ABC’s Once Upon A Time has never been shy about dipping into the vaults of its corporate overlords at Disney when searching for new fairy tale characters to adapt. In the past, the show has brought in characters like Ariel, Mulan, and Elsa from the blockbuster Frozen to round out its cast of witches and enchanted beasts. Now, it’ll be supplementing its roster with Pixar characters too, with Merida from Brave the latest princess to find her way to Storybrooke.
Showrunners announced the character’s appearance at Comic-Con, showing off a video in which actress Amy Manson—from Atlantis and the British version of Being Human—replicates Merida’s arrow-splitting accuracy from the original film. Of course, the addition of the plucky princess isn’t the only change to the show’s formula, with last season’s cliffhanger seeing heroine Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) consumed by darkness. Most of the show’s promotion at the convention centered on Emma’s transformation into the heart-plucking menace intimidatingly monikered “The Dark Swan,” a move which suggests that the show’s writers will happily start cribbing from X-Men comics if they ever run out of fairy tales to use.