Evolution of the Sleeping Curse
I’m working on a theory that there’s further history between Mal & Aurora that we have not yet seen, and it hinges on the idea that she was woken from the curse we just saw Mal put her under sometime in between 414 & 201. (Then would come the story we heard from Aurora on waking–the bit where she warns Phillip not to look for her and sacrifices herself to save her kingdom. Also, she’d be in a different dress.)
Anyway, we know from S2 that the sleeping curse has evolved over the years, and we know from S1 that it changed hands a few times.
–414 oral backstory: Mal invented (a) sleeping curse, used it on Briar Rose, and Stefan broke the spell, some 20ish years before the flashbacks (which are 10-15 years pre Curse). Depressed, Mal discovered it could be mixed with some other potions and used as a drug.
–414 flashbacks: Mal uses the sleeping curse on Aurora via the spindle, which she either gives to Regina or Regina borrows. Regina uses the sleeping curse on Roman (Snow’s horse) in an early attempt to take away what Snow loves. She claims Roman will sleep for 100 years. (Later versions of the curse last “forever,” or so I believe.)
–102 oral backstory: At some point, Regina traded The Dark Curse to Mal for the Sleeping Curse.
–109 flashbacks: Regina sends Hansel and Gretel into the Blind Witch’s cottage to get the poisoned apple. At some point before this, she must have created and then lost the poisoned apple. It’s hard enough to do that she has to regain THAT apple (and later use it twice) rather than making a new one. (Snow has been on the run for some time at this point, met David, and is with the Dwarfs.)
–121 flashbacks: Regina convinces Snow to eat the apple, informing her it must be taken willingly. She does so to save David’s life and is put under the curse.
–101, 122 flashbacks: Rumple sends David to wake Snow from the sleeping curse.
–121 present: Regina trades her last bit of magic, including Daniel’s ring, to get the hat to work; Jefferson fetches the apple for her from immediately after Snow bit it. She makes an apple turnover, gives it to Emma, and Henry eats it, falling under the curse.
–122 present: Henry “dies,” Emma uses TLK to break the sleeping curse and the Dark Curse simultaneously. Rumple brings magic to Storybrooke, allowing further development of the sleeping curse later on.
–201 present: Phillip wakes Aurora with TLK.
–206 present: Henry & Aurora meet in the burning room, showing that the curse’s after effects include dream transport to the netherworld.
–207 present: Henry attempts to communicate with Aurora.
–208 present: David undergoes the sleeping curse. Gold points out that the apple was a development in the sleeping curse, but they do it the old-fashioned way: with the sharp spindle of a spinning wheel. He does not go immediately to the netherworld that curse victims return to in their sleep. He also does not wake up as expected, until Snow returns from the Enchanted Forest to rouse him with TLK in 209.
--313 flashback: Regina attempts to use a hairpin to apply the sleeping potion to herself, but Zelena gives her a reason not to sleep forever.
I don’t think we’ve seen much of the sleeping curse since then; the knock-out sleeping spell that gets used frequently is temporary and a different kind of magic.
But the development of it is interesting…and there are still some missing pieces of the story there that they could play with.
