Magic, Enchantments, and Curses: Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo

[KingOfHearts]

Rumpbelle honeymoon could be at Emma's NY apartment. I don't think they plan on doing that, but my fanfic says otherwise. ;)

I despise how Curse 2 worked and how it was setup, so the barriers being down would give me at least something out of it.

[KingOfHearts]

 

I thought he always knew Emma had magic but someone here pointed out that the writers said Rumple was surprised that she had magic at the end of 2x09.

 

Well, it may have been that he wasn't interested in knowing if she had magic or not, so he never looked. He needed to know Regina had magic because she was the designated curse caster.

[stealinghome]

It may also be that Emma's type of magic isn't really visible to Rumpel, whereas it's easier for him to see people like Cora and Regina.

[FurryFury]

But if Cora had innate or genetic magic abilities why did she need to be taught? Baby Zelena did magic without ever having been taught it. If it was innate, it would've manifested itself before.

 

Short answer: because the writers wanted to create a sob story for Zelena and they never established anything close to comprehensive rules of magic.

Fanwank: Zelena, for whatever accident, had a stronger innate magical gift than either her mother or sister, or being in Oz/being transported by a storm had amplified said gift.

[Jean]

I don't know if I buy that. It's not clear on the show. What's Emma's type? Not white cause Woegina has that too.

It's just my opinion that if anyone could use magic just from feelings, a lot more people would be using it. Some people, like Emma, Regina or baby Zelena, used magic from an emotional outburst without even trying. 

I try to skip as many Woegina's scenes as humanly possible so I might've missed something. When did Woegina use magic without ever tryjng? When Rumple was tring to teach her and it finally worked? I don't put that in the same category as Zelena. We know when she was trying and that she couldn't without Rumple's spell book. If she was a natural or innate then she wouldn't have needed that.

This is what we know for sure. Baby Zelena was born with magic. Emma can do magic in land of no magic, ergo was born with it. A&E confirmed the birth scene electricty was Emma's magic not Henry's. We don't know his status. Only innately magical people or objects retain that aspect like the dragon. .

On the show they explicity stated Rumple, Cora, and Woegina can't do magic beyond the bounds of Storybrook. Furthermore, Rumple and Woegina couldn't do magic in Storybrook until Rumple brought magic to there. If as the writers claim that innately magical beings retain that feature in land of no magic, it stands to reason therefore that Cora and Woegina are not innately magical or born with it. We never saw Cora or Woegina do magic until they were taught. Emma and Zelena can do magic without ever having been given instruction like we saw Emma with Jefferson's hat or against Cora or Zelena pre-Rumple.

[FurryFury]

like we saw Emma with Jefferson's hat

 

Er, I don't think Emma did anything with the hat. He showed a few episodes later without having traveled anywhere.

[stealinghome]

This is what we know for sure. Baby Zelena was born with magic. Emma can do magic in land of no magic, ergo was born with it. A&E confirmed the birth scene electricty was Emma's magic not Henry's. We don't know his status. Only innately magical people or objects retain that aspect like the dragon. .

 

On the show they explicity stated Rumple, Cora, and Woegina can't do magic beyond the bounds of Storybrook. Furthermore, Rumple and Woegina couldn't do magic in Storybrook until Rumple brought magic to there. If as the writers claim that innately magical beings retain that feature in land of no magic, it stands to reason therefore that Cora and Woegina are not innately magical or born with it. We never saw Cora or Woegina do magic until they were taught. Emma and Zelena can do magic without ever having been given instruction like we saw Emma with Jefferson's hat or against Cora or Zelena pre-Rumple.

I agree with all of this (and also that we're having so much trouble with it because of the show's shoddy, awful worldbuilding [or lack thereof]).

 

Emma's magic is clearly some inborn thing that she can access unconsciously, without even trying--sometimes she's not even aware of it (lights flickering at Henry's birth, for example). Zelena falls into the same category. This seems to be qualitatively different than the magic of Regina and Cora, who didn't have that same inborn, instinctive magic as Emma. They had to be trained and taught to harness their potential before they could access magic, and they don't ever seem to have done so unconsciously--magic is always a conscious act for them. (Which, thank goodness. I can just imagine how many more people Regina would've fireballed if magic was just a reflex for her.)

