Discussion YMMV / Onceuponatime

• Regina. It's very, very hard to pick just one, and it's very, very hard to agree on one, but most fans definitely think she crossed it while watching Season 1. After watching Season 2 (particularly after 2x02 and 2x05), they can hardly reach any consensus at all.
  • Her treatment of Henry: trying to push him into thinking that the curse wasn't real and thus making him believe that he was crazy (though his therapist and her both being very cautious not to use that terminology, she did trick Emma into using it in order to drive her away from her son, but the deleted scenes reveal that she was kind of surprised by how attached to her he already was), all in order to protect herself/the curse. Then trying to kill members of Henry's family—on multiple occasions—sometimes not even checking whether he was here and therefore doing it right in front of him. Then trying to put him under a love curse because she remains absolutely sure that having her loving him is the best thing that can happen to him and refuses to confront her flaws. Also, some fans consider Regina telling Henry about her plan to destroy Storybrooke, kill everyone living there, and kidnap Henry back to FTL, then erasing his memory of the conversation, one as well.
    • Then, it's made clear that though she clearly has no qualms about emotionally/mentally scarring the son she claims to love for life, unlike other villainous abusive parents on the show, she always genuinely believes in the excuses she finds to keep him around and cannot understand Henry's reactions. Trying to become the mother she always wanted to have turned her into a Knight Templar Parent, and when she realizes this after countless traumas caused by her missing the significance of his relationship with his biological mother, it takes her a very traumatic scene reminding her of her own mother to make her decide to turn herself around... a heartfelt resolution that gets thrown by the window the second her abandonment issues are resolved and her loneliness reawakened by her mother's semi-redemption and death.
  • The Queen killing her own father, explicitly the one thing she loved more than anything else. Though it is less of one for her and more of one for other characters if you were willing to accept the Sympathetic Murder Backstory on the death of her father ( he watched her be physically and emotionally abused by her mother for years). Also, she feels enormous remorse about it.
  • Alternatively, her repeated rape and later the murder of Graham certainly qualifies. Graham was an amnesiac whose memory she had rewritten so that he would stay with her, and he had apparently felt something was wrong since a long time. This is confirmed in Welcome to Storybrooke, where everyone's personalities were essentially chosen by Regina and many fans thought Graham clearly had no choice whatsoever. Regina could even use his heart to direct him, like a puppet. It stays to be confirmed whether Regina really knew what she was doing or not, as the writers and actress's statements make it look as if Adam and Edie and she by extension thought of it as of a real relationship, but it definitely wasn't.
  • Even if Leopold was a neglectful bore of a husband who saw her mother's acceptance of his proposal as a valid answer when she was still a teenager, even if he knew that he would never make her happy, and expected her to stay faithful to him and miserable for all the deades of the duration of the marriage, even if he may have planned to kill her potential lover, was it really necessary to pull a Wounded Gazelle Gambit on the yet innocent Genie smitten with her, get him to kill Leopold for her, and then let the Genie plunge into eternal servitude as her magic mirror ? Mostly when watching the consequence in 1x07 and Snow's reaction. You could have just bribed a guard!
  • And if you were wiling to accept even that possibility and still forgive her, then the revelation that she's kept Belle (who, unlike Snow White or the Huntsman, never crossed her or did her any harm at all) shut away in a mental ward for twenty eight years, presumably either to keep her quiet or as some sort of bargaining chip against Mr. Gold might just do it. Although then again, Regina just shows a Cycle of Vengeance mindset (taking leverage material to deal with what she knows, is almost evil incarnate but with very human qualities such as a fondness for Belle, and nearly omnipotent), while Rumple already demonstrated his capacity to screw her life over more than needed at that point in the chronology. Some fans tend to too easily dismiss it as a sort of Karmic Retribution for Rumple and No Sympathy towards Belle.. Regardless of how much Regina deserves pity rather than scorn, the point remains that she deliberately hurt an innocent victim (Belle), in cool blood, which contributes into making her Not So Different with Rumple, no matter how much this displeases fans trying to scapegoat him for the event.
  • All the murders and the later kidnapping can be argued to acceptable losses to further her plans. But sending defenseless CHILD after CHILD into a cannibal witch's house to retrieve the poisoned apple crosses it. She's shown she could have taken care of the Blind Witch herself (via mirrors and fireballs), even though that would have costed her her revenge, making her look worse when she sends Hansel and Gretel in. Without remorse or hesitation she sent over a DOZEN kids to certain doom just to get a MacGuffin just to screw over ONE PERSON. ONE PERSON.
  • She was involved in Kathryn's disappearance and attempted to commit a murder. She then uses her supposed friend's death to screw over someone who's already miserable, and for kicks she also makes Sidney, who's hopelessly in love with her, confess to the crime.
  • What she did to Jefferson; deliberately screwing him over so that she could get her father back (who she'll kill later anyway, rendering the whole Wonderland trip meaningless) and then hypocritically shooting his words 'You don't leave family' back at him, before leaving him behind to be separated from his daughter forever - as well as from his head, if only for a while. BITCH. Though she gets a Sympathetic Murder Backstory-ish storyline AGAIN, since, before his daughter was even born, Jefferson was The Hedonist and helped drive her insane in exchange from some material help from Rumplestiltskin.
  • Regina trying to get Kurt and Owen to stay in Storybrooke and, when that didn't work, chasing them down like criminals, having Kurt arrested and thus depriving Owen of his father. Who cares if she cried in remorse? That was dreadful. To be fair, she was genuinely remorseful over what she did when she sees Owen crying for his father and she learned her lesson in the present time, as evidenced by destroying the love curse rather than forcing Henry to be her perfect, loving son, but still, her selfish actions back then have now put everyone in Storybrooke in jeopardy in the present day, as Owen is back and out to prove that magic exists to the whole world. (Oh, and she killed Kurt as well.)
  • Twisting Belle's memories and personality into a hard-partying Dark Chick. Did Belle do anything to Regina? Nope. It's all because Regina doesn't have the guts or power to face Rumplestiltskin directly, so she'll attack him through the innocent girl serving as his Morality Chain who did nothing more than support him and accidentally help framing her, in a dark mirrored version of what he did to Prince Henry.
  • In "The Evil Queen", she has a village destroyed and all it's inhabitants slaughtered back in the Enchanted Forest. And even though she looks as if she just realizes what she asked when she finds them before the apple incident, in the present, she's planning on doing the same to Storybrooke and all the people in it, and mind-wipes Henry of this plan so that he won't try to stop her. This also ends up directly enabling Tamara and Greg's Moral Event Horizon of doing the same thing, making Regina doubly guilty.

