As I'm rewatching season 6 of ouat and reflecting on earlier seasons, I'm thinking more and more about Regina's magic.
Because Regina naturally sucks as magic. When Rumple teaches her as a young woman she's clearly struggling and has almost no innate talent for the craft, much in contrast to her mother - who despite starting to learn magic around Regina's age, she is a much easier time with it - and her sister, who has so powerful magic she can't even control it as a kid. Like Zelena practically is a magic powerhouse as a kid and Regina is definitely not.
We can see it also that as an adult, Regina is still not very potent in the natural magic department, or at the very least not as much as the other people surrounding her. Emma, Zelena, Rumple all have way more powerful magic than her, and Regina is constantly out raw magicked because she genuinely does not have that power, again and again.
But. That Goddess of a woman is also the definition of dedication beats talent. Granted that dedication came from a place of vengeance, but Regina just dedicated YEARS of her life to studying magic, to master it, to understand it in the most fundamental level so she can bend forces quite literally beyond her power to her will. She will never be as naturally gifted as Emma or Zelena, but she is shown to be able to find the most creative solutions using magic; not only because she's really fucking smart, but also because she had to learn how to be creative with the lesser magic because she doesn't have the power to do things like using the sorcerer's wand by herself.
To summerize, this is one hundred percent not the original intentions of the writers, but I think it's incredible how Regina despite being the weakest main character in raw, pure magic is also the most innovative, brilliant and creative when it comes to finding magical solution. I fucking love her. And the show. And her again.