 

I think Shanna Marie's music analogy is the most apt here, excluding rare cases like Emma and Zelena who have inborn magic. Anyone could sit down at a piano and start playing. But aptitude levels are going to vary widely; some people are going to have Mozart-level potential, and some will barely be able to play "Chopsticks" even if they practice for years. Regina and Cora seem to have been Mozart-level practitioners. (Whereas Emma is the piano, if that makes sense.)

 

There's more evidence on the show that just people born with a "special gift" can use it than just anyone being able to use it. We haven't seen on the show anyone who doesn't use magic regularly or have special powers just use it once or twice.

Snow managed to cast the Dark Curse (which was supposed to be ~teh difficult, so difficult it took Regina nine freaking months the first time around). Now, I will grant that Regina helped her set it up, but Regina didn't give Snow any magical energy that we saw; she may have set the spell up, but Snow performed the spell. Let's repeat: as far as we know, Snow has no magic, and yet managed to cast the most difficult curse of all time. That, to me, is pretty compelling evidence that anyone can do magic with the right instruction in the Once-verse. Because I can't even fanwank that one away as using a magic object; it was definitely casting a curse.

 

I think it's more likely that none of the peasantry use magic because it's never been available to them. I mean, we laugh about it, but seriously, there was an entire world of people and thus far we've met like 3 non-fairy, non-Dark One people that could actually do magic. imo, magic instruction seems to have been closely and jealousy guarded, and that's far more responsible for why few people can do it than anything else.

Edited August 23, 2014 by stealinghome

[KingOfHearts]

hen did Woegina use magic without ever tryjng?

When she pushed her mother into the mirror. She wasn't trying to magically stop her mother, she was just trying to get out of her mother's grasp and push her out of fight or flight. She wasn't intentionally trying to use magic. Even if she was trying to use magic, that was before Rumple had taught her anything. She did that on her own.

 

 

Snow has no magic, and yet managed to cast the most difficult curse of all time.

 

Again that's magical items, not getting magic out of thin air. All Snow did was put the heart on the boil.

 

 

I think it's more likely that none of the peasantry use magic because it's never been available to them.

 

I would probably say the peasantry have witches or whatnot amongst them that do small-time stuff. (Like Zelena was in Oz) But I don't think any peasant could do it. 

Edited August 23, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Jean]

Er, I don't think Emma did anything with the hat. He showed a few episodes later without having traveled anywhere.

 

I'm not talking about the end of Hat Trick. I'm talking about the S2 premiere when Emma got Jefferson's hat working that they had planned on using to send the wraith through. Woegina couldn't get it to work. It was Emma who did that. A&E confirmed this. But regardless, the fact that she or anyone can do magic in land of no magic is really the only evidence we have of an innate quality. 2 people fit that bill, Emma and the Dragon. Newborn Zelena is pretty strong proof for me, but I guess it's debateable.

 

 

 

When she pushed her mother into the mirror.

The mirror's magical. That's using a magical object, not thin air. Or she was using her mom's magic which again, "object." 

 

Again if Cora or Woegina was innately magical, then they should have been able to use magic in land of no magic. That's canon. Cora and Woegina both said they couldn't go after Emma/Henry/Rumple in New York because they would be powerless and magic-less. And Woegina wouldn't have needed Rumple's spell book. That's also canon.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Jean

[Mari]

Snow managed to cast the Dark Curse (which was supposed to be ~teh difficult, so difficult it took Regina nine freaking months the first time around). Now, I will grant that Regina helped her set it up, but Regina didn't give Snow any magical energy that we saw; she may have set the spell up, but Snow performed the spell. Let's repeat: as far as we know, Snow has no magic, and yet managed to cast the most difficult curse of all time.

But was it the difficulty in the spell itself, or because people weren't willing to pay the price the spell claimed to have?  I know it took Regina months, but some of that seemed to be tracking down ingredients.

 

I know we've learned since that, well, it apparently isn't much of a price--but before that it was touted as the Darkest Evilist Changes You curse there was in existence. 

 

(Not defending the Snow curse plot twist.  That was predictable, stupid, and illogical.  Just wondering about the curse logistics.)

[KingOfHearts]

 

The mirror's magical. That's using a magical object, not thin air. Or she was using her mom's magic which again, "object."

