Characters / Once Upon A Time Regina

aka: Once Upon A Time Evil Queen Regina

Beware of spoilers.

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The Evil Queen/Regina Mills/Roni

The Evil Queen: "I shall destroy your happiness... if it's the last thing I do."

Regina Mills: "I've always believed that evil isn't born... it's made."

Played By: Lana Parrilla, Ava Acres (child)

Centric Episodes^note "The Thing You Love Most", "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree", "The Stable Boy", "We Are Both", "The Doctor", "The Cricket Game", "Welcome to Storybrooke", "The Evil Queen", "Quite a Common Fairy", "Save Henry", "Witch Hunt", "A Curious Thing", "Enter the Dragon", "Mother", "The Price", "Dreamcatcher", "Souls of the Departed", "Sisters", "A Bitter Draught", "Page 23", "Wake Up Call", "Is This Henry Mills?"

"You think it was a coincidence that I just so happened to adopt the savior’s son? Our actions are our own, but fate pushes us."

The Evil Queen who, after losing her war with Snow White, enacts the Dark Curse to give herself a "happy ending". In Storybrooke, she retains all her memories as Regina Mills, the mayor of Storybrooke.

Initially she was the villain and Big Bad of Season 1 but as Regina's past is explored and the Dark Curse is broken, Regina proves to be far more than the Flat Character "Evil Queen" of the stories. Her most redeeming quality and stable of her character is her love for her son Henry, the primary motivator for Regina's change for the better... even if it doesn't always stick and she slips into her old bad habits.

Eventually she makes peace with her hated Arch-Enemy Snow White and even her Evil Mentor Rumplestiltskin, becoming a Hero in her own right even as her past sins repeatedly haunt her.

