Regina lost not only her true love a second time, her mother was killed, her sister was killed, she had to give her son up more times than I can count, sacrificed her own happy ending to save the people she cursed, then lost her soul mate, her very last chance at happiness! The Villains have PAID their dues! An eye for an eye, well all of that is paid now….Storybrooke has seen them suffer for their sins! Now it’s the time to cut print and move on! Villains deserve their chance at happiness, since they’ve clearly paid a heavy price for their wrong.
Wait, really? You think everything is settled in terms of “an eye for an eye”? While I don’t think that that’s the right way to go about redemption or justice in the first place (to quote Gandhi, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”), Regina would have to die many, many times over for that to be the case. I mean, you really think she’s made up for this?:
Or this? (The bones of the children she sent in to get the apple from the blind witch):
I could go on, obviously, but those are, as far as I recall, the largest death tolls she’s wrought in terms of sheer numbers. “An eye for an eye” would entail her being murdered as payment for every murder she’s committed, so it’s really not even close there. Okay, I had a couple more paragraphs here, but I got rid of them because that’s the crux of what I’m saying. I just don’t know how you can make up for all of that (and so much more), I guess.
Oh…yes! What Regina has done, and what she was willing to do has made up for that! It’s Oncers who have such a high expectation line such as Regina having to die over and over, makes it seem like there is nothing she can do to ever make up for what she has done! If self sacrifice won’t do it…then what’s the point in redemption anyway? Might as well go out with a bang if people will always bring up the past, and never look at the many great deeds you’ve done to try and make up for it.
The moments where Regina was willing to sacrifice her own life to save the very people she cursed/terrorized should have been where the line of redemption was halfway met! However, the moment Regina sacrificed her happy ending to save the very people she cursed/terrorized, was when the road to redemption to Evil Regals was completed! She’s paid for her sins in more ways than ANY one else! So yes…Regina made up for the massacre…which as far as we know until shown otherwise, could have been her only one.
Also….For the last time….Regina didn’t bind the children up and shove them in the Witch’s House!!! She gave them an option that they could’ve said NO to. Because believe it or not, Regina never killed children, hence why we don’t see any in that Massacre photo! Regina offered the children something they couldn’t refuse because if they had, they’d be alive today. And before anyone bring up Hansel and Gretel…nine times out of ten, Regina would have released the children had they politely declined her offer, but nooo….Gretel and Hansel had to mouth off and call Regina a “monster” after she gave them one of the highest rewarding offers. She may would have even given their father had they just asked for that, while politely declining her offer. Had those children shown any form of respect, and in a polite manner…they wouldn’t have landed where they did!
And by the way…an eye for an eye did happen to Regina, as just as she took away true loves, mother, father, siblings….her own mother, father, sibling, true love taken away twice, and now her soulmate was taken from her, not to mention she suffered being hated by her only son, So yeah…Regina paid the price for her sins! And like Ruby said….the Dark Curse took away more bad memories than good for some people, and Regina did some people a favor…hence everyone loves Storybrooke.
Oh yeah, and @Epona….just read your comment on the last page so here, watch the scene!
“It Was Prophesied!”
"If you go as far as you can see...you will then see enough to go even further." - Finn Balor