It wasn't putting her mother through the mirror that was magical, but it was freeing herself from her mother's magic grasp.

 

Again if Cora or Woegina was innately magical, then they should have been able to use magic in land of no magic.

 

It's not that they're innately magical, but they innately have the ability to use it from the air. They can't use magic in the Land Without Magic because there is no magic in the air there. I agree innately magical beings can use magic anywhere (Shadow, Dragon)

Edited August 23, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

 

I've long held the theory that it's not so much that Emma has magic. She has True Love -- the most powerful magic in all the lands -- coursing through her veins. True Love makes up as much of who she is as her DNA does. Which means, essentially, Emma is magic.

 

Well, she might have magic in her, but she doesn't have enough to use it, maybe. It's enough to create a "spark" and it works powerfully when there's magic in the air to use it with, but she can't cast spells with it and such.

 

It's entirely possible she can use magic outside of the Land Without Magic, but I don't think there's enough proof on the show to prove it at this point. To me, the writers are leaving it ambiguous on purpose. I personally find it too overpowered if she can use magic everywhere but other magic wielders can't.

Edited August 24, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Dani-Ellie]

I fully agree that there's no proof of the extent of Emma's magic or whether or not she'd be able to unconsciously create her little Mario platform if she was ever on a crumbling suspension bridge in the real world. On the other hand, the fact that she did unconsciously create her little Mario platform when all Regina expected her to do was retie the rope means there's something there that Regina wasn't expecting. We don't know what the extent of that something is, but the implication is that it's something Regina hasn't seen before, anyway.

 

The original question was whether Emma was inherently magical, and I do think there's enough evidence to say that she's different from everything Regina knows, at least. She's used some kind of power without realizing it in a land where she shouldn't be able to. Her heart can't be taken, which is something that Cora, she who takes hearts like it's her job, had never seen before. She threw together something to raise herself up out of a gorge without even thinking about it. Maybe all she'll ever be able to do in the Land Without Magic is futz with the electricity but I don't think that necessarily means she's not innately magical.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Dani-Ellie

[ShadowFacts]

Didn't Emma do something with Hook's hook in Granny's, or am I losing it big-time? (quite possible)

[kitticup]

Yes, she moved his hook from his hand to another location.  She was giggling and trying to be cute, but it is kinda mean to take someone's hook or cane that replaces a limb.

[Jean]

In the DVD commentary, the writer said the original plan was to have Emma zap up a dragon but they thought it was too soon. But I really think they just couldn't afford some good CGI dragon.

[KingOfHearts]

 

In the DVD commentary, the writer said the original plan was to have Emma zap up a dragon but they thought it was too soon. But I really think they just couldn't afford some good CGI dragon.

 

What did she need the dragon for? What episode?

Edited August 25, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Dani-Ellie]

From the Villains thread:

 

I can't find the interview anywhere, unfortunately. It was between 3A and 3B. Someone asked if Emma was practicing her magic in New York, and A&E said she couldn't because there's no magic there.

 

Geez, these guys needlessly complicate things. Why not just say no, she wouldn't be practicing, because she didn't remember she had magic? Even if she did something without realizing it, a la the lights, if she has no idea she has magic, she wouldn't necessarily think she did it.

[Jean]

I feel like if A&E had said that it would've created some chatter or minor uproar since it directly contradicts what they said and put onscreen before. I honestly don't remember that or any talk of Emma's magic in the NYC era. Everyone was too obsessed with the dumb love triangle. Wasn't it pretty much accepted canon that Emma can do magic in land of no magic since Henry's birth? At least on TWOP it was. Was there a discussion on this and the interview at TWOP?

The dragon thing is from the Jolly Roger. Instead of recreating the bridge, the original had her creating a dragon to rescue herself on. Note I did not and will not buy Woegina fanfiction DVDs so I did not hear this for myself. It was posted online.

ETA: ok here we go was this it? Yeah I don't think they are claiming Emma has no magic in land of no magic. They qualify it with belief.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/once-upon-time-emma-regina-love-new-villain-1076362.aspx

Edited August 25, 2014 by Jean

[Souris]

What did she need the dragon for? What episode?

 

In "The Jolly Roger" when Regina was teaching Emma magic and made the bridge collapse. 

[Dani-Ellie]

ETA: ok here we go was this it? Yeah I don't think they are claiming Emma has no magic in land of no magic. They qualify it with belief.

