I just finished listening to the initial reactions for the finale. When Daniel stated that he felt frustrated with Snow and Emma being supportive of Regina’s decision to split her evil off from herself my mind went into a different direction. Whereas Daniel went on to explain he felt frustrated because this has been done similarly before.. That is when Regina was last having great difficulty processing and dealing with her emotions so she took out her heart to prevent any of that (not to mention healing and learning from it).
However, my mind turned to when Snow was instrumental in splitting someone’s evil (or “darkness” from another person)… Shouldn’t Snow (and Emma!) have known this was a baaaad baaad idea considering what happened with Emma & Lily? And if that situation implied that one could not eliminate darkness, only move it, doesn’t that also imply that one cannot remove one’s evil-half and kill it? Snow and Emma encouraging this just seems bonkers when I remember Emma’s and Lily’s history, not to mention Snow’s (and Charming’s) role in them.
I suppose there is an argument to be made Regina, with both halves, is making this decision, and Emma nor Lily (nor Malicifient) gave consent. However that is only one part of the problem with this “splitting” solution with Emma and Lily. Their situation has implied that it is not possible to split and kill parts of one’s self.