Cora and Rumpelstiltskin’s battle

I’m drawing a complete blank when it comes to this situation. I have no clue as to what happened between Rumpel and Cora. Maybe Rumpel visited Wonderland to keep a tab on Cora, but ended up battling with her instead? He did hint to the fact that he’s been to Wonderland before in “We Are Both,” so maybe he went back and battle Cora.

Regina said that Cora was taught by Rumpel. Maybe she was the first one he tried to manipulate in order to cast the Dark Curse, but since she’s pretty cunning and entirely self-interested, she was more resistant to his trying to mould her into his puppet and turned on him, once she’d learned as much as she could from him. Then when she had a kid, he decided to use her to cast the curse instead. Regina was more innocent and manipulable than Cora, especially because she’d just lost Daniel and Rumpel knew how to take advantage of her broken heart.

Unless thats why she covers her face up? Maybe no one knows that the queen is Cora. And when they thought she was dead she became the queen?

@slurpeez108 wrote:

@ceege wrote:

Didn’t Regina also say “I saw her body”? So both of them assume Cora is dead. If they battled in Wonderland, why would Rumple bring her body back? Unless he took Regina with him to go battle Cora. I don’t recall Hat Trick well, but was Regina aware of the Queen of Hearts? If so, then we can’t have both Cora as the QofH AND assumed to be dead by Regina at the time of that episode. Since Page is about the same age in Storybrook as in the events of Hat trick, the episode happened soon before the curse, and does not leave enough time for a battle to the death.

Sarah-Daye Hand wrote: Unless thats why she covers her face up? Maybe no one knows that the queen is Cora. And when they thought she was dead she became the queen?

If Cora faked her own death, she may have then disguised herself as the Queen of Hearts, all the while keeping her face hidden. So that when Regina came to Wonderland searching for her father, she might have thought her mother already dead.

Regina knew who the Queen of hearts was in ‘Hat trick’ Jefferson asks her if she knows her and she says, better than most. So if it’s her mother, she can’t think she is dead at that time. Then that battle they refer too must happen later. Unless the veiled Queen is someone else entirely.

There is still the possibility that Cora is the Red Queen and then someone else is the Queen of hearts, this would be fun, I think, there is a history of these two Queens always being confused with eatchother.

@medchen wrote:

Regina knew who the Queen of hearts was in ‘Hat trick’ Jefferson asks her if she knows her and she says, better than most. So if it’s her mother, she can’t think she is dead at that time. Then that battle they refer too must happen later. Unless the veiled Queen is someone else entirely.

Excellent point. I suppose any confrontation would take place after the events of Hat Trick but before the curse. There could be enough time, perhaps months to a year. Yet, maybe there never was a direct conflict between Rumpel and Cora after all. All Rumpel said is that Regina reported that she saw Cora’s body. Also, based on the promo for 2×9, maybe Regina hired Captain Hook as a mercenary pirate to kill Cora. Being a persuasive villain, Cora, however, convinced Hook to side with her instead, promising the information he needed: how to kill the dark one. Then Cora faked her own death using magic, and Regina saw what looked like her mother’s body and told Rumpel that Cora was dead.