 

If that is it, I take back my crack about them making things needlessly complicated, heh.

[KingOfHearts]

That was probably it. I still think being out of Storybrooke negates her ability because they explicitly said she went where there's no magic. To answer the question, they confirmed it by saying even if there was magic she doesn't believe in it.

If she doesn't believe in magic, and belief is required for it to work, then those light flickers couldn't have been her using magic.

[Jean]

That was probably it. I still think being out of Storybrooke negates her ability because they explicitly said she went where there's no magic. To answer the question, they confirmed it by saying even if there was magic she doesn't believe in it.

If she doesn't believe in magic, and belief is required for it to work, then those light flickers couldn't have been her using magic.

 

No there was nothing about working or doing magic in the question or answer.  They didn't say belief is required for it to work, belief is required for her to see it as magic. The question was, is she going to "stumble" upon magic. That's something passive not active. To which A&E reply no you would have to believe in magic to "see" it.  If she does do something magical she obviously isn't going to see it or know it as magic would she?

 

Everything we've been told and seen onscreen says she can do magic outside Storybrook onscreen. They directly said the lights were her magic. This particular question doesn't directly address it like it has been in the past or the Henry birth one.  But agree to disagree and move on.

[Dani-Ellie]

Emma couldn't see August's wooden leg even though it was real because she didn't believe in it. The wording of the question (could Emma stumble upon her magic) and the subsequent response to me doesn't indicate that she couldn't do magic without believing in it but only that she wouldn't recognize it as magic if she did anything with it. Basically, memory-whammied Emma couldn't accidentally use her magic and go, "Holy shit, I just did magic!" She'd attribute it to a natural, albeit odd, occurrence, like lights flickering because of old wiring or whatnot.

[KingOfHearts]

 

Everything we've been told and seen onscreen says she can do magic outside Storybrook onscreen.

 

Light flickers aren't enough for me, sorry. That's really the only hint she can, but it doesn't prove it. Emma's special, but that doesn't automatically mean she can use magic anywhere. Like many things on the show, the writers are intentionally leaving it ambiguous for now. I don't know why the writers would say there's no magic outside of Storybrooke in the question if that weren't an issue.

 

Either Emma can have magic outside or not. The writers can do either. It's just another subject the writers don't fill in the blanks for, which drives me (and many other viewers) crazy, like a lot of other magic rules and plot holes on this show. It's confusing, because a lot of times you think its one way, then they pull a 180 and eradicate it. 

 

Bae can go to the Land Without Magic... then they retcon and put walls up in 3B. There are three laws of magic you can't break no matter how powerful you are, then Zelena comes in and breaks them by slapping some ingredients together in a barn. You can't bring someone back from the dead, then Snow resurrects Charming by tearing her heart in half, thereby negating the price of the curse itself. When someone takes your heart they can control it, then Regina comes in and puts a spell on herself to prevent that. Like really, nothing is set in stone.

Edited August 25, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

I was browsing Adam's twitter for funzies. Apparently the time-travel of the poisoned apple through Jefferson's Hat in S1 was different from Zelena's Time Portal. He said it was an object, not a person, and that it had 'always happened' like a time-loop. https://twitter.com/adamhorowitzla/status/503989890510761985

[Mari]

I always thought it was a super lame curse.  Regina killed her own father so she could get to a land where she could harm Snow and she harms her by taking away her memory.  Yeah, snap.  Her big kicks come from seeing David under a sleeping curse of sorts and Snow teaching kids.   She could have written a better deal, the one she came up with was a bit lacking in imagination for such a technicolor person as herself. 

She could have, except she didn't write the curse.  Rumple did.

 

Personally, I think the curse could've been as nasty as the caster wanted it to be.  However, since she was relying on Rumple, and Rumple had specific goals, she got what Rumple wanted, with a few bones thrown in that she was smart enough to specify.

 

Rumple had no motive to make Storybrooke a truly horrible place.  He wasn't trying to punish the Enchanted Forest at large, and he had to live there, too.  I think he purposely mitigated the amount of suffering; he wanted to get to Baelfire, and he wanted Bae to forgive him.  Having an entire kingdom's worth of people ready to kill him--instead of Regina--served no purpose.

