Queen Merida is a character featured in the fifth season of the ABC fantasy-drama series Once Upon a Time.
Merida encounters Emma Swan in the Enchanted Forest, whilst in pursuit of the Will O' the Wisps to find her missing brothers. She is later arrested for stealing a boat belonging to King Arthur, and meets Belle in Camelot. After escaping, Merida manages to rescue her brothers with Belle's help, earning the respect of the opposing Clans, who challenged her authority. She later comes into contact with Red Riding Hood and her old mentor, Mulan, whilst pursuing the answers in regards to her father's death. After the Dark Curse is cast, Merida is banishes to Storybrooke, Maine, and under the control of the Dark Swan.
She is based on the character of the same name from Disney/Pixar's Brave.
History[]
Before the First Curse[]
Ten years after the events that take place in Brave, Merida lived a peaceful life in her kingdom until the Northern Invaders returned. As the clans battled the invaders, King Fergus was attacked and killed by a knight. Merida blames herself for her father's death, causing her allied clans to find her unfit to rule, and their first act of rebellion was kidnapping her brothers, which resulted in Merida, in retaliation, declaring war on their kingdoms.
After the Second Curse[]
Several months into her quest to save her brothers and her kingdom, Merida came across a will o' the wisp and catches it in hopes that it will lead her to them. During this point of her quest, she encountered Emma, whom she assumed is a witch after she had been pulled down by her dark magic. Emma explained to her that she also needs the will o' the wisp to get rid of the Dark One's magic that had cursed her, and after declining a purposed fight in order to avoid giving into her inner darkness, Merida grants Emma privilege to use the wisp once she's done with it. That night, on their journey to the Hills of Stones, where the will o' the wisps are said to come from, the two had set up camp to rest. While she rests, Merida overheard Emma seemingly talking to herself about betraying her; she is unaware that it was actually the manifestation of Rumplestiltskin that persuades Emma to do so. The following morning, Merida left a decoy in her place as she sneaks off to the Hills of Stones, where she whispers into the wisp and releases it. By the time Emma had arrived, Merida had her arrow fixed on her. Every time Merida shoots her arrows, Emma managed to grab them. Then, under Rumplestiltskin's influence, Emma magically pulls Merida to her, rips her heart out, and begins to crush it. Luckily, Emma's family and friend arrive in the nick of time to persuade her to stop and return Merida's heart. Afterward, Merida thanks Emma for helping her see her inner darkness as well. Realizing that her mission would result in the death of the clans, she decided that giving them mercy is the only hope of bringing the clans and their kingdoms back together. After bidding Emma farewell, Merida leaves the group to follow the wisp.
The wisp takes Merida to the edge of the Ivory Sea. She finds a boat to cross, but she is caught by the boat's owner, King Arthur, who throws her in his dungeon. She was all alone until Lancelot is brought into an adjacent cell across from hers. They became allies when Lancelot tells her that he had a disagreement with the king, to which Merida remarked that any enemy of King Arthur's is a friend of hers.
Later, Merlin, Hook, David, and Belle break into the dungeon to liberate Lancelot, and Merida convinces them to let her out, so she can aid them on their quest. However, her real motive was to kidnap Belle, who had a great knowledge of magic. After crossing the Ivory Sea to DunBroch, the two girls sneak into the Witch's cottage and brew a potion letting them see Merida's brothers. After learning that her brothers are to be executed, Merida makes Belle recreate the potion that transformed Mor'du and Elinor into bears. When they reach the clan's encampment, they see Young MacIntosh, Young MacGuffin, and Wee Dingwall, now Lords of their clans, preparing to kill the boys, Belle tries to convince her to not kill the Lords and to stop blaming herself for her father's death, but Merida is stubborn and takes the potion after revealing herself to the Lords. But Belle swapped out the potion with water, and the Lords fire on Merida's brothers, but she is able to knock all three arrows out with a single shot. The clans decide to accept her as their queen. As Belle prepares to leave, Merida asks if she may help on the quest, but Belle declines, saying that DunBroch needs their queen.
The Witch confronts Merida at her coronation.
On the day of her coronation, Merida and Elinor stopped by Fergus' grave to pay their final respects and Merida happily tell her father of her success in rescuing her brothers and gain the clans' approval to be queen. During the ceremony, her mother was about to place the crown her head, when the old witch interrupts the celebration to inform Merida of a debt to pay. The witch showed her a contract that Fergus had signed two years earlier for a magic helm that will help him ensure the future of his kingdom. Merida is told that if she doesn't return the magic helm or its equivalent in 10k of gold by sundown tomorrow, then the witch will curse her subjects by turning them into bears. Remembering that the knight who killed Fergus had stolen the helm, Merida tracked down her old acquaintance, Mulan, to help her.