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#-F

• 0% Approval Rating: During her time as the Evil Queen, nobody wanted anything to do with her due to her murderous actions and constantly trying to kill Snow White. The only reason she held on to her throne was because of her magical power. She stayed this way as Mayor of Storybrooke due to being a Jerkass and Alpha Bitch, and once the curse was broken the entire population of Storybrooke tried to murder her. However, over time, once Character Development set in, she becomes a better person and starts winning over the people of Storybrooke to the point that in the Season 6 finale she is officially given the office of Queen of the town by the citizens of Storybrooke. Additionally, in the Season 7 finale, she gets chosen to be the ruler of the United Realms as the Good Queen.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Occasionally neglectful and frequently emotionally manipulative to Henry, and is gaslighting him about his belief in the curse. She genuinely loves him though and seems to have been unambiguously a good and caring if somewhat controlling mother prior to the conflict between Henry and her about the fairy tale characters, placing her mostly in this type. This leads to a My God, What Have I Done? moment when Henry finally confronts her about her gaslighting. Emotional and mental abuse still continues after this, though. At several points throughout Season 2 she's attempted to kill members of Henry's family, tries to put him under a love curse, and casts a spell to wipe his memory. Even if she was doing this out of love, she still knowingly hurt Henry directly, which puts her firmly in this category. This is not even getting into all her actions against her stepdaughter Snow in Fairy Tale Land, even if she had a Freudian Excuse for that. Thankfully part of her Character Development is shedding this and turning her into a full on Mama Bear along with Emma, refusing any harm to come to him.
  • Regina had Cora as a very emotionally abusive mother (much worse than herself), who was also physically abusive at least insofar as restraining her. Even putting aside all the evil Cora has done to other people, there is the way Regina reacts when Cora uses magic to levitate her in the air at the drop of a hat and conjures straps to wrap around her in "The Stable Boy". Regina holds out for a minute, saying she hates it when Cora uses magic on her, before begging her mother to let her go, saying "Please. I'll be good." Her father looks upset, but otherwise lets Cora do what she wants. After all, "what can't she do?" This sadly ties back into her initial treatment of Henry in the first and second season, demonstrating the destructive cycle of abuse seen too regularly in real life.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the original fable, the Queen was a Vain Sorceress who was jealous of Snow White's beauty. Here, however, Regina was motivated by revenge and sheer hatred for Snow White because she had gotten her then-boyfriend killed, and didn't particularly care that it wasn't intentional.
• Adaptational Badass: For all intents and purposes, while she was a sorceress in the original Disney movie and Grimm's fairy tale, she contented herself with being the "fairest of them all" and leave it at that. In the series, she is a formidable sorceress well-versed in magic, has her personal army and cast a curse on all of her world (the latter event with other villains' help, but still).
• Adaptational Heroism: The Evil Queen in the original Snow White story and various other media incarnations typically didn't receive redemption. Here, Regina starts out as the Wicked Witch but after much hardship and Character Development, she becomes The Good Queen who's embraced by everyone.
• Addictive Magic: After she began her dark magic lessons, she realized that she didn't want to stop using it. She even seeks out Dr. Hopper for help!
• Aesop Amnesia: In Seasons 2 to 3, where she keeps making actions that put her's and her adoptive son's relationship at risk. Lampshaded in one episode where she tells Snow she doesn't "learn from [her] mistakes".
• Alas, Poor Villain: She's the Evil Queen, but Henry's devoted mother. So you can imagine her pain when, after spending ten years raising and falling in love with a boy being raised as her son, said son decides that he no longer loves her and refuses to be with her, choosing to go with his birth mother instead. In Season 2 and onwards, Henry does eventually love her again, but it's still harsh for him to leave her.
• Alpha Bitch: Despite it not being high school, Regina pulls a lot of the same verbal snark tactics.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She is aloof and composed compared to the other female characters on the show, especially as the mayor.
  • However, she's not always aloof. As the Evil Queen she's vengeful, filled with rage, chews the scenery just as good as Rumplestiltskin, and speaks most of her lines with teeth-clenched fury. As Regina, she can be a genuinely doting parent and loving mother who deeply cares for her son, dropping the aloof act instantaneously. As a young Regina, she is achingly innocent, deeply in love, and incredibly naive. Fortunately for the show, Lana Parrilla has incredible acting range and pulls all this off while making it look easy.
• Always a Child to Parent: Downplayed example with Regina and Henry in Season 7. Because it's been so long since she's seen him (and she really wasn't ready for him to leave Storybrooke when he did anyway), Regina can't help leaping in to try and save him when danger threatens... only to find he doesn't need her help anymore. This gets subverted a bit when he reveals he does still need her, just as a loving mother and ally, rather than as someone to protect and take care of him. In the end, she does realize she needs to cut the apron strings, and that this was as much about her loneliness as anything else, and so once she gets her memories back in Hyperion Heights, she confines herself to just giving advice and being there when he needs her.
• Ambiguously Brown:
  • Her ethnicity is never touched upon in Storybrooke or the Enchanted Forest, but it appears she has the same colouring as her father, who is played by a Latino actor. Her actress, Lana Parrilla, is of Italian and Puerto Rican descent and identifies as Latina.
  • "The Miller's Daughter" shows that Regina is at least half Latina since her relatives on her father's side of the family are all portrayed by Latino actors.
• And Show It to You: As Henry says, heart-ripping is kind of her thing. She got it from her mother.
• Anti-Villain: One who had been Forced into Evil and Driven to Villainy no matter how hard she resisted.
• Appropriated Appellation: In flashbacks shown in "The Evil Queen", Regina is at first offended at being called evil by her subjects, but by the end of the episode, embraces it after finding out pretty much everyone in the kingdom hates her.
• Arrow Catch: In "We Are Both", Granny shoots an arrow at her. Regina catches it, sets it on fire, and then throws the fireball around the room.
  • She does it again in the second half of Season 3, when she catches an arrow that Robin Hood fires at her, mistaking her for the Wicked Witch.
• The Atoner: Slowly throughout the series, despite her repressing many of her regrets at first.
  • In the Season 2 finale, Regina realizes how much destruction the trigger will cause - a device she created - and opts to sacrifice herself to destroy the device.
  • In Season 3, she makes the decision to save the citizens of Storybrooke by reversing the first curse and sending everyone back to their original worlds.
• Attempted Homewrecker: Near the end of the first season, Regina convinces the married David to come over to her house as thanks for fixing her car. While the two fix dinner, Regina attempts to seduce David, whom she knows is married to Kathrine and is in love with Mary Margaret. He quickly turns her down due to not being interested.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Played with, since her coronation in "Leaving Storybrooke" is briefly interrupted by Emma and Hook's late arrival, and because Snow also reveals it was an elected choice... but Regina does get a gorgeous new crown as she is made ruler of the United Realms.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Regina and Rumple have a weird case of this - she goes to him whenever she needs help and comfort over her magic (and kept close a letter about Zelena being the best he'd ever taught that she thought was about her) and he's outright stated that he'd always choose Regina to cast his curse if he had to re-choose.
  • Interestingly, the same can be said about her relationship with a lot of the characters before her redemption arc is complete. Her and Emma spend the first two seasons at each other's throats, and Regina becomes furious at her in early Season 4 after Emma brings Marian back, but she sheepishly admits she doesn't want to kill Emma. She and Zelena also have a similar love-hate relationship in Seasons 5 and 6.
• The Baroness: Regina is most definitely this. She's as pretty as any sexpot version and has a definite Broken Bird vibe, but also possesses the icy demeanor and bitterness of the Rosa Klebb version.
• The Bartender: In Hyperion Heights, she plays this role under her cursed persona, Roni, who runs an eponymous bar that the characters often frequent.
• Batter Up!: In Season 7, Regina keeps a baseball bat in her bar. Due to her lack of magic, she is seen wielding it when necessary more than once.
  Henry: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey, hey, slow down there, Babe Ruth!
• Beat Still, My Heart: Regina does this so that she has power over people and keeps the hearts in a special vault. It is revealed that this vault also exists in Storybrooke.
  • In "It's Not Easy Being Green", she does this to keep Zelena from winning against her, claiming it's the one thing she learned from Cora and not Rumplestiltskin:
  "Never bring your heart to a witch fight."
• Became Their Own Antithesis: When she was younger she was sweet, painfully naive, and was the one who taught Snow about true love. As an adult... yeah. Ironically, Daniel's death at her mother's hands and what she perceives to be Snow's betrayal have twisted her into becoming a reflection of the mother she resented and rebelled against.
• Because Destiny Says So: More like because her mother and Rumple say so — there's not really a lot that happened to her that wasn't because of one of those two. Not even post-Curse breaking. Which probably explains why when Cora is finally killed and Rumple's plan to reunite with Bae are concluded, she has an emptiness and lack of purpose she can't quite explain but is so eager to fill with something else.
• Beneath the Mask: The Evil Queen has some serious issues underneath her hammy villainy.
• Being Evil Sucks: According to the showrunners, this trope is the inspiration for the show. The Evil Queen's reason for choosing to get revenge on Snow White by casting a curse on the entire Enchanted Forest is to create a world where she can "win for once."
• Being Good Sucks:
  • After working so hard to keep her promise to Henry, saving Emma and Mary Margaret... her reward is to watch Henry go off to happily celebrate with everyone else, leaving her behind. Even after the evil she did in the past, it's hard not to feel sorry for Regina.
  • Her attempt to return her mother's heart ended with Cora dying.
  • Regina saves the residents of Storybrooke from Pan's curse in "Going Home". The price? She can never see Henry again. He won't even remember her. Seeing her later try to reach out to Henry when he returns to Storybrooke while he doesn't remember her is just heartbreaking.