 

Having a magical place, relatively comfortable, with citizens that aren't focused on him as the big evil, that he could bring Baelfire back to, as proof of his reforming?  That would be motive enough to make it as comfortable as he could without outright lying to Regina.

[KingOfHearts]

At that point, Regina really didn't care what it would be like as long as Snow and Charming were "punished". Plus, I think what Regina really wanted was a place where she was respected. She felt so rejected from being called the Evil Queen then being exiled, that it was a way for her to get a good reputation. I don't even think Regina was dead set on punishing everyone, but rather she wanted to be where she could "finally win". All that being said though, I bet Regina was hoping for more suffering, especially for Snow White. The fact the characters were totally oblivious to Regina's intentions to torture them made it less worth it, because they'd forget about it and move on the next day.

 

Some of the characters, like Frankenstein, actually got better lives in Storybrooke. It's not so much a "curse" as just a very elaborate spell.

Edited September 2, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[ShadowFacts]

 

She could have, except she didn't write the curse.  Rumple did.

 

Maybe "write" wasn't the right word, but a previous discussion was all about the details of what Regina created for everyone's lives.  Presumably she did that, but it's never been totally clear who did what between Rumple's creating and Regina's casting.  He did tell her he wanted to be well off in the new land, and she had to do whatever he said "please" to, so he had a reason to state that.

[YaddaYadda]

Some of the characters, like Frankenstein, actually got better lives in Storybrooke. It's not so much a "curse" as just a very elaborate spell.

 

There was a whole line about that when Ruby tells Whale that Regina underestimated how much crap people really wanted to forget. 

[Camera One]

I do find it odd that there were apparently no light magic users available in that whole world. Is that something particularly rare? Aside from the fairies and the Oz witches (and Emma), all the magic users have been evil. Does that mean that magic tends to make people evil or that only evil people are drawn to magic? Since Regina was able to pull it out of her ass, it seems like an easy switch flip -- act out of love and presto, light magic!

 

 

This question is really difficult to answer because the REAL reason for this is that Adam and Eddy's stories always always require that they limit the powers of the "good guys", so the "bad guys" can put their plan into motion and score win after win.  I personally think they go way too far resulting in the villains dominating while the good guys are essentially helpless.  The other reason is they literally have no interest in exploring good magic.  Other showrunners might have delved into the organization of the Fairies, or have explored Wizards like Merlin, or have given Emma a sage in light magic to develop her skills gradually throughout Season 2 and 3.  You could tell Adam and Eddy couldn't care less about developing Glinda, who was instead made into the dumbest character ever on this show (which is really saying something).

 

In-show, how can the utter uselessness of the light magic users be explained?  I suppose one is a moral code that the good magic users (especially the Fairies) seem to follow, where magic can never be used for self gain and magic is generally avoided.  Unfortunately, the rest of the code and the rules are undefined and fuzzy wuzzy.  Why could Blue turn Snow back into a human, for example.  What were the rules governing when you can send Cinderella to the ball, or turn a wooden puppet into a boy, or a man into a cricket?  The only constant is it doesn't actually benefit the Fairy at all.  The Fairies are also restricted by the fact that they could only do magic with tools like wands and raw materials like fairy dust.  

 

But then, they muddied the waters by introducing Glinda, who was actually a "good witch".  Did we actually see her do any magic?  When Dorothy asked how they get to the Wizard, she said they should take a stroll down the Yellow Brick Road instead of via Bubble.   Glinda also told Snow and Charming that she was *never* powerful enough to defeat Zelena.  I wouldn't have been surprised if she only had the ability to pull handkerchiefs out of her sleeve.

 

So if everyone who is "good" follows a strict moral code where you only defeat villains through one weapon (hope), then it makes sense that only evil and selfish people would become magic users.  Though one thing which is interesting to me is Glinda had the usual naive belief that people would change (eg. giving Zelena that all-power pendant), but Blue actually did not seem to think Regina could change, and wrote her off quite early on.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

So if everyone who is "good" follows a strict moral code where you only defeat villains through one weapon (hope), then it makes sense that only evil and selfish people would become magic users.

This is where they have a total worldbuilding fail because if light magic users are so rare that they're either unprecedented or come along maybe once in a generation, to the point that there was literally no one available in all that world who could take on Zelena, then Emma is a Huge Freaking Deal. That means it's a crime that they took that away from her just to give Regina a moment to shine, but it also means there should be definite attitudes about her having magic.

