In Response to @POM’s Statements and In Defense of the Mills Women…..Let Me Say This!!
The Mills Women are women whose lives went south because of one person’s mistake. Johnathan for Cora, Cora for Zelena, Snow for Regina….so to say that they were all just responsible for their own choices is a bit incorrect. And Rumpelstilskin pretty much played a huge part in their lives….
The Before & After…. 😛
Cora: (The Heartbroken Gold Digger)
Johnathan: This man….he was a total slimeball! Though I do believe that Cora was the financial opportunities with Johnathan…I think she genuinely started to like him. And that’s why the shock of him lying to her really set the wheels in motion of “Love Is Weakness.” I think there really could have been something between them had Johnathan been truthful from the start, and actually worked to win over Cora, for she was not a gold digger in the beginning, and was a woman of virtue as we saw. And apparently there really was something magical, hence Zelena coming out as powerful as she did. Whether that was true love or true lust, not saying that it was, but the possibilities do stand. Zelena is proof of something magical being between Johnathan and Cora, who could have worked had this gone under different circumstances.
Leopold: Now he’s someone I do believe Cora saw only the financial/power of the situation. She was somewhat of a complete gold digger, and would have settled with Leopold, knowing that she would be set for the future.
Rumplestilskin: I do believe that Cora loved Rumple with her entire heart, hence why she had to rip it out in the end. She did not use Rumple just for her advantages, as she was going to run away with him, and bare him a child. But King Xavier’s words of “Love is Weakness” and his speech brought up bad memories of the men who hurt her in the past, and she was down to a decision of either choosing her true love for Rumple, or financial stability, the one thing she’s desired her entire life. Cora loved Rumple so much to the point where she ripped her heart out to relieve herself of the pain, kinda selfish, and met with Rumple to tell him that they could never be together. Although Cora started to like Johnathan, which could have progressed to love had he been truthful and honest, Rumpelstilskin was the only man Cora ever loved, who wouldn’t have paid a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for her soul. But a past of heartbreak and disappointment made Cora choose money over love….
Henry Sr.: Cora never loved Henry Sr. Could she have…eventually. There was definite a spark during their dance, but note that was when she had her heart. Had Cora kept her heart in her chest, she could have grown to love Henry Sr, but it probably wouldn’t be as intense as the love she held for Rumple. But her marrying Henry Sr was purely out of money.
So there were a lot of good almosts in Cora’s life, and she was in a sense selfish for a few choices. But it was heartbreak/disappointment that led her to make the decisions she did, only realizing too late that there was so much more to love than what she thought. Hence why she said to Rumple and Regina that “this would have been enough” right before she died.
Zelena: (The Second Hand Baby)
Zelena was a woman who wanted to feel belonged, and loved. Being given up by Cora, and mistreated by her adoptive father after her adoptive mother’s death, left Zelena with some serious abandonment issues. And she wanted to prove to everyone that she was so much more than what they thought of her.
Rumple: Zelena went to Rumplestilskin because she wanted to prove to him that she was better at magic than her sister Regina. HOWEVER, it was Rumple who saw a better opportunity Zelena, a golden ticket he could use to get what he wanted. For Rumple, yes he’s awesome, but with the Mills Women, he always used them to get whatever he wanted. Zelena however, was the wrong Mills woman, as she was the one to backfire on him because she had too many issues to just be used and just tossed aside. Along with her abandonment issues, Zelena wanted to feel loved, so she immediately latched herself onto Rumple, hoping that he would love her, and only grew more envious when he gave Regina more attention than he did with her. So Zelena was just the Mills Plot that backfired, because she ultimately resulted in a huge problem, that I now wonder why Rumple never resolved.
And being born with what is said “the most powerful dark magic”, obviously it was shown that Zelena was in fact the most powerful practitioner of magic, who only the strongest light magic could prevail against. And her past of being replaced, and tossed away didn’t make things any better….Zelena in a sense was someone who was very fragile, quick to love, and easy to break. All of that resulted in the tragic woman we saw: someone second hand and broken who was still trying to make a pretty sound.
Regina: “They Just Keep Moving The Line”
Daniel- The one man who genuinely loved Regina, and would have done anything for her. And if I’m going to be totally honest….we can just have Daniel come back, and be with Regina, and I’d be just as happy. I’m a huge StableQueen, and he’s the only person besides Snow White, who knew Regina when she wasn’t tainted by darkness, and was actually one of the most pure hearted girls in the land.