  • Regina's Second Love is revealed to be Robin Hood, and she in turn is his as well, since Maid Marian died. "There's No Place Like Home" then reveals Regina actually had Marian executed, so when Emma returns from the past with Marian in tow, Regina does not take it well.
  • After spending two seasons finally making things work with Robin Hood, growing to accept herself in her new family, and prove to the citizens of Storybrooke that she has changed, Season 5 ends with Robin Hood's death. In the following episode, she opens up to Emma that she hates doing good because she has to deal with all the well-deserved consequences and karma of her horrendous actions as the Evil Queen.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Her Season 7 cursed persona, Roni, has no history of evil and is just an everyday, kind woman... However, she instantly grabs her baseball bat upon thinking that Victoria is screwing with her.
• Big Bad: For Season 1, being the mayor of Storybrooke, the one who cast the Dark Curse, and the one trying to get rid of Emma. The Evil Queen also acts as the largest threat in the flashbacks. After Regina rids herself of her Evil Queen persona using Jekyll's serum, the Queen (now a separate character) reclaims her role as Big Bad for Season 6 - at least for the first half before Gideon turns her into a snake.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold in Season 1 with a power struggle occurring between them.
• Big Damn Heroes: Her rescue of young Snow in Season 1... too bad about how that turned out.
  "I should have let her die on that horse!"
  • After her redemption arc begins, she starts to have moments like this again from Season 3 onwards, such as saving Snow White from her mother's ghost, defeating Zelena, sacrificing herself for whom she thinks is a stranger (Henry in the alternate reality), saving Robin Hood from the fury, etc.
• Big Good: Regina ultimately becomes this by Season 7, despite her iconic role as the show's first Big Bad. She is the oldest and thus wisest of the protagonists, acting as the mentor to characters like Drizella and Lucy. Furthermore, she is crowned The High Queen in the series finale.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In Season 1, she's very good at acting caring, hurt, joyful, etc, etc, until the act is no longer needed and is dropped like it's going out of style.
• Blatant Lies: When Zelena finds out Regina and Lucy are hiding something from her in "The Girl in the Tower", Regina responds that she's "thinking of putting on a kid's menu". In a bar.
• Blood Knight: She is shown on numerous occasions to be absolutely thrilled to fight those who oppose her. When Zelena makes it clear she is her enemy, she went from being depressed (and borderline suicidal) about being separated from Henry to gleefully cherishing the thought of having a new adversary to destroy.
• Blood Magic: Protects her palace with blood magic, making her immensely confused when the Wicked Witch manages to break in. Turns out the witch is her long-lost sister. In Season 7, her blood is also used to cast the fifth curse.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: In Season 2, she really doesn't get why people call her "evil". She accuses Snow White of destroying her reputation by dubbing her the "Evil Queen", and later she outright calls Emma and her parents "villains" for keeping Henry away from her.
• Break the Cutie: Once is bad enough. But she gets the distinction of going through it twice. "The Stable Boy" implies that being broken was more or less a regular occurrence for her.
• Break the Haughty: In Season 2, she gets the joy of watching her son live with another family, having to Mercy Kill the love of her life after finally getting him back, dealing with a magic addiction, being framed for murder, being manipulated by her sadistic mother and finally, being manipulated into accidentally killing her mother in such a manner that she gets about ten seconds of finally having a mother who loves her. Good or evil, this woman just cannot catch a break.
• Broken Bird: Regina's constantly taking things from and wielding power over others is a result of being betrayed, abused, and traumatized in the past.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When she told David she has a vault full of hearts, she also admits she cannot recall any of the victims anymore; there are just so many!
  • In Season 4 she plans to kill Maid Marian in the past, as she did in the original timeline... as soon as she can find out which of her myriad victims Marian actually was.
• Cain and Abel: After making amends with Emma and Snow White, Regina's next Arch-Enemy - during her Heel–Face Turn - is her long-lost half-sister, Zelena the Wicked Witch. Zelena acts as the Big Bad at the end of Season 3, but ultimately their rivalry significantly worsens a season later when Zelena destroys Regina's relationship with Robin Hood. Eventually, in Season 5, Zelena gets over her hatred towards Regina, and in Season 6 Regina forgives her too.
• Character Development: Possibly the best case for it on the show. After spending years trying to kill Snow and David, she's actively helping and protecting them in Season 3 onward. Regina even apologizes to Snow in Season 6 for all the damage she did to her admitting that she was a terrible stepmother to her. She also goes from an emotionally abusive mother to Henry who was perfectly willing to murder his birth mother out of jealousy to becoming a loving supportive parent and willingly sharing her role as mother with Emma. Finally, after refusing to take responsibility for her actions in casting the Dark Curse and blaming everyone else for her troubles, Regina eventually evolves enough to admit to her mistakes and want to atone for what she did in her past.
• Chekhov's Skill: Her swordfighting skills (which are displayed in "A Bitter Draught") come up again when she has to duel Wish Realm Henry in "Leaving Storybrooke".
• Chewing the Scenery: The Evil Queen absolutely devours the scenery. Mayor Regina on the other hand is far more reserved.
• Child Marriage Veto: She was only about 18 when her mother arranged her to be wed to the much older King Leopold, and a distraught Regina did everything she could to stop her impending marriage. It didn't work out.
• Color Motif: Red and Black and Evil All Over. Black represents the emptiness of her soul and red represents the intensity of her emotions which is both her greatest strength and weakness.
• Composite Character: Subverted. In "Ariel" she uses magic to make herself look like the Disney version of Ursula and strikes a deal with Ariel to allow her to walk on land forever. However, at the end of the episode, it turns out that there really is an Ursula and she's pissed that Regina impersonated her.
  • She also seems to be the show's allegory for the Tin Woodman as Zelena needs her heart — a resilient one, in Belle's words.
  • She's also the equivalent of the baby son of the miller's daughter in Rumplestiltskin, which is a Gender Flip.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Regina often wears business-like clothing, fitting her position as mayor. As the Evil Queen, she wears dramatic, extravagant gowns that show off her cleavage.
• Consummate Liar: Being the one who started the Masquerade herself, she's spent the last 28 years lying to everyone. She even pulled a fast one over on Rumplestiltskin, telling him that Belle was dead. The truth is quite different.
• Control Freak: One of her biggest character traits. She genuinely loves Henry but her need to control his every action and emotion is what drove him away. She also has a desperate need to make people obey her, even in the most minor ways.
• Cool Aunt: To Robin, Zelena's daughter. Robin clearly adores her, and Regina even gave her Cora's spellbook when Robin was experimenting with her powers. (Which, as Zelena pointed out, was an absolutely terrible idea, but Regina meant well.)
• Cool Car: In Storybrooke she drives a late 80s Mercedes-Benz SL-Class.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Flashbacks shown in "The Doctor" show how Rumplestiltskin, Jefferson (The Mad Hatter) and Victor Frankenstein devised a scheme to break Regina even more in Rumplestiltskin's ploy to turn her into a merciless witch.
• Cosmic Plaything: By Season 4, Regina is convinced the universe makes it that she will never be happy.
• Create Your Own Hero: Actually is kind of responsible for kickstarting Emma into being The Hero. Emma was perfectly willing to leave Storybrooke in the "Pilot", but Regina's overprotective nature towards Henry causes her to attempt to threaten Emma and inadvertently convince her to stay. In fact, Season 1 is pretty much Regina getting way too carried away with trying to scare Emma off/keep Emma away from Henry, which results in Emma just wanting to do exactly that even more (see also Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat).
• Create Your Own Villain: A single dad and his young son are passing through Storybrooke. Regina wants the little boy all to herself, like a living doll, so she tries to trap them. The boy gets away. The father does not. She murders the dad out of spite, and barely bats an eye over it. Almost thirty years later, the little boy is all grown up, has joined an organization of magic-eradicating Knights Templar and is looking to commit genocide on the whole town, starting with torturing her to death.
  • She also revitalized Maleficent in Season 4.
• Cry Laughing: Used to chilling effect in earlier seasons to emphasize her insanity, particularly when she was gloating to Snow White about her apparent growing darkness.
• Cute and Psycho: While hot would be a more appropriate term than cute, Regina is regarded as clearly psycho.
• Daddy's Girl: In an interesting parallel, Regina loves her father as much as Snow loved hers (though, with Cora as a mother, Henry was her only option). It doesn't save him.
  • She redeems herself when she travels to the Underworld in Season 5. It is shown that she regrets killing her father when Cora threatens to send him straight to Hell if she doesn't leave with Robin and Henry. She is willing to abandon her friends to save him, but changes her mind when he says he's proud that she's become a hero and believes she should stay and complete her mission with Emma. Turns out his "unfinished business" is her, because he let Cora control her. Also, it is her love for her father and her becoming a hero that allows him to move on to "a better place".
• Daddy's Little Villain: Her mother's, though not by choice. It's much more complicated than that. Originally, Regina absolutely loathed her mother's magic use and even suffered abuse from it, and Regina wants nothing more than to be free of Cora's control. While it is Rumplestiltskin who is most responsible for shaping her into the Evil Queen, Cora undoubtedly would be proud of how villainous her daughter turned out.
• Deadpan Snarker: More snarky and biting than deadpan but still very much there. Particularly in Season 3, where her coping mechanism for being trapped on a ship/island with people she can't stand is apparently to sass them constantly.
  Regina: We're at the edge of the dark forest, trying to find the one person who can stop our imminent doom, and save your unborn child, and you two stop to smell the roses?
  Snow White: Snowbells.
  Regina: I don't care if they're dancing daffodils! I need to destroy my sister, and so do you. If that babbling mad man sent us on a wild goose chase I swear!
• Death Glare: She is the master of these.
• Demoted to Dragon: In Season 2, with her mother taking over the role of Big Bad.
