#about the conscience

Unlike my headcanon for Emma, that her eyesight isn’t too bad; Archie’s eyesight is terrible. Without his glasses he is legally blind. Like Emma though, he is nearsighted, meaning he can see close up and it’s farther away that he has trouble with. Without his glasses, pretty much everything looks blurry.

It’s a debate that I see go on a lot. People are confused if characters like Whale or Archie are actually qualified for their jobs in Storybrooke. After all, they never went to college to train. They have memories of doing so, but in actuality they lived in another realm and could never attend college. So, some people claim this means that characters, especially the medical ones, are not qualified for the jobs they have.

I, however, disagree, and since Archie is my muse I’m going to explain why. Basically, the end point, the thesis I’m trying to get to, is that the cursed memories give the characters the skills they needed to live in a more modern world.

First piece of evidence? Everyone in Storybrooke can use normal kitchen appliances. Granny knows how to use an oven to run her restaurant. There’s no way she knew how to use a conventional oven in the Enchanted Forest, but it’s just part of her daily life in Storybrooke.

A more complicated example would be cars. Everyone in Storybrooke who owns a car likely has cursed memories of getting a drivers license and learning to drive. They never actually did this; yet there aren’t many car accidents in Storybrooke. Everyone seems to know how to operate their vehicles fine.

When you see these examples, it’s not hard to extrapolate that while Archie’s memories of going to medical schools are only due to the curse, they’re still accurate. The curse supplied everyone in town with the memories they need to survive in a modern setting. That included giving the knowledge everyone needed to properly do their jobs.

Not only that, but in Archie’s case specifically, I could see after the curse breaks, him brushing up on everything and making sure the information the curse gave him was accurate. So, Archie is certainly qualified for his job, at least within Storybrooke.