Once Upon a Timefollows Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) as the son she gave up for adoption shows up on her doorstep.
Henry tries to convince her that he is from a town full of fairytale characters cursed by a spell that causes them to forget their identities, and she’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. Emma brings Henry back to his home and discovers he may be right after all.
Accused for Plagiarism
As soon as the ABC show debuted in 2011, Fables fans called plagiarism. Inserting classic characters into the modern world is not a new genre, but there are some similarities between Once Upon a Timeand Fables that are too obvious to ignore.
While Kitsis and Horowitz didn’t plagiarize the core story of Once Upon a Time, some of the show’s details bare too much of a resemblance to the book to be a coincidence.
Despite a number of striking similarities, Fables author Bill Willingham defended the integrity of Kitsis and Horowitz by stating they did not rip off his work. A number of key details from Once Upon a Time ring reminiscent of Fables.
Snow White is a prominent character in each, the town names are similar to one another, and the protagonist of each story acts as town sheriff. But despite all of this, Willingham adamantly denies the plagiarism accusations in an interview with CBR.
He recognized that the idea of mythical figures living in the real world is a common theme in media. With common devices such as that, he acknowledged that it’s easy to subconsciously borrow elements from other stories in the same genre.
That’s exactly what he believed Kitsis and Horowitz did – subconsciously borrowed certain details from Fables. But what do you all think personally about this guys?