Mount Olympus. Her actions would result in Hades picking her as one of three souls he wants to keep behind. Following this, she discovers that she no longer wants to be known as Mary Margaret and returns to being Snow White. She and David later learn that his brother James is in the Underworld, bitter about the way his brother got all the glory that he could have had if he didn't die. Later, Snow and David find a way to contact their son, Neal from the Underworld, only to have Cruella De Vil and her henchman Claude tear out the phones after they succeed. As a sacrifice to keep one soul in the Underworld, David trades places with Snow and Snow returns to Storybrooke. Before arriving back home, Snow witnessed her friend Red's awaking Dorothy Gale with true love's kiss.
Following the defeat of Hades at the hands of Zelena, Snow was transported, along with David, Zelena, and Hook, to the Land of Untold Stories, led by the sinister Mr. Hyde. Fortunately, with the assistance of Dr. Jekyll, the heroes escaped. Then with further help from their family in New York City, Snow, David, Zelena, and Hook were safely returned to the Land Without Magic, accompanied by Jekyll (who had now separated himself from Hyde). Upon her return, Snow was witness to Regina's using Jekyll's serum to separate herself from the Evil Queen, as well as her subsequent attempt to destroy her.
Snow confronts the Evil Queen.
After the people from the Land of Untold Stories arrive in town, Snow and her family stop Hyde and decide to help these new people with finding their happy endings but find themselves in repeating battles as the Evil Queen arrives and has Regina kill the Count of Monte Cristo. Afterwards when they are trying to figure out why the Evil Queen survived, Regina crushing her and find a way to destroy her, Snow wishes to become a teacher again and for things to return to normal which they start to do, but this is short-lived when the Evil Queen threatens Storybrooke with water from the River of Lost Souls unless Snow and David give up their shared heart which they do. But the Evil Queen decides to give them her pain of loneliness, so she places a sleeping curse on their shared heart so when one is awake, the other will be asleep, meaning Snow and David cannot be together. As they try to continue life without each other, Snow starts to lose hope as she cannot stand being without David.
Snow and David walking Emma down the isle.
As Regina works feverishly to wake Snow and Charming from the Sleeping Curse, Gold comes face to face with the Black Fairy, the powerful enemy Emma must fight in the Final Battle. Hook, still in Neverland, meets up with Tiger Lily, who gives him a piece of an ancient fairy wand to give Emma, to aid her in defeating the Black Fairy. Gold learns that the Black Fairy had been manipulating Gideon with his heart, and confronts her about it, with her saying that if they should fight, Storybrooke would be destroyed. In 1993, a pixie flower awakens Snow and Charming from their cursed selves, but an awakened Rumplestiltskin tells them they must make a difficult decision, to ensure that Emma fulfills her destiny as the Savior. In the present, a Pixie flower allows Emma to open a doorway to Neverland and rescue Hook, who re-proposes. Snow and David are then freed from their curse when the residents of Storybrooke share the curse.
Following the engagement, Snow becomes very excited about planning Emma and Hook's wedding. Snow and David have a disagreement about where the wedding reception should take place, even David referencing Snow's one night stand with Dr. Whale, much to Snow's annoyance. However, Emma and Hook soon find a place for their marriage and the wedding commences with Snow and David walking their daughter down the isle just as the Black Fairy's curse takes place.
Snow crowns Regina the Good Queen.
Snow and the heroes all return to the Enchanted Forest where they have to find a way to get Emma to believe in fairytales once more due to being affected by the curse. As Emma is failing to believe, the worlds are disappearing until she manages to remember and the Black Fairy is killed. With her memories restored, Emma returns to Snow, Charming and her new husband, Killian, as she must face Gideon for the final battle. Snow, David, Hook and Henry watch as Emma fights Gideon and is killed, much to everyone's shock, but she is revived by Henry's kiss of true love.
Following the final battle, everyone lives in peace for years and Snow and Charming move to their farm, where they live for years. Snow and David later return to the queen's castle to help everyone and gain a granddaughter named Hope, through Emma and Hook, who arrive as Snow and Charming decide to crown Regina the Good Queen and the ruler of the United Realms, bringing all of the worlds across the Enchanted Forest together, so everyone can live together at peace.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Snow's Storybrooke name Mary Margret comes from when Red gave her the name Mary and Margret, shown in "Red-Handed".
- Snow and David's portrayers, Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas, are married in real life. They met on the show and married during production of the series.
- According to "The Queen Is Dead", Snow got her name because she was born in the harshest winter in history.
- This revelation is used again for the Snow White from the 2025 film.
- Unlike the other variants of Snow White, this one became a bandit and murdered people after being forced to go on the run by the evil queen.
- In Storybrooke, Mary Margret was originally going to be a nun, the reason for the double barrel name, but the idea was scrapped and she became a teacher instead.[2]
- Ginnifer Goodwin clearly wore a wig for the enchanted forest scenes, as her hair was naturally short, shown in the series.
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ The episode "Welcome to Storybrooke" reveals the first curse took place in 1986, and Emma, who is 28 in the first two seasons, mentions in a season 2 episode that she and her parents are the same age.
- ↑ "'Once Upon a Time's' Ginnifer Goodwin talks fairy tales, plus first look at Sunday's episode". Los Angeles Times (March 8, 2012).