• Deliver Us from Evil: Her love for Henry is her one good point in Seasons 1 and 2 and she's at least trying to redeem herself for his sake. Season 5 has her acknowledge this when she hopes that Zelena's pregnancy will change her as well.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • After her mother ripped her boyfriend's heart out in front of her. It was also kind of Snow White's fault, though she didn't do it on purpose.
  • In Season 3 "Witch Hunt", being forced to return to the Enchanted Forest, knowing she won't see Henry again and he won't even remember her. It is so painful for her that she decides to use a Sleeping Curse on herself so if she does wake, it will be because of him waking her. Surprisingly, what pulls her out of going through with it shortly afterward is something completely different: someone new to destroy.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Up to Yandere levels.
• Determinator: Unlike her mother Cora who knew when to cut her losses, Regina will do everything to get everything she wants.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Back when she was evil, a lot of her schemes were foiled due to her feeling the need to twist the knife a bit more. One of the best examples being trying to poison Emma despite the fact that she was already going to leave, not only causing Henry to be poisoned instead, but for the curse to be revealed and her 28 years victory to be finally unraveled.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She has ruined the lives of everyone in her world, persecuted Snow White for years and had Mary Margaret framed and arrested for murder because an innocent child made a well-intentioned mistake.
• Doom Magnet: The three men whom she has relationships with (Daniel, Robin and Dr. Facilier) all end up dying. It seems falling in love with the Evil Queen might as well be a death sentence.
• Doting Grandparent: Though she certainly doesn't look the part (or like being called "Grandma"), she is this to Lucy in Season 7.
• Driven to Villainy: She did many horrible things, but they were done because she crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
• Drunk with Power: Once she started on her revenge seriously, she slowly became addicted to it. In Season 2, she is treating it like a drug addiction and seeing Archie for help treating it.
• Dying as Yourself: The reason for her Heroic Sacrifice in the Season 2 finale. Of course, she ends up living anyway, but the gesture is heartwarming.
  "Everyone looks at me as the Evil Queen, including my son. Let me die as Regina."
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Regina does not seem to understand this concept at all.
  • With a few choice words from Cora, Regina goes straight back to her plan of killing everyone her son loves so he can only love her.
  • In Season 4, she now plans to force the writer of the Storybook to give her the happy ending she thinks she deserves.
  • After everything horrible she has been through, the series ends with Regina as a renowned and beloved hero, who is elected the Good Queen by her subjects.
• Easily Forgiven: Played straight in the cases of Snow, David, Emma, Henry, Hook, and Ariel; her redemption arc only began in Season 2 but all of them seem to have forgiven her by Season 3. Outright averted in the case of Belle, who clearly is still upset about how much Regina ruined her life.
  • Also, Robin Hood doesn't seem to care at all that she killed his wife back in the Enchanted Forest.
  • Downplayed with the other citizens of Storybrooke. Immediately after another curse is cast in Season 3, everybody accuses Regina. In Season 5 "The Price", Regina acknowledges how everyone has forgiven her, but she still has to prove to them that they can trust her to lead them.
• Enemy Without: The Evil Queen, her dark side, is separated from her in the Season 5 finale using Dr. Jekyll's serum. Eventually, Regina manages to redeem her dark half and allow both of them accept all sides of themselves, but they never merge back into one.
• Entitled Bitch: She'll screw over people, and then ask these people to help her like nothing happened. In "Bleeding Through", Belle calls her out on it hard.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In late Season 7, Regina, devastated that Rumplestiltskin took the elixir she needed to finish the potion for Henry's heart (and for something it turned out was all a waste), refuses to have anything more to do with him, though it's also because she thought he trusted her, and she felt it betrayed their many years as allies and even friends in the end.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Her father, not that it stops her from killing him in order to enact the curse - although she is broken about it and her father is, apart from Henry, the one person she'll go to any lengths to save.
    • Ultimately, she proves just how powerful her love for her father is by redeeming herself to be a good person... which allows her father to leave the Underworld and move on to a better place, giving them both some very much needed closure.
  • Henry, but the way she goes about it...
  • Daniel, her first love.
  • Her mother, although It's really not the most functional of relationships. That's all Cora's fault in this situation.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Regina is visibly horrified when Cora reveals that she was responsible for the death of Snow White's mother just to manipulate Regina's life so that she can be Queen.
  • She also seemed shocked when Cora throws Johanna out the window after Regina gave Johanna back her heart. She doesn't really give a damn about Johanna's life, but a ransom - Johanna for the dagger - was just completed, and Cora's unexpected, gratuitous evil doesn't seem to sit well with her.
  • In both cases, they were mother figures so she is understandably a little sensitive on the topic.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • See Horrible Judge of Character below. She isn't incapable of understanding deep emotions and selflessness: she undeniably herself shows it on occasion. It seems to be strange to her that anyone else would care about these things, as she lost faith in humanity.
  • According to Lana Parrilla, part of the reason Regina came to hate Snow so much is because she's incapable of grasping that Snow's actions weren't selfish. She genuinely believes that Snow told Cora about the affair so that Regina would have to become her new mother. Snow's happiness when Regina says they're going to be a family only feeds into this paranoid belief.
  • When teaching Emma magic she has her focus on negative emotions like anger, while Rumple had her focus on more positive feelings, like desire to protect her loved ones. Season 7 shows her teaching methods (with Drizella) have drastically improved.
  • She has a tendency to act as a Hero with an F in Good during the time she spends on the "good" side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door. She tends to prefer pragmatism to heroism, usually putting her firmly on the wrong side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
• Evil Counterpart: Her backstory is starting to parallel Emma's character arc.
• Evil Feels Good:
  Rumplestiltskin: How did it feel to use magic?
  Regina: It doesn't matter. I'll never use it again.
  Rumplestiltskin: Why not?
  Regina: Because I loved it.
  • Of course this is also just after pushing Cora through a portal at Rumple's beckoning. So he's as much playing upon her emotion over her mother by playing it as her emotion over magic AKA Corrupt the Cutie.
• Evil Is Hammy: Only as the Evil Queen, which suggests she's doing it for kicks.
• Evil Is Petty: Spray-painting "TRAMP" on Mary Margaret's car in Season 1. In Season 2, when she rips out Mary Margaret's heart (because she asked her to), she notices the tiniest bit of evil in it and revels in it by putting it back in her. Granted, Mary Margaret was just as distraught about it as Regina was reveling in it but she also tops it off with childish insults in the next episode.
  Regina: If I were you I'd try the fish special. It's right up your alley... blackened sole.
  • And when she can't slaughter villages and unleash hellfire, she'll settle for being a total jerk to people she meets, even to a child who unknowingly sat in her chair at the diner.
• Evil Sorceress: She curses an entire world to screw over one person.
• Evil Wears Black: As both the Evil Queen and Mayor Regina, she often is seen in black.
• Ex-Big Bad: She is the main villain of Season 1, and The Dragon to her mother for a time in Season 2, but then hangs around and experiences a redemption plot.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: As the Evil Queen, but it's more understated on Regina in Storybrooke and nonexistent prior to her turning to evil.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: She didn't approve of Henry's book of fairy tales, however, this was to Gaslight Henry into thinking the curse didn't exist.
• False Friend: In Season 1, Regina is this to Kathryn, pretending to care for her when her husband has an affair. However, unbeknownst to Kathryn, Regina is the one who erased her true memories in the first place and is only on Kathryn's side because she hates Mary Margaret.
• Fatal Flaw: She has quite a few.
  • Her unrelenting thirst for revenge.
  • Her obsession with having someone love her. This is taken to scary extremes with her trying to kill people Henry cares about so he can be 'hers'.
  • Following on from the above two; as mentioned under Determinator, she will stop at nothing to have everything no matter how implausible (such as both her revenge and her son's love), a lesson even her mother learned.
  • Her complete inability to accept responsibility for her actions, and a severe lack of self awareness. In Season 1 she firmly believed Snow "made" her become evil, in Season 2 she blamed the people of Storybrooke for her evilness, and in Season 4 she blames the storybook (which, when not being misused, merely records what happened) for writing her as a villain. It isn't until Season 6 when she is properly able to accept responsibility for her past evil.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Is most notably this with Emma. They are each other's Arch-Enemy in Season 1, before being forced into an Enemy Mine situation in the Season 1 finale and, more notably, in Neverland during the first half of Season 3.
• Forced into Evil: Regina was manipulated into doing evil by her upbringing/mother's abuse, her ever-increasing past traumas, and a carefully crafted plot concocted by Rumplestiltskin.
• Freudian Excuse: See Forced into Evil directly above. Despite her severely sympathetic backstory, the Evil Queen's actions and crimes are inexcusable and heinous.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In the second half of Season 3, most of the town are still wary about her (especially since they became the victims of another curse, and Zelena has a feud with her). She doesn't help matters by being completely snarky, still holding on to old grudges (she calls Snow and David the "Uncharmings" at one point) and rebuffing any attempts at friendship or compassion. Even Tinker Bell wonders why she even bothers to try and help her. However, she is getting along awfully well with one person: Robin Hood.
  • Subverted by Season 5; she and the heroes have put aside their differences and work together brilliantly, and by Season 6 the townspeople appear to have finally forgiven her.
• Friend to All Children: Uh, sort of. Despite her being the Evil Queen, one of her earlier redeeming qualities was her fondness towards children. She loves her son Henry, has an almost obsession with the young Owen due to her boredom and loneliness, and tries to adopt Hansel and Gretel.

