Sidney Glass

"I can grant your wish."

- Sidney Glass

Sidney Glass is one of the antagonists of the 2011 series Once Upon a Time. He serves as the secondary antagonist of the first season and a minor antagonist in the fourth season. He's the alter ego of the Genie from Aladdin and also the Magic Mirror from Snow White.

He is played by Giancarlo Esposito, who also portrayed Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad.

History
As the Genie of Agrabah, a powerful magical being who is imprisoned in a magic lamp, he grants wishes to all who come across him. King Leopold comes across the lamp and curiously rubs it causing the Genie to come forth and grant his three wishes. The King happily wishes for the Genie to be free and brings him back to his palace to meet his daughter, Snow White and his wife, the Queen Regina. He had fallen in love with Regina at first sight. During a birthday celebration for the King, the Genie notices Regina's unhappiness and gives her mirror to show her that she is the fairest in the land.

Later Regina writes her in diary that she has fallen in the love with the man who gave her the mirror causing the King to become enraged. He was so naive every time he meet her during the night they keep their relationships secret. He believed her when she wrote in her diary things about him. When he heard the King had locked her in her room, he went to Regina and told her he will do anything for her so they can be together. The Queen's father, the Valet, brought a basket containing two Agrabahan Vipers to her and she was ready to kill herself until the Genie said he would use them to kill the King instead of her and they will be together. Truly believing the Queen loves him, the Genie murders the King and tells him that he was the man who gave Regina the mirror. Returning to the Queen to tell her they can finally be together, he realizes Regina only used him to get rid of her husband. She gave him the cold shoulder and said the guards found the snakes knowing they're from Agrabah and know now that he was behind the murder. Heart broken, the Genie uses the last wish, that was given to him by the King when he used his second wish that the third wish would belong to the Genie, and wishes to be with her forever and to look upon her face always.

Much to his horror, he becomes trapped as the Spirit of the Magic Mirror. Regina, holding the mirror the Genie gave her, tells the Magic Mirror he finally got his wish and he will be with her forever.

In his imprisonment in the mirror, the Magic Mirror is used by Regina to spy on her enemies such as Snow White and Rumplestiltskin.

After the King has died, the Magic Mirror suggests to the Queen to use a Huntsman to kill Snow White which she agrees to. In one of her schemes, the Queen acquires help from a portal jumper named Jefferson who refuses to lend his assistance to her. Not to be undermined, she disguises herself as an old hag at the market Jefferson is shopping at and refuses to sell a toy that his daughter wants for not having enough money for it.

When the two leave, the Queen goes to the back of her cart where a large mirror hangs as the Magic Mirror  tells the disguised Queen that she was awfully cruel for not letting the girl have her toy. Later Prince Charming escapes the Evil Queen's castle to rescue Snow White, but the Magic Mirror shows the Queen his location and banishes him to the Infinite Forest. But the Prince manages to escape the Infinite Forest and awakens Snow White with True Love's Kiss which is all seen by the Magic Mirror as he was spying on them.

The Magic Mirror has a guard carry him to the Queen but warns him that if he's dropped the guard will have fourteen years bad luck. Hurrying towards the Queen's garden, the Magic Mirror shows her an awakened Snow White proposed by Prince Charming and promising to take back the kingdom which enrages the Queen.

Defeated and not able to do harm to Snow White in the Enchanted Forest, the Queen vows to unleash the Dark Curse upon everyone in the land and is successful when she sacrifices the heart of the thing she loves most, her father. The Curse is cast as it engulfs everyone, including the Magic Mirror and is taken into another land.

In Storybrooke, Sidney Glass works as a journalist and reporter for the Daily Mirror and becomes an associate for the Mayor, Regina Mills who is the Evil Queen. But he does not have his memories of the Enchanted Forest, so he just acts like a normal journalist who does everything Regina tells him to do like spy on Emma Swan and Mary Margaret Blanchard and has more fake news. He did all this by love for the Mayor and made sure to do everything right for her. So after all failure she finally fired him. But she secretly used him to get close to Emma and find information for her. Sidney wanted to find a good story so he can land his job back at the Daily Mirror  and took the story of who kidnapped Kathryn Nolan who is David's wife. Regina used him to frame Mary Margaret for Kathryn's murder. Later he confessed to Emma in the Mayor's office admitting his desire to earn his job back by kidnapping Kathryn and tampering with evidence about her death. Later Sidney is imprisoned in the basement of the hospital in one of the cell rooms with the words S.Glass on his door. After the breaking of the Curse, he recovers his memories like the others characters but didn't appear during the two previous seasons. Because he's no use for Regina during these seasons but she will release him during the fourth season because this time Regina will need his help again because she will need her Magic Mirror.

