Emma Swan

Emma Swan is a fictional character and the protagonist of ABC's television series ''Once Upon a Time''. She is portrayed by Jennifer Morrison as an adult, by Abby Ross as a teenager, and by Mckenna Grace as a child. Emma appears in the series' pilot as a bail bond agent in Boston, Massachusetts, until she meets her biological son Henry, whom she gave up for adoption 10 years before. She learns she is the long lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming who gave her up shortly after her birth 28 years ago so she wouldn't die at the hands of Regina Mills, also known as the Evil Queen. Sadly, she doesn’t learn this vital information until the beginning of season two. Henry tells Emma of her true identity; she is the prophesied “Savior” and is destined to break the Evil Queen’s curse, saving the fictional town of Storybrooke, Maine, and restoring the residents’ (all cursed fairy tale characters) happy endings.

Morrison described her character at the beginning of the first season as "broken, damaged and worldly." During the fourth season finale, "Operation Mongoose," Emma absorbs the power of the Dark One into herself to save Regina. In order to successfully create a dark version of Emma, Morrison explained that "In order to build Dark Emma, I've been doing a bunch of research there with some of their mythology books and old fairy tale books and just looking back through the history of swans and the etymology of 'Swan'" and explained that Emma's rate of evolution "challenged [her] on a daily basis." Emma became the primary antagonist of the fifth season's first half, until the end of the season's eighth episode when it is revealed that she was never actually evil and was an anti-villain during that time.

Morrison's portrayal of Emma has received praise, with some reviewers noting a feminist twist in the depiction of fairy tales and a strong female lead. She is loosely based on the title character of the fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling," a swan which was lost and raised by ducks, before finding its birth family and recognizing its true nature, while her Dark One side is loosely based on Odile the Black Swan from the ballet ''Swan Lake''. It is revealed in the Season 6 episode "Tougher Than the Rest" that she chose the last name Swan when she was young after a friend mentioned that story. Provided by Wikipedia