G-L

• Gaslighting: What her attempts to cover up the curse to Henry boils down to. She attempted to make him believe the curse was nothing more than fantasy and even made him see a psychiatrist for it. Henry lampshades this in Season 2 by telling her she "made [him] feel crazy". Regina admits to a few people, like Emma and the Charmings, that this ends up becoming one of her biggest regrets.
• Generation Xerox:
  • A sadder version of the trope in that, ultimately and for all her power and bluster, she's as much a hapless, helpless pawn as her father was and incapable of truly standing up against the people that she should be.
  • She's also got some of Cora's bad habits when it comes to dealing with the people she cares about.
• Genre Blind: She alternates between this and Genre Savvy. As an example of the latter:
  "I can see I just launched you on a Heroic Quest."
  • Taken to a new level in Season 3, where she doesn't understand she is way out of her depth in Neverland, dismissing Pan and his Lost Boys as a "smug teenager" and "bunch of boys with pointy sticks" respectively, even though they know the island like the back of their hand, and in Pan's case he can control it with his magic. On the flip side, she's the only one of the group who understands that being good just wont cut it in Neverland and spots tricks and traps that the others (including Rumplestiltskin) seem to miss. Ultimately, Pan is the one to underestimate her.
  • In the second half of Season 3, when Zelena challenged her to a fight, Regina came but left her heart behind, guessing correctly that that was what Zelena wanted from her.
  • In Season 7, Regina deduces that Rumplestiltskin is awake because "[he's] always awake." As Rumplestiltskin is the invokedMagnificent Bastard Chessmaster, she is, of course, one hundred percent right, though he doesn't admit it at first.
• Glamorous Single Mother: Subverted in the sense that she and her son... don't exactly have the best relationship, but she's a little more well off than most single mothers (mainly as a result of the curse).
• Green Thumb: She can summon vines to bind her victims. Again, like her mother. On a less fantastic level, she takes good care of her plants, whether they be apple trees or bean shoots.
• God Guise: Flashbacks in "Ariel" show that the Evil Queen once disguised herself as Ursula, the great goddess of the sea, to fool Ariel. Ursula was not pleased.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: A classic example. Not only does she cruelly take the throne from her stepdaughter, but she massacres entire villages and destroys the lives of pretty much anybody else in the Enchanted Forest.
• Good Girl Gone Bad: Regina is a clear example of this after her mother killed Daniel, the man she truly loved, in order for Regina to marry King Leopold. Then, whilst she was Rumplestiltskin's student and wavering between good and evil, he sabotaged her chance to revive Daniel, securing her place in evil for his own purposes. He even called her his "monster."
  • Evil Costume Switch: Much of her wardrobe changes at this point as well. Prior to becoming evil, she dressed far more like Red and Snow; that is, like your standard female adventurer. She dressed predominantly in low-cut black leather after her Face–Heel Turn. With her attempt at redemption in Season 2, her clothing is something of a mix between the two. She has some elements that are dark in color and/or reminiscent of her more dramatic clothing choices - fitted knee high black boots for instance. Other elements are more toned down or have shifted to lighter colors - a grey looser jacket over her blouse as opposed to a more typical black fitted one.
• Good Is Dumb: A firm believer in this, she refers to Snow and Charming as "the two idiots", even though all her plans to get rid of them always fail in the long run. Also shows signs of this in Season 3 when forced to work with Emma and the Charmings, seeing herself as the only sane one in the group.
• Good is Not Nice: Becomes one of the good guys in Season 3, but that doesn't mean she's any more pleasant to get along with. She's still a pretty cold and cynical person, and is still dismissive of anyone trying to help her. This slowly fades away over time.
• Good Is Not Soft: Makes this clear to Dr. Facilier in "A Taste of the Heights".
  Dr. Facilier: I'd heard rumors you'd gone soft, Regina. What a shame they appear true.
  Regina: Get out now. Or I'll prove just how wrong you are.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • An iffy one in "We Are Both". She doesn't destroy her book of magic but she lets Henry go, tells Charming the truth and tells Henry that she's going to redeem herself. It sticks until "In the Name of the Brother", when, thanks to her mother Cora, she falls right back to her old evil ways.
  • She has a more confident Heel Realization in the Season 2 finale. She's prepared to die to save the citizens of Storybrooke. After this, she keeps going strong and by mid-Season 3, little doubt remains that she's changed for the better.
  • "Kansas" has Henry declaring she's no longer a villain; she's now a hero. Though "A Tale of Two Sisters" reveals that Regina still views herself as a villain, in spite of everything, because she stills receives Laser-Guided Karma for her past evil.
  • She almost decides to kill Maid Marian and adamantly refuses to forgive Emma at the beginning of Season 4, but ultimately lets Marian get her happy ending and makes amends with Emma by mid-season.
  • By Season 5 she is actively working with the heroes and constantly refers to them as her friends and/or family.
  • After Robin Hood's death, her supressed regret over her past actions surfaces and she separates herself from the darkness within her, creating the Evil Queen as a separate individual, at the end of Season 5. How is the Evil Queen defeated in Season 6? By Regina convincing her that they are a part of each other whether they like it or not, and have to accept all sides of each other.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Once Emma and Regina bury the hatchet and become co-parents in later seasons, they grow incredibly close. Despite them both being straight and having male love interests, the two often rely on each other for tough decisions. When Emma becomes the Dark One, it's Regina she trusts with the dagger to control her and repeatedly asks to kill her if she goes too far. Regina even once says that she can't imagine raising Henry without Emma, and several scenes are just the two relying on each other to raise their child together. Even the series finale makes a much bigger deal of Emma and Regina reuniting than any other character's return.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Regina ended up a power-hungry sorcereress just like her mother Cora, whom she resented.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Actually a hidden spot of light in her dark, dark heart, which she shows to Tinker Bell: it's kept alive by her love for her son Henry.
• High Collar of Doom: After she kills her father and casts the Dark Curse, she wears a black outfit with a high collar.
• The High Queen: She is crowned this in the series finale, as the first elected Good Queen of the United Realms.
• Honey Trap: Mayor Regina tries this on David with herself as the bait towards the end of Season 1, in a last-ditch effort to keep him away from Mary Margaret. It fails.
• His Own Worst Enemy: A lot of Regina's problems stem from the fact she can't allow herself to be happy, which she finally recognizes at the end of Season 4. In fact, the Big Bad of Season 6 is herself when she separates herself from the Evil Queen and ultimately defeats her by having both of them accept all sides of themselves.
• Holier Than Thou: Now that she's good, she can slip into this when confronting other villains like Zelena or the Dark Swan.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • As a teenager... trusting Rumplestiltskin. And Jefferson. And Dr. Frankenstein.
  • Later becomes a villainous example, as she tends to project her own values on other people. In the Enchanted Forest, she mistook the Huntsman's misanthropy for cold-blooded ruthlessness, and didn't understand why Hansel and Gretel would prefer to find their father over staying in her luxurious palace, just after she basically admitted she'd sent a lot of children to their deaths in the Blind Witch's house.
  • She's honestly bewildered at why the people of the kingdom she now rules are still loyal to Snow White. Rumplestiltskin points out that, prior to the current conversation, she had just slaughtered an entire village. "Maybe that's why they call you 'The Evil Queen'." And he's clearly exasperated when she keeps protesting that Snow is the evil one, and that the people will come to love her.
  • In Storybrooke, she is convinced that Emma is out to take away everything she has and somehow believes that Emma is someone who will acquiesce to being bullied. Also a case of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good.
  • In "Desperate Souls", she honestly believed that Emma was going to abandon her in a burning building.
  • As of "In the Name of the Brother", trusting Cora. You just know this is going to end in tears. And it does. But because she trusted Snow White, somewhat amusingly.
• Hope Is Scary: The reason she gives Tinker Bell for why she ran away from a second chance at love when Tinker Bell tried to help her. She seems to have gotten past it by allowing Henry into her life, though.
• Hot-Blooded: She has a very short temper and resorts to violence often.
• Hot Witch: She has magic and... see page picture.
• Hypocrite:
  • The way that the Evil Queen breaks up a wedding and kills the groom in front of the bride in "Mother" mirrors exactly how her own mother killed Daniel in front of her, a moment that would haunt Regina for a very long time and change her life.
  • Furiously tells Snow White "all actions have consequences" in reference to when Snow White spilled a secret when she was a child. However, for a very long time she refused to take responsibility for her own, much, much worse actions.
  • She never wanted to be Queen, but that doesn't stop her from using it as an excuse to be a lord over everyone.
  • She chastises Emma for not unlocking her true potential in powerful magic, the same way Cora chastised her for not having any ambition.
  • She laments that, no matter how much she's changed or what she's done to make up for her atrocities, the town still distrust (and that's being generous) her, when she herself is often quick to assign blame and comes across as very unforgiving more than once.
  • She scolds Sidney as a traitor when he decides to support Ingrid, but her complaint loses weight when one remembers she had him betray her former husband Leopold.
• I Am Not My Father: When she kidnaps Henry back after he refuses to stay with her at the beginning of Season 2, her memories of her mother keeping her imprisoned with magic when she was young prompt her to eventually let Henry go.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: The Evil Queen punishes the Huntsman for his refusal to kill an innocent by forcing him to be her Sex Slave.
  "Guards! Take him to my bedchambers!"
