#for caution

[sisyphus-complex2]

After a 0.75 day hiatus I am back and already making it everyone’s problem 😘

Mutuals, I love you 😘💝

[sultana-dreaming]

((I’ve only just started Stormblood for a second playthrough on Lich. It’s so much more painful this time...))

[thisisevenharderthannamingablog]

Someone suggested that the reason Regina is never content with any of her many "happy endings" is because of the hole in her heart her Dark Curse left her with. I would find that a great explanation, only I feel like they've changed the workings of the Dark Curse at least a little every time they used it? Does this hole thing even hold up or was it just because she killed her dad? Hook doesn't really count and Snow had to break her heart in half so she wouldn't have a hole I guess. Thoughts?

Hello! And thanks for the question. :)

I would agree that they have changed the workings of the curse over the years. Many forms of magic in the show seem to lose their original edge with repeated use in the story, and this one is no exception. I can see two possible ways to go with the question of the hole in one's heart.

On one hand, one could argue that "intention is everything". Regina cast the curse with the intent to cause suffering, and committed murder in the process; therefore, she suffers. Snow's curse, on the other hand, involved a willing sacrifice made out of love and with the intent of saving her people. Killian's was just plain weird all around, but at bottom the sacrifice wasn't his, it was Nimue's, and any specifically magical consequences of that would presumably affect her likewise. (He died, but that seems to have been the only immediate after-effect.)

Alternately, I think that one could make a case that Regina's perennial dissatisfaction was a factor in her personality before she cast the curse. She married Leopold only to feel ignored and not at all like the queen she wanted to be -- but while she was unhappy there, she wasn't unhappy enough to risk going into the tavern to meet Robin. She murdered Leopold and became the Evil Queen -- only to spend her time afterward in intermittent and deeply-screwed-up efforts to create the forms of human relationships without the substance (as with Graham and Hansel & Gretel). I feel like these behaviors indicate that even before any curse-related effect on her heart, there was a fundamental inability to be happy.

Needless to say, I’m very curious to see where the current plot takes her. :)