Leopold- I don’t have to say much about this man, as you all know how I feel about him. BUT, again I question you all, who came to Regina to talk her into going back to get married to Leopold? Hmmm…..Rumple, that’s right. Had Rumpelstilskin not showed up when Regina was leaving, she would have left. But no, he came back, and convinced her into not only going back to get married, but to take magic lessons that he knew would corrupt her. Regina was a prisoner who was trapped, and didn’t realize her mistake of listening to Rumple, until she was bound in the castle with no way out. She was not allowed outside of the Kingdom at all, and was only allowed to be sociable when Leopold needed her to be his trophy wife. She was forced to raise the very child who outed her, and was practically put into a cage by her overbearing, insecure husband. As Regina stated, and what we were shown in The Forbidden Fruit, King Leopold was a very insecure/obvious jealous man who didn’t want no man looking at his trophy wife. Hence he tried to have Sidney to try and find the culprit, and do God knows what to him. Regina murdered Leopold to free herself from him, does it make it right, no, but it was something that had to be done.
Rumplestilskin: A man who paid a thousand dollars for a kiss, yet fifty cents for her. Even before Regina was born, he had clear intentions to corrupt a pure soul into doing his dirty work. He just stood by, and let Cora start planting the seeds by killing Daniel, and that’s when Rumple began the harvest by using her grief and anger to morph her into his, and I quote, monster. Even when Regina tried to pull away from learning magic, Rumple implanted her mind that “anger was all she’d ever have, and that she was nothing without it”, which ultimately scared her out of going into the tavern to meet Robin Hood. Proof of that is when she explains to Tinkerbelle in 3×03 that the “anger was all she had” and she had no clue what she’s be without it.
Graham- Graham had but one job to do…one, and that was to kill Snow White. He made a deal with Regina, that he went back on, and ultimately had to pay the price for it. He didn’t have to accept Regina’s original offer, but he did, and when he realized that he couldn’t do it….instead of just going back and trying to explain, which probably would have made things a lot better, he tried to deceive Regina by giving her the heart of a pig. It’s one thing to try to go around someone, but to knowingly lie is another, and I think that’s what really set Regina off. Graham was openly mocking Regina’s intelligence, which sent her flying off the handle, thus putting Graham in the position he found himself in. And with the Emma situation….Graham saw how things were escalating between Regina and Emma, heck he was there when they were decking out one another in the graveyard. And instead of taking Regina aside and explain to her everything, he broke into her family mausoleum, had Emma going on a wild goose chase, then told Regina in front of Emma that he felt nothing, and never would. Public humiliation in front of your worst enemy had to hurt Regina, who from day one comforted in Graham that she was nervous of what Emma may do in SB, and to have your only comfort turn on you like that….yeah, of course that wasn’t going to end pretty.
Robin- No I do not like the predicament Robin has placed Regina in, almost as if she’s just the “second choice”. But, Regina fighting for Robin should be acceptable. He’s her soul mate, one of her final chances at happiness, who wouldn’t fight for that? It’s not obsessive…I mean Rumple killed Milah simply because she chose Hook….obsessive or not? Robin and Regina’s love is completely healthy, and understandable….the only reason Robin is going back to Marian is because she’s his “wife” whose been dead for the past thirty years. Robin has changed immensely since Marian last saw him, so Regina won’t have to do that much fighting, and I do believe Robin will go back to Regina before anything happens to Marian, for he and Marian are not on the same page anymore.
This is almost like high school where Regina has to fight for her man, when his ex-love pops back up wanting him back. 😛
But anyway….it’s really in a sense close to how life really works. Nothing is ever that easy, and there will be a few set backs, but it’s the troubles that OutlawQueen face that will bring them closer than ever. And Regina is not trying to remove Marian by killing her, hence she saves her life in 4×01, when she clearly could have left her to die. That shows character growth, and how far Regina’s come since S1. She’s conflicted….a part of her wants to kill Marian, but the other part that’s allowed love to come in and change her is refusing for that to happen. It’s like when you’re on a diet, and you know you want some ice cream, but know that it’s not gonna help the situation. And it appears that no matter how far this woman has grown, there are always the few who throw her past up in her face, hence they keep moving the line!
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor