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You're not the only one with a past you'd rather forget.

—Tiger Lily to Hook src

Tiger Lily, also known as Native American Woman,[1] is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. She débuts in the seventeenth episode of the sixth season and is portrayed by guest star Sara Tomko.

Tiger Lily is based on the character of the same name from the Peter Pan story, and Tiger Lily from the Disney film Peter Pan. She is also based on one of the two fairies assigned to protect Beast in the Villeneuve version of the fairytale of "Beauty and the Beast".

History

Before First Curse

During a dark winter night when Fiona gives birth to a son whom Tiger Lily is the fairy godmother of, she and the Blue Fairy visit the new mother to tell her about a prophecy about her child being destined to be a Savior and fight a great evil. Knowing this means her child will ultimately die in the end, Fiona becomes obsessed with tracking down the great evil and requests a fairy lore book from Tiger Lily. On one such day, Tiger Lily flies in to deliver the book and sets down her wand when Fiona allows her to hold her baby. Fiona then seizes the wand and recites an incantation to turn herself into a fairy in order to better protect her son. Since the great evil is said to be born with the mark of a crescent moon, Tiger Lily goes with Fiona as they check hundreds of newborns, with none of them having the birthmark. Believing she hasn't tried everything yet, Fiona persuades Tiger Lily to allow her into the fairy vault to assemble the ingredients for two spells she wants to combine. Tiger Lily refuses at first because creating a new spell is forbidden, but she agrees after Fiona insists helping her can prevent the great evil from possibly separating other children from their mothers. In the vault, she becomes suspicious about the nature of the spell when Fiona asks her for wolfsbane, a dangerous ingredient. Upon discovering the spell scroll is actually for a Dark Curse, which will banish all children to a Land Without Magic, she tries to stop her friend, only for Fiona to rip out her heart. Fiona declares her intentions of doing whatever it takes to save her son, and as she begins crushing the heart, this act of darkness causes her magic to darken. To the shock of both fairies, Fiona's wrist now has the mark of the crescent moon, proving she is the great evil that her son is meant to kill and lose his life against. After Tiger Lily is given her heart back by the Blue Fairy, she offers the Shears of Destiny to Fiona and suggests using them to cut away her powers so she can alter her own fate, but Fiona insists she needs her powers to protect her son and uses them to remove her son's Savior ties instead. The Blue Fairy then breaks Fiona's wand and banishes her to the Dark Realm. The two fairies return the child to his father, Malcolm, and lie to him about Fiona dying in an accident while protecting their son. Malcolm is grief-stricken over losing the woman he loved, but Tiger Lily tries to console him by suggesting that, with time, his son will become the person he loves most. She encourages him to bestow a name to the child, however, she and the Blue Fairy watch nervously as Malcolm instead blames the infant for being the reason Fiona is gone before bitterly naming him Rumplestiltskin. ("The Black Fairy")

Ashamed at her inability to stop Fiona's fall into darkness, Tiger Lily later gives up her wand and wings before fleeing to Neverland, where she meets Captain Hook and has an unknown encounter with him at Skull Rock. ("Awake", "The Black Fairy")

After Third Curse
In Neverland, Tiger Lily somehow discovers that the Black Fairy is in Storybrooke and planning to kill the Savior. She finds Hook, who returned to Neverland by accident, being chased by a group of Lost Boys and fires darts at them, knocking them all unconscious. However, when Hook thanks her for her help, she announces that it was not a rescue and fires a dart at him into his neck to knock him out as well. She drags him away to a cave and awakens him with a slap, assuring him that it is not payback for what happened at Skull Rock, as she would have left him to be killed by the Lost Boys if it were. Tiger Lily refuses to free him, scoffing at his claim about having found true love with a woman and his desire to return to her, and instead wants Hook use the Jolly Roger to take a broken fairy wand to the Savior so that she can win the upcoming war. When she mentions the Savior, Hook realizes that they are on the same side, as the Savior is the woman he loves: Emma. However, Hook reveals that he cannot return to Storybrooke due to a spell preventing him from going home. Although Tiger Lily has no way to break the spell, she suggests that Peter Pan might have a way. She takes Hook to Pan's old base, where she points out a tree with magic sap he can use. To help Hook get to the tree unharmed, Tiger Lily creates a distraction, firing an arrow at the Lost Boys' meal and runs off as they pursue her, allowing Hook to get the sap to give his shadow form and help him escape, but one of the Lost Boys notices him and alerts the others. As the Lost Boys encircle Hook and drag him and his shadow down, Tiger Lily yells for him to get the wand to Emma, to which Hook gives up, letting his shadow fly off with the wand while he is captured. As the Lost Boys prepare to execute both Tiger Lily and Hook, Tiger Lily apologizes, but they are interrupted by Emma's arrival through a magic door. Emma and Hook escape back through the door, which allows Tiger Lily to break free from the Lost Boys and flee to safety in the forest. ("Awake")