After spending several years locked away in the psychiatric ward, Sidney receives an unexpected visit from Regina who states someone is in the way of her happiness, and she need his help to be rid of this person. Regrouping at the Heart Vault, Regina explains her situation with Robin Hood, and how she thinks the storybook influenced the recent events that took place. She believes that it is keeping her, a villain, from getting a happy ending, but also believes to be more powerful than the book. Sidney is interested in her plans, and comments how he always thought there was a reason why the formerly Evil Queen kept him imprisoned in the ward and hadn't forgotten about him. Awkwardly, Regina agrees to this,although it is far from the truth. So when Sidney told her if  she needed him  to kill her, he was ready to do it. However, Regina doesn't want Sidney to  kill Marian, but instead she would rewrite history by traveling to the past to kill Marian before Emma has a chance to save her. However, she does not remember capturing Marian, as she has captured and killed many in the past, so she needs her Mirror to show her the exact moment this occurred.

Sidney is confused about how he can help accomplish this, but soon realizes it once Regina transforms him back into the Magic Mirror. Horrified, he begins shouting and hitting the inside of the mirror until she assures him that this form will be temporary. Sidney then manifests, in his mirror, the past event when Regina took Marian as prisoner after she refused to tell her where Snow White was. After seeing the past, the formerly Evil Queen has a change of heart and does not go through with the plan to kill Marian. When Regina returned to her house, she looked into her mirror and called mirror twice but no response until she calls Sidney and he manifests himself in the mirror. Regina tells her Mirror that she has a different idea - she believes the book, and not Marian, is the source of her suffering. She then told her Mirror that she never got her happy ending because she is a villain, and only heroes have gotten their happy endings. Regina then told him she was going to change the pages of the book and make villains finally get their happy endings. By doing this, she suggests that they find the book's author and only then she can force the writer to give her a happy ending she is entitled to.

After Marian is cursed with a freezing spell from the Snow Queen's magic, Regina vows to find a cure. Having no luck with the search, she summons Sidney into manifesting in his mirror.

Regina asks if he found the Snow Queen yet, and Sidney attests he hasn't yet, so she pushes him to do so. Sometime before or after this, he betrays Regina to the Snow Queen. When Sidney "discovers" the Snow Queen's lair, he reports this to Regina. Before revealing the location, he asks to be made human again. She informs him that will be decided on whether his information is worth it. Sidney tries to force Regina's hand by withholding knowledge, but she threatens to lock him up at the psychiatric ward after he is changed back.

Abandoning his tactics, he appears in Regina's compact mirror and leads her to the Snow Queen's lair. On her way there, she is joined by Emma who is searching for Elsa. The two reach an ice bridge built with Elsa's magic, and as they go across it, the structure shakes due to the Snow Queen's influence. Realizing Sidney's trickery, Regina opens her mirror and curses at him for being a traitor. He establishes that she should look at her own reflection and contemplate her actions. Sidney also reveals the Snow Queen has a "present" for her, which he believes is well deserved before vanishing from the mirror compact. Moments later, the women discover the present is an armored snow monster, which they defeat.

For his assistance, the Snow Queen restores Sidney to human. He prepares to serve her as a loyal subject, but she allows him to go freely. The Snow Queen admits she was actually after the compact mirror, which contains an essence of Sidney's soul and is infused with Regina's dark magic. When he questions what it's for, she remains tight-lipped. After the Snow Queen opens the lair exit, before he leaves she cautions him to get a winter coat since Storybrooke will become chillier soon. But since he was again free, his fate is now unknow, so no one know if he will reappear during the fifth season or future season to come.