• I Just Want to Be Loved: There is nothing this woman won't say or do for any scrap of affection, from anyone. And yet, as of the second half of Season 3, on the brink of finding a new love again, she's too scared to open her heart.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Regina attempts this on Wish Realm Henry in "Leaving Storybrooke" by appealing to the goodness, kindness, and willingness to always do the right thing she knows is inside him. This time it works, and saves the day.
• I've Come Too Far: Her initial reason for being unable to stop being evil.
  Prince Henry: Revenge is a dark and lonely road. Once you go down it, there is no heading back.
  Evil Queen: What is there for me to head back to?
• Ice Queen: As the mayor, she's known for her dispassionate, aloof persona as well as her frostbitten wit.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Very, very slowly and subtly in Season 2. Appears to be fully defrosted as of the finale of the first half of Season 3. Losing Henry causes her to freeze up again, reinforced whey they get back to Storybrooke, but he can't remember her.
• Ignored Epiphany: Constantly. She lampshades it in Season 2 by saying, "You know what my problem is? I never learn from my mistakes."
  • When she looks like she's really changed, all it takes is for Maid Marian to get back into Robin's life for her to seemingly revert to her old ways, thanks to Emma. Subverted, however, as it's only a problem she has to deal with in the first half of Season 4 and she gets better soon after.
• In the Blood: Regina inherited her parent's worst qualities. From Cora she got her lust for power and tendency to hold grudges. From Henry she got her emotional instability and weak resolve.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers:
  • Offers to let Hansel and Gretel live with her in her castle. When they refuse and demand to be sent back to their father, she spitefully strands them in the middle of a forest. By the time the Dark Curse is cast, they still haven't found him.
  • She later tries to frame Kurt for drunk driving so that she can keep his son Owen all to herself.
• I Regret Nothing: States in Season 3 that she acknowledges her bad actions but regrets nothing because it got her Henry.
  • The Season 5 finale reveals that Regina actually has many regrets, and that she had merely suppressed for a long time because feeling them would hurt her too much. After Robin Hood's death alerts her to her Laser-Guided Karma, she finally opens up and allows herself to feel these regrets.
• Irrational Hatred: This is what the Evil Queen feels towards Snow White. She is angry at her mother for what happened to Daniel, but she inexplicably assigns at least as great a measure of blame to young Snow White (who was manipulated by the same harridan who destroyed her own youth, was only ten years old at the time, and had only good intentions in telling Cora about Regina and Daniel's romance) and dedicates the next four decades to efforts at destroying Snow's happiness.
  • A likely explanation for this being that Regina has always feared her mother, and becoming the Evil Queen does not really change this. Nonetheless, Cora also raised her, so Regina does love her deep down. In her mind, it was definitely far easier (but obviously less justified) for her to target Snow White. Jane Espenson also said that it's easier for her to blame Snow than her mother because she feels Cora is more like herself. invoked
• Iron Lady: As the mayor in Season 1. Everybody in Storybrooke fears her immensely, and Emma is the only person in 28 years to stand up to her.
• It Only Works Once: In the Enchanted Forest, she was finally captured in a trap with the Blue Fairy using her magic to ambush and bind her. When it was tried again in Season 2, Regina was able to block the ambush easily.
• It's All About Me: Her defining characteristic. She can truly love someone, but often treats them badly, supposedly because it's all about her: she attacked her "only friend" Maleficent, manipulated the Genie/Sidney Glass, is an emotionally abusive mother to Henry, kept Hansel and Gretel separate from their father out of raw spite, and murdered her own father for revenge. Heck, the Dark Curse itself is all about making sure no one else can get a happy ending besides her! Nevertheless, she always seems a little desperate for companionship.
  • Taken to the extreme in the Season 3 finale, when Emma inadvertently brings Maid Marian back from the past with her (being ignorant of her identity) and she's reunited with Robin and Roland. Regina is understandably hurt, but she can't even bring herself to be happy for Robin, focusing instead on how Emma ruined her life.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Every now and then she shows a side of her that's more sympathetic, such as when her son falls down the well or when she's saved from the fire. And then she ruins it either the same episode, or an episode later by doing something completely harsh.
  • Starts getting better in Season 3, where she's grown closer and more loving to not just Henry, but to Emma as well. Furthermore, she's been going out of her way to protect a very pregnant Snow White, instantly forgives Robin Hood for failing to protect her heart — even kissing him mid-apology, genuinely apologizes to Belle, is back on good terms with Rumplestiltskin and Tinker Bell, and has one of her biggest Pet the Dog moments by promising to help Ariel get the happy ending with Eric that she had robbed her of - and actually keeps her word.
  • After having Took a Level in Jerkass in Season 4 and the first half of Season 5, the second half of Season 5 onwards mellows her out again.
• Kick the Dog: Doesn't even begin to describe her. She even manages to kick Rumplestiltskin.
  • Special mention goes to Zelena, her half-sister. She loves to bring up the fact that Zelena was abandoned by their mother, Cora.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Thrice. Her father Henry, her true love Daniel and her mother Cora. However, Daniel was technically a Mercy Kill and Cora was completely unintentional.
• Knight in Sour Armor: After the death of Robin Hood, Regina begins to believe that there is no true redemption for her, and that she is caught somewhere between good and evil; if she goes back to evil, she loses everyone she has come to care about. But if she continues on her righteous path, she is condemned to continue suffering, enduring a lifetime of much deserved penance for all the pain she caused as the Evil Queen.
• Knight Templar: In Seasons 1 and 2, it's evident that she believes that she's The Hero and that Snow White and Charming are the villains.
• Lack of Empathy: At times she really had no concern or understanding why people hate her, even when she just ordered a whole village slaughtered.
  • Taken to a new level in "Save Henry", where she states she feels no regrets for all of her horrible actions, including killing her father. Why? Because it all helped to lead her to Henry. Though this one could be seen as her motherly love for her son outweighing any guilt she harbors. Season 5 has her acknowledge having many regrets, establishing that she eventually became more empathetic.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • On the flip side, in the Season 2 episode "Queen of Hearts", she fails to receive good karma as well, despite having just saved Emma and Snow's lives. (She must later watch them go to dinner with Henry, while she is not invited.) Granted, she did help put their lives in danger in the first place, so perhaps it balances out.
  • She gets hit by Laser-Guided Karma hard in "The Cricket Game". Blamed for the death of someone who isn't quite dead with mountains of evidence against her. It's almost exactly what she did to Mary Margaret in Season 1.
    • She gets hit with it even harder when she's tortured by Greg Mendell and nearly killed for how she tried to kidnap him as a child and had his father killed when she couldn't get him for herself. Despite how sympathetic she may have been, it's hard to argue that in that moment, she didn't have it coming.
  • By the end of Season 2, it's pretty clear that she is her own karma for all of her heinous deeds. In pursuit of happiness by taking away other's happiness, her life continues to suck and she cannot truly be happy.
  • In the second half of Season 3, she goes through what she put the whole town through in the first season. She becomes the target of a vendetta from Zelena the Wicked Witch of the West, her half-sister who was abandoned who blames all her troubles on her when she really should be blaming Cora, just as Regina blamed Snow for Daniel's death even though it was Cora's fault. She becomes the victim of a curse with a year of lost memories, just as she took all the townfolk's memories, and due to the events in the first half her son Henry doesn't even remember her. However Henry eventually gets his memories back, But at the end of the season her budding romance with Robin Hood comes to an end, when Emma brings Maid Marian back through time rather than let her die in Regina's dungeon (she had no idea who she was. So yeah. Karma's a bitch.
  • And then at the end of Season 5, she gets hit with Laser Guider Karma once more when Robin Hood dies, in a manner similar of how Regina has killed peoples' loved ones before, and Regina finally comes to understand and even embrace this trope, saying it's well-deserved. Unfortunately, Snow later has the bright idea to rid Regina of her karma by splitting her and the Evil Queen apart, which is due to bite everyone in the ass in Season 6.
• Laser Guided Tyke Bomb: Variant. Her life was destroyed all for the express purpose of casting Rumplestiltskin's Dark Curse - which he knew about before she was even born. No wonder she's so screwed up.
• Lady of Black Magic: Just look at her, all dressed in black, and you're instantly able to tell. Leaving aside this factor, Regina throughout the entire series has proven to possess an almost incalculable number of magical abilities, some very powerful and dangerous.
• Loners Are Freaks: In Season 2, she has no one to talk to once Sidney's locked up and Henry's gone, because she's done such horrible things. She goes as far as talking to Henry and then mind-wiping him afterwards.
• Love Hungry: A truly terrifying example. This woman is so desperately lonely that she'll do anything to change it.
• Love Is a Weakness: Stated word for word. A lesson from Cora.
• Love Makes You Evil: Losing Daniel, Henry distancing himself from her, her obsession with Owen, her "relationship" with Graham and her highly dysfunctional love for Cora drive Regina to do terrible things.
  Rumplestiltskin: Cora was dangerous because she didn't have a heart. Regina is dangerous because she has one.
• Love Redeems:
  • Her love for her son Henry caused her to make a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Twisted around when it also helped Cora manipulate her into a Face–Heel Turn.
  • In the Season 2 finale, her love for Henry led her to risk her own life to stop the self-destruct mechanism that was activated.
  • In "A Curious Thing", her love for Henry — and his belief in her — allows her to invoke True Love's Kiss and break Zelena's curse, and in "Kansas" allows her to wield light magic (as opposed to dark, which was all she believed she had) to take Zelena down hard.
    Zelena: So you're a hero now?
    Regina: Today I am.