After Fourth Curse

In time, Tiger Lily somehow regains her fairy magic. During the impending threat of Drizella's curse, she assists Henry with locating a tree in the New Enchanted Forest. Tiger Lily arrives at the tree's location, where Henry introduces her to his daughter Lucy. She then delivers Geppetto's ax to Henry so he can cut the tree down to make it into a portal as a last resort for himself and Lucy if they cannot stop the curse. Henry gets to work on the tree, and Tiger Lily brings Lucy to her hideout to rest. However, Henry later returns to Lucy to entrust her with the storybook and makes her leave while he stays to fight off a great evil. In the aftermath of the battle, Tiger Lily finds a distraught Lucy examining the ruins of the hideout, where her father is nowhere to be seen. Tiger Lily promises her that she did the right thing by fleeing as the book's safety is a top priority. The girl is worried about her father, so Tiger Lily tells her that the fairies have seen the future and knows her family will be reunited, however, when the girl asks if they will be okay, Tiger Lily backpedals and tells her that the future is unclear and she cannot promise they will be okay, but she can promise they will see each other again. She then directs the girl to find her mother Cinderella. ("The Final Battle Part 1," "The Final Battle Part 2," "The Eighth Witch")

Tiger Lily accompanies Lucy to Queen Tiana's palace, where the girl informs her mother and the rest of her allies of Henry's abduction by the coven witches. Tiana agrees to stay behind and look after Lucy while everyone else goes to rescue him, but as Tiger Lily, Hook, and Jack begin leaving, Cinderella persuades them not to because this is part of Drizella's plan to distract them from the curse. ("The Eighth Witch")



Magical Abilities

  • Energy Blasts - Ability to create magical blasts to harm the enemies and the objects in the most effective way.
  • Shapeshifting - Ability to alter the appearance of oneself or others.

Trivia

Character Notes

  • Tiger Lily is featured in the title card for "The Black Fairy".[2]
  • Tiger Lily is at least centuries years old. Indeed, as proven in "The Black Fairy", she was born before Rumplestiltskin, who is stated to be approximately two hundred years old in "Going Home" (also, in "Family Business", Hook, who knew Rumplestiltskin from before the latter became the Dark One, refers to himself as two hundred years old).

Production Notes

  • The casting call describes her as "'a force to be reckoned with'. Determined and resourceful, 'she’s the kind of woman who'll risk her life to save yours — and she’ll do it even quicker if it benefits her'. Beneath Tiger Lily’s tough exterior is someone who isn’t afraid to accept help, even if she's reluctant to ask for it". To fill the role, the series is seeking "a Native American actress in her late 20s to early 30s".[3]

Fairytales and Folklore

  • In the original version of "Beauty and the Beast" by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, the wicked fairy, planning to seduce Beauty's real father, assigns a "protecting genius" and "two subaltern and invisible fairies" to watch over Beast in her absence.[4] On Once Upon a Time, the protector and the wicked fairy are combined into one, with Fiona desperately seeking to protect the infant Rumplestiltskin, even turning herself into a fairy in order to do so. Tiger Lily and the Blue Fairy's role in the story alludes to the other two fairies, with Tiger Lily being young Rumplestiltskin's fairy godmother, and the Blue Fairy accompanying her when they, on the night Fiona gives birth to Rumplestiltskin, visit Fiona to tell her about the prophecy about her child being destined to be a Savior and fight a great evil. ("The Black Fairy")

Appearances

References

  1. LISTINGS: ONCE UPON A TIME: Air Date: Sunday, April 16, 2017. Time Slot: 8:00 PM-9:00 PM EST on ABC. Episode Title: (#617) "Awake". The Futon Critic. “Guest starring are [...] Sara Tomko as Native American Woman/Tiger Lily”
  2. File:619Title.png
  3. Mitovich, Matt Webb (January 11, 2017). Once Upon a Time Is Casting Tiger Lily, Princess From Peter Pan's Neverland. TVLine. “Once's version of the character, to recur starting with Episode 17, is described as "a force to be reckoned with." Determined and resourceful, "she's the kind of woman who'll risk her life to save yours — and she'll do it even quicker if it benefits her." Beneath Tiger Lily's tough exterior is someone who isn’t afraid to accept help, even if she's reluctant to ask for it. And yes, it's safe to say that she and a certain hook-handed pirate have crossed paths. Once Upon a Time — which resumes Season 6 on Sunday, March 5, with Episode 11 — is seeking a Native American actress in her late 20s to early 30s to fill the role.”
  4. The Story of Beauty & the Beast: The complete fairy story translated from the French by Ernest Dowson. With four plates in colour by Charles Condor. (digitized eBook) pp. 97. Internet Archive. Retrieved on March 20, 2022. “As the assembly had appointed her to the guardianship of the young Prince, she would never have dared to leave him, had not the ingenuity of love inspired her with the idea of placing a protecting genius and two subaltern and invisible fairies to watch over him in her absence.”

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