I just watched the episode again and I have this nagging feeling that somehow (and I KNOW the timeline doesn’t seem to make sense) that Cora was Rumple’s wife. In the scene in the stable right after Cora ripped Daniel’s heart out she is giving this big speech to Regina about everything she has sacrificed for her and she ends it by saying something like “Love is nothing. Power is more important. If you have power you never have to depend on anyone every again.” It just sounded so similar to when Rumple kicked Belle out by saying “My power means more to me than you” as a way of trying to deny that he loved her – as if he heard something similar said to him in a hurtful manner in the past. And based upon what the guard said to Rumple about his wife leaving him because he was a coward who ran from a war – Rumple was a stable-type guy like Daniel who Cora clearly detested and said she had worked her way up from that kind of life, it could be that she felt that Rumple being a poor “coward” was someone she couldn’t depend on so she needed to become powerful. And that could be the reason she left, and Rumple told Bae his mother was dead instead of letting him know what she is really like. So after watching a second time – I do feel sorry for Regina – I think her mother was so wacked and Regina had such a screwed up life that she literally snapped and just totally mentally lost it – and when that happened her mother told her “Well played, I’m so proud of you.” Even more wacked!!! I think that Regina and Rumple became acquainted because they both wanted to get revenge on Cora for how she had hurt them but Regina ultimately killed her and ended up becoming evil because of it. It gives us an entirely new context to when Regina told Rumple “You should get a new girl” when he kicked her out of his house after telling him that Belle had died.