M-Y

• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter:
  • What would have happened if Rumplestiltskin had managed to successfully adopt/buy Regina (detestably what happens anyway - before they become enemies and try to destroy each other).
  • She was this in regards to her mother when she was younger.
• Malaproper: Before her descent into darkness.
  Regina: Rumplesch... Schtilts...? Rumplestiltskin... I summon thee...
• Mama Bear: Regina could be an evil example. Take her child from her and she will hurt you (or try to at least!). However, if you so much as lay a finger on Henry, she'll unleash a can of whoop-ass on you.
  • Turned into one for Snow White/Mary Margaret now. They've repaired their relationship, with Regina even calling Snow "[your] mother's child" after she proclaimed that she was brat as a child after seeing what Eva was like when young. So, if you touch Snow - or attempt to - things will not end well for you. And it won't be pretty. Even if you happen to be her mother's ghost.
  • She's also this to Robin Hood's daughter. When Zelena declares she's gonna take the baby away and raise her to be wicked, Regina sends her on a one-way trip back to Oz. Via tornado.
• Manipulative Bitch: Just like her mother. After years of being the Evil Queen, she is an absolute expert in this as the mayor in Season 1. She illegally digs up shady things about Emma's past solely to turn Henry against her and scare her out of Storybrooke (which fails), but the worst case of this is shown when she and Rumple both concoct a plan to kidnap Kathryn and blame Mary Margaret for her murder. Regina proceeds to pretend to be Kathryn's friend and uses her immense power as mayor to create bucketloads of evidence suggesting that Mary Margaret is guilty. She even gaslights Mary Margaret by trying to scare her into confessing even though they both know she is innocent.
• Mayor Pain: Debatably. She is obviously evil in Season 1 and spends a lot of time screwing people over (see Manipulative Bitch above), but occasionally is shown to actually be doing Mayor things, and even has a playground constructed for the children of Storybrooke.
• Mean Boss: As Mayor, and especially when her people go against her orders or intent.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Regina" is Latin, Italian, and Romanian for "Queen". Cora intentionally chose her daughter's name for that reason, since she always intended Regina to be queen one day. "Mills" comes from the fact that Cora was the daughter of a miller.
  • Henry's chart in Season 7 indicates that Regina's Hyperion Heights alias "Roni" is meant to sound like "Rani", Hindi for "Queen".
• Mind over Matter: Frequenting pushes and chokes people with her telekinetic magic.
• Moe Couplet: Her romantic relationship with Robin Hood softens her considerably, to the point where she refuses to Murder the Hypotenuse despite having an easy and untraceable way to do so. He seems to bring out the absolute best in her, and quite frankly, Regina in love is freaking adorable. Her relationship with Henry would be this, except that her fear of losing him has driven her to do some pretty detestable things in the past.
• Mommy Issues: Her abusive mother murdered her fiance in order to force her into marrying King Leopold. To top it all off, Cora spent her last days manipulating Regina back into villainy and was ultimately killed. By Regina. Accidentally. After finally getting her heart back and showing affection for her daughter for the first time. "Issues" is perhaps putting it a little mildly.
• Moral Myopia: Frequently, though it's lessened in Season 3 considerably. See also Hypocrite.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: The path for Regina's transformation into the Evil Queen started when her mother killed her lowborn lover Daniel in order to force Regina to marry the King. She's unable to even think about loving someone else romantically until early Season 2, when Daniel's reanimated corpse encourages her to move on before being Killed Off for Real. She listens, ultimately settling with Robin Hood in Season 3.
• Ms. Fanservice: Especially as the Evil Queen.
• My Beloved Smother: Regina said it to Henry best on "The Evil Queen".
  Regina: As long as there are other people in our lives, you can never truly be mine!
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Regina's reaction when she finds out that Henry was poisoned by the apple turnover that she intended for Emma to eat.
  • And again, when she realizes that she's doing to Henry what her mother did to her.
• Never My Fault: She seems thoroughly baffled when people work against her or try to stop her plans and blames everyone else for her own faults as well as being unwilling to admit to her emotional abuse of Henry.
  • In the Season 3 finale, she blames Emma for ruining her romance with Robin Hood, when she saves Maid Marian from her dungeon (she had no idea who she was, she just didn't want to leave her to die) and brings her back to Storybrooke even though it's her fault because she was warned multiple times that casting the Dark Curse would leave a void in her heart she would never be able to fill.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Regina's attempts to help Drizella and steer her away from her dark path are what end up encouraging her to do so. It's from Regina that Drizella gets the idea to cast a Dark Curse. To top it all off, Regina's caution that "Heroes always break curses" simply prompts Drizella to account for that when casting her own.
  • In "Homecoming", Regina bursts in on Rumplestiltskin just as he's about to stab Wish Rumple with the Dark One Dagger, which would have freed Ella and Lucy as well as reunited him with Belle (since he'd be eliminating a great evil by doing so, and incidentally fulfilling his original Savior destiny). Because of this delay, Wish Rumple gets free of the squid ink, blasts her, and takes the dagger from Rumple before teleporting away.
  • In the same episode, Regina realizes that her accidental killing of the Wish versions of Snow and Charming in "Wish You Were Here" helped set Wish Henry on this path to darkness in the first place.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Gives her Arch-Enemy Zelena a speech like this in both "Kansas" and "Mother". She also painfully admits her similarities with Hook in "The Brothers Jones".
• Oh, Crap!: She has several throughout the series, mostly when things don't go precisely as she planned or when something unexpected happens.
  • She has two in the second episode of Season 1. First when she realizes that Emma's arrival has made the clock tower start running. Second, when Mr. Gold pays her a visit and makes several comments that can be interpreted a number of different ways. One of the interpretations is that she's not talking to Mr. Gold, she's talking to Rumplestiltskin. She gets control of herself quickly but for one split-second she's so frightened that her face looks like it's about to shatter. A truly outstanding work of acting by Parilla.
• Older Than They Look: When she is somewhere around her 30s, she casts the Dark Curse and time is frozen for 28 years, allowing her to look the same for decades. Furthermore, Season 7 implies that time runs differently in the New Enchanted Forest, so she doesn't age a day despite Henry growing into an adult, having a daughter, and said daughter aging 8 years.
• Omnicidal Maniac: In order for Henry to "belong" solely to her she'd have to kill Emma, Snow, Charming, Rumple and Neal. She has no problem trying to destroy every living person in Storybrooke besides herself and Henry near the end of Season 2 if it means that these five die with the rest.
• One-Note Cook: Apple turnovers (poisonous and otherwise) and her famous lasagna are the only meals she's shown to know how to cook, although the latter is apparently very, very good.
• Only Friend: In episode 2, "The Thing you Love Most", Regina tells Maleficent she is her only friend.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: This mixed with Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other ends up being her relationship with her sister Zelena. Regina considers herself the only one allowed to kill her sister, and she can get extremely protective if anyone else tries.
• Patricide: The Evil Queen's servant is devoted to her. For the curse she wants to work against Snow, she must sacrifice the thing she loves most; her prized horse won't do. When she calls her servant "Daddy", you know what's coming.
• Parental Neglect: A mild type when she gets obsessed with getting revenge. She leaves Henry alone at home on a regular basis, but takes care even more regularly of him and his comfort, defends Henry, and actually gives him a lot of presents.
• People Puppets: Capable of doing this if she rips out their hearts.
• Permanent Elected Official: Because of the Dark Curse, she is always mayor regardless of whether or not anyone would have voted for her had there been a real election. She is "asked to leave" at the beginning of Season 2, and Snow is temporarily becomes the new mayor after casting the second curse in Season 4. Regina takes the reins back later in the season.
• Pet the Dog: Aside from her less hostile interactions with Henry, three shining examples in Season 3 would be sincerely giving Ariel the happy ending that she'd denied her before, demanding that Blue return Tinker Bell's wings, and giving Emma fake memories of raising Henry when she reverses the Dark Curse and saves the citizens of Storybrooke.
  • She also agrees to train Emma in using magic, which helps out big time in "Dark Hollow".
  • Protecting Snow White from her mother's ghost in "Bleeding Through". Later, she finally kisses Robin Hood. And note that all these actions were done while she didn't have her heart!
• Pick on Someone Your Own Size: Regina's hatred towards Snow White begins when the latter is merely ten. In fact, Snow White is completely oblivious that her stepmother hates her until they are both adults, but this doesn't change the fact that an adult Regina would have fantasies about killing a child.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Once Emma and Regina get over their initial dislike of each other, the two form a unit co-parenting their son Henry, even without a hint of romance between them. The two regularly discuss how to raise him and he refers to both of them as "Mom(s)". Multiple characters also lampshade this, with Charming once noting that as a teenager Henry might not "want to talk to his moms" and Cruella noting that when talking about Henry's mother she might have to be more specific.
• Playing with Fire: One of her favorite moves is making fireballs.
• Proud Beauty: Regina is fully aware of how beautiful she is and knows full well how to use her charms to manipulate men. The fact that Lana Parrilla is a stunner is a major contributor to this trope, and the writers of the show (as well as the wardrobe department) make full use of it. Some of the outfits she wears, particularly as the Evil Queen, are pure fanservice.
• Pyrrhic Victory: When the Dark Curse was initially cast, Regina's victory was this. See Victory Is Boring for the details.
• Power Hair: As the mayor of Storybrooke she wears her hair in a respectable, intimidating bob.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: When you get down to it, Regina at heart is still an emotionally stunted teenager with issues.
• Psychotic Smirk: Whenever her schemes are underway.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: The Evil Queen wanted to create a world where she could finally win and get her happy ending.
• Rage Against the Author: In Season 4, she decides the only way to get her happy ending is to find and force... erm, ask the "writer" of their stories to give her one.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: She forced Graham into being her Sex Slave in the Enchanted Forest by threatening to crush his heart if he didn't sleep with her, and then cursed him into thinking it was an consensual affair in Storybrooke. Then she killed him when he left her for Emma.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Regina tries to blame losing her relationships with her son and her lover on Emma's presence in Storybrooke and her interference in Regina's life. Emma doesn't take this sitting down and points out that Regina herself is what makes people run away from her.
  • Gets a second helping of this, courtesy of Mary Margaret pointing out that her life of making others miserable is never going to make her anything but lonely and unhappy.
• Rebellious Princess: When she was a child/teenager, as a result of having Cora for a mother. Well, who wouldn't be?
  • Deconstructed as her determination to live life by her own rules molds her into the Evil Queen.
• Redemption Equals Death: Subverted. She goes for this in "And Straight On 'Til Morning", putting her life on the line so the residents of Storybrooke can escape. Emma decides she's having none of that and makes damn sure Regina lives.
• Redemption Rejection:
  • When given a chance to speak in her defense before she would be executed, she feels regret... that she didn't cause more pain, misery and death. Or at least that's what she says. Snow believes she didn't want to appear weak.
  • According to Tinker Bell, her chance at a second love was right through the door but she chose to continue to pursue vengeance. As of the second half of Season 3, however, it appears love found a way anyway; she's growing closer to the man Tink led her to: Robin Hood.
• Redemption Failure: She's not very good at being good, and the writers are determined to make it even harder for her. Nevertheless, she has come a long, long way.
• Reformed, but Rejected: "The Cricket Game". She's genuinely trying to be a better mother, Henry's smiling at her again, Emma is being nice to her... but then Cora goes and frames her for Archie's murder.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: For a while before completing her Heel–Face Turn.
• Related in the Adaptation: Neither The Evil Queen nor The Queen of Hearts had any sort of connection to each other, and most likely took place in an entirely different universe. In here, The Queen of Hearts and The Evil Queen are mother and daughter respectively.
  • Season 3 reveals she's also the half-sister of The Wicked Witch of the West.
• Relationship Sabotage: Regina constantly tries to separate David and Mary Margaret. She also separated Belle and Rumplestiltskin, as well as Eric and Ariel. Basically if she has a chance to ruin a relationship she will.
• Reluctant Ruler: King Leopold proposed to Regina because she was the only woman he'd met since his wife's passing who genuinely cared about Snow. Young Regina never wanted to be Queen and only wanted to marry Daniel. Inverted in that Regina's mother killing her true love and forcing her to marry the King is what made her become, well, the Evil Queen.
• Revenge: The curse that gets the plot going (and very nearly everything that happens in the Enchanted Forest before that) is part of the Evil Queen's plot to get back at Snow White for telling the then-not-evil Regina's most-decidedly-evil (and manipulative) mother about Regina's affair with the stable boy; which resulted in Regina losing her true love, being forced into a loveless marriage and being precipitated into her Start of Darkness. And Snow is still blissfully unaware that she did anything wrong.
• Revenge Before Reason: She could have lived in peace in her large castle, but instead she killed the only person she still loved just to cast a curse and ruin Snow White's happiness.
• Rich Bitch: Designer clothes, fancy estate, has everyone in town deathly afraid of her, except Emma.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Albeit an evil version. It's almost more like "royal who does way too much."
• Sanity Slippage: It started when Daniel died and just went downhill from there, especially thanks to Rumplestiltskin's manipulation. Her mother's death did not help.
• Scars Are Forever: She has a scar over her upper lip. Prequel novel ''Regina Rising'' reveals that teenage Regina got it from a horse riding accident. In real life, Lana Parrilla got it when she was protecting her cat from a dog attack. She was ten at the time.
• Second Love: She is this to Robin Hood, since Maid Marian died in the Enchanted Forest, the same way he is for her after Daniel dies. He even says so:
  Regina: What do you see in me?
  Robin: Hopefully the same thing you see in me — a second chance.
• Self-Made Orphan:
  • She killed her father, whom she genuinely loved, to get her revenge.
  • Regina pushed Cora through an enchanted mirror in "We Are Both", but Cora is revealed to be still alive.
  • She ends up unintentionally killing Cora in "The Miller's Daughter", after being tricked by Snow.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Apparently, Rumple was this to her (though we never see it onscreen with her or his other pupils), and in "The Jolly Roger", she becomes this for Emma. She transports Emma to the middle of a rope bridge, and destroys it under her feet, forcing her to use magic to save her life. It works, and as Emma makes her way to Regina's side, Regina chastises her for the potential she has yet to tap into.