 

If everyone who's not a fairy who does magic in this world is evil, then what would the attitude of the general populace be toward magic? They don't seem to have any fear of magical items or stuff like True Love's Kiss, but it seems like their only resort when magic is desperately needed is making a deal with Rumple. You'd think there would be a very negative view of non-fairy magic, something to be feared. So how would they react to someone like Emma, with the apparently unprecedented light magic in a human? Their last magical ruler was no picnic, and now there's a princess with powers. Is this something they'd be worried about or something to be excited about? Should her parents be worried about what might become of her, or are they so proud of her that they're in denial about there being any possible negative repercussions? Would they worry about the fact of her magic becoming public knowledge, for fear there might be some with a "burn the witch" attitude? Neal freaked out when he learned she had magic, and while he had personal reasons to be worried, did that reflect a societal attitude? On the other hand, what does it say about Hook that he's so accepting of her magic and her biggest cheerleader in using it, in spite of having rather extensive personal experience as a victim of dark magic?

 

Really, one of the first things you need to do when writing fantasy is figure out how your magic works, set up the rules and then stick to them. Otherwise, everything falls apart. Not only do you need the rules, but you need to know how magic fits into that world. What do people think about it? Who can do it? Has it had a positive or negative impact on the world?

[KingOfHearts]

I'm confused about hearts.

 

It's my understanding the hearts that get ripped out aren't their real hearts, but magical objects representing something entirely different. There's a couple spots on the show that challenge this a little, though. When Graham brings Regina the physical heart of the stag, she doesn't even realize it's not the heart she wanted until her magic vault doesn't recognize it. Also, why did Graham need a knife to take Snow's heart if Regina just wanted to put her heart in her vault with her other "magic" hearts? In The Doctor, Team Princess finds all the dead bodies with blood on their chest, which indicates to Snow their hearts were ripped out. If it's just their magical hearts, then it shouldn't leave any blood. In the same episode, was Frankenstein trying to replace the physical heart with a magical one? How was that supposed to work?

 

Hearts get even more confusing when you add in the dark spots, cutting them in half, feeling emotion without them, etc.

Edited September 21, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

What REALLY happened at the end of "The Miller's Daughter":

 

Cora: I’m sorry, my dear Rumpel. I’m not going with you. You see, I have a wedding to go to – my own.

 

Rumpelstiltskin: Whose heart is in the box?

 

Cora: Don’t make this harder.

 

Rumpelstiltskin: You lied to me. Whose heart?

 

Cora: Mine. I had to. You told me not to let anything stop me until they’re on their knees. My heart was stopping me.

 

Rumple: No it isn't.  Actually, you can love just as much without a heart as with one.

 

Cora: Oh crap, you're right.  I still have feelings for you.

 

Rumpelstiltskin: You’re not getting away with this. We had a contract. I’ll take your baby!

 

Cora: Did you know I already HAD a baby?  Try doing some research, oh Dark One.  Or should I call you In The Dark One.   Now that I know magic, I'll do nothing with it, forsake my own goal to enter royalty and wait for my daughter to become Queen by marrying the husband of my archnemesis Ava, the Master Tripper.

 

Rumpelstiltskin: And I'll come up with some convoluted plan to use your daughter to cast a spell so I can get to my son even though there are a thousand and one ways to get to him.

 

Cora: Oh good, our convoluted plans align!

 

Peter Pan: And with those plans, I can get the Heart of the Truest Believer.  

 

Rumple. Cora and Peter Pan: Bwahwahwahwhwahwahwhahwhahahwha

Edited September 21, 2014 by Camera One

[stealinghome]

I think they're supposed to be the real, actual heart--I assume the heart-ripping magic compensates for the loss of the heart.

[Rumsy4]

Yeah--I agree. Those glowy plastic blobs are actually hearts, kept ticking by magic until they are crushed to dust. bwahaha

 

Camera One--your scenarios are hilarious!  

[KingOfHearts]

 

I think they're supposed to be the real, actual heart--I assume the heart-ripping magic compensates for the loss of the heart.

 

Then how did Emma feel Graham's still beating in his chest...? Or how does Snow function with half a heart now...? Why do they turn to sand when they get crushed...? Why does having your heart affect your feelings?