• Creating the damn curse to start with may qualify. While wanting to find his son is a sympathetic Freudian Excuse, ruining the lives of all around him to do so is just heinous, and even more when you realize there were other ways in 2x04 and he used the curse because it allowed him to keep his powers.
• What makes all this even worse is that, when his son returns, he is happy spending his time with Belle. He doesn't visit him, try to repair the damage he caused or learn more about his grandson. To be fair, he has been shown spending a lot of time watching his son. Given how things played out in "Manhattan", maybe Gold doesn't know how to talk to his son.
• Later, encouraging Regina to kill her own father.He starts by grasping her throat as if he was going to strangle her, then giggles through his whole rant, probably rejoicing because poor Henry ended up with the woman he loved in the past.
• In The Price Of Gold, killing an innocent, benevolent woman whose job is to make desperate people happy without hidden side-consequences. This means he may have put thousands of Happy Endings into jeopardy, when he could have just locked her somewhere. Then, manipulating Ashley and trying to insult the memory of a beloved character whom, on a meta-level he cheated of her usual importance.
• What Rumplestiltskin did to Regina, as shown in "We Are Both" and onward. While Cora started Regina down the road to darkness, Rumple made damn sure she continued down it, but he always insisted that the choice was hers, and that it was her fault, not his. Made worse by the fact that this may still be Revenge by Proxy on Cora.
• Torturing Robin Hood. He hurts him and heals him, just because he feels some perverse satisfaction in punishing others for challenging a power they can't handle. Made better by letting Robin Hood go after Rumple found out Robin Hood wanted the magic wand to save his pregnant wife. Belle evens calls him out on it.
• Later on, trying to harm Henry, his son's son, without concern for Neal's happiness, or any demonstration of remorse, just out of self-preservation. Made better by his rescue attempt afterwards.
• To start with a disagreeable pattern, ripping out Milah's heart, whatever your opinion on whether she had a right to seek her own happiness or should have stayed with a family who loved her. Though that one can also come across as a crime of passion and he really only begins to lose control when he calls her out for abandoning Bae.

• King George:
  • He dove over this line in "Child Of The Moon" by killing a man in cold blood, framing his murder on the innocent (and already guilt-ridden) Ruby, almost killing her, and then destroying the Mad Hatter's hat (which, in Storybrooke, is the only known way to get Emma and Snow back), all in the name of a grudge on Charming, not even any of the people that he screwed over during the episode!
  • Imprisoning Charming and attempting to have him executed just because he didn't go along with his Arranged Marriage, and then cursing Snow to a childless life. Evil Is Petty, indeed. Oh, and he killed his mother.

• Attempting to kill Belle, simply because she was of no use to him. Also then later shooting Belle and letting her fall over the Storybrooke line so she'd lose her memories was a real dick move. Though by then it's become apparent Hook is more interested in making Rumple miserable and some kind of inverted Suicide by Cop, at least since he can't kill him.
• Some Sleeping Hook shippers were put off by Hook stealing Aurora's heart while she was unconscious. Some viewers started shipping the two because of that scene. Some consider this a subversion, as Hook also ends up saving her heart when it's about to be lost forever.
• Selling out Bae, the son of the woman he loved, to the Lost Boys. The tragic thing about this one is that they were genuinely bonding. Hook started out using him for information to kill Rumple, but they bonded over being abandoned and almost became a family. It all went to hell when Bae found out that Milah left his family for Hook and refused to be on the ship any longer. Rather than let him go, Hook sells Bae for his own safety and that of his crew.

(Wicked Witch of the West)

• Turning the Wizard of Oz into her first Flying Monkey, though it was borderline [1]. Sending him to "divert" Emma (though said monkey is originally human, neither of them seems to have had full knowledge of their actions, paralleling Graham.)
• Caging an obviously insane and tortured Rumple, and forcing Rumple to attack Belle using the dagger, after giving her a Hope Spot.
• The above is topped later when she forces him to threaten Robin Hood's son, a CHILD.
• Setting up Baelfire to be killed, and then torturing Rumple and Emma with it.
• Planning to unmake all of reality and the timeline so Cora will keep her, proving to be just as ruthless as her mother in her devotion to attaining her goals.
• And, to top the list, kidnapping a newborn baby to use in her time-travel spell, which may or may not have killed it.