Taking Mulan to the old battlefield, Merida found and retrieved one of her arrows that she had shot at the knight that had slain Fergus, with a piece of his cloak still on it. Before they can start tracking down the mystery knight, Arthur and Zelena suddenly appear. Zelena then magically steals Merida's bow to help her and Arthur, who is surprised that Merida has escaped, locate the missing helm. Later, Merida enlisted Mulan's acquaintance Ruby to help them track down the mystery knight by following the scent from the cloak scrap they had salvaged.
The trail led them to the lake, where they retrieved the helm and confronted Arthur. Arthur revealed that he was the knight that slew Fergus during the southern invasion and the magic helm that he took from Fergus during the siege was a fake, causing Merida to realized that her father never used the actual magic helm when he died by Arthur's hand. Merida then duels with Arthur to keep him from taking the helm, but the latter is then forced to back down when Lords Macintosh, Dingwall, and MacGuffin suddenly appears to back her up.
Ruby, Mulan, and Merida at King Fergus' grave.
Once she is finally crowned, Merida shows off the helm when the witch suddenly appears for it. But she reveals to the new Queen that the helm is not really magical, just a test for gaining the confidence to lead her kingdom without resorting to magic. The witch congratulates Merida for passing the test, then rewards her with a pouch that contains magical ale that will allow her to speak to her father, and DunBroch cheers to Merida as their new Queen. Merida thanks Mulan and Ruby for their help at her father's grave before they go their separate ways. Merida sprinkles the magic ale on Fergus's grave, where they talk to each other one last time. Seeking justice for what the tyrannical king did to her father, Merida now vows to make Arthur pay for what he had done. As she was riding horseback in the woods near Camelot, Merida, along with the aforementioned kingdom and its inhabitants are swept up and engulfed by the next Dark Curse, conjured up by Hook as the Dark One, and has her memories of the last six weeks erased.
During the Third Curse[]
Now in Storybrooke, Merida became a hostage of another Dark One, Emma, who once again ripped out her heart and gives her the task of making Mr. Gold, Rumplestiltskin's Storybrooke counterpart, a hero in order to remove Excalibur from the stone.
In the woods, Merida immediately fights Gold, easily grounding him. He refuses to fight, so she leaves. She reads the Storybook and, learning Rumple's story, breaks into his shop and gets the Chipped Cup, the symbol of his and Belle's love. She takes it to him and threatens to destroy it if he does not fight. He is soon able to beat her, but she tells him they have a while to go if he will take down Emma.
Merida turns into a bear.
Merida later brings Emma to her tent, only to find that Rumple has escaped by breaking the Cup and using the shards to cut his bonds. Emma sees this as confirmation of his love for Belle and commands Merida to kill Belle to force Rumple to protect her. Merida finds Gold and Belle at the shop and is about to kill them when Belle pulls the rug out from under her, causing her to hit her head on the floor and pass out. After waking up, Merida finds Belle near the town line, as Gold had tried to escape with her into the world. Merida pulls out and drinks the bear potion at Emma's command and transforms into one. She chases Belle into the woods and is about to kill her when Gold appears and gets her attention. Merida is about to kill him, but he throws a magic powder into her mouth, and she turns back to a human. She presents him to Emma, saying that he is a hero. Gold agrees to pull Excalibur if Emma returns Merida's heart. She complies, and Merida allies with Gold and Belle.
Regina then tasked Merida to keep watch on Emma in cased she tried to escape. As payback for all Emma has put her through, Merida expresses her thought of shooting one of her arrows into her, however, she was knocked out by Hook. After Emma regains the stolen dreamcatchers from Hook, Merida has regained her memories, along with Emma's friends and family, of the past six weeks.
After the Third Curse[]
Merida, with Emma and David, found Arthur dead.
During the heroes' trek in the Underworld in to save Hook, Merida was left to guard Arthur, who had been captured by David earlier, in his cell. At one point, she accidentally let Sleepy take the point in guarding, which resulted in the former king breaking out and escape on the dwarf's watch. With the rest of Mary Margaret's family finally back from the Underworld, David, Emma, and the other dwarves joined Merida in tracking Arthur down, only to find the ex-king's lifeless body, the result of his run-in with Hades.
Though she expressed hope of killing Arthur herself, Merida can now only feel pity for him. Merida later meet up with the others at the library to aid them in looking through all the books that hold information on Hades' weakness, which so far turned up nothing. Later, Hades is eventually defeated by Zelena, but at the cost of Robin's life. Merida is later seen amongst the townspeople holding a funeral for Robin.
Then, during a wake held by the town's residents for Robin at Granny's, Merida and everybody felt a strong rumble coming from the clock tower. Turns out that Gold has possessed the remaining fragment of the Olympian Crystal and has tethered the townspeople's magic to it, which would later end up in the hands of Henry in his quest to put an end to magic after seeing how it damages his family. While Emma and Regina track Henry down, Zelena uses the Sorcerer's wand to cast a portal to have Merida and the visitors evacuate Storybrooke in case Henry succeeds in destroying magic.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Merida is the first Pixar character to appear on Once Upon a Time.