 

 

The compensatory magic.

The show has never said that, though. You can really write off any plot hole in the show with "its just magic". We don't know the boundaries of magic (apparently there are none, since all 3 "laws" were broken), so you could really just blame anything on it. Not talking about you, stealinghome, but about the show's problems.

Edited September 22, 2014 by KingOfHearts

[stealinghome]

The compensatory magic.

[patchwork]

I think that there's two ways to do it you can a)rip out an actual heart killing the person outright or b) pull out the magical essence of a heart which can then be split in two, used to manipulate the owner or crush it so the actual heart is crushed too. 

[stealinghome]

The show has never said that, though. You can really write off any plot hole in the show with "its just magic". We don't know the boundaries of magic (apparently there are none, since all 3 "laws" were broken), so you could really just blame anything on it. Not talking about you, stealinghome, but about the show's problems.

KingOfHearts, I agree with the general critique of "it's just magic" handwaving on this show, for sure! It's just that relative to the hearts, I've always understood it as the ripper is taking the actual, physical heart, and the same magic that allows them to rip it is what sustains the rippee. It's why Snow and Charming sharing a heart doesn't bother me...it's the same magic that let a heartless Graham walk around, or a heartless Charming hang on for a few more minutes.

 

But I've actually also wondered if the heart-ripping victims got duplicate hearts when they showed up in Storybrooke. The curse seems to have healed wounds (Charming's, Snow certainly didn't appear post-partum) and turned non-humans into humans (the fairies, Archie, Gus), so I have toyed with the notion that maybe people got duplicate hearts when they came back. Wouldn't that be funny, in a terrible way. "I'm trying to put it back in, but something's in the way!" Heh.

[Rumsy4]

There's nothing to indicate that the people aren't ripping actual hearts out. It was always shown as the real heart, magically preserved. Otherwise Regina splitting Snow White's heart in two doesn't even make sense (well--it never made sense, but that's another story). 

[KingOfHearts]

 

so I have toyed with the notion that maybe people got duplicate hearts when they came back.

 

In the Heart is a Lonely Hunter, when Emma felt Graham's heart beating, he says to her, "It's the curse." So I'm pretty sure the show is going with that consensus. I'm genuinely surprised no one has banged on Regina's door to demand their heart back. People have gone to Mr. Gold's shop to get their items back. (2x22, I believe.)

 

 

KingOfHearts, I agree with the general critique of "it's just magic" handwaving on this show, for sure! It's just that relative to the hearts, I've always understood it as the ripper is taking the actual, physical heart, and the same magic that allows them to rip it is what sustains the rippee.

It's just one of those things on the show that doesn't get explained. That's happened many times, and I've seen it create a lot of debate in other discussions. It drives me nuts to have to constantly fill in holes all the time, in more areas than just magic.

 

Hearts have a lot bigger issues than whether they're physical or not, I must say. S3 created a lot of those problems. Regina was able to cast a spell on Henry to keep anyone from taking his heart, yet she didn't do it to herself later. She was also able to cast a spell that stopped people from being able to control her heart, which came out of nowhere. Then she's able to have feelings for Robin, even though the Knave was stone cold to his True Love without his heart. She later uses light magic, which comes from emotions that you're not supposed to have without your heart. Then to top everything off, Snow got her heart cut in half to break the dead is dead rule.

 

(Wow, if Regina hadn't disintegrated Daniel, she could have split her heart with him!)

[Camera One]

So based on Anna's comment to Ruth, magic is much more common in "Misthaven" than in Arendelle.  Maybe that's why it's called the Enchanted Forest?

[KingOfHearts]

So based on Anna's comment to Ruth, magic is much more common in "Misthaven" than in Arendelle. Maybe that's why it's called the Enchanted Forest?

That's exactly my assumption. I find it odd that magic is such a foreign concept to Arendelle, yet they apparently have good relations with EF and it's not very far.

[Writing Wrongs]

I'm still trying to understand the curse(s). Regina said that for the first curse she brought over who she wanted. But why would she want to bring some random people she'd probably never met? Did the curse just sweep up everybody along with her chosen few? What about "Snow's curse"? Was it the exact same curse, but with the added kick that Zelena put in? 