  • In Season 7, when teaching Drizella, instead of threatening the student, she threatens herself.
• Slasher Smile: She puts on a particularly vicious one when ripping out the heart of a Lost Boy who stands between her and getting her son back.
• Smug Snake: As the Evil Queen in the past and in Storybrooke after the Dark Curse is broken.
• Sorcerous Overlord: She's got the royal pedigree, the magic powers and the castle that already looks like an Evil Tower of Ominousness even before she took over,
• Sore Loser: She doesn't not take any defeat or personal slight well, or karma at all.
• The Sociopath: In Seasons 1 and 2. She had a clear Lack of Empathy, caused harm to those that slighted her, and was extremely Sadistic, Emma Swan even calls her this a couple times in the first season. However, it should be noted that she was a rather low functioning example by being unnecessarily evil and menacing despite it hurting her in the long run. Her Establishing Character Moment as the Mayor was to try and intimidate Emma Swan despite her readily going back to her old life, prompting her to stay out of concern for her son.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Very sour and very sad.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the Disney film, the Evil Queen is chased off a cliff to her death by the seven dwarfs after poisoning Snow White, and in the original fairytale she's forced to dance to death in red-hot iron shoes at Snow White's wedding. Here, Regina is still alive and well.
• Spicy Latina: Although her race is never really overtly stated or touched upon (see Ambiguously Brown entry), she's Hot-Blooded with a rough background who can take care of herself and has a bit of a soft side. She's also a bit of a Mama Bear and also wears her fair share of sexy tight clothing.
• Squishy Wizard: According to Lana.
• Standard Hero Reward: After Regina saves his daughter, King Leopold just ups and asks her to marry him with hardly an introduction!
• Start of Darkness: She was in love with Daniel the stable boy, but her very controlling mother Cora wanted her to marry up. After Regina saved a young Snow White's life, the King proposed to her. Regina tried to run away with Daniel, but Snow, who had seen them together earlier and promised to keep it a secret, was manipulated by Regina's mother Cora into revealing why Regina had been so distant from her. In fury, Cora killed Daniel so that Regina would have no choice but to marry the King. Then, Snow, not knowing about Daniel's death, tells Regina she was the one who told her mother the secret... and from that moment on Regina hates her. Although "We Are Both" shows that it apparently took much longer than that for her to completely give in to her hate.
• Stepford Smiler: A mix between the depressed version and the unstable/psycho version.
• Stern Teacher: Whenever she teaches Emma magic, in contrast to Rumple's teaching style.
• The Sociopath: Emma thinks she's this anyway. And though she was not always evil, there is a possibility that she was never quite well due to being born from and raised by a literally heartless woman.
• Strong Family Resemblance: According to Regina in "We Are Both", people have said that she looks like a young Cora. Rumplestiltskin doesn't see it... at first.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: To Henry, due to her not aging under the curse during the first ten years of his life. Taken to even more extremes in Season 7, when she does not age a day while Henry grows into an adult and has his own daughter, due to time running differently in other realms.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: As both the Queen and the mayor.
• Tearful Smile:
  • When Henry wakes up from the Sleeping Curse and she tells him that she loves him. Henry brings out a lot of these in her.
  • A much, much darker example is when she refuses to kill a suicidal Snow and delivers a particularly vicious "Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Tempting Apple: Drawing from the poisoned apple element in the original story, she is an apple lover to an obsessive level and is immensely protective of the apple tree that grows at her home. She uses the last bit of magic she can find to try and re-create the poisoned apple stunt, but it kind of backfires on her when Henry eats it instead.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Regina tries this on Henry.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: In Season 3, when the town thinks she recast the curse and brought them all back to Storybrooke, she delivers one of these lines and follows it up with an earthquake. However, it was all a ruse by her and Emma to smoke out the real caster.
• Token Evil Teammate: Shares it with Rumplestiltskin in Season 2. Lampshaded in Season 3 by Emma, who calls her a villain but still one that is needed to rescue Henry from Neverland.
  Regina: That's why I'm here.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Regina, who prefers to wear elegant dresses, is the girly girl to Emma Swan's, the leather wearing and often sleeveless sheriff, tomboy. Especially after the two buried the hatchet and became a co-parenting team.
• Tomboy Princess: As a child. She enjoyed riding her horse freely, without the proper posture a "lady" ought to have, and was not averse to getting into a physical situation.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Apples.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • Regina's favorite horse, Rocinante, was killed by her to enact the Dark Curse (the attempt that failed). Daniel originally took care of him.
  • The improvised ring Daniel proposed to her with, using a metal ring off a saddle. She later sacrifices it for Jefferson's Hat to retrieve the poisoned apple to put Emma to sleep.
  • Henry's clay handprint.
• Tragic Villain: Her entire childhood consisted of her mother trying to control every aspect of her life. Unfortunately, Cora succeeded. Her entire adult life was Rumplestiltskin trying to make her into a monster to cast the Dark Curse. Unfortunately, he succeeded as well. In the end, all she really wants is a happy ending of her own.
• Tranquil Fury: After Peter Pan mocks her and the others over stealing Henry's heart. She proceeds to tell him in an absolutely calm voice that she doesn't regret a thing in her life because all of it got her her son. Then proceeds to tear Pan's heart out with only a twitch of facial expression to signify her Mama Bear fury.
• True Love's Kiss: In "A Curious Thing", Regina is the one to break the curse by kissing Henry on the forehead — just as Emma did in "A Land Without Magic". This is plot-crucial and saves Storybrooke's collective rear, as Regina can now use light magic and take down the Wicked Witch. Officially. No. Longer. A. Villain.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Her father Prince Henry wasn't always ugly, but he certainly is by the time Regina is the Evil Queen and he's serving her as a valet.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: A sometimes evil one. However, Mr. Gold indicates her power is not as absolute as she likes to think it is and Emma proves it by getting elected Sheriff over Regina's choice of Sidney.
• The Unfettered: Played with in Season 2, when she tries to live by the decision that Henry is off-limits. She has slipped up once or twice, like the time she almost put him under a love curse.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Emma has actually saved/helped her a couple times. She usually thanks her by trying to ruin her life, at least until her Character Development kicks in.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Regina is the Manipulative Bastard version of this. She's not noticeably smarter than anyone else on the show, and is frequently Genre Blind. But she has tools to make up for that: In the Enchanted Forest she has her army and her magic, and in Storybrooke she can cower everyone with her status as mayor. With her hate driving her, she uses these to plow through any obstacle in her path.
• Unwitting Pawn: Before the Dark Curse, Cora and Rumplestiltskin have been taking it in turns to run Regina's life from behind the scenes. Cora wanted Regina to become the Queen she herself always wanted to be, while Rumplestiltskin made sure that her obsession with power and revenge would eventually drive her to enact the curse that would bring him one step closer to finding his son.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Regina used to be a sweet and naïve teenage girl who was just unfortunate enough to live under an actual wicked mother.
• The Vamp: Regina clearly wants to be this, trying to seduce men to do what she wants. It never works (probably because the men know sleeping with an evil witch-queen never ends well), so she falls back to her magic and/or loyal army.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: It happens to Regina, because after what she feels she went through, she wants a revenge which continues whatever happens.
• Victory Is Boring: After her third day in Storybrooke, she quickly realized that the citizens were doing whatever she wanted because she forced them to, not because they wanted to. Apparently, that wasn't the kind of rule she had in mind.
  Regina: [After deliberately running into Snow for the third time and Snow is always the one to apologize] You're not even going to fight back?
  Mary Margaret: Fight back? Why would I do that?
• Villain Ball:
  • Her mother basically shoved the villain ball down her throat all her life. It's gotten to the point she couldn't let go of it if she tried. And she has tried. As of the first half of Season 3, it seems that she's begun to let this go.
  • Emma would have simply left Storybrooke believing that Henry was in good hands if Regina didn't show her nasty side in the "Pilot" by threatening to "destroy" her if she had designs on him.
  • She once again grabs this in the penultimate episode of the Season 1. Emma agrees to leave Storybrooke, but Regina decides to try to poison her anyway. Partly justified in how she wanted Emma fully out of the picture so she could have Henry to herself. Henry ends up eating the apple turnover instead, which is the last push Emma needs to believe in the curse and eventually leads to the curse breaking and everybody recovering their past memories.
• Villain Song: Love Doesn't Stand A Chance, from the musical episode, is sung from the Evil Queen's perspective that power is stronger than love.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Besides her true love Daniel (who was a pretty nice guy), she has tried to snog Charming twice now and kept poor Graham as a sex slave.
  • She doesn't want him yet, but Tinker Bell has revealed that her Second Love is going to be none other than Robin Hood. Cue Regina kissing him silly in "Bleeding Through" — and him returning the favour quite enthusiastically.
  • Her Literal Split Personality Evil Queen half in Season 6 attempts to put the moves on Aladdin after he becomes a genie and she has possession of his bottle.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • As the mayor, she gets away with murder because the town just can't imagine she'd ever sink to the depths that she actually spends most of her life in.
  • Averted with the Evil Queen. The episode "The Evil Queen" shows that her subjects and even her own knights hate her. Hence the moniker.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Eventually builds one with Emma. After Emma confesses that she just wants to start being friends, Regina grudgingly admits she doesn't want to kill Emma.
  Regina: [grumbling] I don't want to kill you.
  Emma: [perks up] See? That's a start!
• Was It Really Worth It?: Pan has all the party tied to a tree with magic that's fueled by all the heroes' regrets. Despite the loveless marriage and offing her husband, trying to murder her stepdaughter, mass murder of her subjects, sending dozens of innocent children to their death to get the sleeping apple, murdering her father, cursing a whole town, and generally being nastiness personified... she snaps those bonds easily and drops Pan. All of it was part of the chain of events that led to her getting Henry, and she regrets not a damn thing.
• We Used to Be Friends: She was very friendly with young Snow White until she found out that Snow unwittingly betrayed her to Cora.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Regina couldn't find a way to follow her heart and please her mother. All her hate for Snow is just misdirected rage for Cora. She's only able to stand up to Cora when the latter's a ghost.
• What Does She See in Him?: Regina makes it clear that she doesn't like Hook and, as such, she doesn't really get why Emma is with him. In one notable example, Regina flat out says that Emma is too good for Hook while trying to help Emma get Hook out of the Underworld.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Averted. She seems to know the names of all her black knights.
• What You Are in the Dark: In A Tale of Two Sisters Regina has the chance to just stand by and let Elsa's snow golem kill Marian, and the other heroes have all been knocked unconscious, which would mean no witnesses and nobody would be the wiser. She can't go through with it and saves Marian in the nick of time.
• When She Smiles: On the rare occasion when she has a genuine smile - not a smug smirk or that nightmare-inducing psychotic grin with that vein in her forehead popping out - she's radiant.
• Wicked Stepmother: Tries to kill Snow White multiple times and otherwise ruin her life.
• Woman Scorned: Regina blames Emma for her lover leaving her. She uses some leftover fairy tale magic to kill Graham as she promised she would when she took him prisoner as the Huntsman.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
  • The Evil Queen is primarily motivated to avenge the death of her former lover, Daniel, who was killed by her abusive mother, as a result of Snow White telling her about the love between them.
  • Events in the series only pile on the woobieness as she seeks someone to love her. Something as simple as her own mother comforting her or smiling at her is enough to turn her and break her.
  • And then when it looks like she's finally found love again in Robin Hood, his late wife comes back to life.
• Worth Living For:
  • Henry became a reason to fight and live for after her long despair about losing to Snow and the loss of Daniel.
  • In Season 3, after returning to the Enchanted Forest, she wants to put herself to sleep because of the pain of losing Henry. She is knocked out of it by Zelena. She realized what she was missing to fill the void: someone to destroy.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • At least by omission. She casually tells Hansel and Gretel that they aren't the first children she sent into the house of the cannibalistic Blind Witch; just the first to come out alive. And, on an emotional level, she has no qualm with Henry getting emotionally hurt if it means that a) Emma is hurt as an expense and b) it stops his belief that fairy tales exist, if there is a chance things get better for their relationship and he lives without too many scars.
  • She has no qualms whatsoever about ripping out the heart of a Lost Boy. Said Lost Boy had previously made the mistake of saying that Henry was one of them and that they'd never get him back.
  • "Save Henry" reveals she had every intention of killing baby Emma the night she casted the curse.
  Rumple: The savior, the child of Snow White and Prince Charming. She can stop you. She can break the curse.
  Regina: Well, looks like getting rid of a baby made my to-do list.
• Yandere:
  • Towards Henry and Graham in Season 1.
  • And towards Owen in "Welcome to Storybrooke." This one's especially creepy since she's only known the boy for a few days.
  • She had a habit of getting dangerously attached to any child that piques her interest, the first of which being Hansel and Gretel, both of whom she dumped off in the deepest parts of the forest when they refused to live with her, and then questioned their father as to why they refused to live with her.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Regina gets to hear this speech one last time in "Leaving Storybrooke", from Robin Hood, as he reassures her that despite what Wish Realm Henry thinks, she is good, she proves that darkness can come back to the light, and that despite the help of people like himself and Emma, she still did the hard work on her own.

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"This isn’t an ending. I hate endings. Because then your story’s done. And everyone here, well, their stories are far from over."

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