 

None of the dynamics make sense.  Was Regina downloaded somehow with all the info on who had what name and how stuff works?

[scarynikki12]

For Regina, I imagine she had a list of people she wanted to bring and a list of those she wanted to exclude.  That doesn't prevent the randoms from coming too, as we saw the Curse sweeping across the forest, taking everyone in its path.  It would allow her to bring Frankenstein and Jefferson but exclude anyone she didn't want to see (though I can't think of anyone who fits that description-maybe Hook- since she believed Cora to be dead but it's a fair assumption).

 

For Snow, I think she cast the Curse the same way Regina did, bringing over the same specific people and anyone who happened to be in the smoke's path as it swept across the forest.  Hence Hook having to outrun it (not on Regina's list) and Frankenstein (who no doubt went home to Gothic World) returning.

[Shanna Marie]

It would allow her to bring Frankenstein and Jefferson but exclude anyone she didn't want to see (though I can't think of anyone who fits that description-maybe Hook- since she believed Cora to be dead but it's a fair assumption).

Hook avoided it because he was in Cora's dome that shut out the curse. Ditto for Mulan and Philip, as well as Robin and much of his gang (but apparently not Will, since he was in Storybrooke for Curse 1). I don't think Cora was deliberately protecting anyone in particular other than herself and Hook, but she cast her dome about as wide as she could. The dome kept them from being taken to the other world and losing their identities, but they were still frozen in time.

 

We don't know how widespread Curse 2 was as opposed to Curse 1, but Eric was taken in the first curse but was outside the boundaries of the second one.

 

Basically, the people the writers needed to have in Storybrooke were brought over, with various amounts of handwaving to explain it.

[Mari]

Going back to that Rumple/Henry deleted scene - I don't get this whole "you come from the lineage of The Dark One". It's malarky. Rumple is cursed. Not anyone else, just him. Rumple became cursed as The Dark One almost 14 years after Baelfire was born, therefore he didn't pass down The Dark One magic genes to anyone else because he ("he" Rumple, and no one else!) was cursed.

I agree that so far it doesn't make sense.  However, they've brought it up a couple of times now, and they did have Neal do blood-based magic in season 2.

 

In some fantasy stories, some curses don't impact just the one person, they curse the entire line--one person in the family is always a werewolf, or can't ever touch whatever.  Is it possible that their plan is to have the Dark One curse be something that ripples out from generation to generation, regardless of genetics?   

 

It would be a total retcon of what's happened so far, but it would make dealing with the Dark One curse more urgent if at some point everyone thinks it means Henry will have to be Dark Oned or starts getting sparkly.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Mari

[FabulousTater]

I agree that so far it doesn't make sense.  However, they've brought it up a couple of times now, and they did have Neal do blood-based magic in season 2.

But that was blood magic. It only worked because Rumple setup the magic-thingy to only work when certain biological conditions were met. The operative word to the magical object was the blood, not the magic. Even if Nealfire had magic (which he didn't) it would not have worked. That's also why Regina used a blood lock on her castle and in the mayor's office. It would prevent anyone from entering, magic and non-magical alike. But the moment the biological conditions were met, Zelena was able to get in/out. Not because of her magic but because of the blood. So blood magic, IMO, has absolutely nothing to do with hereditary magical abilities. It's just magical objects or spells that have an added parameter of "You must be related by blood for XYZ already existing magical object/spell to work".

 

I just think it's total hogwash to backtrack and say that The Dark One power that (in the show) has consistently been called a curse, and that has been specifically shown as magic derived from the dagger, is now hereditary. It's epic loads of BS, IMO, for them to change that now.

 

ETA: I'm just all sorts of tired of this show bullshitting their way through everything because the writers pull these ideas out of their asses and can't control themselves long enough to think about it for five seconds and realize it doesn't make sense within the context of what is already on the board. I'm sick of their hard-ons for "Oh, EPIC TWIST!" bullshit that just does nothing but comes off as lazy and turns every development prior into meaningless drivel and lies.

Edited October 10, 2014 by FabulousTater

[Mari]

It's epic loads of BS, IMO, for them to change that now.

Yup.  It really, really is.  But I can see them doing it anyway, especially since they're paying attention to Rumple's magic this season. (Or, at least that's what I've taken away from starry magic hat.)